City Council - workshop

Good evening and welcome to the City of Pasco Council Workshop Meeting. The Council thanks you for being a part of your city government. At workshop meetings, the Council discusses issues, but no formal action is taken. Agenda packets are available on the City of Pasco's website at www.pasco-wa.gov. This meeting is also being televised live on PSC TV, Channel 191 on Spectrum Cable in 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. And with that, Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please?

Campos?

Here.

Cotta?

Here.

Figueroa?

Present.

Hernandez?

Present.

Perales?

Here.

Mayon?

Present. Ann Grimm. I am here. Thank you. If everyone in the chamber would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag Moving on to letter B, which is, I assume, what most everyone is here for. We are going to do an oath of office for our new police chief, Mr. Brent Cook. Ms. Signel, this has your name on it. Would you like to kick it off?

Mayor, you've got it.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Well, this is a joyous time. And one, I'm glad that a lot of friends, family, and supporters are here to celebrate. And so at this time, I'm going to come down and give the oath of office to our new police chief. Please repeat after me. I Brent Cook. I Brent Cook. Do solemnly swear or affirm. Do solemnly swear or affirm. That I will support the Constitution of the United States of America.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States of America.

And the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington. And the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington. And all local ordinances and that I will faithfully. all local ordinances and that I will faithfully. And impartially perform and discharge the duties. And impartially. And impartially. Really important line there. And discharge the duties. And discharge the duties. Of police chief for the city of Pasco. As police chief for the city of Pasco. Congratulations, sir. So two things. I was handed this badge. I don't want this thing, you know. I'm going to hand this thing right over to you. But your father is going to come up and pin this on you. And it would be a great honor for me to allow you to do that, sir. Brent's a little nervous there, yeah. You're very welcome. Thank you. Before he runs away, I'm going to take a moment of personal privilege and bring him a little closer to me here. Don't be scared. I want to pray for this man. Lord, thank you so much for raising him up for this very day. Just pray that you would give him wisdom. Lord, just the compassion and everything he needs to lead this department. I pray it's a dangerous work out there and can be inherently dangerous. I pray for the officers that are out there that you would keep them safe in their interactions with our citizens. And I pray you'd keep our citizens safe as they interact with our officers in this inherently dangerous work that they all do. Father, help them to lead and guide this department well. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You're not off the hook yet. At this time, I'm going to take a nine-minute recess. We will come back at, we'll call it 7.15 even, and this will be our time for pictures and for everybody to come up and make merry with the chief here. Thank you again. Thank you.

Thank you.

We're going to bring the meeting back to order here, but really just to excuse ourselves into executive session for 20 minutes. This will be letter A, a discussion with legal counsel about current or potential litigation per RCW 42.30.110, paragraph 1, subsection I for 10 minutes. And letter B is discussion with legal counsel about current or potential litigation per RCW 42.30.110, paragraph 1, section I for 10 minutes. The time is 7.15. We will be back at 7.35. All right, the time is 7.40. We have returned from our executive session. We are going to move on to number five, verbal reports from council members. Mr. Perales. I'll go ahead.

Ted, the peanuts statue unveiling on Saturday, it was really awesome. I think a lot of people have been waiting for that statue to be unveiled and seeing it in person, and it really lived up. So big thank you to Mr. Seth Vanderbilt, Pasco Arts and Culture Commission, and really other previous council members who supported that endeavor. It really made the park come together, in my opinion. So if you haven't checked it out, I would go check it out. Cool.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Mill?

Yeah, thank you. Just to follow up on that, yeah, I was able to rate the words that you wrote, or somebody wrote for you, for Nibiru Peanuts Fukuda. Hopefully I got that somewhat right. That was a great statue. I saw quite a lot of the council there, a lot of community leaders, former council members as well, and that was a great statue. So again, thank you to staff and everybody involved on that. it's good to see a dream and then you finally see the reality. And, uh, so I was pleased to be there. And then also on this past Wednesday, I did the homes too sweet by Hilton, um, which is by the Pasco airports. And, uh, it was a nice hotel, very nice. And, uh, had a good, uh, reception and, uh, it was good also to see staff out there. We had Howard Stewart and Harold Stewart and, uh, some of the other people. And so, uh, a lot of the commissioners from the poor to Pasco. And so again, good time. It's always good to see, uh, New hotels popping up and people having visions of more people visiting Pasco on the Tri-Cities.

Thank you. Council Member Hernandez. I also attended the unveiling of the statue. And it was great. It was a lot of people who were there that I hadn't seen in a while. And the statue itself was nice. It could be a little bigger. But it's nice. But it was a great time. And the farmers market was great as well afterwards. So it was a great time. Awesome. Thank you.

Well, I just want to say I appreciate everybody else covering for me and showing up. So I could be serving the community and some churches, not only in Pasco, but throughout the Tri-Cities, up there in the middle of the woods, cooking for them all week. So thank you all for being here and continuing to show up and serve our community. With that, we are going to move on to number six. These are items for discussion with opportunity for public comment. The public may comment on each topic scheduled for discussion up to two minutes per person with a total of eight minutes per item. If opposing sides wish to speak, then both sides receive an equal amount of time to speak or up to four minutes each side. We're going to kick it off with letter A, presentation, cannabis revenue and licenses. And this looks like it has our city attorney's name on it, Mr. Pullum.

Yes. Hello again, counsel. Thank you. Yes. So your first item tonight is around cannabis licensing and revenue. I also want to acknowledge that Aaron Washington from the Liquor Control Board is here. He has been gracious enough to take some time this evening to talk to you all. a little bit. I strongly encourage this council to ask questions of him specifically to kind of give a better understanding, a deeper dive, I should say, than what the presentation will say into the state's licensing process and particularly what is occurring now and today. So if I can get the next slide, please, for the presentation.

And Mr. Palm, just real quick, for the record, who is online from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board?

It's Aaron Washington.

Aaron Washington, thank you.

Yes. So this presentation is going to be pretty kind of a broader overview. It's just going to talk about the background and how we get the framework of cannabis licensing in this state. It will explain what your current regulations are, specifically your current density limits. There will be a review by the cannabis revenue that you received. When we get to that stage, I'll actually hand it over to Richa to kind of explain how that process works. And then finally, we'll then turn around and discuss what options are open to you for as the City Council. So first and foremost, our cannabis both on our retail and production side is driven by Initiative 502, which was passed by the voters in 2012 that legalized recreational cannabis in Washington. The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Control Board is the state entity that regulates the licensure of for retailers, processors, and producers. It's actually what's called a monopoly or a field preemption. No city has the ability to issue its own licensing for producers, processors, retailers. Anyone who is interested in a set of licensure has to go through the Liquor and Cannabis Control Board. The board has a retail cap. This was an initial cap set once they set up kind of the framework of which we're operating around. That was 334 licenses. Each municipality in each area was then allocated licenses in order to spread out the cap and just give kind of geographic diversity to where these places could be located, where these businesses can operate. PASCO was allotted up to four retail licenses through the state allocation process. Next slide, please. PASCO currently has what's called a density limitation that's set forth at Pasco Municipal Code 2510025. And what it permits is it permits three retail stores or four if the fourth one is what's considered a social equity licensee. We will discuss a little bit more what the social equity program is. It's a separate program. Licensee program that was established in 2020 as of today all 4 slots are being used. So you have 3 what I'm going to describe as non social equity licensees operating within the city boundaries. And you currently have 1 social equity licensee operating within the boundaries. Paso does not allow any cannabis producers or processors. The city has that power under the state law to set density limits for retail, for processors and producers. Some municipalities allow all three, some only allow one like Pasco where they only allow retail, some will only allow producers or some will only allow processors. It really comes down to kind of a local policy decision by that local council as to what they would like to see as a acceptable use within their city. Next slide please. So then the next stage of the licensure program is the social equity program. This was established by House Bill 2870. So it's independent of the Initiative 502 process. I will leave it to Erin to kind of explain more, but the social equity program was designed to try to capture and to provide licensures to individuals who may have been historically marginalized and otherwise would not have been able to be licensed through the non-social equity licensure process, the pre-process. I would point out that as of today, the state is not providing any kind of licenses outside the social equity licensure program, and it's going to be that way for at least the next, as I understand it, for the next six years. Because the general license allotments are not expected to begin at least until 2032. The local jurisdictions, municipalities, if cannabis, if social equity program licensee is approved by the state, the state can make a decision, excuse me, the city can make a decision about whether or not it wants to increase the number of retail processor or producer businesses if that number is being, if by adding that additional licensee goes above your current density limits. Next slide, please. And for this, going to the revenue, I'm going to turn this over to Deputy City Manager, Sigdal. Reach up.

Thank you, Drew. Mayor and Council, there was a discussion earlier about the amount of revenue that City of Pasco is receiving in terms of cannabis. And we do not have a full answer for you yet. We have made the request with Department of Revenue to get more details to do an audit of what is being received by the City of Pasco. They have asked for till end of August to get us that information so we can work on looking through that data and being able to true up what the city should be receiving and what it has received if there's any discrepancies. With that, however, one important piece of information, and Drew mentioned this a little bit, is we do not allow producers or distributors within the City of Pasco. If we only provide retail sales distribution, which is what we do right now with those four licenses, then we receive about 1.5%. That's the allocation. However, there's an additional allocation of the per capita distribution. So there's some calculations that we are working with Department of Revenue and we'll be able to get back to you by the end of August or early September to make sure that we're receiving the proper level of revenue for the retail sales that are currently happening. Thank you.

Right. And then next slide, please. So, I've kind of mentioned this a little bit throughout the presentation, but under state law, you have authority to establish outlet density limits. So, even if an allocation from the state level was, say, let's just say it was 8 or 9 or 10, the city has the authority to set a floor saying, these are the numbers that we're going to permit. you can always increase that to increase the number. But increasing the number of permitted retail outlets does not create new state licenses. So if the council said, you know, we want to increase the number to 50, that does not automatically then create 46 new slots for the state licenses. That is still controlled by the state board. In other words, additional retailers would require an available state-issued license. Next slide, please. And so we have, staff and I have put together a few options slash alternatives and next steps. Option one is you maintain your current code as it's written, meaning that you keep your density limit at four for retail and you don't change any, you don't change anything regarding your rules and regulations around producers and processors. Option two is you increase your retail cap and still don't make any changes to your producers or processors. You could amend your code to start permitting producers and processors to operate within the city. You can request additional studies from the staff and then specifically also consult with the board to determine what would be some solutions or some of the kind of longer-term planning process around this issue and or we can do a combination of the above and and based on council direction we would be preparing an ordinance if we needed to we would be coordinating with with the liquor and cannabis control board you know about any potential changes obviously you know, any sort of, because it's a development regulation, there is a public review and public hearing process, an adoption process involving your planning commission, public hearings. So we would then kind of build out a timeline if we were making any sort of changes that would involve changing your cap or allowing additional uses. And then, of course, we would implement any council approved changes. And that's the end of the presentation. I want to invite Aaron on the call if there's anything else he would like to add in this moment. Otherwise, I think we will take your questions.

Yes, I want to do a sound check, make sure you can hear me pretty good.

Yes, sir. Go ahead, Mr. Washington.

All right. Thank you very much. Again, Aaron Washington with the Liquor and Cannabis Board, program manager with the Social Equity Program. Nothing extra necessarily to add. I think I would just allow for questions that the council has to just kind of come my way. We can go through some of those details.

All right. Thank you. I guess with that, does anybody on council have any questions, comments for Mr. Pullum, Mr. Washington, Deputy City Manager Sigdell, Mayor Pro Tem Milne? Go right ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Just to clarify, I know you said we wouldn't get a final number at the end of August, September. Was the amount of the $41,500, was that what we received last year? I know you talked about an audit to make sure we were getting our current allotment, but was that what we were getting for last year?

