Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'd like to call the Pierce County Council to order. Today is June 23rd, 2026. The time is 3 p.m. If the clerk could please call the roll.

Council Member Morrell. Excuse me. Council Member Herrera.

Here.

Council Member Kruver. Here. Council Member Ayala? Here. Council Member Yambe? Here. Council Member Denson? Here. Council Member Hitchen? Here. You have six members present?

We have six members and we have all seen Council Member Morrell. He's somewhere in this room and will arrive and we'll make sure the record reflects that but he does have to be here so we'll see. Today I will be leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a Land Acknowledgement. However, after the pledge I'd ask those that can stand to please remain standing while we honor the men and women serving overseas in our military with a moment of silence. So if you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the

We acknowledge that we are on the traditional homelands of the Coast Salish tribes. Coast Salish people have lived on and stewarded these lands since time immemorial and continue to do so today. We recognize that this land acknowledgement is one small step towards true allyship and commit to uplifting the voices, experiences, and histories of the Indigenous people of this land. We are now at the approval of the agenda. Are there any objections to our agenda as presented? Let the record show that Council Member Morrell has been found. He is here. Any objections to the agenda? Seeing none, we'll consider the agenda approved. On today's council agenda, there'll be multiple opportunities for public comment. On the consent agenda, you may provide comment on any final action item. This does not include items that are placed there for scheduling, and then or introduction and then during section nine of the agenda we'll take public comment on each ordinance. We have no resolutions today so each ordinance and then finally under community forum there'll be an opportunity to address the council on any topic that was not up for final action this afternoon. For information on the rules for public participation please review the bottom of the first page of your agenda. We're now at Section 5, which is our Consent Agenda. This includes one set of minutes and one appointment resolution. And I am looking for a motion to approve the Consent Agenda. Vice Chair?

Chair, I move to approve the Consent Agenda as presented.

It's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda. I'm just seeing if Michael Gonzalez, is Michael in the, you are here. Well, we would love to have you come and introduce yourself, share a little bit about why you'd like to serve on the Community Development Corporation Board of Directors.

Thank you everybody and hello everyone. Special shout out to Paul. You are my council member. I live in Edgewood currently. So, to tell you a little bit about myself personally, I, I'm in Edgewood with my wife and kids on a small little piece of land, a little homestead that I've created minutes. I've been there for the last few years professionally, though I have been in the mortgage business and industry for the last 18 years and I. Decided to apply for this position because I, I really feel like I have both the personal and professional. Experience to really contribute to the board. I have been in a not for profit for the last few years. Having worked with habitat for humanity as well as a home site, which is a not for profit lender. And I've also been in the private sector having ran and managed my own mortgage team previously. So I do bring. unique experience and also personally, you know, I've been here for such a long time and just kind of the irony of life that I grew up around here and experienced housing instability growing up. And so, to me, it's quite ironic that I've turned my career into helping people get into homes and specifically focusing on the 1st time home buyers and and making things more affordable for our community. So I hope to bring my experience as well as that that unique perspective to the board.

Well, thank you very much for volunteering. I'm going to see if anyone has questions or comments. We'll go to Vice Chair Herrera.

Comment. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez, for stepping up. Appreciate you doing that. We need citizens who live, work, breathe in our community to give, like you said, your perspective on your life experiences to help us get the job done. So I just want to say thank you.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you.

Council Member Morrell. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for volunteering, Michael. Yeah, no problem. Appreciate it. It's called Full Circle. Absolutely. Where you've come back to, and I appreciate the passion that you bring and the life experience that you have a better understanding than most. I will ask you a question, though, since you're a mortgage lender. broker, what's the interest rate gonna do in six months?

well if i knew that i'd be in your position right um you know it's it's uncertain and um you know that's that's kind of um you know the hard part of of this role is you know anticipating what's going to happen in the future and so um i truly believe that um in my 18 years of experience i've been able to kind of roll with the punches and so um it's been super important not not only to stay on top of things but also just to Um, with with wherever the needles moving in in the mortgage industry. So.

Great Thank you for that wisdom. Thank you. Madam chair.

Thank you for that. Yes, I could get you a great rate on your on your upload if you want it. I'll be looking for you.

Well, thank you to taking some valuable time, because time truly is valuable, and giving it back to Pierce County to help this organization. We really have leaned into how we can be better stewards and really invest in housing ourselves and partner. And so I'm very excited to have both your private and kind of public spacing or nonprofit voice at the table as part of the conversation, because you get both sides, which is a unique perspective. So thank you for saying yes. So we do need to do this fun thing where we're going to open this up for public comment. You've already done your comments, so you're welcome to stay there. You can sit down, but thank you again for volunteering. And we're going to open up a public comment on the consent agenda. Is there anyone in chambers that would like to address the council on approving the consent agenda? Not seeing anyone run to the podium. So Mr. Dominique, can we go online?

For any member of the public to provide comment on the consent agenda, please press the raise hand icon in Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. With no hands at this time, Chair.

With no hands raised, I'm going to close public comment to see if there's any further discussion. Seeing none, I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll on the approval of the consent agenda as presented.

Councilmember Denson? Aye. Councilmember Morrell?

Aye.

Councilmember Herrera?

Aye.

Councilmember Kruver? Council Member Ayala? Aye. Council Member Yanbei?

Aye.

Council Member Hitchen?

Aye. You have seven ayes and zero nays. With seven ayes and zero nays, the motion is adopted. Congratulations. Thank you. And you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting where you can go enjoy your afternoon. It's beautiful outside, I hear. I haven't been out yet, so.

I don't know, I kind of like this AC, so. Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you. We are now at section four, which is messages from the executive and other county elected officials. The executive did transmit to the council three ordinances that were signed and approved on June 18th. The first is O2026-514, which is an ordinance vacating a portion of the Eustis-Hunt County Road. Also an ordinance 2026-517, which is granting a non-exclusive franchise to the West Bridge Estates Water Association and Ordinance 2026-518, which is granting a non-exclusive franchise agreement with Tanner Electric Cooperative. So you can see more details if you want to. We have no proclamations or recognitions, and we have no resolution. So we're gonna go right to section nine, which is ordinances. Right now we have proposal O2026-523S, Council Member Denson for a motion.

Thank you, Chair. I move for approval proposal number O2026-523S. It's been moved and seconded.

Can the Clerk please read it in as a record?

Proposal number O2026-523S, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council implementing Pierce County comprehensive plan policies to expand housing options, including cottage housing by adopting amendments to Pierce County Code Chapter 18.25, definitions, Title 18A, development regulations, zoning, Title 18F, development regulations, land divisions and boundary changes, Title 18J, development regulations, design standards and guidelines, adopting findings of fact and setting an effective date.

Thank you. And this afternoon we have Mr. Mike Kruger, our principal policy analyst, to tell us what this is doing.

Good afternoon, Chair Hitchin. Good afternoon, council members. The proposal before you would add amendments to the Pierce County development regulations that control the permitting process and development standards for cottage housing developments in the county. A significant policy objective of the county's comprehensive plan prioritizes new housing options to meet the housing needs of all residents and to allow for subdivisions, excuse me, and to allow for diverse housing types and affordability levels. Cottage housing and unit lot subdivisions provide an opportunity for innovative housing consisting of smaller homes on privately owned parcels at moderate to high densities. Neighborhoods are designed around common open spaces owned by the community, often with shared amenities such as recreational areas, community gardens and dog parks, This proposal would establish a permitting process for cottage housing development in the county's urban residential zones. Proposed amendments would allow home ownership on individual parcels within neighborhoods that contain jointly owned open space. Highlights of proposed amendments are as follows. Unit lot subdivisions would be permitted. Cottage housing types would be authorized with units as large as 1,000 square feet. Cottage housing development at a residential density that is double the base density of traditional housing developments would be permitted in each zone that allows this use. Cottage housing units would be prohibited in the residential resource zone, would be limited to detached units within the suburban residential zone, and could be attached to residential units in all of the other residential zones. Cottage housing units would be developing clusters ranging from four to 16 units per cluster. And the neighborhoods would be required to provide common open space with a minimum of 400 square feet of open space for each dwelling unit. And in addition, each dwelling unit would be required to have 200 square feet of private open space. This proposal received a do pass recommendation at the Community Development and Environment Committee on June 1st, and there are two amendments for your consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Pausing to see if there's any questions on the underlying bill before we go to the two amendments. not seeing any let's start with council amendment number one and um this one councilmember denson are you willing to move this amendment yes thank you chair i move council amendment number one It's been moved and seconded. Mr. Krueger, can you tell us what this one does?

Thank you, Chair. This amendment's technical. It would insert today's date of the council meeting in the recitals of the legislation. It would also indicate that the CDEC completed its work on June 15th, and it would finally provide an effective date of the ordinance of August 1st, 2026.

Thank you. Truly a technical amendment. We got to fill in the blanks. Any questions on this one? All those in favor of adopting Council Amendment Number 1 to O2026-523F, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. So that brings us to Council Amendment Number 2, Council Member Morrell for a motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move council amendment number two to proposal O2026-523S.

It's been moved and seconded. Mr. Kruger, can you tell us what this one does?

Certainly. Thank you, Chair. This amendment would indicate that low-impact development stormwater design solutions are encouraged for these types of projects. The amendment would also increase the maximum building footprint size for cottage housing up to 1,500 square feet, and it would also provide for a maximum permitted habitable square footage per unit of 1,500 square feet.

Thank you. Council Member Morrell, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the presentation of this amendment. This amendment allows for a maximum footprint to be up to 1,500 square feet. 1,500 square feet seems to be the sweet spot for cottage and small homes. It is below the 1,500 square feet where you now have to adapt new energy regulations. And the thing about the the 1500 is there again it is up to it isn't has to be 1500 and then also the planning commission on 324 26 of this year increased the thousand square feet to 1500 which passed unanimously on the planning commission so researching this for the last three years, four years now, looking at Snohomish, Federal Way, Auburn, you know, some of the square footage that they use is kind of all through the boards, everything from 1600 down to 1100 square feet. So I think this is kind of a um you know a a good number not to exceed for these developments so i would like to increase it to 1500 through this amendment and add the low impact development thank you thank you councilmember yambe

Madam Chair, I appreciate this proposed amendment, but I would like to offer a compromise and an amendment to the amendment. My proposal is to adjust the 1500 to 1250 on Sections 2 and 3. Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded to adjust on Sections 2 and 3, the 1500 to 1250 in both places. It's been moved and seconded. Councilmember, do you want to speak to your amendment? Sure.

Well, Madam Chair, I have been listening to the building community on this and as uh staff's presentations uh the staff's recommendation was a thousand uh building industries uh request was doing 1500. uh i think that this um The bottom line is we want more housing to be built, period. And this accomplishes a compromise between the staff and industry. I appreciate the Planning Commission's recommendations. They are an advisory commission at the end of the day. And we are the lawmakers and policymakers who have to make those tough decisions. I think that staff had a reasonable argument to why it was $1,000, and I was initially leaning towards the $1,000. But after hearing our building industry and hearing some of the questions and comments from the last time and this time, I think that $1,250 is a reasonable compromise. So I would urge a support on this amendment to the amendment.

Thank you. Any other comments on the amendment to the amendments? So we'll start with Council Member Denson and then go from there.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Yambe, for this suggestion. I was a big supporter of the 1,000 square foot. I know that the staff did a lot of research with comparable jurisdictions in Pierce County as well as other counties around Washington State, and there is a range, everywhere from 800 to 1,600, I believe. I was excited about the 1,000 square foot because I personally have lived in a house, my favorite house ever was 1,100 square feet, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, family of four, and it was perfect. The spaces weren't huge, but there was space for everyone, and I feel like a cottage of 1,000 square feet, I totally think it would work. That being said, I appreciate Councilman Breambe hearing the industry because the bottom line is we want these developments to be built, right? And we want the industry to be excited and to be partnering with the county. I have seen some of these developments back when I did real estate. I've seen these in other communities and they can be really creative and really cute and really give folks a sense of community. I want the industry to feel good enough about it that they're going to make a go of it. I've seen some of these types of developments even near where I live in Gig Harbor, and they're perfect for single people, they're perfect for people that want to make good environmental decisions and live in a smaller footprint maybe for retirees they're perfect for people like me that on the weekend would rather go hiking and not do yard work so i mean this is the kind of unit that i i would look for at some point um so bottom line is we want this kind of housing developed it's consistent with our comprehensive plan and and i appreciate that we have a compromise, hopefully, that we can all support today. So thank you, Council Member Villambe, and thank you, Council Member Morrell, as well, for the original amendment.

Thank you. We're going to go to the Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair. I'm not a huge expert in this, but I'm looking at the amendment that says 1,500, and then we also talked about making the maximum amount of new housing. even though it says 1500 doesn't mean you have to build it to 1500 but 1500 may work on up in bonnie lake and 900 may work in fife or wherever else and things like that seems like if we bring it the square footage down and we're limiting of perfect fits for different communities and i'm not sure if i appreciate the compromise but i'm not seeing how lowering the square footage is going to increase the availability of some of these college housing where 900 may not fit in certain places and 1500 would. So still on the fence on this, but I appreciate taking a hard look at this. So thank you.

Thank you. We're going to go to Council Member Ayala.

thank you chair um councilmember denson just had such a beautiful story about their living experience on this um it's i feel that what i'm about to share pales a little bit um i'll i'll share right now the home that i live in is about 12 000 square feet It's it's a bit over I Know I know it's it's not it's not even The at the the the 120 1250, I'm sorry, at the 1250. And it very comfortably meets my needs. It very comfortably accommodates multiple people. I would love to see this design where 1100 brought forward four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and there's a lot of possibility there. And so The intention of the original legislation is cottage housing. It is a new way or a new approach to how we do living. And so, though I struggle with an increase, I'm happy to compromise on an increase. I do want to appreciate the Planning Commission's original support of the original square footage. um but as it was mentioned our um we know that our building community has made some some recommendations to increase that and i do i do believe that even though the recommendation is to go up to 1500 we do have a responsibility to build responsibly and to really honor the spirit of cottage housing thank you

Thank you. Council Member Krueger, we're gonna go to you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm supportive of the original amendment in that, yes, we want more houses to be built, but we also want more to be sold. And we are not building, the industry doesn't build for the industry, the industry builds to their customer base. And if you have a situation where the families need a little bit more room, 1,500 isn't all that big. And I can't go home at the end of the day and see my constituents and say, yeah, I know you wanted a bigger house and I know it penciled out better for you in that arena, but the government decided they knew better and what was better for the county than you, the constituent, who was paying for this. a lot of times the things aren't going to pencil out for the bottom line on these houses and they can put a little bit more and somebody can get a little bit more housing for the family it is um just something that it's not a big deal to go to the to the 1500 and i think that we owe that to the to our constituents to choose instead of us choosing for them thank you madam chair thank you um and then councilman thank you um

my my comment is is you know directed obviously the 1500 square feet i'm not a developer all i know is interviewing the companies that develop cottage housing would like to go up to that 1500 square feet doesn't mean they have to it can be set up for single occupants which would have a smaller square foot maybe around 800 square feet to a couple that wanted a thousand square feet and maybe a family that wanted 1500 square feet because they have two kids but can't afford a normal home on a normal single family lot So I think variety and giving developers the option is important. but as i've always said there's no perfect legislation and i appreciate council member yandy coming up with a compromise my only concern is is we we talk about codes regulations etc is when we put artificial restrictions on The only result we're going to get is less housing. So we need to understand giving developers a broad menu is actually better than being so restrictive. I think we've learned that in the past and But I appreciate the compromise, because without it, I think we'd be down to 1,000 square feet. So anyway, thank you, Madam Chair.

thank you um i too appreciate the conversation um i it's a cottage so that's where i got stuck on the thousand a cottage to me is a very small dwelling unit um a thousand still actually seems large for a cottage but um i'm i'm willing to um contemplate this uh in partnership with my colleagues as we move and see if it works and the other thing is that in a year and a half or two we look and we go nobody took advantage of this let's rethink that's the wonderful thing about our code um so that would be where i land on this so i'm not seeing any other lights so all those in favor of approving council amendment number two say i did counts roll call No, no, no, we're doing the amendment. Oh, as amendment. We have to vote on the amendment, then the amendment. I got it. Do you want a roll call, Council Member Krueger, on the amendment to the amendment? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, let me turn on mics, and the request is to call the roll on the amendment to the amendment, to be clear, which is changing the $1,500 to $1,250 in both places. Can the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Ayala? Aye. Council Member Yambe?

