Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome all those in attendance this evening and ask you to join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. I'd like to begin tonight's meeting and I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

We're trying to make some adjustments to volume in the right place. I guess it's sounding a little bit odd. Gotcha.

I apologize. Rosa Torres, excused. Austin Crawford.

Here.

Pat Jones.

Here.

Kim Letterman. Here. Rob Waits.

Here.

Dana Crutchfield. Here. Rachel Teal, excused. Jay Handler, excused. Jerry Cochran. Here. Chair, there are six members present. We do have a quorum.

Thank you. The Planning Commission is an advisory board made up of volunteers appointed by city council. The purpose of the Planning Commission is to provide recommendations to city council regarding changes to the city's comprehensive plan, land use updates, block grant allocations, and zoning code. The Planning Commission is tasked with considering the long-term growth and development of the community, the impact of land use decisions on community, livability, economic opportunity, housing affordability, public services, and the environment. I'd like to remind the audience that tonight's proceedings are being broadcast live on the City of Pasco's Facebook page and on Spectrum Charter Cable PSC Channel 191. It'll be rebroadcast several times during the next month. The meeting is also being recorded so you can watch it on the City of Pasco's website, which is pasco-wa.gov. You click on video on demand link and then make your selection there. There are copies of the meeting agenda available on the back table so you may follow along with the meeting. And at this time, I'd like to ask everyone to silence your cell phones to prevent interruptions during our meeting. For those present this evening, when you are given the opportunity to address the commission, please come forward to the podium, speak clearly into the microphone, and state your name and city of address for our records. And before we begin tonight's meeting, I need to remind the audience and the Planning Commission that Washington state law requires public meetings like the one being held this evening, not only to be fair, but to appear to be fair. In addition, Washington State law prohibits the Planning Commission members from participating in discussions or decisions in which the member may have a direct interest or may be either benefited or harmed by the Planning Commission's decision. Any objection to any Planning Commission member hearing any matter on tonight's agenda needs to be aired at this time or it will be waived. First, are there any Planning Commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of our agenda items? Let the record show there were no declarations. Second, is there anyone in the audience this evening who would object to any Planning Commission member hearing any of the items on the agenda? Let the record show there are also no declarations. We as the Planning Commission need and value your input. It helps us to understand the issues more clearly and make better recommendations to City Council. Furthermore, in many cases, your input here at this Planning Commission meeting is your only opportunity to get your facts and opinions placed into the official record the City Council will use to make its decisions. I encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunity. Our first item on the agenda is the approval of meeting minutes from August 21st, 2025. The minutes were provided ahead of time to commissioners and I trust you had an opportunity to take a look. Right now, at this time, I'd entertain a motion to approve the minutes or any discussion or corrections or comments about the minutes. yeah you can okay I moved to approve the August 21st 2025 meeting minutes thank you do I have a second I second that motion thank you it's been moved by Commissioner Lehrman and seconded by Commissioner waits all those in favor aye any opposed All right, let the record show the meeting minutes were unanimously approved. We have no old business or public hearings on the agenda tonight, so we'll move right into the workshop item, which is the climate planning presentation by Cascadia Consulting Group. And I'll turn it over to staff, or I assume Cascadia.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will introduce the Cascadia group to begin their presentation. Just as a kind of a primer, we've been working with multiple jurisdictions in our area with the consulting group on this project for some time now. And so we're here to kind of present to the planning board where we're at. We're nearly complete with the project. But they're here to talk about where we're at today and get some feedback from you. So with that, I'll turn it over to Cascade.

Thank you. Welcome, Cascade team.

Yeah, thank you so much for having us, commissioners, and for carving time out of your agenda tonight for us to talk to you all about the climate element and provide you all with an overview and get into some of the specific policies that are part of your meeting packet as well. So my name is Gretchen Muller and I'm a director here at Cascadia Consulting Group and serve as the project manager for what this project is called, the Tri-Cities Regional Climate Element. And I'm joined by Katherine Allison, who'll be presenting with me on some of the slides, as well as Lucy Harrington, who is also on the call with us from our greenhouse gas inventory team. So thank you all so much for having us tonight. For the next slide here. So our agenda with you all, and as Haley mentioned, we do have some slides to walk through with you all. The first set of slides will really be an introduction to this regional effort. And just a couple of slides here, I'll be turning it back over to Craig to talk about this collaboration across five jurisdictions for this Tri-Cities Regional Climate Element. We'll go into some detail related to the state requirements for climate planning and how this effort achieves and meets those state requirements. What is a climate element? What are those key components of a climate element as it relates to the document that is out for public comment right now? And then I'll turn it over to Catherine at that time, who will dive a little bit more deeply into some of the key findings, high-level key findings, and will provide a snapshot and really an orientation into the draft goals and policies that are part of your meeting packet. And we'll wrap up with next steps. Any questions on our proposed agenda for our time with you all tonight?

Thank you. Please proceed.

And with that, I will turn it over to you, Craig, for the introduction to the regional effort.

