Good afternoon. Welcome to
Vancouver City Council. Today
is May 4th. Monday, May 2026.
I'm Anne McEnerny Ogle mayor
for the City of Vancouver, and
we will be starting this 430
meeting with a workshop on
digital Accessibility briefing.
And we have with us Laura
Shepherd Director of
Communications. Laura, go ahead.
>> Great. Thank you, mayor.
Again, I'm Laura Shepherd,
director of communications for
the City of Vancouver. And I'm
here today to talk with you
about digital accessibility,
accessibility at the city. And
let's jump right in. Oops. I'd
like to just go through a quick
agenda with you. Before we get
started, I'm going to talk a
little bit about digital
accessibility, what it is, why
we're working on it, what it's
all about. I'm going to talk a
little bit about our compliance
roadmap, the path that we've
been on for the last year and a
half. Then I'm going to take
you through some of the
sustaining activities that we
have planned and that we've
been working on for the last
year as well. Then want to talk
with you a little bit about
public information, how people
can report any issues that they
might have, and then open it up
for question and discussion. So
let's go ahead and get started.
So just as a little primer, I
know you all probably already
know this, but I want to give
you a definition of digital
accessibility, accessibility.
Basically, digital
accessibility ensures that all
residents, including those with
disabilities, have equal access
to city information. Our online
information, our services, our
tools, it's making sure that
we're creating and maintaining
websites, tools, apps,
documents, videos, meetings
like this in a way that people
of all abilities can perceive
and understand and navigate
them and use them. Of course,
this is no surprise to you.
Equity, equity and inclusion
has long been part of our work.
It's part of the city's vision
and values. Of course, it's
part of the city's strategic
plan and of course, it's
council priority as well to
backing up several years,
though in 1996, the Department
of Justice established title
two of the Americans with
Disabilities Act to say that
that covers digital services
for government agencies. In
2024, we were all anxiously
waiting as we heard rumors of
an update to to that to title
two. And then finally an update
came in. A new rule was
published basically saying that
all governments, whether it's
federal, local, or state
governments, school districts,
the port, any government agency
must provide its information in
digital formats in a way that
is accessible. So what happened
after? Sorry, I jumped ahead my
story. I want to talk a little
bit more about the Department
of Justice rule, because it
really sets the stage for what
we've been doing for the last
year and a half. So for all of
our digital tools, they must
comply with the web content
accessibility guidelines.
You'll you'll hear, hear people
say we gag a lot. Version 2.1,
level AA. And that's basically
the technical standard for all
web and mobile content,
including our website, our
social media, our apps, any
video delivered through web
based tools, and any documents
delivered on web based tools.
And since we're a jurisdiction
with over 50,000 residents, we
were supposed to comply by
April 2026. Well, we I had
heard at about 6:00 in the
morning on April 26th that the
Department of Justice decided
to push that out by a year to
April 2027. So for many
jurisdictions, they were
breathing a sigh of relief. And
I could say that with a little
bit of authority. I'm in
several group chats and
Facebook pages with many other
government communicators, and
there were many that were very
happy that there was a delay.
And those of us who have been
working a little faster over
the last year and a half year
and a half, we all just took a
collective sigh and, and
thought. My brain instantly
went to how many things I would
have done differently, what
tools we would have put in
place. And so, but, but the
good news is, is that it gives
us a almost a year to get
really good at this. We were
already pretty ready and now
we've got a year to practice.
We've got a year to do more
training. So I'm actually, I'm
now gotten to the place where
I'm kind of excited that we
have a whole nother year to
really get good at this as an
organization. What are the web
content accessibility
guidelines? It basically, just
as I said, make sure that our
web content is accessible to
all users, including those with
disabilities. There's four main
principles to it. Sometimes
you'll hear people refer to it
just by its acronym Poor. But
since it's not accessible to
refer things just by their
acronyms, here, we will we will
talk about them as, as as their
full word. So to the four main
principles of wcaG is, is it
perceivable? Is it operable? Is
it understandable, and is it
robust? So perceivable? Can you
access it? Can you understand
it? Regardless of what
technology you're on, whether
you're on a phone or a laptop
or you're listening or you're
watching, can you perceive it?
Operable means can you use it?
Can you use it with a device?
Besides a keyboard? Is it
understandable? Meaning can you
navigate it? Can you read it?
Can you understand what's
happening or what's going on,
or what you're looking at, or
what's being read to you
through a screen reader and
then robust that it works with
many different technologies,
whether that's a screen reader,
whether that's whether you're
watching it, whether it's
captions, just there's a
variety of different ways that
the content works with
different technology. And there
are a few exceptions to the
rule in limited cases. I got to
tell you, when I was giving my
first training, about a year
and a half, about a year and a
half ago now, people were
really excited that there were
exceptions to this rule, and I
had to quickly level set folks
that that when we're talking
about this, we are truly
talking about exceptions. There
are some limited cases where
things do not have to meet the
standard, which is why if you
go out to our website today,
you will still see some
documents out there that are
not accessible. And that's
because they've hit one of
these standards. So either pre
existing social media posts,
pre existing meeting videos,
pre existing electronic
documents, archived content,
not just not just old. It
actually has to be in an
archive somewhere. Link third
party content individualized
password protected documents.
That's like for example, your
utility bill and then content
deemed undue burden. I want to
dive into a couple of these
because I think a few of them
are kind of important for, for
us to understand. So for us,
our pre existing social media
post, our pre existing videos,
our pre existing electronic
documents, we were all set and
ready by the deadline to go
fully accessible with our
social media, with our meeting
videos at the deadline. And
we're still going to continue
to do that work just because
the deadline got pushed out, it
doesn't mean we're going to
stop and say, oh, you know,
that's okay. You don't have to
do your social media post in an
accessible fashion. Like I said,
it gives us a year to get
really good at this. So you'll
start to see our social media
look a little bit different.