Aye.

Council Member Denson? Aye. Council Member Morrell?

Aye.

Council Member Herrera?

Aye.

Council Member Krueger? Hey.

Councilmember Hitchen. Aye. You have six ayes, one nay. With six ayes and one nay, the amendment to the amendment is adopted. So now we have council amendment number two as amended. Is there any further discussion on this one? I'm just going to leave your mic on. Not seeing any. Councilmember Kerber, would you like a roll call on this one as well? I think I lip read no. No. Okay. So then I'm going to ask all those in favor of approving council amendment number two as amended, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Aye.

Motion carries. That brings us to the underlying bill as amended. So looking to see if there's any further comments before I open this up to public comment. Not seeing any, then at this time, I'd like to invite members of the public to provide comment on proposal O2026-523 as amended. Please state your name if you'd like it on the record and you have up to three minutes. We'll start in chambers. Is there anyone here to speak on this item? No one coming to the podium. We will go online, Mr. Dominique.

For any member of the public that would like to provide comment on proposal number O2026-523S as amended, please press the raise hand icon and zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. We have one hand this time, Madam Chair. Aaron Hollenberg, please state your name for the record and you have three minutes.

Great, uh, thank you for the record, Aaron, uh, sorry, director of government affairs for the association. Uh, thank you for the brief, uh, time to comment here. So I wanted to share a few, a few comments from the building industry and appreciate the discussion, uh, just previous to this. Uh, 1st, I'm start off with very supportive of the, you know, lots of divisions. We all know that's been a huge push, uh, the state level and a lot of locals taking advantage of it and seeing the ability to cut the land costs. We know land costs in Pierce County are a major driver as we see, right? Continuously reductions in and buildable lands, not expanding, uh, getting that and trying to cut that land costs across the development is very helpful. Um, as far as the amendment, I know we suggested 1500, I think that is still the preferred, you know, it's important that the housing market is for the market and that's what the 1500 gives the flexibility for the market to be responsive for builders to be responsive to constituents and residents in the area. But 1250 is a step in the right direction. And I think the council for speaking with us in the department and the executive office for helping get this compromise. Um. Yeah, thank you for the time to comment. Just wanted to 1 last thing just wanted to add in and kind of from the discussion before is, you know, it's for the market and it's more regulations and fees and taxes continue to be added to housing. And I just asked the council keep in mind what that does to housing. Um, it can't right again. We always say, you can't, you can't make housing more affordable, but I continue to make it more expensive. So just keep that in mind. We're always open and happy to continue these discussions and keep building homes in Pierce County. Thank you.

There are no more hands at this time, I'm sure.

No other hands. I'd like to close public comment on this item, bring it back before the Council and see if there's any further discussion on this one. Council Member Denson.

Yes, thank you. I think I gushed a bit during the amendment and gave all of my comments then. So everything I said, the only thing I didn't say is I wanted to give a special thanks to Planner 3, Benjamin Accord Becker, for all of his hard work. I know I've seen Benjamin in the community. He's been working on this for a long time and did a really, really thorough job. So I just wanted to thank him for that. again very excited to see these developments pop up all over pierce county and i would ask the department when when you're getting applications in or when these developments are happening i think we'd all love to know about it and and celebrate those so thank you thank you we'll go to council member

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the comment of my colleague, even the earlier comments pertaining to cottage housing. I think it's important to add this to the type of middle housing that we desperately need. And I'll take the council on a little bit of a journey, if you don't mind. Because back in Mr. Krueger, remind me, 2022, I think we went on a road trip up to Federal Way because I heard about this unique cottage community that was a pilot program up at Mirror Lake Highlands. And it was a cottage housing pocket neighborhood in Federal Way. It was a pilot program that Nexus Studio had done. And we got the invitation to go up there. We loaded up. You loaded up in Council Member Mello's, I call it the clown car. And I think he had five people in that BMW. But we went up there and the community was really excited for us to be there and to show off their cottage housing. And I think there again, just reading from the letter that Bill McCathery, the developer of Nexus Studio in Muir Lake Highlands put out here, if we're going to give our children any chance of home ownership, we all have to do our part in providing obtainable housing. And the Muir Lake Highlands Federal Way demonstration project for new cottage housing was a bold step that I made to take on this project with low impact development approach. and so through this um after during this trip to be able to look at this the mere lakes highland was named puget sound 2021 community of the year And the unique thing about these cottage housing is I met traveling nurses. I met teachers who live there. I met retired couples who took care of the community's children and dogs. and it was very unique, and I wanted one of those communities for Pierce County. So I convinced Bill to come down to Tahale back in, I think it was 2023, to build a community. I had talked to Scott Jones of Brookfields, and they set aside a lot. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it because our codes did not allow this type of development. And so I've been on this quest to push real hard to get cottage housing in Pierce County because it is a unique type of housing. And it's a way that we could foster community atmosphere due to the fact these homes are all clustered together and they share a common area. But it also gives the ability for families to build wealth that would never have the opportunity to because they are, in most cases, buying these homes. I was just excited to look at this. It provides a way for seniors, empty nesters, to downsize from a larger single family home without needing to leave their neighborhood. This could open up housing market for younger buyers who may not have access to larger single family homes. So I think there again, this helps the housing stock. Is it the silver bullet? no but i think it's a unique enough housing that could be affordable as long as we don't attach too many regulations to it so with that i am supporting and i appreciate the work planning has put forward on this i was pleasantly pleased to see a lot of the detail that went on to it because Lord knows we don't need any more tools in our housing toolbox that aren't going to be used. So thank you. I thank the council for engaging in this process. I thank Mr. Krueger for making it a better bill and I urge support on it. Thank you.

Thank you for the comments and for setting off the journey. We're going to go to Council Member Iombe. We're not going to go to Council Member Iombe. We're going to go to Council Member Herrera. I will eventually. I see a five.

It's Council Member Iombe. No problem. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Murrell couldn't have said it better. I appreciate this. You know, we talk about our own experiences. You know, I was an E-5 in the United States Army, and I could afford a 1,500-square-foot house that was only four years old in the city of Puyallup. Those houses don't exist anymore. I think it was $125,000. those days are over. So this is part of adjusting boots on the ground to make affordable housing for our young people, for our seniors to downsize. And I appreciate the amendment to make it a little bit bigger just because, you know, we have seniors who have their adult children just a little bit longer because they can't afford housing or they're taking care of their adult children because they're doing other things and they're their primary care. So I think this includes some families with that extra 250 feet for the cottage housing. So I appreciate Council Member Morrell's long-range vision to get this here in Pierce County. It's needed. It's needed now. And I encourage adoption. So thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Council Member Yambe.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for the support of the amendment. As the person who's gotten here the most recently, I also have the distinction of being the only one on this council who currently rents. And one of the things that I see common is that not only with millennials and younger folks, but a lot of people who live in my building and the buildings next door is, you know, these barriers to homeownership, even if they wanted to, and it's not for a lack of trying, it's not for a lack of You know, will or determination to want to participate in the important things of being a citizen that we're told, you know, to and. This legislation is particularly exciting because. uh i hope it signals that you know i'm certainly not anti-developer and i'm trying to be as reasonable as possible and these little compromises to give more people options to have more choices in what kinds of homes that that they choose to live in because a big house a single family house is not necessarily the the best fit for everyone, nor is an apartment and that these different options are really important when we're talking about the housing stock in Pierce County, which we are deficient in and that we need more of. And this policy also has been a great example of how reasonable people can disagree and we can compromise and find avenues to continue working together because ultimately we all agree that we need more housing, we need more affordable, we need more options, and that it's not a one size fits all. And we can work with industry, we can work with public sector, we can work with residents and anyone who wants to make this their home and have the opportunity to do so if they choose. And so cottage housing is another tool in toolkit. that we desperately need more of. And I appreciate the advocacy of the members who have been here longer than myself and the staff and all the partners who have gotten us to the point where we have this piece of legislation, this opportunity to move forward in a thoughtful manner. So I appreciate it and appreciate the discussion and urge support.

Thank you for the comments. I'm not seeing any other lights, so I will just conclude with gratitude to the department staff and our staff for helping getting this through and the dialogue here. I see this as a really great bookend to housing development in our county. We have a growing population of people who are leaving school and want to get out into the world, but they don't want to rent. They want to buy something, and they can't do it alone. So this is a great entry point and still builds community, which sometimes young people as first time homeowners would benefit from having a little community. And then you go to the other end. We have a ton of people in our community. 25% of our community is over the age of 60 and they want to stay in the communities that they love, but they can't find housing that works. And so finding something like this could be a way to stay in your smaller community, stay close to the community you grew up in and raised your children in, but now your children are gone. You want to stay there, but you can't manage your space. And this is an opportunity to continue to maintain a single family cottage now and stay in your community, which I think is a great thing. So urging that this goes through. I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll on... doing too many things at once. O2026-523 as amended.

Council Member Yambe.

Aye.

Council Member Denson. Aye. Council Member Morrell.

Aye.

Council Member Herrera.

Aye.

Council Member Krueger.

Aye.

Council Member Ayala. Aye. Council Member Hitchen.

Aye. You have seven ayes, zero nays. With seven ayes, zero nays, the motion is adopted. Thank you all. That brings us to item number two, which is O2026-525. Council Member Denson for a motion.

Thank you, Chair. I move for approval proposal number O2026-525. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Can the clerk please read it in the record?

Proposal number O2026-525, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council relating to the Pierce Conservation District approving a system of rates and charges for the Pierce Conservation District for collection in 2027 to 2036 pursuant to Chapter 89.08, Revised Code of Washington, establishing record keeping and reporting procedures and adopting findings of fact.

Thank you. And we're going to go back to Mr. Krueger to tell us what this one does.

Thank you, Chair Hitchen. Washington state law at RCW 8908-405 authorizes the county legislative authority to approve a system of rates and charges for conservation districts to fund activities and program to conserve natural resources, including agricultural lands. Pierce County has authorized funding to support the work of the Pierce Conservation District since the year 2003, most recently through an ordinance in 2016. Currently, the Conservation District includes the municipalities of Buckley, DuPont, Fircrest, Gig Harbor, Lakewood, Milton, Puyallup, Steilacoom, Sumner, Tacoma, University Place, Bonnie Lake, Edgewood, Orting, as well as the unincorporated Pierce County. Currently, the district collects $10, a $10 rate on all residential properties that are located in the district and a slightly lesser amount on non-residential properties. On April 21st, 2026, the council received a proposal from the Pierce Conservation District requesting the council adopt a system of rates and charges for the collection between the years 2027 and 2036. The proposed system of rates and charges requested by the district would replace the existing rate schedule that is expiring at the end of this year. The proposed rate schedule is included in the Pierce Conservation District Board of Supervisors adopted resolution, which was dated April 8th, 2026, and it's consistent with a rate study report that was prepared by the FCS group, which is dated April 2026 as well. The proposed rate would be adjusted based upon the use of the property in the following categories, residential, commercial, agricultural, industrial slash public, vacant and then forestry the proposed rate structure for a residential home would result in a rate set at 14.85 in 2027 and that rate would increase through the 10-year rate collection period to 23.64 in the year 2036. The ordinance would require the district to prepare an annual report and provide that report to the county council and the county executive. The report would be due to the county on May 31st and would include a summary of the work performed by the district during the previous calendar year, a review of the progress towards implementing the district's long-range work program, and fiscal information, including details of the department's, or excuse me, the district's expenditures and revenues collected during the previous calendar year. This proposal received a, was forwarded to the council with a due pass recommendation on June 1st, 2026. I would note that the fiscal note that was associated with this proposal was updated by the council staff. Your budget analyst ran the numbers and concluded that the additional revenue that would be anticipated to be collected would total $1,479,000 in 2027. $1,779,000 in 2028, and would total about $10,400,000 over the 10-year term of the rate schedule. And I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you. And I know there was a thorough review at committee, but we'll see if people have questions. We're going to start with Vice Chair Herrera.

Just a question, because I wasn't in the committee. Is this the only way the Conservation District gets money?

No, sir. The Conservation District receives quite a lot of funding through grants, and they do leverage this funding stream to pursue those grants in terms of the match dollars. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional questions? Council Member Morrell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To follow up on my colleague's questioning, um trying to find the overall budget um within this i i understand that you know i've got the rate schedule it shows how much but what is their actual budget with all the grant money to defer to the conservation district for that kind of detailed question councilmember thank you

Would you like to help answer this question for us? That'd be great.

You bet. Good afternoon. Dana Coggan. I'm the Executive Director for the Pierce Conservation District. I've been here for about four years. So, Councilmember Morrell, I believe that you were asking, are you asking our annual budget?

What I'm looking is if you were to tell me in 2025 what your annual budget was, that you received above and beyond the...

The base rates?

Yeah, the base rate of $3,338,000, whatever number that you collected.

So I do have a report for you that we actually did just rerun today and our base rates were just under $3 million. Our grant revenue was 3.7 million and our total expenditures were $6.6 million during 2025. Okay. and majority of those dollars you have a system program breakdown right we do so um one of the requirements in the previous process and that we are continuing for this next process is to actually clearly articulate what funds are put into each of our programmatic sections and that is true for uh going back to uh numbers that i currently have in front of me for 2020 through 2025 So we've broken them down between our agricultural program, our environmental education program, our habitat program, our harvest program, our farm program, and our water quality program. And those are all usually presented to each of you during our annual report every year that often comes up in August currently. And that shows you what is spent for rates and then also what is brought in in revenue to the community with grants and other funding.