So as Gretchen mentioned and I hinted at earlier, we've been working with Benton County, Kennewick, of course, us, Pasco, Richland, West Richland on this effort. I think it actually began before I ever got here to Pasco in earnest. But it was clear to, I think, pretty much everybody that these issues don't stop at the river or across certain avenues. So it just really made sense for all of us to collaborate and to pool our resources on this effort. So that's what we've been doing since the beginning and working with the consultant team on the project. There's been a number of community outreach meetings leading up to this point. In addition to what we're doing this evening and next week, there's going to be another public meeting here at City Hall. There's also what you can see, the Climate Policy Advisory Team, or CPAT as we call it, which is comprised of community members who have been involved with the project at different levels and have provided feedback on some of the product that's been produced to this point. Go ahead and go to the next slide. So the goal overall is that we would produce policies that would ideally be selected community across the different communities. That's always difficult to do when you have different city councils and different planning commissions with different sensibilities in some cases, but our effort, our goal is to really make it as universal as we possibly can and to provide some consistency across the jurisdictions. Again, just with the understanding that these issues don't stop at the river or across a specific avenue. So we have a shared concern on how to deal with changes that are happening. And so that's what we've been trying to keep in mind throughout the effort. And I'll send it back to you.

Great. Thanks so much, Craig. Any questions on the regional approach before I dive into the state requirements?

I just had a question. I didn't hear Franklin County or see it on the list. Is Franklin County not participating or I just missed that? Franklin County is not participating. That's interesting. It is.

I believe they were invited to participate.

Go ahead. Sorry, I jumped in without being addressed. Sorry about that. Follow-up question, I also noticed a couple other cities were not part of it either. Is that correct for like Findlay and Benton City as well?

Yeah, and I don't, again, this got started before I came, so I don't know if Gretchen or Catherine has any background on those particular communities and where kind of they came in or decided not to.

Yeah, my understanding is, so when we joined as part of this, it was these five jurisdictions had already formed an agreement and pursued a, you know, released an RFQ or RFP that we submitted a proposal for. My understanding is that prior to that, that all the jurisdictions were invited. But yeah, but didn't participate for whatever reason.

Thank you. Do we know why Franklin County chose not to participate? I do not.

I do not.

They made a comment or a public statement as to why they chose not to participate?

I don't know if they did or not. I think they just chose to address the state requirements on their own.

Thank you. Any other questions before she may move on with the presentation? All right. Thanks. Please proceed.

So we thought it would be helpful to do an overview of the state requirements and a bit of information about House Bill 1181 and the Growth Management Act and how it got rolled into this, the draft climate element, which is out for public comment right now. So what is the climate element? In 2023, the legislature amended Washington's Growth Management Act through House Bill 1181 and the resulting GMA requirements required newly, they newly tasked cities and counties to integrate both climate resilience and greenhouse gas emission reduction policies into the comprehensive plan updates. And the greenhouse gas sub element required for cities over 6,000 residents in 11 of the largest and fastest growing counties. And Pregnant County is one of the counties and PASCO meets the population threshold. So URLs draft climate elements as it stands with this regional effort has two sub-elements. It's got the resilience sub-element as well as the greenhouse gas emissions sub-element.

Go to the next slide, please.

So, the comprehensive plans and the associated climate element are currently, as they stand, compliant with both the Growth Management Act as well as House Bill 1181 requirements. The climate element and the two sub elements that make that climate element were informed by data, community engagement, as Craig mentioned, and we'll get into a little more detail in a couple of slides, as well as integrated with other plans and other comp plan elements as well, and supported by the community, city staff and decision makers. And then also with an eye always, the North Star of this planning effort has been to provide a path to implementation as well. With that, we can keep going into the key elements, the core elements of the climate elements. We can head to the next slide, Catherine.

So the key components, and we can keep going here.

I'm trying. My computer is suddenly going really slow.

Okay. Great. Well, this is like a cliffhanger to the two sub-elements here. So you see here on, I believe, the left side of your screen are the emission reduction measures and the emissions reduction sub-element. As I mentioned, it's required for 11 of the state's largest and fastest growing counties and their cities. And so that is why you all have, as part of this regional effort, emissions reduction measures, which capture both greenhouse gas emissions and per capita vehicle miles traveled. So that is what is in that sub-element. And then on the right side of your screen, that resilient sub-element, which is required for all jurisdictions, planning fully under the Growth Management Act, and it includes adaptation measures. So we've got the emissions reduction measures, which are the greenhouse gas emissions and per capita vehicle miles traveled as part of that one sub-element. As part of the other, the resilient sub-elements, it's adaptation measures. Go to the next slide, please. So Commerce requires that the City of Pasco develop climate resilience goals and policies that meet the following requirements up on the screen here. And there are three minimum requirements. I won't read them each because I know they're up on the screen. And the goals and policies that are part of your meeting packet all address at least one or more of these requirements for the resilience sub-element. And we can go to the next slide here. And on the greenhouse gas emissions reduction sub-element side, there are also three minimum requirements. And the goals and associated policies that are part of your meeting packet also hit on at least one or sometimes multiple of these minimum requirements as well. And the goals and policies that are under these minimum requirements need to work towards the overall greenhouse gas emission reduction target of net zero emissions by 2050 on both a total and per capita basis.

And yeah, we can keep going.