Now, you may also, you know,
you'll see captions with, with
our videos, like for example,
with reels, you will see
captions with our reels. Now
you'll see probably more robust
descriptions within our social
media where we're not just
showing you something, we're
also telling you about it a lot
more in our captioning, other
than just the messaging that
we're trying to convey to you.
Third party content is content
that as, as obviously that we
don't own, but as, as a city,
we share a lot of third party
content. So sometimes you'll
see things posted on our
website, or you might see
things come through our social
channel and think, oh, wow,
that why isn't that accessible?
It's because it doesn't belong
to us. And if we did anything
to that content, it makes it
ours, which means we would have
to make it accessible. But one
of the things we're going to
have the opportunity to do over
the next year is do a lot of
work with our partners to make
sure that when they're
delivering materials to us,
that they are accessible. And
I'll dig into that a little bit
later in the presentation,
because there's a difference.
If we're paying somebody to do
something for us, they have to
deliver it to us in an
accessible format. If we're
just passing something through,
like, say, there's an event in
one of our parks and we have
some level of partnership with
them, we could share their
flier, and we don't have to
make it accessible. Let's see.
And then undue burden is a
pretty important designation
with this undue burden means
that something is just it would
cost the city too much money,
too much staff time, or we
don't have the technical
capabilities to to make it
accessible. We have a lot of
documents, a lot of materials.
I'm probably getting ahead of
myself again. We probably have
around at least 500 different
documents that I was going to
ask the city manager to sign
off on a memo that says, we're
just saying these are undue
burden right now because we do
not have the technology to
remediate these. But again, I'm
excited. We've got a year so we
can figure out how, hopefully,
to make some of those documents
accessible. As I've said
multiple times, we've been
working on this for over a year
and a half. I want to share a
little bit with you about our
compliance roadmap. So back in
February of around 2025, we
started what I called our
discovery phase. That's where I
worked with one of our city
attorneys just to get a lot of
clarification about the Reule.
What does this mean to us?
What's included? What do we
need to do? What don't we need
to do? What are we liable for?
How are we at risk? So we did a
lot of work in that space. In
early 2025. We also did an
audit of our website, of our
apps and our software. But I'll
get to that in a little bit
later. And then I also started
to explore mandatory training
options for staff. And then
over the summer of last year,
we started to execute. I
developed a remediation
strategy. We started looking at
what were allowable exceptions,
and we established the required
training for staff and started
working on that. And then later
in the summer into the fall, we
started what I call our
multi-track remediation and
compliance plan. We put our
training plan in place. We had
tools for staff, and then we're
in now what I call maybe our
sustaining plus phase mean that,
meaning that we're going to
keep our platforms in
compliance. We're continuing on
training opportunities. But the
thing I'm excited about for the
next one, the additional things
I'm excited about for the next
year and a half is really we
get now we have time to really
dig in on workflows and process
improvements. When we did the
audit of our website, we found
so many different workflows
that needed to be improved,
whether it was on in my shop
from a web development point of
view, or was it a process
improvement in a department
about how they approach their
content or how they get their
content up, or how they even
think about a piece of content?
So I'm really excited to have
time to be able to work on some
of those process improvements
in the next year. So I want to
start with our audit. And that
was that was really one of the
one of the activities that took
a lot of our time over the last
year. It is really the hub for
all city information. Making
sure that our website is
compliant was probably the
highest priority within this
entire project, only
immediately followed by
training staff. So what we did
was we found a company who
could give us do an independent
third party audit of our
website. We found a great
company called Be Accessible.
They audited our website
against wcaG. They used both
automated and manually and
manual testing for our site. So
both they use excuse me, they
use screen readers and you can
see the different. Actually, I
shouldn't say it that way. I
should not say you can see the.
They tested it with different
screen readers and then they
also did testing with different
with a focus group. So keyboard
only users, they did something
called text zoom. They looked
at color contrast. They looked
at screen reader compatibility.
So we did both automated and
person sort of audit on our
website and our content. And we
found two main issues with our
website. What we, what we found
was when we built our website
originally, there were some
different layout choices and
some development choices that
weren't following some of the
web conventions for
accessibility. So we worked, we
been working with our web
website hosting firm to, to
work on that. And those are all
fixed. Now, the other issue
that we have with our website
is our overreliance on PDF and
documents. And I'll show you in
a second and you'll see what I
mean by our overreliance on PDF
and documents. Just too much
content is locked up in formats
that are very difficult to make
accessible. We have too much
content in documents that
really should be content on a
page, too much content that
can't be translated either with
our automatic translator. So
I'm hoping in the next year and
a half to move a couple of
projects forward and workflows
forward to help us out with
that. And here's, and here's
the what I mean, more almost
2500 documents representing
over 32,000 pages that we that
we looked at and that we either
had to remediate or fell into
one of those other categories
that I, that I told you about.
So as I mentioned, we resolved
the development issues with our
site vendor and in-house. And
then we spent a lot of time
working with departments to
determine the status of their
content. We worked with them to
figure out what do they what
are they going to remove? What
are they going to archive? What
do they need to remediate? What
is a preexisting document? And
then what documents are undue
burden? And we're continuing to
work on that. Now, when the
deadline came up to us, we had
just received most of our
documents back from the same
vendor who did the audit to
have them replaced on the
website. And then my team
worked with our other web
vendor to figure out a way that
we're just able to upload and
replace them on the website,
saving us a lot of manual work
that I'm sure the departments
were not looking forward to
doing. So we're still working
on the remediation and
replacement work and, and
hopefully that will be complete
in the next few weeks. But the
challenge will be to not to not
allow additional unremediated
documents hit the website. And
that's a workflow that we're
working on. One of the things
that I did was, and it's still
in place right now, is I put a
moratorium on adding new
documents to the website. There
were a few notable exceptions.
So for example, council packets,
of course could still go on the
website. Minutes and agendas
from boards and commissions can
still go on the website. You
know, if it's something that
we're mandated to do that can
go on the website, but all
these other documents that
people just want to put up
there, they need to check with
communications first before
they add them to. But that is a
very manual process. And so I
have high hopes for finding a
more automated, or at least
less manual way to manage that
as we move through the year
here. And it's more than just
our website, we have many other
platforms as a city. That
number there on the first
bullet is actually incorrect.
