City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, 04/21/2026 study session of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with council member Madron Excused and council member Barron, joining us remotely tonight. Hi, council member Barron. Can you hear us?

I can. Thank you. Great.

Okay. So our first item tonight on our agenda is item two a, which is a special recognition proclamation recognizing April 2026 as Earth Month, and we have a shared reading of the proclamation beginning with council member Green.

Whereas Earth Day was created fifty six years ago, recognizing the importance for everyone to participate in preserving our natural resources, and on that first Earth Day, 20,000,000 Americans rallied for a healthy, sustainable environment, and whereas the global community now faces extraordinary challenges such as global health issues, food and water shortages, and economic struggles, and.

Whereas all life forms on earth have the right to a healthy, sustainable environment, and whereas in Washington State, April is recognized as Earth Month, emphasizing the urgency of enlisting all people to protect and sustain life on the planet and

Whereas each year, the city of Olympia also declares April as Earth month and urges others to do the same, and whereas the procession of the species was created in 1995 to commemorate the twenty fifth anniversary of Earth Day and to support congressional renewal of the Endangered Species Act, inspiring thousands go ahead. Alright. Inspiring thousands young and old to deepen their understanding, appreciation, and protection of the natural world. And?

And whereas community members, schools, environmental organizations, and businesses have raised over a 100 earth flags to unite those during the entire month working in the interest of the planet and to build intergenerational action through local activism and global environmental consciousness. And

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Olympia City Council does hereby proclaim April 2026 as Earth Month, signed in the city of Olympia, Washington this April 2026. Olympia City Council, Dante Payne, mayor. And now I'd like to invite up Dave Setterberg from Earthbound Productions who, has a few remarks and to accept the proclamation tonight. Hi, Dave. Good to see you.

I'm not currently with Earthbound Productions right now.

Oh, okay. But Well, we should

fix here representing the Earth. Mister mayor, members of the council, and the other handsome people in in the room today, I would like to thank you for your proclamation of recognition of Earth Month twenty twenty six. Oh, do I have a clicker? Are you clicking it for me? You got it for me.

Thanks. Your recognition of Earth month coincides with the inspirational, Artemis two mission around the moon, the appreciation of our exquisite planet from the moon's vantage point, and the progress in human equity incarnate in the astronauts engaged in that mission. The first flag was created by John McConnell in 1969 for the first Earth Day using a photo taken during the Apollo ten mission on 05/18/1969. The photo was breathtaking, but not a full depiction of our planet. It featured mostly clouds and ocean.

The Earth flag was updated in 1973 with the iconic blue marble shot taken from Apollo seventeen craft on 12/07/1972. This was the false the first fully illuminated view of the planet against the blackness of space. Taken from roughly 28,000 miles away, it highlights Africa, Antarctica, and the Southern hemisphere's clouds. It is a symbol of environmentalism and life's fragility, and has been the image used on the Earth flag for over fifty years. 12 humans, all Americans, all white male astronauts, have walked on the moon's surface on six missions between July 1969 and 1972.

For the first time in fifty four years, providing a rare and much needed reason for pride in our country and all life, humans in Artemis two circumnavigated the moon again. The Artemis mission reflected the giant steps we've taken in The US regarding equity. Artemis two included, for the first time on on a lunar mission, an African American pilot, Victor Glover, and the first women first woman mission specialist, Christina Koch. In these dark and often appalling times, we welcome occasions like this to celebrate the best in our species. Collaboration is humanity's greatest superpower.

May we all work together during Earth month and beyond to be good stewards of our extremely rare and beautiful planet Earth. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dave. Any comments from council? Alright. Well, I'm hearing to just express our gratitude to you, Dave. So thank you for being here once again, and thank you for being such a vocal proponent of Earth Month. It is more than just one day, and, frankly, it's more than a month. Right? We should care all year round. So we would love to present you with the proclamation and take a photo. I do just wanna mention, though, that we are trying something new.

This is actually the first time we've ever done a proclamation this way at a study session. So congratulations. You're the first. We're we're doing a new process because we have such a such excitement for these types of recognitions throughout the community, and there are so many, and our meetings are running a bit longer. And so we're gonna try something new and and incorporate them into the study session as well. So and I'll quit talking, so the study session isn't as long either. Sure. Oh, mayor pro tem just asked me if you wish to talk about the app. That's a joke.

It's a fun. It's a

You had me. You got me. I was like, is that really great marketing, or is it what's happening?

For those of you who couldn't hear, he's not at a mic. He said that the app is a joke, unfortunately. Alright. So why don't you come on up to accept the proclamation and take a photo? Alright.

Well, thank you very much again, Dave. We're gonna move on to our next business item, item three a on our agenda, and that is a briefing of the Olympia Strong work plan. And we have Jenica Machado, who is the economic development director, who is presenting tonight. Hi, Jenica.

Hello. Good evening. Egenica Machado, economic development director. Thank you for your time this evening. I'm here to have a discussion on the Olympia Strong Plan. And as many of you know, this plan is not your typical economic development plan that's solely focusing on, business recruitment expansion infrastructure. So I'll provide a really high level overview of the framework of the plan as a refresh, and then I'll review some actions that have been completed, highlight some successes. And then next, we'll look through an initiative matrix, and you'll be able to see how many initiatives are already underway. Then I'll provide some information on priority focus areas for the next two years. And here, I hope to hear feedback from you as to if this aligns with, council priorities and if we need to adjust moving forward.

Okay. So Olympia Strong was unanimously approved by council in September 2024. What makes Olympia Strong a unique economic development plan is that it's framed around people, and many of the initiatives are about facilitating pathways to economic prosperity for residents. It's about supporting businesses, recognizing our businesses are made up of those in our community and provide goods and services and jobs to others as well as serving as an important tax base that fund community goals. We want to ensure both residents and businesses are successful and thrive.

Olympia Strong is about investing in projects that contribute to vibrancy, to our sense of place, and to our pride in our community. These goals support a more resilient community and economy. Through the development of the plan, they talked to hundreds of people through surveys, interviews, and listening sessions to understand community needs. Through that engagement effort, they found this list on the slide as the highest areas of need. And this is really what drove the, ultimate recommendations and initiatives.

As you look through the plan, and initiative matrix, which you have before you, it's this long page, grid style. You'll see a lot of different initiatives that are already underway to address those community needs you saw before. Yeah. Some actions may be underway but need heightened focus or additional capacity, and some initiatives are new to address gaps. Specifically, initiatives are included to better support pathways to opportunity for youth people and those who face higher barriers.

So you'll see a blend of programmatic initiatives, investments, and strategic partnerships. Due to the diversity of focus areas and wide ranging initiatives, the actions are led by various departments and community partner organizations.

We don't think we have the matrix.

It was it separate attachment and the staff.

Oh, okay. So it's not a it's not something you we were looking at the one you handed out tonight.

Oh, sorry. Is are those included in the staff report or in the okay. Do you have that in front of you in a different section?

Two religious stool. Can we get someone to make copies for us, please? Thank you.

I'm so sorry.

Oh, no worries.

Okay. Well so you can imagine this matrix of initiatives, and we'll have that to you shortly. Thank you. And, in the I'll wait to go through it until you have it. But the plan essentially breaks up four different focus areas, education and workforce pathways, housing and sense of security, business enterprise and resource support, community lovability, pride, and resiliency.

In the matrix, you'll see that initiatives are categorized within these focus areas, and there's a column in which you'll be able to see what's completed, what happens on an annual basis, what is currently in development, what's an ongoing effort, if it's completed or if it's not started. So I'd like to highlight some success we've already seen so far, and I'll pick a few in each focus area category. The, in education and workforce, the youth council was fully implemented in January 2025. In the first year, they provided feedback on five chapters of the comp plan, and they created a PSA related to Narcan and Overdose that aired in movie theaters and other public spaces. Next, work is well underway for city internships.

Human resources, parks, and public defense provide internships. For example, in the past two years, human resources has supported 10 internships for bachelor of social work and master of social work with three more internship opportunities upcoming. Many of the internships have come through UW Tacoma as the city has a MOU with the school of social work. Next, the recommendation to require the city capital projects over a certain threshold require the contractor to have a percentage of the labor hours performed by apprentices, that initiative is also complete. This was part of a new state requirement, and now every project over 2,000,000 requires that at least 15% of total total labor hours are performed by apprentices.

The second focus area housing. We've seen significant progress moving forward, on affordable housing projects such as the one on Boulevard and Old ninety nine. Additionally, regarding the adaptive reuse initiative, we have seen office housing adaptive reuse projects move forward due to affordability, house affordable housing incentives like the twelve year multifamily exemption and impact fee exemptions, and that's the project at 505 Union is the adaptive reuse example. In the business resource and support category, annually, contract with the Thurston Economic Development Council's Center for Business and Innovation to support business training and entrepreneurial support. Last year, Olympia provided funding for 44 participants and entrepreneurs to go through business training.

50 businesses received advising services, and 12 new businesses in Olympia started through their programming. Additionally, last year, we saw the successful partnership between Squaxin Island Tribe and the city with the sale of the Plum Street property. And then finally, in the community pride, lovability, and resiliency area, we have seen the first successful completion of Inspire grants to support the creative economy. These grants distributed 2,300,000 to Olympia cultural organizations and supported almost 900 public and youth programs. Additionally, we have seen the armory move into construction.

And then in the Signature Spaces and Places initiatives, projects like Grass Lake Nature Park have been completed. And just earlier this year, Council approved the Rebecca Howard Park development plan. So as you can see, the plan is actively being implemented across all the different focus areas from a variety of different teams, both within the city and without, external to the city. So for our two year implementation priorities do you have this one in your packets of the the one year? Okay.

And so, this one pager also shown above, is kind of the two year snapshot of different priorities, and that's broken up into, annual near term and varies by project. Within each column, you can see the initiatives broke down again by, the focus area. And so, on an annual basis, we'll continue to work to deepen partnerships with housing developers, the port, Squax and Island Tribe, Experience Olympiad Beyond, the Evergreen State College, and the state, specifically Department of Enterprise Services. We've scheduled, quarterly meetings with them to make sure that we have ongoing communication between DES and the city. In the business resource and support area, we have continued with our business training contract with the EDC to fund things like a mentorship program and start up an enterprise training.

We'll continue to provide barrier busting assistance for businesses around issues like permitting, public safety, and city policy. Next, although we already engage in recruitment efforts in conjunction with the EDC, we intend to enhance, our effort around corporate headquarters. So the EDC maintains a contract with selector to aid corporate identification for recruitment. We intend to focus on Olympia, and I'll be working to gather site profiles, for Michael to include in upcoming sessions. In the community focus area, we'll continue to support facilities such as the library, Washington Center for the Performing Arts, and Hands On Children's Museum.

And so in the second column that says near term, one to two years, this is where you're seeing enhanced focus and new efforts over the next two years, So not the things that are just happening on an annual basis. In the workforce and education area, we have the city internships. I've already highlighted some of the good work that they're doing, but they're continuing to move that forward and are working on partnership development with the Evergreen State College. For the workforce development youth career pathways initiative, this is actually, a new effort that I'd like to go over with you this evening. You have a handout.

I just, put this out before the meeting. And so it's a three pager that has a title of Olympia Strong Workforce Investment Framework. And so in this, I'd I'd like to introduce you to this new proposal. The proposal outlines a two year program with a $100,000 invested annually through SPSCC. It cover tuition for high school students graduating from a high school in Olympia that are interested to go into a trade or vocational tech program at SPSCC.

So this would be either like automotive technology, welding, or machine technologies. It's anticipated this would fund around 15 to 20 students, that would start year one, and we'd be funding them through the full completion of that program into year two. It would be targeted toward Alice or low income households and be a last dollar in after FAFSA completion program. The filter used to shape this proposal was, one, looking to blend, two of the different OlympiA Strong initiatives. So this is the workforce initiative and support for youth career, pathway development.

Also, to leverage community partnerships that can utilize existing programmatic infrastructure. Three, to support low income households. To identify a program that enables someone to go through training, say, within two years and be able to go straight into a job, and so something that has a low barrier of entry. And then finally be in a field that has job demand in the future. And so we also considered the healthcare vocational tech programs at SPSCC, that's our second largest sector in the city of Olympia, but SPSCC had let us know there that field has a bit more support than the trades does, and so this would be an area that would benefit from additional focus and support.

And so this is still a high level discussion with SPCC, So we there are details to work out, but I think this is an opportunity for me to check-in with counsel on your thoughts and if we're headed in the right direction. SPCC already does work to engage employers, and but there may be value in looking into opportunities for additional support for the cohort during the two year program and to support with, connecting local employers upon completion of the program. This would require additional resources, but depending how council feels about where we're at is something that I could continue to build out. Are there any should I take questions? Are there any questions now on this, kind of workforce educational pathways?

