City Council - workshop

All right, I call the special meeting of August 24th, 2026 to order at 6 p.m. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Alvers?

Here.

Alvers? Hocksetter?

Here.

Kenna?

Here.

Malcolm?

Here.

We'll see. Here. Thank you. Council Member Evers is absent tonight. He notified the city administrator and myself. Is there a motion to excuse Council Member Evers from the special study session of August 24th, 2026? Deputy Mayor Elfers?

I make a motion to excuse Council Member Evers.

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

I'll second.

Thank you so much. It has been moved and seconded to excuse Councilmember Evers from tonight's meeting. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, our motion is approved. So we'll move on to special business. Suspension of the rules. I'll call on City Administrator Jason Wilson.

Do we need a motion? No, we don't. Yes, we do. I was just going to ask, Mayor, if we could get a motion.

Yes, okay. May we get a motion? Deputy Mayor Elfers, thank you.

I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to move to exercise Section 22 of the Council Rules of Procedure, suspending the rules to allow Mr. Isaacs to be administered the oath of office at tonight's special council meeting.

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

Seconded.

Thank you. It has been moved and seconded to exercise Section 22 of the Council Rules of Procedure, Suspending the rules to allow mr. Isaacs to be administered the oath of office at tonight's special council meeting Do we have any comments from the public?

Thank you Mayor, before we ask the public, I just want to frame this a little bit more. Under your council rules and procedures, section 29, it states that any appointed council member shall be sworn in at the next regular council meeting. That next regular council meeting is September 8th. IT'S STAFF'S RECOMMENDATION THAT YOU ACTUALLY SUSPEND YOUR RULES, SWEAR IN MR. ISAACS TONIGHT SO HE CAN PARTICIPATE IN THIS WEEK'S STUDY SESSION AS WELL AS OUR COUNCIL RETREAT COMING UP. THAT DOES REQUIRE, AS YOU KNOW, TO SUSPEND RULE 22 TEMPORARILY. SO THAT'S WHAT THE MOTION IS BEFORE YOU TONIGHT. AND I'LL TURN IT BACK OVER TO YOU FOR PUBLIC COMMENT BEFORE YOU TAKE YOUR VOTE.

THANK YOU. SO ANY COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC? IS THERE ANYONE ON ZOOM BY CHANCE? OKAY. ON ZOOM, PLEASE USE THE RAISE YOUR HAND FEATURE OR PRESS STAR 9. WE'RE GOOD? OKAY. THANK YOU. SO ANY COMMENTS FROM COUNCIL? OKAY. I SEE NONE. WILL THE CLERK PLEASE CALL THE ROLL?

Yes.

Bolsi? Yes. Elfers?

Yes.

Kenna?

Yes.

Hochstetter?

Yes.

Motion passed. Thank you. All right. So we're going to now have Mark Isaacs come up to the podium here, and we'll go ahead and do the oath of office. Are you good? This way? Let's try it. Test one, two. Okay. All right. So please raise your right hand. Just repeat after me.

I. I. Mark Isaacs.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support.

That I will support.

The Constitution and laws of the United States.

The Constitution and the laws of the United States.

And the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington.

And the Constitution and the state of law and the laws of the state of Washington.

And all local ordinances.

And all local ordinances.

That I will.

That I will.

To the best of my ability.

To the best of my ability.

Diligently and impartially.

Diligently and impartially.

Perform the duties of the office.

Perform the duties of the office.

Of council member.

Of council member.

For the city of Sumner.

For the city of Sumner.

In and for Pierce County, Washington.

In and for Pierce County, Washington.

As such, duties are prescribed by law.

As such, duties are prescribed by law.

So help me God.

So help me God.

All right. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

Do you want to get a picture with your wife real quick? Sure.

Let's do that.

And then once you do that, you can... Thank you.

All right. All right.

So I will adjourn here in just a minute. There's going to be a study session immediately following with no further business before the council. So this special meeting is adjourned at 6.06 p.m. I'd like to call to order the study session of August 24th, 2026 at 6 0 8 PM. Council member Evers is absent. He notified myself in the city. Is there a motion to excuse council member Evers from tonight's meeting? Council Member Malcolm.

I move to excuse Council Member Evers from tonight's meeting.

Is there a second? Deputy Mayor Elpers. I'll second that. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to excuse Council Member Evers from the August 24th study session. All in favor? Aye. Oh, wait, wait. So let me... We got it. We're getting it. Got to change it. All right. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Opposed? All right. Passed. We're good. With that said, we will begin the study session business. We will start with the Community Partners Fund application presentation. So as we can see, we have Communications Director Carmen Palmer. There I turned. I got it. It was still here. I figured it out. It's a miracle. So we'll call on Communications Director Carmen Palmer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. And just a procedural thing, I am pinch-hitting here for my colleague Ryan Windisch. He is joining us virtually, so if I mess this up significantly, we will hear the voice over correcting me. So thank you. Tonight we are hearing from our applicants for the Community Partners Fund. Tonight's outcome is for direction, and that is for you to give us direction on how much you would like to allocate to each potential community partner in your budget. All right, there we go. So just a reminder where we are. Applicants had until July 31st to put in applications for this Community Partners Fund. Tonight are the council presentations. Each applicant will have up to five minutes to talk with you about their application and what they would like to do for Sumner. And then your choices tonight will get into the budget and then when that's passed in later this fall. So that's the process here. So how we got here, the city has always had great partners. We cannot do it alone. As part of the budget process, traditionally, there were partners like the Main Street Association and the Family Center who were in the budget year after year, biennium after biennium. We realized before the 23-24 session of the budget, we developed this community partners fund idea. And there were a couple of reasons for that. Not that we didn't love the organizations we were funding, but their needs change over time. And it seemed like that shouldn't be so routine. We should hear from them what their needs are as it ebbs and flows with the different biennium. We also wanted to make it fair to anyone out there we didn't know about to apply and say, here's what I would like to do for Sumner and how I would like to partner with the city. So the first time was the 23-24 budget when we allocated 200,000 to five organizations. The council increased that to 250,000 in the 25-26 budget and that covered eight grants. And the total funding you have decided to give out this time is again 250,000. Now we do know, I wanna go just slightly off script here, hopefully Ryan doesn't chime in. We do know this is the city's contribution to these organizations. These are organizations that are pulling from other public and private funding sources as well. We know that 250 is not enough to cover the needs, so some difficult choices will have to be made. But to that end, I actually wanted to read an email Ryan received during the application period from one of our previous applicants, Vadis. And it's short, I promise, but it said, I am writing to let you know that VADIS will not be applying for city funds for this cycle. The reason is pretty basic. We are not in a high need mode at this moment. As an organization who has pursued and accessed funds from all sources for many decades, we are all too familiar with how limited resources are and how competitive it can be. We hold in a very high regard strong stewardship of public funds based on true need and efficient utilization. That's so we want to honor those organizations in a higher need mode than we are and support their receipt of funds. In whatever way the city council determines them this cycle. When our situation changes and it very likely will in the future, we will be back. In the meantime, we remain grateful for all we have already received from the city. I just wanted to add that this can be a very competitive process. And I just wanted to add that spirit of collaboration and stewardship that was expressed so beautifully from Bodice, one of our previous applicants. All right, so again, we allow for nonprofit organizations to apply for funding and make an ask. And this gives those organizations the chance to request and highlight what they do for the community. Every organization is doing wonderful things. And so again, they shouldn't just be a line item. We should hear from them whether funding comes with that or not. Because again, these organizations get support in many different ways. And then it gives you as the council the opportunity to make choices for this biennium based on priorities. All right, enough from me. We will hear from each of the community partners who have applied for funding. Again, they have five minutes, no presentations, more just to talk with you, up to five minutes. They don't have to use their entire time. A couple have brought handouts that you have already received. And I believe that's it. There will be time for questions afterwards. So please let them finish their five minutes and their thought process. And I believe we have them in alphabetical order. So first up should be Exodus Housing. Their funding request is $60,000. They assist households fleeing domestic violence by providing permanent housing, tailored services, and community resources. And I believe Tanya is joining us from virtually.

Can I just ask before we start? Council Member Kenna has a question.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

Yeah, Carmen, just a procedural question. So are we asking questions after each presentation, after the five minutes? Yes. Okay, not stocking them at the end.

Not stocking them up, yes. You don't have to quite remember them that long. Thank you.

Good question.

Let's see, Tanya, are you ready to go?

I am ready. Can you hear me okay? Oh, there I am, big. Yes. Don't let that throw you. We can hear you just fine.

Awesome.

Well, my name is Tanya Tunnell-Thornhill, and I am the Executive Director for Exodus Housing. And I just appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight. I apologize I cannot be there in person, but I am so happy to meet with you via Zoom and talk a little bit more about what Exodus does. So we have partners with the city in the past with our rapid rehousing program. But about five years ago, we started getting a lot of calls for people needing prevention funds. And at that time, there was essentially nothing in the community to tap into that kind of funding. And so I told my staff, if we ever get the chance to grow, that is the one area that I feel like we could really benefit from. So back in October, 2025, we got a $75,000 grant from the Medina Foundation to start our new program, our prevention program. And we currently serve anybody in Pierce County with minor children. They have to have a little bit of income and be willing to contribute to the loaners that we're going to help them pay. But we'd really like to target some of the cities around us. We want to get back into Sumner. Unfortunately, our office is no longer in Sumner. We are in Denver, but some of the community and some of the partners that we... worked a lot with the school district, the family support center there. And we would love to get back into the school district and help those families who are struggling with rent to get caught up with their rent, get some case management services where we help them with goals and budget setting, just kind of get them more stable and in a better place so that when they exit the program, they're able to pay that full rent on their own and those rental arrears are gone. Or if their rental were super high, at least we could get that down and maybe have a payment plan in place that's agreeable to both them and the landlord. And then also try to help them find some other community resources that could maybe help them with those rental arrears. And basically we have them in for our program for about four months. So we provide rental assistance on top of paying for those rental arrears and we do a graduated schedule. So we help with 75% of the rent the first month and then the second month we help 50% of the rent and then the last month we help 25. So that way they have some extra funds to hopefully be paying off those rental arrears, set some money aside in savings or if they needed a car repair or anything like that, maybe this is a good opportunity to do that because they're getting some help with rent for three months. And then after four months, they exit the program. Although we do have an appeal process and sometimes we have families that need an extra month and we are totally willing to help with that if need be. And that's our program. We have one case manager that's running that program right now. She works really closely with the landlords and the clients to really try to get their housing stable. Some of them might have evictions. So we really try to stop those evictions if we can by getting them some money very quickly and then helping with that rental assistance piece. And again, we would love to partner with the school district and help the Sumner families who are struggling to get back on their feet and get their housing stable. That is our prevention program.

Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions from council? Deputy Mayor Elpers.

Hey, thank you for your presentation. I was just curious. I think you cut out for a second. You said a little bit about where you're working right now. You used to be in Sumner, and now it lost you where you were saying that part.

Oh, I apologize. I'm working on a hotspot right now, so I apologize if it cut out. Yeah, we moved our office a few years ago. The space that we were in, the people that owned it wanted their space back. So we moved into downtown Puyallup, but we still serve families in Sumner. We definitely would like to get reconnected with the city and partner with you if you are interested in joining us in our prevention work.

Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Malcolm.

I'm curious about the requirements and the process of how people enter into the system and I guess how you vet their need and help them. What's that process look like from Exodus?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that. You know, we try to make it as simple as possible. It's basically been just by word of mouth through emailing me, kind of letting some of the community members and also agencies that we work with know about this new program. So people email me, I make sure they're eligible, and then we immediately start the process to get them into our program and get those rents paid. The eligibility is pretty simple. We are 100% DV, so they do have to have some DV currently happening They do have to have a little bit of income because they do have to contribute some of their funds towards the funding. And it can be $100. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. They have to have children. And basically, their landlords have to be willing to accept our money. And that's really about the only criteria we ask for. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Hi, thank you for your presentation. I remember when your offices were here in Sumner, it was nice to have your presence in the community. I was wondering, how many people are you able to help a year? Do we have kind of a rough estimate on how many people are being helped through Exodus?

Yeah, right now with the money that we've gotten from Medina, I believe we're at 14 families. Two of them, we are at 14.

Yes, I just did the stats.

Two of them exited the program not getting assistance, but that's because one of them chose to go a different path and then the other one just didn't stay in contact with us for whatever reason. So we've been successfully helping, I guess, 12 families. And we are... At about 70, 70 ish percent successful, meaning that they are exiting and staying housed in a stable manner. They increase their income from entry to exit and they were able to maybe pay off some other financial stuff or at least if nothing else, at least pay off the debt that they owe to the landlord. So our goal is 80. We're about 75. So I feel like for a fairly new program, that's that's pretty good.

So thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Anyone else? Alright, thank you so much. Thank you.

Alright. And our next applicant is Generous Influencers with the Night Market. They applied for $20,000 to manage, promote, and facilitate a community night market in downtown Sumner in conjunction with our summer concerts, Music Off Main, which just wrapped up for this year. And ready to come on up?

Good evening, Mayor Bowman, council members, and staff. I am Patty Hoganson. I am the executive director for Generous Influencers. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight and for you considering, again, extending some of these funds for Generous Influencers and the Sumner Night Market. Generous Influencers believes that small business is the backbone of a community. And when small businesses thrive, families thrive. When families thrive, communities thrive and become stronger. We believe that relationships build community, and we believe that everyone has something of value to share with the people they meet every day, themselves becoming generous influencers. Three years ago, when we were approached to bring Generous Markets to Sumner, it was with those beliefs that we agreed. Our goal was never simply to organize another vendor market. We wanted to create an experience that supported small business entrepreneurs and local businesses while giving residents and visitors another reason to gather, connect, and spend time in downtown Sumner. This summer, in partnership with the City of Sumner, with Music Off Main, with the Sumner Main Street Association, with It Takes a Township Foundation, the whole collaboration, we were privileged to help activate Heritage Park and Hopps Alley during the four concerts in July. The results exceeded our expectations. Each market featured 25 to 35 small business vendors, food trucks, opportunities for downtown business to participate alongside our vendors. Families shopped, children played, residents visited, visitors discovered all that downtown Sumner has to offer. What we witnessed wasn't simply commerce, it was community. We saw first-time entrepreneurs gain confidence by selling their products to supportive consumers. We saw local businesses benefit from increased foot traffic. We saw young entrepreneurs get to experience the marketplace in a safe, encouraging atmosphere. Those are the experiences that young people get who become our future business owners and community leaders. We created opportunities, we have affordable opportunities for small businesses while taking, while helping transform public spaces into welcoming places where people wanted to spend the evening together. Keeping the cost down for our vendors is very important. Not only to bring in quality, but to keep them coming back. And that builds the reputation of any event The funding that we are requesting will allow us to continue to build on this momentum. It will help us to recruit and support quality vendors, improve the visitor experience, provide consistent marketing that attracts both residents and visitors, and continue developing professionally managed events that reflect positively on the City of Sumner. Every dollar invested has a ripple effect. It supports small businesses. It encourages people to shop locally. It brings new visitors downtown. It activates public spaces in positive ways, and it strengthens the partnerships that make community events successful. We believe the success of this summer season demonstrated what is possible when municipalities, nonprofits, local businesses, and community organizations work together with a common goal. We are incredibly grateful for the partnership we've already built with the city of Sumner, and we're excited about the opportunity to continue growing the night market into an event that residents look forward to every year. Thank you again for your consideration in allocating these precious dollars to generous influencers and the Sumner night market and the continued investment in the businesses and families of Sumner.

So I'm happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you. Questions? Council Member Malcolm.

Yeah, thank you so much for your presentation. I'm just curious, going from $2,000 to a $20,000 request, I'm just curious about specifically what you're going to be building on or adding to what you've done historically and what that looks like. What's the volume, people, things that you'd be doing? Just looking for a little bit more detail.

So I think originally the $2,000 request was out of not a lot of knowledge of what we would need. And so through other funding and through the generous influencer funds was we were able to compensate those first two years. Again, this year, with the collaboration with the city, it was amazing, so that we were able to afford to continue to move forward. A very wise man, Busenhorn, told me, if you don't ask, you don't get received. So the goal that we would like to see for these events with Sumner, City of Sumner, Main Street, all those different entities, would be to expand, still hopefully using that space. Maybe we go out. Maybe we have more events. Maybe we can create even a better event down the road for the citizens of Sumner. That would include marketing, overhead, a lot of different, I mean, there's a lot that goes into it, keeping those vendor fees down for both local businesses and vendors that come in.

All right, thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Kenna.

Hi, Patty, thanks for joining us tonight. Yeah, kind of just playing off of Council Member Malcolm's question, with these decisions Council has in front of us, if we aren't able to fully fund your request or not fund it at all, would that mean that events in Sumner might not have the same amount of people attending them, same amount of vendors? What would that look like if we had to make some of those hard decisions?

I appreciate that question. We're here. We're in. And we can continue at the level that we were at this last year as long as overhead expenses don't increase on us. The only thing that really would be unfortunately affected would be the growth. So we would like to be able to bring in produce, farmers' products, create more partnerships within the city, expand our junior entrepreneur program, which allows for 17-year-olds and under to have discounted opportunities to come in and start that experience. The marketing, we wouldn't be able to expand on as much. So we're happy with whatever we are blessed with. Yeah, we'll continue this for sure.

But it sounds like there's opportunities with funding that you imagine you could do even more. You're not quite sure exactly what that might look like, but you're looking to grow what we have right now. Exactly.

I would love to have more events. I mean, that was probably the largest comment we received from the public was, oh, it's over? And so it would be great if in collaboration we could create more concerts together. do some more activities, like I said, expand to more of a farmer's market, maybe even extended hours. Who knows? There's a lot of opportunity to discuss, so we'd love to be able to be a part of that.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else up here on the council? Questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

And thank you. And one thing I just wanted to clarify in the staff memo when it talks about amount funded last year, I know for some that was not what they originally requested. So some tough choices had to be made two years ago as well. So just letting you know. All right. Next we have Mikasa Housing. They own and manage five properties in Sumner, totaling 18 units, serving low-income families. And welcome to the podium. I kind of want to say come on down, but I probably shouldn't.

Hello, good evening. My name is Nanette Flynn, and I'm on the board of directors for Mi Casa, and I serve as the treasurer. And I'm here tonight with two other board members, Steve Miller, who is our president of our board, and Holly Emerson, who is our secretary of the board. And Mi Casa has been around for 35 years now, and we have, Mi Casa is a standalone 501c3 charity, and it's run by volunteers. So we have long-term housing. So Mikasa actually owns the buildings. We own 12 buildings that are scattered in Sumner, in Puyallup, Edgewood, and South Hill. We have five of our buildings are here in Sumner, which are fourplexes on Washington Street and triplexes on Garden Street. And we like the idea that we're scattered around eastern Pierce County because we don't want to have all low income people clustered together and be stigmatized, especially for the children. Because nobody knows that the building they're living in is for low income families. And our rents are about half of what the market value would be. So if an apartment rents, we rent an apartment that's two bedroom for $700 to $900 a month. Immediately across the street, the same kind of building would rent for $1,800 to $2,000 a month. So we rent two low-income families, so they have to have some income. What we used to call the working poor, and they have to have some income so that... they're able to rebuild their lives. The buildings we have are also duplexes in Puyallup and other fourplexes. We're run by volunteers. We do hire a property management company, Kellis Property Management, and they handle the leases and getting... If there are any repairs, like a water leak in the middle of the night, they call the property management company, not the board of directors. But all of the... Details of running the MICASA is done by volunteers, so our administration costs are very low, less than one-half of 1%. We don't have an office. We don't have any staff. We don't even have a dedicated computer. We all use our home computers.

