City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I hope my DVR is working. Are you going to watch it later? I'm not going to say a word, Councilman. I'm not going to look at my phone or do anything.

Okay, I call the meeting of July 6, 2026 to order at 6 p.m. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? All right, thank you. I'll call on Chris Lumsden for the invocation, please.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My family just came from dinner at Dairy Free, so I apologize if I'm not working. It says I'm muted. Do you want me to wait?

Yes.

How about that? There we go. So if I have ketchup on my face or ice cream or something, that's why, or maybe sweating profusely because I think the patio outside Dairy Freeze is about 140 degrees. I wanted to say I'm sorry for you guys' loss of Greg. I didn't know Greg, but he seems like a Sumner kind of guy. I'm really sorry for your loss. But thank you for the privilege of allowing me to be here to pray, so let's pray together. Heavenly Father, you are the God of all things. And you know it's a somber thing coming here together with an empty chair. And so we ask, Lord, that you would comfort Greg's family. You know Councilman Reinke was a Sumner guy. He loved this city. And so many people knew and loved him. We thank you that you gave him a heart to serve. And we pray that you would raise up many others like him who see the value of giving their time and talents to serve their community. We pray that his memory would not be in vain in this town. And Lord, would you give each of us humility to remember that we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We're not guaranteed anything. So help us to live and serve this city with gratitude each day, including tonight. That this council would serve in honor of Greg, in gratitude for knowing this is a good way to spend our time tonight. And Lord, even though we don't know what tomorrow brings, it's wise to plan. It's wise to think ahead. And so I pray a blessing of wisdom over the council to do what's best for the city. And in your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember deputy mayor elfers is absent Evers Here can I hear Malcolm here? We'll see here all members except for Elfers our president.

Thank you. So deputy mayor elfers is absent per council rules He has notified myself and the city administrator. Is there a motion to excuse him?

Yes, Mayor. I move to excuse Deputy Mayor Elpers.

Thank you, Council Member Kenna. May I have a second? Second. Thank you, Council Member Evers. I have a motion and a second to excuse Deputy Mayor Elpers. So can we take a vote? Council Member Malcolm.

Yes.

Council Member Hockstetter.

Yes.

Council Member Evers. Yes. Council Member Kenna.

Yes.

Council Member Wilsey. Yes. Did you get that, City Clerk Converse? I did, thank you. Thank you very much. So it is unanimous in favor. All right. So we'll move on to the consent agenda.

Will the clerk please read the 13th, 2026 study session, may 18th, 2026 regular council meeting, June 8th, 2026 study session, June 8th, 2026 special council meeting, June 22nd, 2026 study session approval of the check and electronic payments and the amount of $3,652,810 and 78 cents. Item 3, Hunt Avenue Reconstruction Design Contract Amendment. Item 4, Resolution Number 1752, Puyallup River Trail Crossings Planning Steady Grant Acceptance. Item 5, Main Street Crossings Design Contract Amendment. Item 6, Axon Police Technology Contract 2026 through 2030. Item 7, Resolution number 1753, interlocal agreement amending and restating the Pierce County Tourism Promotion Area. And item number eight, police radio replacement contract.

Thank you. Council Member Kenna, would you please make a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

Yes, Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

Seconded.

Seconded by Council Member Malcolm. It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. Would any council member wish to remove an item? Okay, no item removed. If no one removes anything, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, passes unanimously. Okay, so then we will move on to public hearing. There's nothing tonight, so we'll move on to regular business, which would be unfinished business. There's no unfinished business tonight, so we will move on to public comment, which is limited to three minutes. Michelle, did anyone sign up for public comment? Yes, Mayor.

We do have a person who has signed up for public comment, Don Land from Milton.

Okay, and Mr. Steffens, is there anyone on Zoom that would like to make a comment as of now? All right, so I'm going to go ahead and read the rules for public comment. The purpose of these meetings is to conduct the important business of the city, and that often means the city council is making difficult policy or budgetary decisions. With that said, I want to share a few rules and reminders that I will be enforcing to encourage respectful and orderly public comment. As a reminder, the public comment section of the meeting is a time for the council and myself to hear from members of the public on topics not on tonight's agenda. And while it may feel awkward, this is not a time for the council or myself to answer questions or engage in back and forth debate. At the conclusion of your comments, I may request that the appropriate staff member contact you for further discussion. Item 1, please keep your comments relevant to city business and about matters over which the city council has control. Item 2, all council members and city staff deserve respect and dignity. Please refrain from disorderly or disruptive speech or conduct, personal attacks, name-calling, rude or offensive statements, obscenities, derogatory comments directed at individuals, and hate speech. If you don't comply with this rule, I will interrupt you with a reminder and then may choose to suspend you from continuing or have you removed from the meeting. Number three, we have behavioral expectations. We will all model courtesy and respect. This includes those of us on the dais and members of the public are expected to do the same. Audience members, to ensure every speaker feels comfortable speaking, please do not clap, boo, or speak while another person is addressing the counsel. Number four, please speak into the microphone. Comments are broadcasted and recorded via the mics. If you leave the microphone, your comment time ends. So now that I've reviewed the rules that will apply, I invite the first speaker to the microphone. Please start your comments by stating your name and the city in which you reside for our records. You will have three minutes to speak. We have one person. I'm sorry, Ms. Lund.