Okay. You do shoreline restoration, correct? Where does that fit? Is it underwater or habitat?

That's under our habitat program. Yeah, it's our shore-friendly projects. Shore what? Shore-friendly.

Not to be confused with? Shore angry. Angry? Yeah.

Okay.

Good. Okay. That's the questions I have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Krueger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was curious if this did not pass and this contract was not ratified, what happens?

So if this funding does not pass, we pretty much will not have half of our funding to do our projects and actually will not even have funding to receive grants because many of our grants rely on our baseline funding from rates and charges. to bring in extra funding for our programs. That will mean a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars out to our community members. Many of our farmers will not have the adequate opportunity to work with anyone to actually do restoration on their sites, and it will then make for angrier shorelines.

Would it then, the rates that are currently being collected would be the same?

No. At this point, if this is not moved forward, there is no longer a rate that is associated for conservation district work.

Would a new proposal be forwarded to the council?

There is insufficient time to make that happen for the end of this cycle.

I'm thinking I had heard something is the conservation district funding now being eligible for flood control or has that always been eligible to be used for flood control?

We've always had a partnership with the flood control districts or with the flood control by design group. And so we actually leverage that funding. So conservation district money is not used. Against that flood control money, but it is used in tandem with that money to actually provide more services to our community.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Madam chair.

Thank you. We're going to go to council member.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions, but first, as a former grant writer, the leverage that you are accomplishing with these rates, leveraging to get even more money that can help property owners is impressive, so I just wanted to... Our team has done an amazing job. Yeah, that's excellent. Good return on our investment and the property owners as well. My question is, we've received a lot of input from property owners that are supportive of this rate increase, in particular from our farming community, but from others as well that have taken advantage of community gardens and gleaning programs, shore-friendly, but again, particularly from our farming community. And I know you're probably not prepared for these numbers today. So in general, can you tell us a little bit about the waiting lists, the demand that you have for your programs? You talked a little bit about this in committee, and it might be of benefit to my colleagues who were not in committee.

You bet. And so I don't have the exact numbers in hand right now, but right now our waiting list for many of our farmers to get a farm plan is... multiple years and we have upwards of 30 different regional farmers that are on that list currently and what those plans actually allow farmers to do is also leverage and as Mr. Krueger pointed out at the meeting previously, if you get a farm plan done through our program, it actually helps our farmers immensely with being able to identify not only what problems are, but also make them more available for future funding too. So we have minimum of three year wait right now, minimum of about 30 farmers on that wait list. And that's, I'm sorry, 30 per year. So that's, it's a very deep bench. So one of the first things that we are doing with this funding is looking to actually bring on a new farm planner and to help reduce that backlog.

excellent well i think i i share well i know i share an interest in helping our our farmers and i i believe that that is common to all of my colleagues as well we definitely want to help farming and in pierce county we want to preserve it support it because it's getting more and more challenging as things develop and the price of land is so tempting, I think. And so thank you for that. I wanted to just quick follow up on, you mentioned farm management plans and this council actually probably pushed more people your direction with our changes to our critical area ordinances. Can you speak a little bit about how you're helping farmers comply with our new critical area ordinances so that they can continue farming? Yeah, you bet.

And again, as I alluded to just a little bit, that was actually the process of why we have more people seeking our services is with the council moving towards those critical area ordinances. As an organization, we can help create the BMPs, so the best management practices, in those areas for those farmers within the critical area to allow them to continue farming in those spaces.

Okay, thank you so much. That's all I've got, Chair.

Thank you. We're going to go to the Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair. I hear a lot about the word farming. Do we distinguish between commercial farmers who I've talked to who said that they're land rich and cash poor and there's no money in farming? You hear that a lot from our big commercial ones versus someone who has a garden. Do you just distinguish between the two? Because I feel like these are a lot of hobby folks who are lining up to get their farm assessed with their less than one acre farm. Is it not that? I mean, because there's only a few farms here in Clears County. Yes. True farms. True farms.

So I'd have to come back to you with the land amount distinction, but actually the majority of farms that we work with are not what we would call hobby farms. They are actually producing products that are being sold within our community. and helping revenue come into the community. We actually visited a small community farm together out at Goss Farm where we had multiple small businesses who, yes, were doing small acreage farming, but actually bringing in large revenue into our community. So there are farms that we help on a smaller scale, but we actually work pretty closely comfortably with some of our larger farmers in the area too and in fact a lot of our irrigation efficiencies programs and a lot of our manure management programs are done on our larger scale farms thank you thank you for the questions we're going to go back to councilmember morrell thank you i appreciate my colleague bringing up one of my concerns that i've haven't been you know too quiet about but

As an organization, we always seem to get into this creep. And by creep, I mean your initial charter was

soil and water conservation.

Right, okay. And a lot of that, you working with the local farmers, which you know what has happened to farmland over the last couple decades. Have you ever thought about reducing the amount of services that you offer to concentrate on our farmers?

I can say that I think that we have done a really good job of focusing on soil and water. I'll use the example of what you just passed, which is that there are numerous small cottage homes that you will be putting densely into certain areas, and there's actually going to be more water coming off of those homes and not soaking into the soil itself. A large portion of what we do as a conservation district is address issues around runoff and water quality so we are still really digging into our initial tenants which is soil conservation and water quality and water conservation so that's my little bit of a pushback on that is that we are actually doing those things as we expand as a community in the society there's less than two percent of our population who is actually farming currently We have dense populations that if you go and you step right outside the doors here, there's a lot of concrete. And we know that that concrete is negatively impacting water quality. So our programs work to help keep the rates of water quality within the urban areas and the farm rates within the farm areas. And in fact, our urban areas help offset some of the farming funds that we are able to give back out to our farmers.

Yeah, and I know WSU does a lot of the same things that you do. They do the research side of that. yeah and their their urban um areas so you know there are other jurisdictions that are within your space working with farmers and all i will say um to count to comment on on council member herrera's comment i think two percent of the economy of pierce county comes from farming so it it's And it seems to be getting compressed every decade.

And yet 100% of us still need fresh food and good land to farm.

I totally agree. You know, I just kind of go down to Storino's and it appears out of nowhere. So I appreciate that, that someone stocks the shelves at night. But yeah, I mean, the same thing with farmer's market. But there again... It is challenging living in a densely populated area that keeps pushing out and trying to protect those farmers who actually are trying to farm there. and make a profit out of it is getting more and more challenging beyond the scope of what the Pierce Conservation District can or cannot do for those farmers. And we won't get into all that. But that was my questioning. I did talk to Lisa. We kind of had a discussion pertaining to cities. What do cities get out of the Pierce Conservation District?

So again, going back to those roots of what we do is soil and water conservation. And what cities get out of that is a lot of water conservation. We know that many of us who pay a water bill, that our water bills also continue to go up pretty frequently because you're watering lawns, you're doing all those other things. If we actually capture that water on site, we can use it on site. And actually, if we work with our inner city population and help them create small community rain gardens it also reduces the need for outside watering or for using water out of the hose we can keep water on site and use it right on site okay i guess what i'm gonna ask you and you may not have an answer but you're you're sharp enough to pick up on this you have a city of 10 000 people

and there's 5 000 homes that are all paying into the pierce conservation district is can you show project benefit to that city and say okay we just built 42 rain gardens in your city at a cost of i don't know what they cost or whether you just say this rock goes there and that bucket goes there i don't know but what what is the roi For a shitty like that.

Yeah, I could get back to you with the actual for the cities and the projects that we've currently done. I think that asking a very nebulous question like that means that I'm going to have to dig a little bit deeper and I'm going to have to move different rocks. and buckets to figure out what those roll into. But what I can tell you is that many of the responses that we received from community members wasn't just the natural resources benefit of our rain gardens, but was actually the community benefit of the rain gardens. We have a couple of letters that actually were sent in to you all and that I have here that talk about community engagement that was a part of putting in a rain garden and that it wasn't just a rate of return for the water process of it, but it really is a rate of return in building community and building safe spaces for community members. So when we talk about the water itself, the change in the water that hits the ground, if it actually hits the ground and soaks in, rather than going directly into the sound, there are direct impacts on that. But I could get you some actual numbers if you want some cash back ideas, I can get that for you. And it's gonna be different within each community.

I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Additional questions? Vice Chair?

Council Member Rowe helped me come up with another one. He talked about, asked you if you ever thought of compressing and concentrating. One of your programs is an educational program, and we know schools do environmental stewardship themselves, or public schools. They take them on field trips to our hatcheries and many other things. Is it an essential service that only the Pierce Conservation District can provide, or is that something that you can definitely look at? Because it might be a duplicated type service here. Because I know P.O.O.P. School District does some of these good things, and some of the other ones, Chief Leshi, many of them.

So what you just pointed out were the salmon in the classroom classes that we actually implement as a conservation district. So if we go away, many of those classes can't actually happen. So we actually are working to go into the schools to put the salmon tanks into the schools because the schools can't. Afford to do that. So they actually partner with us. So a lot of the benefit that you are seeing that may be in alignment with the work that we do with schools is actually often funded by the conservation district.

So, salmon tanks are talking about salmon tanks.

So salmon in the classroom. So, salmon in the classroom is a curriculum that we work with our public schools to actually go into the schools put. a tank into the classroom. We educate the students about salmon, the salmon life cycle, the habitat needs that are there, and then we take those kids out to local areas to release those salmon. So we actually are one of the major driving forces of that. So without our organization, I don't know that those programs would still exist.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Kerver.

Madam Chair, I was wondering, Ms. Coggan, on the like the rain gardens and the runoff, because I just met with stormwater and there seems to be an awful lot of engineering that is required on properties to mitigate any of the stormwater runoff. So how do you compete with engineering? Doesn't that cover a lot of what you do?

So we don't compete with engineering. We actually collaborate with the engineering departments. And so if you think about it, we're also doing a lot of retrofitting. There were a lot of buildings placed into place prior to there being these engineering requirements for runoff. And so we actually work with landowners to provide them with a feasible process to re-engineer their systems so that they can meet the needs of the current runoff requirements.

One of the concerns I have with the rain gardens is I know there was one near a library in my district several years ago that was put in, and I don't think it really exists anymore. It requires an extreme amount of maintenance. So how do you work with that when people have to invest in rain gardens and the maintenance? Do you do that as well, or is that left up to the property owner?

So that's typically left up to the property owner. We do not run a lawn care service or a maintenance service but just like with any lawn care it does take maintenance so we help folks put the the plants in we educate them on how to best manage them and maintain them and then we work with them to come up with the best strategies for their site Over the last 10 years, we've recognized that management and planting strategies have changed because it's an opportunity to see what works on each individual property and what works best for each individual site.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. One more. Vice Chair Herrera.

Okay. not promising the last one but things that keep coming up it's a great conversation because you know we're asking money from our constituents and uh you have a good program and we have to tell our constituents why this is good or not good so um is this truly a rate increase i mean how much more than the last 10 years and why is it locked in at 10 years um Because that's a long time to commit to something, and things can change on the ground.

Yeah, so can I answer these in two separate, like, can I take it apart a little bit? So it is a rate adjustment. And over the last 10 years, there was actually a cap at the state legislature, so we could not go any higher than $10 per parcel. Over the last, my first two years at the district, we worked and said the cap is kind of an erroneous piece. We know that costs go up. and that if costs of doing the work we do goes up, we also need to adjust the rate to go up. So this is actually what I refer to as right-sizing the rate for what we actually should have been adjusting for on a more frequent basis, but we were capped for the last five years. So that's the answer to the first question. And why is it a 10-year process? It's a 10-year process because that's ultimately what we have found with the experts saying that to come back every single year to do an adjustment and every single year to adjust that rate actually will cost the taxpayer dollars more in time and energy for us to come back every single year to ask for that.

Well, I can only imagine that if this went to the voters right now, they definitely wouldn't probably approve it because with everything that's going on right now, Pierce County, we've raised rates for raised fees and things like that. So it's a tough ask for this. I mean, do you... Did you, I know you had the recommendations of the rates from... We had multiple stakeholder meetings.

Sure. And so we invited community in.

There was a study, right?

There was a rate study.

A rate study. Did you go with just exactly what they said or did you take a... We did not. Okay.

So if we would have gone with what the rate study said that we needed to right-size the rate for the work that we are being asked to do, it would actually be a $33... per parcel rate. And so we actually cut that down and said, to your point, we asked what programs are truly essential and what programs do we think that we can get by with and structurally give back at a good rate of return for our community members. So it would have been, If you look at the study, the rates report, the number that they gave us was actually $33 per parcel. And we said as a board that we didn't feel like that was what we needed to go with. And we are adjusting our budget and adjusting our sales to say that we need to be more reasonable and more metered in that.

Was there any example where you kind of took a look at your programming and then adjusted or you're going to adjust any examples of that?

I think probably one of the best examples is we really dug into every single one of our programs and we asked every program to do a really deep dive about three years ago. When I got hired, I was hired on with the idea that we were going to hit a fiscal cliff in 2025. So my first year in 2022, we asked every single program to really tighten the belt. And so if you want an exact example of where we've tightened the belt, we have vehicles right now that we have to bungee cord our gates, tailgates to the vehicle so that it doesn't fall out so we don't lose things because the cost of actually getting a new truck is not worth it. We've looked at actually doing different changes to that tailgate. I just tell them, give it a little shoulder, it'll stick. It's a farm truck. But there are definitely places where we have looked at choosing different programs that we've reduced. So we've been able to reduce some of our overhead staff time on some things, and we've worked with volunteers. We have over 500 volunteers that come in on a regular basis to help us out. So it's not staff time, it is volunteer time, but it still does take a volunteer coordinator to coordinate all those volunteers.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Morrell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Keep getting new questions. You mentioned your board. Was your board unanimous in the recommendation?

No. Just like your board is not unanimous in most of your recommendations.

Can you enlighten me what were some of their concerns?

We have two board members who were concerned that they did not have enough oversight into each and every individual programmatic budget line.

And they're still board members? They are, you bet, yeah. Okay, and then to follow up on my colleague's question, you know, I did ask Lisa kind of to give me what the rates have been for the last five years. Overall, you have it. So you had a, and we won't talk about your predecessor and his ability to manage your budget. So I'm not going to go there.

Thanks for not making that too difficult.

so in in 2021 you had a 9.89 rate increase and then the out years you you kind of adjusted you know double digits uh triple digits in 2024 for an overall 13.57 rate increase

And I will point out that actually my predecessor was not at the Conservation District in 2021, so we're good.

