City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, 05/19/2026 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with all council members present tonight. So I'd like to just mention, that we have assistant city manager Debbie Sullivan here who is the acting city man city manager for tonight. Thank you, Debbie. And just to also mention that next week, we do not have a regularly regular scheduled business meeting. We will resume our business meeting on Tuesday, June 2. And with that, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

Move approval. Second.

All those in favor of adopting the agenda as published signify by saying aye. So our first item is the ninth is to a

Excuse me, mayor. You're Mike? Mike?

Thought it was on. Okay. Thank you. Alright. My apologies. Okay. So the next item on our agenda is item two a, which is a special recognition proclamation recognizing May as Olympia heritage month. And we have shared reading of the proclamation beginning with council member Barron.

Thank you. Whereas this year marks the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence and the establishment of The United States Of America and

Whereas the National Trust for Historic Preservation's theme for National Preservation Month twenty twenty six is all people are created equal, and the nation is celebrating by sharing historic sites, neighborhoods, and landmarks that tell the full American story. And

Whereas embracing the identities, lived experiences, and diverse perspectives of Olympia's growing community enhances the livability and vibrancy of the city for all residents and

Whereas the city of Olympia recognizes that history and heritage are essential components of a community's identity and equitable opportunities for access and participation in historic preservation programming play a large role in painting a fuller picture of the past and Whereas the Olympia Heritage Commission

is dedicated to providing education and resources that support all residents and community members in learning about Olympia's history by recognizing historic structures and stories of communities before us and

Whereas educating the community on our shared history and challenges helps us all contribute to a more positive world for the future. And

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Olympia City Council does hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 to be Olympia Heritage Month, finding new ways to recognize and celebrate our diverse history and heritage and expand access to education and programming for all Olympians. Signed in the city of Olympia, Washington this May 2026. Olympia City Council, Dante Payne, mayor. And now I'd like to invite up Brittany Gillia, who's our historic preservation officer, and Bill Cotter, the Olympia Heritage Commission member for a few comments.

Great.

Great. Thank you, mayor Payne, and thank you to the members of the Olympia City Council for this proclamation and for your ongoing support of heritage and historic preservation in our city. The National Trust for Historic Preservation's theme this year that all people are created equal challenges us to do more than commemorate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the nation's founding. It challenges us to ask though whose stories are being told, whose places are being protected, who has a seat at the table when we talk about history, culture, and preservation. The Heritage Commission takes that challenge seriously, and we're grateful to serve alongside a mayor and a city council who do as well.

This proclamation calls on us to find new ways to expand access and participation in historic and cultural preservation for all Olympians. And we're grateful for the city's support as we explore new and expanded relationships with tribal nations, cultural organizations, and neighborhood communities that can help us more fully reflect the breadth of Olympia's heritage. The stories of this place are bigger than any one district or historic era, and building those relationships across both community and institutional levels is how we begin to tell them more completely and more accurately. On a practical note, the Heritage Commission is excited to mention that we've been awarded grant funds to host a training on June 8 where members of the various historic commissions and historic preservation communities across the region have been invited to learn more about how to operate as a commission. As part of this, we'll be learning about community engagement and identifying opportunities to promote historic preservation for histories that may have historically been more untold.

In the near future, we also intend to apply for additional grant funding to conduct long overdue updated surveys for some of the older historic districts in Olympia. Keeping those records current is foundational to recognizing and protecting what makes Olympia irreplaceable and understanding those areas better as they exist today in 2026. We're proud of this community, and all of us on the commission are honored to serve it. Thank you for making this month and this work possible.

Thank you very much, Bill. Any comments from council? Mayor pro tem Nguyen.

Yeah. I just so appreciate, both this proclamation and then also, the broad representation we have here of the Olympias Heritage Commission, and then, of course, ably staffed by Brittany Gillia. And I think that many people that I've talked to in the community have a lot of feelings about this year being our semi quintessential year or America two fifty and your comments tonight, Bill, and then also this proclamation, I think, forces us to remember that America, no matter, you know, sort of how you feel about this moment, we're more than the moment that we're in. And our history and our stories are worth preserving, and that this year can be, if not one of celebration for some, but also a year of reflection and education. And I just really appreciate you all being here and your commitment to doing so.

Well said, mayor pro tem. So I have a signed copy of the proclamation here. We'd like to invite you up to take a photo with counsel and present you with the proclamation. All right. Thank you all so much.

So, that concludes our special recognition portion of our agenda for tonight. So we are gonna go ahead and move on to public comment, and I'll turn it over to the mayor pro tem.

Alright. So we have a number of in person public commenters, and then one that signed up online, we'll do the folks that are in person first. We have, two minutes for each public commenter. For those that are in person, I'll call a few different I'll call a few names so you know, where your place is in line. And when it is your turn, just make your way to the podium there.

The microphone is already on, and the timer will start as soon as you start speaking. The timer is right over here. It counts down from two minutes. There's also a few colors, lights before you, and when it changes to yellow, it's to indicate that you have thirty seconds to wrap up your comments, and then red will be that your time has lapsed. And if you do keep going past two minutes, you'll hear me try to gently chime in. And I'm saying thank you. I'm saying thank you. Please wrap up. And if you do get cut off in the two minute time, sometimes it's too much time for folks and too little for others. So, please know that we do invite you to submit your comments via email.

And also, because we are in another election year, I just want to remind folks that please do not use your time at public comment to signify your support of, or their lack of, candidate or a ballot measure. So just a kind reminder. With that, we will call up, Cece Coates followed by Didi Smith followed by Rick Kunin.

Hello, Olympia. My name is Cece Coates. I've been a resident here for about thirty five years. I was a union carpenter before I became disabled. Unfortunately, America is not treating the least amongst us very well. We currently have a national, state, and local policy of egregious cruelty toward the poor. We've had fifty years of lack of funding for affordable housing, and it's starting to severely affect our communities. I read an article on Prism. It's an online magazine. They've been aggressively going after homeless people in Portland and have seen a four times increase in deaths.

Currently, even though I was living in a place in my van next to my church for six years, I had a stalker who sent the city after me. It is currently illegal for me to park anywhere in public ground. It is also not legal for anybody to take me in, whether that's my own church or my friends. You have basically legislated my life out of existence. I'm currently having to break the law, which breaks my heart.

I keep hearing ever increasingly awful things from my community. I know two people who got evicted from their trailers on private land, trailers they owned. I'm hearing of people being arrested without charge and thrown into jail for just being homeless. We need to bring back compassion in America. We need to bring back caring.

It is egregious violation of religious freedoms to not allow people to offer hospitality. Not even my own church could take me in because of the ordinances and zoning laws and parking laws and the insurance companies. So please bring back kindness to America.

Thank you. Didi?

Hello. It's my very first time here, and I'm sorry. I'm I'm really new at all of this. But I have volunteered at homeless shelters and community kitchen for the last sixteen years here in town, and so I've gotten the opportunity to work with a lot of homeless people. And I I'm here tonight to speak about the situation that we have with our people who are in vehicles.

And I'm gonna speak first about Chris Hyde. I don't know if you've heard of him. He's the superman in town here, and he spoke to our organization. I'm a registered dietitian. And he said that he was home he ended up homeless at one point, and he was in his car. And everywhere he went, whether it was a rest stop or whether it was a anywhere he went, he was the police basically harassed him and said he had to move. And he said, it was so hard to just be able to even exist. And from that, he found a house, and he started being the superman, and he started giving out free soup to so many people. And now they're over at Friendly Grove, and they're allowing so many, many. It's a very positive thing.

Cece, who also has been at our church for six years, also started a soup kitchen at our church for our neighborhood, and she was helping take care of people there too. And, unfortunately, she explained her situation, is not able to help people. I am not for a lot of these people that make a gigantic mess and don't take care of things. I get that. That's a problem, and I know rats and so forth are a mess. But I do think we've gotta come up with some solution to help people who are in that boat, whether it's a major parking area they can can can be at or something that's safe. And I just ask you to do whatever you can to help in that situation. So I thank you for your time.

Well, since it is your first time public commenting, and you did a fine job doing so, unfortunate circumstances, but I always like to lift up when people come here for the first time and we hope that it won't be the last time. With that, for folks that may not be aware, we run through all of our public comment and then there is time at the end for Council members, should they choose to respond. So, if you're hoping for response, hang on. With that, we have Rick Hoonan, followed by David Webb, followed by Ty Gundel.

First off, I'm curious if you had received my three pages, and it has to do with the noise on Capital Way North. Oh, you do have one? Okay. I'm because I definitely won't get through it all. So my name is Rick Hoonan, and I'm part of Emergency Habitat.

And so we're group residents in the Boardwalk Apartments on 410510 Capital Way North. And and we're close to the rookery, the Blue Heron, close to the farmer's market. We have excessive noise from vehicles that create a lawlessness condition that exists on Capitol Way North, very near the Olympia Farmers Market. We're addressing the general health and mental health conditions of tenants. And as you might be aware, in boardwalk apartments, I'd say sixty five percent of the people have some medical issues.

We have veterans. I am also I'm I'm gonna skip down. And so I have support from the Harbor Heights Building with occupancy of a 116 units and the Doubletree owned by the Hilton Corporation, a 106 units. And so this the no the noise is overwhelming on Fridays and Saturday nights, and it's intermittent as I've stated in here. You can go four hours and there's nothing, and then it's it's a rock star show.

And they drive not to exceed the speed necessarily, but they're revving their engines and they're using the buildings as a what is it? Sound zone. So the echo echo chamber. And they I know they all get together, and they all know it. So I I don't know who to talk about in the city with this.

Thank you. I see chief Parker actually standing up. So I I believe chief is, inviting you, Rick, to have a conversation now, if that's alright.

Certainly.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. And next, we have David Webb.

Always great to see when, this council pressures people to talk with the chief instead of providing actual solutions or addressing any of their concerns. David Webb, Olympia. It's been a long day. Among other things, I learned that y'all are creating a short list of people you will actually help at the jungle. It was double sided and stuck to a tree, and on the back, it said when there would be an in person opportunity to sign up. Only in English. I'm not sure if you know. I'm not sure if you were considerate or thought or educated or have people who work for you who do research that relay information, but many people do not speak English there. Also, many of them do not read English. And so it would be nice if you all did more than go in once or twice between then and to make a list of people you're gonna save while you encourage everyone else to die everywhere else.