Sure. Councilmember Gilman. Thank you.

This is reminding me of a opportunity for Olympia initiative some years ago. So I'm I'm curious about the revenue source.

Mhmm.

How how would we which money which bucket of money Sure.

Are you

imagining would be the $100,000 a year?

So, this is really designed as a pilot program. So, at the time, just talking about a two year time frame. And we'd be collecting data to be able to say, is this working? Is this doing what we think it's going to do? Is this, something that we should continue? But the $100,000 for year one and year two would really be, looking at that additional money from b and o that, had been added to economic development and then reinvesting it into this workforce program.

Thank you for your work on putting this together. And I I hope that if if we can do a couple of successful years, then we can make the the pitch for for more consistent revenue and potentially expanding it. So I appreciate it.

Any additional questions? I have a question about eligibility.

Mhmm.

It says it's targeted towards Alice in low income households, but does that mean that, in theory, anyone could apply?

I think, like, that's part of the details that I'd like to continue chatting with SPSCC regarding, understanding the processes that they go through working with FAFSA and then how we could structure this. I would be interested in specifically having this for low income Alice households. And then there could be consideration of if for some reason we don't get the applications we expect to see, then you can open additional eligibility. But I think those are the detailed questions that I'd, be interested in working out more.

Okay. Yeah. Great. And I'd I'd be interested in in seeing, you know, what the eligibility criteria you come up with. Mhmm. Yeah. Any other questions? Alright. Back to you.

Okay. So next, in the housing focus area, there's additional discussion regarding the city's land banking strategy, so that's currently moving forward. Also, the home ownership options, the housing team is working with, Thurston Housing Land Trust and exploring tenant opportunities to own. With additional capacity on the housing team, they anticipate being able to move forward the affordable housing tool chest initiative within the near term, so the next one to two years. And finally, the retrofit initiative is already underway and moving forward with the Safe Housing and Rental Efficiency Accelerator pilot program or SHARE.

In the business resources and support category, I'm looking to work on the access to business capital initiative. And so I'm working to develop proposal. It is not baked enough to bring to you at this time, but I'm interested in kind of pairing the research that has come from the vacancy study with the Olympiastrong initiative access to capital. And so, more to come on that. And then the vacancy study also provides some recommendations to help move forward adaptive reuse and actions to address vacancy, and this is coming to land use this week on Thursday.

The final column varies by project, so I do recognize that's pretty vague. But these, like, creative economy, signature spaces and places, youth enrichment are pretty umbrella initiatives that depending on the year, this means something different depending on the project. And so for these within the next two years, what we see coming forward, continuing the inspire grants, the support of the Downtown Creative District, construction of the armory, and work on the Artesian Commons. And so, again, kind of what I'm looking for today with council is just are we on the right track? Do we need to adjust priorities, or are there concerns or or requests for additional information?

Thank you, Jenica. Any additional questions or comments for now, Rejenica? Councilmember Vanderpool.

I appreciate all the work that's in here. I think a lot of this work will help the community in a lot of ways, because you're you're you're dealing with a lot of a lot of different places. Right? I appreciate, just looking through this and and, all that work. But I I have you know?

And this may be an interesting time to bring this up, but I, you know, it dawns on me as a council member that something that may need to be added to the Lumpy Strong plan that feels that it's missing is well, when you look at workforce training, but we're not really working looking at workforce involvement in the sense that, we're not involved we we involve the EDC, we involve the chamber, but we're not involving unions and labor and working class people. And when the workers' bill came up last year and was something of a discussion, some some councilmates felt that it was not in here. I think that it needs to have more clarity and that there is that that concern in still out there. And in order to I feel that perhaps there needs to be an opportunity to have that in here, to consider the other side of the economy, not just businesses. Mhmm.

We are and I don't want us to move away from that because our small businesses are critical, but I also feel that we're not including the full picture of the economy because, again, we have people you know, we can't just train everyone into a higher wage. Right? We have a lot of people who, you know, they should have the dignity to be able to work their jobs and are here in Olympia without having to go through a long process of becoming a business owner. And so there there is an economic inequality problem. I don't know how all my other councilmates feel about this, but it is a clear there's clearly not enough language in here to match the other part of the economy.

Mhmm. Okay.

Yes. Thank you. City manager Bernie.

Thank you, mister mayor. What I might offer to that is as the council knows, there's another bit of work that's happening this year with assistant city manager Stacy Ray, which is to look at the research to do some community outreach around wages and and other items of consideration that were part of that discussion last year. And I think when that work is completed and is delivered to the council and you have some time to work through that, there might be some links that are generated out of those conversations that might generally match up with some of the work that's here. So what I might recommend is you kinda let that work happen on its own time frame. And then maybe as we revisit Olympia Strong heading into the new year, we can figure out if there's more links to kinda figure out how we might adjust the Olympia Strong work plan with that with that learning. So that might be my recommendation.

Thank you, Jay. Councilmember Gilman.

So I'll I'll step partway onto the same soapbox that Robert was just on that I you know, I I brought this up as we were contemplating the the initial passage of this plan that mobility is is is not gonna happen for a lot of people. And then there are folks who are content with not retraining, changing careers. And and so it's it's really important to me that we're making a pathway for people to live a full life doing a job that isn't compensated very well right now. That I I just I think considering that because I I'm not opposed to making a path so that a few people can transcend their situation and be more stable, that's that's that's great. But I I also hope that we'll have efforts that are are aimed at at broadly stabilizing, working class households in the city.

There's just a lot of people in that situation. I have two specific questions. One is I've also I've I've I've been really pleased with the scale up, tune up sorts of efforts that we've done downtown over the years. Those were through the community development block grant in the past. So as you're describing an annual that that we would continue on annually working with the EDC Enterprise for Equity and the Northwest Cooperative Development, is that anticipating that we would continue to choose to use a community development block grant, or was that finding an alternative way to fund those?

Because I hadn't understood that those were ongoing. I thought we periodically reviewed and renewed that.

Those are currently funded through, like, the division's economic development budget. And so I'm not I'm not familiar about the connection with the community development block grant.

Well, good. Good.

I think the short answer, it used to be. We used to fund the scale up startup through CDBG as part of council's goal setting for CDBG, but we've transitioned that as we've developed our economic development arm to fund the knows a different way and then using our CDBG funds differently.

Well, I'm I'm sorry that I missed that move, and I'm glad that we made that move. That's that's that's great because I I think those are each really important. And then I could just be it's a term of art that's defined different ways in different places. There the the beginning of this description was about addressing an equity gap. Could you just sort of define what inequities we're seeking to address, or or what does that what does that mean? What is the equity gap?

So I think part of that is, like, the different initiatives that were developed through Olympiastrong were done to, as a whole, address equity gaps. And so I think that's part of, like, when we're doing the workforce investment framework that we developed that we are looking to support low income and Alice households. And I think it's important that we also include Alice households and not just low income households recognizing, the struggle that that that, community has. And so I think it's it's not even that we have a specific initiative. Like, this is supposed to be the equity gap initiative. It's supposed to be that all of these different initiatives were developed through that lens.

I I just didn't know if it was by identities or, so so primarily looking economically at economic inequality itself. I that's I just Mhmm. Because there's

a lot of

different ways we talk about inequity and inequality, and I I just didn't know if

Right. And and so I believe in the in the plan specifically, they did do a lot of data that looked at different demographics e even outside of economically. They looked at different demographics in terms of race and income, household makeup. And so I think that they took a a wide net on how they defined that even outside of just pure economics.

Thank you. That that's helpful. I just just wanted to to check-in to make sure Mhmm. We had a shared understanding there. I appreciate it. That's that's all I've got right now.

Alright. Council member Barron followed by council member Green.

Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. That was that was very, very helpful. I I do wanna I do wanna say that I question a little bit investing a $100,000 into oh, what what what what would be essentially tuition assistance programs unless they are very targeted to a specific need within the community, Homeless retraining or or an industry that we know we have worker worker shortages right right in our city. I I personally would prefer to see funds going towards investment in infrastructure that we know are are going to be needed in the pipeline or redevelopment of of certain portions of the community.

But I'm I'm I'm open to this this this idea of scholarships. But I I have to question whether this is really the role of the city to be to to be funding scholarship programs. You know? I I unless it is a laser focused need that needs addressing in in higher higher education. I'm I'm a little fearful that kids will who who are, you know, great and trying to trying to get ahead will enter into a college scholarship program, but not end up living here or or adding to the community in the long run.

And so I I just I just kinda wanna raise this. I I'm I'm open to it. And, Jenica, I'm I'm interested in talking to you about this further.

Sure.

There is in the kind of investment framework handout. There's a grid at the bottom that does show, we looked at the ten year forecast for demand in the trade, occupation so that we could, know that we weren't picking an area that didn't have opportunities for employment locally. And so you're able you're able to look and see what that demand looks like per occupation. And I guess I would say it's it is a struggle with any workforce program that you can't guarantee if someone's going to stay locally. We can do work to make sure that we're reaching out to employers and doing some of that matchmaking, for whoever is in the workforce program.

And that's something that, SPSCC currently does do. But part of what I'd be looking to see, can we enhance that support and have some type of program adviser role that is able to fill any gaps and ensure that we're doing that, local coordination.

Thanks, Jenica. Council member Green.

Yeah. Thank you, mayor. I wanted to come back a little bit to the question, councilmember Vanderpool and Gilman, that that you raised. And, you know, and I we talked a lot, last year, we've continued to talk around, wage and affordability and and all of that. And I know that's in our comprehensive plan, that's in some of our other work.

But to your question, Jennica, I just I feel like I keep coming back to the focus areas on this adopted plan, sounds like not everybody was in agreement that this was exactly the plan that they wanted. But bottom line is the focus areas in this plan to me, none of these, if I look at education and workforce, housing incentive security, maybe in that one. But when we talk about the the work that that you're being asked to do on this plan, to me, that's not a a straight line of work on wage, those types of things. This is truly about these focus areas, these things, what, you know, what are the next steps. So, I mean, for me, in terms of excuse

me,

work that seems viable for the the short term, you know, I feel like you've picked things on here that either already have some momentum or would be pretty achievable in that one to two year time frame. So for me, don't have concerns on that. But that's to your question of how folks feel about that, that's where I'm at with it is that that was not part of this plan. And and maybe that's an oversight. Maybe that's a mistake. Maybe that's but I mean, that's the choice that was made when it was adopted. So.

Councilmember Vanderpool.

It was a bit of a just to go back a few years, it was a bit of a a disagreement, I would say, amongst amongst council members on whether or not it is in there or not. I mean, that was that was the that was the crux of of a lot of conversation over a year. Right? My recommendation is to is to perhaps through what city manager Jay Bernie is saying, Once that work is done, can consider, does it fit in here, or is it a separate plan? Because to me I mean, I wrote down people centered.

Right? It's you know, the economy to me is both the cost of things and the wages. And if if if the if that gap is really continues to be very wide for people, it's gonna be hard for it it becomes extremely hard to imagine the city recovering in any way, economically growing in any way, people spending money down town if the average Olympian can't afford or rent. Right? And so for me, it it is a part of the the equation.

If it's a different plan, sure. But I I just wanna point out that that is something that we we as a city have not historically got ourselves involved in. Right? Historically, we we we work with EDC, we work with the chamber, we work with the ODA. These are all good organizations that represent businesses, but we're not really having conversations with organizations that represent average working people. And I think that that's that is that there is a disconnect. We're only have looking at half the equation with the economy. And I'm I'm not trying to say we should stop having those relationships with those organizations because they do represent businesses. But we're but it's we're it's but also the people who spend money because we can't all be business owners. Right?

We all can't open businesses. They're just the economy doesn't function that way. And so I I think the other part of the the mathematical equation is ensuring that we continue to work towards policies to ensure that people can afford to live here and don't have to move away.

Mayor pro tem Nguyen.

I have a couple things. You know, when you first started speaking council member Vanderpool earlier when you made your first comments, I actually thought you're gonna go a different direction with it Anne was talking about, hey, how are we, as we're trying to do more workforce initiatives, are we involving people other than organizations that help grow and maintain businesses, right, that we have had longtime partnerships with? Are we involving working class folks that are closer to the work? So I thought that was where you're going with it. I don't want that to get lost either.

And so I guess I just ask Jenica if that is part of it.

Sorry. Could I clarify it?

Yeah. Sure.

Is part of the proposal working with an entity other than SP SEC? Is that what the question is?

