City Council - Regular Meeting

Um staff present today is interim finance director Robek, public works director Madden, uh police chief Hernandez, and planning manager Stalnicker. Uh there are three items on the uh there are three presentations today. Uh the first is the events committee. Uh Megan Sheridan will uh present this item. Welcome Hi, welcome. Thank you.

Your first meeting and it's me asking for money. So, just nod. [laughter] All right. So, as you all know, uh, six of the seven of us on events are new as of January 5th. I feel really loud. Sorry. Um with that has brought a ton of energy, new sets of eyes, new passion, past experiences along with feedback that we've been actively gathering trying to determine beyond what we've always done in Milton days, the holiday bizaar um and a Santa event being kind kind of what what the three events have been, but a lot of them being the same because of co right we haven't changed back from why we made the changes in in 2020. So that's why I'm here tonight or this afternoon to talk about kind of a combination of yes, we would like money because we want to do some um focus on uh some big things including the 4th of July, which is America's 250th birthday. Um so first and foremost is whether or not council even wants to do that event. And if it's an overwhelming yes, it's the only time in our lifetime that we can do this. Um, then that's kind of the reason for for the request tonight. Um, but also just really wanted to share with you kind of what our focus is, the conversations, the partnerships. So, it's not me just coming up here saying, "Hey, write me a check." No, it is really truly building community and

participation. volunteer opportunities. And for those who do know me, community and economic development is my passion. And bringing people together, supporting our local businesses within events is huge. So what we after actually conversations with chief, our focus for 26 as an event committee and within events is all about belonging. It isn't just a handful of people that always come because we do this. because that's how it's been done. It is now this focus of who are we? What is our community? How do we get people involved? How do we show businesses we want them to participate? And that every single person that lives in Milton in our surrounding community is welcome and feels that they belong. That's our focus 100%. layered with a lot of partnerships, lot of conversations between police, public works, planning, the school district, parks committee. Um, trying to think, Jessica, who am I missing? There's just been a ton of conversations and excitement um with a new um kind of resurgence and excitement about what we can do. Um, so I [clears throat] know you can't make any decisions tonight. I would love um though kind of that feedback or questions on the Fourth of July event. Um, it is again America 250. It isn't just a one-day event, which obviously it is one day the 4th of July, but they are um it's a national push and then the state has its own committee and then cities decide if they want to participate. But it's a layered three-part with ask you to help me remember this or what

we decided to do. It's to get community and civic engagement. So we've put a little bit of a twist on it, but it's a day before like in June. I think we decided June would be kind of a part community cleanup before school's out that getting people together and really and I think all the conversations have been around what assets the city has. um whether you call it the community park or triangle um everybody kind of has their own thing that is a huge expanded asset that we want to bring people to and take advantage of it and leverage it in multiple ways especially after the investment in the stage that this council did. Um, so it would be a June cleanup and participation, the Fourth of July 250 event and then we're going to do a supposed to be a civic kind of like coming to city council. Sorry, not that you're boring. We wanted it to be open to everybody and so I think we're going to do a Saturday or Sunday tree planting.

Yes. Right. And that would be

Thank you. Yes. Sorry. Thanks for letting me put you on the spot. Um, and that is in participation with the parks committee and [laughter] your entire team. So, that's kind of what the overarching American 250 is. Um, is that concept of bringing community together um, and celebrating something that will only happen once for us. Um, kind of the events that we've thrown out there is really kind of an old school what a lot of us grew up with. Um it would start with Milton PD um dressed as Captain America. We're hoping. Yes. Great race. Um and whatever other um um part of Chief's team and chief want to participate, but it will be a kids bike parade coming down the trail, the paved trail in the park. So we are not shutting down Milton Way again. um which I have side note committed to very reduced impact of closing down Milton Way. Um kids all come down or whoever lands down in front of the stage and then we'll have Declaration of Independence reading which will either be Niels the mayor or he's not here. I was really going to go with you know somebody out of the legal community reading that would be amazing. Um so I think it's kind of a tossup of of who wants to do that and who's available. Um, but just again, why are we all here? Uh, we want to do a community art project that really is all about the 250th, something we can keep long term. Um, think kid handprints, creating a flag, things like that. Um, and then your throwback, tug-of-war, um, hula hoop, lawn games, just that like what we all grew up with. and and this is like an 11 to4 daytime mimicking what

a lot of other communities are doing because we don't traditionally do a Fourth of July event. We're not trying to to replicate what people do with fireworks or anything else. Not to mention that we would be looking at about $50,000 unless we had a partnership um with the Puic tribe step in. And I'm not sure that we're at a point we can do that yet. Um, so that truly combined with local businesses um is what we're looking at for America 250. I'm open to questions. Could I give just a couple of uh suggestion things to 100% please?

So, um, have you ever heard of touch a truck events? I have. that is in my list next because I know my kids love the and I all the ones that I've been to have been really popular with families and kids and it's also helps kind of just get everybody some awareness and education on things, right? So, yes, um even just pulling a police vehicle or two, um having a fire truck, having a school bus, having uh maybe something from the uh public works. You know, my kids loved watching the electricians work on just a p power lines, any kind of um any of those things that we might have.

We do. So, we actually um Tetro Truck, National Night Out, The Yard Sale, those are under Jessica with community outreach. We're actually stepping in. It's part of what the committee has said. We would like to step in and help with additional volunteers and expansion of those. So, yes, Tetra Truck um is Yep. And it's going to become bigger and we're moving it to the park. Okay. Um working with I'm just gonna Do you want to come up here? [laughter] Yeah.

Dustin and his team are amazing and um the parks committee is, you know, we've Yes, it will be well expanded. If you have connections to big trucks, let us know.

Sounds good. Yeah. Um, I do have a neighbor who's I think he works for the fire one of the fire departments locally, so I can check in with him. But even just bringing one to one of the regular um, you know, the other events could be fun. Like if if you've been to the P fair, a lot of times they have like that police display area where it's like there's a crash, you know, example of a crash thing. So it could just be something like that. And then you could also have like what public projects are coming up that we're working on, you know, and then like a little presentation that we could do if if that sounds good. But it's a good way to at least kind of show people what the city's already working on and trying to improve for everybody.

Yep. I know. And yeah, I was going to say I think we are so we do have a city booth at least Milton Day. we might expand it and it really I know it's designed to like hey give us feedback right and just what um what can we do I love the idea chief and I had talked about doing um the impaired goggles right which we want to add for like national night out things like that it is because one it's kind of fun yep but two it's that like no really you can't smoke weed and do your edibles and then drive right so it is yes absolutely that. Yeah. Everything's super super layered. Cool.

So, yes. Thank you. Um, anything else on America 250? Questions clarifying? Yeah. So, is the majority of it going to be at the community park? We with the exception of the holiday bazaar everything now that is a community event um between Jessica Touch a Truck National Night Out at the Holiday Bazaar. Yeah, with the exception of the Holiday Bizarre, everything's going to be at at the community park. Okay. Because I just had a concern about parking, which I'm sure you already thought about because when we had the stage opening, I think parking was a big issue. Yep. So, would you like me to tell you about my plan? Yes, ma'am.

Okay. It's actually Chief's plan and Dustin's plan. It's amazing how I just they're amazing. Um, Oak Street headed down the hill. So, we will make it a oneway um from the top of the park down nose in parking. Correct me if I'm wrong. We are doing nose in parking on that, wouldn't we?

Uh, yes. So, we're currently have a project in design uh to redo Oak Street. Uh that would increase parking all along Oak Street, be diagonal parking facing down the hill. It will still be a two-way street. Um but then we also are going to be bringing a sidewalk uh from the bottom of Triangle Park where Keer Playground is. Um and the project that is in design currently has that sidewalk extending all the way to the school.

