It's 6 o'clock on Tuesday, October 28th, and I'm going to call this Lacey City Works session to order. It's like we have a council member dining and council member. Greenstein attaining us remotely. And I haven't heard from council member Stedman, so he may be remote as well. But all other council are present. I want to acknowledge that we this city of Lacey are on the,
Ancestral land that the tribal people of the Treaty of Messing Creek including the Squally Indian tribe and the Squawkson A and tribe
Would that kind of get a motion to approve this evening's agenda?
I would move that we approve tonight's agenda as published
Second it's been moving seconded. Is there any discussion?
Seeing none all impaired motions can apply by saying aye. Hi
Is there anyone opposed?
and that motion unanimously carries.
We have an approved agenda.
And first up on our approved agenda is public comment.
We did receive one written public comment.
And I know that was distributed to the council.
And we also have one person who signed up for public comment.
If you'd like to please come to the podium over there
and give your name and last know what you're here to talk about.
Sure, my name is Joseph Slattery.
I represent the Hillbitty Business Park.
It's 87 and a half acres just northwest of Britain, Parkway, and Marvin Road.
44 years ago, I was born at St. Peter's Hospital down the road here.
And for the last 35 plus years, we've been doing business here in the city of Lacey with my family.
As I understand, you were provided a copy of the letter prepared by our team that identified several concerns with the code amendments that staff will present before you tonight.
I want to first thank staff for their responsiveness and hard work regarding our concerns.
My understanding is that staff will present solutions to you regarding the warehouse issue,
investing issue that we have flagged.
We support staff solutions on these fronts and request that you incorporate them in a final adoption.
With respect to development agreements, our concerns are detailed in the letter,
but the upshot is that the purpose of a development agreement is to provide flexibility
the facility that facilitates a better project for everyone, including the city and the community.
And in many cases, make a good project great.
The proposed amendment removes staff and city council authority to provide that flexibility with respect to those types of uses and density.
To be clear, under the current code, you, as the final decision-maker, under development agreement, have the authority to make a case by case informed decision and a judgment on these issues.
The proposed amendments removed that authority at the onset.
We ask that you preserve your current flexibility and authority to make these types of important
project specific determinations, in a case-by-case basis.
This all is detailed in the letter provided to you in advance tonight's meeting, but I'm
happy to try to answer any of the questions that you may have on the topic as well.
Again, thank you to staff for your responsiveness and work on this.
We request you advance staffs proposed solutions to the warehouse use investing issues and please
Please pursue a requested course of action by not amending the restrictive provisions
for development agreements that currently assist in fostering flexibility and collaboration.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
And if you could, hopefully you'll stick around for this next agenda.
If we have any questions, we can address them at that time.
I also want to say that my family goes back a long time with Betty.
My father was really good friends with Betty years ago, and it was a big supporter of my dad over the years
And so it's that property is precious for a lot of people, and so we hope hopefully you know good projects are on the way
Okay, is anyone else wishing to address this council?
Seeing none then let's go into
Our main agenda items and first up is our inner-sea transit system redesign
Ryan? Good to see you, Rob. Yeah, go ahead, it's right here.
Perfect.
Thank you.
And I assume this will just advance the slide if you need it.
Perfect. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Nick Demaris. I'm the Chief Communications
Marketing Officer at Intercity Transit. I've been there almost three years. I've got some
great compatriots here with me from the organization as well, and I'll let them introduce themselves.
Good
evening. Rob Lafontaine, Planning Deputy Director.
Spencer Zeeman, bus stop coordinator.
Fantastic. And I apologize right off the bat because several of you have seen versions
of this PowerPoint several times. So we'll just assume that this is primarily for staff as
well as the thousands and thousands of Lacey residents who watch these work sessions every
week. Yeah. I'll also say, not that I play favorites within the service area, but
And I am a homeowner and a resident of the city of Lacey since 2006, when right after
we first moved down here and really loved being part of this community.
And it's one of the things that I love most about working for intercity transit as I get
to work on issues that directly affect my community and my family.
I've worked at both the state and the federal level, and it's really remarkable to be able
to work on things with these fine folks and others that affect and impact service that impacts
my family and my neighbors and my community.
So, we'll start here with a lovely photo back from the spring and the concept that we've
come up with is imagine a better bus system and we're going to talk a little bit about
the timeline and sort of what got us to hear and that's the first slide.
So, you know, thinking back to the work that we've done here at Intercity Transit back in
time, if you go back back into 2016, the Intercity Transit Authority Board was facing a
crisis, and our community was facing a crisis, really, as we saw for a number of reasons
revenue for transit services within our community really started to dry up.
And the board at the time really went out to the community with what we called the road
trip at the time to ask the community what sort of steps would you like us to take.
And there were a couple different paths at that time.
We could reduce service and become a smaller version of intercity transit, or we could invest
more in the community, and more into intercity transit and public transit in our community.
And overwhelmingly, the organization heard yes, more, more buses, more places more often.
And overwhelmingly in the feedback through the road trip, which was really conducted over a
considerable period of time with a lot of different opportunities for feedback,
the community asked for what they were calling a transformative transit system.
And that was a really exciting thing to hear.
So that led then to the creation of Proposition 1 back then and Proposition 1 basically added an additional authority.
There was also a commissary move that had to be made at the state legislature to allow for that authority.
But then through a vote of the people we were able to achieve an additional investment in transit here in our community.
And that was a really remarkable thing and I believe the final vote was like 67% pass.
which, you know, is really kind of encouraging as you think about this community and 67% of people in our community really wanted to invest in transit and mobility in our community and getting people around.
As that conversation with the community happened and as they collected sort of information, they came up with these nine promises and these proposed improvements that were made and intended to be made for the community through the investment that was being made in inner city transit.
it in transit system within our community, and won't go through and read them.
But these should be pretty familiar to you, and we'll talk more about several of these
as we go through.
And, oh, I shortened this up out of the courtesy to folks who have seen it many times.
But I always, I usually have a slide here that says COVID changed everything, because
that passed back in 2018, all the investments started, all the money started to flood
But in additional revenues come into the organization, the board was trying new innovative
things, including the launch of zero fare as an innovative fare structure.
It's important to note that that wasn't one of the nine promises that was made to the community.
The conversation in that was, we needed to look at innovative fare structures because we were
facing as an organization a pretty massive investment in a new fare collection system.
And so through some study, we realized that somewhere between two and three percent of the
the operating revenue for the organization when you backed out all the costs of collecting
money, the organization was really only receiving about 2 to 3 percent of its revenue
from fares.
And that up against a potentially $6, $7 million investment in a new fare collection
system didn't make a whole lot of sense.
And so the zero-fair pilot was started.
It was started in January of 2020, perfect timing, and then everything changed.
And a lot of things got placed on hold.
And for a lot of reasons, we've been sort of building back.
And Rob's been here through that whole process.
I don't know that he necessarily wants to go back into those places in his brain,
to remember what we had to do.
But I wasn't here, but I understand the amount of pivoting, innovation, trying to get
people where they needed to get, especially people who were in sort of critical situations
was really miraculous.
But it meant that a lot of those improvements had to be placed on hold.
And so we had sort of made these promises to the community of investing us and
And we will deliver and then wait, we got to wait a little while until we can get back.
And so really rebuilding that included getting us back up to the number of operators that we needed to achieve.
You know, like many places we saw a bunch of retirees, retirements from our operators as well as how did we build capacity within the system to be able to get to a place where we could actually start to deliver on some of the things that we'd offered to the community.
And so the zero-for-pilot has also been extended through 2028, as we look at that and the
impacts of that to our community, and that's a whole different presentation we could give,
but we're really starting to move forward on some of these things.
And one of the ways that we are now ready finally to be able to deliver on this is this massive
system redesign. And this map really probably only makes sense to Robin Spencer,
because I tell you, if you put our current map over the top of this one,
and then squinted at it, it would be difficult to tell the difference.
And part of that is because we already do a pretty good job of running service down most
of the roads that make sense to run service down in our community with some notable exceptions
that we'll talk about as we go through the presentation.
But this system redesign is really centered around a few core principles, investing in corridors.
And so looking at ways that we can really invest in those high traffic corridors, get people
who are transit dependent, where they need to go and connect people better, better connectivity,
particularly for our area high schools, the capital, some of those key places that we've
identified in our community that people need to get to, and through some one-seat rides
and some innovative planning, we've achieved some of that, and then expanding service and
access throughout the community.
And so thinking about that, the corridor, so right now I sort of describe our current system
is really kind of a hub and spoke system.
And so, if you consider the Lacey Transit Center, the Olympia Transit Center, and
then Capital Mall, most buses sort of make their way there, and then they go back out
from there, through in our community.
And that is fine, and it's service well in this community.
But what it, it really creates a lot of out-of-direction travel for folks.
And that adds time, time means that it's less convenient for folks.
And those choice riders, people who maybe have a chance to drive a car instead,
will tend to continue to drive their automobiles.
So finding ways that we can increase frequency and get more people where they need to go by investing in a corridor approach really makes a lot of sense.
And so the idea here is this corridor which really runs from, you know, the Lacey Costco over to Capitol Mall is really a really critical area for us.
And this is where we're also seeing traffic signal prioritization and the incredible partnership we've seen with, you know, we've achieved with the City of Lacey and other investments to try to really drive a lot of frequency down this corridor.
This is also, if you look at the satellite view, where a whole bunch of housing is being
built within walking distance of this corridor, and a lot of that affordable housing in our
community.
So, we know that a disproportionate amount of our transit dependent riders live within
these areas as well, and so we really want to invest and make that system great for them,
because if it's great for them, it's great for everybody.
One of the other really great elements of this redesign in College Street is where I live,
and we were just talking about College Street.
Spencer lives there and Sue does as well.
Right now, the 64 is the bus that serves College Street.
It is a wonderful route, but it is somewhat of a meandering route,
no offense rob, that sort of makes its way down College Street
and then sort of meanders back through Olympia down
through some neighborhoods to get downtown.
But because of that, the 64 really only runs every 30 minutes
up and down College.
And anybody who drives down College knows how much is happening
on college, how much we need to lessen the dependence on cars through there, move more people,
we're also seeing incredible investment in that area within our community as well.
And so, rather than just taking a 64 and running it every 15 minutes, which really doesn't meet
the needs, Rob and the team have really designed some shared frequency within the system.
And so, this way, we can run two bus routes that overlap.
And when they get to the end of college, one will go left, one will go right, and if you look at
map, you can find out sort of where those go from there, but that then results in 15-minute
frequency on this primary corridor because those buses are overlapping.
So if you really only need to go from the Lacey Transit Center down to the lows at the end
of, that's probably a bad example, you could probably just go to the lows on the other side
of the freeway, but if you wanted to go somewhere down College Street corridor, it kind of doesn't
matter which of these two buses you grab because you're going to be able to get down there
every 15 minutes. Anything you want to add on that?
Maybe some other examples in the community where we've done what we're doing this.
The Capitol, Capitol White Capitol Boulevard corridor is another area that
If you're familiar with the system throughout 13, kind of dominates that corridor. We're still going
to keep our route 13, dollar frequency back, but as Nick has described, overlays some additional
routes on it to provide some shared frequency there.
At the point, we're on the west side,
so yeah, there's different locations where we're kind of deploying this strategy.
So, this is the strategy in philosophy, right, where you're having two buses overlap,
so you get 15 minutes, what is it in reality?
Are you hitting that pretty close?
Because, obviously, the buses are going off and there's a whole bunch of things that can
interact here to make sure you're actually getting 15 minutes.
Go down.
You want to start with on-time performance?
Well, so the schedule is the backbone to all of this, and we're preparing the schedules right now.
So it's a lot of puzzle making to bring all that together.
But we've already been able to confirm that College Street, basically because we can control when buses are leaving the Leesey Transit Center kind of meter them down College Street to ensure that 15 minute.
There are other locations, maybe along the Yelp Highway, where routes are overlapping, where they're not going to be 15 minutes apart.
It might be 10 and 20 minutes, things of that nature, but so as a schedule is coming together, we're able to design it in ways that are purposeful.
We'll also mention, this is a problem when you look at like our commuter routes up to Lake
Wood. I know if you've been driving northbound on a Friday afternoon, you'll sometimes see
those buses stacked up and, you know, like, well, those are supposed to be running every 30
to 45 minutes. Why are there three within a mile? Traffic is obviously a determining factor
there. But one of the other great things that we've learned about our zero-fair pilot is
Fair disputes are actually the number one reason for operator assaults and bus systems.
And so that's an important thing as we consider those tragedies are happening all over our country.
But it's also one of the number one reasons that buses run late.
If you've ever gotten on a bus where there's a big line of people digging around for change,
their car doesn't tap right, doesn't work, and the bus has to wait.
That's a quick way to get buses off schedule as well.
And so the fact that we can board through both doors on and off, and Spencer can always talk
about some of the bus stop improvements we're doing to make that even more efficient.
That really helps us out.
Well, and it's a plug, too.
It really reduces our dwell time, and we're at a stop.
We can keep those dwell times hurry within 10 seconds or so.
Yeah, so one of the other really cool attributes of this redesign is one-seat rides.
And so again, how do you get more service out of the same number of buses?
One of the ways you do it is you have buses sort of run their route and turn into another bus.
And so, and some of that has really been designed about how do we connect
high school kids to the places they need to go, primarily at SPSCC and other
areas within the community.
And so, Rob and the team really tried to take a look at that and figure out how
you can get folks from these area high schools over to SPSCC, even if they don't
have, even if it's two different bus routes, they don't have to get off the bus
and change buses.
And some of that may be where the bus route sort of ends, maybe at the tum water safe
way, and then the number on the front of the bus changes, and then it does its other
half in the scheduling that's been designed there.
So it's a really innovative way to be able to get people where they need to go.
It can be a little confusing, so we're going to utilize technology, planning tools, trip
planning tools to be able to let people know they don't have to get off and look for that
other bus while that bus then drives away.
But that is a really important way to be able to get people where they need to go.
On a related note, one of the things that we really heard through the customer comments that we receive,
we literally receive hundreds and hundreds of customer comments every year from the community.
But one of the things that we continue to hear is better need for connectivity for high school students.
The school buses do an incredible job of getting kids from their house to the school and home.
at the end of the day, but I have a 16-year-old.
I'll tell you, she almost never follows that schedule.
Kids go to SPSCC, they go to grandma's house,
they go to work, they do extracurricular activities.
And so finding ways that we can better connect our area
high schools to their local community
and then into that corridor and in some of those hubs
is really critical.
And so you can see up on the board here,
one of the areas of new service that we're providing
is the link up Slater Kinney over to 15th.
With the improvements that have been made in that area,
it really started to make sense
to be able to run some service up there.
Right now, if you are a Northeastern high school student,
you want to catch an intercity transit bus,
you have to walk over to Martin Way in front of the lows.
This will provide service right there on Slater Kinney
that will then plug them into the Lacey Transit Center,
into the corridor,
be able to make those on-street transfers much more efficiently.
We're also seeing some new connectivity down Henderson on the back side in the
tum water, a really critical link over on the west side in Olympia, up Black Lake
Boulevard.
I didn't even think about the fact that we don't run service on Black Lake Boulevard
right now.
It's just such a busy corridor, but that's a really critical link for us as well.
And then some other nips and tucks up in Northeast Lacey and Southeast Lacey to be
able to provide great connectivity and service out there within that service area as
well.
So
we have a dedicated web page on our website, imagine a better bus system, on there you have a number of really great assets for folks, including sort of a timeline of how we're doing this, the way that we sort of talked about it, phase one happened last May, phase one was really build capacity within the current system.
And so that was add more drivers, add more service hours, expand hours, increase frequency where we can.
And phase two happened in September with a launch of our new commuter routes.
So that's the 620, taking, I'm sorry, 610, the Lacey connector and the express service up to Lakewood.
That was taking our old 620 service and really breaking it into more of a local service.
That'll connect multiple places in Lacey before going up to Lakewood, including a stop at the Madigan Gate or the Berkeley Gate.
Which one is it?
Madigan.
Madigan Gate, thank you.
at our first time, shouldn't question myself, which is really great for our military
families that need to be able to access the base, and they can connect to other
services up there.
So that happened in September to grade a claim in fanfare, and then the big,
the big thing really happens in May.
And so it is, it is a complicated system, and the reason, with a bunch of interdependencies,
and the reason we could pull the commuter service out and do that in September
is it sort of stands apart and separate.
Once you start changing a bunch of these other routes,
you really can't, yeah, it's better to do them all at once
because you just can't, you got to rip that bandaid off
all at once.
I've described it as sort of a late stage Jenga game, right?
It's this sort of house of cards, if you'd rather.
It's the complicated system.
But that allows us to get ready to make this big change.
There's going to be a lot of outreach that will start
with things like this, coming out and making sure
or folks are aware of it, where of the resources we're actually having our first open house next
Monday down at the Olympia Transit Center, just inviting people in, the formal adoption
of the service change and the equity analysis will happen at our board meeting next week.