We have... Oh.

Hang on. I'm dizzy. This has been happening a couple times. It passes. Thank you. You're welcome. What an awkward time to get dizzy. I did mention it to my doctor a couple weeks ago. He was like, eh.

Do you need any water or anything? Are you OK?

No, it's passing. Getting old is not a lot of fun, but it beats the alternative. So we went to very low income families that are like 30% income of the AMI, which is the Area Mean Income, and that would be families, like a family of four with $34,000 annual income, and when they enter into our program, that's usually, they're at the very low end. They're usually single parent families, often from domestic abuse situations, but we treat them like any other renter. They take a lease. They learn how to not be late on their rent. They learn that if they break a window, they have to fix it. So they're treated as renters, and we only provide financial help for them, but we do not do supportive because there's other counselors and support groups that you have, like the Family Resource Center here, that they can get good counseling and individual support for. But our long-term, so MICASA complements the short-term agencies that do shelters or help for three months or half a year. We do long-term. So people stay with us for an average of like seven or eight years. So their children are stable in school and not bouncing around. It really helps the children.

So any questions? Okay, any questions from the council? I see none. Oh, Council Member Hockstetter.

It's Nanette. Nanette. I just want to say I really enjoyed your presentation.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

At least I didn't fall over. All right, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you for the offer of the chair. Strange.

All right, thank you. All right, next up we have Mother to Many. They have asked for $40,000 and help families that have been struggling with meals, coats, and food items. They go to the sports complex twice a week to provide lunch to youth.

I want to say thank you to the Mayor and to the Council for allowing me to speak here today. My name is Joanne Whitler. I'm the Executive Director of Mother to Many, registered 501c3 since 2013. Our mission is to meet at-risk youth directly on their turf, delivering essential basic needs, support, hunger relief, and trusted adult mentorship without any barriers. Mother to Many does not wait for youth to come to a formal facility. Our mobile outreach goes to them. Approximately one-third of our students in Sumner-Bonnie Lake School District qualify for free or reduced lunches. The stats clearly showcase a massive ongoing need for additional food resources across our local community and the demand that school-based meals alone cannot fully satisfy. Children face food insecurities and lack the means for transportation to local food banks or other areas to be able to receive food. Children face, I already just said that, we want to meet the kids where they're at, and that is at the Washington Street Hub at the Bell-Hearth Complex. We do this every Monday and Wednesday during the school year, and then during the summer we just go there on Wednesdays. And last year, Mother to Many fed 14,600 TED kids. That was just during the school year. During the summer program, we feed about over 200 kids that those kids literally just walk from their homes to be able to come and get their food, serving an average of 224 youth per visits. And we expect to feed over 29,000 in the next two years at the Sumner Complex. Direct hunger relief, meals, snacks, and hydration for use 5 to 18, but we help anyone that comes to see us. No one is ever turned away from getting some food to eat. Emergency weather items are also given out. We hand out winter coats. We hand out gloves, hats, and socks that we get from Bombas, so they only get the best. No judgment, adult volunteers who know the names of the youth and have built strong relationships with those youth over 12 years that we have been at that park. Deep local partners, Fred Meyer at Sumner, allow us to go there three times a year to collect food. Sumner Food Bank, Faith Covenant Church, Sumner United Methodist, Sumner Family Church, and Creator Lutheran and Calvary also are big supporters. Mother to Many is requesting 40,000 over a two-year cycle. That's 20,000 per year for 27 and 28. These funds directly support the areas that are mandatory. in keeping our mobile unit on Sumner streets with bulk food inventory, warm clothes, vehicle fuel, trailer maintenance, and secure storage. $20,000 a year breaks down to just $1.36 per youth. An investment in Mother to Many is a direct investment in the safety, health, and dignity of our Sumner children. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any questions from the council? Council Member Wilsey.

Hi, thank you for your presentation. I just want to tell you that I've had several teenagers coming through my household that have been able to utilize your resources. So I appreciate what you're doing in the community. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Council Member Kenna.

Hi, Joanne. Thanks for joining us tonight and for the services you provide. Just a quick question about the sports complex that you all set up services at. I know as a council we're talking about the sale of the sports complex to the district. I have been talking about this with our city administrator as well, so I have a little bit of detail. But just for transparency, what can you tell us about the ongoing use of those facilities? If there is any construction down the road, if the sports complex does go through and sold to the district, what you plan to do in the interim?

So if it does plan on to sell, you know, if it goes on with the sale, I know I've been talking with Jason, the city, very supportive of what we do. So we've talked about different areas that we can set up a trailer that is still pretty central because we have kids from the middle school, from the high school, from the elementary. So we'd like to stay central if that means right there along the street where we can have our truck and trailer and then the kids would be on the sidewalk so they'd still be safe and not be out in the street street. There's also right where the skate park used to be. Hopefully maybe we could go into that area. since it would be away from the huge parking lot. That's such a huge parking lot. So I'm hoping that they can even do that. I've even contacted St. Andrews just in case so that we can maybe go there. And I'm sure Fred Meyer might even let us set up right there too. But we'd like to stay right where we are because we've been there for 12 years. The kids know where we're at, and I really would like it not to be disrupted. But I know if we just have to move a little bit, the kids will find us. They always do.

Sounds like we you don't anticipate disruption of your services just might have to kind of have to move around a little Yeah, just might have to move around but no great disruption. Thanks so much.

Uh-huh Deputy mayor Alpers

Hey, Joanne, thank you for your presentation. I just think the thing you mentioned a couple times that I would love to hear more about was mentorship. You said some of the people have been doing it for 12 years, and I'm hearing a lot of giving food and some supplies. Can you give a little more explanation of mentorship?

So we have a lot of kids that have came through, especially the high schoolers. And this time, and the way things are and stuff, a lot of kids don't think they go, we can't go to college. We can't afford to go to college. So having people that, like my husband, that is a carpenter, he's been able to talk to the kids about going to trade school and to be able to maybe be an electrician or a carpenter. And so it's been really cool to see those kids take those classes. One of them, Logan, he's been going to the Bates, and so he's learning how to be a carpenter. So it's really cool to think that he's not gonna have to stay at McDonald's. This is just a part-time thing, but he can go on and have a successful career. And then with the mentorships, just becoming close. These kids a lot of times go home to parents that maybe aren't there. So to be able to come and just talk to an adult, get encouragement because they have 10 grandmas pretty much. We're all older. And so I'll ask them, how's your day? How are you doing? How's school going? Do you need any help in those areas? But just to be there. And you know when you have food, it brings kids together. They get to be kids just for a little bit, sitting out on the pavement and talking and yeah, we just built some really good relationships with those kids. So they feel that we're trusted people to be able to talk to and to hopefully help them with making bigger decisions when it comes to their future.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Okay. Anyone else? All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your time.

All right. Next up, we have the Puyallup Sumner Chamber of Commerce. They promote an economically vibrant and competitive region where community, family, and business prosper. They are asking for $20,000 to provide business assistance through marketing, education, government affairs, and collaboration.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and city staff. I'm Allison Schaefer, the President and CEO of the Puyallup Sumner Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you tonight about our Community Partners Fund. One of the things I want to emphasize tonight is that while we serve a larger regional community, we intentionally focus on Sumner. Sumner isn't simply one of our communities included in our service area. It is a community where we actively bring people together, promote businesses, develop leaders, build relationships, and create opportunities that bring people into Sumner. Over the past year, we've continued to grow that work. Our economic forecast luncheon at the Handsome Place brought more than 120 business leaders and community leaders downtown Sumner. These are people who don't just attend the event. They live here, see the community, and discover businesses and build relationships. Our business expo at Knutson Farms featured more than 60 local businesses. That gives local businesses visibility while also bringing people in throughout the region. Our Women in Business event is another example of an event that brings in hundreds of professionals and business leaders together here in Sumner and gives us the opportunity to showcase both the community and businesses within it. but our work goes well beyond events. Through our Leadership Institute, we've been introducing current and emerging leaders to some of the businesses and organizations that make Sumner's economy unique. Participants have the opportunity to learn directly from places like Delano's, Keurig, Dr. Pepper, The Old Cannery, and of course, the City of Sumner. That exposure matters. It helps people understand the diversity of Sumner's economy from its historic downtown, small businesses, to manufacturing, distribution, and major employers. It also helps develop future community leaders who understand how businesses and governments can work together. Throughout the year, we also support Sumner businesses going through networking opportunities, ribbon cuttings, business celebrations, referrals, connections, advocacy, and direct outreach. And I think this is where the Community Partners Fund can have a particularly strong impact. An investment in the Chamber isn't just supporting one single event or one single business. It allows us to create a multiplier effect throughout Sumner's business community. We can use our existing relationships, communications, sponsorships, volunteers, and regional reach to extend the impact of the city's investment. Well, we want people from outside Sumner to come here for a chamber event, then discover a restaurant that they want to visit again. We want someone attending a program at Sumner Business to discover downtown while they are here. We want business leaders from throughout Pierce County to see Sumner not just as a place to drive through, but as a place to visit, to do business, to invest, and spend some time and even live. And we want Sumner businesses themselves to feel connected to one another, to city leadership, and to the resources and relationships that can help them succeed. There's also an important community component to what we do. A strong local business community contributes directly to the quality of life of Sumner residents. Successful businesses can create jobs, support local organizations, sponsor community activities, generate local tax revenue, and give residents places to gather, shop, eat, and connect. When we bring visitors into Sumner, that creates an additional economic activity. When those visitors have a positive experience, we create the potential for repeat visitation. And when we help local businesses become stronger and more connected, that strengthens Sumner's overall economic competitiveness. That's why we see this partnership as much more than funding. We are very proud of the momentum we are seeing in Sumner, and we believe there's an opportunity to build on it even further. Our goal is to continue increasing the visibility in Sumner businesses, bringing people together in the community, strengthening the relationships between businesses and government, developing future leaders, and telling Sumner's story throughout the region. Ultimately, we want the city's investment to reach far beyond the chamber. We want it to reach the restaurant that gains a new customer, the small business that makes a new connection, the employer that meets a future workforce partner, and the visitor who decides to come back, and the resident who benefits from having a vibrant and thriving business community. That's the return on that investment that we believe this partnership can provide. Thank you for considering our partner's request fund, and thank you for the city for our continuing partnership.