Amazing. So until that's finished, what chief and I have talked about, what Niels um was on board and kind of helping to plan that that safety strategy is it would be a oneway where we would have that nose in diagonal parking down oak um adds parking. We've got the parking at the school. Thanks for coming in because Cheryl and I are working very closely with um Superintendent Alfano and his team on leveraging one partnerships but the usage of their properties so that we we can accommodate it and um and expand what what we're looking at. Um, and then the suggestion that came up having, you know, living on Milton Way that gets closed and having battled, you know, volunteers that handle the street closures. What we're going to do this year is hand out everybody will have something goes in their dash that says they they live there. So, we whoever's handling the safety and road closures can can handle that. Um, we're not disrupting residents. Um so that is our interim plan um for events moving over there um while Dustin and team are finishing up. Um and then we've got I mean obviously all the school parking we've got what is that parking lot across from the VA the memorial?

Oh the community building which is scheduled to be removed in the next week if not today. Utilities are currently dislocated or disconnected. He just handled some of your parking. Sounds good. You just ask and it happens. And it happened. That is amazing. Dustin, I do have a suggestion rather than a question. So, do you have anything for the uh pet parents? We the pet parents in general or the ones with controlled great animals? the latter. Okay.

We don't know what those parents are like. We [laughter] don't actually not this year. It is on our 27 possible list. Um I think we have 10 events on that list. Um we want to go and see what Auburn does. Want to read their rules and regulations on it. Auburn has done pedipalooa and all these other things and done it well. Um, have Trisha and I work together with WCIA? Like what's our legality behind that? Um, there's a lot.

I think we're going to leave the dogs this year to just coming to city hall every other Friday. That's that's my thought. But yes, we'd love to have it. We're just Council member Hall. Yeah. Try to raise your hand when you're so we don't we kind of get organized. Um which events are you the events committee working on? So we have the three that we've always done. So Milton Days, the craft bazaar.

So the three we've always done are Milton Days, the Craft Bazaar, and what was the holiday tree lighting. So the postcoavid Santa parade. Okay. Okay. So um with Fourth of July being very close to Milton days, how are you going to shuffle that around? That's why it's pretty low impact and minimal in what we're doing, right? Because we're not needing to shut down Milton Way. We're doing the parade within the park. Everything is Is there food? Is there vendors? I mean, yes, there could be, but again, it's

and then what's the cost? That's a great question. That's why I'm here because we can we could go create an event. We don't have any money to do it, right? So, it's and that's why I'm here. Does council want an American 250 event? Could it be we celebrate Milton Days and Fourth of July at the same time? So you do it at Milton days where you have a separate event or maybe that Friday is Fourth of July.

Um we have already settled on how the expansion of what we want to do for Milton Days and um expanded Friday night to be honest. No, I wouldn't have this space. Um and we already are doing a parade and it is very it's pretty um and we are trying as much as we want to expand and adjust um we know there are areas we have to expand or adjust we don't want to fail an event that people are expecting Right. With the Fourth of July, it's hey, do we want to do this? First of all, it's a the 250th one time. We don't necessarily need to do it again, but do we want to not do an American 250? So, that's part of the question. Um, and whether or not my committee puts the time and energy into that. Um, since you asked about adding on Milton days, I do. Can I add can I share with you what we're expanding? Um, again, the arts committee or parks committee because they're amazing. Um, are going to take over doing a pickle ball tournament. So that will start on Friday, go through um the event on Saturday through Milton Days on Saturday, which again, like I'm gonna repeat myself, we want to expand and highlight what this city has used tax dollars on and and what we have what are the benefits of of being here in our park. So, we've got up at the top all the way down um filled and then we will do a movie in the park

depending on money. Um it will need to be up kind of in the trees up kind of ballfieldish because this stage is not set where you can watch a screen until about 10 o'clock at night unfortunately. So, it will any movies in the park, unless we're doing a midnight, which then we come in a noise ordinance and we're not doing that. Um, will have to be in the trees up in up at the top. Um,

I would say what it's going to cost, I mean, we don't have it in the budget. It's not set in the budget. Um, you guys are new. That's extra burden on you, all of you. And I appreciate every stepping up and absolutely willing to do this. Believe me, this you're putting yourself out there and I really do appreciate that. Also, what would help if we can get notes on the meetings um because I came in and I had nothing that was an even meeting. So, it's really

that's been quite a conversation and um frustration for my team. Um we the well and then we didn't we didn't understand how minutes were supposed to be done and signed. So we um we've been begging just so you know um so that you understand that we we get the frustration. We came into this poor Jessica has taken us on without coaching or training. We have no coaching and training.

So literally Dustin Chief Trisha and Jessica have have stepped up and supported us in the best way they can with again having no background for years. So, I ask for a lot of grace in whether or not my minutes are perfect. Um, it's really important that when we come to a meeting that we have meeting notice,

Francis, I understand that and we are doing our absolute best, but considering that I've got committee members that are now ready to quit because of how they're being treated, I'm just going to be really upfront and honest right now. I ask for grace. So I am and that's why I'm here is to fill in what we're doing, what our passion is, how we want to expand it, and how we want to make sure this entire community feels that they belong. So if the blanket statement across the board is there is no money, which you just said, then we will step back and work within the budget and understand that there is Yeah.

A budget. Can you give us more than yes or no? Can you give us what it would? What do you What's your vision? What is your high vision? What's your low vision? And so we can we have something to grab a hold of. Absolutely. So we have the budget which is 40 just under 43,000. I know. Totally putting you on the spot, Michelle. Just under 43,000 for events. Yes. So right that keep in mind is based on the way we've always done it with all the knowledge and everything that those six people had that quit.

We have nothing. We have no relationships. We have no [clears throat] background. Jessica's trying to

That's interesting. I mean city learns

and we wouldn't expect you to. Yep. I don't think it needs Absolutely. Yeah. But I haven't

It's not frustration. It's what I've been what the direct responses have been to me. Um so I see your hand. One second. Um, from a budget perspective, I have not spent any time to get an itemized line by line budget for America 250. What my hope is, and what we're doing in two weeks with business outreach event, is that we have businesses that want to step in as partners. We may not need $5,000. We may not need $43,000. Be great if I could say, "Michelle, we're fine. But also we know if we want to bring back the holiday parade and the tree lighting like that whole thing that everybody has talked about loving that they wish was back and do it at the park there is some cost. Um, and again, it's over and over and over. The one thing that people miss is doing a tree lighting. And strangely, I've spent a lot of time driving and looking at trees. When you leave, go up 11th, look at the big evergreen that's right next to the stage. That would be the tree that would be lit. Um that would again do the impact from um um the east to the west on Milton Way. Um I I can't give you a budget because we're not spending the time on it other than to say we will do it if council wants it. Um with because we need to get people engaged immediately. Um, and I've got a subcommittee on food trucks that are outreaching to food trucks. Yes, they would like to be

involved. Are we doing it for free? We don't know because again, I think you guys have to set a budget and tell me what my fees would be if somebody is a vendor. So, that's why and again, it might only be one time thing, which again, we do it one time. time we look at it and go, "No, [laughter] we don't want to do it again." But the city didn't skip the 250th anniversary of the country. Um,

could I just have a little clarification on Yeah. Hold on. Yeah. Yeah. Please. Sorry. Can we uh can we please raise your hand to be recognized so that we can have some order to the meeting? Yeah. I Okay. So, when she calls on me, I should raise it. No, when when I when I call on you. So, the mayor address the chair. Thanks. Okay. Um, so, council member poor.

