City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening and welcome to the city of pasco council meeting the council thanks you for being a part of your city government at meetings the city council takes formal action on items holds public hearings and conducts other business of the city agenda packets are available on the city of pasco's website at www.pasco-wa.gov agenda this meeting is also being televised live on psc tv channel 191 on spectrum cable and pasco and richland and is streamed on the city's facebook page website youtube channel and Microsoft Teams webinar. This and previous council meeting video is available on the city's website. Lastly, the public may submit their comments and or questions by contacting the city manager, city clerk, or by using the Ask Pasco app. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll?

Council Member Campos?

Here.

Cotta?

Here.

Figueroa?

Present.

Hernandez?

Present.

Perales?

Here.

Milne?

Present.

And Grimm?

Here.

There are seven present. We have a quorum.

Thank you, ma'am. If everyone would rise for the flag salute. All right, moving on to number four, the consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine by the city council and will be enacted by a roll call vote as one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If further discussion is desired by council members, the item may be removed from the consent agenda to the regular agenda and considered separately. Letter A, approval of meeting minutes for May 26th, June 1st, and June 5th. Bills and Communications approving claims in the total amount of $6,619,794.24. Letter C, Resolution Number 4753, 2027-2032 Transportation Improvement Program. D, Resolution No. 4754, Accepting and Adopting the 2026 Franklin County, Washington Multihazard Mitigation Program. E, Resolution No. 4755, Addendum No. 3 to the Metro Interlocal Agreement. F, Resolution No. 4756, Approving Amendment No. 1 to the Personnel Services Agreement for City Attorney General Legal Services. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Oh, yes. Would anybody like to remove, thank you, any one of these from the consent agenda? Not seeing any. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the consent agenda as read. Second.

Motion on the floor by Mayor Pro Tem to accept the consent agenda as read. Seconded by Council Member Perales. Madam Clerk, if you'd take a roll call vote.

Compos?

Yes.

Cotta?

Yes.

Viboroa?

Yes.

Hernandez?

Yes. Perales? Yes.

Milne?

Yes.

And Grimm?

Yes.

It's unanimous.

Thank you. Number five, proclamations and acknowledgements. America 250 month proclamation. Mr. Stewart?

Mr. Mayor, I think the agenda item is self-explanatory. This is a proclamation celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America and proclamation here. We have some guests here to join in the proclamation with you as well.

Perfect. Thank you. Are you Ms. Todd? If you'd be so kind as to join me up front and we will go through this proclamation together. I'll meet you right there at the podium. I appreciate you coming in dressed too. I love it. That is lovely. Let's go through this together. Whereas on July 4th, 2026, the United States of America will commemorate the semi-quincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And whereas this milestone provides an opportunity to reflect upon our nation's history and to humbly acknowledge the sovereign hand of Almighty God, whose grace and loving kindness guided the founding of this republic, granting wisdom, courage, and protection to those who declared our independence, and whereas the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, following the Treaty of Paris of 1783, established a framework for territorial governance, and the creation of new states, including what would become the state of Washington in 1889, whereas the city of Pasco was established as a town site in 1886 and officially incorporated as a city in 1891, and whereas the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, founded in 1890, is a nonpolitical women's service organization whose members are lineal descendants of patriots of the American Revolution with a local chapter known as the Columbia River Chapter, organized March 17, 1949. And whereas the Columbia River Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, in partnership with the City of Pasco, honors those who achieved American independence, and all who have shaped and preserved our nation over the past 250 years. Now, therefore, I, Charles Grimm, Mayor of Pasco, Washington, do hereby proclaim July 2026 as America 250 Month in the City of Pasco and encourage community members to commemorate America 250 by learning more about the history of the American Revolution, giving thanks to Almighty God for his providence, and reflecting upon the enduring legacy of service that has shaped our nation. Thank you so much. Would you like to provide some comments?

Right around here. I'm facing the wrong way, but actually, that's all right. The Daughters of the American Revolution, as Mayor stated, started in 1890 by a group of women that wanted to keep the history of our revolution up front, because during that time, people were starting to forget, and so now, we still honor that, My patriot was from New Jersey. He was captain of the militia. And the Daughters of the American Revolution, our purpose is history, patriotism, education, and genealogy. So if anyone is interested, we would love to have you. Females only, I'm sorry. There is the Sons of the American Revolution. But anyway, I thank you for this proclamation. It means a lot to us and celebrating this special year and wish you all well in this upcoming year.

Thank you, Ms. Dodd. Would you be so kind as to come up? We'd love a picture of you with the entire council, though, if you would. Yeah, you can just stand right in front and we'll all JOIN BEHIND YOU.

THREE, TWO, ONE.

THANK YOU. APPRECIATE IT. ALL RIGHT. Number six, public comments. The public may address council on any items unless it relates to a scheduled public hearing of which we have none listed tonight. This item is provided to allow the opportunity to bring items to the attention of city council or to express an opinion on an issue. Its purpose is not to provide a venue for debate or for the posing of questions with the expectation of immediate response. Some questions require consideration by council over time and after a deliberative process with input from a number of different sources. Some questions are best directed to staff members who have access to specific information. Citizen comments will normally be limited to three minutes each. Those with lengthy messages are invited to summarize their comments and or submit written information for consideration by the council outside of formal meetings. Lastly, when called upon, please state your name and city or county of residency into the microphone before providing your comments. And with that, let's open up public comments.

Yes, my name is James Foreman, and I live in Pasco on Sylvester Street, actually on the west end of it. And I think the comment is on the west end of Sylvester Street, I don't think we need to call it a safety zone. I don't see anything safe out there for Me, as a resident, you're going to tell me that I back out of my driveway two feet onto a nice slope to get over the bike path? Isn't that wonderful? I got a ditch out in front of my house that's full of weeds. Just wonderful, you know? And the road is so narrow, when the fire trucks go down it, they're rumbling down the drains. And you go by, let's say, Road 44 or Road 48 or whatever, and if it rained, you're going to cross a lake because they've raised the road up by two feet since you took it over from the county. Two feet. Two overlays and 22 inches. That's 22 inches in my driveway. To give you a reason to get a realm of this, you guys that have a curb, take a five gallon bucket, put it on the cement of the sidewalk, measure down, and you ain't even close, okay? I don't appreciate it. And this new bike path, oh my goodness. Let's spend how much money to build something to go across a bridge that's already there? Unbelievable. What you did at Road 28, get rid of the right turn, perfect, isn't it? I'm telling you, I don't see what's so safe about what's been done down there. It's a disaster if you live there. You can't cross the street, Road 44, Road 48. You can't cross the street to get to the crossing. You go 100 yards down to get to the crosswalk. I want to know what's so safe about it. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate your comments.

