City Council - workshop

THANK YOU. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to just piggyback off of some of Council Member Scott's questions, especially since we're already on this slide. Just to reiterate, this isn't a proposal to increase the budgeted number of patrol officers by 12. This is a way to pay for 12 hires in the future that would help backfill regular attrition.

OKAY. SO I JUST, OKAY. BECAUSE WE CURRENTLY, ARE WE STILL IN SINGLE DIGIT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OUR BUDGETED HEAD COUNT AND ACTUAL RIGHT NOW?

I was unclear on whether, okay, that's fine. And then to get a grant match of $4.6 million, we have to outlay $500,000. That's correct. And that $4.6 million pays for them for how long?

YEAH, LIKE DID WE, DO WE HAVE $4.6 MILLION SITTING OUT THERE THAT WE GOT TO GIVE THEM $500,000 FOR OR NO?

Got it. So if we win it, the next 12 people we can subsidize. Correct. We also increase our ceiling of number of officers. And then to fill that, we have to figure out how to fill that, right? Correct. Okay. Got it. That was important for me. And so then going back to Proposal 1... The body worn and in-car video systems, that's not related or that is related to increasing that ceiling?

Okay, so I guess the question is why is it in Proposal 1 and not 2? That's a good question.

I see. I wasn't sure if that was related to another one. Like if we increase the number of officers, we need more equipment. Okay, got it.

Okay. And then on the HEAL team personnel cost $1.1 million, it goes back to the same question I had more with the 12 officers. Is that increasing headcount, increasing something, or is it paying for something we already do but through this fund instead? Oh, we need someone to, yeah.

So this is a way to provide some meaning, some way of having some sort of sustained funding for a portion of HEAL team. Correct. Yes. But unlike the 12 officers, we're not increasing anything. We're just finding this as a new source. TO SUBSIDIZE IT. GOT IT. THANK YOU. AND THEN WITH THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND DOWNTOWN PARTNERSHIP OFFICERS, IT KIND OF SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE CLOS. ARE THEY NOT CLOS? BECAUSE THE WAY YOU WERE DESCRIBING IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE DOING A LOT MORE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN SPECIFIC KIND OF CONSTRUCTS. CLOS BEING COMMUNITY LIAISON OFFICERS.

Got it. No, that makes a lot of sense. I did want to add my support of a contract psychologist, primarily because a few years ago when I did the Community Police Academy, one of the things I was really pleasantly surprised about was when the psychologist, that individual came in and talked about their work with the men and women that serve. And as we all talk about mental health, you have to realize that police officers are often meeting people, usually one of the worst days they're ever having, right? the residents they meet regularly are having bad days and that kind of emotional charged res

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I think Council Member Scott and Council Member Stalge got at most of my questions, just sort of understanding why some things are in one and not in the other. So I may just need a little bit more math in the next day or so. But overall, the goal of each of the proposals is to total $16 million, because that's what we estimate we're going to bring in. So if we wanted to pick and choose from one and two, we could do that. So we talked about the body worn cameras. There's some sort of trade-off that we could put that in proposal two and not i

OKAY. GREAT. WELL, THANK YOU. SO THIS HAS DEFINITELY GOTTEN, I HAVE MORE INFORMATION NOW. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION, BUT I DEFINITELY DON'T FEEL LIKE I'M AT A POINT WHERE I KNOW WHERE WE WANT TO GO SPECIFICALLY. AND I THINK IT'S BECAUSE SOME OF THOSE TRADE-OFFS, RIGHT? LIKE, WHAT AREN'T WE GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO IF WE DO THAT? AND SO I THINK JUST THIS IS GREAT TO HAVE THIS NOW IN AUGUST AS WE MOVE INTO THAT. SO THANK YOU. AND MORE DISCUSSION COMING.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. I GUESS I'LL START MY QUESTIONS ON THE SLIDE WITH THE GRANT OVERVIEW AND THEN I'LL COME BACK TO OTHER QUESTIONS I HAD ABOUT THE TWO PROPOSALS. AROUND THE 12 OFFICERS, I'M WONDERING GIVEN THAT WE'RE SORT OF ADMITTING HERE THAT IF WE DID THIS, THIS WOULD BE 12 NEW OFFICERS THAT WOULD THEN ATTRITION INTO THE EXISTING WORKFLOW. I know that in other levels or places in government, when we're recruiting for a position that's funded in one biennium or in one year, it gets really hard to recruit people to do that job. I'm wondering if that is the same or different for officers,

We can say that pretty straight-faced because we know what recruitment numbers look like. Thank you.

