City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, August 11, 2026 regular business meeting of the Olympia City Council. For the record, we have a quorum with all council members present, including council member Green, who is joining us remotely tonight, along with our city manager, Jay Burney, who is also joining us remotely this evening. Just a few announcements before we adopt our agenda. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the passing of Nisqually tribal chairman, KEN CHOKE, WHO RECENTLY PASSED AWAY. THE OLYMPIA CITY COUNCIL EXPRESSES OUR CONDOLENCES FOR HIS PASSING, AND WE EXPRESS THOSE CONDOLENCES TO HIS FAMILY AS WELL AS THE ENTIRE NASQUALI NATION. IN HIS HONOR, THE CITY OF OLYMPIA WILL BE LOWERING OUR FLAGS TO HALF MASS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE WEEK IN HONOR OF THE CHAIRMAN'S PASSING. I also want to invite our city manager, Jay Burney, to make an announcement.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Again, for the record, Jay Burney, city manager. I am really sorry that I can't be there tonight for what is a really exciting moment for the Olympia Fire Department and the city of Olympia. It is my pleasure to announce the appointment of Hillary Flowers as the next chief of the Olympia Fire Department. Chief Flowers has been with Olympia Fire Department since April of 2025. Prior to Olympia, she spent 19 years in a variety of leadership roles at Lacey Fire District 3, including serving as the Assistant Chief of Health and Safety and Interim Medical Services Officer. She has served Olympia Fire Department as the Deputy Chief of Operations prior to serving these past few months as the Interim Fire Chief. Throughout her time at the Olympia Fire Department, Chief Flowers has exhibited outstanding leadership in the department is part of the executive team and in the community. She is a proven leader and relationship builder, well respected by the fire community, both locally and regionally. We are fortunate and I am grateful that Chief Flowers has accepted the role of Olympia Fire Chief. I'm also proud and honored to welcome Chief Flowers as the first female chief in the history of the Olympia Fire Department. She is going to do amazing things for the city of Olympia. Please help me welcome and congratulate the appointment of Hillary Flowers as the next Olympia Fire Chief.

I hate to say anything. That was so good. Thank you, Jay. I'll just keep my brief remarks. It's an honor and privilege to get to serve as the Fire Chief of the Olympia Fire Department. You know, my friends have been wooing me for the better part of two and a half years to come serve in Olympia, and it's been... an amazing journey. So thank you to them for convincing me to come. And I was sharing with council member Gilman, like it is scary to leave an organization, but they've been so welcoming and truly welcoming into the Olympia fire family. I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge what an exceptional team I have the privilege of leading. The men and women of Olympia fire department are absolutely fantastic. They're highly dedicated professionals. They work hard at serving our mission of taking care of our community and serving in any capacity really asked. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve both alongside council, our executive team and our leadership within the fire department. So thank you.

Congratulations, chief. Any comments from the days? Well, I will just express the council's gratitude for you, for your service. And we look forward to seeing what you do during your tenure as our fire chief. I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to mention that you are the first woman, I believe, to lead our fire department. The same is true for our police department now. And it's really important because I think it's so important for our young girls and young women to see somebody such as yourself in a leadership role like being the fire chief. So congratulations. All right. So with that, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda. So moved.

Second.

All right. All those in favor of the agenda is published signify by saying aye. Aye. We have an agenda. So we have no special recognition tonight. So we are going to move on to public comment and I'll turn it over to the Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. We have a number of people signed up in person and online. We'll go ahead and start first with the folks in person. I'll call a few of you down so you can get ready and come to the podium. When it's your turn to speak, please do state your name for the record. I apologize in advance if I mispronounce your name. Please do correct it for us. And... So back to housekeeping. For those of you that might not know, public comment is two minutes. And so when you stand at the podium and you begin, the two-minute timer over there will start counting down for you. And then there's also some stoplight colors in front of you. And so when it goes to yellow, that's just a kind reminder that you have 30 seconds to wrap up your remarks. And then when it goes to red, your time has elapsed. So please do finish your sentence and move on. And then if you hear me saying thank you during when you're talking, that's my way of saying your comments are over. Unfortunately, please do email us. And it can be awkward. And I wish there was more time, but two minutes is what we've got. So with that, we'll go ahead and call some names forward. So we have Chuck Spies, followed by Becky Dilba, followed by Aaron Cole.

Thank you mayor pro tem and as you make your way to the podium I do just have a statement that I like to read because I know we have a few folks here in chambers offering comment tonight as it relates to our waste resources. Future decision so I know that we have a number of people who are interested in speaking tonight about this so I just wanted to provide a little bit of context as to what's going to happen in the future before we begin our comments tonight. So we're still very early in this process and no decisions have been made or will be made in the near term. What we do know is that we cannot maintain the status quo when it comes to the space and the facility needs that our waste resources and other public works maintenance operations currently have. Council has a study session that is scheduled for next week on Tuesday, August 18th to continue this discussion asking questions and better understand the options that are available to us, including the cost and potential impacts. The conversation is intended to help inform this council before determining any next steps. So with that context, we appreciate you being here and we look forward to hearing your perspectives and probably even see you next week at next week's study session. So that is our process. No decisions will be made this week or in the future, near future, as it pertains to making a decision to keep our utility or to privatize it. No decision is being made in the near term in that regard. So with that, we'll turn it back over to our first commenter. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and council members. So I'm Chuck Spies. I represent the City of Olympia workers. We also have a business office that gets solid waste refuse over on Carriageway. So I watched that study session and I had concerns and that's why I'm here today. I think you've received letters from our members, from people of the community. I last spoke at a council meeting here when courts was having their fate decided and we were kind of behind on that. We felt like we needed to be more proactive in this. It's a highly regarded service. The community values it. They rank highly on the survey. And moving towards privatization, even if it's just gathering information, it moves us that direction. I think Councilmember Yen, you acknowledged in that study session that we're really only exploring one option right now. The other option calls for an investment of money into the Carpenter Road project, and so We're not kind of weighing both options as equally. We're getting information from someone who wants to make money from your community. A privatization would mean how can we make money Our company by taking the service over and long term that's their goal when you control this Utility the city gets the best service they can they have all the control over how they're meeting their communities needs you have members of Your workforce that live here are raising their families here that are invested in this and I know when I was here at the courts we had difficult decisions to make and We ended up with a severance package that I want to thank you for. It did help all of those members make that transition, but ultimately our members want to work for this community. They want to continue to live here. raise their families here and be a part of this. So I just want you to really think like, Yen, I appreciate all your comments about what investing in the future could be. Carpenter Road's been coming for a long time. And when we're talking $8 a month, I know that's not nothing, but that does help provide something to this community. Thank you.

Thank you. Becky Dilba.

Sorry, I'm really new to this, so good evening. I'm Becky Dilba, and I have been a resident of Olympia since June 2014, and I'm one of the 16,000 residents that receive residential services from Olympia Waste Resources. It is my understanding that the city may be moving towards an RFP or RFI to explore contracting out garbage collection. I want to state that I oppose this move because an RFP is not a neutral step. It commits staff time, signals to private companies that Olympia's trash collection is on the table. Sorry, my phone froze. Okay. And it builds momentum towards what would feel like an inevitable outcome. The Carpenter Road project is a maintenance and operation facility that has already seen $2.6 million of ratepayer capital spent on it, and it is nearly shovel-ready. This project is replacing the 50-year-old Eastside campus that has roughly $15 million in deficiencies and is seismically unsound, as you guys know. Contracting out collection does not make any of those problems with the east side campus go away, nor does it recoup the $2.6 million already spent on the Carpenter Road project. If avoiding the build is the main reason for exploring privatization, that reasoning doesn't really hold. And leverage, you lose that permanently. Once Olympia sells its trucks, closes its yards, and lets crews go on, the next contract renewal is a take it or leave it. The hauler knows you cannot easily get that operation moving again, so power and pricing completely shifts to them. What the city provides is a utility, Once Olympia, oh, sorry, what the city provides is a utility, and it is an entirely self-supporting as the rates cover cost and nothing more. City crews also empty downtown public hands, clear illegal dumping, and serve sanctioned and unsanctioned encampments and clean up after city events. This is work that will not be covered in a private contract. A private hauler is scoped to billable routes. Everything else becomes a change order or a gap in service. This may look like savings in the beginning, but this is not the quick fix that you think it is. Thank you.

Thank you. We always love to have more people public commenting. Well done. We have Aaron Cole, followed by Rochelle Martin, followed by Desiree Tolliver.

Great. Thank you. Good evening, Council, Mayor. My name is Aaron Cole. I reside in the South Capitol neighborhood. I want to talk about waste resources as a topic. Finding out there is an April 21st study about various topics, including the building up at Carpenter, the Refuge Services, considerations to either keep it or sell it off to private business that's for profit. I believe that since then, as was talked about before, there's bids and decisions that are happening since. We want to see some kind of public presentation and I have not seen that yet. You say you're early in the process. This happened back in April and it's going to continue next week. Are the decisions going to be behind closed doors like they were with the courts? By the time we figured that out, the decisions appeared to have already been made. We don't want to do that. Where's the consultation with the businesses? Where's the community and the workers consultation? I think the community and the workers, they deserve this and they deserve better. I'LL SAY THE PRESENTATION DOCUMENT THAT WAS GIVEN TO THE COUNCIL BACK IN APRIL, I WANT TO SEE IF THERE WERE SOME ERRORS IN THERE. IT COMPARED TO OTHERS THAT WERE 35 GALLONS. THAT'S NOT AN APPROPRIATE MATCH. IN FACT, I PAY, I LIVE HERE, LESS THAN THE AMOUNT. I HAVE A SMALLER BIN. MINE IS $41. CURRENTLY IF YOU HAVE A 65-GALLON AND ORGANICS, THAT'S $88 EVERY TWO MONTHS. The city of the water is 94 were already competitive and less than that right now. You know those I heard also electrified trucks. That's a city would rather go there. Those are $600,000 compared like a biodiesel of $350,000 you take those into consideration. The cost of moving forward are not just on the backs of our our workers up to 40 people could lose their careers and their livelihood that work here that are dedicated to the city and that's a very unfortunate and that's something that should be really considered. Thank you.

Thank you. Rochelle Martin?

Hi. Rochelle Martin, president of the Thurston Lewis Mason Center Labor Council. I'm here to talk about waste services. Thanks, everybody, for coming out. These are union jobs in our community, and to have it on the table to take these away while we're also being told there's no staff time to work on the worker affordability and protections task It seems like staff time is very carefully allocated in a way that is geared to hurt workers and hurt people that actually need to keep track of every dollar that's in their pocketbooks. So it's unnerving that this is moving at the speed and with the lack of transparency that it is when we can see that when these privatization contracts go into other cities, they don't go well. Becky did such an amazing job and I just really appreciate the comments because She was so prepared and I was not so prepared today because I was reviewing proposals all day for my day job. And it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort for just my little job. And to review the amount of proposals and to think about the amount of work that's going to go into switching over an entire public utility into a private contract, this is not time well spent. Why not leave this up to the voters? If there needs to be more money, put it up for the voters to decide. Privatization will always be an option. Let the public decide what is the best thing. And they can do that with their votes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Desiree Tolliver, followed by Chad Kate, followed by Grace Fletcher.

Council members, I wanted to talk to you today. I know many people are going to express a lot of other concerns which are equally important. One of my biggest concerns with privatization is privatization removes our ability to ensure how our money is spent, how our money is invested and to protect our community members. Yes, there are 40 people who are employed and that's a huge deal, but I know other departments throughout the city and state even who hire people who should have protected status in those cities and states. Once you open it up to a private company, how are we going to guarantee protected status to people? How are we going to remain a sanctuary city if private corporations, we already know, have different rules around hiring. We also know that they don't appreciate experience as much from certain people. How many people are these private corporations going to be hiring in replacement for the 40 employees that we're losing? The employees that we're losing, how many of them are not going to be eligible for benefits they would have previously been eligible for if this privatization were to go through? Um, are there not other options for us to create worker training programs locally to ensure that we have local people, even. Uh, without traditional access to college education who can still continue to fill and maintain these roles. Um, uh, yeah, there's, there's how much are these companies going to invest into the healthcare of their employees into. Just there's so many things that we don't actually know. And even if we get an answer from these private corporations, they can change them at any time, which makes it impossible for us to be the city we say we are if we are directly funding people who do the opposite. Thank you.

Thank you.

Chad Kate.

Council and mayor. My name is Chad Kate I'm a local business owner here downtown Olympia I own golden our T the all ages alcohol free late night sober spot for all the kids and everyone here downtown Olympia. I'm coming here today because in my I've been coming down Olympia for the past. I've spent every day down here for the past two and a half years. I built out that bar and then worked the first three months by myself where I worked arts walk. My first experience meeting a council member was at arts walk when I was working this myself, our busiest day ever. And this is a common thing that needs to be addressed. A council member comes in wearing either a Trump shirt or a Kamala shirt. I had never met a council member before. I immediately went down, looked at my phone and said, what is a city council member? Oh, a non-partisan member of the community government that gives away their perspective of a Democrat or Republican so that they can greater serve the community and not divide and conquer everyone, not break large groups of populations into small groups of populations that you control and manipulate independently of each other. You guys are destroying the downtown. I've been coming downtown and people are not happy. I am very upset. I've come in here a few times and seen you guys get all screamed at. We had a meeting. You left very quickly. I don't remember if you remember what you talked about. You mentioned how the the poor people it's a poor people versus the rich people problem when it comes to the Homelessness that has nothing to do that. We are living in a sick failing society And that we need to start showing love tenderness care and respect to these kids because these kids are looking rough Yo kids are showing up with slashes down their arms and looking bad We need to start showing love and respect and attention to these kids because we're not going to have a generation left They've been so neglected. I grew up here in Olympia, never felt welcomed here downtown. First time downtown was going to the spot where obviously you buy drugs because that's where everyone's at. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Grace Fletcher followed by our final in-person public commenter, Richard Burgess, and then we'll move to virtual.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Grace Fletcher, and I organize with the Southwest Olympian Neighborhood Association and the Council of Neighborhood Associations. And I'm here to speak about the local food systems plan. I want to be honest about where I stand on this. I support this work, and I understand a strong plan may be one of the better tools the city has for competing for state and federal grant dollars in the future. But $245,000 for a study is hard to justify in a tight budget environment, especially if it produces only a report with potentially no tangible action attached to it. My worry is a familiar one. A study gets commissioned, a consultant gets paid, and the plan sits waiting for implementation funding while the need continues to grow. And the need is growing right now. The free food pantries in our neighborhood are heavily used today, and that's before a wave of federal changes has fully landed here in Washington. Last year, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the largest cut to food assistance in the program's history, about $186 billion nationally over the next decade. Two pieces will reach Olympia. First, stricter work requirements. Qualifying age for adults without dependents rose from 54 to 64. And groups once exempt, which were veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth, are now included. The state estimates 130,000 Washingtonians could lose SNAP as this takes effect. Second, a cost shift. Starting in October 2027, states must pay a share of benefits tied to their payment error rates. Washington is trending near 9%, which could mean close to $200 million a year. That pressure states to cut error rates fast, usually through stricter screening and more paperwork. Arizona already went down this road and lost more than 40% of its SNAP enrollment, and much of that was eligible families lost to administrative churn, not people who stopped qualifying. So the demand for our food system is climbing, and it's going to keep climbing, which is exactly why I don't want to see a quarter million dollars go entirely to the study with no tangible action. Here's my proposal. Let the CNA collaborate with the consultant on the community engagement portion of this work. We've done it well before. The Community Priorities Forum we ran in January drew real participation and surfaced concrete community-driven ideas. We have the networks and the trust to bring in community voices that a consultant may struggle to reach. And partnering on that can produce real cost savings. And to everyone listening, the city can't carry this alone. Thank you. It won't have to if we step up. If you have the means, take into your own hands, start a free pantry, offer fruit trees for gleaning, plant free.

