City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, August 18, 2026 study session of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with all council members present tonight. We have just one business item on our agenda for this evening, and it is the waste resources briefing and discussion. And that discussion and presentation will be led by our Public Works Director, Mark Russell. And I'll turn it over to you, Mark.

Council Member Madron. Yeah, appreciate seeing this. I'm curious with the adding on organics in a mandatory in 2030. What about people who currently pay for that service? Do they also get a 15% increase? Like how does that shake out?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, apparently this is very complicated and you're working on averages here and it's not that, you know, everybody's bill would just go up 15% regardless of whether or not you currently pay. You're looking at the whole system You're looking at restructuring rates. And if you already pay for organics, maybe it's, you know, not 15% for you, but somebody who's not paying, it would be higher. So that's kind of what I'm hearing. I would think that, you know, if the state's eventually going to make us do it anyway, I think it would probably be aligned with our comprehensive plan to,

Thank you. Council Member Green followed by Mayor Pro Tem Wynn.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. This is super helpful. One question that came to mind for me, though, when I was looking at it was, is there any, over the same 10-year period of time, I know the expectation is that the population in the city will increase as well. Is there any threshold or like how frequently do new trucks, new routes, new whatever need to be added as the population increases? I mean, is it for every 2,000 rate payers or is it just very dependent on on what part of the city they go to and Yeah, I guess is any of that accounted for in here or would that be something that that we could

Um, and that being a difference in, in their billing. Um, so if, uh, so as I'm thinking about that, could you share with me when you're doing these projections, um, what's your sort of average for how much waste folks are, um, putting out for you to pick up?

Thanks. That's helpful. And then are we seeing, you know, are we imagining a future in this 10-year projection where we're still, as a city of Olympia, offering the option to do free yard waste drop-off, cardboard, that kind of thing, if people want to haul it themselves to a site?

Yeah, thank you. I just dropped off a bunch of glass. I loved it. And that legacy program of the yard waste, I love that legacy. I like the accidental cardboard program too, but that's me as a user and not having to maintain it. I wonder, we probably won't get that far today, but I wonder if a future maintenance center that I'm really crossing my fingers for is... Could there be a possibility of, you know, maybe it's not cardboard, maybe it's something else. There may be a partnership with Thurston County. I think there's some kind of like that, or at least we can use it still. But yeah, I jus

What kind of changes? Are you saying like if we wanted to, we can so easily change to a weekly collection? Is that what you mean? Correct.

I see. And are you on the private pro side for weekly garbage collection yet? Are you going through?

Oh, great. Could you could you add when you share next why weekly garbage collection is a pro? And I really sincerely don't mean this to be leading, but it just seems like we would not want to encourage people to have more garbage.

So we have two questions in the queue. The first is from Council Member Madrone, followed by Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Yeah, one of the things that I've heard that, you know, I've heard some folks in the community who favor a weekly garbage collection. And one of the things that I've heard is if you miss a week, you're not waiting a month. for your garbage to be picked up. And so the question behind that is, what happens right now? I've got a reminder in my calendar. I can't remember the last time I forgot to get my bin to the streets. What happens if you miss your service? Are you just waiting for another two weeks, or do we have a response for that?

And I have one additional question around that, around the service. You know, often when I put my bin at the street, it's, you know, sometimes the lid is up and there might be something hanging out of it because I had a little bit extra. And one thing I'm curious, if you know the answer to it, on the private side of things, do they tend to charge extra fees if your bin is over full? I've never been charged a fee for it with the city. So I'm curious on the private side, is that something that people would be facing? And you might not have the answer to it. I know I missed the last study session

Related to this. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem, the city manager has a relevant point. All right. City Manager Pernick. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

bit of a squirrel but how will you know if someone is generating 50 I think it was 50 gallons or more in organics I mean unless it's a Christmas tree but you could chop it up stick it in a bag like how would you know what will compliance look like that's a really good question and I think I

No, that's great. And you know what? Honestly, Ron, if you had the answers, maybe we shouldn't give away our strategies.