I'm not saying 2021. Okay. And by the way, welcome to the life of farm vehicles. That's where the comment or where the example of bailing wire and duct tape came from. You betcha. So they improvise and they have to maintain vehicles well beyond... the life of that vehicle so anyway um obviously you know looking at the rate increase to follow up on some of the comments you know a lot of uh my constituents haven't had a 13.89 salary increase so um i know that everyone is dealing with inflation and costs same thing with my constituents they're dealing with the same thing so when we look at this you know we look at Is the scale reasonable? Is the increase reasonable? And can the organization stay on track and deliver what its scope and its mission is without trying to please everybody in Pierce County? And that's one of my concerns when you talk about expanding scope. someone comes up with a great suggestion, sometimes the best answer is, nah, there's another organization that can do that. So that is a concern about the creep on that. So anyway, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to ask a question. My turn. Okay. Just to clarify, we've talked a lot about rates. This is a rate per parcel. Per parcel per year. Okay. So I looked mine up. In Parkland, I'm going to pay about $15.

You should probably pay about $14 because you're within the city limits and you are... Okay, then yes. Okay.

unincorporated parkland so so about 15 and then as i'm reading this table 10 years later i'll be paying 23.64 in residential so 23.64 I'll just get one less latte. I mean, and the investment collectively is huge. So I appreciate it. I just want to make sure everybody understood what we were talking about with rates. Because sometimes when we talk about property tax rates, there is a significant difference when we are moving some of those numbers around. But this one is really small. Okay. Council Member Denson, do you still have a question?

I do. Okay. It'll be a quick one, and it is not for Director Coggin. It's for Mr. Krueger, although you can certainly add to it. I asked Director Coggin a little bit about critical areas and farm plans, but you and I worked really diligently together along with the committee on the critical area regulations updates. Can you talk a just a little bit more so that public understands our critical area requirements for farms and how the district partners or is a partnering, I don't mean to call you a tool, but a tool to help farms meet the requirements so that they can continue farming in a profitable way.

Sure, so as as part of the county's comprehensive plan update in 2024, 1 of the components of that was expanding the regulations that relate to fish and wildlife habitat and wetlands. which affected farms and the ability of farms to do work. Many of these farms in the valleys in particular have extensive critical areas, particularly wetlands, as well as ditches and drainage features and that sort of thing. The requirements related to new farm activities in those locations require critical area assessments or critical area reports, which can be quite spendy. They require county submittal for these applications. You have to hire a biologist many times. Staff has to review these applications, and then you're going to end up with mitigation typically or areas where you can't conduct farming. And so one of the things that council did via amendment was to create an exception from having to do farm plans and farm reports for both fish and wildlife habitat areas and wetlands as related to agricultural properties and substituted those requirements with a farm management plan. Which the conservation districts can conduct those farm management plans, eliminating the requirement to do the habitat assessment, which I'm sure it drives some of their work. But also saves those farmers from having to jump through critical area. studies that otherwise would be required from the county to do agricultural activities so that was a council considered that to be quite a benefit for farmers particularly in the valleys if that's what you're getting at

yes thank you and and we do want to support our farmers so it's a benefit to the farmers in the valley but i hear it from the farmers especially out on the key peninsula as well because they need they need that space and they need to comply with our requirements and they need to be able to do it in an affordable way because They're not planners. They're not bureaucrats. They're farmers. And what they want to do is maximize the use of the land. I will say, because I came from—both my parents grew up on family farms, so I'm a big, big proponent of farmers and understand that there is no bigger environmentalist than a farmer because they understand that they need to preserve the quality and health of their soil, and they need good and ample water. And All of the things so that their farm is sustainable into the future. And these are things that they pass down from generation to generation. We still have farmland in the Midwest and in Canada because they take care of their land and these conservation districts of which we have the best in the country. help help and have been helping the farmers for what since the 1920s 1930s 1940s over 75 years for our conservation district so important um to preserve the health of of these lands and and that's what what feeds us so it's important to all of us thank you thank you mr kerger thank you councilmember yambe so director cogan i appreciate um you

Having the rapid fire question and answer, I did want to give you a compliment. So about 10 years ago, I had approached the conservation district in conversations in trying to get my city at the time to join the conservation district. And I noticed that while those talks didn't go as exactly how i had imagined uh like many things they take time and it sounds like we have been making inroads in my district to try to make sure that my district has 100 participation in the conservation district so i appreciate that um and i think that You know, leadership is challenging, especially right now where a lot of our organizations, including those who do really, really good work but are limited by the circumstances that they have to deal with, that you do stand out in that and just appreciate your leadership and the board for seeing that. I've just been floored by how much the Conservation District touches my district. Not only has it come through in the form of the advocacy letters from our hobby farms and farms partners who really help keep our district moving you know district five is very diverse from browns point northeast to come all the way down to parkland and and spanaway and it seems like every time i turn around that it has a nexus with conservation district from chief flesh high schools talk to their superintendent and they said they partner with conservation district on the the lake um Lake Lashie and then five public schools with with you know salmon program to the Tacoma public schools with stem and and just it touches everything my non-profit providers who are doing like Amara who are doing you know foster care work are consulting with the conservation district on natural species and trying to revamp that whole family resource center and so it just seems that Everyone is touched by the work that you do. And then there's the, you know, food insecurity and all of you helping tackle that with the harvest programs and the seeds. And there is true benefit because these are just like the conservation districts charge this district and county as an ecosystem. and that it depends on each other, and we all benefit when everyone is helped, and I do, notice that, especially our rural districts and the districts who have the most large farms, which happen to be one, two, and three, that from this help stand to benefit incredibly from this rate adjustment. And sometimes I'm saying, hey, are we gonna get the same for everyone? And I think about it though, and at the end of the day, our farmers help support the urban areas and help the communities around and so it really it's okay that you know our other districts are benefit sharing in the investment of this is that accurate to say that some of this rate adjustments and help will really really benefit those and then we'll we'll get kind of like you know supplemental benefit

bet um and i think you really kind of um hit on one of the pieces that we've been working on which is that yes we want to make sure that the rate payers get the benefit where they are at but we also recognize that as a society in a community that sometimes maybe some of the city rates may go out to the rural community so that we can actually then grow food that then comes back into our cities and feeds our communities so it really is a very beautiful symbiotic relationship between all rate payers for conservation district rates and responsibilities and then also each and every one of us who gets to pay i'm also a rate payer we also get benefit of that pay okay all right so the rising tide lifts all boats that's the hope okay thanks appreciate it

Thank you. I am going to, well, you may have public comment. You may be most likely want to do the first stab at it. So I'm going to open this up for public comment. If anyone would like to address the Council on Ordinance 2026-525, they'd like to come to the podium. You have up to three minutes. You've had way more than three minutes, so I'm not sure what else you want. But if there are people that signed in, I don't have the sign-in sheet, but you can just come towards the podium. And Director Coggin, would you like to start us off?

Great. You bet. So again, thank you all for having me. Dana Coggan. I'm the executive director at the Pierce Conservation District, but I'm also a resident of Pierce County and of the city of Tacoma. I'm not only a rate payer, but I am also an individual who believes in the work that we do in ways that I think that we plant the seed for the next generations. The Conservation District has been around for over 75 years. We have invested in our communities here and we have continued to invest in our communities. As a council, you have asked us to look at what we do and give a deep dive into what the cost benefit ratio is to your community members. And we've done that. We've looked really closely at what it is that we've been asked to do by your constituents. And we've really leaned into those areas to the best of our abilities. With this rate adjustment, this will give us the opportunity to not only reach back into our communities, but to also bring more funding into our communities to help our farmers, to help our community members, and to help our overall environment be one of the best that it can be in our area. We live in a beautiful space. Pierce County has from the tips of the mountaintops to the shores of The water and the Conservation District gets to touch each and every one of those spaces. This funding for the next 10 years will help secure that our space is continually maintained and that our communities are well fed. And that each and every one of us can continue to enjoy what we love about Pierce County. So thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in chambers that wanted to just come to the podium, state your name for the record? There's a timer right there on the podium that we've got working. Thanks, team.

That sounds great. Greetings, Chair Hitchen, Council Members. My name is Michael Lang, and I'm coming to you all as a farmer. I've worn a number of different hats here in the community, and being a farmer is a new one for me. I'm two years into having my business, and without a doubt, I would not be able to have my farm business without Pierce Conservation District. I'm a proud graduate of their Farm Foundations program. That's an eight month long training program specifically for new farmers. You get classroom time, but more importantly, you get dirt time. You get time in the field, working on farms, learning how to use the equipment. And that gave me the confidence to pursue this farming dream, but it also gave me credibility. It's given me access to other programs within Pierce Conservation District. I think it's a great gateway into accessing all the other services they provide. It's given me access to the Washington State Department of Agriculture, WSU, the U.S. Department of Agriculture as well. I got my first grant because I had the credibility of this program. It also helped me find farmland. So I started my business. Oh, by the way. My business is Happy Kitchen Farm. We do farm-to-table meal kits with produce that I grow and that I collaborate with other farmers. We started out of our backyard as an urban farm in Tacoma, where I live, and I'm a rate payer. But now I have two farm leases in Gig Harbor. And having those leases with private homeowners was only possible because I had the training and the support of Pierce Conservation District. I guess I speak as someone who is part of that next generation who wants to farm in Pierce County and realizes that the odds are stacked against me. It's stacked against me in terms of finding farmland, in terms of having a viable business, but I am pursuing this nonetheless because of the support that I can receive from Pierce Conservation District and our partners. When I learned that as a homeowner, I was paying $10 per parcel for these services. I was pretty floored because I feel like I've personally benefited from thousands of dollars of services and programming that they provide. So I will happily pay what's being proposed and these rate adjustments. And I know that this work that they do is in partnership with others. that requires creativity to preserve our farmlands and to support agriculture in Pierce County. And I'm just really excited to see the more land, the more services that they can provide with this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else in chambers? Not seeing any. Mr. Dominique will go online.

For any member of the public that would like to provide comment on Proposal No. 02026-525, please press the raise hand icon on Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. We have two hands at this time. The first, the user name is Advocate. Please state your name for the record, and you have three minutes.

Hi, yes, my name is Ursula Klein and good afternoon council members and I'm here to speak on behalf of the rate adjustment for Pierce conservation district. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the uniqueness of. And the education experiences that the conservation district offers. There was some talk about, you know, possibly having other organizations like Master Gardeners and et cetera, you know, possibly being able to teach these classes, but they just really aren't available. And I personally participated in the farm foundations over as well. In my day job, I work for Evergreen Produce Connection. We are a hunger relief nonprofit that distributes fresh produce at East Central and Hilltop. And I was interested in learning how to farm on large scale to feed our community through our nonprofit. And the Farm Foundations program was just what Michael experienced. Not only did I learn, you know, the technical skills of how to operate small farm equipment and how to grow seeds, but I also really got, there's a real community that is experienced through this cohort experience. And it connected me further with the farm at Franklin Pierce Schools, and I continue to work and volunteer at that farm. And a lot of the graduates have also gone on to farm at the Gossett and Beaver Farm, which was mentioned earlier, which is another resource that the Pierce Conservation District has. Another education opportunity that I had through the district was our orchard care classes. During the gleaning season, I actually worked for the conservation district in their gleaning program, and this orchard care classes were offered a few years back, and we were able to learn how to take care of fruit trees and share that knowledge with our people. that orchard class is not no longer being offered but something that you know is potentially you know something we could teach our community on how to better steward and care for the fruit trees that we have here pierce county one of the unique lovely things about it is we have so many fruit trees here and we have so many old grows fruit trees and a lot of fruit trees that people have not learned to take care of and just inherited when they bought their property and through our greening program we're providing education to these site stewards on how to better care for their fruit trees so not only are we preventing food waste but we're also helping feed people with better quality fruit so i just really want to talk about how just i mean i'm just really thankful for the programs and education that the district has offered and how it's really been reciprocal because i've been able to take this education and share it with the community and i also see that in a lot of the other programs that they offer Thank you. I yield back.

Thank you for your comments.

Next, we have the Nisqually Land Trust. Please state your name for the record. And you have three minutes.

Good afternoon. Just to clarify for the record, I, um, this is Jeanette Dorner. I serve as chair of the Paris Conservation District, and I am calling in in that capacity. I didn't know how to adjust my name on the screen. I'm away at a work conference. So I appreciate the opportunity to make a quick comment remotely. I think Director Coggin did a great job of answering all of your thoughtful questions, but I just wanted to add my own comments to request your support for this request. This really is a renewal of our rates, a renewal of our ability to provide service in the community. And it really is about, as Director Coggin said, It's about helping support members of our community who want our help in taking care of the natural resources of our community and helping take care of our water, our land, our shorelines, our fish and wildlife, and helping them with technical assistance and financial assistance to do things that will make a difference for those natural resources. And while we are helping Different people that ask for our help the benefits from the work that we are doing benefits the entire community. Everybody benefits from healthy land from healthy water from access to healthy, local food, healthier shorelines. And so, um. I don't wanna take too much more of your time. I just wanted to reiterate that I think that it's an incredible deal for the amount that is charged through the rates, the amount of services that our team is able to provide on the community. And this is real on the ground work, working one-on-one with lots of different folks, helping them help themselves and help the community. So we really appreciate your support in renewing these rates so that we can continue to do this good work.

Thank you for your comments.

And there are no more hands at this time, Madam Chair.

