City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome everybody out tonight and call this meeting of the March 24 city Puyallup City Council to order. Will everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands,

Thank you. Will the city clerk please call the roll?

Council member Adler?

Present.

Deputy mayor Johnson? Present. Council member King?

Present.

Council member Gilliam? Present. Council member Kastema?

Present.

Council member Smallco? Present. Mayor Wedding?

Present. I don't think anybody hasn't noticed that our our royal court here this evening. Appreciate them, and we'll we'll get to them shortly. At this time, I'd like to have a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Unanimous.

Consideration of minutes. We have the minutes of the 05/10/2026 meeting. February 10. February 10. What did I say? May. May. May we approve the February '6 I hear a motion to approve the minutes?

Motion to approve. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Minutes approved. So now we get to move on to our presentations and proclamations, which I will read the proclamation.

The whereas the Daffodil Festival has been an established tradition for over ninety three years, which fosters community pride and showcases Puyallup as an excellent place to live and visit, and whereas what originated in 1926 as a modest garden party in Sumner is now the premium springtime festival, which attracts countless visitors to numerous events. And whereas the festival's events, parades, and royalty programs showcase the abilities of our young people, schools, community groups, and civic leaders, and promotes education, community pride, and volunteerism in Puyallup. And whereas the Daffodil Festival culminates with the Grand Floral Parade, which this year will be held on April 4, following the theme Bloom Where You're Planted 2026. Whereas each year, young ladies are selected from the senior class of local high schools to become members of the Daffodil Festival Royal Court, and whereas the queen and princesses of the Royal Court serve as goodwill ambassadors in hundreds of appearances at schools, community centers, service clubs, businesses, and organizations throughout the area. Now, therefore, I, Ned Witting, mayor of the city of Puyallup, do hereby name the following members of the twenty twenty six Daffodil Royal Court as ambassadors for the city of Puyallup during their reign and express my confidence that they will represent their schools, communities, and our city with maturity, poise, and grace.

Princess Evelyn Evie Boot from Puyallup High School, princess Eva Gardner from Emerald Ridge High School, princess miss. I need help with this one. Nisia Sikenga Sikenga,

chief Leschi High School and princess Hope Rizzo from Rogers High School. In where in witness whereof, I have heretofore set my

hand and caused the seal of the city of Puyallup to be affixed this 03/24/2026. Ned Whitting, mayor of Puyallup. So we'd like to have have you come up, and I'll give you your copies of the proclamation. We'll take a few photos and give you the opportunity to speak a few words if you're so inclined.

Oh, you know, that that might have helped. Did everyone hear me for the first part? So I plan to study immunology on a premed track. And I just wanted to say thank you for recognizing me and my fellow princesses here today at the city council meeting.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Princess Eva from Emerald Ridge High School. After graduating in June, I plan to go to basic training for the Army National Guard, after which I'll go to University of New Mexico to study behavioral neuroscience. Once again, I'd like to establish what Hope said. I'm so grateful for everyone here tonight, recognizing us as official ambassadors of Pierce County and Puyallup itself. And we hope to see you at the daffodil parade on April 4.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Princess Evie, and I proudly represent Puyallup High School. In the fall, I plan to attend Montana State University to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering, so I'm very excited about that. And I just want to give a very big thank you to everyone here today. Growing up in Puyallup, the festival, and just everything you guys have done is very near and dear to my heart. So once again, very big thank you.

Hello, everyone. I'm Princess Nisia from Chief Leshire High School, and I plan to go to PLU. I will be studying art and maybe collabing in a bit of writing. I just want to say thank you all for being here today. And I am proud to represent my school and

Okay, we'll move along. At this point, we're going to do citizen comments. I will we move into the less exciting parts of our meeting. So if the court would like to adjourn at this time, you're welcome to do so. Oh, would some of you leaders, daffodil. Right?

We have I think we have daffodil pens for you. Bloom, where you're planted is Anitra and I are co presidents. Can I say a couple words, sir?

You bet. Go ahead.

We had We've been with the Daffodil Festival for quite a while. And as things have evolved, really Puyallup is the epicenter of our parade. We are tremendously grateful for all the support that you give us, the LTAC money, the PMSA, generous donations, office space, and that we have by far our largest crowd here. And we know that looking over here to Dan and to Steve and so forth is that a lot of people, other duties as assigned, work hard to help us put on this big event and all of

the

related activities. And it's been a pleasure. It's been an absolute pleasure for us to work with the city of Puyallup or have the city of Puyallup work with us because it's been tremendous amount of support and all of the dedicated people that go to keep this ninety three year old tradition alive. And the Bloom Where You're Planted theme this year is Anitra's, And it kind of gives the princesses a base for their presentations and their speeches. And also pays tribute to when we can remember when the entire Puyallup Valley was in bloom. So thank you very much for giving us a few minutes. And I'm going to leave it up to Lisa to make sure we get your pens too.

I'm giving you girls pens so they can leave them out.

It's up to you ladies.

Thank you.

Okay. Public comments will be taken at this time in person. Will the clerk please provide the instructions for public comment?

This part of the meeting is for general citizen comments. Please reserve any public hearing testimony to that section of the agenda. The mayor will call on those who have provided their names in advance. Then the mayor will call for other citizens who wish to speak. For the record, please state your name and address or city council district in which you reside. Please direct your comments to the council as a whole, not individual council members. All comments are limited to three minutes. The clerk will provide verbal notice when only thirty seconds remain. As a reminder, this portion of the meeting is council's opportunity to hear from the community and not the time to engage and debate. Lastly, per state law, this public comment period cannot be used to speak in support of or in opposition to a ballot measure or individual candidacy, and no such comments will be allowed.

Thank you. First on our list is Penny Thorpe.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. We are all watching on the world stage now where we are showing the lesser side of humanity and governance. And here, we have an opportunity on the local level to show good governance. And from my perspective, good governance is about we, the people. We have an opportunity to preserve and nurture our current generation.

That means not doing damage. K? No wars, no kidnappings, no, putting people in prisons where they don't belong. We need to find a way to preserve and nurture the current generation in a way that can preserve and nurture future generations. I invite you to find ways within the budget or within a general resolution or ordinance to display what we say we stand for, which is diversity and inclusion. And I thank you for doing so.

Next, we'll hear from Dal Dent. Did I get that right?

First and foremost, thank you all. You've heard me. You haven't ignored me, and I'm going to be getting caught up on about a month and a half worth of my backlog. I wanna thank the police department, the traffic division, and the humongous effort he pulled to get the stats that I wanted. So I started this six months ago, and the final conclusion is that we have a huge traffic problem in my little bubble of the world, and the police department does not have enough time, does not have enough hands to fix this, needs city council to become proactive in traffic camera lights and speed signs with cameras.

These guys need help. In ten years, there has been a total of 2,283 tickets issued between Pioneer Way East, 12th Avenue Southeast, 21st Southeast, 7th Avenue Southeast, and 7th. That whole little district. 3,000 tickets in ten years is a bit excessive. There has been 396 accidents to date on Pioneer with one fatality.

That is a bit excessive. You need those traffic lights. You need those red cameras. Speed on these people. These are people that live in this area, no less.

People that take their kids to Cascade Christian, Callus, Spinning, Shaw Road, Northwest Christian Academy, and the sports center. We need the parents or the adults driving these kids to be adults. Their actions is precipitating the younger generation to continue this type of driving. And that sports center is a huge hazard, absolutely huge. Every school district within Pierce County appears to go there for spring practice for baseball.

Is open year round, seven days a week in most cases. So I thank you for your attention and looking into this.

Thank you. Tim Melima.

Good evening, counsel. Malcolm x coined the phrase by any means necessary. His definition was the right to protect life and property when the government is unable or unwilling to do so. This phrase has been perverted and co opted by the radical left, the no kings and the indivisible groups. These are people that subscribe to an ideology that nothing is off limits if it desires if it achieves their desired outcomes. The ends justify the means. Violent protests, all good. Blocking traffic, all good. Taking over sections of cities like Chaz Chop, Autonomous Zone that was in Seattle, all good. Randomly calling conservatives racist, all good.

These same people have no issue with reporting fake hate crimes. They have no problem campaigning on fake hate crimes as though they are truthful. Here in Puyallup, right when the comprehensive plan was being read and voted on, we had accusations of a heinous, heinous hate crime. Some people did not question the coincidence of this occurring right when the revisions were being passed. Some people were unwilling to let the investigation be done.

Kenya Jones low Lowell made claims that she received an incredibly hateful and vile letter and threatening phone calls. It was all a lie she made up. There was a very strong worded letter from count then council members Adler and Dorr. Gallup citizen, Jeff Bennett, said the kinds of racist and violent threats detailed so gruesomely in this letter are something we might associate with the depravities of the Deep South, yet here we are in Puyallup in 2025 seeing them unfold in our own backyard in Puyallup. Heather Cagle's chill Schiller.

There should be a unified and unequivocal condemnation from every member of our city council and from the city itself against the racial slurs and threats of violence directed at a community member, Kenya Jones Lowell. Then citizen Lindsay Smokel, Hate thrives in silence. I am heartbroken and outraged by the violent hate fueled threats made against Planning Commission chair Kenya Jones Lowell and her family. The racism and misogyny have no place in our city or politics, period. And yet what I find just as disturbing is the lack of public condemnation from the majority of our city council, end quote.

All these people are still active on their social media today. They didn't stop at November 4, And they in their defense, they didn't know it was a Jesse Smollett, Duke University situation. We all know it's fake.

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There have been no public comments that I've been able to come anywhere to find this. I have no idea why Peelope's choosing not to charge her. We have our own courts. We don't need to worry about Robnett and the politically charged Pierce County. Puyallup has the ability to do it. Counsel, you guys were all super quiet with your comments, probably the shortest comments ever on March 10. Maybe you were caught off guard, maybe you didn't know about this, but it is time to speak it up up about it, and it has no place in our politics. Thank you.

Next, we'll hear hear from John Palmer.

Good

evening, counsel. Good to see you. John Palmer, District 2 here tonight representing the Maine Street Association. Our executive director is off whipping up dollars beyond those dollars from the businesses. While I'm here talking to you about the Main Street credit program tonight as well as the Parklets.

First first thing I wanted to say is I just want to applaud our continued partnership between the city and PMSA. It's a wonderful partnership and we're just doing wonderful things downtown. And so just want to continue to see that grow. And I wanted to speak a little bit about the Main Street Credit program. It's in your your pamphlet tonight and I think it pretty accurate it very accurately describes how it's a $25,000 kind of allocation from the city budget, but it leverages an additional 75 that would otherwise go to the state, but instead goes to the city goes to PMSA for a $100,000.

So it's a wonderful leverage, wonderful program. I just wanted to give you a few things on what PMSA does with that doll with those dollars. And it just puts puts it all right into downtown. Roughly annually, about $30,000 on facade grants to improve our business's presence. Murals downtown, we've been spending around $20,000 a year on that.

Cleaning up our downtown every year, pressure washing and graffiti removal, 10,000 and 5,000 respectively. During the holiday season, putting up the snowflakes, that's about $10,000. The holiday window dressings, that's another $5,000. And we also spend about $6,000 on the cruise to hire our police to keep things safe during those events. So that's just kind of an example of of where these dollars go.

