Vancouver City Council

0:00 President Perez, Fox, here, Paulson, Stover, here, Hanson, Mayor McEnerny-Ogle, present. Thank you. Um, Mayor, move to excuse Councilmember, um, Paulson, thank you, and Perez. Thank you. Seconded by Hanson. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Councilors, you have in front of you the minutes of May 4th. Are there any corrections? Move to approve. Hanson, seconded by Stover. Stover. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Let's move on to the proclamations, and we have with us to start things off, Poppy Days. Yay.

0:59 And so, do we have Gloria with us? Gloria, hi, come sit right up here. Let me read a little bit of this, Gloria. You're the past president of the American Legion Unit 14? Yes. Yay. Whereas the welfare of our veterans and their dependents should be a prime concern of every individual, and the American Legion Smith Reynolds Unit 14 will again conduct its annual Poppy Days for the purpose of raising funds for the rehabilitation of war veterans and for the welfare of the families of these veterans, and whereas we ask our community to remember the sacrifice our veterans have made for America by wearing a poppy during this time. And the memorial poppy is not only a tribute to those lost in war, but it also honors living veterans and helps with their rehabilitation, so whereas the month of May has been set for

1:54 distribution of Buddy Poppies by the American Legion Auxiliary Unit 14, now therefore I am McEnerny-Ogle, mayor of Vancouver, Washington, do hereby proclaim the week of May 11th through 16th, 2026, as Poppy Days in Vancouver, and further call upon the community of our city to assist in the spirit of this worthy program and to wear a poppy in honor of our veterans.

2:34 Gloria, there is a microphone and a little face with a button there if you push it on the top of this microphone, you will see things. Madam Mayor, City Council, and guests, the American Legion Auxiliary Post 14 thanks you for proclaiming May the Poppy Day, and for this year it is May 16, and we will be distributing poppies in various locations on that day.

3:29 Actually, in reality, every day should be Poppy Day for the significance that the poppy holds in the life of our country to honor and remember those who gave their lives so that we are free to laud their bravery. Poppy Day marks the beginning of another year during which we offer the poppy to the hand of a person free to express appreciation for the price someone unknown soldier paid on their behalf for that freedom. The poppy as a memorial flower honors those who died in wars that challenged our right to freedom. The use of the poppy can be traced to a single individual, Ms. Monina Michaels. She was so moved by the poem of Colonel McCray titled In Flanders Field that on impulse she

4:24 bought all the poppies at New York's Wanamaker department store and handed them out to businessmen meeting at the YMCA where she worked. That was in November 1918. Later she would spearhead a campaign that resulted in the adoption of the poppy as the national symbol of sacrifice. Here we are over 100 years later carrying on that tradition. The Flanders poppy is a specific strain that grows in abundance in Flanders Field, France atop the graves of thousands of soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom. On designated Poppy Day you will find us at various locations throughout the city offering you a poppy. These poppies are hand made by veterans who are paid for their work. Funds raised from your generous donations provide funds for support of the VA transplant

5:23 lodge, the VA hospital canteen and many, many other projects that are provided for the servicemen. On May 25 official Memorial Day we invite the public to join post number 14 at our facility on St. John's Boulevard at 11 o'clock for the laying of the wreath ceremony honoring our deceased soldiers. Again, thank you, Madam Mayor, for your proclamation. >> Thank you so very much. And let's move right into the Memorial Day at the barracks. We have Katie and Ron, Ron Powers and Katie. Whereas the Clark County Veterans Memorial serves as a place of honor for our Clark County fallen so we never forget their sacrifices and whereas the community military appreciation

6:21 committee was created for the purpose of connecting all veteran advocacy organizations public and private in and around the greater Vancouver Portland metropolitan region and whereas the city of Vancouver has earned the distinction of being a patriotic community and takes pride in honoring our fallen service members at the annual Memorial Day observance sponsored by the community military appreciation committee at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. And this year's observance on May 25, 2026, will have Marv Sirhan as the keynote speaker in the official laying of the wreath at the Clark County Veterans Memorial to honor fallen soldiers, thank them for their commitment to our country and recall their legacy of patriotism. By giving their lives to the cause of freedom, these heroes have protected and inspired all Americans.

7:19 Now, therefore, I, Anne McEnerny-Ogle, Mayor of Vancouver, Washington, do hereby proclaim the 25th in May as Memorial Day at the Barracks in the city of Vancouver and call upon the people of Vancouver to honor those who have given their lives for our country and to show our respect and support for the people of our armed forces.

7:58 Madam Mayor, Anne, members of the city council, veterans, families, and community members, thank you so much. On behalf of the community military appreciation committee, also known as CMAAC, Katie Howser and I are honored to accept this Memorial Day Proclamation. Memorial Day is more than just the beginning of summer. It is a sacred time for our nation to pause and remember the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who gave their lives in service to our country. Their sacrifice reminds us that freedom is never free.

8:54 We are grateful to the City of Vancouver, the National Park Service, the Historical Trust for continuing to recognize the importance of this day, Memorial Day, and for standing alongside our veterans, military families, Gold Star families, and Blue Star families. I also want to thank our many volunteers, community organizations, many of them are represented here tonight, sponsors, including our main sponsor for this event, Waste Connections, and partners who helped make our annual Memorial Day Remembrance Ceremony possible. This is truly a community event. We invite everyone to join us on Memorial Day as we come together and remember its gratitude and unity to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Our event is going to be held on the Fort Vancouver Parade Grounds on Monday, Memorial

9:51 Day, May the 25th, beginning at 10 a.m. We absolutely invite the community to help us recognize the veterans that had given their lives in sacrifice and appreciate that we were able to follow the poppies because it's a great connection between our various organizations. So thank you, Mayor Ann, and thank you to the Council for your continued support of CMAQ and our military community. And I would like to end it with the strength of a community is measured not only how it celebrates freedom, and of course this year is our 250th birthday of the United States, but how it remembers those who sacrificed for it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ron. We do get the 1,000 chips because I got the 1,000 hot dogs. Okay.

10:46 For those of you who may not know, we serve a luncheon afterwards, and we expect wonderful weather and 1,000 individuals to join us. But Ron, before you go, we have a special veteran who many of those on CVTV and in the room may not know. Could you introduce Harry for us, please? >> Yes, ma'am. I would like to introduce Mr. Harry Humison. Harry is a World War II veteran. He served under Patton's Own during 1945. In fact, recently he was in Czechoslovakia in honor of the ending of the World War II, and he's going to go back again this year. Also, Harry is now 100 years old. So World War II veterans, thank you. [ Applause ]

11:45 And again, I would like to do a special shoutout for all the veterans that are here tonight in support of Memorial Day. >> Thank you so much. And Harry, I have a copy of your blog, happyharryoutofthebox.com, and you're writing -- you said my writing has -- my writing skills are worse. I don't know, it looks pretty good. Congratulations. Thank you for joining us this evening. >> I wonder, Maren, if you would let me say a couple words. >> Please, Harry, go ahead. Come on up and have a seat. >> Pull that microphone right down to you. Thank you, SIS. >> Oh, sorry. >> Can you hear me all right? >> We can. Thank you. >> I have two things. I was in World War II.

12:45 I only served in combat for 50 days, but it was an experience. And I came up with two conclusions. One of them is, in wars, there are no winners. The second conclusion was that wars are the stupidest creation of human mankind. >> Thank you for your words of advice, Harry, we appreciate it. [Applause] >> I'm trying not to pull everything over. >> Thank you. Okay.

13:43 That concludes our proclamations and brings us into the communication from the community. And we have several individuals who have registered online and who have given us yellow cards this evening. Rory Dicker, come and talk to us, please. Rory, thank you. >> Good evening, mayor and council members. I wanted to start by saying thank you. Not just for considering this funding, actually, first of all, I want to say my name is Rory Dicker and I'm here representing Live Live Outreach. And I want to start by saying thank you, not just for the consideration of this funding, but for creating space for a small organization like ours to receive support and make a meaningful impact in this community. What you're investing in isn't just a program.

14:40 It's a response to the hours when our system is quiet and the need is the loudest. Street Light Outreach exists in that gap, late at night, in the cold, in the moments of crisis, when someone is deciding whether they're going to survive the night, seek help, or give up entirely. Since launching, we've served over 430 individuals and delivered more than 1200 services. But those numbers only tell a part of the story. They represent people who were freezing and got a sleeping bag. Someone in withdrawal who made it to detox instead of overdosing. A person who has said yes to help at 1130 at night because someone finally showed up when no one else was available. We've had confirmed life-saving interventions, including an overdose reversal with Narcan and an immediate transport to care. We've connected people to shelter during severe weather, to detox, to housing pathways. And just as importantly, we've built trust with individuals who often don't engage in traditional systems.

15:39 This work also strengthens the broader system, who you've invested. We're not duplicating services, we're extending services. We coordinate with heart, accounts for the homeless, shelters, and local providers in real time, making sure people don't fall through their cracks simply because of the hour. And that's what we're seeing right now that matters. We're seeing higher acuity, more mental health crisis, more substance use, more people living outside in dangerous conditions. We're seeing families, youth, and people who have never been in this situation before. And we're seeing that when we show up consistently, people respond. They accept the help, they move towards services, and they begin to stabilize. Your investment allows us to keep showing up with the right resources, the right staff, and the ability to respond quickly and effectively when it matters the most. So truly, thank you. Thank you for recognizing the importance of this work, for supporting solutions that meet

16:35 people where they are, and for helping us continue to be a bridge between crisis and stability in our community. Thank you. Thank you, Rory. Let's have Ren, Autry, and Nicole Leon. Can I-- Ren, go ahead. Good evening, mayor and council members.

