City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, August 25th, 2026 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with Mayor, excuse me, Council Member Madrone excused and Council Member Gilman should be joining us momentarily. So with that, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the agenda as published, signify by saying aye. Aye. We have an agenda. So our first item tonight is special recognition, a proclamation recognizing Women's Equality Day. And we will begin with a shared reading of the proclamation. And council members, just a note to remind you to please use the alternative version of your proclamation reading. And we'll begin with Council Member Vanderpool.

Whereas, despite working to pass the 19th Amendment, women of color were effectively denied the right to vote through state laws, violence, and discrimination for another 45 years until the passage of the Voting Rights Act and in 1965, and whereas black women continue to lead the way in communities that are most impacted and continue to protect voting rights and build communities and policies that are equitable and safe for all, and.

Whereas, while the fight for women's equality has always been grounded in the right to vote, a century after it was first introduced, the fight to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment still continues. And whereas the state of Washington leads the country in accessible and equitable voting rights, thanks to legislation centering accessible voter registration, mail-in ballots, and restoring voting rights for individuals convicted of a felony who have served their time. And whereas Washington State has created an address confidentiality program allowing people fleeing gender-based violence to regist

Whereas survey respondents also stated policy situations in the areas of racial justice and civil rights, economic security, childcare, women's health and community well-being are extremely important to women across the nation, especially policies which support women's autonomy, protect their social and economic freedoms, and respond to the issues of greatest importance to women. And whereas throughout history, women have increasingly stepped into leadership roles in public service, often overcoming longstanding barriers to representation, And in 2026, the city of Olympia marked an important m

And now, therefore, be it resolved that the Olympia City Council does hereby proclaim August 26, 2026 as Women's Equality Day in the city of Olympia. and celebrates the continued effort for equality for all women and the removal of barriers to the resources, support, and opportunities women need to live thriving and healthy lives. Signed in the City of Olympia this 25th day of August, 2026, Olympia City Council, Dante Payne, Mayor. And now at this time, I would like to invite up Ali Yuen, who is the chief executive officer from the YWCA of Olympia, for a few words and to accept the proclamatio

Thank you so much alley, we'll see if there's any comments from Council and then I'll come and present you the proclamation. Any comments from the days. Councilmember green.

Thank you for being here alley, I just want to say it's nice to see you again and I'm very. excited that that the ywca is still part of our community and the vital work that you're doing.

still here so thank you for that and thank you to your your shy and brave podium partner for being up there because I know that it's not easy councilmember Vanderpool hi again hi Ally thank you for coming out I remember last year when I went over to talk with you and it was a very stressful day and we had long conversation about where things are and and and grants from the federal government and the struggle that nonprofits were having in the community. But I'm glad to see the organization is growing and coming back because having it happen on near an anniversary, it was just nerve wracking. A

Thank you. Any additional comments? All right. I will just say thank you, Ali, once again for coming back and accepting the proclamation. It's always good to see you. I, you know, I have to say that it's so important for all the reasons that you spoke to about of, you know, having women be recognized for their tenacity, their grit. all that they've done to get to this moment of the right to vote and participate civically in our society. And I have to say that in addition to that work, it's so important to see representation at all levels. And I think you see that how decision making changes as

All right. Thanks, Ali. all right thank you so much again we're going to move on to our next special recognition item on our agenda which is item 2b a proclamation recognizing overdose awareness day and we will begin with a shared reading of that proclamation with council member vanderpool whereas no community in washington state is immune to accidental or intentional overdose and drug overdose deaths remain high across the state

impacting urban, suburban, and rural communities, and disproportionately affect marginalized populations, and whereas overdose deaths are preventable and can be caused by alcohol and over-the-counter medicine, stimulants, and opioids, and whereas, like many places across Washington State, we need to continue to treat drug-related harm as a public health issue,

and invest in best practices that save lives and build communities. And whereas observed on August 31st every year, International Overdose Awareness Day seeks to create a better understanding of overdose, reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths, and create a change that reduces the harms associated with drug use.

Whereas International Overdose Awareness Day is an opportunity for all Olympians to stand beside those who have lost loved ones to an overdose and those who have a substance use disorder and are diligently working toward recovery.