With no additional hands, I'm going to close public comment, bring it back before the Council and see if there's any further discussion. I will also remind us all that we have five more proposals and a report. Just going to say it out loud. So, are there further comments? We'll start with the Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair. A lot of discussion on this. I wasn't in committee to digest that. I probably should have took a closer look at this. I didn't know we didn't have passes that would not be funded. We heard some testimony on a lot of people who actually benefit from this. Of course, they're gonna say how great it is and how it's good for them, but I'm thinking about the person who um lives up on south hill in my district who probably doesn't give a rats about any of any of this stuff because you know they're they gotta drive to seattle every day to work and they gotta go on terrible roads to their house and they don't see any benefit in any of this and they just go to a safe way because they don't have time to go to starinos and pick up corn or anything like this or any of the the fresh fruits that some people who have time on their hands to get They just know that life is hard right now, and they're getting tired of getting nickled and timed. So I'm thinking about those people, and there's a lot of them out there. I think the Conservation District does excellent work. They do great things. But we are reaching into taxpayers' pockets right now, and we're asking a little bit more. Yes, it's not that much money, Um, but we just continue to nickel and dime. Our taxpayers, and I think, you know, again, if this went to a vote to the voters, I don't know if it would pass. But we're looking at the benefits of this, and this is a tough decision. For me, but I just wanted to acknowledge it about. This is taking money out of the pockets of our taxpayers. Yes, it's helping our environment and things like that, but this is a tough one. So I just want to make that comment. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the comments. We are going to go to Council Member Ayala.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate it. I want to take a moment and acknowledge some experiences that I've had growing up as in a farming community who then, when I moved to a more urbanized community, the shock and awe that I faced when realizing that there are a lot of folks in the urban community that don't know how food gets to their plates. And so to me, that was very baffling. And so I do want to acknowledge the tremendous work and effort that the Conservation District has done to do those education pieces, but also to support the farmers to continue to do that and make spaces for that. I want to outline, looking at the 10-year outcomes, this is straight out of committee, The goals with this really is to shorten the backlog of requests that farmers come in, to engage farming habitats, to expand to farmers in the Nisqually watershed, to engage more schools in that education piece. to work with our Veteran Conservation Corps support, to collaborate on our own county's 2030 sustainability plan, and to mitigate the impacts of wildfires out in our communities. I think there's a lot of benefits here, and I would highly encourage every single person that is paying into this to learn how they can benefit from it. A few things were mentioned. Food insecurity is a big one this year, has been for a while, and I know that the Conservation District supports that. The other highlight, and it was mentioned pretty early on in our conversation about the opportunity to do match dollars. According to the 2025 report, those grant funding expenses funding dollars exceed by 8.5%. So they are doing more than just matching. And so really want to appreciate the stewardship of the dollars and the openness for how folks can take advantage of how their fees and their rates can be utilized for them. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the comments. Council Member Krueger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been following the Conservation District for many years now. I remember when the current executive was down there lobbying for the Conservation District for the rates to go from $5 a parcel to $10 a parcel, and that did happen. And then as time goes on, the Conservation District starts to take on more responsibilities. And I'll just say, they deliver goodness. They really do. And that's not what is disputed today in my district, because I know that those who use them love them, and they have done very good things. And the situation is not that conservation isn't important because it is very important. But the question right now is, is whether property owners should be asked to pay the higher rates or this extended renewal. And at a time when we're facing a lot of economic pressure, rising costs. And we have a state that is unable to hold its spending. So that puts the counties in a precarious position. And I feel like I'm having to sound like the Grinch as opposed to Santa Claus, but I'm trying to be realistic in all of the impacts that are on our constituents. And I know that they would rather see this discretionary income going to public safety. I had an e-letter today that somebody's had it, the speeding in the area, and I don't know what to tell them. And until the economic conditions improve, we should be looking at specifically the essential services from existing revenues that are getting. And I'm kind of disappointed to have a proposition come to us that doesn't have a flexibility. It's all or nothing kind of a thing. And that puts us in a very difficult position. but the original model emphasized local participation, voluntary cooperation, and practical assistance, rather than creating this long-term dependency on a government program and a taxpayer program at that. And the philosophy then was straightforward. It was providing expertise and assistance to landowners so that they could successfully manage their own resources. And so we've just gone into an expansion that it's so far from the original. So now we've got, including now with the program, we've got climate resilience, community engagement, urban agriculture, food system initiatives, environmental justice programs, equity-focused outreach, community planning efforts, and abroad sustainable initiatives in there. And I'm not gonna argue the pros and cons on that, but it's a significant departure from the original plan. Then looking at the expansion, a little bit more, it's gonna require additional administration costs on that so that we know that it is going to continue to grow the budget. And I don't know what would happen if there needs to be more dollars later from this 10-year mission. And then, you know, we need to have a point where we're applying fiscal restraints and we just have to really consider today's economic conditions with the housing, the inflation utility. So I'm reading we're looking at most likely 2030% increase in our utility costs. So all of these little taxes add up and. We shouldn't be asking households and businesses to do more with less when the public agency should be doing that same principle on there and. You know, the conservation. A lot of the practices that can be done by the landowners themselves. We have the Farm Bureau that can be members of in the days when farmers help farmers and we have that today coming from Iowa. Farming is a big important thing and so I don't take it lightly on this. Yet, the landowner can do their own pasture management, livestock and the fencing, they can do their tree planning. And it's great that they have a community to bounce ideas off of each other. And so, but the actual stewardship still remains the responsibility of the landowner. And the purpose of the district, is to support and educate, but not create permanent dependence on these government programs. After having discussed that, the alternative funding sources that do exist, and I know that the competition is high, But they have, the Conservation District has authority to seek federal grants, state grants, watershed, salmon recovery, habitat restoration, ag assistance, there's private foundation funding, and there's partner agency contracts. Then we have, with that, there's still a duplication of funding and services. And I did, I remember asking about that before in committee. But we also have, aside from the conservation district, we've got ecology, fish and wildlife, natural resource conservation service, Washington State Conservation Commission. There's the county environmental programs. We've got land trusts, watershed organizations, tribal restoration programs, and nonprofit conservation organizations. And so we have to look at what are we duplicating? What can be eliminated? In order to better serve the financial resources of our constituents. Looking at the long term financial sustainability. you know, we've got long-term commitments. So there's always a need for the dollars. And that's where I look, we have such a focus on the environment, which is, I'm not saying is a bad thing, but it's never good enough. And how long can we be focusing so many of our resources on things that I'm like waiting to, you know, how much longer can we take a breather and then focus on, let the citizens focus on themselves for a while? So looking at, in concluding this, the conservation district model emphasizes practical assistance and local responsibility and voluntary stewardship. That was the original one. But now we're asking for property owners to pay more, which the conservation district is to focus more on the basic services. 10 years is a long time for us to commit to this. And it's just not a good time for us to increase taxes. And while I support the Conservation District, they really do great things. You know, the farm programs they have raved about. But I think of like the Amish community, when they all come together and they do things rather than an expectation that, you know, government's going to have a program. In a solution for so many of the rules and regulations that they help assist with, like, in the critical areas, maybe we should just make fewer rules for them to have to assist with that would, I think, be a positive asset. So, I just want to say how much I do appreciate what they do. These folks are salt of the earth and I just have a hard time. Saying that. They get to have funding. We need funding other places as well. They should be able to make do with what they have. And again, I wish I had a different proposal that was brought forth.

But thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your comments. We're going to go to Council Member Yamabe.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for my colleagues for this discussion on this very important topic. I won't repeat the things that I said earlier. As the great-grandson of farmers, I'm particularly proud of this fact that my great-grandparents raised rice and they had many other different crops from vegetables on the properties to the silkworms from the mulberry trees on land and they were very proud of farming and it was back-breaking work and my dad used to do that as a kid and swore that he would never be doing that as an adult and so it was good stories and really appreciate the the perspectives of people who help really run our communities um i will say that as i i did say that you know this touches all my district and it touches all the county and despite the fact that um i think the rural districts will benefit the most i think that it's very clear that everyone benefits from this work and i appreciate that it was mentioned about public safety because public safety is extremely important to all of our communities. But the conservation district does even work in that from addressing natural hazards to helping manage flood risks to improving our wildfire resilience. That all is a part of public safety. It's a part of their environment too. And so there is the important steps that we need to do that we can walk and chew gum at the same time and address each of those while you know providing benefit to everyone I my district is touched by the Puyallup River and salmon recovery and Flood mitigation and all of these other elements are touched by the work the Conservation District does. It was mentioned that matching funds, well, as a Flood Control District Board of Supervisor member and on the Executive Board, I see how important it is that we make investments in the natural environment and the environment to make sure that some of these climate change and other impacts that are worsening are addressed. And this work touches everyone. Everyone benefits from it, downriver, upriver. And it's very clear to me that the public benefit and it helps address food insecurity and helps encourage, like Michael said, encourage the next generation of farmers who, as it's alluded, it's harder to farm in mass scale and the future is urban farms. The future is smaller farms that will still be really crucial in addressing food issues and feeding our communities. And they will not look like they used to possibly, but it adapts and things like the Conservation District help train the next generation, encourage, as was said, make investments to encourage and support people who want to take part in that important work. And so I think that it's very clear on the return on investment. And as the presentation has gone on, it's even more apparent that this is extremely important investments and is a nominal investment. And I appreciate the conservatism of the board and the director and not going for the highest, highest ceiling but saying hey what do we need to get us to current what do we need to support the programs that work well and help um really make a meaningful difference across pierce county and i think that that is accomplished uh in this adjustment and i urge support thank you for your comments councilmember denson

Yes, thank you, Chair. I'll try to keep it short because I've spoken quite a bit this evening already. As we've heard, the rate of $10 a property a year, $10 a year, has been put in place and the Conservation District has been stuck with that rate for many, many years while obviously the prices of their equipment, their vehicles, their supplies, certainly wages have dramatically increased. So, as the director expressed, this is truly right-sizing the rate to match with the work that they have continued to scrape and save and leverage in order to continue their core purpose of conservation of both land and water quality and in many ways expand their programs in response to the needs of the community and still in keeping with their purpose through creative mechanisms, through fundraising and grants. This is work that not only benefits property owners like farmers or others that are trying to do urban farming or new kinds of gleaning and farming activities. It benefits all of us because not only does it feed our community, but it protects our environment. It protects our lands. It protects our soils. It protects our air quality. It's all related, as we know. I wanted to highlight the fact that the Pierce Conservation District is governed by an elected board of directors. They are elected in a public election by rate payers, and the board of directors are rate payers, so they certainly do not take lightly the consideration of raising the rates, even though it's a small rate increase. It's $4 to $5 per year. Even that I know that they really, really considered and whether that was necessary, what was necessary. I sat in on focus groups as well. And there was definitely a lot of reverence and respect given to the condition of property owners. The timing is the timing by state law. They need this rate adjustment and it has to happen now. So. For me, given the amount of services that we've heard about, we've certainly received a lot of feedback on from the community, both that has benefited directly and indirectly from the services. For me, the Pierce Conservation District is absolutely the best deal in town. and out of town as well whether you're in the city outside of the city we all benefit from these programs and the fact that we can receive all of the benefits for these programs that are today and lasting into the future for future generations for me it's an excellent excellent investment as a property owner for fourteen fifteen dollars a year so i urge support i will be supporting this and and i thank the conservation district for all of their outstanding work thank you councilmember morrell thank you madam chair um great discussion that's going on among my colleagues thanks for answering questions

you know we say it's only it's only understand that taxes are layered upon taxes upon taxes so it isn't just one fourteen dollars a year is schools, fire districts, flood control districts, we can go down the list. So I don't minimize the impact of any tax and what I have to look at is what's the return on that. what is the transparency of the organization that is collecting those tax dollars and are they delivering what they promise to deliver i would like to have the conservation district focus more on farmers than they do on the other programs they they seem to have and speaking for the flood control district we found out what happened when you expand beyond your capability on doing pilot programs so we had to pull back on that so my challenge to you is stay in your lane deliver I have majority of the, I would say larger scale farmers, and farming isn't just agriculture, it's cattle, it is goats, it is livestock. So it goes beyond just growing corn or lettuce or pumpkins. So, appreciate you know the comments that I get from my farmers as far as how impactful the conservation district is on them and it's a mixed bag no one's fast enough no one's there to create a sufficient safety net in a timely manner But there again, the support that the conservation district does give to my farming community seems to be valid and supported by majority of my farmers. I would definitely encourage there again that you focus on your main mission there are plenty of organizations out there doing a myriad of the same thing you're doing but yet is there an organization out there that is working with our farmers other than as it was said the Farm Bureau USDA those organizations but sometimes it's it's challenging uh to get any results out of those organizations so for me um looking at my constituent days it it is another tax that is putting upon them and it's the layering that i have concerns about and yeah it's a few lattes a year as they say but yet um i i did receive some calls from my farmers wanting support for this so um i am leaning towards that thank you madam chair

Thank you for your comments. Council Member Morales. Thank you, Chair.

Just for the record, the word tax has been thrown around a few times. I do want to stress the rate adjustment. I think when we use the term tax, that means something different to members of the public, and so want to recenter this around a rate adjustment per parcel. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. So I will just conclude with hopes that we will have more than the majority supporting this. This is something that is absolutely necessary to make sure that we continue to grow food here in our community, that we find creative ways. It is a way for the urban areas to invest in Our own future, because we invest in our farm lands from council districts. 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7. I have some farms on in on Anderson island. I know there's some in parkland, but. The majority are in 1, 2, 3 and 7 and 5. sorry customer. I'm not going to even say that you have a majority, but we. we benefit that's that's the point that we benefit and i i think that that's where i look at it so that i am investing in um with this small rates that i pay um so that collectively we are able to spend quite a bit of that funding in these farming communities to help people think about things differently upgrade meet new code changes when they come because we passed something, and just really would hope that we have bipartisan support on this item. So at this time, I'm going to ask the Clerk to call the roll on the adoption of Ordinance 2026-525.

Councilmember Kruver? Aye. Councilmember Ayala? Aye. Councilmember Yanbei?

Aye.

Councilmember Denson? Aye. Councilmember Morrell?

Aye.

Council Member Herrera?

Aye.

Council Member Hitchen?

Aye. You have six ayes, one nay. With six ayes and one nay, the motion is adopted. I am going to see if my colleagues would like a short recess so we can all get up and do human things and that kind of thing. Okay. So we are going to take a six-minute recess. We will be back at 5.15. So we are in recess, everybody. Thank you.

Music.

And we can begin in... Ben, we're still hearing music playing. Is that from you? Good afternoon. We are back from our short recess. The time is 5.16, and we are going to pick up where we left off. Before us, we have Ordinance 2026-530S. Vice Chair Herrera for a motion.

Chair, I move Ordinance 2026-530S. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Can the clerk read it into the record?

Proposal number O2026-530S, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council amending Pierce County Code Title 17A, Construction Infrastructure Regulations, Site Development and Stormwater Drainage, repealing the Pierce County Stormwater Management and Site Development Manual, adopted pursuant to ordinance number 2021-45, as amended, adopting a new manual- and establishing separate ability, adopting, finding the facts, and setting an effective date of July 1st, 2026.

Thank you. And then I just want to check in. So to me, it's very echoey. Is that what everybody is experiencing? Can you still understand us in the chambers? Yes, and so-so. So we'll see what we can do. We literally have people that are working on this today. We went on recess. It seemed fine. It was better before we went on recess, yes?

Okay, so we'll just keep working on it.

So today we have Ms. Rhett Hunt, our senior policy analyst, to take us through what this will actually do. And Ms. Rhett, we'll turn it over to you.