So, everyone displaced there in the next five month everyone displaced two there in the next five months is automatically not supported. So in other words, all the encampments that your armed forces displace, all the people they tell go die in the jungle instead the next five months after May 28 will not be supported. Your by name list, which is what you're creating, doesn't support the people there. And it's not reflective of the number of people who need it. Like the police auditor, this list just exists so you can point to and say, look.

We're doing something. We're housing x number of people. We're not making all of them die somewhere else, just most. Implementing a cutoff date while you continue to displace your neighbors is cruel and a demonstration of your values and how little you actually respect your on your your constituents in the jungle. Because I guess I need to remind you, they're not they're not just, like, a blight on your society.

They are your constituents. You're supposed to respect them and care about them and support them, not just tell them to go die somewhere else. Also I want to remind the public that there's still no system of police oversight available to either them, or this body, either no police oversight to the public or to this body. While failing to protect trans people, immigrants, or disabled and unhoused neighbors, they continue to enforce Olympia's die somewhere else rules and make, unenforceable orders as I demonstrated yesterday with officer Spithauser.

Thank you.

Alright. I see Ty Gundle approaching the podium, and then next, we'll have Molly O'Neil followed by Gary Myers and Steven Bramwell.

Hi. Good evening, mayor, council members, and staff. My name is Ty Gundle, and I serve as the executive director for Olympia Mutual Aid Partners, which is a local organization that provides services for people experiencing homelessness in Thurston County. And I am also here tonight to speak on behalf of my organization about our concerns with how the first few steps towards the jungle closure are unfolding. Just a little background for folks that aren't familiar with us.

Our organization and our predecessor organization, Just Housing, have supported the Jungle for about ten years, providing case management, outreach, and shelter in place services. We currently have over a 100 residents of The Jungle enrolled in our case management program, and over 200 residents have accessed our shelter in place services since November. Today, our staff went out to do our weekly cleanup at the jungle, and also saw the notices posted on the trees. It was there that we learned that notices went out yesterday and also that a deadline had been set for the creation of the spy names list for May 28, which is less than ten business days away from the day that it was posted in less than two weeks altogether. We are very concerned about the pace of which this is moving and especially the pace of the creation of the by names list.

We served as Thurston County's right of way outreach program for three years. The first three years, the road program. So we were in charge of creating all the by names list. For camps half the size of the jungle, it took months to create a list that we could adequately capture who was there and to make sure that everybody that should be there is on it. There's a lot of other concerns that we have, including what was spoken to about the deadline coming far before the jungle is closed.

There's more I could go into, but just want to encourage the council to maybe, encourage others to take pause. It's a big undertaking to close the jungle. We wanna see it done with care. And, yeah, just encourage folks to take the time. Thank you.

Thank you. Molly O'Neil?

So I would like to first say I am in full support of the folks who have gone before me talking about the need for pausing and slowing down on on that closure. The main reason I'm here, though, when you name the problem, you become the problem, a common tactic of power protecting power. Anti black racism is at the core of most other forms of racism and white colonialism. Just by existing in this world, we we receive anti black programming. This means everybody will make racist remarks out of ignorance and programming at some point.

I believe our council members do not want to be racist, but you also don't want to do the difficult and uncomfortable work of anti racism. However, every member of this council has a responsibility to lead and model these very skills. One council member made a comment that quoting from the Olympian included the phrase Victim Olympics in reference to creating community ties with cities in Nigeria. How would it land if someone had said that phrase during public comments regarding either of the groups this counsel honored two weeks ago? I want each of you to notice and feel the discomfort of that idea, that feeling as your friend.

That comment was harmful and contained significant anti Black bias. It relegated an entire country to victimhood while implying that victims do not deserve care or connection. And that is the comment each and every one of you have, directly supported with your silence. That harm deserved recognition and accountability. Mr.

Bird's anger was valid. Instead, this counsel has closed ranks around your coworker rather than modeling accountability. You denied a man his First Amendment rights and turned a harmful remark into a genuine event of systemic racism, denying a black led and focused organization funding and sponsorship because why? Because they dared to name the problem and thus became the problem. Each and every one of you have been complicit in systemic racism. What does accountability require? We expect that you, one, name and recognize the harm, and two, make a commitment to change the behavior.

Thank you. Gary Myers followed by Steven Bramwell.

Mayor and council members, I'm here to read one OMC fire code, statute that re this is OMC sixteen thirty two zero five o, part c. The access roadway shall be extended a 150 feet from all portions of the exterior walls of the first story of any building. Where the access roadway cannot be provided, approved fire protection systems or systems shall be provided as required by the fire chief. I have been trying to get access to that statute for months, dozens of emails, and I don't know why I can't get a review under that statute. I've also submitted alternate means of fire access.

It's basically hose access. The obstacle at my cul de sac is an eight foot retaining wall, and my proposal is merely to, put a a stairway up over that within all my setbacks and whatnot. So there's two means for me to get access. The fire review had its own problems. My site is list or on East Bay Drive right past the condos as you're going out of town. It's up on that bank. This is not rocket science. I don't know why I can't get access to this a review of this statute. Thank you. Oh.

Go ahead.

So, yeah, I I'm just perplexed. I I I've sent 16 emails. I finally got a a fire review, and the the review cited unadopted code by the city and failed to cite OMC 16.5, which was binding. So I asked for reconsideration. It was crickets. And my my permit is is ready to be denied.

Thank you, Gary. Steven Bramwell?

Great. Good evening. Thank you, mayor Payne and city council members. My name is Steven Bramwell. I'm the Washington State University, Thurston County extension director and regional agriculture faculty. I wanna make a brief comment this evening about an upcoming event On May 28 from 05:30 to 07:30PM in City Hall, we'll be hosting a grasslands from local to global art and photography exhibit. The exhibit is right upstairs in this building. Stephanie Johnson, city Olympi City of OlympiA Arts program manager, and I put up the photographs yesterday. So I'd like to extend a personal invitation for you to all all join. This will be a week from Thursday, May 28 at 05:30PM.

The event is a local opening to the United Nations designated international year of rangelands and pastoralists in 2026, which includes our prairies and pasture lands. The IYRP is a global initiative to raise awareness about the world's grasslands, their incredible biodiversity, and the people who work and live in these environments. The photographs upstairs, will be joined on May 28 by a multisensory exhibit kiosk. It will display various fibers of grazing animals, photographs of prairies locally at the continental scale and globally. An interactive 10 foot wide by six foot tall composite image and illustration of North American prairie grasslands that was designed specifically for this event by local illustrator Lara Kamenoff.

And front and center on the illustration in in our local prairie is our local prairie superstar, Camus. So images were contributed by local farmers, ranchers, local conservation organizations, and the Olympia Camera Club. And the European images were sourced on an eight month sabbatical that I took to Europe last year visiting Meadows of the European continent. Finally, the goal, the effort is to bring much needed awareness to grasslands locally and globally. These are some of the most biodiverse biomes on the planet. They cover nearly half the Earth's land surface, support about a half a billion people. So please join me on May 28, the week from Thursday at 05:30PM. Thank you for hosting the exhibit.

Thank you. With that, folks, we're gonna turn to, one virtual public comment, and then there will be an opportunity for a council to respond. So we'll just give staff a moment to, bring up Mary Julesavan.

Can you hear me?

Yes. We can.

I am speaking to you tonight as a concerned citizen, mother, and follower of Jesus Christ. I would like to address the horrific and dangerous homeless encampment known as the Jungle that should have been shut down years ago when a man was set on fire and died, two people went to prison for it. This homeless encampment not only remains, but is growing larger and more dangerous by the minute, fueled by criminals, drugs, including fentanyl, and untreated mental illness. The corrupt powers that be enable these type of encampments while filling their pockets, specifically city of Olympia. For example, I'm from Gig Harbor, Washington, about an hour away, and their city council literally said they have higher community standards.

And that is why they would never allow something like the jungle to happen in the first place. I have also spoken to the Olympia Police Department over the years whom I deeply respect, and they have expressed their frustration to me as they feel as though they are not able to enforce the law due to the corrupt local government, including you guys, the city council. Unfortunately, I have lived in Olympia for thirteen years, and now my 11 year old son has to endure these horrors. The current situation is not working. We cannot normalize dangerous conditions and call it progress.

We also cannot continue to enable these dangerous conditions with homeless outreach programs such as clean needles, honey buckets, and dumpsters. We need to enforce the law now, continue to enable dangerous drug fueled criminals. Thank you.

Okay. Well, with that, I don't see any more sign up for a virtual public comment. And so, that concludes the list of public commenters, and just hand it back to the mayor.

Thank you, mayor Pro Tem. I'm gonna turn it over to our assistant city manager, Debbie Sullivan, for a few comments on the jungle.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you everybody for coming out to speak on this issue. You know, the jungle is a very complex situation. It's been in our for many, many years, and we have a regional encampment transition planning team that is working to resolve not just the issue out there, but transitioning people compassionately and safely into housing. Our team has been at the jungle for several days, getting to know the people out there, who is out there, who needs housing. And so, yes, they have been creating a by name list.

I just want to say that the creation of the by name list allows us to take advantage of units that are funded by the State Department of Commerce that are becoming available so we can transition start transitioning people into housing sooner rather than later. That is just one tool. We are gonna have to do a longer planning process in order to find solutions for people to move into housing. So there's there's not any the intent that we have with this is to support people and transition them safely and compassionately, not to sweep the encampment. So I I I hope that helps answer some questions. If you have more, I'm happy to answer.

It does. Thank you, Debbie. Yes. K. Alright. Are there any additional comments from the council? Councilmember Gellman followed by councilmember Vanderpool.

You all have given us a lot to think about tonight. I and I appreciate that.