Grace, I'm going to ask you to please share your comments via email. All right. Richard Burgess.

There we go. It's got two minutes. That's what my wife says. Yeah, I don't really like coming down here that much, you know, complaining stuff. I have air quality issues at my apartment and people live in there. They're having great lives. I'm not somebody. I'm on the second floor. Somebody is able to pump my apartment full of like diesel fuel and all kinds of nasty stuff. I'm on Facebook at Chantilly Secondary School Alumni Richard Burgess. Look for the one with about 150 stories. I write some great stuff. But lately, it's been really negative. Yeah, there's people living great lives at my apartment complex. I don't really want to point it out. But I mean, since April 1, 2024, boom, massive amounts of diesel fuel, diesel fuel, boom, boom, boom. It's sporadic, other kinds of toxins. And somebody's doing that deliberately. Somebody doesn't want me there. And I got no criminal record. I'm originally from Northern Virginia. My phone number is 1-360-485-3632. My email is SaxonJade333 at gmail.com. SaxonJade333 at gmail.com. Shetley Secondary School alumni, Richard Burgess, look for the one with like 150 stories. I used to live where Leo Coctree, the 12-string guitarist, used to live. And guys way up the food chain polluted the area. And they freaking polluted the area. So I'd also like to mention, anywhere you go, you should be able to offer donations across the United States. You want to give it to the police. You want to get the homeless. Boom, boom, boom. You can do donations and so forth. And with the new bus routes, I don't like them. But they can track wherever you are, whoever you are, through the bus app. So people where I'm living are having great lives. I'm not. Somebody is deliberately poisoning me with stuff.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Burgess.

All right.

Sorry, I have to wrap you up. Well, thanks.

Hopefully I get some help. Hopefully I can relocate. I'm hooked up with housing right now. Hopefully they can help me out.

Yes, Mr. Burgess.

Thank you. I'm good for you. I'm a criminal record. I just want normal air. So I watch you guys every week, too. So thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, so looking at staff, we're moving to virtual public comment. And then I see Kyle Kimball first on my list. I'll just give a moment. OK. Oh, hello, Kyle. I see you when you have a moment or yeah, when you are ready. Yeah, go ahead and unmute and then your two minutes will begin. Go ahead.

All right. Hi, everybody. My name is Kyle Kimball. I'm a member of the Heritage Commission and library fan. In February, we were informed that thanks to a decade of shocking mismanagement from both the board and library leadership, the Timberland Regional Library.

Mr. Kimball, Mr. Kimball. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to stop and interrupt you. So because we are currently in the middle of an election season, you are prohibited from speaking in support or opposition to a candidate or ballot measure in a city council meeting according to state law. So we have to interrupt you. I'm sorry. All right. No worries.

Yes. For the rest of my two minutes, please don't privatize waste collection. All right.

Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. All right, next we have Issa Levine. Okay. Then Issa, I see that you've hopped on our screen. When you get a moment, you can begin your public comment.

Hello, my name is Issa Levine. I am a member of the community in the area of the proposed walnut trail subdivision development. I am strongly opposed to the project and believe it to be entirely counter to the policies, goals and guiding principles described in Olympia's comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan states that it is our policy to quote limit development in areas that are environmentally sensitive, such as steep slopes and wetlands, and instead, quote, direct development and redevelopment to less sensitive areas. It also directs the city to, quote, promote programs and policies that protect and restore natural systems such as wetlands, streams, and stands of mature trees. The proposed development area contains a stream, a wetland, and stands of natural trees. For that reason, it must be directed to a less environmentally sensitive area per the comprehensive plan. Additionally, the comprehensive plan says that we will, quote, ensure that all members of the community will have access to nearby natural spaces that give them opportunities to see, touch and connect with the natural environment and that we will, quote, foster a sense of place and community pride by carefully stewarding the trees, plants and wildlife unique to Puget Sound. This project, the development of the proposed Walnut Trail subdivision, does the exact opposite. It takes a source of strong community connection to our natural space and deliberately severs it. It removes green space and safe walking paths that are used regularly by our community, not just for recreation and natural connection, but also for students walking commutes and athletics like cross country. This is a well used green space by our community. On a personal note, as a resident who has been here since 2022 and came here to start my family, it is heartbreaking that as my 11-month-old son is learning to walk, this area is set to be destroyed before he can fully experience it himself. I strongly urge the City Council to reject this application for the Walnut Trail subdivision development and preserve this green space in accordance with Olympia's comprehensive plan. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Nicole Canning.

ELLIE WILSON- Hi I'm so sorry I was with the 11 month old.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- That's all right. ELLIE WILSON- And go ahead and begin.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- All right.

I'm a member of the community in the area proposed Walnut Trail subdivision development. I am strongly opposed to the project and believe it to be entirely counter to the policy's goals and guiding principles described in Olympia's comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan states that we will manage our growth in a manner that protects quote open spaces environmentally sensitive areas that make our community unique and special providing connections to nature and protecting the functions and values of the natural environment. It states that we will do this by promoting infill development and redevelopment on already urbanized areas and impervious surfaces before developing on forested and natural lands. The proposed development seeks to replace beloved green space, which contains a stream and wetlands that provide natural stormwater management with single family dwellings, even though it is neither along an urban corridor nor in an infill area as identified in the buildable lands report for Thurston County. In fact, the development falls into critical spaces identified by the report. It does not meet the criteria for desirable infill development. The comprehensive plan also states that we are committed to sustainability and smart growth. It states, quote, We embrace responsible development practices that preserve our environment, promote efficient land use, and encourage diverse housing types within vibrant, walkable neighborhoods. Yet this development would make our neighborhoods less walkable, would not provide diverse housing types, would not be efficient land use, and would not preserve our environment. We strongly urge you to reject this application and preserve the green space in accordance with Olympia's comprehensive plan.

Thank you. All right. Moving to Brian Potvin. OK. So it looks like Brian's no longer with us. We can circle back at the end and see if they've rejoined. We have Elizabeth Williamson. Hi, Elizabeth. Go ahead and begin.

Hi, good evening, everybody. I am a homeowner. I've been a homeowner since 2011 in the neighborhood that's going to be impacted by the project that Issa and Nicole just talked about. And I think a lot about water. I think about water because I can look up at the trees surrounding our neighborhood and see that the cedars are brown in places that they should be green. And I can hear my neighbor's fountain tinkling in the background, which is lovely, but also makes me think about the fact that we are in the fourth year of a drought, including in Thurston County, one of the historically wettest regions of the country. My own personal hunch is that in five years, we are going to be thinking about nothing other than water. We're going to be thinking about droughts and we're going to be thinking about floods. And we're going to have a whole bunch of empty houses that people can't live in because we don't have the water infrastructure for people to have showers and bathe their kids and cook their dinners. So I want to be part of the city in five years where people can afford to live here, where they can, we're not sitting around surrounded by empty houses. And I want to be a part of a city that knows that one wetland is just a drop in the bucket of the enormous poly crisis that we're all facing, but nonetheless says, yes, this is something we can do something about. I don't want to be here in five years kicking myself for not saying something about this, for not saying that one wetland doesn't matter because one wetland matters, especially in a time when we are turning towards increasing drought conditions, increasing fire, increasing smoke, and increasing unlivable communities. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Moving to Kyle McQuarrie? Not signed in? Okay. Did Brian Potvin rejoin us? No? Okay. Well, with that, that concludes public comment. I'll hand it back to you, Mayor.

All right, thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem. Are there any comments from the council? Council Member Madrone.

Thanks everybody for coming out this evening. I'm gonna reserve any thoughts that I have around the future of our solid waste folks and our waste resources until our study session next week. But Grace, I think you're back there. Oh, I see you. I really wanna thank you for coming out tonight. I know that this... this work around a food system plan is really, really important to you and that you're very engaged in your neighborhood and across all neighborhoods. I really, really share your eagerness for tangible action coming out of this food system plan. And I really share the need to partner with the people on the ground who are already doing the work. You know, I'm looking forward to the presentation this evening to hear more about the costs and how that breaks down. But one of the things that we've been leaning into as a city is how we engage folks in our community. And I love the idea of collaborating with CNA on a town hall. I think there's a huge opportunity there. Y'all have shown that you can turn people out and pack a room. So that's really exciting. And we've also talked a lot about the tools that we have to engage with folks in the community. And part of that is working with community collaborators. And I'm also really curious about Sometimes when we do a community engagement process, it takes time from the organizations that are doing the work. So being able to provide stipends for people to engage in the process. I see Silvana nodding back there too. So I think she's picking up what I'm putting down and she's digging it. So I think that we're really aligned in what we want to see come out of this. And I'm looking forward to what Silvana shares with us a little bit later this evening. And again, just so glad you're here and so excited to have you part of the process.

Thank you. Council Member Barrett.

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone who came out. All of the people who talked about the waste resources, thank you. The food assistance, Grace, thank you. And also the Walnut Division and Richard, too. One thing I wanted to mention is on the consent calendar tonight, I'm not going to have this pulled, but I did want to note There's a $75,000 appropriation from the Waste Resources Department to clean up the jungle. It's money that was spent to clean up the jungle. If we didn't have the garbage utility, this wouldn't have existed. We wouldn't have been able to do this. It's just a tool. It's just a little benefit that I see that goes unrecognized in that regard. Thank you all for coming. Uh, I heard you all loud and clear and I look forward to talking and, uh, working with you.

Thank you. Council member Barron. I do believe we had a commenter that didn't make that point. Um, but you just gave us something very specific.

Yeah.

Uh, any additional comments from council council member Vanderpool?

Yeah. I'd like to thank all the folks for coming out. Um, yeah, next week we'll be having that conversation on waste services. As you probably know, I'm not a fan of privatization. It's just a variety of reasons, and we'll talk about that more next week. I also want to thank folks coming out for talking about the food systems plan. This is something that my council member, Dan Madrone, is super excited about in a way that is palpable and exciting just to be around. So I'm very interested in how that conversation tonight And then to the folks that came to comment about the trail subdivision, I don't know if our community planning director wants to talk briefly about the process of how appeals work and how SEPA works and that whole thing so that folks have a direction to go because this is a decision that the council doesn't make. It's a hearings examiner usually issue. Thank you, Tim.

Good evening, Tim Smith community development director city Olympia. Yeah, this is an application for a preliminary subdivision of 21 lots on about 5 acres called the the Walnut trails subdivision is an application that was received by the city just in late July. And according to state law, we did issue a notice of application to sounding property owners describing the timeline for public comment. description of the project and so there. So that's why you're receiving public comment is that there's awareness on this project now it is located in area that's its own first for single-family also is impacted by a stream and wetland. The application package includes some reports, including critical areas analysis for the stream and wetlands. Ultimately, staff's going to have to review this project for compliance with the comprehensive plan and our development regulations. When we're ready to make a recommendation, which could be six months from now, a year, depending upon the amount of timeline it takes to get the project to that point, it would be to the hearing examiner of Olympia, who would then make a decision following a public hearing. And so a public hearing notice would be issued, and the public would be invited to come and comment. And then ultimately the hearing examiner would make a final decision on this application. So do you have any questions?

Tim, would it be possible for the folks who signed up to public comment tonight, I don't know if we can ask to put their contact information into that so they know the hearing is coming up? I don't know if that would be possible to get that pooled.

You mean to get their contact information?

Yeah, yeah, get their contact information. We can put it on the list for when the hearing happens.

What we can do is we can add them to our, which we call it a parties of record list, which we maintain for every project, and they get notified of the hearing.

Thank you.

Yeah. And then also I will notice, mention that the State Environmental Policy Act, SEPA, that review is conducted at the same time as project review, and so we would issue a formal decision on SEPA when the project is ready to move forward for a hearing. Thank you, Ted.