Thank you so much. Erica Rent Hunt, Council staff. So our proposal today updates our requirements for stormwater management in Pierce County, consistent with our National Pollution Discharge Elimination System stormwater permit, and that's abbreviated MPDES. That permit is issued by our Washington State Department of Ecology. So our action today has several parts. The first thing it does is repeal and replace the county's stormwater management and site design manual, which we call the stormwater manual for short. It amends Title 17A of the Pierce County Code, Section 205040 of the Pierce County Code, and Section J15140 of the Pierce County Code. Those are various regulations and fee tables for stormwater management. It also adopts a finding of fact, establishes separability, and sets an effective date of July 1st, 2026, which is our statutory date for completing this item. So Pierce County is required to update its stormwater manual to comply with its NPDES permit. It's part of a requirement for local governments under the Federal Clean Water Act, and even though the compliance is managed by the Washington State Department of Ecology. When we update our manual and regulations, it ensures that the county's stormwater and site development regulations are consistent with state and federal requirements, best practices, and other standards. They're put into place to protect our downstream properties, our public infrastructure, and our surface waters throughout the county. In this change, so the permit requires us to review this about every five years. So there are some significant changes. Most of the significant changes have to do with editorial changes and format changes that improve the readability, clarity of the document, as well as support online navigation. The idea is that our staff Our Planning Public Works staff worked really hard to bring a manual that was much easier to use and easier to apply, not only for our reviewers, but for our applicants and the public. So, the stormwater manual's approach continues to use a low-impact development approach to integrate onsite natural features in small-scale stormwater controls in order to reduce runoff, promote groundwater recharge, protect natural hydrology and habitats. um the proposal represents the current standard of practice and doesn't go beyond the established requirements but there are a few substantive changes in the document and we received a pretty in-depth report of those at committee there's also a list of those things in the staff report so i'm not going to go through those item by item but they do include some things like Updating thresholds and best management practices to be consistent with changes in federal and state manuals. Updating our precipitation data so it's based on the most current data that we have. It also goes through and for some low-risk projects such as single-family residential, they have a few reduced requirements because through study, they realized that they could have some reduced survey and testing requirements that reduce the economic burden of those things, but they could still have strong environmental protections in place. So there's some higher resolution GIS tools that will be available for designing stormwater systems, as well as some new and pre-designed best management practices for smaller projects that will reduce design and project costs over time. So this comes to you from the Economic and Infrastructure Development Committee with a due pass as substituted recommendation. It was also recommended for approval by Planning and Public Works and the Planning Commission. In your packet you will find that there is a community impact statement that was prepared for the proposal by the planning public works department and the fiscal impact is a de minimis fiscal impact. Throughout the process of updating the stormwater manual, the department did a pretty extensive public involvement process, which started back in spring of 2024, which included public outreach, public meetings, over 40 technical advisory committee meetings with some different levels of technical advisory committees. So very technical experts, members of the public and industry, a variety of meetings. It also went through a State Environmental Policy Act review, was given a determination of non-significance, as well as planning commission meetings and our own council meetings. So with that, there are two amendments that are proposed, but I will pause here for questions.

Thank you for the overview and see if there are any questions before we take up these amendments. Not seeing any, so Council Member Denson, I'm gonna go to you for amendment number one. Thank you, Chair. I move for approval of council amendment number one. It's been moved and seconded. Ms. Brettheim, can you tell us what it is?

Absolutely. The purpose of Council Amendment Number 1 is to strengthen protections against the Chemical 6 PPDQ in the Pierce County Stormwater Manual. So this happens in a series of points which are outlined in the memo. In the first point on page 28 of the exhibit, It adds additional information about sick PPD, noting that it's a pollutant responsible for urban runoff mortality syndrome, which affects fish species as well as human health, and that it affects fish-faring streams in Pierce County. In point two, it adds a provision in the manual. Now, in the manual, there's already a provision that says if the county determines Basically, the provision that is already in the manual reflects that our, we can, Planning and Public Works is able to look if there's additional protections that are required that go beyond the manual, the Planning and Public Works director is able to implement those. It adds a sub-bullet there that specifically addresses that for 6ppd so it says basically that because the science around 6ppd is evolving that as best practices and best best available science emerges on 6ppd additional bmps may become available and those may be directed by planning and public works to be used for projects But basically, it puts them in the list of things that applicable projects must either use the BMPs or show that they are not able to use the BMP on their site. And in cases such as these, the full list of potential BMPs for 6 PPD as they evolve will be listed on the county's website and updated as new science becomes available. So point three of the memo talks about an additional information that should be included on the application. And it basically has some information about water characteristics, water body type, and known impairments. So that's a signal on the application to include information about 6-PPD. And on the fourth point in the memo, it is a list. It also has to do with the application and the review of application. And it says for projects that trigger enhanced treatment that the applicant has to provide that technical justification feasibility or infeasibility. So that's kind of what I spoke up to in point two, which essentially says that for BMPs related to 6 PPD, they have to try the BMPs that are known to be effective against 6 PPD first, show that they're infeasible before they move on to other allowed BMPs in the manual. So those are all the points in amendment memo number one.

Thank you. I'm going to see if Councilmember Denton would like to speak to her amendment.

Thank you, Chair. I won't reiterate what the amendment does because Ms. Redhunt did a brilliant job as always. I want to thank Ms. Redhunt for working with the department and exploring opportunities and ideas that would work with their processes and increase protections for our communities. I really appreciate the department including six PPDQ language in the new stormwater manual. Already it was a huge leap from where we were before. So as Ms. Redhunt described, this amendment clarifies the intent, which is so important moving into the future. We want to make sure that our intent here is understood by future councils. So it clarifies the intent, it clarifies the authority of the excuse me goodness I can't speak anymore clarifies the authority of the department to be responsive to changes in science to new research developments to new tools that help developers also work with us to protect the environment and it strengthens data collection so we can continue to make better and better decisions based upon the data. As we all know, 6ppdq is a really important issue in our community. It has a devastating effect on coho salmon. We don't even know the other effects that it could be having impacting water quality that could be impacting our human populations as well. So I'm really excited that Pierce County is taking these intentional and really thoughtful steps to protect our environment and to help our developers also work with us effectively to protect the environment in which they are welcoming new homeowners and renters and commercial properties as well. We all need to work together on this. It's all connected. So thank you so much, and I would appreciate the council's support of this amendment.

Thank you. We're going to go to the vice chair.

Thank you, Tara. Let me come up with my questions here. So currently we don't have any reference to any of the six PPDQ at all in any of this right now.

So there is a reference to 6 PPD around the spot where the first point in the amendment memo, it does have a small section on 6 PPD there. Also, there's a spot that specifically has three BMPs that are the best practices now that are that have already proven to be efficient for managing 6 PPD. So there is a presence about 6 PPDQ in the manual now.

And this amendment strengthens that, or what does this do more?

I would say the characteristic of this amendment is to put additional presence about 6 PPD so that it's present in more places in the manual and it enhances the presence of it.

We know that the tire industry is working really hard to get rid of that and find a replacement, and I guess that wouldn't matter if they change that chemical, right?

Sure. So if tires no longer had 6 PPD, then these types of things wouldn't be needed, right?

another thing is when it comes to here is pretty interesting about the rapid rapidly evolving science of this and how we're allowing the I guess PBW to adjust fire there I guess when it comes to a developer they want some type of and this puts uncertainty in some of this, or does it?

So the authority of the director to add information based on best practices in science is already in the stormwater manual. That's not proposed to be changed. It's also already allowed in our Title 17. So those are things that are already present. Adding this bullet specifically says that it just it basically puts a spotlight on six ppd and it lets people know that because of the evolving nature of that science that is something that that may be more likely to get a focus through through that type of attention thank you thank you chair thank you for the comments councilman recruiter

But if this really doesn't do anything to change, but it does add a lot of dialogue to the manual, and if PPD, if we find a solution for it in a few years, and then it's in the manual, we don't update the manual, what purpose does this serve aside from alerting us to an ingredient that we already know has severe consequences?

So I think the thing about 6-PPD, and I learned this from our stormwater team. So the thing about 6-PPD is that it's actually been known about for a while. They hadn't really isolated it to know the cause. So they knew that there were chemicals in our environment that were likely associated with tires and that type of a thing that were causing this problem. But now we have a name for it. And so 6 PPD may not...

manufacturing tires.

If they started manufacturing tires without 6 PPD, that would be a huge advantage. But we update the storm manual in another five years, and it's very unlikely that within that five-year time period, we would eliminate all the tires that are on the cars and on the roads that would have six PPD components or other toxic components in them. So this is an evolving science, yes. Correct.

Thank you for the comments. It was so nice for a little while. Okay. We're going to go to seat 3, which is council.

Thank you. The echo is back again. So. I'm gonna make a few comments. I agree with some of my colleagues that this does seem to be a little overkill. I think best practice is already aware of the PPDs. And as Miss Erica Randhut said, it's been around since how should we say, Henry Ford invented the Model T, and without this chemical, we'd be all driving around like flinchstones on very hard tires so i know the epa has identified this as a potential problem and you've got states like california that are encouraging manufacturers to find other alternatives there hasn't been another alternative that has been suggested because I certainly wouldn't want to be doing 60 miles an hour and have my tires fall apart due to the fact that we don't have the flexibility due to the change in chemicals. So that leaves us to another issue. How do we deal with it? How do we protect the environment? And I assume the department is looking at all the methods out there, the bioretention, the bioswells, the rain guards, filtered everything before it hits anything environmental. Because I always thought that storm water, especially when it was commercial or developments were retained on site. That's why we have holding ponds and other things. So I guess I'm kind of, you know, looking at this and saying, okay, where is the storm water coming from? Is it coming from all properties? Is overflow, is it coming from our roads and we don't have a network these bio retention systems on our roads so I'm kind of curious on that night you know I understand the maker wants to identify this but some of the language is pretty severe but I'm just you know, kind of curious to see, you know, we've tried a couple of different systems out using storm drains, different soils, different fabric filter media. So it's an ever evolving process. No one, no one has an answer to this. And so I'm just, as long as it doesn't drive up the cost of, with more regulations, I'm not that concerned about it. But if it comes back a year from now that they're using this as a club for something, then hopefully this council will address it at that time. So thank you.

Thank you for the comments. Are there any additional questions before we Not seeing any, so all those in favor of adopting Council Amendment Number 12026-530S, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. That brings us to Council Amendment Number 2. Council Member Denson, we're going back to you. Thank you, Chair. I move Council Amendment Number 2.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Ms. Rhett-Hunt, can you tell us what this one does? Absolutely.

Amendment Number 2 moves some language and makes a correction to it to improve clarity in the manual. So the language has to do with... trenches, the overflow on a trench and how it's located in relationship to the pavement. So in point one, it is removed from section 4.7.2 and it is rewritten for clarity and added to a different subsection in 4.7.3.

Thank you. Council Member Denson, anything to say on this one?

No, this was a request.

This was a request of the department, so thank you. Okay, perfect. Any questions from colleagues? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving Council Amendment Number 2, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. That brings us to Ordinance 2026-530S as amended. Is there any further questions before we open this up for public comment? Not seeing any. So we are going to open this up for public comment. Again, you have up to three minutes. We'll start in chambers. Anyone in chambers want to address the council on Ordinance 2026-530S? Nobody standing up. So we will go online, Mr. Dominique.

One second. Here we go. All right, for anyone who would like to provide comment on proposal number O2026-530S, please press the raise hand icon and zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. No answer this time, Madam Chair.

hands raised i'm a closed public comment bring it back before the council is there any further discussion on this particular item not seeing any so i just want to thank the department for years i mean you've been working on this for a while didn't just come together it's a rather lengthy document and i know that they took this very seriously as we literally cannot survive without clean water everybody so it's important that we're taking care of it I'm going to ask that we call the roll on the approval of O2026-530S as amended.

Council Member Herrera?

Aye.

Council Member Krueger?

Council Member Krueger, we did not hear you. Thank you.

Council Member Ayala? Aye. Council Member Yambe?

Aye.

Council Member Denson? Aye. Council Member Morrell?

Aye.

Council Member Hitchen?

Aye. We have seven ayes, zero nays. With seven ayes and zero nays, the motion is adopted. Thank you. That brings us to Ordinance 2026-519. Council Member Yambe, we're going to you with a motion.

All right. I'd like to move proposal number 2026-519.

It's been moved and seconded. Can the clerk please read it into the record?

Proposal number O2026-519, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council ratifying the 2026 to 2028 collective bargaining agreement reached with the Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen, and Helpers Union, local number 313, Teamsters 313, amending the Pierce County salary classification plan and permitting pursuant to charter section 6.80, payment of funds from appropriations in subsequent fiscal years.

Thank you. And Ms. Chapman is here to tell us what this particular one does. We have four of these this afternoon.

Yes, thank you. This first collective bargaining agreement. So for the record, Rebecca Chapman, council staff, this proposal ratifies a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters 313 union. It affects 139 full-time employees within two departments, planning and public works and facilities management. A complete list of positions is found in Appendix A to Exhibit A. The positions covered include accounting assistants, office assistants, maintenance workers and technicians, traffic sign technicians and gardeners. This agreement runs from January 1st, 2026 through December 31st, 2028. It calls for a wage increase of 2.5% retroactively for January 5th, 2026, 3% wage increase on January 4th, 2027, and a 3% wage increase on January 3rd, 2028. The fiscal impact is $320,840 in 2026 $709,560 in 2027, and about 1.5 million at 11 million in 2028. While this agreement does extend past the current biennial budget, the 2028 wage increase will be part of the 2028-2029 proposed budget as it is already bargained. This proposal was reviewed at the June 8th Rules and Operations Committee and was given a due pass recommendation. And we do have human resources staff available to assist with any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions of department staff or council staff? Not seeing any. So I'm gonna go ahead and open this up for public comment. If anyone would like to address the council on ordinance 2026-519. This is with the team service 313. Please come to the podium. Not seeing anyone jump up. So we will go online, Mr. Dominique.

For any member of the public that would like to provide comment on proposal number O2026-519, please press the raise hand icon in Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. No hands at this time, Madam Chair.

With no hands raised, I'm going to close public comment and bring it back before the council. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to ask the Clerk to call the roll on the approval of O2026-519. Councilmember Morrell?

Aye.

Councilmember Herrera? Aye. Councilmember Kruver? Council Member Ayala. Aye. Council Member Yanbei.

Aye.

Council Member Denson. Aye. Council Member Hitchin.

Aye. You have seven ayes, zero nays. With seven ayes, zero nays, the motion is adopted. Thank you. That brings us to item number five, which is Ordinance 2026-521. Council Member Yanbei, again, for a motion.

Chair, I'd like to move Proposal Number 02026-521.

It's been moved and seconded. Can the Clerk please read it into the record?

Proposal number O2026-521, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council ratifying the 2026 to 2028 collective bargaining agreement reached with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, local number 483, traffic signal IBEW483, amending the Pierce County salary classification plan and permitting pursuant to charter section 6.80, payment of funds from appropriations in subsequent fiscal years. Thank you. And Ms. Chapman to tell us what this one does.