Thank you. I would completely agree with that and add, you know, we have a great benefits package. We have a great work culture. We have a lot of assets just being here in the city of Tacoma. I do, I think I have a little bit of trepidation only because I just want to say now, if for some reason we can't find them, I don't have money later. The city does not have money later for some recruitment program. SO I JUST WANT TO ARTICULATE THAT UP FRONT, THAT THAT IS JUST NOT, IT'S GOING TO BE A HARD NO FROM ME IN THE FUTURE, BECAUSE I'VE HAD TROUBLES WITH THOSE INCENTIVES IN THE PAST, AND SO I JUST

I don't know why, from your remarks, it sounded like they were helping the victims, and I Incredible but also different so I just wanted to be clear because I think that's really helpful I think similar to the programs we have on the fire side I really do worry a lot about our officers and how much trauma and things that they're seeing so I think that's a really important thing that we keep funding and thinking about how we do that is is it contract so it's a Contract to like an agency or an organization or is it individuals? I'm just wondering how you do coverage since things happen at weird

Yeah, great. I just was curious because policing happens at all hours. So I just... I WANT TO MAKE SURE IF WE'RE PAYING FOR THAT KIND OF RESOURCE THAT THEY HAVE ACCESS TO IT WHEN THEY NEED IT, NOT AT 9 TO 5 WHENEVER THE DOCTOR'S BACK IN. SEEMS HELPFUL. AND THEN I DO HAVE SOME TREPIDATION AROUND THIS PIECE AROUND THE TPS OFFICERS AND THE DOWNTOWN TACOMA PARTNERSHIP OFFICERS, BUT I THINK I'M GETTING TO UNDERSTAND THAT IT'S NOT NECESSARILY OFFICERS IN A SCHOOL, WHICH I don't think community members would be that interested in. I think the school district would probably see some smoke for that mor

Great. And then the other question I had just about the, I guess kind of the broader and the two proposals, I think Council Member Walker started to get at this, is some of this is still a little bit mix and match, right? We're still sort of, for lack of a better term, making a checks mix here. So we're trying to figure out what it is that we're actually proposing. SOMETHING THAT I WOULD BE CURIOUS ABOUT IS MAYBE A SECRET PROPOSAL 3 OR ANOTHER OPTION TO THE BUFFET IS, IS THERE A WAY THAT WE COULD TALK ABOUT KEEPING OR INCREASING THE CSO PROGRAM? I KNOW THEY'RE PRETTY POPULAR. I KNOW THAT THERE

Yeah, but I think to the point, I think probably Council Member Walker was trying to make, is I would like to make sure that we're telling an important and clear narrative of how we're using these safety tax dollars specifically, even though we know that it's a part of the bigger budget conversation. Because it is such a regressive in nature tax, we want to make sure that we're explaining to people that we're being good stewards of that.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Manager, for bringing this forward. I know you said you wanted to get back to us with your proposals, because that was something you promised, so thank you for doing that, and thank you for answering questions. You mentioned multiple times about the conversation we had in January around what we would like this money to be put towards. We didn't allocate the funds then, but we did talk about what we our hopes and dreams for this tax and what we would want it to go towards. A lot of council members, as you mentioned, talked about alternative response and kind of

So I'm looking forward to that conversation Couple questions on the I guess a question on the grant match I'm curious as to does the grant have to be supported by this tax as far as the matching dollars, or could it be?

I'm curious about, you know, the plan for attrition to help cover these costs in three years. And I'd be curious why we maybe couldn't do that sooner. to cover that 25% grant match.

Yeah, fantastic. Are we in the bargaining process with police unions right now?