And so we wanted folks, I'm sorry, next month, next week or the public hearing starts next
week. Thank you, thank you. I gotta keep my dates straight. But we wanted folks to make sure
that they knew what they were sort of writing public comment on on that plan before we get
to a place where the authority board is asked to make that formal.
But so on this web page, you can also see if you go to the redesign map, you can pull
up interactive planning tool that we use to be able to take a look at what that routing
looks like.
It'll also describe frequency and some other information as folks think about that.
There's some layers of boundaries that shows not only our service boundary, you can look
get at city boundaries, so City of Lacey, for example, high school attendance boundaries.
There's another layer you can toggle on and off.
That's his blocks.
Compilation employment.
Is there a route that goes from Slatercunning 15 up through to Britain Parkway?
Or is it just a route that comes from Carpenter Road and takes it right on to Britain Parkway?
That's that new service up 15th, right?
Correct.
That's correct.
Part of our design for May includes that new service that would come up, Slider-Kinney,
travel east on 15th, and then continue to Britain Parkway, and then to Marvin.
And then it looks like the Madigan Gate is going to be closing pretty soon.
Is that how is that going to affect the ridership from the parking right here to that location?
So, our service essentially won't change, that what we're doing with our new route 610
is a connection with the Pierce Transit Route 206, and that's the bus that actually enters
the base itself, and so the Pierce Transit 206 is going to be on a detour, so we're still
going to have a connection at the Berkeley stop with the Pierce Transit 206, then that bus
will be on D-tour to get into the base via the logistics gate.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
So this is a little bit what we were talking about with the phases.
This is now phase three.
The biggie, you know, we were sort of doing some of the stakeholder work that we were
doing really cross in the tees and dot in the eyes and looking at these things and really
challenging some of the decisions that were made to get to a final product for recommendation
to the board.
Now we are in this outreach phase of letting folks know about the formal public hearing
and comment period and formal adoption of the service change that will happen then with
the final adoption there on the third.
And then from January through, you know, the day before service change, it is all information
everywhere, all at once, all the time.
So, we are looking at some of our partner agencies who've done major service changes
in learning from them around, you know, real retail engagement with folks out on the
platforms at the transit centers, setting up tables, carrying around iPads, a lot of different
accessibility features built into some of these planning tools to be able to help folks.
And then we've actually done an advanced trip planner model on our website as well.
and so once that file is uploaded, folks will be able to go into the future and put in, say,
I want to go from here to here, the date after the service change takes place, and it'll actually pull from the new file,
and so they'll be able to see what that route looks like compared to their current route, which is a really fantastic service to be able to provide folks.
Inevitably, this will be different for everyone, they'll experience it differently.
But we really believe this is a really incredible deployment of the resources that we have available to us for our community to be able to get folks around.
Under a bus stop construction, can you talk a little bit about that? Is there going to be new stops that we don't know about yet?
Yeah, exactly.
We are workshopping that right now internally. We have a committee set up and we're going to be doing on site field surveys.
We have 140 locations that we've identified for additional service throughout the PTBA.
And then that's going to plus or minus based on the on-site survey, whether we determine that's a safe or feasible location or not.
But right now we're anticipating that we're going to go forward with that.
Additionally, we have a contract with WSP, which is not Washington State Patrol.
It's a consulting firm that is working on our corridor study there.
And as part of that, we're going to be offering up to three what we would call BRT or bus rapid transit light stations, which will be distinctive.
There will be larger, there will be noticeable, and there will be much more welcoming, they'll have real time signage, they'll have additional features, and they'll be lighted and have power.
And what we're hoping to achieve with that is getting those choice riders, those people who are saying, you know what, it's only gonna take five minutes more to hop on that bus.
And I know it comes by at this specific interval, so I can rely on that.
And so I think that's going to help start plant that seed in the community.
And when they start to see that investment, that will grow that interest in that corridor.
And it also lines up with another route that we have the 50, which is the slower, more community-oriented route that goes up to the hospital, as well as North East Lacey and the Hock Prairie Park and Ride.
And so by hitting additional areas along the way, it's giving people access to those different connections and high-value locations as well as just that main East-West corridor going through Thurston.
So, this circles back to some of the different prop one elements that we identified earlier on and sort of lays that out again against the different phases of our implementation as well as some of the initiatives that we have ongoing.
I mean, the one sort of development element there is that night owl service currently we have an agreement with Evergreen where we do provide night owl service out there under contract with Evergreen.
We are looking for better ways to expand service, but I will say with this upcoming service change, most of these lines are going to run till 11, 10, 11 o'clock to paint on service areas, and that was really designed to be able to allow somebody to ride the bus down to the Washington Center for an event and still get home safely.
that was a limiting factor for us when we had service a little bit more limited.
You'll also notice the next upload will go up in the upper left-hand corner.
This is really a identifying mark that we've developed to identify all the elements of the prop one promises and
things that we're reinvesting in the community and start to tie those pieces together for the community.
Of us fulfilling those commitments that were made with that additional investment.
And I think we've hit the end for questions.
So, happy to answer any of me, Heather?
What's the mobile app?
I should know this.
I was trying to look at my phone.
Is it from here to there, or was it?
Yeah, so the mobile apps, there's a long story history of mobile apps within the system.
And so, the one that we is provided by one of our computer systems is called My Stop.
up and that was-
We promoted for a while. There was also the one bus away app that actually comes out of King County. At this point, there are so many other great systems that have been developed like the Transit app, so many people use Apple Maps and Google Maps. Our system is really designed to be able to provide that real time information up to the cloud and out to all these providers, sort of all at once, all the time. And so at this point, we're really encouraging folks to use whatever app you're comfortable with because they're all running off.
sort of the same information.
Oh, what are the main apps then?
Yeah, primarily Google Maps, and I would say the Transit app has made great strides.
That is the Transit app is, they've done some really cool gamification as well.
You can earn badges and other things.
But they've also got some really innovative sort of multimodal approaches where if you say
that you're willing to ride your bike to a place and then do some of that.
Yeah, including ride share, Uber.
Google Maps is also a great system as well.
Yeah, those are the ones that we're sort of promoting.
Can you share a little bit about the new bus and ambassadors program and maybe a little
bit about bus buddies as well in terms of how this may help the transition along?
Yeah, I appreciate that.
So, our goal is that anyone that needs help figuring out how to ride the bus is going to get that help.
And if that, that's a spectrum, right?
Where somebody maybe just needs help figuring out the timetable, but somebody else may need somebody
to actually go to their house, pick them up and ride the bus with them.
And our goal through both partnerships with some different organizations and
the staff and technology that we have on board is to provide that continuum of service.
And so, the transit ambassadors are really intended to be more voices and helpers out in the community on the buses at the transit centers identified by their transit ambassador shirts and really be those connection points for the community bus buddies is a great partnership that we do with Catholic community services and it is really that retail if you need that help and assistance they will go to your house plan your trip and ride the bus
bus with you until you get comfortable doing that.
And then all across the spectrum in between we provide service.
And so our customer service folks are always available during business hours and weekend
hours to be able to answer questions.
They are a wonderful asset.
And then we're trying to figure out ways to make our online technology and information better
and better.
There's a whole bunch of folks who just would rather die than pick up the phone and actually
call somebody.
So we need to make the website work about as well as you can, but, you know, there's some good innovation happening there as well.
But yeah, that's what, when I talk about, you know, our theory of communication, it's, you know, the right information to the right people
at the right time in the right way that they are used to receiving that information.
And that means that we have to hit everybody where they are.
Thank you.
Is your, you stuff with a dial lift program?
Is there going to be any improvements or anything to that as well?
Yeah, so our pair of trains of service, which here in Thurston County is called dial lift.
That is for folks that the fixed route bus system just doesn't work for
for reason of disability and there are some sort of thresholds that you have to meet to be able to receive that service.
And that's a sort of door to door service that we provide.
That is required to be provided within a certain boundary of our fixed route service.
And so when we expand service into new areas, that dial lift service boundary expands as well.
Can you help me with that?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, one of the maps that Nick shared earlier was there's new segments of service.
And we talked about 15,000 new for example.
So yeah, under federal regulation, three quarter of a mile is the buffer.
So when the service takes effect on Sunday, May 3rd, there'll be a three-quarter
of a mile buffer around all these new service areas, and that defines the
dial lift boundary. So yeah, I know my mom unfortunately had suffered a major
stroke and was such an independent person to having become now completely
dependent and dial lift was one of those things that you know you just don't
realize until you're completely dependent on someone else to or a ride like
that and so I really appreciate that service otherwise my mom's mom always
calling me and saying hey any ride to section centralized I guess turn around
spare play I always did that when I was a teenager so but yeah it was a huge
a huge service for them.
Yeah, I'll just add, every time we do a community event like the Lacey Spring Fund Fair or some other community event,
somebody inevitably comes up to me and says, my mom's dial lift driver was her best friend the last six months of her life.
We have partnered to follow plows to dialysis appointments in snowstorms.
I mean, really like chilling things, you know, use bump giving things in that service that we provide to the community.
So, and then inevitably I have somebody who comes up at the booth and says,
Ab busses, I'll never ride one, never ridden one, never will.
And it's like, well, you never know, and you may end up in a situation where
you need either a fixed route service, or dial lift, or we also have our village van service,
or walk and roll certain programs, just across the board.
We provide a real plethora of incredible services to this community,
and folks are always impressed at that span.
And anyone else have any questions?
I have seen this presentation more than once,
but I'm glad to.
You can give it next time if you want.
I'll sit over there.
I just wanted to say, I am one of those people, like the choice
writers, where when I was working in downtown Olympia,
I always did the calculation, would it be better to drive?
Or would I like to ride the bus?
Or should I ride my bike?
And before these improvements today, getting from my house to downtown Olympia on a bus would take 30 to 40 minutes.
And I can bike down the Shehala Trail actually faster than that.
But if the weather's poor, I would just choose to drive my single occupancy vehicle, of course.
But if service could get me from here to downtown in 15 minutes, that would be a much easier choice for someone who always runs short on time.
So I'm excited about this. I'm also really excited about the night out service because that's something I've been hoping for for a long time
And I know it's been in the works, but now you've got enough drivers
You can actually staff the buses to do that night out service. Yeah, it'll be wonderful
I'm I'm the same way and I will often you know if it's
Beautiful summer day. I will ride my bike downtown down to OTC do a bunch of meetings down there
And I think it's really hot in the afternoon. I might throw the bus my my bike on the front of the 64 and ride that bus home
So really having that flexibility and what we decided in the redesign that by investing the corridors like we are it's really serving our transit dependent writers first with span and frequency but span and frequency benefits everyone, right?
And so you start to buy more people into the system now are we ever going to your run bus service out to some rural road and very few people probably not.
So there are people that, you know, for one reason or another probably it's too expensive to buy them into the system with service, but that's okay because the other thing that I tell people in the community when they say they don't benefit from the bus is everyone or bus is takes cars off the road in front of you, right?
We are by design a climate change combat strategy of reducing the number of single occupancy vehicles and it doesn't always work for everybody to ride the bus for people who need it and people who want to use it will be there.
We're on a trajectory to surpass 5 million annual boardings, which is amazing for our community.
New big number.
So for those of us who don't know and aren't familiar with night-out service, can you just,
is there a timeline or like a-
You want to talk a little bit?
So legacy service has been disagreement with the Evergreen State College that on throughout
throughout the school year on Friday and Saturday nights,
I guess it'd be early Saturday and Sunday mornings,
bus service would continue to run
between the Green State College campus
and downtown Olympia.
That's really been the extent of our late night service
for the past few years.
Until about 4 a.m.
Yeah, yeah, about that.
I think it's like three and three 30
depending on which direction you're going.
Right, and so essentially it's taking that idea
and kind of building upon it so that there would be
more transportation options. One of the things I really, and I have my interest, is given the
advancements in technology, the ability to look at on-demand service, or what they call micro transit,
which is essentially the uber bus, that it's not limited to a fixed route, for say, but rather a geographic area.
Yeah.
I will say I did the block party last year at Evergreen and when we first brought back
the night owl and the students were really excited about it.
They don't call it the night owl, they call it the drunk bus.
And we don't endorse the night owl and the drunk bus.
But I will say if folks are going out and are engaging in social activities that may make
it unsafe for them to drive home, I would much rather that they ride our bus home.
They still have to follow the same rules that everybody else does for decorum and behavior but I think that that's an important service that we can provide in our community as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, I also want to thank Council Member Cox to remind me that our device chair of the Transit Authority is here, so it's up here.
So thank you for being here tonight as well.
Okay, thank you guys.
Yes.
I have two stickers left, they've been a hot monitor, I can't believe you're here.
I'll take
the other one.
Okay, next up on our agenda is our construction project update.
I can get more.
Well,
hello council members.
Hello.
I'm Deandra Buchanan, I'm the engineering construction manager, and along with Ashley Spith,
the design manager, we're going to give you the construction update.
So
we're going to start off with recently completed construction.
That photo up there shows the Terry Cargo Reservoir that has been recently completed.
The EV charging stations has been done, Marvin Road Utility Relocations, the Manhole Rehab
Project, 8th Avenue Rehabilitation, the 400 pressure zone, and the Woodland Creek Bridge replacement.
I have all been completed in the last six months since last time I came and presented.
So I'm just going to go over a few of them, starting off with the EV Charger stations.
one type three charger was installed at City Hall and also the community center.
Two type two chargers were in Starlet City Hall and one at the library.
One type two charger was installed at Northeastern School District Admin building
and they just needed our construction experience to help them put that in.
Next project that has been completed in the last six months is the eighth Avenue Rehabilitation Project.
The location of this road is off of Sleeter-Kinney heading west between a bank and a donut shop.
It leads to the City of Lacey Chamber of Commerce.
The contract scope for this project was to perform complete reconstruction where necessary,
add storm drain improvements including a new valley gutter and place new striping.
So you can see in the photos that this is just a before and after from looking at one location.
And then second slides here show a little more of what was happening.
We have some alligator cracking in that left side photo beforehand.
That hand we have the new roadway surface in the right hand photo with the new valley gutter as you can see off to the right.
Another project that's been recently completed was the 400 pressure zone.
We installed 3,100 linear feet of 12 inch diameter water main.
We installed a sewer relocation and street reconstruction in Pacific Avenue, Southeast.
other ways known as State Route 510, work included of course new striping and this was all done
at night per wash dot restrictions on us.
So just some photos that show like when the contractor
put together the pipeline, they put it up together in advance and then they just moved it in pieces
into the trench line. You can see a trench line being dug right there in that night and then again
the asphalt was also played that same night as per wash dot restrictions.
Very fun project that's
been completed recently as the Woodland Creek Bridge replacement. As far as we could tell,
the original bridge was built sometime in the 1980s. After the bridge was removed and the
concrete footings were placed, the bridge was put together much like in a rector set. So if you
look at that left hand photo, that's what shows the new concrete footings had been placed with the
backfill. And that center photo actually shows you what the pieces looked like when they were originally
delivered. And even though we didn't get a contractor photo of him installing it, he just put it together
like Legos, is literally how it was put together.
So we have a before and after picture.
New sides of the bridge for pedestrian safety were added.
You can see that up there as well as the chain link fencing
and the new asphalt leading to the deck.
The bridges opened October 22nd.
The no more jumping off the bridge.
No more jumping off the bridge.
I saw a YouTube video on this one.
Yes.
That was the first time I stumbled on it
and that was the first time I had seen a YouTube video
on a capital project, or at least stumble on one.
Is that something you guys are going to do already?
We have parts to thank for that.
Our communication.
This team is looking at trying to do some more short videos for highlighting projects and things like that and produce them push out to the public when we finish projects like this.
Yeah, it had quite a few views.
And now you can drive a car across that?
No, there's a bullard.
Okay.
So we would pull the bullard in the middle.
That's why.
Yeah, the bullard is a little old.
The emergency vehicles can go across.
Yeah.
And the other one, you could.
You could.
We're not supposed to, yes.
This is rated for vehicle traffic.
We're rated for emergency access.
All right.
So we're going into projects under construction currently.
There are 16 projects listed on this slide.
of the 16. Three are in suspension. They're waiting for materials. I could go
around just we waiting for pumps things like that. I mean the generators take
a long time to come in as well. And also you wouldn't think this but the
polls that go up for lighting take a really long time to come to be created.
Both of the well projects that are listed there are also in suspension until
early next year for the contract requirements and the remaining projects are in here on various
stages of activity. We won't go over all of them but we will give you some highlights.
The first one is the College Street Northeast Extension Project. This is just standing in the
middle of 6th Avenue looking one way and the other. You would look by this, of course, this
roadway is complete. We do have a full depth pavement and of course, striping has been completed
it on this section of roadway. So for the most part, that portion is complete.
This photo shows off to the left is a sidewalk panel that's been replaced, that used to have a tree there that was uplifted.
