City Council - Regular Meeting

So I will pause there for a second if anybody has any questions on the transportation system plan. But if not, I can move forward into the project list.

Quick question. Is that a new title, the system, that word? Is that added? There's always transportation plan.

So, yeah, so the transportation element is a chapter in the larger comprehensive plan. The transportation system plan is essentially a separate document that gives more detail that supports the transportation element. Okay. So it's essentially a supplemental document that gives you, like, all the meat and potatoes that goes into the transportation element. Thank you. Okay, so diving into the project development. So I just wanted to give a high-level overview of how we develop the project list, where the projects come from, how we identify what the needs are. So we first start by looking at all the previous transportation planning work that has been done by the city and throughout the region. So we start with the city's six-year transportation improvement program. Those have already identified a lot of the immediate transportation needs throughout the city, so that is the foundation of our project list. But then we also look at other regional and local transportation plans. So that includes the previous comprehensive plan, as well as some of the other studies that have been conducted throughout the region, and looking at the recommendations that have come out of those planning efforts. And so here I will mention that we really look to regional agencies and other regional plans to make sure that we've identified and include any of those projects of regional importance within the plan. So that includes the Benton Franklin Council of Government's Regional Transportation Plan. Projects in that plan that have been identified in the City of Richland are incorporated into our project list. And we also look at project recommendations from the Benton Franklin Good Road Association, making sure that their recommendations get incorporated into our list as well. And so here I also mentioned that we look at projects and identify them based off those level of service standards that I mentioned. So level of service standards are essentially metrics that the city adopts against which the transportation network is evaluated. And so I mentioned that the state is requiring that these standards be set for all travel modes now. So we'll get into this as we walk through this presentation. The city has adopted or is adopting level service standards for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles and transit as well. And the final thing that I will note here that goes into the project list are new roadway connections. So as the city grows and develops, additional construction and development of the transportation network is going to be required to accommodate those new uses and the new areas that are developed. So we've included a lot of those on our project list as well. I will note here that a lot of the projects on our project list are identified for federally classified roadways. So those are roadways that are incorporated into a larger network of federal classification. So essentially the benefit of doing that is that those roadways are the ones that are more eligible for a lot of funding programs. So really, in order to get grant funding for these projects, they need to be on a federally classified roadways. That would be a principal arterial, a minor arterial, or a collector. And so really, by focusing on those projects, not really identifying improvements for local streets, we want to make sure that the projects that we've identified have an opportunity to be funded through grant funding. So I will pause again here, see if there are any questions on sort of some of the sources that we use to identify the project list. But if not, we can sort of dive into some of the details about level service, how we come to these different project recommendations that we have. Okay, great. So let's start with the vehicular projects. So I mentioned level of service standards. So the level of service standard that's set for vehicles is based off of intersection delay. So that's looking at the average delay that a vehicle experiences when traveling through an intersection. That's typically measured on this A through F scale, where A is really no congestion, very little delay when you're going through an intersection, and then F is all the way at the bottom, extensive delay, extensive queuing. So the city sets their level of service standard at level of service D, sort of right there in the middle. The importance of that is that you're sizing the system to make sure that it can accommodate your peak demands, but also isn't operating with excess capacity throughout the day. If you're planning for level of service A, that essentially means that you're planning for really wide roadways, really big intersections, which are operating way under capacity a lot of the time. So you really want to plan for something in the D or E level, which is consistent with other agencies throughout the state.

Just a quick question real quick on that. Is safety considered at all during the level of service? Is it strictly the waiting time?

So the level of service really just focuses on the waiting time. That's not to say that safety isn't considered elsewhere. So as you know, the city has a comprehensive safety action plan. So through that plan, the city has looked at... historical crash data to identify what those safety concerns are. And so a lot of those recommendations get pulled into the transportation element and the project list, but it's not specifically looked at here through this level of service standard. Okay, and so this slide here summarizes and shows a map of how the intersections throughout the city are forecast to operate in 2045 after that 20-year planning window with the expected growth in the city. So future traffic volume forecasts have been developed for the city based off the land use assumptions that Nicole and her team have developed. And so based off that, we have identified this list of intersections that are expected to operate

Love those pictures highlighting our area. Welcome, everyone, to the regular city council meeting, July 21, 2026. Appreciate you all being here this evening and joining us. So we'll start off with a roll call. Mayor Richardson.

Here. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

Present.

Councilmember Holton. Present. Councilmember Jones. Here. Councilmember Meyer.

Here.

Councilmember Samuel.

Present.

And Councilmember Whitten.

Here.

Oops, here we go. Everyone is here. Thank you. Council Member Winton, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

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

Thank you. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda? So moved.

Seconded.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. First on the agenda is a presentation from the Friends of Badger Mountain, an update. I always look forward to hearing about what's happening next, so this is good.

Good evening, Mayor and Council, and thank you, Drew, for always supporting us and getting these to display. It's my pleasure to introduce David Comstock. He's the representative for Friends of Badger Mountain. A couple of months ago, we were talking about budgets and projects, and Council expressed an interest in hearing about current projects and kind of our collaboration on trail development. So with that, I will turn it over to David and have him tell you about all the wonderful work they're doing.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much. Again, I'm David Comstock. I'm on the board of directors with Friends of Badger Mountain. I just want a quick location to make sure everybody's aware of where we're talking about. So Queens Gate Drive heading south comes up to the Trailhead Park. I've highlighted that in the black outline. That's the City of Richland Trailhead Park as a gateway to the Badger Mountain. You can continue south on Queens Gate, takes you up into the saddle between Badger and the Little Badger. So the big red asterisk is where the future trailhead will be to the Little Badger Park. I also wanted to quickly point out we have Badger Mountain South, obviously a huge master-planned community. The east-west parkway in Badger Mountain South will continue across and then connect into Gage. So Gage will take you right to this trailhead location. So all of the future people living in the 8 or 9,000 home Badger Mountain South will all be traveling up into this parking lot as well as everybody in Rancho Riata that's traveling north on Bermuda will come to this trailhead prior to getting to the existing trailhead Park City Richland. So this will be an important destination to expand kind of the local hiking access here for Little Badger Mountain. So this is the City of Richland approved master plan. So I'm talking about components implementing the city's master plan. So everything in green here on this slide has been purchased and transferred to the City of Richland. So that's about 97 acres preserved for this new public Ridge Park. So the intent is to have a third mountain park similar to Caney Mountain and Badger Mountain within the county park system. Here within the city park system, create a third mountain park here for the Tri-Cities. So I was asked to kind of talk about the upcoming projects, not only immediately what we're preparing with the City of Richland, but future projects throughout this master plan. So I'll just briefly touch on those. If you have any questions, please ask or I can come back to it at the end, however you prefer. So the first major component is to develop a trailhead, provide public parking and access to this new park. This is planned for right off of Queens Gate at that Gage intersection. Gage going to the west where the Wilson's Orchard is was already paved. That exists right now. All the orchard from the Wilsons has been sold and is all planned for residential development, extending all the way from Rancho Riata all the way north to Badger Mountain. So that's a big change in the area that's happening here. So we have completed the 60% design. Our cost estimate for construction right now at the 60% design level is $1.3 million for that trailhead and associated family-friendly interpretive trail B. So that'll be the key project. As you probably are aware, Chris and the City of Richland has applied for a Washington State grant. So that's a million dollar grant from Washington State funds. That's a matching grant that will be used for two purposes. One to focus on the trailhead construction. And the second is our key objective is not just to have a trailhead, not just to have a parking lot. The more positive use we have at these facilities, the better. So this will also include an acquisition component, which is all the land shaded in blue. And we'll complete the trail system so the parking lot will provide direct access into the existing trails on the Badger Mountain Preserve. So this will be an equivalent gateway park from the city into the Benton County Trail System. And the Canyon Mountain Trails are also connected to that. county park system. So this will have a big impact on the local access for ridge hiking and direct access into Badger Mountain. This comes right out of the RCO grant application that Chris Waits and his team has submitted. Chris has gone through technical reviews and the next step for the City of Richland is in August. He'll be making presentations to the Washington State RCO board for this grant application. So as you can see here, Friends of Badger Mountain is making a significant land donation. Land in and of itself doesn't build parking lots, so we want to take this donation and leverage it as the matching funds for the city so that that brings, hopefully, a million-dollar Washington state grant that will be funds to build the parking lot. So that's a key component of this grant application. There isn't a City of Richland capital investment out of your budget to fund this matching grant from the state level. So this also talks a little bit about the design support and the volunteer activities. For the last five or so years, we've also had a maintenance agreement to do maintenance within the Trailhead Park to help reduce the operating expense of your existing Trailhead Park system. Continue that relationship. Wanted to share quickly the 60% design. This is where we are at the funding level. So Friends of Badger Mountain has been getting grants and donations from the facility. Most of last year we spent time working with the public works for the city to lay out the rotary that the city plans at that future Gage and Queens Gate intersection. We need to know the size of the rotary so that this parking lot doesn't interfere with the city's plans to develop that into a larger rotary intersection. Out of the last 2026 lodging tax grant that Friends of Badger Mountain got, we also added an interpretive Ice Age Flood feature, so we'll do some design work. We want to make this a destination on the National Park Service's Ice Age Flood National Geological Trail. So we'll have an interpretive component that's kind of the outlay there by the friendly loop, our family friendly loop. So that's kind of a quick look. We've done some public comment at the 30%. The city of Richland will be planning some upcoming, again, public comment at the 60% to share this design with the public and our immediate neighbors. So that's the first big construction project that's planned and will hopefully be funded through the RCO grant from Washington State. That parking lot trailhead access and that connection to the Badger Mountain Preserve. As we work kind of southeast on the trail system, the next major project upcoming will be a north face trail. That's the trail section D that you see on the master plan here. So that will be a trail across a steep component on the north face. This is a quick slide from the top of this is the preliminary plat that was approved by the City of Richland Hearing Examiner. I'll kind of try to highlight it here. There's a yellow asterisk, that track C, dedicated to the City of Richland for this park. At the preliminary plat level, that was about 100 feet wide with an adjacent homeowner association land that gave us some options to potentially go around the ridge. The bottom part is the final plat that was approved by the city of Richland. So additional houses were squeezed in, squeezed that 100 foot track C down to a 10 foot wide trail corridor that trail corridor ends, basically you can see the asterisks on the top, out into the contours. So now our only option proceeding forward is go across that steep north face. So that will be a significant challenge. This is a photo looking out across that north face of the Little Badger from the end of that 10 foot wide corridor approved from the final plat. So we're conceptualizing a trail that would go across to an existing pad site, that's the North Face Overlook, to an existing ramp that goes to the ridge top and then the trail will continue to the summit of Little Badger up that skyline ridge. This is another photograph with the interpretive information added onto it that looks down the existing ramp to that pad site that will make a nice overlook feature looking out over the city of Richland and to the Columbia River. So same kind of view. That's our second major project. So Trailhead Access and the 2026 RCO grant, if that funding is successful, construction of the Trailhead 2728, potential second grant 2028. If that's, again, successful, maybe the trail will get that north face. Section D would be built 2029-30. That would take us to the ridge top, to the summit. The green highlighted trail, you can see the two round circles, blue circles, those are the existing City of Richland water tanks. That's close to the top of the ridge. That's the highest point in the City of Richland, so public access to that highest point is what we're trying to achieve. The South Slope Trail, section F there, is already constructed, so Friends volunteers have completed that. That's open to the public if you park on Morenci Drive right now. So the third kind of future project that I would see implementing this master plan is off-street parking at Morenci Drive. So the houses in this area are being rapidly constructed in the Hills West neighborhood. That will alleviate some pressure of people parking in the neighborhood directly and on the public roads. So that was a component that was in the Westcliff Heights Master Plan as a specific designated parking lot at that location. The final plot that I've seen does not include that feature. There is a strip of land still owned by the Botterland Company, so hopefully that will work out in our favor. But that's kind of the third project, a smaller off-street parking lot to provide some access at the Morenci Drive location. So those are kind of the big three projects that I can anticipate with the goal to have a new city of Richland Park opened with public access to the high point of the ridge and then continuity of trails, connection to Badger and to Candy, creating that three-mountain park experience for all of the Tri-Cities to enjoy. I'll just point out real quick, since we're talking about kind of future projects, the trail system in the master plan here also wraps around the north face again. These north face trail sections is more than the Friends of Badger Mountain volunteers can build. This is steep terrain above existing houses. That would be another potential north face trail construction project for the city in the future. But that's kind of a quick overview of implementing the city's master plan. I'll kind of pause there before I transition a little bit if there's any questions on what we're doing now and where we hope that we can assist the city in implementing their master plan for this park.