AND CALLS UPON THE COMMUNITY TO JOIN IN RAISING AWARENESS OF DRUG OVERDOSE MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY BY REDUCING STIGMA THROUGH EDUCATION, PREVENTION, TREATMENT AND RECOVERY SUPPORT OR SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER. SIGNED IN THE CITY OF OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON, THIS 25TH DAY OF AUGUST, 2026, OLYMPIA CITY COUNCIL, DONTE PAIN, MAYOR. And now I would like to invite up Christina McVey, who is the co-director of the Franklin Street Harm Reduction Facility, to the podium for some remarks and to accept the proclamation tonight.

Thank you very much, Christina. And this is your first time accepting this proclamation. It is. Yeah. Well, thank you for your words. Are there any comments from the dais? Yes, Council Member Vanderpool.

I just want to say I appreciate everything you folks do over there. You guys are really a hub for a lot of services. It's one of the proudest organizations I think of in the community because, you know, Being on the regional housing council and working around homelessness and houselessness and dealing with folks that they're helping folks in the community You being there helps so much for us and helps us meet our goals Because if you didn't exist it would be really hard for us to meet those goals. And so I just want to Just say my appreciation for everything you folks do over there Likewise, t

Christina, thanks for being here for this recognition. And I just wanted to kind of share. In addition to just appreciating the work that all of you do to support folks, especially folks in recovery and family of folks navigating this. One of the reasons I'm glad we're doing this tonight is because. I'm a communicator by trade, and I know this, but you forget it, is that somebody has to hear a message so many times before it sinks in. And even myself, I've sat through discussions up here. Our youth council presented to us last year a really great PSA. I sat here, I watched it, and then I saw i

Thank you so much Thank you additional comments Yeah, I just want to express similar sentiments. I thank the Franklin Street harm reduction site, not only those of you that are here, but all of your staff and your team that responds to those community members that need your services. And I think about those words, you know, harm reduction and and how that is a place where they can go to receive just that right because there are so many other places where they're getting anything but right and that's because it's so stigmatized and so that's why we need proclamations like this one today to once

All right. Thank you all once again who came out for special recognition. We're going to keep our evening rolling with the rest of our agenda. And now is the moment for our public comment segment of our agenda. And I am going to pass it over to the mayor pro tem.

Thank you, Mayor. All right, just some brief housekeeping. Public comment is two minutes. Once your name is called, please step up towards the podium there and speak into the mic. While it's green, your two minutes is still running, and then you'll see a yellow color come up, and so it's trying to tell you that you have 30 seconds left to wrap up your comments, and then Once the light before you is red that means your time has elapsed and then there's also a two-minute timer here, too Please do at the conclusion of two minutes do try to wrap up your comments. Well, just complete the sentence a

Thank you. With that, we have Victoria Harmon, and then after Victoria will be Terry Ballard.

All right, next we have Terry Ballard, followed by Patricia Miller.

Thank you. Patricia Miller, followed by, in our final, I will be Annette Ruzicka.

Thank you. For folks that are hoping for a response from council, we roll through all of the public comment, and then there is an opportunity at the end. All right, go ahead.

All right, that concludes public comment. I'll turn it back over to you, Mayor.

All right. Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem. Are there any comments from Council? Council Member Vanderpool.

Just a couple of them. Because some of these items are going to be coming back at the end here. I figured I'd just respond real quick. You know, appreciate you folks coming out. I appreciate hearing your concerns about the by names list and and the hygiene needs in the jungle. These are things that we think about quite often. The plan that we're working on around the jungle is very detailed, and there's a lot of folks that are involved in it. That said, I do appreciate continued feedback and ideas around it because it's not an easy process. We're trying to house over 200 people in a humane way

Yeah, thank you so much. Additional comments? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Yeah, just wanted to appreciate folks generally for coming out today. It's always, uh, we usually get people to come, um, to shed light on some concerns that they have and, uh, which is welcomed. And it's always nice when people also note progress that is happening. So thank you for that. And, um, and also say, Hey, I saw some progress and here's some things that I still need, think need to be done. So, uh, just really appreciate the thoughtful comments. Um, I'm not going to talk about the jungle because we are, uh, that's our first item tonight. And I think you'll stay around for that. I hope

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Any additional comments? All right, seeing none. I will just speak briefly to the public safety concerns that were brought up. I will say that I understand your concern. I also share those concerns. Just earlier today, I had a conversation with staff about the very things that you brought up. And we know that this is something that needs to be carefully thought through just in terms of what is it that we're experiencing. It seems like we've had these kinds of violent incidents more recently in recent weeks. But we pay very much intentionally to data and crime trends.