That is correct, yes. And that is low.

I mean, that's for the whole year, right? Yes. Wow. That's like nothing.

Yes, if I can use this opportunity to talk about how little taxes, how taxes get distributed in Washington State. Essentially, we pay about 9% pretty soon here, 8.9% in City of Pasco. City of Pasco receives only about 1% of that sales tax. So similar to, however, the cannabis and liquor sales tax are calculated very differently, but the city itself receives a fraction of the taxes that are charged within the city limits. So it's par for course.

Okay. I understand that just seems crazy, crazy low. I know when this all came to the council years ago, people had talked about it was going to be this financial windfall. We're going to get hundreds of thousands of dollars and it would solve a lot of problems, but $41,500 is a, you can't pay for a cop with that kind of money.

So, okay. I would just say that from that other perspective, they probably are paying a lot of taxes. It's just where it gets distributed.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from council?

Mr. Figueroa. I'll just go ahead and kind of, for on the record, would you just mind briefly walking over this process of social equity licensing and how that differentiates from the non-social equity process?

Sure, sure. The process prior to social equity was that people had an application. There was essentially a lottery, a merit system, if you will. And then with the introduction of the social equity program in 2020, there was an eligibility process by which a third-party contractor would make that determination, provide those results to the Liquor and Cannabis Board, and thus they'd be prioritized based upon the highest score achieved, if you will. There's the qualifications that an applicant would have. In this case, under 5080, the current legislation for this program, a person would need to have met two of the four qualifications And then there's also a scoring rubric, again, that the third party makes that determination in terms of the amount of score based on circumstances that the rubric presents. And that's in WAC 314-55-570, if you're curious in looking at that. And then from there, as mentioned, highest scores are prioritized. And from that point, they would begin the licensing process in order to obtain a cannabis retail license. And mind you, that's a separate process of its own. Just because somebody meets the social equity eligibility does not mean that they are guaranteed a license. That's just a process to identify those most impacted by the war on drugs who have been marginalized, if you will, and thus that begins the process to actually go through the cannabis licensing steps, if you will, and procedures and requirements. Once they've obtained all of those requirements, a license is issued obviously in the city, town or county that the applicant had identified and thus they begin operating as a cannabis retail operator in the regulated market here in the state of Washington. And bear in mind that that licensing process does include mainly the capital that they have to secure, the real estate that they have to secure, and looking for approval through the local authority. Mind you, notification is sent by the Liquor and Cannabis Board to a city, county, or town with information that, hey, this person is interested in opening up a cannabis business. Then the city, town, or county either approves or accepts it or has some objection. and thus the applicant may decide to, you know, try to take that to a fair hearing and explore that more. And that can be a more involved process. The Liquor and Cannabis Board does have the authority to move forward with an applicant who has an interested location that's being proposed. However, there is strong consideration in the objection that a city or town or county may have regarding a particular entity, if you will, or individual that's looking to start their cannabis business. There could be a history of issues in the area and the like. It's a matter of the city, or I should say local authority, making that decision. Do you have any other questions about that?

Just to follow up, is there then also a timeframe that goes along with that or does it differentiate between case by case basis or is there like an average time from the application all the way to all those different steps that you just outlined?

It will depend on the case itself. The legislature did not impose nor do the rules impose that a person has to be licensed within a certain period of time. Prior to social equity, the licensing process was within nine months, and then they're operating, and then after 12, full operation, and then they're exploring where they're at, and they had to keep that going. That's not a requirement for social equity applicants at this juncture. There's certainly the challenge of obtaining capital. Of course, real estate can be a challenge, given some of the prices. And then, of course, just location availability with the buffering zones, the restrictions, and then also different places where it's prohibited. So at this juncture, any social equity applicant can look for any location in the state of Washington provided cannabis operations or businesses are allowed in the area and there are no restrictions to be concerned with, if you will.

Thank you, Mr. Washington. Any other questions, comments for Mr. Palmer, Mr. Washington, Mr. Campos?

Yeah, just two questions. One is with the social equity license, is it fair to say that with that process, that's a little bit more stricter, harder to get than the regular license was, or is that not the case?

I think the fact that there is a requirement in terms of eligibility, that's where the piece lies because it's the rubric system, the rubric scoring system identifies several different categories in terms of circumstances that reflect those most impacted by the war on drugs, previous charges, if you will. And you can certainly find that information, as I mentioned, in 314-55-570 of the Washington Administrative Code. So it can be difficult, more so, trying to find the location. Establishing eligibility would just simply be what it is in terms of circumstances. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? Did you need anything for the 200?

My follow-up question is just simply, I know that our city was allotted four retail licenses. There was some type of mythology with that. Was that based off of just geography? Was it the amount of residents we have in the city? Can you give us just a little bit more input about how that came to be?

Well, just as was mentioned earlier, it's a matter of population density. And thus, each city prior to social equity, previous legislation provided those allotments. And thus, again, the population density was put into consideration as a factor. for how much would be allotted accordingly. And again, with this new legislation under 5080 specific to social equity, they allow for the legislature allows for an applicant to choose anywhere in the state of Washington. And as mentioned, it is for the city to decide if they'd like to increase their cap. It could be that they reduce their buffer zones. Those type of factors based on the local authority's decision, if you will, to amend their ordinances accordingly. And again, that's definitely an individual or I should say a city council decision, if you will.

We had the population that we have today back then when we were allotted those for licenses. Would it be also fair to say that then our allotment would have been bigger?

I couldn't speak to that. You know, that's something where the Office of Financial Management would use that formula and apply the allocations, or excuse me, the allotments and the population density formula, if you will. So it's hard to say. I couldn't speak to that. All right. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions or comments for Mr. Washington or Mr. Pollan before we turn it over to the chambers and then have a discussion? Not seeing any. Mr. Washington, thank you for being here tonight and making yourself available to answer all of our questions.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you. Have a good evening.

All right. With that, if anybody in the chamber would like to speak to this issue, we'll take four comments total. Two for, two against. Ms. Sanchez, is our timer working again? Thank you. So this would be the appropriate time. Yes sir, step right on up to the podium. Button at the base of the microphone there to turn it on. You can present to the clerk. Thank you, sir. And then if you just state your name and city or county of residence for the record, please. Absolutely.

I'm Zachary Farrelly. I'm from Pasco, Washington. Pleasure to be here tonight. Prepared a little statement for you guys. Hopefully if I don't go too over, but I'll try and speed talk as some of my cohorts as well. Mayor Graham, city manager, members of the council, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Zachary Fairley. I live in Pasco, Washington. I'm one of the owners of Compass Cannabis LLC. For us, this is much more than just opening up another business. We chose Pasco because this is our community. We live here. We work here. Our families are here. We're awarded an opportunity for social equity application for a retail license in the state of Washington. We saw an opportunity to build something here that we can be proud of and hopefully something that Pasco can be proud of as well. We actually found an opportunity for space at 5804 Road 90, which is the former Green to Go location. It's a great location right now currently. It's been in operation for almost three years. They've now currently moved to a different location, so we are the occupants of that lease. Me and all my business partners have put up our houses, personal guarantees, and our own financing for this opportunity to be able to speak with you today. Um, throughout this process, you know, we've listened, we listened to the community. Um, as we're getting set up, I've submitted also a letter of recommendation from our landlord who also speaks very highly about the community and the after effects of having a cannabis retail location there. Um, there was some things that happened that they can be able to, uh, you know, be able to capture and get on camera from there. So, I believe there's something positive to be said about Pasco being a city that makes room for social equity business. This program was created to provide opportunities for people in communities that historically did not have access to this industry. Having a locally owned social equity retailer operate successfully in Pasco can be a positive reflection of a city that's growing, evolving, and creating opportunities for its residents. Pasco is growing. We see that throughout the city and especially in the Broadmoor area where we've chosen to invest. We simply want the opportunity to grow alongside this community. We've listened. We've invested. We've done everything that we can to be responsive to what has been asked of us. Mr. Farrelly, please wrap up. Absolutely. We're excited to be responsible business owners, a good neighbor, and a meaningful community here in Pasco. I'll open it up to if you have any questions. If not, I'll yield my time.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate you coming forward. Anybody else want to speak for or against this issue? Come right on up, sir. Just name and city or county of residence for the record, please. My name is Steve Garrido. Oh, there's a button at the base there to make a red light.

There you are, sir. My name is Steve Garrido, and I live in Pasco. I was born and raised here. I went to elementary, middle, and high school here in Pasco. I played youth sports right here in this city, mostly at the Martin Luther King Center. That's a center that's very special and near and dear to me. The youth programs there gave me structure, coaches who cared, and taught me a lot of valuable life skills growing up. I still live here in Pasco today. This isn't a business I'd be bringing in from the outside. This is something that I want to build in the city that raised me. I'm currently the sales director for one of the biggest producer processors in Seattle. I've done cannabis consulting for venture capitalist firms all over the country, and I would love this opportunity to run my own business here in the city. Again, that raised me. I plan to run a clean professional operation, and as part of that, I'd like to donate a portion of our sales to the youth sports programs at the Martin Luther King Center. the same program that supported me growing up. I want to give back if you guys allow us to get our retail store. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them here or after the session.

Thank you. Thank you for your comment. So at this time, we've had two in favor. I need to hold comments in case anybody wants to speak against it. Our policies and procedures allow two for and two against. Are you against, sir?

Against.

Thank you. Name and city or county residents for the record, please. Can I press the button?

You're on. My name is Adam Bonas. I'm a resident of West Richland. I'm the lead pastor of Grace Church Tri-Cities here in Pasco. I'm here to speak in favor of option one to maintain the current code. I will explain why. The claim of the marijuana industry is that their product brings revenue and jobs at no cost to the city, but I don't believe that that claim is honest. The human toll is significant. Back in the 1970s, marijuana had about 1% to 3% THC. Today's marijuana often has around 15% to 20% THC, and there are concentrated products like dabs and waxes that can be as high as 75% THC. Here's why that's a problem. Recent research shows a direct link between high potency cannabis use and mental health disorders. High potency cannabis is linked to an increased occurrence of psychotic episodes, schizophrenia. It can worsen over time, worsen anxiety and clinical depression. I have friends who have experienced these things. According to a report released by the state of Washington earlier this year, the annual economic cost of mental illness in our state is substantial, amounting to an estimated $15.3 billion with a B among working-aged adults. That's nearly $2,000 per person in the state of Washington for mental illness. Obviously, that's not all caused by marijuana, absolutely not, but do we really want to add fuel to the fire? Our church wants to see PASCO flourish and thrive. I believe that pot shops are not going to serve that goal. There was a time when cigarette smoking was allowed in every restaurant. Cigarette ads were targeted to children, but then we discovered the link between cigarettes and lung cancer and everything changed. We're in the early days of marijuana research, but already the dangers are becoming clear. And in the midst of a mental health crisis, we should avoid doing anything that would make matters worse. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Anybody else want to speak against this issue? Against going once, going twice, three times. Our council rules say we can take one more comment. Were you going to speak in favor of it, sir? Yes. Step right on up.

Good evening. Is this on?

Yes, sir.

