Vancouver City Council

0:00 (upbeat music) - Welcome to Vancouver City Council. I'm Ann McInerney, Ogle Mayor for the City of Vancouver, and you are attending the August 24th, 2026 City Council meeting for the City of Vancouver. This afternoon, we enjoyed the opportunity to listen to the Fire Chief give a Vancouver Fire Department support staff update, and then we heard from Lisa Brandl, the deputy city manager, to discuss the city financial policies and investment policy review, followed by a climate action framework update. We are now in our regular City Council meeting. Would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

0:57 and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - Thank you very much. Ms. Dollar, please call the roll. - Council Member Harless. - Present. - Perez. - Present. - Fox. - Here. - Paulson. - Here. - Stover. - Here. - Hanson. - Present. - Mayor McInerney-Ogle. - Present, thank you very much. Councillors, you have the minutes of August 17th. - Move for approval. - Hanson, seconded by? - Stover. - Stover, any corrections or changes? All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes, thank you very much. One abstention, thank you. And this opens it up to the communication from the community, and we have Kimberly Elbon from Liss Center.

1:57 - Kimberly, go he and Elbon, good afternoon. Well, I'm gonna be speaking to the Vancouver's Climate Action Framework Workshop. As Vancouver updates its strategy to reduce community greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030, and reach full carbon neutrality by 2040, we must address how these sweeping changes are communicated to the public. While the city's stated focus is on building complete streets, extending electric vehicles infrastructure, and creating dense walkable neighborhoods, rather than eliminating cars entirely, local policies do not exist in a vacuum. These localized efforts perfectly align with the broader global mandates of the United Nations Agenda 21, and the subsequent 2030 agenda for sustainable development. True sustainability cannot be achieved through top-down mandates or workshops

2:55 that feel like a foregone conclusion. The city must do a better job of including its citizens in a completely transparent way. True transparency means opening up the floor to the full reality of what is happening in our skies and environment, rather than just focusing on municipal carbon footprints. If we are, you need more than 18 or 165 participants, that's for sure. If we are genuinely committed to environmental protection, human health, and climate resilience, this council must look at the data before compiled by independent researchers, such as geoengineeringwatch.org. For years, citizens have observed persistent white grid-like patterns in the sky, what many refer as chemtrails. Documented research into climate engineering and solar radiation management indicates that toxic chemicals and heavy metals,

3:52 including aluminum, barium, and strontium, are being dispersed into our atmosphere. That's a true story. These chemtrails are not normal jet streams. They stay in the sky all day long. These intentional atmospheric operations directly impact our weather, our local tree canopy, our soil, and our insects and bird communities, and our public health. Yet these toxic inputs are completely omitted from the city's climate action framework. It is a massive contradiction to restrict the daily habits of local citizens under the banner of the 2030 agenda while ignoring large-scale, unacknowledged atmospheric programs that disturb our ecosystem, if not killing it, which it is. You have no bug splatter on your windows. They're killing our insects, for one thing. I urge this council to practice absolute transparency to the citizens. Inform the citizens of Vancouver

4:51 about these atmospheric realities. Expand the scope of your environmental assessment to test for these heavy metals in the local environment. Do not let our local climate framework-- - Thank you for your testimony. Carmen De Leon. - Do we have to sit in this one? Is this one that has to work? - Okay, so my name is Carmen De Leon. I also go by Melo De Leon, and I was watching the workshops. So let's go ahead and talk about the first one. The first workshop was Department of the Fire People. So I know they're talking a lot about jobs and stuff, but I'm talking about investment into the safety of our forests and our communities, which I have seen the Palladian, or whatever those fires were in California. The firemen were looking for swimming pools to get water and use the water. So it's just natural to have that safety mechanism.

5:50 Other people, there's a country where they have the whole historic little wooden village. And every year, just like the grass at the golf course, it waters all of the ancient facility that cannot be rebuilt. That's why every year they make sure they got the water. In case of a fire, remember when Multnomah Falls almost burned down and those firemen were over there putting their lives at risk to save one building. That's why I'm saying forget the money, forget the employees, put some androids out there so that you don't risk the bravest out there. And the firemen, you have robots that can do water, and you can make upstream, what is it called, tubes, so that they can water the forest and not catch fire. Now I'm running out of time. Okay, none of the one financial policies. I don't get this, because at 4.15, they said $1,023,000 debt, and you can check your own timestamps.

6:47 At 4.20, they said $105,000 debt. And then at 4.30, they said there was gonna be a surplus. And then they said that they're not gonna save the surplus, they're gonna use it to fill in the other debts that you guys have created. So fun with words here, debt or surplus? You know, make up your minds. So that's what I saw at that one. And I don't even know if I have time to talk about the kids. So you're talking about the environment. Kids at school should be already taught to bring in their old shoes, because I found out that they can't really be recycled, but they can be turned into turf, into streets, you know, into other things. And even Nike has offered to buy back their own shoes to recycle them. So the everyday shoes, that's what they were talking about, getting the juveniles in it, because so many kids are used to, oh, I drank my pot, throw it away.

7:46 Eh, one-use disposable thing. We have to erase the mentality that everything is one-use and thrown away. We gotta reuse stuff. We gotta make bamboo toilet paper, because you can grow it three times faster than any decent tree. So if you can get, you want businesses? Oh, I got ideas, as long as you don't shut me up for no good reason. So anyways, maybe I'll see you later. - David Meyer, please. - Good evening, everybody. My name is David Meyer, and I'm a citizen of Vancouver, Washington. I'm also a volunteer on the climate policy advisors that you learned about earlier today in one of the workshops. And as background, I'm an environmental consultant and sustainability consultant with a background in forest ecology and forest science. Really appreciate that Washington Conservation Action

8:44 has brought 20 of us advisors together. We've got quite a lot on our agenda to work on, but one of the issues that really floated to the surface very quickly was around the issues of tree canopy and tree density. And I know that it was discussed today. Councilor Fox took quite an interest in that. 18 of the 20 advisors signed onto a letter that I submitted tonight in paper form. We believe it's vital for the city to continue to strike a balance, and it's a very complex balance between urban density and tree canopy. And those are two key components of emissions reductions in climate resiliency. The city's 20-year comprehensive plan calls for increasing Vancouver's current tree canopy from 19%, where it's at now, to 28% by 2030. And that's gonna require a substantial increase in tree planning, preservation, and long-term maintenance. But it's also gonna require alignment with the various different frameworks,

9:44 city ordinances, and incentives for sound development to increase density within the, excuse me, within the community. That was my call to wake up, I guess. So canopy expansion by 10% offers a real powerful combination of climate, environmental, and community benefits, including lower carbon emissions and building energy savings, climate change mitigation, air quality and public health, ecosystem and biodiversity support, and community and economic benefits. And while it may represent a drop in the bucket as it was discussed today, there are indirect impacts of tree canopy even on energy efficiency in the built environment. And our letter gets into some details about that, and I'll leave that for you. We really urge the city to adopt tree ordinances and update its regulations to support tree canopy goals

10:42 and sustainable management as recommended by the Urban Forestry Management Plan, and that aligns with the urban growth and energy use studies and guidelines. But we are particularly supportive of developer incentives and policies for tree preservation and planting, and protecting mature native trees through the urban area that are protected through the heritage tree regulations. So again, we appreciate your serious consideration of our suggestions, the details are in the letter, and we hope that it'll be entered into the public record. Thank you for your time. - Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Closing the community communication, I do not have any additional individuals. Let's go ahead and move into the consent. Councillors, you have three items in the consent agenda. Are there any items you'd like to pull? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion for the three items. Fox, seconded by? - Perez. - Perez, those in favor say aye. - Aye.