Thank you, Mr. Comstock. Great presentation. Council, do you have any questions or comments? I see Councilmember Jones first up.

Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation. We really appreciate you and all the work that you do. I am one of those people that do run that walk badger quite often. And I do see the impact that you guys have made in our community. Some days it's pretty much bumper to bumper. And I do know that a lot of these people come from out of town. So with that being said, do we know how many people on an annual basis visit this location? That will be one question. But the other question would be, If you can provide roughly what the tax estimate that is coming into our coffers, because your guys' hard work to bring these people over to this mountain, how that is impacting our bottom line, which I think is humongous, huge.

So first question, how many people are using the trail? Probably on the order, at least this is Trailhead Park and access to the Badger Mountain Trails, somewhere in the order of 100,000 to 200,000 visitors a year. The city of Richland has purchased some data that uses cell phone, tracking your cell phone. So this map, this heat map here with the high red density shows during 2025 home locations of people that were inside a Trailhead Park So you can see dense usage from all of the tri-cities. And you can talk to Chris Waits, and he can show you the map, northwest region, all up and down the Seattle corridor from all over the place. Your second question kind of had to do with the economic benefits. We haven't done any recent studies, but Washington State has a lot of data on the economic benefits of outdoor recreation, and especially kind of sports tourism. The Badger Mountain Challenge that's performed in this area, the Iron Man that the city of Richland is promoting. These are enormous economic benefits to the community.

Yeah. The next question will be, you know, I volunteer once in a while, but it's very hard because when it's hot, it's almost impossible to be out there in the mountain volunteering. And so obviously you're looking for people to volunteer. How can we, the city, but the city residents can help you? I know a lot of the times it's very difficult for you guys to get people to go out and help. So how can we help the organization that is helping us so immensely?

So friendsofbadgermountain.org is our website. We have information on our volunteer. We do 90% of our trail maintenance in the spring and late fall when we have some moisture in the soil, which also helps with the temperature. There's just a little bit of volunteer work that we're doing to remove noxious weeds from the park that happens during the summertime when it's really hot. So appreciate everybody's efforts. Ultimately, it's donations from the community as well as volunteers that help maintain the high-quality trails that we have in our local park. Thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Van Dyke.

Just real quick, thank you so much. This is fantastic. I'm very excited about this. My kids don't always like it, but we do Badger a fair amount. But also, it's a great thing for our city. And a lot of people that come and visit, we actually go hike Badger. And this opportunity to go from Little Badger all the way across Candy Mountain is fantastic. Thank you for all the hard work and so many hours and the donations that have gone into it. I'm excited. Now we just get to connect to Rattlesnake, right? There we go.

Yeah. Thank you. Council Member Holton.

Yes, you gave me a great tour of not just what currently exists and the future plans, which I'm totally excited about, but also the geology of the area, which is quite amazing. It's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible what you've done and the benefit to not only the entire community, but to the world and what we have here and appreciating that. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.

I know that you've got more to your presentation. I do have a question for you, but go ahead.

No, this is just the closing thoughts. For the grant application, we got letters of support, including one from the National Park Service. So this is on the importance the Little Badger Mountain Trail system will become an important destination on the broader Ice Age Flood National Geological Trail. So there are more Ice Age Flood features on the South Slope within the City of Richland Little Badger Park than there are on all of badger and candy combined. So this is really important from a national geological perspective as well as from a local recreation perspective.

Yeah. Well, could I add, encouraging people to talk to you if they want a tour? Yeah, absolutely. Can I advertise you? It's a great tour. It's well worth the time.

I work at Hanford Monday through Thursday, so if you ever want to tour Friday or on the weekends, let me know.

Thank you. I am one that when we have people visiting us, we hike Badger, whether they are up for it or not. We get up there and just really it gives an overview of what our region is like. I think also the friends of Badger and the city have a unique relationship that is probably a showcase of a good relationship and getting things done, a good partnership. So thank you for that over the years. So here's my question. A few years back, I heard a concept of ridge to river, eventually a path that goes down to the river. How is that, and where is that?

Yeah, so each step in the way helps implement that. I mean, our ultimate Friends of Badger Mountain goal is about a 20-mile ridge trail starting on this little Badger Ridge, this city of Richland Park that we're talking about here, connect to the existing Badger and Candy, and then eventually work with the vineyard owners and have some kind of trail system across Red Mountain that goes all the way to the Yakima River. That's our long-term goal. We're also currently working with Benton City who got a grant to do a Rails to Trails. They're looking at purchasing that old abandoned railroad bridge coming across the Yakima and trying to purchase some of the old railroad linemen to come out of Benton City and connect into that railroad trail vision. And then the river's component is Tapteel Greenway. So one of our sister nonprofits here locally, they've been working on the river trail along the Yakima River. So they've developed a water trail that exists now, and they have good maps on their website. But they're also trying to piece together a shoreline hiking trail. So that's the ultimate Ridges to Rivers vision is about 50 miles, 20 miles on the ridge all the way out to the Yakima, and then following along the Yakima River all the way back to the Delta. of the Yakima River to the Columbia. So that's the Ridges to Rivers vision.

Thank you for that vision. Many years of work ahead. Yes, indeed. Appreciate your presentation. Any other council comment? I don't see anything at this point. So thank you again. We appreciate you very, very much. Thank you. Next up, we have public hearing. This says Clerk Rogers, but Clerk Follett, would you please read the script?

The purpose of a public hearing is to give the audience an opportunity to address council members concerning the subject for which the hearing is convened. This process is an official on-the-record communication geared toward giving City Council information and opinions to consider in its decision-making process. While Council welcomes hearing from you, please know that the public hearing process is not designed for interactive dialogue with Council members or for posing questions expecting an immediate response. Many questions require an opportunity for research and deliberation. For this reason, Council will not provide immediate responses to comments, questions, or concerns raised during the hearing. To provide an orderly process, audience members who wish to speak should raise your hand and wait to be acknowledged by the mayor. Approach the lectern when invited to do so. Begin by clearly stating your full name and address for the official record, and after speaking, write your name and address on the record sheet. To ensure every participant has an opportunity to be heard, public hearing comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker. The public comment period, where the audience is allowed to comment on agenda items or other topics, follows the same guidelines with the slight difference that speakers are to announce their full name and their city of residence before speaking. For this section, each speaker is limited to two minutes to present their comments. The time prompter placed on the lectern will alert each speaker with an amber light when 15 seconds remain. To signal the end of a speaker's time to speak, a red light will flash and a buzzer will sound. In the interest of time, Council asks that you do not duplicate comments already made by another speaker. Instead, please confirm your agreement with statements previously made. Council also asks that speakers conduct themselves respectfully so that all participants feel welcome and have an opportunity to be heard. Please avoid interruptions, personal attacks, or disruptive behavior. When appropriate, the mayor may refer certain topics raised during the public comment period to the city manager for additional review and action. Please note that if a speaker intends to provide counsel with any documents as part of a presentation, the documents must be handed directly to the city clerk for distribution. The purpose of tonight's public hearing is to consider the proposed amendment to Exhibit A to the Compensation Plan for Unaffiliated Employees 2024 and Continuing, Resolution No. 2026-102.

Thank you, Acting Clerk Follett. So it's now 6... Is there anyone that would like to speak to the resolution number 2026-102? I see your hand in the back row. Now, again, this is for the compensation plan discussion. Is that clear to you that that's what you'd like to speak to? Please come forward and approach the lectern. Did you have a concern? No.

My name is Kristen Dykema. I am a public works employee. I live at 6109 Antioch Court, Pasco, Washington. I commend the city for completing this study and I do believe that it was done with good intention and has been needed as we have fallen behind the other local cities in pay. I have given this a lot of thought and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would say I am anything short of logical and pragmatic. I will keep my comments short about how I feel I fall short of the goals of employee retention and recruitment due to the time limits. The implementation plan will result in some staff with mid to senior level experience at the city being placed within the first quartile of their pay ranges, which is typically a range reserved for those with less than five years of experience. Please see the first page of your packet. which will be demoralizing and could very likely lead to further attrition that has been plaguing the city, especially in my department. I also commend the city for constraining new higher offers in respect to internal equity and the communicated intent to continue this. But if mid- to senior-level staff fall into the first quartile of their pay range, you will not be able to recruit candidates with mid- to senior-level experience. I have watched offers be rejected in my own department, which has detrimental downstream effects. Examples include likely only being able to attract lesser-experienced workers, which leaves those with limited experience, to lack support from mid- to senior-level mentors, stagnates their growth, and may lead to them leaving for more supportive environments. Senior level employees will have to carry heavier workloads leading to burnout or to them leaving for opportunities where they will be paid their market supported wage. We will lose the valuable mix of varying experience levels that ensure our growth, success and consistent outcomes. We will hinder our ability to continue to deliver service levels to our citizens that they have come to expect and have to delay repairs and replacements beyond planned schedules which could lead to system vulnerabilities. We will increase the potential for operational risk due to inadequate support for lesser experienced staff and leaving gaps in key roles to mitigate risk. And find ourselves needing to hire consultants for duties, which we should be able to do in-house, which amounts to multiple positions worth of cost in my own department each year. In terms of internal equity for compensation, or for compression, under this study, the City of Richland only gives 1% per city-specific experience in their role. If you have two employees with equal experience, but one has been with the city in their current role 10 years and under, or another only two, there will be disparities in that equity. This will further degrade morale, For those whose scale has shifted drastically, as a couple have, some mid to senior level employees will fall within only a small percentage of those with limited to no work experience in their role. Lastly, it is well documented that it is substantially more costly to replace an employee than it is to retain one. Please see packets page two and three. There are more concerns, but with a three-minute limit, I must wrap it up. I come here tonight with the hopes that my being willing to speak up and say what I know others feel but are too afraid to speak up and say does not leave me with negative consequences from trusting my leadership to allow me the opportunity to express what I believe to be valid concerns without reprisal. With respect and appreciation, I thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you for your presentation. Yes.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Pat Everham. I'm an employee with the city of Richland for the 612 North Georgia Street, Kennewick, Washington. So I'm up here to also speak on that. One of the things that I just want to be in that other set of eyes looking at this situation. So the reason that we're here is because we had inequity with surrounding municipalities that were similar to what we do. So what we found out is that the average Tenure here at the City of Richland is three and a half years. So that's the average, which should scare anybody in any organization when you have that kind of a changeover and that many new people coming in. So one of the things that we need to do is, like I said, I commend everybody for getting that study because that's very important. But I think we need to look at the way the consultant did this doesn't seem to line up with the way it should be to fix this problem. Because just as Kristen had mentioned, there is no equity with the people that have been here, put the time in, work hard. And they're where they are on the old scale because of the time and effort that they put into this job and into their lives working here. So it's one of those things that when you look at that, You need to come in with a solution, so we need to fix this problem. And that's part of it was, like I said, and on the record, this is nothing against our leadership team or HR. Like I said, they're doing their job to try to figure this. It's just we trusted a consultant to do a job that they didn't do. So what we need to find out is a way to make this equitable and make sure that all these people that are here dedicated to us, to the citizens of Richland, get acknowledged, at least acknowledged in this situation. I did a quick research on how they do this, and they said the most common way is that whatever percent you're in in the old one, you move to that percent in the new one. That's across the board. That treats everybody the same, makes everything equal. So that's looking at it from that standpoint. I don't know why the consultant didn't put that up as an option to make sure that we're being fair, equitable, and, again, address the problem of the turnover. We need these people to stay. I mean, if you can just go over to the next city and you're making $30,000 more a year, where are you going to go? I mean, that's what we're seeing is these people leaving. So that's all I'm doing is just asking as an outsider coming in just to give you more information is that I think this could be done in a little different way if the consultant should have came up with that to help to retain these people. And reward them. I mean, these guys have been here fighting for the citizens and the stuff we do. Behind the scenes is amazing. You know, so I've been here for a long time. You can see what we have to do. It goes unnoticed. But something like this where we take care of each other, we're a family. You know, that's what I feel. So with that, I just wanted to bring that to your attention just to hopefully consider that one as comfortable to vote. So thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak at this time? I don't see any other hands, so the time is now 6.31, and this public hearing is closed. We now move on to public comments. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to provide a public comment? Please raise your hand, and I will call on you in the front row. This is your time to speak.