Okay. Do we have any questions? All right. He's thinking about it. He's fidgeting. I saw him. I'm with you. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next up we have save Ryan house doing businesses, friends of Sumner history. Uh, they are requesting $18,000 with the goal to preserve, celebrate, and share Sumner's history and artifacts through a mobile museum and eventually a permanent museum. Ready?

So I'd like to invite Tina up as well. All right. So greetings mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Of course, my name is Nick Bierman. I'm the chairperson and president and leader of the group formerly known as Save Ryan House, but we are working on changing that to Friends of Sumner History. Tina Burnett is standing here beside me today. She has a master's degree in history from American Public University. She has much more history expertise than anyone else on her team, certainly more than I do. We've got other members of our group present in the back row, Leland Schmidt and Randall, who I'm sure you know, Randall Adams. Melissa Fox is a descendant of the Woolery family. She's a member of our team. Melody Adams-Forstrom and Amanda Henderson are also members of our team. Amanda is an active PTA parent, and she has a lot of experience with fundraising as well. Okay. So as I said, we are members of the group formerly known as save Ryan house. Yes, we started as a concerned group of citizens that were fighting to save a historic 150 year old building that was owned by the city of Sumner. You know it well, the right house, but we have become much more than that. We are registered nonprofit organization. that is registered and recognized by the State of Washington Secretary of State Office. We have applied and received formal status as a 501 organization. We are rebranding and refocusing our effort toward the mission of bringing a museum back to the city of Sumner and making our collective history accessible to the public once again. We are in the process of changing our name, so our organization name will be Friends of Sumner History going forward. We will be taking a fresh approach to redirect and reorient the organization mission and goals to saving and preserving history on a broader scale. We are also seeking a formal endorsement to do business within the city of Sumner under this new name, Friends of Sumner History. And we will actively resist efforts to deadname our organization. We are making a concerted effort to turn the page and we invite the community to join us in this effort. We're also aware that city staff has recommended that the city council deny our application for community partners funding, but we have come here today to tell you what our organization is about. Throughout our history, we've been self-funded. We've relied solely on donations from supporters and our own sources of funding. To date, our most successful fundraising has been garage sales. In fact, the majority of our current funds are from the most recent garage sales. We are also ready to take the next step toward more formal fundraising and start applying for grants and other sources of funding that will help us achieve our goals. That's why we're here today. That's why we are also working with the Washington State Historical Society. There's a grant, the History Assist Grant. The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation has a Savinsky Grant. There's other grants that we are looking into that will help us with more fundraising. Okay. So those are the kinds of partners that we're looking for. What will we do with any funding that we have? We specifically are working to bring a museum back to Sumner. We want to start with the idea of having a mobile portable museum, since that reduces the overhead costs of having a location, a physical location. Uh, so think about that. So, so think about that for a second. How great would it be to have a mobile museum that can go to an event, go to the night market, go to the schools, go to the Sumner, uh, um, the, yeah, the senior center. Yeah. Thank you. The summer senior center and bring history to the community. That's, that's our goal here is to try to bring history to the community in a new form or another. We would serve people of all different age groups. We would serve students. We could serve long-term members of the community. We could serve visitors. We could serve people at the festivals and the fairs. So we would have an opportunity to reach out to many different people. And our design would include a trailer that has self-contained museum inside it so we could have a ramp that you would walk up into or it would have a ramp so it could be accessible. We could have interactive exhibits inside, touchscreen displays, storyboards, tangible pieces of history that people could touch, all those kind of things that we could bring history out to folks in the community. We've got a budget that we've been looking at on how much all this would cost and different options, but we're hopeful that you as a council could see an opportunity to partner with our organization going forward and find a new way to chart a new course together. to make history accessible to the entire community once again.

Okay. Do we have any questions? You're making me nervous. You were really getting up on the time. I thought I was going to have to stop you. All right. I see no questions up here from the council. So thank you. All right. Thank you.

All right. Next up. Come on, slideshow. Here we go. We have the Sumner Bonney Lake Family Center. They are requesting $70,000 with the mission to build safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments for children and youth. Oh, this way.

Thank you, Carmen. Mayor Bowman, Deputy Mayor Elfers, and members of the council, I'm Mayor Lee Hill-Anderson, Director of Community Partnerships and Engagement, and I'm delighted to be here this evening. Probably the most important thing I can tell you or I can share with you is thank you for your continued trust. As I was looking through my notes, it was the City of Sumner and the mayor at that time back in 1998 that helped us established the Sumner-Bonnie Lake Family Resource Center. We've been partners in this work since the beginning. And I'm glad that I have the opportunity to come before you again tonight to share why we believe that continued city investment in our Family Resource Center, our partnership, is a strong investment for Sumner families. We are requesting 35,000 a year per year for 2027 and 2028, the biennium. This funding will help directly keep a trained coordinator in place and supports family programming right here in our community. One of the key messages I wanted to share with you, some problems that we attempt to solve, is that families don't know, obviously, all the time where to turn when small problems happen or when big problems happen. And when we're able to just help them, sometimes we can help contain the fire that's happening, right? We want to make sure that the problems don't become bigger. And unfortunately, with rent prices the way they are, sometimes those problems are big and we try to connect them to many other local and county and even sometimes state resources. We want you to know the kinds of things people are coming in for, in addition to rent and housing help, they come in for food. And I just, I'm looking at my friend Anthony back there, who's just, you know, I think we have each other on speed dial, right? Diapers, we have a diaper bank in partnership with a family support partnership. We now have formula because a church on the hill gave us 100 cans and we thought the budget for WIC was going to be cut. Transportation, employment, health insurance, child and family support, you name it, we've kind of seen it all. The center is the local place where a family can walk in, explain what's happening, and not be turned away because we don't do that. Basically, we are there. We have someone there that can help them and figure out what comes next. We do have some emergency one-time funding through the Rotary Club of Sumner, which I'm incredibly grateful for, as well as the generosity of other community members. If I could show you the impact, I just want to just highlight again a couple of numbers. 2,900 residents of Sumner expected to be served annually, and 160 of those are students that attend our schools that are either unaccompanied homeless youth or families in families experiencing homelessness in 25 26 and you know that number just keeps going up we have 320 students in our district experiencing homelessness and many of you that know me know i'm so passionate about that what that looks like for me i don't do direct case work normally except for when it comes becomes just too much for our coordinator a parent who loses a job and comes in crying because 40% of the income is gone. Sudden losses because a family member has been hospitalized and now has to come home and the family has to provide care. And they were in an apartment with a narrow door. And Rotary helped us get a narrow wheelchair ramp for that dad to be able to come home. Baby formula, getting a child into the WIC program immediately. We had a mama who took in a six-day-old child because the parent wasn't able to take care for them. As that mom was just shaking, she just told me she couldn't get into WIC for a month. Can you imagine a baby without formula for a month? But WIC was in the portable right across the walkway because that's what we do. We house other agencies as well. I said, stay here. And I went over and I said, Dean, multi-care employee from WIC, can you get this family in? He gave up his lunch hour. And he immediately had that family on WIC, made sure the baby was at target in terms of growth rates. And that mom left with coupons for a formula instead of having to wait a month to get in the WIC program. That's what we do. There's no one thing we do because families don't come to us with one thing. Your money goes further when you invested in us for this purpose. The city is not paying for the whole system, but the city is helping to hold the system together. That's the main message I want you to hear. Because you're partners with us, the health department that's contributing $49,000 toward this family resource center and our coordinator position, City of Bonney Lake contributes $12,000. The WIC program co-locates staff there. Sound Outreach, Employment, and Financial Coaching. Puget Sound ESD with their Valley of Esperanza. Esperanza is the word for hope in Spanish, or Latinx Family Advocacy Project. United Way and other funders. Amazon came through big this year in helping our families that were experiencing hardship due to flooding, community volunteers, and through all of those partners, we were able to leverage and distribute about $50,000 in donated goods to our community. We are just so grateful for our partners. What the council's investment will accomplish, $70,000 over two years, will maintain the coordinator's capacity to keep helping, provide that individual resource navigation that our families need, help our families experiencing housing instability and homelessness, maintain access to parenting education. We did a nutrition class. We did a parenting class where people were just able to do art programs with their kids and continue that network of partnerships we have. There is not one partner that can do this all by themselves. This is ultimately an investment in prevention, helping families stabilize before a problem becomes a crisis again, while we build stronger and healthier, more connected families in Sumner. And I will share with you again that your investment will maintain this local resource hub that connects literally thousands of Sumner residents with services, leverages money from numerous partners, and provides a trusted place for families to turn to when they don't know where else to go.

Thank you so much. All right. I know. You know what? I had many more pages. I'm sure you did. Okay.

I was revving up, Mayor. I know. I've also got some handouts, and I was actually at the end, but the handouts were over at the counter. A little bit more information.

Do we have any questions from the council? Council Member Kenna.

Hi, Mary Lee. Thanks. Yeah, you got a lot in five minutes. Thank you. Or maybe a little more. Maybe a little bit on the end.

I'm sorry. I was trying to look. We couldn't find it on here. All right. I had it up here.

No worries. Yeah, I was hoping you could describe a little bit about kind of the ebb and flow of need. And I know you mentioned at the top. you know, rent prices and home prices and things of that nature. And, you know, you've got gas, you've got food prices, all of it is just skyrocketing. So is this a moment where you see that things just continue to get harder for families that are already struggling? Is this just a cyclical thing where every couple of years we're going through something like this? Like, what does the community look like in terms of need? How is that moving up and down?