Appreciate it. Very well. Thanks, Council Member Vanderpool. Additional comments? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I also appreciate everyone that came out tonight and just wanted to say to the folks that are coming out in support and sort of a protective effort of our Olympia's waste resources is that hear you I really hear you and for what it's worth I don't think anyone on this council as I've experienced it is taking pleasure in this in this conversation and making light of the the amount of jobs and what we would lose I really believe that we do have something special and I am going to follow the process. And I think that your showing up, your emails, if you're part of the folks that also emailed in, really helps to really help balance things. And I think sometimes you wonder, is how I feel resonating with community members? It says something that you're spending a summer night here at the podium telling us, hey, this is really important. And hey, this is how you should do this. So I think our Olympia waste resources is also special. And I am going to try to preserve that as much as possible. And then for Grace Fletcher. Sorry for you and for Mr. Burgess that we had to gavel you. You know, it's not personal. Yes. But, you know, if we get squishy with the rules and then, you know, someone comes up and, you know, it just creates a situation. So I do know that you are passionate about the food systems plan. And I do understand that it is our plan to very much include the coalition. or the Council of Neighborhood Associations. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate you scrutinizing, like, why this amount? Is that really the best way to spend it? And so we'll be keying into that. So thanks for bringing that up. Mr. Burgess? Oh, there you are. Mr. Burgess, Always enjoy seeing you even under unfortunate circumstances I understand that you are you have been in touch with our city staff as well to look into the issue and so I Hope they've they've been a resource and maybe you can connect with them again Yeah And then Chad, I'm thinking about your comments. I'm sort of still processing your comments and wondering if there's an ask of that or what that sort of looks like. But what I do hear is care, is a clear care for our community. of course invested um into our community um with your business and with your time and um i can't say that i i do agree that there's uh some work to be done so uh thanks everyone sorry mr burgess there's there's not a back and forth uh comment i'm sorry thank you thank you mayor are there any additional comments from council

Okay. I'll just say I appreciate everyone that's come out tonight, especially those of you who were here for the waste resources subject. I understand that this is obviously a concern for people in the community. As I said at the top of public comment, no decisions will be made in the near term, but it is our job as the want to set policy for the city it's it's our job to weigh these options and so next week at the study session those will be presented to us and so I encourage you to either tune in or show up in person if if you're interested in if you can and this is a discussion on how we intend to proceed. BUT I AM LEARNING ALONG THE WAY JUST AS MUCH AS ALL OF YOU ARE LEARNING ALONG THE WAY. SO THERE ISN'T SOME SORT OF PREDETERMINED DECISION. AND I WANT TO MAKE THAT CLEAR AND I UNDERSTAND THAT IT MIGHT FEEL THAT WAY, SORT OF LIKE, OH, THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE. And I'm here to tell you that that's just simply not true. We are learning along the way along with you. And these options are being presented to us. And as a body, we have a responsibility to weigh those options and make a decision. Of course, keeping in mind what our community at large is telling us. And so your voices matter, and we are taking that into consideration as we deliberate and consider where we go next. So thank you for showing up tonight. The other thing I wanted to mention was, Mr. Kate, your comments. I think the mayor pro tem said it well. She hears care and concern. There are just a few things that I want to clarify, not just for you, but for anyone that might be listening. City council members, you are correct, are in fact nonpartisan positions. We are not permitted to declare a party when we are running for office. We are also not permitted to express any sort of partisanship during our official duties, just like any other government employee. And so we are not prohibited to do that. However, we are free to express our political persuasions on our own time, and we don't check our right to free speech just because we're elected. So if we are not at City Hall, And we are not doing an official duty that pertains to city business. We are permitted to express our political persuasion or affiliation. So just want to clarify that. And then also back to the comments you made about the downtown. We know that there is more work to do and it is downtown is a very unique. CHALLENGE SPECIFICALLY FOR THE CITY OF OLYMPIA. WE ARE THE ONLY DOWNTOWN FOR THE ENTIRE REGION. know that we have made improvements over the last several years, and we are continuing to work at that. So you might have your own thoughts or opinions about that, as does everyone else in the community, and we are doing our very best to respond to a myriad of issues that our downtown faces uniquely as a community here in the city of Olympia. But we hear your comments and we take them seriously and into consideration along with others who voice their concerns in the community. So thank you all again for coming out tonight to express your comments with us. All right. So that concludes our public comment section of the agenda for tonight. We're going to move on to the adoption of the consent calendar. I need a motion and a second. We have approval.

I'll second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Is there any requests for polls for questions or comments? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor of adopting the consent calendar as published signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Consent calendar is adopted. So our first item of business on the agenda tonight is item 6A, and it is the approval of the Mars Young Park public park concept design. And we have Stephanie Johnson, who is our arts program manager, who will introduce Andrea Wilbur Sigo here in a moment. Hi, Stephanie.

Thank you, Mayor Payne and members of council. For the record, I'm Stephanie Johnson with Olympia Parks Arts and Recreation, with artist Andrea Wilbur Sigo and Arts Commission Kathy Dorgan in attendance as well. We are here today with the concept plan for public art at Marge Young Park. The idea began with the necessary removal of cedar trees on site and conversations with Andrea about providing opportunities for squawks and youth to learn to carve. While we learned our cedar wasn't actually a good fit to be planed, the concept continued to evolve into five carved panels, five feet tall by 18 inches wide by three inches deep. Placed throughout the bicycle and pedestrian trails of Marjong Park, the panels can first be discoveries and later landmarks for trail users. A location map is provided in your staff report. If approved this evening, the concept plan will go back to the Arts Commission on September 10 with a final design, refined work plan, and technical details for approval.

So good afternoon. I'm Andrea Wilbur Saiga. I'm a member of Squawks Island Tribe. I think I know most of you here. And this project was really exciting. We've been working on it for some time now. I think the most exciting part is watching the next generation taking their spots and being part of a project that they're going to be able to appreciate and teach with for years to come. It's something I always do in all my projects anyhow, but to specifically be able to go back to the community and say, you know, let's get these kids involved is always one of the greatest things I enjoy doing. We took the kids out back, I don't remember when it was. It's been about a year. I was going to say it was spring. And we did try to harvest the cedar bark when it just wasn't possible, but we did have fun doing it We spent a lot of time in the trail area. We walked it. It's a beautiful location And so now I want to show you a few of the ideas I Would read this to you, but I just kind of I think told you what I feel and that is the importance of teaching our youth and Um, both not native and non-native alike. Uh, we have a amazing working relationship between the Squawks Island Tribe and the Olympia City Council. Um, I have been fortunate enough to be part of it. Uh, and my kids have grown up, uh, knowing nothing different. And that is how we're going to make a difference is making it just, we're just one. So my concepts, I wanted to bring to attention to things that sometimes we forget. You know, sometimes we forget about the little things. Sometimes we forget about things such as the bee. such as the butterflies. This morning I spent my first thing this morning, it was my frogs. Those are the things that sometimes we forget to just stop and appreciate. And so I've been working really hard at different projects bringing that awareness. Yes, our water will always be, that's the most important. In some ways, but guess what? Just equally as important is our woods. Just equally as important is those bees. Just equally as important is those butterflies. Because without one, nothing works. So each one of these has a story, whether it be working together, whether it be greed, whether it be, and you guys have those in your packet, and we have talked about the different ability of putting QR codes once these are put in place so that everybody will have access to these stories. But you know, our work, it's living. It's not something from the past. It's now. It's something that me and my tribe, we just wake up and we are it. We are Salish. We are Squaxin. And so these stories are going to metamorphose and they're going to grow into something new. And it's just if somebody's having a picnic alongside one, it's going to become a memory. It's going to become a story of the future from the little tiny guys all the way up to the elders. So each one of them are in here. And like I said, in the packet, there's definitely a longer version, but we would be here all night if I sat and told you all of them. Again, they will change. My plan is to include all of my grandkids, open it up to my community. I've already talked, of course, to our education department, which I sit on our education commission, and have the ones that we know that's where they're leaning towards, such as my son. He's definitely going to be the next carver in my family and we know which kids to kind of hand pick and then leave it open for them just to come in and out of the shop along with you guys of course too these will be fully adds painted and carved so they will have dimension and all of the negative space or the space that is in kind of tan is what's considered negative will be fully carved It will be done with acrylic paint. The backs will also be carved so in a way so you'll have be able to have view of artwork from all sides, and they will be designed with our weaving patterns. So they're going to come out of our wool weaving. They're going to come out of our basket weaving. And they will be done in complementary colors to whatever the panel that I'm doing is. They will also be fully adzed. So adzed work or fully textured, the adzed work, it's a natural form that we use to seal our fibers to keep it safe from the elements outside. The bracket, this is the bracket I have in mind. It's going to be a bracket that will go along the outside and the top to protect that end grain from having any rot happening. And also at the same time it'll keep it from taking away from the artwork that's on the back and the front of the panels. Eventually I will take this into an engineer and have it done But I know this is, I've done this before, so I know that it's totally capable. But that's just the state we're at right now is my ideas. This is an idea of what you will run across. It's not going to be so much like we did with the welcome figure where we know she's right there. We want you to be enjoying that space, enjoying the trails, and then just come across one. And then be enjoying the trail some more and come across another and bring that curiosity to somebody to stop and say, I wonder how many there are here. You know, so we want that curiosity to stop and maybe want them to learn more about the story. Why is it here? You know, what is it? What's its purpose? Again, I've walked the trails with Steph, and it's beautiful up there. I mean, you would never think that that was right here alongside the road just down the way from Trader Joe's. It's just an amazing space. So I'm hoping everybody's going to get to enjoy it, and I'm hoping that my artwork can just be part of the surrounding, just add to what is already there. Again, these are the tools that do the ads work to all of my pieces. It's a tool you can't buy. It's a tool we have to make. Each one is handmade to fit the carver's hand. These two happen to be my husband's. And they're made with old logging axes. But then it's actually U-wood carved on those. So yeah, when creating all of the pieces, it starts with a story. I work with the youth of my tribe, some being my grandchildren, and we read and listened to the stories and ultimately chose these because we wanted to bring attention to some of the smallest of our family and some of the largest creatures. From our creation story to our stories that keep us magical, we have the responsibility to teach our children to dream larger stories then we do, and together all dreams and wishes will come true. If we remember to be kind, respectful, and hardworking humans. And I feel that that's for all of us. That's if we can make all decisions with our heart, all decisions knowing that we're making a better and brighter future, then we've done our job. Period. So I hope you guys enjoy.

All right, thank you. That was a great closing line. With that, we can all go home. Thank you so much.

Are there any questions at all?

Are there any questions or comments from the council? Council Member Madron.

Andrea, it's so, so nice to have you back in council chambers. And of course, we just saw you recently with the welcome poll. I'm just so excited to see your artwork all over this city. So just heartfelt thank you to you and to Stephanie and the Arts Commission working with you on all of this. I really look forward to seeing this in action.

Thank you Thank You councilmember Madrona any additional comments I All right, I have no questions. I think these are beautiful. I'm looking forward to walking along the trail and seeing them all, especially if it'll be three-dimensional. Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention your most recent piece, which is Haqqishqa Bay, or the Mother of Restoration, who is at Isthmus Park, facing where Bud Inlet and the Deschutes Estuary meets. And we thank you for that beautiful carving I see online that so many people throughout the community are visiting it and taking pictures with her. And it's just a beautiful piece of work. And so looking forward to seeing what you do with this project also.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes, she has definitely been doing her job. It's been amazing, all the comments, and different, I mean, from the kids to teachers to elders, and that's exactly what we need to do. So, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Yes. On that, love to see the baby in the basket. Yes. I wonder how that's going to look. Yeah. And then it's all finished up and it just looks really, really, really lovely.

Yeah, it was great. Stephen and I kind of snuck in before everybody was out and about and put her up. And yeah, she's cute. Thank you.

All right. Well, if we have no further discussion, I need a motion and a second to approve. Council Member Gilman.

I would move to approve the Marge Young Public Park art concept design by Andrea Wilbur Seigel. Thank you.

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. Thank you. I look forward to doing more work for you.

Thank you. Okay. Motion passes. Thank you very much. All right. Yeah. It's great to see you. Okay, so that takes us to our next business item on our agenda item 6 be which is the approval of the use of Council goal funds in the economic development reserves for a local food systems plan and we have so on and the house or who is our director of parks arts and recreation presenting tonight. I saw on.