Tony Sandoval, business owner. I do a lot of business in Pasco. The rule of dope law happened in a past meeting. Mayor Grimm, Mayor Pro Tem, the line, you and council book the rule of law. The City of Pasco residents are asking for Mayor Grims to resign his seat immediately. Owner, operator of Grocery Outlet, Route 68, chaplain, Union Gospel Mission, member of Grace Church. City of Pasco's residents also ask for Mayor Pro Tem David Millen to resign his seat immediately. He is the owner of Millen Nail and Power and Tool Repair. Point one for resignation for both Grim and Millen. for being incompetent. Both of you acted on rumors to censor Mr. Perales. Point two, you both did not provide evidence what Mr. Perales did before you decided to censor Mr. Perales. Zero. I can guarantee you there's not gonna be anything. A lot of rumors are thrown out there all the time, and you two decided to act on it. That's terrible. Point three, both Mary and Lyne have set up the city of Pasco for a lawsuit. You have ruined Mr. Perales' name in this community, which he may never recover. I have known Mr. Perales for over 10 years. I have never seen him disrespect anybody, anybody, poor, rich, whatever, nobody. And Raza, I don't know why you jumped on this. Some rats over here too. And he has never been dishonest. If you ever listen to Mr. Perales, he has a gentle voice. I've never seen him raise his voice. The following made me sick. With heavy heart, Leo's a friend of mine. I think Leo needs to recuperate for the night. He got in the back. several knives. This is what Mr. Prowlis is. In 51 seconds 50, Mr. Prowlis family love attended community events, supports their children involvement in their education and youth sports game and spends time with his family. Mr. Prowlis hope to see Pasco maintain a safe neighboring and robust economic where he can thrive. Thus I have always listened. He's always told me this. And I want to hear from Ross at some point, why did you go along with it with no evidence? Mr. Carter, you second it, man. Why did you second it? There was no evidence. You can smirk if you want. You know there's none. It's going to come out. Yeah. You're right. You shouldn't have. So for the two, mayor and pro tem, go to church and confess.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Sandoval.

Good evening. Marcy Torres and I'm also a business owner and I do want to say thank you Mr. Grimm for being an outstanding leader in this community. We appreciate you. We appreciate that you listen to your community and that you take everything seriously and that you do investigate. Unfortunately today, I feel the need to come and address something. And I want to talk to you guys about men in leadership. A man in leadership is not someone who simply has a title, position, or authority. A leader is someone who earns trust through his actions, leads by example, takes responsibility, keeps his word, treats people with respect, listens to others, makes decisions based on what is right, serves the people he leads, remains calm under pressure, accepts accountability, helps others grow and succeed. A man in leadership is someone who puts service above self-interest, takes responsibility for his actions, and earns respect through integrity, honesty, and the example he sets for others. Why am I talking about men in leadership? Because you have Mr. Leo Perales there. He's not any of those things. I'm not the only woman that he has gone on social media and tried to intimidate and continue to drag me. I've blocked him since years ago from my own page. And he goes on the LBA page, Lavo's page, and I blocked all of them. And he continues to comment under those pages. And I find that extremely disgusting that someone that's in a leadership position would behave in that way. You've seen me at events. You've seen me at a lot of meetings. If you have something against me, why won't you come up to me? I don't understand. I'm an open book. Another thing I want you guys to take into consideration Apparently, I've been receiving a lot of complaints from a lot of businesses that Cortinas and Leo Perales during COVID were helping people to file for those grants that were going around and charging people outrageous amounts of money to do so, allegedly. so I think that is something that needs to be investigated and looked into all these people that are coming and talking and giving great things about Mr. Perales are being groomed to do so nobody told me to come and say what I'm saying right now I have the proof on my phone I've blocked those pages and how do I know that it's him I don't even know who Cortinas is He has no reason to be going onto my pages and commenting or leaving anything for me. But this man has gone through, has been online, spreading lies, declarations about my son. That's your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else in the chamber for public comment? Thank you. Name and city or county of residence for the record, please.

Hello, I am Cata Spinda and I'm a member of this community. My children went to Pasco schools and my grandchild goes to Pasco schools today. I have been in this area doing property management for 26 years. In 2021, I retired early to get into the fight for our children because at that time, They were masking our children, our faculty, forcing people to get vaccinated. And I took 26 months to unravel myself from every single corporation so that I could use my voice to speak and have no one attack me on that. In the last five years since I've been here and looking at everything going on, I became a mortgage fraud whistleblower and also a child advocate. I have been reporting on the family courts here, and just the court system in general, Benton and Franklin share judges and commissioners, and what I've witnessed is crimes against moms, dads, and children. False allegations are being put onto declarations with certain attorneys here in town, and then they are in cahoots with certain judges, so when they go before these judges, they always win. There might be $100,000 to $150,000 involved because in the back rooms, these judges, they're splitting this up. All over the country in every county of our country, there is fraud going on, corruption. going on inside our courtrooms and our judges are going against people who are pro se, if you're pro se, they don't look at you. They don't look at evidence. They will go strictly with whoever has an attorney or if somebody is here in the system and you're going up against somebody in the system, You're lucky if you get out alive with this. So I am speaking up for the children. They don't have a voice. There's a lot of children that are being put with pedophiles. They're being put with abusive situations. And our children, we need as many voices as we can. and there's not enough voices for these children. They're being put into harmful situations and case after case I've witnessed this and we're going to start a full campaign this year against this corruption that's going on in the court system. So just wanted to make you aware of that. I have a show called The Two-Tiered Takedown every Sunday night, 6 p.m. and live. I am exposing the corruption in the comments section with both commissioner meetings in Franklin County and Benton County. Franklin County has been very helpful Benton County. I call them the do-nothing squad. They put on the record They're gonna do nothing and they are gonna do nothing. They put it on the record and they've said it themselves So, you know, I just want to let you guys know where we're at.

Thank you for your time. Okay. Thank you very much Thank You miss Espinoza anybody else in the chamber for public comment? Thank you. Yeah, right up there. Just name and city or county of residence for the record, please.

Dallas Barnes, Pasco, Washington. First, congratulations to the people who are celebrating the revolution. As you know, this week we are also celebrating the Juneteenth, which is a revolution for people who look like me and my granddaughter here. But anyway, I came to speak. about the access of the public to Kurtzman Park's buildings. I realize that the City Council has allowed certain non-profits to lease buildings at very, what I call, sweetheart amounts of money, like a dollar a year, two dollars a year, twenty dollars a year, what have you. But the public doesn't have access to those buildings once they are leased. For an example, at the Kurtzman Park, Coming up this Saturday, and I'm speaking from experience a couple of weeks ago, we had a large group of people come from the universities around the country, and we did not have access to restrooms for the seniors, for the disabled, and all of that, and you know the weather was inclement. The wind was blowing and all of that. Now we're coming up again, and what I understand is that both buildings that would allow senior citizens to get out of that bad weather are occupied by one of the VCs of the Martin Luther King Monument. And I think that that's unfortunate. It doesn't allow for what that monument, I'm talking about the Martin Luther King Center, is all about. There's many papers, news clippings, articles that tell the city that this is a special piece of I would go into some other definitions of it, but I think you get the point. It's important to the residents of the city, it's important to people of color, and we would like to have access to it. But when the city goes around and gives certain nonprofits 20-year leases on city buildings and rent out the Martin Luther King Center as if it's some apartment rental, for 10 years, 5, 20. I think that's wrong. And then ask people like myself and other users of that center to pay $20 an hour, $10 an hour, and all of that for the same space that we fought to get the city to build for the community and for the public. And so what I'm asking for the city council to do is to investigate that and make sure that it no more, and this is an embarrassment to say we want restroom, we want the building that was designed for multi-purpose users and we would like for it to continue to be a multi-purpose building for all of us and not for your long-term leases who are sweethearts of the city. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Barnes. It's a pleasure to have you here this evening. You're a prolific writer to the Tri-City Herald, and I read a lot of your editorials, and it's great to have you here in person. And I look forward to seeing you this Saturday out at Kirchman Park for the celebration of the revolution. So we'll see you Saturday, sir.