And they do intend on replacing the tree when the time comes because there's something about trees needing to go to sleep.
I'm actually not quite sure. But they were replaced also to install water and sewer steps.
So, there is some work to be done on 6th.
Looking south down college street northeast, the college street portion between Martin
Way and the current curve into 6th Avenue is completely paved and striped as well.
There is a new road configuration which includes a bike lane on both sides of college street
northeast.
Eventually, there will be a bike lane on both sides of college through 15th, from Martin
Way.
Okay,
so these pictures depict the future T intersection.
It looks like a mess, but it is, the contractor is currently working on the piece of roadway
between the match point at the future T intersection of sixth avenue and college.
The piece between eight, excuse me, sixth avenue and 15th is also being worked on.
The grade of the roadway has to come down about two and a half feet from its existing location
and matched back both into sixth and college.
If you look on the left side,
you can actually see a transformer
that's on a concrete pad in that left photo
and that kind of gives you an idea
of where the future roadway's going to be
just a little bit so that there is a dip
that road it literally has to come all the way down.
As part of the project, the contractor was allowed
to close the road between sixth and eighth avenue
through the end of the year.
The new piece of water main, storm drain lines
and retaining walls are all being stalled
in that section of roadway.
So right now, you go down college street
and there's a curve, right?
And then, but the future of this can go straight.
So is there going to be a stop sign?
And then you keep going, or how's that going on?
So college is going to be a straight-through way.
And then, the avenue is a T.
Yes, there's going to have a dedicated left turn lane and then a dedicated right turn lane because there's the only directions
You can go on six on to college. Yeah, yes, I'm going to be stopped controlled to come in on the college. Correct. Just with the stop sign
Stop control. Yeah. Okay. That's correct.
And then I didn't mention that that right hand picture is
Basically looking at the T intersection those
Big excavators you see there installing the wall the retaining wall. That's along that edge of the roadway
This is a project that's been going on for as long as I remember.
I remember going to middle school right there and seeing a future road project coming.
So that was a long time ago.
So yeah, this has been a long, long coming project.
Yes, at least 20 years.
At least.
What's the anticipated completion date?
Anticipated completion date.
The contractor has until the middle of next summer.
If it depends on weather, that's really what it really depends on.
I mean, they would love to finish if we have a good paving window earlier than that,
like maybe Marchish, but we really have to, it just depends on when they can pave.
But we're done paving for the year, right, for the most part.
You know, the contractors are able to bring it in every once in a while,
so there are times where you're going to see some paving done.
If the grades are right, yes, they will.
We have a few contractors up north that are actually planning on doing some paving.
And I'll show you in a little bit, hopefully.
We're hoping anyway.
So continuing on with projects under construction, we all know about Greg Cuyo Park.
This slide shows the aerial photo of the before and, of course, the recent construction.
You can see between February and September, starting off at the blank slate.
The project included the placement of an 82-stall parking lot, an ADA-accessible playground,
ground, a picnic shelter, and an 18-hole disc golf course.
All right, some photos for Kuyo.
The city has been working with the disc golf course group who has added temporary disc
golf baskets and tees.
That photo off to the left actually has one in the middle, I know the shading is really
hard to see, but there is one in that photo.
And the photo off to the right shows one of the crossroads of what we call a hard service
trail.
there are approximately four miles of trails like this located throughout the park in that
vegetative and forested area that you see in that photo. And then this last picture for Kuyo
wants you to show you the shelter as of yesterday. So the background you can see the playground off
to the right hand side of this photo in the very back can actually see the playground. The contractor
still has grading work to be done. There are several trees that have to be removed as part of the
contract requirements and some plantings that will take place next year.
We anticipate the grand opening of this park to be sometime in the spring, so just so you don't know.
When you say grand opening, well, the disc golf course be ready by then because now they just sort of have scope some of it out, but there's a lot of work that needs to happen.
Correct, and one of the things that we anticipate is that when the contractor takes down some of the trees, we do want them to be able to use some of the chips.
And so they're, you know, we're trying to work with them to try to plan if they can go out there with their own volunteer groups and do some of that work that you're describing to be able to make those areas where they're going to be.
So I know we got some help on some professional design of that course too.
The next project that is currently under construction is the 2025 sidewalk repair project.
That map off to the right shows six general area sites throughout the city of Lacey.
The scope of this project is to replace approximately 45,000 square feet of sidewalk panels
that have been lifted due to tree root growth creating an offset between panels and that's
just that one off to the left shows you very letters read their hand delivered to the majority
of the property owners are emailed to the HOA representative slash management companies.
Included in those letters was a guide to help property owners know how to take care of
the future trees.
The work started in October with cutting the trees down to the stumps.
The amount of time the contractor has for this project is May of 2026.
If they were used all 160 days, and that doesn't even include weather days, that project includes
It's placing a new root barrier along the sides of the installed new trees.
And of the 270 trees removed and replaced, some will be maintained by the city.
Some will be maintained by the HOAs, and some will be maintained by the property owners.
Just a quick question there.
I know, well, first of all, thank you for this sidewalk repair and construction project.
It's something I think is extremely important for so many people who are really dependent on our sidewalks as at their transportation network and so many people don't realize how many people are dependent on that so thank you for this.
Obviously, no one likes to see a bigger tree cut down, and we've cut down quite a few,
and hopefully out of necessity, right?
Was there, you know, we've received some letters about saying, hey, there's some alternatives
you guys could have done instead of cutting down this tree.
Can you address that, is there financially feasible
alternatives, or what's our policy on that?
So in a lot of cases, the city at least you can't use,
for example, pavers.
Pavers can't be used because the tree roots are going to grow
into the pavers eventually.
We are trying to look at these things like long-term solutions.
Root barriers are only good for so many years.
The tree roots will grow under the root barriers and eventually grow under this sidewalk.
They're just not, it's just not, the tree's going to do what it's going to do, right?
So when people suggest pavers, we can't do that either because the tree roots are going to grow into the pavers.
That's one example.
Rubber's surfacing, which was another suggestion, is not ADA compliant.
And if we were to try to move a sidewalk, we would have to look into the cost of trying
to purchase the right of way, and a lot of homes in front of a lot of homes to move
the sidewalk from its current location.
And we have a lot of design projects that are trying to do that exact thing, and you're
going to see a lot of right of way costs that are going to do that exact thing.
So we can offset the sidewalk, you know, from the roadway just to be safe.
So those are just some examples of the things that just the cost is already going to be, you know, we are doing the most efficient thing for the city of LAC.
And we cannot leave the trees and cut the roots off.
We don't feel that is a safe way to try to leave the tree because we know the roots are going to be cut once we take the sidewalk panel out.
One thing that's concerned me, and I understand, you know, that some trees will have to go, but in recent years we've had like trees planted along College Street only to find out they weren't appropriate for the setting because they were already lifting roots.
So, how can you assure the council that the new trees that are going to go in have been
thoroughly vetted and have roots that are more likely to grow down and up?
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, we have two arborists that, private consultant arborists that are on staff for
us that we hire.
to consult on this. We've looked at a lot of research of different trees, tree types.
We have multiple staff at Sea of Lacey who are actually certified arborists that have told us also
like these are the best trees that you can possibly try to use. And that's why in the current
guidelines you have a specific tree should only be planted in a certain width of a planter, right?
So in a 4-foot wide planter, only specific trees are allowed now,
six-foot, eight-foot, 10-foot, et cetera, only specific trees are allowed to be planted
in those areas just by, you know, us looking at that tree type in just the other areas and
other cities that have planted these trees and the natural growth of those trees in those
roots. One thing we do need to look on a little bit closer is soil types and so that's huge
and making sure, you know, those root barriers are installed properly because if the root
If the birds aren't as full properly too,
they'll go over the root barrier under the sidewalk.
There are a lot of other issues
that we're kind of dealing with with that, so.
Let me ask a follow-up.
Go ahead.
So I remember my days on the planning commission,
we have a street tree guide of a plan.
Is that being updated?
The roadblocks.
Yeah, that's constantly being updated
into the development review section on public works
in a ministry in that street tree guide,
because as Scott said,
part of it, you get the best information you have at the time
and that can change over time
because trees are living things
and they may do different elements.
So looking at Coltabores planting setting,
the soil types is a big issue
because if you have certain types of soils,
trees are still gonna try to find water
and find roots so they may,
even if you may have the right tree
and the right location of soil types
may also affect how that works.
That is constantly,
that is being looked at frequently.
Thank you.
There was one other option that folks that provided comments on this issue asked about,
and it was a floating and reinforced sidewalk slab.
What is that?
Do you know?
I'm not familiar with that kind of slab, I would have to get back to you on that one.
I'm guessing it's sort of like a dock where it would sit up slightly above the ground underneath
it.
Yeah, if it's any sort of thing like a bump, those would probably not be ADA compatible.
So I don't know if it's like an over something over but we'd have to get back to you.
Yeah, what I understood that to be is like a raised platform like a bridge.
Or this one could be elevated off the ground.
Right.
That's what I understood in that email.
Yeah, that sounded something like that.
And that's probably not ADA compliant.
No.
Okay. Well, thank you for, you know, I just want to make sure I know there's some people
will have been concerned about this and I-
I felt pretty confident that we were, took a lot of that into consideration and I do know we did update our, you know, our street trees and after a lot of lessons that have been, you know, we have learned in our community over the years. So, I know that has been, you know, updated and we're following that. But, you know, the thing is, is best laid plans, right? I mean, you can have what you think is the right choice.
the right everything going right and nature sometimes finds a way and so we just hope that everyone can you know knows that we're we're not going to cut down a big tree
along our streetscape if we don't absolutely have to do that. We're not going to do that in Lacey where we are a true city this is something we really care about and so I hope our community knows that and thank you for all the work you're doing on this.
Thank you. One of the other projects that we wanted to mention about trees, Lake Viewed
Meadows Utility Improvements. This is a project that's within the City of Lacey Eastment.
Suer main was identified in the areas to be compromised due to tree root growth. And
that very first photo at the very center kind of close to the bottom of that photo, you
see a sewer lid. That sewer lid is literally being hugged by the tree roots. And so with
that kind of evidence of tree root growth, the issue could result in block sewer mains
and problems within our own sewer system. So this project allows for both the sewer
main and a parallel water main installation. This is the tree that has been taken down.
That same exact tree, this is another tree that was in the vicinity and that easement,
you can see that the orange lines actually represent the limits of the easement, and
that tree was taken down as well.
So the easement for this project had removal of trees prior to placing the new sewer and
the water mains.
So this was part of the project that we need to do.
And the stumps all came out and now we're able to barely put in the water and sewer mains.
Continuing on, we have a few lift stations that are going to be coming up and also that
are currently under construction. Just to tell you a little bit about the lift
stations that we have here. The one off to the left is Lift Station 3 location.
It's located off of Gulf Club Road Northeast and is a wastewater pump
station that was originally constructed in 1970. After 55 years of age, this
facility is at the end of its service life. The new lift station's capacity takes
into account future development demands within its service area. It includes a
New Wetwell, new pumps, new valve and bypass bolts and a new electrical control building with the onsite generator fencing another improvements.
And then stormwater improvements are also being made on this project for the safety of the public from flooding that has occurred in the area.
That photo off to the right shows you the location of existing lift station 11, it's located off a Glen courts out the east and it was constructed in 1980.
The existing lift station is a vacuum primed pump station that is being converted into
a submersible pump station.
Upgrades include a new electrical components, a new wet well with mechanical pumps, valve
vault that meets cura osha requirements and other site improvements that will extend the
life of this station.
These next two photos show some of the everyday work that happens on projects like these.
The photo off to the left shows compaction of base rock material over an installed storm
drain.
And the photo off to the right shows multiple valves that will be connected to a sewer system
and the vault and also the structures.
And I want you to notice that all these things are underneath our feet. They're all buried.
You will never see that vault again other than this fixed picture and that wet well.
And we'll have a lid that will be sticking up top. But those are kind of things that are happening every single day.
Okay, we just install them and then we don't even know they're down there.
All right, the next project to just discuss briefly is the Jacob Smith House roof improvements.
This project includes the removal of 3,900 square feet of cedar shake roof system and
installation of the same type of roof system.
And the project is in the early phase of construction.
We call it the submittal phase and it's anticipated to start mid November and
last about a month, depending on the weather.
We're going to go in, Ashley's going to go over the projects, the police station.
All right, thanks Sandra.
Council's already intimately familiar with this project, so I'm just going to touch on
a few highlights of progress since the last time we gave an update.
This photo was, it was taken very recently as you can see, and what I want to highlight
here is that asphalt paving has been completed for the project.
So, major milestone as we're approaching this really terrible weather, all of the asphalt
areas have been now been paved.
A couple other quick highlights for milestones that have been reached recently.
The facility, both buildings now have permanent power, and so they're in the process of dismantling
all the temporary power to those facilities and fully switching over to get systems operational.
And furniture has been delivered and is in the process of installation at this point.
Just a few photos to highlight here.
This is a drone photo from sort of where the training building sits further back on the site.
What I wanted to highlight here is just the connectivity to the city hall campus.
You can see over on the left hand side next to the parking area, it will be sidewalk and
an attachment point to the city hall campus as it exists bringing over into the police station
plaza. So it will be one campus feel and not two separate kind of facilities as you
come in off of third. This has all now been paved as you saw in the previous picture.
Highlighting here, the main photo on the left, you can see the covered ready line that I'm
sure the police department will appreciate after the weather we've been having as well.
And then happening now up on the right is the floating paver system is being installed on that outdoor patio over the TPO roof.
So if you visited previously and just saw that TPO, this is what it'll look like as a more finished condition.
Moving over to the interior area here, you can see on the left hand side we have the emergency control center that serves the dual purpose as the community room for the police station.
That is a 109 person capacity space for training events, public events as well.
And then over on the right hand side, you can see the main corridor as you come in on
that upper level with the clear story windows up above.
Couple things to highlight here.
The exposed CLT panels are clear coat finished and that is their finished condition, that color
that you'll see the raw wood show through.
and the vertical columns that you can see on that right-hand photo are actually steel beams,
it is a steel-framed construction building. However, those are wrapped in Douglas Fur that was
harvested from the existing police station site and dried and repurposed for use and construction
of the building.
And then jumping to a little bit more of the interior here on the left-hand photo,
you can see an example of what sort of more of the office space will look like with those carpeted
areas and exposed ceilings throughout. And then on the right hand side is the lower level,
which is primarily open with polished concrete floors and then winds coating throughout. So a
little bit more utilitarian in the back of house spaces than you would see in the front lobby in
the community room.
And that is it for the police station and those questions.
Thank you, Ashley.
All right, upcoming late 2025, early 2026 construction, pretty much got tried to go through
May 2026 for you, at least through March.
So you can see from this list that we have a couple of lift stations, we have a well
and electrical vehicle charging stations are going to be placed in the gated parking lot
in the back of City Hall for fleet use, so that's just something else that's coming up.
And I'm only going to go over a few of these.
We have a source for asbestos, abatement, and house demos to continue on bringing in wells for the city of lacy and
That last one would be that playground and the lacy veteran services hub. So we're just going to go over a few of them
This was the project I was telling you about we are waiting for it to dry
So we are trying to get this project complete this project is being performed due to a city owned eight inch PVC water main break in the
Thurston County right of way
The break triggered emergency repair efforts by city water staff, and although the water
main was successfully repaired, the temporary pavement patch was installed until a full extent
of the roadway damage could be assessed, excuse me.
This project is anticipated, it wasn't anticipated to begin this week, it has not begun yet.
It is anticipated to take at least two weeks, and we're going to wait until it's dry enough
to be able to remove the asphalt and then put it back in.
Is the source sixth-grace production was at the 750-foot well?
Is that what that is?
I think that's smart and emergent, isn't it?
Yeah, I don't think it's that deep.
Let's look it up. I'm not sure I'll have to look that up for you.
Yeah, no worries.
We've never drilled down that far, have we?
Yeah, we have wells that we know.
We have.
Okay.
Yeah.
And is that, I mean, does that require a special pump to get that water out of there?
Yeah, they're pretty big way down there. Yeah, there would be a hundred horsepower
So
Yeah, the message was awkward before we go into there's multiple level aquifers the shallow as well. We have this source for
and it's it's got a
The water says it 25 feet deep three, you know, so it's super shallow
So
just again to highlight another lift station this existing lift station shown in the photo was originally constructed in
In 1979, this project includes replacement of the electrical controls building, including
installation of a new generator, a new odor control facility, and replace outdated
occurrences.
The project has a 220-day timeline, and we anticipate it will have long lead items suspension
for specific materials, just like other projects, pumps, valves, and certain things that just
take a long time to create.
I don't anticipate this project actually being complete until at least 2027, if not even
2028.
And then the last slide we have for you today is the Bush Park playground replacement
that actually is going to go over. Thank you. Bush Park playground, the five to 12 portion,
you can see there on the left is the oldest playground in our inventory. It's roughly 20 years old
at this point. Several of the parts have become obsolete and not available even for replacement.