Thank you. Sorry. Um, was just hoping for some clarification. Is this for an existing budget that we kind of already have for um events and and uh the stuff that we normally do, or is this an additional request? I will defer. [laughter]

Can I say yes to both? Um, the 250, American 250 is brand new. Well, clearly. Um, so that would be Yes, that is an additional event cost. Um, and I said $5,000 because I shouldn't need $5,000. But again, we also don't know what the cost is going to be for bringing all the Milton day stuff because I mean just a quick, oh, they came because they're my friend, that band. Oh, I got that food truck because of this. We don't have those relationships. So, we may be looking at additional cost, but we're also doing like, you know, Cheryl's leveraging relationships within the school district. So, we're kind of we all come at it differently, but so it will definitely not be the way it's always been done. Um, but again, we don't know what our costs were. Those costs have been I think the same and been pretty repetitive for the last six or seven years. We all know where our costs have gone. So, I do think there's but we are being super intentional about this is what is in the budget. this is what I can work with. Michelle's given me kind of what the last couple years look like, which is why we're going out to talk to businesses, invite them to be part of a conversation. And not just events like economic development, how do we support you? Safety, all of it. It's like an all-inclusive um event. Soon as we have the postcards, I will get them to council in your mailboxes.

Council member Whan. Well, I just just have a question about the events in the past. Yeah. Do we have and this is this is for Michelle. Do we have cost identification to each event? In other words, if we look at um the Milton days, we know what it's going to cost for the staff, for the park, you know, everything else we need to do. And that's do you have those all those numbers or

Yes, they they are included in the community events fund in your budget. Um so it shows the the previous year, the current year um budget or the previous year, the um at the time the current year projected and then the 2026 budget. Um, I know you probably don't have your um I think council member Poor has I just handed him his budget, but it's on page uh 50 of that document, but it does it does separate um the different events. We have line items for Milton Days and line items for the craft bazaar and line items for the tree lighting. And I was just curious if you have all that information. Absolutely

you do. So, we've got the budget. Yes. And and what Michelle is able to provide 100%. And yes, I mean, Michelle's given me everything I need. I I just want just wanted to be sure that people that have involved with this have that information. And yes, it's in our budget, but now it's also your opportunity because it's going to not stay the same cost to do the same. 100% it won't. And you have to kind of factor in if this is enough or if we have to infuse funds for all the events we want to take place. And believe me, they're wonderful. And I'd like a new vision about what we can do to improve them.

Absolutely. And and in conjunction with other events, what can we combine that kind of saves

cost? Absolutely. Well, and that's I mean I think Cheryl can you know attest to that is well that's so much of what's happening as we come in and go okay we have to be the best stewards we can of taxpayer dollars leveraging every partnership we can volunteer opportunities what can staff do or not I mean I before we say yeah we could do a pickle ball tournament I was at the parks committee meeting are you sure we could do that would that work do you guys want to take it Chief, would Captain America go down the path? Absolutely. Like we are one so blessed by all of you because they have that same passion of belonging and community and participation and partnerships. So leveraging everything possible while understanding we can't waste money. So, how do we do can we do more with less when costs have gone up? No. But also, and that's why I'm here, like yes, if we want to bring back a huge beloved event of a tree lighting and Santa and with the partnership with the East Pierce Fire Department and giving out gifts and all the things that so many of you were a part of for a very long time precoid, it's going to cost us a little bit, but again, my hope is that this is just kind of a an upfront piece so that we can make sure that we have the bands, the vendors, etc. and a buy in and it's what we're leveraging talking to businesses because I we may not need all the money

you've already said okay to which we started talking business outreach like January 2nd. Council member Roberts. Thank you, Mayor. So, when do you need an answer by as far as needing this? Do you need this today or I don't think you can make an answer today. Okay. Um, right. No action say. Okay. Okay. Um, that's what I thought. I mean, I don't know if it's on the agenda for next week. I have no idea. We could develop a consensus. People could could give their um their feelings on whether uh we as a council would endorse a America 250 event or not. Correct. If I can't hear everything,

if I knew you guys wanted to move forward and we said, "Okay, yes, events committee, go look at America 250, we're meeting with businesses in a couple weeks, here's an opportunity for partnerships. I'd love to come back next month's study session or any other time and say, "Never mind, I don't need your money. You know, I've got businesses that have stepped in." Um, but if it's not a consensus to even do the event, then it doesn't matter. So, so I agree with uh council member Hall as far as wanting more information, having you know meeting minutes, etc. So, if you could provide us like an itemized estimate, I if that's possible,

I'm going to say no. I do not want to ask my committee to put time and energy into an event that council isn't going to want to say yes to. I'm not telling you to commit to money. That is not and I didn't take that as what you meant by a consensus. If if the consensus is yes, we want to do an America 250, great. Absolutely. We've got a meeting tomorrow night. We'll dive in. Okay. And and we can have we're creating subcommittees for everything. I'm not saying say yes on money, like a consensus on money. It's not what I'm saying. But I don't want to ask my committee to step up and put energy into something that you guys as a whole are going to say, "No, let's not do it."

Okay, sounds good. Yeah, I think we should have a consensus then for sure determine whether everybody's on board or would like otherwise. Yeah, council member mounts. I have great great memories of the bsentennial. I would love to see an American. So you want to volunteer to make sure you pass on to the next generation that same event, right? [laughter] I am put I am just putting you on the spot. You do not need to answer. I definitely agree with the commitment. Council member Mounts, when you push the button, it's it's mute. [laughter] So So So don't press it. That was intentional, but it wasn't. Sorry.

Um I I would definitely be committed to supporting the the training and inspiring of the next generation regarding our country's founding, present, and future. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Anyone else? Council member Roberts. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, I also agree with the celebration as well. You have a lot of good ideas and you know, it only happens one time, right? So, I'm I'm on board for it as well. Awesome. I'll add both of you on that volunteer list. I appreciate you right there with Chief and his bike and Bruce reading the declaration. We got this. [laughter]

Anyone else have uh any comments about this issue? Council member Hall, I would want you to succeed more than anything. Thanks. And I would say tone it down. Make it good if you're going to do it. Oh gosh. Yes. And have a tight budget. It's got to be tight budget. We've got to have the minutes. We have to have confidence that it can work for you. Absolutely. I mean, my heart knows what you've put yourself out there for. So, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Oh yeah. No, it is it is as minimal as we could do with creating um council mounts what you just said that you come away with memories from that. That's what we want and I think that can be said across every event that every single person that showed up felt they belonged and they take away a memory from this amazing experience that the city put on. Um and that is what every one of us that has stepped in um believes. All right.

Well, thank you, Mr. Sheridan. Um, we will we will I guess uh wait to see what you guys come up with. And so I should take away there is a consensus to move forward. I I heard I heard a majority. Yes. [laughter] All right. Yes, Council Member Poor.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I I think that uh there is probably a lot of interest in more uh community engagement like the 250th celebration. I just think that it would be helpful if we could um know what kind of what we're voting trying to put the money towards. And I I understand that it's probably very hard for them to want to put the extra effort on that. It's just um I I want it to be successful as well. And uh it might help if we know what we're putting that money toward,

right? And we're not being asked to um decide that. Right now the events committee is just asking for direction in terms of whether um they should work on the event or not in order to give us a proposal. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right. The next item on our agenda is a department overview and Angelie Stalenecker will be uh uh introducing this item. Good afternoon, mayor and council. Um, so we just uh at leadership we had discussed the fact that obviously there's a lot of new um council members um and that it would be might be helpful for everyone just to have sort of a quick rundown of each department, who's in it, um what are your contacts, what we do, that kind of stuff. So, um, we're just going to do a quick, um, kind of we just do department by department. Um, I can just run we can just run through them all or we can stop briefly the questions for each one might be appropriate. So, um, the first one I since I kicked it off, I said I'd go ahead and cover administration um, for them as well. So, obviously that includes the mayor, which is um, Bruce White, city clerk Trisha, which you've met. Um there's also the deputy city clerk, Nikki, and um the community outreach coordinator, Jessica. Um and so within that department, you've got your city clerk, which takes care of all the council stuff, human resources, public records, business licenses, risk management, communication, recreation activities, and rentals. So that's sort of that chunk. Um so if you have questions on any of those things, those are sort of the people that you're going to for contact. So, um any questions on that?