11:42 - Opposed? Motion passes, thank you, Councillors. Takes us into the public hearings, item number four. This is a resolution relating to the approval of a land disposition and development agreement between the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Heights Senior Housing Partners, Limited Partnership, establishing the terms and conditions under which the senior housing building on the Heights district site P. A lot will be developed and ground leased by the City of Vancouver Heights Senior Housing Partners, Limited Partnership, and authorizing the city manager to execute the disposition and development agreement. Staff summary, please. Thank you, Amy. - Good evening, mayor, city council members, Amy Zolti, real estate project manager. The land disposition and development agreement in front of Council for Action this evening is a 51-unit senior housing project

12:42 in collaboration with the Vancouver Housing Authority and local developer related Northwest. The project is located on the corner of Mill Plain and Devine, adjacent to the Park Hill Cemetery and is shown as site P on the map here. Council previously approved the disposition and development agreement for another project on this site, the family housing building, and so now we're coming back to Council for the other project, the senior housing, these two projects will be phased and will and so have two separate disposition and development agreements and then two separate ground lease agreements. So the presentation this evening will kind of walk through the developer selection rationale, the proposed program of the project,

13:39 the key terms of the development agreement, as well as the ground lease terms, the investments that the city is making into this project, and then just highlighting the project timeline and next steps. So this project began in 2024 when the city and the Heights Community Investment Committee issued a request for proposals in March of that year, and then through a kind of two-month selection process related Northwest and the Vancouver Housing Authority's proposal, which included 131-unit multigenerational project including a 80-unit family housing project and then this 51-unit senior housing project. And then we entered an exclusive negotiation agreement that was executed September of that year,

14:39 and since then we have been negotiating the terms of this development agreement, working with the developer in pre-development to take this project to construction. I do want to highlight one kind of clarification is that the name of the developer in the development agreement is a single-purpose entity that was created with related Northwest and the Vancouver Housing Authority as partners in that entity. So when I'm referring to the developer, I'm referring essentially to related Northwest and the Housing Authority. So the reason why this developer was selected was the kind of strong partnership with the Housing Authority to kind of be able to leverage resources and local expertise. Although related Northwest is kind of a local developer to the kind of Portland Metro region,

15:37 this is their first project in Vancouver. So very much leaning on the Housing Authority to support with that local knowledge and expertise. And then additionally the reputation that both the Housing Authority and related Northwest have in delivering sustainable and affordable housing developments. So as I mentioned, the developer is related Northwest and Vancouver Housing Authority, they are co-owning and co-developing this project. We have a local nonprofit, Engage Northwest, that are providing the resident services that will be onsite. And then there's the kind of development team here and then the building will be managed by Quantum Residential. Turning to the proposed program for the senior housing building. As I mentioned, it's 51 units of income restricted housing

16:35 ranging from 30% of the area median income all the way to 60%. There will be some ground floor community serving space, which is where those onsite resident services will happen and those kind of multi-generational activities and programming that will happen in conjunction with the family housing building. In addition to affordable housing that's designated for seniors and the onsite resident services that I mentioned, this project is delivering opportunities for local and minority-owned contractors. So for example, the development agreement sets targets that 20% of the workforce is awarded to women or BIPOC-owned businesses. And then where appropriate, the contractor is to right-size bid packages for me

17:33 to make it more accessible for smaller contractors and then also conduct intentional outreach to those small contractors. And then additionally, this building will be sustainably built that will include efficient heating and cooling systems, it'll be a fully electric building and also includes sustainable construction materials and building practices. The unit mix of this building ranges between studios and two-bedroom units, and then spans that income range between 30% of the area median income through to 60%, with the vast majority of the units being at the 60% AMI range. Moving into the key terms of the development agreement,

18:32 the land will be ground leased to the developer for 99 years at a heavily discounted rent rate. The staff will come back to Council to take action on the ground lease closer to construction. As I mentioned, that is a separate agreement. But the key terms of the ground lease have been agreed upon, and we'll touch upon them on the next slide. But the construction of the building will take anywhere between 18 to 24 months. The development agreement includes very specific contractual performance dates, such as planning, permitting deadlines, award of funding deadlines, and then start and completion of construction deadlines. The development agreement also includes completion guarantees and standard default

19:31 and termination provisions. And then the housing will be affordable for at least 40 years. There is the intention that this will be affordable in perpetuity, and the discounted ground lease payments covers that period of affordability, and certainly can be extended upon an update in the ground lease terms.

19:57 So moving into those ground lease terms, this is a 99-year, very long-term lease, where the rent is discounted at 95% for the first 40 years. And then following that, on year 41, the rent will be recalculated based on appraisal of the property, and then also renewal of the affordability commitment. The rent will increase annually at a 3% rate, however, there will be no rent charged in the first 30 months to allow the project to get through construction and leasing, and for it to become cashflow positive and far more stable. The city is investing a total of 2.8 million

20:53 into this project, and that includes the heavy discount in the land value of 617,000. That amount is calculated based on the senior housing project's portion of the land valuation that was conducted February of last year. So that was that 676 land valuation. And then we calculated today's value of that discounted ground lease over that 40-year period, per me. And so the city's investment in the land is the land valuation less today's value of the discounted ground lease. There's also two million in the affordable housing fund,

21:52 and then this project does qualify for an 80% reduction in parks and traffic impact fees, and so that 200,000 number is that 80% reduction in those fees, bringing it to a total of 2.8 million. The private investment in this project totals around 26.7 million, and so comparing the private investment versus the public investment, that comes to roughly a nine-to-one leverage ratio. The city will also take advantage of the construction sales tax, as well as utility taxes that this project will generate. Turning to next steps, today we're to take action on the development agreement.

22:48 I will say that this project is applying for state funding at the end of next month, and so timing is critical to get this, for the council to vote on this development agreement as the developer needs to demonstrate site control, and the development agreement is a form of site control. So it is important that council take action on this this evening to be able to meet that funding deadline. And then over the course of the next year or two, the project will go through planning and permitting and secure additional funding, and then staff will come back to council for review of the ground lease, closer to construction, and then all things going well that the project is able to secure the necessary funding,

23:47 we can commence construction, which is estimated to be summer of 2028 and be completed by summer of 2030. So the requested action in front of council tonight is to approve the disposition and development agreement between the city of Vancouver and Vancouver Heights Senior Housing Partners Limited Partnership, and adopt the resolution authorizing city manager to execute the DDA on behalf of city council. And that concludes my presentation. I'll open it up to questions. - Thank you. Councillors, do you have any comments or questions of Ms. Solty? No? Okay, then let's go ahead and open the public hearing, Carmen de Leon.

24:41 - Do I have to pick my own chair, or do I have to need a certain one? - Go ahead and pick one. - Okay, so it's my understanding it's for senior citizens, and I think this is on the corner over here, Mill Plain and Divine, which is where they put $40,000 into a park that was just a parking lot that was painted. I know the corner. Anyways, I'm wondering about the safety of the people, because it's not built into the contract, because I was in the building at sixth floor. - Ms. de Leon, I'm gonna have you focus your comments to city council, not to Ms. Solty. - Oh, okay, city council. I was in the county council building when the fire alarm went off in the sixth floor, and people in a wheelchair cannot evacuate. It's a death trap. If you're in a wheelchair, you cannot be upstairs when the fires go off, because the first thing they do is say, you can't use the elevator. Well, you can't go down the stairs either.