And I

I guess here's here's where I'm at in the in the big picture is that encampments or vans don't create crime, including domestic violence. They don't create drug use. They don't create a lack of access to mental health, and they don't create poverty. But each of those factors have led people to have nowhere to stay. And so I I honestly don't think it makes any sense to to keep pushing people around whack a mole when we don't have more services to provide.

And I I I am hopeful that this this effort with the the jungle and bringing in more regional governments together to try to bring resources will help, but I'm not super optimistic that it'll be transition. I think that many people will remain unhoused because there's just not units, and there's not a big pipeline of millions of dollars waiting for us to ask for it right now. There's there's not the resources. So I I hope that as we reconsider our one community plan for responding to poverty and homeless in our community, that that we acknowledge that the last several years of hoping to build affordable housing and stand up medical services has not met the need, and and we have to respond to the human beings who we we can't meet that housing or social service or health service need right now, as well as continuing to provide housing and and services for as many people as we can muster. But I I just want us, to make room to acknowledge that not everybody's gonna be served and that we still have, the need and the responsibility to to help take care of our neighbors.

Thanks.

Thank you. Councilmember Vanderpool followed by mayor pro tem Nguyen.

I appreciate what I'm hearing from my councilmates, around this issue because it is you know, we have to try to be creative in in some of these. Right? We've I've I've met with some of the folks with CC. The other it was almost a month ago. We met and talked about, like, potential solutions, especially around how do we like, if we can create exceptions around, like, permits, for example, to allow folks to live in the city that are residents, right, between the property owner and folks that are living either in an RV or and so on and so forth, right, in order to make sure that we are compassionate and meet the needs.

That's one thought. The other thing I wrote down that I thought about as I'm hearing this comments is the we have to continue to push the state to give us more resources around this. Councilmember Gilman talked about how we are very limited on resources, and we have to get the state to help us out. We have to actually in fact, if we're living through a housing crisis, the state has to start building housing. Right? It can't just be us doing it. Like, the state actually has to build housing. And if we go into a recession or depression, absolutely has to build housing for people. Right? It will cost a lot of money.

It will have to it will be a fight, but it has to be something that we have to do. That's something I keep thinking of. Right? Like, locally, we're very limited and we know that we've been trying very hard, and we're extremely limited, but we have to demand that the state help us more in order to meet those needs. The other thought about the sound over on North Capitol, this has been an ongoing issue.

I see that Police Chief Parker had spoken with him, which is good. Am glad, hopefully, we get a little resolved around that. But, you know, it is one of those streets around the city where I'm constantly reminded it was overbuilt. Right? It was built a long time ago. And even though the issue is is about noise rather than speeding, you know, a design in a street does affect how people use the said street. Let's see. But yeah. Again, coming back around to the big issue around affordability and housing and taking these things seriously. I hear you each and every week when I have folks come in and talk to us about these concerns and how we need to continue to be compassionate towards folks and try to find solutions where we can.

But, ultimately, I think we need to keep pushing the state to help us.

Thank you. Mayor pro tem Nguyen.

Yeah. I am tracking this conversation in something actually, the first public commenter, Cece. I am curious about what you said about being on essentially being on private property and allowing folks to use their private property to let people stay there if they want to. So, a difference in my understanding of how that is. And, I understand if it is a sort of neighborhood that has an HOA or something that is against it.

But, you brought up your church, I have actually wondered that when you have come into public comment in the recent past about, Oh, I wonder about space at the church. And so you're saying that that's not allowed per our regulations. That is I see. So, it's just something I perked up on and it's just different than my understanding, and so something for me to look into. So, thank you for sharing that.

And then, Molly O'Neil. I want to just first say that I want to address your comments and I'll just first say that I understand that this is not a two way conversation. So you shared and now I'm just gonna share. So what you had said, that comment that you're talking about, a council member, they're talking about me in the paper. They're saying that I said that.

They're quoting someone that said that I said that. And it almost feels strange to even be talking about a conversation that happened almost two years ago and for a comment that I made that was and it wasn't that comment. That comment is different than what I actually said. And for those of you that are listening in that have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sorry, this is kind of a deep cut. But, what you're talking about, Molly, this is a comment that I actually said, I went out I was kind of going out on a limb and sharing some of my personal and my family's personal stories that I will not do in this forum because I am protective of them.

And I said that I am as a disclaimer, that I am not at all trying to play the oppression Olympics. That is what I said. And, I said that because when I don't know someone as well, and I'm gonna try to make an attempt to be vulnerable, and I might not have a lot of psychological safety in this space because I don't know the person as well, I'm going to give disclaimers. Sometimes, I'm talking to people and I'm giving five disclaimers because I don't want to be misunderstood. And so, yeah.

So, now to see a quote like that in the paper from a conversation that happened two years ago that was taken out of context that I did not say is an interesting thing and not something that I want to be defending. And, generally, I know Molly, you and I don't know each other, but I am responding to this because I've seen you come to public comment and I believe that you are being sincere and engaging earnestly. So, I am going to respond, even though I generally try not to defend myself when I see people saying things about me online, because I have so many feelings, Molly. And if I spent my time doing that, I would be exhausted, and all my feelings would be hurt. And I could not do what I'm supposed to be doing.

So I hope some of that made sense. I know that anti racism work is important work that needs to be done. I'm not saying that the city of Olympia has successfully done that. I know that we are on a learning journey and we are committed to that and there are so many ways that we have committed to that. And I don't mean by saying it.

I mean, actually implementing things, doing things to show that. But I'm going to try not to go long here. But, you know, if you're interested in knowing what those things are, I mean, we could, like, provide you a list, tell you more about it if you're interested in it. Anyway so oh, also, I haven't said anything about that because it's also happened a couple of times in the paper. But I haven't said anything about it because I don't want to give it any life.

I don't. I don't wanna be out here, like, having little, like, quibbles with with and drama with community members. Like, that is not something that I want. And so it goes a little bit deeper than that. But, anyways, I appreciate that you showed up. I appreciate where I believe the intent is, and I just wanted to respond to you. So, for what it's worth. And then oh, Gary? Yeah. Oh, it's okay, Gary.

You can stay seated. The I just want to let you know that I am listening to what you're saying, and it's clear that I need to check-in with staff. So, I will do that just so I can get a better context of what's happening here and seeing if we can at all reduce the burdens on you. And then, Steven, thank you for coming here, making the time to come here to talk about the Grasslands exhibit. Oh, yes, you've moved from there.

Thank you. Oh, thank you for that. Yeah, I'm not sure what all of our availability is on May 28 at 05:30 at City Hall, but I really appreciate you making the time and working with staff to put together that exhibit. And know that we'll try to be there if we can. So thanks so much.

Thank you, mayor Protehm. Are there any additional comments from council? Alright. Seeing none, I'll just mention, if you do have further questions, that you wish to ask, in regards to the the transition plan for the Jungle, please feel free to reach out, to but then also to our assistant city manager, Debbie Sullivan, via email if you have additional questions. I will just say that, you heard it here tonight that there's two things that we're sort of wrestling with when it comes or two ends of the spectrum, if you will, when it comes to, addressing, the transition plan for the closure of the jungle.

One end of it, it's the community saying that, we're not comfortable with the pace. You're moving too fast. The other end of the spectrum is it should have been gone yesterday. Right? And our job as a city organization is to strike a balance.

We hear the community's voices, and we're listening. Our job is to treat every single resident, and, yes, they are our constituents, in the encampment with dignity and respect and to transition them into housing as safely and as smoothly as we possibly can. That is our charge. That is our mission, and we are committed to that. What you won't see is us sort of fall into this trap of it it has to be either one or the other.

We are doing our best to respond to a crisis that frankly goes way beyond the borders of the city of Olympia and the borders of the state of Washington, and we have a small budget to do so. So we are, certainly stretched thin in terms of resources, to provide for people who live in the jungle, and, frankly, any and for those who do not who are houseless throughout our community. And so we are, gonna continue to do our work on the transition plan. We will continue to, advocate, for federal and state dollars to help us address this crisis crisis as we've done for the past several years. We have only been in this business of addressing housing and homelessness since 2018 as a city organization.

And since that time, we've housed hundreds of people. And that has happened thanks to the work of the same people who are doing the work to work towards transitioning these people from the jungle into sheltered housing. And I understand that there's a, you know, some concern about, whether or not there'll be enough available units, which is understood. But, again, we are working at the pace of which housing becomes available to transition the folks who are on the property, smoothly and safely. And so for those community members who are concerned about the treatment of the people who live there, we hear your concerns.

For those of you who also have concerns about the types of activity that has happened on that property, we hear those concerns as well. And we are doing our very best to balance all of these things while we transition the people that live there. And I have all the confidence, in our city organization that we will meet this challenge. So, with that, that concludes public comment, and we are gonna move on to the adoption of the consent calendar. I need a motion and a second.

I move we adopt the consent calendar. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt tonight's consent calendar as published. All those in favor signify by saying.

Aye. Aye.

Our only business item that we have tonight. Thank you. We've gotta get used to these new mics. Sorry. You hit the button and you think it's on and it's not. So we're gonna transition to our only business item on our agenda, item six a, which is the civilian police auditor 2025 annual report. And I'm gonna invite up Margo Morales, who is our community engagement program specialist, to kick us off tonight. Hi, Margo.

Thank you. Good evening, council members. For the record, my name is Margo Morales, community engagement program specialist. I provide staff support for the civilian police auditor and the community policing board. This evening, I am joined by OIR Group here to present their first annual report since being hired by the council in May 2025 to fill the role of civilian police auditor.

The central role of the auditor is to review use of force and complaint investigations completed internally by the Olympia Police Department and provide regular reports to the city council. These reports include recommendations to improve police department operations, policy, and training based on their findings. Their scope of work also includes an annual work plan to include prioritizing the specific police policies, training, and other issues of interest that the police auditor intends to review. OIR Group's 2026 work plan was reviewed by the community policing board and approved by the council in April. In March, OIR Group presented a draft of their report to the community policing board.