Thank you very much.

Yep. Anybody else in the chamber for public comment?

Hi there, city council and staff. My name is Pedro Perez. I live here in Pasco, Washington. I also have a business. I'm a business owner on a building here in downtown Pasco. And we had a festival this weekend. It was a Latino Pride Festival. We had some vendors out there. We had like about 500 folks that showed up. It was a beautiful event. We had like Aztec dancing to come out and start the set and start the whole event. We had some Mexican folklore dancers. We brought in actually a folklore dancer from Bellas Artes in Mexico City that came out and they danced as well, which is like a huge art. museum in Mexico. It was a really good event. The city council member for our district had emailed or texted me today to let me know that there was some of our vendors ended up throwing trash into a trash bin and it was kind of over like it was like these business owners were upset that that was happening. And when I looked at the photo of what it was, it was actually my trash bin. So there was a complaint that had happened saying that it was a business owner that was complaining that my vendors threw trash into their trash bin. It was mine, so I never complained. I wouldn't complain about that. And it's more of a private, right? It's between the basin trash company myself, right? I think that's part, I'll work with them, but I think what worries me here is that I've been here for the past two years as a business owner, and as I talk to a lot of different businesses in downtown, getting to know them, different business owners as well, one of the patterns I've been seeing a lot for the last two years with my counterparts is that they have been, worrying and complaining and just kind of stating that there's always somebody in the city whether it's a leader or someone that's kind of always doing these complaints against them. And then they get worried because they know that that person or these people have people in the city council that are powerful. And so they tell me this in Spanish and they're just like, yeah, for years, we're always worried about someone coming out and complaining. And I'm doing air quotes here, right? Because the same thing that happened right now, they're complaining. The business owner complained that my trash bin was full. It's mine. I didn't complain. And so I started seeing a pattern in this that a lot of the business owners in downtown have this feeling of like someone's watching them. And if they don't comply, they're going to get someone from the city council has power that has been doing this for years. We'll go ahead and like start to go against them. And I just want to make sure that now that I saw that pattern and I was hearing it, I didn't think it was going to really happen until it happened to me today and this weekend. And I just want to make sure that y'all kind of are aware of what's happening. And so I'm going to still deal with the basin trash bin, but also kind of work with the city council member, Calixa for my district and so don't let you know. Thank you so much.

Thank you comments. Thank you Anybody else in the chamber for public comment?

Hello there everyone, there's no Pasco Washington You know, I uh I Wrote a whole thing out tonight Many of you already know some of my complaint part of my story And things have gotten out of hand. But after talking with Interim Chief Cook over here, he's reassured me that there's going to be some progress on things going forward. And I really do appreciate that. I hope that you take the time to go ahead and read what I've already submitted to you all. I can tell you that I've interviewed and spoke with the police chiefs that are the five people that are up for the position of police chief. And I believe it's the city manager's decision as to which one to pick. I have an unusual situation that involves law, understanding of it, whether or not police know how to react in certain situations. I can tell you so far there's only been one that knew what the RCW-backed position is, on how things are supposed to react. And I want to thank Brent Gluck for being that one. I hope that bears some influence and I hope there's some changes going forward on the understanding of police on how things are supposed to operate. It's been three years since my house got broken into and the culprits, they bragged about it, they admitted to it in court documents and nothing's been done. It's been six months since they Solicited somebody to come here and murder me lynching right out in front of this building by the trees It's been three months since last time they broke into my house to steal things This kind of stuff it's ruining our neighborhoods I've watched our neighborhoods decline over the last 17 years and When this kind of stuff happens, it doesn't make it any better and it doesn't instill trust from the people in anything that you all do. I really hope that we can do better. I want to appreciate you and say thank you for hearing me out. I'll be back as things go forward. Thank you, Chief Cook.

Thank you Mr. Snow. I did receive your letter as I believe the rest of the council in the moments kind of right before the meeting and the Mayor Pro Tem and I were in another retirement meeting at the time and I will read your email in detail later but did not have a chance to do so before the meeting. Anybody else in the chamber for public comment?

Mayor Grimm and Council Member Dave Cortinas. I'm just a little tired, got back from Seattle, heading back again this weekend. I just came tonight to just to clarify a couple of things. I know people say that I wear a lot of hats, and I do, different hats I wear. You never know what hat I'm wearing when I come to this mic. but I never insert myself in stories whenever I come to the mic. So tonight I'm not reporting. I'm here as a concerned citizen. Sometimes I come as a LBA person. Sometimes I come as a church member. But if I'm here speaking to you, I'm here probably as a concerned citizen or a business owner and concerned about things that happen downtown or wherever. But I will never insert myself, it's unethical for me to insert myself into stories and put my name, Dave Cortina said this or that. So that never happens. I do want to mention, it's no secret that Leo Perales is my friend. We're very close friends. And I do respect him. I would never put him in a position to ask him to give me information that goes on in that back room. Never, I wouldn't do that, and he would never give me information. If anything, I give him information from the things that I get in the public. And he knows lots of things, hasn't even made it to the executive sessions, and he keeps those things to himself. very professional. He is a very good guy and I appreciate him. I was very upset of what happened and what happened to him. There's no reason for it. There should have never been a censure, never. I don't appreciate it. I think there's a lot of people in this community that don't appreciate it and want it to be lifted as quick as possible. Even if tonight if someone would make a motion that he is no longer being censured and second it and quickly vote on this and get this thing under the carpet. It needs to end. It was a political hit. It was something that should have never happened. There was no evidence, as was said earlier today. There was no attorney that looked at this. It just happened to come out, say, pattern of this and pattern of that. There was never any pattern. Never did Leo do anything wrong. And I would appreciate that this council will end this tonight, that you would look at that it was a mistake. Because later on, it can end. and a big mistake.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cortinas. Anybody else in the chamber for public comment? Going once, going twice, not seeing anybody come forward. We are going to go on here to number seven, reports from committees and or officers. What have you guys been up to? Mr. Cotta.

Yeah, I was able to make it to the Hapo Center to see the police chief interviews. Everybody did really well, and so it's just encouraging to see the slate of candidates. It was really encouraging to see how many people were there. So many people from the community. There was a comment made by the person doing the interviewing. The consultant saying, you know, wow, it's great to have this big of a turnout from the city. And so thanks to everybody who attended, and I'm sure that We'll have a great police chief on our hands here sooner than later. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Perales.