It's actually 23 app vendors.
That number 89 comes from when
we when I was doing the work on
the brand and I had to replace
the brand icon in 89 different
places. So I opened up the
wrong spreadsheet. I'll just
cop to that. So actually, it's
23 app vendors and they have
provided us something that is
called a voluntary product
accessibility template. And
you'll hear that called Vpat.
So all 23 of those vendors have
either provided us a Vpat, or
they've provided us a
remediation plan to make sure
that the tool that the city has
purchased is either accessible
or it's going to be accessible.
Our GIS system, our geographic
information system, which
you'll hear people say GIS or
ArcGIS, we have a Vpat from
them. Our social media channels,
we've worked we've done a lot
of work to create standards and
work with our other departments
who also own social media, in
addition to communications, to
make sure they understand how
to do accessible social social
media. The council agenda
platform, Civic Plus also has
provided a vpat as well as I'm
sure they're anxious to provide
us with more tools, but that's
a conversation for a different
day. Of course. Clark Vancouver
television, we've made we've
made different strides to make
sure that the content out here
is accessible. We bought a. We
purchased a system that will
allow us to caption our videos.
So when we are publishing them
on the CVTV website, when
people want to go watch them
again, or when people want to
watch our videos on YouTube or
in other platform, they can
have audio description. Sorry,
I called that captioning. It's
actually we bought an audio
description tool. It's it's a
pretty exciting tool. We found
one that will allow us not only
to have AI help us caption, but
it also gives us the ability to
check it with a human and
correct it with a human. And
that's something we had to look.
We had to look quite a bit to
find that, and we finally found
it. So that was really a great
tool, our data portal and our
be heard page, we actually have
audits pending on both of those
platforms. So with an extra
year, I'm confident we're going
to be moving those forward
pretty soon. But we have vvpats
for both of the systems that
they are built on. So the
platforms themselves are
accessible. It's just all the
PDFs that get put up there
probably are not, or a lot of
them are not, or we're again,
we're putting PDFs up on things
that you don't need a PDF.
There's no reason, for example,
on be heard. As an example,
people will post a flier for
something or they'll post a
flier of a timeline. Well, you
don't need to do that because
your platform has a timeline
that's built within it. So you
don't need to double up and put
a PDF that's not accessible on
their. Oops. And I'd like to
share some of our sustaining
activities. Even though it's
been a year and a half. I'm
calling that our immediate
action. But we want long
lasting implementation to where
this is just part of how we do
business. Now, I want to talk
with you a little bit about
some of that. So what we've
been doing is capacity, what I
call capacity building, which
is why we sought out training
in in the early days. And we
found training jumping ahead.
So we developed standards and
issued standards for our web
content, for our social media,
for our videos. And we also
prepared standards for people
when they're preparing,
presenting, and presiding at
different meetings that are
going to be broadcast on CVTV.
We set up required training for
over 180 employees and how to
create accessible documents. So
that training is in basically
the entire Microsoft suite. So
PowerPoint, word, Excel. That
suite. So so that. So we've
been able to provide that for
employees. And what's been
really great about that
training is, is that we didn't
necessarily attach it to the
employee, we attached it to
their job category. So say if
somebody retires or if they get
another job, when we hire, when
we hire their replacement, they
automatically get assigned that
training and it's not attached
to that individual. So we don't
have to track that. It's
tracked by job classification.
The other interesting feature,
at least I think it's
interesting about the training,
is, is that we really focused
on providing it in what I call
snackable bites. So instead of
having an employee sitting at
their computer for what would
have been six hours of training,
if you think about all the
different things in the
Microsoft suite, we worked with
our vendor to really make it
compact. So most of these
videos are between 15 to 20
minutes and work well. If
you're sitting there with the
training opened while you're
trying to build something. So
we really tried to make it so
our employees could could
really do real time learning.
They could take it, but they
could also go back and
reference it when they're doing
other work. The other benefit
from that is we were able to
create a deal where we now own
that training. So so it's just
ours and we don't have limited
numbers of people who can take
it or limited availability. So
that's we got a pretty good
deal on that. We've been
working really hard over the
last year to build templates,
so it makes it easy for
employees to build documents.
So on currents, employees can
go to the communications page
and they'll find any number of
template you could possibly
think of that they might need,
from memos to fact sheets to
fliers, to posters to
PowerPoints, postcards. Every
time we create something new,
we make it a template so
somebody can then have it. And
that also buys us more
efficiency with staff too. So
we're not having to create
something new every single time.
Allows them to be self-serve
with their work and frankly,
have more work autonomy. So
they're not having to go to
communications every time they
need a postcard. This next one,
working with work from
consultants and contractors
must be delivered in accessible
formats. That is really
important, and that's something
I've been working with
procurement over the last
several months to make sure
that that's going to be that's
going to happen going forward.
So been working with Anna in
procurement. So now we have
language in RFPs and our
contracts that require our
consultants and our
professional services firms
that when, for example, when
you're sitting here and you're
getting a presentation from,
you know, maybe our, our
lobbyist, our federal lobbyists,
that PowerPoint presentation,
if it wasn't put together in
house, they're required to
deliver it to us in an
accessible format. So anybody.
So when it does get uploaded to
Civicplus, the public can can
use it as well in an accessible
format. And that has not been
language that we've had in.
We've had language about
contractors must follow the
Americans with Disability Act,
but we took it a step further
and made those requirements
even clearer. And we also
provide we also created
standards for those consultants
so they could see clearly what
we expect from them. And some
of them were not, well, not
some of them actually. All of
them were happy to provide them
with our templates as well too.
So not only does it look
unified from a brand point of
view, we know that that because
they're using our templates,
it's also being if they follow
the template, it's being
produced in an accessible
format as well too. And then
CVTV is working with our
partners on the accessibility
expectations when we broadcast,
like when we broadcast the
Clark County Council or Port of
Vancouver or C-tran. So those
those agencies are also under
this requirement, and they are
also working to make sure that
when they present, that is
accessible on our platform to.