As outlined in our municipal code, OIR group will meet with the board to, prior to finalizing both their midyear and annual reports. Board members can ask questions and provide community perspective regarding the draft recommendations. As previously established with the former police auditor, the chief of police provides a department update along with the auditor's presentation of their reports. Chief Parker provided an update to the community policing board's March meeting. Included in your packet this evening is a feedback letter from the community policing board from that meeting with OIR Group and chief Parker.

This evening, chief Parker will start us off with an update on the department data from 2025, followed by OIR Group presenting their report and recommendations. The full report will be available online on the city's police oversight page. Following OAR Group's presentation, Chief Parker will present on OPD's plans to implement the recommendations from OAR Group. Thank you, chief.

Thank you, Margo. Chief, before you approach the podium, just one moment, please. Mister Webb, I'm gonna ask you to remove your camera from the podium, please. This meeting is recorded, and anyone who wishes to have it may have access to it. That is not it is not permitted to be there either. Please remove it. You may take it back to your seat. Please do not stage it. Please do not stage it anywhere in the chamber. Miss mister Webb.

Mister Webb, I'm gonna ask you to mister Webb, we reserve the right to have remove the camera, or we will recess the meeting and reconvene in behind closed doors. Mister Webb, this meeting is recorded. With request of the council, I'm gonna request that we go into to recess, for about Thank you.

The bill. I'm so sorry to remove your public presentation. Have a good rest of your day, mate.

Okay. We're gonna go ahead and come on back, from our recess. Thank you council members, for your patience. Mister Webb, I see that your camera is still on the podium. I'm gonna have to ask you to remove the camera. You are per you are permitted to hold the camera in your seat, but I have asked you repeatedly to remove it from the podium.

Peter, we're making this up as you go.

It's not about policy or procedure. It's because I say so. Remove the camera. Remove it. Remove the camera.

Okay. Well, we will, go ahead and reconvene in Room 207. My apologies to our guests who are here to present to us this evening, but we will go ahead and reconvene upstairs. Yes. City attorney.

Yes. I'm aware of that. I I'm just speaking out loud. Yes. Thank you. So, at this time, I'm gonna ask for us to reconvene in Room 207 so that we do not continue to be disrupted. I need a motion and a second.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That's an aye vote for me as well. We will reconvene in Room 207. Thank you.

Can you hear me down there?

I think so. I thought it sounds

like I could hear.

I've got a staff mic.

Can you hear that? Okay. We're coming through broadcast just fine.

Yes.

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

Alright.

We're gonna go ahead and, make our way back. So I, first of all, I wanna say my sincere apologies, once again to our guests, and to those of you who are watching, this meeting either at home or somewhere else. Our apologies to our community for the disruption. This meeting is being broadcasted and recorded for your viewing. So we are going to continue with item 6a on our agenda for tonight, which is the civilian police auditor 2025 annual report.

And we were just about to have our police chief Shelby Parker, approach the podium, to introduce our auditors.

Good evening, mayor Payne and council members. Thank you for having me here tonight. For the record, I'm Shelby Parker, chief of police, and I am thrilled to have our auditors with us here tonight. We'll hear from them in a moment. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick review of our 2025 use of force data. My data will look a little bit different from the auditors. We had 80 use of force incidents in 2025. The auditors reviewed 50 of those. So just a quick footnote as to why the data may look a little different. So this evening, we'll briefly walk through the police department's twenty twenty five use of force incidents.

The city's independent police auditor will present their 2025 annual report. And I will close with OPD's implementation strategy for the auditor's recommendations. In 2025, the department saw a small increase in reported use of force incidents from 79 incidents in 2024 to 80 incidents in 2025. I want to provide some additional context about the numbers and the type of force reflected in this data as numbers can be better understood with some context. 55 incidents, or about 66% of those, involved a takedown, which occurs when an officer brings a subject to the ground to overcome physical resistance.

Takedowns are considered the lowest level of use of force to gain control of an individual. Eight incidents, about 10%, involved the deployment of a TASER energy weapon. One incident involved defensive tactics, being punches or knee strikes. Two incidents involved control holds used to place a subject in handcuffs. Two incidents involved the use of a less lethal tool called a 40 millimeter launcher with less lethal foam tipped rounds.

Two incidents involved handcuffing a subject who is actively resisting. One incident involved a complaint of pain associated with handcuffing, but no physical force beyond handcuffing itself was used. Two incidents involved canine bites. One incident involved a vehicle being used as force, and another involved a handgun being discharged. Our expectation is always that force is used only when necessary and only to the level required to safely resolve a situation.

Each use of force incident is reviewed at multiple levels of supervision and administrative oversight to ensure compliance with department policy and legal standards. Every use of force incident is reviewed by the appropriate training team, whether that's defensive tactics or emergency vehicle operations, to assess adherence to training standards, evaluate trends, and identify opportunities for improvement or refinement. This is a longstanding practice within OPD. And the auditor will delve into use of force in greater detail. So to provide some context for these numbers, responded to 53,664 calls for service.

The vast majority of interactions were resolved without arrest or use of force. 3172 of those incidents involved an arrest. This comprises about 5.9% of calls for service that resulted in arrests. And out of those 3,172 arrests, 80 of them involved the use of force. So that is about 2.5 of arrests, and then it's about 0.15% of total calls for service resulted in an arrest.

In thirty two of those 80 use of force incidents, individuals experienced minor injuries, such as cuts or abrasions. Two of those cases involved canine bites, and each individual received medical care. One use of force incident resulted in great bodily harm. This was an officer involved shooting that occurred on 10/21/2025. This incident was investigated by the Capitol Metro independent investigation team without the assistance of the Olympia Police Department.

The Thurston County prosecutor received the investigation and determined that the use of deadly force by the officer was justified under Washington state law, and no criminal charges will be filed against that officer. A formal internal review was convened with two community members participating. A formal presentation will be made before you on June 23 about that critical incident. At this point, I'm going to turn the presentation over to the OIR group. At the conclusion of their presentation, I will return and discuss our implementation strategy for the recommendations.

Good evening all. Michael Janaco, part of OIR Group. I have with me my colleague, Stephen Connolly, a third member of our team. Sam Palca, unfortunately, is traveling out of the country and wasn't able to be with us. But she has contributed significantly to the report that we are going to be discussing this evening.

It's great to be with you this evening. Leadership of the city, Mr. Mayor, Council, and city leadership. Really appreciate the opportunity to present our report to you this evening. Our report, as the chief indicated, covered our review of 50 use of force incidents over the calendar year 2025.

Any use of force review that was completed by the end of last year would be included in this report. The officer involved shooting that the Chief mentioned was not within that audit period because the administrative piece of that review had not been completed by the December. But it would be it will be captured in our next report. So the review includes, pursuant to our scope of work, includes not only use of force, but any complaints and resulting investigations that were completed during the audit period. But during this audit period, there were no such complaints, which is why you do not see any reference to that kind of review.

We will be we have received a couple completed investigations since that time. So in the next audit period, you will be seeing also our review of those complaint investigations. We have been doing this work since approximately 2001 as police auditors and started with the largest sheriff's department in the country, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. And since that time, we have engaged with numerous jurisdictions throughout the state of California, Oregon, Washington. We have the Left Coast pretty well covered, as well as other parts of the country.

We are based in California, but we have done a number of projects for Washington, as you may be aware, including work for the city of Seattle, the state of Washington Attorney General's Office in developing some model use of force policies for the state of Washington. And we have done some work, in other parts of the state as well. It's good to be back, this evening, and it's good to be able to present this report to you. Alright. The next one. Turn it over to you, Steven.

Thank you, Mike. And good evening, mister mayor and and council members. And, mister mayor, for the record, I I did have some assistance, but I got this microphone turned on on the first try. So I'm feeling feeling feeling some momentum here.

We

are very happy to have the opportunity to to present this first report to you. This is our second trip to Olympia. We were here in in October and had a very productive day meeting with with city officials and members of the public and and members of the department. And I wanna start my remarks by saying one thing that I can assure the the council and and the public is that the the police department has absolutely held up its end of the bargain as far as our work responsibilities are concerned. We have a dedicated liaison who is in touch with us regularly, very responsive to our questions concerns.

And all of the information that we need to do our job has been readily provided by the department, which is obviously hopefully an expectation in every jurisdiction. But it's never anything that we take for granted. And we feel like the relationship has been very constructive and that they are responsive, but also receptive in ways that we are appreciative of. In terms of our our scope of work, The the audit that we're gonna be talking about tonight is is is, I would say, the cornerstone of our our responsibilities as they've been set up by the city of Olympia. And another big piece of our work is collaboration with the city's community policing board, and that's comprised of of residents whom we had the opportunity to meet in October and then present to in in March with a draft of this report.

And their insights and questions and kind of feedback has has been very useful and to us. And the the disadvantage we have, obviously, as as Southern Californians is just the the the lack of direct familiarity with Olympia and its issues and its neighborhoods. And and we appreciate insights of the community policing re board in terms of helping us with that part of our work. So the report to city council is obviously another component of our responsibilities. And as I said, we're happy to be with you tonight.

So the process involves, as Mike was saying, that we're we're notified when investigations are completed. And there are two categories that we are responsible for. One being the use of force investigations. And the complaint investigation piece, we actually did not have any completed complaint investigations during the audit period. So the entire focus of this first report is going to be on use of force.

Subsequently, since January 1, we have received a handful of complaint investigations, misconduct investigations that were conducted by the department and completed. And so that will, in our next report, give us an opportunity to kind of expand our assessments of the department's internal review systems, accountability systems, and we're looking forward to being able to to share our perspective on that as well.

Uh-oh.

So just in terms of of let me just vamp here for a while until my PowerPoint comes up, but I I think I remember it pretty well. In terms of the cases that we looked at, we had a total of 50. And I certainly encourage the interested members of the public to please do read the actual written report that we prepared in conjunction with this presentation. It goes into a lot more detail about our process and about our impressions and and provides, obviously, more of a context as opposed to kind of the high pass that we're gonna be giving you tonight. But I do encourage people to read the report.

