Welcome to Vancouver City
Council. Today is Monday,
August 3rd, 2026. This
afternoon we discussed some
public work options. Campus
supplemental election and we
chatted about some development
activity. You're now in our
regular meeting. We're coming
out of executive session where
no action, where no decisions
were made. We're ready for a
pledge of allegiance. Please
stand and join me. I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to
the Republic for which it
stands. One nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you very
much, Miss Duller. Please call
the roll.
>> Councilmember Harless.
Present. Perez. Present. Fox.
Here. Paulson. Stauber here.
Hanson. Present. Mayor.
McEnerny Ogle.
>> Present. Thank you. All
present and accounted for.
Councilors, you have the
minutes of July 13th, 2026. Are
there any corrections or
changes? Hearing none, I'll
entertain a motion.
>> Move to approve.
>> Seconded by Perez Perez. All
those in favor, say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Opposed. Motion passes.
Thank you very much, Council.
We have a very special
presentation tonight. Something
very unusual for us. We have a
presentation from the Girl
Scouts for a Medal of Honor. So
Madilyn and Shannon Evers,
Madeline Berry and Shannon
Evers. Would you come and sit
up here for just a moment? And,
Miss Evers, you have a few, and
you are? Alicia. Alicia, please
join us. Alicia, do you have a
little story for us? About this?
What happened?
>> Would you like to tell.
>> Her now? There is. There's a.
There you go. Got the
microphone lit up.
>> Yes. So Madeline was on a
trip with her Girl Scout troop
in Greece. Some of her troupe
members are with us and behind
us. And Madeline saved a young
child from drowning in the
ocean. She was in the water
herself. Noticed that a child
was struggling. I believe heard
and saw a mom in distress. And
she pretty fearlessly ran right
into the water. And because of
her, that child is still alive.
And I believe her mom said she
had no fears because she's a
pretty good swimmer. So she's
here being honored by the Girl
Scouts of the USA and Oregon
and Southwest Washington.
>> So, Madeline Berry, what is
your side of that story?
>> Well, it seemed like just a
usual day on like a little trip
with my friends. We visited an
island that it was, we were
just going to be there for one
day and we were walking around
kind of exploring the island,
going on some trail. Then we
stopped about this like beach
just to kind of check it out
and stuff. And then me and my
friends, we were kind of
hanging around by the shore,
and then all of a sudden I hear
this woman screaming, and I was
confused on like, what was
going on. So I turned around
and she was kind of pointing in
our general direction. And so I
followed where she's pointing,
and then I see this little boy
in the water, like kind of like
bobbing. And I didn't think or
anything. I kind of just jumped
in and I picked up the boy and
made sure he, like, he was
breathing and everything. And
then I swam him back.
>> Madaline how old was this
child, do you think?
>> I don't know for sure, but
we think about six maybe, or
just like around that age.
>> And how did you learn to
swim?
>> Well, I grew up with a pool
in my backyard, basically like
my whole life. And so me and my
brother would always go
swimming in that. And then I
did a couple of the like,
Firstenburg swim lessons, but I
was a bit advanced, so I kind
of did like extra stuff on the
side. But then other than that,
through out Girl Scout camps,
we had like this extra deeper
zone that some people, if you
pass the little test that there
was, you wouldn't have to wear
a life vest. And so that kind
of pushed me to want to swim
more. So I didn't have to wear
a life vest.
>> How exciting. And we are
absolutely blessed that you are
in our community. How
absolutely wonderful. Now, what
we usually do is make a
presentation with a few of us
next to a sign. But you brought
some colleagues with you. And
so I'm going to ask council and
all of you who are in scouting
to join us over by the wall.
Someone will take some photos,
I'm sure. But let's take a
moment. Counselors, do a little
walk. We're going to Joan, join
Madeline over there by the wall.
Girl Scouts in uniforms. Come
on over. Come on over. Join us.
>> You guys are.
>> I'll keep you in the back.
Come on over, counselors. Join
us.
>> We're just here for support.
That's okay.
>> Join us. Support on the end.
>> We've got lots.
>> To scoot in a little bit.
Skewed in a little bit.
>> Scoot.
>> Join me on the.
>> End here.
