City Council - Regular Meeting

Mr. Chair, I was going to ask Nicole a question about, so you call out light pollution, but you don't say anything about noise pollution. I'm curious why noise pollution isn't mentioned.

What a nice video celebrating Richland. So welcome everyone to the City Council regular meeting Tuesday, August 18th, 2026. Appreciate y'all being here on this wonderful summer evening. I've asked Clerk Rogers to take a roll call.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. So, Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Thank you. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. First item on the agenda is a presentation for Parks and Rec Commission with Maria Gutierrez, a longtime chair. So thank you for being here, especially serving after all these years.

Thank you for being here. And did I pick up in your presentation, it's been 18 years you've been a part of this? Yes. Thank you for your leadership. The parks are well loved in Richland. So it's people like you that have committed your time and energy, and it's appreciated. So council, I see Councilmember Myers' light.

Thank you for the presentation. I've been on that side of the dais as a board and commission member reporting to council. So I know a lot of work goes into these and I appreciate it. Thank you. My question is earlier on in your presentation, you talked about looking to engage more with student and youth groups. And I was wondering if you happen to have any examples in mind of what sorts of groups you might be looking for.

It looked like you had a full slate of commissioners. Are there any openings at this time? I believe we're full now. Full right now? Yeah.

OK. Yeah. Council Member Jones. Yeah, thank you very much for the presentation. I really appreciate you being here and for your long time service. I have a few questions for you, and you may not be able to answer some of these questions, and that's okay. Maybe Chris can actually help us out, maybe even Joe. Okay. So we have a few people in the last maybe few months that have been coming forward and saying, hey, we have a park, but it's not being maintained. And I understand we have a huge number of parks that we have to maintain, which means some of those may not be on a radar. So my question

Now, do we have, currently, do we have a rating system for, you know, have we audited all of our parks, and do we have a rating system so do we know the condition that they're in at this point in time?

And do we have a scorecard as well that people can access and see, okay, so I know I'm going to bring the Munoz who were here maybe a couple of meetings ago and mentioned one park, right? And do we have the ability for them to see, okay, this park may be not, you know, at the top of our list. Do we have a scorecard as well to go with that?

Yeah, and it would be nice to have actual costs for each one. You know, that scorecard should have actually the cost of maintaining that park as well so the community can actually see the impact to our budget as well. Thank you.

And just to clarify, Badger Mountain South's park system out there is going to be all open space, isn't it? Landscaping, it's an open space park?

Yeah, quite a bit. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

OK. Thank you. So seeing no other questions or comments at this time, I want to thank you again for your presentation and work. We appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next on the agenda is public hearing. Clerk Rogers, will you please read the script?

Thank you, Clerk Rogers. The open public hearing on resolution 2026-115 begins now at 6.31. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to provide testimony on this item? Please raise your hand. Seeing none, we close this public hearing at 6.31. Next item is proposed 2026-2028 collective bargaining agreement with the Richland Police Professional Staff Supervisor Guild, resolution number 2026-117. We open this hearing at 6.31. Is there anyone that would like to speak to this issue? Seeing none, We close this public hearing at 631. This brings us to public comments. If there's any member tha

Could you put the microphone just a little closer? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hanson. Also, member of the audience, we want to maintain a level of decorum in here and be fair to everyone presenting. So please, no applause, no comments. Let everyone speak to their issue. Is there anyone who would like to speak next? Mr. Munoz.

Thank you, Mr. Munoz. Who else would like to address the council? Please raise your hand. Seeing no other people wanting to come in at this time, Clerk Rogers, would you please read the consent calendar?

Thank you. Any further comment? Seeing none, Clerk Rogers, would you please read the consent calendar?

Thank you. That leads us to items of business resolution number 2026-115, extending the six-month moratorium on citing less restrictive alternative facilities serving sexually violent predators. We have a presentation with deputy city manager, Mr. Shishel.

Thank you for your work on this issue. It's serious and I appreciate the collaboration with the other jurisdictions. Council members, Council Member Meyer.