We'll keep going here. So this timeline here shows all the various different ingredients and associated deliverables that went into where we are right now in that timeline of this. We've got the draft goals and policies that draft climate elements out for public comment right now. And at the end of October, October 30th, will result in a final climate element. And then we'll go through your adoption process as part of your comprehensive planning effort. And on the top, this blue bar up here shows the various different pieces and parts of analysis and associated deliverables that went into the climate resilience sub-elements. We've got the tree canopy assessment, the climate impact summary, as well as the climate vulnerability assessment. And on that yellow bar down below the greenhouse gas inventory and associated projections with that work, as well as the vehicle miles traveled analysis and a couple of documents that bridge each of those sub elements. There was a policy audit that was conducted. That was the very first step. So what are all the various different relevant documents, planning documents that you all as the city of Pasco and the other four jurisdictions that participated What are all the relevant documents? We combed through all of them and made sure that we were flagging what is, you know, where are their existing goals and policies that meet some of these minimum requirements, where there's some gaps. And that's what resulted in the final draft of the goals and policies that are out for public comment right now. And this next slide shows that simultaneously while we were developing each of these different deliverables had a community engagement as well as stakeholder engagement with the climate planning advisory team. So we had a set of public meetings and as, as Craig mentioned, has a public meeting planned in Pasco in the upcoming weeks here and this month long public review comment as well. We've got both an in-person and a remote meeting coming up on the public side of things. And then we've been meeting with the climate planning advisory team for this will be our fifth meeting with them. So we've been meeting with them throughout every step of the way. And they've reviewed these draft deliverables along the way as well and have some key members from PASCO that have been sitting around that table. Any questions on either the two sub-elements that I walked through, what they are, what's included in them, and or the climate element timeline and what we've been up to these last few months here. Any questions on the process before we keep going?

Commissioners? Okay.

No questions.

All right. Great. Well, thank you all so much for that. I'm going to turn it over to you, Catherine.

Thank you all. I'm just going to walk us through some very high-level key findings just to set kind of an understanding of the work we've been doing and how it's informed these goals and policies. I'm going to start with our Community engagement findings, these are regional findings primarily drawn from the Community survey we did in March. And so they're not broken down specifically to pasco but they're representative of all the participating jurisdictions and the findings really highlighted that residents are experiencing. some financial impacts, some changes to their daily lives, some physical health impacts as a result of experiencing extreme weather events. The primary concerns of weather impacts are related to wildfire and wildfire smoke, along with increased temperatures, extreme heat, drought, and wind. We also found support for resilient strategies. People are interested in seeing more shade and tree canopy some natural flood control measures and affordable heating and cooling options. As I mentioned earlier, the key hazards that were identified by the community were also highlighted in our research. And these are the key hazards that commerce requires us to address in all of the policies and goals that we're drafting. So we focus on these four key hazards that, you know, we had discussion with the projects teams, our CPAP members as well as those community members and our technical analyses. Our vulnerability assessment looks at exposure sensitivities and overall vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities for the region, as well as each individual jurisdiction. So just to highlight a few vulnerabilities we identified for PASCO. The wildfire risk associated with some invasive species such as cheatgrass that kind of increase that flammability and wildfire risk. The agricultural lands are also in a high wildfire risk area that has some economic and public health impacts. The Columbia River could be a major flood risk impacting the economy and transportation throughout the region. And some frequently flooded areas include, I should have looked out how to pronounce this earlier, but this is over by the airport and some of the agricultural lands that ravine that kind of frequently flood. pivoting away from our resilient sub element to our greenhouse gas sub element this chart is highlighting the largest sources of emissions in the city the two main ones are on-road passenger vehicles and industrial natural gas but you'll see that our missions are really broken into three main categories transportation buildings and solid waste and there are several different emission sources that go into those calculations Next, we have our vehicle miles traveled. We know this region is really interconnected, and we're expected to see a 26% increase in VMT by 2045, primarily driven by an increase in jobs and housing, which will increase the number of car trips people are taking. We also saw that 67% of commute trips are less than 25 minutes for residents of the city. region-wide it's 69%, so PASCO is pretty much in line with the regional commute trips. And finally, I just wanted to highlight, as Gretchen mentioned, the policy audit was step one for us to understand what is already happening in the city that we can build on when we're making our climate element policies and goals, and then what are some of the gaps that we might be seeking to fill with new policies. So some policy trends, things that are already being done in the city are efforts to protect community well-being. That's associated with shorelands, critical lands, and protecting wildlife habitats that are already in the urban area. Also efforts to increase mixed-use and walkable developments in neighborhoods. Some gaps that we're hoping to fill with climate element policies are around water quality, including sustainable and green economy jobs in the industry and employment recruitment, and more wildfire resistance, resilience, prevention, and addressing the health impacts that can come from wildfires.

Back to you, Gretchen.

Excellent, thank you very much. Yeah, so we also wanted to orient you all to a little bit more about the goals and associated policies, draft policies that are out for public comment right now. And per the Commerce requirements, goals and policies for the resilience sub-element address climate hazards, they address vulnerable populations, and they address each of the priority sectors that you'll see on the far right of your screen here. That is how the draft goals and associated policies are organized, the infrastructure within which that document that you have in your meeting packet is structured. And we have, as part of the requirements, developing at least one climate resilience goal and policy as it relates to each of the climate exacerbated hazards and within each of the 11 of the commerce identified priority sectors. Go to the next slide. And so how things are organized on the greenhouse gas emissions reduction sub-element side of things. We've got the requirement around developing goals and policies to both reduce emissions as well as utilize those mitigation strategies to address transportation, to address buildings, energy, zoning, and development. And so on the far right there are the mitigation strategies that you'll also see in your policy document as well. And all of these to support the efforts to reach net zero by 2050. Great. So with that, we are going to go a little bit more in detail into some of those goals and associated policies that you're going to see in your meeting packet and potentially spend more time with if you all would like after this meeting as well. And with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Catherine.