17:33 My name is Ren Autry, and I'm the director of-- one of the directors of Outsiders In. And I'm here tonight to express our deep gratitude for the recommendation to fund our Project Hope and housing stability programs with the Home Art Funds. This funding means everything to the people we serve. It means that someone living and unsheltered tonight will have an outreach team meeting them where they are-- on the streets, in camps, or where they're parked, building trust and gently guiding them toward shelter and better options. And then later, behind shelter programs. When they're ready to take that next step into permanent housing, they won't be doing it alone either. What makes this work is a peer-supportive community of care. Our specialists aren't reading from a textbook. They've personally experienced homelessness, trauma, and the hard work of rebuilding stability. They shared experience-- that shared experience creates a kind of trust that traditional case management simply cannot replicate.

18:33 When our participants see someone who has been where they are and that they're now thriving, hope becomes something tangible. This funding allows us to keep that support in place. Not just on the streets, not when they meet them on day one, but after shelter. Not just on move-in day, but through the months that follow, when people need us most to help them dig into the new routines and responsibilities of becoming a renter. We are grateful to the City of Vancouver for believing in this approach and in the people, our staff, who are working on the front lines of this work. We will continue to work hard to meet our shared goals. Thank you. >> Thank you. Nicole? >> Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Nicole Davis-Leone, and I have the honor to serve as the Executive Director at the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.

19:29 For more than 32 years, the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber has worked to advance economic prosperity and wealth creation for underserved entrepreneurs across Oregon and Southwest Washington. Today I am here to speak on the recommendation of the CDBG recommendations for next year. Our small business community is diverse, and the challenges businesses face are complex. HMC proudly serves child care entrepreneurs while also supporting construction businesses, food entrepreneurs, janitorial companies, retail stores, service providers, and many other of the small businesses that are essential to the Vancouver economic and neighborhood. We remain committed to helping the city meet economic development goals while also ensuring that community and small business owners are voices to continue to guide this work. We believe the strongest economic strategies are those that are both data and community informed.

20:23 HMC has intentionally built a full circle ecosystem of support for entrepreneurs that goes beyond the traditional technical assistant providers. From culturally responsiveness, trusted navigation, advocacy and mentorship, business stabilization, and the list goes on. HMC is often the first place businesses turn to when they need help navigating an unknown and inaccessible system. Whether it's hosting our upcoming child care roundtable or helping business owners understand the new tax laws and regulations from the city of Vancouver or assisting a storefront restaurant in shifting its business model from catering in response to federal policy changes affecting their operation, HMC is there. Through the city funding, HMC has able to provide countless support to the businesses that we all so much love. These businesses are not just statistics on a spreadsheet, they are child care providers

21:21 helping working families stay employed, contractors creating economic mobility, and helping working families stay employed. Many of those that are our favorite things that make this city so special. At the time when the small businesses owners feel the most uncertainty and isolation, HMC has been able to provide and be at their corner thanks to the city of Vancouver. Thank you again for your time and your leadership and commitment to supporting the small business community. Thank you. And Councillors, yes, this was to have been done under the public hearings. I'm going to go ahead with the last one. Kimberly, she's also from the Hispanic Chamber, I don't know if you want us to wait. She will do it now and then we won't do it during public hearing. And the mayor, there is one more person that's remote under the public hearing for tonight if you wanted to do that now as well.

22:20 I have the only the only ones I have under remote I don't have any under remote. The three I have are all in person. On the page with the urban, sorry, I see her name. Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and put a spacing on the agenda next time for that one. Okay. Let's go ahead. Kimberly, go ahead, hon. Good evening. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Kimberly Quiros. I serve as a senior business developer for the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber. For the past five years I've had the privilege of working with entrepreneurs in the area of Vancouver, supporting them with starting their business and growing their businesses across many different industries. Among those I work directly with seven child care providers here in Vancouver, helping guide them through the process of establishing and sustaining their day care business.

23:18 In the last few years the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber has supported 14 child care businesses across the Southwest Washington area. We work in collaboration with many different agencies that support in this industry. While these partners focus on requirements and child care specific training, we focus on the business side, helping the clients choose the right business structure, complete registrations from the federal, state, local county regulations, and building strong foundations through business planning, financial projections, and marketing strategies. Several of the providers we support are now running successful businesses, three of which have achieved a major milestone, business home ownership, which is really huge, allowing them to now expand their services to be able to see more children. One of our businesses has even reached the level four of rating, which is the highest level in recognition in the area.

24:15 In addition to child care, we support entrepreneurs in many different industries, including construction. Just last year within the city of Vancouver we supported 12 construction businesses. Our work includes helping contractors formalizing their business, navigate licensing compliance, and pursue growth opportunities, such as expanding across the state lines. June 3rd we will be hosting a collaborative workshop among community partners to guide entrepreneurs through both the child care, the child care business aspect of opening their business. We are also planning a similar workshop focused on construction later on this year and supporting contractors in building and scaling their businesses. I respectfully ask for your continuing support for the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber and the work that we're doing to empower small business owners and strengthen crucial industries such as child care and construction in our community. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you. Is Melanie available now?

25:14 Let's go ahead and finish up that. >> Thank you, Mayor. And I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Sarah Dollar, the clerk for tonight. So I am going to go ahead and give her the allowance for her microphone. >> Thank you. >> And for her camera. And then so Melanie, you are good to speak now. >> Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, and council members. I'm Melanie with Upwards. I'm respectfully asking that council direct a portion of CDBG funding towards our boost program, which would be a direct investment in Vancouver's family child care providers and the families who depend on them. I know there are many strong applicants, so I'll briefly highlight why this can't wait. Vancouver child care workers earn on average $19.83 an hour, placing them in the bottom 3% of wage earners statewide, two-thirds nationally struggle to afford food and housing. These providers love caring for children, but they need help with marketing, enrollment, and daily operations.

26:12 This is exactly the pain points that boost addresses. Boost pairs low to moderate income in-home family child care providers with one-on-one business coaching and free digital tools. So each provider will be paired with a dedicated care specialist to create a custom business action plan that identifies their strengths, their weaknesses, and their personal business goals. This also covers different modules ranging from marketing, programming, and staffing, and more. They also get free access to our child care management system, which we've been designing since 2017, specifically to address family child care providers' biggest pain points and help them build a more sustainable, high-quality business long-term. It's important to note that they retain free access to the platform beyond the program year, ensuring long-term stability. This is a proven model. We've launched Boost in over 30 cities and counties. We've mentored, in the last two years alone, over 500 providers.

27:11 We created 180 teaching assistant jobs. We helped these providers grow revenue by 25 percent and expand child care slots by 30 to 50 percent, all within the first year alone. So we're launching in Clark County on July 1st, but as you know, it's CDBG funding that would prohibit us from serving providers in Vancouver. So what it proposes a pilot program with $48,000 in CDBG funding, we can support six providers in Vancouver, create two teaching assistant jobs, and improve care for over 70 children. And again, that's through the first year alone. Really through Boost, any Vancouver family will have access to dedicated care specialists to help them find care that suits their unique needs, including emergency backup care. As a parent of two young ones, I know how important that is so that I can attend meetings like this with you tonight. So with Council's support, we can strengthen these vital small businesses, create local jobs, and help families get back to work.

28:09 I'm always happy to answer any questions, both as a representative of Upwards, but first I was a client who will forever be thankful for that first partner, day carers, who cared for my little ones. Thank you. Thank you very much. I am not going to close community communication. The next five individuals would like to talk to us about comp plan, and I'm going to leave that open. Let's go to consent agenda. We are pulling item number three to be read into the record, but Councilors, are there any other items in consent that you would like to pull at this time? So I'll entertain a motion to approve items one, two, and four. Move to approve. Fox, seconded by Harless. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Now we'll go into item number three.

29:09 Councilmember Hansen, I'm going to go ahead and recuse. Thank you. Item number three is an ordinance updating and amending the city of Vancouver 2026-2045 comprehensive plan called our Vancouver, repealing and replacing the city of Vancouver zoning map, and repealing and replacing title 20 land use and development code of the Vancouver municipal code, providing for severability and an effective date. So at this point, I'm going to bring it back to community communication, and I have Paul Quimby and Mike Philbin, please. Paul go ahead. Good evening, may the mayor and city council members.

30:07 My name is Paul Quimby. I have lived in the northwest neighborhood since 1958, growing up there, going to school, coming back there, and I've resided there with my wife and children. I know the neighborhood extremely well. Last month had a northwest neighborhood meeting attended by more than 60 people, that number might even be more. Overwhelmingly we voted against this comprehensive level two development for all the reasons that everybody I'm sure is very much aware of, infrastructure, roads, curving, sidewalks, all of that. The diversity I think can be found more useful in other parts of the city where it's already

31:01 developed with transportation and other amenities that would make it more of a positive result of this mandate from the state that we're required to do. I'm here as a representative of the rest of the neighborhood association, that we are very much against it, and we would encourage you to continue further study and not vote on this to continue to find some viable options. Thank you. >> Thank you. Mike? >> Hi. My name is Mike Philbin, and I am a lifelong resident of the Vancouver area and a current resident of the northwest neighborhood. First I kind of want to go on record. I'm pro zoning reform, I'm pro increasing density, I'm very much for making homeownership more accessible, and I would like to think that my children will own a house before they're

31:59 my age, to be honest with you, and I understand how complicated that is right now. Our neighborhood is going to be zoned for what you call low rise, and I'm for that. I'm for property rights and being able to do what you want to do on your property, and I get that part. A significant part of our neighborhood is zoned what you guys are calling mid rise, and there's some definitional questions I have about how you're defining that, and you say that this is they're doing this everywhere, but not everywhere are they defining it the way you're defining it, so that's one issue. But also to the extent that we're making homeownership more accessible, putting mid rise developments in our neighborhood is simply inviting institutional investors to build big buildings that they'll rent forever, and I don't see that as a solution to this problem.