Oh, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, just working on issues. Almost felt like we needed a recess before we started going on. But, no, just working on the HOA maintenance issue kind of over in your district, Mr. Mayor. Also hearing some concerns around traffic. Over in Madison Park in District 3, still meeting with residents over on Santa Fe and Santa Cruz Lane. I had lots of people reach out about the marijuana retail licensing pros and cons, so most definitely looking forward to that agenda item coming back. Started to hear a lot more about the Sunwheel's water pressure concerns, met with a couple residents, them sending me emails and stuff, so definitely I'm glad staff is working on that and gathering information. And then also met with two residents in regards to the Heritage Park over there in the Riverview area. I did a little walkthrough this past weekend. They're interested in some additional amenities, so once I get some more information, I might come back to the council for some support. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. This last Thursday, I got to go to the Polish Homes Base Camp for the Solace Grand Opening. I was there with my wife and got to read again the letter that you wrote, so I appreciate that. And it was, again, a great... housing development. I wish there was a lot more like it. Again, they had a clubhouse, great pool, and a lot of leaders actually jumped in the pool. They wanted me to do it, but I decided not to. But it was pretty hot. And again, great tacos, great food, great time. And again, if you're ever there off Burns Road, I want to take a look at it. It's a Really nice little community with great homes. And again, it was a good time. So I miss seeing everybody there. But I'm sure you guys will meet the next one. So thank you.

Thank you for, yes, representing me and the rest of council there. Council Member Figueroa. Just to reiterate some of the events that many of us were present.

It was a phenomenal community meet and greet for the police chief candidates. Phenomenal, outstanding event that happened. A lot of good turnout. I think even the mediator was able to kind of express that sentiment that there was a large of the community involvement, which kind of goes on to say that we do care about law enforcement here in this community, and we are eager to see who the next leader will be and all qualified candidates. Also, I want to give a shout out to the mayor for the Aquatic Center ribbon cutting ceremony, his speech, and how he was addressed for the occasion. And I think those are the things that our residents need to see a little bit more of, that yes, we carry the elected office weight, but we also like to have fun and be a part of the community. as the speeches where it's gonna be a place where a lot of our kids and our youth are gonna have a lot of memories to come and that's something that I will always support. Additionally, I was able with some other council members here to hear a kind of a meeting with different owners in the community about the state of our state budget and kind of getting a breakdown of some of the situations that's gonna happen at the legislative session And some of the things to be looking forward to. I think budget is the word for a lot of us at the state level and even at the municipal level. And last but not least, I do want to give a shout out to the Parks and Rec Department. They had a phenomenal setup today for the first official fan zone FIFA World Cup watch party. And it was a good turnout. I know that they're hiring some of the kings for What's going to be another phenomenal watch party on Friday where the U.S. will be taking on Australia. And so I invite some of you to stop by at noon at the Giza Stadium. In my other capacity, I was able to kind of host some skill drills games for kids right alongside the soccer field. It's always an exciting time. You all know I'm a big soccer guy, so it's an exciting time as well because it's a lot of soccer. the summer, and so I'm enjoying every bit of it. But I do want to give that shout out, Ron, Brent, all of them, they were just there doing phenomenal work, and everything was good, so thank you.

Thank you, appreciate that, Council Member Hernandez. And a shout out, yes, I didn't recognize you at the . Yeah, it was great. I attended both Pride celebrations in Pasco, the one put up by Asuka nightclub in downtown area. which is the Latino Pride. I spoke both of them. I helped the one downtown open up the festivities and it was a great turnout. It was lots of people, lots of food, lots of culture. So it was great. And then I also attended the Tri-Cities one at Memorial Park and both of them were held in my district. Downtown is my district and so is Memorial Park. And so both events were well attended. and it's great that it showcased the vibrant diversity of the American community. Strong, it was encouraging to see individuals and families from many different backgrounds come together to celebrate inclusion, culture, and community. These events highlight the importance of creating spaces where everyone feels welcome, valued, and respected, and I was grateful to have been invited to both of them and join their celebrations. Thank you, Council Member Hernandez.

Council Member Campos. Yeah, on Wednesday I had the privilege and opportunity to be here for the interviews and it just wasn't me it was tons a lot of people from within our city and then also from law enforcement from other agencies and it was just great to hear you know all the candidates I think they are all well qualified for that and I really trust that there's going to be given a lot of feedback to our city manager to make the right decision and then at the end The night we had the meet and greet, it was a great turnout, tons of people, standing room. It was really, really good to see. With that, on Friday, I also was there at the meeting with the local business owners, with the state treasurer, giving us just kind of a perspective on everything that's going on with the state budget and what we can do here locally and so forth. And then we ended the day with that ribbon cutting ceremony. That was awesome to see so many people. The smiles, I think the biggest highlight for me was all the kids just enjoying it. And so great job for it. I think the community is really excited for it.

Thank you everyone. Yes. And I attended the Ben Franklin transit, our monthly board meeting, and then yes, attended the aquatic water park, um, ribbon cutting. We're still not quite open yet. We'll open up on the 27th, but I really appreciate everybody's attendance and council member Campos. I appreciate you calling out all of the other stakeholders, community members. I mean, chief Guero and so many others from our surrounding communities, Helping us try to get that right. I think that's really important to mention one of the things I Need to do a better job of mentioning was out at the ribbon-cutting just how many different elected officials from the Eric Isinger was over there from Benton County I got to meet his wife for the first time and then some of our state representatives representative clicker and Representative Barnard were there and also senator Tories and that's something I need to get better at recognizing at those events So anyway, it sounds like a busy week for all of us. I appreciate everybody's involvement in the events of our community. Moving on, number eight, hearings and council action on ordinances and resolutions relating thereto. None seen. Number nine, ordinances and resolutions not relating to hearings. And we're gonna start with letter A, ordinance number 4846, budget amendment for traffic calming program. And Director Serra, we're gonna start with you. Good evening, ma'am.

Good evening, mayor and council members. This item is a continuation of direction council provided in April related to traffic timing implementation. And we had as staff receive direction from council on what fund should fund this activity. So this is just a formal step to have the allocation of funds from the general fund into the streets funds to be able to pay for the improvements that are already taking place within the Court Street corridor. And that is $82,000 as originally estimated coming from general fund into streets fund. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Any questions, comments for Director Serra regarding this ordinance? I just want to say that I did receive a couple phone calls, one from a concerned resident on an adjacent street worrying that that may end up putting traffic that they weren't expecting down their block. And I think that's something we had discussed and was part of it. I also received another comment from a resident down there on Court Street who was just overjoyed by just people actually driving the speed limit down there and I think that is a real game changer potentially for us and to Councilmember Perales' credit you know is something that maybe we need to you know look at in other areas of the city that may need it if we find continued success out there. So with that, Council Member Perlis, actually.

You kind of just jarred my memory. I think it's good to note, like Mayor Grimm was saying, some of this traffic is going to get moved to other places, and so I don't want to forget about Bellflower. I still get complaints about that street, and if that's going to push traffic there, we need to look at other areas that are going to be impacted. So I just want to make a note of that.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I move to adopt ordinance number 4846, amending the 2025-2026 biennial operating budget by providing a supplement thereto to provide additional appropriations in the city's street funding, providing for servability and establish an effective date. Second.

Motion on the floor by Mayor Pro Tem Milne, seconded by Council Member Perales. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. Hearing none, the motion passes. Letter B, resolution number 4757, authorizing an amended offer for the acquisition of the Pasco Sporting Complex and declaring the city's commitment to preserving the facility as a sports and recreational sports venue. Ms. Sigdell is online or gone this evening. She's on vacation.