Thank you. I'm Connie, and I am a resident of Richland. Mayor Richardson and council members, I am here tonight to discuss two things, Lawless Park and the two-minute comment limit. Lawless Park is a disc golf course, and the city is supposed to take care of it. At least keep the trails safe. Two years ago, we held a tournament there and put out $500 of our own money to hire people to weed, eat, and make it safe. And really, since then, the course has been unusable. Lately, you can't even walk the trails because of all the overgrowth. It's very unsafe. Every other park in town is maintained, so why isn't it lawless? Is it our responsibility? If it is, let us know, and we will try to figure out how to make it usable again. The second issue I am yet again bringing up, I am speaking about our time commenting to be increased to three minutes. We are the only city in this entire area that the council limits to two minutes. West Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick all allow three minutes, but not here. Here you cut us off at two minutes like we are a nuisance. You have been asked about this before, and every time you say no, why? What are we afraid of, an extra 15 minutes once or twice a month? You didn't trust your own citizens to speak. You don't want to hear from us. You would rather shut us up and move on. You all sit up there and talk for hours and make decisions that affect all of us. But when we come to you with real concerns, you give us 120 seconds and a buzzer. That isn't public service. That is public dismissal. So let us ask again why. Because right now, you are showing everyone in this room and everyone watching at home that you care more about your schedule than you do about the people who voted for you. Give us the three minutes. It's one minute. It's the bare minimum of showing the citizens the respect that they deserve to be heard.

Thank you. I'm going to move around the room first. In the second row, red t-shirt.

Hello, my name's Ryan. I'm a Richland resident and a member of the Tri-Cities Socialists. We're an organization bringing working class power to the struggle in Tri-Cities and beyond. I've come tonight specifically to address the attempt by certain council members to scold constituents at the previous meeting. After extensive public comments, Council Member Van Dyke brushed excuse me, brushed off all the points that were brought forward and chose to react to the tone of the comments stating we can do better and pleading for respectful discourse. I would remind this council that it is their duty to listen to and address our problems regardless of how they are brought up. Anyone who has worked a service job knows what it means to put up daily with abuse just to make ends meet. Being an elected official, you have volunteered to be at the service of the people of this city. Nobody forced you. You can easily deal with a fraction of what a service worker puts up with on a daily basis. We do not answer to you, you answer to us, and you are wildly out of your place to tell us how to address you. How can this council call for respect from us, but not hold its own membership to account for decency? Like when Mayor Richardson openly called for the harassment of our LGBTQ community just a few short years ago. Why should we show respect for the council's feelings when there is none shown for ours? What this council attempts to pass off as stoicism is easily identified by every community member here as indifference and indignation, indifference to the struggle of anyone less privileged than them, and indifference to any struggle which puts the needs of the working class above the wants of rich capitalists. I would ask everyone here, what is more disrespectful, criticizing the conduct of our elected public servants or hastily ramming through an unpopular project with bipartisan opposition that threatens to poison our air, water, increase gridded usage and consumer costs, and produce massive noise pollution, all for a measly hundred jobs. If you were looking to be coddled and patted on the back, you should not have run for public office. Your position deserves no respect, and you will get it if and only if you listen to the people you claim to represent. We are here, and we will make our voices heard in any way we deem necessary.

Thank you. Yes, in the front row here, gray suit.

Good evening. My name is Christopher Dare, and I am the executive director at Columbia Basin Veterans Center. And it's an honor to be here with you and with everyone here in the crowd as well. I do live in Richland, so you're my city council as well. But I'm here to talk, and my address is 2932 Milton Lane here in Richland. I'm here to actually say hi to all of you, say thank you. I want to say, Tony, it's great working with you, so give you a little shout out. But when it comes to our veterans in the community, we are the front-facing group that serves all of our veterans. And so if you're in this crowd and you're a veteran, we're here to speak on that behalf. And if you're up there and a veteran, same as well. We want you to know what we do, and we're the only group doing this for the community, and I say that with great respect for our veterans. There's a lot of people doing different things. We do housing, we do veteran therapeutic court, we do resource assistance, and we connect veterans to a group of people who Make sure that they're safe, a safe path. And I say that because a lot of our veterans, especially our younger veterans, are struggling with suicidal tendencies and things of that fashion. These are things that need to be addressed and need a community that cares. And I know we are that, but we get to be that front facing for you. So I did give you a quick, some information, some things coming up. Summer is very difficult for us. We're a nonprofit. No veteran ever pays a dime to come to our place, ever. And with that said, I just, if you know a business, if you guys are interested in golfing with us or any of those things, we appreciate you coming. I do want to say that we did get a $150,000 grant from the state. here for Richland. I want you to know that other people are recognizing what we're doing, the governor's office. And with that, that goes right into our transitional housing for our veterans. And so we have one of our transitional housing right here in Richland. And so with that said, there's great work being done for the community, and it's great to team up with you. I'm Christopher Dare. If you'd like to have a coffee or come to the place, we'd like to show you about it. Thank you. Have a great day.

Thank you, Mr. Dare. right here in the front row.

Good evening. My name is Steve Drinkard. I thank you for this opportunity to speak. I live in Ridgeland also. I'd just like to start out saying I never thought that I'd be that grumpy old guy, but here I am. Recently, I was driving out of my neighborhood onto Keene Road. Our exit has to cross the Keene Road bike path. As I approached, a kid riding an e-bike came flying up and had to lock up his brakes as I approached the crossing. Fortunately, I saw him and stopped before the crossing. He crossed and I approached the traffic light, stopped, turned right onto Keene Road. I got right up the speed limit of 45 miles per hour, but that was not enough to catch up with the e-bike on the bike path. In fact, he was pulling away from me while I was going 45. While he was riding at over 45 on a path that is not supposed to have motorized vehicles on it, he passed a pedestrian. A lot of times there are people walking their dogs or riding bikes with their little ones. These bike paths are supposed to be a safe place for people to ride manually powered bikes and to walk. When a kid who has no idea of the rules of the road or the awareness to understand the rules of the road, there is a significant hazard to themselves and others on the path. This is not the first time I have seen this type of situation. It's just the most recent. These bikes do not have insurance, so if an accident were to occur, there is going to be a problem. There will be lawsuits for the parents who provided the e-bike and allowed the underage rider to ride on the roads and bike paths. There could also be a lawsuit against the city for not enforcing these bike paths or the roads where the kids are riding them. It's also not only kids who are riding them, but they are the ones who are riding them recklessly. This is something that needs to be addressed before the accidents happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dricker. I'm right here in the front row.

Good evening. My name's Ed Munoz. I am a resident of Richland, and as my wife stated earlier, I did run a disc golf tournament at Lawless Park last year. That park is named after Judge James Lawless, who was killed when a defendant who appeared before him mailed him a bomb back in the early 70s. He opened the box and he died that day, and the city of Richland was kind enough to name a park after him. And I didn't, you know, when I first moved here, I lived right next to that park, I was wondering what, you know, what's that park named for? What's this lawless thing, right? And so I looked it up and I read the story about this guy and I thought, wow, I never heard of that. Because when it happened, I was nine years old and I was more interested in playing out in the field, you know. So... I decided that I wanted to run a tournament out there just to kind of keep his memory alive. And so before I filed the sanctioning paperwork for that tournament with the sanctioning body, I contacted his son, Greg Lawless, who's a prominent attorney in Seattle, and told him what I was doing, and he was just beside himself. He didn't realize that anyone actually would remember his dad. So I ran the tournament, it was well attended, and it was a success overall. I mean, it's not like the Ironman, it was a small thing. But we had 80 players and plenty of spectators, and it was a lot of fun. But in order to do that, we had to spend $500 of our own money to hire people to come in and prepare the course. Now, Lawless Park is a desert course. It's terrain like the desert. It's not like Howard Ammon Park where it's green, mowed, nice, you know, area. But We had to pay that, and I'll get with Director Waite and see if there's anything he can do, because I want to run that tournament again. I didn't do it this year because we couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford to hire people to come in and prepare the course. It's really rough right now. The cheatgrass is up to your waist, and it's not playable, and the trails aren't even usable. So... I would like to ask the city to give us a hand and help us keep Judge Lawless's memory alive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Munoz. Yes, second row back, green t-shirt. Third row back.