Council Member Barrett. Thank you. I had a question on the commercial side. Is it growing? Is it shrinking? Do we market to people that are not our customers to try to get growth? I just want to have a concept of how this works.

Did that answer your question? It helped a lot, but I mean, do we do 50% of the commercial? Do we do 25% of the commercial?

I was just wondering, you didn't specifically call out the clean team, so I just wanted to be clear.

Okay, we have questions from Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen, followed by Council Member Vanderpool.

I'm so interested in this tonight. Is the, so we have about 40 people working waste resources. Is the clean team part of those 40 people?

Seven trucks, seven people. We're going to do it somehow. Okay. All right. That's good to know. Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Thank you. Council Member Vanderpool, followed by Council Member Green, followed by Council Member Madron.

Just a quick question. So on the non-traditional services negotiated through contract, how often does that actually occur? And if we, like, how often does that occur in a city? Would they take on, because we do a multitude of non-traditional services, including downtown. So I'm curious, how often do private owners do that? And would those jobs transfer?

Yeah, and that would be a part of the that be a request proposal after the initial contract or that be a part of the main contract usually

Okay, thank you. All right, Councilmember Green, followed by Councilmember Madron.

Thank you, Mayor. One thing that's not covered in your services section but is a question I get a lot is around the types of items that can be recycled or commingling of recycling. As far as you know, the private haulers, at least those that serve Lacey, Tumwater, the county, Do they offer pretty similar recycling options to what the city does? Do they take more? Do they take less? Do you know about that?

So for right now, we're pretty much the same Thank you Good to know councilmember Madron followed by councilmember Gilman It's gonna take you forever to get through this table, isn't it?

I don't actually have a question. I just want to offer a reflection. I'm really glad we're having this conversation because I think in the back of my mind, I knew that it's not just about trash pickup. There's a whole array of services behind the rates. And by having this conversation, I think more people are understanding what they're paying for when they pay the bill. And, you know, it makes it almost impossible, actually, probably impossible to compare our rates to anybody else's, um, And I think all all the work that happens with solid waste and waste resources in Olympia is valued. But on

Yeah. Thank you. All right. Council Member Gilman. Thank you, Mayor Payne.

I agree. I think clarifying the difference between having a waste utility and just specifically contracting for collection of containers is two different things. So I appreciate your illuminating that. I wanted to ask if you could, I heard a question within Council Member Green's question. When she said the haulers who work the other two cities in the county, my understanding is that for the entire southern Puget Sound area, there's only one firm that operates under maybe some multiple brandings. But is there essentially one firm that would be potentially bidding on services?

Sorry, you're like looking down. I'm like, hey. How many people do we employ for education and outreach? Four.

Okay. I remember when they did that really cool thing where they were like actually opening bins and like looking at what people were putting in there and kind of, you know, letting folks know when they were doing great and when there was more work to be done. And I think about we have some pretty substantial goals in our comprehensive plan around waste management. And I think that kind of work is very important to do with communities because we can't control what people put in the bin. It's got to be somebody interested in learning to do it and be done in a voluntary way. Even if we make them

Dirt works? That's part of the waste resources?

That's what I thought but when you said that I was like wait maybe there's something more I don't know.

Um, and I do apologize that I missed the last study session on this. I may be asking questions that are redundant to what you covered a few months ago, but it's good to have the conversation all at once. Um, for the maintenance facility that is, uh, attic carpenter. Um, what I saw that you include in your slide, like having it ready for electric, can you just speak a little bit to, you know, how the design currently incorporates a future of electrification?

Is that like that EV readiness already incorporated into the $40 million? Yes. Okay. And one last question on this, you know, building outside of the city of Olympia where we have our own regulations on new builds in terms of what we expect of others in our community, are we aligning with that at the maintenance center? on Carpenter?

lowering our standards when we're not building in Olympia, you know, I think we should, you know, keep that up. So thank you.