And it's just it's all going into, you know, investments downtown. And for the parklets, as you probably know, we, PMSA each year provides the soil and the flowers to go into those parklets and maintains those. And that's we use B and O dollars for that as well. Speaking of parklets, thank you for adding three at your, I know it was the last meeting, meeting before that. So, I think that's great.

PMSA stands to make also the additional investment to add the furnishings, the additional planner boxes and tables and umbrellas, which will cost just as much as the parklets themselves. So we're glad to do that though. Happy to do that. I just want to say one thing. I know you're talking about the allocation of parklets. My understanding is about 10 and about half and half in terms of meridian and off meridian. So be careful. I know there's a lot of energy about

Speakers having them in reach three

minutes.

Meridian meridian. But because of that, you know, the ones off of meridian, I think, are also very important. So just be careful in terms of how they allocate that given what's the demand. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Next, we'll hear from Eric Showsi.

Hey.

My name is Eric Showsi. I'm from District 2. Know Kings is awesome. Two weeks ago, a document from an investigation into threats against Kenya was publicly deployed at a city council meeting by individuals who seemingly appeared primarily during race related debates. They declared the ex mayor Jim not racist, and the city cleared.

They then said that the FBI proved that Kenya sent the threat to herself. In one breath, they managed to declare the city not racist and then immediately slander a prominent black woman. No FBI report was ever received in writing. It is described as persuasive, incredibly shaped, creditably shaping, but no but not quoted, and, it's not preserved as evidence. A verbal summary of a behavioral analysis used to justify a false reporting referral? I don't think so. That's extremely thin. So why did those two have the investigation to begin with? Who directed them to it? And why did they produce it as a defense for Jim's racist actions?

That all remains unanswered. Though, I should point out that the council itself on which Jim sits was privy to the report's status. Kenya led the equity inclusive charter commission. She defended state mandated language. She received threats. She is no longer on the charter commission. David DeGroote, who Kenya believed was responsible for a nine month partisan campaign against DEI, actually verified

by the report,

and whom investigators felt necessary to fingerprint now serves as the vice chair of the planning committee. That is the practical summary of the 144 page report. The person who received the threats is no longer in her position. The person she named as her primary suspect was elevated to vice chair. The mayor who stripped equity language and jeopardized state funding remains on the council. The charter with equity removed and history whitewashed was adopted. The threatening letter was never solved. Multiple prints remain unidentified. Prosecutors declined charges after finding no evidence implicating Kenya, despite attempts to redirect blame towards her. Prosecutors this does not resemble institutional competence.

Institutions acting in good faith do not need third parties to defend them with police reports. They do not strip equity language from governing documents against state law. My assessment is this, Kenya received the letter. She likely knows more about its origins than she told investigators possibly due to distrust

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Or the process, fear of retaliation, or both. The investigators may not have been wrong that she was withholding information, but the conclusions about why she withheld it almost certainly is. And what occurred at the most recent city council meeting, not the report itself, may be the most important data point of all. Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Andrewland Esquardo.

Good evening council members. My name is Angeline Esguerdo from Pierce County District 2. My topic tonight is on sexism, sexual harassment and sexual exploitation. As Women's History Month nears to an end, I believe it is important to highlight a grave issue that more often than not leads to critical, unpredictable circumstances for victims of sexism, especially against women and girls. Our sexual harassment law in Washington State, RCW 49.6, focuses exclusively on sexual harassment in the workplace.

But what about outside of where we work, where individual encounters can occur at a park, the train station, or while standing in a line at a grocery store. There are also the social disasters that occur in large group settings such as parties, dance clubs, and state fair events where extreme, hostile sexism such as sexual assault are more than likely to ensue. Unfortunately, there are not many company policies, ordinances, resolutions and other laws that do not factor in all of these possibilities. We need an opportunity to better report these instances when they arise with immediate results rather than deal with backlash that contains more sexism or even arguments with an officer about how big of a deal it is and wait on a decision by law enforcement on whether they see it as reportable or not. For example, online sexual exploitation focuses more on a child being uploaded onto pornography.

There are adults also, not just minors going through this issue. It is huge on a dark web and has been massive driven up excuse me, to the surface web as well exploiting our naked bodies, especially mine. I have human trafficking, cyber trafficking reports of my naked body being plastered on photos, videos, one to three minute clips, social media shorts, full blown sex fetish websites that I had never heard of before, and much more. There's a buzzword called archives that includes this description. Please consider nearby future upcoming amendments, addenda, and other possibilities that help vulnerable victims and survivors of sexism speak out and report against all areas of this hate crime.

Women are losing their voices by the droves. I hope that this please stays in mind while more improvements in our laws include women so we are not left behind. Thank you very much.

Now we'll hear from Chris Chisholm.

Chris Chisholm, District 2 resident business owner, multi year participant in the B and O tax credit. I really encourage all businesses and Puyallup participate in that. It's almost like a free donation to the Puyallup Main Street Association's great program. It's interesting that people are jumping to conclusions with their opinions after seeing the police report on that racist, misogynistic death threat received by our former planning commission member chair. Opinions and assumptions, they're meaningless in investigations.

Nothing more than starting points for where to look for evidence. As a former teacher of mine would say, assumption is the mother of all mess ups. It's also interesting that in a recent news review and article about the investigation, the police chief admitted that his department's assumption from the start was that the victim was responsible and that they say they received a corroborating opinion from the FBI without sharing who the analyst was or how they came up with that very suspicious opinion. What the chief statement and the police report show are that they never looked for who wrote the letter, but instead spent months trying to catch the victim and lies. All the while, they left fingerprints and a palm print unidentified on the letter.

It's also interesting that the writer of the letter boasts that the police will protect him and not the victim, and that seems to have happened. Further, the newsprint article shares a quote from our mayor calling the whole thing a folk hoax even though the investigation report itself states that the police could not determine who the who wrote the threatening letter. As the county prosecutors reported and reiterated, there was no evidence gathered by the police as to who was responsible for the letter. The the aspersions cast on the victim regarding statements she made later in the year, now with the mayor and at least a couple other council members calling the letter a hoax, this situation is reminiscent of how abuse victims throughout history have been questioned until they mix up facts or appear to make contradictory statements then written off. This kind of situation also causes a lack of reporting, and that's a troubling cycle for our town to be caught in.

While some people also try to spin spin this as some sort of attempt to influence politics last year, which it wasn't and which it didn't, The victim of this crime is being retraumatized by the powers that be. City leadership should instead be staying neutral until determinative facts are found and all the while reassuring citizens

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Residents of the city that racism and threats of violence will be investigated without violent without bias and never tolerated in Puyallup

again. Thank you.

Okay, now we can hear from anybody that hasn't put in a slip, if anybody would like to come forward and speak. For the record, please state your name and district or address.

My name is Tracy Taylor. I live at sorry, just moved 622 4th Street Southwest, and I am currently the chair of the planning commission for the city of Puyallup. I am not here on behalf of the planning commission, but it is relevant in my connection to the former chair. I don't prepare to know what happened, but I do know that it was handled incredibly poorly. We struggle on the planning commission to keep good commissioners and to find new ones, and we're lucky that we have a full commission again.

But I feel that a disservice was done to the city in questioning member in questioning a member of the planning commission instead of questioning how we could help her through this. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional comments? We will now move on to our consent agenda. The consent agenda is a number of items that are non controversial in which we can pass as a group unless there's a council member that feels that we should pull something off. So, is there any item on this consent agenda that we need to pull off?

Seeing none, do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Motion to approve.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Now we'll move on to our public hearing. We'll have an informational presentation and public hearing on our water use efficiency plan by Public Works Director Ken Davies.

Good evening, mayor wedding and council. Ken Davies, public works director. Tonight, I'll pry provide a brief overview of the city's water use efficiency plan. The program is part of the city's adopted water system plan and is already integrated into our day to day water utility operations. We'll start with a brief brief overview of this water city's water use efficiency program and the associated state requirements.

Then we'll cover how conservation goals are established and reported. And because these those goals must include public participation, we'll conclude with a public hearing to receive input before the goals are reaffirmed. Water use efficiency planning is required for public water systems in Washington State under state law and administration code. The city has incorporated these requirements into the 2019 water system plan when it was adopted. The state program focus on key a few key areas, maintaining acceptable levels of system leakage, establishing measurable conservation goals, and ensuring the public has an opportunity to participate in the goal setting process.

The water use sufficiency rule includes several ongoing requirements. Utilities must maintain a distribution system leakage rate of 10% or less, averaged over three years and report that annually. Systems must also maintain full customer metering along with metering at water sources. In addition to in addition, utilities must establish measurable conservation goals and periodically review or update those goals with public input. Finally, annual annual reports must be submitted to the state to document the compliance and track progress.

To support water efficiency, the state also requires several best management practices. These includes maintaining accurate production, metering, and program to test and replace custom meters as needed. Utilities must also implement leak detection and repair programs, track system water loss, and provide public education on water conservation. Rate structures that encourage efficient water use and evaluating other opportunities for reclaimed water also encouraged. In addition to those requirements, the city has implemented several measures to further support water efficiency.

Construction standards include water efficient fixtures, such as low flow toilets and showerheads. Customers receive bills with usage history, which helps track consumption and identify potential leaks. Within city operations, irrigation systems are managed with computerized control to reduce unnecessary watering and local landscape regulations promote water efficient practices. Together, these help manage demand and support long term sustainability. Again, this program is already part of the city's adopted water system plan and ongoing operations.

Tonight's presentation fulfills the state requirement to review our conservation goals and provide an opportunity for public input input. With that, I'll turn it over to you, mayor, to open the public hearing and invite comments.

Let the public hearing be open. Is there anybody that would like to to comment? Hearing none, the public hearing is closed. Thank you. Appreciate the and good work on the leak detection and the efficiency Proud of that history. Thank you. Okay. Next, we'll move on to the donation to the Puyallup Main Street Association as part of the Main Street Tax Credit Program. And city manager Steve Kirkley will introduce the request.

Yes. Good evening, mayor Whiting and council members. Steve Kirkley, your city manager, Former council member and current chair of the Main Street Association did an excellent job, chair Palmer, in describing this program. This is something that has been before you all numerous years before, and it is a good return on investment for the city and that we donate the $100,000, but it's only a net $25,000 cost to us. And that $100,000 goes towards a lot of enhancements to downtown that mister Palmer described. And so I would encourage counsel to approve this donation. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Johnson.

Thank you, mister mayor. Yeah. I saw this. I as many of you may recall, the council passed this, but I was one that teed this up many years ago. I remember they were looking for ways to maximize through local businesses the maximum amount allowable, which I think at time was, you know, whatever, a 130,000 or whatever that was.

And through some research, realized the city could do that on our dime and have a good return on investment. I support it. I think next year I'd love to have counsel take a look at I don't when we first gave it, we were kind of discussing what because a lot of things that was mentioned, they were they were already doing this prior to this additional $100,000, which which is good. But there might be perhaps next year some added things that we might want them to take a look at to kind of earmark this funds to work towards. I'm fine with taking a year to look at that. But certainly, in the time being, I think we should approve it. So, I'd like to make a motion that we forward this item on the agenda as dispersion to the Pellet Messenger Association.

I hear a second.

Second.

Council member Gilliam.