It is your time to speak. And then afterwards, there is someone else who did not sign up. Yes. I was making sure that everybody knew the process. We're good. Thank you.

Oh, it's unmuted, okay. Hi, my name is Dawn Land, and I am just a mom who doesn't like bullies. That's why protecting children is a priority to me. Kids need to be protected from physical harm, but it's also important to protect kids from seeing or being subjected to things that are inappropriate for them. Last year, I attended Plateau Pride at Donald Eisman Elementary School in Bonnie Lake. There was a bouncy house, giant inflatable hamster balls. The Pierce County Library had a booth with kids' books and handouts on their summer reading program. Then there were the drag queens. There is never a time when drag is appropriate for kids. But there were all kinds of adult entertainment at Plateau Pride last year. And families with young children were encouraged to attend and watch it all. When I attended Plateau Pride, I took pictures and video documenting the entire event. The pictures and video went public with news podcaster Brandi Kruse featuring my footage on her podcast and social media. The public was outraged when they saw men in risque women's clothing suggestively performing to music with adult lyrics while children watched and ate hot dogs in the audience. Children were encouraged to tip the drag performers like strippers at a strip club. I would really like to protect all kids from being exposed to inappropriate things like drag performers. This is why I would like to ask the Sumner City Council to please consider passing a city ordinance to protect kids from adult entertainment. Drag in every form is adult entertainment and adult entertainment performers should not be permitted until after 8 p.m. Unless it is inside an establishment for people aged 18 and up. If adult entertainment such as drag is in a park or an outdoor venue, it should only be after 8 p.m. and the area should be surrounded by curtains which block the adult entertainment from the view of any children that might be passing by. As we celebrate our nation's 250th birthday, freedom of speech is still one of our most important foundational freedoms. I would never try to ban something just because I disagree with it. But we have a responsibility as adults to safeguard all children, both physically and mentally. Creating protections for children against exposure to adult entertainment is not banning that adult entertainment. It's prioritizing the safety of all children while still allowing the adult entertainment in spaces made exclusively for adults. I hope the Sumner City Council will consider my proposal. Please feel free to contact me with questions or concerns. Thank you. Oh, and I have a handout. I'll pass that.

Give it to the clerk, please. Thank you. Thank you. So do we have anybody else signed up? Okay.

How y'all doing? My name is Brian, and I'm residing right here in the Sumner, Washington. And I come to the meetings, like, I've been to a few city council meetings, and I don't hear them talk about nothing about, you know, assisting the people. All I know they talk about the, like, the balances about fixing roads. fixing roads and the multi-family units and single-family units, but there's people out here that's working every day, paying their taxes, you know, but it seems like they get no type of assistance. I tried to reach out to 2-1-1, which seemed like a diversion, United Way, which seemed like a diversion, and no one seemed to assist. I reached out to the mayor's office, the indifferent, Excuse me. And I reached out to the mayor's office in different cities, but it seems like nobody wanted to assist nobody. But every time we pay the tax, they take the taxes out just like that. I reached the governor's office. The governor office, the governor don't answer. Nobody answer the office at the governor. Legislator, the representative, Congress, Patty Murray, and another lady. Because we know all this stuff is being done from the White House in Washington, D.C., and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and State Street, Vanguard, and things like that is being controlled. But we as the people, we should be able to... We should be able to get the proper help that we do, especially if we're getting the taxes, taking out our check every time, and people just getting raises and stuff like that. That's kind of ridiculous. And y'all say One Nation, like under God, we're doing all this fighting across everywhere. It's just ridiculous. I hope y'all have the integrity and stuff like that. I don't know if y'all had the integrity or the courage to stand up to nobody, because I know it's beyond y'all, and it's nothing against, like, the Sumner, because I did get assistance from, like, people at Sumner, like, foster police, foster church, and I definitely do appreciate it for getting the assistance, but it's kind of ridiculous that we as the people just, like... We just out here working every day. You got the governor up there. He get all type of services. You got the police. No disrespect to the police. I know they doing their job, but we really got no protection from the police officers. We got no protection from nobody. And if we do our own thing, you want to take us to jail, We take us to jail, give us tickets, make us pay all kind of stuff, all kind of tickets, because it was created. The government wasn't designed for us. And for the kids, it's a future for the kids, but it's like y'all just putting the kids back in the system just to work for the system again. Excuse me, sir. Sir, your time is up. I appreciate it. Okay, well, y'all have a good day. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else? Okay, thank you. So we'll move on to new business. So Ordinance Number 2971, Early Learning Facilities Transportation Impact Fee Reduction. Council Member Hochstetter, would you like to make a motion?