Hello good evening, excuse me. Good evening Council may have been. For the record, I'm Silvana Niehauser, Parks, Arts, and Recreation Director. I'm here tonight to ask for approval to use $50,000 of council goal funds and $195,000 of economic development fund reserves to develop a local food system plan for Olympia. This presentation will provide the proposed scope of work outlining the planning process and anticipated outcomes. So I want to start off by talking about a little bit of the background and how we got to this point so that you have that knowledge. This work comes out of a council referral from December of 2025, but it also connects to several issues and efforts already underway or that we've already worked on. So we've seen how disruptions like the pandemic and changes to food assistance programs can affect people's ability to access food. While the city has worked on initiatives that are part of the food web, like increasing community gardens in partnership with the Thurston Conservation District and revising codes to allow for more agricultural uses, we lack a comprehensive strategy to address food insecurity and resilience. This plan will bring efforts together and map out a coordinated approach to strengthening our food system. This quote from the referral captures the broader purpose of the work. Food isn't just about hunger or food assistance. It touches community resilience, health, local production, culture, and people's ability to participate in the food system. The intent of the plan is to help coordinate work that is already happening while also identifying where Olympia can strengthen the system over time. This is also a direct implementation step from the comprehensive plan, Land Use Goal 29, Policy 16, specifically calls for developing a food system plan for the Olympia community. So this work helps move an adopted policy direction into implementation. It also hits on several of our focus areas such as community livability, economy, well-planned city, and environmental stewardship. This graphic shows the full spectrum of the proposed project. We've intentionally divided the work into two phases. Phase one is about understanding the current system and the current conditions. And this is where we are going to do an extensive, or we plan to do an extensive and robust public engagement process, which I'll talk about a little bit later. Then we'll come back to council at a study session and we'll check in and we'll share our findings and we'll share what the current conditions in state are, where the gaps are, and what areas that we recommend move towards forming goals and policies. Then the second part of the food systems plan, phase two, is where we'll take all that information, we'll translate it into goals, strategies, and a draft plan that ultimately will move to adoption. And I want to be really clear about the strategies. They're not just going to be pie in the sky ideas. What I'm looking for is strategies that are actionable. I want to see what the near-term actions are I want to know what the costs are. I want to know what resources are out there to be able to implement those. I also want to know where our partners who are a part of this food web are struggling to provide services to the community. It's much easier to help those and to support those partners before they disappear than it is to try to bring them back. I want to also note that the council checkpoint is really important, and I don't want to move into solutions until we have shared an understanding of what we've learned from our community and from our partners. So phase one, I'm going to go into a little more detail here, is really there's three major components. Understanding the existing conditions, completing a broad assessment of the food system, and engaging the community and not just broad engagement, but I'll go into a little more detail about what that means. And then I want to be able to have quantitative data and the community experience together to inform one another rather than relying on one or the other. So what is the existing conditions and assessments? First, we need a clear picture of where we're at today. So I refer to this as the baseline. So our existing conditions report will give us a baseline. And using this data to understand how Olympia's food system is currently working or not working, we'll look at where the system is working well, where people are being left out, and then identify gaps, barriers, inequities to access to healthy food and affordable, culturally relevant food. We'll put that on a map. So I think it's important to be able to see where the assets are and where the gaps are. We want to understand where things are located like food retailers, food assistance, community gardens, and other assets, and where there are gaps in services and access. Then we'll pull out the key takeaways. The goal isn't just to collect data. It is to use what we learn to help identify the issues and opportunities that should become priorities in Olympia's food system plan. Basically, this part of the work is really about understanding where we are today, where the gaps are, who's most affected, and what that tells us about where Olympia should focus its efforts moving forward. So another part of phase one, and this takes time and energy and quite a bit of resources, is community engagement. You can put small amount of resources towards community engagement and engage a small part of the segment of the community, or you can spend a little bit more and have several different types of engagement opportunities and connect with people where they're at rather than just doing a one call to folks. So we wanna be able to summarize the themes that we're hearing. We wanna be able to establish what the values of our community are and what challenges they experience and what they see as priorities. We'll then organize that input into a community priorities frameworks. The goal is to make a clear connection between what we hear during engagement and the priorities that eventually show up in the plan. At the end of phase one, we should be able to answer three fairly simple but important questions. Where are we now? What matters most to the community? And where are the biggest equity and resilience challenges? And those answers should give us the foundation we need before we start developing solutions. So after phase one, I mentioned we're going to have the council check in at a study session. And this will create an opportunity to have dialogue. It will also create an opportunity to help shape where phase two focuses. And then phase two is going to be much more action focused. So we're going to move from understanding to action in phase two. We'll take what we learned in phase one, translate it into measurable goals, practical strategies, and ultimately a draft food system plan. That plan will then move through review and refinement towards adoption. One thing we wanna be intentional about is making this plan, making this a plans, sorry, making this plan something that we can actually measure progress on. I hear the community when they say, we don't need another plan to sit on the shelf. I'm really proud to be a part of Parks Department where that plan guides us. That plan that we do with the community is very valuable. We lay out our capital investment strategy. We lay out what projects we're going to be working on over the next 10 years. So I just want to say that this part is important to me, and it also is about transparency. If we don't develop goals, benchmarks, or metrics to know if we're moving the needle at all towards having a more resilient food system, then it feels like a waste. So I think that we need to make sure that this part is included in the scope of work. Where it makes sense, we'll distinguish between early indicators, so kind of breaking it out to like the near term, the one to three year goals and strategies, and then the longer term things. And we'll make sure that this aligns with the comprehensive plan as well. So actionable strategies. This is where we get very practical. So each goal will have strategies and prioritization actions associated with it. We'll look at what needs to happen in the near term versus longer term, who is responsible, whether that's the city or community partners that are participating in this work or regional organizations. and what implementation may cost. So we'll try to predict what the cost would be. We'll also identify funding resources, policy or regulatory changes, and metrics for tracking. Importantly, the plan will include a one to three year implementation roadmap. So we leave this process knowing what the first steps are. And all of this work will come together in a draft plan. It'll include vision and guiding principles, goals and strategies, an implementation framework with roles, sequencing and funding, policy recommendations, a way to measure progress, equity and climate considerations will be integrated throughout the plan rather than treated separately. And if this work identifies needed changes to the comprehensive plan, Those can be brought forward as part of the recommendations. I know that some folks might have a little sticker shock about what we're proposing. I would rather bring you the full mail deal of what I think would be the most solid plan and also what I think it would cost within our staff capacity. So this would be consultant-led with staff liaison and working alongside. And I have done some digging on our own plans within parks, as well as plans throughout the, as many as I could find online, food system plans that have costs associated with them. Austin, Texas, I spent $300,000 on a food system plan. And the city of Tumwater spent $40,000. I've read through Tumwater's plan many times. And for $40,000, it's a good plan. Where the author of that plan, she mentioned in there that a lot more work can be done around engagement and strategies. And I think I would like to have that up front. So I'm hoping that we can get there. The current proposal is asking for approval of $50,000 of council goal fund to fund the project and $195,000 of economic development reserves. We have not put out an RFQ. We also have not negotiated a contract. So this would be a not to exceed amount for a consultant contract. It doesn't mean we're going to spend it all. But I did want to include some of the things that we learned from the Rebecca Howard Park Master Plan, which was how important it is to be able to provide stipends and also if we want to hire an organization to do some sub-consulting work. being able to have funds for that. When I did the urban farm park feasibility study, we did that with the conservation district, because they have a GIS specialist who already had a data set, and then we could incorporate more into that. So it was a cost efficiency, but it also, GIS work costs a fair amount. And so with Rebecca Howard Park, that was a $275,000 planning budget. With the aquatic feasibility study that we did five years ago, that was $100,000, and that was a staff-led project. The urban farm park feasibility study was a $70,000 study that was a lot of staff time, me. And so with this, I have a pretty robust idea for engagement. I've talked with several members of the community. And there's a lot of organizations that are part of the food web that we need to make sure that those voices are included. And so I'm anticipating that the public engagement piece is going to be a big portion of the cost. So with that, I want to turn it over to see if there's any questions. I do apologize for my cold.

Oh, well, thank you very much, Sylvana. Thank you. And thanks for being here and despite having me. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Madrone to kick off our discussion. Thank you.

Um, first I want to really think Silvana and the parks department, you know, council puts in a referral and staff are like, okay, who's going to have to do the extra work. And well, Silvana, honestly, it landed with you. Um, and the parks department, not just because of the ties, the parks department has to community health, um, and community gardens and the work that you're doing with the school district on the freedom farm. But also you're just very, very passionate about local food and about having a healthy community. So you win the prize. And I'm really glad to see the really, really well thought out proposal that you have in front of us. I like what you said about, you know, of course we do this across the city, but, you know, the parks department like you don't have plans that sit on a shelf like they are guiding documents for the work that you guys know you need to do we saw that with the urban farm park work you know we did the whole feasibility study and I was like gosh I hope this really goes somewhere and here we are working with the school district and that is becoming a reality and I also appreciate you sharing the the staff capacity challenges that that that your department is experiencing and that's one of the reasons for the cost it's almost like bringing on temporary staff to be able to implement the work. And there are a lot of other plans that we've done where it seems like it doesn't cost as much, but when you add in the staff time that's required, it seems it might be on par. I also want to highlight some of the comments that Grace brought up earlier in her public comment. And I've heard this from the executive director of the food bank and other folks involved in food issues locally and nationally. We're seeing a complete restructuring of how people get food in this country, especially the people who need it most. And these are long term and potentially permanent changes that our country is going to experience and our local community is really going to feel. And so we need to be rethinking how we as a local community approach food. Um, victory gardens, anyone? Um, also in our community survey, we see, we've seen that people are really struggling with affordability and food was high on the list of people are, um, struggling with. And so, um, I'm excited for us to be able to level up our work. We haven't done nothing in this space, especially since I got to council, but we haven't done nothing. Um, uh, but there, there is more that we could do. And there's also all of these really wonderful organizations in our community that we can be a good partner too. There's a lot of connections that could be made. There's infrastructure that is probably needed. And so we need to have the ability to learn from them so that we can have, Grace, tangible actions, things that we know we can act on. And one of the things that I would like to see specifically included in an RFPQ, I don't remember, Q, is the compensation for folks who are participating in public engagement whether it's a community connector model or we have a dedicated team you know an ad hoc group that are or we have different nonprofits that are offering their time and their expertise to support us I think that that's workable in that budget there, and I think that helps compensate people for their time and their expertise locally. And also, they're going to have, when it comes to existing conditions, you know, they're going to have a lot of that information for us already. So, yeah, I'll also say that I've heard from, I know our friends at the food bank are excited about this. I heard from Thurston Conservation District today. They're They're excited to see this work move forward. We've got very willing partners that are eager to finally have a space in local government to level up what they do, and we can support them in that. So very eager to hear from my colleagues here on what your thoughts are.

Thank you, Council Member Madrone. Additional comments? Council Member Barrett.

Thank you. I'll keep them very short. because I think Councilwoman Madrone did a great job of summarizing them, but I do believe that on the issue of affordability, this is one of the hallmark actions we can take to move the ball on making a basic need in the community more affordable, and that if we make a step forward in that, this will be a wild success. I think that there are a lot of disparate resources available and that this process is really going to be key in kind of identifying them all and bringing them all together to work in unity and unison. uh, bring our community to the next level. If we, if we can just bring it to the next level, it'll be a big success in my view. I'm, I'm thrilled that, uh, Silvana, you are involved in this because there is a nexus between the parks and, um, oh, you know, I, I would love to see a community garden or excuse me, a community orchard in, in our community that, um, that anyone could go and use and, and, You know, maybe this will be a beginning point in identifying those kinds of opportunities in addition to the pea patch gardens that we have. Thank you. I really support this. And thank you, Councilwoman Madrone, for really moving it forward.

Thank you, Councilmember Barrett. Councilmember Green, followed by Councilmember Gilman.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Savannah, I really appreciate this plan. I appreciate all the work that's gone into it, and I know, you know, and I take Councilmember Madrone's feedback seriously. I know this is a place where she and a lot of community members have really dug in. I think the question that's just bouncing around for me, and maybe it's just a little bit of a I don't know if sticker shock is the right word, but I agree with some of the comments that we've received that just that amount of money for ultimately a consultant, and I mean a very significant body of work, as I see your deliverables and outcomes. But I guess the question for me is at that point, dollar amount could a full-time employee for one year accomplish as much or more? Like, I recognize our current staff capacity is not there, but looking at those dollars, was there any discussion about that?

I didn't consider bringing on one employee to do this work. Part of the reason is is that the consultant team that you know when we go through the interviews will be looking for a team that has qualifications and has connections that will be able to do in-depth analysis and some of the things that bringing on a new hire who may or may not have relationship with the community. And we will be relying on some of our staff in-house who have relationship with community, but also heavily, I've already been in contact with several of our community groups that are interested and I've met with some of them as well as been continuing to email and go through the scope of work with GRUB, with the South Sound Food Network and things like that. So to bring on an employee, get them oriented to the city and get them up and going and then kind of put them out on their own would be I think this would be a challenging task, not impossible. And so my hope was to get a consultant team that would also, as Council Member Madrone had talked about, be able to provide more than just a stipend for people's work. you know, the city is very limited on what we can provide as far as stipends go. And when we did Rebecca Howard Park, for example, we had two community builders that were getting paid, not just like a stipend for showing up, but they were getting paid through the consultant to do engagement work and to bring folks in and so So I want to kind of use some of those Strategies to engage the community which I feel like a team could probably pull off with the assistance of city staff a little bit better than the individual but There are options and, you know, I did in the staff report put together some options and I think one of the things that we would just have to consider is that if we reduce the amount is that we would probably need to decide, you know, like are we not going to do the GIS mapping? Are we going to scale down the public engagement and the interviews with stakeholders? Those take quite some time and I know that from doing the urban planning Farm Park feasibility study is, you know, the time spent interviewing individuals, especially marginalized folks who, where you're going out and, sorry, I got a tickle in my throat. I'm going to take a drink. So it is something we can consider and come back to council if you'd like. We don't have the RFQ out. So, yeah.

Let me just do 1 follow up question. So, uh, with with the Rebecca Howard park plan, uh, was there sort of written like, what were the parameters of when someone would get a stipend? Because as I think about this plan, and I, I hear about, like, all the, the organizations and individuals throughout the community that are going to be engaged, like.

when do the stipends come in or for what level of work how was that worked out in the past yeah so folks that came in showed up for one public event um would get or one engagement session um some of those folks would get like a stipend but the people that were our community design advocates that were working with our consultants regularly and checking in every week um they uh received a bit more than that so And I all confess that I came into the Rebecca Howard Park planning process after Mr.. Simmons had left and so it was in the springtime before about six months before adoption of the plan so I wasn't Negotiating the contract with the consultants and those details. I don't have completely, but I do know that we had kind of different tiers and that we worked with and we had two paid individuals that were community design advocates and then we had a steering committee that was made up of folks that were you know within the community and for this a steering committee would you know maybe be the appropriate way to go about because we could bring in the food bank and the CNA and all that and have them help steer this plan. So, um, but we can work out those details. I just got to make sure that everything we're doing is, is kosher with Mark.

Yeah. No, thanks for that. So I appreciate that. I, you know, just candidly, I am struggling a little with the cost because we don't have those things laid out, um, or don't have a little more of a budget breakdown. Um, so just, I don't know, I'll continue listening to some of the other conversation, but thank you.

Yeah, and I can put out the RFQ, see what comes back and come back to you for approval of the funding. Um, I just like to, um, you know, make sure that we have the funding identified before we. Do the RFQ?

All right. Thank you. Council Member Gilman, followed by Council Member Vanderpool. Thank you, Mayor Payne.

So I want to speak in support of the proposal, as it was described, of the 50,000 of council goal money and the 195 of the economic development reserves. I recognize that as council, we direct a very limited amount of discretionary funds. But I also know that the way we spend our money is the way we express our values, our priorities, and that Something I've learned over time with the city is that the language of local government is these studies and public processes. It's the way that we prioritize work and investment and allocation of resources going ahead. So for me, this is a really important investment to move us to move us forward on bringing together several disparate food system-related efforts that we've had going on, and to position us to strengthen our food system because we're facing right now weather, economic, and political threats to access to food for people. And I think it's one way that as a local government we can act to protect our communities. So I understand the wanting to address inequities in the current system, but I also see potential threats that I think are worthy of this effort and more to try to create the most robust and resilient local food system we can to face those challenges. So that's why I support the proposal as it's laid out. Thanks. Thank you.