I think it just overall, whether it's, specifically on this because we have done, other things at the city, like those, know, learning how to do the construction trades, things, and other efforts. And so, I just think of how are how are, you know, the the business owners getting involved. Now, I also know that you're you're a staff liaison to the PBIA. But, yeah, I I just felt like there was something there. And I'm just kinda chewing on that. And I wonder if there's something some work that you and the team are already doing that I maybe don't know about.

Well, so for the construction, SPSCC is offering a construction program. I don't know the name of it. I'm looking at Kelly.

The Residential Construction Academy. It's a noncredit Yeah. Trading program.

There we go. And so for a program like that, we weren't looking to duplicate that effort or anything. I mean, there's always ongoing conversation with businesses just as part of the work in economic development. And part of us developing that proposal was looking at the data and talking to some different employers, like, what are your needs here? And so there were other ideas that were kicked around. And then, you know, as we started to vet the ideas, had decided that it wasn't as strong of a need.

Oh, I see. Okay. Well, just a couple of comments to not that you necessarily need react to right now, but I'm just going to put it here for you is maybe there are opportunities to add people that are closer to the work. I also think about Council Member Behrend's comments about the scholarships. I thought it was great.

That's that's my first reaction. I could understand some of the concerns that council member Barrett's having. And I wonder if there is not as necessarily a replacement, but I wonder if there is an opportunity for providing some monies for helping people with the professional development, whether that's in the trades or it's tech things. Yeah. I I don't think that, small small businesses or small organizations always have the funds to do that type of thing.

You know, it's kind of a luxury to be able to go to a conference or get a certificate, those types of things. So, I'm just kind of thinking, like, in between someone that owns a business and has employees already, and then also the person that's trying to get into the workforce, and I think there's a lot of in between there.

Mayor Pro Tem?

Yes.

The city manager wanted to take a stab at your last inquiry and provide some additional info.

That's fine as long as he's not stabbing me.

Never. Well, I just think, what I was hearing between council member Vanderpool's comments and your comments, is as we look at partnership opportunities through our Olympia Strong work to not only look at the economic development entities like EDC and Chamber and others and not just businesses, but also to engage the labor groups in this conversation and to see how they may play a role in some partnership opportunities. And I think that's what I was hearing in this in this whole conversation. I just wanna make sure I captured that right and that, Jenica, you you you got that piece because I think that's really what you're all getting at. Did I get it right? A little bit?

Yeah.

It's in line. We're alright.

We'll keep going.

Yeah. Thank thank you for that. That that's in line with what what I was thinking. I know I know what you all were talking about was a little bit more than that, but I thought that was important. And then I'm curious for child care.

I see there's two sections for childcare on page seven. And one of them is medium term, three to four years, and another one is and it's marked as ongoing, and then the other one is long term at over five years and, hasn't been started, at the moment. And so I just wonder about how did we land there? I know there's, a note here about, essentially capacity. Right?

I know we can't do all of these things at one time necessarily, though I think childcare is such a complicated one and it comes up from time to time and people feel very strongly about it. I know that we have had the last couple of times we've met with this school district for our joint meetings, it has come up. And we have a great discussion on it, and I'm not always sure where it leads to, if I'm honest. And partly, I think, is because it's such you know, it's tough. And so I certainly don't have the solution today, but I also don't want to wait three or four years at the soonest to start digging into it.

So that's something it that's, for me, something that's that I'd like to flag is I'd actually like to get going sooner on that, knowing that it's going to take some time to even get to those possible solutions. I don't think that's something that we can wait on, so I might have to reshuffle some things, but I'd be really interested in that. And if you have anything to share about that, I'd love to hear.

I I think that's something that we could certainly switch around. I think that's part of, you know, why I was interested in this conversation today is that type of feedback is great, and I can I can work on how to move that into a near term item? It just is, one, a capacity concern, and it's a big topic with a lot of different partners involved in the conversation. And so, it seemed like a a larger item to put on the near term list. But if it is a priority, certainly could be.

It is for me. Thank you.

Hi. Good evening. For the record, Stacy Ray, assistant city manager. So I'm gonna I'm gonna just jump in for a moment and just mention that we are partnering with the Olympia School District right now around a grant that they received from the Department of Commerce to actually do a needs assessment in our community around child care. So they're looking at some potential available space in their facilities, and so we're helping kind of connect them with partners and get the word out for them to do an assessment right now and then have some dialogue with child care providers and families that are seeking child care. So although it's not mentioned in Jenica's presentation tonight, there are some early steps around child care that the school district district is initiating.

Sure. Mayor Patzia?

That's great to hear, Stacy. And I hear that as the school district really taking the lead on that and us as partners, and I think it for me, I think it makes a lot of sense to to pull it in even if into this, even if it is at the early stages. I do really understand capacity, I don't wanna duplicate any efforts. But if there is you know, I think there could be some synergy. And I I definitely wanna know what comes out of that report.

Okay. Council member Gilman followed by council member Vanderpool.

Well, Kelly, you always make me think. I I I appreciate very much your voice and your joining us. And I I just wanna try again that I I think that the the buckets are okay. I'm not questioning sort of the the categories or the buckets of the plan, but I I think that we we skew the efforts towards consulting employers and teachers when we're trying to figure out what might make a more resilient and strong community. And and so my my hope is that we make room so that we're both considering the voices as as was brought up, but also considering the priorities of folks who are not not interested in growth or upward mobility, but are are trying to make a life right here where they're at.

And that that might that might lead us to look at different initiatives within these buckets. So I just I just that's that's been my interest over the development of this plan in the last few years is that we leave room to consider creating more resilience and more more stability for folks who are paycheck to paycheck right now. And that it's that's a different project from finding a pathway to allow a few people from those households to have mobility into a a professional career or an upper upper middle class life or whatever it's split. Is there something we are there things we can do that are would broadly impact thousands of people as opposed to creating an opportunity for 15 folks? That's why I just I'd like us to be considering both.

Thanks. Yes. And we've talked about that before. Councilmember Gilman councilmember Vanderpool.

Mayor Pro Tem, I would love to have a conversation about the grant for the childcare soon.

It's something

yeah. And part of part of part of the application for that is that some of the funding that will come from commerce will help fund a position to do the study from both parties. So it doesn't that's that's the understanding I had last year when I talked to Tom from the school district is that and Tom, I ran into him the other day, he said, I have some news for you. And then I didn't see him again, so there'll be something soon, I feel. But that's the first step of it, and then there's another grant after that, well, after the study to do a pilot in one of the school buildings.

And I'm hoping that that program will be there by the time this research is done. So I I just wanted to chime in the info that I remember from last year. And I'm also hoping that when we'd have our meeting with the school district later this year, that that is on the list. I guess I have another thought that came along when we're talking about this pathway program. I I'm curious, you know, you mentioned that so, like, medical nursing is, like, second on the list, right, as a as a big priority.

But I'm curious because one of the issues that I know that exists in in the nursing field is a capacity problem where they don't have enough faculty to I mean, is a huge problem. There were reports on this twenty years ago about capacity issues with training. And I know that we probably shouldn't plug away money towards hiring more faculty for the community college. But I'm wondering if there are any conversations about helping with some of that. Rather than having an investment for students, I'm wondering if there's a thought process around expanding the capacity limit that run people run into when they try to get these programs and they get waitlisted.

It can be a discussion. It's not one that we had had so far, but, is one that I can pursue.

That sounds awesome. Thank you.

Alright. Councilmember Barron.

Oh, thank you. I I had a just another thought, and it's please forgive me if this is kind of off the off the the chart that we're speaking about. But there's gonna be so much displacement with AI. I I'm really concerned for our citizens and people who are gonna be displaced in the economy. And one of the focuses I I think we could use is in in a in an economic development plan is how to manage change and whether that is developing your own consulting business.

I think the biggest growth in employment is not working for someone else, but it's working for yourself, forming forming businesses in your in your expertise and and and putting those together. And I think the EDC can be very helpful in that. But getting ahead of the curve on who is going to be displaced in in this wave of economy that we see coming right in front of us, I I believe it's very real. And I would prefer to see kind of investment toward kind of the next step of what the economy looks like in after economic displacement and and and growth in some areas through the development of artificial intelligence. I just wanted to lay that on the table.

Yeah. That's a great lens. Thank you, council member mayor. Council member Greene?

Yep. Thank you, mayor Payne. Thanks, council member Barrett, for bringing that up. And I, you know, a 100% own that my lens is very much a higher ed lens. But a comment that I'll just make on that is if you go back and look at past recessions or at least over the last twenty, twenty five years, the people who get displaced by technology or economic shakeups, whatever it is, are folks who do not have specialized training, credentials, degrees.

Those are the folks who are first to be displaced by things like that. And so that for me, when we think about where are the opportunities to support folks through cultural change like that, it is making sure that they have some skill, something that will give them some stability, some ability to have yeah, just have that credential. So that's just a comment that I wanted to make on that is that data is pretty readily available that those are the folks who get hit hardest by any large economic change.

Thank you. Okay. I don't think I have anybody in the queue, so I think that means it's my turn. Okay. Just a few things.

I first of all, on this, you know, the question about labor involvement in Olympia Strong, I mean, it it's not a far leap. It is literally an economic opportunity plan. However, I think where some of the concern comes in is we know that it's a really big body of work, to do what Stacy is doing. And, I know that some of our concern was sort of about this idea of of, municipal oversight of labor regulations, right, and and all of the the what would go into that and the concern that that would detract from the adopted plan that we already have. And so what what I hear the city manager saying is that we will look for those areas where things intersect, and, it's possible that they will.

And I would guess that they there likely will be something that intersects, with the plan, and identify those areas, but not necessarily to, take on that additional body of work and consider it to be a part of Olympia Strong, which I think is a a separate body of work, because we're following the plan that we've already approved. And I I think it's fair to call out the fact that, maybe there's a little bit of a bias there when we're talking about, upward mobility, as council member Gilman said, of of making sure that we're not only looking through that lens and only looking at the people who are looking for those opportunities to climb the professional ladder, but that we are looking at the people who, are fine with where they are. Or, frankly, they don't have the means to think about, you know, going beyond where they are. And so how are we what are we doing for those people? That's what I hear.

And I think that's valid. So, just a few, things, in addition to, us obviously making sure that we're we're paying attention to to those aspects of things. But, I'm curious about the internships that you mentioned. I think you said that there were three, that you said early on. And, I'm just curious about our internship process. I don't know if you know the ins and outs of that, but what does it look like when one of our departments has an inter is there a whole, like, a bunch of stuff that goes into that, or, what what does that look like?

I don't have additional information on that. I'd be happy to connect with our HR director to understand more about the process.

Sure. Manny, come on up.

Mandy Mosser, director of HR for the record. So, a lot of our internships developed sort of organically, through, department connections. For example, we do have a a, an IT related, arrangement with a community college that, we know. And, and so those, develop through sort of those working relationships sometimes in, like, career service, departments at community colleges. We have a very talented MSW actual professor on staff, who works in my department, Kelly Drake, who also has, very strong connections with the, University of Washington.

So, in in those you know, there are prescribed sort of educational requirements associated with those arrangements, and then we try to, meet those obligations in in in terms of the educational requirements and then, likewise, develop working relationships. So, yep, just through a variety of sort of connections.

Okay. Thank you. I guess what I'm really getting at here is, like, is it really, like, overprocess y to start an internship in any of our departments, or is that something that's relatively easy?

It's, actually relatively, easy. So, currently, the, department of HR is considering an internship with a community partner. Some of the details are not yet worked out, but, it's a paid internship. So but it's not city resources, so it's paid through a a community partnership and, happens to be somebody with, some, disabilities. And so we're providing an opportunity for that person to learn, grow, learn job skills. And so, and likewise, I've accomplished some work that we're not able to, accomplish, just based on capacity.

Okay. Thank you for answering my questions on the fly, by the way. Maybe you know the answer to this. But how many interns do we have at any given time in a year at at the city?

At that rate. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. So, at any given time, we might have in our, prosecutor's office, two or three interns per quarter. So we do that. We do, on a quarterly basis as well through the University of Washington. May have, one or two, interns working directly with, Kelly Drake in HR and, sometimes in, with Kim Condrat's team.

Alright. That that's really helpful. Thank you. What I'm getting at here is we have several educational institutions in our region. We're an organization of almost 700 employees. Right? And I think we can have many opportunities for internships. I know that having an intern that there is a a capacity concern that goes into that. There's additional work. I understand that.