Forgive me in advance, I'm not a speed reader, but I'll do my best. My name is Samuel Alaniz. I was born in this area and raised here in Pasco. And tomorrow I celebrate my 53rd birthday. I spent nearly my entire life in this community. I raised my children here, owned a business here, and for the past 32 years I've worked in sales and marketing throughout the Tri-Cities. Those 32 years have taught me that trust isn't given, it's earned. I've worked hard to build my reputation for honesty, keeping my word, and treating people with respect and kindness. Those are the same values I'll bring as general manager of this business. If approved, I'll be responsible for the day-to-day operations. I'll be the person, excuse me, I'll be the person customers, neighbors, and staff can come to with questions or concerns. I'm bilingual in English and Spanish, allowing me to better serve everyone in our community. I'm also a God-fearing man, and my faith reminds me every day that serving people with integrity and treating others with dignity isn't optional, it's who I strive to be. This isn't just another cannabis store, this would be Washington State's first African-American veteran and Hispanic-owned social equity cannabis business. That's something our community can be proud of. It represents opportunity, diversity, and local ownership. Our goal is to create 15 to 25 local jobs and build a team of people who are professional, respectful, committed to serving this community. I understand that some believe four dispensaries are enough. I respectfully see it differently. In fact, we have the full support of an established Pasco Cannabis store owner who believes our business will not negatively impact his. This speaks to the continued growth and opportunity of our community. Franklin County is one of the fastest growing communities in Washington. This location has already operated successfully as a licensed cannabis business for years. The question before you isn't whether cannabis belongs at this location. The question is whether local people, people who live here, invest here, and genuinely care about Pasco should have the opportunity to own and operate it. This community helped shape who I am. It's where I was raised, where I raised my children. and where I hope to continue to serve this community. I respectfully ask for your support, and if you place your trust in us, I promise we'll work every day to earn it. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Perfect, thank you for your comments, appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, with that, council discussion. Mr. Condon.

Yeah, I'm going to give some arguments against approving an additional cannabis retailer in Pasco. I mean, the city already set its policy after public input, and so changing it now bypasses the process without any kind of new justification or updated impact study. Also, statewide, the industry faces oversupply, so maybe it has modest gains, but it doesn't look like we need another store. Even if the sole objective were profitability or tax revenue, the demand has already been met. My arguments are more along the lines of public health and community care and youth protection. There's an increased risk to public health and mental health for those in close proximity to cannabis retailers. The fifth retailer, as we've talked about tonight, is already planning to put their store on Road 90, vacated months ago by Green and Goat. Reynolds Middle School, Columbia River Elementary, they're 3,000 feet away. And, you know, the... Most kids can't pick another street to travel on when they're going to school. Road 90 is the only road that goes between Sandifer and Burns all the way from Broadmoor, excuse me, to Road 84. And so all of the kids coming from that general area funnel through Road 90 and go right past the cannabis store. And so, you know, there would be guys out there. I mean, I live there. You know, I'd see people out there every day. There's guys, you know, with backpacks and hoodies out on the sidewalk waiting for a ride or whatever. And these kids got to walk by him and walk around him as they're coming out of school. You know, one time there was a guy out there without any clothes on except a pair of jean cutoffs. He didn't even have shoes on. And the kids are walking across the street. And they're going along the other side of the street. And then they got to walk back across the street to go to where they want to go because they're intimidated by this guy. And, you know, we watched that all the time when kids were coming to and back from school. And so we'd see shady guys walking all over the neighborhood. It was like that since 2023 when the cannabis store came in. To the time they left, it's a lot better now, actually. There's a lot of people that feel that way. And so I want to keep it that way. I live between where the schools are and the place of the proposed dispensary. Now, this is a Washington State study from last year promoted in the Seattle Times. Living near a cannabis retail correlates with higher rates of cannabis use disorder. That's when you start suffering from the effects of marijuana, but you can't stop taking it. On the average, 30% of marijuana users have cannabis use disorder. When they live within 10 miles of a retail store, those ages, this is 12 to 20, those ages experience a 13% increase in cannabis use disorder. That's another 2,900 more cases in Washington. That's a youth-related cannabis use disorder when they live near the facility. You can imagine when they're walking by it every day. Adults 21 to 64 saw a 7% increase. That's an additional 12,500 cases in Washington state. So that's 15,400 cases of increased instances of cannabis use disorder than the norm when they live near the store. And so how many of them are gonna be here in Pasco? I mean, Pasco is basically 1% of the state population. So that amounts to basically 154 people in Pasco, 19 of them being under 20 years old. And so how many of those are gonna be kids we know? How many of those people are gonna be families that I'm counseling at the church? And so it's an important issue. There are so many studies and statistics, many of them have just come out over the last few years, 20,000 studies over the poor health effects of cannabis use. The Washington State study also said that the impacts of cannabis use disorder, those impacts were a lot stronger near multiple stores, which is what we're talking about doing with adding a fifth retailer. That creates even more depression, anxiety, bipolar, and psychosis diagnosis. See, when we have all these stores around and everybody sees them, it creates an idea of normalcy. People start thinking that they're safe when they're really not safe. There are still risks there. And so refusing to expand this program, I think is a good idea. It's going to limit unforeseen consequences to our youth, but also everyone else. And I'll just add one more argument. It's maybe a strange one and a biblical one, because almost all of us up here are professed Christians, so I want to read what the Bible has to say about this. This is Galatians 5, verses 19 and 20, and the idea here is that Paul's telling the Galatians how to not behave. He says these are things that you'll do out of rebellion against God and through selfish desire. And it says, now the works of the flesh, those are selfish desires, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, and sorcery is the one I want to talk about there, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice That's to continually practice these things. Such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. You know, the idea is being, if you justify things before God, you're not going to heaven. And that's just what it says. It doesn't mean you can't stop doing them and repent. That's what Paul's asking them to do. The Greek word used there to translate sorcery is pharmakia. It's the root word for where we get pharmacy and pharmaceuticals. And it's just talking about drug use because all sorcery included drug use. And what the Bible is saying is that it's not in the spirit of God. The spirit of God is not going to lead you to do these things. So I'm asking the council members that this pertains to to not teach Jesus and promote Jesus and then promote something that Jesus teaches against that can lead our children astray, which it's been doing, and entangle people into selfish desires that they're never going to want to leave. And so it's radically damaging our society, and it's a good reason why God tells us not to participate in mind-altering drugs. It's because you can lose your mind doing it.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments, counsel? Mr. Prowlitz?

Thank you. So I didn't bring this issue up for a money grab of any sort. If my argument was based on creating more revenue, I don't think that would be a very good argument. To me, it's just about being consistent with policy. You know, I sat in those chambers in the back against really at the time of seeing marijuana stores in the city of Pasco But I remember sitting here and when they passed it and hearing a council member here off to my right a long time ago He's not here anymore. You know, I think I'm just gonna roll the dice with this and I'm like, you know That was their decision. And since then, you know, I have watched these stores and and seen their supposed impacts in the community and You know, they provide jobs, and I honestly have not seen too many issues. I asked for some stats from the staff, and in the last, this covers about two years, there's been 72 calls over these last two and a half years, averaging about 29 calls per year, or about seven calls per retailer. And a lot of these calls of service were not criminal incidents, criminal incidences with people involving cannabis, but it was actually against the cannabis store. So, I mean, it does attract individuals to the store, but that's why we pay the Pasco Police Force to do their job, and I will highly support them in continuing to do that. I want to talk a little about stats because that's what we always hear. I think one thing we got to understand is that alcohol has just been, it's been normalized. I mean, at one point we did, we did have a prohibition that didn't work out. Now, you know, we gave people their alcohol and, you know, we've seen, the drastic impacts of alcohol on our community. I know this is probably the most cliche argument anyone makes, alcohol is worse. But I mean, these are the numbers that I see in regards to users. Alcohol is the most commonly used substance among people age 12 and older in the US. We want to talk about youth, 12, 13, 14 year olds are using marijuana pretty commonly. Marijuana, 52.5 million Americans or about 19% report using cannabis at least once in 2021. Again, this is all available data online from the CDC, so I gotta put together some comparisons. Annual deaths, 178,000 people die each year from excessive alcohol use. There is no comparable annual death estimate from cannabis toxicity. Deaths per day, 488 deaths per day, about 20 every hour. Again, marijuana, no comparable statistic. Traffic fatalities, 11,904 alcohol impaired driving deaths in 2024, Cannabis impairs, in regards to, let's compare that with cannabis, it does impair driving, but there's no national statistic for cannabis-only traffic deaths because THC impairment cannot be measured like alcohol and other substances. I can go on and on and on. My whole point is, I think, we walk by people into the grocery store and pass people, and they're carrying out a six-pack or they're carrying out their 40s, and we don't bat an eye to that. We don't come to city council meetings saying, no, we can't do this. We don't do that. It's so normalized. And so again, as someone who didn't want to see it a couple years ago, I just sat and watched. And to me, it just doesn't seem like there's a lot of issues with it. I'm a big person about personal responsibility. And I'm not going to judge people. I'm not going to use my religion to judge or assess people and tell them what they should do. I can guide them and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, You as a person, even if you're a parent, you need to watch your kids. Tell your kids not to be drinking. Tell your kids in regards to smoking, don't smoke cigarettes, don't smoke marijuana. But if you want to do that, that is entirely your choice. So again, me bringing this up has nothing to do with money or anything. It's just about, to me, this is a business. And we've seen the last few years how this has been changing. In this current administration, and mind you, it's a Republican administration, they've done a lot of things for marijuana in regards to medical marijuana. So, I mean, the times are changing, and I think By allowing a couple more stores, yes, we don't get a lot of sales tax revenue, but it is jobs. People are going to be getting paid to work. They're going to use that money to buy homes, buy groceries, to buy things in our community. And I think we need to be pro-jobs, and that's the way that I see it. And again, if we want to talk about alcohol, then I think we should start looking into maybe getting rid of alcohol here in the Tri-Cities. You know, why don't we start, I mean, in Alaska, there's a lot of dry communities. Some of this stuff doesn't bother me because I don't drink and I don't smoke, but again, it's about personal responsibility. So I'm gonna be in favor of creasing the cap for a couple more, just because I wanna see more businesses here. Again, we can have the ability to have the first social equity store here in our community, that's owned by a veteran, African-American, and a Hispanic individual. I think we always talk about wanting to be first. It may not be something where everyone's proud of, but it is a first here in the state of Washington. And, you know, I just think that marijuana just gets a bad rap. Again, I assessed it as a bad rap years ago, even probably a little bit now. But just by seeing some of the good things that some of these businesses have done, if you guys didn't know, Lucky Leaf here in downtown is, like, like biggest selling social equity license holder, like I think in the state. So obviously there's a need for marijuana. I do have a heart for individuals and I do have people in, you know, in my family next to me, a butter knife away at the Thanksgiving, at the Thanksgiving dinner table that need to have these type of products to get through their daily life. Either they have PTSD, you know, they have, they've had cancer and they've had other ailments. This stuff does help, but I think they should be, have the ability to go down the street and get that. If there's anything that has to deal with, um, crime and stuff around these businesses, well then let's talk to PPD. Have them work with these retailers. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that we can do, and so again, that's where I'm gonna be, I'm gonna definitely be asking if we can increase the stores to eight, so it would be four more social equity license, and again, this is about jobs. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Figueroa.