Before you do that, I think we have a question.

Great.

Commissioner Jones. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt, but when you say you've said a year to go carbon neutral. It sounds like you're saying 2015. And what are you saying?

2050.

Yeah, 2050, right? 2050. I'm sorry. It sounds like you're saying 2015, and I thought I missed something.

Yeah, then we really missed something, right?

2050, 2050, right?

Yeah, 2050. Thank you. Thank you very much for making that clarifying question.

Any other questions from commissioners? All right, please proceed.

Great. Thank you all. I'm going to start with our overarching climate element goal. I'm not going to read all the goals, but I want to highlight the themes of each of the goals. So this is a goal over both sub elements. So both resilience and greenhouse gas reduction. And the policies within that goal are looking to really grow the skills and experience of staff throughout the region to help reach those goals and policies, build in tracking and reporting mechanisms in line with state requirements, and implement the policies in alignment with defensible science. Our next goal is specific to the resilience sub-element. And so all of the resilience sub-element goals we'll see that follow this one are all kind of building in to this overarching goal. And next we get into some of the sector specific goals. So this transportation, buildings, energy, and land use goal has policies looking to expand wildfire mitigation practices, specifically working with utilities and fire departments. expanding multimodal and active transportation, and increasing energy efficiency in homes, especially providing some low-cost cooling solutions for residents. I just want to highlight early on that I'm just highlighting two to three themes of policies, and you'll see in the list that there are often many more policies, and we're not going to touch on all of them. But if there's questions on any specific ones, we're happy to address that. Next, we have our water resources, ecosystems, agriculture, and food systems goal with policies aimed to promote water storage and conservation practices, especially around agriculture, new developments, and the general public. Looking to expand natural areas to increase shade and flood control, something that we heard a lot from in our community survey. Also to protect ecosystems from extreme heat, drought, and wildfire. You'll notice that these policy themes are highlighting both the climate impact that we're addressing per state requirements, and then the water resources as an example of the sector that these policies are addressing. Our next resilience goal is the economic development and cultural resources, looking to expand entry-level job opportunities in low emissions industries, include climate hazards in multi-jurisdiction hazard mitigation plans, and increased coordination with tribal governments, particularly around climate resilience and adaptation. Next is our health and wellbeing and emergency management goal. This works to collaborate on the floodplain map updates and any corresponding code updates, expand programs that provide both cooling and warming centers to residents and expand those public outreach and education programs specifically around emergency preparedness. And next we'll move into our greenhouse gas emissions reduction. So similar to the resilient sub-element, we have an overarching goal for this sub-element that all the subsequent goals are supporting. And our first sector for this sub-element is buildings and energy. The policies in this sector look to reduce building energy consumption and improve energy efficiency and to align with state guidance for decarbonization. especially around building codes for electric vehicle charging. Our next one is our transportation zoning development and land use. It's a very long goal because we wanted to be more specific on city actions versus county actions, but the policies within this goal are looking to increase mixed use land to integrate housing, transit, and different amenities, help to reduce commute times, and increase bike and pedestrian transportation networks. And our last goal, for waste management. Some policies within this goal are to consider ways to reduce waste and expand recycling programs and explore opportunities for regional collaboration on waste management.

So just wanted to give you an overview of the goals and associated policies as they relate to each of the sub elements that are part of the Tri-Cities, that regional climate element that's out for public comment right now. But no, that was a lot. And so we thought it would be, helpful to put forward a couple of questions and recognizing that we may not be able to get all of the input that you may want to provide on those draft goals and associated policies during tonight's meetings. I know you all have other things on the agenda, but as you're looking at those draft goals, as you're looking at the associated draft policies that are out for public comment, are there any major gaps? Are you seeing any major gaps, things that we missed that you think should be there? Is there something important that just is not addressed, that you're not seeing in either of the sub elements and their associated goals and policies? And then are there any groups of people that you all feel like would be either most benefited or most burdened by any particular policy? And so looking for any and all input that you all have either on these questions or on anything else as it relates to the climate element. And I don't know, Craig or Haley, how much time we have tonight to get input from you all, but know that we've got this public comment period. And Catherine, can you remind me when the public comment period closes for this?

Yeah, just opened. It'll be open until October 8th.

October 8th. So still quite a bit of time and wanted to put these types of questions forward as you all can. dive more deeply into those goals and policies.

Well, thank you. And I know you guys put a lot of work into this and a lot of workshops and steering groups and all that. And so I'll open it up. This is also a hot topic, and I'm sure we have a diverse set of opinions amongst the commissioners. And so we'll open it up for the commissioners to provide feedback. And I'll ask all of us, including myself, not to get on too many soapboxes, but we want to give you candid feedback.