But when I think about all the various sectors that we were looking at within the plan, where are there opportunities for internships maybe within our own ranks, or how can we help facilitate those even if they're outside of the city. I think about, I know that, when we're talking about childcare and the mayor pro tem's comments about the ongoing work that needs to happen there. I think about SPSCC's early childhood education program. I'm not sure how many graduates they produce, how many stay. I brought this up before that in addition to people who need the services of having childcare, we also need to make sure that there is that there is an industry, that there's a revolving door of graduates who are entering that sector, so that, they can be available for people who need the childcare.

And so how are we, playing a role in helping facilitate that, I think, is important, in addition to the various other departments that we have, that can serve as interns. I, myself, was an intern here during a home for the homeless census within community planning and development. And it was a great experience, a great opportunity. And so I think we can certainly do more in that space. I also think about chemical dependency.

So you mentioned social work. So if none of our educational institutions have a chemical dependency program, for example, are we engaging with them on why they don't? Maybe it's finances or lack of interest or some other reason. But maybe we can, work with those institutions. For example, like at Evergreen, when I did my internship here, it wasn't a specific course that I was doing.

I designed that particular quarter, and used the opportunity to have an internship here. So how might we support students who wanna do that and set them up so that they can, perhaps, do an internship maybe with some of our, our local, nonprofit organizations or even with us, with our police department, things like that, crew, familiar faces, not assuming that we don't already do this. So I'd also wanna call that out. But, yeah, where can we use those opportunities to get more people, in these fields that we desperately need people to be working in, particularly in the social services arena, serving our homeless population, serving those who are struggling with mental health and substance use disorder. And so creating that pipeline of professionals who can provide that those services, I think, is really critical with this plan.

So in addition to that, I think you're on the right track, with what you have here. And, yeah, I I fully support it. So thanks for your work. And I think, in the meantime, if we could just, address some of the other things that were mentioned here, that'd be great too.

Happy to do that. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes. Councilmember Vanderpool.

I like to second that idea. I wrote down evergreen capstones. Right? I think it there's a value in that. I also think that in addition to the internships, I think about us being a hub for information for students. If we can't if we don't have the capacity here, like the Franklin Street facility and what they do as a point of being the informational hub for the students to be able to go there and get that experience, right, if they don't know that it exists. Right? And we know it exists. And I think that that is an addition to our capacity.

Yeah. Thank you. Councilmember Greene.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. I would just advocate for if we consider going down the road of expanded internships, whatever that is, don't think it would be a bad investment to think about using some of the economic development money for those to be paid internships for a lot of folks, particularly folks, you know, looking to go right into careers. I think it's a little less so for the Capstone, but not really. You know, being able to get those hours paid help make that a little more possible.

Yes. That is a great point. Thank you. Yes. City manager Bernie.

I was doing some bad bad lip reading with with public works director Mark Russell in back because the public works department in the past has done some internships with the Evergreen State College, and we've had a pipeline of of professionals coming in in our water quality and our water resources groups. We've had internships over the years. But, to your point, Mayor, I do think, what I wanna give Manny a lot of credit for is Manny and his team have really kinda reinvigorated the internship program, particularly in the human resource department. And so I think they're developing a framework that the rest of the departments can can grab, And, and I think it is a great opportunity for us to look more locally to get more resources, particularly in times when we're losing resources for, budget woes. So I think we can look more at this, and I do agree wholeheartedly.

As someone who had paid internships when I was a college student and I was paying my own way through school, it's the only way I made it. I could not have taken a summer internship or an internship anywhere if it wasn't paid. I just couldn't afford to do it. So I echo that comment.

Yes. Manny? I failed to mention that we're also working with, folks at a joint base, Lewis McChord. So I think, folks that are, leaving the military, we're working, with a potential intern in parks, actually. So

Yes. That's great. Where we can support I believe it's the what do they call it? Service for life, service members for life, transition programs, something like that. Basically, troops that are preparing to separate, which usually they do that about a year before they're going to officially separate.

And during that time, if we're engaging with the base to sort of, you know, get ahold of those people who are looking for those opportunities before they actually separate. I think I think that's great to let them know that we're here, and give them those opportunities. I think that's a great add. Thanks, Manny. Alright. Any additional comments? Alright. I think you're on the right track. Thank you, Jenica.

Thank you. Appreciate your time.

Okay. So that's gonna, take us to our, final business item on our agenda for tonight, which is the briefing on the water, waste, resources on Carpenter Row facility. And we have presenting our director of public works, Mark Russell, and Ron Jones, who is the interim wastewater resources, director. Yes. And we're transitioning. So good to see you both.

Jane? Yes.

I'm turning it over to you.

Alright. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, mayor and council. For the record, I'm Mark Russell, public works director, and with me tonight is Ron Jones, our interim waste resources director. Thank you for having us.

Tonight, I'm going to update you on the Carpenter Road waste resources maintenance facility project. The Waste Resources Maintenance Center is part of a larger project to address the aging public works maintenance center on East Side Street. This effort has been underway for over ten years. On March 16, we briefed the Finance Committee on the project's design, construction scope, and cost estimate. Given the cost estimate, the need to issue debt, and potential impact to ratepayers, they asked us to bring this project forward to the full council for discussion.

So that's why we're here tonight. New technology. Here's tonight's agenda. And our purpose tonight is to give you a shared understanding of east side maintenance center condition and the recommended approach to replace it. We want to brief you on the waste resources maintenance facility preliminary design cost estimate and seek guidance on next steps and learn how we compare to other city municipalities regarding waste hauling.

As I said earlier, this is not a new project for us, and it's been underway for more than ten years. Throughout that time, the finance committee was briefed throughout 2016 and 2017, ultimately giving us direction to proceed with the phased approach for the development of this project, which will I'll give you a little bit more detail in some subsequent slides. Since 2020, we've actively been moving forward with conceptual design, site preparation, and raising waste resources rates to build capital project funds to pursue the Carpenter Road site, which brings us to 2026 with briefings to you to update you on this project. Let's begin with a little bit of history of the current maintenance center. The city purchased nearly 12 acres in 1973 for $102,000 to build the City Of Olympia inner city transit maintenance center.

It was constructed in 1976 for a total cost of $1,600,000 It was designed to house the city's street, fleet, sanitation, and water sewer departments, and served as the headquarters for the Intercity Transit Commission. The building has two stories with approximately 38,000 square feet. And when you go there today, can see it was really designed to provide covered parking for 12 intercity transit buses. Some of those bays still exist where we park our equipment, and some of those bays have been remodeled over the years to have offices and storage throughout. So Public Works started to feel space constraints as early as 02/2020 years ago.

The Public Works maintenance center is no longer operationally efficient for our crews, and we've outgrown the space. There are challenging environmental conditions with steep slopes, wetlands, and Moxie Creek on one side that limit usable space. The most recent building condition assessment focused on mechanical and electrical systems and it rated the building as poor with known equipment, thermal, and energy deficiencies totaling $6,000,000 This critical facility doesn't meet seismic requirements, which impact the city's ability to deliver twenty four hour service in the event of an earthquake. We also don't meet the current Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines. And due to these space constraints, multiple public works equipment supplies are located at various facilities across the city, which creates inefficiencies in our operations.

Clearly, the building and major systems are at the end of their useful life. For these reasons, early conversations started in 2009 about how to remodel, to build capacity, and improve operational functionality. Previous assessments estimated that at least $15,000,000 would be needed for repair and renovations of the current building. And that includes addressing environmental and stormwater concerns that I previously mentioned on the site. However, repairs and renovations alone do not address the space constraints and the fact that we are outgrowing the site.

Over the past fifty years, we've gone from four operational programs to 11 and doubled our vehicles and staff. We've adapted and modified along the way to meet those growing needs, but that isn't sustainable into the future. So I wanted to give you a visual of the maintenance center. I know you're all familiar with it. It's bordered by I 5, Plum Street, Eastside Street, and Henderson Boulevard.

Besides the main building, you can see that every part of the site is being used with satellite buildings and storage areas. And you can also see that the steep slopes, the wetlands, and Moxley Creek constrain the usability of the site. So in 2016, we began a feasibility study to evaluate options for the maintenance center. Our consultant did an in-depth analysis of our space needs, including building and land requirements. This was a ten month effort and was completed in 2017.

The study concluded that we needed approximately 18 acres of property for our operations. As part of that process, the consultant searched private property locations, and that effort was unsuccessful meeting the city's needs. I believe they looked at eight or nine different locations across the city. So their ultimate recommendation was using a phased approach to replace the maintenance center using only city owned property, And that includes the existing maintenance center site, and at the time, a portion of the justice center, which we know now is not an option, and the city's Carpenter Road property. So a little bit more about that phased approach.

Their recommendation would be to build a waste resources maintenance facility at Carpenter Road, and that would also include our heavy duty fleet operations. Phase two, again, which is, no longer an option, would be to use the Justice Center for other equipment and supplies. And then ultimately, once the Waste Resources Building was occupied and those operations were moved, we would build a new maintenance center at the existing Eastside Street for the rest of our public works operations. So to give you a little bit of orientation, this shows how these sites are oriented relative to each other. You can see the current maintenance center on Eastside Street on the left of the screen, the triangle there.

Waste resources would be located out at Carpenter Road, which is about toward the right of the screen there, and that's near the Carpenter Road and Martin Way intersection. The reason that site works for waste resources is the proximity to the waste and recovery center, which you can see on the far right up there at Marvin Road. Our collections teams go there daily or multiple times a day with their trucks to unload them, and so that would be a convenient site at the end of the day for them to return to. We've also got a blowup of that site in highlighted in yellow. You can see its proximity to Martin Way and Carpenter Road.

It is in the city of Lacey urban growth area, but it is located in Thurston County, and you can see the surrounding area as well if you're not familiar with that part of town. We're doing okay so far? Alright. So with that guidance, we hired an engineering firm, KPFF, in 2020 to develop a conceptual design and help us with site preparation at Carpenter Road. The key features of that design include staff offices, making sure the facility is ready for future electric vehicle charging, a truck wash station, covered parking for our waste collection vehicles and storage for container inventory.

As previously stated, we'd move our medium and heavy duty fleet out to that site and our light duty vehicle maintenance would remain at the current, East Side Street location. So what would the building and site support? About 40 public works staff would be housed in the building. 46 vehicles would be there, including the 20 collection trucks as well as 19 heavy duty vehicles that would be taken there for maintenance and repair. There would be several cart and container delivery vehicles and five light duty trucks and vans.

As you can see from the pictures, we need a lot of storage for these collection vehicles as well as our container inventory. It's about 1.75 acres needed to store those containers as well as provide enough space for our vehicles to maneuver and drop them off and pick them up. And there's the some examples of of the carts and and trucks at our current site today. So since then, we've made significant progress toward a new waste resources maintenance facility at Carpenter Road. Capital funds have been set aside since 2018 to move this project forward.

The preliminary design concept or 10% design is complete. We've received land use approval from Thurston County. The old firing range on the site has been demolished. Site remediation from the lead contamination and was approved by the Department of Ecology. Currently, mild sand and gravel is finishing up removing rock material under agreement with the city, which helped us provide some rough grading of the site and save the city significant money.

And by the end of this year, the site should be shovel ready. So let's look at the cost estimate for this facility. As you can see, construction of the facility is about $33,500,000. That includes things like constructing the building, further developing the site, the furnitures, fixtures, and equipment to, operate the building, the equipment needed for the heavy duty fleet maintenance, and truck wash station to name a few. We always put a contingency on our projects for unknown, circumstances that may arise.

So that's shown at 10% or 3,300,000. And then we need to, design the project, manage the project, inspect the project, and do construction administration. So all of those construction management fees add up to about 3,800,000. There's permit fees. There's impact fees.

There's connection fees for water and sewer and other other things like that. It's typical with development projects. So in total, the cost is just over $40,000,000. We work with our finance team to look at what a debt obligation for this project might be. So with a $40,000,000 debt obligation, the annual payment over thirty years would be about $3,000,000 This equates to a waste resources utility rate increase of 24%, which I acknowledge is significant.

That doesn't include normal annual increases in expenses and other regulatory requirements such as wages, benefits, waste recovery fees. So this would be our new baseline utility rate. And with our current average residential bimonthly waste rate of $65, adding that 24% to it would raise that up to about 81 bimonthly.

Mark, I have a question. You mentioned, mechanics a little bit ago. So is there a a motor pool factored into the site development? Like, is so is that factored into this here?

It is. Okay. It is. So we would split our fleet operations and maintenance into two parts and have heavy duty out at this site and retain our light duty at the current East Side Street location. So, yes, it it includes all of that.

So during the finance committee, last month, we were asked about other costs the utility may be facing into the future. So Ron helped me quite a bit with this to bring this together. So, thank you, Ron. There's some new regulatory requirements coming by 2030. The organics management law requires cities to mandate curbside organic service for all residential customers.