Hello, my name is Karis Johnson and I'm a resident here in Richland. I'm going to talk about the data centers. So in order to understand the urgent need for a moratorium on data centers, we need to zoom out. Climate change can no longer be seen as a partisan issue when it is now a dire human issue. The USDA published their balance sheets this month for the 2026-2027 crop year, and wheat production in the US is at its lowest output since 1972 due to years of record-breaking drought. Hard red wheat, which usually makes up for the largest wheat crop, is currently at a level not seen since 1958. Winter wheat abandonment is at 32% this year due to drought, the highest rate since the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. To see the writing on the wall, we must look further south as Lake Powell and meat operators are scrambling to avoid falling below minimum operating pool when turbines will have to be shut down to avoid damage. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that without major intervention, Lake Powell will fall below minimum power pool in August. This water source is vital to 40 million people and irrigates over 5 million acres of farmland that feeds our country. As both dams are facing major cuts in power generation, the Western Interconnection, known as WECC, will direct BPA to sell power to CASO and RTO West in the Southwest. WECC is estimating a 33% increase in annual grid demand in the coming decade, with large load data centers being the primary reason. This is the future we are sliding towards right now, and if it isn't obvious, let me make it clear. We simply don't have the power generation capacity or the water for new data centers. This next year will push us to levels of hardship not seen in many generations due to shortages of petroleum, food, and power. This is not the time to be focusing on short-term profits that have unmitigated long-term costs. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? I see a hand in a blue t-shirt, fourth row back, fifth row.

Hello, my name is Jamie. I'm a Richland resident and I have some questions regarding the data center. Mr. Shane Van Dyke, your online profile mentions you enjoy spending time on the water. Would you support a moratorium so we can ensure the safety of Tri-City's beautiful rivers? How about a town hall where the plan for the data center's water is finally explained? Ms. Pat Holton, As a former teacher, have you researched the health impacts of infrasound on children? A moratorium would allow more time for long-term health impact studies to be conducted. Ms. Johanna Jones, I see you have a background in real estate. I assume you are also aware that home values on Thayer Avenue dropped an estimated 30% after BPA's monopole installation. A moratorium would allow time for BPA to provide a detailed map to Richland residents. that includes all the area's infrastructure will be added to power the industrial park as well as time for public comment on the aesthetics of this infrastructure. Are you in favor of ensuring Richland homes do not drop in value? Mayor Theresa Richardson, your time working with Habitat for Humanity leads me to believe you value affordability for families. Is there a link between the July 1st, 2026 wastewater utility rate increase and the data center coming to town? Will you advocate for Richland to keep the BPA transmission credits as a way of lowering our utility bills? I feel very uncomfortable owing a corporation that will already be extracting Richland's resources credits. Please ensure this isn't a gimmick to raise utility bills. Mr. Ryan Whitten, I appreciate you showing an interest in the possibility of a moratorium at the last council meeting. You did express you felt it would be mostly symbolic. Our hope is that having the extra time would allow for development of a more thorough permitting process, with many opportunities for the public to weigh in. Mr. Kurt Meyer, at the last meeting, you expressed reservations about hyperscale data centers. As you stated, they do little good for locals. We agree with that, and also that Richland needs many more protections from Atlas Argo. Mr. Todd Samuel, your online profile states both management experience as well as expertise in engineering and technology. Will you help to facilitate community dialogue with Planning Commission so we can be sure that our policies are in place to protect our resources? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak at this time? I see in the back row over here.

Megan Thompson, live in Richland, had not planned to speak. So real quick, we also have Coast Park that is not maintained. Thanks. Thank you. Front row.

I am Natalie Williams, and I am from Pasco now. I was a resident of Richland. I just wanted to say that last night, the city of Pasco Council passed a six-month moratorium. And I would like... I would like our council here to also consider doing that. And the reason they did it is not because there maybe isn't benefits for data centers, but that they could see that they needed to put guardrails in and maybe limit the size of the data center. There's wastewater problems right now in Pasco with the nitrates. And I heard at the West Richland City Council from data center advocates that the nitrates will double. So then you'll have to bring in an expert to mitigate that. So I just think that we need to study, like, what is the size of this new data center? Can we provide power? I know you're saying they're going to bring power in from somewhere else, but regardless of what they're doing, we need to protect our water supply. I don't want to have to bring water in to do my laundry or shower or drink. Once we ruin our water supply in our watershed, we will not be able to go back and so then we'll have another toxic cleanup. Thank you. Thank you.

Additional speakers at this time? Yes, in the front row.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Heather Sheldon. I am a resident of Richmond, Washington. I am once again here before you to request a minimum one-year moratorium against building data centers. I'd like to note a select few of you have been so kind and willing to speak with us. Your constituents, the people you serve, And you swore to serve upon taking office, and for that I am grateful. The silence and unwillingness to make public comment from the rest of you is suspicious and very telling. I understand the land sale to Agro Atlas has already been made. Essentially, you have agreed to sell our souls to the devil based on a promise and not in reality. I will once again remind you, Agro Atlas has been running for five years and has never built anything. I'm not sure why the council put their faith into a foreign business based on promises versus tangible successes, like an operating model of a carbon-free fertilizer plant, which ideally doesn't pollute our water with nitrates or other form of pollution, while touting being carbon-free, or an eco-friendly data center. These do not exist. AgroAtlas has promised these things and has never delivered. They truly have no incentive to protect our environment because they don't live here. But I digress. Despite selling us out to foreign investors, the least you can do is try your damnedest to protect us from the reckless decision that was made with dollar signs and a shiny new police station in mind. We strongly urge you to place a moratorium. Alongside this, you need to establish policies to protect us, our land, our health, and our water. While I do not have time to list the policies my highly educated colleagues have come up with, they include restricting the use of on-site combustion-based electricity generation, aka diesel generators, except by permit in the case of emergency, requiring data center applicants to demonstrate the projected energy demand is consistent with climate goals, and also requiring continuous water and environmental impact monitoring and ensuring financial assurances are in place and constantly updated to ensure the taxpayer, us, do not bear the burden of a decommissioned or remediated data center as well as establishing repercussions if demands are not met. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else at this time? Yes, I see your hand.

Hello, my name's Angel. I'm a Richland resident.

A little bit closer to the microphone. Thank you. My bad.

My name is Angel. I'm a Richland resident. During the last council meeting, I listened to more than 20 fellow community members speak on their growing concerns about the data centers. I was appalled by the responses, or lack of, by council. Most gave no acknowledgement to the topic even being brought up. I watched you ignore people specifically talking about this subject, but be attentive and active listeners for every other topic. I will say that I have noticed today that you have been much more attentive to people talking on this subject, but I have noticed that you have thanked multiple other people for their testimony on other topics, but almost looked down on those speaking on data centers. Of those who did acknowledge the matter, Shane, only concern was scolding community members for pointing out the lack of attention being pointed out by us from you guys. Ryan, you said that a one-year moratorium would be a symbolic gesture. So I ask of you, why not push for longer? Or in the bare minimum, give us the one year in the meantime to protect us while we figure out what to do to move forward. I thank Kurt for taking the time to properly address us with the truth, not only by making yourself available through the phone, but also speaking in the lobby to us. When getting into business with Atlas Agro, where was the concern for your citizens? Their health, their land, natural resources, their children's wealth? What protections can you guarantee us from the atrocities happening to the communities surrounding data centers all over the country as of right now? The information is online. It's a simple Google way. You can see all the horrible things happening to people all around these data centers of all sizes. And why do you think our fate isn't any different than those communities? Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, in the back row there.

Hi, my name is Kayla Madsen, and I am a resident of Richland. And I'll put my address down. I didn't prepare anything. It's quite short. I just wanted to say I went to the previous meeting that people have referenced where everyone talked about the data centers. And something that I noticed is when I can't remember his name, but he had that big slide, the presentation he was presenting, making his case essentially for the power that was the power plants and everything and I noticed that it seemed very disconnected like everyone's very concerned about the data centers I am too but almost like they're breaking it into these tiny little pieces and like making it super sweet and palatable and attractive to you guys and I think that I feel like people's concerns about the data centers are kind of being ignored. Like, oh, that's not what's being voted on or approved right now. And so we don't need to worry about it. Or it's fine. This is beneficial in these ways. And I think there's very valid reasons to be concerned at this point with these preliminary stages, with things that are being set up to support data centers in the future. So that's all I would ask you guys to consider. So thank you.

Thank you. I don't see any other hands at this time. Right in the back row. Hi.

My name is Michaela. I'm a Richland resident. Michaela Wilson. I wanted to come up here to speak today because I am an indigenous person. I have elders who are really worried about the data centers. And they say we're all doomed if we do something like this. And you guys can prevent that. You guys have the power to prevent that. So it's kind of in your hands. And we're all giving us your voices. That's all I got.

Yes, thank you for signing. In the back row.

Hello, Reagan Faler, North Richland resident. I think what we can do is we can set the record straight on all of this. Let's have a town hall meeting. Let's fill up the Richland High School auditorium. Let's have all of you attend. Let's have all the city staff attend. And let's have someone from Atlas Agro attend and tell us what's going on. Take questions from us. I think it would answer a lot of questions, maybe relax everybody or get them more worked up. But without doing it, we'll never know. So I would challenge you folks to make that happen. Thank you.

Thank you. I don't see any other hands at this time, so we're going to move on with the agenda. Yes, in the back.

Hi, Donna Davis. I'm a resident of Richland, and you all know where I stand probably. I'm against the data centers and how they are being pushed on us. I'm not going to say anything else because all of these people have done an awesome job. I agree with everything they say. I just want you guys to know, we're not giving up. We are not giving up. Our community, our children, they are worth too much. We're not giving up this fight. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to ask the clerk to read the consent calendar.

Items on the consent calendar have been distributed to the City Council in advance for reading and study, are considered to be routine, and will be enacted by one motion of the Council with no discussion. Council members may transfer individual items to the Items of Business for deliberation before voting. Under minutes, we have the approval of the July 7th, 2026 City Council regular meeting minutes. There are no ordinances for first reading. Ordinances for second reading and passage, ordinance number 2026-16, establishing chapter 11.60 of the Richland Municipal Code related to automated traffic safety cameras. Resolutions for Adoption. Resolution number 2026-95, authorizing separate reimbursement agreements for street, water, and sanitary sewer improvements constructed by Costco Wholesale Corporation. Resolution number 2026-96, authorizing applications to the Washington State Department of Commerce Public Works Board for the wastewater treatment plant anaerobic digester improvements and grit works rehabilitation projects. Resolution number 2026-98, authorizing a project review reimbursable agreement with the Washington State Department of Transportation for the Thayer and Lawless Access and Right-of-Way Revision Project. resolution number 2026-99, ratifying a grant application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Automated Permitting System Demonstration Program. Resolution number 2026-100, authorizing a grant application to the Washington State Department of Commerce for a permit review process update grant. And resolution number 2026-101, authorizing a grant application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Continuum of Care and Youth Demonstration Project. There are no items of approval. Under expenditures, we have expenditures from June 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2026 for $37,524,403.58. Thank you. Council members, is there any item that you would like to pull for further discussion?

Seeing none, may I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar?

Move to approve the consent calendar as read.

I second. Thank you. A roll call vote is required.

Mayor Richardson. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

Aye.

Council Member Holton. Aye. Council Member Jones. Yes. Council Member Meyer. Aye. Council Member Samuel. Aye. And Council Member Whitten. Aye.

Thank you, unanimous vote there. Next item takes us to items of business, resolution number 2026-102, amending exhibit A of the compensation plan for unaffiliated employees. 2024, continuing to implement the 2025 classification and compensation study. presented by our HR director, Paulson.