25:39 So guess what happens to anybody disabled? I'm lucky I can go downstairs, because any good knee surgeon says you can't go downstairs, you can only go upstairs, so I can't escape a fire building, but I don't know if it's written in here. And also when the lights go out, because the other lady said that their big fear is when the lights go out. Yeah, because every winter, the lights go out. So that's why I've talked about those bikes that are generators, that everybody can make their own, generate their own energy when the lights go out. So how come that's not written into this as a safety measure for people that are on heart machines, 'cause these are old people. Now, when I lived in Romania, they had all the apartments stacked up, and the whole bottom floor was the supermarket. And anybody upstairs wanted food, they'd go downstairs. And this is for seniors, so guess what? When the cold comes and nobody can leave, and if there's no food, that's when you need, you know that they have, what is it called? The ice cream man in the summer, for the kiddies, little kids, have some ice cream.

26:38 Well, for the seniors in the winter, when they can't leave, you can have the food mobile. And it drives out and brings people their foods without the danger of going out into the ice slick that we know is gonna happen every winter in the Northwest. And another thing is to encourage upper body strength in senior citizens. It's called a rope ladder, that in case of a fire, you throw it out the window and you climb down the ladder. 'Cause like we said about fires before, I'm tired of putting our bravest young men, I've heard about them dying in these fires and it breaks my heart. That's why I said to send out the machines, don't invest in more people, invest in machines to put their lives on, the little machine can melt. And screw these people that wanna, you know, that guy up in Seattle was a police chief who screwed up and what did they do? Pay him almost a million to quit. So when I see fires and these firemen want more money, okay, I get it, you're brave. You're putting your life on the line.

27:37 But machines can do that. And they wanna save the forest, water the forest. It's not that hard. You just have to move the water and we have the capabilities of doing that. This is the future, why aren't we tapping into it? Why do they want 100 year old technology? - Kimberly Elbon from La Center.

28:02 - Kimberly Goheen Elbon. Well, so good job Melo. Fully electric buildings sounds reasonable and we're used to electricity, aren't we? But we here in Clark County and Vancouver really are not prepared for blackouts, especially during the winter months. And mark my words, this will happen. The senior population will not be able to cook and will not be able to heat their units. What plans does this council have for this emergency when a blackout occurs? I'd like to know. I consider the lack of foresight from this form of government/council to these blackouts absolutely criminal and not prepared to protect the senior citizen. Will you have backup generators for the elevators, the alarms, medical units? But how are you going to back up stoves and heat?

29:00 So I think you need to be transparent. Maybe have your presenter answer that question for those senior citizens that are listening to this public hearing. Be respectful and transparent to them and let us know what you're going to do during a blackout because you are going to be all electric and blackouts do occur. Thank you. God bless. - I'll close the public hearing. Council, I'll entertain a motion. - I'll move to approve. - Paulson, seconded by Fox. All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. Let's move on to public hearing number five. This is an ordinance of the Vancouver City Council amending chapter 3.05, Vancouver Municipal Code to change administrative responsibility for certain procurement actions

29:59 to provide clarity to other existing provisions to provide her severability in setting an effective date. Geraldine, good evening. Thank you so much. Go ahead. - Hello. I'm Geraldine Moyle, the General Services Director and I will provide an overview of the changes proposed to the Vancouver Municipal Code section 3.05 which governs the city's procurement policies and processes. Earlier this year, the city manager office shifted the oversight and management of the city's procurement division from the finance department to the general services department. Chapter 3.05 of the Vancouver Municipal Code assigns responsibility and authority for procurement to the finance director. So the proposed amendments reflect shifting this authority for procurement from finance to general services. But rather than being specific about general services,

30:58 we are proposing changes that instead shift the authority to the city manager or his designee or their designee. So that is consistent with our charter section 3.03 and then the revised code of Washington 35.18.010 and 0.060. So this gives a little more flexibility as at the city manager's discretion as to shifting and delegating authority without having to come back every single time. There are also some small, minor, non-substantive code cleanup items that improve readability in this section of the code. And both Carrie Driscoll, Assistant City Attorney, and Anna Vogel, the procurement manager, are available remotely to support me with any specific questions you might have on the changes. - Thank you. Councillors, do you have any questions on the changes?

31:57 None, thank you. Public hearing, Carmen De Leon. - Yeah, Carmen De Leon again. And I was just doing the estimate here because if every citizen in Vancouver, Washington did pay just the five bucks, that'd be over $125,000. So, you know, I mean, we're talking about money. I don't see how living off minimum wages for certain public service money would be applied to this. - Ms. De Leon, please focus your comments on the changes of procurement language. - Okay, 'cause I don't know what that means. All I understand is it's money that's going from one hand to another, whereas if certain people didn't have such large salaries could cover this in a heartbeat. - No, that's not what this means. - That's what I'm saying is that there's a lot of money

32:55 that could be given to the police that ICE is being moved around funny-like. - That's not what this means. - Okay, never mind. - Do you have comments on this? - Fine. - Kimberly Elbon from the center.

33:18 - Kimberly Goheen, Elbon. So this chapter dictates goods, excuse me, dictates the city's purchasing and public works procurement rules, which govern how tax dollars are spent on goods, public projects, and professional services. I've said for years now that this form of government only gives the public 1/3 of the rule over its government, while the council and city manager hold 2/3 rule over the people. So it's an unelected position, the city manager. The public does not elect the city manager instead of city manager. - Ms. Elbon, your testimony needs to pertain to the focus of the procurement language change. - It's pertaining to the city manager taking this procurement over, thank you. So the city manager is not elected, and because of this city manager is not directly elected, they are not directly accountable

34:16 to the ballot box or the public. Instead, they are strictly accountable to the city's council. The public's recourse, if they are unhappy with executive administration, is to vote out the city council members who oversee and hire the manager. So the good of this would be adjusting thresholds that lets the city manager and staff execute smaller or standard contracts without waiting weeks for city council agenda space. This speeds up public work, repairs, and community initiatives, but it is at their own total will. Supply chains and labor costs change rapidly, updating outdated dollar limits ensures that the city doesn't trigger slow, expensive formal bidding processes for routine municipal purchases. But the bad argument would be it's raising the financial threshold for purchases that require explicit city council approval

35:13 to give spending power away from the elected official and onto unelected staff, such as the city manager. It also contracts approved internally by staff that do not require a public council vote. While the resulting contracts remain subject to public records requests, the decision-making process happens away from the televised public comment floor limiting immediate public scrutiny. Let me continue. If members of the community do not trust this amendment, the core issue centers on the permanent surrender, excuse me, of legislative oversight to an unelected executive branch. When a city council modifies procurement codes, it fundamentally changes who holds the checkbook and how easily the public can track tax dollars. So you can't track the tax dollars as easily.

36:12 Looking for a specific argument to challenge this ordinance at the public hearing, the most crucial concern- - Thank you for your testimony. I'll close the public hearing, having no additional cards, bring it back to council. Council, do you have any questions of staff? - Yes. - Okay, Councilor Stover, go ahead.

36:40 - Concern has been raised that this shifts responsibility away from city council towards the city manager. Do you want to address that? - I'm happy to, and I'll look to Lon and Becky as well, it does not. The only thing that changes in here is the reporting structure from finance to general services for procurement staff via the city manager. The threshold for bringing a procurement item to council remains the same. - Thank you. And it changes it from being explicitly directed

37:38 towards the finance team to instead be at the discretion, which finance reports to the city manager and it changes from a explicit designation to the finance department to being at the discretion of the city manager, but it doesn't change the fact that ultimately the city manager has been and will remain in charge of procurement, correct? - Yeah, ultimately all of the department heads, even if they're reporting direct to a deputy city manager versus directly to the city manager, the deputy city managers in turn also report to the city manager. So whether it's me or a different city manager, you retain ultimate responsibility.