Yes, I would. I'm waiting for the mic to come on here. There we go. Yes, I'd like to make a motion ordinance number 2971 early learning facilities transportation impact fee reduction.

Alright, can we get a second second? The Council member Evers. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded to approve ordinance number 2971 early learning facilities transportation impact fee reduction. I'll call on Doug Beagle Development Services director. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here to talk about traffic impact fees for the early learning facilities. We've had a couple meetings about this, but wanted to refresh some memories tonight. Okay, the transportation impact fees are set by council and they're based on the transportation plan, which is part of the comprehensive plan periodic update. Currently, your PMP trip hours cost $7,314.23. This was last updated in January of 2025, and this is adjusted annually through the CPI process. And fees offset the impact of new development or change of use. As we know, we are in what's referred to as a childcare desert in our community. And 63% of the residents currently live in a childcare desert. And one that's, I think, really important here is that, meaning that there are three or more times as many children as licensed daycares in this area. Pretty impactful. Washington state law for early learning facilities provide regular scheduled care for group of children one month or age of 12 years, 12 years of age for periods of less than 24 hours. 8202 060 allows for a reduction of exemption of transportation impact fee for early learning facilities up to 80% reduction with no local revenue backfill or covenants. If your council chooses to do up to 100%, it's either backfilled by local revenue or developers record a covenant that requires at least 25% of the children that attend that facility get state subsidies for child care. We, a couple weeks ago, evaluated four options. One was no change. One was universally lowering the TIFs altogether. The third was 100% reduction and the fourth Fourth one was up to 80% reduction, which is what the staff is recommending. Option four, reducing it up to 80%. The positive impacts, this may encourage new development for early and learning facilities in our community. It will reduce the facility costs, project costs, and maintain some revenue. And there's no requirement to pay back exempt portion with other public funds or monitor covenant compliance. The negative impacts is this would reduce funding for transportation improvements, but why we recommend this is because it balances the benefits of increasing ELS with limited impact to traffic revenue, impact fee revenue, excuse me, and no longterm administration burden to track the compliance. In this example here, we gave a 600-square-foot addition, 2,000-square-foot of a new daycare, which is not a project, and a K-12 2,000-square-foot with a tenant improvement, which is 80 students, which is not a project. These were just examples to pull from to give you some thoughts on what it actually takes. So on a 600-square-foot addition, currently with those impact fees would cost that person $48,000 $48,800. With the 80% reduction, they're at $9,760. And as you can see with the next two, it's considerably quite a bit for a new facility, 162,000, reducing it to 32, and then the K through 12 from 99,000 down to 19. Oh, okay. So that was really fast. Sorry. So I would like to answer any questions that anybody might have at this time.

All right. Let's see. So you're going to have to, I'm just going to state, you have to push your own buttons up here because the next on is not working. So go ahead and just push your own button to speak and then shut it off. Council member Kenna.

Yeah. Thank you, Doug. Just one. Okay. Good. Okay. Thank you, Doug. Just a question. If council passes this tonight, when would it go into effect, these 80% reductions?

The way that we're writing the ordinance would be January 1st. January 1st. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Maybe just an additional comment is I know this wasn't on the docket for staff, wasn't kind of on the minds of council at the time when we had some kind of public comments about it. And so I just wanna applaud staff, I wanna applaud council for really taking this issue seriously, coming back with a number of options for us to explore. It's not easy for a city to turn down revenue potentially. I know that it's not often that we get new revenues from early learning facilities, but still, you know, to keep up our roads, which is an expensive endeavor. So I just wanna thank you, thank staff for kind of really diving into this, coming back with a lot of information and for council, you know, really doing their due diligence on it. So thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. I don't see anyone else here. Do we have any comments from the public? Is there anyone on Zoom? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Last time. Any comments from council? We're good. All right. Will the clerk please call the roll? Evers?

Yes.

Malcolm?

Yes.

Will C? Yes. Kenna?

Yes.

Hockstetter?

Yes.

Pass 5-0.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Item B, Ordinance Number 2970, Cross-Connection Control Program Revisions. Council Member Evers, would you like to make a motion? I would love to, Madam Mayor.

I'd like to make a motion to adopt Ordinance Number 2970, Cross-Connection Control Program Revisions.

Thank you. And can we get a second?

Seconded.