And then is it normal that staffing would be bargained in that process?

I know we talked about coming to the table with the Crystal Judson Center and trying to figure out funds there. I would love the same time and attention to these positions as well when we're talking about the efficacy and why we would go with these positions over YOU KNOW, MAYBE SOME OF THE ADDING STAFF TO THE HILL TEAM, HOPE TEAM, THOSE TYPES OF THINGS. SO I GUESS THAT WAS ANOTHER QUESTION I HAD WAS, HAS STAFF COMPARED, LIKE, THE LONG-TERM PUBLIC SAFETY AND FINANCIAL RETURNS OF ADDING POLICE POSITIONS WITH THE INVESTMENTS THAT COULD REDUCE FUTURE DEMAND ON POLICING, LIKE THE COURTS AND EMERGE

Yeah, I guess I'm hoping that there's more weighing the options and weighing and understanding and using the data to come back and say like, hey, this is why two cops allocated for the whole public school system. This is what it would help. This is what LONG-TERM WOULD BE THE BENEFIT OF THAT AND HAVING THE DATA BACK THAT UP WHEN WE'RE MAKING THESE TYPES OF DECISIONS WOULD BE FANTASTIC. I KNOW TPD AND THE CITY, WE'RE ALL THE CITY, RIGHT, BUT WE ALL HAVE A SHARED GOAL OF MAKING SURE THAT DOLLARS ARE BEING USED IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE TOWARDS SAFETY, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S MEANT FOR SAFETY. And so

Thanks. I'm just a fan of, I guess, balance, right? And I think we have I'm curious as to what a lot of the general fund dollars are. I'm looking forward to having this conversation alongside the creator conversation because I have a lot of questions there. If there's 40% or so of our general fund dollars that are already going to TPD, I'm curious what that's paying for and why there's a need for this extra chunk. And so there's lots of questions, and I look forward to digging into that. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hines. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Hyun, and the rest of the team here. I think what a question I had. To go to the grant funding, everybody really likes to talk about grant funding. Those can only pay for police officer positions, correct?

And support staff for police. How vaguely can we interpret that?

Yeah. I mean, I remember the governor being very clear about that when they put this through. So one, so I think that's just something to keep in mind. And if we don't take this grant, there's probably other cities that would take the money to fund for their police officers, or is this already ours?

I mean, first of all, I want to just give my kudos to Tacoma Police Department and staff here that have got us in a position to get the grant money because I don't want to be lost in this process. Maybe talk about all the things, a reminder of all the things we had to do in order to qualify. We had to have a bunch of our policies in line. We had to do a lot of work on the front end to make sure we were able to receive the money. Yes.

And so I appreciate the human work the police department has done to do that. There's lots of agencies that haven't done that work yet to put themselves in a place to achieve this. And I don't want that to be lost in the broader conversation about whether the money runs out or not over time. Because I think it's really important to think about that. So that was my question about the grant funding. Everything else on here, I mean, I think it makes sense. Everything you listed on here, I mean, absent maybe the Tacoma Public Schools, downtown Tacoma Partnership, this stuff WE'RE PROBABLY GOING TO

And just to go back to Council Member Palmer's point, I hope that as we start thinking about where we land with our investments in public safety dollars, we take a broad analysis of the data and not become hyper-fixated on maybe a program or something we've grown accustomed to or attached to and think more broadly about how are we best using these dollars to invest and promote a community where everyone is safe. And I would challenge us to kind of stay fixated on that idea of how do we make sure more people in our community go to sleep each night feeling safe, and not about who the program is

COUNCIL PRESIDENT DALGATE. THANK YOU. I, YOU KNOW, APPRECIATE THE the objectives here, because I personally, you know, I keep talking about going through the Community Police Academy because, as you kind of pointed out, it was a forum in which we could have dialogue. Right. One of the first things that happens when you come in is, you know, the officer who's presenting the lieutenant usually will say this is a safe place for you to ask all the questions you wish you could ask. Then we can answer them because in the midst of active investigations, you know, investigating agencies are precluded