Thank you, Council. First of all, I want to start by saying that we understand and recognize that compensation is a very personal and sensitive topic. I'm going to appreciate the employees that did come forward and speak tonight. But I will give you a little bit of a background and overview. The last time that a comprehensive class and comp study was conducted was back in 2017 and 2018. Since that time, we have looked at our pay scales on an annual basis. We work with, I'm going to call him out, our triple crown winner over there, Mr. Allen, our finance director. And every year, we look at cost of living, CPI, how much minimum wage is increasing, all of those various things and take that into account. Typically every November we're coming before council for approval for changes to our wage scales for unaffiliated staff every year. So even though we haven't done a full class and comp study, we do look at those on an annual basis. So last fall, we did an RFP for soliciting services for a class and compensation study. We had seven vendors respond, and we selected Arthur Gallagher Company. We refer to them as Gallagher. They're a nationwide, very large company that has over 40 years of experience doing class and comp studies in the public sector. The goal of our project was to benchmark City of Richland positions against similar roles at both public and private employers. We want to ensure that our pay ranges reflect both internal equity and external market competitiveness, and that it supports the city to attract and retain qualified staff who deliver those services to our community. And then moving forward, equip staff with the tools and training to maintain that system over time. What this project was not, it was not a staffing reduction or reorganization. No positions were eliminated as a part of this study. Not a replacement for collective bargaining. So all of our unionized workforce that have contracts, those are all separate and weren't taken into account as part of this process. It's not an automatic pay change for everybody. Any adjustments depend on market data, internal equity, budget availability, and of course, council and leadership approval. Not a day-to-day replacement or change to duties and reporting relationships. And it's also not a performance evaluation. So for our unaffiliated staff, we have a year-end, we call it a pay-for-performance or a performance assessment system, PAS, process that employees would receive increases based on performance. So our pay-for-performance program is completely separate from this. This is just evaluating our compensation structure. So employees are still eligible for that pay-for-performance increase at the end of the year as a separate process. The methodology that Gallagher uses is do no harm. So no employees will be harmed as part of the study. Nobody is taking a pay decrease. There's no decrease in ranges. Last time if positions were found to be over market, when we did this study last time in 2017 and 2018, any positions that were over market, they were actually lowered in pay grades. So this time we're not lowering pay grades for any positions or red circling anybody that's found to be above market. Pay philosophy. Every organization has different pay philosophies and here in Richland our goal is to pay the market average. Some companies may pay lower wages but have better benefit packages that maybe make up for lower wages or you know some companies have the philosophy that we want to be the top of market and pay above market average for all of our positions. But we just want to pay a market average that's the same philosophy that we use with our collective bargained groups to be competitive but also conscious of taxpayer dollars. Thank you. So this slide is going to show this is taking our actual pay data before the class and comp study was done. So what it does is take actual pay and compare that to market. And what it found was that we were 1% above the medium. So basically, a majority of our positions fell within market. We were keeping up with the market even though we hadn't done that class and comp study since 2017. There were 10 positions that were over market, 88 that were at market, and five that fell below market. So I'll go into a little bit more detail in that on the next slide. So how they do the survey, so they take our actual pay data. And what they did as part of the study was they put out custom surveys. So a custom survey is a custom survey that we sent out to 25 peer organizations within the area. It could be other municipalities, both public and private sector employers that we compete with for jobs. And of that, 40% responded. And I'll name off. We had Benton County, Benton PUD, cities of Kennewick, Pasco, Lacey, Puyallup, Yakima, Franklin County, Franklin PUD, and PNNL all responded. So Gallagher took the respondents from those custom surveys, and then they also look at published surveys. So those are going to be national surveys put together by CompData, BenchmarkPro, Economic Research Institute, and the Mercer Salary Survey Suite. And so in order to benchmark a position, they have to find either one of those ten peer organizations that responded or one of those national surveys. They take a position and have to match it to at least five positions to get a match. And so of that, At the time that we did this we had 131 unique unaffiliated job titles and 288 employees within those classifications. And so our goal was to benchmark at least 105 of those positions and we had a 98% success rate in that. 103 of the 105 positions we were able to benchmark. And then of those, the ones that did not get benchmarked, we have several positions that may have a level one, two, and three. And so in those classifications, we would take the level two, benchmark that, and then anchor the three and the one off of those positions. And so of those, we had at least five job matches from either the custom survey or the benchmark survey for those positions. So the outcome of that, we are renumbering our structure. So before we had a non-sequential numbering system, our pay scale would jump from a 6 to a 9 to a 14, all the way up into the 30s. And so we are recommending moving to a sequential numbering system. And we actually increased one pay grade. So instead of 22 pay grades, we'll have 23 pay grades going forward. The range spread, which is the difference between the minimum and the maximum, best practice is that that goes higher as the pay scale, as you get higher in the pay grade. And that's because as people progress down the pay range, they may be in a management role or a supervisory role, and they're likely to be in those positions longer and have less movement to move up in those pay ranges. So there's a bigger spread as you get higher up within that pay grade. And then midpoint progression, which is the difference between each number pay range of the minimum or sorry the midpoint that is also consistent but also gets higher and that spread between midpoint as you get higher up in the positions again knowing that you know that's going to value promotions you want to make sure there's a big spread but a bigger spread between supervisors and managers and those that they're reporting to. We also anchored the minimum, so pay grade one. The midpoint of that is now anchored off of living wage. So annually, MIT puts out a study that takes into account what a household would need to make to have that living wage. So in Richland, with both two adults, working full-time in the household, so that's 2,080 hours a year, with one child, the living wage is $23.72 an hour. So our pay ranges are now anchored off of that living wage for what that household would need to make to not be in poverty, but to be able to support a family, you know, living expenses such as rent, utilities, groceries, and those things. And so step one is anchored off of the living wage. So then once we apply this across the pay ranges, after this has been done, it moves us up to 6% above the median. And I do want to point out that this data is aged to the future. So what that means is instead of coming to you again in December and again in December of 2027, This pay scale is meant to move with us for a couple of years, so it's aged forward by that 6% to, so it's a little bit above market now, but that's going to live without pay grades for the next two years, so we're not going to be coming back to you to adjust it during that period of time. They call that data aging, and it's trended forward using data of what they're expecting public sector employers to use as increases over the next couple of years. So with that, where we would sit today with Exhibit A that was in the packet for you, we would now have 15 positions above market and 73 at market and none that are falling below market. This is the new structure and I know it's really small but it was also, if you look in the agenda packet, there's Exhibit A which actually has each of our unaffiliated positions and the associated pay grade and range with those positions. There were 33 positions that increased in pay grade and so those are all listed here. I'll let you guys look at that real quickly but I will also say as part of this we did an FLSA audit to make sure that we have exempts which are salaried positions and then hourly positions And so we want to make sure that those exempt positions are still meeting that threshold to be exempt. There's some duties tests that have to be satisfied, as well as some salary thresholds that have to be met to qualify for that exemption from overtime. So as of now, all of our positions that are exempt are found to be appropriately classified, but they also haven't published that salary threshold for 2027 yet. So we'll know closer to the end of the year if we will need to make any adjustments just based on those salary thresholds. Outcome, and I do want to say, just to point out on this, tonight council is only approving the wage scales and not individual employee placement within those scales. But pending council approval of our new compensation structure, what we are looking at is a one-time implementation adjustment for placement of those employees in the new wages. So with that, anybody that's falling below the minimum of their new pay grade would be brought up to the minimum. And then there would be a time and position adjustment of 1% per year for every year that an employee has been in that range. So as of now, we have 55 employees that would receive a adjustment to the minimum. then 72 employees that would receive that one-time compression or time and service adjustment for each year of service that they have been with the city. So a total of 92 people that would be receiving increases and that was budgeted for as part of the 2026 budget process. Just a couple other things to iterate here. What we've done so far is per the RMC, we have a three-week comment period that ends today. So employees were encouraged to bring feedback forward to staff or comments for us to review with the city manager and the project team. So that window is ending tonight. We also had our public hearing where people could speak on it and bring testimony forward earlier in the meeting. So from here, we would ask for council approval and then move forward with implementation of the first pay period in August, which would be August 10th. One other thing I did want to bring up is just to share a little bit of the feedback that we did receive from employees. I know we heard from some employees tonight that you know our pay ranges have increased quite significantly and so if somebody was at midpoint in the old pay range they're likely not going to be at midpoint in their new pay grade just because the scale shifted so much. We did work with the consultant and look at various options for implementation And they call that a range penetration is where you're at within your pay range. And if we were to model exactly where employees are at now in the new pay grades, it was over $3 million to implement. And we don't have that kind of money budgeted for those types of increases. And so that's where we came up with the 1% for every year of service that an employee has been in their position. We have also received some requests for maybe some one-offs like I've been here for 30 years and have a lot of experience that I'm bringing so I would like to be put at a different spot in the range but you know we're trying to be consistent and equally apply the recommendations across the board for all staff members and not you know look at any one-offs just so that it's fair and equitable to all employees. I also do want to point out that, you know, when we look at, you know, our comparison to Kennewick and Pasco, you know, we are looking at more than just Kennewick and Pasco. We had to have five matches for at least all those positions. But, you know, in comparing, you know, from a total compensation standpoint, we have very excellent health insurance. You know, employees can insure a family for $275 a month for a very rich healthcare plan. You know, you look at other, you know, market, competitors, you know, such as PNNL, for example, to ensure a family out there it's $300 more a month. So they may be able to pay, you know, more in wages, but we also have to look at, you know, how rich our benefits are. PTO, you know, our employees, PTO has cash value. When an employee separates service, they're able to cash out their PTO. A new employee at Richland accrues five weeks of PTO in a year. They can accrue up to 800 hours that's cashable at termination, so that's a significant cash value to them outside of wages that I think we need to take into consideration. Somebody with 20 years of experience here accrues eight years of PTO in a year. And then we also have an additional extended sick leave bank. So if somebody needed to be off work for an extended period of time to care for a family member, that's actually a separate bank. It's not cashable at termination, but you could accrue up to 800 hours. So, you know, we do have some various or very rich benefits. We also have a pension plan, deferred compensation, and retirement health savings plan. that the city pays into. So if you look from a total compensation value just outside of base wages, employees are likely getting an additional $30,000 to $50,000 a year from the city just in those benefits alone. So I just thought it was important to bring that forward to council so we can look at it from a holistic standpoint as well. Staff does recommend adoption of Resolution 2026-102, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for a very good presentation. Council, comments? I see Councilmember Meyer.

Thank you. Appreciate the presentation. I've been on both sides of decisions and planning like this over the course of my career. I wanted to ask a little bit about range penetration specifically. have both been somebody whose range penetration dropped as a result of a reorganization in an organization, and I've also been the person who had to tell somebody that, you know, your pay isn't changing, but your range penetration is. One of the things on both sides of the table that I sort of, I don't know, I'm not a professional human resources operator for sure, but A lower range penetration is... it means that there's more overhead for increases, right? Because that should be the goal, ideally, is that when your range penetration drops, it means that, and drops to a degree where it's incommensurate with what you think it should be based on your experience and skills. That's a management opportunity to work toward that. equalizing that over time, right? What I'm getting at here and the question I want to ask is I understand that we are budget constrained and we are stewards of tax money and so that dictates a lot of the decisions that we make about these things. But is it something Is this sort of where everybody landed where they're gonna stay or is this something that can be revisited over future years if we need to, right? I'm wondering if the policy as it sits puts us in a box or if we have the room to grow going forward.