It also requires collection for nonresidential customers generating at least 50 gallons of organics per week. So, obviously, we would need to scale up for that operation. We would need to add at least one truck and driver to be able to do that collection. That would be about a $600,000 onetime expense for the vehicle and then about $335,000 on an annual basis for employee expenses and the normal vehicle and fuel and other costs that go along with operating that truck. The second thing coming down the pike is the Recycle Reform Act, which establishes a producer responsibility program for paper and plastic packaging that'll go into effect in 2030.

It'll begin with a 50% reimbursement for recycling costs phasing to 90% by 2032. Although the reimbursement calculations haven't been defined yet, the city would see some additional revenue in this area, which could offset our customer's recycling rate slightly. So that's some good news, actually. As the finance committee heard just last night, we need to also plan for, electrifying the waste resources fleet in the future. The proposed new facility would be constructed so that it is electric vehicle capable.

That would include some conduit and upgrading electrical panels so that it is ready for that. And that's about $500,000 to $1,000,000 in costs, which we would build into and is covered in the estimates we've talked about. In order to make the facility ready electric vehicles, our best estimates at this time to bring power to the site and the changing infrastructure ranges from 5,000,000 to $8,000,000 to do that. But we could phase that in over many years. Obviously, we're not electrify the fleet all at once.

That'll be phased in because those vehicles are more expensive as well. And so we could bring the appropriate power and infrastructure to the site as we need to. And then we also expect the electric collection vehicles to cost approximately $1,000,000 each. But again, these are just high level estimates because this technology is at a very early stage in development, especially for the waste industry. So moving away from the Carpenter Road site, the finance committee also asked us, how do we compare to other cities regarding solid waste collection?

So for context, I'd like to start with the program and services our waste resources team provide to our customers right now. We provide garbage, recycling, and organics collection to 16,000 residential households. We have about twelve fifty commercial customers where we provide garbage, organics, and bulky item collection. This includes both permanent and temporary containers. With our Dropbox program, we average more than 5,000 hauls annually.

These include our shared compactors downtown, debris from construction projects, and our large quantity generators like the hospital. In the last column, you'll see that we provide other services, many of which are unique to Olympia. Just to name a few, our clean team, our downtown litter can program, our multifamily recycling program, special event support, and more as you can see on the list to the right. Our team does a great job providing these services to our community. So how do our the two eighty one incorporated cities in Washington State handle solid waste collection?

And there's basically three major categories on how this is done. First, a city can operate and manage their own solid waste utility. 27 municipalities do this for at least one waste stream, like garbage or recycling. Of those, nine provide both garbage and recycling similar to what we do in Olympia. The second category is where the city contracts for services or services with a private hauler.

They can do this with all or some of their waste streams. Rate setting authority may be retained by the city or even set by the Utility and Transportation Commission or UTC. And finally, the third category is really a completely hands off approach where solid waste collection is overseen by the Utility and Transportation Commission. The UTC regulates the services they provide, the rates, and investigates complaints. So the next table shows how we compare to those cities.

The table on the left is how we compare to similar sized cities. As you can see, Richland and Olympia provide their own municipal collection. Where other cities our size contract for services in some way. The table on the right shows the nine cities in Washington that provide their own garbage and recycling collection similar to Olympia. As you can see, most are either much smaller or much larger than we are.

And Richland is probably the most similar to what we do. Finance Committee also asked about how we compare to other cities in just Thurston County. So starting at the top, as you know, Olympia provides its own solid waste collection with residential garbage and recycling. And that's collected every other week on opposite weeks. So garbage one week, recycling the next week, and then back to garbage and recycling.

If you go down the far right column, the other cities in Thurston County have weekly garbage collection and recyclings collected every other week. Our current rate is $65 bimonthly, as I mentioned earlier, and it would increase to $81 as a new baseline with the estimated debt funds for a new waste resources maintenance facility. So now moving down the rows to the other cities, the Utility and Transportation Commission sets the rates for Bucota, Rainier, and Taino, even though they have contracts with a private hauler. As you can see, their bimonthly rates are $69 $59 and $69 respectively. Yokota and Tonaino have a different rate than the other parts of the county because they are serviced by a different subsidiary hauler, which is able to set their own rates.

And then moving to Lacey, Tumwater, Yelm, and unincorporated Thurston County, there's no contract for those. Their bimonthly rate is $59, and they fall in that category where the utility and transportation commission does the rate setting, where the jurisdictions are involved in the service levels, the programming, or the rates. And all these rates we got from the most current UTC tariff, which is the rate and service level document that's provided for private haulers. So before we move on to your questions and discussion, which we're happy to answer, the finance committee asked us if there were any options beyond moving forward with the Carpenter Road site. There are three options here for you to consider for your discussion.

One option is to move forward with the Carpenter Road site as we've been planning. We would continue the design and further refine the project estimates. We would evaluate the debt packages in more detail and explore funding scenarios, including ways to phase the rate increase in over time. Two other options could be to explore contracting for service or services or to continue our operations at the current public works maintenance facility. So really to summarize, we're kind of at a pivotal point in this process.

We've been collecting capital funds to move the project forward in design. The maintenance center is 50 years old. We've outgrown it, and the condition of the building requires millions of dollars to address. Investing in the existing maintenance center would not meet the needs of our public works operations long term. So I know I've just thrown out a lot of information for you all to digest. So Ron and I are here to answer any questions you may have as you move forward with your discussion. So thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Could you, go maybe go back to the slide that has, all of the the different jurisdictions and and the services that they offer? I think that might also help when we're, yeah, during our discussion. Thank you. Alright. Any questions or comments? Yes. Mayor Potem Nguyen.

Thank you for your presentation. How many people work in in waste resources?

There we go. New technology. Sorry. My first time using this. There's about and Ron can maybe go into Margie. There's about 40 that work in that. That includes the clean team. So, yes, there's about 40 individuals. I don't know if you wanna go into more detail on that.

Yeah. We have 18 collectors, so 18 staff that perform collection on a daily basis, three maintain well, two maintenance workers, one cart one that does delivers carts, three education outreach staff, a billing specialist, a dispatcher, and then the clean team on top of that, and then the director's position, and a program planning supervisor that is vacant currently.

Thank you. Yeah. I'm thinking about that a lot right now. I understand that $40,000,000 is a lot of money. 3,000,000 annually is also a lot of money.

It is a moving from 65 to 81 is probably get us some emails. But I'm thinking a lot about the people and the service and how much I I think they do such a great job. I think that that was already mentioned in the presentation. I think about my interactions with them as a community member. I think about some of the ways that they've gone beyond you know, collection and the sort of, the role of the job, the job duties and gotten just, out in the community, in different programs that that we've seen, come before us, on council.

I think about how much people like the light parade. And I know it's 40,000,000, and I'm talking about the light parade. But those are the things that, that's kinda how I'm coming into this discussion. So I just wanna be really honest about that. Is there a in your research about, the different cities, what other, what other municipalities do, is there a scenario where the contract for services is more the contract for space?

Let me make sure I understand your question. Contract for space? Is that what you're

Yeah. Just think about when we're doing when we're thinking about contracting for services, is there was there a scenario or a municipality that came up that I understand we would need a lot of space, but is there such a thing as renting the space? I'm thinking a lot about keeping, I'm I just am thinking a lot about the people part of it. And I'm sure you all have thought about this a lot too, so I'm not alone here. But, contacting for services, yeah.

I just I I think, that this is I just think this is a heavy a heavy discussion for our study session. And, I just wanna be really honest about where I'm at and just get right to it. And is there a scenario where we're not contracting the work so we can have the people doing the work that have been here doing the work?

We haven't done that. I know the consultant back in 2016 did a very thorough analysis of what was available around town to relocate not only waste resources, but the entire public works maintenance operations. They looked at parcels all over the city. And none of them met the needs either because of space or because of neighboring uses would be in conflict. So I'm not aware of it.

It's always possible Yeah. To keep looking for those types of things, certainly. I'm not aware of any facilities that exist that would have both the facilities and the the land available that we could just really walk into and rent with with minimal cost to to remodel or or to make it work for us. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm just not aware of it.

Yeah. Sure. I appreciate that. Well, I'll just sit back, and I'm curious to see how the discussion will go. Thanks.

Thanks, mayor Pro Tem. Councilmember Green.

Thank you, mayor. Mayor Pro Tem, I just love that you're always thinking about people first. So what I'm about to say probably is not gonna be super popular with you. But first, actually, want to start. Director Russell and Ron, thank you so much.

The information you have added to this from what we saw in finance for me answered a lot of my questions, really helped clarify for me what I was looking for from that presentation. So I do really appreciate the added information and added research. And I you know, Mayor Perchuk, like, I I kinda joked about it. Do 100% agree with you that that like, we we I don't wanna lose sight of, you know, the the reality of the people and the work that are behind this. And I think we hear from folks in the community, you know, how much they do appreciate that they they have regular contact with their haulers, you know, when they when they call for billing, there's a there's a person here that they talk to.

Like, I recognize there's a lot of value in that and then that's not something that's that you can really put a number on. And, you know, and I talked about this a little bit at finance. I look at that $40,000,000 and and then I look at you know, and that moves that baseline number. And then you talk about trucks whether they're electric or not electric. I mean you're you're somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 in today's dollars.

And then if if we talk electrification, then you talk about that infrastructure that's gotta be so I just I continue to worry that that $40,000,000 is is very much a baseline number. And and even if it's even if it's conservative, I just feel like right behind that is a number of additional numbers. And I think about that in the context of what what we went through when we went through the budget cycle last year and how much work we were doing to find $1,200,000 I mean, you know, like and so when I think about those kind of numbers, I just think about where does that come from when we've now gone through several years of very, very difficult and tight budget times. So, for me, and I don't I'm not gonna say I know where I fall on this, but for me, I'm very curious to know what those comparable costs to the city look like or what what it looks like for some of those cities that that contract of, you know, fiscally, what that does that mean?

Yes. Councilmember Gilman.

I I also appreciate very much the the work you've done since the finance meeting. And I am I'm we had three options out there about investing in a new waste resources center, exploring contracting, or continuing to use the existing facility. And I would like to take option three off the table. It's given that it's this was in midstream when I joined the council ten years ago. This is a slow decision.

Right? And and the the need has increased. The community has continued to grow, and and the kinds of services that we offer through public works have continued to increase. So, anyhow, I that's that's my my first suggestion is that we continue to move towards making a decision and not put it off for people in ten years to sit at this table and and contemplate the same choices. A a couple things came to my mind as we were hearing your your presentation report.

Could you speak a little bit about any by having our own waste resources utility, are there synergies within public works, and are there services to the community that you think we would lose, if we were to contract services?

I'll I'll I'll do my best to to take a first shot at that, and maybe Ron can can add to it. First of I just wanna say thank you for acknowledging the great work our waste resources team does. All all of you have said that, who who've spoken so far. They do do outstanding work, and they're great at what they do, and the community does love the work that they do. Synergy, yes.

There's a lot of synergy within Public Works. We several maintenance functions support each other in various ways. If Streets is out, you know, finding some debris on the side of the road, they they call up their counterparts in waste resources to to provide either a drop box or something in order to help them do that. It's just one example. So, yeah, there are some synergies and some work.

The slide that I showed that has those unique services for Olympia, like the clean team, like the multifamily recycling, like the downtown litter can program. We provide litter cans downtown and pick up the waste from those on a very regular basis. Yeah. Some of those services, we would have if if we contracted things out, we would have to either find a way to to do that in a different way or to retain it or to or to do something else. So so there are some services that are unique to Olympia that I think would be difficult to contract out and not meet the service levels that the council or the community would, expect, like clean team, like the downtown litter can program.

So, yeah, we would have to, that would be part of an exploration to to figure that out. So I don't know, Ron, if you have anything to add.

No, Mark. I think you covered it well. Great question, councilmember Gillman. I think one other aspect is just the direct connection between customers and their collection staff and the billing and the education outreach. I I've never been part of a a contract city, but I I've I've spoken a lot with other colleagues around the state.

And you would def there would definitely be a gap when it comes to customer complaints and resolving issues. So there would be less connection. I think Mark really touched on the synergy where when we have things like public events, we are right here. We have staff dedicated to outreach with public events and helping them set up, working with our operations staff, getting the containers down there and negotiating the space. Those would be less synergy. I'm not

sure what the

word would be there, but there would definitely be less synergy there and it would be more about calling up and working with the private hauler and then asking for that to be delivered and getting onto their schedule. It would be the same thing with whenever we have a a cleanup of a, say, an illegal or even a legal mitigation camp. So

I appreciate that. And I just two thoughts. I I I wanna leave. The the first one is this this, 24% rate increase. 24% is a big number, but in this in the when you measure it up against our sewer rates, our property taxes, the sales tax a family pays, we're talking about the difference between 65 and 81 is $16 every two months.