Council member about rentals. What specifically uh do we rent? So, um we rent basically it's just the MAC, the activity center. Okay. Um you can rent the whole thing or certain rooms. There's all in the fee schedule that's adopted by um city council um kind of usually once or twice a year. There's a whole list that talks about how much it's rented depending on is it during the day when staff is here, is it after hours, is it on the weekend. So, at the moment, that's the only thing that we have rentals for. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Mounts. Can we have a copy of your slide deck?

Yes, we we were just finishing touches since a couple people were on vacation, so we will send that out. Um, okay. So, anything from Trisha Dium? Okay. Um, then I would just let Michelle briefly talk finance. Thank you very much. Um, the finance department is made up of of five employees. Um, the administrative assistant and the two finance technician ones primarily focus on um cash utility billing and customer service and cash receiving. So the majority of our department is focused on um basically utility and billing. Um myself and the and the finance tech finance technician too also do work like um accounts payable, payroll, the annual budget and the annual financial report and audit. And then of course all things that come up involving money um here and there we we usually deal with. Does anyone have any questions or

Council Member Roberts? Thank you, Mayor. Um, got a question about the auditing. I'm obviously very ignorant to a lot of the processes. The audit, is that typically done internally or do we have an external like third party that comes in and checks that out?

No, that's a really good question. This every year we're audited by the state audit and an accountability audit. Um we this year we are currently right as we speak going through um the financial statement audit for 2024. They're almost done with that. Um and they are doing an accountability audit for 2022 through 2024. It's kind of a big one. Um and that's when that that's what um they'll be discussing at the audit entrance conference. All right. Great. Thank you. Yeah.

Police chief Good evening. Just a quick overview of the police department. I'm Tony Hernandez for those of you that don't know me, chief law enforcement officer for the city of Milton. Some of the collateral duties and responsibilities that I have obviously are enforcement of the laws of the state of Washington and the ordinances or the laws for the city of Milton that have been created by this legislative body or past legislative bodies. I'm the fire department liaison where I frequently work with East Pierce and go over um fire launch or fire services in the city of Milton. Uh court services we contract currently with the uh Pialup Court for our courtroom many years ago. There was a courtroom here but uh for logistics and space um and support we ended up contracting with Palop. So, we do have a Milton court, but it's in Palop. And at that court is where our misdemeanor uh cases and tickets uh are adjudicated. Uh and we uh have a judge down there as well. And we also have domestic violence advocates. We have language uh interpreters. Um, so that is uh and we have a city or uh court clerk also that provides court clerking services for the city of Milton. Um, that contract is about $400,000 for all those services that they provide. Uh, we also have electric home monitoring. We have a judge. We do have a prosecutor uh that is responsible for misdemeanor prosecutions and tickets in the city of Milton. Uh we also have a prosecutor at the felony level that it does not work directly for us but is elected by the people of Pierce County, uh Mary Robnet. And uh when there is a felony committed in the city of Milton, it is the responsibility of the county

to prosecute that case and we're not responsible for those costs or that incarceration if it is a felony charge. But for misdemeanor, we are responsible. So you'll see that we do have jail services. We contract currently with uh Score Jail, Pierce County Jail, and Pialup Jail. At any given time, we have between two and five individuals in custody for misdemeanor charges that are pending. When we do have long-term commits or people that have been sentenced uh after the case has been adjudicated, they might spend up to a year in a uh jail on behalf of the city of Milton uh charges. And so we do do long-term commits. Those individuals we usually send over to Yakama or Sunnyside. And that's simply because uh the daily rate for jails is quite costly. Can range from $199 to $350 a day. So for our long-term commits, we send them over to Yakama where it's about $60 to $70 a day. So, our annual jail budget is about a quarter of a million dollars to house misdemeanor uh individuals that have either been uh charged or have been um taken into temporary custody while they stand trial. We also uh have dispatch which we all dispatch services are round run through south 911. We pay over a quarter of a million for that. We pay about $275,000 a year for dispatch services. With that, they also do the records management portion of our warrants and uh our record keeping for all of our metrics data and uh every time that there is a call into 911. They're the ones that dispatch uh the Milton Police Department. We also have the camera program which you're aware of. This is

the first year that it's been in operation and we continue to monitor it and I'll be bringing you updates on how that program is proceeding and what those revenues are looking like and how many uh violators uh we have and I've been for the previous people that weren't here I have been giving updates on that program and you'll be getting another one by the end of the month. I'm also collateral duty responsible for the information technology for the entire city. And so I maintain the contract with block systems uh to provide all of our critical infrastructure, computers, um hard all that storage and stuff like that and that is housed in the police department. I'm also responsible collaterally for all emergency management services should we have a crisis or a critical event. also the leaison and responsible for animal control services which we currently contract with a metro animal control services which is a a uh aggregate board of uh partner cities that uh we contribute to uh animal services animal services is hosted by the sum police department and then we are a part of that board we also have inter agency cooperation where we ha are a member of the vance collision so if we should have a serious fatality, collision, we are able to surge past our capacity of our police department uh because those investigations can beite complex and require a lot of manpower. So for example, if we were to have a a fatality collision, we can add 10 members uh at the request and those agencies, the inter agency cooperation occurs with all small cities in the city of or in the county of Pierce, Pierce County. And then we also have an advanced homicide team that also is an inter agency cooperation with all small cities in Pierce County that we are a member of.

And so again, like we had our murder up here. Uh we brought in 10 extra detectives from the surrounding jurisdictions and we serve on those boards with the understanding of uh reciprocity and that we will assist those agencies should they request our cooperation. It helps all the small cities control their costs and have the ability to be able to handle those more complex investigations. We also are on the SWAT team for small cities. Uh and so we do have the ability if necessary to request SWAT team support and again that would be all small cities from uh Pierce County would respond to our aid and assist us in a SWAT mission. That SWAT team does are uh practice every month and there are very tight controls and restrictions on maintaining a qualified SWAT team. So just at a glance, that's just some of the things that uh we do in the police department. And then uh there's a picture there. Currently, we have 16 police officers. Um there'll be a breakdown on the next slide. Out of those 16 officers, uh we have three that speak Spanish and they are interpreters. We have one that speaks American Sign Language. We have one Middle Eastern translator uh for Arabic and various dilates in Persian and Turkish. And yes, we do use all of our uh translators quite frequently. You'd be surprised at the need in our community or surrounding communities because of the diversity of our department. We have a reputation. We're well known. We frequently get requested outside of our city limits to assist other jurisdictions with language interpretation. Um, and then on the next slide, um, we have three sergeants and the administrative chief, which he was at the last meeting while I was on vacation. We have an administrative

assistant, Neils Luckman, who is a retired sergeant from the Milton Police Department with over 25 years of experience that handles our front window. Um we have one dedicated traffic officer that came with the camera program and is funded 50% uh by the camera program. So 50% of his time is spent administering the camera program. The other 50% is spent uh handling traffic concerns or issues throughout the community. We have two detectives which handle advanced investigations uh that are more complex, require more time such as felonies, homicides, sexual assaults, uh pornography, sex trafficking and on and on. Uh we have one reserve officer and that is a citizen at large that they volunteer their time. They don't receive any pay and they go through a qualification just like a police officer does and then they volunteer their service for the city of Milton. We have one chaplain who also is a volunteer. His name uh is uh Lance Circle and he works for the East Pierce Fire Department and is the chaplain for the city of Milton. And we have a drug dog and uh we've had very good success with our drug dog and we have quite the reputation in Pierce County as being one of the most proactive and having the highest number of uh drug arrests and um quantities of drugs recovered. U and so we're quite proud of that program. And just uh for your information to try to give you an idea of the volume that the Milton Police Department handles, last year we had 39,000 calls for service. Over 11,000 of those calls were from 911 specifically. So what does that mean? That means the other calls of out of that 39,000 were off officers that were actually out there being proactive,

responding to suspicious people, doing traffic stops, um doing patrol checks, checking um other things that got their attention. So, our officers are very proactive in the community and trying to safeguard this community. And then just uh as a little tidbit, 231 traffic accidents we responded to as well last year. So we stay quite busy with the number of officers that we have. I think that's it. Right. And certainly I'll be available for questions and I still intend to meet with every council member and and go into some of the more intimate details about the police department, where we're at, where we're going, and what the next five years look like.