So this project has been in the queue for a little while, the city was fortunate to receive a grant from RCO to match up to 50% of the funding for this project, which is a total budget of $440,000 as well as a contribution from the Gateway Rotary towards the construction of this as well.
So what you see over there on the right is the selected concept design.
And some of the finishes and colors may change slightly.
There's still refining that final product.
But this design was overwhelmingly selected from public voting participants.
Parks Department did a great job of reaching out with the school district support.
As well as hosting a couple of pop-up events at Bush Park together, input from residents and park visitors.
And ultimately, this was a selected concept out of four different options.
We are poised to issue a contract for this structure by the end of November, and that
will place construction beginning in January of next year with the completion by summer
of next year.
One other thing to mention, sorry, the wood chip surfacing that exists currently will all
be removed and replaced with poor and place rubber surfacing for ADA accessibility, similar
to what we have at the depot playground currently.
No one can fall down, they'll bounce, all kids fall down.
Will there be swings?
There is on the upper left corner of that plan view on the left there's a multi-use disc swing that can fit in there.
This footprint is pretty small, so the space available for swings would limit the remaining structures that we could place there.
Thank you.
That is all we have for you today.
Can you, I know, I can't go over every project, but the electrical vehicle charging gated parking lot, what's that?
So in the back of City Hall and behind our gate, right there, we're going to put a fleet use only set of electrical vehicle charging stations.
And it's my understanding that we did receive a grant from various, yes, from PSE to put in this.
This said, and so we're waiting on PSC right now because of the big storm they haven't gotten back to me yet to see when the schedule is.
And the veteran's hub, is that the elevator?
Okay, yeah, we've been waiting for that for a while.
Just on the electrical charging stations, again, right now currently that back parking lots, security parking lot for police vehicles and inspection vehicles for
the rest of the city fleet back in there as part of the long term fleet conversion plan is to start getting more and more electric vehicles for the right type of vehicles in order to do that we need to start creating those charging stations where we park that fleet so that's the purpose of that in the space in this lot.
Yeah, free up space over here because now we can relocate those pool vehicles and other vehicles back into the area behind the city area.
one more comment on that so this is a PSE project for only fleet vehicles city
fleet vehicles so public can't use those chargers by the grant
They matched us $250,000 per project, and when we did this, we put in for a project here at City Hall, and we also put in for project over operations. And so the operations shop will get a line of chargers to, I believe it's 16 over at the shop. And we got approved over here for a dozen chargers. So there'll be a type three, one type three charger each site, and then the rest will be type two's. My last question is about the, the Jacobs Smith House.
Obviously, it's, you can see it, you know, time for a new roof there, but the Jacob Smith House is one of the few built,
honestly, own buildings that we have where solar could actually work on the building.
It's, you know, on a hill facing exactly the right way for solar.
And I also know that a lot of the credits and everything to install solar are just about ready to expire.
Have we ever pursued looking at putting solar on the day of Smith-Ass?
It's not like, you know.
I'm not, I don't recall on the look at Jen.
Does it look like we don't have looked at it in the past?
Not in the nine years I've been here.
It hasn't been a discussion.
There's some really strict guidelines with the type of roofing we put back on that
because historical arrangements.
And we wanted to put in some, we talked about putting on different types of roofing
that we needed to go back to the original.
I know it's not the most attractive thing, but there is land around the building.
And I'm wondering if it might be possible to get a solar array of some sort that could generate a thing.
I think that's a conversation that you don't have a ton of buildings.
But we do have a few, it would be really nice to look into what are our possibilities when it comes to solar.
Because it's such a long-term, smart investment, the City of Lacy is not going anywhere.
And so, to invest in solar, where we can invest in solar, makes a lot of sense from the long-term prospects.
And so, just as part of our overall, what we're trying to do when it comes to climate change,
of medication, everything else, I would, it'd be nice to sort of look at what are the
possibilities out there so we can discuss it, you know, are we, because I think we're
still buying PSE green energy, right, we also, there was a conversation at one point we
had a small conversation about does it make sense to continue to buy that, you know,
and I know we're invested in wind farms, so on and so forth, but instead take that money aside and invest that money every year in solar, and is that better return our investment long-term than just buying green energy?
Yeah. Looking at different sources of energy production is a long-term strategy. I know we've looked at several different potential sites in the past, in the last five or six years, especially through some fiscal projects,
make some consultants like some assessments.
And at that time, the cost benefit was not there.
Of course, this time it was on technology
and proofs, opportunities and proof.
I think my recommendation is, yeah, it's always good to talk about,
but how do we incorporate that in future,
either a central facility improvement or maintenance or
new projects is where to look at instead of an independent separate project.
Because then we don't have to look for grant funding and
those type of things, but if you build into a future building project as one of the considerations,
We can look at that and look at the cost related.
You know, something?
Thank you.
So now we're going to go to the code amendment to belt guidelines.
There's probably should have moved this around instead of having to make it way all night.
You
guys, you know,
I just didn't know.
Okay, now both our mics are on.
All right.
Well, good evening, Mayor, members of the council.
Here we are tonight to present planning commissions recommendation on code amendments that would codify the development guidelines into the Lacey Municipal Code.
So if you think back to 2024, end of 2024, Sarah Shelling did an amazing job bringing before you amendments to our Public Works Development Standards chapter one to bring the city into compliance with Senate Bill 5290,
which was a permit streamlining regulations that came out of the state.
We had an obligation to update that chapter one by the end of the year to meet those state mandates
and also to protect ourselves from having to refund permit fees if we didn't meet those standards.
So this is really kind of phase two of that effort which was let's take the sprint to the finish line effort
that Sarah took boards and really refine a streamlining this and bring it into Lacey Mesple code
to create one consolidated permit review section within our code.
So, to that, I will hand it over to Shannon Vincent and Sarah to add anything they'd like
to add to that and take it away.
Perfect.
Well, hi, everybody.
My name is Shannon Vincent.
I'm a senior project planner with the City of Lacey.
This is my first time meeting a lot of you.
I'm really excited to be here.
This has been about six months of work now and probably our first time actually briefing
you all on it.
So, excited to hear your feedback.
Just an overview and to jump off what Vanessa said.
And right now, our processes and procedures live in two different places.
Number one is chapter one of the development guidelines and public work standards manual
and then also in a few places in title 16, which is our zoning title.
So overall, our intention with this update is to consolidate all of those procedures under
one codified title, restructure that code to improve its navigation and accessibility, and
then also make some revisions to the text to clarify or improve our current processes.
the draft that's before you today is very long. It's almost 100 pages. We kept it so you
could see the red line of what we're taking out, what we're moving around. Anything highlighted
in gray is just an item that's being relocated, may not necessarily be new or taken out, but
just move to a different place for clarity. And overall, the intention of this update really
is to improve predictability and clarity for applicants who are using our processes who are
committing development permits with the city, and for staff who uses this code every day,
for hearing zamers to make their decisions and do all.
One thing I would like to note is we held a public hearing on October 8th with the planning
commission and they recommended that council approve the procedures as written.
Since then we've received a few public comments related to our proposed work and we have a few
recommended amendments as a part of the work session today that we just want to go over
for clarity.
So, in terms of the actual content of the title, we are relocating several chapters,
like I said.
Number one is going to be chapter one of the development guidelines and public work standards
manual.
That is proposed to be broken up into five separate chapters based on how it's already structured.
We are also proposing to relocate six chapters from Lacey Municipal Code, Title 16.
These all relate to project permit applications, so things like conditional use permits, development
agreements, site plan review.
just so that our application requirements are all codified in one simple area for people to use
and see. We are also proposing two new chapters. One is related to interpretations and amendments
and another is related to temporary use permits. And the title before you, or the draft title before
you today, to only shows what we are proposing as Title 11. In whatever the final ordinance is, there
will also be a lot of corrections to the rest of the titles in our code that reference what the
data chapters are. So with that, for the rest of the work session today, we are hoping to go over
what the actual proposed changes are to our processes and procedures. So you guys are all in a minute.
And if you want to follow along on the draft too, I included some page numbers just because it can
get lengthy. And if you have any questions feel free to jump in at any time. First is going to be some
updates to our definitions. We are going to be taking the definitions from chapter one of the public
work standards manual and incorporating them into a municipal code. We are also going
to be taking definitions that occur in Title 16 and adopting them by reference. So if
you look at any of the great highlighted items on page two, it'll say see this definition
in another title. This is so that in the event that we have to update definitions in the
future, we only have to update them in one place and they don't live in two different places
in the code. We are also proposing to add definitions where needed. For example, in our temporary
use chapter when to be using your terminology like temporary use and storage
trailer that will need definitions for applicants and staff and then revising
some existing definitions like conditional use where there are processes
included in the definition, we're being more appropriate for them to be in the
chapter. Next is going to be our codes for application material. Right now it is
very brief what we are proposing is actually providing an exhaustive list of
required application material that staff can then use to inform our permit
applications and our pre-submission conferences. So I want to stress that this is not us requiring
more information out of applications. Instead it's actually just created a codified list
that we can lean on when we are creating new application types or taking applicants through
a presub. Are there any questions on that before we move on?
Next is changes to our pre-submission
conferences. This is really minor but something that staff noticed that maybe needed is requiring
Having a new pre-submission conference be held if more than one year has passed since
a project was proposed, this can be waived on a case-by-case basis and I expect that it
would be.
This is really only necessary if really pertinent regulations have changed within that year,
or if the proposal itself has substantially changed and there are new regulations that
it needs to be held to.
And then next question on that.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
I have a question, too.
I am not a developer.
So it's important for me to think about the timeline of how a proposal becomes a thing.
So a pre-submission conference would happen far in advance of a project getting vested,
which is when the permit is reviewed and meets requirements and is approved, right?
So this allows us to say, well, you know, you came and talked to us a year ago, but the laws related to development in this area have changed.
So, we need to have another preliminary conversation for your projects, that kind of what this is exactly.
Yeah, and our pre-subs are scheduled pretty shortly after they're requested to, and they're also free.
So, ideally, this isn't causing any additional barriers for people who are submitting applications.
Instead, it's actually supposed to improve predictability for when they do submit a formal application and they vest to regulations.
They understand what the regulations are being held to are.
Yeah, because things can change year-over-year, things seem like they do change every single year.
So yeah, it just makes a lot of sense, okay.
Yep.
So on extending the duration of approval for most lane use applications from 18 to 24
months, right?
And still being able to request a six month extension.
Can you just kind of explain how that's a benefit to the developers in the community?
Yeah, definitely.
I think you're a few slides ahead of me, but yeah, I can speak to that now.
Right?
Sorry about that.
No worries.
I'll go over it then, but we can wait, so we get there.
Yeah, just continue on.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
Good bad.
How about that?
So next with our resting protocols, we wanted to make clear in our code what items do best,
and what do not.
So, resting occurs, like you said, with the submittal of a complete application.
So, essentially, when a complete application is submitted, let's say October 28th,
they are held to the standards in place on October 28th, even if they change in six months.
What we wanted to do when we were writing our besting language was make really clear
what we're asking for.
And we have since received a few public comments related to that that I wanted to go over now.
First was a public comment that had concerns that the new language wasn't in keeping with
our current procedures, which was our intention.
was not to change any of our vesting standards, just make clear what we're asking for.
Because of that, we are recommending that project permit application be included to the
list of complete applications.
Project permit application is pretty much defined as any land use application that is submitted
with the city.
These are going to be things like conditional use permit site plan review.
These already vest under our current procedures, and this would just clarify that those will
continue to vest once this code is adopted.
second was a comment from internal staff just clarifying that storm water regulations adopted under state and federal law are also not subject to besting.
This is also in keeping with our current public work standards manual and it's just intended to make sure that all of the things that we use are consistent with one another.
The best thing does not apply, when you have a list there, is there anything new on that list?
It's not that we don't already,
essentially no.
Everything that's written on the list, we already don't best.
So things like impact these presubs.
Yeah.
But it isn't explicitly written in our code now.
And is there a window that investing exists in, I mean doesn't go for perpetuity, does it?
No, it will, investing will last as long as a project is active essentially.
So once you submit a complete application until that application is approved and the project
is built, your application is essentially vested.
There are different periods that it happens throughout the lifetime project.
So, for example, from a land use permit is submitted, like site plan review, and then they submit their building permits
They're then held to the building code for the date that that permit is submitted and this code is intended to clarify when exactly those dates occur.
But is there a clock that starts?
There was. There are, yeah, clocks start, so specifically the clocks that Vanessa was saying related to the Senate Bill 50 to 90. We'll start of the date that that complete application is filed. So that is day one. And the day that we deem it complete. And then timelines for review will start. There's also added into the vesting section, language related to when we place projects on hold for additional information and a timeline. And I think Shannon is going to
to cover this coming up pretty soon, but a timeline associated with when additional
information needs to be submitted by, otherwise that project would expire.
It would lose that space.
That's right.
And she'll talk about that, I think, in the next few slides.
Yeah, that's actually my next item this time.
Oh, there you go.
It's for recent middle-perfect timing.
Jump into the shark.
Yeah, time limits for recent middle.
So right now, hypothetically, staff could request additional information for a project,
the application is never submitted, the applicants decide they no longer want to move forward,
and that project will live on forever, and essentially would be vested to the codes that were in place when it was filed,
even if that was years and years ago.
So, a part of our update is going to be proposing time limits for
we submit all of the requested information.
We are proposing 180 days, which is about six months.
Applicants at any time during that six month time frame can request an extension of time.
We are not requiring any limits on what that extension of time is, it would be negotiated
between the applicant and staff for what's appropriate for the project or why they need
additional time.
And so long as that's all in writing, the application then could take longer than those
180 days to provide the information.
But that's just to reduce the amount of those projects that are inactive and live on forever.
Next would be modernizing our noticing requirements.
There isn't a specific page that points to this.
I used 23 as an example if you wanted to look.
But updating our processes so our noticing requirements are modernized.
We would propose that notice of application be posted on the city website rather than post
to the newspaper.
And that notices of decisions can be provided via email instead of via letter.
I think that this is in keeping with what a lot of applicants want and what is easiest
and best for staff.
Hopefully we can get the word out that that is where people can find notices of application.
But within state statute this would be allowed.
Things like notices, hearing notices will still need to be provided in the newspaper.
So there are some things that don't have wiggle room, but these are a few items where we thought
that we could use media and the internet to make our processes a little bit easier.
Would we be considering like a hard stop on notice of application that would be published
in the newspaper? Not necessarily. Provision that's added to most
of those requirements, especially for things that are provided via email. We still leave
open the option that people can request to receive them hard copy. So for example, neighbors
that maybe don't have email are welcome to request that everything knows
as a decision to be provided via letter.
I would assume that if staff felt it was necessary to provide it in the paper,
they could still do so, but we wouldn't be required anymore.
And just by a matter of practice, if we received a letter or a comment letter from a member
of the public and all they provided us was, let's assume, a PO box or a mailing address,
We would automatically just use that as our form of communication, because that's the only type of communication we have.
So we'll default to what we have, but this at least legally allows us to use email for that notification.
Next is duration approval, which is what you had brought up earlier.
We are proposing to extend the duration of approval for most land use applications from 18 months to 24 months.
While we were drafting these revisions and going over it with the current planning staff,
they identified that a lot of applicants already use the six-month extension that they're allowed
during their original approval period. So most folks who are in process of construction
request additional six months. So we figured as a part of this update why not accommodate that,
make it 24 and then still provide them the opportunity to extend an additional six months if needed.
So just giving people more time in line with what we see just the general trend is for
construction timelines.
I think finally, in changes to the development guidelines
in public work standards manual, is reconsideration of an administrative decision. Right now, we
only have provisions for reconsideration of a hearing examiner decision, but this way
to add a process so parties of record can request reconsiderations of decisions issued by staff.
Staff can maintain, alter or reverse the decisions as needed. There's a timeline spelled
out within the text itself of when that happens, but once a reconsideration is issued, parties
would then have a second opportunity to file an appeal of whatever the reconsideration
is.
Can you define parties a record for us?
Yeah.
No, the parties a record are going to be folks who receive a notice of application, folks who
provide testimony to hearing, the applicants themselves.
Do you want to ask a question?
That's good.
Perfect.
Yeah, it was anybody who's notified about the project or has been involved in the project
essentially.
Does that, you know, basically allowing folks that have submitted projects a second bite at the apple with us.
If we make a decision saying we're not sure that this meets the standards, they have another opportunity to follow up with us and get us to reconsider, kind of work with us to figure out a way to meet standards.
Does that impact the timeline for fees under $5,280?
Is that going to count against us if we give that additional flexibility?
No, it would not.
Those timelines essentially end once an original decision is issued.
Any appeal that happens afterward or reconsideration that happens afterward isn't subject to any of those timelines.
Next, I'm moving into the revisions for the Title 16 chapters.
If you're looking through your draft, you'll see a lot of red line to these items.