I appreciate I think we'll have lots of opinions commissioners I have an opinion Commissioner Crutchfield good evening thanks for coming here to speak with us I think that for me one of the things with this climate change the fire and that particular element is really important and I think because now we're looking more and more towards high density, promoting mixed use and all of this that many of us are not familiar with, don't necessarily like it, then we better start thinking about the things that are going to come along with that. So I'm not sure how implementing some of the focusing on promoting dense mixed-use multimodal development and so forth is going to decrease our climate problem. We're going to have more infill of land. We're going to have more congestion. One thing I do think that's good the city has done, there's a lot of space being devoted to bike trails. It's kind of encroached on the actual car driving part, but that's good to have people be able to travel that way. In the winter time here it doesn't work so well, but so I just had questions about that part. Also, reducing or minimizing regulatory burdens and some of those things I think still permitting and having some of those boundaries can actually help in controlling some of these problems. Those are just some of my feelings. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Jones. Thank you very much. I'll keep my soapboxes to a minimum. Appreciate the comment. First one, did House Bill 1181 directly provide funding to the communities to implement this lengthy list of changes that they're looking for?

Yes, there was grant funding available through the Climate Commitment Act. So this whole effort was funded through the Climate Commitment Act. And each of the jurisdictions pooled their resources as part of this effort.

And so the funding is solely through this... This cap and invest program, is that correct?

There are lots of things that are under the Climate Commitment Act umbrella, and that is one of them.

Okay, so what items then are generating the funding that will be available?

The funding that was available for this grant program or the funding?

What items are in place right now? What taxes or fees or fines or whatever? Are taking place in the state of Washington that are generating the funding that states and cities rather can apply for to try to address these things.

For the implementation side of things. Yeah. Craig, do you want to speak a little bit to that?

think the clarification is is that there's grant funding to do this study and add the elements to the comprehensive plan I don't hear there's a lot of grant funding to implement the impacts that those policies will have and that's that's what my question is what funding is available to implement Thank You chair for clearing that up what funding is available to implement I all of these changes that are being required by this House bill to this point I

you know, staff is going to continue to keep an eye on different funding sources that will be made available. And sometimes you have to be really creative with how you're looking at different opportunities and where it will specifically fit within these different, um, goals or efforts, uh, or policies, um, projects, you know, for example, Could, this is a question because I don't know the answer at this point, could programs like CDBG or HOME be used in part for financing home renovations that might help cooling in some residences? Perhaps, maybe, I don't know. So I think we just have to be really creative with how we're looking at different funding sources and what opportunities they might present.

As far as direct line from the state to us, there's nothing.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean, there's also transportation dollars for either transit improvements or other multimodal improvements. So we just have to be really creative with how we're looking at the opportunities and what they can purchase, if you will.

Okay. I noticed in here one of the things that talked about was making sure that people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and so on have access to parks. And then one of the comments was that that's already a policy of our parks department. So that's a great thing that's already in place. So that's a wonderful thing. My second of three comments is natural gas is mentioned in here very often. We all remember that natural gas was on the ballot the last time there was an election. I think natural gas is a very political hot potato right now. And it concerns me that that's mentioned so many times in here. the party that really pushed for all the things in here was also the party that pushed for, to get rid of natural gas, so that concerns me that there's perhaps a political motive involved there. And then my third and final comment that I wanted to make was under the waste management, maybe you can go back a slide for me, please? Would that be possible? Yeah, ensure that the community can reduce, reuse and recycle waste materials sustainably. In the city of Pasco, we only have one local company that does our waste collection, and I know they bid it and follow state laws and everything, but there isn't a lot of motivation for them to do more than what they absolutely minimally have to do, and I think to get a company to do those kinds of things, we need to find ways to motivate them to do something, and being the only company that gets to do that, those two things don't seem to go hand in hand very much, in my opinion. So those are my comments. But I congratulate you on the work that went into this thing, and boy, there's a lot to look at and consider, that's for sure. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Jones.

Anyone else?

This is Commissioner Lehrman. If we can go back to the slide that had four main, I think, environmental concerns. It goes more towards the beginning. The last one of the four was the word drought. The findings.

On the resilience side of things. We'll get there. I think so. I think Catherine is trying to not make you dizzy by scrolling back through many, many slides, so we'll pull up the right one and share our screen again in just a moment.

OK. And so when I was first listening to the presentation and going through. So my background is in agriculture, so I think of our water resources not just for irrigation, but also the quality of water. And so when I saw the word drought, I thought that was really short for all of the needs that we have concerns for our local waterways, especially like as we've seen the last few years, algae blooms, toxic algae blooms to aquatic invasive species that have really taken over our Yakima, our Columbia rivers. And so I would encourage to maybe instead of the word drought, but water availability might be a better choice because if the water quality is not there, then we can't use it.

Thank you. Anyone else?