Any questions for Chief? [snorts] Council member Roberts. Uh thank you, Mayor. So the 39,000 that's within the city limits. Yes. Wow.

Yep. That's one of the things that every year I get uh a report that tells us how many calls and what the types of calls are. And so when I meet with you guys, I'll go over the different types of call types from DUIs to uh animals at large to arson to sexual assaults to residential burglary to helping citizens, disorderly individuals, identity theft, fireworks, hospital guard detail, harassment, uh hazardous situation, encourageable juvenile, kidnapping, liquor violations, overdoses, hit and runs, narcotics. I can go on and on and on. And I've got a list here of about a hundred different things that uh call types that we respond to. Yep.

Council member Whan, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this information and the reports that we're seeing, but I'm going to ask a favor. Can I get a copy of just what we've seen just uh shown here because I do get questions and so forth, and I'd like to have what might be uh more accurate information than I presently store in my mind. So I think these this information would be very good and I think it's only four pages. You know the whole report. Can we get copies of that? Good. I see the yes answer on your right shoulder. Yeah. Excuse me. Your left shoulder.

Um before we go on, Council Member Roberts, I was just reminded by our clerk that you need to bring your microphone closer so that you can get on the recording when you speak. I'm sorry. So I could what? cuz I [laughter] can't hear you. You've just done the right thing. Ah, okay. Okay. My apologies. Okay. Council member Poor.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I was just wondering, um, so my wife had alerted me to there's been some, uh, complaints on like community pages about the new traffic cameras. Um, I think specifically it was the one across from Safeway. Um there's like a big rock wall and so a lot of people are finding it really challenging to be able to see the oncoming traffic and so they they end up like stopping a little bit further and getting dinged for it. This look may you might have had uh some awareness of that maybe already I assume. Well, this is a new program, so we are in consistent evaluation. And so, as citizens complaints come in about the the program, we look at those complaints and decide whether or not adjustments need to be made. And we have that conversation with our leadership team and the mayor. Um, and it's just not my program. Public works is integral, finance is very integral into helping, you know, monitor the funds and make sure that we're recovering the costs. and public works is very important to um helping us with the sign placement and to make sure that we are giving adequate appropriate notice so that people don't feel like somehow they're being uh tricked so to speak into getting a violation. So, we are listening to those and we are monitoring those and we will continue to do that and if we need to, we will continue to make adjustments uh because we do have the ability to make some adjustments to where the violation gets triggered.

The main concern is in that particular corner is when individuals go into the crosswalk because we don't want to push the pedestrian traffic into oncoming traffic. And so the decisions of where the stop lines are placed was made based on what we were trying to accomplish as far as pedestrian safety. Um there have been some conversations around maybe more signage because if you're down in F, for example, at one of their camera stops, there's a sign that says with an arrow on 70th as you come across 70th and um what is it down there? It's 70th and uh 20th. There's a sign right there. There's an arrow that says stop here.

Okay. And then you can and as long as you make that stop, then you can proceed out. But when they're what they're looking for is that there was a heightened awareness that the individual made the stop to look for pedestrians, then did their safety stop further out to make sure that But that's the main thing is pedestrian safety. Awesome. Thank you. Yep. Any more questions? Council member Roberts. Thank you. I just do have a question about how the uh funds are used. I do have an understanding that the funds used do go back to the infrastructure to maintain it and whatnot, but also too the funds are going to be used specifically for traffic calming. They can't be used for anything else. Correct.

Unfortunately, legislation was changed a couple years ago. So people that had grandfathered programs were allowed to use that money to offset some of their operating costs like the police department. For example, FE was able to pay for like four or five police officers. Under the new legislation, because we did not have our program operational, the legislator said, "Nope, we want this to be very specific on and targeted for uh motor and pedestrian traffic safety only." So it goes into a special fund which is dedicated so that it is audible, trackable and so that any expenses out of that fund uh meet the legislative requirement. And so there at some point in the near future here, I'm sure myself and director Madden and the finance director will be getting together to have conversations about setting up what the capital projects would be to uh enhance uh pedestrian and motor vehicle traffic and traffic calming measures. And for the new council members, we do have a traffic calming program where we paid a consultant to come in, set the program up, and create mechanisms for citizens and the council to provide input to staff so that then we can take action. And now with the camera program, we have a funding mechanism to actually be able to do that.

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Council Member Bore.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say uh thank you. I during your presentation you talked about kind of paying attention to drug enforcement quite a bit. My background is probation officer and uh while I think our state's kind of direction to try and um reduce um arresting people for only drug issues is really nice in theory. But a lot what from my experience is there's a lot of times other crimes being committed around those drugs right um whether it's assault you know sexual assault different you know other things be they're distributing all that so uh I just want to say thank you for that emphasis and um thank you guys for your service appreciate that

any further questions all All right. So, back to me. Um, so community development is um my area that I oversee. The department covers um myself who is um acts as the manager of the department as well as the uh principal planner for any of the land use cases and long range planning that come in. We also have a building inspector, Robert Flint. um he is currently our our desire is um historically we've had a building official that does all of the aspects um we were unable to find a qualified person to fill that role and Robert Flint is so he we have hired him as a building inspector and he is um one year through a three-year program that will make him a building official by the time he's done. So that's sort of our long range plan. So, he does all the inspections. He talks to people at the counter. Um, he also does some minor plan review, but for any major review, we do use a third-party service. And I've listed some of the third parties that we use to give that more specialized that we don't that way we don't have to have them in house for plan review and it's for buildings. It's called WC3. Um, we also have a permit tech which is Jaden Ripley. She is our frontline defense. um inputs all the permits and obviously deals most with the public. Um and then like I said because we in order to not be an have to hire an expert on everything we have multiple on call contracts um for building plan review. It's um WC3 is West Code code compliance or code something. Um engineering both um public works and the community development department uses Grant Osborne. they know the ins and outs of and they know they have uh vast knowledge of all the different various utilities and civil and storm water. So

we use them. Um we do have a backup on call service for inspections since we only have the one. Um for any like bigger planning projects we have a company called framework and for our critical areas wetlands if we need a specialist biologist we have Grady Associates. Um so basically community development deals with all the private um applications for private property development. So if it's a single family house, someone's remodeling, any of those are going to come into us. We do the subdivision approval, people who are dividing up their property. Um anything that's a bigger project also has the land use zoning approval. So, if you're doing um apartment complexes, um large commercial structures, that's they're going to also go through a land use process to make sure that their site meets all of our codes for landscaping, for design, for storm water. It's sort of that central thing. Um and then obviously civil site development. Once they've been approved to, let's say, put in um an apartment complex, then they have to have the civil site development permits. We work obviously really close with both utilities and the engine sure that work is done correctly. And then um our department also does what's called long range planning. So um and this also is handinhand with the planning commission. That is a the commission um is a research body and a recommendation body for the city council. They are a member of they have seven people who are volunteers um again appointed by the mayor um kind of voted and approved by the council. They um review any changes to the zoning code. So we have the the zoning code which is things like setback design, landscaping, tree retention, all those things. It also covers um the dividing of the land. It also covers

anything that's environmental. So our critical areas ordinances and stuff. So every year the planning commission um reviews various code updates. Um next Monday you'll actually or it's Monday holiday so Tuesday at the next council meeting um the council gets to set sort of the work plan for the planning commission. So we'll show you what we've been working on, what we accomplished last year, what's carried over from last year, what we may want um to add and suggest for this next year. And so that's there. Um it's also enforcement of the zoning and environmental codes. Um and then also compliance intake. So anyone who um wants to comp complain about something, concerned about something their neighbor, there's a form that we really um request people to fill out online and that comes in to Jaden and then she will distribute that to um the appropriate person. If it's someone building something without permits, we'll send out our building inspector to take a look. If it's something that we think is due to storm drain issues or um a street issue, we'll contact operations and they'll go take a look at it. Um if it's land use, they're you know, there's some different things or nuisances, those go directly between myself and Jaden. So that's sort of the overview of the various issues that we cover. So, if there's any questions on that,

any questions. All right.