Yes, thank you. This will sound very similar to my previous introduction. This proposal ratifies a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Local 483 Union. It affects eight full-time employees within Planning and Public Works. The positions covered are for traffic signal technicians 1, 2, and 3, and details on these positions are found in Appendix A to Exhibit A. This agreement runs from January 1st, 2026 through December 31st, 2028. It again calls for a retroactive wage increase of 2.5% on January 5th, 2026, and future wage increases of 3% on January 4th, 2027, and 3% on January 3rd, 2028. The fiscal impact is $23,990 for 2026, $53,030 in 2027, and $82,940 in 2028. And again, while this agreement does extend past the current biennial budget, the 2028 wage increase will be part of the 2028-2029 proposed budget. This proposal was reviewed at the June 8th Rules and Operations Committee and was given a due pass recommendation. And again, we do have department staff available if you have any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Chapman. Are there any questions on this collective bargaining agreement? Not seeing any, so I'm going to open this up for public comment. If anyone would like to address the Council on Ordinance 2026-521, this is the IBEW 483 Collective Bargaining Agreement. Not seeing anyone in chambers stand up, so we will go online, Mr. Dominique.

Excuse me. For any member of the public that would like to provide a comment on Proposal No. 02026-521, please press the raise hand icon in Zoom or star 9 on your telephone keypad. There are no answers this time, Madam Chair.

With no hands raised, I'm going to close public comment, bring it back before the Council. Is there any further discussion? Not seeing any, can the Clerk call the roll on the approval of Ordinance 2026-521?

Council Member Denson? Aye. Council Member Morrell? Aye. Council Member Herrera?

Aye.

Council Member Kruver? Council Member Ayala? Aye. Council Member Yambe?

Aye.

Council Member Hitchen? Aye. You have seven ayes, zero nays. With seven ayes, zero nays, the motion is adopted. Thank you all. That brings us to item number six, Ordinance 2026-527. Council Member Krueger, we are going to you for the motion. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Can the Clerk please read it into the record?

Proposal number O2026-527, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council ratifying the 2025 to 2027 collective bargaining agreement reached with the Pierce County Corrections Guild, amending the Pierce County salary classification plan and permitting pursuant to charter section 6.80, payment of funds from appropriations in subsequent fiscal years.

Thank you. And we have Ms. Andrea Kelly, our principal policy analyst, to brief on this one.

Thank you, Chair Hitchen. Andrea Kelly, Council staff, as Ms. Call indicated, this is a collective bargaining agreement for the Corrections Guild with the Sheriff's Office. This is a three-year collective bargaining agreement for the period of January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2027, and covers 268.1 FTEs in the Corrections Guild, including deputies and correctional sergeants. Nearly all of these positions are in the general Corrections line in the general fund to sergeants work in the detention center commissary fund as special revenue fund. Um, and of course, corrections, deputies and sergeants are responsible for the custody of inmates held in the Pierce County jail. This matter was discussed in length at the June 8th, 2026 Rules and Operations Committee, where it had a due pass recommendation. The CBA with the Corrections Guild is, or the proposed CBA is completed, but halfway through the period of agreement, it runs from January 1, 2025 to December 2027. The three-year CBA calls for a general wage increase of 5% on January 6, 2025, which would be retroactive, 4% on January 5, 2026, and 3.5% on January 3, 2028. Additionally, additional provisions include a longevity pay that starts at 1% at year 8 and maxes out at 6% at the beginning of an employee's 21st year. The fiscal impact total for 2025 through 2027 is approximately $9.4 million. So I'm available to answer questions. As Ms. Chapman indicated, HR staff is also available with Melissa Arnold.

Thank you. Are there questions for staff on this one? Council Member Morrell.

Thank you. Madam Chair, obviously wasn't at rules when this was discussed. Usually the correction guild follows the deputies guild as far as increases go. Did they decide to settle before the arbitration decision? yes that's my understanding although if miss arnold has additional information but that is my understanding yes okay then my question is they have to live with this agreement through 2027 they can't open it up correct okay so it's locked down at the five four and three and a half correct okay thank you

Thank you for the questions. Any additional questions? Ms. Arnold, a logistics question. Are you back at the bargaining table with both of these entities, like potentially the end of this year or the beginning of next year? Okay, here we go again. Not seeing any other hands raised, so we're going to go ahead and open this up for public comments. If you'd like to address the Council on Ordinance 2026-527, please come to the podium. Not seeing anyone coming to the podium in chambers, so we will go online. Mr. Dominique.

For anyone who would like to provide comment on proposal number O2026-527, please press the raise hand icon in Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. There are no hands at this time, Madam Chair.

With no hands raised, I'm going to close public comment, bring it back before the council and see if there's any further discussion. So I just want to thank our bargaining team, also thank the members of the bargaining team from the other side of the aisle there with the Guild who continue to do that. We look forward to getting updates on the next round, which will... much sooner than we were all hoping but we always want to make sure that we are going through the process and was pleased that we were able to come to resolution on these and get the dollars organized and out the door as quickly as possible for especially the back pay I know there's been a lot of questions that have come to us so looking forward to that so at the time I'd like to ask the clerk to call the roll on the adoption of Ordinance 2026-527.

Councilmember Yambe.

Aye.

Councilmember Denson. Aye. Councilmember Morrell.

Aye.

Councilmember Herrera.

Aye.

Councilmember Kruver. Aye. Councilmember Ayala. Aye. Councilmember Hitchen.

Aye. You have seven ayes, zero nays. With seven ayes, zero nays, the motion is adopted. Thank you all. That brings us to item number seven, which is Ordinance 2026-529. Councilmember Kruver, we're going to you. It's been moved and seconded. Can the clerk please read it into the record?

Proposal number O2026-529, an ordinance of the Pierce County Council ratifying the 2025 to 2027 collective bargaining agreement reached with the Pierce County Deputy Sheriff's Independent Guild, Local Number 1889, amending the Pierce County Salary Classification Plan and permitting pursuant to Charter Section 6.80, payment of funds from appropriations in subsequent fiscal years.

Thank you. And we're going to go back to Ms. Kelly to tell us what this one does.

Thank you, Chair Hitchen. This is a three-year collective bargaining agreement, again, for the law enforcement side of the Pierce County Sheriff's Office for patrol and other positions. This covers 324 FTEs in the Independent Guild. Positions include deputies, detective, detective sergeant, sergeant, public information officer, lieutenant, and contract chief. Overall, it also includes 55 contracted positions, The 26-27 biennial budget sets the Sheriff's Department staffing level at 409 FTEs, so this CBA covers roughly 80% of the total positions. The department provides law enforcement services in unincorporated Pierce County, as well as contracted services including University Place and Edgewood. The prior CBA with the Sheriff's Independent Guild ended on December 31st, 2024. This agreement was recently completed, but it's halfway through that period of agreement, running from January 1, 2025 through December of 2027. The three-year CBA calls for a general wage increase of 5% on January 6, 2025, which would be retroactive, 5% on January 5, 5% on January 5th, 2026 and 5% on January 3rd, 2027. Additionally, in the arbitration award letter, the county shall match up to 2% of the employee's base salary if they choose to defer their compensation. The CBA also includes new education premiums of 2% for an AA or an AS and 4% for a BA or BS. Employees are also eligible for additional pay through career progression program, which includes longevity pay and the education premium. Again, this matter was discussed on June 8th, rules and operation committees with a do pass recommendation. The fiscal impact for 2025 through 2027 is approximately $21 million. And again, Ms. Arnold is available and I'm available as well for questions.

Thank you for the overview. Are there questions from colleagues on this one? Council Member Murrell.

Thank you. I do have a question. This may be a Ms. Arnold question. On the retro pay, is that paid out immediately in 2026 or can they choose to have it spread out for tax purposes? in 26, so that will be on top of their regular salary. Okay, thank you.

Thank you for the question and answer. Any additional questions? Okay, not seeing any, I am going to ask that we open this up for public comment. If anyone would like to address the council on proposal O2026-529, please come to the podium. not seeing anyone, so we will go online. Mr. Dominique.

For any member of the public that would like to provide comment on proposal number O2026-529, please press the raise hand icon and zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. And we have one hand at this time, Madam Chair. Username Sean D, please state your name for the record and you have three minutes.

We can. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you for your comments and now we're back to echoing again. Okay. Maybe not. There we go. Um, so not seeing any other comments. So we'll close public comment. Bring it back before the council. Is there any further comments from my colleagues? Not seeing any, so I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll on the approval of 2026 529.

Council Member Ayala? Aye. Council Member Yambe? Aye. Council Member Denson? Aye. Council Member Morrell?

Aye.

Council Member Herrera?

Aye.

Council Member Krueger?

Council Member Hitchen. Aye. You have seven ayes, zero nays. With seven ayes and zero nays, the motion is adopted. Thank you all. So that's the end of our normal business. We are going to open this up for community forum. Community forum is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on any topic of significance to or affecting Pierce County government that did not appear on our agenda for final action this afternoon. There is a three-minute limit and reminding anyone that's providing comments that Testimony regarding any campaign for election promotion of or opposition to a ballot proposition is not allowed due to RC, due to the law. If you'd like your name on the record, please state it. We'll start in chambers. I didn't have anyone formally say they were going to sign up, but we have a couple people that have been with us since 3 o'clock, so we'll see if any of them wanted to provide public comment for this.

Hello, my name is Brian. I live in Pierce County. I'm here today to talk about and address the warehouse epidemic down Canyon Road and 176. The reason I'm bringing it up is due to the unnecessary building of warehouses, especially doing so is destroying the environment and creating more problems, albeit traffic and road conditions, as well as safety of drivers around semi-trucks. First with the road problems, semi-truck safety. Washington Traffic Safety Commission has stated approximately 8% of commercial drivers have gotten red light tickets. The same percentage is given for traffic accidents as well. The other aspect to be brought forward is the breakdown of the roads as well. If you drive down Canyon now at any given time, you will see 10 to 20 semi trucks driving down the road, and that is any day of the week. With that many, it breaks down the road more, having us spend more money on road work than we have more roads that need the help. Both these aspects help cause more traffic, keeping people in traffic, and increase heat for longer. Now for the environmental aspect of warehouses being built, not just that trees create shade, helps with evapotranspiration. First, the shade shaded ground can decrease temperatures 20 to 40% in any given area. The other item evap brand transpiration is the set of a natural air conditioners by absorbing water from soil, releasing it into the air as coding coding vapor. Both of these items help decrease summer temperatures by 2 to 9% or 2 to 9 degrees in any given area. And now the reason the warehouses need to be stopping bill is the fact that we, there are 18 already, or almost done being built and most of them are empty or have a pseudo name added to them from Google maps. What is so many being built with noting nothing going into them? It makes me fear that data centers are going to be going into them further destroying our environment and raising costs across the board. They might not be telling you it's for a data center now, but an example is changes can happen as in Taylor, Texas, where in 1999 land was gifted. For bark, and the city sold it to a data center in 2025. Uh, today I heard about building more buildings and how farms are losing space less where houses would help with that. Please keep help decrease these being built because when you moved out to the countryside to get away from my city items, and it seems like we are destroying that aspect. Lastly, I will leave you with a quote from Dr Susan. I am Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues. A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean. Unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in chambers? Yes, if you're here to just address the council, now is the time.

good evening chair and council members county executive staff technical reviewer and members of the public my name is pat marcello i'm here tonight regarding an unsolicited proposal entitled the chamber creek wastewater to energy biogas combined heat and power feasibility proposal tonight i'm not i'm not asking this council to approve a project I'm not asking for construction authorization. I'm not asking for procurement approval. I'm not asking for public funding. Instead, I'm respectfully asking the Council to consider whether an existing public resource deserves professional evaluation. This proposal is guided by what I call the MHC3 framework, a simple infrastructure development methodology based on four principles. Identify the resource, validate the resource, measure the public benefit, then decide. The Chamber Creek proposal is presently in the second stage validation. The resource identified is not hypothetical. It already exists. Every day, millions of gallons of wastewater move through the Chamber Creek wastewater treatment facility. Within that process is organic material that may contain recoverable energy value through anaerobic digestion, methane recovery, and combined heat and power generation. The proposal presents planning level calculation, suggesting that this existing resource may support approximately 0.7 to 0.8 megawatts of continuous renewable electricity representing approximately 6 to 7 million kilowatt hour of annual generation. However, I want to emphasize an important point. These figures are not presented as final engineering conclusions. They are not guarantees. They are not certifications. They are planning assumptions that should be tested against actual Chamber Creek operating data. through engineering review, utility review, and financial review, and professional validation. If the data demonstrate that the resource is insufficient, then the review process a service purpose. If the data confirms the opportunity, then first country will have to identify the renewable energy resource already contained within existing public infrastructure. That is why the proposal requests a disciplined technical review rather than project approval. At its core, this is a question of stewardship. Should a potential valuable public resource be evaluated? Should its public benefit?

Thank you for your comments. I know that you left your proposal with us. I know you've emailed several of us. So, thank you. Anyone else in chambers? Okay, we'll go online, Mr. Dominique.

For any member of the public that would like to participate in community forum this evening, please press the raise hand icon in Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. And we have one hand at this time, Madam Chair. Angelyn, please state your name for the record and you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Okay.

No more hands.

There we go. So seeing no other hands, I'm going to close community forum, bring it back before the council and move to other business. I do want to pause and see if anybody needs another recess before we kick off this also to staff. Are we good? Okay, just I said I would. So we're going to roll right into this presentation this afternoon. Well, this evening we have a performance audit presentation that per our charter actually has to happen in the evening. doesn't conveniently define what evening is. So we've decided it's five o'clock or later today, conveniently, we had a really long meeting. So we definitely met that. So I'm gonna turn this over to Bill Vetter, our principal policy analyst who leads our performance audit team to introduce what we're doing and why we're here. And then it is my intent to do public comment after the conclusion of any discussion that we're having, especially since they have been here since three o'clock waiting. Just in case, and so we're going to make sure that happens. So, Mr better, we're going to go to you.