Thank you, Chief. And if there is, where can people sort of go to learn more about what the police department is doing in response to these types of incidents? Is there somewhere where our community members can go?

Thank you very much. All right. Additional comments. All right. Thank you. And at this time, I also would like to call up Mark Russell, our public works director, just to speak to the concern about trash. Maybe you could give a few comments on how our community members can connect with the city if they have concerns about it.

All right. Thank you very much, Mark. All right. So with that, that concludes the public comment section and response on our agenda for tonight. Thank you all to our community members who came out to express their concerns And so with that we are going to move on to the rest of our agenda with the adoption of the consent calendar I need a motion and a second to approve I Move we adopt the consent calendar second All right, we have a motion and a second. I am tracking that we have two pools on our consent calendar tonight. They are items 4C and 4D. The first beginning with 4C, which is the appr

Council Member Vanderpool. Thank you. I pulled it because to the exact point, I was a little like, okay, you know, $952,000 is something that I was like, oh, well, that's quite a bit for the second floor of the city hall. But it sounds like you're having to build a building within the building almost, right? You have to build the walls and the separate entrances and all of the utility around that. um but that's really what my question that's why i pulled it um because it to to me or to anyone in the public who happens to read the document they're probably like oh wow look at that you know so i

So now we're going to move on to the requested pool for item 4D on the agenda, which is the approval of a bid award for the 2026 sidewalk repair project, a pool that was also requested by Councilmember Vanderpool.

Thank you very much, Mark. Questions for Mark?

Council Member Vanderpool. Thank you again for the explanation. Are you expecting us to continue to be doing both of these at the same time into the future as we go through our capital facilities? Each year we're going to continue to have both our internal crew and contract into the future.

Thank you. Additional comments? All right. Seeing none. Thank you, Mark. All right, so that's it for our polls on the consent calendar. We have a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor of adopting the consent calendar as published signify by saying aye.

Consent calendar is adopted. Before we move on to our business items, it doesn't look like Councilmember Gilman is going to join us. So please just let the minutes reflect that Councilmember Gilman is excused tonight. Thank you. All right. So we'll move on to item 6A on our agenda, which is the jungle encampment transition update. And we have Stacey Ray, who's our assistant city manager, presenting tonight, along with our police chief, Shelby Parker. Hi, Stacey.

Stacey, would you prefer questions during the presentation or would you like us to wait until you get to the end?

Stacy, could you speak to, I believe it was Annette, our public commenter, who mentioned earlier about how is the by name list a closed list and paying attention to how the population at the jungle fluctuates. Could you speak to that?

Thank you, Mayor. Stacey, I just want to ask a clarifying question on that. So the by name list is closed. Folks are not being allowed to come in and start camping there if they haven't camped there. But folks who are coming in are still eligible for services through that coordinated entry, just not through the services that would be paid for by the ERP program?

It does. And then just one follow-up on the, are you, as far as you're aware, were there any folks who have been kind of permanent residents of the jungle, but were not there during the time the by name list was established. Like maybe they have a structure there, but for whatever reason they were not there.

Thank you. Council Member Vanderpool. Really quick, you know, I'll kind of speak to this a little, but one of the criticisms I've heard from folks is the closing of the list, right? And I think that one of the things that has to be made clear is that that's a commerce policy for the way the program works. It's not a City of Olympia policy. Um, because a lot of folks will feel that, uh, I've spoken to service providers and different folks in the community have felt, uh, we wish the S we wish the list system was set up differently, but it, it, it turns out a lot of that is commerce ruling becaus

That's it. I just wanted to clarify that because that is a very important distinction. I appreciate the answer. Thank you.

Stacey, can you provide some clarity or maybe shed some light on what the conversations with the regional team is like when it comes to, so we have our by name list and that's the list and it's closed. What is the response to those who just show up to the encampment? You mentioned the alternative coordinated entry process earlier. But beyond that, what happens in the moment as we're trying to shrink the size of the encampment?

All right. Council Member Vanderpool. I'm not sure if it's ahead in this presentation, but I guess in addition to that, do you want to briefly talk about the navigator potential to use a, the, the housing navigator to help move along that pipeline? That's something that, uh, the regional housing council has approved, but, uh, and that'll come to this council.