Thank you, mayor. I'd just like to say that I'm very proud of all the great work that Pilt Main Street Association does for our community as well as what the chamber. I see Chambers also represented here tonight. But one of the main things that I'm most proud of is how both programs, but especially the PMSA, how they bring business into our local downtown businesses. Yes, I love Nashville Nights.

I love anything we do with Pioneer Park, but I especially love all the little treasure hunts that you guys are starting to come up with to help bring in on special occasions. I do know that Chris Taylor from the promotions team is here tonight, but the whole the whole dynamic of the whole team to really bring local businesses business. So I am in a huge support, and I'm not entirely sure about the whole putting stipulations on what you could do for the money. If anything, I'd like to see what we could do about raising the donation for B and O tax next year rather than try to come up with things that you have to do to get it. But we can look at that next year. So I just want to say I'm in full support of this. Thank you.

Councilmember King. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. City manager Kirkley, question. I had a constituent ask me the other day, is the $100,000 that is going to go to PMSA the maximum we are allowed to donate, or could we give more if budget allows?

I don't know the answer to that question. I'd have to look into that. We've always just been at Barbara, are you looking at the finance director to see if perhaps she might know, council member King? I I don't know.

I'm just looking at it as a cost benefit analysis if we were able to double our money with very minimal investment. Is that possible?

It depends. Spoken like and I'm not finance director, Barbara Lopez finance director. I'm not the attorney, but it depends. There's a certain amount for Main Street programs across the state, and so then it depends on how much gets allocated to other ones, how many people sign up for it, and then there may be a free for all at the end of the year, but it's not something that we would know this early in the year. A 100,000 is what we can do for right now.

Sure. I would just like to maybe propose an option just to be able to study that a little bit deeper and to find out if that's even an option for maybe next year or the year after.

I'll do a little bit of deeper digging and find out when our when our time frames are.

Fair enough.

K.

Thank you.

Council member Adler.

Thank you. I see that the deputy mayor queued up to speak again. Did you want to go ahead and remark on that? And I can wait.

If that's okay, Mr. Mayor, I do want to speak to that. As I recall before, there's a maximum amount that they can apply for the B and O, so we can't just continue to go over and exceed the state maximum amount. And so, I think that the city is by far the largest contributor of any other institution giving. The concern I have about doing that, I'm not opposed to doing it because I think a $100,000 isn't bad, but I think the maximum at one time was like $1.30 or $1.40 or whatever.

I would hate to be the only entity in businesses who invest in Main Street by being the one that carries the whole load and not getting other business to be part of it. So, I would be reluctant to do that. Let's let other businesses step up and sow into the Main Street rather than us being kind of the one that is paying the whole bill. So, I think we share that. But that's what I understand, and I think that's where it's at now, and we're by far the significant amount. I I think we're probably carrying, again, roughly maybe 80% of the load.

213.

213. Okay. So we're over we're about half then. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty fair. Okay.

Thank you. I just wanna say, certainly, I support this. I we are very fortunate. I wanna say we're very fortunate to have our Main Street Association. And I want to extend my sincere gratitude to the entire team, the board and staff and all the volunteers.

We often talk about how fortunate we are to have our downtown and how condensed it is and that we are really a standard of what downtown should look like. And there's a lot of cities and towns across the state and, frankly, this nation that desire to look and feel like ours. And the only way that we're able to do that is because of the many partnerships that we have. And so thank you. Thank you, Main Street.

Thank you to the businesses that continue to invest and participate in this B and O opportunity. But sincerely, thank you. Everything that's happening in our downtown continues to shine, and we could not be more fortunate to have you. Thank you.

Thank you. So we've got a motion on the table. It's been seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Now we'll move on to our other business. We'll have a report on the impacts of a volcanic lahar from Mount Rainier on the city of Puyallup. You were hiding there. I didn't see you. Right. By our emergency management manager, Kirsten Hoffman.

Good evening, mayor Whiting, council members. Kirsten Hoffman, your emergency management manager. And I'm thrilled to be here tonight to share a brief presentation on a report that we prepared for all of you on the impacts of a lahar on the city of Puyallup. I'll be, making a couple of statements about the report, and then we'll introduce some of our other, lahar work group members to talk about their contributions to the report as well. So last summer, 2025, council directed staff to conduct a study to assess the potential impacts of a volcanic lahar on the city with a couple of focus areas to pay particular attention to as part of the report.

At the same time, the City Emergency Management Division had been working with the USGS, the United States Geological Survey, and spent a day at the Cascade Volcano Observatory, which is in Vancouver, Washington, to share some information about outreach and to talk about some joint planning efforts. So this coincided quite well with this request to begin to engage with the USGS and the scientists there on the impacts of lahars for the purposes of this report. After meeting with the USGS and consulting with city staff, we determined that we could deliver the expectations of this result of this report, and we assembled a work group to work on the report. You'll see the members of the work group on the screen. Really, really thankful and appreciative of all the contributions from these city staff, as well as a representative from the Central Pures Fire and Rescue chief, Zane Gibson, who assisted in the work groups and then with the compilation and production of this report.

This group met weekly and had a lot of time outside of that meeting to put together the report and an outline that we then proceeded to draft the report and prepare the draft that you all have had a chance to review. So the report context, the contents is 56 pages long. There is an introduction to really focus on the scope of this report to make sure that we addressed what you had asked us to present to all of you. We have a methodology section where we've shared how we came up with the information we're sharing in the report from a GIS perspective and from an emergency management planning and preparedness perspective. And then we go into some detail about hazard assessment and impacts.

We give a brief background on Mount Rainier. There's lots of information available out there about Mount Rainier, and so we wanted to give a condensed version of those hazards specific to the city in that section and talk specifically about the impacts of the city of Puyallup. We provide information on demographics of people living in the Lahar zone, the risks to our land and buildings, our infrastructure and utilities at risk, and then we spend some time talking about mitigation and preparedness, the current efforts that we have in place. And then we list all of the different figures, references, and sources that we use for this report. This visual is in the report.

This is a visual from the USGS. You'll commonly see it in a lot of their hazard information that they provide the public. The purpose of this report was to talk about a lahar. There's many other hazards associated with volcanoes. Of particular interest to us is a lahar due to the possibility of a no notice lahar from Mount Rainier.

This is also referred to as an unheralded lahar or a lahar associated with non eruptive status of Mount Rainier. Mount Rainier is an active volcano. It is the most monitored volcano in the Cascade Region due to all of the people who live in the valley who could be potentially impacted by a lahar. But we do, in this community, have the risk of a no notice lahar. And so we go into that detail a bit in the report to highlight what we focused on based on the request for this report.

This is another visual that's in the report, and we wanted to highlight the area of concern on Mount Rainier that can potentially impact the city of Puyallup. And you can see on this, it's that Puyallup River drainage that's on the western front, the the western face of Mount Rainier from the Sunset Amphitheater. Due to the instability of the rock and the materials on that side of the lahar, there is the potential for a no notice lahar to reach the city of Puyallup and the valleys that are in that river drainage. So I'd like to turn it over to Rachel Brown, planner, and she's going to talk about the GIS work and the model that we used for the report purposes.

Good evening. Rachel Brown, City Planning. So the study we present to you used a USGS model. It is a new model that was produced in 2022. It replaces an old model of a lahar risk in this area.

The model assumed a worst case scenario of a lahar that affects the different ranges around the Mount Rainier, but we focused on the one the worst case scenario that would affect the city of Puyallup. It's our understanding that we are likely the first jurisdiction to use this newer data for the purposes of emergency planning. So the study area used for this report, again, focused just on the city of Puyallup, the city limits. And we used only the outer boundary of that worst case scenario model to ensure we capture capture all the areas that would realistically be impacted in the case of this lahar event. There were some small pockets or islands, that appeared within the USGS modeled lahar hazard that appeared like they were safe areas, within the main Lahar footprint, but we decided just to use the main footprint for the purposes of this, study to make sure that we didn't give the impression that those islands were safe havens.

Some of those islands are, only three feet above the Lahar, area. So we just used, the the foot footprint of the Lahar area for the purposes of the study, and you can see that on this map here. So the study results focused on a couple different areas. One of them was the demographics of people and workers in the Lahar zone. So based on 2020 census data, Puyallup has about 42,700 residents.

Roughly 17,400 of them, about 41% of Piola's entire population, live inside this Lahar zone. Again, we also looked at workers that are working in the hazard zone. We found that about 14,800 people work within this area, which is about 44% of the city's total workforce. The industries with the largest population of workers that are occupied in the hazard zone is health care and social assistance followed closely by the retail industry. Meanwhile, the industry with the largest proportion of its workers that are occupied in the Lahar Zone is public administration, with 81% of public administration workers citywide working inside the Lahar Zone.

Another analysis we did was, critical facilities in and outside the Lahar Zone. So the city's municipal code requires some extra review for certain high risk or high importance facilities that are proposed to be located in the Lahar Zone. These uses can be permitted to be built in this area, but only if they obtain an an exemption for that. And to receive this exemption, the applicant must show three things, that they have a reliable alert system, a coordinated evacuation plan, and an ongoing training and drills to issue ensure that the occupants and workers are able to evacuate safely in the event of a lahar. So new facilities that are built in the lahar zone that meet these these standards or definitions of a critical facility, require this extra level of review, And these include essential services like police and fire stations, emergency medical facilities, major utilities, schools, day cares, large assembly spaces, and buildings over with over 1,000 occupants.

Hazardous facilities, which are those storing toxic or explosive materials, also fall under this category. So the map on this slide highlights known or or likely facilities that the city believes meet these definitions. So I'll now invite Scott Corwin, our GS coordinator, to present on the other analysis of this report.

Thank you. I'm Scott Gordon, the GS coordinator here at the city of Puyallup in the information technology department. Oops. Sorry. Wrong. There we go. Transportation. So I've got one figure that I'm gonna show today, but it kinda leads into a lot of the other aspects of our infrastructure and utilities. You can see there's quite a bit of impact here. Puyallup has a regional hub in terms of transportation with State Route 512167, and the commercial corridor through the Kent River Green River Valley coming through here.

Lahore would clearly impact the ability for transit routes to go through here, not only with the local ability to move across the valley, but also the regional transportation through. Going beyond this, we also looked at communications. And in terms of communications, the 800 megahertz public safety radio system is at the EOC in the public works center, which is well up on the hill, along with the cellular locations, which we don't have it on this map. Cellular is very localized in terms of its cone of coverage. So although coverage would be limited in the valley, it would still be operational where those cell towers exist around the zone itself.

And a note to the IT infrastructure for the city of Puyallup and our ability to continue to serve the public in such an event. Many of our backups, all of our backups are located in the top of the hill at the public works in the EOC center there. Some redundancy of systems, but we have fiber optics that we've installed that loop the city. And when those loops cut, they still continue to communicate. So things like our Outlook communications or email, our phone systems are hardened.

I wouldn't say they're 100%, but they are hardened because of their location is outside of this zone. We've looked at stormwater and wastewater, and you see that we have roughly a 50% type of scenario here that's impacted, not impacted. Storm water and wastewater utilities, while there may be some saving graces of them, they become difficult because the just the natural flow of water. And water comes in, it's gotta go out, it's gotta go somewhere. So we have some things that we have to look at further in terms of how those major utilities would be handled and dealt with in such a situation.