Yeah, so at the end of the year, employees still get to participate in the PIS system, the pay for performance. And so as long as they were employed by July 1st of this year, they're eligible to participate. And so we have a separate pool of money that is used for those increases. Every year, people will have the opportunity to move up in the range based on that and the budget that's available. And we could talk with John and the finance team about if there's options for looking at different things. One thing we've talked about, too, is maybe looking as a strategic goal for next year is revamping our pay for performance program. So maybe there's some more clearer metrics for various levels of performance and tying performance measures to those.

Yeah, that's one of those areas where I think there's always room to look a harder look.

And I will say, too, that we had quite a few employees that might have been at the top of their pay range, and so they're maxed out of their pay range. And so if the range only moved by 1.75 at the end of the year, if there was 4% in the pool for raises, they were only eligible to get, you know, like 1.75 because they were topped out. So this is going to, you know, provide more room for growth even though, you know, employees like to be at the top of the pay scale. This will also give them more, you know, room to get back to the top and have more opportunities for advancement without being topped out.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Jones. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. Glad that we have professionals like you to be able to break it down for us and bring it to the street level. So obviously, there were a couple of individuals that came and spoke about this. And I don't know if we have really addressed that question directly to them in regards to, is that going to affect my pay? Am I going to now earn less than what I did last year because of this new matrix that we implemented? and how that is going to affect me. Do I need to move to a different organization because now you're pushing my salary below to what I earned the previous year? And I think it's an important question to ask when it comes to employees because we don't want to lose them, losing that institutional knowledge for people that have been here for 20 years, 10 years, even five years. It's too valuable for us to lose. And so I want to make sure that we don't lose that. I know the cost of losing institutional knowledge firsthand. is very detrimental to the organization and I will hate for that to happen to us as a city.

Yep so we have sent out communications one thing that I skipped over is we did hold employee informational sessions so over the past three or three years I was going to say three weeks we've held at least four employee sessions and had time at the end for questions and answers and have tried to share the message that of do no harm nobody is receiving a pay decrease and If you're below the minimum, you're going to be brought to the top of the range or top of the minimum of the new range. And so we really have tried to share that message. And we've also sent emails to staff that they're not receiving a pay cut. But I think that just the range penetration of where somebody was at is very personal and means a lot to people. So I understand that.

Thank you. I have a couple questions as well. There was a comment that the average employee is three and a half years. And I was reading that's common for a variety of sectors, three and a half years. And then on the other hand, I see a lot of retirements after 30 plus years. What is your sense?

So the statistics, it was 3.7 years in the position. So we've had a lot of people that have promoted recently. So that was time in position and not necessarily time with the city. But you're correct. I remember a council meeting that we had back in November where we had 120 years of service and one retirement recognition for three long tenured employees that were leaving the fire service. And so we have had a lot of longer tenure employees leave over the last couple of years that have had 30 to 40 years of service that we're seeing leave. And so when you hire somebody new, that's going to really drop that range. But yeah, I think it's common. I think a lot of employers are seeing more turnover. And it's also a generational thing. The younger generation isn't staying at jobs. It's not common for them to stay at a job for 10 years or 20 years. You're lucky if you get two or three years before they're moving on to the next employer to get more money. So that's common everywhere, not just here.

Yeah, I was thinking that as well. My other question for you, and I think you covered this, but I just wanted to emphasize it. What is the effect on our budget if we approve this?

If we approve the 1% and the moving people up to the new minimum, it was a little less than $400,000.

And is that already included in our budget? It is, yes. So not a change that way? No. OK. All right. I don't see any other comments from council members. Do I have a motion and a second? So moved.

Second.

Thank you. A consent vote is acceptable for this. So all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any opposed? Hearing none, voting passes unanimously. That brings us to Resolution Number 2026-104, Adopting the City of Richland Parks Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan, presented by Director Waite.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you. It is a very exciting night for us in the Parks and Recreation Department. Tonight we're bringing you our Parks, Recreation, and Open Space plan for consideration. It's a big achievement for us. It's been a lot of planning. And we've got our presentation divided into two portions. We have joining online with us some of our consultants from MIG who will be giving you kind of a history about the process and a summary of the chapters in the plan. And then I'll be providing my summary from a director's perspective at the end of that. So I just wanted to verify, we should have Cindy Mendoza and Lauren Scott joining us. Lauren, I can see you on my screen. So let me see.

Yeah.

OK. I feel like I should do some stand-up while we're working through technology issues. I guess I'll provide some summary while we're getting our PowerPoint and our screen sharing set up. This is a little bit over a year-long process that we went through. We started last spring. We did a competitive request for proposals. from the community or requests for qualifications from consultants to help us with this and we selected mig it was a very robust process involved multiple steps of community engagement and i think we're up and running so i'm going to stop improvising and let our consultants do their part thanks chris and is my audio coming through okay yes it is it is yes great Thank you.

So good evening, Mayor and city councilors, and thank you for the opportunity to present this City of Richland Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan. Like Chris said, my name is Lauren Scott, and I am a Parks and Recreation Planner and Project Manager at MIG, which is a planning and design firm. I've been working with my colleague John Theanis on this plan update, who unfortunately couldn't be here tonight, but I'm joined tonight by Cindy Mendoza, Director of Parks and Recreation at MIG. And tonight I'll provide a brief overview of the draft plan, highlight some major findings and recommendations, and then pass back to Chris, and we're happy to answer any questions you may have as well. So at its core, this plan provides a long-range roadmap for Richland's parks and recreation system over the next six years. It examines the existing system, it identifies community needs and priorities, establishes goals, recommends improvements, prioritizes future investments, and provides an implementation framework. Importantly, this is a policy and planning document, not a commitment to build every project we've identified immediately. It's providing the city with a flexible roadmap for making informed decisions as funding opportunities and community needs rise and evolve. And so the plan is organized into six chapters. There's the introduction, which covers the plan purpose, process, and context. Existing conditions and the system inventory are described in Chapter 2. We have service levels, park access, and a facility condition assessment included in Chapter 3. Chapter four describes key findings from engagement and analysis work. And then chapter five is the plan framework. It identifies the vision, the goals, and the system recommendations that really ground the plan. And then chapter six focuses on action and implementation. It identifies priority projects and planning level costs for those projects, describes prioritization criteria, as well as an implementation strategy. And more detailed technical information supplements the plan and is provided in four different appendices. And so this PROS plan update was developed over approximately 14 months and reflects extensive city staff collaboration, four meetings with the Parks and Recreation Commission, several briefings with the city council, and then meetings with community organizations and focus groups, as well as other input from residents. And we have technical analysis that complements that input, which notably included a review of the existing system, as well as a comprehensive needs assessment. And importantly, this plan also fulfills Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office requirements, and that helps Richland remain eligible for many important statewide grant opportunities, which the city has historically been very successful at obtaining. So just getting into a brief overview of the chapters, system summary and chapter two, I think one of the strongest takeaways from this process and the work is that Richland really has an exceptional partner. The city maintains more than 2,800 acres across 64 sites, ranging from varying recreation facilities, playgrounds, trails, natural open spaces, waterfront parks, and also provides a wide variety of recreation programs and events.

And as was noted in OOP,

advance too quickly as was noted in the first presentation earlier tonight Richland Richland system serves a much larger population than just city residents due to its unique offerings there's Howard Amon Park Leslie Groves Badger Mountain the riverfront athletic complexes that have a huge draw for tournaments that attract visitors from across the Tri-Cities region and beyond And, of course, as you know, this regional role creates tremendous value for the community, but it also does increase demand on facilities, infrastructure, maintenance, and staffing, and making long-term planning and reinvestment especially important. So touching briefly on Chapter 3, focusing on park access, which you'll see some snapshots of the maps that we created for the plan here. Overall, Richland residents benefit from an extensive network that serves much of the city and does provide close to home recreation access. However, the geographic walk shed analysis also found that access is not necessarily evenly distributed and that while many residents do live within walking distance of a park, some areas of the city have fewer nearby recreation opportunities or fewer connections to the broader park and trail system. And so this assessment also highlights the importance of the city's trail and pathway network, which helps connect those neighborhoods to parks, schools, natural areas, and other community destinations. Chapter four summarizes what we heard from the community. The engagement process included online community surveys, stakeholder interviews and focus groups with a variety of interest groups and people who have invested in Richland's parks and recreation system, friends of groups, sports groups. There were different outreach events. And then of course the meetings with the parks and recreation commission and city council to hear more about the system and provide guidance at key steps. One of the strongest themes out of this process was definitely an appreciation for what Richland has. Residents consistently recognize the value that parks bring to the community, but at the same time, they identified several priorities for the future. This included adding additional comfort amenities at parks, shade, seating, and restrooms, making parks more welcoming and inviting, improved safety and cleanliness, expanded programming and events, definitely stronger communication about recreation opportunities and what parks can offer increased pedestrian and bike connectivity to parks increased natural area stewardship and then additional recreation amenities like more aquatics facilities sports fields or more unique play features and so overall the engagement results really reinforce the need to continue investing in existing parks while strategically addressing those Chapter 5 describes the goals, policies, and recommendations. The plan organizes recommendations around four broad goals that are focused on protecting and enhancing natural resources in the park system, providing diverse and accessible parks and recreation opportunities, strengthening recreation programming and community connection, and then sustaining high-quality maintenance and long-term stewardship. These goals are supported by system-wide recommendations that emphasize creating sustainable systems and services, improving connectivity and parks between neighborhoods from ridges to rivers, making high-quality reinvestments in what the city already has, and then continuing to build on what makes rich. The final chapter of the plan translates those recommendations into actions. And the plan identifies 38 capital improvement projects along with prioritization criteria, planning level cost estimates, some funding strategies, as well as guidance around implementation. And the plan focuses that list of 38 capital improvement projects even further by identifying 10 priority projects that are intended to be accomplished over the next two years. And a key theme throughout is reinvestment. Many of the priority projects focus on facility renovations and other improvements that extend the life and quality of what's already there. As with any long-range capital plan, implementation will depend on available funding over time. Rather than relying on a single funding source, the department has historically used a variety of funding sources for capital projects, and the plan continues that. These include the general fund, lodging tax revenues, parks reserve fund, real estate excise taxes, and grants, which the city has had past success with, and other partnerships with organizations that are invested in Richland and its park system. Following adoption, this plan will guide future capital improvements, maintenance priorities. It will help grant applications and budgeting systems, all while remaining flexible enough to adapt as community priorities and funding opportunities may change. And ultimately, Richland has built something truly special, and this plan is about preserving the high-quality park system that residents value today while making thoughtful investments that ensure future generations enjoy that theme. The draft plan was available for public comment. The Parks and Recreation Commission also held a workshop to review the draft and provide their feedback. And then the commission ultimately recommended the plan for adoption at their July 9th meeting. The draft was also submitted to the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office for review to ensure that it meets those state requirements and maintains the city's eligibility for future grant funding. Feedback received throughout this process has been incorporated into the final draft before you tonight. And I'll just take the opportunity to, again, thank you so much for your time tonight. And I will pass it back to Chris to continue with some additional remarks.