Thank you Madam chair and members of the council on December 22nd, 2020, the Pierce county council passed ordinance 2020 dash 138 S, levying a sales and use tax for behavioral health and therapeutic courts. The tax provides funding for expanded access to behavioral health services for Pierce county residents. The ordinance established sections and county code requiring a behavioral health improvement plan to guide effective use of county directed behavioral health spending and a behavioral health advisory board to assist in the development of the plan. The ordinance also required the performance audit committee to each fiscal biennium conduct an independent assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of selected services and programs receiving funding under the behavioral health and therapeutic court tax. On April 22nd, 2026, Performance Audit staff presented the third and final Bennium report directed by the ordinance to the Performance Audit Committee. According to the County Charter, within 90 days of the completion of a Performance Audit report, the Council should hold an evening public meeting evening public hearing to present, review and allow discussion of action plans developed to respond to audit findings and recommendations. Before we get to any discussion, I'll briefly summarize the report that was presented in April. The final Biennial Behavioral Health Tax Report includes an evaluation of six programs funded by the tax for 2024-2025 selected based on length of time receiving funding from the tax and representation across priority areas listed in the Behavioral Health Improvement Plan. As a framework for selecting programs to review, staff reviewed the Council's priorities in the original legislation, which includes an advisory spending plan for the fiscal year 2021 budget. While the spending priorities of the fund have evolved and changed each year, several programs funded in 2024-25 aligned with the original priorities. These include the Alternative Response Team, which partners with the Sheriff's Department to provide mobile on-call services for non-emergency, non-criminal calls involving a suspected mental health crisis. This maps to the Crisis Services for Adults spending priorities. Cohen Military Family Clinic, which provides outpatient mental health treatment targeted at post 9-11 veterans, active duty service members, and their family, mapping to the behavioral services for veterans priority area. The Lakewood Youth Wellness Project, which provided behavioral health support to K-12 students in the Clover Park School District, including school-wide education, small group supports, and individual case management and wellness. Mapping to the expanded behavioral health services and underserved school districts priority area jail diversion, which assist those in contact with the criminal justice system with treatment and rehabilitation for mental health or substance use disorders. Mapping to the criminal justice diversion services priority area. The mobile community intervention response team intended to reduce demand on 911 emergency rooms and other crisis services by clients who are better served by non-emergency medical and behavioral health providers. Mapping to the specifically mobile community intervention response team countywide expansion. And finally, wraparound intensive services and therapeutic case management. pairing case management with intensive clinical interventions and mental health treatment, and providing intensive case management and non-clinical interventions, mapping to the intensive services for youth priority area. These are among the most established programs, having been awarded grants in multiple funding cycles. Because the items to be reviewed in this report were selected prior to the announcement of the 2026-2027 awards, several of the programs described are no longer funded by behavioral health tax dollars. The evaluation was conducted using Pierce County Workday financial transaction data, program quarterly reports, and client data provided by service providers as stipulated in contracts with the county. The table you'll see up on the screen now lists the programs, their priority areas, their spending in 2024 and 2025, along with service delivery, including unique clients and numbers of visits. The full report contains detailed information for each program, including service types, cost categories, target populations, program performance measures as required by contract, and client demographic data. Regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of the programs receiving money from the tax, staff addressed the following questions. Did funded programs serve clients in areas identified as priorities by the Council? where services delivered in areas identified as gaps in the behavioral health improvement plan and did programs report meeting contracted program objectives. As can be seen from the table we were just looking at, programs served hundreds of clients with many services in areas identified as priorities by the Council in the originating legislation, namely ensuring broad access to treatment for Pierce County residents in both urban and rural communities, prioritizing services to especially vulnerable populations, particularly youth and veterans, and diverting adults and youth with behavioral health needs from costly interventions. Services were also delivered in the areas identified as gaps in the Behavioral Health Improvement Plan, including outpatient and community-based services, wellness prevention and early intervention, and services for justice-involved populations, and contractually covered all parts of the County. The programs reported meeting performance objectives for at least some of the period under assessment. In the course of doing the analysis of these programs, the report identified several challenges for the evaluation and for the programs. First, looking at data. Data in the healthcare environment is uniquely difficult to manage and process. Many of the funded programs are run by small nonprofits with limited technical staff and differing record-keeping platforms, and there are inherent difficulties in comparing organizations that vary in the number of clients served and the depth of services they provide. This makes analysis a bit difficult. The report discusses the evolution of data collection efforts, which include building internal information technology infrastructure and engaging in contract negotiations with providers. The county has adjusted its data acquisition strategy over time, refining and improving data collection and establishing data acquisition policies. Individual program performance objectives reported through quarterly narratives complement the standardized metrics by providing information that can help county staff assess individual program effectiveness and have been used to adjust contract terms where needed. At the individual program level, challenges that were reported by the providers included unexpected short staffing affecting the alternative response team and Seneca's therapeutic case management service, which may be a symptom of a broader behavioral health workforce shortage, a lack of services utilization with MCERT, and difficulty in securing referrals with the jail diversion program. The benefit to the county of an RFP process with a short-term contract is that services can be adjusted based on practical realities. In some cases, the monitoring of performance metrics led to contract amendment. In the case of jail diversion, a new prorated billing structure was established in response to the difficulty meeting monthly service benchmarks, and the MCERT contract was updated to reduce the client and staff scope in the face of low program utilization. Two of the six programs in this review were ultimately discontinued due to lack of referrals, reflecting administrative and system coordination challenges. A third, Lakewood Youth Wellness Project, was not awarded funds due to higher scoring applications in the competitive RFP process. A fourth, the Cohen Military Family Clinic, was separated into a different RFP process targeting services for veterans. A final report evaluating the Behavioral Health and Therapeutic Courts Tax will be completed in October 2026. That report will include administrative data and program performance measures as required by contract, outcome analysis for program participants in terms of hospitalization and emergency department usage as well as arrests, and review of contracting and contract monitoring processes. This report will also reflect outreach to providers, policymakers, and community members to identify community-level impacts of the tax. Also note that the Executive's Office provided a response to this report, which is appended to the full report online. Human Services staff are here to discuss and answer any questions, as well as us. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the Council.

Thank you. Thank you. And I know those of us that are in performance audit, this is the second, maybe the third time we've really reviewed this. So just seeing if there are initial questions, but I do want to invite anyone from the executive side of the house if there's anything you want to say since you've hung out with us for a while. Okay. Are there questions from colleagues on this report? There we go. I thought there would be. Vice Chair.

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation and deep dive in this. You talked a little bit about some of the issues that you saw. Talk about lack of referrals from the jail. Did they dive a little bit into that? Because, you know, I know when it comes to if someone's flagged a mental health thing and it's a misdemeanor, a lot of times they're not booking that. And the only ones that are in there are really, really bad felonies that they might not be eligible for some of this stuff. Was that part of it or is it just they weren't communicating? Yeah.

Okay, we'll have anybody.

Margo Burnison, behavioral health manager for the record. To answer that, there's a couple of different things. I think, yes, one of them was that the people we are seeing in our local jails usually are there longer, and so they're not being referred because they don't have a release date or there's some of those pending dates. The other issue where we're coming in, 2 was access to the jail. So, because of having short, like, them being short staffed within the jail, they didn't have the time to go with providers to see people. And so there were some of those referrals as well. That was really lacking in our system.

So was there any time when they showed up and they were turned away because that was happening?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, times where staff couldn't get in to see them. And we had some of those restrictions we were trying to fight through for much of that contract.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for the comments or questions, I should say. Additional questions from colleagues? Council Member Morrell.

Thank you. My question is pertaining to one of the contracts, the WISE and TCM contract for children and youth. Seems to be our largest contract that we have, but it only services, I mean, there again, you're gonna have to tell me what the difference between a client and a visit is, but you got 58 clients. Mm-hmm. 2,975 visits, is it 2,975 visits of those 58? Yes. So the cost per client and visit is extremely high. It is. Why?

So WISE and TCM are both state-recommended programs, and so we use the state-allocated costs for those. That's what we use to duplicate ours. The difference was that ours were for people who don't have insurance, and so we're covering those costs that Medicaid would normally pay for, and so we use the same rate structure. Some of the programs are higher cost. You're doing a lot of It's working with kids in the schools and at home. And so some of those visits are within the schools and some of those visits are at home and after school and before school. And so some of those costs do change on that rate.

Okay. And you will be able to at some point show us what the outcomes are?

Yeah.

Yeah, that will absolutely. I think it's going to come in the later reporting later this year that we're planning to do.

Okay. And yeah, I would like to look at the viability of that program. Is there, you say, because they don't have Medicaid, is there any, at any point, reimbursement that takes place from the state?

It does not. Often who we're seeing are the kids whose parents usually have some level insurance that won't pay. So sometimes we can get their insurance to finally start taking over and paying for it. And then it's covering kids who just never qualified for whatever reason so that every kid gets access to the same level of care.

Okay. And then is the 58 clients, is that a ceiling or is the demand greater and we're not taking advantage of it?

Yeah, I'd have to go back and look at the 58 client number. It's definitely not a ceiling. I think some of it could have been the staffing issues that we, that Bill mentioned earlier, but when we don't have enough staff is where we start to come into, because there are limits that you put per staff on how many people they can be serving. Staff are only one person, so we can't give them too much of a caseload or else they're not doing anybody any good. And so I suspect that that's what we're seeing, but I'd have to go back and that's what we would be looking at, deeper diving.

Okay. And do you, of that $2.9 million, do you contract out any of that to any agencies?

I believe that was all out to Seneca, which is an agency. So, yes, that's all contracted out to them.

Okay, and we can see the breakdown of what areas geographically they service?

Yep, we do it by zip codes, and so we can pull all of that, and that's in our kind of deeper level of data that we're starting to dive into right now.

Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you, Manager.

Yes. Thank you. Are there additional questions on the overarching report? So I will just add, thank you. I think we're good. We'll see if anybody has additional questions. I will just add that probably I think both in public safety and health and human services, we're going to be doing kind of a dive into what behavioral health tax has been invested in over the last. Couple of years really looking at some of the programs, some of the high dollar ones, like the wise program, but also some of our smaller, but really impactful ones, especially around veterans just to really understand how this this tool that we have by choice was imposed by the vote of this Council, how it's been invested. The WISE program, to your point, Council Member Morrell, is one that keeps literally kids alive. These are often kids where parents are calling and my kid's cutting themselves. I don't know what to do. And their only options are to take them to the emergency room. But the emergency room is going to deal with the cut, not the behavioral health that caused the kid to cut. They'll try, but that's not really their role. And so the WISE program, which wraparound intensive service... Never remember what the E is. Someday I'll remember.

It's just the second letter of service.

Oh, that's why I can't remember it. Okay. So that program brings people to the home and helps them initially. How do I make sure my kid doesn't hurt themselves to the point of a suicide? First step. What does that look like? And they're in the home helping the family, whatever the family looks like, really address that life crisis system. And then they back out and figure out, okay, so what's the next step? And then what's this next step? So it is very intensive, very hand-holding. Oftentimes those visits are helping parents or other siblings that potentially are traumatized or they're referring. It's very intensive, which is why there's so many visits. But it's keeping those 58 kids alive, which I say is definitely worth 2.8 or 2.3M dollars. So, but that's where I am. And so I know we'll be doing a deeper dive on several of those. But if there's specific programs that are of interest, please touch base with public safety chair. Herrera or myself, and we'll, we'll make sure that we find them in our work plans, because that's what we're currently working on and we can't do all of them because there's a lot but. We're trying to hit some of the ones that we've heard in our committee. So please ask us, let us know or talk to staff and they'll tell you if they're currently listed. So I talked enough. I'm not seeing any additional questions. Is there anything else from staff? Okay, then I am going to open this up for public comment. If anyone would like to come and address the council on this. Since she's waited three and a half hours, does anyone object to not having, like, we'll do three minutes, but if you go a little further. I think three minutes will be enough. Okay.

Thank you, Chair Hitchen, and thank you, council members. My name is Kim Zocker. I'm the CEO of Conference of Life Resources, the largest independent behavioral health agency in the county, and I'm a member of the Behavioral Health Advisory Committee. So I just wanted to share a few thoughts ahead. Well, now in retrospect of the discussion on the audit of the 110 to 1% programs and try to share a little context that might not come through in the audit itself. So one thing to note is the audit assesses directly the program supported by the tax, but a lot of the programs have blended funding. And so the full impact and the way the funding is leveraged isn't really necessarily apparent in the audit. For example, CLR's Mobile Community Integrated Response Team, or MCERT, as many of you may know it, was a program that was funded 60% by the Medicaid managed care organizations and 40% by the county. So the Pierce County funding made it possible for MCERT to serve people without insurance and a lot of our seniors who are in Medicare. And we were able to solve small but really important barriers to health. For example, fixing a hole in someone's floor where their wheelchair kept getting stuck and they kept calling emergency services to help support them. Or being able to pay for boarding for a beloved dog for two days so a senior could agree to a desperately needed surgery and again, not end up having EMS transporting them to a hospital over and over again. The behavioral tax also allows for innovation, which means that you should expect programs that are funded to revolve. And so the audit covered the final two years of our MSERP program, which ended in 2025, not because it failed, but because it worked. When we launched MCERT in 2017, it was a new idea, having the fire department and sheriff's department frequently refer frequent 911 callers to our team directly, often from the field. We would get a call from an engine company. They were just coming out of someone's house. They'd call us. We'd be there within an hour to see what was going on. And it allowed us to really address root causes of over-utilization of 911 and emergency services. And it was so successful, it grew to serve over 3,400 people across the county. And our early data showed a cost savings of up to $24 in diverted healthcare costs for every dollar spent on MSERD. Because it was so successful, it became the standard of care across the system, including in my own agency. Integrated care, mobile teams is the way we all do business now. Third, I want you to know that these dollars are really filling gaps. Our School Connect program has therapists serving students in Key Peninsula, White River, Orting, Puyallup, and Franklin Pierce school districts, providing prevention and early intervention. Those are not services funded by insurance. Insurance waits till you get sick. and pays for care. We're also able to provide treatment to students without insurance or people whose parents can't afford the out-of-pocket costs and tapping their own commercial coverage. Schools don't have the resources to do this loan and my guess is a lot of families have no idea the county is paying for this service. They think it's being provided by the school. Finally, as pointed out by staff, evaluating behavioral health is just so complicated. The benefits often show up in other systems, like schools, child welfare, criminal justice, and even our labor workforce. Depression and anxiety are still the top two reasons people lose work days. So saying that, Pierce County and all of the provider partners have gotten a lot more sophisticated since this tax passed in how we can collect data, and I believe we can offer both the Executive Office and the Council much better and more meaningful data in the next years to help you make decisions about the effectiveness of the task. I would really strongly recommend that the council and the executive consider forming a work group that really tries to identify the most meaningful metrics, not just for the use of your behavioral health tax funds, but the system as a whole, given that it really all does work in kind of a symbiotic relationship. Mostly I just want to appreciate all of you and your commitment to behavioral health and supporting the community. It's been really a benefit to have this tax and I really appreciate the support. That's it. Thanks.

Thank you for hanging with us. And I am going to go ahead and just open this up online just in case, to be fair.

For any member of the public that would like to provide comment to the Pierce County Council, please press the raise hand icon in Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. There are no hands at this time, Madam Chair.

No hands raised. We'll close public comment and bring it back before the Council. Is there any other business from colleagues or announcements? Council Member Ayala.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to take a moment and appreciate staff who worked on this as well as our performance audit committee who helped guide some of this. As it was mentioned, the whole system is quite complicated and we only hold a slice of that pie. And so I want to make sure that As we come across the October report that we're also taking that into consideration, knowing that the hospitals have a slice of that pie, the state has a slice of that pie. And there's many factors and pieces out there. And so I appreciate all the contributions of those that are funded to do this work and the challenges that were identified as we navigate this first wave, knowing that Folks are getting support and much needed support. Um, and something like this has not been tackled locally. And so, um, appreciate the work that that has happened over, um, over the years to do this. Thank you.

Thank you for the comments. I am not seeing any other hands raised. So seeing no other business before us. We are adjourned. Thank you. Everybody.