Council member Vanderpool I also want to speak in support of this You know there are several things in here. I'm glad our answered and spoken to right Looking at our existing organizations and systems in the community is very important right we have a long history in this community of looking at and food systems, whether it's grub, whether it's work that the co-op does, whether, I mean, there's a variety of history in our community for something like this. And the other part of this I'm looking forward to is that action plan on the other side of it, right? It reminds me of our housing action plan as a city. This is before I got on council, and One of the most interesting pieces of policy, we have because you can go in and look at actionable items and staff will. continue to go through those and bring those to land use environment committee and continue to work through those policies and that's the thing that I will. That I appreciate about this is because it'll be an ongoing process of looking at those systems and also. And I'll be interested in the things that we're not thinking about that come out of this in that way right from those conversations that we have with a variety of partners in the community. Because there's a there are going to be gaps in the system that we think of and the ones that we didn't even think of in the first place right and. This is not just, and I think we're not the only ones, to Councilmember Gilman's point, that are thinking about the downstream effects of federal cuts and programs and existing systems that exist that we're dealing with. One of the most popular interesting ideas nationally that's come out in the last year, and I actually talked to We talked about this the other day, about this, the idea of taking a space a city owns, for example, a property and a building, and then looking at how can we, could we lease that out at an extremely low rate and then use it for food systems plan, whether it's a grocery store or something like that, like something that is going on in New York City, right? How can we look at systems that we have and say, how can we lower the barrier for folks so they don't have to worry about that? That's just one idea. You're writing it down. But that's the thing I think about, right, is every level of this, right? whether it's in our parks, whether it's in buildings that we own, because it is one of those affordability barriers for folks. And it's also a health barrier for folks. And I think that this is one of those things, not to belittle this conversation, but one of the things that I see all the time is how many people care about this and are supportive of this. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the other side of it. And I'm looking forward to the years of policy that come after.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Yeah, Council Member Madrone, you started us off on this conversation and you were doing organizational shout outs. for a second there, and I wrote in big words, Kiwanis.

Kiwanis. Okay.

Yes, they've, you know, they care. They've been engaged. And yeah, I just, I appreciate how this conversation's going. I do really appreciate the concern with the dollar amount and you know, seeking justification for why that is. Um, and, and you shared, and I think you, you spoke really well to that. Um, Sylvanas is really the opportunity to gather more perspective, um, to, uh, to also, uh, compensate people. And, um, this is, uh, something is my belief that people often don't get compensated. Well, uh, in this industry. And then when we asked for, we're shifting now and moving forward at the city, but when we asked for people's lived experiences and perspectives, You know that they don't or they aren't expected to give freely of that So when especially when there's clearly a benefit for our city The there was a section of your PowerPoint slide that said is it was well, it's like that big map and then I had the phase one phase two right and then the council check-in and And for phase two, for the, I think it was the 195,000 for it, I could have sworn I saw the word adoption or implementation plan.

So the second phase is estimated to be around 110,000. And please know these are estimates.

Oh, 110, uh-huh.

Yeah. And final adoption means your approval as a body, so.

Okay. Got it. Got it.

Yeah.

The plan is finalized. That's why we're wrong. Okay.

Yeah. Now what I do want to be in the plan, which doesn't always happen with planning documents. Um, but I want to be able to, um, have cost estimates and resources that we can pursue. Um, and, and I'll be transparent. Um, food systems is not, um, My background educationally, I've learned a lot through doing the urban farm park feasibility study, but I'm not an expert like some of our community members are. But I think it's really important to have a roadmap for staff so we know what the city's role is and what our next steps are. And we have staff turnover and things like that, and I want somebody to be able to pick up that plan that comes along next and be able to be like, oh, this is done, this is done, this is what we need to do next. And also be able to pursue the grants and things like that. I did, before I left on my sabbatical, was cramming as if it was a college exam to get some support to the South Sound Food Network and GRUB for their grant application that they were putting in. I also was trying to pursue a federal grant to help with offset the cost of this. One of the things I thought of, you know, because I was really disappointed that I wasn't able to get, I think it's a SAM account up and going and get, all my ducks in a row in time to get the grant. But one of the things that I was thinking is that when we have the plan and we have shovel ready, per se, steps to take, pursuing those grants with the confidence that we will be able to deliver on them and that it's not just a concept, that it's been well baked and we know what we're going to do and where we're going to go makes us much more competitive. one, to secure the grants, but also there's opportunity that we could secure grants that can be passed through as well for community partners. So I think there's a lot of opportunity when you get a plan in place as long as we keep this a priority. And I think that's a solid plan is something then that we would

prioritize so so anyway that's sorry oh no no don't yeah uh you guys make me smile you're every time when I feel like you're really like on fire you know in a good way you'll finish with an apology no I like that I would like more of that um so that's actually a really great segue so I hope you're all of your hard work and your thoughtfulness with bringing this forward to us and your uh, college girl cramming, uh, pays off tonight because I certainly am looking forward to supporting this. Um, yes, it's a lot of money and, uh, I think it's worth it. Uh, a lot of times we, uh, we do things for, uh, for, for certain groups and then that makes sense. Not everything is for everyone. And, and the food systems plan, well, food is just such a great equalizer, uh, And I really see just benefits all across the board for everyone, no matter socioeconomic status in our city. I think Councilmember Gilman hit the points really well. We are in a time, and candidly, I think this is the most serious this city council has been about investing in our food systems. And so I want to say yes, yes, yes. And run with it while we have the will and support. So thanks so much. And yes, it would be nice to not spend all of the money.

Don't worry, I am frugal. So I will do my best to negotiate.

Thank you.

Thank you any additional comments. All right, well, I'll just start by first thanking our primary sponsor Councilmember drone for bringing this referral forward along with our colleagues Councilmember Gilman and mayor put him when thank you for joining Councilmember drone and cosponsoring the referral. So what I appreciate the presentation, but more importantly what I really appreciate is the context that you gave with Tom waters who systems plan. And the fact that you said that they spent about $40,000 which is a significant significant difference from what we're seeing here, but you also gave important context as to why that is right and the things that we do here and what we want to do in terms of community engagement and actually having people. INVOLVED IN THIS PROCESS, WHICH WILL CULMINATE IN THIS PLAN, IS A, IN MY OPINION, A MORE FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE APPROACH TO THIS. OBVIOUSLY YOU ALREADY MENTIONED THAT THE $40,000 PLAN SORT OF STOPPED SHORT, AND SO THAT COULD LEAD TO WHO KNOWS MORE PLANNING ON THEIR PART INTO THE FUTURE. do this while we can makes a lot of sense to me I do hear the concern around the dollar amount but I will say I think that it's really important that we do invest in making sure our community members have the nutrition and the sustenance that they need. And if we don't do that, then what are we here for? I think that that's a basic necessity of people who live in Olympia, that obviously if the federal government is not going to step up and do what it needs to do to make sure that people have the food that they need, then of course the state and local governments need to step up and step in. And this is a conversation that we had a while back when we saw that the big, beautiful bill had passed, and we knew the implications it would have on communities like ours. And unfortunately, what we saw is that that is just sort of a compounding or adding more on top of the food insecurity that already exists. And I know that Council Member Madrone has been speaking about this issue for some time. So this is not new and it does not come out of nowhere. Pretty much since you got on, this is something that you've been talking about. And so I support wholeheartedly moving forward with the food systems plan as it is proposed, because I think it's us doing our part to make sure that our community, everyone in our community across the board has what they need in order to sustain themselves here. And so thank you again. Yeah, sure.

I was gonna just say, I hope that the plan will be something that will also guide future investments. That's what you know, the mapping and things like that. So that way we're not just having like knee-jerk reaction, but we actually have a strategic approach to the investments because we do have limited funds. And I think it's really important that we prioritize and we focus where we need to invest and being able to have a solid process and planning document that guides us there is really helpful for generations.

Sure. Thank you, Silvana. Yeah, and I'll just add lastly that this is, in some ways, it's sort of, you know, it's our responsibility to do mitigation planning. And so I do see this as an aspect of that, you know, of sorts. And this is worth the investment in doing this work and seeing, you know, where it could take us. I'm very excited about the thought that's been put into this and all the ways that the plan will touch various aspects of this issue for our community. So thank you to my colleagues again. I will turn it over to Council Member Madrone to make the motion.

Thanks again, Silvana. You guys, I'm so excited. I move to approve the use of $50,000 of the Council Goal Fund and $195,000 of the Economic Development Reserves to fund a local food system plan for our Olympia community.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much, Silvana. Thank you. And thank you again, Council Member Madron, and congratulations. All right. And congratulations to our residents. More importantly, it's an important issue. Okay, so item 60 on our agenda is our final business item for tonight and it is a discussion on the city's housing incentives to encourage affordable housing projects in Olympia and we have to send us touches was our housing manager and community development presenting tonight. I just send a.

Good evening.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Payne and council members. For the record, my name is Jacinda Stelchis. I am our housing manager. And I am here tonight to provide an update on how the city uses affordable housing incentives to encourage development of housing in Olympia. I will share how incentives support city priorities and goals. how many housing units development incentives have supported in the past five years, the types of incentives offered by the city, and then we'll also share some examples of some projects that have benefited from incentives and spend a little bit of time on next steps and how to kind of share more broadly about the work. All right so our housing development incentives help the city to expand housing options increase housing supply and make it easier to build housing incentive support priorities outlined in several city plans such as a one community plan. The housing action plan in the Olympia 2045 comprehensive plan. Our comprehensive plan specifically calls for the development of 14,295 new housing units in Olympia in this urban growth area by year 2045 to accommodate population growth. I also want to note that of these 14,000 plus units needed in our community, approximately 7,600 are needed for low-income households and about 6,700 Additional units needed for households whose income is greater than 80% of the area family median income. Before we get too far into what all the incentives are I wanted to share with you all I feel is really easy to kind of lose track of progress. Um, and it was actually really great to put this presentation together for you all and to have a moment and like, really, really take a moment and, uh, acknowledge that like we, we have made some good progress. Um, so here you can see how housing development incentives have been successful in helping the city meet our, uh, not meet, but work toward, uh, make progress on our, uh, housing goals, um, since 2022. 1,318 new units have either been fully constructed or are currently in the permitting process. Of these, 947 units are affordable to low-income households, and 371 units are market rate. Again, Olympia's incentives support housing development by accomplishing three primary goals. They reduce development costs, reduce permitting time, or reduce operating costs. You'll see here that several of our incentives do many. They accomplish many goals. And I acknowledge, you know, we have this table up here. I will dive deeper, a little bit deeper into each of these incentives. So I also want to note that it's not uncommon for developers in our community to layer these incentives. We encourage them to do so because it's, again, bringing down the costs and expediting units coming online. I also want to acknowledge that largely our housing incentives are directed toward affordable housing. for low income households. Low income defined as households whose gross annual income is 80% or less of the area median income. I want to give a little bit of context around that jargon. The area family median income in Thurston County in 2026 is $122,800. A little bit of further context, that means a household of four. with an annual gross income of $98,250 or less is considered low income. A household of two with an annual gross income of $78,600 is also low income. So the majority of the incentives that you all are seeing up here are really directed at encouraging and supporting housing serving that low income population. To be eligible again for the majority of the incentives that the city offers a developer must construct housing That is affordable to low-income households. That means all units affordable meaning that not more than 30% of a household's income is spent on their housing needs and in that project those units must be affordable for at least 25 years and that 25 years of is directed under a restrictive covenant that runs with the land. I do want to take a moment to call out that the exception or partial exception to the eligibility criteria is our multifamily property tax exemption program, which I will talk a little bit more about later in the presentation. So on the slide before, all of these other incentives that you've seen again, are held to that 25 years of affordability. Diving just a little bit deeper, so the next few slides will provide a bit more information about each incentive program. The city offers a partial exemption of impact fees. It's an 80% exemption of transportation, park, and school impact fees. These incentives were some of the first enacted by the city. And they are frequently utilized. When I see projects come in, these are ones that most developers are asking for, most developers are fairly aware of. And they feel like they're functioning, they're not as new. So again, pretty frequently utilized, at least in the past five years. Similar incentives are our partial water connection fee exemptions. So these are fees that are charged by the city ourselves for our GFCs, our general facility charges, and then LOTT, Clean Water Alliance, also has similar charges to connect to water systems, so that's sewer and stormwater drinking water capacity systems. And 2023 lot approved their exemption program that's 50% of their capacity development charges are waived for affordable housing projects. The city followed suit not too long after and we exempt 50% of our general facility charges that was enacted in 2024. Not too long after that, in December of 24, UL adopted Ordinance 7414, that's declaring the insufficient supply of affordable housing a public health emergency. And these six priorities were, or excuse me, strategies were adopted as part of that ordinance and part of that declaration. And these again are also really targeted at increasing the supply of affordable housing. And again, these are also strategies really aimed at the development of affordable housing. I wanted to also share other incentives. I feel like these are sometimes things that we don't, as city staff or city council, maybe think about, but they are essential. They layer with some of the other incentives that the city offers, and they really help get an affordable project especially over the line, so to say. So staff, there are a handful of other affordable housing incentives that are available to developers regionally. and staff often are making those connections, especially for new developers that are interested or coming to our community that are still kind of figuring out what options they have and what's available and how they can get support. So we regularly share information to support these other incentives. So that could include regional housing council funds, As a reminder, part of Olympia's home fund, the one-tenth of 1% sales and use tax, is pooled with Thurston County funds and overseen by the Regional Housing Council. So that could include directing developers to funding, to grants that can support the development. We often also are engaged with them on grant opportunities at the state or federal level. So that could include the connecting housing to infrastructure program, for example. So again, it's not just things that are in our city code, but being able to kind of bring it all together and share what is available regionally to help projects in our community. And then I will also say on a handful of occasions, Olympia has also offered city property at a discounted price in exchange for permanent affordable housing, again, long-term under covenant. And now the fun part, right? I will keep it fairly brief in your council packet. I have not kept it brief and I've shared more, maybe overshared, projects that have happened in the last five years. And I've tried to include some photos as good opportunity to drive around and really like, you know, re-see stuff. the developer, how many units, kind of some incentives that they benefited from, Olympia incentives, as well as a lot of them you'll see kind of some other financing sources that helped make the project a reality. So I'll start with Lansdale Point. This is a project that was just completed this year. It's really targeted at households, families with area median incomes at that 60% or below of area median income. It's on Olympia's east side. over by the co-op and this is a developer that had a great experience, right? And this is a developer that housing staff has now continued those conversations and they've come to us and they've said, hey, we were able to do something great in your community and you all helped us a lot and where can we build next in Olympia? So that's really exciting. And it just personally like feels great to be able to say like, oh, it worked and let's explore some more. The Franz Anderson permanent supportive housing is another great example. There's a great need in our community for permanent supportive housing. This is housing that is intended and made available to very low income and low income, so that's 50% or below area median income. This is a project that is in permitting now. So this is 70 studios with an on-site manager. And this is also, you know, The bullets could go on and on, so I tried to limit it. But giving you all a good idea of depending on what kind of project it is and who it's serving, kind of some of the incentives that have been helpful. So whether that's prioritizing in the permit process, the 50% exemptions of the water connection fees, the 80% exemptions for the impact fees, discounted sale of land, connection to the Regional Housing Council and that grant funding. And then also staff had worked with them a lot on putting together applications for other state financing and really being able to advocate on behalf of the project at that state level. So Harbor Pines is another development that is in permitting now, proposed 272 units. This is another developer that is fairly new to our region, our city. Development is occurring in West Olympia. And again, really looking and pairing together the exemptions for the impact fees, Permitting staff are always wonderful in moving the affordable housing projects to the top and moving them through quickly. And then this is another one that when I talked about other incentives, in discussion with them about a CHIP grant application to the state and the potential for a few million dollars to help them reduce the cost of the infrastructure needed to support sewer connections, sewer and water, excuse me. Um, and then last, I know you all have seen 3900 Boulevard a few times, and I feel like, um, I will continue to put it up here because it's an exciting project and it's a great example of. So many things, right? Like everything is layered and it's that combination of all of this that is making it possible. Um, so this is a project that, uh, South Puget sound habitat for humanity is taking on. This is 112 townhomes for home ownership. So an opportunity for people to become homeowners and start building equity. This is in development now and again targeted at that 80% or below AMI households, discounted sale of land, kind of moving to the top of the permit queue, the impact fee exemptions, the law and GFC exemptions, a chip award, There were some city requirements waived, an RHC award, housing trust fund award, all of it here. So again, in development now, it'll be a few phases, but just another project and good example of some of the incentives it takes to get these projects over the finish line. I want to also take a moment, because I've shared incentives so far that specifically target affordable housing incentives. And I don't want to lose that a lot of the talk is about affordable housing incentives and affordable housing in general. But we need that $6,700 of market rate housing rate to meet that $14,295 goal. So the multifamily property tax exemption is another housing incentive. It has gone through some changes in recent years that I'll share with you all. You all know them, but I'll share them again. But this is another tool when we talk about incentives to encourage the development of housing in Olympia. The multifamily property tax exemption, or MFTE program, again, encourages both affordable and market rate housing in areas of the city where housing is insufficient to serve various needs. And again, the program, because it's supporting affordable or market rate, is also aligned with our comprehensive plan. So we need affordable units, but we need market rate. We need all units, right? It's not just affordable. And the incentive, this one reduces operating costs. So MFTE is unique from our tools of incentives in that this one specifically reduces operating costs, where most of our other incentives reduce development costs. Most of the other incentives I just shared are reducing the upfront cost to build and construct, whereas MFTE is reducing that cost to operate. And there's a few different pathways with MFTE. So the incentive reduces operating costs over a period of either 8, 12, or 20 years. And those years, again, start once a housing has been constructed and occupied and is in full operation. So revisions to the city's MFTE program were adopted in late 2023. And those changes were an effort to better position the program as an affordable housing incentive and to encourage affordable housing. So this is acknowledging again that the program helps affordable and market rate, but these changes specifically were geared toward positioning it more as an affordable housing incentive and program. And these changes here are kind of how we did that. So the city geographically expanded the existing East Olympia and West Olympia residential target areas, designated four neighborhood centers as new residential target areas, added the 20-year MFT option, which is specifically for nonprofit developed home ownership units and adopted a fee in lieu for developers which are developing market rate housing. So that fee in lieu applies in replace or in place of them building affordable units. And then that fee is collected and can be applied toward future affordable units. We also made some changes to our 12-year MFTE program. and required that all units of projects that are benefiting from that 12-year exemption are affordable and that they are affordable to that 80% AMI versus state law allows a little bit higher, I think up to 115 or 120%. So we focused again on repositioning it as all affordable, not a percentage of the units, and to 80% AMI for the duration of the exemption period. So since 2022, nine housing projects have been approved for an MFTE property tax exemption. Of these, three have received a 12-year exemption and six received an eight-year exemption. So that means three of those are affordable housing projects and eight are market rate. MFTE projects account for 468 new housing units. So the slide showed at the beginning there of the number of units that have been created, that 1,318 includes MFTE units as well, both market rate and affordable. So of the 468, 371 are market rate, 97 are affordable. And the majority of MFTE projects have occurred in the downtown residential target area. I have tried to give you all a little bit of a sense for the number of units approved by year. So this is units that have been approved, not necessarily placed into operation. MFTE allows for three years to be placed. So these again are either units that are fully constructed in place or units that are actively in development. I guess it's kind of a purplish on the screen, but the blue-purple representing affordable and the orangish-brown representing market rate.