32:56 We also have infrastructure issues, Lincoln is not an arterial, it's not made for that, we don't have the kind of public transit, I mean there's a bus that goes up and down Lincoln every couple hours or whatever, but we don't have the public transportation infrastructure in place to support that, and I just kind of want to voice these concerns, I'm not against zoning changes, I'm not against increasing density, I think that mid rise development around that area, in particular I'm talking about the area around Franklin Park, and then also around Ed and Dolly Lynch Park, the infrastructure is not there, the roads aren't there, so I think that's a fool's errand to clear the way for six story buildings in those neighborhoods. Thank you.

33:49 >> Thank you, Zachary Pyle and Ben McCarty. >> Good evening, Mayor and City Council, my name is Zachary Pyle, I'm the Vice Chair of the Planning Commission, and I'm here tonight to represent the Planning Commission and our unanimous recommendation to approve our Vancouver's plan and the Title 20 update. I just want to give you a few personal reflections on what it meant to be a part of the program here, this plan has been both a joy and a burden to participate in, the process has spanned several years and dozens of touch points for me as a commissioner, and personally through community forums and conversations with neighbors, for some it hasn't moved fast enough, and for others it is moving too much too fast.

34:45 It has aspirations that, if we achieve, would make me very proud to call Vancouver a home, but realizing those aspirations is going to require thousands of detailed requirements, regulations and guidelines to back them up, and in many ways a single vote felt inadequate for a document of this complexity and breadth, but it would also be misleading to suggest that the project is over. The Planning Commission reviews amendments to the comprehensive plan every year, including before the end of this year in 2026. This commission and our staff are committed to revisiting the document for as long as it serves as the governing framework for the city to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the community. I should be clear that not every element of this plan was without debate, questions about building heights in medium scale neighborhoods and the restrictiveness of buffer zones between zoning districts are just two examples of where commissioners were in opposition with one another. These were good faith disagreements and they are representative of the kind of tension

35:45 that runs through a document of this scope. I raised them not to cast doubt on the plan, but because compromise was required and some of those conversations may need to continue in the months and years to come. Through it all, several through lines brought me to make a recommendation for approval. One, this plan was built on a seek to understand foundation. Staff and the commission actively listened to the industry that works within the code daily into the community it is meant to serve. The result is a plan with its priorities straight and regulations written to serve those priorities. Two, it removes regulatory barriers to meeting market demand, whether that means infill housing or neighborhood commercial services. This plan opens the possibilities for the market that was previously barred from pursuing and three is built for compromise. This plan reflects thousands of opinions, hard facts and competing interests. As conditions shift in the years ahead, I believe its underlying structure is flexible

36:43 enough to meet and adapt to the demands of the community accordingly. In closing, I want to recognize the dedication of yourselves, the council, staff and my fellow commissioners throughout the process. It has been no small undertaking and we did not take it lightly. Equally important is our commitment to remaining responsive to the realities of our market in the community for as long as the plan is in effect. In conclusion, the Vancouver planning commission unanimously recommends adoption. Thank you. Ben? Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. My name is Ben McCarty and I live at 906 northwest 51st street in Vancouver and I'm the president of the northwest neighborhood association. I'm here tonight on his behalf to represent its members and my neighbors. At the April 30th, 2026 meeting of the northwest neighborhood association, members voted in favor of two resolutions regarding the city of Vancouver's comprehensive plan update. Approved by a vote of 19 in favor to 17 opposed, the northwest neighborhood association requests

37:41 that the city of Vancouver continue its comprehensive plan process to allow more time for further education about the plan update and to encourage additional feedback. Approved by a vote of 38 in favor to just one opposed, the northwest neighborhood association requests that the city of Vancouver place the northwest neighborhood entirely within the low scale neighborhood designation. The northwest neighborhood recognizes that all neighborhoods in Vancouver will play a role in addressing the city's housing shortage. We embrace the desire to increase diversity, growth and responsible densification to meet the city's current challenges. What we oppose in this update is the scale of these changes through the overuse of the medium scale designation in long established neighborhoods, particularly its application to much of the northwest neighborhood. We express the following concerns regarding the application of medium scale to the northwest neighborhood while respectfully requesting that the entirety of the neighborhood be zoned as low scale. Allowing for 75 foot tall maximum infill development in long established neighborhood will create a significant strain on local infrastructure, streets and multimodal transit as well as

38:40 increased demand for utilities and emergency services. There will be significant negative safety impacts to the increase of multimodal traffic on narrow streets that do not have sufficient space to safely allow for parking, pedestrian and cycling usage and increased vehicular traffic. Maximum infill development will have a negative environmental impact on vital green spaces as well as restricting the ability of people and wildlife to access those spaces. Promoting maximum infill at the medium scale designation creates competition between first time home buyers and large wealthy developers, forcing potential home buyers to become renters and limiting upward mobility. The city claims that the impact of such projects will either be minimal or incremental but has no way of ensuring this outcome. By placing maximum infill development within long established neighborhoods, significant economic pressure and strain will be placed on those living near intensely developed locations. The city has acknowledged the necessity to evaluate the comprehensive plan, its impact and how it meets the needs of the residents in Vancouver on an ongoing basis. We encourage this evaluation to be done before committing to maximum infill development and

39:40 causing irreversible damage. The Northwest Neighborhood Association hopes that the city will be open to updating and implementing the comprehensive plan through a balanced approach that will mitigate potential negative impacts for its residents. We remain ready to be an active partner with the city in efforts to encourage positive outcomes through responsible growth and encouraging effective housing solutions in a greater variety of housing types. Thank you for your time and for your consideration tonight. >> Thank you. Steven? >> Good evening. This is mayor and the City Council. I didn't really come here prepared to provide comments, so I'm going to very quickly go through what I'd like to talk about real quickly. I'm a biologist by trade. I'm retired. It's a blessed day.

40:39 I provided comments when the comprehensive plan first came out about my concern about invasive species and non-native species. Not all those species are deleterious to the environment. But I thought in our comprehensive plan we should say something about some of that and addressing that in the future. And when I look through the comprehensive plan, what I see as a draft is that we have some very nice statements that have made their way into it about pollinator habitats. I'm looking at Chapter 6, the parks section, supporting a healthy urban ecosystem. That's great. Prioritize pesticide-free landscapes. And then we get to removal and reducing use of invasive species. And what I would like to see somewhere in there is just a short statement because that's species that are already here. The concern is future species that are showing up.

41:35 And I would make reference to the emerald ash borer, which is now occurring in Washington County. Two weeks ago they had golden mussels that occurred at the southern Oregon border that were found at a boat checking station there. And there's really nothing in this plan that says we need to have some kind of a way to immediately respond to invasions that are occurring at the time. So I'd like to propose some kind of a statement that we proactively address future infestations by being able to provide an immediate response in our plan. And we've got removal and reducing of invasive species and future invasions. And I think we just proposed that we have some type of response plan or are we able to put through the Parks Department, whether through maintenance or anybody else, is that people are there to immediately respond to future infestations because they can occur

42:35 very rapidly and they're very expensive to treat. If we, having worked for a federal agency, it can take three or four years to get an appropriate response and that's too late for a lot of things that are trying to make their way into our environment. Thank you very much. - Thank you, Steve, yes, Steve, hold just a second, Councilor Fox, go ahead. - Councilor Fox here, I just wanna say that the city's comprehensive plan likely wouldn't have something specific about invasive species, but our critical areas ordinances and our Shoreline Master Program would, and I'm looking to Rebecca, but those are requirements as part of our state's comprehensive planning framework and all of the other regulations that go a lot deeper than a comp plan. So perhaps staff can-- - Understood. A lot of this comp plan is way up here. - Yes, as a biologist, you know, yes.

43:33 - Yeah, and I'm kind of, as I've said before, I'm kind of a down in the weeds kind of guy. I mean, I looked at freshwater invertebrates and little bugs that swim in the water and that was what I studied a lifetime doing. But I just, yes, thank you. - I'm just wondering if since our, some of our subsequent work after the comp plan gets adopted is fine tuning our zoning ordinances and our critical area ordinances and everything that follows, perhaps we could, staff could connect with you to make sure that those provisions are within those particular regulations. - Yeah, I'm just, my concern is about future infestations, if we wanna call it that, that we have some type of response prepared that we can put together an action team of whatever it takes. - Great, thanks, Stephen. - Okay, thank you. - All right, that concludes our communication.

44:31 Ms. Dollar, no one online for any of this? - No, no one else online. - Okay, let's go ahead and bring up staff. So, Rebecca, while that note is the most current comp plan or the two other shoreline critical areas, all of the above or just the last two? - So, we added the language around removing and essentially addressing invasive species based on this comment, this was a change we made at the policy level, so that's where you see it. The details would be in regulations per Councilman Fox. - All right, thank you, okay, you, Rebecca, you heard a couple points that were brought

45:29 up about medium scale and a couple other items, let's talk about that after you go through your presentation. - Okay, great. Okay, Rebecca Kennedy, Deputy Director, Community Development Department, I'm on the team that has been updating, working on the update to the comprehensive plan and Title 20 for the last several years, I'm joined by Mark Person, Senior Planner in Development Review, he's been the task lead on the code and you all have seen us here before you presenting at workshops several times now on this topic.