And I just wanted to go over some overarching themes that we're changing in all of them.
One is removing intent sections.
I think that internally we found that often if there is a gray area or a need for an interpretation
of a development regulation in the code, it can sometimes be at odds with the intent section
of a chapter.
So just to keep with what the actual regulation itself is, we're proposing removing intent
sections.
This is a good way to phase them out since we're already revising a lot of these chapters.
Next is just updating wording and capitalization to be consistent with our current style guide.
And then a lot of relocation in retitling of sessions when necessary, just so the title
itself is consistent.
So if you see any gray, that is just a relocated item.
With that, I'm going to jump into site plan review.
So the first area that we are proposing to change with site plan review is the applicability
section.
One is to clarify our existing requirements, specifically related to intensification.
Staff and applicants have both found that the requirement that if you are intensifying a
land use, or you can't remember exactly right enough to have my head, but there's no actual
definition of what intensification is.
So where do we set that metric?
What we're proposing is intensification is greater than 10% increase in a measurable standard of the development.
So 10% increase in the building size, 10% increase in the parking stalls, things like that.
Second would be adding another applicability provision related to Senate Bill 5290 requirements.
5290 mostly had to do with timelines, but there was a small section that said interior remodels cannot be subject to site plan review.
if they don't result in additional bedrooms or other items.
And that originally had kind of gone under the radar with our update.
So we are adding that in just to make sure that we are consistent with current legislation.
Next would be establishing review criteria that address site design and compliance with development regulations.
Right now staff already review for these items essentially, they just aren't within our current code.
So, in a decision letter, we would then have, are you meeting A, B, C being, you know,
is the project consistent with, you know, building height and setbacks that are required by the zoning?
Is it consistent with the comprehensive plan?
Have they mitigated any impacts to surrounding uses, things like that?
Sorry, too?
I'll let you finish now, I'll ask my question.
And then, lastly, would be adding a threshold for what is considered a major and minor site
amendment amendments would happen after a site plan has already been approved in an applicant
proposes changing something. Just to be consistent throughout the chapter, we're also considering
that to be the 10% change in a measurable standard. So, for example, gets approved, they want
to increase the building size by 25%, that would need to go back through another site plan review
process. If the building was only proposed to be changed by 5%, then we wouldn't need to
So how should come up with a 10% I just I mean seem to a little bit of arbitrary numbers.
It is just a number that seemed reasonable and all honesty that number can change.
It is a fairly common number to see in other jurisdictional regulations that a 10% change
is kind of that threshold and also the international building code identifies a 10% change in terms
of a permit that would say it's significant enough change that you would have to resubmit
from a besting perspective. So there's that tangible connection but it's not the same
section of code. Is there any wiggle room in there for, you know, a project ends up changing,
you know, something moves around where it ends up being just slightly over 10%, but it's
not really changing too much of the project. Is there any wiggle room for you not have to
to go back and to do that, or are we saying 10% and that's?
Right now how it's drafted is just 10%, there could be flexibility to add a provision, that's not good.
I feel like there's always an exception to the, to the, to the, like 10% I think is probably close,
But I wouldn't want to, you know, I would like to allow someone to be able to make the argument where it's like, yeah, this is slightly more than 10%.
But it's not really changing the project within too much to be able to not have to go back and redo everything.
And so, but that seems to me like that needs to be between, you know, it needs to be reasonable enough for the staff to say, yeah, I agree with you.
Right. But I don't want staff to be in the situation.
I'll note you hit that 10% mark and that tough, you know.
I was going to ask in that section, I'm looking at page 42, does, do all three of those criteria,
A, B, and C, have to be true before a site plan review would be required, or is it any of those?
All three would need to be met before it could be approved.
Okay. So we've got these three criteria, and if the update to the project meets all three of those
criteria have to go back for another site plan review. And up until these proposed changes,
we have no standard for what intensification means. That feels actually riskier than picking
10% as a reasonable number because then it's like at our discretion, we think this one's intensifying,
but this one's not. I would prefer that we have a standard that we can point to. So I think that's
good. I don't know, 10% is the right number, if that's what's in other jurisdictions language, but
I think we should have a standard right and right now historically what we've done as we've looked at intensification as
Anything that changes the approved building footprint
And anything that increases like number of trips in the PMP hours so that you would have to readjust your transportation impact analysis
And so that would be an intensification
We've looked at modifications of the site plan where it's not changing really the amount of pavement that you're going to have or the amount of building coverage
but maybe relocating some things as minor alterations, but it currently, anything that changes the footprint any size.
So this standard actually probably will result in fewer site plan reviews being needed.
Right, fewer major alterations, there is some, there's a lot more sense that we might just be able to do it administratively.
Okay.
But you see what I'm saying with a 10%, like 10% is probably right, but, you know, and I agree we should have some sort of standard in there.
But it still seems like it could be nice to allow staff to say, yeah, okay, I see where you're at, in the 10% it's not really changing, you know.
I mean, if the council wishes we could add a provision and that kind of is that catch all that says unless otherwise approved by the director, the administrator, the decision maker type of language into here, which would kind of be that catch all and provide that flexibility within the code section.
We can add that in if that's the council's wish.
So that was going to be my question, was like, is the 10% to because of footprint size,
and then in addition to that, is that also considering impervious surface?
I would think so.
Yes.
Yep.
I think once you get much more past that, you have to start looking at impacts to stormwater systems.
Yeah, sure.
When they're how they're infiltration, yes, exactly.
For sure.
I think you're layered approval, if it were to slightly exceed 10%, so the decision didn't
just rest with one person, but required two or three levels of approval.
Yeah.
I think is a good suggestion.
Maybe if they submit material showing it's not with additional
They submit material is showing it's not going to have an impact to storm waters
Okay.
Next is variances. This is a chapter where you will see a lot of changes, but it's not
anything too crazy. One is changing the thresholds for reviewing authority, so variances with minor
impacts can be reviewed administratively. Right now almost all variances are quasi judicial
applications, meaning they're reviewed and approved by the hearing examiner. We are proposing
that variances that change a measurable standard by up to 25% can be reviewed by staff. So a good
A good example is if you have a 12-foot setback, you want to reduce it to 9 feet, staff can review and approve that decision.
If you wanted to reduce it to 6, that would go to the hearing examiner.
This is just to reduce the amount of quasi-judicial applications that require a lot of time and money by both the applicant and staff for things that are relatively minor.
Next is going to be defining which provisions are eligible for variances.
This excludes regulations relating to our procedures, so things in Title 11, things in variance
chapter themselves or the permitted uses within a zoning district.
This is pretty much in keeping with what we already do, but again, it just wasn't something
that was spelled out in our code.
And then finally, for the review criteria for variances, we're just proposing rewording
them for clarity.
Some of the criteria actually had two items within them, so we're just suggesting breaking
them up and reordering them so that staff and applicants know what they're being reviewed
against.
And in the staff report maybe it's germane to this section you're talking about.
You said that we're updating some of the residential development design standards to explicitly
require design superiority. So was it unclear before or am I skipping ahead?
That is for our planned residential development section.
Okay, I'll hold my question. Okay.
Next is conditional use permits. We don't have a lot of
proposed changes to this chapter, just again establishing review criteria that we're missing from our current code.
The review criteria for individual use permits are pretty straightforward.
It ensures consistency with comprehensive plan compatibility with adjacent uses.
If the proposed use is going to have a lot of negative impacts on any nearby properties,
whether they've adequately mitigated for those, so things like noise and lighting, and
that they're just providing good landscaping and infrastructure for the project.
But we're not removing any proposed uses.
No.
Next is the Plan Residential Development Section, which is what you had brought up.
PRDs are a type of plant that are allowed to deviate from our regular development standards.
So folks using a PRD can propose different setbacks than a normal plant would, but in turn there has
to be some type of superior design that would kind of offset any, you know, negative impacts
that result from those, from those variations. What we are proposing is establishing criteria
to ensure that that superiority of design actually happens, and that it would be the resulting
flat would be superior to that of a normal flat, and that there's actually a public benefit
that occurs as a result. So, some examples we listed in the code are things like protection
in natural environments or critical areas
that otherwise wouldn't be required to be protected,
providing a substantial amount of affordable housing,
things like that.
So if you want to change the 20-foot setback
at the rear to 15, then you need to demonstrate
that your design is better than what we would normally have.
That's all right.
PIRDs can offer a lot of flexibility, and that I think is the purpose of making sure that there's a public benefit associated with approving a PIRD.
You can get additional zoning above and beyond maximum zoning in density and districts yet.
So you can get additional density, modified setbacks, amended roads standards, so a lot of flexibility in terms of the design of this subdivision.
And the one criteria we've had in the past is a 20% open space requirement.
And that's been the criteria for review up to this point.
And it seems like, and we have, there's several of, you know, when we were expanding, you know, a lot in there, you know, mid 2000s, we saw this a lot.
And you're right, it seemed like the one thing we got out of that was additional park space, open space.
But are we saying now that, yes, you're going to have to prove that there's a park space, but that's not going to be necessarily good enough.
You're going to also have to show other benefits to make it superior than just saying, yeah, we're going to give you a lot more density, but you're going to have to give us some parts.
to show superior design in your housing design and yet, yes, additional park space,
superior housing design, so we're creating better communities. And then other public benefits
associated with that higher intensity design. Often times what we see is pierities are going into,
especially now, Jubilee and Edgewater, that's probably the biggest pierity we have, but now our
are going into on to smaller parcels in the middle of highly developed areas.
So what's the benefit for the surrounding community in order to obtain that additional density?
Can you give an example?
Yeah, I think that's going to be true.
You know, honestly, since I've started here, I've not seen a single subdivision that is not a PRD because our land is constrained, right?
And so what we've seen happen is that the only standard that exists today is the 30% open space requirement,
which is analogous to typically what has to be set aside pursuant to our critical areas regulations.
So ultimately by meeting our already existing critical areas regulations,
they get to amend 99% of our development standards as a part of their subdivision process,
and are not required to provide anything
of benefit back to the community
and or in terms of design to those
that will live there in the future.
So the goal was this is to say,
hey, let's still maintain that open space standard.
That's clear that that's in the code,
but let's also ask that if you're gonna do a PRD,
we wanna see a project that will be at least equal to
if not better than what we would see
under the standard application of our code.
So that, and then that would be up to,
The introduction of lower income housing or smaller housing on MacLeod to that.
So the draft regulations have kind of a laundry list of items that could be broader than that.
Okay, where is that idea?
63, okay.
And the list that's provided in the draft code too is a list of examples of things that they could use.
Yes, we will also leave it open to the developer to propose some other type of superior design and that's something that they can then kind of negotiate with staff, whether it meets that requirement.
So increased density would be superior?
No, no, that's a bonus, but if they were building under AMI.
Correct.
Yes.
Okay.
As a part of that, could they, I've always wondered this, like, you're developing a community,
and everyone would love to see a little, small little retail within that community, like
a little coffee shop wherever that, does our code allow that to be a public benefit and
then allow it, even if the code doesn't necessarily allow retail in, you know what I'm saying?
The PRD chapter allows, like, neighborhood commercial type uses to be incorporated in a PRD, as part currently, as part of the chapter.
And the list has grocery store, drug store, barber and beauty shop, laundromat.
Yes, that's in our current code.
We just haven't seen anybody taking advantage of that type of use within the PRDs.
Panorama City, I guess, is an example of a purity, and they do have facilities for panorama residents that serve those purposes.
I
really think that stressing the smaller home that's more affordable, right?
I mean, that needs to be right in a forefront.
When we're just to have such a demand for affordable housing, I'd love to see smaller homes,
So, definitely, I think that are in there, that are included for purchase, single story,
you know?
Okay.
So next is development agreements.
As a part of our updates to the development agreements chapter, we just wanted to ensure
it was clear what staff is asking for and what is required as a part of a development agreement
because these are applications that span typically a long period of time, have significant
an impact and we just wanted to ensure that our code was clear and in line with the state
statutes for development agreements. So part of that is defining the content that's
required in the agreement, itemizing what incentives may be allowed, and then establishing
an actual review criteria for approval of or denial of the application. The review criteria
themselves mostly relate to whether it's furthering the policies of the comprehensive
plans of plan, whether there is an economic benefit to the city of Lacey as a result of
the development agreement, things like that.
This was another chapter that we received public comments on after the public hearing.
There were concerns that, and you heard earlier tonight, there were concerns that as a part
of our changes to the development agreement sections, we will be restricting the modifications
to code that would be allowed.
We believe that the code as drafted is in keeping with what we already do.
As a part of state statutes, development agreements aren't allowed to wave densities or types of
uses permitted within a district.
We are making that codified language within our code that wasn't already there before.
That being said, I don't believe that we think that there are any material changes to the way that we,
or the standards, review standards that we hold development agreements to.
And I'll add one more thing that kind of came to mind this evening that you didn't necessarily
see in my response.
And that is, there's nothing in these code amendments that would prohibit an applicant
from coming and applying for a reason for a property, which would be the actual appropriate
path to be able to change basically your zoning and your density on the site.
So that provision is in our code and is still available.
And if and when we get to the finish line on the comprehensive plan, there will be some
more flexibility built into those opportunities as well if that's adopted by
councils. So nothing in these provisions will prohibit that and you could
also consolidate that process and combination with the development agreement
because the ultimate decision maker on a reason would be the council as well as
on a development agreement. Isn't the process to request a reason in the new
chapter 11 just up toward the top? I feel like I saw some language in there about
how you come in to ask for a reason. Yeah and it's actually the next slide after
Because I think, yes, we are proposing a few changes to how reasons are processed.
We want to get into it or do we want to, are there any more questions about this section?
Yes, let's get into it.
Perfect.
That's great, by the way.
That's some good work on that.
We've given a lot of latitude and they see with, you know, I give us a free park here and
you can do all that stuff. It's nice to see a little bit more than that going forward.
So right now, Rezone's essentially all follow a legislative review process which is that they
are reviewed by planning commission before they move on to City Council for final approval.
proposal. What we are proposing is that different types of rezones have different review processes
before they come to council. So, for example, if a rezone is proposed in conjunction with
a project permit application that would go to the hearing examiner, that rezone would go
to the hearing examiner for recommendation to council instead of to plan in commission.
Any rezones that require a comprehensive plan amendment would still go to plan in commission
and then city council, as well as rezone's not requiring a comprehensive plan amendment
but not submitted in conjunction with a land use application.
I had one clarity on the first bullet, the first bullet also that rezone would have to
be consistent with the established land use map that as you all know is following this process
through our comprehensive plan.
So that can only go through that process if that rezone falls underneath that already adopted
to comprehensive land use designation,
otherwise it would drop to the process
that requires the comp plan designation
and rezone together.
Yeah.
And that also is a part of those decision criteria
that we're drafting for reasons.
For a project reason,
a decision criteria will be whether it's consistent
with the future land use map.
I mean, that's always a pretty daunting thing, right?
And I understand in some ways is why it should be,
Because obviously your project can have a major effect on traffic patterns and a bunch
of other things.
But it seems like it's always been a daunting process.
And sometimes we've seen people, you know, developers who say, you know, I-
I'd like to put this here, and it's not, you know, not allowed within the zone, but it doesn't really, you know, it's not going to snipically change traffic patterns or anything, and it's a very long daunting process to do that. And sometimes you don't have that time, right, where things can move real quickly with, also, and someone's looking to do a project, and you need a certain amount of property to do that.
And it's kind of like, can we go forward in a reasonable amount of time where you have to go with this long process of rezoning and everything else which is like a lot of people that say I'm not going to even handle do that and we can miss out on a potentially good project.
Yeah, and a part of the reason that we wanted these updates to happen to is so folks also have the opportunity to apply for a reason and then see if it would be successful before putting in a lot of time and money into their actual design for their project and submitting their applications.
Yeah.
Next are two new job days before we wrap up. First is interpretations and amendments
in the draft. You now have to go back. Sorry if you're following along. But this is
to actually establish a path for applicants to request code interpretations. Right now
we don't have a path for this in our code. And this would help consistency between staff
who's actually using the regulations to review projects against and making sure that there's
clarity for applicants who are submitting and there may be a gray area in the code.
So those code interpretations would be issued by the CED director.
They would then be posted to the city website so that it was available for public viewing.
Issued interpretations would be added to an amendment docket kept by CED that would then
We annually come in for amendment and then to be actually codified so that we could consider the great area finalized and provide clarity where there may not already be in our code.
Amendments will also or interpretations will have review criteria to ensure they are consistent with the comprehensive plan and that the amendment itself has merit.
So if there's actual confusion in the code that can be interpreted different ways, that's when interpretation would go through to an amendment.
So would there be a timeline associated with an interpretation or how does that work like if somebody requests one?
Yeah, they would be processed under a limited administrative review timeline, which is up to 65 days.
Typically, I think for our limited administrative review projects, we don't usually exhaust the full timeline,
but it would depend on if there was additional information required,
or the amount of research that would need to be done by staff before actually issuing the interpretation.