And one of its features, again, as as kinda driven by the city, is a a summary of there's an appendix that basically has a spreadsheet which describes the circumstances of every use of force and talks about the the department's process of assessing that and then our impressions in terms of whether we agreed with the department, other insights or observations that we had, etcetera. So I, again, hope that people will draw some value from looking at those written materials that are now publicly available. And we did have a chance to kinda dry run, audition this presentation in in March in a meeting with the community policing board that was very helpful. And, again, the part of the the way that this is structured is that the board's feedback informs our final draft, and we did make some adjustments in the aftermath of presenting to them, and and the the draft that you have received is a reflection of that. So the the key takeaways from our first report, and Mike will get into some of the specific recommendations that that we came up with.

We had 22 recommendations that emerged, and we'll we'll describe those in more detail. But our basic overarching impressions are that the department's process for reviewing force are are are very well structured and generally quite effective. The department has a multilayer, multi phased approach for supervisors to review every force incident, and that includes looking at the officer reports, the body worn camera materials, which by the way, and and not incidentally, have full access to. So we're able to review all the body worn camera that is associated associated with these individual incidents that we look at. And the department has a template for supervisors to fill out that is extremely detailed, and it really makes sure they're covering a lot of the bases that you would like to see comprehensively assessed in the aftermath of something like this.

And then there is an evaluation of whether the force was justified in policy. And I would say significantly, there's also a separate component of their process that specifically asks for any other training or other insights or interventions that the supervisor might have with regard to the performance of the officer. So even if it was an acceptable use of force, even if it was within policy, there might be some worthwhile adjustments that could be made, the supervisors are conscious of that and and addressing those. It's one of the things we hope the department will push a little further on in in the future. We think there's room for them to be even more expansive with that concept, but they have certainly made some some good strides in that direction.

Importantly, we we agreed with the department's findings with regard to the the outcomes. There was one case involving a a canine bite that we had a a potential difference of of opinion if we had really kinda drilled down on it and talked to the department about it some more. But for the most part, we concurred that the department's assessment was appropriate and and that the use of the uses of force themselves were were consistent with policy and training and and justified under the circumstances. We know that there is a sensitivity to issues of of bias in policing, not just in Olympia, but all over the country. It's a focal point for us in in all the different places that that we work.

And we know that that those issues have been a a matter of community concern in in Olympia, a matter of concern for your council. Our lens for looking at issues of bias is is admittedly very small from a statistical perspective and just only in terms of these use of force interactions that that have occurred. So we're not seeing the full range encounters that the department is having with the public and and some of the other potential enforcement issues that that are out there. But we can say that we're very sensitive to issues of bias and discriminatory policing. We looked at each incident on its face and and, again, very carefully reviewed each one by looking at the case file for for all 50 of these events.

And we did not see evidence of of bias or discriminatory policing in the way that the the officers responded to the individuals that were the subjects of call for service or the encounter, and certainly not with regard to the way that their forced decisions were made either. So again, we we don't or the conclusions that we can draw from that are fairly limited just because of the statistics and and other factors. But from the the window that we had, it it's important to note that we did not see any evidence of bias or discriminatory policing in the incidents that we reviewed. I'm going to turn it back over to Mike to talk about some of the recommendations that we emerged with.

Thank you, Stephen. With regard to the recommendations, as we've indicated, our work during this audit period consisted entirely of reviewing use of force incidents. Use of force incidents are important to review, important that they be reviewed internally. And I think it's wonderful that you have empowered an auditor to look at the use of force incidents externally as well. The mere fact that you have authorized us as your auditors to publicize what happened with regard to these use of force incidents, and you will see all 50 described to some degree in a narrative at the end with our case chart.

But, it provides just the mere fact that that information is being provided to your public is a little bit unique in the sense that I don't think there's any other jurisdiction in this county that provides that level of transparency with regard to when your officers use force. And it informs your public in a way in which many other jurisdictions in the state of Washington do not. In fact, I think there are only a handful, maybe less than a handful, of cities or counties in your state that provide this level of transparency and allows an independent or empowers an independent police auditor to take an outside view of what's going on here. And why is that important? We, who have been in this field for over twenty years, feel it's critical to look at uses of force and how the department evaluates force when it's used by its officers.

Because it's an awesome, awesome display of power and authority that we give our officers, and no other occupation in the country, has that empowerment. The ability to arrest, the ability to detain, the ability to take to jail, and the ability to use force under the appropriate circumstances is an awesome exercise of authority. And it's critical that, in exercising that authority, that that authority be consistent with the Fourth Amendment, consistent with policy, consistent with state standards, consistent with law, and consistent with the expectations of you as leaders of the city, as well as your community writ large. That is an awesome display of authority that must be carefully reviewed. For what reason?

One, and primarily, obviously, that review, along with that authority, comes a responsibility by the leadership of any law enforcement organization to ensure that these uses of force are reviewed to ensure that they are being done judiciously, they are being done consistent with policy. Ultimately, the first and ultimate question that needs to be answered, and was answered in the 50 cases we looked at, was, Was the use of force consistent with our training, consistent with our policy, or not? Yes, no. And the department does a very thorough job, does a very thorough analysis, to come to a decision about that question. And, in fact, to the credit of the department, in at least one case, the department found that the use of force was not within policy.

So it's not everything gets a yes, everything gets an okay. It shows, by that one case in which there was an outlier, it shows that there is some discrimination and some careful assessment here. What I think goes to the heart of virtually, well, not virtually all, but a significant portion of our recommendations has to do with that investigative and review process. So, these are process recommendations more than substantive recommendations. Our review is really not looking at officer conduct, officer misconduct, whether the officer was, you know, overboard in using force or unnecessary in using force or excessive force.

We are going to look at that decision that the department has made internally. But our review is an assessment of how well the Department exercises its awesome responsibility to do that, to look at the force incident and say in out of policy. And as Steve indicated in his earlier remarks, we find that the department has done a good job with regard to that. What we the thrust of our recommendations and the process recommendations are urging the department to go beyond that and to look at other aspects of each use of force incident to see, are there any other things in that episode where the department could have done better that could have resulted in a situation where force ended up not being necessary? De escalation questions, supervision, equipment, training, all of those pressure points in which the department can impact the way in which an officer conducts his or her work on a day to day basis.

With the idea of, if in fact these issues are identified, will it better it will better prepare officers, not only the involved officer, but other officers in the department, to reduce the likelihood that force ends up needing to be used. The other piece, though, that our recommendations are largely intended to address is this internal investigative review process. Because in order for your public to have confidence in this review process, that is the primary responsibility of the department, except in deadly force incidents where that responsibility goes to others, is to ensure that there is a fair and objective accounting of what happened. That internal review must be, in our view, consistent with best practices. And so while we think overarching in global way, the department is doing a fair job of this, we think more could and should be done in this arena.

So, for example, one of the expectations set out in policy and protocols that the department has had for a long time now is an expectation that, as part of the supervisor's initial responsibility to do this on scene investigation when force has been reported and used is to review body worn cameras, review other evidence, collect surveillance video, take photographs of any injuries of the subject who force was used upon. And all of those they do a pretty good job on. One of the areas also that is an expectation is to interview the person upon whom force was used. And that's an area in which we think there could be some improvement. So, force is used on an individual.

That individual has gone through, justified or not, some traumatic experience, been taken to the ground, been tasered, you know, been knee struck, you know, been subjected to force. Legitimate or not, at that point, the sergeant who's coming to the scene has no idea about whether the force was legitimate. That will all come out in the wash, but one of the first things in order to come to that decision, the supervisor is expected to do is interview the person upon whom subject who force was used. And in that case, we saw situations where, in our view, that interview could have been better, could have been more thorough, could have been more objective. It's a difficult situation to put a supervisor in where officers under his or her authority have committed force and engaged in some tactical exercise, put an individual in handcuffs, and then put that individual in the back of the car, the radio car, before he's transported to jail.

And now the supervisor's gotta come up and say, how was that use of force, sir? You can understand the difficulty and the challenges there. The person is not going to be probably confident in the ability of that supervisor to conduct an objective, fair, thorough, trauma informed investigation or interview. And we saw where, as a result of that concern, there was a breakdown in communications. And either the subject declined to participate, as they have every right to do, or just totally got turned off, or the information collected from the sergeant was cursory, not full, not thorough, no real opportunity for the person to engage.

Now, of these folks were clearly, based on the ultimate the initial investigation, clearly in a mental health crisis. And it even becomes even more difficult for a sergeant to engage with a person who not only has some mental health issues, but was engaged in a mental health crisis that may have likely led to the use of force upon him or her. So, can understand the difficulty there. So, what we have suggested and a good number of our recommendations have to do with improving this process. Making sure that there is, to the degree possible, and sometimes it's not going to be, an engagement in which the subject has an opportunity to be heard after this trauma that is that the subject has experienced.

Quite candidly, with the advent of body worn cameras, the legitimacy of the force, there is gonna be other evidence that in some ways is gonna be even more powerful and determinative of whether the force was within or outside of policy. But that's not the only reason you want to interview the subject of the investigation. Because in addition to that, you want the subject of the investigation to be able to provide a narrative or an account of what happened to him or her during this event. And so to the degree that the department can encourage supervisors to understand that that is one of the tenants, and that's the reason for this requirement. It's not a check off box.

It's really an intent to get at what the subject was experienced and maybe get an explanation for why what went down, went And that's really important. So one of the areas and I know that there has been some training here, but one of our recommendations is to explain to supervisors who have this task. You're essentially doing a trauma informed interview, and it needs to be under that rubric or thought process in which you engage with the subject. It's not a checkoff box. It's not cursory.

We expect you to try your best to get a full account from this individual. Another resource that the department has available for these cases, particularly for those who are in mental health crisis, is to call CRU and see if crew can help facilitate that interview. By that time, things are code for, handcuffs are on, things are static. There's not going to be any threat to crew at that point. But crew may be able to assist and facilitate not do the interview, but assist in facilitating that interview by gaining confidence or some level of rapprochement with the individual upon whom force was used.

So, those are illustrations of the process recommendations that we make here intended to improve the product review that is still pretty good. And by the way, because you've had auditors and you have a a a very as Steve indicated, did a very robust process already, we're not talking about Police Oversight 101. We have been informed and fortunate to come to engage an agency where we're talking about oversight at a graduate level here. So, it really is that analogy, I think, is important to understand is we're not talking about low hanging fruit here. We're talking about improving a process that is already very good.