>> We have all the cameras out
and about. Okay? Okay. We got
it. All right. You should. Okay,
okay. Look over here. Wonderful.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Okay.
>> There we go.
>> You need your medal.
>> Oh, a medal. You need your
medal. Oh, this.
>> Is from the Girl Scouts of
the USA.
>> Okay. There you. Beautiful.
Congratulations. Nice. And.
Congrats.
>> Flentke.
>> So, Madeline, we hope they
give you a free trip back to
Greece. For saving a little one.
Nice job. All right, that
brings us into community
communication, where we talk
about items on the consent
agenda. And we have one person,
Carmen de Leon, please.
>> I'm talking to these.
>> Yeah. Yep.
>> See what I mean? They always
leave. Okay, so my name is
Carmen de Leon and I go by Melo.
So we're talking about these
agenda items right. So let's go
over these items and, let's see
agenda item, four, contract for
opioids that they're going to
drive around. I'm wondering,
are they going to drive around
and give people rigs and
syringes and drugs? Because
that defeats the purpose. I
understand coming to people at
their own level. They're on the
street. Yeah, you got to help
them. But this really needs to
be a serious oversight.
Somebody needs to see where
every dollar is going because
as we know that they supposedly
spent 600,000 on laundry, which
I still don't believe. So for
them to spend a approximately a
million a year on driving
around helping these tweakers,
I want to see that. I want to
see less people on the street
falling over because they're on
dope and actually getting
treatment done if you guys are
going to approve it, which I
already know, that's why it's
on here because everything on
here gets approved. So anyways,
the other one was, oh, that's a
public hearing. Number eight,
number eight. So the Pearson
field. So I'm wondering what
does, Contract according to
what is it, 5.2.1, security of
data. So the data is in
development and implement and
maintain appropriate
administrative, physical and
technical safeguards that are
designed to ensure the safety
of the data and the city's data.
And $5 million on data, because
I didn't see anything about new
runways. So why is all this
data being stored at Addison
Field? I don't understand that.
What is this, a data center
being put into Pearson Field
that is getting mixed in with
the language here? Because
that's exactly what it says
that, it's the city's data and
it's not to be taken out of the
United States. So how does that
work out? Is anybody going to
answer me or am I just going to
talk to myself?
>> You're giving testimony.
>> I'm giving testimony. I know,
but I have a question. And my
question is, why is $5 million
I mean, half $1 million? What
is it, 400,097? Is that half $1
million on a data center?
That's right here at Pearson
Field. Why is it hidden in the
language that it says, the
customer or the consumer? The
consumer, but it's actually
organ. So you guys are giving
half $1 million to organ to be
working at Pearson Field. So I
don't understand how come it
says, I lost the page at the
very beginning where it says,
this is actually organ, who's
getting paid to do this? So why
is the state of Washington or
the city of Vancouver giving
half $1 million to Oregon to
supply our own data center and
have our own data in our own
city? Why are you giving money
to Portland?
>> And that is all that I have
on communication, on the
consent agenda. I'll bring it
back to council councilors. We
have six items on the consent
agenda. Are there any items you
would like to pull? Item number
one. Any others? Three. Item
three. I'll entertain a motion
on two, four, five and six.
>> So moved.
>> Hanson. Seconded by Stober
Stober. All those in favor say
aye.
>> Aye.
>> Opposed. Motion passes.
Thank you, Councilor Fox. Item
one.
>> Do we have any staff here to
answer questions on item one?
Okay, well, I was just
reviewing this item. Excuse me.
Is easement release and it has
the dimensions and, and
drawings for the previous or
the current easement. And then
it has drawings and dimensions
for the new easement and the,
the existing easement didn't
have as a total, it didn't have
like a total area of, of
easement. But I was looking at
the two drawings to just see if
there was a difference in size,
but also I was, I guess, more
concerned about where I guess
they begin and end. If this
easement was meant for public
access. I was just wondering,
doesn't I'm not clear if, if
this easement goes from chalk
glove drive to southeast fifth,
or if the easement ends in the
parking lot of a privately held
parking lot. So I was just
wondering if I could get
clarity about that.
>> Steve Wahl, Public works
director for the city. Sarah,
is Eric or Ryan on?
>> Steve? We have we have Ryan
on. Can you see him on your
there we go. We need it on both
sides, Mr. Wahler.
