Vancouver City Council

0:00 (upbeat music) - Good evening, welcome to Vancouver City Council. This is the 20th of July, 2026. We had a report on the community survey that came in. Then we used that information to discuss with the city manager, the biennium budget, biennial budget. We then went into executive session to discuss real estate. No decisions were made in executive session. We are now in a regular council meeting. Would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

0:57 - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - Thank you, Ms. Maroon, please call the roll. - Council Member Harless. - Present. - Perez. - Present. - Box. - Here. - Paulson. - Here. - Stover. - Here. - Hanson. - Here. - Mayor McEnerny-Ogle. - Present. - Mayor move to excuse Council Member Hanson. - Seconded by. - Fox. All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes, thank you. Let's move into the approval of the minutes. You had the minutes of July 13th. Are there any corrections or changes? - Move to approve. - Fox, seconded by. - Paulson. Those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes, thank you.

1:57 We'll now have a opportunity to share some proclamations. The first proclamation we have this evening is the Community-Based Worker Awareness Week. And we have Betsy Larson with us this evening. Hi Betsy. Let me read a little bit and then we'll grab a quick photo here.

2:24 Whereas community-based workers are trusted members of Vancouver and Southwest Washington's Care and Support Network, helping connect communities to resources, services and systems of care. Whereas Vancouver community members benefit from community-based workers who help people access healthcare, housing support, food resources, behavioral health services, transportation assistance and other supports that contribute to health and wellbeing. And community-based workers reflect the cultural, linguistic and lived diversity of the communities they serve and many draw from their own lived experiences to build authentic relationships, reduce barriers and help individuals and families navigate systems that can often feel difficult to access or understand. They support individuals and families across Vancouver by helping them understand services, ask questions, build confidence and navigate systems more independently over time.

3:24 They bring important community-centered insight to local advocacy, program development and policy conversations that affect Vancouver community members. So now therefore I, Anne McEnerny-Ogle, Mayor of Vancouver, Washington do hereby proclaim the week of July 20 through 24 of 2026. As Community-Based Worker Awareness Week in the city of Vancouver and encourage community members to honor this workforce and help more people understand the value community-based workers bring to residents, families, organizations and systems care. Let's see, please join me over on the wall for a photo.

4:19 (gavel banging) - Good evening, Mayor McEnerny-Ogle, members of the City Council and members of our community. My name is Betsy Larson and I am the Executive Director of the Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health commonly known as SWATCH. I'm grateful to be joined this evening by members of our team, community partners and community-based workers from across the region. As we recognize Community-Based Worker Awareness Week, I want to begin by speaking directly to the community-based workers that are here tonight and those that are serving throughout our region. Thank you.

5:16 Thank you for showing up for each day with compassion, persistence and a deep commitment to your communities. Thank you for building trust, helping people overcome barriers and ensuring that individuals and families feel seen, heard and supported. This week gives us an opportunity to bring greater visibility to a workforce whose contributions are essential but too often happen quietly behind the scenes. It's a time to celebrate community-based workers, deepen public understanding of their role and reaffirm the importance of valuing and investing in this workforce. We also recognize the many partner organizations that employ, support and develop community-based workers. Their commitment creates the conditions for this essential work to continue, strengthens collaboration across our region and helps ensure that more people can receive support from someone that they trust.

6:14 At Swatch, we're honored to work alongside this incredible network and witness its impact every day. Community-based workers not only connect people with resources, they also help organizations and systems advance health equity and respond to the community's true needs. Thank you, Mayor Mac and Ernie Ogle and the Vancouver City Council for recognizing Community-Based Awareness Week and honoring this essential workforce. And once again, to every community-based worker serving in our region, thank you. Our communities are more connected, responsive and stronger because of you. Thanks. - Thank you. (audience applauding) And next, we have Disability Pride Month with Angel. Oh, hi, Angel, come on up. Let me read a little here.

7:13 Whereas Americans with Disabilities Act was passed on July 26, 1990 to ensure the civil rights of members of the disability community, the month of July provides an opportunity to recognize and honor that landmark event as well as the achievements and resilience of this large and diverse group. The city of Vancouver is home to the Washington State School for the Blind and Washington School for the Deaf as well as more than 20,000 people with disabilities encompassing individuals of all races, genders, ages, income levels and backgrounds. And whereas local disability leaders have worked tirelessly to dismantle systemic ableism and make Vancouver more accessible, more inclusive and more responsive, Vancouver is committed to centering the voices of disabled people in our city planning, public services and civic processes,

8:13 recognizing that access is not a privilege but a fundamental human right. Whereas Disability Pride Month is not only a celebration of disability identity and culture, it's also a call to action to confront ableism, eliminate barriers and transform systems that continue to marginalize disabled people. Therefore, I am McEnerny-Ogle Mayor of the city of Vancouver, Washington, do hereby proclaim the month of July, 2026 as Disability Pride Month in the city of Vancouver. And I urge all community members to celebrate the vital contributions, leadership and strength of the disability community, to examine and dismantle ableism in all of its forms and to work together toward a city where all people of every ability belong and thrive. Angel, let's walk to the wall.