Process improvements. I've
talked about a few of these
already, but I'll go through
them. Like I said, it's now a
requirement to do business with
the city. We now have an
accessibility review required.
It's on its form. When anybody
wants to purchase software,
apps or tools, they have to
check that box and make sure
that they're telling us it's
accessible. As I just mentioned,
the accessibility requirements
added to RFPs and contracts.
And as I mentioned in the
previous slide, I got ahead of
myself. Work delivered by work
delivered to the city by
contractors, vendors and
professional services must be
provided in a branded and
accessible format. And as I
mentioned before, we've
provided the standards and
access to our branded templates.
And again, how do we sustain
this? Like I said, it's just
going to be part of how we do
business as a city. It's going
to have to be part of how we
operate as employees from here
on out. But for our platforms,
it means we'll be figuring out
what a good audit schedule is.
Is it once a year? Is it twice
a year? And ongoing monitoring,
recurring training and skill
building? So it's one thing to
take a training at one point.
But you know, things change. I
mean, I've been giving
different trainings over the
last couple of months. I gave a
training two weeks ago. I'm
giving a training this Thursday.
What I presented in the
training two weeks ago changed
between Thursday. So some of
those employees are going to
hear different things from me.
And some of that is just so
vast. There is so much
information about how to make
documents more accessible and
what the best practices are.
And this is going to continue
to evolve. Like I mentioned,
we're going to reevaluate our
workflows as well as our
governance for the website.
Continue to look for tools to
enable our accessibility. As I
mentioned, we have over 550
documents that were I was going
to ask the city manager to
designate as undue burden. And
those are largely computer
computer aided drawings, CAD
drawings. They're more commonly
called. They're the. I hate to
say it, the technology just has
not really caught up. And to
have staff to add labels and
alt text to all these kind of
legacy computer aided drawings,
that would actually be a bit of
an undue burden on on the city.
It would take an immense amount
of staff time to do that. So
I'm hoping in the next several
months we can figure out a way
forward with that because, you
know, we're a city. We run on
complex documents. Again,
reassess the over reliance on
PDFs. And I also want to
explore a new website and
platform. Our the platform of
our website is accessible right
now, but I want to take us to
the next stage of our website.
You know, continue to be
accessible. I think our website
needs to be more curated and it
definitely needs to be AI ready.
And then public information and
reporting issues. We want to
make sure that people know how
to report issues. We have a
page out on our website called
Digital Accessibility, where
people can find the different
things that we've done and we
will be doing. And I update
that on a I, it was on a fairly
regular basis. Now that things
have slowed down a little bit,
I probably will probably update
it once a quarter. As things
change, the public can report
issues at accessibility
barriers and complaints on our
website. And then for CVTV,
CVTV set up an accessibility
page on their website because
there's two. It was just the
workflows for the website and
the workflows for CVTV. We just
wanted to keep those separate
because it's, it's different
staff. And so the kind of the
routing of it was a little too
complex. So we decided just,
you know, make, make the
complex simple, get it right,
right where it needs to be. And
I want to, I've been mentioning,
you know, we've been working on
this for a year and a half. And
I want to recognize the
different people who have been
working on this as we've been
moving through this. Tricia.
Tricia from legal has been on
my speed dial for about a year
and a half, and I don't see
that changing. Same with Brian
Bates in my department, who is
our web content manager,
Jessica from CVTV, Steve and
Kevin from I t on the apps team
who when I called them up about
a year and a half ago and I
said, hey, can you call up all
of our vendors who have apps?
They just jumped right in full
with both feet. And I was very
excited about that. Of course,
Anna. And in procurement in
general services, just
absolutely wonderful work with
the procurement and contracting
standards. And I'd be remiss if
I didn't mention all the
departments who have been
putting in the yeoman's work
with their content every step
of the way. It was hard. It was
a lot of work. It's not over
yet. And I just want to thank
all the departments for that.
And I'd be happy to answer any
questions that you might have.
>> Great. Thank you very much.
And McEnerny Ogle, mayor for
the city. Laura, on slide seven,
you talked about linked third
party content. We have 71
different neighborhood
associations, many of which
have newsletters that the city
prints, or they put on Facebook
or dot to dot to dot. Are those
considered third party content
and you link them from our
website? We there's.
>> We are still working that
out with legal. Because of the
relationship the city has with
them. It's. If once we touch it,
it's ours. So I'm trying to
determine if we give them a
template, say for bylaws, does
that make it ours or does that
make it theirs? So I'm still
sorting out some of the some of
the complexities with some of
the documents that we get from
neighborhood associations. But
when we audited the
neighborhood association pages
there, there were a lot of
documents that weren't
accessible. And then there were
just a lot of documents that
were, be honest with you, old
that really didn't need to be
up there either. So we. So we
did a lot of cleanup and I'm
working with Coco, and we'll be
working with legal to give a
definitive answer for, for like
the bylaws, the, the, their
action plans, a lot of those
action plans. I opened up quite
a few of them over the last
couple of weeks. And a lot of
them are very old. So
technically some of those could
be considered preexisting
documents because they were
created as specific point of
time. The one thing that we
need to sort out with legal is,
is are people using those
documents to do things. So if
somebody's trying to access a
service with the city, if
somebody is trying to do
business with us, that would
take it out of preexisting
document and make it a document
that does have to be updated.
Although it would be lovely to
have just when you think about
the diversity in the city, it
would be lovely if all the
neighborhood documents were
accessible. So I'm going to be
working with Coco on a
potential path forward for that.
I wish I had a good answer for
you right now.
>> I do too, because as I look
at our neighborhoods looking
for their meeting notifications,
for example, those that
information is in their
newsletter, but the newsletter
is not on our website. So then
trying to hunt down where
they're meeting what they're
doing or different cleanups and
such. I'm not the only one
doing that. And lots of folks
want to know that ability to
have that information. So thank
you for your help with all of
that. Of course. Okay,
councilors. Councilor Fox, go
ahead.