46:27 So we'll just do a quick review on the things we start out every workshop on this topic with, review some changes that were in the draft plan and code since the last time we had a workshop with Council which was on April 27th, review briefly the role of SEPA in this type of process and then outline next steps in our recommendation. So the comprehensive plan update is mandated under the Growth Management Act, so that is our sort of statewide land use planning system in Washington, it's been around for nearly three decades, the city does comprehensive plans every 10 years, sometimes more, or sorry, sometimes less, in this case we've, because of COVID we were delayed as were as every other jurisdiction in the state. It's called, what we're doing now is called the periodic review process and so every 10 years you must, under the Growth Management Act, look at your plan and you're implementing

47:26 regulation and update it to look full 20 years out and to plan for the population and jobs that you will need based on your, or sorry, housing and jobs you will need based on your population projections for the future. This has been I'd say a complex update, more so than perhaps other times because of a lot of action, or a lot of changes at the legislative level to state laws that cities needed to address and incorporate into their comprehensive plans, that includes HB 1110, which was the middle housing law that required cities of a certain size to allow four to six units per residential lot in your low scale residential zoning districts, HB 1220, which required us to plan not just for more units, but also plan for those units by income band, including permanently supportive housing, and it also required us to account for racially disparate

48:22 impacts, HB 1337 required us to allow two accessory dwelling units per residential lot, the council's already taken action on that, we took early action on that as part of our series of housing work. There's a lot of regulations at the state level about parking minimums, we are going to be aligning our impact fees to the size of housing so that there's proportionality between the size of the house and the impact fees they pay, and then this was also the first periodic review cycle where jurisdictions were required to have a climate chapter and a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, as well as a climate vulnerability analysis. These are the key tasks and processes, so in terms of the way I think about it, the buckets of work that take place under the header of the comprehensive plan update, one is the public engagement piece of that, there are requirements at the state level for public

49:20 involvement, we certainly exceed those and go above and beyond that, and a lot of that is based on this council's direction to really engage the community in decision making and shaping these sorts of policies. The comprehensive plan itself, with all the background information, three is the land use code, so title 20 of the Vancouver municipal code, four is implementation, so almost all the chapters have priority implementation steps, a key piece of that is also our capital facilities plan, which you have to be able to demonstrate you can serve the growth you're planning for, and then lastly, the environmental impact statement analysis, which is how we comply with the state environmental policy act, or SEPA in Washington state, and then on the right you can see the process rolled up to a pretty high level, we started out by talking to the community and learning about the community, doing a lot of detailed analysis, we developed land use alternatives that we analyzed through a draft environmental impact

50:18 statement process, we did that analysis to understand potential impacts but as well as mitigations and avoidance strategies, we then refined the plan, the policies and the code, and then we are now at the adoption phase. You've seen this slide before, so I'll just say in summary that we did a lot of community engagement, talked to many people, thousands of people through the process, engaged many more through virtual tools, and have had significant touches with the city council, the planning commission, other boards and commissions, as well as the community. So this slide outlines our projections, so our population projections, our housing unit

51:14 projections that we would need to serve that population and address our existing deficit and the jobs that we're projecting for in order to provide employment options for the community. I think it's important to note that the county is the entity that selects population targets under the growth management act, and they allocate those out to the cities and the urban growth areas, we do our own analysis, of course, because we have an obligation to plan for what we think we need and to have a functioning housing market, so our target is 38,000, we were allocated by the county just under 37,000, so there's not a big difference, and part of that is based on the population projection that they selected. Here are the plan elements, community experience and equity inclusion, our plan wide lenses, land use and development is where you find the policies around growth and development

52:13 as well as many maps, housing is a required element, economic opportunity is not required, but if you do do it, there are rules, RCWs that guide that, climate environment as mentioned above or before is required, you do have to have a parks, recreation and cultural services element, a transportation element, a public facilities and services element where you analyze the infrastructure needs that you will have based on this growth and then you look at how you will provide those based on existing infrastructure as well as planned improvements and then annexation, again, not required, but if you do it, there are guidelines for that and then it is required by our county wide planning policies which all jurisdictions in Clark County jointly adopt given the size of our urban growth areas, particularly the Vancouver urban growth area.

53:11 - Thank you Rebecca, Mark Person, development review planner, I'll be going over the changes to Title 20, currently every parcel in the city has a zoning district, the proposal has every parcel in the city having a new zoning or base district, I'll use those terms interchangeably, the big change is that most of the development standards that currently live in our zoning or base districts will be moving to building types, the main thrust of this was that currently nearly 50% of the city's land is only permitted to have a single family house or a duplex, severely limiting our housing options for folks at the beginning of their home buying life cycle and folks that perhaps want to age in place or community on the other side

54:10 of the life cycle, in addition, we are looking at making every zone a mixed use zone, again, half of the city's land is only not just residential, but residential for single family or a duplex unit, those regulations that currently live in our base districts will mostly be moving to building types, that's where our lot standards will live, lot coverage, frontage, we'll have allowed uses by base district, very similar to how we have now, but again, we're gonna have more uses allowed in more places, we'll also have some overlays for those special areas, downtown, we have the downtown design guidelines, we have the airport overlay for instance, the table on the right is showing at a very high level some of those differences,

55:07 I spoke about the uses in the first row, the second row is density, right now we have minimum and maximum by zone, we'll have minimums only in the draft that is under review, we'll let heights, setbacks and other site constraints really limit what can be done on that site, not an arbitrary density number, building heights will still be regulated by base district, just like it is now, although those zones and heights are changing, as for parking, right now we have minimums by use, for the most part, most residential uses do not have minimums, and then building placement, right now our code focuses mostly on minimum setbacks, we're moving toward a more form-based code that is looking at moving things closer to

56:03 the street, we'll have maximum setbacks, build two lines, really focusing on that building's relationship to the street. This slide is showing our comprehensive plan designations along the top row, those are our residential neighborhoods, our urban mixed use areas, our employment and industrial areas, and our green spaces, under those plan designations we'll have our zoning or base districts, for residential neighborhoods we'll have our mobile home or manufactured home district, that will be a special designation for our 16 existing mobile home parks within the city, and then we'll have our low scale and medium scale neighborhoods, for urban mixed use plan designation we'll have our mixed use neighborhoods and our regional activity center, our employment and industrial designation will include our institutional campus, industrial employment

57:00 and heavy industrial, and again as we say nearly every time, heavy industrial is not really changing in location or standards, we've made some minor refinements to heavy industrial, but for the most part those areas and standards are staying the same, and working with our parks folks, our green space designation has two zones, one for parks, developed parks areas, and the other one for natural areas. And I'm going to hand it back to Deputy Director Kennedy. >> Thank you, Mark. So Rebecca Kennedy, Deputy Director, Community Development Department. So the preferred alternative process, I think this is important for folks under STMAND and I've spent a lot of time corresponding with people to try to help them understand how different zoning districts were applied around the city.

57:58 So I guess I think it's important to note that we worked with council to develop a framework, and that's what you see on the right, for moving from land use alternatives that we analyzed in the draft environmental impact statement process to a final preferred alternative. And that was looking at how we incorporated DEIS comments that aligned with your policy, refining centers and corridors where much but not all of the growth will occur, talking to schools about any site specific capacity issues that they might have, so we weren't worsening those in the short term. Working with our urban forestry team to understand where we had significant privately owned tree canopy and applying zoning districts in those areas that would limit development and preserve more trees. We looked at where do we have parks and community services and essential services, those are things people need access to, and we put more housing around those.

58:58 We carefully looked at all our employment lands like industrial lands. We looked at land use, establishing land use patterns that over time reduce vehicle miles traveled either because people are just driving less or because they have other trip choices, but that's mostly because they have more services and stuff they need on a daily basis closer to where they live. We also looked at our enhanced transit network, our planned enhanced transit network that we've developed with C-TRAN and this was endorsed by this group via adoption of the transportation system plan a couple years ago. We analyzed public facilities and services, both what we have and where we know we have planned investments and improvements, and then looked at climate health and vulnerability. So we applied this framework consistently around the city.

59:56 So when we said parks and open space and we're going to put more housing by parks, because that is one of the most consistent comments we got, we applied it consistently. So there is medium scale zoning around parks because people say that they need access to those things on a daily basis. And that was the direction of this council. I've heard from several folks, you know, just asking like, you know, my neighborhood has two different zoning districts in it, and I don't understand why, and so I've done, like I said, pretty extensive correspondence, walking people through why is X neighborhood look like this? Well, you have a park here. You have a transit line here. You have a corridor that's on our bike and small mobility network where we're going to be making improvements soon to kind of help people understand where, particularly in existing single family neighborhoods, where medium scale has been applied versus the new low

1:00:55 scale neighborhood zoning district. I went parcel by parcel through the city, applying this framework and looking at every single neighborhood, and I can tell you with confidence that we consistently applied it. And what that resulted in was more dispersed growth, so growth was spread out more around the city than either option, alternative one or two, and it really sought to leverage public investments in transportation, in parks and open space, in other infrastructure. So I hope that maybe helps answer some of the comments about why certain neighborhoods are what. I also just want to acknowledge, and there was, I think, a good article in The Columbian this weekend about infrastructure and how infrastructure gets built, and like most,

1:01:51 probably most, if not all cities in Washington, we have the ability and we do require new development to pay for its impact on the system, but we can't make it pay for existing deficiencies. So new development pays impact fees, it contributes to parks, it contributes to transportation and schools, and then also systems development charges, which are what help fund their relative impact on sewer system, water utility, wastewater collection. But that is for demand that they had. The overall maintenance of the system and our management of it long-term is supported both by the existing community and new development. And so I think it's important to know that as, like there are areas of the city that

1:02:49 will never get sidewalks unless those frontage improvements come from new development. So you will start to see improvements incrementally as development occurs, and again, it will happen incrementally over time. So I appreciate that people know their neighborhoods very well, and people have been extremely generous with their time and their participation in this process and sharing their knowledge, and I want to just make it clear that there are ways that infrastructure get built and maintained over time, and some of that is just through the development process. And so you'll see, like I said, incremental improvements as you see incremental development. Here's the preferred alternative map. So we made some changes to the planning code since the last time that we had a workshop on April 27th.