9:08 (footsteps tapping) There you go. - Good evening. I'm Angel Ketwig, Transportation Services Manager. On behalf of Community in Motion, I would like to thank the city of Vancouver for proclaiming July as Disability Pride Month and for recognizing the importance of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This proclamation is a meaningful reminder

10:06 that accessibility, inclusion and equal opportunity are essential to a strong community. Disability Pride Month celebrates the achievements, contributions and resilience of people with disabilities while reaffirming our commitment to removing barriers and creating opportunities for everyone to participate fully in community life. For 80 years, Community in Motion has honored to support our neighbors through transportation and other essential services. We are proud to stand alongside the city of Vancouver in advancing the vision of a more accessible and inclusive community for all. Thank you to the city of Vancouver for this proclamation and thank you all for helping make our community stronger, more welcoming and more connected. - Thank you. (audience applauding) All right, that brings us into communication

11:04 with the community on consent agenda items. I do not have anyone who has signed up to testify on these agenda items. Councilors, you have in front of you items one through 10. Are there any items you'd like to pull? Item four. Any other? Okay, I'll entertain a motion for items one, two and three, five through 10. - Move to approve Paulson. - Paulson, seconded by? Fox. All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes, thank you very much. Let's take item number four. Councilor Fox, please. - All right, this is an item about disposal of recreational vehicles that are in city limits

12:01 and just for the rest of council's perhaps memory, it was a few years ago, but we had had a kind of a situation that was brought to our attention that the county's sheriff's office had been moving RVs into city limits and out of county limits and at the time our city administrator and the then sheriff had had a conversation based on our awareness of this particular practice. I don't know if anyone else remembers this. And so when I saw this item on the agenda, I had asked staff if they're aware of any of that, those practices continued or if that's not something that they're concerned about anymore. Staff got right back to me, which was great. Mentioned that they have been tracking, I think maybe that's too strong, but they have not noticed this practice continuing. So maybe that's a more accurate way to put that unless city manager has more to say on that.

13:01 I did ask for a breakdown of costs, understanding that county costs are out of the control of this particular staff person, but if they had a contact at the county, I'd be curious to know how much the county spends on disposal of RV vehicles versus the city. Again, just knowing that we probably shouldn't be the ones spending the most money on disposal of RV vehicles. So it was a concern I raised. - We recall. - Okay. - Yeah, I was aware at the time that there had been incidences of things like that happening. I know after the conversation that my predecessor had, we're not aware of any instances that have happened since then. - Okay. Well, I've satisfied my curiosity. I'm glad to know that that particular practice is not continuing, especially with our current sheriff and us, so thank you for that. And that's all I just wanted to raise,

13:59 that I explored that issue. And I can make a motion if we don't have other questions. - No other questions? I'll entertain a motion. - Move to approve item four. - Seconded by Harless. All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes. City manager, you did get the scriveners errors on decimal points and commas on item three. Thank you very much. That moves us into public hearings. And we have one this evening. This is the ordinance amending Vancouver Municipal Code 14.26, Water Resources Protection. It's an ordinance relating to water resources protection by establishing developmental regulations and minimum standards to reduce the risk of contaminants entering water resources amending sections 14.26.100, 14.26.110, 14.26.112, 14.26.130,

14:59 and 14.26.135, and adding section 14.26.137 to the Vancouver Municipal Code. Let's go ahead and have a staff report, please.

15:21 - Thank you, Chris. - Yeah. Good evening, mayor and city council. Chris Olinger, the city's utility engineering manager in public works. Yep, so it went twice, sorry. It was a little slow. So tonight, we're going to share some proposed updates to the city's water resources protection ordinance as it relates to critical areas. We'll recap the purpose of the proposed amendments and highlight changes as well as work done since last fall's-- - Chris, scoot a little closer to that microphone, something's not picking up well. - Okay, how's that? - Better. - Okay, sorry. Yeah, we'll recap the purpose of the ordinance proposed amendments, highlight changes since our last fall's workshop. You may recall we previously shared the importance of protecting critical aquifer recharge areas

16:19 and our drinking water resources while using best available science as well as how the proposed code updates will further protect water quality while also providing clear and consistent permitting requirements for the development community. These updates are the final piece of the critical area updates to comply with the Growth Management Act.

16:43 And as discussed previously, the purpose of this update is specifically to adhere to those requirements under the state's Growth Management Act. Specifically tonight, we're gonna talk about critical aquifer recharge areas. All the other critical areas have been addressed under the Title 20 changes that were approved by council in June. So this is the last portion of that, bringing city code into compliance with best available science recommendations. Key updates that will make that code consistent is changing our wellhead protection zones from a fixed radius around a city municipal wellhead to using computer modeling to determine one, five, and 10-year time of travel zones around these wellheads. So adding additional protections.