I appreciate that question, and I'm glad that others have echoed what I'm about ready to tell you. Sumner Middle School had a 41% free and reduced lunch rate last year, and that's pretty consistent. That means a family of four is trying to live on a gross income of $58,000 or less. The Early Learning Center was at 46%. Daffodil Valley was at 56%, and that's actually a low watermark for them. And Maple Lawn Elementary was at 31%. All four of those schools, actually three of the four, qualify for free meals all year round because of those stats. And I wish I could tell you that they're going down, but not here. To me, you know, some of you heard I've been here 35 years, right, starting this year now. Folks, it's directly correlated to rent prices. And that's not just a Sumner issue. That's everybody's issue. Also, utility prices. And when we see lots of jobs being lost in the industrial, not only industrial, but high tech, I mean, that's all impacting us, along with the price of gas prices. It's all of those things together. I feel like we're, in some ways, I want to say stable, but increasing a little bit in terms of the needs we see. But we've also lost some families that have experienced high needs because they can't afford to live here anymore. So that, you know, it's kind of like, yeah, the need is getting greater, and some are just falling off and having to leave. I hate to be that honest, but that's what we're seeing.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

And not because the community isn't generous, but just because the needs are that great. Thank you for asking. Do we have any more questions? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor, and I apologize. I was really trying to watch my time. Thanks. All right. Thank you.

All right. As you can tell, we're alphabetical, so the S's have a lot here with Sumner in the name of a lot. But next up is the Sumner Community Food Bank. They are requesting $80,000 to provide supplemental food to Sumner families and connect them to other services in the community.

Evening, council members, Mayor Bowman. It's good to be before you again. Mayor Lee, thank you. I've got about two minutes for my presentation.

I appreciate the narrative.

You know, this evening, I want to share, I want to thank you just for the past support that the city of Sumner has given the Sumner Community Food Bank. Your support has been instrumental in what we do and the mission that we fight every single day. Tonight, I'm going to share the need with you. So, going to kind of continue that narrative that Marilee has finished up with. So I will continue that and try to paint the picture of what the true need in the community is based on what we're seeing at the food bank. So I will share the need. I'll give you some numbers. I'll paint that picture for you. I will also share what we will accomplish with your support, and then I'll finish up with the support request. So looking at 2025, looking at the regional impact, from the Sumner Food Bank. Over 118,000 individual family members were served through our marketplace, and that's not even counting the 50-plus agencies that the food bank supports out the back end, such as Mother Domini, the Family Center. 6,487 students were supported through our backpack programs. Households were served 32,968 times, and these are appointments. where clients were able to come to the food bank last year and shop and pull their own product. For a total of 124,542 total clients, backpack and walk-in clients. Now, these numbers, they reflect a community that is relying on us, not occasionally, but consistently and increasingly. Now, let's narrow that down. Let's just focus on the Sumner impact. So over the past 12 months, Sumner residents alone have relied on the food bank 5,127 times. This represents 590 individual residents of the Sumner community. If you include their family members, that's 1,629 clients and family members. Over 500 Sumner residents visited our food bank just last month alone. This represents a 25% increase in Sumner demand since May and that is the highest growth rate among all the 40 plus cities that visit our food bank So the search underscores really why expanded service is essential and if you recall Last I think it was April's I stood before you and I shared with you that we have expanded our services and So we are open, we are the only food bank in the state of Washington that is open six days a week and four nights a week. But we had to do that just to be able to try to, we know we can't match the demand, it's just too great, but at least try to put a dent in it. So the search really is continuing and the Senator families are turning to use this more frequently and in greater numbers than ever before. And the need, it's just not a Sumner story. This is in every region across the street. And we're not oblivious to the impacts that is going on in the company. All you have to do is just walk in a grocery store or go to the gas station and really understand the financial impact that people are experiencing right now. Barney Lake, for example, we see more residents. The demand of Barney Lake residents on the Sumner Food Bank has risen significantly. 127 percent over the last year. We would typically see about 133 Bonnie Lake residents come down to the Sumner Food Bank. That's over 300 a month now. And this rapid growth just places additional pressure on our warehousing, on our inventories, on our staff, and also on our volunteer capacity, making your support even more critical. You know, one thing that we do track is new client registrations. To us, that's really an indicator of growing hardship in our community. So back in 2025, last year, we would experience an average of 84 new clients that would come to the food bank for the first time and register. This year, just from January through July, we were experiencing 124 new clients signing up each month at the food bank. Sumner specific, we receive on an average of 20, 21 Sumner residents, new clients that sign up for the food bank. So this means that more families are falling into crisis for the very first time and they are turning to us as their safety net. So the question is, what will we accomplish with your support? Your investment is going to help us distribute more than 4 million pounds of food. This is not only to our walk-in clients, but this is also to the agencies that we support out the back end. Last year, we distributed, we received 4.3 million pounds of food, distributed just shy of 4.2 million pounds of food. We're a half million pounds ahead of last year. Last year was a record year. This is going to be another record year. So we have food. We have a good amount of food, but our operation costs are increasing. We will provide food access to over 500 Sumner households annually. We know that's going to grow this year. We will continue to deliver 800 to 1,000 food backpacks for the school programs in Sumner here. We will maintain essential staffing, and this is where it's critical. We have a staff of 10 people right now. Three of them are full-time, seven are part-time, and the staff is essential to operate this high-volume, high-impact regional food system. Excuse me. Yes.

So you've reached your time. Okay. Do you have any really key words you want to spit out real quick?

So the money, the investment from the city would go towards payroll, fuel, equipment and vehicle costs, food purchases, and operational costs.

Thank you.

You bet.

All right. Do we have any questions? Council Member Hochstetter.

Yes. Thank you for your presentation, Anthony. I just want to say I've heard great things about your leadership there. And, um, I really appreciate that. Um, what you guys have done and your team to be open in the evenings, it seems like it's fit a need that was lacking at most food banks. So I just want to say I appreciate that. And it is interesting hearing the numbers, how they're growing. But it does, now correct me if I'm wrong, this is my question, are most of the residents that you see local, are they Sumner, or is it growing a lot with our neighboring cities as well?

It's growing more. Sumner numbers are growing if you do it based on per capita, percentage-wise. Per capita, Sumner's the top of the list. Not in just sheer numbers, but in percentage per capita. We're about 4.7%.

Do we know sheer numbers? Is there one city in particular that's really needing a lot of help with some of our neighbors?

Yeah, so if you just look at just the solid numbers, just the base number, and we track this every single month, Auburn's always the top of the list. But based on per capita, Sumner is higher than that, just based on the population base.

Thank you.

Anyone else? All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have the Sumner Main Street Association. They are requesting $60,000 to stimulate economic growth, promote revitalization and beautification, and support historic preservation that ensures the vitality of downtown Sumner.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor Bowman, council members and staff. Thank you for taking time to listen to what I have to say tonight. I'm here to respectfully ask you to continue your investment of $30,000 per year to Sumner Main Street Association. So why should Sumner taxpayers invest in the Sumner Main Street Association? Well, I would say it comes down to three things. Why the investment matters, what we're going to do with it, and who ultimately benefits. So first, why does the investment matter? Downtown Sumner is a community asset. It's a place where residents shop, dine, gather, celebrate, and connect with each other. It's part of what gives Sumner its identity and sense of place. When downtown is healthy and vibrant, that benefits the entire community, not just the people who own businesses here. And that's really where SMSA comes in. We're not just an event organization, although our events are the most visible thing that we do. Our work is year-round. We work on the physical appearance of downtown, community engagement, economic vitality, partnerships, and the long-term health of downtown. And one thing I'd really like to emphasize is that the city's investment in SMSA is leveraged by a lot of other community investment. So between 2024 and 2025, more than 70 volunteers gave us about 25 hours of their time. And that's the equivalent of more than $100,000 in volunteer value. We also brought in private sponsorships, donations through the B&O tax credit program, a $20,000 Pierce County lodging tax grant, and support from other community partners as well. And SMSA has invested its own money as well. During this funding cycle, we put almost $40,000 of our reserves into the first phase of the building lighting project downtown. So in other words, the community partner funds we hope to receive are just part of a much larger investment. So two, what are we going to accomplish with the city's support? We're going to continue building on what we've already started. We're laying the groundwork and hope to move forward with the next phase of the building lighting project. We've also continued our partnership with the city on the downtown holiday decorations, now going on year three. Community engagement will continue to be a big part of what we do, not just with volunteers, but also through our social media content, which helps people discover what downtown Sumner has to offer. And we'll continue to distribute about 10,000 copies of our downtown walking map and event guide every year. Uh, our merchant meetups are continuing to, we have about six per year, just started those last year. And that plus our annual meeting, which will happen next month. I hope you'll come to that. Um, we've reconvened our economic vitality committee, uh, with a nice mix of people and perspectives in that group. And these discussions are helping to inform our future work planning. We're creating more opportunities for people to volunteer, serve on committees, and help shape downtown. These are the people who set up, tear down, and work at Rhubarb Days, swag bags for wine walks, unpack and fluff the holiday garlands and wreaths that adorn downtown during the holidays, attend committee meetings, and even serve on our board of directors. We'll also continue building partnerships with the city, nonprofits, service organizations, property owners, business owners, and others. I see many of our partners here in this room, so tonight. And one of our top priorities for the next couple of years is fundraising. We want to continue to diversify our funding, bring in more private dollars, sponsorships, donations, and grants so we can stretch the city's investment even farther. And finally, who benefits? Well, obviously downtown businesses and property owners benefit from our work and from a healthy downtown. But they're not the only ones. Residents benefit from having a place close to home where they can shop, dine, access services, gather, celebrate, et cetera, et cetera, participate in community traditions. So families benefit. Retirees benefit. Volunteers benefit. People who enjoy our events benefit. But I think there's an even bigger group that we sometimes overlook, and that is summed up by saying, you don't have to participate in anything SMSA does to benefit from our work. Someone who never volunteers, never attends rhubarb days, never serves on a committee, still benefits from an attractive and active downtown. They benefit from the businesses and services here, from the improvements we make in the environment, such as the lighting, and from the private investment that a healthy downtown encourages. So that's why I believe this is a good investment for Sumner. We're a small organization, but we bring together many volunteers, sponsors, partners, and our own resources to help maintain and strengthen one of Sumner's most important community assets, downtown. So we're asking the city to continue to being one of those partners. Thank you for your consideration, and thank you for your past support. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

And thank you for being on time. All right, do we have any questions? Council Member Hochstetter.