So, up to 65 days at most.
And then, finally, is a new chapter for temporary use permits.
Right now, we don't have a process for temporary use permits.
We do have a chapter for street merchant activities, which usually has to do with temporary
retail sales.
So, we are proposing creating a new review process for temporary activities that don't
already have that path for approval.
So, these would be things like model homes or construction trailers that are anticipated
to be in place for less than one year. Applications would be reviewed under the Limited Administrative
Review, which is the 65 days that I was just discussing, or a full administrative review depending
on whether it has a significant impact on surrounding properties, and there are some criteria for
what constitutes that significant impact. Temporary use permits would be valid for one year, but that one
year approval could be extended for up to five years provided they re-request during each yearly
approval period.
And I believe that is all that I have. Our proposed schedule would be
adding the final ordinance to a future regularly scheduled meeting as drafted for the planning
commission with the proposed amendments to the vesting section that we went over today.
And then with all the feedback that we've taken from you guys today as well incorporated.
We addressed the one question that we have in public comment, can
you address that question
and is there anything in this new outline or this draft that is less, I feel like we
We were meeting the intent of what the applicant was saying, but can you just clarify that?
Yeah, and we can probably go back to the slide.
The first was adding a provision to the vesting regulations that we are asking council to add that it would be an addition to what's actually
recommended from the planning commission, so it would be a change from a recommendation, but it would be an addition to that code section as shown on the slide.
I don't remember what slide it was, Shannon, that you had.
And then the second was the development agreement comment.
And we talked about the development agreement, language,
and Shannon talked about how our goal there is to represent and
reflect state law as it applies.
But in addition to that, there is still provisions in our code for
the applicant to ask for a resound.
It's just a separate application process that requires a separate fee.
We could always consolidate those processes into one timeline.
The ultimate decision-maker on a development agreement is the City Council.
The ultimate decision-maker on a rezone is the City Council, so it will all go through
the same decision-making body at the end of the day.
So while the code specifically says you can't ask for that rezone, that path is still available.
It's just a different path.
It seems like what was in our code previously might have given a mistaken impression that we had additional flexibility
that is actually curtailed by state law.
So we're adding a reference to the state law that kind of creates those boundaries.
Yeah, but we still have a pathway, it's just a different one, and that's what I also wanted to make clear to the council.
It's not that those options aren't available to this particular commenter as well as anybody else that came in to use that pathway.
And that's very true, we map it right out on the decision criteria and it says, it's
really city council in the day that has the ultimate authority here.
And then, you know, in the city's best interest, we have some pretty broad, you know, things
here for the decision criteria that I think meets that intent.
And so, I mean, I'm looking at this and I feel like, man, this feels pretty, you know,
this feels better than what we had before for sure.
And so, a real evil lane plays out where, you know, where there could be issues and what the,
or the path forward is on that.
So, I'm not sure if there's that, there's a commenter, understand where we're at and feel better about that.
I do understand where you're at, the position of the city is taking in that, I do applaud Vanessa's effort to hear us to work with us as well as with regards to the first two items, you know, I, can you please come back to the, I'm sorry, we don't really don't do this, but, you know, I don't know.
Specifically, as it relates to the first two items, I think Vanessa has done a great
job of addressing that and I think her recommended edit were supportive of that, both for the
Hawksbury Business District Business Commercial Zoning with the insertion that she is suggesting
in addition to including the language that we're proposing as well for the best team.
As it relates to the development agreement, if say, for example, we have a site that is split
zone where it might make sense from a logical standpoint to have buildings that serve a retail
area. However, we're encumbered by zoning by rectangular boxes that we put that retail in the
middle of the site. Wouldn't it be great if we could propose something that says, hey, you know,
you guys have this, we have a concept where we can apply this to where this major logical sense
to put retail out towards the the street say as opposed to in the center of a site we happen
just by coincidence happen to have a split zone site
But to me that makes logical sense and we understand that the appetite for the city might not be there
To amend the zoning as it exists today
for whatever reason and
I think you guys also were probably inundated with the amount of zoning requests that you got
I think there were like 50 50 applications
So, that does a substantial amount of ask.
What we're asking for, and you know, this is entirely up to the council, is why would
we lose that flexibility with the development agreement?
And maybe that doesn't exist, but our understanding based upon, you know, what we're reading, and
this is a 750-page document, I actually haven't read the whole thing, it puts me to sleep
But why would we narrow down that if we have an opportunity to do something great?
Part of the history of the Betty property is working with Stan Hill in the city,
specifically with the improvement of 31st Street, the expansion of Marvin Road there.
That didn't need to happen, but that was a collaborative effort with the city and the Hill Betty estate to do that.
I think both sides benefit from that and we have some ideas about this site specifically
that may not necessarily comply with code but I think they're good ideas and this really
is the last info site in that section for a large scale development for a master plan.
So as it relates to that,
we're not, we don't have institutional money as I said with
family. This project is going to be built in phases. So we'll have to go out to a bank
and get a loan for phase one, phase two, phase three, so forth. So this is not something
that this is going to be, you know, a target with a Costco and smaller retail that's going
to go here. We're going to have to methodically think about how this is done. In our site
is split-zone. And I don't know, you know, it might make sense that a grocery store comes
It might make perfect sense for it, but does that comply with the existing zoning?
Can we have some flexibility where we might consider the public benefit of that?
And the desires of the city, they might necessarily be compliant with the zoning, but are we handcuffed to that?
Thank you for that, I really appreciate your comments and looking at these updates here on the development agreements.
And I really do feel like there's quite a bit of flexibility, and it talks about the benefit of the community and all these things that you're suggesting.
And so what I would say is as in anything, I think we really, in Lacey, we tried to accommodate and look at the public good and try to figure out a way to get to yes.
We've always done that and I don't see anything in here that is changing that and so, but there's always things that come up that we couldn't plan for.
And so I think having the flexibility to be able to change zones or do things and have an easier process is what I care about and it looks like we are addressing that.
And so I think we, I think there's a path forward for not only your project, but
other projects that are in this circumstance where you maybe have a split zone,
and you can have to do things in phases.
And I think Lacey does a good job of trying to work with us applicants to make those projects come to fruition.
So I think I feel pretty good about this giving you the flexibility to do that.
Does anyone have 70 questions?
Okay, well this is going to come, you guys are going to go back and take everything into consideration what you've heard
I hear today and this will be before us a future meeting and-
Did you need direction for us?
Yeah, I was going to ask if the council was open to it going to an ordinance and I think we had it slated for no, what's the date?
18th November 18th, to adopt these amendments, two pieces that go along with that.
Our goal is to align these amendments with also the Public Works Manual adoption on
the same evening so that chapter one kind of disappears from that and appears over in
Lacey Municipal Code magically at the same time so we don't have conflicts between those
two ordinances.
In addition, just from a matter of factual standpoint, the ordinance itself as drafted will
look different than what's before you this evening, because we really wanted to show what
was changing with this large document.
The ordinance in a lot of places will be a repeal and replace for simplicity purposes, but
just so that you are aware of that.
That was going to be my question was, were we going to get a second look before we need
to take a vote on it?
I think that's something to the council.
Yep.
I would have to think about and look at one of the things, too, and crafting the elements
coming forward is refining that language around anticipation of use in the SPR shop.
It was for a second.
That was the only direction change that I heard the same thing with the site plan adding a provision
for additional flatality.
So for that language in there and bring it forward for a council, consider assuming you have
to adopt it tonight but schedule for action and you can take a look at it and have some more
conversation about it.
Yeah.
Before action.
What I think is, you know, let's go forward with this with a, because what we're talking about is just on the intensification is a little bit of change language that's not going to be hard to come up with, but everything else, if it's within of what we talked about, it's great if there's something that actually between now and then that comes up that we hadn't talked about, let's come back in and make sure council is aware of that, you know, if something comes in like late on, you know,
We've missed something where a bunch of...
You know, letters come and say, oh, you know, this is not going to work, you know, I want to give us the flexibility to take that into consideration. But we got a little bit of time here. We know it's all because we have, well, I can't believe November is next week. So we don't have a ton of time. Basically three weeks. But the council, the council members that are present here tonight, if that's something comfortable moving forward, a schedule for action with the updated language for the intensification of use at that council meeting.
Council will still have the opportunity to talk about it before he take that vote, but
we could bring it for ready for that action if the council so chooses.
Are you talking about the 11th or are you talking about the 18th?
No, November 18th.
We'll do on the 18th and we'll go over those changes one last time and talk about on the
18th.
And that gives you all enough time to do that.
You can comfortably get there.
Okay.
Does that sound good?
Sounds good.
You good?
Yep.
Okay.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Good job, by the way. Great, great.
Great work.
Amazing.
Great.
And welcome to...
Welcome to the family.
Oh, yes, you are.
I'm going to be here.
Okay.
Now we're on to this one water rate discussion, Troy.
Basically, are we going to do another four and a half or another year?
Yes.
Yeah, seven years in a row, actually.
Good evening, council.
Appreciate the opportunity to come before you to present our proposal for stormwater
rates.
I do recognize that's as utility rates, but I thought we will take every opportunity to
inform the public of all of our increases.
So I'll spend a little bit in there, you know, we did a really good job last week with
as budget presentation in terms of proposed utility rates, as well as already adopted utility rates.
So the first three you're seeing here on the slide, these are actually already adopted.
Water and wastewater were adopted in a three year multi year rate back in 2025.
So it's a 5.25% increase in water, 9.5% for wastewater.
water and the law board has adopted a 3% increase.
And what we're proposing tonight, as the mayor said, a 4.5% increase for storm water.
We do obviously pay attention to the impact to our residents and all of our customers.
So here you see an illustration of what a monthly impact will be on a typical utility rate customer.
And Lacey, it's a cumulative $7.26 per month.
So jumping ahead to the storm on a rate that's being proposed, like I said, this is the 7th year in a row at 4.5% that we're proposing.
What you're seeing here on screen is the last comp plan recommendations for storm on a rates.
That comp plan covered 2020 through 2025, the city, of course, adopted all of these recommendations throughout this period.
We are in the midst of updating the Complan for Stormwater, but it's not completed.
I think we're on the verge of getting started with the financial requirements for the Stormwater Complan in the next period, but we just haven't quite gotten there yet with our consultant.
So what we're proposing essentially this year or for 2026 is a continuation of that 4.5%.
It's in its sense, say, in recognition of inflationary increases, it's also consistent
with the LACI approach to have predictable, consistent, stable rates for our customers
as well as the utility itself for planning purposes.
We know that inflation through this period has been higher than historical.
It's also higher than where the Federal Reserve would like to see it.
And I would make the argument that inflation on municipal governments is even higher than
that, both in terms of operations of maintenance as well as what's happening in the construction
area.
You know, and if you think about the 4.5% increase, one way of looking at it is if the
compine comes in a little bit lower than 4.5% over that period, we're going to essentially
pay down that future rate increase, but on the other hand, if we guess incorrectly and
this rate is too low, that means we'll have higher and steeper increases, a little bit
of rate shock for customers if we don't maintain that consistent approach to rate increases.
We have been wrapping up our stormwater requirements in terms of permits, and we've also been staffing
up for anticipated increased capital improvement programs, as well as just kind of the constant
increase to regulation within this field.
So I do have a couple slides just to kind of walk you through what the history of this
utility has been dealing with recently.
I'm not going to go through everyone in these positions, but we've been adding positions
throughout the last five, six years, really in terms of regulation, as well as increased
maintenance and that doesn't change for 2026. We actually have about, we have one full-time
position that's being proposed for 2026 and that's an increase to maintenance. We have
increased storm water pond maintenance. We're actually behind, I think we're behind 16
ponds in terms of full rehabilitation. We also have new storm water systems that we've taken
on through annexation and we also have like I said an increased capital improvement program
that we're anticipating so you heard the city manager and his presentation talk about
the utility capital project position to help facilitate that so it's about a 1.2 1.3 increase
to staffing that's being proposed in 2026.
We really can't talk about storm hour without talking about the storm hour permit in which we operate under.
I am not going to try to pretend that I could present this, but really this is an illustration of all the new regulation that's coming in this new permit period.
The permit covers 2024 through 2029, but some of the focus areas in terms of new regulation is street sweeping,
mapping, additional runoff regulation, and as well as environmental justice in terms
of, you know, how we're applying those. These are all new. There is, my understanding
there's nothing in this permit that reduced regulation, so this is all additive.
This is going to increase our workloads, probably going to increase what we're seeing
in terms of staffing throughout this period.
Again, this is just an illustration.
We had a really in-depth presentation by Deccretian Sin, our stormwater manager,
that he went through every chapter of this permit and basically took a timeline
in every one of these regulations.
This is just a snapshot of what that is, and you can see it's quite detailed.
There are time deadlines throughout the different chapters of this permit, so that the clock
is ticking in terms of meeting these regulations.
So again, that leads us to the recommendation to have basically a carryover of the last
comp plan 4.5% annual increase.
So you're seeing the different impacts throughout the rate classes for stone moderates and across
the board 4.5%.
So again, to address inflationary issues, to anticipate the additional costs that's coming to us in
in terms of regulation and our new storm art permit,
as well as an anticipation
it increased capital costs going forward.
So, again, 4.5% for 2026 only.
We should see the rate study, the rate requirement
from the consultants early next year.
And you'll see the subsequent comp plan
come before the council and through that process
sometime next year.
So that would be to have to answer any questions you might have.
Any other questions?
I have one that's probably more for Rick than it is for you to know if it's on the tree canopy where the requirement is to map city owned canopy.
And then set tree canopy goals.
Will this complement or maybe even help us along with our goals with the Thurson Climate
Mitigation Plan?
It does, it will complement, because that's something as our urban forestry plan already has done.
We've already mapped the urban canopy twice, the first time was a very unsophisticated effort.
The second round was back in, unless a 2019ish, when we looked at more sophisticated use in GIS work, about that canopy.
And then our next update, and I think it's going to, by the end of this decade, we're going to try to do some more.
So this will help complement that work and update regularly what that urban canopy looks like in terms of growth.
And the thing is, I think you'll see that urban canopy increase because we had a lot
of development to happen in the, between 2010 and 2018, and now you have those younger
street trees that are starting to mature a little bit as well, and urban forestry.
So, but yeah, the answer to your question is, yes, it will complement the work we're going
to do.
Great.
I like it when those things can work together.
Yeah.
I was wondering if we had any reason from the consultant as to why they were taking longer than expected.
Yeah, I'm not sure what the delay is exactly.
Yeah, I mean these are very big updates in terms of the workload.
But yeah, I don't have anything specific, so I apologize for that.
the only thing I'm sort of curious about, and we've done this and I understand that the philosophy behind it when you pass these multi-year rates, it gives some stability and some predictability, and I get that.
One of the issues I had looking at when we went through this the first time on all of
our utilities to tell you the truth is one of the things that the consultant did and
we did is one of the big drivers of these rates is our population forecast and they specifically
we put in a very, very conservative number for our population forecast at the time.
I remember saying it's like our population hasn't grown this slow, you know, in the past
25 years.
I don't think it's going to grow this slow over the past, you know, or this next five, six
years.
In fact, we've actually seen some record growth, you know, during this time.
And so what we should know, relatively easy, is what the 2020-25 comp plan said we were
going to bring in compared to expenses, and we should have the actuals of what we brought
in compared to expenses.
And I'm just curious to see how close the they got, because it seems like we spent a ton
of money on to get on these consultants to usually tell us stuff that we basically almost
already know for the most part, but that's a different conversation.
But, you know, we should be able to, you know, check our work on this, not only on the stormwater, but also, you know, where we are on the utility rates.
Because, you know, we passed these multi-years, but we haven't had any really check-ins to see if we're on track, or if we're not on track.
And so I'm just, I know I've asked about this, you know, in the past, it would just be nice to sort of get a check in, you know, and maybe we're, the utility, you know, it's way under and there are expenses that are actually way, you know, a lot more than we haven't brought in as much as we should have brought in.
But it'd be nice to have some idea where we're at and if we're if we're you know, if we guest right or if we're not
Going forward and we should build pull that information together pretty easily because they
Pull us what that we said we're gonna
Bring in and how much we're gonna spend and we should have a pretty good idea of where we're out on that
I've got a couple slides if you'd like to see them. Okay. That's a really nice way to say that
So I did do that for stormwater, it's a much smaller utility, so it actually does a really
good exercise and for me to figure out how to build up that out, so she knows I'm going
to ask this question, pretty
consistent on it.
So what you're going to see is, as Shannon brings up the slide, is the revenue and the
the expenditure side, and it's only for operations, so keep that in mind as we think about,
okay.
So this is the same six-year period for some of our revenues.
So you have the comp plan projection and blue and the actual revenues collected that 2025 is a budget number at this point. But throughout this period, you could see that certainly in the 2020 through 24 that we did collect more than the comp plan anticipated, cumulative through 25, it's about $3 million more over that five year period.