So I will handle this one this evening. Yes. So we've had conversations with the county about potentially needing to move forward with offering for purchase of the softball fields there. It's been a longstanding relationship between the county and the city, providing those amenities to our community. It's had a lot of success with regards to sports tourism within our community, supports many hotels and restaurants and other things within the area, as well as just providing a safe environment for kids to compete in tournaments and those kinds of things. including tournaments that come back year after year, and we want to keep those coming to our community. So this is a formalized offer. If the council approves this, this sets some parameters and gives me authority to move forward with offering this to the county. We did have a previous offer that we received feedback was too low given other interests, and so I'm asking for Council's approval and support to move forward of trying to secure this facility for the benefit of the public going forward. Thank you.

Questions, comments from council? From Mr. Stewart or just about this in particular? Council Member Perales.

Yeah, no, I totally support this resolution. When we updated the agenda and I saw the Herald did a story on it, phone calls after phone calls asking is there something going on with the sawbill fields? Well, we want to own them. That's our position. Hopefully we can take that tonight. So a lot of people are concerned now. So I think this is the first step in showing the community that we value recreation for our kids. And I know a lot of individuals We're saying, well, I thought the city is broke, that we need to make budget cuts. How are they gonna go and afford this? But I think if anything, I would like to see information out there about the economic development that comes from the softball fields, just to prove to the residents that this is honestly a sound decision, especially when it comes when it comes to that area and how it complements the soccer fields and the hub and the KESA stadium. So I'm totally in support of this and like I said, those are my notes about just selling it to the public.

Thank you.

Mr. Stewart, did you have something to add? Yeah, Council Member Perales brings up a good point with regards to funding and I just want to note publicly that if council approves moving forward and if it's approved by the county commissioners to sell this property to the city, the plan would be is to use our economic development funds to make this purchase. This is what these funds are for. They can't be used to pay for city staff and those kinds of things. So it would be coming out of a fund that would have minimal impact in that regard. I do echo the concerns with regards to budget. I've been on the record expressing those since I've been here and we have a tough budget ahead of us. Those are real concerns. But we do have money set aside for economic development specifically, that that's all it can be used for. And this would be a great economic investment within our community.

Thank you. Council Member Campos. No, yeah, I appreciate that. I think the reality is, yes, as residents are asking, you know, I thought that our city is a little bit strapped right now. I shouldn't say a little bit, a lot strapped. And then we're going out or making this, and so I do appreciate that comment that this is coming from that specific fund. I think for the residents knowing that, I think that really helps with that because we do hear from residents saying, you know, that we probably shouldn't if we don't have the money for it. But I think just like what Councilman Brown says, just give me that information about what that brings to us as a city when we do have that and so forth. And just some other kind of clarity was another thing that I received from residents or the questions of is why can't we just continue the partnership that we have right now? We've done it for 30 years, can we do it for a little bit more? I think the assumption is probably not. I think it's just out of time to where we need to purchase that, but I just think that residents need that information of why we can't maybe just not continue that partnership and we're looking into purchasing instead.

Mr. Stewart. Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Just to answer a little bit there, and I don't want to speak on behalf of the county, But the lease expired the end of last year. City staff did submit a request for an extension or renewal of that lease to which we have not received a response. Communications with the county seem to be geared towards potentially selling the facility. So if we're not enabled to lease it, then the next best option is to purchase and that's why we continue to have these conversations.

I appreciate that, so that residents to know that we're looking at all different avenues of how we can make this happen. So as long as they know that, we tried other ways, and it's just at this point to where we need to purchase it, so thank you.

Council Member Figueroa.

Yeah, so I think for me to go on the record is one of my biggest ideas is to hopefully help ensure that the city of Pasco becomes a sports hub, right, and ultimately leading to economic development. And as I said on some of those visits, Tri-Cities, boardings as well, how much tourism and attraction a lot of these events bring, like the Ironman 7.3 race and everything else. And so for me, I think I've been adamant about one of those conversations I'm a big sports person, individual. But I was reading and there were some concerns about the optics of it all, right? And I think a lot of us have already expressed those concerns where there's budget falls, increases that we've done, right, and so how come we're prioritizing this right now at this moment. And to kind of just, we can offer some responses to the residents. What would be some of those short-term impacts that our city of Pasco residents would have if we lose the softball complex? And then what would be some of those long-term impacts that you envision or see?

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Figueroa, there will be significant short-term and long-term impacts. As I described earlier, we have many tournaments that come in that are booked a year in advance, and without the city having legal access to the facility, it makes it difficult for us to continue to do that. There are many businesses, hotels, restaurants, retail shops in that area that depend on the traffic that that facility generates. So to shut all that off and lose it, even if we were to build a new facility, which I'll talk about here in a second, you break that pattern. They relocate their tournaments to other places. You have to compete to bring it back again versus it's always easier to maintain than it is to lose it and try to win it back. And so those are some of the short-term aspects. Long-term impacts are we could build a new facility, but we estimate that to be anywhere from 27 to $30 million and to build a new facility of comparable size within our community, and that doesn't include land acquisition costs. That's just straight infrastructure construction. So that would be the long-term impact. If you want to continue to have these types of facilities within our community, we could invest in relocating that in another place, but it comes with a much more significant cost than what we're trying to offer to the county at this point.

And then lastly, I know that the city has invested significant public resources into maintaining these facilities. If we lose access to them, do we get some sort of reimbursement for the investments that we've put in there?

That's a legal question, but off the cuff, I don't know that with the lease having expired, I don't know that the city has any legal ability to do that.

all right mr mayor pro tem not seeing any more comments all right um yeah all four if we could uh have the softball complex uh again all also for sports being a former coach so uh yeah love to see go through but we'll see what happens um so i move to approve resolution number 4757 authorizing the city manager to submit an amended offer for the acquisition of the Pasco Sporting Complex and reaffirming the city's commitment to preserving the facility as a softball and recreation sports venue.

Second. Motion on the floor by Mayor Pro Tem Milne, seconded by Council Member Perales to approve Resolution No. 4757. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion carries. Moving on, number 10, unfinished business, not seeing any. Number 11, new business, not seeing any. Moving on, number 12, miscellaneous discussion, and we will start with our city manager, Mr. Stewart.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of council, just a few updates.