1:03:47 In terms of the plan, we added our ADA transition plan to the appendices. That's a required piece under state law. We added an analysis related to HB 1491. That's the transit-oriented development bill that passed in 2024. And we added some clarifications to the housing and climate and environment elements in response to Department of Commerce feedback. Councilmember Fox, I did just want to respond to your -- about like where -- you emailed this morning about agency comment letters, and I know that you found what you needed, but one of the reasons that you do not see comment letters from the Department of Commerce is because we addressed every single one of their things that they raised during the review and they did not see a need to submit comments. On the code side, a lot of just sort of cleanup stuff, we addressed some numbering issues. We added review fees for middle housing because before it was just bifurcated single family

1:04:45 or multifamily. We added the port -- the port gave us some good comments on just wanting clarification on uses allowed in the industrial areas, so we took care of that. We tried to clarify within the landscape section some terms to make sure we used them consistently. And then this came up at the workshop that the maintenance bonds that we are proposing to have for landscaping, so I think it's worth restating the problem statement here is that we require landscaping to be done at the time of development and that those trees that are getting planted aren't living. And part of that is because they're not being maintained, and so this would require maintenance. But that can be -- it can be across the sort of actors. So it could be at the developer stage, so when someone entitles the lands and lots but doesn't actually build the houses, it could be at the builder stage where you build the

1:05:45 house and it could be at the owner stage where you actually live in the house. So there's flexibility there, and this was something Councilmember Hansen brought up on the 27th. And then just, again, the final environmental impact statement is not something that you adopt, but it is something that you review and that essentially supports your adoption because it is our method for meeting the requirements of the State Environmental Policy Act. So this has been a long process. Staff tonight is asking you to move this forward and set a public hearing date of June 1, 2026 to adopt the new plan, map, and code. And I just want to emphasize that this -- we review our plan and code annually through our annual review program. We can update our code any time. We commit -- staff commits to working with the development community and others to efficiently

1:06:44 address issues that may come up. It's not going to be perfect, but we have worked very hard with lots of community members, and I think it has landed in a good place. And that's all we've got, Mayor. Thank you very much. Councillors, comments? Sure. Councillor Fox, go ahead. It's interesting because I was reflecting that -- probably go back to that slide that shows all of the engagements you've had with us over the last couple of years, and I know I and other council members have shown up at many of those events as well. So it's been a lot of work to get us here. And I am reluctant to repeat things that I have said in previous meetings.

1:07:38 However, I do want to say that, you know, if it seems as if I'm short on comments tonight is because staff has worked hard with me and other council members to incorporate a lot of our deeper, more detailed, you know, concerns and comments throughout the process, which I really appreciate and I see reflected in this version. You know, reading through it again, I'm not seeing -- I'm not seeing the errors that we saw in the -- you know, some of the little typos and all of those things have all been cleaned up. I mean, there's still maybe a, you know, minor little something that is insignificant that you're still going to find because it's a big document and a lot of work and you're probably still going to find something weird for the next five years every time you read it, right? So I'm just really supportive of what you guys have created and what you've brought before us. And I'm hearing things that folks are concerned about.

1:08:38 We have some specific comments that have been brought forward to us, you know, recently. And you know, my inclination is that we start a list of things that we could look at for our next update next year so that we can get this over the line and have something to work from versus spending more time on the really big push that we're at right now. So it's not to say that we are ignoring things that are being brought forward at this point, but I think there's a time and a place and I think we could still address those things in our next update next year. And I also just wanted to say just to be clear in case folks are confused about my role, I do work for the Department of Commerce. I do work for the Growth Management Services Unit. However, the Growth Management Services Unit in relationship to this, to any of the comprehensive

1:09:32 plans, we are not -- comprehensive plans are brought before Commerce in a role of Commerce reviewing them for conformance with the Growth Management Act. It isn't a compliance. There's no regulation involved. So in that way, I have no additional influence or any reason that I'd have to recuse myself from this particular process. Thank you, Councillors. Councillor Stover. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to the two of you for your presentation tonight. So first, on the record, I live in a neighborhood that has been entirely zoned medium scale. And there is apprehension that comes with that designation. Rebecca, you and I have talked about setbacks in my neighborhood.

1:10:28 Part of the character of my neighborhood is setbacks that exist -- that go all the way back to the early, early 1900s. So -- and anybody who's been listening knows that I have complained at nauseum about the -- what I view as a underservicing in public transportation in my network. In the time I've been on Council, public transit service in my neighborhood has decreased, not increased. So even though I have sat on the board of C-TRAN and all this, I have been -- I have personally felt the impacts.

1:11:20 So there are some points that got brought up, and I just would ask that we can -- if you would help me kind of follow through with that. So medium scale neighborhood allows for up to 75 feet, which the vision is -- that could be up to like a six-story building. >> Yeah, it could be -- I think -- we think it's pretty likely it's going to be more like five stories. And the reason we built in that height flexibility is because of energy code. Number one, Washington State has the most kind of robust energy code in the country, and then also because we heard from builders that more light was important. >> Okay.

1:12:16 So what does that mean, energy code? >> So the energy code in Washington State requires you to have more insulation, essentially. So it requires you to build more energy-efficient buildings. And so the way that impacts housing is you need more space between floors to insulate. And so you need thus more height for each floor. >> And anything else? >> I am not an energy code expert. It also requires you to have -- >> It seems like five stories and 75 feet seems like -- >> I do have something to add, Councilor Stover. >> Yeah, please. >> Mark Person, Senior Planner in Development Review. Part of the -- the reason I thought that we heard from folks in the stakeholder community

1:13:11 was that if we wanted to realistically allow mixed-use buildings in medium scale, in addition to what Rebecca is mentioning about the energy code, that first floor, floor to ceiling will need to be a lot taller than a residential, right? If you walk into a lot of commercial spaces, it's not nine or ten feet. It's 14, 16, 18 feet tall. So that first floor is almost a double height floor. That is one of the reasons we heard that we should look at increasing the height in the medium scale if we wanted the potential for a mixed-use building was commercial on the ground floor and residential above. >> And I just think lastly, I tried to just say it, but for kind of listing the reasons for the height, the other piece of feedback we heard pretty clearly from the builders and development community is that if you're going to have denser housing and more people

1:14:08 in, you know, the space that we have, they're going to want to build taller ceilings with more light to just increase the livability and the sort of meet the market demand for that more dense housing type. >> Okay. And I'm also assuming HVAC is likely going to go on the roof of the building? >> Yes. If we allow this, is it then just automatic, meaning somebody can then just walk into the building department and hand in a permit and immediately start building a 75-foot building

1:15:01 in a neighborhood that traditionally hasn't had that? Are there other reviews that have to go in or -- >> Seven units or higher requires a pre-application conference, which is where you come in and you sit down with staff from all the disciplines of engineering, transportation, land use. And you can get on a list to be notified of when those occur. We automatically notify neighborhood association leadership of those. So that is your chance. But in terms of like -- there will be site postings so there will be lots of opportunities for people to become aware. But yes, we are proposing by right development up to 200 units to align with our CPA exemptions.

1:15:58 I believe we have talked about the NLC book of strategies on housing, and one of the major ones is by right development, take the uncertainty out of it. So there's a process, but it's not a process that includes appeals. So specifically getting at this -- the commentary tonight was about northwest neighborhood and specific comments about Lincoln. And I know Lincoln because I run Lincoln or I have run Lincoln when I'm being physically active and there are large sections of Lincoln that don't have sidewalks.

1:16:53 There are sections of Lincoln -- not Lincoln, excuse me, yeah, Lincoln. There's sections of Lincoln that are owned by BPA that don't have sidewalks. So the concern is being raised about this -- what's the condition of the infrastructure and then adding to that and you talked about, well, development fees and regulations can go much more specifically, but how does Lincoln -- >> Lincoln is on our bike and our pedestrian, both our pedestrian priority network and our bike and small mobility priority network.

1:17:46 So that is a corridor where at some point we will be in more proactive planning processes and then, you know, going after money to build the infrastructure. But when we do those things, traffic impact fees from development is always part of the calculation of how we put together the funding for things. Sidewalks likely will be done largely through frontage improvements associated with development. We could and may do a sidewalk infill project there, but I don't believe we have one yet. Again, though, I just want to emphasize that this is a city that is -- it's a city that is served by infrastructure. We have existing infrastructure and I know some people may -- I think what we think of as sufficient, it depends on who we are.

1:18:42 Certainly not having sidewalks and not having bike and small mobility lanes on a major corridor is a thing and that's why it's on our list of projects and we will come to it someday. But it doesn't mean we'll have the resources at that time to do every upgrade we'd want without contributions from development. >> Okay. Okay. That's where I am tonight. Thank you. >> Well, first of all, thank you, Sid -- did you -- oh, you changed your mind. >> New thoughts come up as we continue to talk. I just wanted to -- something that hasn't been said yet that I think is important to know that almost every workshop we've had, we bring this up is when something -- when the zoning changes, it doesn't mean it immediately flips over. It's about opportunity and being in a housing crisis, not having enough units, making sure that we're applying, as you said, this framework equitably across the whole city provides an

1:19:41 opportunity to build housing, but it doesn't -- it's not an immediate flip. And so every neighborhood is pitching in. And we need to build within our city limits. So we're not -- we're building smart and we're building up. And that's not contributing to sprawl and that fight that's happening over other county friends. So -- and so I just wanted to mention that, since it hadn't been brought up yet. And again, thank you so much for all the work that you've done. >> Yes. Years and years and years of work. We absolutely appreciate it. Counselor, thank you for bringing up. Many council members on Vancouver City Council live in neighborhoods that will be medium scale. So I, too, am one of those. Shumway is in that neck of the woods also with a large area of mixed use.

1:20:39 So we have it around us and we'll have more. Rebecca, a question was made in the community, two of them. Is Vancouver expanding its urban growth area? >> Vancouver does not control its urban growth area. We do not get to decide whether it expands. The preferred alternative -- the county is behind us in the process. So the county is the entity that manages and regulates urban growth areas. The version of the preferred alternative that their council voted on two weeks ago to take through a final environmental impact statement process did not include any expansions of the Vancouver urban growth area which we had consistently advocated for. It did include expansions not just of areas that were like urban holding but of expansions

1:21:39 that included egg land conversions in other urban growth areas in the county. >> And that's where I'm going. Did the city of Vancouver support expansion of the Vancouver urban growth area with agricultural land conversion? >> No. We didn't support any expansion of the UGA and we have not supported ag land conversion. >> I wanted you to make sure that that was said loud and clear because we have been told that we did and that's not the testimony that I have ever heard or discussed. Thank you so very much. Counselors, I believe we have completed conversations on this issue. I'll entertain a motion. >> Mayor move to approve. >> Next over, seconded by? >> Harless. No additional comments. All those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much.