>> Sure. Just first, really
appreciate how much work you've
done in a short amount of time.
I've noticed over my career,
whenever an agency says they're
going to update a website, it
takes like three years. They
abandon it. At some point, they
start it again. So anyways,
just congratulating you on the
progress you've made. But also
one of the other pieces is, you
know, listening to you talk
about the change management
that you're putting in place.
And I was thinking also that
everything you've mentioned is
really that change management
that kind of comes from above,
but doesn't always go in the
opposite direction. And I say
that as in, you know, hoping
that the leadership and the
executive leadership team and
all of those folks also support
this change because, you know,
there's nothing more annoying
to staff to be sitting in a
presentation by a managing
director that hasn't followed
any of these guidelines. Right.
And so just ensuring that we
have that support all the way
from top to bottom would be
really essential too. And I
think when you talk about doing
those periodic audits, that
that also, again,
congratulating you on
implementing that idea as well,
I think that should help carry
this forward. And then my last
comment would be, there's a
presentation that I took about
ten years ago, but one of the
sources that they pointed to
was called when bad
presentations happen to good
causes. And it really is just a
quick short, you know, YouTube
video you can watch or a book
you can purchase. But I, I
thought for those that feel
reluctant about accessibility,
I think that is one of those
that could bring that home
perhaps and bring others on
board. So thanks, councilor.
>> Mayor, do you mind if I
respond to one of Councilor.
Fox's comments and that's on on
leadership support. I do want
to recognize, actually, my
peers, they have been very
supportive all along the way.
Same with the city manager and
same with the deputy city
managers. I will say as part of
the change management, I made
sure I included my peers in
this process. So the final
decision on the documents that
were going to get sent off to
be remediated, the documents
that were going to get
designated different categories,
I asked my peers to make that
decision themselves, not put
their staff in that position.
So it literally sat there in 12
different meetings with 12
different directors while we
talked about it, explained it,
and they made some of those
decisions. So they in addition
to that, they've all been very
supportive and on board. And as
recent as this morning, I was
thinking I was thanking an
employee for being such an
advocate for this. And she
instantly said that it came
down from her chain and it's
getting adopted in her
department because her managers
are are supporting it. So which
is great. Great.
>> Councilor Stapper.
>> Thank you, mayor, Council
member Stover. So a couple
thoughts come to mind. One is
don't get rid of all PDF fliers
because sometimes we want
people to print things out. I
mean, we talked about resources
for neighborhood association.
So then the other thing I'll
pick on is especially, I hope
we're doing something about our
meetings, because it seems to
me that anytime a list ends up
in a container, and I know
that's a very technical term,
but a separate list inside
embedded inside of a website,
it's difficult if you have all
your capacities to navigate
those. So I hope we're looking
at how better to present our
meeting agendas and documents
that support those up. Because
I think the the current
methodology is clunky at best.
Thank you.
>> Councilor Hanson.
>> Thank you, mayor Council
member Bart Hanson, I just want
to say good job.
>> Thank you, Councilor and
Councilor Stauber. We can. And
Councilor Stauber we can. And
now that we have a year, we can.
I'll work with my colleague Joy
and see see what we can do
about those agendas and the
minutes. I know at bare minimum,
they are accessible. So I might
want to talk with you offline
to understand what's clunky
about them. User testing is
very important.
>> Councilor Perez.
>> Thank you. Great job. I
really commend the amount of
effort that's been done over
the time. And for us to
actually be ahead before 27
significantly, you mentioned
one thing that caught my
interest, and that was our
website needs to be AI ready.
What is that? What does that
look like? I don't know what
that means.
>> I saw several of you jotting
notes with the second. I said
that as I figured one of you
would ask me about that. What I
mean by AI ready is, is that
when AI, where AI gets its
information, it scrapes, right?
It takes its information from
somewhere. So when you type in
a question into an AI engine
where there's ChatGPT or
whether it's copilot, when you
see the sources, they
frequently cite the source as
they cite the website they're
pulling that from. So if all of
our really great content is
locked up in a PDF, that makes
it hard for the tool to
actually find the information.
So really, when I say AI ready,
it goes to that overreliance on
PDFs. It's the overreliance on
really great content in formats
that are kind of locked up to
the technology that are locked
up to. Translation tool that
make it harder to get scrapes.
So when I say curated an AI
ready, it's really a new
mindset about the website. So a
lot of times cities approach or
just, you know, government
approaches a website as kind of
this catch all place. We're
going to put all the things out
there in the chance that
somebody, somewhere, someday
wants to find it. And that's
not that that hasn't actually
been a good that actually
hasn't been a best practice for
websites for, gosh, more than a
decade. But that's how you see
most government websites
operate. So we started to move
away from that when we built
our, I guess I can't call it
our new website anymore. When
our current. We did that, we
had we took that approach when
we built our current website.
Unfortunately, you know, when
you get down to the end and
you're getting ready to go live,
sometimes the best intention
meets up with reality. And so
we had to accept a lot of
documents on there that I was
hoping would be content on a
page so it could be translated
so people could find it easier.
So, so even our own search
engine can find it. So when I
say AI ready, it's, you know,
you could, you could have a PDF
up there, but is it even named
correctly? You wouldn't believe
how many PDFs were on our
website that are named draft
one that nobody could find that,
much less somebody's trying to
pull a permit for something. So,
so that's what I mean by that.
Just making sure that content
is available and ready for
anybody who wants it, whether
it's a human or whether it's
our our technical,
technological overlords.
>> So thank you. And my next
question has to do with
infographics. And is that the
same issue with PDFs and AI, or
is infographics the use of
infographics to help our public
better understand our processes
or methods or steps? Because
right now, if you look at the
website, just like for business
and, and the area, it's there's
a lot of information and
infographics can help folks who
think differently and take in
information differently. So is
there any thought to improving
infographics or using
infographics to better explain
our processes?