Yes, thank you. I do want to say I appreciate the lights that are going up downtown. My daughter and I walked down the other day, and I know that's part of the project that you guys have been working on, and they were great to see as they're getting up.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you very much. Thanks.

And our last applicant is Sundance Circle Hippotherapy Foundation. They have requested $25,000 to provide accessible therapy with horses to foster growth, connection, and lasting transformation for individuals and families.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Gina Vincent and I currently serve on the Board of Directors for Sundance Circle Hippotherapy Foundation. I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight and for you to consider our funding request. Sundance has been serving this community since 2017 and while many people know us as that place with horses, I do want to clarify what actually happens there. Hippotherapy or equine therapy isn't recreational horseback riding. Our licensed physical and occupational therapists use movement of the horse as an evidence-based clinical treatment tool for children and adults with disabilities. Our patients work on balance, strength, mobility, communication, sensory regulation, and greater independence. Many are children with complex physical, developmental, neurological, or genetic disabilities. One of our patients is Markey, a Sumner resident living with a rare disease. Her sister Lindsay has watched Markey grow not only physically, but in her confidence, resilience, and independence through her therapy at Sundance. Markey now tries new things, engages with others, and is reconnecting with her community. That's what an investment in our organization can look like. But I also want to address something very directly tonight. We recognize that Sundance does not serve thousands of Sumner residents every year. We're a specialized therapy provider, and our numbers will naturally look different from the wonderful organizations here tonight that provide food, housing, or large community events. But community impact isn't always measured by the number of people who walk through the door. For our patients, therapy isn't a single interaction. It's individualized. It happens week after week, and it works towards greater independence and a better quality of life. These services can also be difficult for families to find. There are relatively few specialized providers. Insurance does not always cover the full cost, and out-of-pocket expenses can become a barrier to care. Sundance's impact in Sumner, though, also extends beyond our patients. We participate annually in the Santa Parade, providing sensory-friendly Santa photos. We engage with the Sumner YMCA for events. We support Camp Possible, the Sumner School District's transition program, and the accessible bike rodeo. We also provide volunteer and adult workforce development opportunities for Sumner residents and internships for Sumner high school and college students. We are interested in growing with Sumner and to become an even stronger partner in the community. We're relatively young, but a growing organization, and our new strategic plan focuses on expanding access and clinical capacity, strengthening financial sustainability, and thoughtfully building more community partnerships. City support would help us provide thousands of therapy sessions, reduce financial barriers through scholarship, care for our specially trained horses, and support the volunteers and infrastructure behind that work. We would welcome the opportunity to track the Sumner residents we serve through therapy or engage through scholarships, volunteering and internships, as well as the community partnerships we will continue to build. We would of course be tremendously grateful for our full funding requests, but more than anything, we're asking for an opportunity to begin a partnership with the city. If the council isn't ready to make the full investment, we hope you will consider an initial investment and allow us to demonstrate what we can do. The population we serve may be smaller, but their needs are significant. The services available to them are limited, and the impact helping one child or one adult becoming stronger and more independent reaches well beyond that one individual. We would be grateful for the opportunity to grow our impact in partnership with the City of Sumber, and thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Do we have any questions from council? All right, thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. On behalf of the City of Sumner, I just want to pause there and thank all of our applicants for taking the time to apply and come here tonight and speak about their organizations. It's wonderful to hear how many great things are happening across the spectrum in Sumner with the many different partners. As happens in the city budgeting process, the needs and the desires always outpace the funds available. This happens for staff as well, so then that leads to the very difficult decisions before the council. My colleague, Community and Economic Development Director Ryan Windisch, tried to give you a place to start. And it's just a place to start. I know in communications, a blank page is very intimidating. It's always easier for people to see a suggestion and a recommendation and edit and change from there. So he had the... outline of each of these recommendations in his staff memo. I'm not going to go over that again. But here is the summary of trying to spread out, recommend how to spread out 250,000 across 423,000 of requests. And from there, we will seek input from you.

Do you want me to join or are you going to do it?

Okay. I'm going to join with the live Excel. So as I get, if I get suggestions, I can change the numbers live and show you what that would do to your bottom line.

Council member Kenna has a clarifying question, please.

Yeah. Uh, thank you, Carmen. And this, this might be for you. This might be for Ryan, um, if he's still with us online. Uh, but could you just, uh, set, uh, the stage for us in terms of, the intent and the law around these funds and really the goal. Who we're trying to fund with these funds just to make sure that we're kind of evaluating applications on that purpose.

Sure. I believe, and Ryan can help me out if I get this wrong, but I believe it's twofold. You do have to be very careful that we don't wander into the frightening territory of gift of public funds. So the purpose of all funds given through this program are to either help those in the most need, whether low income or a situation in which they really do need a helping hand to improve their situation. or that increases the economic vitality of the community as a whole, strengthening businesses and our business community. which of course has that ripple effect across others. So those are the two primary drivers for anything supported through the Community Partners Fund. I will just, if it's okay, I wanted to repeat what we mentioned at the beginning, that part of this process is also to shine a light on organizations, whether or not they walk away tonight with a dollar figure next to their name, being able to introduce not only all of you, but our broader community watching to the many organizations for further support is also important. a function of this exercise.

Thank you. I believe Councilmember Malcolm has a clarifying question as well.

Yeah, question and commentary, probably a little bit of both. In looking at this, I see the presentations tend to fall into three kind of broader categories. I see a lot of food and housing insecurity asks. I see some economic development asks kind of blended in there, and even some, you know, education and kind of community pride asks in there. And it feels like it's a tough kind of, you know, Solomon's choice in some of these things where we're looking at this fund some economic development potentially at the cost of something I think is very vital, which is the food and housing and security things. And I'm wondering, again, you know, making this all up up here right now. Sorry if I'm blindsiding anybody with this. But have we thought about separating those things into three different funds or two different funds so that we're not having to, you know, I guess try to balance those two different things. Is there any thought or wisdom in, Jason's rubbing his face, around treating these separately because they just feel like they're discreetly different needs in the community that shouldn't be, I guess we shouldn't try to balance against each other. I guess ultimately we do at the end of the budget, but IN THIS CONVERSATION, IT FEELS LIKE I WOULD PREFER TO SEE IT THOUGHT ABOUT HOW WE DEAL WITH HOUSING AND FOOD INSECURITY, AND THEN HOW DO WE DEAL WITH BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT. SO THAT'S JUST KIND OF MY COMMENT QUESTION OF THE MOMENT.

THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER MALCOLM. I think that's a great question, and it's really a philosophy and a policy decision for council. As Ms. Palmer mentioned, this is kind of a new process. This is only the third time we've gone through this. The request for assistance always greatly... you know, exceed what is available. When you talk about economic development, you know, this isn't the only way that the city supports economic development. We have other things that you'll see during the budget process, but this is how we support those that are not city-driven economic development, if that makes sense. So if council wanted to split up the $250,000 in a way that divides it into three pots for you to allocate, that's really a policy decision by the seven of... of you. What we're looking for though tonight is really just some direction. We've got to build the budget and right now you have $250,000 that council informed staff of at the budget retreat that they wanted to continue moving forward. So how you slice up that $250,000 is really up to you all.

Are we stuck at the 250? Are we able to alter that or think about that differently? If we chose to, if we decided to make some policy calls on this, that would, you know, ask us to dip deeper in some other areas in our funding.

If you wanted to exceed the 250, I'd be encouraging council to look at your strategic reserve fund because that's really important. what funds you have available to exceed that. The general fund budget is extremely limited right now. We are still, the mayor's working with staff even this week to continue to finalize that. And at this point, the general fund does not have any additional money for community partner funds over the 250.

Just for reference, where does our strategic reserve fund stand at this point?

I'd have to look at my laptop. I want to say it's about 750,000. Thank you, Jason. Yep.

Council Member Kenna.

Jason and Carmen, can you tell us a little bit more about staff's approach to these recommendations? I have to assume that some of this is kind of understanding our partners and what they, in some circumstances, could get by with and still make use of, you know, even if they're not getting their full request. But just kind of talk through that process of how you identify those in need and knowing that you have to spread this around and make the most impact.

Yeah, I will start, and then Mr. Windisch, if I forget anything, if you want to step in, happy to hear from you as well. So one thing we looked at was our existing partnerships. I'll use the Family Center as a great example. As Mayor Lee mentioned, we've been a long-time supporter of the Sumner Family Center. They rely on city funds to help staff that center, and There's even a long-term agreement. The agreement doesn't state how much we will give annually, but it says that the city will be a supporter of that family center. So we look at what we've historically given them. And for reference, a number of years, we gave $30,000 to the family center. When Mr. Stewart was on council, I think about 2017, we upped that to $35,000, and it's been static since. The next long-term partner is Sumner Main Street Association. Their job is really to help us manage all of the downtown businesses and help coordinate economic development activities as well as historic preservation and business growth downtown. And from a city and a staff standpoint, Sumner Main Street Association is doing a great job. And being able to have one point of contact to reach every single business owner downtown is a huge efficiency for the staff. When Sumner Main Street Association did not operate as efficiently as they do today, it was very difficult to communicate city activities and city needs with 40 to 50 different businesses in that historic downtown core. So it's an efficiency. And the other ones, they're all very well deserving. And we've historically supported things like the food bank and a number of these others. And just trying to find a reasonable amount of money to help as many of these groups as possible is what we aim for. Mr. Windisch, should I answer that?