I'll just chime in with a little bit of feedback. I'll be honest that I was shocked that we have 14 pages of policy. I think that one of the things you might find is that Franklin County probably stayed out for a reason. And we all know that. And I think that the Pasco voters, the Pasco City Council is going to be very unresponsive to a lot of burdensome regulation. I think that the. Most of us Eastsiders don't want what the Westsiders want and what Olympia wants. And I think you're going to have a hard time. The other thing that was shocking to me, I'll just be honest, was many of these things are already present. As you mentioned in the example of the parks policy, many of these policies exist in many other places. are the things you mentioned in building. We have building policies. We have policies that proliferate on these topics. And the need for 14 pages of more policy is kind of really irritating to me. The other thing is that these will impose huge burdens on our taxpayers as well as our developers. And so I think I don't know what kind of feedback you're getting from your participants, but maybe it's not the people that actually represent Pasco voters or our council, because with our current council makeup, I can't imagine you getting a fraction of this through and I'll just be honest. And so I don't think I would vote for to recommend this. My colleagues may disagree with me, but I would never entertain a burdensome regulatory package that we're seeing. I would, I would think the Pasco voters and council would want us to take more of Franklin County's approach, which is what do we need to meet the minimum requirements of the state? Because that's all we want. I'll just leave it there and I'll try not to be on a soapbox.

I just wanted to sound or kind of chime in on. of the same line that a lot of this there's a lot of things in the development land use um and basically housing and development front that's you know i guess loosely referring to new policies things like that and coming from that sector it speaks to a lot more cost and i would say one thing that i hear about a lot of in franklin county pasco specifically is where quickly growing community and affordability is like one of our largest problems and has been for a long time and likely will continue to be as we have a growing population and all of these things just adds to cost for builders for developers and at the end of the day new consumers new home buyers people who are already here and trying to do that so I guess falling back on what are our biggest problems and how do we mitigate that and falling in line with initiatives from the west side of the state probably Don't fall in line with, I guess, specifically just the affordability and housing initiatives that I think probably are more front and center here in Pasco would be, I guess, some of my feedback.

Jerry.

Thank you. All right.

Yes, just that I wanted to mention, I agree with Chairman Cochran very much so. And I don't think necessarily that we have to just go by the recommendations or the needs of the west side of the state were different. And most of us are very proud of that. We realize we have to change and so forth. We're going to grow. We should do so in a, you know, in a very planned manner. But we've had a lot of things pushed over here that really were not wanted all along our horizon with the windmills and so forth and so on. So again, I don't want to get on my soapbox either, but I certainly concur with I'm our chair. Thank you.

Thank you others.

You had asked us if there's any groups that might have been left out. And so I have a question back for you guys. Was the local school districts invited into the conversations regarding these policies and opportunity to be able to provide some feedback?

That's a great question. I don't know. Catherine, do you have the list of the the climate planning, the advisory team, the policy advisory team and who was on there? I'm not sure if if anybody from the school district was on there or not. But we can circle back and get you a response to that question through Craig.

Thank you. Pasco alone has 27 campuses in all various ages, so these policies would definitely affect them and therefore affect the local taxpayers too.

Thank you, Commissioner Lerman. Can you remind us when, I know you said the public comment period is October 8th, is there any more public workshops or meetings scheduled? Can we get those dates as well?

Catherine, do you want to provide those dates? We have a couple coming right up here.

Or you can send it out in email later if you like.

Yeah, we have it as our, as our next slides, if we're ready to, if there's any other comments that you'd like to share, we can go to our closing slides here. Yeah.

Yeah. We have one more comment. Commissioner.

As far as gaps, if we're talking about things that affect everybody, equally in the Tri-Cities General Region. Air quality has been miserable over the last several years. You mentioned wildfires, which largely aren't here in this region. So the wildfires do blow into our region and cause air quality. But there's other factors that cause poor air quality here in the Tri-Cities Region, and I don't see those things being mentioned here other than greenhouse gases caused by vehicle miles traveled. We live in a very rural area. We're going to travel more so than those on the west side of the state. but we spend less time in our vehicle because we don't have the traffic. So addressing the air quality control air quality probably be from a different perspective would probably be helpful. Thank you.

I guess the clarifying clarifying question I have for, um, commissioner waits. Um, so do you, are you thinking like, um, controlling the particulates in the air, such as dust on gravel roads and things like that?

That could be part of it as well. But I mean, just driving here, looking out, I didn't know we were talking about climate. I looked out my windows, I was driving here, and you can see a haze on the horizon. When I first moved here 10 years ago, it wasn't here. I've lived in Eastern Washington my entire life, and the air quality has suffered in the last 10 years for sure, especially here in the Tri-Cities region.

Well, yeah, you tie back to climate as the land is drier and it's more fragile and therefore it's up in the air more, yeah.

All right, anything else for the team for feedback?

Go ahead. Will we get to see this again or another draft or if it changes at all?

I believe it comes back to us in December.

So I just wanted to clarify a few things based on the comments, if that's okay, Chair. This is a document that was assembled at the regional level to advise cities on policy. So this document, I've noted the comments that the group has said, and I appreciate the feedback. So, PASCO in its comprehensive plan can adopt different policies. So, the idea is that most cities mirror this, so it's consistent. But if there is, you know, a list of policies or certain things in there that we'd like to omit, staff would likely, you know, seek to advise you on what is a required state requirement, the minimum levels. But if the commission and council do not wish to go above and beyond state requirements or have concerns over areas that may not be funded for implementation we we understand that so we're listening to the feedback and this document is going out to the public we'll send you information and to the school district as well to invite their entities and we'll take in the feedback but when this will come back to you it will be a part of the comprehensive plan climate change portion that's required at the state level so it'll either be bundled into the environmental element or just its own element in the comprehensive plan. So Craig and I and staff will be going through this document once it's finalized and it's meant to be a resource to inform staff on the comprehensive plan update. So what we'll do is we'll take in your input, once this is finalized, look it over and then build that into the PASCO comprehensive plan. So that's the extent of what I was envisioning that this group would see next, unless you wanted to see the final version again and discuss it again. But I, I just assume, you know, you can come to the public meeting or give us feedback, but we'll be going through it. And that's what we'll be coming to with you. If you'd like any other check-ins before that, you can let us know. Otherwise we'll bring you, proposed policies specific to PASCO gleaning from this document as a resource and incorporating the feedback we've received.