1:22:39 We'll see you June 1. That concludes the consent agenda and we'll move into the public hearing. We have hearing number -- let's get our colleague. We'll move into item number five, the right of way telecommunications franchise ordinance agreement for Michelle telecom doing business as light curve. An ordinance relating to the management of public rights of way granting to Michelle telecom also doing business as light curve and its affiliates and non-exclusive and revocable franchise to maintain a telecommunication system in on over upon along and across public ways of the city of Vancouver, Washington, establishing certain rights, duties, terms and conditions with respect to the franchise and setting an effective date and conditions,

1:23:39 grantee and city are sometimes collectively referred to as the parties. Mr. Landy, please. >> Good evening, mayor and counsel, Aaron Landy, assistant city manager. As mentioned, light curve has come before the city requesting a ten year franchise agreement. The light curve has agreed to the city's standard non-exclusive franchise with the mutual option for five additional years in addition to the initial ten. The language provides ample protection for damage for city right of way assets and provide additional broadband connectivity options for our residents and businesses. And just a reminder to you all, there was a first reading on this proposed ordinance on April 6th, tonight is the second reading, an opportunity for public hearing before council considers the ordinance for adoption. And I will just note that this proposed ordinance establishes the mandatory terms and conditions under which the franchisee must maintain and operate its telecommunication facilities within

1:24:36 the rights of way and the city has granted several similar non-exclusive telecommunications franchises to different companies and federal law requires that the franchise terms not put one or more other franchises at a competitive disadvantage relative to other providers. And so as such, these franchise agreements tend to be very similar. In case anyone is counting, this is the tenth. >> Thank you, Mr. Landy. I will open the public hearing. I have no cards. I have no one registered so I will close the public hearing and bring it back to council. Counselors, do you have any questions for Mr. Landy? >> Mayor. >> Stover. >> Thank you, councilmember Ty Stover. The thing I always want to say whenever these things come before us, we have very little control over what can be done.

1:25:28 The FCC has been very explicit to preempt a lot of control for municipalities. So if somebody has something to complain about this, it is best directed towards the Federal Communications Commission. Thank you. >> Thank you. And just for those individuals, a reminder that nothing should be left in their front yard when these are done. No four and a half foot orange stakes in the ground or anything else. So if something is left, please give us a call and we'll have it removed. I'll entertain a motion. >> Move to approve. >> Seconded by? >> Stover. >> We'll call the vote, please. >> Councilmember Harless. >> Aye. >> Fox. >> Aye. >> Stover. >> Aye. >> Hanson. >> Aye. >> Mayor McEnerny, you go. >> Aye. Motion passes.

1:26:27 Thank you, Mr. Landy. This brings us into the HUD development annual action plan. This is a resolution relating to the adoption of the city community development block grant and home investment partnerships annual action plan for the 2026 program year authorizing the city manager to execute agreements on behalf of the City of Vancouver consistent with the CDBG and home annual action plan providing for severability and an effective date. >> Good evening. Thank you. >> Good evening, Samantha Whitley, housing program manager. I'm joined here tonight with Victor Saldana, small business entrepreneurship program manager. We presented last week at council and brought back some additional information for you this week. So same slides on the timeline and same amount of resources available will provide some additional information about the microenterprise selection process and the scoring.

1:27:22 And then we still have the substantial amendment before you tonight. So we spent about six months collecting applications and reviewing them and scoring them. And then we drafted the action plan and had it open for public comment for 30 days. It's due to HUD by May 15th. We'll submit it this Friday. HUD has 45 days to approve and then our program year will begin July 1st. The funding for the community development block grant is about 1.7 million. That includes our entitlement, annual entitlement funding from HUD as well as program funding from previous years that was left over or program income that's been collected over the past year. Our home funds are about 1.2 million. And then the home art funds we're allocating about 500,000 this year.

1:28:19 The agencies that we propose to award are JAS Youth and Share for rental assistance, the community foundation for capacity building, Council for the Homeless, Live Love, and Outsiders Inn who were here earlier testifying about their outreach services for homelessness. And then we have the three businesses that had previously been selected for funding for business assistance. Two agencies that will provide public services, Council for the Homeless and Fosterful, and then an affordable home ownership partner, Proud Ground, doing their land trust program. So looking at those awards, that wasn't changed from last week, so we can look at how that might change tonight. But these are the proposed outcomes if we funded the applications that were recommended by the scoring committee. And now I'll turn it over to Victor. >> Good evening, mayor and council members. Victor Saldana, small business and entrepreneurship program manager.

1:29:18 I will go more in depth on the microenterprise guidelines. So microenterprise is designed to provide flexible assistance to microenterprises, less than five staff including owners, must serve LMI businesses and owners in Vancouver, may have an industry focus but still serve broader business base. And that ties into our 2024 to 2028 HUD consolidated plan, which was designed to promote access to employment, entrepreneurship, and small business resources, particularly to underserved communities as well as to provide economic opportunities to households with low to moderate income to create new jobs, increase income via tools such as business incubators, microenterprise assistance, and wrap around business development services, which will go into more in depth with the scoring. And then also wanted to bring up federal regulations prohibit targeting specific demographic groups

1:30:15 which tie into some of the decisions made. Scoring criteria. So this was a question brought up last time, 100 points possible. There's an objective scoring portion which is staff scoring. This is very much based off of specific information within the application process committed of matching funds, 10 points, risk assessment scoring was also 10 points, and then project outcomes are five points totaling 25 points for the staff scoring. Then we have the committee scoring which provides scope and capacity, and this is what the projected program is going to be with 15 points max. Need and plan alignment. This also ties into our specific industry segments which were child care as well as construction and trades which is the 20 points largest section of this. Impact and outcomes.

1:31:13 This is how we report to HUD, and as we go back to what we report to HUD is really our metrics for creating jobs, supporting the community in the microenterprise field. Financial feasibility, 10 points, readiness, how quickly will they be able to launch the program, 10 points, and then collaboration. This is something that goes to the aspect of wrap around services. We want to make sure that small business microenterprise that goes to one organization is being able to be provided other resources as well through this, and that comes up to 75 points which makes it a max 100 points. Application scoring for microenterprise is ranking that we did inform the staff recommendations. So as we look into the objective scoring which is staff scoring, we have Hispanic metropolitan chamber scoring 20 which is the largest portion, Southwest Washington Child Care Partnership

1:32:11 scored 16.5 which is second highest score, and then Upwards and Boost which scored 16. Both of those were the child care providers which were the second and third largest. When we go into the scoring committee and that was the 75 points, we have Fourth Plain Forward scoring 67.71 which was the largest, followed by Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber 65.29, and then MISO at 61.71. As you can tell, total scores ranked one and two were Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber and Fourth Plain Forward which were significantly high. And then we had Business Impact Northwest, MISO, and Upwards and Boost which were only separated by one and a half points between number three and number five. Projected outcomes, this is where we report to HUD. This is the impact portion of what we plan to intend to serve the community with.

1:33:08 So Business Impact Northwest based off the 100,000. Now this comes into a lot of the organizations had requested 150,000. The scoring committee had chose three that they wanted to provide 100,000 for and Business Impact Northwest would support 100 micro enterprises through their program, Fourth Plain Forward 30, and then Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber 46. Now although these specific programs did not list child care as specifically tied to it, sitting in tune with the HUD micro enterprise requirements, we can prioritize child care as a portion so we make sure that whenever we're moving forward with these that Business Impact Northwest, Fourth Plain Forward, and the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber work as a priority for 10 child care establishments.

1:34:06 And before I turn it over to Sam, I do want to let you know I'm happy to discuss options that would include one of the two child care providers as a possible choice. We want to make sure that all concerns are met for council and I'm happy to discuss that during the discussion period. Thank you. So this slide has not changed. This is a slide from last week as well. The action plan amendment hasn't changed. This 70,000 that was canceled last year will be reallocated in the 2026 funding awards. And so after tonight with the feedback that we receive, we will submit to HUD the action plan as well as the amendment.

1:34:59 And like I said of the timeline previously, July 1st, the funding should become available. And that is our presentation tonight. Okay. So let's go to the council. Councilors -- well, first of all, we -- I can open the public hearing but we heard from all of those individuals so I'll close the public hearing and we'll bring it back to council for conversations and questions. Councilor Sober. Thank you. And mine is quick. What is LMI? Thank you. I apologize. No acronyms. Low to moderate income. Thank you. Councilor Fox. Okay. I appreciate staff bringing back some very intentional and direct information on the economic development portion of the decisions, recognizing that we did have some really strong

1:35:58 applications, especially from the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber, I think I just botched that whole name, sorry, but strong applications, strong testimony tonight, but focusing in more on the daycare businesses and I did review the application materials and the scoring criteria and it was a big packet. I was warned. But the things that kind of stuck out for me, just reviewing it without having benefit of sitting in on committee discussions, was that the application materials do show -- I think I had written down the page number somewhere -- that the focus of council's awards were on childcare and construction businesses, so that was very clear to anyone who was applying to the city.

1:36:58 It also reflected well that, I think it was slide 10, where you show that two childcare businesses actually scored really well with the staff's first review before it went to the committee for review, but what really concerned me was reviewing the scores from the committee where some of the detailed comments from the committee members were downgrading the two childcare businesses because -- and it actually said it there, but it was because they only serve childcare businesses, meaning that the leanings perhaps from this committee was that these higher-scoring awards should go to a company that supports many different types of businesses, perhaps, and so when you look at that through that lens and you think that they were downgraded just because they were a childcare business and focused

1:37:58 on that alone, I wasn't finding anything else in the applications that would have merited the lower score, at least not from the comments from the reviewers or what we could find in the file, and I'm also -- I'm glad staff has prepared to kind of address a potential modification to include at least one of the childcare providers because, like, I had written to staff earlier I said I'm not -- although I've reviewed all of this material, I don't feel like I'm in a position to make a funding decision without having the benefit of all of those other conversations that had happened and being there for the presentations that occurred from all of these organizations, and I will say reviewing the two applications, I would find it hard to just choose based on the applications.