38:35 - And the delegation of procurement to the city manager is a matter of the city charter that was approved by the voters of the city of Vancouver that designated our form of government. And so the residents, legal voting residents of Vancouver set up our form of government. - Correct. - By vote. Okay, thank you. - I'll entertain a motion. - Move to approve. - Stoeber is seconded by Perez, roll call vote, please. - Council Member Harless. - Aye. -

39:35 Stoeber. - Aye. - Hanson. - Aye. - Aye, motion passes, thank you. Item number six, ordinance authorizing the implementation of the 0.1% public safety sales and use tax pursuant to RCW 42.14.135. This is an ordinance of the city of Vancouver enacting an additional sales and use tax of 1/10 of 1% for criminal justice purposes as authorized by RCW 82.14.345, adding a new section to the Vancouver municipal code chapter 5.98, providing for severability and establishing effective dates. Staff summary, evening, chief. - Good evening, council. Just last week, we sat in front of you and kind of gave a history of what we were looking at in terms of developing a funding package for the police department. We talked about some of the staffing inadequacies

40:33 that are just inherent in the state of Washington and then particularly here in southwest Washington. We talked a little bit about Prop 4, but we wanted to focus on this kind of a three-phased funding package for police here that took the form of Proposition 5, funding available through grants in House Bill 2015, and the ability for this council to enact a .1% sales tax that would give us the ability to hire some more people. If taking all three of these pieces into account, it would net us about 29 additional police officers plus some of the support services that we need for those folks. It would get them trained, equipped, and deployed out onto the streets. It would also allow us to enhance our secondary services, which are our investigators, our detective units, units like the Domestic Violence Prosecution Center

41:33 would get an additional two detectives. Our traffic unit, which has been woefully understaffed for years, would get some enhancements there. And so that's what brought us here today and that the ordinance before you is what we're asking for you to pass. - It also brings in public defenders, doesn't it, Chief? - It does. We recognize that just due to some changes that were brought about by a ruling from our state Supreme Court, that the ability for our public defenders to carry cases has been downgraded. And so they're carrying smaller caseloads, which means we need more attorneys. And so this allows the city to provide additional funding to hire some more defense attorneys, which we sorely need. - Yep, thank you so very much. I'll open it up. Counselors, do you have any questions to the Chief? Counselor Fox.

42:28 - Maybe I just want to raise a point just so that folks are aware to highlight it a little bit more but this action also just leverages our funding with that of the states. And so without taking this action, then we lose about $6 million in funding. So it's not something that we should typically do. We always turn around and not try to do everything we can to bolster our own funding. - It would be nice to see some of those tax dollars come back to the City of Vancouver, yes. - All right, thank you. - Counselor Perez. - Chief, just a question on the opportunity to get those tax dollars to come back. When does that expire, the opportunity? - I would have to actually ask my business intelligence analyst, JC Elliott, to address that question, ma'am. - Good evening, JC Elliott.

43:27 I believe that the last date that we can impose the sales tax is before the sun setting of the statute, which is June of 2028. - June 2028? - That's correct. - Okay, thank you. I support law enforcement and responsible public safety investments, such as what you've shared with us and what we're trying to accomplish. And right now, I believe the responsible choice is to pause before adding another tax for our residents. And just as I've shared last time, I think too many working families, seniors, and people living on fixed incomes are struggling with the cost of housing, groceries, utilities, and just everyday necessities. And even our own staff report, as I mentioned last week, acknowledges that this sales tax will disproportionately affect our lower income residents.

44:25 And I believe that we should consider the bigger picture here. Clark County voters may soon be asked to consider additional funding for a new jail, and before the city adds another tax, we should pause, hear what the voters say about the county's proposal, and hire our new police chief. And therefore, right now, I will not be supporting this sales tax. - Any other comments from council? Councilor Harless. - Can you explain in more detail the grant that was mentioned earlier about the matching, the restrictions of the grant, and what it can be used for, timing, that kind of thing, just as a reminder for what we're discussing today and when we mention that grant? - Absolutely, again, JC Elliot. The grant that we have applied for, we have not been awarded yet, is to support and the salary and benefits for 16 entry-level police officers, the equipment that those officers would wear,

45:24 such as vests, radios, body-worn cameras, et cetera. It also would support hiring those officers, so it gives us some additional liquid funds so we can supplement our staffing and our background and recruiting unit to expedite the hiring process for those officers. And we would leverage likely retired VP officers on a part-time basis to help conduct some of those backgrounds. And in addition to that, those positions also require patrol vehicles. There's 10 vehicles that are associated into that as well. With regard to the sales tax, the match is applied towards the salary and benefit component of that, and so the sales tax would be matching 25% of salary and benefits, and the other 75% would come from the grant for the term of the grant, should we be awarded that.

46:20 - And the grant can only be used for hiring officers. - The priority for the grant is to hire officers. The grant application could be brought in to other public safety needs. At this point, what we've applied for is for the hiring of the officers' equipment, as I just went over. And principally in House Bill 2015, the first priority that was indicated was to hire new police officers to supplement police officer staffing in Washington State, as it ranks 51st out of 50 states in the District of Columbia in staffing. So that was the initial intent, but there are broader purposes beyond it. - Thank you. - And do you see these are officers new to law enforcement, not laterals? - That's correct. The goal was to broaden the total staffing volume, the total number of officers in lieu of hiring laterals from other agencies in Washington State.

47:19 We wanted to bring in, the legislature wanted to bring in new officers entering the career field. - Great, thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right, I'll open the public hearing. Officer, would you tell Ms. Carmen De Leon that this is her opportunity?

47:41 (muffled speaking) - Ms. De Leon, this is your opportunity to testify on the public hearing. - Which public hearing was this one? I'm sorry, I lost my-- - This is item number six that you signed up for. - Oh.

48:12 I didn't know it was coming up. Well, you know, I think people are overtaxed and all that, but like I just finished saying, if certain people, you know, the regular population is expected to live off of a minimum wage, and yet we have certain employees even in this room making upwards of $100,000. And even just the beginning police officers are 80,000. So, I mean, a big man would say, "Hey, I'll take a pay cut in favor of the city." But some people, you know, I guess they're real needy of money because it doesn't matter if people are, you know, dying in the streets. And I do think that the police should be reimbursed. I don't like more taxes, but if they need it, you gotta give it to 'em. Because who else are you gonna call when somebody breaks into your house, when you got people breaking into your cars? You need more police if you want more, you want more population, you're putting in 5,000 more houses

49:11 but where are the new police? Where are the new hospitals? Where are the new everything? You know, you want more people but how are you failing to accommodate everybody? And I know that for a fact because they just said they were dropping cases because there's not enough public defenders, you know, and that's not fair, you know, because if I didn't get my three misdemeanors with Giovanni, which was misdemeanor one, violation of restraining, misdemeanor two, violation of restraining, misdemeanor three, but after that it became a felony and I needed that for him to have three years in prison giving me peace. So we need the misdemeanors, you know, when it comes to domestic violence. I mean, jaywalking, who cares? You know, petty crimes, nobody cares but for them to not have domestic violence, you don't know how many lives are at risk and it's not just the act of violence, it's the psychological scars that go on for generations because it's a proven fact that when a pregnant mother

50:08 has domestic violence, we feel it, the baby feels it and the baby is born with that trauma. So we need all the domestic violence prosecution. We don't need these people just throwing out a domestic violence charge just 'cause it's a misdemeanor. Three misdemeanors make that felony we need and if you haven't lived through it, you're not gonna understand it. I envy you 'cause you can't understand it but we need domestic violence prosecution and those laws are there for a reason and nobody, nobody had enough backbone to do what they did for me. So you gotta understand, there's good and bad in every demographic but ain't nobody braver than these policemen that have saved me before and you know, we can't shortchange 'em. I'm just saying, I got extra time, God bless. - Kimberly Albon from the center.