Thank you. THIS IS EVOLVING SOMETHING YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN DOING BETWEEN, YOU KNOW, YOU YOURSELF HAVE COME TO MY DISTRICT DIRECTLY WHEN I'VE ASKED YOU TO SIT DOWN WITH BUSINESS OWNERS IN AREAS THAT HAVE HAD CONCERNS, REPEATED CONCERNS, AND THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE BECAUSE IT GOT AREAS OF THE CITY THAT HAVE ROUTINELY COMPLAINED BUT FELT THAT IT WASN'T WORTH IT TO CONTINUE TO PUT IN CONCERNS AND COMPLAINTS BECAUSE NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. And we started seeing them engaging, and we started a dialogue that is, you know, I'm not going to say we've solved every problem, but we're way better off tod

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. I want to say I look forward to participating if possible and however I can. I think that this could be a real tool to make sure that we're connected and understand each other. I am hoping, my hope for this is that I think people buy in and feel like it's theirs when there's some ownership there. And so I do hope that there's maybe time in like maybe some of the first meetings to kind of co-create some of the agendas and maybe bring up questions that we have. And if that happens, then I think this is great. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. folks should have received in the packet, and then I sent it out again yesterday in case folks didn't see it, a memo from myself and my policy analyst, Linda Foster, who has been with me on this fun journey to learn about CWAs and how we as a city can improve our policy options for local hire and apprenticeship outcomes. I'LL TAKE YOU GUYS ON A LITTLE JOURNEY TO HOW WE GOT HERE, BUT JUST KNOW THAT SO I'M NOT BURIING THE LEAD HERE. THE RECOMMENDATION THAT I AM HOPING TO BRING FORWARD AS A RESULT OF THIS PRESENTATION, THE ONGOING CONVERSATIONS WE'VE HAD NOW FOR A COUPLE YEARS I

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Diaz, for all of the work and the background, too. I knew this was a long time coming, but I didn't know it went quite so far back. So thank you. I appreciate that. And I think that makes a difference. I think the conversations that have been had and pulling that in really important so I think I appreciate the long document a couple questions and maybe one really dumb one that I feel like I should already know but I haven't figured out yet and so on the the the proposal Just for city projects. I guess just starting there.

Okay over five million dollars So anything under would not qualify.

Okay, and the on page three is a chart of These are the projects that this could apply to and when we did in we have had the leap apply to most of our projects over five million dollars and So that's already been happening. How does something over $5 million not apply to, how does LEAP not apply? Why are there four public works projects that didn't do LEAP?

That is a good question. I don't have the answer to, but I will look to see.

And it doesn't have to be right now. That can just be on the list of questions. And then on the local portion of that, when we, This is the question I feel like I should know, so I feel kind of dumb, but is the local employee, do we track that based on where the employee lives or where the business is based? What makes it local?

I believe it's where the employee is based, but I will, thank you. Debra gave me a thumbs up, so Debra knows all things.

Okay, great. I was hoping that because I do want to support local businesses, but ultimately I want to support Tacoma and staying in Tacoma and being able to work in Tacoma. So that's really great and really important. Is there an analysis of the things that change? If we go from LEAP to a CWA, for example, is there analysis of what more we get out of that?

Excellent question. If we pass this proposal, we will keep LEAP and we will keep EIC, and this is another layer of the onion to help. Something that might help clarify that is on page 10, if you look at the chart that's after the recommendation, it goes over the ways that currently the LEAP program does have penalties that we assess on folks who don't meet the requirements that we're asking of them. CWAs would help approach us in a proactive measure. So we would keep the assessments that we find people and we would have this proactive measure to help get people there in addition to.

Awesome. Thank you. That's super helpful. My last question is about the costs and I see the fiscal impact. So why does it get so much more expensive in year two?

I believe that that's because in year one we're just setting up the program and in year two we would be actually negotiated out and the program would be happening and moving.

So that's the staff to do that proactive work and things like that? Yes. think well that's definitely all my questions I think there's so much good stuff in here it's all things that we want to do I want to make sure I understand that when we put more dollars into it we're getting more out of it because I am so proud of the work that our staff has done around the LEAP program it feels like we're doing so many things my understanding is that we can get more but I just maybe need to do a little bit more reading to understand that. But it feels like we're on the right track.