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. Council Member Green, followed by Council Member Barrett.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to put my memory to the test here and for my colleagues. Tell me if I'm remembering correctly. So we recently saw a presentation from the head of the fleet maintenance. And I don't remember, was that finance committee or was that full council? OK, so in that case, I'm going to ask this question for all my colleagues. So in that presentation, he talked about the availability of electric vehicles, particularly when it got into heavy duty like garbage trucks. And I remember him saying that right now the cost of those trucks is in the ballpark of $800,000 to $1 million,

Councilmember Barron, before I call on you, Councilmember Vanderpool has a comment to make in response to Councilmember Green.

I guess the best example I can come up with is at Intercity Transit, we were looking at electric and hydrogen. Hydrogen has its own problems and is also very expensive, but hydrogen buses had double the range than the electric buses, and they couldn't because you have to run them all day long. And so part of the, I would even say, probably in the same situation is, You don't want to have to have double the amount of vehicles to meet that range of having that heavy, all that usage all day long because you don't have time to stop and charge it even at a fast rate. So it's, I mean, I wouldn't be

Thank you. several years ago the city of olympia bought a green direct contract with pse in which the electricity bought by the city is ultra green uh wind generate wind generated power it was a designee um uh and i i'm assuming that if the city had the utility and we went electric we would be operating under that contract of green electricity but I don't think a private hauler would be under any obligation to do that. Now, the state is requiring PSE to green up its grid overall to everybody, but the sale times the week before last did a large article about how it was actually heading in the w

Thank you. I don't think PSE, for whatever it's worth, I don't think PSE has the capacity personally provide that much green energy to private carriers for whatever it's worth. Right.

All right. Council Member Gilman, followed by Mayor Pretem Wynn.

I was just going to agree with Paul that As inner city transit was looking at the zero emissions fleet, we had a couple of meetings with PSE officials who didn't know if they would have, if multiple agencies moved heavy vehicles onto electric. They didn't have the capacity broadly, let alone from green energy right now. So the Skookum Wind Farm gives us what it can, and we invested in it, and I'm glad for that. But the demands of commercial fleets are like another city's load. It's considerable. So that's why I think being ready at this point, being plumbed for it in construction in case somet

Just quickly. It's a good point about the emerging EV technology or electric vehicle technology. And I understand that it is our goal to move towards all electric fleet. Though I will say, though, that if it is, if we were to go to private and they're keeping their standard schedule or model for service, I mean, even if they were all electric, that's still triple the impact, if it really is three trucks, triple the impact weekly, adding stress to our roads and our ears. So, you know, large vehicles. So, you know. I mean, yes, green energy. And also, there they are, ripping and running around.

Mark, we have a question from Councilmember Madron.

Me again, yes. And I wasn't sure exactly where this question lived, but I decided it goes here, so I'm going to ask it now. So we're wanting to see a lot more dense urban development happening in our community and one of the things i recall us discussing in the land use committee in years past is like you know the challenges of managing solid waste in that dense urban environment um so could you speak to like you know in terms of strategic control um is how you know how how is it different that we manage our own solid waste services in being able to accommodate that differently than if it was

This kind of goes back to community benefits. And so I'm sorry I missed the question when I should have. But when I walked in this evening, I saw this great brochure that was out on the table, Utility Assistance Programs. And we have lifeline rates for low-income and disabled or low-income and over age 62 for our garbage utility. And I'm not trying to ambush anybody. I was curious how many people benefit from that reduced utility rate This brochure said low income or disabled and low income and over 62. If you qualify, it's a 50% reduction in your garbage bill each month. Do you have a sense o

So, sorry. Your mic, your mic. All right well, thanks back to you mark.

This is kind of a what-if question. You may not be able to answer it. You know, as we were in this meeting, I got a news update about the situation with Lacey and their own waste services and their rates changing and going up. I'm not sure where they are with their system, but when I'm looking at this timeline here, I'm wondering if we went the route of building the Carpenter Road facility and Lacey's looking at their own contract. I brought this up last time, and I know that going from privatization to public takes a lot of work, but I wonder about that a little bit, where they're looking at

It does, but it is something that if we go down a certain route as a council and as a city, I want to put that out on the table as an option in the future.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's a great suggestion. Mayor Pro Tem, when?