Yeah, so I think that IT'S ALSO IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS TOPIC CAN BE PRETTY PERSONAL TO A LOT OF US. THERE'S A LOT OF EMOTION AND FEELINGS. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY AS ELECTED OFFICIALS WE'VE BEEN ELECTED TO CREATE POLICY, CHANGE POLICY, AMEND POLICY, AND MAKE SURE THAT WE HAVE GOOD GUIDELINES FOR EVERYTHING ELSE WHEN IT COMES TO CITY BUSINESS. There's a few ways that I can go with this, but I want to make sure that I hit the biggest ones, is we do have to give feedback back to staff. So when it comes to that, and I look at these options right here in front of us, one that I could definitely foresee that I can support would be option two, to amend the PMC to increase the retailer cap. The way that I would see it and as I'm hearing and I've had conversations with a few of you and understanding your backgrounds, I think that, you know, looking at the history of cannabis, right, 2012 is when it was legally permissible here in the state of Washington and then it took 2023 to the city of Pasco allowed it. When they made that choice, that's when those four came in right into it. Right? So that city council, I believe some of you were on there. I know it was a heated discussion, you know, chambers were packed and everything else and people fell all sorts of way. Um, but at the end of the day, it passed and then we ended up with four. I think this is an opportunity for us for this new council that is here. And if there's anything that I believe is that we believe. that we want city to be a thriving city. I think that's at the heart of all of us when it comes to all of our policies. And we have a chance to dictate what we do in the now, but also what we can do in the foreseeable future. So with that, what I would propose is to allow to increase the retail cap to one more, but then putting a density cap from here on out. Um, and that number, maybe we can discuss it amongst ourselves. I mean, I'm looking at 25,000 more residents, 30,000 more residents. I don't know what that number would satisfy you all, but I think that would allow for this council to have that long lasting impact way beyond a lot of us are probably not going to be here when, you know, that cap hits. So I think that's kind of in between. Um, the other part is we're not here to either say we're pro cannabis, we're not against cannabis. I mean, If we look at the policy, we live in the state of Washington, and it's already allowed, and it's already here in our city. So we have to look at the facts that we have objectively here. I mean, what we're looking at, and I would even say, if we're going to amend it, it should only go to a social equity license. Again, some history. As you all know, I'm a history teacher. I like context. When it came to the war on drugs, and this means a lot more to me because it affected some of my family members. I mean, we came over from California because, you know, the 90s in California was gang-raiding, and there was a lot of violence, and there was a lot of stuff, and it was not a place to raise a family. So my folks chose to uproot everything and come out here looking for work and never went back. However, if we look at the statistics, what the war on drugs did was there was disproportionate sentences for people of color, and that's specifically for black and Latinos. It led a lot of families without head of households because they were forced to do the harsh mandatory minimum sentences. based on the three strikes and you're out. And there's a lot of historical component of how that was just a really bad policy. It created a lot of social and economic damages to a lot of our communities of color. And at the end of the day, it was ineffective. It just didn't work. It didn't get what people were trying to do. And so when I look at this process and I look at this program of social equity and some of the things that it's trying to address is trying to address some of those individuals and families that were affected disproportionately because of the war on drugs. I mean, some of these folks we still have locked up doing their sentences for just having a dime of weed with them. At that point, it was unheard of, right? The other part that we have to look at is times change. And one thing that I've seen is, and it's referred to as the Overton Window. that there are certain policies nowadays that you could have never thought were permissible 20 to 30 years ago. But that's just society changing, right? We look at some of the policies that are coming from the federal government or even state level, like this would have never happened 30 years ago. But here we are, this is a new normal, right? So we have to be able to adapt to change. We're not here elected to legislate our faith also. I mean, a lot of us are people of faith. My faith is personal. And I'm not here to say that you have to abide by my faith, by my tenets of faith. It's I hopefully live out my tenets of faith in my day-to-day business. And I hope that that speaks out for what I believe to be true. But again, people didn't elect me for that. They elected me because they believed in me and what I'm about and how I support people. So when I see this, this is an opportunity to, I believe, sort of right or wrong that happened historically for our communities of color. I mean, you talked about kids walking through people looking shady and everything else. I mean, I can give you my life story of, I mean, I was seven years old when I saw my first drug deal. Right. And then where I was raised in that trailer park, all those kids, we knew what was going on in the corners. Nobody said anything because who knows, maybe we're under resourced. Maybe we are brown people of color. They all, you know, that's what happens. But nobody deemed to care for about the 25 years that I lived there. And there was not a single elected official that cared about our stories. I mean, a lot of our folks, a lot of our kids, our communities, they deal with this day to day. I mean, I work security at a high school. I see a lot of this stuff. You know what the biggest things that I see? I see nicotine vapes that we can get at the smoke shops that are all around the corner. Ain't nobody saying anything about the ones that are right across Stevens Middle School, the one right across the bus stop at Pasco High. I think those have much more impact than what we're talking about here. These are entities in a certain sector of work that are highly regulated. We're not just handing out these licenses. We kind of heard already some of those folks, the process they have to go through. I mean, a lot of these products are highly regulated. Some of them you're able to track down exactly where you bought it from. That's kind of the level of sophistication. versus a lot of these nicotine vapes that we got on the streets that we ask these kids, where'd you get it? Oh, you know, I just found it, whatever. I picked it up from somewhere else, right? So I think we want to be pro-youth. There's absolutely a way to go about it, but I just don't think that this is a conversation to be had is we're here to address the policy and how do we give staff what they need to do so they can move forward. And so I definitely urge my my colleague council members here to really think about this. I mean, let's look at the policy and how do we just also extend our impact from the today vote or the next week vote. I mean, to me, the way that I see it, if we put this cap of about 30,000 people more before this conversation ever happens again, I think that's a long positive standing impact that we can have in our city. So again, I submit that to you. The other part is too, we're not asking to kind of change a lot of the things, right? Pasco allows already cannabis retail and that's already done. The state law creates a social and equity license program. You've already heard some information. The amendment doesn't broadly expand crazy stuff. I mean, I would not be in favor of expanding it to eight. That's certainly not a thing. I mean, we have to learn how to crawl before we walk. And if we started with four and it's all of a sudden You know, try to go to eight. I don't think that's a good thing for anybody. I'm not for the businesses already in place or anything moving forward. I think if we allow it for one more, cap it there, and then set some guidelines for the next ones to come in the future, maybe 15, 20 years, who knows? I think that would be a responsible fiscal way to do. to amend this policy. So I would definitely encourage any other questions, but I think that this is a really good kind of way to kind of balance both options that I understand, and I appreciate all your comments. And Mr. Kata, I do appreciate those comments, right? I take that into the feedback and as I'm looking as well. We can't say that, oh, cannabis is good for everybody, right? everybody has a decision that they have to make, right? Whether we use it or not, that's not for us to judge. It's how do we allow the policy that we have in place and how do we maximize what we have in front of us? So I leave you all with that and hopefully looking for more discussion.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Milne.

Yeah, thank you. I was the council member that was on the council when we decided about the Marijuana, again, very hot topic, very divisive. I did cast a vote for having it in the industrial section because I didn't want it, so I figured, well, because they had the votes for citywide. The mayor at the time came back and re-voted, and so we got it citywide. It is what it is. I was a no then. I think what the difference in my book is when you're, say, like you're around somebody that's drinking, You're smelling alcohol, but it's not getting you high. You walk in the park, like I was in the park with my wife the other day, and we're walking by some young people, and they're all smoking marijuana. And it just gets frustrating. You're just trying to enjoy the park, and you're smelling marijuana. But in other places in Pasco, I'm not trying to... rank on other businesses but then you smell marijuana and it's just kind of frustrating outside obviously the store so anyway um i just let you know i'd be a no i'm with god on this one and but we are council i appreciate everybody's discussion i appreciate everybody's opinion um hopefully at the end of the day we're all still really good but we'll see how this goes and we'll see what the majority wants Thank you, Mr. Kahn.

More comments or a light stone? Yeah, and I appreciate everyone's comments and I respect everyone here and I look forward to working with everybody on other issues. Issuing or discussing alcohol versus marijuana I mean, alcohol's water-soluble. It's like, for the most part, it's in your body, it's out of your body. The marijuana sticks to your fat cells, including the cells in your brain, and it just stays there for decades. And that's why you see guys coming up with psychosis with this stuff. I read some statistics last time, and one was comparing alcohol and marijuana use with the suicide rate. And, you know, there's some instances of increased attempted suicide, but not actual suicide. You know, bottom line was when you add alcohol to the equation, it doesn't increase the instance of suicide. When you add marijuana to it, it over doubles the rate of suicide. And so there are instances where it's just radically different than the use of alcohol. And obviously, I'm not promoting drunkenness. We're just saying there's a place for moderate alcohol consumption. And people need to choose where they divide that line. But we don't need to restrict it from them when moderate alcohol consumption isn't going to hurt anybody. In fact, it's healthy for them. 9.7% of teens between 12 and 17 report using marijuana daily. For alcohol, it's only 0.3%. And so, again, when you put more stores around these kids, it just drives up the percentage. Also, for those that use marijuana, those kids, they're seeing their IQ drop by 5.5 points compared to non-users. Their grades are 39% lower. They have 50% less chance of a diploma, 28% less chance of university attendance, and 31% less chance of graduating college. And you know, from the morality component of it, I don't think you can name one law in any city or state or country that doesn't have some moral component to it. So absolutely, we're supposed to be checking our morality when it comes to these things and keeping the best people's interests and health in mind.

Thank you, Mr. Hernandez.

So, you know, there's a lot of statistics about this, about that, against for And also there's personal issues involved with this. But, you know, I'm in agreement with Councilman Figueroa about how to go about the policy. I do think aid is a lot. But, you know, another one would be fine. But if we're going to go with, like I said, there's a lot of statistics. Depending on where you go, you can find whatever it is you want to say whatever it is you wanted to say. But if we're going on a personal level, I don't consider cannabis to be an issue. I grew up with people who used it for medicinal purposes. And I've been to the pot shop downtown. I don't see an issue with the people that go in there. I see a lot of people that are actually in walkers walking in there to buy it. marijuana. I see a lot of people with other ailments actually walking in there. I don't see all these drug addicted people walking in there. I see people that are actually needing help with whatever it is their ailment is that is not being alleviated by medicine. So like I said, you know, we can look at all these statistics, we can look at all these other things and you know, I Mr. Carlos is about morals. I think we all have different morals. I'm not sure that bringing morals into this is really the right thing either. Councilman Muley, it is irritating sometimes if you think, there's a lot of irritating things, but like Councilman Figueroa said, we need to look at policy, what's best. We need to look at, Councilman Perales said, business. So I'm not here to, because we're gonna go with personal issues. I'm for it and I have reasons for it. But bringing personal issues into it is not really the right thing either. So I'm for it.

Awesome, thank you. I guess I will weigh in. For me, I mean, as far as people's personal use of marijuana, I will come out and say I'm not inherently against it. There are reasons, medicinal reasons people may want to use marijuana. And if somebody wants to twist a joint in the comfort of their home on a Friday night or something, I am not inherently against that either. However, with that said, There may not be more calls for service at any of our current retailers, but like the car being driven through the storefront at the Road 90 marijuana dispensary is a type of crime that we really have not seen in here in Pasco before those have come into our community. There are documented downstream effects of it. They may not have more calls of service, But if you take your kid into the 911 driving school, like I did three times a week last June or whatever, that, you know, maybe that's a whole other issue that potentially we could have avoided having a marijuana store two doors down from where we are training people how to drive. But there are some problems. I know we have, we've talked about cigarettes tonight. We've talked about alcohol tonight. I mean, at that point, I guess I'm going to, Introduce yet another one. I'm going to talk about casinos even we You know even this week One of our council members talked about a discussion going on in our community about possibly having a second large casino out in West Pasco and so I For me, this comes about down to our legacy. What are we going to leave here as a council? We don't control the HAPO Center, and we may not have anything to do with that if that's true, but the idea of... Pasco ending up having two large casinos at each end of town and a smattering of up to eight marijuana stores all throughout town. Is that really the legacy we as a council want to pass on? I'm not sure that makes for a thriving community. I've been around a lot of marijuana smokers myself, and if anything, they're inhibited, not thriving. You know, I think we have already granted a social equity license. It's not like we're being heartless up here trying to exclude people. We have already granted as a, well, I guess the state's the ultimate issuer of the licenses, have already granted a social equity license. And if... The majority of the council wants to go to five and there's some on eight. There is really not much keeping us from ending up getting there. So anyways, I would be opposed to this because I don't think, let's face it, we cannot control what happens at the HAPO Center. If that happens, that happens, but we can control this. We can keep from adding more fuel to the fire because the arguments could be inherently made. Well, there's nothing necessarily wrong with the casino. There's nothing wrong with that. But yet we look at communities where they are ubiquitous within the communities and there are related businesses, whether payday loan stores or pawn shops or other things that just go hand in hand with these type of businesses. And so with that said, yes, I am also in opposition against this.