No, that makes great sense. Thanks for clarifying. That makes more sense than 14 pages of PASCO policy more. I will say my advice to you would be to focus on the specific findings to PASCO and the things that our people called out as problems and focus on implementing things that impact those things. I'll give you an example. Reducing greenhouse gases in PASCO will not affect our weather one bit. unless China and India change what they're doing with greenhouse gases, right? And so I would focus on things that some of the commissioners have mentioned that, hey, with our air quality or our water or our things that are happening or our fires, even as Commissioner Waits meant, our smoke is not from fires in Pasco. It's smoke from fires in Canada and Oregon or in California, right? Focus on things that are related to our findings that we can do things about and that make a difference here. Because focusing on things like reduced vehicle miles or telling me I can't have a gas stove Won't matter a bit if China keeps pumping crap into the atmosphere, right? And so focus on what we can do locally. I think that would be my advice.

Yes, and I did go through this exercise with a similar thought process. The city I worked at before had a similar thought process and sentiment is what I'm hearing from this group. So there are ways we can still meet the state requirements and make it useful for the community. And I agree, tangible things. It does get hot. There are people without air conditioning. Can we help get buildings retrofitted? What can we do to reduce smoke impacts and get people inside or cooling stations? So I think there's very tangible things that we can address in Pasco that, you know, without really getting into the whole issue itself or trying to tackle, you know, greenhouse gas and vehicle pollution. trips we can we can certainly aim toward that but if there's not funding at the state level i'm just i'm i'm agreeing with the group on this or at least with you chair that focusing on tangible items specific to pasco is the smartest move and is good for the community in my opinion to to fix these impacts whether we're calling it Climate change, weather change, hot weather, it doesn't matter. There's hot weather impacting people or smoke impacting folks in the area. So I think if we can make it tangible and then be clear on which goals and policies we agree on and go through it that way when we present the plan to you, you can let me know. The group can let us know what they're comfortable with or not comfortable, and we'll be sure and let you know what just really has to be there. Otherwise, we may have funding issues at the state level. There's some things that we just need to do or we would advise you to do.

Mr. Chairman, if we don't do that at the lowest level of government, it'll never happen. We lose our opportunity to do it. These kinds of opportunities continue to slip away as it is. We have to take these opportunities when we can. I see an opportunity for us to, there's a little bit of a glimmer of realism in this conversation, and I'm enriched by it. I really am. And so we have to do these things when we can. We have to be realistic. We have to do what's best for the citizens of Pasco. That's why we're here. And there are some things on there that would be in the best interest of the citizens of Pasco. And the one, two, three, the six people sitting here, the three people out there and others can recognize those things. That's where we should focus. That's the nudge that we should keep giving. And I think that's what we're gonna do and that's refreshing.

Thank you. Commissioners, any other comments or feedback for the team? Well thank you the Cascade team and thank you for hearing our feedback and our passion and thank you for the work you did on this because I know you guys do a lot of great work and it's a hot topic and thank you for hearing our feedback.

Thank you all so much for the opportunity to come and speak with you all tonight and appreciate all the feedback. And just a reminder too of the public review period right now and the draft climate element in its entirety is up on the BFCOG website. The link is there and Craig can provide that with you all as well. So would love any and all additional comments that you all have related to that document. in the upcoming days here through October 8th. Thank you all so much and have a wonderful rest of your night.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead. It says Tuesday, September 23rd, there's an in-person meeting. Where's that at on the 23rd and what time? Good question.

It is here at City Hall, Council Chambers. And I believe the time was six.

All right, do we have any other unfinished old business for the agenda? Don't look like it on the agenda? Okay. Well, with nothing else on the agenda, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Sorry.

Go ahead. Did we want to address the iPads?

We can do that now if you want.

Sorry, I thought we had an item for directors' comments on the agenda, so we'll make sure and put that on there next time.

It's not on the agenda, but I'm happy to add it to the other business category.

Okay, thank you. So I'll just make this quick, just wondering if anybody here by show of hands is interested in getting an iPad to receive materials instead of paper format?

rather not kill the trees and probably save the trips to our house. Okay.