Okay. And lastly, we've got public works department. And so, we've uh we have 23 FTE. My name is Dustin Madden. I'm the public works director. Um up here on upper campus is what we call it. Uh I've got my administrative assistant, Ken Fochch. His primary focus is contract development and bidding. Um and then also uh managing uh a budget from um you know just keeping me apprised of how much budget remains. Uh he also oversees our professional service contracts. Um then we've got uh an administrative assistant down below, Carlina Veter, and she is the point person for everything that comes in to the city that has an operational component. So if people have questions about um water, power, storm, parks, all of those questions come in and they will either get divided to one of those two individuals who are both phenomenal. Um if it's operational focus, it'll go down to Carlina. If it's um you know more budget, upper campus or overarching or directly associated to a project or a vendor, then those come up to Ken Foch in our office. Um we also have a project manager uh Val Boozenoff and he lo he uh also he scopes projects he develops budgets. Um an example of a project that he would manage internally um is potentially a water line that we are replacing. Val would help us scope uh project costs. um he would uh facilitate the bidding process and to get multiple bids. Um and then an example of that is the stage. When we went out to bid on the stage, Val was the point person on that project. Uh he was the primary point of contact for both the contractor and any residents that had questions.

Uh we have an asset management and GIS coordinator, uh Axel. He's fairly new to the city, phenomenal individual, and he is going to help us uh improve our asset management uh program, which is uh was called Cardigraph. It's now called Open Gov, but it essentially uh creates a 3D mo or a digital model of all of our city assets. So all of our water lines in the city, every manhole, um every storm, every every light pole, um those are all managed by his department, they're mapped and then he is the point person for the city to make sure that um all of our team members who are out in the field can access that information in real time either through an iPad or their phone. Uh so every water meter is identified in the city and mapped. Um, and next we've got our fleet manager mechanic, uh, Alan Sierro, and he is the primary point of contact for all equipment, generators. Um, he also he's a very tech-savvy individual. And so he helps with our our speed signs and is really a jack of all trades when it comes to helping us um work through issues that are have a high-tech kind of uh component to them. On call on call services gray and Osborne um are engineering on call engineering. They have been with the city for I want to say approximately 25 years on and off. They've been involved in almost every project that the city has had here. Um, and so they help us whether it's uh coming up with sidewalk drawings uh to go out to bid or um helping us manage our uh storage tanks for water reservoirs and set points and how all of

that works. They also run models for fire flow for us. So we work with them very closely on a day-to-day basis. We can go to the next one. Oh, anybody have any questions on on this sheet? Okay. And maybe I'll I'll wait till the end because there's a couple more here that are broken out. So, next one is the our electric department. It's currently comprised of two individuals, Jared Lee and Dana Pearson. Um, we have an opening for alignment position in that. Uh we do have a a um a temporary person that comes in and helps us on Fridays from another utility. And that is a way that the city has been able to uh continue to operate all of our our electrical components, respond to emergencies, uh go do preventative maintenance and asset inspections. So they're inspecting all of our transformers, wires, poles, connection points. Um, and that team works very closely with Val, our project manager, to scope any internal electric projects that we may have. Uh, next is storm water. Uh, we have Daniel Dyer. He is our storm water compliance inspector. And Daniel's primary uh, focus is storm water plan review. So, anything that is coming in on the private development side um that will connect to our our public storm water system, Daniel will be on the front line of reviewing those, providing recommendations. Um he also will go and inspect all of those new storm water developments uh to make sure they're in compliance with their spec with their plans and specifications. Uh he also inspects and monitors all of our existing assets for storm water which are pipes, open ditch, uh drainage basins, flow control, um emergency

response. If there is a spill, uh Daniel will be the front person to communicate with Department of Ecology, uh make sure that we are in compliance with any requirements uh with the national pollutant discharge uh permit that we maintain through the state. And then lastly, but not least, is our operation component. So this is where out of the 23 uh full-time FTEEs that we have or full-time employees uh about 17 of them are on the operation side. So this is what actually keeps the city running and we're doing everything from distribution water to water quality sampling daily uh reports for the department of health and the state. um they manage and troubleshoot all of our water meters through the city and and any water line issues. We have a couple of team members who have a high degree of uh experience in storm water. So, they'll work with Daniel any issue that he identifies. Uh the storm water crew will uh not only maintain that infrastructure, but they will help us scope projects for the flooding that happened up by the school. Um we we have a we're a collaborative collaborative [clears throat] group and so we'll bring together myself, Val, storm water compliance and operations to scope those projects. Um street department, we've got our street sweeper, potholes. Um we've got an on call for uh overlay and pavement restoration. on call meaning that we have a general contract with a vendor then they will give us specific prices to accomplish tasks that we would like to accomplish and as long as we have the budget um they have gone through the competitive procurement process we've selected them based on quantities and

cost of those quantities um so they will come out and do street overlays um or even they've done some sidewalk work for us uh updating ADA ramps that type of work uh parks, everything in the parks. Um we do contract with a third party for mowing and some weed management, but a lot of the detail work uh is done internally with our facility and parks team. Um facilities, all the buildings that we're in um and uh just up updating, making sure that everything is in working order. If there is any issues, lights go out. Uh there was a blower fan in this room that the team fixed today. So I'm apprised of all those emails and and uh uh coordination to keep our facilities up and running. Utility locates, that's a big one right now with easy fiber in here. Um our team is required by state law to respond to utility locates um and produce uh up to 700 lineal feet of locates per day. So that is you know a burden on the team. Um, typically it's not uh an overly cumbersome burden, but when you have a vendor coming in like Easy Fiber who's, you know, putting in 17 20 miles of fiber in the ground, that turns into a full-time position that, uh, our operation team will absorb. And then lastly, emergency response, after hours calls, responding to water leaks, power line outages. Um our team uh every day 247 has somebody on call to respond [clears throat] to any of those emergencies and those are routed through 911. Uh any questions?

Council member Poor.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh I had uh just a compliment and then a question. So um I got to meet Jared and Dana from the electrical division uh la last week. They actually came out to my house and fixed the power line connection at my house from the service. Um, and they were excellent. They were wonderful. They did bring up some confusion on uh because when I So, basically what happened is I lost half of my circuits because one of the main lugs from the service coming into the house, the the connection had gone bad. And from what I understand, that was kind of increases the risk of fire because of the uh the way the electrical works. Anyway, when I called uh I looked on the website um for major power outages and stuff like that and it's kind of was like u I had to leave a message and they were kind of confused maybe thinking that um there might be a way to improve the process of how to get the call directly to Jared. Um, I think there's a way to maybe uh get a hold of him, but I wasn't we weren't sure exactly how to do that from the website. And so I just was just bringing that in case, you know, something like that happens in the future. Maybe maybe the um maybe we could make it more clear like for for like an emergency thing. This is who you call for like right now kind of thing. Um, and for emergencies, it did route me to like South Sound 911. Um, so I just, and that might already be in place. I just figured I'd bring it up. Uh, thank you for bringing that up. I would say that there's room for improvement um, in the clarity of our website and simplifying things. Um, in theory, all of those calls and emails should go down

to Carlina, uh, the admin assistant, and then she creates a work order, which will go out to the the subject matter experts, whether it's electric, storm, water. Um but there we have made an internal group now um that uh we have decentralized our control over the website and we've got more people providing input and we have an internal team looking at ways to simplify that for our residents and users and also making sure that it is adaptable to a mobile platform because most people are on their phones these days when they're trying to find contact information. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Whan.