Staff is doing a great job with our two programs and the equity and contracting folks were really engaged in the conversation and really interested to make sure that we don't erode the work that they do. So that's really something we have an eye on as we're doing the proposal is not eroding in the work they're doing, but that we're adding to it. And like I said, because this is just a sort of an unveiling, I do want to encourage that either we have some of those conversations or folks have those conversations with stakeholders and staff over the next month as we actually develop a proposal tha

Great. Thank you. Thank you for all of the work that went into this. Thank you.

THANK YOU, MAYOR, AND THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER DIAZ. I LEARNED A LOT BECAUSE I WAS READING YOUR BOOK REPORT, AND I LOVE HOW YOU PUT IT TOGETHER BECAUSE IT HELPED ME KIND OF FORM A NUMBER OF QUESTIONS. I'M NOT GOING TO ASK THEM HERE. I WOULD LIKE TO JUST TRY TO FIND AN HOUR WHERE WE CAN KIND OF GO THROUGH IT BECAUSE I HAVE A NUMBER OF KIND OF THINGS. BUT I DO APPRECIATE THAT WHEN WE DO MEET I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO BE AT LEAST IN CHAPTER 2 RATHER THAN IN THE INTRODUCTION OF THIS BOOK. So I appreciate that. They're just kind of detailed questions in various policy sections over here in trying to

Okay. So $5 million is the threshold that every other city or county who has these uses. So it's a pretty common threshold as a smaller municipality than the other folks. So the other comparables are Spokane, I want to say City of Vancouver, not City of Vancouver, Spokane, Seattle, City Government, and King County. And then I want to say Sound Transit as well. THEY ALL HAVE PROJECTS THAT ARE SIGNIFICANTLY BIGGER AND MORE EXPENSIVE. SO WITH OUR SIZE, GIVEN THAT EVERYBODY ELSE USES 5 MILLION AND OUR PROJECTS ARE, WE'RE A SMALLER CITY, COMPARATIVELY, 5 MILLION, I DON'T SEE A REASON THAT WE WOULD

We do. I also recently got from King County updates that they made because they've had a CWA in place for at least five years, if not more. So they recently did an update this last summer that I got from Council Member Mosqueda that we're looking to make sure that we have lessons learned from other folks and theirs into whatever we put forward for ours.

We had a really robust conversation about that at the building trades table, and I will say it's not a short answer. We can make sure we get you a good answer in the FAQ and in just conversation because it was a longer conversation around chicken or egg. And particularly Mariana Hike with the Carpenters is really knowledgeable about that because she used to run a partnership program. So we have a lot of experts in town. That's great.

I BELIEVE IT'S THE LATTER. UTILIZATION RATE? LOOKING AT MY FRIENDS. ON PAGE FOUR. WE MIGHT HAVE TO GET BACK TO YOU. OKAY. THAT'S FINE. I GOT A LOOSE THUMB UP, I THINK. SO IT WAS UTILIZATION RATES? OR WAS THAT THE THUMBS UP THAT WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU LATER?

Yeah, thank you. And point well noted, we actually did hear from a lot of the subcontractors who were people who started in the field and then eventually became someone who owned their own company and are now doing that work. So it is a pathway even into entrepreneurship.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Diaz, for all of the work. I will admit I haven't dug into your book report yet, but I appreciate that it's here. I do appreciate that you have presented some possible policy proposals, so that makes it A little bit easier to interpret the information. Question. It sounds like you reached out to a couple other municipalities about their programs. I'm not sure if I saw a summary in here about that. And I'd be curious to just hear kind of their pros and cons and what they've learned.

Yeah, I can see if staff can add that to the FAQ. I know we met with Seattle, and I believe King County, and Department of Transportation, and there could have been some others that I missed, but those were the ones, the conversations I know of most recently. Fantastic. Thank you.