And that, I think, is important for your public to understand as well. Some of the other recommendations have to do more with more substantive areas. Certainly the use of the taser and trying to improve the way in which the taser is used to ensure that there is no significant injury when that weapon is used is another area that we looked at. We looked at some areas with regard to some collateral issues that we think are don't really go to the heart of the use of force, but certainly go to the heart of overarching concerns by your community is, for example, a few times in which we saw some derogation or some profanity used by your police officers in the heat of the moment. And to the degree and we're not suggesting that that should result in a divorce of the officer from the agency, But a mere intervention at that point to show that we are watching and that we this is not consistent with our expectations.

And to have a low level intervention to ensure that everyone in the department understands what the expectations of the leadership of the agency is. So those are areas of improvement that we have put forward in our recommendations. We'd be happy I'm not going to go over all 22 of them this evening, but certainly happy to answer any questions that you all may have about any of them as well as any other parts of our report. The last thing I will say is that as we move forward into the next cycle, we'll be obviously coming back to you. But as approved by our work plan, one of our areas of focus as a special project or special audit will be to look at the crew unit with an idea or focus of are they providing a valuable resource to the city?

And secondly, if so, are there ways, like the one recommendation I've already referenced, in which that resource can be brought to bear in an even more effective way. And we think that there's room there. We will be, you know, spending a day with the crew unit doing walk alongs and ride alongs and trying to get a better understanding of what they do all day, and then reporting back to you and your community what they do all day, as well as any ways that we might have to suggest improvements. You know, the mental health piece is a growing area in law enforcement. We have a number of agencies that are well along on this path.

Everyone does it a little differently. There's no problem with that. And we're not suggesting there needs to be a total overhaul. We don't know enough about crew at this point. I don't think we'll come to that conclusion based on our preliminary discussions, but we may be able to offer some, one, transparency to your public about what they do And then two, offer some recommendations to better improve what they do. With that, I'm going to end our initial presentation. But certainly, we're available for any questions you all may have. Thank you.

It is fine. It has do we want to direct some questions toward OIR group, or would you like me to finish up?

Okay. You can proceed, chief. Thank you.

Thank you, OIR Group. So OPD received and reviewed the draft report from the OIR Group in early March. And we began implementing some of the auditor's recommendation while the report was still in draft form. For example, we've updated the use of force policy to limit the number of officers who may deploy a TASER energy weapon against the same subject. And we have transitioned to a new TASER platform that is not capable of contact deployments.

We have also provided training for OPD members on the use of profane language, reviewed the policy with staff, and are addressing instances of profane language use. To date, we have implemented nine of the recommendations and are in the process of implementing another nine as we speak. We have organized the report's recommendations into three phases. The first includes recommendations that have already been addressed and will be completed within the first two quarters of this year. The remaining recommendations are scheduled for implementation during the 2026.

As we prioritize the work ahead, we are considering both the seriousness of the recommendations as well as the complexities of implementing them. Some policy changes can be made relatively quickly, and others require coordination with labor groups, more detailed policy development, and formal staff training. In some cases, adjustments can be addressed through shift briefings, trainings, while others may require more comprehensive training efforts. I want to thank the OIR group for the time and care that they put in the review of the twenty twenty five records. And I appreciate their partnership and look forward to continuing to work together as we strengthen our policies and our practices and accountability.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you all very much, for the presentation, and for a great report, with some some good feedback for us. So thank you. I'm gonna turn it over to our chair of community livability and public safety, council member Madrone, for some comments from the committee.

Yeah. And just wanted to share with you how I've touched this process. So, you know, as we all know, the police auditor is one of three positions hired by the city council, and we determined, couple of years ago that we wanted to have a member of the city council liaise with our police auditor, because it doesn't make sense for us to hire somebody who's providing oversight over an area of government and then just step back and just get reports. We wanted to have to have touch points, and have our own oversight, to make sure that we're getting what we need out of this. And so we decided that would be the chair of, community livability and public safety, CLIPS, and that torch got passed to me this year.

So thank you. Thank you. And so I had an opportunity to meet with Steven, Michael, and Sam prior to the report being submitted to our community policing board and got a chance to review it in advance for, you know, any any anything that I might think you we as a council might wanna dig in on more or anything that, know, maybe we've been hearing about in the community, anything we that might be missing from it. And so that was my first time meeting with them. And then I also attended the community policing board meeting where they and chief Parker presented to our advisory body there, and they really dug in.

Our community policing board, we have phenomenal people that are serving us in that role. And they did their homework. They came in prepared. They asked a lot of very good questions, and are they they are there to do the work. OYR group is here to do the work. Chief and the police department are here to do the work. So and Margo, here to do the work too. I wanna thank Margo because she has helped. You know, she pulled me in right away. She made sure that I have had everything that I need as the chair of this committee to be a be the liaison to OIR.

She's doing really, really great support for the community policing board. And I think the chief too, because she was also at that meeting because not all the questions that came up were for our police auditor. Some of them were for our police chief as well. And, you know, as as I've been talking with OIR group, you know, they they said, we've got 22 recommendations, but it's just because we've got fresh eyes on this, you know, and the next time we come in, it'll be a lower number, and then it'll be a lower number. And that's the process improvement that we are looking for as a council, you know, going beyond the, you know, check the box, okay, we did the investigations appropriately to but what more could we be doing?

How could we be doing better? And we're the beneficiaries of their, extensive experience in this and also their experience working with cities and police departments from all over the place. So they are bringing a much broader perspective than we have in Olympia. So I just want to extend my thanks to OIR Group Chief Parker Margot over there, and just really, really pleased to see the level of effort and the critical thinking and just the real good work that has gone into this first report.

Thank you, chair Madrone. Are there any comments for the chair or questions? Alright. Thank you. Alright. Questions for our presenters? Councilmember Gillman.

Great. First, thank you so very much. I'm I'm really proud of the results of of of your your audit. And I look forward one of the things I've been interested in is you're going to do a little looking at crew. And of course, I'm sure like many organizations that have an alternative response, the question of when is it safe for them to go in, when might they lead a conversation, I hope that we continue to refine that.

I think it's a really valuable tool, but I also hear the concern about there's a reason people are carrying defensive tools. So I'm intrigued that you're going to follow that up. The taser, I just didn't understand. Does the point of contact mean that it's not it won't discharge at point blank against a person?

So the older taser that we used, it had probes on the end of it that could just essentially be like an old fashioned stunt And there's question as to how effective that is. It's a pain compliance tool. And this new device, it doesn't have that capability. It can still deploy a probe, but it can't engage in just that stun contact.

Thank you. Now I understand that you can't use it in this way to Exactly. Lock it off. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. So and then the third question I have, I've continued to have a a wondering about the WRAP. I was surprised at the total number of times that the WRAP was deployed in this past year. And so I'm curious both about sort of best practices, how it aligns with other departments. And for me, and maybe it's because of who I am, it's one of the more threatening uses of force to be so physically constrained.

So I just wonder whether we're we're moving in one direction or another around the wrap deployments and and whether our use is sort of within the the range of what you're seeing in other departments.

We brought the RAP total restraint system into the police department to decrease injuries to folks that we were detaining in the community who were continuing to struggle with handcuffs on, as well as to reduce injuries to officers. And so what we've seen since using this tool is a significant reduction of injuries to subjects officers because they folks don't have the ability to strike and hit and bite, to the extent. Al also, a piece of the the RAP total restraint system is a padded helmet. We used to see a lot of head injuries with people in the back of patrol cars because they would bang their head on the partitions and their metal partitions. And so we would end up with some some not so level injuries to our public.

And so we're seeing, that reduction, which I think is very positive. I understand your concern in that when we do wrap somebody, we limit their mobility. And if somebody is in crisis, I do appreciate what you're saying. And that is not lovely. However, it does reduce the injury. And I see that as a big advantage. We do not consider the utilization of the wrap a use of force by itself. The reality is often, at the point that we're utilizing it, we've used force. We've had to take somebody to the ground in order to use it. I appreciate OIR's group's recommendation to analyze a little bit further how we're using it and really the articulation.

So there's one incident where OIR group observed a supervisor arrive on scene, and the tool was just deployed and utilized. And from their perspective, there was articulation about the need for its use. And so I I appreciate that we need some exploration there, and we'll be digging in.

And council person, I I think that you fit that last part exactly. That's the thrust of our recommendation. We think that the RAP can be a useful tool under the appropriate circumstance. But when it is applied, what we'd like to see is some sort of analysis or explanation for why the officer decided to get the tool and use it. An articulation of the reason. And I think if it is documented, then us as auditors and your public would be able to understand why it was used.

That's great. And I'm I'm glad that from both sides, we have careful consideration because I I I consider that one of the more intimidating tools that we have, even though I I recognize that it's it's better than somebody fighting with a police officer and ending up with a head injury on the way to the station. Recognize that. The last thing I wanted to say is we've been hearing more community complaints that haven't come to a complaint to the police department about either about more assertively moving people along who are unhoused. And I just so I welcome anybody in the community who could help substantiate those concerns or those complaints.

But my experience with both officers and the crisis response unit downtown has not I haven't seen anything like that in several years. So that's just I'm hearing that. I'm open to learning more about those kinds of incidents happening. But both from this report and from my own experience downtown, I'm just not seeing officers roughing up people on the sidewalk to get them to move. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. Councilmember Greene.

Yeah. Thank you, mayor. Councilmember Gillman, you actually segued quite nicely into one of my questions, which was, so, Steven, you used the phrase that during the the period that that this report looked at, there wasn't any completed complaints. Can you walk me through what that complaint process is? I haven't

So when a complaint is received by the department, it has an obligation to go ahead and investigate that. And sometimes that can take several months to be completed depending on the complexity of the complaint, whether the officer needs to be interviewed, which might implicate association issues and everything else. So and the other reality is that I I I think the the reality on the ground is the department receives very few complaints that are at least that are categorized as as opposed to a service complaint. It took too long for the officers to respond, I'm generally frustrated about the the situation in the jungle or whatever the case might be. So with regard to specific complaints of specific officer misconduct in a particular context, there just aren't that many that the department has generated in in our experience so far.