Yeah, I hope you all can hear me. I'm experimenting with my Starlink, so hopefully you can all hear me. No, that is very good. That is spot on. Mr. Wilson. And this is difficult for councils, difficult for staff. All of these organizations provide such great needs for the community. And some of my recommendations really have to do with what did we fund last time? Can we fund a little more? Can we keep it more or less status quo? And I think for generous influencers, They have demonstrated in this last summer, I think, a lot more potential than we saw the first couple summers. So excited to see, potentially see them funded at a greater level as well. Thank you. Thank you all.

Okay. We have Deputy Mayor Elfers.

Yeah, I just wanted to, I guess I have some thoughts on this too. And just in perspective, this is coming from the general fund, Jason, When we do our 1% property tax increase every year, I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm believing that we get like $50,000 extra in property tax every year. That also funds the general fund. Is that just kind of perspective in this dollar amount, $250,000?

You're correct. We get about $52,000 every time we increase our property tax by 1%, which is the statutory maximum. On top of that 1%, we do get a slight bump for new construction improvements, which ranges anywhere from an additional $30,000 to $70,000 on average. Thank you. Okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to... So we're looking at $250,000. It's a pretty... So I think some of the things I heard was just the cost of utilities that are going up, the cost of taxes are going up, the cost of food is going up. And so I just want to... As we're looking at this and trying to be conservative, I think I just want to acknowledge that we're spending money as a government. And if we go back and raise property taxes by 1%, so we got to be really careful how we're spending this money. I just want to make sure that... We share that because obviously government is a big part of the problem with spending. I think Washington State is causing a lot of increases in cost in utilities and housing. And so I think there's a lot of things that we don't want to contribute to the problem. So when we're going after these requests, I do think it's important to just put that in perspective that we want to be very – I think I – I ran across Council Member Evers last week when he knew he wasn't going to be here, and he was like, why are we donating through the city? And I think that's a valid question. I think it's something that we should acknowledge, the fact that government donating money rather than individuals donating money is a... fairly it's a little controversial in my opinion and i think the uh so that means we need to be really picky and so i just want to say that my uh preference on this is um i think i would be happy to shrink this a little bit i think last year last time we did it i i've expressed the same thing i think we have very strong relationships with very strategic folks and and i think it's important to to do that, I would be, in this case, I look at Exodus Housing and I look at Mother to Many. Really, really appreciate what they did, but I think as newer organizations, I would be happy to shrink that just a little bit. In my preference, just to give them a chance, I like that they've never applied before or gotten anything from us, but I think I'd be happy to shrink that by maybe 5,000 apiece to get it to 10,000. And then I think other than that, I don't have a ton of specific feedback. But that would be something if we wanted to shrink this, I'd be happy to do that. And I think it doesn't need to change a lot. I think we're pretty much consistent with the 25, 26 amount. Those two new ones, I think they really sound really like great opportunities to start a partnership. I'd rather start it a little smaller.

That's my specific ask.

City Administrator Jason.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Alfers. What worked last time really well when we did this with council is we kind of went through the line and had every council member provide their input on what their desired funding was. And that helped us find the consistencies between seven voices up on the dais. So I would suggest, Mayor, if that's amenable, that we do that again, because I think we'll see some clear patterns. Just because staff recommended something does not mean that council can't move those numbers up, down, or keep them the same. So I think Ms. Palmer captured what you just said, Deputy Mayor Elfers, in your comments, but.

Well, I would say that I agree with you. I know I'll just add, thank you, Deputy Mayor Elfers. It's a great starting position. Having done this a few times prior, I know that it's gut-wrenching for everybody up here because everybody wants to help everybody. But I think that Deputy Mayor Elfers set some nice boundaries in terms of fiscal responsibility because you, as a council, you are giving away the taxpayers' money. to help these organizations, and we do value that. So I think we should go ahead and do it that way and get ourselves normalized somewhat with the agreed-to amount that everyone agreed to in the last retreat. And we'll just go from there. So how about we start with Council Member Malcolm.

Well, I appreciate that we agreed on that the last retreat, but I'm just pulling back from that just because that was in a vacuum with a lot of information, and this is our chance to kind of look at real asks from real people being framed in real situations. So I'd ask for us to maybe give ourselves a little forgiveness on that commitment from six months ago on $250,000. So my thought, I don't have very specific funds like Deputy Mayor had on what should go, but I do have a... I guess a working philosophy on this is that try to, the things that are helping with food and housing insecurity, fund them as much as we can in this. And if we have to dip into our other funds to help kind of also fund the economic development stuff as requested, it seems like we're meeting the economic development requests pretty close to what's being asked. And we're cutting back on some things that might help some of the more indigent folks in the community. So my ask is that we look at those things, maybe upping them, and if we go over the 250 that we consider going into strategic reserve. I don't have specific numbers yet. I probably won't have them until the end of the meeting.

Okay, so I'll come back to you last. How's that? Perfect, thank you. Okay, Council Member Hochstetter.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I think... First, I would like some clarification because I can see this really expanding this discussion as far as maybe framing it and setting some boundaries on where we're at. So, Jason, if we were to go over 250, we are then in the general or the strategic fund.

That would be staff's recommendation. You'd have to access your strategic fund. Okay. keep in mind there might be other things in the budget that you want to access your strategic fund for. Because there are a lot of other asks that council has talked about regarding economic development, like economic development grants, different studies for East Sumner, for example. You might need your strategic funds for those or even to accelerate road construction projects that council's been prioritizing over the last couple of years.

Okay, so for me, I would like to stay the course at that 250, because I've heard maybe reducing, I've heard maybe considering more. I think given the years past where we've been, it's a fairly new process for us. We have bumped it up from 200 to 250. So for me, Mayor, my recommendation is we stay at that 250. And as far as their staff recommendations, I have a lot of trust in the staff. And as I'm doing my own, I did my own before I looked at the staff, and mine was very close to what the staff had. So I'm in close alignment with the staff, and I'd like to stay the course at 250 as far as their decision today.

Okay, thank you. Deputy Mayor Elfers, do you have anything else you'd like to add, or are you good? I'm good. Okay. And so, can I go to you? Okay, Council Member Kenna.

Yep, I'm ready, Mayor. I think I'll just say the end first, which is I agree with Council Member Hochstetter. I think we stay at 250. It's what we've kind of let in here and worked up to at this point. I also sat with these for a while and, you know, tried to play around with the numbers and then I kind of checked myself and I was just like, I can't pretend to judge these organizations and partners and the services that you all provide in our community. And our staff has much more on the ground knowledge, works with you guys every day, every week, every month, whatever that is. And so I really feel like the context that I needed was coming from them. Ryan, you're on the call as well and you gave me a lot of that through email. So, you know, there's so many needed services in our community, and I would love to see you all fully funded. At this point in time, I'm just happy to go with the staff recommendation, stay at the 250. And for those that wouldn't move forward with funding, I would just say, you know, we see you, we hear you, we want to work with you, however that can be. You know, but at this time, it's just a hard decision to make, and I think that's kind of where I'm landing.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Ready? Sure. Council Member Wilsey.

So, I'm good with the 250. I think, you know, it worked for what, you know, we have available and, you know, it's in our cycle. My question is, are we voting tonight or is it just getting parameters of, are we declaring our choices, our numbers?

It is our preference that you declare your choices because it helps us build the budget presentations for the rest of the year. It also gives our community partners some understanding of what is going to likely be passed in the budget so they can start their planning for their 27 and 28.

So then I will start at the top, Carmen. Exodus Housing, I'm going to do 15K. Generous Influencers, 10K. Mikasa Housing, 15. Mothers to Many, 15. Chamber is 10. Family Center is 65. Food Bank is 60. SMSA is 60. That would be my 250.

All right. Thank you. Mr. Isaacs, Council Member Isaacs, are you ready for this? Yes, I am. Okay, push. All right, let's just get you up here.

I'm not ready for the math thing.

It's all right. You've got a good mathematician right next to you, and you're a teacher. Okay, you're up.

So with this comment, do I have to declare the actual amounts, or will I be able to have a callback?

No, his callback is after your callback. So if you're not ready, then I'm going to go right down here, and if he's not ready, I'm going to come back here. So are you ready?

Not with the numbers.

Okay. What would you like to share? Are you good with the 250?

Yes, I am good with the 250. It is a difficult decision because of the necessity and the need of our community in so many different ways as far as housing, food, nutrition, the upcoming of our youth, the presence of mentors, the accessible horseback riding for students with disabilities. And again, it would be nice to be able to support everybody with their request. And I'm going to have to make a difficult decision here.

Okay, I'm going to go back down to this end, all right? Council Member Malcolm, are you ready?

Yeah, actually, my request is that we consider a $50,000 increase from our strategic account and that we would fund Exodus an additional 15, MiCasa an additional 15, Mother's to Many an additional 5, and the food bank an additional 15, just because they tend to address what my major concern is, and that's the housing and food insecurity.

Did you get all those, Herman?

What was the food bank? Pardon? What was the food bank increase? Up to $65,000, so another $15,000. Total of $50,000 extra.

Thank you. All right, are you ready?

Yes, I'm ready. Okay.

Hi.

Hi. I, too, trust the staff and the city very much and with their partnerships that they've worked in the past with these organizations. And I say we keep it at 250, and I agree with the recommendations that the city has proposed.

Thank you very much. All right. So what are we seeing there for common? One, two, three.

Ms. Palmer is going to mark it up here for you.

I see her going quick.

So Mayor, it looks like council's in agreement on the Sumner Main Street Association funding as well as the generous influencer night market funding, the ones in yellow. I need my glasses now. Let Carmen read it.

So Exodus Housing, we have most people remaining at 15,000 with one recommendation to go to 10 and one recommendation to go to 30. With Mikasa, we have everyone at 15,000 with one recommendation to go to 30,000, which is with the strategic tour, sorry, the strategic fund access. Mother to many, most are staying at 15,000 with one recommendation to go to 10,000 and one recommendation to go to 20,000. The Chamber of Commerce is pretty steady at 15,000 with one recommendation to 10,000. The Family Center is also pretty steady at $70,000 with one recommendation to go to $65,000. And the Food Bank remains predominantly at $50,000 with one recommendation to go up to $65,000 and one recommendation to go up to $60,000.