>> I do have some thoughts
around that. If built well, if
if built with proper labeling
and metadata, using workflows
and infographics in a more
visual format is great. It has
to be it. But what I found is
when we were going through the
audit and when actually when we
were building our current
website, what I was finding
departmentally some departments
were were solving their
workflow issues with PDFs. They
were, they had, you know, a
potentially a flow that didn't
quite make sense for the user.
And so they made a PDF to
explain how to navigate the
system instead of just maybe
taking a look at the system. So
there's some of those issues.
But I do to your point, though,
I do think a well-designed
infographic or a well-designed
visual flow on a page can can
help people who think about
information differently. That
was that was actually one of
the things I was a little
disappointed in our current
website. We had a. We thought
we were going to be getting. I
thought we were going to be
getting a much more visual
website, but it's much more
content on the page, but. Or
words on the page, which is
great for screen reader, but
I'm somebody who likes some
visuals too.
>> So is there a way to improve
that? In other words, I'm
trying to influence us to use
more infographics, especially
in our economic development
business section.
>> I think we are. Our current
site, I think has reached its
useful life. I'm very
interested in figuring out what
the next phase of the of a
website is for our city. If,
say, economic development or
CBD or public works wanted to
work on, say, an infographic or
a flow on a page, that's
something we can work with them.
We can work with our web, our
web provider, to see if we can
do some bespoke development
work, or if things are tagged
appropriately, then it's
something that could get
uploaded on a page. But when
you lock things up in in a Jpeg
on a page, you have to be
really careful about the
accessibility that so so for
example, the default for a lot
of people on schedules is just
to upload a Jpeg of that
schedule. Well, that's an image.
That thing's gone completely
flat and a screen reader cannot
read it. So we've got to be
careful about, we got to be
really deliberate about how we
use images or infographics on,
on a website.
>> All right. Thank you.
>> Councilor Harless.
>> Kim Harless council member.
Yeah, it's great. The timeline
has been extended because
there's this balance of wanting
to make sure things are
accessible as soon as possible,
but you also want to do it
right. So having that
flexibility is great. And I, I
love the progress report on
everything and where we're
going. And I just had a more
maybe a fun question is, was
there any like moment or
surprise thing that you learned
that you would love to share
that maybe you incorporate in
your personal life or people
could incorporate in their
personal life? That's like, oh,
I never thought about that.
When it comes to accessibility
on these kinds of things. And
if not, that's okay.
>> No, no, there's, there's
just, there's just so much. I
mean, I have learned so much
over the last year and a half
myself. One of the things I did
learn that I found really
fascinating because when we
were at the start of this
journey, when we were talking a
lot about alt text with photos,
and I was telling people, you
know, do not default to
decorative, please do not
default to decorative. We're
better than that. But then I've
been learning actually over the
last few months that actually
sometimes decorative is better
because if you don't mark like
for example, that picture, the
picture we see up there of the
aerial of of the Columbia of
the river that should be marked
decorative because it's not
bringing anything to the party.
And if I just put some
description in there, it takes
time from somebody with a
screen reader reading an image
that's not really needed. So I
started out being really
militant with everybody about
their alt text and don't mark
things decorative now. And now
a year later, I'm like, do you
want to be more careful about
putting an alt text into
everything? So, but you still
need that alt text, whether
it's decorative or whether it's
a description.
>> So okay, well, I'm sure Anne
McEnerny Ogle mayor and I'm
sure as we are moving forward
with this, every two weeks,
you'll have something new to
teach us. So we'll be anxious
to learn. Thank you so very
much, Laura. And please give us
the decorative once in a while.
Okay, let's go ahead and move
on. And let's bring up Shannon
and the team to talk about PFAs.
Okay. Jump right in.
>> Sounds good. Good afternoon.
>> And your microphone needs to
have that little green button
hit. There it is. Sorry about
that. That's okay.
>> Good afternoon, Mayor and
City Council. I'm Chris Olinger,
the city's utility engineering
manager. I'm here with Marinel
Elzingre, water engineering
manager. Our presentation today
is going to provide an update
of the city's PFAs mitigation
efforts at our water stations.
The agenda will recap
information that was shared
with council in 2024, along
with a revised implementation
schedule, along with some
information about capital costs,
funding and subsidies. And I'll
hand it over to Marin to dive
into the details.
>> Good afternoon, mayor, City
Council, I'm Erin Sloniker, I'm
the water engineering manager.
As a reminder, PFAs stands for
Polyfloral per and
polyfluoroalkyl Substances.
They constitute a group of
synthetic chemical compounds
that are primarily found in
consumer products and
manufacturing products that are
ubiquitous throughout the
environment. Over the past
couple of years, there have
been multiple research studies
that have indicated health
complications due to lifetime
exposure to these PFAs
compounds. On the screen here,
you can see a pie chart that is
an extract from one of these
such research studies.
Specifically, this was a
research study that was
published back in 2021 on
Sciencedirect. It's a pie chart
that should look familiar to
council. It was shared in a
previous PFAs Council update.
I'm bringing it back to share
today, because I do want to
highlight that this research
study really gives a good
breakdown, specifically on this
research study group about
different pathways of PFAs
exposure. So I first want to
highlight the red pie slice,
which you can see it reports
17.4% of exposure in this
specific PFAs study group came
from drinking water sources.
The reason why I want to
highlight this is because
drinking water is not the only
source in which individuals can
be exposed to PFAs compounds.
As you can see on the pie chart,
there are a multitude of
different exposure pathways
that individuals can be exposed
to. PFAs compounds. The purpose
of today's workshop
presentation is to talk about
PFAs exposure, and how the City
of Vancouver's water utility is
addressing PFAs mitigation in
drinking water sources. But I
bring up this pie chart again
to just reiterate to council
and the public that the intent
of these mitigation projects
that we'll talk about in these
next couple of slides will not
make the community PFAs free.