>> Thank you.
>> Good. Good afternoon,
Council mayor and everyone else,
in the audience. Ryan Lopossa
Transportation Manager. So this
is an easement that was
originally dedicated by the,
church which owned all of the
property, between Chumakov and,
fifth Street. And when they
developed and they, this, they
had done a development, some 20
plus years ago. And when they
did that development, the city
required them to create this
pedestrian easement along their
south property line. And this
was intended to be a public,
public easement, that would
essentially allow pedestrians
to move more directly between
that fifth street, that bend in
the road there at Fifth Street
and Shorf. Kloft. And, they
created a, they created a
pedestrian, access way through
their parking area. That
existed for many, many years.
If you look at some old Google
Maps, you can see what that
looked like from the chalk
Kloft side. And then over the
years that, that kind of
disappeared, it was mostly a
striping, a striped easement,
and the parking lot ended up
getting restriped and that
easement and that, that
facility, ended up disappearing.
And then eventually they sold
part of their property, off
they short platted it and they
sold part of the property off.
And now we have IQ credit union
who has bought this parcel. And
they came to the city and
wanted to know if they could
relocate the easement, off the
actual parking area and into a
different space. And so we've
been working with them for
quite some time to get that,
get that done. And that's
what's before you now is a
relocated easement. I, the, the
size of the, of the new
easement versus the old
easement. It might not exactly
be the exact same size. The
intent is the same. It's to, to
provide a space where
pedestrians can move through
this space. And basically they
get from, you know, from point
A to point B east and west. I
think ultimately, and of course,
now, you know, the city owns
the parcel to the south, which
is the, which is the Chumakov
building and the property that,
that we purchased. And so I
think over time, we're also
going to be looking at possibly
creating a pedestrian
connection, possibly within the
city property. So for now,
we're just simply moving the
easement off the parking lot on
the IQ property into a, into a
space that's not part of the
parking lot. The original
easement on the church property,
which is the parcel to the east,
still remains. That's not being
touched. Ultimately we may end
up just putting the entire
pedestrian facility on the city
property. That's a possibility.
Or we may just leave everything
the way it is, the way these
easements are, are going to be
established. We're just trying
to keep our, keep our options
open as we, as we go forward.
>> So, so my question, one of
my questions was, are they
still able to go from Chumakov
to southeast fifth? And your
answer is yes, technically, but
there's just no striping.
There's just no striping or
anything that would tell a
person that they could legally
cross these properties right
now,
>> We will work on that. We
will work on, on, on,
wayfinding and delineation to
make sure they understand that
there is a facility there that
they can use. Yes. And, and
then we're also working with
the, with the work that we're
doing on Shorf. Kloft. As a
part of our. Shorf. Kloft 112th
Complete Streets project, we're
also looking at potentially
having a, some type of crossing
of chalk off in that same
vicinity where that, where that
easement, connects with chalk
Kloft.
>> Okay. That makes a lot of
sense. And I support having a
crossing there too. I mean,
it's that roadway. And there's
so many folks that do walk and,
and move through that space and
that area to, to not have
another crossing. Safe crossing
seems pretty shortsighted on
our part. So, those are all the
questions I had.
>> Thank you. Councilor, do you
have any Councilor Stover?
>> Thank you. Mayor. Ryan or
whoever. So a number of years
back, when the planning was
happening for the mill plain
BRT line, the, the modeling was
done to, to, to look at the
intersection of mill plain and
cakelove. And, when that
happened, the model showed the
potential that if we, put, if
we, we eliminated the left hand
turn from westbound mill Lane
onto southbound Chumakov we
could potentially solve one of
the worst intersections in the
entire county. And, along with
that would have come a, station
for the mill plain BRT that
didn't end up materializing
because we weren't able, we
struggled to be able to justify
closing that lane given current
street configuration. The, a
key reason is if we did that,
the concern would be people
would cut through the, the,
grocery store part, not Fred
Myers, but, Trader Joe's
parking lot, trader Joe's, and,
and we couldn't put the stress
there. We, the long point I'm
getting to here is we need an
actual street that connects
chalk clove with fifth or 1/16.
And so my key question is,
where have we been at the table?
Have our interests been at the
table in this negotiation to
think through the needs that we
have in order to fix the
overall street network in that
in that area?