51:04 - Kimberly Goheen Albon, so speaking to, as the gentleman said, broader options. Our community is currently facing a profound crisis. The judicial system in Clark County is fundamentally broken. It is a system currently lacking true law, efficiency and the swift delivery of justice. Because of this, I stand before you to urge that the estimated $6 million generated by this public safety sales tax be used strategically, transparently and with deep intentionality. My son is suffering from a shortfall of public defenders to this very day. To fix the broken system, we must look closely at where the machinery is failing. A massive point of failure right now is the backlog of the public defense system. Strict state mandated caseload limits are completely valid. Public defenders should have the time to properly defend

52:04 human beings, but without immediate local funding to hire more attorneys, the system has ground to a halt. Justice delayed is justice denied. This tax will directly fund additional public defenders, which is a crucial step towards restoring constitutionality, mandated legal representation and ensuring that the true law and justice are upheld for every single person entering our courts. Furthermore, fixing our judicial system has a direct, immediate impact on the crisis inside the Clark County Corrections Center, which resides there in Vancouver. Right now, because of our court backlog, and understaffed individuals are languishing in jail for extended periods of time, simply waiting for their day in court. This overextends jail staff, exacerbates overcrowding and creates unsafe, inhumane conditions for detainees who have not yet been convicted of a crime.

53:02 By ingesting these funds into the judicial infrastructure, specifically public defense and court proceedings, we can accelerate case resolution. This will directly help those inside the Clark County Jail by reducing unnecessarily pre-trial detention time, lowering the jail population and ensuring individuals are treated with dignity under a functional legal timeline. We're also told that this tax will fund 16 police officers and stabilize our community safety pipeline, but true public safety requires a balanced scale. More arrests without a functioning court system only forces more water into our bursting pipes. If we are going to ask Vancouver consumers to pay more at the checkout counter, every dime must go toward balancing the scale. I urge this council to ensure that these funds are not just used to catch crime, but to properly administer justice,

54:01 fund the public defenders, clear the court backlogs, review the pressure, release the pressure on the Clark County Correction Center. - Thank you for your testimony. That closes the public hearing and it brings it back to council. Councilor, motion? - Move to approve. - Paulson, seconded by Hansen. Roll call vote, please. - Is there a discussion? - I thought we had some. - Did you have a question, comment? - Yeah, just a comment, question. Just, you know, usually there's discussion with. - Comment or question? - Yes. So I had some questions and I wanted to, you know, hear public comment first before moving forward. So, you know, I just want to make it pretty clear like what this ordinance is saying and what it isn't. And I mentioned this during council communications

54:56 a week ago, but regardless, you know, reporting goes out. And this ordinance, it's a potential adaptable revenue source and it covers a wide array per RSW of what it can be used for. It's not just officers. It can be used for public defense as what was mentioned, as well as alternative response programs, mental health crisis response, homelessness response, such as our heart team and also domestic violence services and legal advocates as well for them. So it was a recommendation that it goes towards the match for the 16 officers, but that's not what the ordinance says. So that will be ultimately determined, you know, through the budget process and how things are allocated. So just want to make sure that is like very clear. And right now, you know, I do have concerns

55:54 with some of the other temporary funding with regard to like heart, for example, we have taken philanthropy dollars to help support that team and that's not forever either. And so something like this is also an opportunity for something that I would consider giving us some sovereignty in how we fund things and that we're not dependent on those one time sort of dollars. So that's one of the lenses that I'm applying and trying to balance that out with what was brought forward by council member Perez about affordability crisis that we're in. And it's unfortunate that once again, as a city, we have regressive tools and that's all we have to addressing these crises, such as the public defense. So I look forward to, if this is passed, having a conversation about how it's allocated and used

56:52 and that this ordinance does not earmark it for that. So just wanted to add that comment and thank you. - Any other comments or questions? Okay, roll call vote, please. - Council Member Harless. - Aye. - Perez. - Nay. - Fox. - Aye. - Paulson. - Aye. - Stover. - Aye. - Hanson. - Aye. - Mayor McEnerny-Ogle. - Aye, motion passes. - Thank you. That concludes the public hearings and the consent agenda, brings it to communications. Thank you, chief. Thank you, JC. From the council, Councilor Harless. - Pass. - Councilor Perez. - I just wanna reiterate my vote on this last ordinance that my concern is timing and the cumulative tax burden that continues to be placed on all of us.

57:50 So I just wanted to clarify that. And today I had a great field visit at the Tetra Park Packaging and learned so much about the contribution that they have as far as jobs and the transition into more sustainable products and the technology that's being used. So just a huge appreciation for the folks who led us on that little knowledge tour at Tetra Park. Councilor Harless joined me as well as Senator Adrian Cortez and a couple of other folks. So just, if you haven't had a chance to visit them or tour them, I would recommend doing so. And that's it. Thank you. - Yes, thank you. I just wanted to mention something that I've been working on over this year, I guess, is there's been a group of female veterans

58:47 who have been looking to form a group here in Clark County. And we have an event planned this Saturday at the VFW 7824, which is located at 400 North Andresen Road. So it's going to be from two to 4 p.m. this Saturday. I have shared this event with our city staff 'cause I know we have female veterans that work here at the city. And I'm really hoping that you'll show up and join us for just some appetizers and some good conversation. But it's really around understanding best how to support ourselves in this community to raise up the contributions of women veterans that sometimes get overlooked, not fully intentionally. I know that 'cause there's a lot of veterans in our community that are also not very involved too. And so really just trying to get more folks involved

59:46 in our kind of continuing service even after the service. So please join us on Saturday. So again, it's two to 4 p.m. this Saturday at the VFW on 400 North Andresen Road. And that's for women veterans. - Okay, thank you. Councilor Paulson? - Yes. - Councilor Stauber? - Thank you, Mayor. We've had a lot of conversation tonight about tree canopy. While sitting in my physical therapy office where I spend a lot of time, I happened across an issue of National Geographic and an article they had on how LA's urban tree canopy reveals hidden inequalities. And it is a walk down Vermont Avenue,

1:00:45 six miles of Vermont Avenue. They talk about tree canopy, heat islands, and income level as you make that walk. It is, I was prompted to talk about this so I was looking for it online, is actually much better online than it is in the magazine because it's interactive. So if you have the opportunity, how LA's urban tree canopy reveals hidden inequalities from National Geographic, take a look at it. Second thing, thank you to city staff, Laura, for highlighting the new ops center page. That page still needs to be updated. I'm gonna pick on one particular part.

1:01:40 So under the question, how much will this project cost and how it will be funded, the answer is all about funding and nothing about cost. And a lot of the information is, again, out of date or stale, I shouldn't say out of date, but has not been updated in a while. So I would still appreciate if that was updated and a lot more information was shared. Thank you. - Okay, Councilor Hanson. Councilors, the last coffee for the Main Street Promise is this Friday at four o'clock. Divine can sign. The interesting thing that has been going on is we're ahead of schedule. We won't put the trees in yet because it's still too hot, but we'll start seeing them more into the fall. OPB has two reporters now in Southwest Washington. We're fortunate enough to have enough

1:02:39 exciting news going on in Clark County that OPB has brought on a second reporter to cover this neck of the woods. And we still have a bunch of neighborhood picnics out there, even though school has already started. We will not have a meeting next week. We will not have a meeting the following week on the 7th. Happy Labor Day to everyone. We will see each other on the 14th, so we'll have a bit of a break there. But Happy Labor Day to all of those folks. City Manager, comments? - Yeah, I did want to address one thing while Laura Shepherd makes her way up here to brief the council on what we found out with the focus groups after the citizen survey. And it's related to something that Councilor Paulson brought up about the use of Proposition 2. One of our plans is actually to start issuing an annual report, much like we do with the affordable housing levy, to detail for the public how that money has been used,

1:03:38 show what projects it's been used on. I felt like if we were doing that with the affordable housing funds for any of these voter approved levies, we just need to make that part of our practice. - Okay. Laura. - Thank you. Laura Shepherd, Communications Director for the city. I'm here today to present additional findings from our community research regarding the biennium budget. You'll recall that we worked with DHM Research on our initial survey. They have a long history of survey and public researching in the Pacific Northwest, which is one of the reasons why we work with them. We've worked with them on the last three surveys for the biennium budget. And of course, that's why we chose to dive in with them on our focus groups this time around. We decided to do the focus groups this time. We hadn't before.