Stacey, we have a question from Council Member Barrett.

Stacey, I just want to mention also on your point about sweeping encampments. So that would make us an eligible participant in the encampment resolution program if we just swept the jungle, correct?

Thank you very much, Chief Parker. Your first question will come from Councilmember Green.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for that, Chief. You alluded to this, but I'm going to ask a kind of specific question that I get a lot from community members, which is if OPD is in the jungle and sees something, sees someone using narcotics, sees stolen property, sees other, you know, I think you referred to them as low-level offenses, but criminal activity, why do they not just act on that?

Thank you. Um, additional questions. Um, chief, I was wondering if you could speak to, um, so. Some of this is a unique approach for the jungle, um, and this particular, uh, transition planning. Um, but our officers have also been involved in other encampment closures. So can you speak to that a little bit about how that has looked, um, and what we've already done?

Thank you, Chief. And I know that some of that is sort of, you know, I can kind of hear the comments now in my head, right? Well, why did you wait until now to have a proactive approach here? And I know that some of the, there are challenges specifically with the jungle. And I was wondering if maybe you could shed some light on that without obviously tipping too much towards the scale of providing intel.

Thank you, Chief. And I was wondering if you know, if the department, as they spend more time there, some of the things that you all will come to know at the operational level, can you speak a little bit to how maybe some of those things could or might make its way back to us on council? If you become aware of any new particular challenges that you might face and how you might need to come to us for any given reason. Who knows what that might be. But could you speak to you know maybe how you would handle such a process.

Sure. Well, thank you, Chief. I know that this is something that... In light of recent events, we can see that community members are very concerned about the kinds of activity that's happening at the jungle as we on council share those concerns as well. We appreciate this quick pivot to another approach because the status quo is not acceptable in terms of what's been happening there in terms of violent crime and and other sorts of illicit and illegal activity in the encampment. And we know that, unfortunately, so many of the people that are there are sort of painted with this very wide brush,

Are there any additional questions from Council? Council Member Barrett.

Thank you, Councilmember Barron. Stacey, I wanted to know if you could expand on. So you mentioned the other smaller encampments that have been identified. But what is the city's process? Because this question gets asked a lot. Well, what happens when you close the encampment? You may not provide housing to every single person there. where do they end up going, and what is the process if you start to see another encampment? I think there's a lot of fear and concern that we could have another situation like this on our hands. And given the amount of time that it's going to take to eventually cl

All right. Yes, Council Member Vanderbilt. Thank you.

I guess just one last thing. I just want to thank staff for working on this. I mean, this is not an easy process. I mean, we're dealing with a systemic issue that is all over the West Coast and in parts of the East Coast, part of the Midwest. It's just more visible in certain places, right? There are encampments that exist in the county, the greater county, that are just... that are just not seen, right? And taking on the responsibility of managing this is not easy. I think that The fact that we're able to do so much with dwindling resources from the federal government and concerns around the

Thank you very much, Stacey. And thank you to you and our staff and the entire regional team that is working on this effort. We appreciate it. And we look forward to more regular updates as we make progress to eventually close the encampment. So thank you so much. All right so that concludes our update on the jungle encampment for this evening we're going to move on to our final agenda item on. For tonight, which is item 6 B and that is the pilot program for temporary use of vehicles for habitation discussion which will be led by our community development director Tim Smith.

Thank you very much, Tim. Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I don't have any questions. I think that was pretty clear. I just have a comment, which is I really appreciate your and staff's collective teamwork on this and the willingness to do some creative problem solving and try new things. So I'm looking forward to an update on how the pilot goes, and I hope it goes well. So really responsive to the public comment that we've heard over quite some time now, and also just the desire of council to think about, okay, what can we do instead of what can we not do? So thanks.

Council Member Vanderpool. I'm also, thank you for the quick response to this, because sometimes these types of policies usually don't even take much longer to respond to, honestly. And I appreciate the quick turnaround. And I'm glad that we have our housing, our homelessness emergency to kind of help back this policy change. But my one question, and it just came to my mind, is a lot of folks that are experiencing this may not be aware of this policy. Is there, for example, the thought that comes to my mind is when code enforcement goes out to talk to them, could this memo or, like I say, less

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for this, Tim. I have just two kind of clarifying questions. You just mentioned that one of the things you're suggesting adding is some type of ability to prove that it's a primary residence and not, you know, visiting relatives. What would be an example of like how your team could establish that?