It's working now. Okay. Seconded by Council Member Malcolm. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded to approve the Ordinance No. 2970, Cross-Connection Control Program Revisions. I now call on Public Operations Director Ryan Johnstone.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. Thank you for having me this evening. WAC 246-290-490, which is the Washington Administrative Code section on cross-connection control, REQUIRES THAT ALL PUBLIC WATER SYSTEMS IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT A CROSS CONNECTION CONTROL PROGRAM. IT HAS TO COMPLY WITH TEN MINIMUM ELEMENTS, THE PROGRAM DOES, INCLUDING HAZARD EVALUATION, INSTALLATION OF APPROVED BACKFLOW DEVICES, INSPECTION, TESTING, RECORD KEEPING, ENFORCEMENT, AND SO ON, JUST LIKE MANY OF THE OTHER PROGRAMS THAT WE HAVE HERE AT THE CITY. FURTHER, IT DOES REQUIRE THAT A LOCAL ORDINANCE BE ADOPTED THAT GIVES THE, THAT ESTABLISHES THE AUTHORITY TO IMPLEMENT excuse me, and enforce the cross-connection control program. Ordinance 2970 in front of you this evening does just that. It does repeal an existing code section, 1324.330, which is entitled Backflow Prevention Devices, which has been in the code for quite some time and basically put the authority to require a device to be installed on the city engineer or designee should there be a potential for a cross-connection. And just so that we're clear, cross-connection, when we're talking about that, you can think of that as a connection between a potable and a non-potable water source. So think anything from sprinkler systems up to industrial processes, the types of potential cross-connections you'd see in a hospital where they're using a water source that is potable is connected to equipment that may be used to clean medical devices and so on. So we're looking to make sure that any of that water that's used in that way doesn't make its way back into our potable water system. We don't drink dirty water that's going to make people sick or worse. So again, the ordinance tonight establishes that authority. In addition to that, it also spends some time talking about cross-connection control program, backflow prevention assembly, standards for installation, a violation structure that includes fines and an appeal process for those that may be fined should they be found not in compliance with the program. So with that, I'm available to take any questions, and hopefully I can give you some good information.

Any questions from the council? Okay, I'm not seeing any. None? Any comments from the public? Anyone on Zoom? Okay, thank you. All right. So... Will the clerk please call the roll? Malcolm?

Yes.

Hockstetter?

Yes.

Kenna?

Yes.

Wilsey? Yes. Elfers? Excuse me. Evers? Yes. Motion passed 5-0.

Thank you. All right. We'll move on to Item C, Ordinance Number 2969, the 2025-2026 Biennial Budget Q2 Amendment. Council Member Malcolm, would you like to make a motion? Yes, Mayor.

I move that we consider ordinance number 2969-2025-2026 biannual budget Q2 amendment.

Thank you. Is there a second? Council Member Kenna.

I'll second, please. I did it. There you go. I'll go ahead and second.