Thank you. This is a little bit of a side note. You know, my Grant Osborne about 2003 or 2004, shortly after I got on council, I went down to visit them. And when you walk through their front doors, they've got a long road of 4 foot high or four foot high and three feet wide. I'm not sure if that's the actual dimensions. And in the middle of it was Milton three big cabinets. I suspect there's another one or two up there. They've done a lot of work for us. It's a good company and we've always been appreciative of them. Jeez, now I lost the second question I had here, but it's not it's more of a comment than a question. Um, I don't remember it succinctly here. It's a lot of conversation going on, so I'll ask that at another time. But If if I may just speak to the importance of Gra Osborne. Um you the city doesn't currently have a city engineer. That was a position that we had open for approximately three years and we were unable to fill it. It's a very competitive market and the private uh private industry was just absorbing most of [clears throat] those qualified individuals. Um and so at that time we decided to bring Val on as our project manager. He's got a background. He worked for PSSE. And so he had a background in both civil engineering, construction, and electrical. And so that was a way that we were able to kind of bolster our internal uh subject matter experts and and project delivery team without having a city engineer. The other thing that I just you know everyone might not understand engineers typically focus in one area of expertise whether it's civil drainage water so having this on call

relationship with grain osborne gives us access to all of their engineers um and so we are able to leverage that um and and get great feedback from that team. Uh, an example of that would be um, uh, a project that we are almost ready to go out to bid for, which is Hill Tower Park. Um, we worked with another engineering firm to do the design for that. We went through the competitive process. We determined that we would go with another firm. Um, but Grant Osborne is still working on the city's behalf to make sure all of those uh in inlets and outlets uh on the storm system, everything is designed appropriately and to industry standard. So, I just I couldn't be happier with Gray and Osborne and and uh the way that they support the city.

Yeah. But they know our history quite a bit and I remembered the second question and I don't mean to burden everybody with these simple questions. I think it was two years ago we bought a new remote controlled mowing machine and I'm calling it that because I don't remember the name. How has that turned out?

It was the first one on the west coast and we have other municipalities coming and and visiting our sites and it is working fantastically. Not only have we reduced the risk to some of our team on these critical slopes and down in these storm ponds um but we've also the biggest savings for the city. Um I guess first we purchased that robotic mower uh through our department of ecology uh capacity grant. So that was how the city moved forward with that purchase. Um it's got a large deck. It's got articulating wheels and so it can pretty much handle any slope. And we've been able to go from four people cleaning a storm pond to two. Uh, one with the remote that's driving and one offering, you know, visual support. I'd like to see it operate one particular time. It's a it's a large mowing machine remotely controlled and I just like to see that sometime. Yeah. No, but it's it's just nice that we have new folks and so forth and that was one of the um most surprising I should say investments in the uh public works department. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Mounts. I just want to say thank you for your department and all that you guys do. Every time I've had to call, you guys have been right there, cheerful, happy, and even come back and knocked on my door and checked on me. So wonderful. Yeah, it's been great. Thank you. We we do put a high priority on customer service here at the city uh in many of our avenues, whether it's PD, finance, public works, planning. Uh that's always a focus of ours. If I can follow up and say that I'm also grateful that Chief Hernandez employees have never had to come knock on my door. So, [laughter]

all right. Thank you. Uh moving on to the third presentation. Uh this will be uh given by chief.

Good evening council. Uh I wanted to take a moment to speak directly to you and our community uh during a time when many in our community may be feeling uncertainty or concerns rel related to immigration enforcement activities occurring nationally and in parts of our states. I have spoken with some of our council members regarding um the activities that they've seen on TV and across the country and in various states throughout the United States. So what if I should show up and how would we respond? From what I have seen around the country, simply choosing not to respond when federal agents are involved is not a solution. Our responsibility as a local police department is to remain present to protect everyone involved and to help ensure that situations do not necessarily escalate unnecessarily. The Milton Police Department is proactive and community oriented and we when appropriate will act as professional mediators and attempt to manage any intense encounters before they turn into something more dangerous. In moments of high emotion and uncertainty, having trusted, accountable, local law enforcement officers on scene can provide stability and help prevent misunderstandings or conflict. Many police department, including ours, invest heavily in deescalation training, crisis intervention, and community policing because we know that aggressive or militarized responses amplify fear, mistrust, and tension. I have personally observed the use of force situations spiral out of control when communication breaks down or there is a lack of local police response. We will not let that happen in our community for residents, for officers, for all the individuals involved. We are committed to protecting

the public and reducing the likelihood of violence and ensuring that every situation is handled with professional professionalism, restraint, and respect. As far as cooperation with ICE, your police department mission remains clear and unchanged and it is to protect the public and uphold the constitution and serve every person in our community with professionalism, dignity, and respect in accordance with Washington state law, including keeping Washington working act, which was passed in 2019 by our legislative body in Olympia. I want to make it clear, our department does not engage in civil immigration enforcement. We are not federal law enforcement officers. We are non-political. As law enforcement officers, our fundamental duty is to serve the community, safeguard lives and property, protect against violence, disorder, or intimidation. We respect the Constitution and the rights of all to liberty and equality and justice. Our officers do not ask about immigration status when responding to calls for service and no one should ever ever hesitate to contact the police department for help because of who they are or where they come from. We want every resident to know that when you call 911 to report a crime or ask for assistance, our focus is on safety and lawful conduct and ensuring help is provided without bias or fear. Trust between the police and our community is essential. And we must have that trust to allow us to prevent crime, to respond to emergencies, and to help the most vulnerable get the help they need and to keep everyone safe. Our officers work in a complex environment, but they are guided by the constitutional principles that protect individuals from unlawful searches, seizures, and detention.

Professionalism, accountability, and respect for civil rights are the core and the norm of everything that the Milton Police Department does and will do. I want to emphasize a safe community cannot be achieved by law enforcement alone. It requires a partnership. And I ask our elected leaders, our community organizations and organizers and residents to work alongside us to promote calm, lawful dialogue and to reject violence or intimidation directed at anyone, including public servants who are doing their jobs. The Milton Police Department is committed to transparency, collaboration as we serve this city together and never, never forget that together we are stronger. And so I just wanted to address some of the questions or concerns that have been brought to me in the police department and as your chief law enforcement officer. And also with that I have a handout that I printed out that talks about the new law or not the new law but the law that was passed in 2019 by your legislators. And it says know your rights with police and federal immigration authorities in the state of Washington. And this is provided by the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network. And I think it is a very useful tool that you can share with your friends and neighbors and answer any kind of questions about what you can expect from the Milton Police Department. And so with that, I will open up to any questions and I'll pass this around so that everybody can have a copy.

Any questions for Chief Council Member MS? So, how big of an issue is it in Milton? I know that my teenagers are asking me a lot of questions. Is there a lot of activity here or complaints or concerns?