Mr. Campos. I feel all the eyes on me. Well, it's 3-3. For those that are keeping count of math. I'm not a math teacher. I'm a history teacher, so I can't count. Reality is, this is not a debate of do we regulate cannabis in the city. Former council already made that decision, so I don't approach it with that. My main thing is looking at the population of our city. Is there other cities that are the same with our population? How many shops do they have? I'm not a user, nor do I have, you know, it's not a product that I use, endorse, whatever you want to call it. But at the end of the day, I am a person that I am here because I represent the city. And this decision, this is where it becomes very difficult as a city council member because we have our own convictions and opinions. We have our own thoughts. We have our own perspectives. But reality is, is we are representing the city. And to be fully honest, um, there has not been any pushback that I have heard of from residents regarding this issue. I have asked, um, And I thought there would be. Not so much. And so the decision is, one, does our city need another one? I don't know, right? I don't know those notes. It's kind of a struggle to decide where we're at with sales. Are we over that? Are we not? Does our population say we should have more? And so the only thing that I could really lean on is what does our residents say? What is our city saying? Are they okay with one or they're not? And as the at-large person seated on here, I have to go with what I feel my feedback has been given to me, and that is that they are okay with another one. And I'll be honest, that's hard for me to admit because I have my own personal convictions and I have my own thoughts. But I'm not here representing Abel Campos. I'm here representing the City of Pasco. And so with that said, I would be okay with option number two of allowing one more because I'm not fully convinced that we need a lot more than that. And that's what I will vote for, option two.

Thank you. Mr. Figueroa. And I'm hearing all of you talk about, right, so then what happens, and this is a general question, right? Option one, we maintain the current code. Next election cycle, some of us might not be here. This issue comes back again. It actually does pass, and who knows, there might be some other folks that do appreciate the eight, and they vote eight. What I'm trying to submit to y'all here is allowing the opportunity to have a long-lasting impact beyond the short-sightedness of this vote next week. So I'm not asking to open the door for unlimited growth. I'm asking us to authorize one additional license for a qualified participant. We're not just getting anybody in here. It should be a qualified person who's been vetted, all these applicants that talk about the program. But also, I am establishing that we do put a population density cap so that all of us can at least say this conversation won't happen again until X amount is hit. And then we can have that conversation again. That might be in the next 15, 20 years. You see how we just impacted policy that much longer than all of our seats? So that's what I am submitting to you, that we might think about more versus just going, I believe that option one is the easiest one, sure, go for it. But it doesn't have the long-standing impact that we're looking for. And I know that all of our hearts is to make a positive impact in the city for a long time. So again, let's consider that. We weren't there, at least four of us weren't there when that first initial vote happened in 2023 that opened the door to four. Our right now is can we open it for one more, cap it, and maybe say not have this conversation until we have 30,000 more people officially as the population increase here in the city of Pascoe. To me, that's responsible governance, and it provides certainty. It provides an outline for everybody who's listening. It respects local control, which I know all of us might say that we are all about. But it also prevents incremental expansion without deliberate public discussion. That's really important. that we have to understand as our city grows, there might be different takes, right? So that's kind of the question that I have before us and that I want to submit to you all. Again, it's not about is cannabis good or bad, and this proposal is an endorsement of cannabis use in any way, shape, or form. but we're looking at the policy, we're looking at our PMC, what we have in place, and then how do we move forward, right? So again, I believe that this proposal reflects moderation, restraint, and thoughtful planning. A lot of us are very reasonable individuals. It neither ignores community concerns nor allows unchecked expansion. I think that's really important for all of us. It sets a clear limit, a clear standard, and preserves and persevere as this council's ability to revisit the issue only when our city growth justifies it. So that's some of my thoughts that I wrote down as I'm hearing your discussions. Because again, it's not just about what do we want in the next two years, it's how do we thoughtfully and carefully plan this city for the decade or two decades to go, so. And lastly, let me just add one more. Let me add some stats too. As we're talking about this sector of cannabis, the whole reason that this social equity program had to go into place, if we look at the cannabis owners by ethnicity, 82% of all the dispensary owners are white or identify as white. You have 3% that are either black or African American and 2% Hispanic or Latino. That to me is a big issue. when I look at it from the business standpoint. It is not a diverse sector. It is not a diverse industry. I don't know how the wine industry is, but I think that the more diversity and perspectives and backgrounds we have, it is a better industry for it. We need to allow and open up the space for our black African American folks and our Hispanic Latino, especially if they're locally based, to have an opportunity for a small business. Some of you are small business owners, you understand a lot of the challenges. It's not easy, and I understand that whoever's applying for this, they understand that it's not going to be an easy go to start this business. But this is what they feel passionate about, they want to go about it, and I hope they do with integrity and good character um so again that's that goes back to the policy issue of you know what do we allow and what do we not want to allow in pasco i would say as a coach you control what you can control and all the uncontrollables are not up to you right we don't control what happens to the hopper center we don't control most of the work that might you know the confederate colville tries by bringing casino but what do we control right now i think it's this issue and what would be the best thing to move forward with perfect thank you mr parallels thank you mayor um

I would just like to, I'll go ahead and just split the baby. Maybe perhaps add, allow two additional social equity licenses and then in regards to your density population, put in some wording into an ordinance that says if we grow by another 20,000, 25,000 individuals, you can give a council the ability to add an additional store. If they so choose, that would be, if you're looking for a number in that regard. Or at least open the discussion to adding more stores. Maybe that would be better than adding just one store.

Thank you. Before we go to you, Mr. Cotta, I just have a question real quick, Mr. Pullum. The density cap like Mr. Figueroa has thrown out there that we could present, let's just say the next election cycle comes around, they don't necessarily have to wait, just to use the example that was given, 30,000 more people to come in. They could just flat out lift it too, could they not?

That is correct. A future council could amend the regulation in the same way and format that this council is considering to amend the regulation. So if you were to set it, let's just say we're setting it at the bar of five, you know, and we'll increase every, you know, once every 10,000 extra residents, a person, a future council could come and say, no, we want to one every 12,000 residents, or we want to have eight or 15 or 50. There's nothing you can do to bind that future council's hands for them to exercise their legislative prerogative.

Okay, perfect. Thanks for the clarification. Mr. Cotter.

Yeah, I heard Mark's comments about diversity, and it led me to a question. Where does that fall in line with the social equity license? Does the social equity license kind of account for all that and allow more diversity?

Maybe I don't know who that's towards. Mr. Pollum, maybe, or is Mr. Washington still on?

I don't think Mr. Washington is still on, but while I don't want to say that they necessarily consider, you know, for example, race in that conversation, they do include marginalized communities, historically marginalized communities. And that would include the black community, the Latino community, so that I would assume that that is a pretty substantial factor into how these licenses are given.

Okay, thank you. So that doesn't account. So it is a bit bizarre if 82%, well, they don't have social equity license, but the ones here do. And so if we don't have any Hispanic retailers here, then obviously it wouldn't work or enforce that issue. Just curious. Thank you. Yeah, obviously, you know, everybody should have equal opportunity. That's not an issue for me. It's just this business in particular that I have a problem with.

Thank you. And just one last question from me, Mr. Paul, point of clarification. Is it 2032? I didn't quite get that number right. The state will not issue any licenses other than social equity licenses until 2032? Did I understand that correctly?

That is correct, and that's their own estimates. I don't know if that will change over time, but that is the current state of play, is that the general allotments will not be reopened until 2032.

And is that because of population or just the date they set?

It's based off of their cap that they set, the initial cap of about 330 initial cannabis retail licenses. How they came to that formula, I don't know, Mayor. I'm happy to dig deep into how they came up with that number, but that's the number they have.

Okay. Thank you. With that, not seeing any more lights up here, Mr. Stewart, do you have any follow-up questions or do you feel staff has the direction they're looking for?

Mr. Mayor, members of council, by summary, what I understand is there's a majority of the council that would like to add an additional social equity license. The conversation has been about potentially tying the consideration of future licenses to population growth. I'm still not clear whether there's a consensus of council on adding one additional license or as council member Perales recommends of two. And then if the population quota is what you want to tie it to, whether there's further clarity from council of what you'd like to tie that to. back of the napkin math is if you go to six licenses at 80,000, that's about 13,000 population each. If you go to five, that's about 16,000 population. If you stay at your current number of four at 80,000, that's every 20,000 population. I think I'm mostly clear, but just if you want this prepared for ordinance at the next council meeting, I need a little bit more clarification of what staff is bringing back.

Thank you. I think there's Mr. Prowlitz. Go ahead.

I'll go ahead and just, again, I think just to keep it simple, just cap it at six and thanks for flying United.

Okay. Anybody else want to go along with six?

and i think the issue is i would just add it to one more i'm comfortable with one more and then capping into that population demographic um i'm not sure can we make it like how harder can we make it for like the future councils to kind of revoke this or it's just a simple majority like two-thirds or i don't know it's like i also don't want it to be an easy like oh willy-nilly let's go for it let's change it up right um but how do we also you know do our due prudence and you know, ensure that that future council, if they are going to, you know, take this conversation, you know, they have these fruitful discussions and, you know, at least most of the people are on board for that.

What I understood from Mr. Pullman, I'll of course let him answer for himself, that there's pretty much nothing we can do to keep them from, to use your word, sir, willy-nillying along, Mr. Pullman.

That is correct. It's on a decision like this, it's 50 plus one that is set in stone. This council could not change it to make it more difficult for a future council to change whatever development regulation you devise here.

Okay, thank you. And Mayor Pro Tem, I was going to go back to Mr. Figueroa just real quick. What was the cap you were thinking about the

What was the population? I'm up for discussion, but I'm starting at 30,000. If you guys want to go higher, I'm okay with that.

30,000 for like another or just so I understand?

Yeah, for consideration, yes. Okay, thank you. So if there's a higher number, I would definitely be open to those numbers out there. Pro Tem Mill?

Yeah, again, the whole population thing to me just – Doesn't even make sense when the lawyer's telling us. It doesn't make any bit of difference. And I can say, like, when we voted for the cannabis, no cannabis, it was like a three to three to have it in the industrial. I flipped it because I was a no to flip it to yes because I'd rather see it in the industrial section, which would make it harder. And then all they did once it went to that, and then the mayor says, well, I want to revote, because now I was cheated out of basically a vote. So it was just the next month we revoted on it again, and then it passed citywide. Again, when you have new councils, whoever the council will be, I'm not running for council on the next election, but I'm just saying they'll just do whatever they want. So all we could really do is the time that we have here on the dais. So I would say to me, it doesn't even make sense if you want it. You guys got the votes, but I was telling you that it doesn't matter. You can say 10 years, two people. It doesn't make a difference when there's a council.

Mr. Figaro, and then down to you, Mr. Condon. I appreciate your comments, and that's where we hope and believe that good folks fill our seats when we leave them empty. But at least our hearts are in the right place, and I believe that a lot of people are listening to our conversations and they know kind of where we stand and what our vision is for the city. So I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Condon. Well, I think the no votes on the council would fall to the least common denominator, right? So to me, that's, you know, one more.