Thank you. All right. Council Member Kenna gave us that second. So it has been moved and seconded to approve ordinance number 2969-2025 2025-2026 Biennial Budget Q2 Amendment. I'll call on Chief Financial Officer Cassandra Raymond, but just let me say something first. It looks like our original next on is back on, so I'll try to keep you up to snuff. All right? Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. So before you tonight, Ordinance 2969, this is amending the 2025-2026 biennial budget. Our biennial budget was adopted December 9th of 2024, and we bring these amendments to City Council on a quarterly basis. There's a lot of reasons for that. These regular budget amendments provide counsel with a very timely and transparent view of our budget needs. It gives staff the opportunity to review changes, revisit and revise forecasts, and adjust for any programmatic changes that have occurred since the adoption of the budget. Budget amendments are brought quarterly to our Finance and Personnel Committee, where they are reviewed at the line item detail. So my thanks to the committee. I know that can be a little long sometimes, so I appreciate that attention to that detail. And really, these amendments are an integral part of our overall financial management process. For this second quarter amendment, our departments review their budgets. They bring to my attention any requested or proposed amendments. Again, those go to finance and personnel committee before they come to city council. And then before you this evening is the ordinance for adoption. At a glance, I do break out our amendment into the different fund types. Each of those has its own specific purpose. And then break it up by revenues. Those are monies that are coming in from external sources. Transfers in and transfers out, those are exchanges between funds. Interfund revenues and interfund expenditures, those are movements between funds that are paying for a service or paying for reimbursing an expenditure. And then our expenditures. Overall, we have total revenues in this amendment request of $1,530,360 and total expenditures of $4,672,406. I'd like to take a look at some of that detail. In the general fund, we are requesting $30,000. This was for a fleet replacement study. This is a rate model that we update. And this not only takes a look at our overall rolling stock and heavy equipment inventory, it determines the amounts that need to be accrued annually so that we're saving for the eventual replacement of each of those pieces of rolling stock based on its useful life. And it also determines what the annual operating cost to the individual departments is. Fleet is an internal service fund, so we take their overall budget and it gets distributed out to all of the users of that fund. And this fleet replacement study is what kind of helps determine that. We had originally budgeted $30,000 for this study. The scope of work came in at $60,000, so we are requesting to increase that budget. Our community budget survey, $20,000, that is for our third-party survey. So that provides us the third-party work for our budget survey for the 2027-2028 biennial budget, which I can't believe I'm already talking about 2027-2028, but there it is. The body camera program, you actually approved earlier in the consent agenda. So this is $140,000, but that will actually take us through 2027. So we'll see that reflected as well. Plan review, this is in our development services department. We do have third-party plan review contracts for plan review that either we're not able to accommodate in-house because of either specialty or because of capacity. And so we do... pay a third party to provide that plan review, and then that gets reimbursed out through our development services fees. Pressure seal equipment, this is a financed ask for $5,000. The pressure sealer is when you get checks or invoices or statements that are pressure sealed, they're not in an envelope. We have a machine that does that. We last purchased it about 10 years ago. We've worked the heck out of it, and it is beginning to fail. The repair costs far exceed what the unit is worth, so we are looking to replace that unit. In our public operations, we have about $3,300 that came in in increased cost from Pierce County for trail maintenance. Additionally, in public operations, a $77,000 increase for damage that was done to the right-of-way by a franchisee. You'll notice on this line item, we have a matching revenue in. So we've already recouped that cost through the franchisee's insurance. What we haven't been able to recoup are increased costs for guardrail repair. That's one of the things that we really don't have a whole lot of discretion when that happens to get it fixed. And more often than not, the guardrails are hit and we do not have anyone to try and pursue that funding for. If a police report is filed, we always try and go after insurance. But in most cases, we don't have that police report. You'll see in the next two lines, minus $25,000 for traffic calming in 2025. We're going to move that over into 2026. So that's just a deferral forward. And then roadway professional services requesting $56,000 from our public works department. And this is to help offset some right-of-way acquisition services for a couple of different projects that are We've got the separate project budget, but these are areas that Public Works determined we have some right-of-way needs in order to do some sidewalks, some other right-of-way maintenance to put us into a better position down the line. So overall, in the general fund, $77,000 in revenues. Again, that's to offset that right-of-way damage. And a little over $406,000 in expenditures. Happy to answer any questions on the general fund before I move forward on to the other funds. Any questions?

All right.

Capital funds. In our sidewalk capital, earlier on on the consent agenda, you accepted funding for the Puyallup River Trail crossing planning study, about $300,000 in revenues, $347,000 in expenditures. The remaining local match will be a transfer in from our park impact fees, and we'll see that a little bit down the line. In Fund 305, this is our Real Estate Excise Tax Fund. We are transferring $214,913 out to Parks Capital. This is for a portion of the Heritage Park Phase 3 and 4 design that was approved in May. And we'll see the remaining of that transferred out from impact fees into... and do our Parks Capital Fund. So here we see the transfer in, a total of $644,739. Again, that's made up by REIT and impact fees, and then the expenditure that was approved in May. In Fund 320, Streets Capital, coming back for the Tacoma-Puyallup roundabout, I know this has been talked about at study sessions, an additional $236,605 for design efforts to move that into a roundabout. We are, though, deferring a little bit of work at Maple and Cherry for utilities, so reducing that by $56,000. In our water fund, city council approved four additional positions in public operations, one in water, one in sewer, and two in stormwater. With those additional positions, we need to provide and equip those with vehicles. So when we purchase a new vehicle, so we're expanding the fleet, the original assessment comes out of the fund where the employee is. and then it'll be rolled into that fleet model. So $56,000 for the water position. We also have an increase in Washington Street improvement in both water and sewer, and this is really just truing up to how the bids came in. And then out at our central well, our filter media came in a little bit higher than budgeted, as we're seeing a lot of things do, and so we're requesting an additional $30,000 for that. In our sewer fund, again, that new vehicle assessment for the one sewer position and then the Washington Street improvement increase to kind of align better with the awarded bids that came in. Stormwater fund here's where the bulk of our expenditures are and it's just two line items We've got the new vehicle assessment for two positions and then we have the 24th Street East emergency storm replacement you may remember that we had a Storm pipe failure in the December flooding. So this is to really program the funding for that We are anticipating having a FEMA offset for this but FEMA is kind of a longer project. So I have not programmed in the revenues for 2026. We are likely to see those revenues in 2027. So we'll have the expenditure now. We'll backfill that with some revenues as that project works its way through the FEMA process. In fleet operations, we'll be asking for an increase in fuel, $25,000. I will caveat that. This is probably not going to be the last increase that we see in 2026 for fuel. Our department's doing a really good job trying to maximize and mitigate that, but there really is only so much that we can do with the cost of fuel. In information technology, we had some funding program for an intern. Unfortunately, through the recruitment process, we weren't able to find an intern that meshed well with our needs. And so we will be defunding that intern for 2026. But we do have an additional $5,000 cost for a server replacement. In fleet replacement, we see that $225,000 transferring in from the other funds, and then the $225,000, that's for those four new public operations department vehicles. And then we're replacing a utility locate truck. You're not seeing a revenue on this line item because we've already collected the revenues. That is already funded. It's already in the fund balance of Fund 555. We just need to bring it forward and appropriate the actual purchase. And then finally, in Fund 605, this is our impact fee. And then here we see the transfers out for the projects that we already talked about. Two-thirds of the Heritage Park Phase 3-4 design. The other third of that is being picked up by REIT. 46,000 being transferred for the Puyallup River Trail Crossing. That's the local match. And then 236,605 for the Tacoma Puyallup Roundabout. I'm happy to answer any questions. Again, my thanks to the Finance Committee. We get to go through the actual Excel spreadsheet as part of that, which is fun for me. Council Member Evers.