Electrical as well. But that would take the analysis of an electrical engineer that understands the grid much better than we do to make assumptions of their though, that is what we can say about the utilities at this point in time. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel and Scott. There is a map in the report that shows the publicly available vehicular and pedestrian evacuation routes as well as our designated evacuation locations. When we talk to the public, we not only tell them that they have to walk to higher ground to get to safety, but we encourage people to become familiar with their closest evacuation location so they can arrive at a place to get access to services and then begin those processes of reunification with family community members from throughout the impacted area. So this is a screenshot of what the public can access. This is on our East Pierce interlocal coalition eoc.com website, and this is an interactive dashboard.

And what you're looking at here are those routes. Those are the blue lines through the Lahar zone, and those green circles are the evacuation locations. And people can zoom in on this and interact with it and really plan for what the most appropriate actions will will be for themselves and for their families. So we encourage the public to become familiar with these routes, and this is a way that people can get access to that information. We are just a month out from the twenty twenty Lahar evacuation, the regional Lahar evacuation exercise.

It is the largest in the world. We will have over 50,000 students and staff participating in this exercise with seven jurisdictions and six school districts. We have a dedicated website for the exercise due to the number of partnerships and participants. It's laharexercise.com. This is a fact sheet about the exercise that's also available on that website.

And we use this as a way not only to partner with schools and prepare our community, but then engage all of those other folks who are associated and affiliated with our school districts to encourage them to be prepared in the event of a lahar as well. We are going to be welcoming the USGS team for the week of that exercise here in our region on Saturday, April 18. They will be at the Puyall Public Library from 10AM to 4PM. We really want to welcome the public to come and interact with them and with us to learn about Mount Rainier and the actions they can take to stay safe. This is also available on that laharexercise.com website.

At the same time, we have a team from USGS coming into the region. They will be presenting at 26 schools in advance of the Lahar exercise on the twenty third. And this is a resource that people who work in schools can use to get connected with the USGS to get those presentations scheduled. This is also available on our website. The final section in our report is our preparedness and mitigation report where we talk about some of the efforts that we have done to date.

We highlight the East Pierce Lahar Rapid Action Plan, which is a plan for first responders and the actions that they will take in the event of a Lahar. We also have a city Puyallup hazard mitigation plan that identifies all of the hazards in the city, including volcanic. We do significant training and exercise for Lahar response. We prepare for the worst case scenario so that we are prepared for all the other scenarios that could fall within that range of severity. Again, that epiceoc.com website is where we have information for the public.

We encourage people to become familiar with vehicular and pedestrian routes. People in the valley are highly encouraged to know how to walk to safety. We collaborate with local, regional, state, and federal partners, and our development and permitting services enforces enhanced safety requirements for certain uses in the Lahar Zone. So with that, we will be available for any questions about the report or our presentation.

Councilmember Adler.

Thank you. I just want to say thank you. This was a great presentation and answered a lot of my questions. And frankly, it was just an interesting read. I feel very well educated and better prepared. I would never say I am prepared. But I am better prepared to if something were to happen, I feel better prepared. And I thank you for that. I'm going to ask this question. It's a big one. What keeps you up at night? You don't have to answer it,

but I just thought I thought I would ask the question. And I'll dovetail off

of that and say, what keeps you up at night? And if you'd rather not answer that, understandable. But

would be

outside of more resources, what would be most helpful for this council to do to ensure continuing we're continuing to be prepared to the best of our abilities?

That is such a big question. And I'm looking at my colleagues because I can already see the things kind of rattling and forming in our heads. I'm a Puyallup resident. I have three kids who go to schools in the valley here in Puyallup. So I take it very personally that we do we do this level of preparedness and planning for our community because it just means so much to me as a parent and a community member.

There's a lot of things that keep me up at night, but I really worry about people's preparedness because it's hard. It's hard to prepare. And there's a lot of people who it's hard for them to think about preparing for an emergency when they're facing lots of emergencies and issues in their daily life. And so the preparedness piece is so important, and it's scary to a lot of people. So I really hope that we can get the message out to people that it doesn't have to be this huge significant undertaking. There's little things you can do to be prepared. And it's it's not a one and done. It's a process. And I think if we can really instill that in our community and through all the people who live in Puyallup, that's gonna just serve us so well in the future. Mhmm.

Council member Casteman. Thank you, mister mayor. Along the lines of council member Adler and then your response, it was in Columbia where they had a lahar that took place that devastated a community. And in communities in Colombia where they face such hazard, it has become somewhat part of the culture, the preparedness, to the point where people openly talk about what they would do when it would happen, and they live with that particular threat. But speaking of that particular threat, could you go through a timeline of just giving me the top five past, starting, I guess, with the massive Lahar, I think, from maybe an eruption five thousand years ago, roughly.

But could you go through chronologically the last time we had these type of incidents here? I mean, I'm talking major and then also minor lahar. And then also probability of repeating itself, just so we understand the magnitude of what we're talking about here.

Yes. And I'm looking to some of my colleagues because I want them to wave at me if I get the numbers incorrect. The electron mudflow was five hundred years ago, and that is the lahar that came off of Mount Rainier that scientists have not associated with a volcanic event, which is why we have that concern about the no notice lahar, the unheralded lahar because of that mudflow and the research that's gone into that.

And that was fifteen o seven?

May years ago.

Fifteen o seven, I believe, was

the date on that.

The Osceola mudflow was '45. 4,500 years ago, and that was the very, very large lahar that went all the way out to the bay through Tacoma and created the wonderfully amazing valley that we now get to call home here. The scientists do talk about that one in 10 possibility with Lahar. They are reluctant to give us any percentages or very solid numbers, but they tell us that a no notice lahar is possible at any time. But Mount Rainier is one of the most monitored volcanoes in the world.

It's the most monitored volcano in the in the Cascade Range, and that's because of all the people who live in the valley. So we work very closely with the USGS and those partners to learn about those systems, to learn about that to learn about that level of planning so that we will know the minute there's anything, any kind of activity at Mount we know about that, and we can engage with them to learn about potential impacts. If you recall last summer, there were some news articles about some increased earthquakes at Mount Rainier, and people got very excited. And we had lots of conversations with the USGS and very, very quickly were given information by them about what it meant for us and what it didn't mean for us. And so we worked very, very closely with them to be apprised of any kind of incidents or emergencies that could potentially happen in Mount Rainier.

I don't want to preoccupy here this with questions, but I have a lot. A year and a half ago, or almost two years ago, we had the world's largest evacuation exercise for schools. And we are now starting to do that every two years. Am I Correct. And it's something that we plan on institutionalizing on a regular basis that we have this.

And I see that as a way of acculturating people to this hazard and getting us used to how to deal with it instead of being in fear of it. What other ideas do you have that would that also would bring about it more for I mean, it's good to start with children. I think that's the best thing you can do. But what other ideas that you have that could help acculturate the community to just the the frank fact that this may very well happen, but also there is a way to deal with it? How do we deal with that?

So we work very closely with the USGS and the Washington State Emergency Management Division on outreach. There are some new materials about the hazards of Mount Rainier that are coming out next month to correlate with the Lahar evacuation exercise that we want to promote very, very broadly to the whole community so that they can be prepared and learn about their evacuation routes and learn what the community needs to do to be ready for that. We have a hazard mitigation plan that identifies some of our strategies that we would like to put in place to mitigate the impacts of volcanic events in the city. So there's a list of those strategies in that hazard mitigation plan. And then we, as a city, we have a multiyear emergency work plan, which includes outreach and preparedness efforts, which we are available and we have the the the staffing and the resources to go out and really provide education to our community here in Puyallup so that we can get that community culture of preparedness and really build upon the efforts that we've started at the school level.

And now we have students who've been doing this since 2019 in Puyallup. So you think about that, you know, repetitive practice every couple of years. And if they've had a scientist come into their classroom and talk about Mount Rainier or they've seen some of our presentations at the library or had a chance to interact with the USGS, it adds to that culture of preparedness, which is really going to be helpful for us and not just to Lahar emergency situation, but all emergency situations.

Okay. Thank you.

Council member King.

Thank you, mister mayor. Just a question regarding our beloved Good Samaritan Hospital. You bowed your head on me on that one. Do we have any emergency preparedness or mitigation plans to help protect said hospital or the entry thereof from surrounding streets and or infrastructure regarding the hospital, such as power and all of those things. I know they have some obvious generators and such, but have those discussions ever been had with them?

And do they even have any plans in place on the emergency side? Because obviously, there's going to be many people visiting there in the unfortunate situation of this occurrence. But just wondering if those conversations have been had yet.

Yes. The conversations have been had. They are involved in our planning. We have liaisons from the hospital who participate as part of our emergency operations center team. And when we do this exercise, we usually have some level of planning and interaction with them as as part of the exercise. They have an emergency management committee. That committee does the emergency planning for hospital, including evacuation planning and Lahar planning. And that's something that I would want to get more information from them to be able to adequately respond to your question. But we do work with them. We have to work with them.

We know in the event of a lahar that they are going to be very quickly overwhelmed. So there's some work to be done to make sure that we can ensure those types of resources and those critical infrastructure facilities can continue to function.

Very good. Thank you.

Councilmember Smallkope.

Good evening. Let's see. So I wanted to quote a report that was done by the Piyalp tribe of Indians. From 2017 to 2022, they did their all hazard mitigation plan. And they said I'm hoping this may be helpful to council member Kesma, as well as all of us. They have some pretty specific dates as far as which kinds of LARS. And there's so many more

that I had

no idea.

And they have them they've been here for a long time, to put it mildly. And they have some pretty specific scientific dates for how long between certain things. And one of the things that they said was the one you mentioned, Councilman Castama in Artemero in Colombia in 1985, they said is relatively small compared to some of the ones that have descended Mount Rainier. The lahar from the volcano Navado Del Ruiz killed over twenty three thousand people and injured about five thousand. In this case, the main wave of mud that demolished the town ranged in-depth from 6.5 to 16 feet.

There could be a similar percentage of injured and killed in a lahar from Mount Rainier. The method of destruction, burying entire communities in a flow of dense mud, does not allow most people caught in it a chance of survival. So I have a few questions. First, since the mud will, in many cases, be too deep to drive or walk through directly, that indicates that helicopter rescues will be necessary. Is that a part of our planning for making sure we can get access to those? There will be tons of people stranded on roofs.

It is it is part of the planning. We've had discussions with our state and national partners on that. One of the challenges we have is during a volcanic incident, typically, air assets can't be used like helicopters because of the damage from anything coming from the mountain. So we advise people to make a plan to get to safety because we don't know how long it's going to take. If there are people in the Lahar Zone who somehow need assistance, we don't know how long it's going to take to get that assistance to them.

A lot of those people might be on the hospital roofs. Who knows? Hopefully not. Also, security concerns is something that they talk a lot about in the Puyallup mitigation plan because people get very protective of their property. And if they don't know that it's going to be protected while they're gone, a lot of people are hesitant to leave, especially since that warning can come hours, if not days, before there is actually a lahar. And human nature tends to be, oh, yeah, right. Okay. Well, I'll believe it when I see it. And then also, they come back too soon because of fear for their property. And so that was a piece that I was curious to know more about, too, as far as just protecting obviously, we're going to have bigger fish to fry.

But I think that since that's a reason so many people stay and come back early, that we should consider how are we gonna ensure people that, if we can, that property will be as protected as it can be. Right. Do you know what I'm saying?