There are a lot of concerns because everybody is watching what they see [clears throat] on TV and in social media. And so it's created a climate of fear throughout our country, throughout our community. And so everybody is, you know, well, what if what if it happens here? What's what is the police department going to do? How are we going to handle it? And the biggest takeaway is that some jurisdictions across the country, the state have taken a hands off, which is they're not going to show up, which I think is the absolute wrong thing to do because you need your local police to be there to keep everyone safe and to deescalate the situation. And we also have or should have I know in the city of Milton we do other jurisdictions might not be as fortunate to have that trust and be held in high regard in their community uh as their protectors. And so we want to reassure our community that should ICE be out there or show up that we will be right there and we would expect our citizens to call us 911 and let us know if they believe that there was an ICE activity. What I would say is that they are supposed to do deconliction with whatever jurisdiction they're responding. So, we should know ahead of time. But like all organizations, there are bad actors. And you are seeing some things happen in the news where people are doing things that are not uh don't reflect law enforcement and they create they paint all law enforcement in a bad light. And the one thing that I would say is that when I see these things or other law enforcement officers, police officers see these things going on across our country is they hate it because we've worked very hard. We worked very tirelessly to build rapport and trust in our communities so that we can work together. because I've spoken with some

of you and one of the things is is that law enforcement is not 100% answer to all of society's problems, but we can be a good partner. And 99% of what law enforcement does is social work. It's responding to people in need. 1% is the actual taking somebody into custody. Most of the time, 99%. So, think about that. If you were to put that into an hourly thing, 23 hours of our time and service is spent just responding, helping people in need, in crisis that something has happened beyond their control that they've asked a third party person to come in and try to deescalate whatever the situation is or provide whatever emergency services are necessary, whether that's directing them to the hospital, whether that's stopping uh victimization or a violent assault. And so it's so important that the community understand that we cannot do our jobs if the community does not trust us, respect us, and at the same time we have to meet them at 100% of transparency to know how we're going to do things, why we do things the way that they do we do, and to know that they will be treated with respect at all times. Any further questions? Council member Roberts.

Uh, thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Chief. I really appreciate everything you've said. Um, this definitely eased some of my concerns and I want to thank you for our conversation that we had uh a while back about that concerning this exact situation. Um, and again, I was definitely comforted with what you had to say. Um, so we we all are, you know, h having this police force that we do, we're all very fortunate because as I spoke with chief and got to learn about the force and some of the values that the force has, I definitely appreciate all that and thank you so much for for what you do and what you will do in the future. So I know the community also expresses the same uh sentiment that I do and I've al also have forwarded some of the responses that you have given me to some of the community and they are reassured as well and also expressed that our force is very diverse with their ability to translate as you explained. We even have a person that uh knows sign language as well. So the ability to communicate with our community is is there. So again thank you for that. Um, that being said, I want to know if we have some uh plans on having any kind of comments or something forward- facing to our community to basically express what you just said. Unfortunately, we don't have anybody here uh to, you know, absorb that or maybe there's somebody online. But my my point being to [snorts] express what you just said in our website and our Facebook. I don't know if Jessica could, you know, say a brief comment of something of the sort to echo your your uh what you just said as well. So,

yeah, I I think that definitely we can put something out on our website. I'll have a conversation with the mayor because obviously uh I work for the mayor, but I work for the citizens at large, but the mayor is the day-to-day operator. But I think that it is important that we are forward- facing and that we're very transparent and that to ease our community's concerns uh or their loved ones uh or anybody that might be in a position of feeling vulnerable that they know that hey, our police department is not going to um turn a blind eye in their time of need. and they're going to be forefront and right there uh to try to mediate, to deescalate, to make sure that the situation doesn't evolve into a chaotic scene and somebody gets hurt unnecessarily.

Council member Poor,

thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to uh say thank you for your presentation. I also appreciate what council member Roberts uh just spoke about kind of the transparency issue. Um having worked in law enforcement, I appreciate how inter agency collaboration is a point of emphasis for you. Um for example, um you guys are out in our community all the time, right? And so you may have had an interaction with this family or this person directly, right? And so if ICE has already come in here and they're going to take an action and working with them and helping make that contact could reduce the risk of a safety issue, right? So instead of people they don't know coming to their door with guns, people who actually do know them coming to their door and trying to help make their neighborhood safer, them safer, even the individual that's being arrested is really important. And I just wanted to say thank you for taking, you know, making that a point of emphasis. And I will tell you, we have come across some very bad actors as far as uh MS-13 in our community and uh talking to the community that they were nested in uh we had conversations with them and they had expressed that they were afraid for their lives and that's why they didn't let anybody know. This was a number of years ago, but still we do have some very uh bad actors that prey on the vulnerable migrant community um because they they terrorize them. So again, we don't want anybody that is uh in a migrant status feeling like they can't reach out for emergency services or for

help. That is the last thing that we want to happen. We want people to always feel comfortable with their local police department. Council member Roberts,

just wanted to add a personal comment along those same lines. So, when I was doing a community outreach last week, uh we were reaching out to some of the homeless in uh Federal Way. And when we were approaching some individuals, obviously they were kind of skittish because they had no idea who we were, but we were just wanting to offer them help. Um so what they were expressing was during these times you don't know you know who's who. So to add to uh you know what you just just said there another example of this you know this particular federal agency showing up and causing fear in the community is people that need help might not be getting that help whether it's you know from outreach or people just wanting to report something something along those lines. So, um, yeah, it's it's very important that we keep the open conversation, that our community feels safe, that everybody's able to report anything, you know, see something, say something, as you always say. So, unfortunately, right now, some people see something and are not willing to say something for that fear. So, um, I just wanted to express that, uh, personal issue there.

All right, we should probably move along. We got uh one regular agenda item uh left on our our agenda. It's the exempt uh employee policy discussion and this item f uh interim finance director Robec will be presenting. [clears throat]

Thank you, mayor and council. Um, the exempt personnel exempt employees personnel policy was last discussed at the regular city council meeting on January 20th and the finance committee meeting on January 28th. A revised policy is now being presented for further discussion. Changes to the policy presented on January 20th are highlighted in green and summarized in the agenda bill. They include some language changes and a change to the sick leave compensation. Other changes previously presented include changes to longevity pay and vacation leave and comparisons with the police guild contract and the IB IBEDW agreements are provided in your packet as well. Um, those are the only comments that I had prepared. But if anyone if you have any additions or if you have any questions regarding or suggestions for changes, um, this will come back to the next regular council meeting for approval.

Any questions for interim finance director Rob? Yes. Council member Roberts. Uh, thank you, mayor. I just had a quick question. Um, could you give a pref brief summary of what was uh discussed during the finance committee meeting on the 28th? Obviously, it was was this year, but were there any additional specifics that uh we may need to know about?

Sure. That's a great question. Um, yes, we did. Um, we we talked about the items that appeared to be of concern to um other council members and and the audience, but we primarily focused on the sick leave compensation. That seemed to be um the section that uh most people had commented about. Um so there were some minor uh language changes, but it really was focused on that sick leave compensation. the other uh bigger items that had been presented before such as the longevity pay and the vacation leave. Those those two the vacation leave is an exact copy of the IBW contract and the longevity pay is actually a little bit lower rates than the other two agreements. Your uh exempt employees receive it a little bit earlier but they um the rates are slightly lower. So the biggest um item that we talked about at the finance committee and it seemed to be the biggest item of concern was that sick leave compensation. What we talked about at the finance committee was actually a or the finance committee in general seemed to show support for a little bit um a better uh sick leave compensation that than what is being presented tonight. Um after discussion at our leadership meeting following that finance committee meeting uh the leadership committee as a group or the leadership uh team as a group um thought it may be more prudent to bring a policy that directly aligned uh with another uh agreement. Um it may be have more widespread support. So that's what we've done with this sick leave compensation. It exactly uh

matches the police guild agreement with the exemption of it adds a minimum of 10ear service to that. Thank you. Any further questions or discussion? Oh, Council Member Mounts, thank you for your efforts in putting this together. All right. Gee, I thought we were going to spend more time on this. I'm I'm happy we're not. Um,

all right. Um, before we uh we close off the meeting, I just wanted to let the public know or remind the public that uh next week Monday is next week Monday is a holiday. So, our regular uh council meeting will be on Tuesday. So, uh feel free to attend. You're always welcome.