17:42 And we're also clarifying submittal requirements. The code continues to restrict activities that pose a risk to groundwater contamination. Since last fall, we've completed a review, a State Environmental Protection Act, SEPA review, and a determination of non-significance was issued in January. We've also had the State Department of Commerce review completed in April, received substantial comments from Department of Health, and we've addressed those in these code amendments. And the timing of these updates is aligned with the recently adopted comprehensive plan and Title 20 code updates. Tonight, we're asking to just move the public hearing forward and adopt the amended code. And I'm here for questions. - Okay, I'll put that up. Counselors, do you have questions? Counselor Fox, go ahead.

18:41 - Really, reviewing all the materials, everything was really clear. I appreciated going through the red lines and, like I said, understanding what you're trying to do and appreciate using computer modeling instead of these arbitrary distances away from our wellheads as being a huge step forward for the protection of our water. I did have one very small amendment and I shared it with staff. It's just understanding that a lot of these code updates sometimes are an opportunity to make sure that we're using inclusive language. We're not still using he did this, which was kind of the trend. But there is one section on page five where they utilize the term man-made, and I just suggested that we change that word on page five to human-made. Staff agreed, 'cause there was other terms you could use,

19:38 but it's in terms of the definition of illicit connection. It says means any man-made conveyance that is connected to a municipal separate stormwater sewer without a permit, and then it goes on. So it's a small change. Our city attorney said that this small change wouldn't require a new public hearing if the rest of council agrees with me that that terminology should be updated. And that's all I had. - Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, Councilor? - Thank you. So can we go back to the map? Yeah, so can you talk about how we interact with the county? 'Cause there's a lot of those areas that are outside the city limits. So can you talk about that relationship with the county? - Yes, the county also has a critical aquifer recharge area ordinance.

20:38 And when those areas of the city wells encompass that, they have a review that they require information come in and they have a consultant that helps them review and approve those. Right now there's no collaboration. The county doesn't reach out to the city, but they do review those. That's probably an area for improvement is to understand their level of review. - So how do they become aware? - These maps will be available on Clark County Maps online. - Oh, okay. - So they will get that update. Actually, they have that currently. - Okay, beautiful. Thank you very much. - Okay. I'll open the public hearing. And Miss Maroon, am I correct? There are no registrations. You don't have any cards?

21:36 Okay, I'll close the public hearing, bring it back to council. Council, what would you like to do? - I'll move to approve the ordinance as presented. - Sober, seconded by? Point of clarification. - Does this include the suggestion to change man-made to human-made? - Miss City Attorney, does that need to be in the motion? - It does. - Then I suggest it die by lack of a second. - You motion has died for lack of a second. - Move to adopt the ordinance with the correction from man-made to human-made. - Second.

22:35 - Seconded from Councilor Fox. Roll call vote, please. - Council Member Harless. - Aye. - Perez. - Aye. - Fox. - Aye. - Paulson. - Aye. - Stover. - Aye. - Mayor McEnerny-Ogle. - Aye, motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. That concludes the hearing. It brings us into communications from the council. Councilor Harless. - Pass. - Councilor Perez. - Yes, council members, I forwarded to you a draft resolution in support of a county-wide ban on cryptocurrency related to the growing role and financial exploitation of our vulnerable adults. So this draft resolution is from the Elder Justice Center Executive Board.

23:33 And so I wanna make sure that, as council members, we have the chance to take a look at it and support it before, or right after next week, next week's meeting. So you have a week to take a look at it. Let me know what you think. - Okay. - Okay, thank you. - Councilor Fox. - I do support that resolution. I did have a chance to read it, and I see that your signature would be affirmed to it. Okay, other than that, I'll pass tonight. - Thank you, Councilor Paulson. Councilor Stauber. - Yes, so colleagues, on Friday I was able to pop in to the East Vancouver Business Association meeting that was held at Trillium Employment Services. So tying into the resolution, or the,

24:27 yeah, resolution, we had proclamation, proclamation, thank you, eventually we'll get there, that we had today. So Mr. City Manager, as you send out your survey, I would love to see us think through being able to integrate adults with different disabilities into our workforce here at the city. So if you could put that into the list of potential prioritizations. And another one, kind of related, is there was some talk about different language stuff, but sign language becoming more of a standard in our city communications, I think would be a great thing. So those would be two things.

25:23 I'd love to have you add to the council's wish list prioritization activity that we're gonna do. Thank you. - Thank you. Councilors, thank you so very much for introducing all of the different concerts on Thursday night, on Sunday night. All of that information is on the community calendar found on the city's website. One thing that you might not be aware of, which is an interesting opportunity, the Chuukese community has field day. And so take a look at that. It will be coming up, I believe on the 31st. But it's one of those opportunities at Columbia River where people from around our entire state and Oregon come to have track and field. So what a great opportunity. We're blessed to do that.