Sure. Councilmember Barrett has a question.

I have a lot of questions, but I had a question about that last slide. Why would we provide incentives for market rate? Or are these buildings partially affordable and partially market rate?

Some of them are. Some of them are not. And again, going back to our comprehensive plan, not just the housing element, but really keeping in mind that 14,000 plus new units are needed by 2045. And those aren't all just affordable units. We focus a lot on the number of affordable units, but it's good to keep in mind that we need units that are not necessarily affordable too. And this is a program that helps encourage that, the development of those units.

So we're essentially just encouraging market rate housing in some cases.

We are encouraging market-rate housing in areas of the city where housing in itself is insufficient.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Councilmember Vanderpool has a question.

I guess a little bit of a follow-up to that. So one of the things about the affordability emergency is it has a 25-year covenant on it to require affordability. I guess for... Clarity for the ones that have affordable units that are using the MFTE Is there how long are they required to be affordable?

Yeah, so for the projects that are benefiting from an MFTE designation Those affordable units fall under that 12-year program pathway. So they are affordable for that duration of the 12 years that they are getting the exemption. After that initial 12 years, they are eligible to request an additional 12 years. And if that were to be granted, then that additional 12 years would also have to be all units as affordable units for that additional 12 years.

And when they renew, it'll still be locked in at the price that it was prior if they decide to renew for another 12 years?

If they renewed at another 12 years, they would go through a process. I don't want to overcomplicate it for you all, but the developer essentially submits information that allows staff to kind of see how many units, what the prices are, The 12-year exemption, the affordable units are also subject to essentially an audit that the state is doing now. And so there's an opportunity to kind of essentially look at the rent rule, what are those units, make sure that they are at an affordable rate. That 80% of area median income changes slightly annually. So in 12 years, you know, 80% of AMI is going to be a little bit different than what it is today. But there would be an application process where we are looking at, well, I've had that 12 years of operations where we know that they have complied with the affordability. And then we'd look at what are the current rates, the current rents, and do they still meet that 80% affordability? And then this is also a program that has a covenant. So affordable units would be under covenant for that initial 12 years. And then if it was renewed for that second 12 years as well.

Can I ask the question from a different perspective? So if you're a tenant and you're under that covenant and you're at 80% cap and then they renew it, if I'm that tenant, Yes, would it be the same rent possibly or would it be it would be different potentially?

Um, I would venture that over a 12 year period like rent probably has increased slightly whether affordable or not from from when the project received a designation. So there's a we never want to displace people who are in an affordable unit. So there would be that evaluation of Are all units affordable under the 80% ami would there be displacement? Are the current are the current rents affordable and the rents that would be kind of implemented? Given any sort of rent increases allowed under state and city law.

I think You're getting at where I'm trying to get out is that I is my concern is that someone's in there for that 12-year period and their rent is Coveted because it's a covenant you're as you were saying on some of these units. I Get concerned about a jump Before the 12-year before they renew and and that effect on the tenant. That's that's my yeah.

Yeah the Covenant Outlines not to get too legal That it's affordable to 80% AMI or below so it's not outlining a specific rent or number or rent rate is saying it must be affordable at 80% to 80% or below AMI households. And then again, annually, we're getting that rent roll and that data to ensure that yes, it still is.

Okay. All right. So it's not a solid lock at that year. It is a rolling year.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes. Sorry. Additional comments or questions? All right, back to you, Jacinda.

All right. I feel like housing is not great at sharing progress and photos, right? We get really locked in the work, and it's so important. So the photos that you all have here and that I will show are of our 12-year, so the affordable projects, the 12-year designation. Um, in your packets, you have more information about all projects, um, you know, unit sizes and when they were constructed and all that. Um, but the lovely pictures you will see here are again, uh, our 12 year projects that are affordable projects. Um, so St. Francis house was our second 12 year MFTs or second affordable MFT project, um, four units, uh, East side. 80% exemption of park school and transportation impact fees as well as an MFTE designation so that 12 years of property tax exemption that was completed in 2024. The Gibson is our most recently completed project. So this is an adaptive reuse. So this project took commercial office space and adapted that to a residential space. So they just completed construction or actively in lease up. And again, you know, permitting, talking about layering the incentives, right? So jump to the front of the permitting line, 80% exemption of impact fees and the water connection fees at a 50% reduction. And then again, that 12-year MFTE status. So third project, this one is fully affordable as well. 64 units. Sorry, that's important to mention. And then the last example in the packet here is what many of us have for some time referred to as a Griswold or old 99. So this is the city's fourth affordable 12-year MFTE project. This one is a little bit of an exemption in and of itself a little bit different. So this is property downtown that stood for quite a while in a blighted status after a fire and the city did a lot of work and you all did a lot of work on trying to reinvigorate that space and redevelop it into housing. So at the time, that the property was sold at a discounted rate. There was in that agreement before the changes to the MFTE program, specifically in that real estate agreement, purchase and sale agreement, it outlined that this project would be eligible and would receive that 12-year MFTE designation and property tax exemption. So this is in development now, but it is mixed income. So this is 48 units, 29 of them are affordable to 80% or below, and then 19 at market rate. And again, this is our fourth MFTE project, has a few other incentives in it, the discounted sale of land, and I guess really, That's primarily the only one with this one, but our fourth MFTE. I'll pause before I go into next steps in case there's any more questions about MFTE or other incentives.

Sure. I can't see Council Member Green, so just checking in. Okay. Yes, and I see you, Council Member Barrett. I do have a question about, so we made those revisions to MFTE just a few years ago. And so we know we need the, was it the 14,000 plus units by 2045? And I think you said 6,700 plus of those need to be market rate. So what are the interim goals? So we know we have a goal of that many by 2045, but what are the interim goals to determine, like what are the measures of success for whether or not the MFTE is doing what we want it to do? Because, sure, development is happening, and we could just easily say, therefore, it's a success. But what about... Yeah, those interim goals. So when we do hit the 6,700 units, does a future council need to come and revise our program? And I'm just curious about what those measures are in determining the success of it.

And I think some of that falls into here to next steps. So very much want to acknowledge when the changes to MFTE When you all, when that body of work occurred and you all kind of approved that repositioning as an affordable housing program, again, with that fee in lieu applied for those that are developing market rate, that was at the end of 23? Um, and, uh, housing kind of geared up like, okay, uh, we are going to dive into MFTE kind of start tackling this, uh, which we did. Um, and then we had some kind of significant staff loss and, and turnover, uh, and have now hired a director, a housing director. Um, so we are very much like revisiting all of these, these things, right. And this, um, refining performance metrics so we can better, you know, for you all who are interacting with the public as well as staff, really start measuring it in different ways. It's not just units, right? So that's very much part of next steps with capacity that we now have. So it's not just launching an education campaign and sharing that we have these incentives. whether it be MFTE or others, trying to share what we bring to the table as a city to try to reach those 14,000 new units that we know we need. So that's, you know, trying to attract new developers, trying to educate ones that are kind of already in the space. This work is overlapping with similar work that is occurring regionally, specifically at the Regional Housing Council. So there's been a lot of conversation about Olympia's very lucky to have a housing division. Not all of our partner jurisdictions have a housing-specific division, but attracting developers in general to our region, Thurston County, is a priority of RHC because Yes, we need housing in Olympia specifically, but not just Olympia, right? Thurston County, Lacey, Tumwater. Geographically, the boundaries blur when it comes to someone who's seeking affordable housing and needing housing. And then again, really revisiting what makes sense for performance metrics, how do we tell the story better, how to really get into the weeds about is it working, and at what point might we need to bring it back to you all and say either it is working, maybe we don't need this approach anymore, or it's not, and let's have that further conversation of what else is needed. But we'll very much acknowledge that we are This is where we're at now given staff capacity over the last year, year and a half.

Thank you. Council member Barrett.

Thank you. I had a series of questions. Do these impact fee exemptions only apply to multifamily or do if a developer that was developing a dozen houses came to you with a with those single-family houses be eligible for for similar exemptions if the developer applied for them.

Yes, so the impact fees specifically are targeted at affordable housing development and so those are yes, they would apply and Inhabitats project is a good example of that with those 112 units for homeownership. Those are townhomes versus like a traditional single family.

Are there many that have applied for them or is it just an unutilized option?

Habitat has been the only one that has built homeownership units. Just in general, As an aside, that is very much a need, right? And that's part of the education campaign. We need more units for homeownership, and right now we are very limited in the developers that are working in that capacity.