Yep, thank you. Appreciate the back story. When we first passed this moratorium, I said that I was supporting it because, in my opinion, the state had dropped the ball on collaborating with local communities about where and how they cite these things. I saw in your presentation that there's been some communication around this topic with other agencies. Is there any movement at the state level on this or are we still on our own?

Okay, and you also mentioned some collaboration with our neighboring communities. Is there any kind of solidified effort there? In other words, are our neighbors basically coming up with similar regulations to the ones we're drafting?

Thank you. Seeing no further comment or question from council, may I have a motion and a second to adopt this resolution? So moved. Okay. Consent vote is acceptable. All those in favor say aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. Next item on the agenda is resolution number 2026-116, setting a meeting date to consider the proposed annexation of 744.5 acres owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. Deputy City Manager, Mr. Shishel, presenting.

Thank you for your presentation, Council. Are there any questions? Councilmember Meyer.

Hi, it's me again. I suppose whether we want this annexation to go forward or whether we don't, this meeting needs to happen either way. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. I would recommend that we support scheduling this meeting. I would also recommend that the DOE... attend the meeting fully prepared with reasons that we should be annexing the 300 site in particular and exactly what the hell is in this for us. I understand that it's in our urban growth boundary but you know, if it's 99% owned by DOE, then it ain't exactly generating property taxes. So they need to have a coherent story for why they

Thank you. Are there other council members wishing to comment or have a question? Seeing none, could I have a motion and a second?

A consent vote is acceptable. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for your presentation. That leads us to resolution number 2026-117, approving the 2026-28 collective bargaining agreement with the Richland Police Professional Staff Supervisor Guild. Presentation by our Human Resource Director, Lacey Paulson.

Thank you for your presentation. Council members, Council Member Meyer.

Yes, I'm back. I've been on both sides of this kind of table too. I've been a union member and I've been management in negotiating these contracts. And my job, my day job in computing is super easy because if I can learn enough facts, then I can just do the only right answer and it's fine. But your job is much harder. And it requires a lot of understanding of a lot of different topics and an ability to come to an agreement with somebody who, by the nature of the discussion, is sort of adversarial. And it takes a real professional to be able to juggle all that. And so I don't have any questions

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. So just curious about the uniform. This is professional individuals, office people.

Yep. Thank you, Council. Are there any other questions or comments? I would, Council Member, Mayor Rattan and Doug.

Consent vote is acceptable. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. That brings us to reports and comments. Starting off with Deputy City Manager Shishel, would you like to comment?

Thank you. And did Lacey leave the room? Oh, okay, I didn't see you down there. Yeah, thank you. Deputy City Manager Scheschel, I have a question. There was a member of the audience that had a question about the Poland house and why the house is remaining. Would you please comment on that?

All right. Let's start off with Councilmember Samuel.

Madam Mayor, City Council, I just wanted to give you an update. I sit in with the Planning Commission, and they continue to review and comment on the proposed updates and revisions to the City of Richland's comprehensive plan, which is going to come before City Council later this year. You know, we are very fortunate to have commissioners like Kara Hernandez, Casey Anderson, Aaron Lambert, and the Chair, Jett Richardson. They have asked very insightful questions and have provided staff with a number of excellent comments and observations. So these commissions you mentioned tonight, Parks and R

Thank you. Councilmember Jones. Nothing from you. Okay. Councilmember Whitten. Would you like to comment?

Yes, it's me again. A while back I asked John for information about automated license plate readers in the city. Our contract with Flock has ended and the Flock cameras, as far as I know, have been removed, but we have automated license plate reader service from a different company called Axon and that's a pretty big difference Axon has a much different data protection and data access methodology than flock does And I asked for some information about that and I got it But I think that might be worth brief presentation about specifically Axon ALPR data protections just because I know this is ev

just a personal plea thanks thank you mayor pro tem van dyke

Thank you, Lacey. In my comments, I just want to pile on to that and just say how remarkable it is when you reach the finish line and you've been able to pass the baton to someone. And you've just done so well and very well respected. So wishing you all the best in the next season in your life. And so glad that we were able to have you for quite a bit of time here. And please don't become a stranger. Okay, all right. With that, that concludes this portion of the meeting. We have an executive session per RCW 42.30.110 to discuss current or potential litigation with legal counsel, anticipating i