26:19 City manager, you have a couple things on your list. - Yeah, we've got a couple of presentations tonight. So while Laura makes her way up here to talk to the council about what we're planning to do for coordinating for the southbound closure of I-5, just wanted to note a couple of items that I jotted down for followup from tonight. One is to dig into the data from the community survey to see if we can identify any of the underlying causes for why there's such a difference in perceptions of safety between our white community and people of color in the community. And then we owe you some information on the public engagement plan for the budget. - Laura. - Go ahead, Laura. Didn't mean to do that. - Good evening, mayor and city council. I'm Laura Shepherd, director of communications for the city. So good to see you again. I'm here today to provide an overview of communications for the upcoming closure of the I-5 southbound project

27:19 as part of the Rose Quarter Improvement Project. You might be wondering why I'm coming to talk to you about an Oregon Department of Transportation project. I'm here because of the anticipated impact on Vancouver from the closure scale and duration. So starting September 11th, all southbound lanes of I-5 will be completely closed for up to five weeks in the Rose Quarter area that you can see there on the map. This is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week closure. I'm gonna refer to Oregon Department of Transportation as ODOT for the remaining of the briefing for brevity. ODOT anticipates southbound travel times could double or triple compared to a typical day with peak morning and afternoon commute congestion expected to extend into Vancouver if commuters maintain their regular routines. Following a review of ODOT's public information plan, which they generously shared with us a couple months ago,

28:17 communications began actively reaching out to our local stakeholders to foster awareness and discuss local impacts. ODOT does have a robust communication plan that includes advertising in channels that will reach Vancouver residents. But given the scale of the project, we will communicate with our own audiences to raise awareness and encourage changes with commuting habits. Our goal is to keep the community informed by serving as a proactive, reliable source of information. Our messaging objective is fairly simple. We wanna encourage changes in commuting and driving habits if possible. We also wanna provide information in an actionable way that tells people what to expect and how to plan. So we're telling people to expect significant delays while traveling on I-5 southbound during the project, but we're also telling people to plan. So we're going to be encouraging people to change their commute and travel times if they can. We're gonna be encouraging them to use trip planning tools, riding public transit if they can or carpooling,

29:17 working remotely if possible, and of course, staying informed. We will be using all of our various channels that we have as a city to distribute verified information from our project partners. I started direct outreach with some of my local communication peers, such as the Port of Vancouver, C-TRAN, Clark County, and Washington Department of Transportation and other local jurisdictions. We're also reaching out to our neighborhood associations. We started that actually a little shortly after we initially heard of the project from ODOT. We're also going to be reaching out to businesses, community groups, and event organizers who are hosting events during this closure window. We're also talking to our Get There Southwest Washington staff, and they're gonna be looking at canvassing small businesses in the downtown area with posters, as well as communicating to our commute trip reduction employees. WSDOT will also share information in their communication channels as well,

30:15 also on variable messaging signs, and they're also taking the lead on monitoring the impact on I-5 and other routes as it stretches into Vancouver. They're gonna be using the tools they have available to them to help with traffic flow as well as communicate alternate routes. At this point, I want to invite Eric Forlip, communications manager from C-TRAN, and Rose Gerber, public outreach and media manager from ODOT to join me in case you have any specific questions about the project. WSDOT wanted to be here with us tonight, but their schedules did not quite line up, and I believe we have Ryan LaPosa who might be on here remotely to answer any localized questions you have about Vancouver's streets and roads, but I've been in close conversation with Ryan, so if he couldn't make it, I will do my best to play Ryan unless I can talk Mr. Wall to join us as well. But that, can we answer any questions, Council?

31:11 - Always. Go ahead, Councilor Fox. - Well, one of the things I was thinking is I thankfully don't have to commute into Oregon for a job, but I do go into Oregon for sporting events and other activities, and I do utilize C-TRAN and light rail for those activities. Are they going to increase the frequency of those services? C-TRAN gets you right to that interstate light rail stop. - Yeah, I can jump in on that. Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'm Eric Florip, Manager of Communications and Marketing for C-TRAN. So first of all, I wanna thank Laura and the city for being proactive in starting the conversation with all of our partner agencies to make sure we're on the same page as to what this is gonna look like and what people can expect. To answer your question, Councilor, we are gonna have some detours

32:08 and service modifications in place. Most of that impact is going to be on our regional express routes that go to Portland, obviously. Because it's a closure, service will look a little different because we do have to adjust routing that we would typically use to get to downtown. But one of the steps we're taking is our 105 route that typically goes from 99th Street Transit Center in Hazeldale to downtown Vancouver and then continues on to downtown Portland. We're gonna adjust that to actually focus more on making that connection at Delta Park with the Yellow Line so the frequency of that service will be as good or better than the existing 105 and it will be timed to line up with the departure times of the Yellow Line leaving Delta Park and continuing on to downtown Portland. So we would expect that to be a more reliable trip given the uncertainty of being on the freeway, going south especially. So that's part of our plan among other service adjustments that'll be in place during the closure. - That's good to know, thank you.