Thank you, Lauren. We would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge all of the hard work that went into this plan. So I just wanted to briefly mention some of the people who are responsible for all of that great work. First, it was a very big lift for our team. So I want to acknowledge our team of Parks and Recreation staff and public facility staff. They spent a lot of time. We had a lot of meetings. We listened to a lot of community members. So they put a lot of investment into that. Secondly, our Parks and Recreation Commission had very, large engagement a lot of investment in this plan and spent a lot of time also listening and analyzing the work that was done through this we appreciate our city leadership many department heads gave feedback throughout this process and so we felt significantly supported and then you city council for being a part of the process throughout the planning as well the last one not the last but probably the largest is our community They really showed up, and they showed up strong. We had over 2,000 survey responses. We had incredible engagement at places like Farmer's Market and Pop-Up Play Days. We had great participation at our stakeholder engagement meetings. And so we really did receive incredible feedback, which is really the foundation of a good plan, is hearing from our community and what they prioritize. And then we wanted to mention that MIG supported us through this process and did an excellent job. And Lauren, we can go on and go to the next slide. I just wanted to pause here and switch gears a little bit. Sometimes in Parks and Recreation, we're accused of being a little bit unserious. We're the fun people. And so I just wanted to offer, as preface in the lens that I'm looking at this plan from in the next comments, what I'm viewing those from. So a little bit about me and my professional perspective. I've been working in the field for over 20 years. I have worked in four different states, three different municipal park systems and one special district. I've served on a number of state and national committees and in leadership positions. So I've had the fortune throughout my career to interact with people around the nation in Parks and Recreation. It's just been a gift for me. And so I was really attracted to Richland and our wonderful park system when I saw this position open. And so I've been with the city for two years for those council members who are a little bit newer. to their positions. I also have an executive level certification. I'm one of only 15 people in the state who have that. So when I bring these comments to you that are coming up, they come from a deep love of the field and a love of our park system and Parks and Rec in general. Lauren, we can go ahead and move on to the next slide. So one thing I just wanted to tell you is I hope that our community doesn't take for granted, but we have an incredibly unique park system. To see the variety of amenities and the diversity of amenities is very, very uncommon, especially for a community our size. We have amenities that would be more common in state or county parks, things like archery and equestrian facilities. We have BMX facilities. And many, many of our facilities are very, very high quality So I just wanted to pause and make sure that you're aware we have a phenomenal park system, incredible breadth and diversity in what we offer to our community, and it really is a gift that we've had continual investment over the generations in the past to bring us the system that we have today. We can go ahead and move on to the next slide. I also wanted to just touch on this item because it helps give context to the balance that we're trying to create. In our field, we look at national standards and we have an exceptionally high number of park acres per resident. If you look at the top bullet there, If we include our natural open space, which would be parks that aren't developed, it's more natural native plants and vegetation, we have 44 acres per 1,000 resident. If you exclude that, we have 23.4 acres per 1,000 resident. The top quartile of the nation is 16 acres per 1,000 residents. So even if you exclude the natural open space, we are 45% above that. the national average for park acreage for the highest quartile. Having said that, Lauren showed you a slide earlier about equity and access, which is something that was very important to us. We've, as an industry, been moving away from this basic benchmark. to better understand our parks and places that people can reach them. But I did just need to impress upon you that we have a very, very large park system. And with that comes an obligation to make sure that we have the resources to maintain that. And so we are an aberration in terms of park acreage per resident, which is a gift and a benefit to our community, but also comes with great responsibility. We can go and move on to the next slide, please. I'll just reiterate a few of the themes. This is what we really heard from our community. They really value maintaining the assets that we have. That came very loud and clear through our engagement with the community. They feel like it's a very big important priority for us to continue to invest in the existing parks that we have to make sure our trails are updated, that we're keeping our surfaces safe and usable. So that was one of the larger themes that we heard from in the community and which we tried to prioritize in our recommendations for capital investment. Additionally, our community values the recreational opportunities that we offer, and they would like us to continue to provide more of those high-quality opportunities. And then the last thing that we kind of really heard and wanted to summarize is we are a growing community. We do have needs to add additional parkland to our system, but we really need to balance that need for new growth with preserving what we have, and that's really what came out in this public engagement process from our community We need to be able to do both. We can't continue to grow in absence of reinvestment in what we already have. So just a concluding thought on there, as rich and grows, organizational capacity must grow alongside that to sustain our level of service. So if we continue to add assets but not organizational capacity, at some point we'll be juggling that question of, are we able to maintain the level of service that we expect with the resources that we have as we grow our system? And we can go ahead and go on to the last slide. So this is just, I think, a good summary of our system here. We have really built something unique and special for our community. We have a responsibility to continue to preserve what we have. I'll just read it. It's easier than me summarizing. Our responsibility is to preserve what our community values today while making thoughtful investments that ensure future generations experience the same high level of service. And with that, we are all happy to answer any questions or any comments you have.

Very nice presentation, Director Waite. Thank you. First up is Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

Chris, thank you. Just a maybe humble observation. For me, one of the leading indicators of the fiscal management of a city is their parks and the grass in the parks. You go and look at different cities and how well those parks are maintained. Often parks are the first thing that gets cut when there's a lack of fiscal responsibility. We have great parks, and I thank the city staff for putting us in a position fiscally that we can do that. And as we've talked before, even regionally you can see that. And we have green grass in our parks. We've replaced park equipment. We have a wonderful diverse system. You know, we can always do more, but I love this idea. Let's prioritize and make sure we take care of what we have and responsibly look in the future. I also just want to give another shout out. Recently there was a citizen that had a concern about a park. And you responded almost immediately to them, followed up, offered for a personal communication, and then a few weeks later, not only did you follow up that time, you followed up again saying, this is when it's going to get done. I know there were some concerns expressed about parks. I have full confidence that those are going to be followed up on. And I just want to say thank you for your leadership on that, and thank you for the city to continue to prioritize it. And I think that's something that will continue to come up in the strategic planning that we're doing later this week, I believe, is continuing to have not just public safety, but our parks prioritized. So thanks for what you do, and thanks for helping us make these parks in the city great. Thank you.

Well said. Thank you. Council Member Jones.

Yeah, thank you very much for the presentation. Glad that you're here and that you're excited about the number of parks that we do have and they do require quite a bit of maintenance. So curious about maybe We have to think outside the box. We have a lot of land to care for, a lot of tax money that needs to go into those facilities. Sometimes we just don't have the money to do it. Even though we want to be able to fix everything, at the end of the day, there is so much that we have that we can do as a city. And so the question is, do we have maybe or can we start looking at other partnerships with communities, adopt a park, sponsorships, youth groups that a lot of the times are looking for projects that can help us. So kind of like what we're doing with Friends of Badger, but for the park system. So then we can, with the community, work together to really solve a problem that is a great benefit to the community that sometimes, even though we want to do the very best, we don't have all the resources, all the people that we need to maintain. And so I want to put that to you. Is it possible that we can do that one? And then the second is, We have somebody, two people that came today and say, hey, we do have an issue with these two parks. I know we did a lot of work on the technology side. One of the questions that I did ask was, do we have an app? And technology is very important for us to be able to allow residents Sometimes maybe we have an elderly person that cannot really necessarily see. I'm almost blind sometimes and reading the computer can be very difficult for a lot of people can be the same, right? Or making that phone call, whatever that may be. But we may have the ability to submit something very fast through an app that makes it very easy for anybody of any age to have the ability to make this, you know, the screen or the font bigger and to allow those individuals to submit that information to us without having to complete a two-page form to make it easy and let us know how can we we want to be everywhere but we cannot realistically it's impossible we don't have the stuff to manage each and every single one of those parks so how can we help them help us by bringing technology to allow for that to be the case and maybe this is one of those things that we can do to help our community help us and maybe you can answer those questions.

Sure, I'm happy to start with the partnership question. That is one of the larger recommendations that came out of the plan, was acknowledging that we, one, we have a very compassionate and engaged community, and so we do, like you mentioned, have some existing partnerships with Friendship Badger Mountain. We have more casual partnerships with other entities, but there's an opportunity to strengthen those and see where our missions align, and then leverage that opportunity to work with those organizations or groups to do a better job of maintaining, especially, I would say, our natural open space. We have a very great high level of service for our developed parks, mowing the grass and those types of things, but we do have a significant amount of natural open space, and that takes a different type of management, which also can better accommodate volunteers there. We're certainly exploring that as we move forward. For the second one, probably worth a follow-up with more information later. This isn't specific to Parks and Recreation, but the city is exploring additional options for people to better engage with the city and provide comments about if there's a pothole or a garbage can that's overflowing in a park. So we are looking at that. I will say there are some existing tools. The city does on its website have an opportunity where you can go in and report a concern. and select which department you'd like to report that to. And then we are always, not always available, because we're out here 24 hours a day, but our community center has later evening hours, and that's a great place for people to specifically call about parks and recreation concerns, because those get fielded into work orders for our team. So we just, we would encourage anyone, if they have a concern, to reach out to us, and we're happy to try and address those.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, may I have a motion and a second?

I so move, being the liaison to Parks and Rec, that we adopt resolution number 2026-104, adopting the City of Richland Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Comprehensive Plan.

Second.

And a consent vote is acceptable. So all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you. Good presentation. We enjoyed it. At this point, I'd like to have a period of reports and comments. So let's start off with our city manager, Amundsen.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. First off, I appreciate everyone in their comments tonight. I did prepare a statement, hopefully to address some of the questions or concerns that have continued to arise in regards to the data center. I'm going to go ahead and read it so I make sure I don't miss anything here. City Council and staff hear your concerns regarding electricity demand, water use, noise, heat generation, utility rates, and the broader impact that large data centers may have on our community. These are legitimate questions, ones that we are all working towards addressing. Let me provide some context for where the City is regarding any specific data center proposal. The council has authorized an option agreement for approximately 273 acres in the Northwest Advanced Clean Energy Park. This has been alluded to earlier today and mentioned. This option identifies the anticipated use for data center facilities, but it is not a land sale, construction permit, or final project approval. It simply allows Atlas Agro a limited period to evaluate the property and decide whether to pursue a purchase. Any purchase would require a separate purchase and sale agreement, which would need to be brought forward and approved by the City Council. Because an option agreement is in effect, imposing a moratorium is not possible. That does not mean the City intends to proceed without safeguards. Quite the opposite. The City Council has directed staff that any future purchase and sale agreement will contain clear, binding, and enforceable conditions addressing the previously mentioned topics. Several of the same topics that you have brought up tonight. The property is already subject to federal deed covenants, restrictions, easements, and environmental conditions that run with the land and would remain binding on any future purchaser. The underlying deed expressly makes the property subject to recorded conditions, covenants, restrictions, and other encumbrances. We intend to build upon those protections, not rely on them as the final word. We are actively working on these issues, and we agree with the central message from those concerned. A project of this scale should not move forward without clear standards and protections for the people who live and do business here. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comment from the manager?