It's $8 a month. So I just wanna be clear that it's it's not nothing, but it's also it's it's a it's a pretty small amount compared to the total fee and tax burden that a household pays in a year. So I'm not particularly intimidated by the 24% if you break it down to this is a relatively well, as you could see, you know, the other cities being in that same range. This is a relatively inexpensive 30 or $40 a month part of all of your household bills. So I I I just I wanted to offer that.

And my my last thought is last night's finance committee meeting was about what we do to stay on track with our climate goals. And I would not want contracting out waste hauling to excuse us from counting the carbon footprint of the heavy vehicles. So I I appreciate council member Green thinking about the sticker shock of trying to get to zero emission waste collection, but I would expect us to be trying to insist and be willing to pay for that same transition from a private hauler if we were to to contract the work. So I just just wanted to throw that up. But that's that's really important to me that we stay on those twenty forty goals.

Councilmember Vanderpool. Yeah. I I agree with a lot of

what I'm hearing here. But I wanna go back to what mayor Pro Tem said about options. Right, exhausting all options, when I see the issue that we're dealing with with it almost reminds me of, you know, the the the idea of regionalization with fire, right, where there needs to be some sort of either you continue to take it on as a city or you you you or you have to pursue other options. Right? And I I wonder what I I I write down regionalization because I wonder if there's ever a conversation with the other cities about this.

I know that they're in different spaces right now, but I I mentioned that as just another thing that we we have to exhaust every option in front of us. I there's a there's a great bit of history in this country of the negative effects of privatization and how that puts people in the future in bad places. Right? Because every time you privatize something, it's hard. It's really hard to go back.

And it it every and it's almost almost always has a negative consequence for the public. And so I have no interest in privatization. I think that I've spoken to folks. I'm just gonna say this out loud, I guess. But I've spoken to folks from the from Teamsters, for example, who had to deal with contract negotiations last year.

And they they did not advise of it even though they are teams even though they would be, you know, representatives situation. They mentioned that many cities have had to fight really hard for their contracts to ensure that the waste services continued even during strikes. And so I'm mentioning that out there that may present one solution but create entirely new world of problems. And so I'm hesitant about that, and I would feel much better about exhausting all options before we ever think about privatization.

City manager, Bernie.

I'm gonna introduce this, Ron or Mark, you might have to help me in terms of regionalization. So one of the things that I think is true is that even the contracted the cities that contract, those haulers have rights to that territory for at least ten years even if those cities wanted to pursue something else. So let's let's just let's just say we talked to City of Lacey, and they said, yeah. We'd be interested in partnering your waste service and contracting with the city. I believe they'd have to give a ten year notice to the current caller, or is that maybe you could help with Ron just because I think that's important to this conversation about regionalization.

Yeah. Thank you, city manager Bernie. And, maybe, Mark Barber, city attorney, is maybe a better person to answer this. But, what I know, based on the statute is the state law is such as if we annex in urban growth area or if a city was to what they call condemn the territory like Lacey or Tumwater if they wanted to condemn the private sector. The state law says a minimum of seven years, but case law has demonstrated or sorry.

Case or statute has said minimum of seven years and then case law has proven ten years. So kind of a standard depreciation of assets. So if yeah. If Lacey and Tumwater, they would I guess the way around that would be pay the ten years of damages on your customer value, as has been described to us in the past by outside counsel.

Yes. Mayor Pro Temp.

Yeah. I just wanna make sure I'm understanding this. So are you saying, manager, that we would have if we were to, you know, kinda fast forward and go to a place where it would be private, then you'd have ten years to change your mind? Is that what you're saying? I didn't quite understand that.

A different quite I think those are you got two different points there. I'll the first one that I was responding to was this idea of council member Ryan will talk about regionalization. And I what I got by that was, what if we partnered and came together with other jurisdictions around waste? And could that could there be some economic benefit to that? And you you have this this ten year window, you have to take that into consideration.

So we could explore that, but I just wanted you all to know it couldn't happen tomorrow. Like, we could start down that path, but it would be a ten year window before we could actually realize a regionalized approach to waste if we were partnering with other other cities with our waste. The other is if we privatized. Right? If we went to privatization and we and then at some point in time in the future, we decided we wanted to go back the other direction, I believe the same the same thing would apply, or or would we be able to take our our territory back without any notice?

Would it be okay if I gave a little high level overview of the solid waste laws of Washington State, which gets back to these three options? Washington State, 1960, 1961, established franchise territories for garbage haulers. They basically gave exclusive rights to garbage haulers. In doing so, they allowed cities to control their own destiny. And they can control their own destiny either through providing themselves like Olympia does or contracting with the private sector.

Over the years, most of the small garbage companies have been gobbled up by three of the larger companies. So you have effectively, have, say, one big waste hauler that has most of the unincorporated and the cities that don't do their own or have a contract have that territory. Like maybe, say, half of Western Washington. So we as a city, if we contracted out, you could go back, but it would be, I think, financially not possible. Once we give away our equipment, once we give away the staffing, it would be just too expensive to get back into the business.

You would be perpetually in a contract situation, then you would so you would have to compete, have haulers compete against that. Typically what we see and what and I'll also say that Washington State is unique among the 50 states in the nation that has a system like this where they have basically franchise territories. And the reason they set it up is to have rate setting and a surety that you wouldn't have fly by night garbage companies come in, know, then go out of business and you have garbage sitting around.

So that is kind

of why it was set up. Did that help a little bit? So we could always go back in, but once you have the contract, you're we we would own the territory or the city would own that still owns that territory, that right.

I was with you until the end. What do you mean we own the territory? Oh.

We have the right another one The franchise territory. Yeah. The franchise territory. So what this means is we are the exclusive hauler for garbage and this is garbage only, which kind of is everything on the residential side. No one else can haul garbage out of Olympia. The private haulers cannot touch it. Just like in Lacey and Tumwater, no other garbage company can legally haul garbage in their territory. They have exclusive territorial rights. So we would retain that. Even through contracting, we would retain that that right.

It's still a right of ours. I see what you're saying. Yeah. And and thank you for your high level overview that somehow was very sly that got us right back on track again with the three options you gave us. So but I I you know, with some of your explanation, it did reaffirm something that I was thinking, of course, because you two are the professionals in this space, and I really value what you have to share, is that I really believe that I don't wanna get too ahead of us, but once we let it go, we let it go.

Yeah. You know? And I think about, some of the other I guess maybe there's more WiFi options now, but I think about Internet. I think about energy, and there's such a you know, these big companies just have us. And, also, I'm not feeling very encouraged by my recent energy bill surge.

So, yeah, I just yeah, I appreciate your sharing and I really do think that, you know, if it were to get all the way to a space, we're far from that at the moment, I think. But when it goes private, like, that's it. I I don't imagine that there's gonna be a future city council or city manager that has a curly hair and says, we're gonna build a waste resources center. I just don't see that happening. And and even even then, just resource wise as well. So yeah. Thanks.

Councilmember Barron.

Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I just kinda wanted to share a few of my thoughts about this. I I in total agreement, once it's gone, it's it it would it would be gone. If if we entered into a franchise fee with one of the big haulers, and there are three there's Waste Management, Republic, and LeMay in this area, they would have to capitalize.

So they would they would go to an investment bank, and they would take out a big loan to buy all the new trucks they needed, buy buy buy a facility like the one we're considering, and whatever other expenses they would have. And, you know, what what we what we don't know is really what they could deliver this this this this service for. I'm I'm kind of skeptical that they can deliver it any less expensively than than what we are able to to deliver for this. You know, I'd I'd like to see the numbers on that. But my my my greatest concern is just that I do think we're a bit at the mercy of of the of of of of of other forces once once you let go of of this facility.

And if the UTC, if the Utilities and Transportation Commission were to be the oversight of of a private hauler, that private hauler would be you say, look. We've got all of these expenses, and we need to raise our raise these rates by $20 or whatever. And and they would go through and look at the numbers and make that decision. So what's going through my own mind is is would we really would would our consumers really be any better off with a private hauler than by by by the city making a larger investment. I mean, technically, I'm I'm sure that the three private haulers that I've mentioned probably are all union.

So wages are not going to be probably out much much different than our own. So I I'm just skeptical whether this would be a better financial deal for our consumers or not, and I and I need more information along those lines. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'm so I'm first of all, I appreciate this conversation. I think we're thinking, we're we're asking, I think, all the right questions. I appreciate the skepticism in the line of questioning. Although, I do wonder about the the current level of service and the fact that we do need 40 plus million dollars, for this new facility.

And, you know, when we we think about, this idea of contracting out, are people are people going to be paying more for a new facility while they also have the same level of service? And I wonder about, you know, if we're contracting out, whether there is the possibility that's the slide that I asked you to to have up a moment ago on the different jurisdictions that have various rates. Yes. They have various rates, but then you can also see that they have weekly collection, weekly recycling. So if we're looking at the the current rate versus the the increase of that rate, that's also a a change in service delivery for us.

And so, you know, I am looking at that as is is that something we should be exploring, especially when our community we hear quite a bit about the fact that we don't collect glass anymore, for example, and and things of that nature. So I'm I'm wondering if, an exploration of contracting, allows us to do a little bit more investigating into what this means for the type of service we're providing and whether or not that could be a benefit to us, as a result of of contracting out. But I also think that we should tread carefully while we look into it. So any thoughts on that at all?

Yeah. Again, Mary Payne, great questions. Great thought. One one clarity one thing I wanna I kinda wanna step back a little bit. City of Olympia back in 1998 moved from weekly garbage and every other week recycling to an all cart system.

We were also one of the first cities in the state of Washington to start recycling curbside in 1989. Not the first, but one of the first. We moved to the all cart alternating every other week system where garbage and recycling alternate weeks. When you look at a lot of cities and garbage hauling and especially with some of the haulers and what LeMay Pacific Disposal Waste Connection does here in Thurston County, they have weekly garbage, every other week recycling, and every other week organics. It's the system they have.

And that's partially predicated on Thurston County sets a minimum service level ordinance. And so that's kind of how it's set up. We started the all cart system. We went with the carts that would work for that. So for companies then to switch from weekly to every other week, you're talking about, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of cart inventory swapped out. So, just wanted to clarify that piece that they are every other week recycling, but still weekly garbage. And it has worked. We when that was implemented back in 1998, they expected a lot of pushback and we hardly ever got complaints about odors or anything. So that was an amazing thing. And that's actually when I started with the city.

The other piece about glass, I just wanna bring some clarity to. We used to have it in the in the cart commingled. However, that glass really, when it was commingled like that, never really got recycled. It still went the long road to the landfills, what they call alternative daily cover. I do know that LeMay around us collects curbside glass from some customers.

It is included. The glass they collect goes to concrete recyclers here locally, so it is used as a beneficial material in road base. It does not get turned back into glass. It is the same place our glass goes. So when we made that change in 2020 to keep our glass or our recycling clean, that was a conscious choice on our part, Council's part, to kind of remove that.

The other thing, the glass bottling plant, Hardaw Glass in Seattle, they shut down in July 2024, and they will not ever reopen again. So we lost our major glass recycler in the state of Washington. So and then I'll just say one more thing, and this is coming back to the Recycle Reform Act. When we see the Recycle Reform Act in 2020, we're we hopefully will see an an increase in what we can recycle as part of that. The state is also working on a designated recyclables list to get recycling uniform across the state of Washington, 2030 or in the early 2030s.

So there's a lot happening, and we have seen now for the fifth year a deposit return system proposed in Washington state. So those are things that could address some of these more problematic recyclables like glass where you wouldn't necessarily need to have it collected curbside. So I know that was a long answer, but I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of kind of the landscape of that those materials.

Yeah. Thank you, Ron. I I hear the the concern of of losing what we have. I think that's fair. I do think that, you know, it is a service that, along with police and fire, I think it's it's the service that people look to to see that they have a local government that's functioning.

Right? And as was said earlier, we all, appreciate the work that you're doing, and, obviously, it's, top notch work in, doing a great job. But I still think because we have such a a significant price tag, with this facility and given where we are financially, that we should be open to exploring this idea more of what it looks like. Obviously, no decisions being made at this point, but I don't think we should write it off tonight. Although, I think it's option three.

I'm okay with striking that. Yeah. I I I just think this situation warrants us looking at everything. And, yeah, I I would just like to know more before I make any decisions in one regard or another. Yes. Council member Vanderpool.