Yes. That's where the trusted and lead. Yeah. That's where the trusted messengers are so important. So having chief Ingle and his team part of the planning and part of the discussions so we can assure the public that when when we tell them it's time to go, we wanna minimize milling, which is that concept where people go, is this real? Let me call my neighbor and ask them what they think. Let me call this person and see what they think. Have to reduce that. It's through those trusted relationships and through that outreach to the public that we can really try to instill that urgency of this is what a lahar can do. And you have to go when you're notified, either by outdoor warning system or through a wireless emergency alert on your phone. There's no delay. You have to go.

Okay. I have two more. I

hope that's okay.

This should be quick. First, is there any hazard disclosure requirement for homebuyers or renters in these inundation zones?

That's a question I'm looking at our planning team for. Rachel, can you speak to that one?

Rachel Brown, City Planning. So we do require, during a subdivision, if the property is within a lahar zone that a notation be put on the face of the plat. The the object of that being that future purchasers will be notified. I don't know that renters are notified or anything like that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And my last one is how will the city reach non English speaking residents, people with disabilities, and those without smartphones in a Lahar warning?

Thank you for asking that question. It's a real challenge to reach people who don't have access to information, who have limited English proficiency speaking skills. We've really tried to partner with our with our community agencies and our trusted partners in the schools. We're very fortunate here in the Puyallup School District to have a couple of schools that have Spanish immersion programs. My child's a student in one of those programs. Working with those partners and those trusted community members so that we can instill that trust and instill that confidence and make sure that we're explaining to people the hazard of a lahar so that they can receive that warning when it comes to them in a way that they can take action.

Is the smartphone messaging in multiple languages?

Like, we

our top five or

whatever? Yes. Is. So when we when a wireless emergency alert, that's the one that you get on your phone that's often an Amber Alert or a Silver Alert, we also can send those out through Genesis Alert, which is our public alert public alerting system that powers Puop alerts. And when those go out, we can send them out in English and in Spanish.

Perfect.

And so that comes through that way. Other languages are also available. If you go to Puop alerts, which is our which is our website, you can select some different languages, and you also can register in your preferred language.

Cool. Thank you. Yes.

Just a couple of things. We we've talked about the no notice and the notice lahars. So one is the result of volcanic action. The other is is landslides, etcetera, up on the mountain. So the the response to those is are too different, very different. So the the no notice lahar, the sirens go goes off. Nobody's been talking about it. Goes off. The alerts go off. We gotta get out of town, and we gotta get out of town now.

So from the time that the horror let let's just walk through the the sequence of events that takes place when such an event occurs. And and, again, those kind of events occur all the time. Correct? That there's something going on on the mountain. There's a landslide that triggers some of your sensors and and correct?

Mudflows on Mount Rainier are common, and they are referred to as mudflows as long as they stay in the park. Right? Yes. As long as they behave. So they they they do they do happen. We actually receive, I'd say, a couple times a year in the summer, we receive notification from the National Park Service. Scott Beeson is the national park geologist at Mount and he has designed a system of notification for some of those activities on the mountain, and we will get notified that there's some mudflow activity on Mount Rainier.

So so you can have a small mudflow or you can have a big lahar, and they're gonna affect some of your sensors the same way. So there's a decision making process along the way that that determines the nature and the magnitude of the of the event. So there's a a thought process going on in there. What how much time is that likely to take?

So it depends. The USGS is in charge of the equipment that's on Mount Rainier and that monitors all of the different drainages for potential lahars. They have a way that they are notified when any of those systems are triggered, and then they have a confirmation discussion amongst their scientists to determine the nature of the trigger, the magnitude, and if this is has the potential to be a significant lahar. After that, then they have a phone call with the Washington State Emergency Management Division Alert and Warning Center and let them know that there is the potential of a lahar on Mount Rainier. That is then also confirmed with South Sound nine one one and Pierce County Department of Emergency Management.

And then at that point, they will determine if they need to signal via the outdoor warning system. So there's multiple points of confirmation that have to happen before the public is notified via the outdoor warning system or wireless emergency alerts on their smartphones.

So we've we've got a clock running as as these discussions are taking place. So how long is the clock, and and how long are the discussions expected to take? I know you can't really answer. Can you estimate how long it would take the Lahar to get here if it was a

So we do have a map on Lahar arrival times. So that is in the report. So you can see that. That does not take into consideration the timing of notification. So for the notification timing, we don't have a role in that. That's the USGS and the Washington State Emergency Management Division. So I would have to defer to them to ask them about the timing of those notifications to share with our community.

So as we look at that report and we see the the arrival times, we need to discount the amount of time we have. And and, again, for those no notice lahars, when we hear the siren, we need to go. Yes. Okay. So so enough on that subject.

I just wanted to reinforce the the the need for that. Second is the volcanic lahar. So I admit I'm old enough to remember Mount St. Helens going off. At at that time, the the volcano's rumbling, and then there comes a decision point, when do we evacuate?

And and let me just expostulate a little bit here. When what's the appropriate time in which to to do an evacuation? And if you do an evacuation and and nothing happens, was that a false alarm? And I would I would advance the theory that if there's a ten percent chance of a lahar killing a lot of people, an evacuation becomes necessary. And if nothing happens, that wasn't a a false alarm.

That was a precautionary measure. And so if if we ever get into this situation, know, there's those that are skeptical that it's coming, and there's and then when they they've evacuated and they come back, oh, that was a false alarm. Oh, I I don't think it is a false alarm, and I I just wanna make that statement because I I think it's inherent on on public officials to make these really tough calls. And, you know, I I don't ever wanna be in a position where I have to make the one of those calls. Do do I evacuate?

Do I not evacuate? Both of those have very serious repercussions. So I I just wanted to state that. Appreciate your bearing with me. Councilmember King.

Thank you, mister mayor. Just going to circle back, and I apologize if you mentioned this. I was reading your very thorough report that I have here. So if it was mentioned, I apologize, but to circle back on council member Smoko's comments regarding receiving information for those Spanish speaking residents that are here, We do have our big beautiful Lahar speakers throughout and on top of our building that they also speak in Spanish as well.

Correct. So Yes. We can have audible messages on those. The monthly test, you'll hear that monthly test repeated in English and in Spanish.

Because I remember hearing those quite often every time. And first Monday of the month. Yeah.

At noon.

At noon. No. I just wanna say thank you for the extensive work that you and your team have done to put this all together to make our citizens more informed and looking forward to the Lahar drill as well, and appreciate your efforts in making sure that all of our citizens and kiddos in the area are able to understand the significance behind this. So thank you.

Thank you. I don't see any further comments. Thank you, Kirsten. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Rachel. And thank you, Zane. Zane's the quiet guy behind the scenes. I don't guess I really can accuse him of being the quiet, timid guy, can I? Okay. We'll move move on ahead. We've got an information update on the America two fifty celebration and the twenty twenty six World Cup, by our public affairs officer, Eric Johnson.

Okay. Good evening, council and mayor. Eric Johnson, public affairs officer. And tonight I will be giving you an update on America two fifty and World Cup. Tonight's agenda is actually split into two parts.

So part one, I'll talk about America Two Fifty, and then the second part will be dedicated to World Cup. And then tonight I have Alison Schafer from the Puyallup Sumner Chamber of Commerce who's available to answer any follow-up questions from you all. And then I also have Dean Burke from Visit Tacoma Pierce County who is online via Zoom who will also give an update on World Cup for us. So, for America 250, as you all probably know, America250 is the celebration of America's, and let me get this right, semi quincentennial, this July 4, Congress in 2016 established a commission and a nonprofit that oversees the nationwide rollout of this big celebration. And in the state of Washington, the Washington State Historical Society has hired a state coordinator to meet with cities around the state to coordinate different planned events.

There's also a state website called america250wa.org where participating cities are adding their events to their event calendar. City staff, along with then Mayor Castama, who spearheaded this endeavor last year, held several meetings in 2025 with community partners to discuss various ideas and ways that Puyallup can celebrate this historic moment. So during these series of meetings, it was agreed that the Puyallup Sumner Chamber of Commerce should be the administrator for an event on July 4. Since they are already in charge of red, white, and kaboom, which is held on July 3 every year, it made sense from an operations and logistics standpoint to add this event to their program. I'll just wait a second.

Okay. So staff met with the chamber, in 2025 and currently, to come up with an event proposal, which I have an overview at a high level on the next slide. So, the event proposal at a very high level, obviously it would be held on 07/04/2026, in Pioneer Park from approximately four to seven p. M. That timing is very critical because we want to make sure that it does not conflict with the farmer's market, which gets over earlier that afternoon, and would include such things as live music, food vendors, a beer garden, a patriotic car cruise downtown utilizing the Cruise Puyallup Group, and a reading of the Declaration of Independence from the Puyallup VFW, among many other things.

The cost to host this event by the chamber, they quote us as $81,398 to host this event, and the funding would be funded by the city initiated LTACH funds. So, next steps. The LTAC commission actually held a special meeting earlier this afternoon to provide comment on this. So, by code, whenever there is a LTAC proposal that comes before us, they have to provide comment on it. So that comment period has occurred this afternoon, and we are now tonight seeking counsel's approval for usage of those LTAC funds.

If approved, staff will amend its existing contract with the chamber for red, white, and kaboom to include this event, and then once the contract is signed, the city will coordinate regular meetings with the chamber to make sure that the event is on track and that community partners such as PMSA and the VFW are included in those meetings.

Can I pause just a second? Yep. We did have our LTAC meeting this afternoon. And Dean, would you like to comment on this?

Hi. Can you hear me okay?

Yep. We can hear you.

Okay. Yeah, and as it pertained to LTACH specifically, the general consensus of the group was they were in favor of the two fifty event at large, but not in support of it through the use of LTAC funds specifically because of the details and nature of the one day component of it and such. But other otherwise was, you know, supportive. It's an important event. It's good.

Just that wasn't a right candidate for LTAC funds. The group is that is just a comment period for the group that they don't, they're not voting on that, so I don't know what happens within city policy from there on it, but that was the initial feedback today.

And if I can expand on that a little bit. Looking at the the hotel utilization over the fourth of July, it it kind of crashes because of the nature of the fourth of July event does not attract people in from out of town. Most people wanna go home and celebrate with their families, I guess. So the the it's not a heads and beds kind of generating activity, which was the the basis of the of the statement there. So I just wanted to bring that forward. Let's go ahead and Oh, we already got to the questions portion. Are you done with your presentation?

Yep. I will pause here, and then, yep, the council wants to discuss. Yep. Perfect.

Okay. Councilmember Gilliam.

Thank you, mister mayor. I was curious why the event is only going from four to seven. And if we if there was any talk of partnering with the Washington State Fair like I originally thought there was some partnership going to where we could make it a bigger event to where we would have heads and beds. Like, this was supposed to be something where we are bringing people in from all over to celebrate here in Puyallup. So I think that's the original intent and why we were discussing pulling these funds from LTAC cause we're gonna make it a much bigger event than what I see the presentation here today.

Yeah, I know that we had some initial meetings with the fair. They were included in the community partners meetings, and I think I may be speaking out of term, but they said that they are okay with the chamber hosting this just because they do the red, white, and kaboom event at the fair, and so they feel like they're already gaining so much from that event. So to move it to Pioneer Park, they felt like that was more of like, know, okay, like equal distribution. Okay, like on the July 3, the event, the red wine and commune event is held at the fair, and then this event could be held downtown. So why can

we merge the two and have heads and beds that way?