Oops, I'm sorry, Shannon. Can you give me slight 13?
I thought it would advance to the hidden side.
Works much better on my desk.
So, same thing.
The expenditures for Stonewater over that same period,
same thing, Complan and Blue, Actuals and Red.
And you could see a different picture
in terms of how we projected in the past two years.
Under spent the first four years of this plan,
and 24 you could see that we actually spent
more than the comp plan, that variance in 24 is 750,000.
The budgeted amount or the increase between the comp plan in actual for 25 is about $1,000,000.
I think we will realize that so the majority of these increases come from engineering services.
And you saw that short list of positions that we've added are dedicated to storm water.
So we're going to see that departure.
It's only going to get higher on the expansion side, but we've definitely built up reserves throughout that stormwater period.
It's also allowed us to continue with our capital improvement plan without having to issue any debt.
But yeah, so three million more, but the last two years it's come take 3.7 of it.
It's about a million dollar difference under spent in terms of versus compounds about a four million dollar variance in net.
So net, so four million, we've collected four million dollars more than we thought we were.
And you still feel comfortable doing the four, four and a half for next year when we're.
I do.
The 2026 CIP is double what it was last year.
We also, like I said, I know that engineering costs are quite a bit higher.
It's about a $700,000 manual increase.
And if anything, if we guess wrong, the cash balance we have will buy down that future
rate as well.
It also will change the projection in case we need debt.
So, yeah, we were very conservative through this period, but at the same time, it's going
to benefit future rates and the financial condition of the utility.
Okay, well, you know, I guess this does sort of prove my point, right?
You know, I know we take a conservative approach, but with that conservative approach actually
means is higher rates than what we could have done but understanding the future and I understand
why we do it. It's just, you know, it's amazing how particular the public is on, you know,
anything you have to do with property, you know, all these other costs associated with being
in the city of Lacey, but an average year your expenses that you have on the utility
size is simply more than the 1% property tax increase that usually goes up in some cases.
Depending, depending, but I just feel like it's appropriate to sort of have the same
level of scrutiny, if we're going to be, you know, the public's scrutinizes so much on one end which
be able to justify it on the other. So I've been pretty consistent on saying that for the years I've
been here. Does anyone have any questions in four and a half percent? I think, you know, obviously
logic says our inflation is going to be at least four and a half percent. So I mean,
And I find that as well, but it's nice to fill a check in and sort of feel like, I was
probably right, that we were the comp, you know, but we were projecting it was probably
a little on the high side at the time, but okay, does anyone have anything else?
What will we even, I mean, I'll be able to answer, but when will we hear from this consultant
to kind of check and see where we are and if we're in balance.
Yeah, I think it's first quarter next year.
Yeah, I think their next step is actually look at that financial chapter.
Lenny, you got something?
Yeah, and real quick, Truman, is this the last year of multi-year
those from the last study on the other utilities?
No.
2027.
I'd like to see what you just showed us for that utility.
I'd like to see that same comparison for all of the utilities and see where we are.
Yeah.
You bet.
I could certainly do that for water.
It's a little more difficult for wastewater.
I'm trying to think when the last financial model that I've seen, but I could certainly bring
I'll bring that to the revenue hearing, which will be the next time we talk about revenues for the city, including the utilities.
So I can turn the bring water back.
I know it's a lot of work, it's not as easy as looking at how much money it's come in compared to how much it's gone out.
I know it's a little more complicated than that, but I do feel like, it's the one thing I said when we passed these multi-year rates
that it felt like we should at least have some check-in point to see if we were right.
We were guessing right or not.
My guess is that we've grown so much as a city and we use such a conservative numbers
on our population that is a big driver of that rate, that we're probably in a very similar
circumstance.
Although water is a little bit different because there's a lot of things going into what
your summary is and so on and so forth so it can, you know, it can be a little bit different but man we've grown a lot as a community and so I imagine we probably are consuming more than what our model probably said we were going to do so.
Okay, thank you. Appreciate that.
Then our last agenda items are our reserve discussion.
Thank you again, Council.
I'm going to have Chelsea Orwood do most of the heavy lifting tonight, but I'm going to
open and close.
We certainly appreciate this extra opportunity to come before you to talk about reserve
designations.
Typically, we come to you at a work session in December and then we ask for the Council's
final recommendations at the end of December when we adopt our budget.
but given the financial condition of our budget,
as well as what's happening in the economy,
in some recent past discussion,
we thought it would be a good opportunity
to check in with the council,
just to make sure that our priorities
were on the same page with priorities
and perhaps we have a different approach
and a different viewpoint on what we do with reserves.
So tonight we'd like to kind of touch
on these points with you. We'll spend a little time about, you know, just kind of a definition,
some background information on reserves. We'll talk a little bit about the, you know,
condition of the budget and the economic environment. We'll have, Chelsea spent a lot of time kind
of thinking about a concept in terms of how to frame the conversation. So we'll introduce,
Perhaps a different way for a council to view reserves, maybe a different way to have the discussion,
have a little more clear direction in terms of priorities and hopefully make it a little bit easier for the council to
provide that direction and have conversation.
We'll show you a snapshot of the current expense funds, projected balances for year-end.
And the current expense fund is our biggest fund.
It's the fund that provides the services.
I think most of our citizens identify with, please parks, engineering, city council, city manager, that sort of thing.
So we'll kind of frame the conversation around that, but I think it's pretty, still give us enough information to put together proposals for all the funds.
again we have 31 funds that make up our city budget but I think we'll get
enough from this conversation to help us on the staff level put together those
proposals and then we'll end the presentation with really turning it back over
to Council so we can receive some some guidance from you as to any changes you
might want to see in terms of approach for reserves for year-end 2025. So with
With that, I will hand things over to Chelsea.
Right, thank you.
So reserves is a budget and policy term is described, it describes resources available outside
of the budget process.
So the intention is that we have reserves available.
Should we need them if resources within the budget process are insufficient?
We use reserves in a number of different ways and you see that multiple years and one of really
And the basic example is the $3 million budget implementation reserve that we're intending
to use in the 2026 proposed budget.
And in this example, that reserve is then treated as a revenue within that budget.
So reserves can be allocated in use for a number of purposes and vary by different organizations.
But the basic purpose of a reserve is to reduce volatility and uncertainty in two main ways.
So the first way is to respond to significant, unplanned, unavoidable costs or revenue losses,
which is kind of similar to like an insurance policy.
A second way is to allocate dollars for large non-recurring planned future expenditures,
which could be more similarly compared to a savings account.
So there are two different ways that we can approach reserves.
With the current economic environment, we're seeing expenses significantly outpacing revenues.
We're seeing that a number of our revenue streams are subject to fluctuations.
So an example would be sales tax, which is largely dependent on consumer spending.
We've also seen that our revenues tend to be relatively flat over time.
And lastly, it's no surprise that construction activity has started to level off as anticipated,
limited, which limits our one-time funding resources.
So given the current economic environment, it's essential to spend some time, like
Tray mentioned, looking at the city's priorities to ensure that they still align with our approach
to reserves.
So we're looking at a potential modified approach.
The factors on the prior slide underscore kind of the importance of prudent fiscal management
and the need to prioritize core needs.
The indicators are pointing towards placing emphasis on maintaining and optimizing existing assets rather than pursuing expansion.
And careful evaluation should be used for all future projects for that long-term impact for each decision.
So it's not just the construction costs that we're seeing.
We're also agreeing then to all the future costs that will happen in perpetuity,
such as utility custodial grounds maintenance repair and all of those things that come forever on.
So this slide, as Troy mentioned, is very specific to the current expense fund. It's a history
of committed reserves since 2015. It does a great job of illustrating our current reality.
So the city, as you can see, has enjoyed a number of years of high construction or one time-related
resources and interest income. The committed reserves were set aside for large-scale projects and
initiatives and then they've also been spent for those very purposes. For a number of years
presented though we were afforded the opportunity to expand but as we've been discussing the economic
environment is changing and we have utilized a large portion of those reserves that were kind of in
that middle section. We've done a really good job of matching one-time revenues through reserves,
with one-time expenses, such as for projects like the police station and Cuyo Park, but given
the current reality, Council may want to consider adjusting the reserve focus from expansion
to preservation and maintenance.
This is specific to preservation and maintenance. This slide is
the same fund, but it's a history of the committed reserves related to facility repair and equipment
replacement. It very closely resembles the trend from the prior slide. The main point here is that
we're down to just about $400,000 of reserve set aside
for repairs and replacements.
And considering the size and complexity of the city's
non-utility facilities and equipment
that amount is likely and adequate,
and plus our facilities and equipment are definitely aging.
So we're gonna talk a little bit more about the details
of how we come to the reserve amounts that are available
for council to designate.
So, this slide shows both 24 and 25, but I'm just focused on 25.
We started with $47 million of available cash and investments.
However, not all of those funds are available for designation.
First, we have to remove their restricted reserves from that balance and restricted in this scenario
just means it's already been predetermined.
Examples are like donor restricted contributions, opioid funds that we've received, drug
procedures, and there's the whole list on the slide.
So this, when we remove all those, that gives us a usable cash and investment balance
of just under $44 million.
But from there, we need to remove funds that are affiliated as reserve per policy, or we've
already predetermined that they're going to be used with the current year for priorities.
This gives us the actually usable cash and investment balance of just over six.
We can't stop there. So we also know that we intend to use some of those cash and investments in our 2026 proposed budget. So again, looking at that $3 million budget implementation reserve that we talked about, we know that we're intending to use that in 2026. So in the end, when we've looked at all the stuff proposed in 26, the council has just under 11.5 million of cash and investments that can be committed in the current expense fund.
And this process occurs every year, so this slide presents the status of the committed
and assigned from last year, as we anticipate them through the 2026 proposed budget.
These reserve balances are either committed or assigned, so committed is done at the council
level and assigned is done with kind of the management level with city manager and finance
director.
They're broken out into 19 different priorities and you're pretty familiar with these reserves
so I won't spend a whole lot of time in the details just a point of reference for now
but we'll come back to it.
So the current approach that we just looked at is based on function.
So of what was on the screen you saw economic development, priorities, law enforcement, parks
and just a few others.
It lacks big picture priority themes and is more tailored to one off needs.
Often times operational costs end up being embedded in those reserves, too.
So some examples are the rapid response team, body and fleet cameras, energy conservation.
Those really should have their own resources available within the operating budget, rather
than relying on one-time reserves.
So we're kind of looking at a different approach for the future.
So creating broad categories to inform more focused discussion, which I'll talk about more in
a little bit, and then utilizing a framework that accommodates future priorities, as well
as applying benchmark ranges for each reserve to gauge and communicate reasonableness.
So some of the possible priority categories that we've been looking at are going to be
the next handful of slides and I'll just explain each one.
So capital maintenance and asset preservation is one.
This would fund repair replacement upkeep of existing infrastructure.
It would prioritize extending the life of current assets over building new ones.
Another would be their revenue stabilization.
This would temporarily bridge structural budget gaps caused by ongoing imbalances between
revenues and expenditures.
It would provide time and flexibility while long-term solutions are developed without resorting
disruptive or reactive cuts.
Another one would be comprehensive and capital facility plan priorities.
This would ensure the ability to meet future capital needs without relying on inconsistent
or emergency funding sources.
It would allow for sustainable cost-effective infrastructure investments that align
with long-term goals to grow and function efficiently over time.
Another one is economic development strategies and investments.
This would fund initiatives that stimulate local economic growth, attract and retain businesses,
expand the tax base, or support workforce development.
It would also signal a proactive approach to improving the local economy rather than
relying solely on tax increases.
Another one we could look at is innovation.
This would fund initiatives that improve efficiency, reducing long-term costs, or adapting
to changing needs.
So this would be a proactive investment that could help curb future O&M growth and reliance
on new funding sources.
So examples would be energy efficiency and technology upgrades.
Another one could be human and social services.
This would support critical human and social service needs, especially during economic downturns
or emergencies.
It would provide dedicated reserves that allow for proactive responses without pulling
funds from essential operations or capital projects, those kinds of things.
And then lastly, we have sustainability as another potential.
This would support environmental initiatives and practices.
It would align financial strategy with commitment to the environment and then catastrophic event.
So this would safeguard the organization's long-term health and ability to navigate through emergencies.
It would help prepare for unexpected and large-scale events ranging from natural disasters to the pandemic to cyber attacks and things like that.
Okay, so we're throwing this slide, I guess illustration back on the screen so
so that you have it just for another quick point of reference.
This, so
this slide uses the possible categories I just mentioned and it uses the ones that
were on the kind of grouping that was on the screen just previously and puts it into this
model or this modified framework concept.
So all 19 of those items are now distributed amongst these eight categories for a big picture
discussion and priority setting. Later on, we'll ask for your guidance on specific categories,
but in the meantime, this is just illustrating the concept.
So this is a look at the same structure
with a five-year average built-in for comparison. So some things to know, especially now that we
have utilized our $3 million budget implementation or intending to for the 2026 budget,
But as we have some gaps in our reserves from kind of what we've seen historically.
And so that revenue stabilization, that 3 million would have been sitting there, but we
intend to use it.
Some other areas that are potentially underfunded, so to speak, compared to a five year average
is that economic development strategy and investments and also the capital maintenance and asset preservation.
It's important to keep in mind that as we saw from those graphs earlier on that the last five years had pretty strong increases to resources and our availability to reserve so we can't compare apples to oranges.
We have less money to go around now and to be designated and reserved so we understand that and this is really just a matter of how council wants to allocate available dollars according to these types of priorities at this point in time.
So it's late and I'm tired, but why does allocating specific amounts of money into specific reserve categories matter because we can shift reserve funds around as needed, right?
So if we're setting aside $400,000 for capital maintenance, but we know our realistic experience rating would suggest we need more like almost $2 million in there.
And that, like the bills come due next year, after we've passed the budget, we can just move the money.
So like, why does it matter so much what buckets we put these in the reserves?
And I'm really following you, too, historically, where we've made these decisions is every budget, right?
I mean, every time we get to the budget, we really have relied on Troy to see where we're at, where are things coming, and then we talk about budgets, and we, at that time, sort of allocated based on what we know is coming up.
You know, and you have a better idea of what that is than we do because you know of other ongoing expenses are I think I like I appreciate that but that putting this into categories and so it looks maybe better on a spreadsheet.
But it really comes right down to it.
But I guess the direction we need to give is one, and every year we should probably
put as much money back into the budget category, because we have no one, because that's
the one that fluctuates more year to year.
It's $3 million, the right number, I don't know what that number is, but that should probably
to be the first thing that gets replenished.
And then after that, we've always said economic development
should get replenished as well.
But we haven't really seen that number be drawn down
very much year after year.
So that's been another conversation.
But tell me where we're missing here.
So no, you're not.
And that's kind of the conversation
we'll have council have some of that guidance
because we can come back to recommendations
where this kind of move money around,
where we see needs coming up.
But part of that, it's also worth the council priorities and that council has that part of your conversation.
So what I heard that the Marissé, one of the first things from his perspective is making sure that the stabilization reserve,
the budget policies are met first.
Then we know how we can start looking at money and moon things around to come back.
Here's our recommendation, balancing what we have, what we anticipate in the council priorities.
And of course, you look at that list and the capital maintenance and asset preservation.
the preservation facility maintenance, that reserves getting down and that's an important thing going forward.
We're going to have to look at addressing the war we pull that from and prioritize from something else.
For me, it has to be budget policy implementation, it has to be the first that gets the reserves.
Because that is the one thing that prevents us year over year to having these big layoffs or
We have a buffer in there that we know, and that just has to be the first thing we should.
We need to make sure it comes whole the next year, but we've done that, we've done that.
I mean, I don't see that we're doing anything out of normal.
Although I guess we have less overall reserves.
And so now we have to start getting a little finer, finer, pencil on what we're going to sign it to.
But I've always had pretty a lot of faith in Troy to figure that out for us, because he's the expert and we're not.
I think we can give some overall guidance budget,
the budget policy invitation has to be number one.
I think for the future councils, I think that's a pretty easy one to say that needs to go first.
And then, depending on how much reserves we have left over, I guess we can start
figure out what is the most, where should we focus those dollars on?
But this isn't a new conversation.
We do have this conversation year after year, and it's just, you know, Chelsea and
Troy put together in a different framework, so Kai has a little bit more context.
Instead of a bunch of different items that you have, it's clustered in the buckets.
Exactly.
And so I think it's a little easier for all of the Council, as well as the public,
they could bore you to kind of basal problems in the past,
you'd have capital maintenance and asset preservation.
That might be different amounts in different funds spread
throughout different budget lives.
So this is kind of consolidating into an easier thing
to kind of look at and say, okay, but here's where we are.
Here's where we want to focus those reserves and make sure
that we have the ability to either maintain the maintenance
and asset preservation, economic development
or present reserves and innovation.
Because also we talked about the need
for technology innovation.