1:04:37 There were some, some of the data kind of left us scratching our heads a little bit and that we wanted to ask more questions. The public talked a lot about infrastructure. They talked, we asked about finance and they talked a lot about public safety. And as we were looking at the data, as I was taking the city manager and the budget committee through it, we were wondering, well, wow, we'd like to know more about what they think. What do they mean by when they say infrastructure? Are they talking about streets? Are they talking about buildings when they talk about public safety? Are they specifically talking about police? Are they specifically talking about fire? Or as some residents do, they conflate homelessness and public safety. So really we wanted to do the focus groups to ask a few more questions about some of the really great data that we received. I'd like to introduce you again to Jen Hoker, vice president at DHM and I'll drive, but she'll take us through the data. So I'm gonna hand it over to Jen and Jen will let me know

1:05:35 when you want me to forward the slides. - Amazing, thank you so much, Laura. You can go to the next slide and we can jump right in. I think Laura really covered the goal of our focus groups and it really was to just dig a little deeper and to illuminate those findings that we did find in the survey research, particularly around public safety and infrastructure. If you go to the next slide, from a methodology standpoint, we did do two full focus groups. They were two hours each and it was on Saturday, June 18th that they were conducted. We had 10 participants in one group, eight participants in another and we've added a lot of quotes throughout the report that might be hard to see now, but I'll try to hit all of the main points. If you go to the next slide, really we wanted to make sure too that this whole report was accessible and so we did make sure that we were very focused on making sure we adhered

1:06:34 to the web content accessibility guidelines throughout. You can go to the next one. We can actually skip through these key takeaways, Laura, if we just wanna go right to the content slides because I'm gonna hit all of these key takeaways as we go through. Great, so we can go to the next slide and talk about the demographics. So the goal of focus group research isn't representativeness as it would be in a quantitative survey. In a quantitative survey, we're looking to make sure we have the exact percentages and how they're represented throughout the city of Vancouver. In a focus group, it's a little bit different. It's more about making sure each of the subgroups of the community are represented so that every resident has a voice and we try to make sure that we include residents from all income brackets, different age ranges. We wanna make sure we have our BIPOC communities included

1:07:33 as well, renters, homeowners, again, so it's more about making sure that we give different demographic subgroups a voice. You can go to the next slide. And so when we look at the top issues and budget priorities, you can keep going, thank you. So we asked them, what's one problem in the city of Vancouver that you would really like government officials to do something about? And not surprisingly aligned very well to our survey results. Homelessness was definitely one of the top concerns, but then instead of kind of the broad category of infrastructure, we really got roads and sidewalk maintenance. We also did see a little bit more of kind of the affordability impact. So the cost of living, housing costs, needing low income assistance programs and things like that also bubbled up to the top, but it really was those kind of two buckets of homelessness and then the road sidewalk and sidewalk maintenance. You can go to the next one.

1:08:31 And we did ask them, if we're looking at everything from a budget perspective, what city service would you wanna protect at all costs? And really what we saw was police services, support for the homeless, fire and emergency medical services and access to affordable housing for all. It was really those services that they felt were most personally relevant to them and had the greatest impact on their life. The one service they'd be most willing to cut, definitely more focused on ones they either don't find a direct connection to personally, or they don't feel is necessary right now or that it could wait a little bit. And so we saw property maintenance and enforcement come up, zoning and lane use and climate action were ones that kind of bubbled up. But I will say that respondents had a really hard time picking any service to cut. They really didn't want to have an answer there. They wanted to keep everything. So it really was a bit of just really kind of pushing them to name a service they would be willing to part with.

1:09:30 You can go to the next one. Sure. - Ty Stover, wanna make sure 'cause you said something and what is written is different. Zoning and land use? - Lane use. What does lane use mean? - No, that might have been an error. It might be zoning and land use. I think that when the team was putting it together, they were thinking about the different, 'cause you'll see later in the report, there's a lot of talk about bike lanes, bus lanes and things like that. And so I think when we were coding it, that's how it got coded. But that's generally what we were thinking of. - Okay, land use. Okay, thank you. - Thank you. - Please continue. - Thank you.

1:10:27 And so we wanted to say, when we're thinking about what they would be willing to cut, they really, again, were focused on kind of having that firsthand experience. So again, they all had experience with police, fire, affordable housing, things like that. So that was really kind of driving things forward. And then what they did see as a priority, but not the top priority was viewed a little bit less urgently. And again, when we were kind of looking at code enforcement, zoning, arts and cultures, it wasn't things that people really wanted to part with, it was just things that they didn't see as urgently. You can go to the next one. And we did talk to individuals, again, about their personal spending and finances. As we saw within the survey, things are getting worse for a lot of residents within the city of Vancouver, or they're staying the same.

1:11:23 It just really isn't giving that kind of positive momentum. And on the next slide, we dig into that a bit further. So why? Really it's because the inflation, the rising costs of essentials, gas, groceries, things like that are not keeping pace with how people are being paid by their employers. They talk about not only losing jobs or delays in getting unemployment benefits, but just that their salaries even haven't kept up with rising costs. And so things that they were previously able to afford or previously felt comfortable doing, they've had to make significant cuts against. There was also a lot of talk about housing, not only for residents that moved into the area that say housing costs are seemingly out of reach for some individuals, especially younger respondents or younger residents, but renters also had some struggles.

1:12:22 What they were telling us was those that rented an apartment were saying they have to kind of put up with the maximum increases that apartments are allowed to charge every year because to move would mean they have to pay one or two months additional rent. They don't have that kind of money saved up. And so it really becomes like they're stuck and just kind of at the mercy of their landlords. And the participants who are feeling okay really had that kind of fallback. They either already owned a home, have owned a home for a significant amount of time, or they had someone leave them a property or they've inherited money. And so those are the things that make them feel better. And then we had a few respondents that were also working multiple jobs, and that was the way that they were able to feel financially secure. And then, again, as we saw in the survey results, this shouldn't be surprising. People really don't find gas, groceries,

1:13:20 or housing affordable as well as taxes. We did see a few respondents that were saying, okay, it's affordable. It's very much driven by income, but people really are feeling the pinch right now. You can go to the next one. Yes, as I said, I won't kind of spend too much time on this slide, but gas was kind of the least affordable essential. Really, they were talking about how they plan trips to save gas money, thinking about how they structure their day or how they can get out of driving sometimes using public transit, but people were really feeling gas is an essential that's just really not affordable right now. Groceries as well, knowing that they need to buy groceries, they've started changing what they are buying to cheaper options, and really talking about how it's essentials that are getting cut at this point from their budgets as well. Housing affordability, again, we kind of talked about that on the other side.