>> Well, we certainly had
conversations about this
easement issue. We've not come
at this with the idea that we
that we're interested in having
a new street through here. And
we have, re reopened the
conversations with C-TRAN and
with the surrounding businesses
about putting in a westbound
BRT station on Mill Plain at
Shorf. Kloft. We've gone back,
we've taken another look at
that intersection. We've taken
another look at where that
station could go. What types of
changes to that intersection it
might take to, to make that
happen. And we have a, we have
a proposal that C-TRAN is
advancing and they are, right
now, my understanding is
they're just finalizing a scope
of design services with their
consultant to get that proposal
from what's now preliminary to
final in hopes of being able to
start construction on that next
year. So the, the idea of
having that, having that
westbound BRT station at
Chumakov is, is back on the
table. And so, it's, you know,
there's, there's a lot of
challenges with, with traffic
circulation in this area,
mainly just you have that bend
in the road and it would be
nice to have a road that that
went over and tied into Shorf.
Kloft. But at the same time, I
think we've got ways that folks
can, can move around through
there that doesn't necessarily
necessitate that, but it is, it
is good to have the pedestrian
component there, to, to, to
alleviate that issue.
>> Okay. I, thank you for the
update on the, on the BRT
station, because that's been
pretty important to me. Still
think, still think that there's
a lot of reasons to close that
southbound turn lane. And in
order to do that, understand
that there needs to be
additional street network. So,
but that satisfies me for this
particular moment.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Any
other comments? Thank you Ryan.
Thank you. Steve. I'll
entertain a motion item number
one.
>> Move to approve item one.
>> Fox seconded by.
>> Stover.
>> Stover. Additional comments.
Hearing none. All those in
favor, say aye. Opposed. Motion
passes. Thank you very much,
counselor. Sober, take item
number three, please.
>> Thank you. Mayor, this is
continuation on, discussions
that we had last week and the
tabling of this item for a week.
I really appreciate, council
member or mayor pro tem fox
bringing up the, the charter.
It was great to reacquaint
myself with that document. That
did not assuage my concerns.
However. In fact, it just
reiterated them. So one,
according to authorities and
responsibilities, I feel very
much like I am acting within
the responsibilities that, that
were laid out. So the charter
sets out that we started with
$126 million. That got updated
a couple of years later once
refinement happened to 136,
then further refinement
happened. And that was for 136
with a 2024 start date. A
couple years later, it was
further refined and 4 million
was taken off of that number.
The charter talks about a $7
million a year escalation. So
we take 132 and we go from year
2024 to 2026. That's $14
million. So now we're up to
$149 million. The document that
was presented to this this week,
says that there were 17,000,012
million of cost reductions, but
somehow we go for 149 million
to 225 million. So the numbers
I'm still struggling with the
numbers.
>> Mayor, do we want to mention
that we went over this?
>> Just a moment, counselor.
Let's go ahead. And I know
where you're going, but hold on.
Councilor Soelberg has asked a
question. Staff. Go ahead.
>> Jean singer, facilities
capital project manager. And so
I'll answer a couple of
questions. Answer. So two
points that was written in 2021.
So that estimation would have
been done in 2021 before we
actually had true escalation
numbers. So all that was done
before we saw the historic
escalation that's occurred. So
since 2020 to 2026, the
Portland metro region has seen
about, oh, I did all my paper
in front of me. It's 37%
escalation. So actually, you'd
have to go back and do the math
on that original number and
apply the escalation that has
occurred. We covered that in
the workshop today at four. I'm
happy to follow back up with
that with those numbers if
needed. That actually took that
126 number to a number of one,
75, 71, 72. That was without
actually a selected site. And
then when you add in the site
costs that we've actually
occurred, you're in the range
of 200 million.
>> Okay. Any other questions or
comments, Councilor Stover? Any
other comments or questions
from the council? Okay. Thank
you. I'll entertain a motion on
item number three. Seconded by
Perez Perez. Additional
comments from anyone.
>> One additional comment. It
concerns me that it's $1,000 a
square foot. And, that's that's
pretty astounding. Thank you.
>> All those in favor say aye.
Opposed.
>> Nay.
>> Nay.