Thank you very much, Cassandra. In the old days, we used to do a budget every year. So this way, we just do one every two years and then hear you speak every quarter then, right? I like it. I don't know if you do. I do. Okay. I'm just curious. You talked about the four maybe newer positions. Were those, what, last year or a couple?

So the four public operations department positions were approved in the 25-26 budget. We didn't request the vehicles at that time because there was some question on, as we did the reorganization from Public Works into POD, there was some question about where those positions were going to end up and what funds. And now that we know where those positions are and they've been recruited, now we can go ahead and fill the vehicles.

All right. Anyone else? Okay. Any comments from the public? Do we have anyone on Zoom? All right. Thank you. No other comments from council? All right. Will the clerk please call the roll? Malcolm?

Yes.

Evers? Yes. Huxetter?

Yes.

Wilsey? Yes. Kenna? Yes.

Pass 5-0. Pass 5-0. Thank you. Item D, Ordinance Number 2964, Zoning Code Text Amendment for Child Care. Council Member Hockstetter, would you like to make a motion?

Yes, I'd like to make a motion for Ordinance Number 2964, Zoning Code Text Amendment, Child Care.

Thank you. Can we get a second? Council Member Kenna.

I'll go ahead and second.

Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to approve Number 2964. Zoning Code Text Amendment for Child Care. I'd like to call on Community and Economic Development Director Ryan Windisch. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, City Council. Ordinance 2964 before you will amend our zoning code and allow for a more generous allowance for child care facilities and child care centers. And it's really in response to legislation that was passed in 2025 that recognized, as you heard earlier, that we are suffering from a lot of lack of childcare centers in the state as a whole, and even in Sumner. So this zoning code change would make it allowed for childcare centers in our residential zones, commercial zones, and in our industrial zones with some limitations, and really outright permitted, which means instead of coming through for a conditional use permit to do, say, a childcare center, A COMMERCIAL CHILDCARE CENTER IN A RESIDENTIAL ZONE, THESE CHANGES WOULD ALLOW FOR IT TO BE OUTRIGHT PERMITTED, AND IT WOULD STILL HAVE SOME DESIGN STANDARDS AND ZONING SETBACK STANDARDS AND THAT KIND OF THING, BUT FOR THE MOST PART, IT WOULD BE JUST OUTRIGHT PERMITTED AND PERMITTED LIKE ANY OTHER SINGLE FAMILY HOUSE, FOR THAT MATTER, IN THOSE ZONES. SO THERE'S NEW DEFINITIONS. THERE'S SOME STANDARDS IN THERE REGARDING SIGNS FOR CHILDCARE CENTERS AND RESIDENTIAL ZONES. and drop off and pick up zones. The Planning Commission heard this item before them. They held a public hearing back in April, voted unanimously recommending approval, and then you all had a study session on June 22nd getting information on it. So I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.

Thank you. Any comments, questions? I'm not seeing any. Do we have any? Oh, we do. Council Member Malcolm.

Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Just for clarification, I mean, we're adopting the state language basically into this amendment.

Yes, we're responding to the state's requirement that it be allowed outright. We'll be synchronous with that then. Correct. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Any public comments? Anyone on Zoom? Nope. Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll? Oh, did you have a comment?

Excuse me, Kenna?

Yes.

Malcolm?

Yes.

Woolsey? Yes. Evers? Yes. Hockstetter? Yes.

Passed 5-0. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to reports. So we will start with Council Member Malcolm.

Thank you, Mayor. Okay.