Okay. Councilor Hines. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilor Diaz, for the presentation. This was really great, and I also appreciate the Kind of starting back with what was found in 2018 and then kind of drawing forward and pulling it together. I think having reviewed all of this, I mean, I think you've done a wonderful job of just like talking to a lot of folks that are going to be affected by everything here. So my question was the, just, and you may have talked about this before, but the Sorry if I missed this part, but the estimated increase per project is th

That is the exact question I asked, staff, and I want to say it will be addressed in our FAQ.

Okay. And then the dual benefit reimbursement for Seattle is only 0.04% of the project cost, or is that just attributed to that part? I'm looking at the fiscal impact down here. I mean, should I see those as, I guess... I would love to know more about where that number is generated. The .04?

Yeah. We can flesh that out, too, because I am a little bit more curious about that, too, and how we would assess it and how we put that money away. So I think it is a critical piece of the funding is how do we make sure that the subcontractors, particularly with the contractors, have the money they need to help offset the costs that we're pushing forward. To get local hires and get better wages.

Yeah. No, I agree. And I think when we talk about, you know, the priorities we're trying to look at, which is, you know, how do we get people who live in our community building the future of our community? How do we make sure we're building a ladder for people to move from the workplace, you know, from kind of entry level into the trades and then moving forward and getting higher and better wages and better benefits? I think these are all really valuable. I think the question that I'm coming back to is just kind of FISCAL COSTS AND KIND OF THE BALANCE, I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE TALKED ABOUT

And these costs are really preliminary because once we have an actual ordinance and things drafted, then we can number crunch a little bit closer, which is why I had the two AB sort of stacked next to each other because the estimates were very similar as opposed to originally they were laid out as options one, two, and three, and they felt like more of an AB and an option two has a significantly different cost associated.

Great. And then I think something that I was interested in, maybe you could just elaborate on this a little bit, right? But I think one of the contractors made a point that the compliance costs would be something they would just pass on to us. They said something about the fact of like, if we have to do this, those costs will just go to the, the city will have to incorporate into the cost of the project overall, correct?

Yes. And I think that's where part of that 15 to 20% is coming from. Gotcha.

Okay. Well, you know, I think, I don't know, I have many more questions. I thought you did a wonderful job kind of digging into this. I know we're just in the first part of the conversation. And I really thought you did a good job of trying to talk through how do we, the thing that, it seemed, the thing that came out in 2018 when you read the report is this idea of how do, does a CWA PLA function with a city that has these kind of women, minority owned business goals and early program goals and how do we make sure those align to each other. I think for me, that's kind of where I'm thinking abo

Yeah, I think it's very sort of spinning two plates at once, making sure that we have OMBE contractors and folks from those communities as workforce, right? We can't have one without the other. Make sure that we're weaving that in together. And then you bring up transit. I also think a big piece of this is how do we get people off of I-5? People are just like losing their whole lives trying to get to projects outside in other parts of the region. So how do we help incentivize folks staying local both to live and work and be here?

Yeah. The only other thing, and I would love for Chap, and now we're just having a conversation about this, that I found interesting was that conversation that some of the contractors had mentioned about the fact that they don't just do government work. They don't just do contracts with, say, a city or a county. They sometimes work for private contractors, too. And the challenge of staff being able to move back and forth between the two and remaining both competitive in the private marketplace and the public marketplace is was something that I had not thought about, but it was good that you, I

Yeah, and that is, I think, critical to the work that happens in LEAP and EIC is that we have to keep those subcontractors in there because they're the ones who are meeting a lot of those goals, too.

Yep. Great. All right. Those are all my questions, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Knowing that the city manager is the one who's going to have to decide how he staffs people, my assumption would be particularly for some of these estimates around a 0.5 FTE, we'll probably be combining some folks who already work with some new pieces of this, but some of it will be whole new individuals. It's going to depend on how the contracting goes also.

I'M LOOKING AT THE HARDCORE. I CAN'T CLICK ON THE SEATTLE EXAMPLE, BUT MY GUESS IS THAT THE ANSWER IS IN THAT LINK.

NO, THAT'S HELPFUL. THANK YOU. IF IT'S NOT, WE'LL HAVE LINDA ADD IT TO THE FAQ.