First and foremost, I do want to express my appreciation to all that have participated in the police chief interview process. A lot of that was already stated by the council here this evening. Whether it was community leaders, fellow law enforcement, council members, business owners, they were all invited to participate in panels. City staff as well participating in those interviews. And I'm especially appreciative of the turnout of the public. I think it was a good showing of the passion that our community has for our law enforcement services and men and women that serve our community. And that was great to see. I am still weighing through all the input and working towards a final decision. I've not made that decision yet, but I'm working towards that and hope to have information out soon with regards to that in the coming days. So a few updates. Speaking of police department, we have our academy graduation tomorrow. I would invite you to attend that. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. And there's also a swearing-in ceremony at 1 p.m. at the police station if you are able to make one or both of those. Also tomorrow night, our Citizens Academy that's been going on for the last 10 weeks, they've completed and they're doing their graduation tomorrow night. So a special thank you to the citizens who spent the time to come and understand how and why our officers do what they do every day to keep our citizens safe as well as themselves. We had a great turnout at the Aquatic Center ribbon-cutting, as was mentioned earlier. It included tours and sales and reservations for the upcoming year and all those other kinds of things. We especially appreciate our vendors who are there and present who will be securing contracts to continue to provide vending at the Aquatic Center going forward in the future. The first weekend, sales yielded 88 passes being sold and over $31,000 in revenue with passes just in the first weekend. So we're off to a good start. This week, lobby hours are from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. So if you'd still like to go out and go in person to secure passes for once it's open, you can do that Monday through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. Our next fan zone will be June 19th, so we ask you to come join us at the sporting complex starting at 10 a.m. It'll be USA versus Australia match, which starts at 12 p.m. Also a reminder that our farmer's market continues every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. now through October, so please come join and support our local farmer's market there. And then right around the corner is the grand old Fourth of July. So included in that and kind of as a prep on Saturday, June 27th, there's a family bike ride. Pre-registration is required. But you can access that information through our website, through our Parks Department. And then we encourage everyone to visit pascogo4.com for full details on all the activities lined up with the Fourth of July coming up. So that's my report this evening. Unless Council has any questions for me.

Awesome. Thank you. Any questions, comments for Mr. Stewart? All right. You're off the hook. Not seeing any.

Oh, go ahead. Were you going to say something, Harold, about the cost of building a sports complex for the softball fields?

I think I mentioned earlier that we assumed it would be a $27 to $30 million price tag to build a new facility.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Um, mayor pro tem mill.

Yeah, I know. Uh, last week we had, uh, talked about whether we wanted to have a vote motion as far as for the sales tax. And I was a council. We did vote to approve the road tax, the 0.01 and, uh, want to let know if maybe the council would decide if we want to put it out for a vote for the public. And, uh, Again, I don't know if Mr. Perales looks like he has something to say, but if he wants to do the motion, I'm fine with that as well. So I guess I'll turn it over to him.

Yeah, I think I sought out the MRSC because I was a little fuzzy on that. So I was going to get to my couple of miscellaneous items, and one of them was I wanted to move to direct the city attorney to prepare an ordinance repealing ordinance number 4843 and place the proposed repeal ordinance on a future city council agenda for consideration. That would be the first step based on my... unless the legal wants to step in.

Mr. Kinney, what would be the way of going about doing that? If there were to be some motion to repeal that vote from two weeks ago and to put it to the vote of the public is what's being discussed.

Well, I believe what's being described as a motion for reconsideration, because that was just voted on and approved, I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that was 5-2, and someone in the prevailing side of that motion would need to move to reconsider. It would be then voted on and if that was passed if the reconsideration was passed it would be put back on the table and could be Decided it could be amended. It could be changed. Anything could happen but a but direction to Do the exact opposite of what council just directed to do would not be an order so we I can't make a motion to repeal and

So I would like to make another ordinance to repeal the ordinance that just passed. So not reconsider, but it would just be repealing.

Well, I mean, the way that I would view that is just getting around the rules and restrictions on a reconsideration.

Because I looked in our rules and it seemed like that was the appropriate method and it almost seemed like the same thing from MRC when they provided a little guidance. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do would be repeal an ordinance that passed. And so if the ordinance passed like it did 5.2, asking for a, put it on for another, create an ordinance to repeal that ordinance. So we're not allowed to repeal anything? It's only considered?

No, no, I mean, of course, ordinances can be repealed. That's for sure. But your rules have reconsideration. And because, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're one of the no votes. Your rules limit your ability to undo action from a prior meeting being one of the no votes under, I think it's Rule 5P, as in Paul. And so, by just simply saying you're going to repeal it, you're getting around the rule that says that you can't reconsider it. And so, I mean, council can discuss how they want to handle it for sure, and something can be repealed in the future, but in its posture right now, it just passed to undo what was just done. Reconsideration is what is included under 5P.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, and that's what Mr. Drew had kind of mentioned last week. That would be, I guess, the process if we were to undertake something like that.

guess mr. mayor Pro Tem that would be you wait so I would put forth motion to reconsider the vote which we did for the sales tax so it's just up for discussion and see if there's enough votes for the council to decide if that's what we want to do is we want to reconsider it

Does that sound good? Yes. And I'm going to go with the motion. Do you want to discuss this or a different topic?

I'm just waiting for discussion, yeah.

Okay, yeah. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem has made a motion to open this up for reconsideration. And it would take a second. I guess, Mr. Kenney, that is a good question. Could it be a second for anybody or is it a second from the prevailing five? I guess I would want clarification on that.

I'm just looking at the rule here. I'm pretty sure it's just the motion needs to be made by somebody on the prevailing side. I do not see anything here on the second.

Okay, thank you for the clarification. I'll second. Seconded by Council Member Perales. Discussion? Mr. Cotter.

Yeah, I mean we've been talking about this road maintenance issue for a while. You know, we all voted unanimously to create a tax transportation district. We voted unanimously to make us the board of that district. It was all with the intention of avoiding passing a car tabs increase. to use the sales tax to be able to fund the maintenance of our roads. And here we are, and we've passed it. And so I'm all in favor of not increasing our taxes. I don't think this is a pro-tax or anti-tax issue. It's really about how are we going to fund the maintenance for our roads. So if there are other alternatives, I'd love to hear them. all the justifications for why we made unanimous votes before this point are all still valid. You know, we haven't increased the road maintenance force since 2010 when the roads have increased 43%. We have issues where if we don't maintain our roads, they're going to continue to degrade and then we're going to be repaving roads at four to five times the expense. And then we're going to be stuck with a really big bill down the road. And we've had these issues routinely come up where we think What was the council doing, you know, two years, five years, ten years ago, you know, that made us get into the situation that we're in today? And if we take something as unpopular as a tax and we take it to the public and they vote it down, they're going to be in a really hard, having a hard time later on trying to make up lost ground for something that we could have avoided right here, that we already did avoid, really. And so, again, to me it's not like a do we tax or do we not tax issue, it's how are we going to fund the maintenance of our roads? We're trying to get new businesses to come to Pasco. When we show them, hey, we've only got a million dollars to fund our roads and it takes eight million. We didn't do anything. That doesn't help businesses come into the community. And when those businesses come in, they do alleviate tax pressure on the public. And so it's all part of what we have to do to fund our city government and the maintenance of our roads. Thank you for those comments.

Council Member Figueroa. Just to add on that, and correct me if I'm wrong too on the city staff, but it does take a couple of months before this goes into effect, correct? And I think that we were looking perhaps at the beginning of the year is when it was going to go into full effect, correct?

Yeah, it's six months. So it would be January 1 of 2027 before you can make it effective.