We are looking at reducing PFAs
exposure in drinking water
sources as best as we can, but
individuals still have exposure
from PFAs through a multitude
of different pathways. I also
do want to highlight that the
17.4% that's highlighted in
this research study is very
much not a concrete
distribution. That was merely
just kind of the distribution
that was outlined in this
research study. There's
multiple studies that have been
posted publicly. The research
has indicated a multitude of
different exposure breakdowns.
Some are higher from water
drinking water sources and PFAs
exposure. Some report lower
numbers than the 17.4%. Once
again, the intent of this slide
is really just to reiterate
that drinking water is not the
only source of PFAs exposure,
but it is the focus of today's
discussion. So since we
understand the different
exposure pathways, let's
understand the current
regulatory environment of PFAs
in drinking water regulations.
The table that's shown on this
screen essentially provides a
good breakdown of the
regulations over the past 5 to
6 years for PFAs in drinking
water. Starting on the left
hand side of the table, the
compounds that are currently
regulated for PFAs are listed
out as we move from left to
right on the table. We start
off with the Washington State
action levels, also known as
the Sals. Back in 2021, the
Washington state had enacted
the state action levels. You
can see that per the regulated
PFAs compounds, they had
certain limits set for each of
these regulated compounds. It's
important to understand that
based on the Washington state
action levels, these limits
only required monitoring and
public notifications. If there
were exceedances of PFAs
detections for these categories.
So to clarify, if there was a
detection for PFOA above the
ten parts per trillion under
the Washington state Sals, the
requirement for the Sals was to
report the monitoring results
of that detection and also
issue out public notifications.
Treatment was not a requirement
as part of the state action
levels. As we continue to move
down on the table, moving from
left to right, we're currently
under the Environmental
Protection Agency's maximum
contaminant levels. So back in
2020, for the Environmental
Protection Agency finalized the
first national primary drinking
water standards for PFAs
compounds, specifically the
PFAs compounds that are listed
on this table. As you can see,
the limits that were set by the
EPA's Mcls are lower than the
state action levels,
specifically for PFOA and PFOs,
they have dropped from ten
parts per trillion under the
station. The the Washington
state action levels to the
EPA's current mcls. For PFAs,
the drop was from 15 parts per
trillion under the Washington
state action levels to four
parts per trillion under the
current EPA's MCL. It's
important to note that these
levels that are presented on
this table are enforceable with
the current Mcls. The
enforceable compliance deadline
is by 2029, and enforceable in
this context means that if
there are exceedances above the
levels that are reported for
these regulated compounds,
mitigation is needed. And we'll
talk in some later slides about
how we're addressing and
mitigation at certain sites as
we continue to move forward on
this slide. As we go from left
to right, the final column on
the right hand side lists the
proposed EPA's revisions to the
current Mcls. So the current
federal administration has
proposed revisions to the
maximum maximum contaminant
levels for PFAs compounds. As
you can see, as you read from
left to right on the columns in
the table that's presented, the
main change is that they would
retain the levels set for PFOA
and PFOs, so four parts per
trillion would still be
retained as part of the
revisions to the MCL. But they
would remove the limits set for
the remaining PFAs regulated
compounds. As you read down on
the table, the other key change
with this proposed revision
would also be an extension on
that compliance deadline. The
current MCL has enforceable by
2029. The proposed revision for
the MCL would change that
timeline from 2029 to 2031. I
bring up this timeline to
basically communicate that the
PFAs regulatory environment is
continuously changing and
really the the priority for the
City of Vancouver's water
utility is to remain committed
to prioritizing the PFAs
projects, but then also keeping
tabs on kind of the
continuously changing
regulatory environment. So we
understand the exposure
pathways, we understand the
regulatory environment. Let's
understand the context of PFAs
in Vancouver's water system. So
on the slide right here, we
have a map of the city of
Vancouver, the City of
Vancouver's city limits are
noted on the map shown on the
screen, as well as the water
service area. Utility boundary
is shown on the left hand side
of the screen. There is also a
table that kind of compares the
current mcls, the maximum
contaminant levels of PFOA and
PFOs against the sampling
result range that we're seeing
throughout our detections. In
the City of Vancouver's water
sources. So going back to the
map that's shown on the right
hand side of the screen, I want
to highlight the stars that are
shown here. So specifically,
there are red stars that
essentially annotate the water
production stations that have
consistent exceedances above
the EPA's maximum contaminant
levels. The green star that is
shown on the map here is a
water station that has
consistently reported below the
EPA's maximum contaminant
levels. As you can see on the
screen, based on the map that's
presented on this slide, eight
of the nine water production
stations have exceedances
consistently above the EPA's
maximum contaminant level. As
such, eight water stations
require some form of PFAs
mitigation. If you can recall
from the previous slide where
we talked about kind of that
timeline of cells, so to state
action levels by the Washington
state to the current Mcls,
which are the federal
compliance regulations, the
state action levels were set a
little bit higher. So they had
ten parts per trillion for PFOA,
15 parts per trillion for PFOs.
Kind of comparing that with the
sample range that we've seen in
our sites, you can see they
fall fairly close when we go
from non-detect to 19 parts per
trillion for PFOA and
Non-detect to 11 parts per
trillion for PFOs. I bring this
up because under the cells, we
had six of our nine water
stations that were exceeding
the state action levels. But
under the Mcls, since they have
lower limits and also require
some form of mitigation
treatment. Specifically, we
have eight of nine water
stations that require
mitigation. So just wanted to
provide that context. So now
that we understand kind of the
distribution of PFAs throughout
the Vancouver's water system,
how is the city's water utility
addressing PFAs mitigation? So
the image that's shown on the
slide right here is a Gantt
chart. It basically provides
the PFAs mitigation
implementation schedule. It
should be a familiar schedule.
It was shared previously at
prior council workshops. This
is an update, though, to the
schedule of projects that we
have listed here. As a reminder,
the projects are prioritized
based on PFAs concentrations,
as well as a balance between
production volumes of the
stations. So starting from the
top, water station 14 is
docketed for the first PFAs
mitigation project, because it
is the site that has
consistently been the highest
PFAs concentrations, which is
why that was selected to be the
first site to go for design and
then moving forward with
construction as well. You'll
notice that there are gaps in
the schedule. As Council may
recall, last summer, the water
station 14 was presented for
construction bid award. There
were concerns with the low bid,
the lowest responsive and
responsible bidder from that
2025 bidding, and as such, the
bids were rejected from that.