33:07 - I can make a clarification for viewers who might not know what the Yellow Line is. He's referring to Max Light Rail. - Yeah, and the 105 was a regular commute for me when I did work in Oregon. So it's good to know that that is being strengthened for this particular time period. - Yeah, and if I may add, the 105X, which is a slightly different route that goes direct from 99th Street Transit Center to downtown Portland without stopping in downtown Vancouver, that will continue to run on that direct shot all the way down for commuters who wanna choose that option. With the caveat that of course travel times may look very different depending on what the impact of the traffic and closure will be. - Okay, thank you. - Yep. - Councilor Perez. - Thank you for coming and sharing and I wish somebody from WSDOT was here but maybe Ryan Lopez can answer this. I'm just envisioning this 24 hours, seven days a week

34:03 for up to five weeks of our commuting workforce in East Vancouver and East County, Clary County, trying to get on 205. But as you know, when you get I-5 backed up, everybody goes around and comes down 205. Has there been a plan for any of that on our end? Or discussion? - Good evening, Council. Steve Wall, Public Works Director. Relative to 205 and actually just impacts to Vancouver in general, it's something that we're gonna have to monitor over time and just see what the impacts actually are. I think 205 in particular, right, I do wish WSDOT was here because they would be able to help answer that more clearly.

35:01 As far as impacts though on the surface streets outside of 205, yeah, we will definitely have to monitor. And right now we have not done any active outreach or separate planning or detours, if you will, for that situation. But again, we'll have to actively monitor the activities in there. As well as, Laura and I have talked about downtown, Vancouver as well, right, and just as you get off of I-5 and 205 and onto the surface streets, it's hard to tell what the impact will be exactly, but that's where we'll need to be active in watching the circumstances. - Can you elaborate maybe at the next meeting or follow up with us what exactly you'll be monitoring and what would kick in if you find what? So, and in particular, I'm just thinking

35:57 about our community workforce, trying to get across 205 and, or I-5, and they can't, and coming down 205, and I know that 14 is usually backed up. So, if you can give me a better idea of what monitoring looks like and what you're looking for. - You bet, and again, I think WSDOT will be primarily watching I-5, 14, and 205 and be able to assist there. And so, we'll continue to coordinate with WSDOT on that as well and see if we can bring back a little more information from them for council. - Right, and in particular, any type of information sharing with our residents in Vancouver about this commuting disruption. - Definitely, I can share a little bit what WSDOT shared with me. So, they're gonna be monitoring, particularly in that, they're gonna be monitoring for the duration, but particularly in that first week,

36:55 they're gonna be watching traffic flows from there where they typically monitor traffic and they have different tools that they use, whether it's either managing the traffic flow on 14 and in the areas that WSDOT covers. So, they have different ways of using ramp signals to either slow down the flow on those stretches. So, they're gonna be using all the tools they have to be able to manage traffic flow. And I know they're gonna be putting staff to actively watching on their various traffic cameras to see what that flow looks like, particularly during those pivotal Monday. So, the closure's gonna be on the Friday, but particularly that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and into the rest of that week. I think that when they spoke with me, that first week of watching the traffic is gonna be really pivotal for them to kind of see what they do next and be very responsive as things happen.

37:53 So, but we can definitely go back to WSDOT and find more detailed information for all of you. - All right, thank you. - Laura, when they were replacing the trunnion on I-5 many years ago, heavy rail Amtrak had a special run from Vancouver to Portland. Have you heard any discussion like that? - I have not. Have any of our partners heard of any of that? - The anyone who's been around for the trunnion replacement that was short term and they got it done quickly. Unfortunately, this is five weeks. So, this is a major catastrophe. Okay, any other questions? Yes, Councilor Harless. - Two questions, like what is that communications plan? What are you thinking right now would be the communications to be able to get to our residents? This isn't that far away.

38:52 And so, I think of parents that might need to leave work early, might not be able to drop off their kids. What does that communication plan look like right now? What ideas do you already have? And then also, any of these sort of additional things, especially when they're not our decisions. How are we funding this? - Well, the first question. So, we have a full plan already written. So, we're going to be relying on the copy and the materials that ODOT has provided partners. So, they have full fact sheets in multiple languages. So, we're gonna be leaning heavily into not needing to use our staff time to rewrite everything, but really amplify the good information that they already have. And so, we're gonna be approaching this from more of what I would call a crisis communications plan, something that's of limited duration of large impact. So, we're gonna be using all of our channels that we have.