Yeah, I think that's where we're at is one more and I mean we can go ahead and take councilmember Figueroa's idea of the the cap of 30,000 but I think to Mayor Pro Tem Milne's point. It's kind of a moot point I mean we could set it in there and to Council Figueroa's councilmember Figueroa's point hope that they see that maybe see the intention behind it and keep that but like Mr. Pullum said in the end, there's nothing keeping them from, as Mayor Pro Tem Milne said a month later, just yep, switching it out, so.

Yes, by all means, sir. To be very specific then for that retail license to be authorized under this new ordinance to be for an applicant who has received a Washington State Cannabis Social Equity Retail License under RCW 69.50.335. just to make it.

Yeah, thanks. And I think according to Mr. Polman, yeah, no one can even get one until 2032 without one.

Correct. And your regulation already has it set up so that you specifically have the fifth one be the social equity. So you already have a scheme that says we have a hard cap on the general allotments and we'll only add another one if they meet this requirement. So you've already kind of built the scheme that Council Member Figueroa is suggesting here.

Okay. Mr. Stewart, we good now? All clear. Thank you, sir. All right. Good discussion. Good, respectable dialogue. Appreciate it, gentlemen. Let's move on. Another couple interesting topics along those lines. This is going to be letter B. These are legal parameters for enforcement of anti-camping and quality of life ordinances. And for this, we're going back to our deputy city manager. Good evening again, ma'am.

Uh, thank you mayor. And I will just do a short intro and, uh, this is really our city attorney and our chief of police's area of expertise. Um, this item is a discussion of legal parameters for enforcing our anti camping and quality of life ordinances. Uh, we're not asking for any formal action tonight. We're just seeking for your direction, uh, to court decisions that have reshaped what we can and cannot do in this area. In 2024, U.S. Supreme Court's grant pass decision restored city's authority to enforce anti-camping ordinances regardless of whether shelter space is available. And because these laws regulate conduct and not a person's housing status. So the question of whether and how to enforce is now largely a local police policy choice. But that authority is not unlimited. Under Washington's Supreme Court's long decision, a vehicle someone lives in counts as a homestead. We can still impound it, but we cannot sell it to recover fees. And as you can imagine, when you impound a vehicle, there's a lot of cost that is involved in storing that vehicle and towing it. and there is no way for the city to recoup those costs. So there is a financial impact there. Where PASCO stands today is our ordinances are compliant with Grants Pass, as in they apply to everyone equally, but we have not quite evaluated all of our fines and impound procedures against Long, and that's something that we're working on. We would also like to flag that the landscape is still moving, as in there is an active litigation in Spokane and state that bills could narrow our authority again. So we would go back to how things used to be where the local policies were much more restricted. So we're looking for directions in three different actions. One is direction to evaluate our ordinances and fee structures. and bring back any revisions. Second is to direct the Chief of Police to update our protocols for interactions with homeless individuals, including vehicle impound situations. And third, to give us your policy goals on specific scenarios like vehicle camping, camping in parks, encampment cleanups, so that we can ensure that we're following your guidance within the parameters of the laws. And with that, I usually say I would be happy to answer any questions, but I will be asking the two experts in the room to be able to do so. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Signell. Any questions, comments from council? Where do we want to go with this? Mr. Conner.

Yeah, I think having staff look at our ordinances and make sure we're compliant with the law is important and make any revisions that get us in line with where the state law is is important. And then, you know, I'd like to get some recommendations from the police staff on how they feel this can be the best properly handled. What do they see in their experience? Maybe they have some pointers for us to advise and some things that we could vote on for ordinances. As a goal, we're just looking to remove homelessness from the street and to do so on a matter that's sustainable to the city's budget. I don't want to allow vehicle camping within the city limits and certainly not camping or vehicle camping in public parks or for public drug use or to create encampments. So we need to create some kind of impoundment protocol that discourages living in cars while keeping the cost to a minimum. Thank you. Mr. Perales.

Thank you. I thought maybe they were going to do the presentation. They were going to go through the PowerPoint. I think. Okay. I thought we were going to get some more information.

She went quickly. She abbreviated, sir. Yeah. I think our last mistake. If you have any questions, I'll follow up, Mr. Perales, by all means. Yeah.

No, no. I think I agree with... I guess these proposed three actions, you know, evaluate our ordinances for long compliance, you know, inventory fines and impound fees. Again, I guess I'm speaking on behalf of these individuals who are unhoused. I wouldn't like our fines and stuff to be punitive. I think that's something that needs to be kind of set out there. You know, there's a lot of individuals who are just hitting hard times right now, and they have to live in their cars. But there is another side of that coin where there's individuals who are living in their cars and they're doing nefarious things and our PASCO meeting addresses them accordingly. And so I just want to make sure that we're not making it extremely hard for the individuals who are sitting on hard times. Yes, for updating police protocols, you know, in regards to interactions with homeless individuals. I think we really need to do a deep dive on that because I feel like, you know, what are we doing? What is the process? What are the systems in place? How are we getting these people to services in regards to mental health services or transitional housing? What are we doing to kind of reduce the amount of homeless individuals in the community? And so I would like to see kind of what that looks like in regards to protocols. But even with all that said, I don't want to see vehicle camping in the community. I don't want to see camping in the parks. I don't want to see public drug use. I appreciate the efforts in regards to encampments that have been going underway for the last year or so. So, you know, these are things we need to clean up. These are, I think, Mr. Paul said earlier, these are quality of life issues that people in the community want us to address. And so, you know, it's having some aggressiveness and teeth on our oranges, but also having a sense of compassion. So I think there's a way to do that, and I think there's models across the state as we're navigating a lot of these kind of legal barriers from Olympia, but I think there's a way to do this. And so I guess with all that being said, Mayor, I think we should entertain perhaps a homelessness slash mental health task force. I think it could be a council member or two just to get together and, you know, what are the systems? What are we doing to combat homelessness? This kind of came up at the Pasco Chamber joint meeting. You know, what exactly are we doing? What's not working? Are we putting our money where we need to and stuff? I just think we need to kind of have like a broader discussion plan going, not a broader discussion going forward, but then have like a plan. And that'd be working with the counties. And I kind of did a little bit of research about all the different nonprofits and agencies here in the Tri-Cities. I mean, there's quite a bit. And so how do we get those, how do we work with those partners to start seeing a reduction in homelessness and getting these people to services? And so I think I would love to kind of see that kind of thrown in here. You know, I throw it to the council. You know, I would love to participate on that. kind of task force and have a couple meetings and go out and figure out what can we do. With that being said, I agree with a lot of things that were in the PowerPoint.

Thank you. Mr. Campos. Yeah, I appreciate the presentation as far as all the information you've given me. With the recommendations, one, absolutely, two. This is definitely an issue that the city wants to see us address. With number two, as far as the police department, yeah, just some things to consider. I mean, some of the questions I kind of just top of my head was thinking like, How will officers determine on the spot in real time whether that vehicle is a homestead? What is the protocol that they will go through that, train, whatever? How would they be able to make that judgment call right then and there? So we'd like to see something about that. Also, what would be kind of the gradual steps that is in when that happens? Are we going to go straight into citation in a pound? Are we going to do maybe outreach first and then a warning and then maybe citation? I would want some clarity as far as what does that enforcement look like with that. And then as far as number three, yeah, I just wrote some things down. I think the ultimate goal is that we would have that public safety. But also, as Councilman Perales says, we've got to also have compassion. And so it's also connecting people to those services. and so looking at all these different scenarios vehicle you know camping we got to make sure that we are kind of i would see i would love to see a tiered enforcement approach where we are first making that contact doing the outreach working through that with them also with the camping in public parks i'm also with that street enforcement in parks especially around the kids areas and sports fields no overnight camping And as far as the public use of illegal drugs, strong enforcement for unsafe conduct, and then making sure that we are connecting those that are doing that to the diversion programs that we have in the area, partnerships with the community, and getting there. And then finally, the encampment cleanups, making sure that not only do we do that, but also giving some notice. I don't know if that's... 48 hours, 72 hours, just some type of notice, I think, would be beneficial for both parties.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Milne. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I appreciate the discussion. I will say, as a member of Leadership Tri-Cities, Class 22, best class ever, I will say that there's a lot of things out there if people want to get off of homeless. I know as an individual, you keep thinking you hear the bad story of the person losing everything and living in a car. There's those outliers. But overall, if you need really help, there is a lot of things that can help people get out of the situation they're in. but they can't be on drugs. They can't be drunk. They can't be doing all these other things. And unfortunately there's a majority, not say a full of them, but that does want to live the lifestyle that they're living. And then on top of it, they park next to businesses or behind businesses. They break into the businesses deal. I know firsthand on that one. Um, so again, I'm with Mr. Councilman caught on this one again, that, uh, We need to do what we can. I do understand compassion, but on the other hand, it does affect people coming into Pasco when they see these campments, they see these broken down vehicles. We need to do everything we can to encourage jobs, to encourage retail sales in Pasco specifically, and so that's why I'd like to see we come in line with... whatever we can to make it as less of a nuisance as possible. And that's about two cents on all this.

Thank you.

Back to you, Mr. Cotta. Yeah, I wonder if the task force that Chief Cooks puts together can make a recommendation on how additional cannabis dispensaries might influence homelessness. Homelessness is up 35% in all the states that legalized marijuana. Thank you.

Council Member Figueroa.

Yeah, definitely agree with the first recommendation as it comes to the second one. I know that there's been different municipalities who have started implementing, I mean, kind of like at large what we call an alternative response team where either they pair law enforcement officers with a licensed mental health individual to kind of address some of these calls because it's also important what... look are they getting when they call or when people are either in their RV or in their car. We do want to separate those who are falling into hard times, but those who are like the repeat offenders, and we all know who those are, we kind of see them in our streets, kind of they move every three to four days from different locations, right? So we want to make sure that we don't empower those folks, but the ones that do need the help, we provide them with good services, right? So I think that I would like to kind of maybe see maybe some data on how those different law enforcement agencies kind of operate and what the level of success has been, because I know that that's kind of a big thing coming up, And so maybe that might help some of, you know, when you dispatch different officers that might save you one or two on these calls. And then, yeah, number three, definitely on board of making sure that everything is good and tight. I mean, the biggest thing is I know that kind of there's a lot of There's still some in the works, but let's say a car does you know get impounded or whatever like how much time frame does it take? Where they kind of like it's a longer their vehicle, and then what can the city do can we like provide a program? We're like hey, we got we can't sell we can make nothing off of it But like maybe provide a if you don't have a car we you know come check out the lot and see if you like one and you know make it use I mean, for some of the folks that have, you know, those things, I think, I don't know, I'm just, that might go into recycling. Who knows? But just thinking about, you know, outside the box, creative solutions. So, kind of my two cents on that.

Thank you. Before I weigh in, Chief Crowley, I'm going to actually put you on the spot, because I think you probably have a pretty good answer for... Mr. Figueroa's number two point as far as what Mr. Davis has going on out there and you at Franklin County Emergency Management, the office space there, for your intervention team for people that are in need of services. If you could talk about that for a minute.

Sure. Are you referring to our resource navigator program? Sure. So we have two behavioral health specialists and a resource navigator. They work as a team and they go out and they help community members, we get referrals from our crews, from police departments, from any other resource out in the community that identify individuals that need help that don't need to necessarily go to jail or go to the hospital and they help them find the resources they need such as getting shelter, getting food, stuff like that. So that's the program we have currently in place and it's been in effect for several years now.

Thank you, appreciate that. Yes. Sorry, the names up here don't quite match up. Yes, I was wondering why Mr. Hebden wanted to weigh in on this, but Chief Cook, by all means, if you would, please.