>> Motion passes. Thank you
very much. That concludes the
consent agenda brings us into
the public hearing. This is a
public hearing, an ordinance
adopting an interim official
control pursuant to RC W
36.78.390 relating to the
Evergreen School District
Capital Facilities Plan adopted
as part of the City of
Vancouver Comprehensive Plan in
accordance to VMC 20.9 15.060
and imposing a moratorium on
the calculation and collection
of school impact fees by the
City of Vancouver for Evergreen
School District under VMC
Municipal Code 20.9 15.060 for
the duration of six months
based on an. Adopting certain
findings of fact. Justifying
this action and establishing an
immediate effective date and
staff, please. Thank you.
>> Good evening, Mayor and
Council. For the record, Chad
Aitken, Director of Community
Development. I'd like to
provide a brief overview of the
subject of tonight's hearing.
On June 8th, City Council
enacted an interim control
ordinance and moratorium on the
city collecting Evergreen
School impact fees for six
months until the district's
Capital Facilities plan or CFP
can be adopted by council.
Tonight's public hearing is a
requirement of state law. In
order for the interim control
ordinance to remain in effect.
So the council has already
adopted the findings of fact
and imposed the moratorium.
This is a required process step.
If there are no changes in
after the public hearing
tonight by council, the
moratorium will remain in
effect until the end of the six
month period. So the Evergreen
School District adopted an
updated CFP, which says that
because the school district has
adequate capacity at all grade
levels for the next six years
and and expects the student
population to actually decrease
that, they do not need to
collect impact fees, and that
the city of Vancouver, City of
Camas and Clark County should
revise the ESD impact fee in
their development codes to be
zero. The moratorium means that
the city will not collect
impact fees on behalf of the
Evergreen School District,
while it is in effect, just to
a quick summary of the the
basis or the reason for this,
it has to do with timing. State
law says that for the city to
collect or revise school impact
fees, it must first adopt the
district's capital Facilities
plan in conjunction with the
Comprehensive Plan, or
alternatively, as part of the
city budget process. The CFP
was not included in the recent
comp plan update, so as a
result, the next opportunity to
adopt Evergreen School
District's CFP is later this
year when the City Council
adopts the biennial budget. As
I mentioned, if there are no
changes tonight by council
after the public hearing, the
moratorium will continue for
the full six month period or
until the CFP is amended or
adopted in the VMC is amended
to set Evergreen school impact
fees at $0, whichever is first
happy to answer any questions.
>> Thank you. Counselors, do
you have any questions of Mr.
Aitken? Hearing none, I'll open
the public hearing. Carmen de
Lehan, please.
>> Anne shocker. Right. So I'm
Carmen de Lehan. Molodih Lehan.
And I was reading over your
little thing here. And in case
you didn't know, there are some
schools that are actually
making money and selling off
electricity because they have
taken their parking lots and
put solar panels in them. So
instead of all this money, they
say they don't want to charge,
which I don't think they should
be charging schools anything.
So I think it should go on
forever in case you're asking
what you're not. But anyways,
yeah, so places like Japan.
>> Mr. Lehan, I'm.
>> Going to, I'm telling them
how to save money so that they
can not have to spend it all
because in Japan they cleaned
the place themselves. In other
words, the principal himself
does the toilet cleaning and
the kids clean up the kitchen
after they have lunch. And
that's how they save money on
janitors and stuff because they
take care of it themselves.
That's how you teach kids to be
responsible, by making them
responsible for their school
and saving money on the janitor
and expenses and yada yada. And
by the way, he said that some
schools are closing. Yeah,
Christian schools have tripled
in attendance because of
certain things being taught in
public schools that their kids,
they don't want to learn. So in
case you haven't seen the King
School over there on 78th
Street towards Hazel Dale is
massively growing because like
my, my granddad's school holds
2500 and these are only like
500 capacity. So they're tiny
schools. But anyways, if you
want to make smarter people,
countries like Sweden have
disowned the, the thought of
learning on the internet. It's
back to paper and pencil, which
is cheaper books because this
generation is the first
generation dumber than the last.
And we can thank all this
technology for that, because
now you're relying on that to
think instead of your own brain.