Great. This is a follow-up to Council Member Vanderpool's question on the extension of MFTE. How many... extensions do we have that are alive in the city if any i just have people i know that mft hasn't been around forever so you know i don't know maybe we haven't even hit the the mark yet but i wanted to know if developers have come and asked for an extension uh on projects that are in existence and receiving that benefit

Yeah, so there are four 12-year projects, affordable projects that have that MFTE designation. The three that I just showed are fairly recent. So they're not near that 12 years, although they were interested in, you know, like that was the conversation that staff had with them when developing that like there's an option and here's the process that we would go under. Merritt Manor was our first 12-year MFTE. That one also was not quite at its 12-year. It has a few more years, but it did change ownership last year, which we were aware of and have worked with the new owner. And that is something, working with that new owner, there were lots of conversations between her and I about, you know, we do allow for a second, a one extension right another 12 years and she had communicated that was something that was appealing to her that she owns other affordable housing developments in other communities and this was something that was appealing to her with Merritt Manor that there was an option to potentially extend that 12 years but we have not had any that have reached the 12 years yet and have applied for an extension but our code does allow it um

One thing that wasn't disclosed is the cost of MFTE. It's exciting that all these projects are going on and that there's a lot of projects benefiting from getting up and running because of this incentive, but I was wondering about the cost side. Is that information available? Meaning, what is the cost to the city of the tax exemption Um, there are people in the community who, who worry about the cost shift, you know, and, um, I, I, I certainly think, uh, affordable housing is a substantial benefit to the community, you know, and so, you know, that's, that, that warrants strong consideration, but, but I also want to know, is this the best investment? Uh, I, I, These are just questions I ask when making these decisions. Is there cost information available? Could the city finance director readily come up with that? Could you work with the assessor to know what that is? I just wanted to know what you thought about that.

Um, I don't want to speak on behalf of our finance director. Um, I do know at the time that the changes to the program were brought forward before the council, uh, the finance director at that time, um, cause there, there was this concern. Um, and there was a lot of talk about the tax shift in the finance director at that time, um, did a lot of work with the assessor and, um, trying to, to kind of illustrate what that tax shift looks like. And, um, and I will also say not to overcomplicate, right. But like the tax rate changes from year to year, um, I do not, housing does not evaluate that on a year to year basis. I do know, um, that the finance director did do an evaluation a few years ago. And I do recall that there was a lot of kind of conversation around, you know, it was kind of like a projection that it's really hard to have like a very specific number without knowing like what tax rates might do in the future. That said, like I'm happy to dig up that presentation. and pass it on to council. And that was something that the finance director at that time had taken on that project of trying to show.

I would very much like to see that dated presentation without having to recreate it necessarily. That would give me an idea. I'm just trying to figure out if this is bigger or smaller than a bread box as far as the fiscal impact to the city's budget and whatnot. And I had just one final question. Are there state incentives that you didn't list? You kind of listed some, you know, state housing council funding and whatnot. Are there other incentives that are outside of the city's purview that these developers get that weren't on the list? I was kind of under the impression there were, and I could be mistaken about that.

Yes, there are several, I shouldn't say several, there are a handful of state programs that are really designed to support affordable housing. So the kind of top two that we see a lot are Washington State's Housing Trust Fund, and then there's also the federal government provides a budget for low-income housing tax credits. So that is also funding that is federal funding that comes to the state and is managed by the Washington State Housing Finance Commission. So for projects that tend to serve that very low income, like the 50% or below AMI, those two funding sources are also typically needed to make the project happen in addition to the development incentives. But those are programs that staff is aware of and can help with applications, but we don't, you know, that are operated and managed by the state.

Thank you, Jacinda. This is all very good, and I really appreciate your presentation. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Council Member Madrone followed by Council Member Gilman.

Thank you so much, Jacinda. I really appreciate the presentation. Earlier tonight we were talking about plans that don't sit on shelves, and I think you are proving that our housing division also does not keep plans on shelves. The question that I have, when we did update the structure for our multifamily tax exemption program, One of the things that the housing team did was commission a study of pro formas for what does it cost to build downtown, west side, east side, and the eight year tax exemption was based on the actual cost to build. Because that's one of the challenges we have is like, you know, our community in Olympia is competing with communities up north of us when it comes to market rate housing and not seeing as much natural development in some other areas. And so the fee in lieu is actually tailored based on the actual cost to build in the different areas. And when that came forward to us, I'm pretty sure that it was like, okay, this is something that should be updated every five years to make sure that we are tailoring it for, you know, what market conditions look like, make sure that we're not giving away more than we need to while still incentivizing housing to be built in the community. So I would just encourage that as part of the next steps to keep that on the radar. I don't actually know when that five year mark is. Everything's a blur over the past few years. But that's something that I'm personally curious in is how is the housing market evolving over time and are we, Are we continuing to tailor that particular exemption, which is one of the more debated ones, to make sure that we're not giving away more than we have to to get the housing built that is needed in the community? So just wanted to note that.

Thanks for that reminder. And to do those revisions at a timely part in the year where there's not projects in the queue. I know that was a conversation we had before, too, where it doesn't impact those projects. All right. Council Member Gilman. Thank you.

Thanks, Jacinda. First, I'm glad that you have metrics developing. It's been a conversation for a long while. And this presentation and this conversation over the last several years has been really devoid of numbers. We don't talk about the costs, and we don't talk about the like the public investment per unit versus the percentage of the cost of the unit that's being saved? What's the effect or the impact of the incentive of the public subsidy? I would suggest that frequently utilized doesn't speak to the value of the incentive, because who would say no to free money? And who wouldn't say, wow, my project just penciled out because you gave me that last discount on permitting fees or whatever. So for me, I think it would just be a reasonable set of metrics to know what each of these kinds of discounts, what is the public contribution into the project, and how substantial of a financial impact is it on the cost per unit to develop. So that's my first interest in terms of our developing metrics. We've had debate over the last many years about whether to have more reporting out from the multifamily tax exemption. particularly once that tax shift became more evident that, in fact, there's no cost to the city of running the multifamily tax exemption because it's simply spread across the other taxpaying properties in the city. And when we looked at it two years ago, I actually drugged the finance director into the Department of Revenue and to the county auditor. So I was with him in those meetings. And at that point, the sum total of what the taxpayers were paying was about equivalent to the home fund. So a similar amount of revenue, and it's tracked pretty closely. So that gives you a bigger than a bread box, smaller than a new apartment building, right? And the... The last thing I'm wondering is Mayor Payne had suggested, what sort of intermediate benchmarks do we have? If you're aiming for either 7,500 units with public assistance in them, or you're looking at 14,000 some units, and you've got 20 years or so to do them, I would think that would be over 700 units a year. And if this set of incentives is creating 40 units a year, then if it's not doing it, why are we celebrating it? And perhaps it would be a cause to stop and reconsider, to pivot to notions like social housing or land trusts, other sorts of ways to invest the same amount of money, the same request from the taxpayers for subsidy on construction, but have something that's permanently uh, owned publicly or owned by the community and, and permanently affordable rather than eight or 10 years affordable. So I, I, I just, that's, that's my last question is how are we tracking progress if we're going to hold up, which, and I think the 14,000 thing is malarkey, but I lost on that one. So, um, I think cities grow as people choose to move here and the prices of the apartments and the number of units built are based on demand and, um, Simply matching King County's set of incentives maybe levels the playing field so an apartment builder might come down here, but it doesn't incentivize or attract anybody. So I'd like to have us, in these reports, track our number of units against that role in some sort of a timeline so that we can see if it's not doing it. Let's start over and think again about how we try to encourage enough housing for our residents.

Thank you, Councilmember Gilman. Councilmember Vanderpool.

I appreciate the comments. Councilmember Gilman, I'm, you know, one of the things I wrote down leading into this meeting is thinking about the next steps, what's happened, what are things we're working on. I mean, we're working on community opportunity purchase policy. We've been working on that for quite a while now, but I'm interested in seeing how, when we come to that, I'm very excited about that. But a couple of things that I think about from that process, and Council Member Gilman talked a little bit about this, the cost, the upfront cost to help create a lot of cooperative housing and to get apartment buildings that are going to go out on the market again. Because every time an apartment building gets bought out by another company, that mortgage is reset and the price goes on to the renters. It happens again and again and again and again, right? Your rent goes up because a new company probably owns it and another new company owns that one. And it keeps going up and up. And to me, one of the things is that opportunity to purchase is a way to help it become cooperative, help it become part of a land trust, have a community owned. And part of that cost is buying the property, right? I'm interested in the policies that help us get there. Giving enough time for the tenants to form a cooperative is part of that. But another part of that is the upfront cost, right? When we're going through the affordability list, even habitat projects take a humongous amount of cost to get there, right? There's a ton of money that is required. I have friends that have been pushing for public banking for this reason, because you have a rotating fund, you have money upfront to do the project for the community. And so, you know, I think about things that we don't do that we can do, like housing impact fees, to collect funds, to have money. Outside of the opportunity fund, which is valuable, which has been the resource for these types of things at least once last year, I believe, there was a manufactured housing park that was going to go back out on the market, and it became cooperative. through the process of that money being there. I'm interested in continuing that work and seeing what we can do to get that part. And I think the next other thing that I'm interested in around affordable housing is one of the biggest benefits of social housing up in Seattle is locked in affordable, mixed income affordable housing units. The idea of that zero to 30, 30 to 60, 60 to 80, and then a couple 100 to 120s. And that's kind of an interesting model because the higher incomes help pay for the lower incomes. And they've created a whole board system where half the board that runs it is the tenants and half of it is the builders. And when the mortgage is paid off, they have to decide, do we Do we lower the rents or do we build more housing? And it's an even split. And I think that that's an interesting model. But I always ask myself, how do we get there? Because there's a huge amount of money required to do it. That seems to be the biggest threshold is having the money aside to help take existing housing and make it affordable or build affordable housing that is community owned. Those are the things that I think is the next step in affordability that I'm the most interested in. I'm also interested in the – I noticed you put regional policy, regional up there for, like, the RHC. That's something I'm also interested in. There's an aspect to the Regional Housing Council language policy that says that there's a policy aspect, but it's never been explored fully for various reasons. political reasons, it hasn't been explored. But I love to live in the world where we do a policy, and Tumwater does a policy, and Lacey does a policy, and we share those policies, right? I think that would be cost-preventive into the future. And so I'm trying to be optimistic about this. I share some of the concerns about MFTE. I want to make sure it's worth the cost that it occurs. And I'd be curious to see where we go from there. Um, but those are my thoughts.

All right, thank you additional comments. Um, thank you just send a, um, I will just, uh, up looks like we have a question or comment from council member green.

Just a quick comment mayor. Thank you. Um, just and I just, I really appreciate this presentation and really my only comment is, uh, I think what I. learn most from this was, you know, particularly with the incentives for the affordable units, you know, seeing brand new developers coming into the area, the MFTE seems to be a little more familiar names. I'm not putting judgment on that. It just seems to be the thing. But to see that these incentives, I won't say they brought other developers here, but certainly just brought, you know, gave the opportunity for new folks to come into the community and start building. So I'm really heartened to see that, and I'm excited to see where some of those go, particularly, as you said, one of the developers has commented what a good experience they had and are already looking for additional opportunities. So I think that's the kind of momentum that I know takes a while to build, but I really appreciated hearing that.

Thank you, Council Member Green. Yeah, and I'll just wrap us up by saying I'm not questioning whether or not MFT is leading to successful development. Obviously, we can clearly see that it has. But more specifically, for me, the question is about that development rate, as I mentioned earlier, as a metric, because we need more affordable housing. it appears that the rate with which MFTE is being utilized for affordable development is lagging behind that of market rate development and we need less of those units. So I just want to make sure that as we develop those metrics that we do so in a way that considers the rate and the pace of which the development is happening in comparison to the demand. so um all right so with that uh that concludes our discussion on item 6c uh and we are going to move on uh that concludes all of our our business items for tonight thank you very much jacinda thank you thorough presentation and staff report thank you um so we're going to move on to item a a on the agenda, which is consideration of a referral to approve the use of City Council goal funds to support an Interfaith Works community event. And I will turn it over to Council Member Madrone, who is the prime sponsor for this referral.

Despite the agenda for this evening, I don't actually put in all that many referrals. However, this is a referral co-sponsored with Council Members Gilman and Green. Thank you both very much. We also discussed it at our council dinner. So I know we're all in the loop on this, but just to speak to the referral, at the end of 2023, the council approved a resolution supporting a ceasefire between Israel and occupied Palestine. And of course, recognizing that as a city government in the United States, there's not much that we really can do to influence what's happening in the Middle East, but we can do things to influence what's happening in our own community. And one of the things that we committed to in that resolution was to partner with local community, faith, educational, and cultural leaders to have conversations and develop actions to reduce antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and anti-Arab bigotry. and engage the broader community together around understanding our shared values. And as we were working and developing that resolution, some of us have been in touch with Interfaith Works who, in terms of what kind of opportunities could come together that we could support as a city, And while it's been a little while since those conversations started, that work has continued at Interfaith Works. They've done a lot of work with very intentional relationship building, deep listening with leadership at both the temple and the mosque, and have approached us with a proposal to support some work with the American Friends of Combatants for Peace, which involves combatants from both Israel and occupied Palestine. to bring a series of events to Olympia with some of the founding members of this organization. The overall theme of the tour that is happening is The Moment to Move, Palestinian and Israeli Activists on Organizing for Collective Liberation. And planning is underway. This will occur later in September. I know the days were a little bit in flux, so I don't want to say anything specific right now. But there's, I talked through this with Corey Passons at Interfaith Works and with council members at our last council dinner as this is an opportunity for us to make good on that promise that we had with the ceasefire resolution and really support an organization that is doing a lot of really important work around peace and healing in our community. So the request is to support them with $10,000. It doesn't cover the full need, but I know they have other options to make sure that they can fulfill the responsibility they are taking on in bringing this group here. So that's what this referral is about.

All right. Well, thank you very much, Council Member Madrone. Are there any questions or comments? Yes, Council Member Gilman. Thank you.

I appreciate that we're bringing this forward. And I just wanted to highlight that the combatants for peace are made up of veterans, people who were fighters for both IDF, the Israeli army, and for Hamas. And their goal isn't a particular political solution, but that they don't want their younger siblings or their children to follow in their footsteps and go kill each other. So that's the kind of actions they've been taking and they've been putting a lot of energy into marking the loss of lives from both sides of a prolonged conflict. So I just wanted to give that context that I've been able to attend virtually a few of their convenings and I just think the intention is really important and valuable and very much in alignment with the promise that we made in our resolution. So, thank you.