1:14:19 It really depends on whether they're renting or buying. If they own a home, they're far more likely to feel that housing is affordable. And then on taxes, it's really tied to trust. If they feel like taxes are affordable and they believe that the city is operating transparently and is accountable for the money that they take from taxes, that makes them feel like things are slightly more affordable. So you don't see kind of as harsh of a look at taxes versus say gas, taxes seem a bit more affordable, but it really is about whether or not they think the money is being spent in the right ways. You can go to the next one. Okay, so when we talk about public safety and homelessness, when you think about safety in Vancouver, this is what comes to mind. So we really wanted them to define it for us. And it really is a pretty broad definition. They really focus on police availability and response time, but you can see that homelessness visibility

1:15:16 does come into play, which can also be loosely connected to crime rates, drug use in public, and property crime. But they also really think about safety in terms of traffic safety and pedestrian safety. There was a lot of talk about sidewalks, crosswalks, unsafe intersections, and then really just feeling safe when they're walking about is kind of all the things that they lump into kind of that public safety definition. And then we asked them if they were satisfied with a level of safety in Vancouver, and most were. And we really see that it's based on their experiences. So those that were satisfied reported that when they called 911, they were able to get emergency response times very quickly. Portland does Vancouver a great service in the fact that everything is better than Portland. So if they have experience with Portland, Vancouver is definitely seen in a more positive light. And then talking about just how their community

1:16:15 has kind of come together to look after each other. When we're thinking about the top reasons for dissatisfaction, again, it's the experience. So a lot of these individuals had experiences with slow police response and perceptions that there just wasn't enough officers on staff to be able to deal with what was needed, seeing property crime and theft in their neighborhoods, and then visible homelessness and drug use. If you go to the next one. But things were going well when they talk about it. Again, people talked about how when they called 911, that they had a fall. They were so impressed with how quickly people showed up. Again, a lot of it was really focused on first responders, fire departments, police departments. And that came up very specific and concrete. It wasn't just a generalized appreciation. They very much had specific examples of how emergency responders had showed up

1:17:14 for them in the past. You can go to the next one. But then what's going wrong? So depending on their experience, as I mentioned before, that really shapes their perception. So one gentleman was talking about how he came home and his front door to his apartment had been completely broken into, and it took police 45 minutes to show up. Another was talking about how it was early in the morning and a police officer was directing traffic, but there just wasn't enough support. And when they asked him kind of what was going on, they were told that he was the only police officer available. And so they're kind of noticeable shortage in only having one officer for downtown. And then also talking about that there's a hiring freeze for police officers. Again, these are their perceptions. That doesn't mean they're necessarily true, but they kind of were frustrated by the fact that the city is willing to pay overtime when they could just hire another person, perhaps at a lower cost.

1:18:14 You can go to the next one. And then also, like I mentioned before, crosswalks, bike lanes, children being able to go outside and play are also kind of part of that public safety umbrella. And there are some areas of the city that they don't feel safe at from a crosswalk perspective. Also, in using bike lanes, they really like the installation of bike lanes. They see that there's kind of progress being made there, but they also feel that they're in some unsafe locations, especially where traffic moves at a very fast pace. And then, again, I think it was just the child safety, being able for kids to be able to ride bikes. You can go to the next one. And so then we wanted to know whether they thought, was public safety getting better or worse? And it was evenly split between the two groups. If they were newer residents, especially residents that came from Portland, they think that the city is very safe. It's getting better,

1:19:13 very impressed kind of with all the safety. But again, it's in that, it's how they look at it and their point of view. So if they're coming from Portland, you get directly compared to Portland. The same thing with Seattle, and Vancouver shines very brightly in comparison with the two larger cities. But then longer tenured residents, excuse me, see that the city is getting worse or believe that the city is getting worse 'cause they've been here for a long time that they see the city is growing quickly and they see some of the problems that didn't exist before emerging or seeing homeless populations grow, for example. Also kind of assaults or shootings or things like that they feel are happening more prevalently. And so it's really kind of their comparison point is Vancouver 10, 20 years ago, not to Portland. You can go to the next one. And we really did want to see if homelessness and public safety were very much connected in residents minds. And they definitely are.

1:20:12 We were looking at it and there really was two camps. And I would say most of the individuals are really leaning towards services. But from an enforcement perspective, they really did want to see increased police presence near homeless camps. They don't want them pushed out or cleared out. There was very big recognition that that's all the belongings those people have. So when they go and clean out the camps and they're literally left with nothing. And so they really didn't want that, but they wanted to be able to feel safe in those areas as well. Most individuals wanted more support for homeless residents, particularly those that want help in getting off the street. And so they really did want those services available for those individuals. You can go to the next one. But when we look at how they want to prevent homelessness, they want to be able to have services before people are on the street.

1:21:12 There was a few individuals who had experiences with almost becoming homeless and they were trying to find services before they actually had to be on the street. And again, their perspective, but they said that there was no service until they were legitimately on the street. And there was nothing to help them from becoming homeless. And so that's really where they wanted to see more service prevention at that area. And then as it kind of goes down the continuum, they wanted to make sure people had transitional housing or ability to kind of get off the street when they were ready. They talked about how there was a lot of vacant houses in the city of Vancouver. And could that be something that women with children could utilize from a homeless population? And then again, they haven't wanted as much clean up visibility, again, kind of understanding that's where these individuals live, but wanting it to be safe.

1:22:09 Then we talk about infrastructure, you can go to the next one. And so infrastructure is very broad in the minds of individuals. And I think that's really helpful when we look at and try to interpret the survey results. Participants really do have that kind of wide definition. It's primarily based in transportation networks, roads, streets, freeways, like that's what comes to mind first, but it also includes sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, public transit in their minds. Also, basic utilities and systems, they were really satisfied with stormwater management, but it also is included in their definition of infrastructure. Also, they think community amenities, so parks, trails, recreation centers, and schools are part of infrastructure in their minds. And then also, as much kind of further down the continuum, growth development and planning.

1:23:08 So, how are we thinking about housing and business development? That's all wrapped up in an infrastructure definition for residents. Overall, people are pretty satisfied with infrastructure. So parks, people talk about how beautiful the parks are in Vancouver, that they feel really lucky, that the city, when there are big storm surges, water is able to be dispersed. Roads and arterial streets, you start to see kind of people becoming a little bit less dissatisfied. Again, they kind of recognize that highways are really well maintained, but sometimes side roads can have potholes and things like that. And you kind of see too, there is just an appreciation for the bike lanes and recreational centers and things like that. But people mentioned that it didn't seem as accessible in some cases to some residents, particularly the rec centers. And then sidewalks and crossings, we're gonna talk about that on another slide,

1:24:06 but people mentioned a few specific intersections that they really feel unsafe crossing. But again, what do they credit in terms of infrastructure? They really love the waterfront redevelopment. That was something that unanimously kind of, no matter who we were talking to, even if they hadn't been there yet, was just really proud of that within the city. The growth of the different parks and trails that are maintained, schools they think are very competitive even at the national level, and then the expansion of bike lanes. And then when we look at the areas of improvement, it's really the smaller things. So potholes not being fixed, traffic lights making intersections unsafe, sidewalks that they believe were promised in their areas, but never built. And then if they call in and report a pothole or a light outage, the response time and actually fixing that was something that they really thought could be improved.

1:25:02 But when we asked, what really could be better, tell us, it was roads kind of across the board. Again, they talked about kind of the maintenance issue, potholes, cracks that don't seem to ever get fixed. They thought if they're going to take the time to kind of report something that it should get fixed very quickly. And then if something's promised, they really do wanna see that follow through. And so when they're involved and if they're kind of making the effort, they really wanna see results. You can go to the next one. And then, so these are the intersections or roads that they really wanted to talk about from a problematic standpoint. So 18th and Anderson, light timing was an issue, Mill Plain kind of how there are traffic lights at every block. I won't go through all of these, but these were really the intersections that they felt that were really problematic.

1:26:02 6th and Washington in particular was a bit problematic from a crosswalk perspective. They're like, it's so busy, it's scary to drive through, it's scary to walk through. And so that was one that really was highlighted as well. And then 4th Plain, I wanna mention this because while people really love the expansion of bus lanes and having the bus system be more efficient, what they really do see as well though is less room for cars and more traffic being created for cars. And so, again, the frustration is really around just implementation and uneven implementation. It's not blanket dissatisfaction. They really do notice when things are changed or fixed, but they do feel the gaps. Again, like they want to see those sidewalks being built. They wanna see more crosswalks. They don't wanna have to walk six blocks to find a crosswalk. And so it's really those little things that they wanna see that would change how they felt overall.