That is a little different. We had some complaints that came in at the 2025 that we were notified about and have been completed. And I think we're up to four or five different completed investigations that we have some thoughts about, and we look forward to sharing them in in an upcoming report.

Steve, if you could explain what completed means.

Oh, so that just means that the department has has finished its investigation. The investigator has done his or her job in terms of assessing the the evidence, collecting the evidence, assessing the evidence, and then it's up to the department to adjudicate the the complaint and determine whether it a violation of policy occurs, whether the allegations are substantiated or not. And then in terms of what happens next, I'm if if it is a sustained allegation, the officers have certain appellate rights, if you will. So finalizing that depending on it could be a very, very simple straightforward thing that the body worn camera is is definitive, and it can be wrapped up relatively quickly. But there are also easily conceivable scenarios where the investigation might be more complex, and getting through all the stages of the process might take a while.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. I was I was wondering if there were multiple steps to make a complaint. And what I'm hearing is completed is just all of the steps following a complaint.

Yeah, and it's actually a great point, Councilmember, because one of the things that we really prioritize is the accessibility of a complaint system. We don't want it to have to be say the magic words, jump through the hoop, fill out exact form, and that has not been our experience.

Okay. And my second question is, if and so, Chief, I appreciate you sharing kind of what you've done already with these and where you're going with them. I'm excited to hear how quickly some of that work is happening. Hypothetical, and obviously you work with other agencies as well if there are things you see in the next year's reports that are a continuation of things, is that sort of called out as, Hey, we already recommended this, and there's still a challenge?

Yes. Chapter two will reference chapter one. But sometimes, because of the cycle of reporting, we will be looking at cases that occurred prior to even our recommendations. So we have to give some leeway there because the chief did not know what we were thinking about when the incident that I reviewed in January happened. That's right. So there needs to be some catch up time, and we will provide some grace there. But you're right. If if in fact the recommendation has already been lodged, and then we see this repeating in this next cycle, we'll be referencing it for sure.

Okay.

And if I could just I'm so sorry. If I could just add one more thing to your question about the complaint process. One thing I neglected to mention is that it is absolutely an option in Olympia for people to use our office as a as a place to submit their complaints. It's the police department that's going to be investigating them. But we actually had our first version of that within the last several weeks, and I notified our contact person in the department, and the review of that is underway. So that's another possibility.

Thank you. If I may as well be responsive to that, we had a great conversation with the community policing board around the recommendations and culture change. And so there are some recommendations that once we do the work on them with policy and training, I anticipate that we won't see a peer coming back from the auditor. There are others that are just going to take time, because sometimes culture takes time to change. And so when we take a look at specifically profanity, what the auditor should be seeing is that when officers are using profanity, it is addressed.

And that should be reflected. And what I hope they see is that we see a decrease in that behavior. But it will take time. And so what I anticipate that we'll see in the next report is there still is some profanity occurring, but it is a reduction. And there's evidence that the department is addressing it appropriately.

Thank you. Additional questions or comments from council? Councilmember Randepaul.

Yeah. I I first wanna start by well, far away than it's supposed to be. I appreciate the acknowledging the, I guess, folks in the community that are critical of these things. Right? And and and starting from that standpoint and, because public confidence in this really matters. Right? And and and looking at the system with recommendations is, I think, extremely important, particularly for folks that are critical of of of policing in general in our community. I'd be cur I'm curious about you you mentioned crew as something to look into going forward. I'm I'm curious about other systems that you're going to look into. Right?

Because sometimes we regionally look at things. Right? There's sometimes there's a regional response. A few years ago when there was an incident where someone unfortunately, passed. It was a regional response that had happened before we had body cams. So I'm curious. Are because we work for this to the city of Olympia, but we do work regionally. And sometimes those tougher situations require joint operations. Are you going to be looking at some of that too?

If our work takes us to looking at the complexity of a regional arrangement, we certainly will incorporate that into our work. One example, and we'll be reviewing this even though it's not strictly Olympia's responsibility, is that criminal investigation of the Austin Ball shooting, which the city of Olympia had nothing to do with. But that becomes the cornerstone for our review of what happened in that officer involved shooting. Was a deadly force appropriate? It may not have met criminal prosecution requirements, but there may be other things going on there.

So So, I think that is an example of where it's not simply Olympia that we'll be looking at, because it's a regional responsibility now as a result of the legislature. So that's an example. But certainly, if there are other components that are outside the city of Olympia's authority or responsibility, but there's reliance on those efforts to address this situation, we'll be looking at that as well. So, guess my if I had to sum it up, we're not cabined by just what's going on in the city, what authority the city has. We recognize that it's within a larger context.

The state has a big role here, and after the George Floyd murder, a very big role in making some expectations required statewide, including in the way in which deadly force incidents are investigated. So, yes, the answer is yes.

And that that just to confirm, that also includes incidents in the city that may not involve us. It may involve perhaps like the sheriff's office or other things that happen in the city?

That is a little trickier. We're not the independent police auditor yet for the Thurston County Sheriff's Department. But there may be times in which an operation will consist of multiple agencies. So if Olympia is involved in an enforcement action, but Thurston County and Tumwater and Lacey were also involved, We're not going to be evaluating the conduct of those other officers, but if we see it, we're going to be calling it out. And if, in fact, that multiagency response impacts, in our view, the way in which an evaluation of Olympia's people is impacted, then we're going be looking at it.

And in fact, that happened in one of the cases we looked at, and it's in our report. So, there was a multiagency response for one incident in which, ultimately, an OPD officer deployed the canine to effectuate the detention of the individual. That was a multiagency response. Thurston County was out there. Tumwater was out there.

And one of the recommendations was that while the body worn camera of the OPD officer was collected as part of the investigation, There was no apparent effort to ask Thurston County whether any of its deputies captured the event on their body worn cameras, which we thought was important and helpful. And so that's one of our recommendations. Tumwater was there, but I don't think Tumwater even has body worn camera yet. So there's that. They do. They do now? Okay.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Any additional comments or questions? I do have a few questions about so first of all, I appreciate the comments that you made about how our the system that we have here at the city is unique compared to to many other places. But that that leads me to think about, you know, some of the policies, procedures, or the recommendations even that aren't policy yet, being able to see where each of them fall in terms of best practice, so a comparable or where they even exceed standards.

That would

be

helpful to know that when I'm looking at it. So when I just see, like, a recommendation, is this something that happens in other places, or is this something that exceeds the standard? Because you mentioned that earlier that you're doing things that, frankly, are kind of meticulous, right, that are like, you're trying to go from we're going from good to great is what I hear you try saying. And so it'd be helpful to to know that. I do have a question about our body worn camera policy in the muting of of our cameras.

So chief, can you speak to, because it's here in the report, situations when that might or why that occurs?

There's a number of reasons why an officer would mute their body worn camera. One is that they are interviewing a reporting party in a crime who doesn't want to be recorded. It could be a victim who wants to speak and not be recorded. It could also be because there's no official law enforcement business being done in that moment, and they're taking time to decompress while they're still on scene. So that could look like a traumatic crime occurring.

The scene has stabilized, but the officers are on scene security. And so they are muting their body worn cameras, and so they can talk to one another and really process just what happened and have some privacy in that moment. I appreciate that to the community, it leads to questions being asked. What are they talking about? But what I would ask for is some recognition that our officers experience a great deal of trauma.

And they need time and space to be able to process it. And that, in my mind, is one of the benefits in working for the city of Olympia is that we're a size where you have partners, where you can process your trauma and go home a little bit better at the end of the day versus departments where it's a single officer who works and doesn't have anybody to talk to. I appreciate that there's some work that needs to be done here, and I'm really appreciative of the OIR group's recommendation. We have had recommendations in the past, and they haven't been as targeted as narrow. And I I really just appreciate the recommendation.

We're already moving forward on it. And what the policy change will look like is that there will be no muting after a use of force occurs until the officer is concluded on scene with that event. And that way, we have that transparency that the community is looking for. They get to hear the officer tell the supervisor what happened to inform that supervisor's investigation into the use of force. And so we have some great work moving forward.

That's one of the nine that's in the process. And we're taking it a few steps further and really building some scaffolding around what those investigations, those use of force investigations look like, and making sure that there are scripted questions that we can ask the officers as well as we can ask the folks who force has been used upon. And so certainly, the officers have a little bit more awareness of what they're going to be asked. And of course, there'll be an open ended question at the end, which is, is there anything else you'd like to tell us about this incident?

Thank you. That's helpful. So we have a recommendation from OIR to essentially prevent muting of cameras.

I believe it's specifically to use of force incidents.

Only for use of force? Okay.

Am I correct in understanding that, OIR Group?

Yes. Thank you.

Understood. Okay. That's helpful. That prevents me from asking my next question, which is what if they don't want it? Want to be heard? But and and, obviously, that that information, even so, in those situations, I imagine, would be redacted on a case by case basis for a records request, for instance, by a random community member who has questions related to a nonuse of force incident?

I would need to defer that, mayor, to our experts that deal with public records. The complexities of the laws are just that, very complex.

I see. Thank you. So I I go back to, you know, the the question of of, whether or not our policies, are best practice or standard or should exceed. Is there any scenario? Because I don't imagine you would make a recommendation.

But is there any scenario where we could anticipate that you later find that a recommendation is not feasible? And what will be the process for hearing that it is not, or why? What will that cadence look like throughout the course of a year?

Yes. That feedback begins from the beginning of our work and our introductory discussions with those responsible for investigating use of force, reviewing them. We're having conversations in addition to document review all along the way. And then, when our draft report was concluded, we shared, as the chief indicated, a draft with her to for her to make sure we're factually correct, one. But more significantly, her, Is this going to work for your organization?

And if not, can you explain to us why not? So, yes, the feasibility we're not going to be making recommendations that we don't think won't work for your city or are not consistent with best practices. Unfortunately, mayor, I have yet to write the book that you could check out at the library on best practices. But at some point, I'll get to it. And then you I'll send you one of the first copies.