Yes, I do. Our city clerk's office has asked me to just promote the fact that twice a year we have an active recruitment for members of the public to volunteer by submitting applications for our boards, commissions, and committees. We have upcoming openings including Americans with Disabilities Citizens Review Committee Economic Development Committee, Library Board, Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, Parks and Recreation Commission, Personnel Committee, Utility Advisory Commission, and Planning Commission. Also, on July 28th, we have a workshop. Let me find my papers here. We have a workshop. The items will include a hydro and industry update from Energy Services and Northwest River Partners, a discussion from Mike Rizzitello, Development Services Director on Multifamily Housing Tax Exemption. And I am the newfound expert on Kratom. I will be providing a background federal and state regulation and local policy options. So we will have that discussion. Last thing is I really wanted to commend staff for a lot of the excellent work that's occurring right now. Chris mentioned everyone in his department except himself and the time and dedication that he's put forward to this PROS plan and so I really appreciate the time and attention to detail in particular that Chris has put forward on the PROS plan. Also, we've had a dedicated team, and I won't be able to name all of them, and I don't want to leave anyone out, but all the hard work from police to attorney's office to everyone on the work at Poland Street, it really is, while some might see it as taking us forever to address the issue, from the time of the fire now to actively abating the property has actually been a very fast turnaround, given the court system and everything that we've had to go through. So really want to give them a special appreciation and shout out on that. That is all, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm going to go through the council at this time, starting with Council Member Samuel, or Council Member Todd. Whichever you go by.

Council Member Samuel's fine. Madam Mayor and City Council, I just wanted to report. I was honored and delighted this past week to have the opportunity to stand in for the mayor as her delegate at the ribbon cutting and official proclamation ceremony in recognition of Tri-Cities Cider House. their new ownership and their continued investment in our community. That was a well-attended event. I really enjoyed doing those, so thank you so much for delegating to me. And finally, I wanted to thank citizens who generously volunteer their time and their efforts to city boards and commissions. I attended several city boards and commission meetings. I'm not going to report on them this time. But I'm just impressed by our citizens' engagement, how much they care about the city, how much they really want the city to be someplace special. They want it to keep being someplace special. And so I just really want to say thank you to citizens who really care about our city's future. And month in and month out, they really demonstrate significant dedication of time and effort. And, you know, many times their work can be hard, it's tedious gathering and analyzing data that we use on City Council to make good decisions. And so I really want to thank you for your service to the City of Richland.

Thank you. Councilmember Holton.

I attended the Association of Washington Cities conference in Spokane and learned lots from security cameras and the issues there to struggles of other cities across the state from large places like Mercer Island down to Dayton, Washington, and to see what their issues are. Very interesting. Also, I'm disappointed the people that spoke about Lawless Park have left. That has always been near and dear to my heart, as Tim Lawless was my sixth grade student, and his father, Judge Lawless, who is highly respected in the community, was killed a few years after that. And the feeling was always that Park would have been named after him a lot sooner, except that his name was Lawless. And people didn't really know what to do with that. But we do now have a Lawless Park. I'm always very interested in seeing that that's a good park and recognized and honored for Judge Lawless, a very fine citizen of this community. Also recently visited Greece and Barcelona, Spain. One of the priorities of Parks and Rec is Excuse me shade structures and So I've got lots of pictures Greece has a lot of Sun and heat and no shade and so what they have done to provide shade I've got lots of pictures of and also trees in Barcelona to bring some of those ideas to Richland.

I'm excited about that Thank You councilmember Jones

Yeah, thank you. I want to say to everybody, we really appreciate you coming out and giving us all the feedback. I think that is very important for us to hear. You have invested a lot of time by coming over here, raising awareness of what you consider to be an issue. I'm not an expert at data centers, but I appreciate people coming to us and bringing those issues so then we can rely on professionals to help us make decisions. I'm not a lawyer, so I cannot tell my attorney what to do. lead us in a way. Same thing for the city manager. We do want you to participate. We want you to be part of the solution. And how you can do that, just like the city manager mentioned, we have commissions and committees that people like you can volunteer and help us make decisions. The way that you can help us steer in the right direction is by volunteering in these organizations. Help us. We are volunteers in here. A lot of us work full time and come here and work at night as well. But we need you. We need your support. We need your ideas. We need your feedback. Because we rely heavily on these commissions to tell us the best way to go about doing things, whether it's planning and so on, and parks. Doesn't matter. Economic development. All these committees get to see all of this information before it even gets to the city council. So you can be an intricate part of that decision by participating and volunteering. So I ask you please volunteer and help us make this city a better place for all of us.

Thank you. Council Member Whitten.

Yeah, I'd like to thank the Friends of Matcha Mountain for their presentation earlier this evening, and I would also like to extend a thanks to all their members who volunteer to take care of that wonderful asset. It's a great asset for quality of life and also for local tourism for the city of Richland, and I appreciate it every single time I go visit, which isn't nearly enough. I would also like to mention that I would be in favor of a town hall for data centers or any kind of a more comprehensive presentation to citizens in some respect to bring some more people, bring information to people and really Give them information about what's really going on so that there aren't as many questions or people who feel like they're in the dark about this. I don't think that the city isn't trying to sneak anything by anybody, and anything we can do to help alleviate those kind of concerns, I would be in favor of. For e-bike issues, that's been something that's been a problem for a long time, and I think that hopefully the state will pass laws this session for this upcoming session for until it'll be next year. to help classify e-bikes a little bit more in detail that will give us a little bit more enforcement options for this but as it sits right now it's kind of a hard issue to get at because enforcement is always an issue with trying to catch people who are doing things that they shouldn't be doing and holding people accountable that's one of the reasons why we passed the ordinance recently for parental accountability And hopefully that will curtail this a little bit, but this is going to be an issue as long as there is a societal issue of people who disregard and are discourteous to others. Another reason that I bring that up is fireworks. In this time of the year, we all love to go celebrate the birth of our country, but people take this a little bit too far. And especially this time of the year where you have people lighting off fireworks in the middle of the night on a Wednesday night and it's not that you shouldn't do it because it's illegal. You shouldn't do it because it's not neighborly. It's not neighborly to wake people up in the middle of the night or scare people's dogs just because you want to go out and get a thrill. It's not neighborly to ride an e-bike 40 miles an hour down a walking path because it's dangerous and you can cause harm to other people, and you could get yourself very seriously hurt, as has happened in Pasco recently, very unfortunately. Moving on to the Parks and Rec, I think, thank you very much for your presentation today, and you said, People don't think that Parks and Rec takes their job seriously. I think that they do, as evidenced by the high quality of our parks and the amazing job that they do implementing things like the Iron Man and other issues or other events that we have, like the regatta and... Desert...

Cool Desert Night.

That was an awesome event. So... I will say that working with Julie Piper for the Arts Commission, she does like to have fun, but she does take her job there very seriously, and she does take fun very seriously. So that's all I've got to say.

Thank you. Council Member Meyer.

Thanks. I just want to remind everybody it's still July. Bus fare is still free on BFT this month. And if you feel some kind of way about that, feel free to fill out a comment card or let them know whether or not you appreciate or approve of fare-free fixed route transit. the interest of time we'll just summarize recent library board meeting talked a lot about a broad range of cultural events that the library staff organizes and and that's I strongly encourage folks to check out their website to see the upcoming events some folks have expressed shock to me that it's not just stuff for kids. There's a broad array of programming at Richmond Public Library I encourage you to check out. This month I attended my first Utility Advisory Council meeting. I contributed in my normal fashion by asking dumb questions and running my mouth, but everybody was very polite to me the whole time. I learned a lot, and I look forward to learning more. Finally, I will say, I will agree with my colleagues here on council, there's a lot of opportunity to make a lot of change and to have a strong influence in the business of this city on some of these boards and commissions. Sure, you could do monumental far-reaching consequences on stuff like the Planning Commission, but if you're careful with which boards and commissions you volunteer with, there are even better rewards like being able to hang out with me for an hour a month. So please do check out the website. There's a list of vacancies up right now. Some of the boards and commissions that are hurting for candidates are some pretty impactful boards and commissions. And so Always glad to see a lot of passion in this room. Would love to see some of that passion translate into strong voices on our boards and commissions. That's all from me. Thanks.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Van Dyke.

Sure. A lot of this is building on similar comments. City Manager Amundsen, thank you for the comments that you gave. All of them, I think they're really good, helping clarify a lot of things. Building on what Kurt said, I also liked how the city sent out a blast in a couple areas asking for volunteers and where the different areas people can volunteer. That was excellent. There was a good update that came from the Veterans Administration, the Washington State one, on an update on the Veterans Cemetery that is proceeding. I was really happy that they provided those updates. They had promised to do that, and that was great. I also want to talk e-bikes for a second, building on what Ryan said. It was interesting. I went to the same conference that Pat went to, and e-bikes was a big topic of conversation. It's also been a legislative priority across the state. They did pass the classification. If you're interested or want to watch it again, it's RCW 46.04.169. And it lays the foundation for, okay, once we can classify them, then we can start working on that reinforcement part. I'd encourage maybe, sir, if you had a chance to talk to Chief Pilcher here. He came up with and brought, and we passed a resolution that Ryan, no. Yeah, Ryan Allard alluded to about one of the problems and challenges is minors and enforcing with minors. And e-bikes was the specific concern that was brought up to help with this. It's an issue. Enforcement is going to be a challenge. It's going to be a challenge across the board, but it's something we're paying attention to. Again, it's something I think will also come up in our public safety discussions that we have in our strategic planning. But we're listening and things are... beginning to happen on that. I share the same concerns that you have. Thank you for bringing those up. And lastly, I'm so excited to hear we have a new Kratom czar. That's all.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for your comments tonight. I have a couple things to add. One, I had the opportunity to join the Rodel Institute. And this was by invitation only to elected people around the state, where they bring together 12 Democrats, 12 Republicans into a room and discuss important issues. And the reason why you do that is because now more than ever, We are extremely divided, and the stakes are very high. So if we can get into a room together and talk, it means a lot. And so far, we have three meetings throughout the year, quite a bit of reading ahead of time. It's facilitated by quality people leading us through these writings and discussing things, and I'm really enjoying it a lot. I wanted to mention Benton Franklin Council of Governments hosted the Summer Planning Academy, which was an immersive program that introduces high school students to careers in urban and regional planning. They were divided into two groups and tackled redevelopment proposal on the former City Hall site. And this was a great educational exercise with these young people and was meant to inspire their thinking and future careers. So participating with that, getting to know these kids better. I know that they're going to do it again next year. If you know of someone who might be interested, please keep an eye out on when that's scheduled again. I would also like to mention Association of Washington Cities, which was mentioned before, had a meeting this last week with the large cities around the state. And we were reviewing different challenges that we were all having. And it was insightful for me to know that throughout the state, Everyone is concerned about the budget. There's a deficit for these cities. They're not able to meet the needs of what is being provided currently, and there's a great deal of tension. They're asking for the state to give them more tools, but the state doesn't have the wherewithal to be able to do that. I'm not sure where this is all going to go, but it was 75% of the cities around the state are concerned about their budget. And I just bring that forward into something for us to think about. And regarding data centers, I want you to know, and I thank you all for staying longer, I think that if anything in the audience you realize that the council is dealing with a lot of things. We talked about parks, we talked about transportation, We approved grants. We approved funding for salaries. There's a lot going on. Our packet this last week was only 600 pages. And I can tell you that every single council member up here is engaged. engage not only in attending these meetings. I don't know if you recognize that we're all here every time. Very rarely is there someone who even takes a vacation. And then on top of it, attending extra meetings on top of that. So we're doing our homework, and we're listening to what you're saying. And I really appreciate city managers' comments, because that's where we're at. We're being transparent with you. And I hope that that helped answer some of your questions. If it didn't, I'm sure you'll let us know. So with that, again, thank you for being here tonight. I hope this has all been helpful, and I hope that you are appreciating our parks.