As such, the past couple of
months we've spent rebidding
the project. We actually had
bid Opening Rebid opening last
week, and Public Works is
looking at pushing forward with
construction bid award for the
rebid of Water Station 14 by
early June. With that, you can
kind of see that there is a
ripple effect on the later PFAs
projects. So as a reminder, the
intent of staggering out the
PFAs projects was really to
help maintain operational level
of service, manage city
resources, and then also get
some lessons learned so we can
understand kind of the
decisions and the pros and cons
that happen during design and
construction in the earlier
projects can hopefully be
captured in the later projects.
So that was the intent of
staggering out the projects.
With this updated schedule.
We've continued staggering
these projects. As you can see
on the screen here. Now, we can
see from the schedule that the
city is very much challenged to
implement a very large capital
program in a fairly aggressive
timeline. With that, the water
utility completely understands
that. So we've been very
aggressive over the past couple
of years in pursuing subsidy
funding sources for these
projects. The table that's
shown on this screen gives a
breakdown of successes that
we've received to date for
these projects, working from
left to right on the table. As
it's shown, the leftmost column
outlines the specific projects.
And then as I continue reading
from left to right, the project
amount for how much has been
awarded in terms of subsidy is
listed than the funding type is
listed. And then finally, in
the rightmost column, we list
the funding entity. As you can
see, for most of the projects,
we've been very successful with
receiving the Drinking water
state Revolving Fund,
forgivable loan program that is
administered through the
Washington State Department of
Health. We've also been
successful with getting some
Public Works Board funding for
these projects. The later
projects. So water station one,
water station 15, water station
eight and water station seven
that are listed at the bottom.
They're noted as TBD. So two to
be determined. And the city is
committed to pursuing
additional funding sources for
these projects as well. So we
will continue to provide
updates to council as we pursue
other funding sources. So with
that, I'll pass it back to
Chris, and she'll give kind of
a high level overview about the
PFAs mitigation program costs
and other subsidy avenues.
>> Thanks, Marin. Chris Olinger
again, city utility engineering
manager. This slide just
captures some key points on the
costs and some funding the
overall capital cost for the
mitigation efforts. It is
estimated at $280 million. The
city has pursued many avenues
to offset costs to ratepayers.
We have participated in a few
class action lawsuits against
manufacturers. To date, we've
received about $14 million
towards those mitigation
efforts and anticipate
anticipate about $30 million
total towards that work. As
Maren shared, the city has been
awarded grants and loan dollars
towards specific projects as
well, even though with all
those subsidies, we're still
anticipating future rate
increases to support to support
these projects. A future
council workshop, we'll talk
about utility rates and funding
strategies. So today I'm just
going to say that that is
likely anticipated. And the
team is still working really
hard to continue to look for
subsidies, grants, loans, other
ways to offset those costs. And
kind of to wrap up with this
update is just kind of next
steps. As Maren had mentioned,
construction award for Water
Station 14 treatment project
you will be seeing in early
June, as well as design
services for Water Station one,
will be coming in a few weeks
as well. To get started on that
treatment project. Also have a
scheduled workshop, I believe
also mid June for the funding
strategies and utility rates.
And we are also looking at new
sources drilling new wells and
deeper aquifers that do not
have the PFAs concentrations in
those. And this generally
concludes the update of the
presentation. And we'd be happy
to take some questions.
>> Thank you Chris. Thank you.
Barrett and McEnerny Ogle Mayor
Marin, on your slide seven, you
talked about the funding
entities being Washington state.
Any federal funds coming in?
>> That's a great question,
mayor. Specifically, the
drinking water state revolving
fund essentially pulls from
federal dollars. So to provide
some more context, the SRF
funds. So the SRF funds pull
from the BIL, which I believe
stands for the Bipartisan
Infrastructure law for federal
dollars. So we do have federal
funding requirements embedded
in the state funding programs.
It is state administered. And
that's so Washington state is
the entity. But there are other
avenues that the water utility
and public works have been
looking at. Wifia is another
such loan program, which I
believe stands for the Water
Infrastructure. Funding
Innovation Act. Please don't
quote me on that. Something
around that lines, but those
are federal dollars as well
that the public works and the
utility is looking at as well.
>> Because we, the state of
Washington, has returned money
because it wasn't led. We have
been advocating back with our
lobbyists in DC for any water
quality funding, not just lead
pipes. So this phase can fall
under that category. So we'll
keep working on that.
Councilors. Councilor Stober,
go ahead.
>> Thank you, mayor, and thank
you to the two of you for
presentation. Just continuing
to follow up the the bipartisan
infrastructure law funding is
coming to a close. There's not
really the opportunity to
influence how those dollars are
being spent at this point. That
being said, I'm sitting on a
committee with the National
League of Cities and
emphasizing our meeting this
week to our federal lobbyists
through that organization that
as they're looking at the
renewal, because there is a
renewal for water funding
coming up in the. I don't think
it's this Congress. I think
it's the next Congress. Okay.
And that really asking that NLC
be National League of Cities,
be advocating for full
flexibility in those funds.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. No. All right.
>> One last one.
>> Certainly.
>> Can we go back to slide four?
Stop picking on Gen X. Thank
you.
>> So if we're going to talk
about that go to slide five.
That really isn't the city
limits right. That is just our
our little location of water
production stage. But that's
not city limits.
>> Yeah. It's a little bit
difficult to see on this slide.
But in gray, there is a line
that indicates the Vancouver
city limits. And in blue there
is a line that indicates the
water service utility.
>> But the yellow is not our
our city limits.
>> That is correct. The yellow
represents the service area.
>> Thank you so very much. All
right. So councilors, that
conclude