Again, I can't speak to that. I know that the fair had agreed that they were gonna let the chamber host this event in downtown.

So I'm curious why we're having the red white kimboom end the two fifty. To me, it should be all one event. I see Alison raising her hand.

Alison, you want to come up?

I will say, specifically, we were told that city wanted to have it on the July 4. And the fair cannot have the fireworks on the July 4 just because of there's a dog show and their own contracts are there that day that there was a conflicting with the the events. So they really want we the city really wanna have it on the July 4. So having it on the July 4 means we had to move it here.

Okay.

Open discussion, though. Thank you. Yeah.

Council Member Kastema. Thank you. Allison, if you don't mind coming back. Eric, please stay there. My understanding was, you know, when we brought this together, we brought together probably 10 plus different organizations in the community, and they all had different events taking place on the July 4, the Meeker Mansion, many of the veterans groups, all of that.

And the idea was we needed somebody to organize all of that, including the crews that is going to be quite a a a regional cruise. And talking about bringing people to Puyallup, this is going to be the mother of all cruises on the July 4 in Puyallup, and you'll be seeing people come from all over the region. The idea was that the downtown would be the main street had at that time so that they would make sure all the shops had all the kind of paraphernalia, memorabilia, patriotic type of motif downtown. They would take care of that. You had the VFW, the American Legion saying they would get military involved, maybe even having some static displays of military items, etcetera.

And but someone had to bring all that together, and the idea was the chamber would do that. So I I'm I'm having a little difficult understanding how now did did I get that correct? It's for four to seven is

The reason we moved that time is we wanted to be good community partners with Main Street. So You know?

Yeah. I I understand that, but you're not gonna pack all of those different organizations. So that's gonna require I think you're talking about what you'll be doing out there with the ban, reading of the constitution, things of that sort, four to seven. But that's not what this contract is about. It's about coordinating everything. Is that correct? Correct.

And Cruz Puyallup is on board.

Yep. So this is a lot more than just a four to seven activity. That's what this is. Mean

We can't have the pavilion before that due to the farmer's market. We need load out time. So even though we could stage and we can get all of our vendors or some of our vendors from Red, White, and Kaboom will already be vendors, so some of them will stay put. So that will help with transition times.

But but you will be for example, I heard of the crews, maybe when they're done with the crews, they go over and they park on the, Festival Street on night. K? Mhmm. You will coordinate that. Right?

Correct. Yep.

Okay. And that will take place in the morning, the cruise. Correct?

The cruise will take place in the evening.

Oh, in the evening. Okay. Well, whatever the logistics are, I just have to know that somebody is doing all of that and coordinating all those groups that wanna be involved. Yep. So I hope that does that help?

Well, I thought this was going to be a really big celebration, and it sounds like it's going to be a smaller celebration. And I was that's why we were talking LTAC funds for heads and beds because it was going to be a bigger gathering of lots of activity more than three hours worth. That was my understanding.

I is that the case?

We're going to try as much as we can to also incorporate some things on the July 3. That program is basically kind of built in already. Those LTACA funds were approved way way back, and that whole program was built out before we even really knew exactly what the city wanted that two hundred and fiftieth program to look like. So it's kind of an addition.

So because of farmer's market, you're limiting this to three hours.

Yes. In the park. In the park park.

In the park park. Yeah. Okay. And what else takes place every place else?

So the cruise I mean, we've talked with Cruise Puyallup, and the cruise, they definitely wanna be a part of it. They wanna try to implement the car show that was happening at Red, White, and Kaboom into the fourth of July day. So we would have to figure out the where and the when. But they were really waiting for this meeting to happen so that they knew what kind of timing and what kind of areas they could utilize in order to have the crews peel up, whether it would be all day, car show at the beginning, car show at the end. So we're all kind of just waiting to see what flushes out on what happens with the contract.

But we do we have worked with Main Street, and we have talked to the farmers market. And we want to be good stewards of all the vendors there. They're all going to be invited to stay and be a part of it. But again, there might be a lot of transition at the two hour.

And then in addition to that, we're working with the VFW. I understand that, you know, they want to do kind of a separate music program that we can incorporate into the larger whole of that, so we'll make sure that they're a part of that. Well,

I I'll out here and I'll let someone else ask questions. I'm a little concerned that, you know, again, we're letting the farmer's market I think you need to be fair, etcetera, but not to the point where we have nothing going on early in the I mean, this is a lot for us to pay for you to coordinate. Correct. Okay? And I and I and I think, you know, we want more coordination than it is three hour.

Well, I agree with that. So part of what we've been holding back on with having these discussions is not necessarily even knowing this is going to be approved, and so not being able to go out and get all the vendors because then there's gossip and it becomes uncoordinated. So we were hoping that this was going to be kind of decided on earlier so that we could really have more planning time involved. We're open to discussions.

If we prove this, when can we see the agenda, first agenda from you?

I would say within two weeks, one or two weeks, yeah.

Okay. Alright. Councilmember I mean, sorry, I apologize. Not my business. I'm not a mayor. Sorry. Councilmember King.

Thank you, mister mayor. Yeah, I'm kind of having a little bit of a heartburn over this at the moment. Yeah. I mean, we have one hundred and one days until this shindig kicks off.

And we've been talking about it for a year. Yep.

Uh-huh. And so, I'm little perplexed at the moment, and I appreciate the collaboration that you're willing to have with Main Street and be able to bring in and allow the vendors to stay that are part of the farmers market. Has there been any discussion with the farmers market and or PMSA to in conjunction with them and partner with them and begin earlier than the four to seven? Because that's gonna be a real big not just with me. That's gonna be big heartburn with a lot of constituents as well to be able to not start earlier and just have a three hour event for 80 some thousand dollars, that's hard.

I absolutely agree. So, I would say when this has approached the chamber to take the planning, my first concern was our community partners. How is this going to affect the businesses? How is this going to affect the farmers market? Julie and I started having conversations, I think, when back in November or December, what that would look like. I do know that everybody's loading out starting around two when we wanna give everybody a certain amount of time. The only thing that place that we could figure out where we could have the celebration on the fourth when we wanted to have on the fourth was in this footprint where the market is. And we did not wanna take away and just have the chamber just take over and the city take over the farmers market that day. It's gonna be a big farmers market. Saturday It's on the July 4.

Sure. Yeah. Is there any way I mean, is there conversations to coexist the entire day?

I mean, we're happy to have those conversations, and I think Julie is also. Again, we didn't wanna be presumptuous that this was even going to be approved or what would be approved. There's been a lot of conversations on how this would flush out or if it would flush out. And so I think we're all open to that. We're also conscientious of our first responders and how busy of a date that is for them. But we're open to that. I think Julie's open to that. We're all open to that. I think what we need to be conscientious of is the footprint. If it's a big farmer's market and they take up the bulk of the space, there's nowhere to there's nowhere to expand to. So if we want to co brand it or something, potentially, but, like, there's there may not be room to to go I mean, may not be any breathing room.

Have there been discussions similar to Meeker days where we could, I wouldn't suggest obviously shutting

streets and not out. Meridian.

Wanna close the streets. Gotta add meridian for the crews. I get it. But maybe Pioneer here on the West Side of Pioneer and kinda expand out even to Main Street one more block also and kind of push out just kind of like how we do for think Parkdale would

love that.

Think we can absolutely, you know, broaden the discussion on what the planning looks like. We've been holding back to really want to push it forward until we knew that this was even gonna happen.

I think

I think that would be fabulous. I think that would make the car show piece earlier and easier to logistically pull off.

I will I will jump in, and I know that you're gonna talk about World Cup. I would also let everybody know that this is going to happen right during World Cup. So we are going to have a lot more visitors that are coming down. We can actually drive the traffic from World Cup that people are going into Tacoma and try to attract them more here. It's once a lifetime opportunity to get that that attract that World Cup audience too. I don't know. We don't know what that looks like. We've been having conversations with World Cup for once a month now for almost a year.

So we don't know what

that looks like. But that we have to think about that in terms of costs for vendors, for us just to attract or to get somebody during this time, not only is it the July 4, but we do we are competing with World Cup vendors. So it does raise the price significantly for us to just sign people on.

And giving us heartburn on timing also.

Well, will supply the Red Bull, and you got a lot of work to do.

Yeah. Correct.

So let me jump in here. We have a hard deadline for our executive session at 08:30. So I'm kind of of the opinion that that that there's planning to be done. So so what do we need to do tonight to to get the ball rolling here?

Yeah. So what we would like to hear from counsel Tide is a motion to approve, the amount, which was, I believe, 81,000, $398, to be, given to the chamber so that they can host this event and organize this.

Okay. So we don't have a motion on the table yet. Do I hear a motion?

So moved. I'll make the motion.

Is there a second?

I'll second with some discussion.

Right. As the maker of the motion, I'd like we'll speak to it.

Okay. And again, remembering that we've got a hard deadline.

I I this is, you know, I want to make this retroactive all the way back to last October. Okay? So that gives you an idea of how much work you have to do in the next hundred days. You have to do everything from last October, okay, in a hundred days. You know, I think it's it's probably minor to say Red Bull will get you through this. Okay? As council member King mentioned, there's a lot of work to do. And I'm not putting this on you. Okay? Because I I think you've been waiting for this.

I'm very sorry that logistically it's taken so long for us to get here. But I would only ask, are you willing to take that on? Because we're taking a chance. We're you know, if you would have come to us last October, I would allocated you that much money, but that would have been for a lot lot longer time of preparation. So, you know, it's gonna be egg on our face if if if you don't pull this off. And it's for more than just three hours from four to seven. It's for the whole day. It's coordinating all the parties. If Meeker Matron has something, they won't have a breakfast feed. Mhmm.

That's gotta be part of it. If the cruise wants to do it in the morning, that's gotta be part of it. If VFW wants to get a static Blackhawk helicopter to put in the park, you gotta do that. Okay? If they are you okay with this?

We this is what we do every day. So I will say we have we have, bad cap marketing here as our agency and, planner to contract with. So yes.

Alright. Well, understanding the time crunch, I will now my the person who second that was Renee Gilliam. I guess that would give her a second shot, but I I will vote for this.

Yeah. I'm on the same team there, same train of thought. We'd love to see more than three hours worth. And we believe in you, Allison. You're amazing. I hope it won't feel like this all of a sudden, holy smokes. But at the same time, we were expecting a lot more than what was shared tonight.

Yeah.

So in two weeks, if you can, love to hear more and kind of what the agenda is. And we really would love to see an all day celebration.

Can I ask counsel a question Yeah? Sure. As the logistics coordinator? If the VFW or the Meeker Mansion or I don't worry about Main Street as much because we've had a lot of conversations with them. But if everybody wants to do their own thing and doesn't want this to be drilled into the cities, then what's your expectations around that? If they say, well, yes, we're going to host it, and yes, we're going to play fair with each other, but we don't want to co whether it's co market or co coalesce the events, how does

When would anybody say that?

Because the whole point is to promote

what's going on for twenty

five years and you would be surprised on what you thought.

Thought there was already conversation with all the different groups.