Yeah, so again, going back to the comments that my colleague, Councilman Cotta, has said, we've kind of laid down the foundation and groundwork for this to work. And to me, as we heard the conversations and we were going back and forth and we heard the public, the residents, and even Councilmember Campos even mentioned it. He even brought it up to one of his discussions in the class, in the eighth grade civics class, right? And that conversation happened. A lot of times people do push back. I push back on increase. But once you break it down, what does that look like and put it in perspective? I think that it's really important for the people to know And I have some notes here that I made, right? So what does the sales tags really look like? And to put it in perspective, a $10 purchase costs an additional penny. A $100 purchase costs an additional 10 cents. A $500 purchase costs an additional 50 cents. A $1,000 purchase costs an additional dollar. $20,000 vehicle purchase if that's what you want to do would cost you an additional $20 and that'll be specific for this transportation benefit district for the improvement of our roads over infrastructure. And as we saw, we have the same staff that we've had for a long time, and we're asking that staff to do more with less, because costs have gone up with this to make sure that we keep the roads that we have in really good shape. And as we've been looking at the data, at the numbers, it's only a matter of time before the Road 68 kind of area all begins to degrade, because it was all built during the same time. So we're trying to be proactive when it comes to this decision. And again, to me, my logic is what is within our reason. What were we elected to do? The 0.1% is within our reason, within what we were allowed to do because it was put here for whatever reason. I do, if it's anything higher than that, absolutely. Let's go give it to the public. to the resident but also what is the presidents of making this decision are we going to go back then and talk about the water fluoride issue because some of us don't like that decision and bring it back to the board and that's going to be cost effective uh bring some more costs into it every single decision when it comes to voting and what we have to do is going to bring a cost no matter what and i want to make sure that we're doing the best in our due diligence with the taxpayers dollars and again This is all in perspective, right? And we want to make sure that we give the right information to our residents, to our folks, because to me, I am okay with saying yes to this, right? I gave you the perspective of what that looks like. Anything higher than that, please, let's give it to the people for them to vote on it. But I would definitely vote this reconsideration. To me, it would be a no. We've already made a decision and we want to make sure that we're looking forward to the next item is the bigger decisions that we have as a council. And it's not going to be a popular decision. A lot of the times where none of us are a golden coin that everybody's going to love and like, and they're going to give us praises in the comments or when they see us, but it's a decision that we have to make in a good conscience for a better future, because we've all kind of looked back and said, what did the previous council, what were they thinking? Where were they right? They've never, they were, they didn't do any action. And so I want to make sure that we're being effective or we're doing good work. And I believe that this is good work that we can do moving forward.

Thank you. Council Member Hernandez. I'm in agreement with both Council Member Carter and Figueroa. We made this decision. It is tough. It is difficult. But we made it. We need to use, like Council Member Figueroa said, move on. We can't just be, we don't like something that passes. I can also say, you know, the fluoride issue occurred. You know, we can also add it to it, but we made a tough decision. We need to live with it and move on to the next tough decision. And we need the road, so... No, I'm not in favor of this at all.

Thank you. Council Member Perales.

Yeah, I'll be quick. I think I put my stances out there and be honest if individuals on this dais want to bring back the fluoride issue and bring it for a community vote, fine, let's do it. I'm not afraid of that. I just think after talking with my constituents and individuals, doing my polls and analysis, I think the best way to go about this would be for it to be a vote. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we need to do it. Like I said last time, the power does not go away at the end of the year. We can implement this whenever we want. I just feel like with all the increases we've seen that we've had to do to catch up, I feel like it's a lot right now. And so that's where I'm coming from. Those are the comments I'm getting. I did see some comments saying yes, it's one cent, 10 cents for here and things like that, but the majority of people are hurting. The cost of getting groceries, or either it's buying stuff for your kids. Before you know it, they're gonna be having to fork out money to go back to school. Things are expensive. Inflation is high, and so again, I'm for maintaining our roads, but at what cost? individuals are just they're looking at us and like really you know and so um that's where i'm coming from with this and if it passes or not i i just wanted to do my due diligence with for for my district and constituents not really just in my district across the whole city who have made their comments known and say that if there's any sales tax increase it should be the people people should vote for that regardless if they elected us or not um so i'm just being honest where i stand on it and so if this fails it fails but at least I can move on and be like, look, I brought it up, it failed. If it fails, then that's, send emails and make phone calls to the representatives who voted in favor. But I respect everyone's position here tonight. You guys all make very valid points. I just believe it's just the wrong time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Not seeing any more comments, I guess I will weigh in as one of the nay votes from last week. Me and Council Member Perales two weeks ago were one of the nays. And I'll be honest with you, this is a really hard one for me because on one hand, I am completely opposed to it. That's why I voted in the negative with Mr. Perales and was very vocal about it going to the public, but at the same time, I am deeply concerned for our legitimacy, our decorum and just our consistency and I think about that even in my own life and I know when the marijuana vote came out a few years ago, two councils ago and a few weeks later they unraveled the vote, I was a vocal critic of that and it's a real struggle for me for the sake of consistency. Some others have mentioned even fluoride which to me is a little different because that was a past council vote where the marijuana vote was literally kind of the same thing just a few weeks later and being a vocal critic of that, unraveling of that, boy at some point consistency is really important. So this puts me in a real tough bind because on one hand I voted no for the tax but on the other hand I want to see a CSB consistent and everything like that. So this is probably one of the more difficult decisions I've had to make as far as being on council, trying to be consistent in my convictions. And that goes for taxes and just our continuity. So anyways, anybody have any more comments before we take this to a vote?

Go ahead, sir. Only that I'm hearing comments about the tax. I'm not hearing any comments on alternative methods for maintaining the roads. That's what we should be talking about.

Thank you. With that, I guess, Madam Clerk, would you take a roll call vote, please? Council Member Perales?

Yes.

So, and just, yeah, thank you. Your hesitation, good point of clarification. This is to, what's the proper terminology for that again, Mr. Kenney? To...

Reconsider.

Oh, just to reconsider. So yes, a yes would be a vote to reconsider. Thank you. Just want to make sure we're doing it. Mr. Perales was yes. Thank you.

Perales was a yes. Campos?

No.

Cahota?

No.

Nicaragua?

No.

Hernandez?

No.

Milne?

Yes.

And Grimm?

No.

Four to three, it doesn't carry.

Five to two. You're good.

Math's not my subject.

Thank you. Anybody else? Mr. Perales.

Yeah, that was one of the four items I had. First one, awning code update. I've had to look at my notes. We directed staff on March 23rd to look into reducing that awning height. It's been a while, almost three months now, and so I just wanted to bring that up on the record to kind of see if there's a status update on that.

Mr. Raymond, Mr. Stewart? I will follow up with staff. I thought we found an administrative way to handle that, but I will follow up and provide a staff report at my next city council meeting. Okay.

And then lastly, this is a twofer. I kind of did like a poll in regards to a local income tax. So back in 2022, when former mayor Serrano was on the council, they brought forward a resolution and an ordinance, essentially a ban on a local income tax. I think it'd be prudent to revisit that ordinance and maybe perhaps this time pass it with council support and also i would like for us to bring back a resolution taking a stance on the state income tax and how that's going on there at the state level i think many cities are going to follow suit and so i can provide that ordinance from 2022 during that time the city council just elected to do a resolution and pass a resolution but I think given the political climate and economic climate that we're facing, you know, this is going on at the same time that there is an initiative going on, and so I feel like we need to take a stance for our city and tell the state that, you know, we need to start tightening our belt a little bit and not looking to take more money out of hardworking Pasconians. And so, again, I'll just reiterate real quick, my request would be for staff to prepare a resolution expressing the City of Pasco's opposition to a Washington State income tax and also bring back that ordinance that was proposed in 2022 for council consideration and maybe some updated information.