All right. Let me look here. So with that said, we need to move forward. So, Deputy Mayor Elpers, let's hear about what your thoughts are again on this in terms of reducing a few. Yeah, Mark, you want to shut off? Okay. Thank you. I've got to find you on here.

There, I got you.

There you go.

You're off.

I'm off. We're all off. I didn't turn it off.

I think I'm okay. I'm okay if we stay at the recommended council, the staff recommended number. I do prefer, like I said, I think I like keeping people's money in their own pocket to donate personally to stuff. That's how I like to do it. And I think the more you give out of state or government money, the less people have. They're paying more taxes to do it. So I really do like the idea of... keeping it lower, I think, but I'm happy to go with the staff recommendation if that's the most common idea because it's not significantly different than my proposal anyway. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT.

Thank you. Councilmember Malcolm, do you want to talk about your logic here?

Thank you. MR. Yeah. I feel like we're seeing increased costs in everything in the world. I know that these groups are being hit as hard and probably harder because we're seeing more requests and we don't see anything I guess fending that off in the near future. I have a little bit different philosophy than Deputy Mayor Elfers in that, you know, government's kind of the last resort for when these things aren't being picked up by the community. And I think the reason why these exist sometimes and why these asks exist is because we're just not seeing enough of that, you know, community commitment. So I feel like we need to kind of help fill that gap for right now. So that's kind of my philosophy around it. And I feel like AGAIN, COMING BACK TO MY ORIGINAL THOUGHTS ON BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT VERSUS COMMUNITY HELP, I FEEL LIKE WE HAVE CONFLICTS THERE THAT ARE MAKING US THINK ABOUT IT A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY. I'D LIKE DOWN THE ROAD FOR US TO MAYBE SEPARATE THESE TWO CONCEPTS AND MAYBE TALK ABOUT THEM SEPARATELY.

Jason, just to pull on the thread of the strategic reserves, a lot of us are new up here, fairly new. Going through a budgeting process, how likely is it that we get to that and one or two of us have a pet idea, a real interest in something, a curiosity, and we want to fund something And, oh, we wish we had that $50,000. We wish we had that $100,000. I mean, in your experience leading these budgets with previous councils and mayors, what does that look like? Because I can imagine there's a few of us up here that might have a couple things we really care about, and we might need that money down the road, right?

That's a great question. You know, I think we need to start off, what is the purpose of the Strategic Reserve Fund and then just reserves in general? So reserves in general. The whole point of reserves is for the city to save up money for a planned activity, some sort of capital project or investment in the community. Strategic reserves were specifically designed in 2017 when the council at the time accessed bank capacity that we had been storing in our property taxes. And when they did that, they said, you know what, we don't have a specific need right now. But we want to take some money for grant match, some for street capital, and then some for this strategic reserve. And the strategic reserve is really meant to be that gasoline on projects, so when we need to do something. So we've used it for Washington Street. We were going to use it on Wood, but Wood and Main, we actually got some last minute grant funding. So we were able to take that money and reallocate it towards the Utility Wooner Town Center project. $700,000 is nothing insignificant, but that's one project when you think about it. And there's a lot of million-dollar projects that are sitting out there that might be of interest to council. Streets that we've heard from residents for years that they want repaired, that we've even done some design work on, like Hunt Avenue. So those are some things that you might want to consider. We also have East Main improvements that I know has been of interest to council. It's another good funding source for that type of project.

Okay. Yeah, I think with that context, I mean, it helps. So it's not necessarily a rainy day fund, like in case of emergency. It's really to help get something across the finish line, like you were saying, that we've been working on. We just don't know where the funds are going to come from.

Correct. The city does not have a true rainy day fund. What we have is operational reserves. And we're going to talk about this more as we go through the budget process, but We have money that we call operational reserves, which are really helping us manage cash flow. Because property tax, we get in two large tranches a year. And we're reliant on property tax for our general fund services. So we need to have some operating reserve in there to help us deal with those cash flow situations. Everything else is a reserve fund to be used for reinvestment in the community. It's the taxpayer money. for us or you as policymakers to reinvest in the community.

Sure. Yeah, I think with that background, I think I would love to join you, Councilmember Malcolm, on upping the numbers. I definitely see the need. That was communicated clearly to us tonight. and in these applications, but I just would love to have those funds sit until we know that we need to use them. We really have to deliver on a number of things for the community, and if there's a couple of things, whatever that might be, that we decide these are important and we want to try to get this across the finish line, I think it's important to have that there. So I would kind of hold firm on the 250, but I see you, and I wish I could get there. Thank you.

Okay, so thank you. I think with that said, so Councilmember Malcolm, I think from an emotional standpoint, we would all love to give as much as we can to all these groups. I personally have worked with quite a few of the folks out here and some that have had to leave. And in my family, a lot of time has volunteered to some of these groups out here. That's my husband. He's full-time volunteer now since I've taken this seat in a number of these places But with that said now that you see the process can you for this year? agree to the 250 and the distribution of the funds and then we going forward we can look at the process as it is and Potentially then look at what you discussed as a City Administrator Wilson has said, you know, it's a policy decision up here. And I know it is the first time coming in. It's kind of like, whoa, because it's face to face with people and you're seeing feelings and it's tangible. And so it is hard. It has been hard in the past when we've seen people sitting here and we have to say no funds. Right. And it is hard because it tugs at you. So I'm wondering if you can look at this in that way. And then we can, as a council, move forward looking at the process and how we do this.

You're on. Yeah, I think, I mean, the answer is absolutely. I wish I was as emotional about it as you think I am. I'm fairly mercenary when it comes to spending dollars. But I just look at it as just a math problem. Everything's increasing. The needs are increasing. It just feels like an obvious place for us to maybe expand into. That's my only position. Of course I'm open to discussing this and figuring out as we get into the budget process because I think today is more about, you know, hearing from the community, looking at the numbers available, reflecting on what we've talked about in the past, what we would like to see moving forward. And I think that's all I'm trying to do is stretch the conversation, get us to think of it a little bit differently. You know, my thinking down the road is finding a way to kind of separate these issues a bit more so that we're looking at them uniquely for their needs and funding them appropriately. That's my thoughts on that.

Thank you. So tonight we are looking for a commitment. We are looking for a commitment from the council so that the people that are here, one, they understand what dollars will be donated or given to each of their entities. And then two, for us, as Council Member Wilson has stated, we are thick in our own budget process here in the city right now. And so that's why we need to know as well moving forward. So I'm hearing... Council Member Wilsey is good. Council Member Isaac is good. Council Member, are you good? Okay, Ken is good. Deputy Mayor Elfers is good. Council Member Hoxton, are you good? Council Member Malcolm, are you good? And would your distribution be as you see here following the themes? So are you good with the $250,000? I'm good with the $250,000.

Yeah, I will concede to the $250,000, and I'd probably model more of what Councilmember Wilsey, how she divided it.

Okay, so go ahead.

You're on. So what I'm looking at is boots on the ground. Who's got boots on the ground? What does that look like, and how many people are they serving, and what is the need there? So that's kind of where I did my... heavy hitters versus the, it's not necessarily dividing up what they do, but it's how impactful that has towards the community. I'm fine with adjusting the resource center and the food bank. Um, because again, they're, they're almost, you know, working together in, in, in a lot of ways. So they, you know, kind of piggyback off of each other. So I'm fine with adjusting that, um, to the consensus. So yeah, I can kind of, I don't mind falling in line. I'm just looking at boots on the ground. That's my sense. That's my, thank you.

Thank you for that.

So, Council Member Wilsey, just to clarify, you're okay with the staff recommendation for the Family Center as well as the food bank?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I can lean in that. Thank you. Okay, so I want to be considerate here. Council Member Malcolm, how are you feeling on this? You need to turn off and then on again, I guess, or you're on. There you go. There you go.

No, yeah, I think, I mean, if you're looking for, are you looking for consensus for all of us to be in the same, nodding their heads in the same direction?

Yes, please.

Okay, I didn't realize that. I thought I could be out here and it could be six to one and we'd be okay with that, but it sounds like you're looking for me to concede to it. I will, I guess, in order to move it forward, I will concede to the $250,000 and just note that I will probably be a broken record on this in the future.

Taken. Noted. Understand. Okay. Thank you. So what do we have there? What's our final?

So mayor, where we ended up was following the staff recommendation all the way across.

Okay. All right.

Thank you.

That's what we have. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for everybody that came and presented. Every single one of you are valued. Please understand that. Sorry it's not so emotional for you. It's very emotional for me. It's okay. Well, it's all right. All right. So with that said, we will move on. Do we have a city administrator report? Not tonight, Mayor. Thank you very much. And I'll move on to agenda settings. So do we have any, the meeting agenda calendar, any changes? Yes. Council Member Wilsey.

Public... I'm sorry.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Yes. Public... What's that? Safety? Public safety. Thank you. Okay. My brain went left. Public safety is going to be moved to stay on Wednesdays, the third Wednesday. We're going to move it to 11 a.m. tentatively for the next three months.

11 a.m. next three months. Okay. Correct. Anyone else? Council Member Kenna.

Were you going to mention next Monday, Mayor?

What am I mentioning for next Monday?

We have the retreat in place of the meeting.

Well, I guess I wasn't because I didn't have it in my notes, but I am now. So we'll be having a retreat. Thank you. Instead of a regularly scheduled council meeting. It starts at what time?

It's 1 to 7, and it's at the YMCA.

Thank you.

And please dress comfortably with shoes or you'll be going on a couple field trips. So make sure you have closed-toed shoes on.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kenna. Okay. All right. So with that said... Let me make my note here. I will adjourn this study session at 8.03 p.m. Thank you.