39:50 So, we'll be doing social media posts. We are gonna be setting up sort of a resource center on our website, which is basically links to ODOT's site where they have a lot of resources, links to C-TRANS site where they'll have their routes, any other tools or materials that the public might need. We've already put kind of an early little kind of teaser advertisement in the summer newsletter. I actually did have a few people call me about that when they saw that, so people did see that. The fall newsletter will not go out in time for this closure, but we're basically going to be, it's multi-channel like we do with most things we do around here. So, social website, we'll be calling up our local reporters that we know to let them know as well. I know ODOT probably has a fully formed media plan on that as well, so we don't want to step on their toes too much, but I think when it comes to in Vancouver, we'll use all the channels that we normally have focusing on the messaging that I mentioned

40:49 in my comments earlier. - Awesome, thank you for splitting that out. Yeah, and it sounds like we'll have our own page on our own website. - We are, it's something that I liken to what, so as an example, it's something, so you'll recall we set up the page regarding ice and federal actions, that was kind of this clearinghouse. It will be also, another example page will be like what we put up on our website when there's inclement weather or a snow emergency. We have a banner on the front page of our website directing people to more information, but I think probably social media is gonna be our best bet for reaching the broadest swath of folks across channels, of course, with ODOT, WSDOT, and C-TRAN all putting information out in their channels as well, too. I think people would be hard-pressed not to know about it in the coming weeks. - Awesome, yeah, and if we're one of those tools, that's even better. I think of people trying to convince their boss, like no, this is really happening,

41:48 so the more places that it's posted that they can point to to get approval to work from home, the better. Thank you. - All right, yes, Councilor Stilbert. - Thank you, Mayor, and thank you all for being here to talk about this. So the mayor talked about Trunnion. We've actually done it twice. First time had the fun zipper, and the thing that's always worked well is lots of prior communication allowed people to make alternative plans, and so we end up not having the Carmageddon that we worried about because people are able to make those plans. It's when it's the bad crash that closes the freeway at the last minute that causes a diversion because people aren't able to make alternative plans. What I'm interested in, so it's great there's a plan,

42:47 but what I particularly wanna hear about is what is ODOT paying for? 'Cause it's one thing to put up a Facebook post, and it's an entirely different thing to have a social media, paid social media campaign. Is ODOT gonna be doing, because unlike when we did the Trunnion, especially the first Trunnion, people are getting their news in different ways, and so is there a paid media plan going on? - I can speak to that. Thank you, Council and Mayor, for having me. Rose Gerber with the Oregon Department of Transportation, as she mentioned, I'm the communications manager for the project. We do have a budget for media and paid digital ads. The paid media we've done, we did a smaller closure, you may have noticed, earlier a couple weekends ago just to put a sign bridge in, and so we were messaging for that as well

43:46 to Vancouver outlets included in the media plan that we had developed for that, and those will continue on to this larger closure this fall. There's also paid digital ads as well, so we have been running social media campaigns on Meta to be able to get people to sign up for text alerts. Those run up this direction as well, and we are going to be definitely continuing to leverage our partnership with City of Vancouver and WSDOT to make sure that we're providing our organic strategy as well and tagging folks and letting folks kind of let us do the heavy lifting and get them the content and messaging they need to get the message across quickly and successfully. - Great, thank you very much. - We might also send some easy social media to our nine different chambers of commerce or business associations and such

44:46 so they can copy and paste or forward and share, especially I'm thinking of all the businesses that need supplies delivered across those bridges and anyone planning surgery at different hospitals and such. Because those are planned far enough ahead, people will need to rethink how they're going to get there. Should they rent a hotel room the night before? Those types of things. So it is so very different than the trunnions. This is going to be a real test of everybody. So thank you so very much for jumping on this. Okay, all right, thank you. Let's move on. Oh, we have Miss Benelli tonight with a homeless situation report.

45:49 (muffled speaking) - Yes, they are. Press, there you go. - Okay, good evening, mayor and council. Jamie Spinelli, homeless response manager for the city. So you received four, there are four documents in the packet and that's because we're switching to more of a quarterly reporting situation versus a monthly. So what you've got are the three monthlies from the quarter as well as a kind of a combined condensed quarterly one. I'm probably gonna be speaking from both today 'cause I don't really have it all exactly as I would like it, so bear with me. So for our emergency response,

46:47 the fire department is still working on their data collection software. So we still don't have any fire data for this year. I'm hearing it's coming, but that's where we are for now. We have in the second quarter of this year, which is April, May and June, we have lost seven people since, or I'm used to saying since December. We've lost seven people just in this quarter. Making 17 who have passed away connected to homelessness between the December memorial and the end of June, which is actually a decrease, it's about 19% decrease. Last year at this time, we were at 21. Our police numbers as far as events as well as time on events, largely staying the same.