Thank you for those comments. And we should, for the sake of discussion, break it down into two different. So the resolution there from 2022, I guess let's start there. And so you're hoping to turn that resolution that they made in 2022 basically into an ordinance, if I'm hearing you correctly.

They provided a resolution and ordinance at the same time. You were on the council, if you remember. and so they passed the resolution but I kind of want to codify that and so it would create a new chapter in our past municipal code banning a local income tax.

Okay, so again just taking it from a resolution they passed to an ordinance, correct? Yes. Okay, perfect. Just want to make sure I'm following on the same page. Any other thoughts regarding that? So just, I guess, to restate what Mr. Perales said, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, to basically the resolution in 2022, basically, to use your word, you even use kind of codifying it into a law or into an ordinance that would say PASCO opposes a local income tax that would be, I guess, councilmanic or whatever at the local city level. And if we have the desire to do that.

Okay, Mr. Campos. Yeah, I'm all in favor of the resolution. I guess it's maybe a legal question with the ordinance. It's my understanding that you can't, a city cannot do a local tax in the state of Washington. I know Seattle tried to do it in 2017 and the courts basically held it up and said that no, they couldn't do that. And so I think there's a right precedent there. but I understand maybe where paralysis is coming. There's also precedent, supposedly, that we can't have a state income tax, and here we're at, so I can see that too. So I guess maybe we could get some legal advice on this. Mr. Kinney?

Brett Redfearn Yeah, a couple of thoughts. I'm certainly not aware of any way to do that. And so, if the intention is to express just kind of the opposition to it should something arise, traditionally that would be done by resolution. There's nothing really in code to speak to something that doesn't exist. It's all affirmative things and regulations. Either way, whether it's an ordinance or resolution, it would not be permanent. A future council can change that. And so, I think my recommendation would be a resolution because we're not putting anything into code, structure, regulations, form of anything because it doesn't exist. And really, it's an intention of counsel to speak to, again, intentionality or motives on a certain topic. And that's traditionally what would be done with a resolution.

Mr. Prelz, yeah. Maybe, Prelz, I can send him the packet because I went and downloaded it. And the attorney at the time or the staff, they put together a proposed ordinance with chapter language and everything. So maybe you can take a look at it. Maybe this could have some teeth and we can go from there. But I wouldn't mind revisiting it.

I'm happy to review that if you want to send it over. It would be a pleasure.

So we as a council, do we have an appetite for that, a local ordinance that would prohibit a local income tax? Mr. Condon. Yes.

Yeah.

i just have questions mr mellon says yes to mr figure hoa um if we could definitely look at that packet um perhaps for a workshop session that we can review and analyze and dissect and come up with questions um the other part would be for uh councilman paralysis here is this is this something that you're looking to to be more of a symbolic measure or something operational that would kind of change the way that the city is run or operates? Or what do you envision with this project or proposal?

Well, I mean, my vision is that when we have something codified that, you know, we look at it and we're not looking to skirt around it like with our state constitution. I mean, it's written in there that we can't have income tax, but here we are. We're in charter territory. And so that being what it is, I can see that in future years, perhaps going down to the local level, it really just comes down to the judicial system and how those lawyers interpret that. And so, um, I would not like to see a local income tax. Again, we were seeing in businesses leave in droves, you know, Starbucks is relocating. I can go on and on and on. So I'm just worried that eventually that appetite will come to local level and perhaps have some ground. And so that's what I'm afraid of. That's, that's my vision.

And to follow up then, I hear kind of through some of the words, are you referring to something specific that's going on at the state legislature that is kind of gearing towards income tax for you?

Well, it's that capital gains. That's what they're talking about, right, at the state level. And for a long time, they said that was unconstitutional. Well, you know, with some legal mumbo jumbo, all of a sudden now they can do it. So whether what aisle you are on the issue, obviously I'm on a different aisle and so I don't see it that way and a lot of people don't, which is why you have that initiative. But I'm, again, I'm worried about somebody trying to implement this at the local level and some court saying, yeah, you can do it. So.

Okay. Anybody else want to weigh in on that? I would also, before exploring that, Mr. Kenney, so if you would, yeah, review that when Mr. Prowlis sends it over. Obviously, we're not taking a final vote on it, but just at least considering it and having you look at it a little deeper.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. So then part B of your... not necessarily motion, but just your consideration as far as, if you want to maybe, since we got bogged down a little bit there, talk about the state income tax.

Yeah, I mean, we can bring, oh, sorry. Just bring back an ordinance stating that we're against the state income tax and kind of what individuals are trying to implement here in our state. I could write something, but I kind of feel like we need to take a stance with some of the stuff that's happening at the state.

So that would be more of a resolution, not an ordinance? That would be correct, that was a resolution. Okay, just want to make sure. Questions, comments on doing that? Mr. Figueroa.

Again, is there a reference that you're looking at to address with that resolution?

Just that the City of Pasco is against a state income tax. I mean, a resolution's a statement, and so you have your whereas statements and stuff, and we can throw stuff in there, but the whole point is to say, you know, City of Pasco, we're open for business, and we're against, I don't know, unconstitutional taking of people's money.

Okay. And then, I mean, we're talking about going, uh, speaking to the residents. And so if you want to make a resolution where the city of Pasco is taking this stance, are you saying that the entire city would be in favor of this or would then I think something we would have to address based on our district, our constituents and, and all that stuff.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, if this does come up for a vote, you know, that we would go out and do our due diligence, talk to our representatives and see what they like. And you can bring back your, your kind of flavor of ice cream and say, you know, my, my district wants more taxes. I don't see that happening, but no, that would just be like, it'd be on us. It's a statement on behalf of the whole city, but you know, obviously someone could vote no to it if they don't feel inclined to. And so, no, it's just a statement. And so if you don't, you know, you're not in line with that, then you don't have to vote yes to it.

It would be a resolution of this governing body just for clarification on behalf of the people of the city of Pasco.

Okay.

Is there an appetite for that?

Well, yes. I'm not for the state income tax either personally. And if we can agree on that as a governing body on the basis that it is unconstitutional, then I think it makes all the sense in the world to write it down and make the proclamation. And also if you are all against the state income tax, please sign the petitions, please You know, we are trying to Do as much as we can as a people to prevent this from happening. So sign the petitions, you know, they're everywhere They're at Walmart. They're there at my church. They're everywhere Thank you mayor Pro Tem mill.

Thank you. Yeah, I've already signed the petition and yeah I just think it eventually just come down to the average guy having to pay it. So it's a it's only just a matter of time once they can still it so I If we could say yes, I don't know how much it would help, but I'm all for it.

Okay. Anybody else? I'll add a fourth head nod to continue that way. Yes, if staff, if you would draft a resolution for us to stand in opposition of the state income tax that was recently passed would be appreciated. Anything else in miscellaneous discussion? Not seeing any, I guess I would kind of, I'm gonna make one just last comment about our earlier vote and say it doesn't mean for all time for keepsies that I would never want to unravel a vote, but this time that was where I landed. So anyways, not seeing anything more. 13, executive session, none listed, not having one. We are at number 14, which is adjournment. This meeting is adjourned.