So we'll, we'll start with, with the four in the middle and then, um, you know, eventually we'd like to get everybody to electronic review just to avoid printing and, and it's just easier to, to send it more convenient and we are moving paper free. So we'll work on getting a few to start and then phase in other folks. I need to still look at our budget and make sure that, you know, since, since I came up with this idea, when I got here, the budget was already adopted. So I, there may be a little bit of a waiting period, but I will look into that. And then the other announcement, you should have received an email from me about some comprehensive plan outreach strategy. And again, Our consultants are doing a fabulous job helping us with outreach and came up with a creative idea that I haven't seen before in comprehensive plan efforts. And the plan is to put together a show-to-go box that has information about the comprehensive plan in Pasco. And I'm not actually sure what it will look like, but what was described to me is just basically a little to-go box that talks about the comprehensive plan and where we're going in the next 20 years. It's in simple terms, very easy to understand. And our plan is to identify community leaders throughout Pasco so that we can infiltrate the groups that we don't interact with very much and people are busy. They don't really like coming to night meetings. We don't have a packed house here for council meetings unless there's a controversial issue. So we felt that holding a community meeting with whiteboards and stickies and just would be more to me. Just check a box and we'd see the same people we see at the public meetings. So what we'd like to do is get a list together of those community leaders And then have a meeting with, with those folks and other people can come to, we're not going to like screen them at the door and say, are you a leader? If not, you know, walk away. We'll let anybody come in, but we'd like to meet with different organizations of, of churches, organizing, uh, rotary clubs, um, just leaders in HOA leaders in different neighborhoods. And we've even started putting a list together of applicants or people in neighborhoods that have reached out to the city in opposition to development. mainly, you know, some annexations recently occurred and people in the city limits are upset about new development coming in. So we're trying to get the ring leaders of those groups to come in and join the process because that is where we can really plan long-term and establish that. So we want to pass out, we want to do a meeting with those leaders, send them back to their groups with a box of goodies and easy to fill out questionnaire and really easy for them to get the information back to us. So it's a very simple exercise. I imagine we'll be asking things such as what do you wish was in your neighborhood? What do you wish wasn't? Do you like corner stores nearby or do you want those all the way over here? And just some questions that people can relate to. we'll be compiling that data. If they do want staff to come visit and talk more, I will have, uh, Ivan, he's our planner, planner three. Now, um, he can come with me. He speaks fluent Spanish and is a planner. So between Ivan and myself and other staff, we'd like to start going to these different groups and just get out there and go during the day or evening or morning and start interacting with, with the public that way. So it's a fun idea. I think it will be, Exciting to see what we come up with. So all of that to say, if you do have any ideas of community leaders or you may be one yourself and would like to be added to the list, which is great. Just email Carmen by next week, your leader name and contact details and let us know and we'll be reaching out. So I've never done an exercise like this before. It sounds like it may be a good way to get into the community. And I think with several different staff helping with different backgrounds, I think we'll be able to divide and conquer and really make meaningful appearances out with the public and introduce ourselves and sort of reintroduce the department and the comprehensive plan and ask about you know, people's dreams for Pasco and what they want to see in the next 20 years and what they want their city to be. So looking forward to that and I appreciate your help.

Thank you. No, I applaud you for looking for new ways. That's awesome. Because I think, you know, planning isn't that sexy, but we need people to get involved. So I appreciate you trying to experiment with new ways to get out there and get to the leaders. Because at the end of the day, they complain that they don't like what's being done, but if they're not involved, it's hard to feel bad for them, right?

We're just trying to make it easy to get. Go ahead.

Two-pronged question here. Do these leaders, or do they necessarily be Pasco residents, or is it Pasco business owners, people who organizations that are based here specifically?

I won't get too, like, rural-oriented with it. I think if you have someone you have identified as a leader in the community, you know, we're not going to be checking their driver's license and asking if they live here, but if they work here, recreate here, you know, if there's a pickleball club that's going on and that person doesn't live in Pasco, it's okay. I mean, just anybody associated with the city of Pasco that has an organization or group or they're seen as a leader or self-proclaimed leader, I mean, just really anyone We'd want the more the merrier, basically, at that meeting with leaders. So it can be business owners, organization owners, just anybody involved with PASCO that you feel has influence or has more of a reach than what I would be able to do with a meeting like this. To get people here, we're just trying to get more people contacted for this. Sounds good. Yes. Yeah, our consultant team did come up with that. I'm not taking credit to be clear, but I am excited to try it and I think it will be more meaningful and hopefully we can engage more in the community and just explain, you know, that growth is required at the state level and, you know, the mixed use developments and apartments and just, you know, help people understand that if you live in the city limits, you will see growth and it is a requirement. And that even if the city wanted to slow it down or peel back on some maybe climate change regulations, there's just, there's outside sources feeding into it as well. And, you know, I don't want it to sound like we're just blaming the state for everything, but it's just, it's helpful to educate people because I think Most people who see development just automatically assume we want development and we're making money. Well, we don't make money off residential. We come in and use the roads and use the water and it's a net loss, actually. So nobody's really making money off of it. So I just really like to try and educate people as best as I can and say, This is just the issues with growth and trying to just angle it that way instead of maybe what they're thinking. Anyway, I'm excited about that project. If you have ideas, I'd love to hear it. Other than that, I don't have updates. I wanted to welcome our new planning commissioners, Commissioner Crawford and Waits. Welcome. I know you were here at the last meeting, but I believe I was attending virtual. And I just appreciate you guys taking your time and coming here this evening and volunteering your time to help Pasco. It's appreciated. So thank you.

Thank you, Director Mattson. Well, with that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Seconded.

all right it's been moved to second and we're adjourned at 7 35 p.m thank you everybody for being here