Yes. And I I let me just say this. If you go to them and say, you know, we're gonna charge you $10,000 a piece

We wouldn't charge them anything if they're doing their own stuff, but if I'm just

I can't imagine them not. They all came to the table, said they wanted to coordinate. The only problem is we didn't have a coordinator.

Okay. And I'm okay with that. That. We've just been holding back because we haven't known that this is a green light. So there I wish that we would actually have have had a little bit more of an we think we're gonna get there. We've just been waiting to see what we can and can't do.

If you're confident they'll come to the table, we'll make it happen.

Okay. Deputy Mayor Johnson. Thank you,

mister mayor. I've enjoyed this dialogue. It's kind of the formation of the iron crucible to kind of get to a great I do think some comments were made. I'm going to go ahead and take advocacy and defend the chamber because I think that they were dealt some conditions they couldn't control. They wanted to collaborate with the fair, but the fair couldn't do it because had the dog thing going on, so they were limited on being able to do it there on the floor.

So then I think they probably wanted to collaborate maybe more with the Pioneer Park and the pavilion, but the main streets already kinda got that locked up for those hours, and so they were kinda limited. So the leftover time they have leftover is this window of time. So I I would like to thank colleagues that we empower them to open up the city. I think the Meeker Day deal, we empower them to close streets up and give them more avenue and more places. They can begin this process up and down Meridian, wherever they can utilize, you know, the Pioneer Park when that opens up at four, but there's no reason that they couldn't open up and do like the Meeker Days

That would make

it much easier.

And create the environment that's seamless. In other words, people will still go to the market, but if the streets are closed off in some of the areas and there's things and displays going on, vendors, I mean, I think it creates this kind of synergy. So I'd like to see us open it up and empower them to have more than just a limited space at the pavilion because it's already been taken, they can't use the fair. Let's open it up and create a festival that would tie in some streets and bands or whatever you want to do and let this be a festival of fun. Yeah. And if even if that meant, I'll even be willing to say this, I don't know if they can pull it off. But if it required more funding to do that and open this right up into the streets, I'd be looking to find some more funding for them.

Well, I do wanna say too, I mean, we've already talked to some bands and some food trucks, and we've we've been trying to plant seeds knowing that we'd be time crunched. It's expensive to have a fourth of July Saturday. So, you know, it's not it hasn't been where a band usually would charge us $5. They might be charging us 8 because of the the time and day. So

Yeah. Well, I I'd be open to expanding. If if that means more funding to get that, I'd be open to do it. But, yeah, let's let's empower them to have more space than just the limited amount they're left over with. So

Council member Smallcoe.

Thank you. May I wait? I was not here in October. So first of all, I have zero doubt that you ladies are capable and your team and your squad are capable of pulling off miracles. That I've seen just little bits and snippets as I've joined counsel. But I have some ignorant questions. Number one, as I understand LTAC, who filed the application for LTAC funds on behalf of this event? Because that application comes with some city did, not the Okay. So in that, that should have answered the questions of estimated overnight stay numbers, how many people are coming from 50 miles plus away, how many people out of state or residents, that whole demographic breakdown that's in there, I assume?

We don't have any of that information specifically because But that's part of that quite frankly, it's hard to tell at this point because of World Cup going on and kind of all the other things. We'll talk a little bit more about World Cup in just a minute about kind of what Travel Tacoma is seeing. But as far as like data and things of that nature, that was not included in

the proposal.

I thought that was part of the application. So maybe that's just a point of it.

Yeah, it's

for me. And then my last question really is just $81,398 I heard $8,000 for a band. I don't know what else that pays for. Could somebody educate me on that?

Yeah, I mean, we can Yeah.

Go ahead.

I got you. Thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

And if that's something that we can speed through and just say, can give you a copy, Smoko, that'd

be fine.

Yeah, we can give you a copy. So high level security, first responders, any, you know, for some veterans stuff, some bands, a beer garden, entertainment, bars, bands, sound, AV, food, beverage, park usage, licensing and permitting, you know, fire city, all that, extra bathrooms, extra janitorial, event planning, and then staffing fees for

Festival stuff. Correct. Got it.

Mr. Mayor, I call a question.

Thank you. Do we want to include an the amendment to the question about opening up side streets because I think that's a critical decision at this It's important. Would you like to offer such an amendment?

I would not, and I'll tell you why. That could add a lot of expenses. Let's hear their proposal back in two weeks. If, that could be a potential, but let them investigate it, but I wouldn't mandate it. I think that they will investigate that if you ask them. Okay.

Yes. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, that would be fabulous because right now where the car show would usually take place, which is Pioneer Parks Library's parking lot, that usually is now held for food trucks during the farmer's market. So we were trying to figure out where to move the car show to. And so we would love to have the car show during the market time. So that's where we would probably utilize the street space. And then we could also potentially have additional vendors if there's a lot of vendors that want to come over from red white kaboom and make it a two day thing.

Okay. So the question has been called to I'm not sure what procedures are here. Do we need an approval for the called motion?

I don't hear an objection.

Can I clarify what's on the floor so that our chamber knows what we're asking?

That's great.

So quickly, thank you. We wanna see this. We need you to bring back a presentation in two weeks on what you got. And then if at that time we need that extra street closure for permitting and it costs more money, we need you to do an analysis so that we can potentially approve that. Okay. I think we're all on the same page now.

More policing stuff, right?

Okay, so the motion has been called. Motion, as I under you want to restate your motion? Yes,

approve to the chamber to plan the Celebration two fifty for the city of Puyall by organizing all the different various parties in downtown Puyall for $81,398 and approve that. Vote to approve it.

And we have a second for that motion? Yes.

Yes, second.

Motion has been called. Again, I didn't get a procedure city attorney. Well, if it's truly a call to question, you're going to cut off debate. There needs to be a second. There's no debate on the motion, and you vote whether to call the question or not. A majority, you go straight to vote without further discussion. Okay. So we've got a motion to to terminate debate. Do I have here a second? I'll second it. All in favor?

Aye. Any

opposed? Nay. Okay. The motion passes. So we'll move on to the motion to approve the original motions. We have a motion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay, so that brings us to a stopping point. We've got a deadline, so we will go into executive session at this point in time, and and we will be coming back after the to to wrap up our agenda after the executive session. We're into recess.

Mayor? Yeah. Mayor, can you just read the announcement for the purpose of the executive session? Thank you. We gotta wait for that.

The the purpose of the executive session, the council will now recess into executive session to consider to receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against a public official or employee. The executive session is expected to last thirty minutes.

The Puyallup City Clerk notes the time is 08:58PM, and mayor Whitting has extended the executive session an additional fifteen minutes.

Mr. Mayor, they're ready.

We're back from executive session. The the meeting is called to order. We have decided to push the the World Cup presentation and move on to item seven c allocation of additional parklets. City clerk Dan Vessels will introduce the request.

Oh, yes. Thank you, mister mayor. This is just a follow-up to the last presentation we had on the parklets with council. Earlier today the LTAC committee met and was provided the ability to make comments on the request for LTAC funds to build three additional parklets the LTAC committee indicated they thought they had no comments regarding the request but they thought the park program was beneficial to other downtown businesses so today we're here to get direction from council on the disbursement of the parking lots At our last presentation, there was a question as to whether counsel wanted to have a specific number on Meridian or off Meridian. And then once that decision is made and directions provided by counsel, I just have a follow-up question on that.

Okay. So, again, just to restate, we we approved the three additional parklets in our previous meeting. So we have 10 parklets to allocate. The question before us, as I understand it, we've had the the auction the right word, lottery.

We have not drawn the lottery yet. The lottery closed last Friday at midnight. I'm waiting to complete the lottery until I receive direction from counsel tonight on the allocation.

So so we have 10 applications as I understand it and and ten ten parklets.

Yes, sir.

Five of those parklets are on Meridian and five are not. Council member Castama. Thank

you. Mister mayor, I will move that we allocate the parklets in the proportion of six on meridian for off meridian.

So just to clarify that, would mean that we'd have five on Meridian or six on Meridian and four. But we've only got the lottery only produced five on

Meridian. So Oh, so there we had no more applicants than five?

Correct.

We received 10 applications for the lottery this year. Five of the businesses are located in the eligible area on Meridian, five of the businesses are located in the eligible area off Meridian. So what I would be looking for this evening is direction on

Doesn't sound like much of a lottery. If we have 10 Bartlett's and 10 applicants that's correct okay I would modify the motion to say that the preferred allocation is six on meridian four off meridian or how would you say up to I would say up to six and up to four I'm trying to I'm trying to understand this variation that we have here and still allow for it I'm trying to look for the language to do that because I think if you had 15 people apply, I think the proportion would be six four would be fairly in line with what we have done in the past. We've had the majority of them on Meridian and then a minority of them off Meridian and this maintains that type of proportion. However, if I have five five obviously I'm not going to say that those other people off Meridian can't get them. So, someone help me

out here. So, will volunteer to help up to six On Meridian. Any unallocated Meridian parklets could be used elsewhere in the permitted area. I love it. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'd still like to discuss.

We'd discuss after we get the second.

Sure. Second.

Okay. Discussion. Are you done councilmember Kastamon?

That's it. I will let other people speak to this. Councilmember Gilliam.

So if the parklet program ever grew and we had more than 10, I would like to, I don't know, add or consider six on Meridian, capping it at six on Meridian, and the rest can be off. Just a thought.

I think that's what

That's what he said.

Oh, okay. Well then, 100%

I'm down on that.

It's getting late.

Okay, so we have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. We now move on to our city manager's report.

So you have a study session next Tuesday and the proposed items at this point are all planning related, land use zoning, map related, one having to do with commercial zones, one having to do with mixed use zones, and one having to do with middle housing. All of them will be presentations. No action is requested at the study session. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Council reports, Council Member Adler.

Thank you. I'm gonna try to not take a bunch of reporting about, the travels that council member King and I did, to Washington DC last week for the National League of Cities annual congressional city conference and the opportunity that councilmember King and I had to visit with our congressional delegation. I'll leave that to councilmember King but I will share that it was time well spent and I'm very grateful that council has a few years ago now made the decision to hire a federal lobbyist and to really take a look at opportunities that exist for the city to hopefully start receiving by way of application and various grants federal funding for various projects throughout our city, and it's really exciting to see some of the fruits of of that investment if you will and labor certainly we we learned earlier this year thanks to congresswoman Marilyn Strickland We put in the city put in an application for federal funding for our Meeker Street project and we that project was chosen by congresswoman Strickland as part of her congressional congressionally directed spending aka earmarks for her overall projects that she chooses about twenty twenty five a year and the Meeker Street project was chosen and funded at about 850,000 which brought us to the finish line in funding for that project so that was pretty significant.

This year or for fiscal year twenty twenty seven, the city put forward an application, a request for the Fruitland sidewalk improvement project to Congresswoman Strickland as well as Senator Cantwell for about two point three million, which this project would fund sidewalks from 9th Avenue Southwest to 7th Avenue Southwest on Fruitland. And it's a very large number and it remains to be seen at what level of funding the congresswoman and congress will end up at alongside senator Cantwell and her work what level we will receive funding for, but this project, the Fruitland sidewalk improvement project was chosen as one of congresswoman Strickland's projects for fiscal year 2027. So we're waiting to hear back from Senator Cantwell's office. We also have an opportunity to make a go at it with Senator Murray's office. We will see how those pan out, but again very exciting and just exceedingly grateful for Congresswoman Strickland's partnership and for seeing the value in the projects that we put forward.