Yeah, it's important to know that PASCO has been following the current case law that's been happening closely and making sure that we are not violating people's rights and causing them homelessness. We also have implemented some places to return homesteads back to their owners if that is the direction that the court goes with that. We did have a couple of them that were impounded at local businesses that was very expensive to deal with, and we have a city solution to that that we're using now. And I would love to prepare. Staff has been working on lots of different pieces of the things that we're doing with homelessness over the last several years. So staff is working on collecting those all into one thing. I don't know what that's going to look like yet, but we'll have all that in one pack.

Awesome. Thank you. Before we go down to you, Mr. Cotta, I just want to make a couple of comments here that, you know, we truly believe, I think we all believe our public spaces belong to everyone. Parks, sidewalks, right-of-way, all citizens. But that doesn't mean, compassion doesn't mean we should surrender our parks, sidewalks, and all this. So I don't think any of us up here are thinking about you know, just looking down, you know, our nose at them. I mean, they are also image bearers of the Almighty and deserve the utmost dignity and respect we can do them. And Chief Cook, I appreciate, I know your officers, and if Mr. Campos is looking for something, you know, some specific stuff, I think that'd probably be helpful for all of us. But I think, from my understanding, that is where you guys really begin, is... trying to find resources, trying to solve a problem, and of course that's what the Columbia River Recovery Center is all about, that third avenue rather than a hospital or jail, and I appreciate the navigator program, and I believe the last time we got a presentation on that, I mean, yeah, I am kind of disappointed that here the government is the safety net, unfortunately not, That's when friends have failed and family has failed and neighbors and people can't find help in churches. I mean, it is worrisome to me sometimes that it's the government. I wish some of those other entities could be the answer. But to Mr. Milne's point, there are a lot of those types of entities and organizations who do love on people, who do have compassion on people. But You know, it doesn't mean enforcement. It's not cruelty. I mean, it is a foundation of law and order, and I think we have to have those in our parks, in our communities, because they are for everyone, and people shouldn't be scared to... not use them because of that. I believe heart and backbone can coexist. I mean, I work with the homeless every week and to a lot of the points that have been made up here, there are some people that through medical bankruptcy or just medical conditions, I mean, yeah they're outliers and there's even sometimes you know a few more than those but yet i talk to a lot of people in my work with the homeless that they don't want to give up those things they do want to remain those and so you know those are the people that maybe need more encouragement to you know find some of those but i i appreciate and agree with um just really all the the comments that have been made up here and before going to you real quick mr coddett Mr. Palm, one question for you. It would just be, in the notes here as I was going over this, I'm just curious about the constraints here talking about a ruling in the Spokane litigation could restrict or complicate enforcement authority under the Washington Constitution, but how would that affect the Grants Pass v. Johnson decision I mean at that point I mean what has the higher precedent I guess if you will the that Supreme Court ruling Grants Pass v. Johnson or what the what's happening here in our own state and how do you how would that play out if that ruling came back and put us back pre Grants Pass v. Johnson

Well, as a city in Washington, you know, you have to be in compliance with both the federal constitution and the Washington state constitution. And while the federal constitution might say a city can do blank across the nation, the Washington state constitution might say something different on that exact point. And so, you know, and I'm happy to provide a much more deeper analysis of this. It's not like the two constitutions conflict. There's not a conflict. And if there was a conflict, the federal constitution trumps because of the supremacy clause. Really what it is, it's more along the lines of the federal constitution establishes a floor. The Washington state constitution can establish a more restrictive floor so long as it is within the bounds of what the federal constitution allows. I would also make a point, and this is something actually very important in this, is that states have something called police power. We all know about the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fifth, the Sixth. There's also the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment is the amendment that says all powers not delegated to Congress, not delegated to the President are reserved to the states. That's known as the state's police power. That allows a state to have more restrict, to have potentially a more restrictive constitutional regime on something like this and what the federal constitution provides.

Thank you, Mr. Paul.

Back to you, Mr. Condon. Just in regard to property that we share with the county, I would imagine we'd want to include some cooperation with the sheriff's office on how we organize these policies because I imagine, you know, because of the donut holes we have, it's going to be an issue too. So I just want to throw that in there. Thank you.

With that said, does anybody, the steps here they're looking for, one, two, and three, does anybody disagree with those? Are we happy to move forward with those? Looks good. Okay. Mr. Stewart, you good there? Near unanimous. Okay. Well, let's keep moving here. Letter C, traffic safety unit. Oh, yes. Sorry. Thank you. Yes. Most of them cleared out by now, but thank you. There still are a couple. No disrespect meant. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Would anybody in the audience like to speak on this issue?

Thank you for the reminder. Good evening, everybody. Thomas Granbois, Big Maple Properties, downtown Pasco. Thanks for mentioning that. I wasn't planning on saying anything until I just got called out. This is something that I live, eat, and breathe every single day in downtown Pasco. And it is a very, Mayor Grimm, to your point, it is a very complex subject. And I think that it's really important for... It's like Council Member Campos, like you mentioned, we have to take a multi-tiered approach and sometimes have the carrot and sometimes have the stick. And I think some of the groups that it was mentioned that are out there, they're awfully quiet. when these discussions come up. And I would like to see them come up here and talk a little bit more about what they're doing in the community, because I know a lot of our chronically unhoused people in downtown. Some of them are there because they want to be, some of them are there because they can't escape it, and some of them are there because that's the way that they are. But I think it'd be good to have some of them come up here and talk and explain what their capacities are and what they're dealing with on a daily basis. Now, Council Member Milne, to your point about funds being out there, I've housed people through MRJN, through CAC, through HRC, through Grace Collective, through... DSHS, the whole gambit, and it's really fascinating because people who are teetering on that edge aren't necessarily eligible for it, for these funds, and quite often these funds, they come in waves. So there may be funds available this month, but then there's not funds for the next two or three months, and these are taxpayer funds. So I think it's important for this body to understand, we talked about legislating for the whole for for everybody in the city but also about as yourselves when you when you vote at the state or the federal level that that also impacts what happens trickles down here at the state level because a federal government can decide well we're going to axe these programs or state government can as well so i think it's important to take a look at that as well when you're when you're at the when you're voting thank you very much perfect thank you mr grambois

Anybody else for or against or any thoughts want to speak on this issue? Going once, going twice, three times. Now we're going to move on to letter C traffic safety unit funding program. And for this, we're going back to you, our newly appointed, um, oath taking chief of police, Brent Cook.

Good evening again. Good evening, council and mayor. Uh, I think the presentation is not available, but I am good with moving forward with this verbally. An introduction to this concept, this is an opportunity to present to you about the traffic safety topic. I know that's been on council's mind and continues to be on our community's mind. You've received presentations in the past by Lieutenant Decker on traffic-related statistics and funding opportunities like state traffic safety grants. Tonight's presentation will focus on a proposed traffic safety program different than a actual unit. To begin with, tonight's presentation will focus on PASCO's efforts to support what we're already doing. The purpose of this funding or the source of the funding would come from the red light revenue. This is authorized and appropriate use of the revenue at council's direction and it aligns with PASCO's growing community needs and established safety priorities. An overview of the vision that I have for this unit is, or for the program, is to use it much like we are getting the traffic safety stuff and support the things that we are doing when we have staff available. Not necessarily to add FTEs to do that, but to support with the funding that is available and the staff that we have. So I will propose to you and present to you that funding structure and how we will evaluate moving forward. What's needed right now, PASCO continues to grow, and with that growth comes great demand on our transportation system and our public safety resources. We see more vehicles on the road, more intersections being built, and additional lane miles being added all the time. Patrol officers balance traffic enforcement with responding to calls for service, limiting the time available for consistent, proactive traffic enforcement. As the city expands, proactive traffic safety efforts are difficult to sustain and are more difficult to deploy with consistency while at the same time maintaining the patrol operations. This growing gap is exactly what this traffic safety program is designed to assist us with. A dedicated traffic safety program, currently our patrol officers balance the emergency calls, investigations, and numerous community safety tasks. Their ability to conduct proactive activity is increasingly limited. This traffic safety program allows us additional opportunities to focus exclusively on traffic safety using data-driven deployments, high visibility enforcement, DUI patrols, and speed enforcement tools proven to reduce crash and dangerous driving. Importantly, this program complements our patrol functions. It does not replace it. Patrol remains focused on emergency response and community policing, while the Traffic Safety Program supports a sustained proactive enforcement effort for our growing city. The city already has a clear legal authority and policy direction supporting this investment. Washington state law and Ordinance 4392 authorize the use of automated traffic safety camera revenue for roadway safety once the red light program costs have been covered. Additionally, the transportation system master plan, the transportation improvement program, and the comprehensive safety action plan all identify traffic safety as the priority and recommend strategies such as speed enforcement, DUI, and high visibility operations as tools to make an impact. The Traffic Safety Program is one mechanism that allows us to further implement those identified priorities. The Traffic Safety Program that I envision will operate as a dedicated data-driven enforcement program. Officers will use crash trends, violation data, focus on enforcement where it has the greatest impact. These activities will include, The things that I have mentioned, the performance will be measured through reductions in crashes, reductions in injuries, and high-risk driving behaviors. The program will include financial oversight and regular reporting to ensure that the funds are being used responsibly and within the fund's capacity so that we don't overspend what is available in that fund. and in accordance with Ordinance 4392. All deployment decisions will be guided by alignment with the traffic safety goals. We will measure success through this program with clear outcomes including the reduction in those injuries and the data that's coming into engineering as well as into our system. Decreased speed, impacts on impaired driving and those increases. We'll also measure how effective we are impacting the school safety zones. These metrics will allow us to make good sound judgments. The community will benefit from this program by visibly seeing more enforcement action occurring. By focusing on speed and impaired driving and intersection safety, we will impact those high-risk behaviors. Ultimately, the goal is to make Pasco Street safer for everyone who's working and living here and traveling through our community. This traffic safety program will be funded entirely through the automated safety traffic camera revenue. We will pay for the cost of those cameras first, and then evaluate what revenue is available for us to do enforcement with, and we'll use that. No general dollar funds are proposed to be requested at this time, and staff recommends approval for the use of those funds for this program. I am happy to answer any questions that you have. I think one of the questions that is important is the fund currently has about $750,000 in it. I've talked with engineering and Ray and Sarah and I agree that, Both of us have access to those funds and that it's important that that is a plan moving forward for the safety of our community for the best use of those things. And so that oversight will be watched. Currently it doesn't appear to be a fund that can sustain a unit like I would like to see. Obviously the goal would be to have two or four traffic units working traffic full time within our city. But that fund isn't currently maintaining a balance or an income that would support that at this time. So I'd like to see how the stats can be improved and the safety of our community. with the use of some of it, and I think that that will give us a good idea about the future of a traffic unit as a dedicated piece of our tools. And with that, I'll answer your question.

Thank you, Mr. Cook.

Council Member Perales. Thank you. That $700,000, how long has that been accumulating? Has that been a couple years since the start of the program?

I think it has been a while, perhaps considerably. Director Kevin can do that.

Yeah, it came into existence beginning in 2021 and has accumulated that $750,000 since then.

Do we know how much yearly we're generating in revenue? I don't want to divide it by the amount of years. I'm sure it fluctuates.

Can you repeat that? How much money is it generating per year? If it's fluctuated over time, I think, yeah, it's fluctuated. I can get back to you in just a second.