Oh, also. Clearly, everyone probably knows how I feel about this. But also, I heard that in their timeline that there is a possibility for partnerships there. And I thought, oh, possibility for more maintenance and the free drop-off. But one needs to remember to think about everyone. But also, what that reminded me of Councilmember Vanderpool is that You know, it's a little bit of a, you know, oh, could this happen to us? Like, you know, if we went private, how long would it take us to get back if we wanted to? And we might not even ever be able to. I mean, 10 years?

Council Member Vanderpool. 10 years plus the cost to construct things go up every day.

All right. Well, thank you very much, Mark and Ron, for a very thorough presentation. Yes, Council Member Gilman.

So finance committee just forwarded this conversation here. We didn't have a specific recommendation to come in, but I want to offer sort of the experience on finance committee over the last few years of looking at this. First, I appreciated that council member Madrone brought up the comp plan goals, right? That ultimately the purpose of this whole utility is to have a clean, healthy, and vibrant community. So we start there. I think we've done our due diligence, that while we've taken a closer look in the last few months, this has been a 10-year planning and council consultation process that'

So thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gilman. Council Member Green.

Thank you, Mayor. Mark and Ron, thank you so much. When this first came to finance several months ago, we had a lot of questions. There was a lot more questions in April, and I feel like we have gotten a lot of answers. For me, though, I don't feel like this is the end of our due diligence. I think there's a lot of... And let me say, your pros and cons chart, I think I'm very much in agreement with in general. However, a lot of the cons are unknown, but those things are not unknowable. We haven't asked the question. We haven't said, what does it, what would it look like in a scenario where we

All right. Thank you. Council Member Madron.

Yeah, thank you so much for all the information that you've brought forward. And, you know, Council Member Gilman was just recognizing that it's just, it hasn't just been the past few months. It's been, you know, kind of a decade in the making of building up to this moment. And I'm really glad that we have said, hold on, that is a very expensive option. And we are facing affordability challenges in our community, and we need to explore what some other options are. And recognizing what Council Member Green said, that there's still a lot of uncertainty on the other side of the equation. And I th

Well said. All right, additional comments. Council Member Vanderpool.

I agree with what I'm hearing to my left and my right. So very clearly, not private, right? But when we're going through this, and I like what I'm hearing about income-based rates, thinking about the cost of living, right? That's not your words. That's my words. That's my words. I was thinking about incomes and the cost of living and your comments about that. Give me this look.

Oh, sorry. You just lost me. That's all. Keep going.

OK. So I was thinking about incomes. I was thinking about the cost of living and making sure that we have rates that work with affordability that people are dealing with. And I was thinking about income rates an idea. But I think outside of that, when I was thinking about where do we decide on these types of things, and you go out and you talk to folks in the community, I think heavily about who are we serving and why are we doing what we're doing. The public supports this just like we support the fire department and parks and all of the other things we do as a city. And so I have no interest

Thank you, Mayor. I think we just have a great utility service. And Mark and Ron, thank you for that presentation. That was really good. And it was what I was looking, hoping for this evening, something really thorough. And I think you really hit it out of the park. We have a great service. I think it reflects our community values in many, many ways. different ways. Even I learned about services that this utility is providing for people in the course of this evening that are important to the community and that I know we would lose if we went down the privatization route. I'm not comfortable wi

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Barron. Additional comments? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I really appreciate this presentation. I do feel like there was, I felt like in the April presentation, I don't mean this to be a compliment insult, but in the April presentation, I didn't feel it was balanced. I didn't feel like we talked about, uh, we talked about things that, that I certainly really value in our utility service or waste resources specifically tonight. Um, and you know, you outlined so many things in this pros and cons list here, um, and verbally that it is such a value add to our community. It has been around for a long time. They have collages in their break room for a lon

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I think it's fair to say that, like, Regardless of whether or not we keep it in house or privatize when we look at the the rates in terms of the projection they will go up I think it's a matter of how by how much and how fast right and so. First of all, I just want to acknowledge a couple things here. I don't think we were as divided on this as we actually think. Council Member Madrona, I heard you say earlier that we're pretty divided. I think where we were divided as to whether or not we would be sitting here having this discussion tonight. That's where we were divi