1:38:50 One, the childcare SWCC has a focus on Chuckie's daycare enterprise businesses and really working with that community in a deep way, and then the other organization, Boost, really talks about growing and stabilizing not only growing childcare businesses in our community but also stabilizing them and increasing their capacity to serve more children, and so I would find it really hard to choose which one, recognizing, though, that a choice would have to be made given I wouldn't want to impact the other awardees in such a way that they couldn't do the work that they've been proposing. So just sharing, those are my thoughts with the rest of the council. >> Sam, could you go back to slide 10, let's leave that one up there for just a bit. Thank you.

1:39:50 Okay. Other comments? >> Mayor. Oops. >> Councilor Stover. >> Thank you, mayor. Councilmember Ty Stover. There was also a memo that the city manager distributed to council as part of his Friday communication, and in that memo was some evaluation about the ability of some providers to be able to respond to requirements of grants once they receive those grants, and I am sympathetic to that, but where that leads me is part of these grant proposals was capacity building,

1:40:47 and so to the extent that there's the ability to be helping some of these organizations build capacity around being able to be responsive if they receive a grant, I think is -- would be very important for us as we hope to build out an ecosystem of programs in our community. So that is not to answer Councilmember Fox's question, but it's more to address the concerns that were raised by staff in that memo. >> Thank you. Councilor Harless. >> Councilmember Harless. Yeah, also in favor of exploring how we can support one of these child care businesses

1:41:47 or sorry, child care organizations to support those child care businesses, it is hard to figure that out, so definitely open to suggestions. And then another note, something that I just noticed in rereading through the presentation right now, you made a note about federal regulations prohibiting targeted specific demographic groups, and very familiar with that, however, I just want to remind about conversations we've had a while ago about making sure that we are still adhering to our own values and making sure we're not making changes that are veering away from our values as a city because of those changes at the federal level, and making sure that we're best preparing

1:42:43 organizations that are applying, and I was scrolling through on how they answered that and it looked like most of them were able to do that, but I just wanted to bring that up that we continue to make sure we're following our equity values, and also working around those federal issues when it comes to targeting populations that need that stronger investment. Sam, did we ask any of the committee members if they had any conflicts of interest with any of these organizations that applied for grants? Yes, this is Sam. We ask that of every committee member they have to check that they do not have a conflict of interest before they can score any application within the system. Did you go back to the slide that shows the quarter of a million for capacity building

1:43:42 from Southwest Washington Community Foundation? As we are talking about these organizations, what is the criteria that Community Foundation might have to help with capacity building? Would they be looking at some of these individual groups? We could talk to them about that. They currently have five community-based organizations that they're working with, and they had planned to do that for a full five-year cohort, and if there are some of those organizations that are ready to graduate from the program, they could look at adding new ones in. Let's go ahead and do that, if you would, and have them think about partnering with us since we're giving them $255,000.

1:44:36 As we look at next year, could you continue to see if there is any way to shave off time so that all of these applications and the conversation with Council comes earlier so that we have those opportunities earlier, not the week before? Sure. All right. Thank you so much. Any other conversation, questions? Yes. I would like to hear staff's alternative proposal. That's what they said they had brought forward for consideration about funding one or at least one of the child care proposals. Sure. Victor Saldana, Small Business Entrepreneurship Program Manager. I'll address a couple of the questions, and I'll go into the recommendations for staff, for Council as well.

1:45:31 One was as far as scoring being limited because it was one industry, the committee scores based off of the 2024 to 2028 HUD consolidated plan that Council approved and was sent to HUD for approval. It wasn't to lower them because of one. It also increased them because they were either child care or construction trades. Ultimately, there's two components. One is the impact within the community that we are providing. So you can see some organizations are supporting 146, 35 compared to 8 or 13. So we do have a requirement for HUD for cost reasonable concerns when we do record metrics as well as reporting to HUD.

1:46:29 So just wanted to address that as well. As far as Council Member Foxe, fully agree. The only concern that we have is with Title VI concerns. We would have to send an organization that is specifically focusing on one demographic group as a legal consideration. So not to say that we won't move forward with it, but for that. Now going on to as far as funding opportunities, so taking your suggestions from last week into consideration, coming up with a couple of options. So one option is to split funding across four organizations. That would support broader sectors, including child care, food entrepreneurship, as well as business support and technical assistance.

1:47:24 The impacts that that would have working with a lot of these organizations, reducing awards to 75,000 would significantly reduce staffing outreach, technical assistance, as well as measurable outcomes. That's not only from staff's view, but also from our community partner's view. And then it also creates more contract increases-- sorry, more contracts increase city administration and HUD compliance responsibilities. As far as another option would be to choose one child care provider and replace it with another organization. So since we had Business Impact Northwest as a close tie with Upwards & Boost, the recommendation would be to take the $100,000 that we were providing to Business Impact Northwest, and

1:48:20 then specifically moving it up to Upwards & Boost since they were the highest scoring child care provider with this. And again, for consideration, Upwards & Boost focuses on stabilizing existing child care providers through business support services. They've done this program in several jurisdictions, so there's benefits for that. Also on the con portion would be the projected impact limited to only creating either four jobs for $100,000 or three jobs for $75,000 as far as what they're going to provide, and then also that they only work with established child care. So it won't start any new child care businesses, but again, they do increase the capacity of child care businesses. And then, again, con to that would be we would be removing Business Impact Northwest as far

1:49:20 as consideration, but this also does provide $100,000 to those three organizations, making it more impactful for the program that we're launching. And then the con for removing Business Impact Northwest would be they would provide 100 microenterprise services to the impact as well as specific outreach programs that they run. Business Impact Northwest runs the Washington Women's Business Center as well as the Washington Veterans Business Outreach Center, so they have specific programs that would tie in to specific industries of microenterprises that we usually don't work on. But I wanted to make sure that we gave several options to council and make sure that we addressed all their concerns, and we'd be happy to take any feedback from that. Councilor Silver.

1:50:18 Thank you, Mayor. So it's an either/or -- so, you know, upwards and boost, did I get that they have not started operations in Vancouver yet? You are correct. Okay. That is significant to me. So, thank you. Ed McInerney-Ogle, has Business Impact Northwest started business in Vancouver yet? They have not. However, they already have relationships with Vancouver's Farmers Market, Fourth Plain Forward, and if you read in actually Southwest -- works for Southwest Washington, but if you also read the application, since they are local in this area and have employees in this area,

1:51:09 they have actually served a childcare business within the City of Vancouver. I hope that answers the question. Councilor Fox, go ahead. Sure. So what I love about reviewing all these applications is, again, there were so -- they were -- they all had very good applications, and I don't want to discount the work, and that is exactly why I asked staff to come back with some alternatives that were grounded more in your deep expertise in this area and all of the conversations that you've had during this application period.

1:52:02 I am more inclined to choose to fund boost over Business Impact Northwest in order to really highlight Council's priorities around childcare -- the childcare industry, understanding it's a very tough decision to make, but also I lean less into the other option that you provided, which is to reduce the value of the awards to everyone. You know, typically when you take those kind of cuts, it really impacts the deliverables that we're going to receive at the end of the day, and we really do want the impact of those organizations to be fully realized in the grants that we've -- in their applications that they send to us, but also in the grants that we provide to them.

1:52:58 It is, you know, I guess, again, another thought to throw out there is, you know, as soon as you finalize these grant awards, the next application period pretty much opens up again, so I'd be willing to take a chance on a new industry and see if we have some good results in the City of Vancouver when it comes to childcare, not only from the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber that also testified as to their business model that includes those supports, but also perhaps Boost as well. >> And we concur, it is very hard, the volunteers that are making up the scoring committee put in countless hours, and it is a hard decision when we look through it, and our scoring committee always tells us if we had more money, we'd like to include everyone, but we would also -- I would also agree with you saying that it would be more impactful going with three instead of four organizations.

1:53:57 >> Councillor Silbert. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to be controversial on the other end. I am -- I'm concerned about peanut butter, meaning I'm concerned about diluting funds over to great an area, and I'd go the opposite direction, and I would knock out Business Impact Northwest and give all that money to Fourth Plain Forward and Hispanic Chamber who are established organizations within the city who are working with childcare providers amongst many others, and that would allow for those organizations to have a greater impact. So I think there's an argument to go the opposite direction.

1:54:55 Given that Business Impact Northwest isn't fully up and operational, I don't know that we're supposed to do this, but -- >> Careful. >> Okay. I won't. >> Well, the question has come up. There are comments in the chat, and that is not appropriate. We are in a public hearing, and counselors should not be reading and commenting on anything in the chat, that's not open to the entire public. >> Then I would suggest that people need to be discontinued from having access. >> Yes, we should not.

1:55:48 >> Sarah, if it happens again, they will be dismissed from the chat or -- well, the meeting. >> To close the public hearing for comments, so that is not something that should be happening. Okay, counselors, what do you want to do? >> Make a proposal. >> Counselor Fox, go ahead. >> Just to say I haven't seen any chat talk, so I'm a little in the dark here. >> Correct. >> Okay. All right. I would like a motion to approve the -- well, I don't have the actual title, and okay. One second. The 2026 Housing and Urban Development Annual Action Plan with one modification, which is

1:56:36 to fund -- to replace the funding decision for business impact northwest without a boost. >> Motion fails for a lack of a second. >> Should I make another motion? >> Counselor Stover. >> Move to split the funding for business impact northwest to fourth plane forward and Hispanic metropolitan chamber. >> Motion fails for a lack of a second.