Let me pull that up. Okay. Yeah, I mean, when you say units, do you mean two officers, Chief? Okay. Yeah. No, I would like to see how much it would cost for two officers and see kind of what revenue we're getting to see if it could sustain at least two officers. Cause one thing about any, sorry, but any, you know, expenses that we should have to reoccur in revenue. And I mean, if it seems like we could probably get one officer paid from it, at least one officer is better than nothing, you know, Um, cause I just kind of feel like it's kind of like a switcheroo. It's like, well, Hey, we're not using general fund, but you, well, you know, I mean, if we're making money off this, I hate using those, those terms, but you know, if we're generating revenue that could pay for an officer or two, I think we should, we should look into that and maybe we're not doing enough. I know one thing that we haven't really talked about is automated traffic cameras, putting them up by the schools. I, you know, we can, if we can get the cost of how much that's going to, um, cost to kind of put one or two of those up with that new legislation. And perhaps that can bring in more revenue too. Again, it's about changing people's behavior, but also we can bring in revenue that can help pay for some of the stuff that's more self-sustaining. But obviously, right, if it has the effect we want, the revenue is going to go down. And so I totally understand that. And so I think I just want to see kind of what revenue is at our disposal to use without having to look to like a levy lid lift but that's a discussion maybe perhaps we need to have as a growing city. So I can get that number if you have it right now. You can give it to me later. It's not a huge deal.

Yes, I have that for you. It's about, for the first five years, 21 through 25, it was about $166,000 in surplus revenue above the expenditures. That trend is in a downward motion for now. So those first years were higher than what we're seeing now as far as what was left over.

Thank you. Anyone else? I will chime in then. Chief Cook, I appreciate you bringing this program. This was kind of a dream that I had ever since getting on council, just knowing I have kids coming of age and beginning to drive. And as I've mentioned before, you can sit at a lot of stoplights in Pasco and Holy smoke, somebody goes through so late and you're like, wow, they were late and then count about plus three and here comes somebody else through there. So yes, I would love this. You know, when I first brought it up, I guess what, you know, just I envisioned, obviously I'm no law enforcement expert, was maybe closer to what you have here where maybe it's just an extra officer on duty who's not on the 911 program who, kind of as your report or your presentation saying is just dedicated to traffic enforcement like you're you're saying, including distracted driving, I saw could probably be added to that list too. So I know, you know, that was kind of where my thought went. And then I know kind of the broader discussion amongst staff and council went towards this whole kind of unit with like a sergeant plus a few officers. And of course that balloon to, you know, close to, you know, that whole 750 grand in one year. And obviously that's, we just don't have the funds for that. As much as I would love that in the city, I know there's a lot of other community members, and as we go through the budget process, you know, we're going to be talking about priorities and where we want to spend money, and I know there's just not money for things like this, but this does, I believe, get us closer to at least a start, and I appreciate you doing that and looking at some of this outside-the-box thinking to fund this program, to, you know, put that extra officer on or however you... deem that's best and I'll be honest with you I mean yes it helps with crashes and injuries and other things but I think it's also just a preventer of crime I mean when people see a police presence when people see you know cars pulled over I mean they're you know think wow you know it's like cops are everywhere around here I don't want to go steal from Milner Grimm I don't want to you know go break you know somebody's window or vandalize you know shoot you know let's let's go let's go across the creek or whatever man they aren't But, no, I think there is a real win for this as far as it does. You guys, as I was coming to council tonight, a little worried that, you know, I was going to make it here on time, I just kind of drove right with three minibikes right in and out of the bike path or the bike lane. Then they kind of came into traffic and sat behind me at the light and then realized, oh, we don't have to sit behind this, you know, big green thing. We can just go right around. And they just kind of kept zooming in. it's you know it's just inherently dangerous i just i feel bad for for a driver who doesn't realize maybe they're coming up and they you know oh shoot that's my right and go over and those kind of things and you know suddenly there's three three little mini bikes into the side of a car and so yeah there is a lot of work out there to do chief and i appreciate you taking it on to do it and i think this is a a great step in the right direction so i really really appreciate your work on this Any other questions, comments from counts? I just have one. Oh, thank you, Mr. Figueroa.

Under the risk considerations here that we have in front of us, there's three letters, and I'm going to focus on letter B, where it says lack of program definition. What steps are you all taking currently to provide measurable outcomes for this unit or program so that we can make it more solid?

So I envision it looking a lot like the statistics that Lieutenant Decker brings back from the emphasis that they're doing on DUIs and those kind of things, that that dedicated person's going to be logging all of the things that they're doing. And then hopefully our crime analysts will be able to look back at the data that's happening after that and seeing if there's change in that data. Does that answer your question?

Thank you. Anybody in the chamber want to speak on this issue? Traffic safety, going once, going twice, three times. Let's move on to letter D, Ordinance Extending Moratorium on Essential Public Facilities, Secure Community Transition Facilities. And for this, we're going to you, Mr. Raymond. Good evening, sir.

Good evening. Thank you very much, Mayor and Council. As you well know, the Council and staff have been actively developing an ordinance related to essential public facilities and similar, including secure transitional facilities and similar uses. Back in February, a temporary moratorium was established that was intended to give the city plenty of time to develop regulations and engage in substantial public outreach. As we've continued the conversation with Council, specific direction has been received that require additional time to ensure policy directives are captured and the appropriate process is followed in establishing these new regulations. The initial six-month moratorium expires on August 17th, which means it's necessary to renew the moratorium an additional six months in order to accomplish the work requested by the Council. To extend the moratorium, we are required to hold an additional public hearing, specifically on the moratorium itself, which is scheduled for next Monday, August 3rd, to consider the moratorium renewal ordinance. And I'm open for any questions or comments you might have at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Raymond. Questions, comments for extending the moratorium on less restrictive alternative housing, secure community transition facilities?

That's six months foot by fast. Yeah, just full support for extending the moratorium.

Thank you. So we can figure it out. Anybody opposed to that? No. Let's hear from the chamber. Anybody want to speak on extending or not extending the moratorium? Going once, going twice. Three times. Moving on. Number seven, miscellaneous council discussion. Mr. Stewart.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, just to keep it brief this evening, I only have one update, and that is just a reminder that our national night out celebration is coming next week, August 4th, on Tuesday. There will actually be two events. There will be one at 2.30 at Tierra Vida and another one at 5 p.m. out at Giza Stadium in partnership with our Dust Devils team. So I would invite the public again to come out, celebrate our officers, and learn of the resources that are out there and available to help when needed at both of those events next Tuesday. I don't stand for any questions if council has any.

Thank you. Anybody have anything for Mr. Stewart? Anybody have anything else? We want to discuss, Mr. Figueroa.

I just want to say thank you all for a lovely discussion today. And I think that as we talked about this, I met with a few residents and one of the biggest things that they really pointed out is that this council isn't afraid to tackle hard decisions. And so I want to share that word with all of you all because I know that From the first meeting that we kind of had back in January, it was just a lot of big, heavy topics. And so I just want to commend each and every one of you for the work that you're doing. I understand it's not easy and the toll it takes on family and everybody else. But truly, we have the heart of the city in mind. And I think that people respect that and they acknowledge that. So I share that with you.

Okay. Anybody have anything else? Speaking of the toll that all of this puts on people, I want you guys to consider something real quick for the sake of staff. We continue, staff is in the middle of budgeting, trying to find us about $12 million. They're in the middle of a comprehensive plan update. We've added more stuff even tonight, plus everything else we have. And I want to see if there's any kind of oh, I guess motivation or something until perhaps like the end of the year to just really I guess part of it's just respect for staff in their time and the executive branch of our government in their prioritization is when any of us send like emails or responses or phone calls from all of us, including myself, give them the opportunity to prioritize them as they see fit. First of all, I think statutorily we can't really, I mean, we can set policy and other stuff, But as far as like the day-to-day prioritizing, leaving that to them. And I guess in a sense basically saying if, you know, a response maybe doesn't come as timely as we want or something like that, doesn't mean these issues aren't important. I mean, we are literally representing people, but at some point we do need to give some respect. We have loaded them up pretty heavily. With that, not saying no one can reach out to them, you know, statutorily we can't do that either, but just respecting their time, their prioritization. I believe they are working for our, you know, executing what we want, but basically just saying, you know, that there's not going to be any backlash or something like that, you know, given how they prioritize the workload that we have given them, basically. Mr. Connery. Yeah, different subject. Well, hold on. Let's stick with this one for just a second. And then really, you guys, this isn't just like a forever thing. I'm just envisioning this just until like the end of the year, just until we get through this budget cycle, the comp plan update, and all the other stuff on their agendas. Really, just want to thank you, Mr. Prowles.

So what you're asking is...

for me to quit sending emails on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. No, no. It's actually, it's none of our business. People can send whatever they want, but just giving them the opportunity to really, yeah, just prioritize as they want. Because you're not the only one sending them emails, believe it or not.

Um, no, I've been thinking about a lot about that and there's only like a handful of issues that I think I would like to explore. Um, you know, from, from my vantage point, animal shelter, um, homelessness, um, speeding and honestly flock cameras has been a big issue that I, people have been, um, calling me about and, uh, taking the pulse right now of my district and, uh, So those are be my kind of four issues and I won't bring anything up to the end of the year.

Yeah. And we, and just to bounce off of that a little bit too, or to jump on that. I mean, we do have a retreat coming. I think too, Lauren is trying to put together too, but then just really to where that we're not asking staff to, you know, go after maybe all of our individual requests or whatever. Then that way, you know, we just, we decide as a council and say, Hey, This is important to us. This is something we really, you know, would like to see you spend some time on or whatever. Just because we have asked them to do a lot already and they are working their tails off for, you know, trying to pull this off for us and really our constituents or whatever. So just wanted to see if there was an appetite for that. Mr. Campos.

Yeah, I like the idea. I think that one of our biggest pushes and kind of just directives is that we do balance this budget. And so we have to give them opportunity to do that at our directive. And so I'm definitely in support of that.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Figueroa.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm in support of that too. Maybe perhaps if we do bring issues, I know that, you know, when I was working for a nonprofit and I was kind of helping with the state director, There was always a lot of stuff coming my way. So I would always say, hey, you know, can you label it or code it? Can we do like P1, P2, P3? Meaning P3, if you get to it, you know, it's fine. It's just there. I acknowledged it. I'll put it on the board. But like P1 is like should have been done yesterday, right? Which I believe staff has done great, phenomenal work taking care of all that stuff. So perhaps that can be something among us that we can label it. Hey, you know, I have this issue, but, you know, it can be on the queue on the wait list for a couple weeks or a couple months.

Yeah, and at some point, I don't know, Mr. Pullum, I think there are, and I don't know this, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a police chief expert, and I'm not a lawyer, but I think, you know, there are some things that, you know, we can say like this is important to us, but we can't prioritize necessarily their day-to-day workload. And not to put you on the spot, Mr. Pullum, but maybe you do have some advice along the lines of this conversation, sir.

Yes, Mary, you hit the nail on the head. When you talk about roles, you as a council can set policy and say, this is the policy that we want to see where the city goes. It is then up to the executive, in this case, your city manager, to then actually do the day-to-day to implement that policy. And you really do need to give him the space and capacity to do that administration. You couldn't, for example, say we want you to you know, do this thing in this one department. Like, for example, you couldn't go to that granular. That is not your role. That is not – you don't have that authority. That lies with your city manager. And so think about your role in terms of the big-picture policies that you want to see drive. Obviously, you also drive it in terms of, like, your budget and, you know, your city manager and your whole team is trying to develop a budget around your big-time priorities. So they – They need to include those things. But when it comes to the actual implementation of it, got to leave that to your staff to make that happen.

Thank you. That helps a lot. Yeah, and I guess just until the beginning of the year, I mean, let's reevaluate. We're continuing, even as of tonight, putting a lot on their workload and just want to make sure that, yeah, they can balance what we really want them to do as a body as well. Thank you. Mr. Cotta, did you have something else, sir?

No, in the name of that, we'll just table it.

Not that important all of a sudden, huh? No, thank you. Okay. Very good. Not seeing anything else. We are at number eight this evening. It's 9.54. We are adjourned.