So, I had two thoughts, and I I agree. Looking at all options is we have to, right, in order for the public trust around this. But I I'm curious about two things. Usually, I don't care for advisory votes. I really don't. Balloted, you know, balloted advisory votes. I'm not usually, I'm not a big fan of that, but it feels like something that I would need to I would need public feedback on. Have the voters let us know. That said, I'm curious about the community survey Mhmm. If that was in there, if that's something that we could put in there next year, if not this year. Because it I I wanna know where the public is on this.

I think that's fair. Although, we don't know all the details as of now. So I guess it would be a matter of timing, and maybe staff can help answer those questions about advisory votes. But, if the decision was left to us today, we wouldn't know what to decide. So I guess I'm just trying to figure out what information would voters have to be able to make an informed decision one way or or the other. And so I guess that's a a question for for you all as to, you know, what does that scenario look like or city manager burden.

I'll I'll I'll take a shot. Yeah. I think if we as we as a staff don't know enough about what it would look like to privatize. You know, we haven't done any work in this in this regard to look into it, to look at options, to to your questions, Meyer, about could could there be different service level options? Maybe. And would those pencil out in in the same or different way? Maybe. But we just haven't done any work in that space. So I don't think we would be in a place to be able to tell the community in an advisory vote at this moment would it look like to privatize versus what it would look like to stay where you are, and do you do you support one or the other? It feels like if I was a community member, I'd say, well, what would it look like in this scenario?

And then I could tell you whether or not I would want that or want this. That's just where my mind goes on that on that question. I don't know if if, Mark, you wanna add anything to that, but that's kinda where my thoughts are.

Yeah. I think it's well said, Jay. It's, we don't know enough. I I agree. We need to understand what the public thinks, but I wouldn't know what to tell them right now about one option versus the other. I I can tell them all day long about what we do right now, but as far as what another alternative would look like, we would need to do some exploring and and figure out a process to to both figure that out and to figure the public input process.

Sure.

Thank you, Mark. Council member oh, I'm sorry. I have a queue. Mayor pro tem Nguyen followed by council member Gilman.

Thank you. I think I I like your goal. I'm not convinced that it necessarily needs to be advisory votes. And, also, I just wanted to interject into this conversation because here we have this word advisory advisory coming up, and we do have even though it's different than an advisory vote that you're referring to, but we do have the utilities advisory commission as well, that is set to to represent members of the public. We, of course, as council members, are voted in to represent members of the public.

And I don't see this issue moving to or getting to done without doing some sort of community outreach. I think that was that would be planned no matter where we went with it. So, for what it's worth, I think that part of that could be, even if it was an advisory vote. I think that public outreach part of it and and getting public perspectives and opinions is so important. And my understanding is that is going to be a part of the plan.

No matter how we move forward. I'm really interested in looking at what that new facility, you know, this future facility, if we were to go the that I guess, the the first route there. I think there is an opportunity. And again, you're in this, so let me know, but, I think there is an opportunity to really I don't think that you're gonna go, and if if we said, okay, we're doing the, we're spending the money, and we're gonna do this debt service, we're gonna raise the rates, all the things, get the money in check, and then go build the facility, I don't imagine we're building a duplicate facility. We're building something that is gonna be state of the art, probably, to the updated to to current standards.

And, I think there's a real opportunity to enhance what we already have going. Both for people that are people that are working there, of course, members of the public are probably not gonna spend a lot of time there. But, maybe, maybe we maybe we have windows, you know, we bring back the windows of drop off and what that could look like for certain types of drop off. The glass drop off, cardboard, the I think it's in in the warmer months, you take, extra yard waste. That is popular.

People love that. Those yard waste bins fill up so quickly. And I and then there's you had already mentioned a couple, Ron, so I I won't well, I guess I'll just reiterate because I clearly want this to go a certain way. But, is you know, if there is a passage of of a law that is collecting, you know, cans or bottles or whatever it is, then I think possibly this new site, you know, we could build it to be ready for that. There I just think that and, you know, we keep on talking about what a great job folks are doing and and how great the service currently is.

If people had an an enhanced workspace, you know, I think there's a lot of possibilities. So, while we're talking about I'm hearing from other council colleagues about, you know, wanting more information on x y z. I I would like to further flush out, like, what would it look like? What is that? Because, again, that that 40,000,000 that is big, we've done other stuff that's expensive.

So it's it's not it's big, but, you know, it's not completely scaring me off. And I and I really appreciate council member Gilman putting putting the raising the rates in perspective for us. Thank you for that, sir. But I yeah. So I I would want this to come back and have more information on what what is you know, let's flush out number one a little bit more.

And then I just wanna, I guess, kind of underline a little bit of what I've been hearing is that I think there is there is a price and then there is everything else that we value along with it. Right? So, I yeah. And, I think there's a lot to value beyond right now that it's $65 and it could be a little bit more later. And, to me, you know, we're we're risking a bit, you know, losing a lot. I really think that. So yeah. Also, thank you for your question about synergies. I think there might be some synergy happening right here, sir. Alright. I'll give it a rest.

Councilmember Gilman.

Now my head's so big. I gotta bring it down just to ask a question. Because I in in my thinking, we wanna inform the community along the way, but this is a pretty operational level kinda decision that I don't think we can really get input from a community survey. I think we can get satisfaction with services or if there are services that people wish they had, but the decision of, whether to contract or whether to seek funding for a a a new facility, I think it's on us to make the decision. And I I I I I'm just I'm I'm not sure that it that this for me, this doesn't fit the kind of question that I would wanna do a broad public poll.

And I I what I'd like to to the the last thing I'd like to hear about is our capacity for considering both of these alternatives is council member Barron's question about would there is it conceivable that a a private hauler would build the infrastructure to service Olympia or buy our infrastructure, whatever whatever that was, that that that would happen at the same rate as Lacey and Tumwater are currently served, or would we necessarily I mean, that that's just that's a question for me is, at what point in the discussion with the private haulers do we have some assurance about how much they would provide on the hopes of years and years of work? And and within this regulatory framework, is it possible that they would charge us more than or our or our our residents more than they charge Lacey and Tumwater? So that scenario and then a little bit further along on the bond funding and timeline for, a new facility. I think I I that's that my question is what what capacity and what sort of timeline we have to to get us to a decision point between those two options.

I can start, and maybe the city manager can fill in the gaps a little bit too. This will take us some time. I mean, if you ask us to explore other options besides building the new facility or the first option, we would need to get together. I would need to convene a team to figure out what that process looks like. And, it's gonna take some time to do that.

It's gonna take some time to to figure out, how we would go about getting those answers from the private haulers. You know, Ron has done and myself and others have done what we can do by calling other cities and how does this work and how does that work. If we actually want to know what service they can provide and what it would cost to provide those services, we've actually got to engage with the prospective private haulers to find that out. So that's gonna take a process and and time to do that out. My guess at this point is if you ask us to look at other options besides building the facility, We would probably be this time next year before we could come back to you with here's this versus that.

There may be some check ins along the way. Do we have it right? Are we on the right track so that we don't go off on a tangent? But my guess is it's gonna take us some time to to figure out what that process looks like, have some check ins with with you and others, and then actually get the information, evaluate the information, and package it up to bring it back to you and also the community if we have some public process that that we're wanting to do as well. So does that I don't know if, Jay, you have anything more to add to that.

Maybe a couple of things. You know, I think that here's what I think. And and Ron and and and Mark, you could jump in. I think it'll be hard for staff to call around in private haulers and say, hey. What do you think you would charge if you took over our territory? In fact, the only way you get to surety, to your point, is at some point in time, if you if you decide to go that route, you get to surety with a contract. Right? A contract with a private hauler helps you set your rates, set how increases happen, whether we're gonna use our own utility advisory committee, whether they're gonna use the UTC, however we choose to do that. But that's how you get the surety. Right?

Right now, I think we all we could get is probably best guesses. And most of the private haulers, if if you're calling around, we'll go, why are they calling around? Are they are they asking me? Are they asking others? And they might be guarded.

You know, I think the only way you could potentially get at this, and we've talked about this, you know, a little bit, is some sort of request for information where you'd put something together, where you would we would talk to the council, we'd scope it out and say, are all the questions that you have about what it would look like to to contract? Or what, you know, what are all the questions that you would want answered? So you'd have everything you'd want in front of you to compare that to what you'd have. And so you wouldn't do a a request for proposal. We do some sort of request for information to say, we're just looking, and we're just interested in what's out there because we don't know.

And then you'd see what kind of responses we would get to that, and then that might help us come back and bring you some of the answers. I think that's as close as we we could probably get to some sort of information for you if you want to take it to the next step of information around contracting. Now the other the other piece of information you want around further flushing out option one, we can do that too. Right? You know, we can we can look at, putting the debt service flush that out and move that back to you and look at some of the other questions that you have about what does it look like to stay here.

And I thought the questions around, yeah. We are gonna build a modern facility. And if we build a modern facility, what kind of options does that give us that we don't have now in terms of how we serve the community? I think we owe you those answers too. So I think we can do that and that if that's what you'd like us to do. To Mark's point, it's gonna take some staff capacity. So it's gonna take know, for us to do I think it's easier to do where we are with our current option. We can get back to you sooner rather than later. But to really look at another all all the other alternatives would take some time and probably the better part of a year to to get to get to it. Does that help?

Councilmember Vanderpool.

I guess, the other part of

this I was thinking about as Jay was talking about the option one. I was thinking, are there are as we mod if if we go with the new facility and we're modernizing it, are there any current or upcoming programming grants, funds from the federal government or the state that could help offset some of that cost, like the vehicles, for example? Like, we're switching from, you know, one to the other or trying to upgrade the energy efficiency of a new building, building a brand new building, is there dollars out there that could help with some of that huge cost?

To answer that question, yes. There are. I mean, for example, solar panels on the roof would be something we could probably get a grant for. I just want to caution, though, for us to be ready to to look for those grants. We've got to further the design, which costs more money.

And and so like I said during the presentation, we're kind of at a pivotal point to either move forward with the design in the new building and start getting those questions answered. We can like Jay said, we can we can find out some things, but the more details we get into, the further we have to get the design completed in order to get the answers to those things. So some of the things you're asking might need us to go to a 30% design instead of a 10% design in order to answer those questions, which does cost staff time, consultant time, and money to do that. So that's why I mentioned we're kind of at a pivotal point to either move forward with that design and and really exhaust the design and get the the cost estimate dialed in, get the the the debt dialed in, looking at you know, we're almost done with design would be the time we would look at how are we gonna fund that. Can we get grants for this or that or that or whatever?

So so I just wanna caution a little bit of of we can do some analysis and some design furthering to answer some of the questions that have come up here. But to really dial it in, we've gotta really have the consultant move forward with the design to get some of these questions answered. So I don't know if that helps.

Go

ahead. It it does. It gives me a good understanding. But I also I'm wondering also if it would be possible, going really into the woods here, to consider using organizations like TRPC that would be cheaper than a private consultant to get to 30% because I'm think I'm thinking of getting if we're gonna pursue this, we have to do efficiently. And and if we can get away with it being 20 instead of 30,000,000, for example, that would be a a huge savings for the city.

Right. I think where you're headed is kind of a value engineering to make sure we're we're building something as as efficiently as possible and Okay. And the scope is. So yeah. But that's all part of a normal design process as you move from 30 to 60 to 90%. And that's what I'm cautioning is is some of these answers, I'm not gonna be able to do unless we ask our consultant to move further in the design process because they don't know the answers to those questions unless they do more work.

I do a follow-up to that? Sure. So How much would you estimate that would cost to do a 30%?

We've spent I I don't know if I have that answer tonight. It would be several $100,000 to move it forward for sure. I don't know if I have an exact number in my head. I I don't wanna guarantee that, but it it would be several $100,000 to move it to the next phase of design.

Okay. Thank you.

City manager, Bernie, you have something to add?

Yeah. Just this question about who could do the work. I would caution. I don't think TRPC has the expertise in waste, waste facility design to be able to advance this to 30% at a cheaper rate. I think, we have a consultant team that are that have backgrounds in waste facilities, and I think you wanna use the right expertise to make sure you get a really good number here.

Mayor pro tem Nguyen followed by council member Green.

I just wanna pick up that number you just you just left off with. You said it's a it'd be a $100,000 for 30% design?

Probably several $100,000. That's

Several 100,000. Okay.

We've spent well, I I don't wanna guess on what we've spent to date as far as just on design. We spent 2,600,000 getting the design to where it is and the site preparation done to where it is, including the demolition and the the remediation, the environmental work that we've done on the site. So I don't have exactly on my top of my head of what we spent in design. But to take it from from because, really, we're just at a conceptual design right now. To take it to the next level would be several 100 more thousand dollars to do that. I just don't have a good number without asking for a proposal from the consultant to to take it to the next level.