And then, uh, would there be, for somebody who has this permit, would there be a way for me as a neighbor to know that it's a permitted use versus there's just suddenly an RV parked there and now code enforcement is going to get calls and now code enforcement knows that it's permitted. But like, yeah, just, is there any going to be, is there going to be any sort of visual indicator of, this is here under this permit don't call code enforcement.

Additional comments. City Manager Burney.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that, City Manager. I think my thought process in this goes both ways, though, of if there's a way to avoid some code enforcement calls because it's permitted and the city already knows or whatever, it feels like that would be easier than the code enforcement calls or emails coming in and then somebody's got to follow up on all those. So anyway, so that was the angle of my question.

I guess to add on to that, is it possible to have a, we've discussed this before, but a visible permit, like a, you know, visible permit that could be printed out and be in the window of the vehicle so that there, it's just to avoid the interaction entirely as much as possible that an unneeded permit

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Barron. That sparked a question for me, which was, so if I, as a property owner, I get this permit, I give somebody permission, and then two months in, like, it's not going well. Does the city have any obligation to step into that, or is that an issue between me and the person I gave permission to be on my property?

And my understanding is that property owners will be notified of all of those various processes, perhaps even the fact that they might have to do legal consultation and all of that. Okay. My question for you is we're calling this a pilot program. And so the permits are good for six months with the ability to renew or extend. So my question is how long do we intend to see this as a pilot program before we consider it just policy and practice for the city?

All right, great. Well, thank you very much, Tim. I think Mayor Pro Tem spoke at the top about the responsiveness to public comment is much appreciated. And we know that this is one more way to provide a stable living for people who need it. And this gives our city manager that ability to be able to do that. have that flexibility and some very strenuous times specifically around housing and homelessness and I'm glad that we're able to have your department really lead the way and sort of implement this and also enforce the pilot program and we appreciate that so look forward to maybe you coming

Thank you. Questions or comments for Council Member Barron? All right. Seeing none, Council Member Green.

Thank you, Mayor. Since Council Member Gilman isn't with us tonight, I'll just give a very brief report. We had a Finance Committee meeting, I think, since our before last, anyway, since our last reports. And Council Member Vanderpool can correct me, but we just we had a briefing on the capital facilities plan, which I know will come forward to this body. And then we also got a little I'm not going to call it a sneak peek into the budget, but some early conversation around general assumptions that the city is using to build the budget and kind of what how they're approaching that process and l

Thank you All right questions or comments for councilmember green seeing none mayor proton win Just a quick one the lodging tax advisory committee which I share Met the last couple of Fridays. We had a compressed timeline to get the application up to date and how we'd like it, have any improvements made, enhancements, and then the plan is to have it be live all of September so that folks would have a good amount of time to apply, I think five weeks. And then I just wanted to thank Council Member Green for being such an active alternate in that space and sharing some really smart suggestions. A

Thank you. Questions or comments for the Mayor Pro Tem? All right. Council Member Vanderpool.

So one item, yesterday we had the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative. We, I guess the one item that I think is the most, probably the most important was the vehicle miles traveled gap analysis.

That's the total amount a person drives in a day that's to work, to the grocery store, and so on and so forth.

And, you know, I guess the short story is that we're not reaching our reduction goals. You know, it's but what's interesting about this is the second part that's going to come after this is going to be the specific recommendations for our region. They have a I have right here a strategic effectiveness list, and some of it is we're already doing in Olympia land use density, mixed use development, changing your kind of your zoning. But there's some other things in here that are interesting because I'm not sure if any cities do any of these some or some probably do road usage charge congestion pr

Thank you. Questions or comments for Council Member Vanderbilt? Seeing none. Before I go to our city manager, I just thought of something that I want to give a shout out for, and that is to Good Day Seattle. So I was very pleased to participate in an interview for a series of episodes of Zip Trips where they featured the city of Olympia for an entire episode, and it was great to see them out. get to engage with them, get to see the turnout from our community, which was great. And it was a wonderful day. I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day after participating in that. And so I just real

Deja vu all over again. All right. Any questions or comments for the city manager? All right. Seeing none. All right. Well, that concludes the reports. So with no further business before the Olympia City Council tonight, we're adjourned.