All right. Great. Well, you'll just have to compile all the reports you've done where the recommendations have been successful. Absolutely. All right. Are are there any additional, questions or comments? Yeah. So just our gratitude once again. We look forward to, continuing, our work together, and we appreciate your analysis to let us know our standing. That's exactly why you're here.

And so we will continue to just support you and your work and look forward to your next report. And thank you once again to Margo and to Chief Parker and to all of you at OIR Group for your work. We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor. And and I just wanted to make sure I didn't neglect to say how appreciative we were of city manager's office and of Margo's work and her support. We couldn't have been here, couldn't have done this without that. Finally, would just want to say appreciate the feedback you all are providing, the leadership you are providing, the guidance you're providing, and more significantly, the support you are providing by your engagement with us. So thank you for that.

Of course. And our apologies again for tonight's events, but you obviously adapted pretty quickly, and we appreciate it.

Not our first rodeo, mate.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you. Okay. And we very much appreciate the opportunity to be here in person, so thanks for having us.

Thanks, Steven. Alright. So, that concludes our business, for tonight. So we are going to recess for five minutes and then recon oh, I'm sorry. Yes. I am getting ahead of my skis. Reports. So I will, begin to my left, with mayor Pro Tem with reports I have nothing to report. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. Also, nothing to report. Oh, I've been doing things, but nothing to report.

Ditto. Alright. Councilmember Vanderpool.

Oh, I always have something to report. So, Transportation Policy Board met last week. We, amended our bylaws to add an additional community member, which makes it three just like our business representatives. It was an exceptional list this year. We three of us ranked choice, and we still came just points from each other, which means there's a lot of great people in the community that are interested in policies around transportation and systems, and, it's some impressive stuff.

We also got a presentation on performance measures for target zero. Target zero is, measuring, no, how do I say this, crashes in the community where there are deaths involved. And they asked us what is missing, what elected officials hearing. I spoke about, from the regional standpoint, what can we do now to meet some of those needs with what we have, whether that's traffic calming, small scale infrastructure, also barriers, what are what state codes are stopping us and making our processes expensive around meeting these needs. This is an ongoing process.

We'll continue to have more feedback around this because we're not meeting our goals around, target zero. Every year, the trend is still going along. It's been slowly moving up each year, and we're not we're nowhere near where we need to be. Also, let's see. And then the Climate Collaborative met yesterday.

Commissioner Klaus was elected chair. Vice chair was, Ryan Sue from Lacey, and I I pushed Ryan to get in that position. He's like, well, I don't really know much about the position, but I said, well, you you got it. So we also got a presentation from the on the state forest land management from commissioner Ty Miser Minster. Meh.

Saying the right. About the Capitol Forest. And particularly, I asked the question, what do you know, what would you like us to do from our city standpoint around these issues? Because this is a usually a county issue. He says that I asked he said he would send us the draft around a letter because earlier this year, we were kind of scrambling around a letter to the state around this, particularly around the Bear Forest area, which is near McLean Nature Trail.

There is a concern of that getting cut, and particularly the amount of students in the community that use that trail and how that would affect access. We also got an update on Energize and our home score, where we are on that. I I put this down because this is really interesting. Tumwater has created a ordinance on data center zoning to keep data centers from being built in their city. And I and they said that they could share that that zoning code with us, and I thought that would be really interesting.

And then also, they're changing their code around battery storage allowances because apparently, building battery storage systems in, the city limits was not allowed until recently. So that's my report.

Thanks. Any questions or comments for council member Vanderpool? Alright. Well, to tonight's presenters, you are free to go if you wish. You do not have to stick around for the council report. So

We're take gonna you to work for

Yes. Of course. You have a good night.

We'll watch the replay on

Yes. Sure you will.

So funny.

Alright. Councilmember Gilman. Good finance met maybe last night, sometime very recently on the and two keep calm, carry on, don't panic kinds of items. The first one is on June 9, we'll have a study session as council where we're going to have the budget process for this next year laid out and also be given the preliminary estimates for how last year closed out. And the good news that don't panic is it's still tight.

We still have difficult decisions, but we're not in a sudden huge gap panic kind of mode. That's good news. Park impact fee methodology. You may have seen or heard from folks that there was some concern of, what does this mean you're changing the impact fees? And really briefly, state law changed to try to make it more progressive, to give a break to very small units and offset that cost so that it's the same revenue collected by reducing the cost on the smallest units and increasing the cost on the largest units.

But it's a very modest change in the fees and the breakeven point. Right now, it's about $7,000 on a new house for Parks, and the new scheme, that would be an 1,800 square foot house. So it's just a subtle shift. So I think we're Okay there. It's going to come we're going have other business presentation when that comes to you.

I had another refugee resettlement meeting, and two things that were interesting to me. One is the only quota for new refugees coming in is for South Africans fleeing anti white racism. And that's the only category that has a quota. The president is the one who issues the quota each year. And there are very few actually coming in, but we do have a handful of South Africans who've come to Washington State.

And then on the other side, volunteer organizations are continuing to find ways to fund and support people who have already recently arrived in The United States. And Washington state has been really stretching to offer health care access that's being cut off from the way it was provided by as a federal benefit. So the community that comes together for those quarterly forums is really stretching and flexing and very resilient about continuing to provide services. I'm very glad for that. Board of Health met last week, and unpermitted food vendors were the topic.

And really what that means is pop up tamale or taco, sort of a 10 by 10 canopy that's on the side of the road, they are being run like farm workers or construction workers, by labor brokers dropping people off in different cities with their pile of stuff. The health concerns are that the food is often prepared somewhere else, like Seattle or Portland, and then distributed all over. So it's been many hours in an ice chest before it's served to you. So the county is becoming more strict, including being willing to confiscate the equipment, which is terrible for the already exploited worker who's trying to make $100 and sell these things, but they're not safe, and one vendor in particular has been cited nine times. It just keeps popping up down the block around the corner.

So they're going to be more assertive about that. In meantime, there are many places to get tacos, burritos, and tamales all over town that have the little food inspection card up and are doing a great job. It's been a difficult decision, because they were hoping to counsel them into compliance, as so many government agencies do. But we've reached a point where the workers are clearly exploited and the food is really not safe. So anyhow, that's that's my report.

Questions and comments for councilmember Gilman, mayor pro time Nguyen?

Wow.

There's so much to unpack here. Just on the last one with food, councilmember Gilman, I appreciate what you're saying, and I know that, it is to be true some of the time. I'm curious and maybe it's the last part of your comment that's the tell or the marker for it when you're talking about a certificate. But is there a place that the county, as they're investigating and doing outreach, that that basically community members can see to Okay, I'm struggling to say this because I'm trying to say it in a nice way. I don't want to lump and I don't think that you're trying

to do

this. Although, I get my hackles up a little bit, because people just want to make money, and there's nothing wrong with that. Now I'm not talking about exploited labor, but I got an auntie. I'm not going to tell you where, not after this conversation. Sells humbows outside of trunk of her car, and they're delicious. People, she got regulars. She's not hurting anybody. Maybe not. Maybe the health inspector would disagree. So I just want to be really careful about lumping people in. So is there some sort of resource or somewhere that concerned community members can look? Yes.

There's good news for your auntie and other people. And that is that the county health department over the last couple of years has also created a very simple, minimal way to register and have the standards communicated for pop up food vendors. So there's a really low bar set for being a pop up food vendor and having a registration with the Department of Health and food handler card. There's not a ready database just because of the challenge of it's like the people who sell flowers here to Mother's Day on the street corner. They're not going to be there in six hours, so there's no address, there's no business name.

But you can ask if they have in Thurston County at least, there's some minimum expectation if they have a pop up food vendor license and a food handler card. And that's a pretty low bar.

Thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, I so I don't think you know this, but I so appreciate your work attending those meetings for years now and getting this information out to us. And it's something about this topic that people when it comes to food or how you're going to spend your money, you can vote with your dollars. And I feel like there's already so much I read it online all the time, and hear it sometimes in the community. But some of these folks that have these businesses, people are already turning their nose down towards them.

And it's like, if you don't wanna eat there, go eat somewhere else, you know? But believe that I'm gonna be there with my cash ready, you know? So it's like yeah. Anyways, so I appreciate you. Thanks for answering my questions.

Alright. Councilmember Barron. No report.

Thank you. Councilmember Green.

Thank you, mayor Paine. I have no report. Alright.

Assistant City Manager Sullivan.

Thank you, Mayor. Tonight is my last city council meeting. And since I have the microphone and the privilege of being the last speaker, please indulge me for just a moment. I simply want to say thank you. It has been an honor to have a front row seat and watch all of you lead this city with such care, listening deeply, thinking creatively, and acting with courage.

This work is complex, and it isn't easy. But you all do it with compassion, grace, and with a sincere commitment to making Olympia a very special place. You have taught me so much, and you have inspired me. And that is a gift that I will cherish forever. Thank you.

That my friend is popping in his car.

Thank you so much, Debbie, for your service. You are gonna be missed. Thank you. Stellar performance over the years. So at this time, we are gonna reconvene for an executive session in Room 423, for up to sixty minutes. No decisions will be made. It's pursuant to potential litigation. And after a five minute recess, we will reconvene in that room for up to sixty minutes, and we will recess or excuse me, adjourn for tonight.

I I'm on the staff site.

My my my Oh,

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can hear it down there down there. The echo's gone. Right?

It's very back in the bed. Weird.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Abort. I'm

just saying this so I don't lose track of it.

Yes. I wanna order, like, a rope and. Okay. You don't have this facility sinks. I'm seeing

Yes.

So we don't forget to cordon off the front area so that community members don't walk up to the staff desk for the day or the day

on, Dave said.

Do you want me to schedule a meeting? What the fuck? I feel like they're gonna need some answers about what we want.

Do you schedule, like, just a fifteen minute and make them walk through your

chamber? Yeah.

For

sure. Thank you. Okay. Thanks.

Thanks, sir.

Yep. Thank you. Good night.