I'm not certain, but we can put that in the FAQ if staff don't have that answer handy. I think they might have come out in some of the conversations, so might be got at also when we answer Council Member Palmer's question around who all we spoke with and what the plus or minus was, because I'm not sure who all is in the room. I know the city will be there, I know the unions will be there, and I know that King County does this really cool meeting that folks talked about where every quarter, I think, they reevaluate sort of publicly with everyone, contractors, unions, everybody, how the program'

It could. I know that I want to say it's LEAP, but one of the programs brings to us in their update their zone map that they use that I think comes from Workforce Central, and so it's the broader Pierce County map, not just the city map. So it might be more aligned with that map than with TPU boundaries, but there's an overlap there too.

DO YOU WANT TO COME UP WITH AN ANSWER OR DO YOU WANT ME TO ADD IT TO THE FAQ? I INVITE MY FRIENDS.

Thank you. And I would just add, just based on your questions and the answers from staff, I think the piece around whether or not we include the TPE service area or not, would, for me, be based on whether or not we model the ordinance on LEAP or not. And so I think that's going to be a policy choice for us. My preference as the person drafting this policy, as I'm engaging conversations with you all and stakeholders, is going to be for what is going to make the program most administerable by staff. So if that is doing what LEAP does, that would be my preference. If it's not, that would be my pr

No, absolutely. You know, I just appreciate the opportunity to co-sponsor with Council Member Walker. Nourish does some amazing work and pretty soon will be doing some work even in District 4. as well. I'm not at liberty to explain all of it right now, but there's some really good stuff that's happening because, quite frankly, food insecurity is high in our area. We anticipate it increasing. not only because of the sustained increases in inflation that we're all seeing, but there's just a lot of policy coming down from levels much higher than us that are putting pressure on working families an

All right. Okay. So today I'm here to talk to you about a proposal I have. Mr. Mayor, thank you for letting us have the opportunity to bring forward a $6,000 contingency fund request to hold Tacoma's first official flag competition. So if I look, if you, I don't know if the camera can look, if you look over behind the dais right here, you'll see our lovely blue flag here. And this past year, along with most other years, when we go to the Association of Washington City's annual conference, one of the things they do is they do a parade of flags. And each city brings their flag, and they parade a

Thank you very much for bringing this forward councillor Palmer Thank You councillor Hines for bringing this forward. I feel like you get to bring a lot of the fun stuff That's light hearted and you know, it's very helpful for I think we need a mix of these things in order you know, we see a lot of HEAVIER THINGS AND MAYBE NOT SO FUN THINGS AND SO THIS IS FANTASTIC. I LOVE THAT WE WOULD BE COMPENSATING THE ARTISTS AS WELL FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND OUR USE OF THEIR HARD WORK. I TOO WAS AT AWC AND CAME AWAY WITH FLAG ENVY SO I THINK THIS IS GREAT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. A COUPLE QUESTIONS. FIRST, THANKS FOR LETTING ME COSPONSOR BECAUSE I AM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THE IDEA OF A FLAG COMPETITION. TO COUNCILMEMBER PALMER'S POINT, I THINK YOU'RE ALWAYS THE ONE BRINGING COMPETITIONS, SO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT YOU AND YOUR NEED TO HAVE WINNERS AND LOSERS. I DO HAVE GENUINE QUESTIONS. ONE IS KEN ASKING FOR A COUNCIL COLLEAGUE WHO IS MORE CREATIVE THAN I OR A CITY STAFFER, CAN STAFF APPLY?

I DON'T SEE WHY THEY COULDN'T PUT THIS APPLICATION IN. WE WOULD LEAVE IT UP TO THE FLAG COMMISSION TO DETERMINE IF IT'S ONE OF THE TOP TEN. EXCELLENT.

Would this be something that we do this one time? Are you looking at some sort of a sunset for the flag? Is there something you want us to do every centennial? What are your thoughts on this being the flag forever or not?