47:44 We're tracking it around 9% of total events are related to unsheltered homelessness. Around 15-ish percent of all police hours are spent on unsheltered homelessness. And this has been pretty similar for quite some time now. We are seeing a little bit of an increase as the weather warms up, I'm noticing. We were at 14 and now we're at around 16 and a half. For solid waste removal, a lot of the same cleanup areas in the second quarter, 53.76 tons removed from public property, and that leaves us at about 160, almost 167 tons year to date.

48:42 There's the 56 or 57 with kind of the large cleanups and then Sheila's smaller crew for the quarter is almost 24 tons. Let's see. Okay, safe stays in safe park. Year to date, 10 people have moved from the outposts, which is site one, safe stay one, into housing, which is amazing. Six of those were in the second quarter, so the vast majority. Hope Village has had two people move out. Kagan's Village had two. 415 West had eight. Crystal is killing it over there, I'll tell you. So housing is actually, I think, part of the pilot that we're working on with VHA and Council for the Homeless with Affordable Housing Fund dollars.

49:39 That's moving smoothly. I think for a lot of folks that feels slower than usual, but that's because it is very much connected to our encampment work, so people move into shelter, stabilize for a bit, then move to housing, so it's less of this kind of rapid, constant, moving into housing situation, but it is working well. From safe park, we had 10 people just in that quarter move into housing, making 17 year-to-date for them. Now I gotta swap to the narrative stuff, which is on the individual ones. The DSHS mobile truck has been coming out to our sites, which is great, 'cause people are able to get their food stamp cards, they can get replacement cards, they can apply for benefits just right there onsite. Those mobile services are really incredible. Actually, I thought of that when the lady previously was talking about community-based workers, excellent example of that.

50:39 A lot more people actually are engaging in detox and treatment services, before I go over to the narrative stuff. That's something that I noticed, doing it quarterly now versus the once a month, they look like small numbers once a month, and then now I'm like, oh wow, that's a lot of people engaging in detox and treatment services. So that was kind of one highlight. 415's garden is looking amazing. We had the very first wedding at one of our safe stays in the month of June, and their garden was the perfect setting for it. It's beautiful, if you have a chance to go out there, please go take a look. Also go check out The Outpost, because The Outpost, all their units have now been painted. Thank you to the local Mormon church. Very similar to 415 West's units, so it's looking very homey, you know?

51:37 I love it. Multiple graduations from drug court, mostly from The Outpost and 415 sites, but really doing an incredible job at all of them. Hope Village celebrated their fourth year being open in May, congrats to them. Lots of various activities with both the site providers as well as Columbia River Mental Health's mobile health teams, so in addition to the mental health and behavioral health and medical services that they provide at each of our sites as well as out at encampments and at community court, they're throwing in some more kind of creative opportunities for people to work in kind of a therapeutic way, so tie-dying, things like that, painting, things like that. Always great for the warm months, I think.

52:35 Trying to think if there's any other big things at the sites, I don't think so. Okay, move on to these. Columbia River Mental Health is not fully staffed yet for their mobile health team. I think they're still working on a clinician and an RN, I believe. Like a therapist and an RN, I believe. But they're doing a great job at community court, all of our sites. A great deal of, I think, coordination is happening between the providers on the sites and our healthcare partners to kind of decrease the temperature in a way, that kind of behavioral, the challenges that we experience out there.

53:33 A lot more coordination and working together. So I'm actually excited to see that kind of grow as the bridge shelter opens up and really all come together as more of a system. Same thing when Cowlitz launches their medication assisted treatment unit, which should open before the bridge shelter. Actually, I think that comes to you guys, that contract comes to you all next week or the week after. Community court still rocking. In the second quarter, there were 203 new referrals into community court. 56 people opted in. I wanna make a note though that that's not necessarily an accurate representation of like participation. It's because of when people are cited in and when court occurs, there's usually kind of a lag. People can be referred this week, but not show up for another two weeks, three weeks.

54:33 So timing doesn't look, timing looks a little wonky there. 17 graduations and 120 community service hours completed in second quarter, which is great. 232 year to date. Bridge shelter. So as we talked the last time, the buildings were being delivered. I think some of you have gone out there since then, but those are delivered at the end of quarter one and they pretty immediately started erecting all the walls and whatnot. So quarter two is really focused on completing the structures and the roofs of research buildings, but walls have gone up. I've now been in there with walls, which is pretty, it's a little surreal. I'm gonna be honest. It's like a real thing that's coming to life. The interior work started with the framing of the key walls,

55:31 hanging of the HVAC and a lot of the duct work. Concrete floors were finished and polished. Those are actually looking really great. Framing and plumbing and electrical was mostly done by the end of June, which is then when drywall started. And that's gonna, the drywalling and I think painting is gonna be starting somewhat soon this month. Related to the bridge shelter, I wanted to just kind of flag for you all. Several months ago, we had a brief conversation around the buffer for the bridge shelter implementing the buffer around the bridge shelter as we do with all of our safe stays. That's gonna require an ordinance amendment because our current ordinance just talks about the safe stays and their buffer. And we talked about the size of that buffer and it sounded like everyone was okay with 1,500 feet