A COUPLE OF THINGS JUST TO CALL OUT. IT'S BEEN A LITTLE WHILE, BUT ONE OF THE THINGS I GOT TO ENJOY OVER THE LAST MONTH OR SO WAS A COUPLE TOURS FROM SOME OF OUR FOLKS ON SOME OF THE PORTFOLIOS. SO I WANTED TO THANK RYAN FOR A GREAT TOUR OF THE EXISTING FACILITY, AND I ACTUALLY GOT A SNEAK PEEK OF THE NEW FACILITY. BOY, IS THAT COOL. It was cool to see how future thinking it was, how it looks like it's going to last us a lifetime. And it was cool to see how much your team was excited about moving into that. It really looks great. It looks like just a really good place to work. So excited to see that in place. And I also want to thank Michael and team for the tour of the wastewater treatment facility. That's kind of nice to see. how smoothly everything runs there. So no pun intended. But it was good to kind of get in there and see where the dryer replacement is going to be and really seeing how that thing is just really held together with glue and twine. So thank you for those tours. And if anybody gets a chance to see some of these things, it's really cool to see how well the city's machine just really runs. It does a great job. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Council Member Evers.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is our first meeting, I think, without Greg, and this kind of just hit me. Maybe I was avoiding it or something, but yeah, I just really noticed his missing tonight. Rhubarb Days was a great time. I remember we had Sumner Arts and Crafts Festival, I think, for many years, and then we stopped that, and maybe there was a year or something I remember the first Rube Barb days was very sparsely attended, and boy, it's come a long way. And last thing is my Facebook feed kept showing me the show at the Spanish Ballroom on Friday night with some up-and-coming group called the Cloves, and they were just excellent, and their lead singer is very charismatic, so it was a great show.

Thank you. Council Member Hochstetter.

Thank you, Council Member Evers. To piggyback on speaking about Greg Reinke, I know a lot has been said about him as far as his servant heart with being a firefighter for 36 years. He lived in the city hall, actually. He lived upstairs. You can tell us about that. And I served on the public safety committee with him. And he served on the council. But what I will remember about Greg is seeing him at the YMCA pushing his grandkids around. what that said to me was even outside of his career work he was still a servant to his family and the last I saw him was at the YMCA dance recital for his granddaughter and my daughter and that was a day before he passed and we were talking a little bit about council stuff we got some stuff coming up and he left me with the classic line that Greg would always say I don't know but we'll figure it out and I don't know I just think about him and I know that his memorial service is coming up and And it's a tough loss. And I hope that as we move forward, the council picks someone in the spirit of Mr. Reinke, of his heart for Sumner. His heart for Sumner. And I want to say one more thing. We had another lost to our community. There was a former football player at Sumner High School, Tanner Hart, and there was a vigil at the stadium yesterday that Coach Ross set up for his former player. And his words were, he was a classic Sumner guy. He wasn't a star. It took him four years to work his way to the starting position, but that's why we loved him and respected him so much. My wife had him in class, and... I think it's important as a community that we celebrate things together, but we also grieve things together. We carry the weight together, and those are two losses that we've kind of suffered recently. Sorry, it's a bit of a downer, but it's where we're at.

Thank you. Council Member Wilsey.

Good evening. So again, I want to say I only knew Greg for a couple of months. I got to sit next to him and chat with him every evening, every Monday night. So we're going to definitely miss him. And you can definitely feel the difference in him not being here. I also wanted to report on Rhubarb Days. Rhubarb Days was fantastic. Turned out great. We had over 250 vendors and food trucks, and it was a nice, great beer garden, great entertainment, music going the whole weekend. So it was really just a fun community event. And I want to do a special thanks to Lori Waltier and Danielle Cavanaugh. and Sumner Main Street Association for putting that on. I don't know if anybody knows this, but Sumner Main Street Association is a group of volunteers of the business owners and business employees. And they're the ones who are right now currently running our historic events. You know, they do our rhubarb days. They do our Santa parade. They are our guys. They're the, you know, the feet on the ground or the boots on the ground, so to speak. So just a special thanks to them for putting on just a fantastic, fantastic event for our community.