1:27:01 You can go to the next one. And then they talk about bike lane coverage. Again, they wanna make sure that they like, that they value this bike lane expansion, but they worry about the safety of it. And they really wanna make sure that's taken into consideration when expanding bike lanes to make sure that riders are safe and not at risk from being hit by cars. Next one. And then, again, this is just coming back to the bus lanes. One group had a large discussion about buses and how the new system definitely made things faster, less stops, they are able to get to their destinations quicker. But some residents did note that while they could walk out their door and it was two blocks away before, now it's six or seven blocks that they have to walk. And for some that were disabled, that was a really big sticking point because it makes it more difficult for them to move around the city. Okay.

1:28:01 And then we get to funding and trade-offs. So we saw a very similar breakdown on if they'd be willing to pay more in taxes for a higher level of city services. Most are willing, but it's very dependent on income. Income is really the great predictor of whether they're satisfied with city services and whether they would pay more in taxes. And so these were percentages that we found in the survey. And so while it reflected 49% said they pay more, we saw something very, very similar. They wanted to fund education, homelessness prevention, public safety training. But when we looked at 38% of the survey respondents said they were willing to pay more to maintain services, not add services. In both focus groups, it was a big zero. They didn't want to pay more in taxes just to maintain services. There had to be an added benefit.

1:29:00 And it really came through on that transparency and accountability front. They wanted to make sure that the money is being used well, that we're looking at all options before asking people to pay more from a tax perspective. And again, it really comes down to transparency. So where every dollar actually goes and how the money is being used. There was a discussion in one of the groups that that information is available, but some respondents did not think that it was easily available, that you had to kind of go check through multiple sources, multiple pages to compile all the information. And so they really wanted something that was very easy to see and very clear that if they're paying a gas tax, where that money's going or any other type of tax for that matter. And then they also wanted to see how the current taxes are being used and how they're being allocated so they could make better informed decisions on what to fund. You can go to the next one.

1:29:58 One thing that was a little bit unusual, they wanted to see more volunteerism, more fundraising and grants versus being, so kind of shifting the burden away from individual households. They were kind of like, we could, people will volunteer to take care of the parks and things like that. They were kind of just throwing everything at the wall to think of alternatives to tax solutions. And I think the overall takeaway for me there is that they just wanna make sure their representatives are doing the same. But what they are most willing to pay for are education in schools, homelessness, water, sewers, parks, and roads and transportation. Oddly, even though that's such a sticking point for people within the infrastructure conversation, while it's in kind of the top five things that they'd be willing to fund, it comes in at the bottom. And then we asked them before they left if they had any final advice

1:30:58 before leaving the room for the city. And again, they really wanted to just put a fine point on the transparency and accountability for all the money collected. They wanted to focus a lot, especially when it comes to homelessness on prevention, rather than having a response. How do we help people that are on the edge or have recently become homeless so that we can start to decrease the population overall? And again, small fixes and follow through. They really wanna see, in addition to these big projects that the city takes on, the small problems also being addressed. And then they want the city to also keep in mind who it's being built for. There was examples of either luxury stores or luxury car dealerships taking the place of affordable grocery stores and things like that. And they just want there to be balance. They know that some of these things are gonna bring revenue in for the city, but at the same time, they just wanna make sure that the city that they've chosen to live in

1:31:57 is still affordable for them, and they have places that they can go and frequent, as well as kind of getting in newer, nicer, and more expanded offerings. And so that's really all that we had from the focus groups, but I'm happy to answer any questions. I know I wanted to make sure we got through that in our 20 minutes. - Okay. Hang on. Councilors, you had 47 slides. Pick the one item that you really wanna focus on, and the rest we can direct to Laura to get personal information from if you have it. Councilor Perez. - Hi, Laura. I noticed there's only 18 people. Was that the goal, or was there a goal of a number of people? I'm just looking at 18 respondents

1:32:56 for a population of 208,000, and so I'm not sure how much weight I really am going to put on the results here. - I'll ask Jen to speak to the methodology about why focus groups are a much smaller, concentrated group of people. - Yeah, absolutely. So for the survey results, that was the larger sample size. What focus groups allow us to do is to really get that directional data. So that was the goal for each group. You have the most, you get the most detailed conversations, and you can kind of dig and allow everyone to speak in a group of eight to 10. Any more than that, and you really don't get to have those deep conversations to illuminate the findings of the survey, which was really the goal, was to kind of dig in to why people felt the way they did. What were some of the things that they really wanted to talk about in terms of infrastructure and public safety?

1:33:54 Those you can't really ask during a survey. You know, you have very limited space to reach a large amount of people, but a focus group allows you that flexibility and allows you to really kind of dig in to more directional findings. So no, they're not representative of the whole population, but they are very directional in helping us interpret the larger survey. - Yeah, I get the focus groups. My question is the number of 18 people. - Yes, that is very standard for a focus group. It's eight to 10 people per group, and again, it's meant to be qualitative in nature, so it's meant to only provide those kind of directional looks and insights and to really kind of dig deep into why people feel the way they do. - Okay, counselors, any other questions or comments? - Mayor, may I speak to that as well? There's another reason why we only did two. We also wanted to be cost-conscious. I mean, we could have done, we could have held more focus groups,

1:34:54 but we felt that we'd probably just keep it to two, so we kept the price fairly reasonable on that type of qualitative data. - Okay. Councilor Harless. - Yeah, the age gap, it's like 18 to 34, 35 to 54. Those are really wide. There's multiple generations within some of those, so I'd be curious how close to 18 that those two people were. Those are much different experiences than those that are 34, for example. So more of a comment than anything. It's maybe having smaller, in the future, when we do focus groups for anything, that the age breakout is a little bit more staggered. And I know that there's issues with trying to have anonymity and everything, so however we can narrow it while still keeping that.

1:35:54 And then kind of a side question, what is the deal with six in Washington? (laughs) That's my takeaway from that. - There was a traffic accident that took out one of the poles, and there's a very extended lead time on the replacement. - Any other comments?

1:36:17 Okay. Councilor Stover. - Thank you, Mayor. So the big one is still trying to understand this, this issue that the most important thing is streets, and the least thing we're willing to fund is streets, that one's a tough one to wrap the head around, that divergence there. - I always think of it as people hold multitudes, and I know that's not a great answer for this question, Jen, you may have some more insight into that, but I think people sometimes believe two things at the same time. Just human nature. - I think that's definitely true. I think the other piece is gas prices, and I think when people think about gas taxes, gas prices, there's the thought that those are going to more transportation-oriented funding streams. They briefly mention it.

1:37:17 I don't think they are necessarily making a hard connection in their mind, but I think that they do tend to conflate that, oh, if gas prices are going up, you must be getting more money from gas taxes, and therefore that should go to streets and roads and things like that as well. - Thank you, that's insightful, and then I'm gonna do my own commentary of every other time when we've had high gas prices, people have slowed down and moved to smaller vehicles, and we're just not seeing that this time, and so it's just like, I'm struggling with cognitive dissonance about that just in general at this point. - Okay, thank you. All right, thank you, Laura. - Thank you, Council. - All right, city manager, anything else? - Nothing additional tonight, Mayor. - City attorney, anything?

1:38:16 All right, that concludes the business of the Vancouver City Council, brings us into the community forum opportunity where individuals can talk to us about items that are important to them. This is also an area that we do not videotape, we audiotape it for public records, so please turn off the TV. >> Thank you.