56:30 just given the size of the facility that we're using and the impact on the neighborhood. Because this is gonna be coming to you in like the next month or so, and I'm working on materials for that, I just wanted to make sure that there weren't any other questions. If you do have questions, you can either give them to me now or you can give them to me later. I just wanted to provide that as kind of a flag for everyone in case there's anything specific you wanted to know, wanted to hear, wanted me to include prior to. - Sounds like you're good. - Okay. - Can you repeat your question? We previously talked about the bridge shelter buffer size and my recommendation was 1,500 feet as opposed to the 1,000 that the safe stays get. It sounded at the time like everyone was generally good with that. I just wanted to know as I'm working on my materials

57:26 for next month, if you have any questions about that, anything I need to make sure is included, spoken to, whatever for the ordinance 'cause it'll come to you all for first reading around mid-August. And if you do just give them my way at any time. - Councilor Stover, did you have a comment? - Just really quickly, it's been a while since we looked at all those maps. So it doesn't have to be now, but that 1,500 foot went into the county. And so when you come back talking about that interaction with, is it a carve out or are we working with the county or just how that's gonna be handled? Thank you. - Okay. Okay. The kind of appreciation shout outs that I usually give and there's not gonna be three of them today.

58:26 Carrie Peck, Kimbra Ledbetter and Linda from facilities. Hugely, hugely helpful to my team, to this whole department. Linda was so helpful with some of the community court tenants 'cause there are other tenants in that building every Friday, every day of the week. But on Fridays we have community court and there's a lot of people there. There could be a lot of people. There could be a lot of animals. There can be a lot of chaos. And she really was so helpful in kind of helping us bridge the gap between the other tenants there so that we can make sure that we understand their needs and the challenges they're experiencing. And then we could make some changes and some recommendations on our end. And in fact, we've heard from some of those tenants and they said things have been much, much better. And that was really just as simple as making some changes to our code of conduct at community court and just being very intentional about talking to people about being good neighbors.

59:24 We wanna make sure that we're good neighbors when we're at any space. Certainly when people are trying to do business. So she's really done an amazing job, but Kimber and Kerry really are the backbone of everything that we do in my department. So huge shout out to them. And then I think that's it. - Thank you so very much. All right. Councilor Perez. - Councilor Perez here. Thank you, Jamie. Two things. One is the 17 deaths that occurred. What were the causes of those deaths? - I did actually look that up. I had time to kind of do the math on it today. 41% of those are overdose or suspected overdose. And that's down from this time last year. Last year, this time it was 62%. - Okay.

1:00:22 - So heading in a better direction, but yeah. - And the other 60%? - Oh, that's kind of a broad mix between traffic collisions, long-term medical issues, suicide. - And the overdose, is that mainly fentanyl or any in particular drug? - I would imagine largely fentanyl. - Okay. And then my second comment has to do with the Columbia River Mental Health. Taking a look at what's being reported with mobile health activities and the service data. And I'm wondering if there's a better way to connect the success of Columbia River Mental Health work to the outcomes that we are wanting to see, or for example, transition to housing in addition to regular peer support.

1:01:22 I don't know what that is, but I do think that there's this other element of mental health that feeds into success. And I would like to see that tightened up a little bit. And I don't know what that looks like, but maybe speaking with Columbia River Mental Health and having a discussion, there might be a better way to paint a more holistic picture. - Yeah, I can do that. They've only been reporting for a few months 'cause they've still been trying to kind of staff up and their ability to serve. I will say though, in their June report, they talked about how they have successfully kind of transitioned three clients, three of their initial clients to ongoing care with kind of higher level teams. And then some of those individuals have also transitioned into housing, into permanent housing. I can work on some other ways to report that. - All right, thank you.

1:02:22 - Any other questions for Ms. Spinelli? Councilor Stover. - Thank you, Mayor. Jamie, I wanna get on the celebration bandwidth. The fact that last year was such a dramatic decrease in deaths from 24, and to have that further decrease

1:02:49 is, you know, every death is bad, but it's such a relief that we're walking in the right direction. So, so many players, so many people throughout our community are making a difference, but I know you and your staff are making a difference in particular. One minor thing in your report under property closures, you said none, I would prefer if you would say no new closures, because we have closures, we just had no-- - No new ones. - New ones, and so just so we're communicating clearly. Thank you. - Any other comments? Okay, thank you so very much. - Thank you. - That concludes the business of the City Council.

1:03:47 City Manager, am I correct in thinking no additional items from you? - Correct. - Okay. So this is our opportunity to hear from the community. We audio record, we don't video record, so Ms. Berman, would you please ask CVTV to turn off the cameras?