Great. Thank you. Council Member Kenna.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of things. I wanted to say in terms of the public commenters that joined us today, thank you for your comments. We take those on board. I will share that in some of our council meetings and our council retreats, one thing that staff has brought up is one of our priorities is customer service. I don't remember the exact language, but that's a real goal that we strive to achieve is, you know, being excellent in customer service. And I think talking about early learning facilities earlier was an example of that. I made a comment to that effect saying staff are super responsive to that, help develop some options for council to consider. And we ran with it and hopefully that opens the door for more childcare options throughout our town. So we do take on board everything that we've heard. I know I've talked to the mayor a number of times about issues that were brought up tonight amongst other things. And so she's very on top of it. And sometimes there are things in our control and sometimes there are things that are not. And this staff and this council and this mayor do their best to that effect to serve this town. to the best of their ability. So thank you for your comments. I did have a little more of a statement to make about Greg as well. And so if you just allow me, Mayor, a couple of moments, prepared a little thing here. So I wanted to take a moment to remember our friend and colleague and a pillar of our community, Greg Reinke. Although I only had the chance to know Greg for about a year and a half, he was immediately someone I connected with. Upon being appointed to the council in the fall of 2024, my wife threw a party to celebrate and invited current council members, friends and neighbors. Greg stopped by and he immediately made the rounds getting to know people. The party was ending, we were starting to clean up and honestly we were trying to get things back in order, get our house in order and get on with our day and Greg kind of insisted that he had to stay around. And not knowing him at all, other than getting his vote when I was appointed, I kind of agreed to it, and he wanted to sit down at my dinner table and talk through some things, and so he immediately prepared 100 or 200 pages of documents for me, getting me up to speed on the budget and the current agenda items that council was considering, and he wanted me to be in the best place to join council the following week. So he had all that, he sat down with me for over 30 minutes of his time, And that's the way I started to get to know Greg. That was a great introduction to him as a person, as a colleague, and a friend. I was lucky enough to sit next to him on the dais here. I ran into him while I was walking the dogs around the neighborhood. He would go and say hi to my kids at the park when they were on a field trip there with their school. My daughter came home and said, I met someone that you know that works with you on the council, and his name is Greg. And he came up and said he knew me and my dad. And so I always have that memory. My daughter remembers him. And I did share that he passed with my kids, and they were very broken up about it. I also got to serve on committees with Greg. He approached all of those meetings with a very people-oriented approach. He was always focused on staff and what impacts there were to their work. and he was focused on residents and the quality of their life and their services. Although he was sometimes quieter during council meetings, every once in a while he would have something to say and he would speak his mind, but he did much of his work in conversation with other council and staff. He raised his hand for all of the opportunities to serve our citizens on regional boards, going to Olympia to speak up for causes that meant something to him, and going to AWC conferences to represent our special town. I wish we all had another opportunity to ride on that Kenworth with him during the parades. He was in his absolute element in those moments. I wish I could attend another pancake breakfast at the fire station and see him making the rounds and telling someone from a distance, uh-oh, here comes trouble, because that was one of his catchphrases that there was always somebody was trouble. I'll miss him up here on the dais, but we'll also miss the little moments and interactions I had with him. I feel lucky that I got to know him, however brief it was. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Okay, City Administrator Jason Wilson.

That was good. Good job. Thank you, Mayor and Council. You know, staff, we definitely feel Greg's loss and really appreciate working with him. You know, those of you who don't remember, Greg actually started as a Sumner firefighter before it merged with East Pierce. We have staff that work here that worked with Greg during Sumner Fire. And so it's definitely hit our staff hard, and we definitely miss him. I will say that his funeral, or his memorial service, is on Saturday, July 18th at 1 PM at Calvary Church. It is open to the public, and I'm sure most of you will be attending. Uh, upcoming agendas next week at our study session, we'll be talking about the Southeast UGA annexation petition that we received. This is the area South of Winco. And then on July 20th at our regular council meeting right now on the agenda, we have the police radio replacement contract. as well as a municipal court grant acceptance for community court. We'll also be talking possibly as early as next week about the Pierce County Regional Council. We need to appoint a member to that. So we'll be thinking about that next week. Any questions?

Thank you. All right. So with that said, so City Administrator Wilson has shared the details of Greg's service on the 18th at 1, so it would be great if those who chose could come and attend. I think we'll all miss him, right? I mean, he was a big person. He was really something else, and the one thing about him is you would get the straight talk from him. He didn't beat around the bush. So if he believed something, he'd share it. I know he's someone that I, too, could always call on. And we had become really good friends. So we'll miss him. With that said, yes, rhubarb days was awesome. Boy, that was great. We had a lot of people come into the town, a lot of great vendors. They worked really hard. SMSA did, and thank you, too, to you. So we have Music Off Maine coming. The Music Off Maine concert series kicks off this Friday night, and it'll continue every Friday in July. And music starts at 6.30 p.m. in Heritage Park, and you can learn more about each performer on our website at www.musicoffmaine.com. www.sumnerwa.gov. But anyway, there'll be some fun groups. So I'm looking forward to that. And then this year, the Sumner Night Market will coincide with the concert and the market will begin at 5 p.m. So I think it's great that we're bringing that back in. They'll have food trucks and vendors. There will be a beer garden also opening at 5 p.m. And that's going to be hosted alternate weeks by Sumner Main Street Association. And it takes a township foundation. We also hope our existing businesses downtown get in on the fun as they have so much to offer. So it would be great if we could get them to maybe stay open a little longer. Maybe find some creative ways to bring people into the fold, maybe earlier. Maybe we can get people to come in earlier, like with sidewalk sales or something. And so you're not going to want to miss the Friday nights in Sumner through this month. It's going to be a fun time, and then the concert series rolls into August, and we'll talk about that later. But with that said, I would just like to thank everybody. Thank you for your kind comments about Council Member Reinke. And with no further business before the council, this meeting is adjourned at 6.56 p.m. There we go.