As part of our travels last week to Washington DC, we we had the opportunity to meet with Congresswoman Strickland personally and talk about these projects and thank her for her support and talk a little bit about you know the importance particularly with the Fruitland sidewalk improvement project and keeping our kids and families safe. I went to Fruitland. Sidewalks have been a challenge, lack of sidewalks have been a challenge in that area for quite some time and for us to come forward with this project and have her support is is gonna help us get there and make that area make some transformational changes in that area so it was a it was a very successful trip we also have the opportunity to meet with senator Cantwell staff and Senator Murray staff and give them a preview of what we'll be applying for and and I think it's safe to say that the feedback was fairly positive from both of our senators offices. So again, it's very exciting to have the federal partnership and seeing some of those federal dollars float to Puyallup. Thank you.

Thank you for your great work there councilmember. Council member King, since you were just referenced.

Thank you, mister mayor. Yes. We just got back from our five days in Washington DC meeting with our congressional members back there. And it was everything and more what council member Adler just mentioned. In addition to the Fruitland sidewalk project, we also asked for some additional funding to acquire additional data for our designated crisis responder that we have through our police department.

And so, we are asking for an additional funds there to acquire additional data over the next year. And, hopefully, we can make that a permanent position within the city. With that, all was good and I'm I was excited to also see the full delegation from the City of Federal Way and the City of Tacoma there, and I would like to encourage that our entire council make it a point to attend next year as well as potentially, maybe even this fall in Nashville. So it was a good event, and I can attest to that. And I would like to see our entire city there as well, including our city manager and perhaps even our chief.

I think he could I think he could benefit there as well, at least meeting with our congressional members. So, with that said, thank you mister mayor and have a great week.

Council member Kastema.

Thank you mister mayor. I just want to first quiet tell people about a person who testified here many times Merv Swanson recently passed away. He was 85. A very dear friend of mine in this community in the Northwest section of town was a boilermaker by trade and if you'd ever been to his house he had a very elaborate solar system with exchange heat exchangers that he had built himself very elaborate beautiful I mean very very beautiful home and very mechanically engineering oriented and we used to talk a lot about technology at WSU here at the Puyallup Research Extension Center and I had a startup business at one time that I used to talk with him about technology but anyway really miss him and I just wanted to bring his name up because if any of you remember Merv Swanson he again testified on behalf of his neighborhood a few times just him in your heart and mind but I would like to address some of the comments that were given here in public comment about the very hateful letter death threat that in regards to Kenya Jones law When I was mayor, I made it very clear that we would expend all resources necessary to get to the bottom of this situation.

We saw speech after speech of people condemning the integrity of this community and using that to characterize what people were like here. And I said, we're getting to the bottom of this. We're gonna find out the individuals who did this. And at every step, I said to the city manager, I said to the police chief, don't stop. We continue forward.

We're going to spend every resource necessary. If we have to have an allocation up here on the council to do so, we are gonna get to the bottom of this. Now for those that said this investigation was not thorough, I ask everyone in this community to get a hold of that report and read it. It's available just make a request to either member here and we will get that to you. Let me just give you an idea what took place.

Reviewing of hundreds of hours of videotapes, going to court and getting subpoenas to get access to information we wouldn't otherwise be able to obtain, fingerprinting people, interviewing people, everyone from postal employees to commissioners themselves, all the extensive work that was done. But one of these individuals even requested one time that we go to the FBI. Now I leave it up to our well trained officers and investigators to make those decisions, but wouldn't you know they did go to the FBI. And what was the FBI's conclusion? That Kenya Jones Lowell or someone on her behalf wrote that letter.

And I would ask people to read that letter. It is one of the most abhorrent letters I have read. And I think that this mischaracterization, thinking that this city took that investigation somehow any less than absolutely seriously is is wrong. And I want to make that very clear and I won't continue to make that point very clear. Again, read the document. I think you after reading that document will come to the conclusion that the FBI did. I leave that to you. Thank you, mister mayor. Okay.

Council member Gilliam.

Thank you, mister mayor. I concur with council member Castama in especially in the character trait of, as a council, commissioning the city staff to do what needed to be done for the investigation. I don't know what's going on in the community. In re I hope this doesn't create any form of divide, but I genuinely hope that people do our best to look for the best in one another and don't allow for any racism or any racism at all in our community. And I absolutely do not tolerate false accusations, and I don't know how else to state that.

As for my committee reports, I am on the Pellet Main Street Association Board and I'm very proud of the fact that they're going after the B and O tax relief for, or not tax relief, B and O tax in order to help support all the great work in our for supporting our local businesses it's a great way to invest back into the community and I'm really proud of the city for going ahead with our $100,000 support for that which will only actually cost us 25,000. I also want to say thank you to the chamber of commerce for Seattle, Sumner Chamber of Commerce for taking on the America two fifty celebration and I'm excited for what they're gonna come back with in two weeks to let us know what they have planned and how we can better support that celebration. And I also want to applaud the city staff for all their hard work in investigating the Lahar boundaries, potential just readiness, and I also I'm really impressed with the fact that on April 23, we're gonna have seven jurisdictions with six school districts practice the Lahar walk out with 50,000 people. That's a huge undertaking.

And so I just wanna say good job to city staff, and I'm really proud of you guys. That's it. Thank you, mister mayor.

Thank you. Councilmember Smalco.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't have a ton to say but I do have just a brief a brief statement since a couple of you have. I think that everything that's that's happened and it's gone down and will continue to transpire over time means that we have to have some harder, more personal conversations with each other, with ourselves, with our family and friends, as as neighbors, as parents, as people who love this city. I think that we have to ask what we have done, what is yet to be done to make Puyallup undoubtedly genuinely safe and welcoming not just on a sign but for every single person who lives here I want Puyallup to be that place where people hear that something like this happened and go no way not in Puyallup that's my goal for Puyallup And I think we have everything it takes to be that city for the rest of its its time on the planet. And I think that's all I have to say about that for now.

Deputy mayor Johnson. Thank you, mister mayor.

I'll touch on some of those comments. Public comment tonight, we had a few folks that are trying to, I think, continue to maintain that, you know, that the findings, still a victim there. The victim really is a city of Puyallup, and those had to endure falsehoods. Victim isn't the individual. The victim is the city that had to endure false accusations.

You know, there's an old saying, be quick to listen, slow to speak. And I think we as a council and stakeholders, you'd be very slow to speak. What's the old saying, innocent until proven guilty? When these allegations came out, there were some folks, I think, that were quick to speak that this was actually assumed true. And it turns out that wasn't true.

And I think that's a sign of, you know, we need to exercise more self control And be careful because it can come back and bite. I think it became a political issue. We saw folks running for political office, know, echoing this kind of rhetoric to use for political advantage or gain. And so my hope is that people will be held accountable for that by just taking this talking points and assuming it to be true when it turned out it wasn't. And I think that's inappropriate and needs to be called out come election time, if that should be attempted to try again.

And then, you know, the the know mantra that I think is, you know, Puyallup is safe and welcome. We don't need any more conversations about that. I think that implies that there's still some problems here. Are we perfect? No. We're all made up of humans. But as a whole, there's no systematic issue of racism and unwelcoming here in this city. So why we would continue to paint a picture that somehow it's not, to me, is compounding the problem. It's not a problem. So I resent the fact of more conversations.

I said we get off of some of these tangents and actually just become forget conversations about this issue, just continue to have to be community and just drop the whole issue. It's this this is nonsense. It's not the nineteen fifties anymore. Those days are behind us. There were some awful things that took place during those times, but those days are behind us. And so we need to move forward. Unless there's, you know, tangible, measurable, seen, felt evidence, stuff that's going on, let's assume good intent and not make accurate accusations of underlying problem. So that's my thoughts on that. And quite frankly, there's some that think that, you know, the council's you know, being silent. Well, I can only speak for myself.

I'm not done I'm kind of assessing this. It's not over yet. Studying the report, finding out have we crossed every t and dotted every I, and is there more accountability? I don't know. But I'm not satisfied with letting this drop without some setting new precedents that this moving forward in the city of Peopah, there's there's not gonna be any of this nonsense going on, unless it's a really serious problem that can be documented and verified.

So anyway, that's my thoughts on that. I do believe that this was this will send a shift moving forward for for good in our city that we're not gonna allow assumptions that evil is there unless proven. And it was proven that we're going to hold people accountable, but until then we're not going to go there. So anyway, I want to say hi to Marla. I did say hi Marla. She did come in, guess someone, a mutual friend is not doing very well, and so our prayers are going out with with that person. Marla, thanks for letting us know. Thank you. Thank you, mister mayor. Okay.

There's a lot lot in those comments tonight. You know, the regarding the the death threat letter, you know, I find this whole event unfortunate. You know, when it first came out, it was appalling. And, you know, it's hard to to wait. So I don't feel that there's any problem with people reacting to it, denouncing the the letter.

You know, at at that point in time, there we didn't know whether it was whether the letter was factual or not. So, you know, I I don't think that speaking out is a bad thing. You know, we we don't want that sort of thing in Puyallup. We'd all be upset if it was a true thing. So, as time has passed and and it's become clear that it wasn't a real threat.

The whole community has been hurt, wounded by this whole process. It's so regrettable and so unfortunate. And I just encourage us to try and put it all in the rear in our rearview mirror. You know, there are disparities in in income and and wealth and that come up through generations. And some of that is the result of some racial things generations ago, and they perpetuate themselves across generations.

I think we, as a council, could be a little more sensitive to those kinds of things. You know, in the scriptures, it talks about problems being visited on generations and generations. I don't can't quote the scripture, but but it you know, the sins of the fathers will be visited on the on the sons for from many generations. And and I I you know, I'm sensitive to that, and I hope we can be forgiving and and of of each other and and and find our way clear to trying to put this unfortunate event in our rearview mirror and move forward in lockstep. And we need to engage with some of the folks that express themselves here tonight.

And and whether we agree with them or not, I I think it's in our community's best interest to try and and tamp down these kind of of divisive issues. So that's that's kind of my thoughts tonight on on some of what I've heard. The the other thing I'd like to mention is I have been serving on the Unified Regional Authority on Homelessness, chaired by Chair Hitchens of the Pierce County Council. And I've decided to step down from that. And I wrote a letter to to chair Hitchin that I'd like to share with you.

I just said at this time, my mayoral duties are absorbing more of my available time, and I am afraid that my participation in the elected leadership group may be giving folks the wrong impression regarding the likelihood that Puyallup will join the the unified regional approach. I am skeptical about the ability of a shape style organization to have meaningful impact on our homelessness. I met with Puyallup city manager Steven Steve Kirkley today. Once the proposed ILA or MOU has been created and is ready for consideration by the city of Puyallup, please feel free to send that proposed ILA or MOU to Steve, and he can then brief me in the entirety of the Puyallup City Council on the proposal. So I've been representing the council to some degree on that committee, and I I just don't feel like the direction they're going is is going to be fruitful.

And and so I've withdrawn, and if somebody would be inclined to take my place on that, I'm I'm welcome to to cede that, but I I don't think it's in I've I've chosen to step down. So that is my report on my unified regional approach committee. If there are no further comments, I will declare this meeting adjourned.