That's a good question. My thought would be we could have a BUT THE CURRENT FLAG, I THINK, I'VE SEEN SOME OLDER DESIGNS, IS THE ONE WE'VE HAD SINCE THE 90s. SO YOU'RE LOOKING AT ABOUT 35 YEARS ON THAT FLAG RIGHT THERE. I THINK MY THOUGHT WOULD BE THE FLAG WOULD HAVE NO KIND OF SUNSET AND THEN IF A COUNCIL IN THE FUTURE DECIDED, HEY, WE WANT TO RE-EXAMINE AND DO A DIFFERENT DESIGN, WE COULD DO THAT.

And then as much as I would love for the flag to just be like some sort of a better than me artist rendition of like the Tacoma Dome or something, right? That's like Tacoma iconic. People like to use bridges when they're using iconography for the city. My assumption or thought is in this, what is it called? North American Lexological Association, they sort of think about it more in terms of like the U.S. flag where like we would have blue to represent the commencement bay and green to represent the parks, right? Like it's more about the colors and the shapes than it is about the literal like i

Yeah, I think the one, the thing that they said that I think is very, helps me remember is in their keep it simple, their point is a child should be able to draw from memory. So it should be so simple that a kid could draw it. So if you ask my eight-year-old to draw the US flag, she would draw a blue square and then do red and white lines. She could do it. Or Chicago's flag, which is like the blue bar, the blue bar, and the three red stars. And so they want to keep it as simple as that. So yes, more colors. But some cities, if there was a, I think what they would say is if there's a symbol, li

WELL, DON'T PUT ME ON THE FLY COMMISSION BECAUSE CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT IS IN THE MOUNTAINS, NOT ACTUALLY IN THE CITY. I KNOW. THE OTHER GENUINE QUESTION I HAD WAS I KNOW THAT YOU PRESENTED AT THE ARTS COMMISSION. I'M JUST CURIOUS WHAT THEIR THOUGHTS WERE ON THIS AS A COMPETITION.

YEAH. THEY WERE NOT AS EXCITED ABOUT THE COMPETITION ASPECT TO IT, RIGHT, AND THOUGHT OF IT AND Encourage as you can imagine, you know, I'm a former football coach the competition is like in my mind Um, but they had said well Maybe it's just invite people in and have a conversation and be more of a celebration of different symbols of the city The challenge is we're trying to get to one like we're not gonna have five total flies. We have one so it kind of That's where we kind of landed on the competition side when I talked to the Arts Commission what I think I came away with was the thinking th

I apologize for being so in the weeds. I didn't mean to be. I think it's just because my policy brain is turned on by the CWA conversation. But the only other question I had was for who goes on the flag commission, if you could make sure as we're drafting that it allows for people who are currently serving on boards of commissions to be there. I know that was a conversation we had when we did the charter review. So making sure that since it's a temporary thing, they can keep serving whatever other capacity they have so they can do this momentary flag competition. Thanks. Yeah.

AND WHEN WE THINK ABOUT COMMITMENTS, IF YOU SPOKE VANCOUVER AS ANALOG, THEY HAD FOUR MEETINGS WHERE THE FLAG COMMISSION MET. INITIAL MEETING, SET THE RULES, HOW THEY'RE GOING TO OPERATE. THEY MET TO KIND OF NARROW THE FIELD DOWN. SO IT'S A VERY LIMITED DURATION FOR THE FLAG COMMISSION. YEAH. THANK YOU. DEPUTY MAYOR.

GREAT. YEAH. WE CURRENTLY HAVE IT WRITTEN AS OPEN TO ANYONE WHO HAS A CONNECTION TO TACOMA, AND YOU'D EXPLAIN IT, BUT I'M HAPPY TO, IF YOU ALL HAD SAID, HEY, JOHN, I WANT TO NARROW IT TO JUST CITY OF TACOMA, BUT IF YOU WANT TO KEEP IT OPEN, I'M HAPPY WITH THAT, TOO. YEAH. All right, thank you. Any other questions? All right, thank you for bringing this forward. Yeah, just one final comment, Mr. Mayor, if I have a second. No, and to Councillor Palmer and Councillor Bushnell's point, you know, I think I do try to bring a little bit of fun to the policymaking job here. And I just think this, I'm