Thank you. Additional comments? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I'll just keep it brief. I'm really glad to see this come around. I'm looking forward to supporting it. I'm hoping that the days end up being where many of us can attend. That would be great. But it's just important that it's happening overall. Yes, it's been some time since our ceasefire resolution, and it's ever relevant. So I think it's important that we continue to support whenever there are ways that we can, and I just really appreciate Council Member Gilman, you also sharing that context too. I think that's really important is, you know, what is the intention of it? Yeah. So looking forward to supporting this one. I think this one's an easy yes. Thanks.

Thank you. All right. Council Member Vanderpool.

When and where can folks go to this?

Um, it's still in the planning phases at this point. Um, and it's, it'll occur later in September. And like I said, they're still figuring out the exact dates and the events that will be taking place over that time. So, um, I'll make sure that that information is available to all of us, um, uh, as, as it comes together.

Yeah.

Thank you. Um, I just have, uh, just some comments, believe it or not. December of this year, it marks three years since we voted on the ceasefire resolution, which I can't even believe how fast that went. But I just want to make sure it's clear that although this is derived sort of from more of a global issue and an issue that happens somewhere else in the world, that this work is very much centered on what is happening in the Olympia community. And we know that Islamophobia and antisemitism have been on the rise over the course of these last three years. And so, and I would imagine that we are no exception to that. And so this work is really about take addressing that head on as it relates to the people who live in our community. And so I just kind of wanted to, to point that out because I think it's easy to dismiss this as something that, oh, this happens elsewhere. Why are we concentrating or focusing on this? But it's centered on the people who are living here who are affected by this. So I just wanted to call that out. And I'll turn it back over to you, Council Member Madrona.

I move to approve the allocation of $10,000 in council goal funding to Interfaith Works to support a community event featuring Palestinian and Israeli activists organizing for collective liberation.

Second. All right, we have a motion and a second all those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye aye opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you councilmember drone councilmember Gilman and councilmember green for sponsoring a referral. All right, so that takes us to council reports. Um, I'll just begin with a very brief mayor's report and mentioned, uh, that we had a great national night out, uh, this year. Once again, um, I want to thank the chief, uh, for driving the city manager and me, uh, around to each of the neighborhoods. But, um, uh, we really had a really great time with, um, visiting a lot of the neighborhoods, some of which we visited before others for the first time. I found that most of the reception we received were just people who were happy to see us. And we're even surprised that they got a visit from city officials that they weren't expecting. And there were a few issues that came up that were public safety related or homelessness related in the neighbors that I engaged with. But overwhelmingly, there seemed to be a sentiment of appreciating the work of the city and just keep it up and keep doing what we need to do moving forward, which I appreciate. And so I want to thank. Rebecca and all of OPD for all of the work that went into national night out thanks for for putting that together, it was a really great time. And I believe most of us were were out for this year as well, so I do just want to call attention to that. This week, I also had the pleasure of going to the farmers market which. They did the ringing of the bell to kick off Farmer's Market Week. And I declared it Farmer's Market Week for this week via proclamation. And it's also the 50th anniversary of Olympia's Farmer's Market, which is really great, too. So congratulations to the Farmer's Market. And I hope, you know, the community enjoys it this week, but all year around as well. And I also just want to give a shout out to Alvy Stewart, who is a fairly new executive director of the farmers market. And she she started her role back in April. But I'm not sure if she has gotten acquainted with all of us just yet. But if you if you have time on your calendars, I encourage you to reach out and get to know her. She she's great. I also just want to mention that myself and Mayor Pro Tem Winning, Council Member Gilman, especially for Council Member Gilman and his leadership, we've attended the World Relief Gala at the Hands on Children's Museum this weekend, along with Manny Bosser, our Director of Human Resources, Melissa McKee, the Assistant to the Council. Sheriff Sanders also joined our table as well. And, of course, Melissa's wife, Wren, was with us as well. And so there was a strong showing from the city supporting our immigrants and refugees at their first annual event and looking forward to supporting the World Relief more in the work that they do. And thank you, Council Member Gilman, for your leadership there. And let's see, where am I? Um, and I also just, lastly, just want to give a shout out to council member Barrett who, uh, attended Bono Dory, um, on my behalf, but also on the behalf of other members that couldn't attend. And I believe you delivered remarks. So, uh, thank you for doing that. And I hope it was a great time. I enjoy it. Um, and, uh, we appreciate your presence there. So thanks for showing up. All right. Uh, and so with that, I will start to my right with council member Madron.

I'll just report back quickly. I judged that pie contest. It was lovely. I ate almost half a pie. That's my report. Nice.

Council member Vanderpool.

I can't beat that. So I didn't expect that, actually. I should have. But I only have a few items here. So on Sunday, I attended the Olympians for People-Oriented Places meeting. They're back. And one of the things we talked about were third places. First place is your home. The second place is your job. And the third place is the coffee shop, the park, places like that. And we had quite an interesting conversation of what are places that we've enjoyed the most? Why did we enjoy them? And then the who, they asked about what if we did a community forum on this? And I was like, well, even more fun stuff to go with that. So no specific policy stuff out of that, but I thought it was a pretty interesting conversation that I think is going to keep on going as the organization comes back. And then let's see. You know, I... I'm going to, I guess I'll speak to this. You know, this last, was this two weeks ago, a week ago, we lost a community member who has been really deeply involved in the community, Peter Gutchen, who has been a member of the Northeast Neighborhood Association. Many of us know Peter. He has been a strong advocate for neighborhoods and neighborhood centers and community involvement. You know, he continued to challenge us. I mean, I remember going to meetings with him, and then he pulled me aside and talked to me more and more about, like, specific funding needs for the neighborhoods and the need to do more permanent projects and more community involvement. And I always loved the spirit of that. I always loved what he provided to the community. He'll be deeply missed, and I just wanted to shout out for that. I know that the neighborhoods had their meeting on Monday, but I just wanted to mention that. I really appreciate all he brought to the community. And then another thing that I'm gonna mention here, but I'll come back to it at a council dinner in the future, but one of the things that I'm actually inspired by from Lacey of all, is fired by lacy uh you can put that in the newspaper uh is the um i really appreciate the the they're doing this community coffee with their council members and i think the more stuff we do like that um just you know almost like office hours come talk to us come meet with us i think that's important we've over the years many of us council council members have done that with different groups but I'd be interested in seeing, we all have different capacities, but doing something like that in the future. Because I think that the more we listen and answer questions as council members, not just to staff, but to us, the more we get to understand where people's minds are and answer questions and this and that. And I always like that part of this position and this job is the more community involvement we have. So I'll probably bring back some more thoughts about that at a future council dinner, but just gonna leave that with you guys. But that's it.

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

Just a quick comment. Thank you, Council Member Vanderpool, for your attendance at Bonadori. I saw you make a puppy dog face when the mayor gave shout-outs.

I had four events that day, and I brought Charlie along and Alicia, and by the time I got there, Charlie was asleep, and it was 7 p.m., and his bedtime's 9, so I was just like, I don't know if I want to deal with grumpiness. So I came by, I said hi, and then I had to go home

All good. We have many requests when we're on council, including requests for meetings, and we all do what we can.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yes. And good things can come from Lacey, too. We all get ideas from each other.

100%.

So, all right. Council Member Gilman.

Boy, it's kind of a competitive report giving tonight. This morning, Chief Parker very generously arranged for me to do wake-ups with the walking patrol in the morning, to meet with some of the department leadership, and to talk about the evolution of the staffing and the policies that we have downtown. And I want to say that I left that morning really greatly reassured And I know, you know, they'll continue to be tensions and we'll continue to work them out. But I saw nothing but respect from the officers I walked with and, um, uh, was just really honored by, uh, a serious conversation with the department leadership, um, about these difficult issues. So I, I'm, I'm really grateful for the morning. Um, I went from there over to the artesian well. where the artist Jennifer Koons, who almost 12 years ago, I think, installed the mosaic benches and the art around the pipe. She has a small grant from our parks department to restore the mosaic right now, repair and restore it. And she's working from 10 to 3 each day this week with some help doing that. So that's pretty exciting. Last night was the Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, as Robert mentioned, and it was a robust meeting. It was new faces along with long-time participants, and they dug in on sidewalks and the capital facilities plan in a way that got kind of wild and unruly for a minute and then reigned back in and just really dug in with it. And I was... Excited to be there and continue to learn from all of them. And then the last thing I'll say is Thurston County Board of Health met this afternoon and we did a proclamation about Immunization Awareness Month and had a local pediatrician who's a leader in promoting vaccines, Dr. Maria Huang. And two things. One is In Thurston County, we no longer have herd immunity if you look at the vaccination rates of kids entering kindergarten, which means we don't have a high enough vaccination rate so that if one family chooses not to be vaccinated, that they're also protected. It sets us up. She has already had a couple of patients die, one from pertussis and one from flu this last year from... preventable deaths. So to make it even more interesting, the White House did another executive order yesterday that is to maximize parental choice and discourage broad immunization programs. So I would just urge people to take the time to speak to a trusted, whether it's your family physician, whether it's a nurse, you know, because I understand and believe that there are facts out there that say that vaccinations are among the most studied of all medical practices. and that there's some really objective information about both the benefits and the risks to being immunized, and that it's something you can do to take care of people who are more vulnerable than yourself in the community. So get that measles vaccination, kids. Come on.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah. Thank you, Councilmember Gilman. Look no further than the U.S. military to see how that went when you don't require vaccinations. All right, any questions or comments for Council Member Vanderpool, or excuse me, Council Member Gilman? All right, seeing none, Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

I don't have any reports. Just been doing my thing.

Thank you.

Council Member Barrett. I just have a few quick things. I attended the Home Builders Tour the week, it was the last week, and it was great. toured, they highlighted a project of multiple units going up on 21st in Southeast Olympia and kind of what was happening, the challenges with that development. Learned a few things about the real estate market in Olympia Lacey and Tumwater. Toured one of the 25 least expensive units for sale out of the thousand that are for sale in Thurston County, and it was in the $415,000 range. This was one of the 25 least expensive. And I only say that to illustrate how unaffordable single-family housing is. There's a bit of struggle because of interest rates being high, but it was very informative, and I was glad I did it. I attended the South... the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, they had their presentation on organics. And one of the things that struck me about this presentation, within Thurston County, I think Olympia has one of the better organic recycling programs. You kind of do this and you think everyone does it, but actually much of the county does not have an organics recycling program. They just put their kitchen waste in their garbage. So kudos for our solid organics program. I did attend Bona Dari, and I was thrilled to attend. Thank you for the opportunity. I kept my remarks brief, but I represented you, Mayor, and sent your regards. And it was very touching. I was so happy I attended. Culturally, there are spiritual origins to Bonadari that I hadn't been aware of. And so I learned a great deal. And there were probably over 200 community members there. It was a perfect summer evening. Also attended the Downtown Association event. I'll let deputy mayor when kind of touch upon that but it was an excellent excellent event and I also want to recognize Peter who I connected with just in the last year for the first time and had several several conversations with him he's such an expert about the city and our neighborhoods and thank the world of him thank you

Thank you, Council Member Barrett. Questions or comments for Council Member Barrett? Mayor Pro Tem Nguyen.

Perhaps I should touch on the Olympia Downtown Alliance's summer barbecue, where I provided comments. I do do things. I just don't often feel the need to report them, but thank you. I think that's a nice prompt. Yeah, we have a great relationship with the ODA, the Olympia Downtown Alliance, and we got a chance to... be on the patio, outside on a summer evening with the ODA board members, some of the business and employees of businesses in the downtown area, and many council members there too. Oh, we heard from Congresswoman Strickland, and then I think it was the night before the primary, so the message was, Go out there and do your civic duty and vote, vote, vote. And then we heard from me. And I was able to quickly, with some support from Jenica Machado in economic development, share the latest in downtown. And I think folks appreciated that. I think folks mostly appreciated when the program was over and they could eat and just connect with each other, to be honest. But yes, Mayor, you'd either be proud or embarrassed of me to know that the comments were going. The program started very quickly when shortly after people got there and were still getting there, and they were almost going to wrap it up. And I heard wrap-up language, and so I ran over and, not forcefully, but took the mic from the ODA executive director, and I was sure to share. I said, Olympia is here, and we have things to say. So it was sort of fun. Thanks, Councilmember Barron.

Yeah, thanks for that reminder. And thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for representing at ODA. All right, Council Member Green.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I just have one piece of good news I wanted to report out from the Joint Animal Services Commission meeting yesterday. We had a wonderful presentation from an organization called Posado Safe Haven. And they are... hopefully soon, uh, they said definitely by the end of the year, uh, opening a low cost spay and neuter clinic in the community. So it'll be in some water, but, uh, they'll do low cost spay and neuters four days a week. They expect to be able to do 35 a day, all for cats and dogs, but dogs of all sizes. And, uh, I kinda, I said, okay, well, what, what's affordable. I have not had a pet spayed or neutered in a while. Um, and so for comparison, they said, uh, Market costs for like a cat, which is the easier of the animals, can run anywhere from $400 to $600. And at a low-cost clinic like this, it will run closer to the neighborhood of $100. And then for dogs, that market rate can run as high as $1,200. And at a low-cost clinic such as this, you know, could be in the neighborhood of like $135 to $165. So really a tremendous opportunity. asset for this community as right now, if people want to find a low cost clinic, or even if they have vouchers for low cost spay and neuters, they have to drive at least to Tacoma, if not further. So really looking forward to that opening. And I just wanted to share that with the community because I know it's in high demand and been really difficult to find for folks who want to get their pets spayed or neutered and just either can't afford it or can't find a spot to do it.

Yeah, that's, that's really great. Council Member Green, thanks for sharing that. Do you know if they're in, if they're going to be interested in helping spay or neuter community cats?

They will, they will partner with joint animal services and other rescue organizations as well, which is just part of their work. They also have a sanctuary. They also they have a pretty big body of work. So yeah.

Yeah, that's great news. Thanks. All right. And last but not least, Assistant City Manager.

Thank you. City Manager Jay Burney needed to log off a little bit earlier due to the time change for him. But nothing to report. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, everybody. It's been a great meeting with lots of great discussion. So with no further business before the Olympia City Council, we're adjourned.