1:57:30 >> Move to approve the wards as presented by staff. Stover. >> Motion seconded by counselor Hansen. Further discussion? Counselor Harless. In reviewing the -- Kim Harless, council member, in reviewing again and again the applications and thank you again for providing all the additional materials that we requested from last time. It was incredibly helpful having the full -- so many pages. And also listening to the comments that council member Stover has made about the impact of

1:58:27 these others that have already been selected because of the assistance they will already be providing some of those trail care providers. That moves me to support the slate that's presented before us, being able to deep dive into the concerns that were presented and also having this dialogue has been incredibly helpful to feel like we are moving in a good direction. It's always great to be able to make an informed decision. And so again incredibly grateful. >> Other comments? Counselor Fox. >> In the direction that we're heading tonight, I would hope that what the mayor brought up with providing some additional supports to perhaps better prepare these other child care industries for future application success would be welcomed at least in my mind.

1:59:27 So I appreciate that. >> Other comments? Okay. All those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> No. >> I'm sorry. Order taken. >> Roll call vote. >> Roll call vote, please. >> Council member Harless. >> Aye. >> Council member Fox. >> Aye. >> Stover. >> Aye. >> Hanson. >> Aye. >> Mayor Mc Inouye. >> Aye. >> Motion passes. Thank you very much. All right. That concludes the business portion. Let's go into communications from the council. Councilor Harless. >> I had -- I wanted to bring up something that was brought up during communications last time by council member Hanson, and that was regarding the closure of waterfront way, right?

2:00:24 That's what it's called. And I then saw, you know, we got some additional comments and responded to some of those folks and, you know, continued to see really good positive feedback, and then I saw that we closed it again, and it sounds like we were going to be doing maybe a pilot of sorts. So I wanted to have a better understanding of how we're moving forward so I can better inform the community as we continue to get comments about the successes that we've seen from creating a pedestrian-only corridor through our downtown -- or sorry, not downtown, waterfront. >> Lon Pluckon, city manager. Yeah, and we had talked about options on the waterfront to address a couple of different concerns. One is to facilitate the safety of pedestrians coming through the area, but also to address some poor driving behavior that we have observed down there repeatedly.

2:01:23 And so in thinking about ways to really address that, we thought that we would pilot closing the street along with some targeted enforcement to really see if we could start to change some of the behaviors that we have seen down there. And with the initial closures that we've tried, we've had to work through a couple of things, primarily one of the issues being valet parking for the hotels. But we think we've landed on a way that we're going to be able to accommodate that while still creating a safer pedestrian environment. And I believe Chief Price is on. So if Troy is out there, I'd like to maybe have him address what law enforcement has been doing to help support these efforts. >> Absolutely. Good evening, Council, Troy Price, Vancouver Police Chief. We have been made aware of some issues with, as the city manager indicated, with noise issues from vehicles, also very unsafe driving practices.

2:02:23 And so we moved forward with in partnership with other city departments to try and address that. Part of that came by way of a closure of some of the streets that allowed for a pedestrian traffic to freely matriculate past the businesses that are down there and enjoy the waterfront. And we did that being mindful of how that would affect the businesses that are there. We received overwhelming response from the businesses due to our enforcement efforts, people who have been very thankful for the adjustments we've made down there. Of course, this is a work in progress, we're trying to kind of thread the needle with the best solution that brings the best benefit for everyone. We did do enforcement for two weekends in a row.

2:03:16 Still compiling numbers for our for this past weekend, but I can tell you the most recent I'm sorry, two weekends ago, we had over 77 contacts. We issued over 30 traffic citations, 35 warnings. And so we will continue to go down and help address the traffic problems. I will tell you that our numbers for the most recent weekend were reduced and we believe that is just because of the activity our police activity and the closures that occurred from two weekends ago. So we're seeing some successes and we just want to make sure that they're they're lasting and so we'll we'll continue to keep our finger on the pulse of what's happening with the people who live there, the businesses and those who are coming to visit our waterfront. Thank you, Chief.

2:04:15 I would say that this is also a good proving ground or a testbed for us in anticipation of the eventual opening of Main Street since Main Street is also constructed as a celebration street to allow for closures and people to be able to move back and forth freely without obstacles like curbs and parked cars. Kim Harless, Council Member, so is this going to be a regular thing? Is it going to be every weekend? What should people's expectations be? I'm not sure that we have 100% settled on that unless Troy wants to weigh in. Our current plans right now are to do this through for the remainder of the summer up through the Labor Day weekend and just to see how well it works. I guess we could extend that if it looks like it's working well for everyone. So we haven't etched that in stone just yet, but our current plans are to get us through

2:05:14 that last holiday of the summer. Councilor Henson. Councilor Stover. Thank you, Mayor, and I apologize for not speaking clearly on what I was after before. So last weekend was a busy one in downtown. Spruce the Coove happened for the 16th year. Yes, it did. And a great turnout. I changed roles this year instead of leading a cleanup crew. I did clean up and I went around Esther Sharp Park picking up the empties, but we had a great group of people out planning, encourage everybody to go take a look at all the beautiful

2:06:07 flowers now outgoing in Esther Sharp Park as well as the cleanliness of our streets all the way up to Uptown. Second thing that was happening concurrently, Bloom Where You Are Planet multicultural fair out at the Fourth Plain Commons. That was a collaboration between five different organizations out there. It had some, again, wonderful participation, some wonderful opportunities for particular people with disabilities come out and participate, but there were demonstrations of planting and how to take advantage of all the wonderful things that we have here in the Northwest. So fun things happening, and I hope there were some mothers who had a great day yesterday. >> Thank you.

2:07:06 Councilor Fox? >> Sure. So I'm going to take a few minutes to share basically an update from the Children's Justice Center. As Council knows, I sit as our representative along with Chief Price who actually is the chair of the committee, and one of the items that you guys are very much aware of because you've given your support for lobbying efforts last year, and I'm hoping that we can continue, is to change the law around child endangerment, especially when it involves fentanyl, to be a felony, and I'm going to highlight a case that came before us, was shared at the committee. I was told I can share all these details. I am planning, as your representative, to talk to Representative Stoner and any of our

2:08:02 other Southwest Washington or statewide officials and share with them this case, share the photos. In summary, I will also say that I'm going to list the names of the officers because they saved the lives of a three-year-old, and so I'll just say that this case happened, started about a month ago when there was a child that was a three-year-old child walking around outside on the street, and some folks came across the child because, you know, three-year-old children should just be out walking by themselves, so that is not okay, and they returned the child to the home. Those Good Samaritans found that the parents were passed out when they got to the house. They found that the home looked like it was a hoarder-like condition.

2:08:57 It was very disgusting inside, and they did call CPS. CPS returned to do a house check, and the parents wouldn't let them in the home. About a week later, our officers executed a search warrant on the residents, and when they executed the search warrants, they detained the parents, but when they entered the residence, the child was sitting on the couch. He was unresponsive. It was quoting from Officer Rip, "It was one of the filthiest houses I've been in in his entire law enforcement career. Upon opening the doors, flies came out, and you could smell the odor of decomposition. The house was almost unnavigable due to the filth inside." That's his quote. The VPD detectives attempted to wake the child up, but emergency medical personnel were dispatched to the scene, and the child was rushed to Randall's Children's Hospital.

2:09:56 The child is still alive and recovering, thank God. During the search warrant, the detectives located numerous evidence items, including methamphetamine, fentanyl, marijuana, mushrooms, and other pieces of drug, paraphernalia, including bags, syringes, scales. All of these were within reach of that three-year-old child. Both parents admitted to being drug users, and the mother admitted that she and the father had smoked fentanyl and methamphetamine in the same residence as the child that evening. And they both understood the living conditions were horrendous. So I'm just sharing all this because I think sometimes folks get wrapped up in, you know, how we should be criminalizing drug use or, you know, how we should proceed in these cases. But I want to say that what we're talking about today is the life of a three-year-old, and a three-year-old shouldn't be living in those conditions.

2:10:54 A three-year-old shouldn't be left alone to raise themselves, for gosh sakes. And so I just want to uplift our detectives for saving this child's life. That's Detective Christian Strom, Corporal Gunnar Scholensburg, Detective Amelia Mativia, and Clark County Sheriff's Officer Detective Taylor Boland. And that's all I have to say tonight. Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Stover, yes, Esther Short, downtown and uptown, thousands, quite literally, of all of the different flowers and cleanup and bags and everything from cigarette butts to you name it, cleaned up, tucked away, thrown away. And then, yes, the Multicultural Festival was the opportunity to get all new seeds for

2:11:48 all new flowers and your compost bins, and we got to feed the lion again for the new year. So thank you to the Vietnamese community on that. Parks Foundation had their event. Congratulations to a number of our own staff members who received awards, and to Marcus Griffith for the award for helping clean up downtown and keep it clean. The Vancouver Clinic had a groundbreaking out in their East Campus, still in the city of Vancouver, even though they called it the Camas Campus. Yes, they remember. We did a ribbon cutting for Loyal Legion just up the street, and thank you to the Washington Association of Businesses.

2:12:41 They were in town for their fifth annual state conference that were here, and we had some outstanding speakers at that particular conference. It was quite remarkable. Rahm Emanuel, Larry Hogan, in person, all of them did a lovely job of helping everyone understand businesses in the state of Washington. City Manager, what do you have? Just a quick check with Council to make sure I got everything from tonight's meeting. I've identified one item for follow-up, which is to work with the staff on the timing of approval for the HUD action plan to get Council more lead time next year. Great. Anything else, Councilors, that you need the City Manager to follow up on? No. City Attorney. Nothing from legal tonight, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. That closes our business portion, and we'll now open it up to the community forum.

2:13:36 This is the opportunity where we chat with individuals on any item that was not on our agenda. We'll turn off CVTV. We audio record it, not video record it. So go ahead, Ms. Stoller, make that happen.