Yeah.
That takes some capital to be able to onboard new technology.
And that's another piece that's kind of balancing this different priorities and what we can
do.
I think it makes a lot of sense and it not only helps organize it, it helps with transparency.
It makes it a lot easier for the public, I think, to understand.
But I think it also reflects kind of the direction the council has set to about priorities.
And so, thank you.
I mean, we do that, we're just every year.
It's just we do it in a little different manner.
And if we want to, I think, put those dollar amounts
under these different labels, I think that that's fine.
But I think what comes down to is on when this limited amount
not reserves we have at the moment, what should be the priorities first and foremost, and I think it's I think we I think you would also say it needs to be budget implementation has to be the number one and then we can go down after that what's what what needs to be what's the next, you know, what makes sense from there but that for sure has to be the first one and I don't know if that 3 million is right number going forward or not.
I mean, maybe that needs to be 5 million.
I don't know.
But I think you have a better idea than I do.
Can you be coming back in November for a final discussion?
But this is just start that conversation and have multiple.
Okay.
Anything else?
Well, I know you have a lot more to go through here.
I'm fighting my instincts here and it's the full circle timing of this.
It's kind of funny.
I was just telling Chelsea this morning.
I go, the council explained things the way that nobody can understand.
And I think Council Member Cox actually did my work for me in terms of why we do this,
in terms of the question for Council Member Bazquez.
This is a reporting issue, a financial reporting issue.
It's under governmental accounting standards boards issued number 54.
You probably remember back in 2000, somewhere around there we have one of that.
So this is a, this is a communication tool.
So this is us, the city, the council, communicating to the public what our priorities are.
It's a transparency issue as well.
So this goes into the face of our financial statements.
There are no disclosures that talk about this in detail.
In fact, every single committed reserve you have gets listed in our financial statements.
So it's an important tool to communicate what it is your intent is and your vision for
this city.
So thank you, Council Member Cox for that.
So I know you're quite through.
You want to have a couple more slides.
I'm sorry.
This is just a different look at it.
So we, I mentioned benchmarks earlier on this looks
at potential benchmarks that we could use going forward
into the future.
At this time, we know that we can't meet these,
but it's just something to strive towards.
So you'll notice that all these benchmarks are proposed as ranges. Arrange includes a floor that communicates that there's a minimum amount necessary to be a good steward of the community. But there's also a ceiling, and that ceiling's important too because it also communicates there's an upper limit to usefulness of these reserves, and a point at which excess resources could be devoted to some other purpose. And so this is just again something to strive for if this is the route we take going forward. And yeah, to kind of everyone's point.
This was just a framework to have a conversation because the intention is as once we know where your priorities lie
Then we'll come back in December and we'll come to you with a more detailed list like you're used to seeing
We just wanted to know your priorities for this evening and that's that's all I had
I know Troy has a few more slides to go through so thank you
Sure, so in terms of timeline, I like I'd spoke to this at the beginning of the presentation
You know, tonight we're looking for high level discussion and guidance from the council and that will help inform staff, you know, where to where to go in terms of the detailed proposal that's scheduled to come before you on December 9th, and then we'll go through an over process on December 16th in terms of ordinance approval.
It's nice to hear that, you know, I think we saw a lot of head nods in the council that,
you know, these categories, these body categories seem to capture the kind of the essence of past
conversations that council have had, and these do seem to fit really well with what the council's
done in the past, so it does seem to be a pretty good framework in terms of that conversation.
going back to the, to Chelsea's earlier slide, you know, in terms of, you know, what we've
done in the past and the mayor has actually spoken to it really well. We've really focused
on economic development. We focused on that budget stabilization reserve. We've also focused
on sustainability. So, you know, after the first year, when we actually know our cash balances,
Those are the discussions that the City of Manager and I have as to making sure we kind
of match the council priority.
If that's changed, that would be good to hear tonight.
But we've also heard as recently as the budget workshop back in September, that discussion
about shifting from new facilities to preservation, just given that the condition of our budget and
our reserves. You can see there's a bit of a mismatch there if you look at the third category
there, the capital facility plan. We have $9 million there and we'll have $400,000
at this point for capital maintenance and equipment replacement. In terms of framing
that discussion, I might be something good to hear from the council if you want to see
that shift, if we want to put more of an emphasis on preservation, where does that?
Where should we look to first in terms of reduction to increase that?
So maybe that's hopefully a framework for the Council to give us guidance.
So I'm happy to go back to any slide.
There might be more valuable for you to help with your discussion.
But the discussion we've heard so far has been a lot of fun.
The only thing, and I've been partial about this for a very long time and I understand
And where we're at as a community, where we need to focus a little bit more on what we have maintained what we haven't anything new.
But 16 years ago, years and years and years ago, we put in a committed reserve for the 5,700 Pacific property improvements, half a million dollars, and it's set there.
There hasn't grown, hasn't done, and it's just seen there for, you know, on a committed reserve, that's the new museum, in the cultural center.
You know, and I know council has given a little bit of an update on our strategies for fundraising and other things going forward.
I wish we would have had discussions, especially along the ways where we've had all these years a massive,
you know, with really good reserves.
If we have added $250,000 or some sort of set number to that,
we would be a lot closer seeing the realization of what's been a long-term priority.
We, you know, for the council on a new museum and cultural center would be a lot closer
to that than we are now.
And so my worry is at some point, if the fundraising happens on one side, there's still a commitment
from the city on the other, and we haven't built up any of that commitment on our side.
And so I feel like we need to be a little more strategic on something like as important
and something's been talked about for this many years,
at least setting something, like growing that fund,
even if it's just small or year after year.
At least for heading towards the right direction.
Isn't the bucket that has $9 million in it,
the bucket that we would use for setting a side money
for the museum?
We could.
So that is currently the bucket
that has the most money in it.
Yeah, and that's, you got the police station vacate,
the police station in there,
You got city hall in there you got some shop operation facilities in there
So there's a whole bunch of animal services as well, which is also of me
So that's part of the conversation. I think council we're going to need to have
Going into next year is looking at those
Those commitments because you can't undo the past decision to how we built that fun up
But also to look going forward with what we have in resources
of course is how do we look at that and you're right.
The part of the funding strategy for the museum project is try to get around a million half of community support for it and then that would be the matching thing part to get the city to make up the rest.
We're not prepared to have that yet or not but that's going to be some future conversation we're going to have next year with council and part of this effort is how do we look at these future projects and start prioritizing what do we need in facilities.
That's council member Ansa.
A couple of things.
One of them, I have to agree with the mayor on the budget stabilization.
I'll be proud of it.
I want to disagree pretty strongly with us, putting anyone into funding for the museum in current times.
I mean, I think I'm officially responsible for us to do it.
One of them, we have a far greater, more political.
That is the one I'm meeting.
But I think the answer to the presentation is the other thing that I think we have to make sure
that that has to be prepared on the road.
So I think those people need to be cooperatives.
Well, and I agree, Lenny.
There's no chance of us building the museum in a very short horizon.
I don't think because public support is that, I mean, you know, there's a lot of poverty on public support.
But I don't ask anybody to do this on a call, sorry.
Well, there has been money raised, and there's a plan to raise the rest.
But there has to be a commitment if we're going to go forward with that.
There has been opportunities to set that side where that number wouldn't be nearly as daunting as it is today.
And so I just think we need to think a little more strategically long term.
And I agree, let's go off with our major, the budget has to be number one.
And maintain assets you have to, all these things are really important.
But I don't think we'll ever make any progress if we don't at least put
something, a small number aside year after year on something that's been talked about for a long, long time.
where we'll never get there.
So, but I think we're heading in the right direction.
Again, I had a lot of confidence and I'm trying to figure out what those actual numbers should be at the end of the day.
But I think we've been pretty, you know, consistent on, it has to be our budget policy invitation.
It has to be the first thing that we prioritize.
The economic development side, you know, it's one of the things that,
It was something that I really wanted to be in their budget and we finally got in the
budget and it was, you know, it's been 10 years ago and we haven't seen, it has been
helpful over the years, right?
I mean, that's where we use the money out of that to, for our program during COVID to give
our grant program.
Now, that all got reimbursed, but we replenished, but we had it there.
But since then, we haven't seen a consistent year after year of trying to draw that down,
make a big difference and then replenish it.
A lot of these funds, one of the pieces of, they've been used every year in Makerspace,
and the night market activities, there's funds dedicated out there for improvements at that location.
There's also a couple of other initiatives that came out of there.
But at the year end that would be repunished to make hold that's why you kind of see that consistent balance year after year
But there has been utilized now to its full extent
We're waiting to make sure we have flexibility for that project or need they can help
Tip something over the age for economic development reasons and again, we've talked about developing that strategy for implementation
So we can refine and make sure we're purposely using those dollars for what the council sees has been almost beneficial
So we'll bring in that back in December that economic development strategy that will hopefully inform council
How we can use those dollars going into 2026 and beyond to create that economic development investments
So several of these funds we've seen have really good or decent balances year over year and balances that don't really
tend to get drawn down like maybe we thought they would right and within some of those funds
I
I would recommend that we, of course, do the budget and the assets, but there are some of these funds that we could move to, you know, get the ball rolling in some other areas.
The only ones that I would be hesitant about, you know, removing from are anyone that we might have an ILA with another jurisdiction, or we've already, you know, obviously committed to something that we're going to be using that.
But, you know, like the economic development strategy and investment fund,
you know, if we, if we were to set like a cap on it of 1.675,
then we could take the balance above that and,
and turn it to revenue stabilization to put something in that fund.
I don't, I don't, I don't know that we would draw down, you know,
1.675 in a given period prior to any kind of replenishment,
but we should be looking at trying to balance out some of these other funds
with the excess, so that we are putting in monies in the right places.
I think when you really look at this, the only big questions I have,
I mean, the capital equipment replacement, I mean, it seems like a small number.
It's the capital facilities plan implementation, and we have committed and assigned, right?
That's the dollars that we just don't know about, right?
I mean, capital facilities plan is a big, big plan.
And that number, that's not even close to what we actually need for that.
But we really have had that long term conversation of where we're at in our capital facilities.
And what's going to look like going forward, and until we have that conversation, it's
tough to figure out what are those the right numbers in there for implementation or not.
And as I think council recall in the 2025 budget, we put aside two projects, $250,000 each
to do the more refined space study for the operation center as well as city hall to get a little
but better understand what those needs are with jazz comms and working hard on the what's
the scope and design of that animal service building that challenge there is brief.
I think what the definition of furniture is in turn of local green with some partnerships.
At some point, it's going to be a fixed that building and the partners are going to come
together and need to figure out how to finance that.
So we need to prepare for that.
Well, for example, we have $3 million set aside for our joint animal service and a committee
reserve. Do any of our partner jurisdictions have $3 million to set aside in their budgets?
All right. I don't know.
That's the thing we have to be aware of the number.
Yeah, we haven't.
But we don't know.
Well, we should have that answer, and if we're the only jurisdictions that's sitting, but $3 million
in the committee reserve, that the other jurisdictions are not going to get close.
But going back to the, I think the original point, you have a capital facilities plan that we talked about at length.
It has a lot of projects on there, that has a lot of needs in the city and trying to figure out how we make sure we can continue those facilities and
get prepared to provide the service upon.
And then what else can we prioritize that funding for?
Are these interest bearing accounts?
All of it, all of it is, and the interest just goes right back onto the balance.
Or does it go to somewhere else?
It goes back to the funds in which the cash, so in around the way, yes.
Good.
I mean, and that city hall reserve, it's been a commuter reserve for ever, it's down to that number, but
it was a much bigger number for over the years.
We've slowly drawn down for whatever here and there, but I'm sure that's where we're taking the money out
for the elevator right and that's why we only did one of the elevators so we can just make sure we have some capacity to do something
So, I think what could be helpful is for us to take a look at what we have committed in a sign right now, and the reason behind that, and then does that still make sense today, or not, and we can adjust from there, but that's going to take a kind of a longer conversation of why we came up with those numbers. I think this conversation is very helpful, because again, we're going to come back in November for
or another work session to kind of talk to the other,
we can kind of make some recommendations.
And kind of finer point, but we need to have this first
conversation, one, to kind of introduce this new way
of categorizing this so it's a little easier
to kind of know where things go.
And then two, kind of get some general direction
so we can start putting it in the paper
and figuring out what we can see are the needs of the city
the city and the council priorities.
I mean, before we had a lot more
sitting in unassigned reserves, right?
I mean, because look all that money
that we were able to put towards the police station.
I mean, that was all, that wasn't all in a committee reserve.
That was, yeah, there were so many different
funding resources for that.
Yeah, a lot of it was not defined
And like in the arterial street fund, the real estate excise tax, it wasn't defined
as you are saying, yeah.
Does the law require that the interest of came later on these accounts go back directly
to that account or is there a way that we could funnel that?
There's no back in the current expense.
It's all in the current expense.
Yeah, there's some, in fact, that's something I've been trying to research from our
every time is exactly that.
How can we take money from a capital fund that's earned?
How that go back into operations?
Because one finance director's opinion is the money originates from that current expense fund.
We transfer it into a building fund and then it sits there.
Like the police station's a really good example.
We are on tracking expenditures to the day because of our bond requirements in terms
of Robert Treas' rebate, so excited to take every expenditure, calculated daily interest
on that, and it's substantial interest. It's being earned right now in the building
fund.
Sure.
My original thought was, let's find a way to get that back into operations to help fund
our daily operations. Since we know the police stations that takes cost, there's not an inflationary
cost there, so I haven't found anything. I haven't found anything that says like we can't
to that? I like to, when I look at things, find positive, you know, or definitive permission
so to speak, to do that. But I've been talking to our investor and advisor a little bit.
There's not other cities that have a policy to do that, which gave me a little bit of pause.
But again, I can't see the ins as we can't move it back into the law.
I don't think a lot of other cities have been in the same position where we had the reserves
that we do either. So, I mean. But, okay, well, I think we're ahead in the right direction.
I think it's going to take some more conversation and talk about really, you know, you almost
have to go through every committed and assigned reserve and talk about this. It doesn't make sense
Or does it move to something else, but
I'll just go through that process.
Is your suggested range based on some,
is it kind of like based on some historical spending hammer that we've had,
or where you've seen money outflow into something that we were trying to accomplish?
Yeah, there's not a lot of concrete guidance
The one that seems to be an industry standard is the facility maintenance and repair.
We've seen that in utilities as an example, so our utility comp lands assume a 2% reserve
for that very purpose, and the reason behind that is infrastructure typically has about
a 50 year life, so think of a water line being in the ground for 50 years and operational.
To appreciate it over that life is 2% per year, so if you're actually saving 2% a year,
you have the cash at the end of that useful life to replace that, so that's where that comes from.
But the rest is really, it's not, there isn't any real concrete guidance, but
Chelsea did a really deep dive in terms of other financial associations and
and what other municipalities might be doing,
and they seem to be kind of best practices,
but nothing concrete in terms of like a 2% per year
that matches depreciation.
Yeah, Joe.
That's you.
Okay, if there's any questions?
I just have one little suggestion.
If it is kosher to reserve the interest
for a particular thing,
might the little bit of interest we would earn
on the account that the new cultural center museum would be in, could be directly applied to that account.
So at least you're growing it a little bit and it's accumulating until the economy is stronger.
I mean, I think that's the least we could have been doing over these years and
we'd be in a much better position to at some point take advantage of that opportunity.
But if we do nothing, I don't suggest us doing nothing.
I think either we have to make decision, we're not, we're not going to go forward with the project.
You know, it's, and get the half million dollars and say, you know, you know, try to best it's not going to happen.
Or we're going to say, we're going to actually try to do something year over year to at least increase that, you know,
by a small part, otherwise, it just doesn't make sense for us, you know, here we are, all these years later, and if we would just put a little bit of side, plus interest in everything else, you know, we've been locked, you know, we could maybe built it by now, so, but we didn't, we haven't done, you know, we just have, it's just sat there, that half million just sat there year after year, and nothing's happened to it, so, but I think we're heading the right direction.
And obviously we'll have some more detailed, you know, reserve discussion in December and obviously as we go to prove our committed reserves that's going to happen for our budget as we do every year.
So I think we're on our way and I think we've given you at least a little idea of what are the most priorities at the moment going forward.
but I think we're going to have to have a lot more conversation over our capital facilities, plan, priorities.
That's the big one because it obviously has largest chunk of dollars in it right now, but there's a lot of uncertainty within that as well.
Okay, well, with that, we have finally reached the agenda, but it was a really long meeting.
So with the objections, I'm going to call this work session adjourned and everyone to be safe out there.
It's been kind of crazy with our weather and everything else and Halloween to this weekend.
So happy Halloween to everyone.
I remember next week's council meeting is on Monday the third.
It's going to be out of the norm.
next Monday we're going to have our information dinner ahead of time and then the meeting after that on my day not Tuesday.
So everyone have a happy safe Halloween and as always you keep a classy lazy.