Yeah. And that's okay, Mark. I am yeah. I know kinda awkward since you just told me that number. That sounds like a big one.

I am interested in getting a better idea. Like I had said, I'm still feeling, like that would be part of, for me, the due diligence, of even thinking about moving to possibly, contracting for services. I think, it's especially since there's it's not as if we're doing this because there's something wrong with the service. You know? And so there's just so much, in my opinion, that we could possibly lose that I think it's worth it to do some type of, you know I'm not gonna throw the percentage out there for the same reason you're not throwing the number out.

But I yeah. I just I would like to see something. I would like to see you know, what is it gonna look like? What could it have do? What do modern yeah. What what what does it look like for a a modern facility? Would that enhance things? You know, what's the sort of a la carte menu that we could have? Yeah. That's that feels important to me.

And then I also wanted to say, you know, we've been talking a lot about trash talk. But we've been talking a lot about kind of, like, picking up, like, pickup. And so I and I just want to highlight Clean Team and how absolutely important Clean Team is. If anything, we're you know, there's been times where we've come back and say, oh, we need to expand Clean Team. And, you know, we just heard well, not necessarily tonight, but the other night from our economic development director, and we hear it from community members, small business owners, bigger business owners all the time about clean and safe.

And so I think about that with Clean Team too, and I don't imagine it with a you know, one of these larger garbage companies, I guess. And so I think that it for what it's worth, I think that's really important to note is that that is something that I would wanna hold on to. Thank you.

Point well made. Councilmember Green.

Thank you, mayor. Just two things. One is I I would be entirely in favor of learning what we can from an RFI to just understand what the options are. We know what it costs us generally, you know, to do these services. We know what it takes us in terms of that, obviously not the facility.

We don't know what that looks like. We don't know what clean like, I just don't have enough information to know. So, would be very interested in what we would learn from an RFI. And then, to be really helpful, I'll just politely disagree with my colleagues that for me to move to 30% design to get more information, like I feel like the concept of $40,000,000 is enough for me to know what our comparison would be. Because again, we know what operationally, what we have lots of really good data on what that looks like.

So, for me additional design I just don't feel like would make such a difference in what that facility would cost, what it could potentially do. For me, I feel like having info from an RFI and having what we already know about our current services would be enough to just say, you know, help help me make any further decision.

Okay. So, to try to get us to a place of closing, the discussion, I'm actually hearing somewhat of a balance. There's only six of us tonight, and I'm actually hearing sort of, three voices, say, to continue, pursuing option one. And I'm hearing three voices say that we should also explore, contracting for services. And so what that tells me is that we're back to what the city manager said earlier.

Yes. Well, sure. Okay. Okay. I'm being asked for us to, I guess, verify our positions.

So I, heard from each of you, and I was listening listening carefully. But I'm I think it's safe to say that we're pretty I don't even wanna say split because we're not making a decision, but I heard three voices really, really feeling strongly about, making sure that we continue to pursue option one. And I heard the same for two as well. So if we wouldn't mind, I guess we could go one by one beginning with council member Barrett on how would you like to move forward. You're on mute mute, council member.

And could could could you just please restate options one and two? I to me, it was about privatization or not privatization more so than than than than the in between. Could so could someone just restate option one and two as as they say it, as as a kind of in shorthand?

I'll take a shot at that. The slide is up, but option one would be to continue forward with the design of the Carpenter Road waste resources facility as we have been. The second option would be to explore what contracting for services would look like.

And just clarity on that second point. So because I think maybe this is where council member Barron's asking. This is not a choice of do we continue where we go or do we move towards a decision to contract. It's do you wanna just stay where we are and move towards car moves where we are at Carpenter Road, or do you wanna take a pause at this moment in time and get some more information about what contracting for services would look like and have that before you make an ultimate decision about which way you wanna go? I think that's kinda how we envision this conversation, Mark. Right?

That's correct. Yep.

Well and and and and just so I can add this. So the the question really is whether we if if we were kind of in favor of option number two or considering option number two is whether we would issue an RFI to all, you know, interested parties, essentially, the three big garbage haulers on what what a proposal would look like for for them to be interested in pursuing this. That's that's really what the way I understand it. Am I understanding this correctly, or am I getting ahead of my skis?

Yeah. I think what we'd wanna do is is if you're interested is I think we'd wanna get together as a staff and probably come back to council in the future and talk about what would an RFI look like. What are the pieces of information that you'd want the staff to gather? So we make sure that you get all of your questions answered. We might even do a little community outreach before we did that to understand what the community members might want to know about that. So I think there's some work we might wanna do to figure out what it is you want to explore and what that looks like. I don't think we need to sort it out tonight, but I think if you if you're interested in that, that'd be my recommendation that we'd come back at a future date and say, what what do you want what are you interested in on on that option number two, and what are all the questions you want answered?

And and and so, I guess, for me personally, I'm not ready to pull the trigger on issuing an RFI. But if we could get a little more information on what that would look like, I would I would be supportive of that. But I'm not I'm not prepared to make a decision to agree to to move forward on on that at this time, if if that if that makes sense. Mayor, does that does it am I am I making things more complicated for you?

Or Well, what you just said in your the end of your statement there, I would take that to mean that you would not be in support of option two. Well,

I'm I'm not in favor of issuing an RFI at this time. No.

Okay. Yep. So I got it. Thank you. Alright. Council member Green.

I am in favor of seeing what we would learn from an RFI.

Thank you. Council member Vanderpool.

I would prefer option one.

Thank you. Councilmember Gilman?

So I I hope that we can figure out a way to make, option one to retain our utility work, but I I really wanna know the the very I know it's difficult to get to it, but the question of would contracting out these services, could it be done without a change in the rates or with a reducing of the rates for folks? And would there be potential actual financial benefit to the city? I I and I know I I understand what city manager Bernie was saying that it's really difficult until you actually get to the end of contract negotiations to know whether or not that's true. And I I feel like that's that's the whole challenge in front of us is that the concept's been dangled in front of us that it might make financial sense for us, but there's no promise until we get to the negotiation. So that's that's why I feel really torn about these two options.

So your answer?

So if if somebody here at the table thought that they could tell us whether or not we were going to actually come out ahead by contracting with or without an RFI in the next few months. If there was a way to crystal ball that, I would wanna explore contracting. If if it means making a commitment towards heading towards contracting and just accepting that it could be that it's a net loser for the city and that it's in more expensive monthlies for our residents. I I don't wanna be stuck with that. So

I just wanna be clear. I didn't hear the city manager say that we had to have an either or when you made your comments earlier. It was, what I heard you say earlier is that we could do both. It just means that it's going to take more time.

Yeah. And and and RFI doesn't commit us to anything or or anyone. It you know, I I would want to really take a lot of thoughtful time with counsel on that approach too to make sure that we are ask again, asking the right questions and making sure that you have what you need to make a really good choice point if if if you want to do that. But I think that's the best we can offer at this point in time.

Okay. I think we got it. Yep. Yes. So he preferred It just

it doesn't make sense to me to have a preference between contracting out the service or building a new facility based on this conversation tonight because we still don't know the very basic is there is there a financial benefit. And and the the one other thing I'll throw into this is we haven't talked about how this is a separate utility. So it's not a general fund impact, and it's not even really a bonding impact for us. It's a it's it's it's its own it's a it's it's a separate entity, the utility. And and so when we talk about these numbers, we're talking about them in the context of a separate organization that we also look over, at least from my perspective that anyhow.

So that that's why I I I just I don't see us as being at a point where we say that we favor contracting or building a new expensive facility.

Sure. But would you say that you are in support of, moving forward with, continuing to explore both options? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Mayor Pro Temwyn.

Option one. Thank

you. I am in support of, conducting an RFI, as well as continuing to explore option one. I do think that, if we are going to continue to explore this idea of contracting out for services, and if we get to a point where we feel like we're leaning towards that, then we need to be able to have done our due diligence on knowing that continuing to pursue site development of this new facility, has been fully considered, and, therefore, we're, considering another option. So I I would like to see us continue to move, both efforts forward.

I got three three.

Alright.

As I said earlier

Add value to me. People can speak

up. Okay. So alright. Well, is there any further discussion? If not, thank you both, so much and, for this presentation and and for the work that, the department does. And I know that this is something that, this council is once again being faced with. But I wanna be clear that, tonight, no decisions are being made one way or the other. We're gonna continue to explore our options here, and make the best one that we can when that time comes. So thank you both. Yes. City manager, Bernie.

Mayor, I know you're wrapping us up, but I just wanna make sure that we have solid direction. Are we moving forward with an RFI and coming back to the council to explore that? Do you you wanna take that at least take that next step to come back to this council and talk more about it? Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes. That's what I'm hearing.

And then, again, I think, we can also do I've took a lot of good notes. I know Mark and Ron did too about kinda where we are with our current situation and kinda some of the questions that came up. I think we can answer some of the questions that came up without advancing this to 30% design. I think there's some questions that came up that we can answer based on what came up here. So I think we can kinda explore both those things at once if that's what you'd like to do. Yeah. We have a 10% right now. Okay. You guys are you feel Mark, I'm I'm looking at you. I wanna make sure that's why I paused here. I wanna make sure you feel like you've got good direction.

I'm not sure I do, but what I'm hearing is you want us to explore what it would look like to contract for services and figure out what that process is and bring something back to you before we were issue an RFI to make sure that we're asking the right questions and all that. And then whatever else we can nail down on the current design without taking it to 30 to a formal 30% if we can answer some of the questions that were brought up. That's what I think I've heard.

Yes. That is correct. Do we all concur? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I thought earlier in the conversation, it was said to us that we could not answer a lot of the questions that we've been asking without furthering the design. And so I'm worried that wrapping up this conversation is I'm worried that we're going to put more effort into an RFI than we are into the first decision option.

That's probably true. I have to be fairly concrete with with a design engineer in firm to tell them what they what we want them to do for us, and then they'll give us a proposal and a cost estimate to do that. We can do some work ourselves to see, you know, what direction we want ahead and kinda define that scope of work. But what I'm hearing is don't spend too much money doing that is is what I'm hearing. Don't take it to a full 30% design where a lot of those questions would be answered.

We can find out, like, what could the site be used for besides just housing our staff? Could we have some drop off areas? And we can have them evaluate some of those things and some of the other questions you had, but I still need to, define that scope of work for them and get a cost estimate to do that. So it will involve spending some more design money on the project if we wanna answer some of those questions. But I'm also hearing don't take it to a formal 30% design. Is that fair?

Yeah. Also, the warmth that I'm feeling right now or the heat that I'm feeling a little bit has nothing to do with you. And so I appreciate you answering all of my questions. I I don't expect a response to to this one from anyone, but I just wanna lift up that I'm mostly hearing we're landing at a place where it's balanced. And I do appreciate everyone speaking up and making it clear.

And I'm mostly hearing skepticism about about the potential of losing our in house services, And I don't want that to fall in deaf ears. I don't want to feel like I'm being moved towards doing you know, looking more into contracting with services when I feel like there's more to do about how can we how can we retain the services possibly. So, I'm saying that, and it's putting out there in the Mark. It's not necessarily for you. Thank you.

Thank you, city manager Bernie.

Okay. So what about this? So we need to circle up as a staff team, but I think what we can do is we can come back in a follow on study session. We can do two things. We can learn more about what you're interested in learning more about through an RFI.

I think we can kind of prime that conversation for you. I think there's certain things that we wanna put in front of to say, you're gonna ask, ask about these things. And we can do some of that work for you and bring that to you and then let you kind of give us some additional ideas of things you're interested in. I also think we can explore during that same study session all the other items you're interested in exploring around option one, and then we can figure out a way to get those answers for you. I think there's what I'm hearing Mark say is there's a way to maybe spend a little bit more money to get a little more information to help you help further that conversation without taking this all the way to 30% design. And I think we can spend some more time with you in that study session to look at both of those alternatives together so we can move them in parallel.

It's okay if you don't have an answer right now, but what are is there an estimate for what that timeline would be?

The session? Correct. I don't. I'd wanna sit with the team first and kind of see what we heard, but, I definitely would wanna come back to you here in the next few months, so we don't lose momentum in the year.

Sure. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. So, Mark, you you have what you need, and and you're clear. I'm clear. Okay. Good. Thank you. Alright. Well, I appreciate our very robust discussion tonight, but we still have an executive session to get to. So, thank you both. So at this time, we're gonna recess for five minutes, and we're gonna reconvene in Room 423 for up to sixty minutes, for an executive session pursuant to litigation and potential litigation. No decisions will be made. After which, we will be adjourned for the evening.