The brain is a muscle. The more
you use it, the stronger it
gets. And when you're letting
the computer do this and the
computer do that, you get
stupid people. So when you say
that you want to put money into
technology and stuff, I say put
them into things like, yeah, we
need plumbers, we need
mechanics, we need hands on
labor, people back again.
People need to have home
economics again. And these
things are you want livable.
You want people to face the
real world. Well, then give
them real life situations, you
know, and that doesn't include,
making them questions
themselves and confuse
themselves. No reading, writing
and arithmetic. That's what's
important. And putting them in
real situations, which is grow
your own food. You want to save
money, have a garden. And I've
seen those, you know,
playground areas. There's room
to grow your own food and teach
them, hey, we grew it. Now
we're eating it. Now we've done
something great. Be creative.
How come you know you want
people to buy things out of a
box and call that food instead
of getting it out of the dirt
and off a tree like God made it
to be, you're supposed to, you
know, God gave you every single,
herb with seed to enjoy. And
people need to have their kids
growing food instead of
thinking that nutrition comes
out of a box. Like I said, this
generation is the first
stupider generation than the
last.
>> That closes the public
hearing, brings it back to the
council. Councilor, do you have
any other questions or comments?
None. Thank you. I'll entertain
a motion.
>> To approve Fox.
>> Seconded by. Perez Perez.
Roll call. Vote please.
>> Councilmember Harless I
Perez I Fox I Paulsen I Stover.
I Hansen. Mayor McEnerny Ogle I.
>> Motion passes. Thank you.
That brings us into new
business. And this is the
contract for professional
service agreement for Pearson.
And who will be presenting this.
Airport manager Meredith Fox.
>> Hi there.
>> Good evening.
>> Good evening. The airport
master plan is what we're
planning here at Pearson Field
coming up. It's pretty old. The
last one was done in 2013. It's
outdated. So in order to get
federally federal funded, and
keep those funds continuing for
the airfield for the future,
this, this master plan needs to
happen. And it's also going to
be providing an updated FAA
validated obstruction data
analysis. And that's going to
be pretty important because we
know how unique Pearson Field
is with the waterfront and just
keeping it safe. And we're also
going to have quite a few
meetings in front of the public,
welcoming community feedback.
So here today to get the
contract going.
>> Thank you very much.
Councilors. Do you have any
questions? Yes, councilor.
>> Thank you. Mayor, I just
want to reiterate something I
mentioned last week. I had the
opportunity to go out to Grove
Field, which is owned by Port
of Kamea Washougal. Meredith
was there as well. We got to
see the, this particular firm,
that's before us tonight as a
potential consultant, run
through the beginning of, of
the master planning process at,
at, at Grove field. So was
excited to, it was very
interesting to listen in on
that and, excited about the us
getting kicked off here. Thank
you.
>> Thank you councilors you
have in front of you approval
for the contract for
professional service agreement
for Pearson field master plan
to century SC 102258. Do I have
a motion.
>> Move to approve Stover.
>> Stover. Seconded by Hanson.
Additional comments. Hearing
none. Those in favor say aye.
Opposed. Motion passes. Thank
you very much. And that takes
us into communication from the
Council councilor Harless.
>> I'm sure all of you are
experiencing and have already
seen the air quality advisory
that has gone out. You know,
right now it's over 100, which
is unhealthy for sensitive
groups. But by, early a m hours,
tomorrow, it's going to be
unhealthy for all groups,
probably through Wednesday at
least. So, you know, make sure
to wear a mask outdoors, reduce
your outdoor exercise and
exposure, keep your windows
closed. If you have a C put in
on recirculation, if you have
that option. And then for those
that may not know, you can very
easily create your own box fan
filter. You just need a 20 inch
box fan, a 20 by 20 by one inch
filter of the, 13 rating. And
you just put that on the back
side of the fan, either through
like a bungee cord or some tape,
and that will help filter your
air. And keep those windows
closed. And also, you know,
reduce your own pollution that
contributes to the air quality
right now. And it's not just
from wildfire smoke, it's also
smog, ozone advisory specific
to Clark County as well. During
this time. So, and do check in
on your neighbors, especially
elderly and other folks that
have health conditions, and
maybe offer, if they don't have
a circulation, filtering method
of going and making that DIY
filter for them. Yeah. That's
all. Thank you.
>> Councilor Perez.
>> Thank you. I just want to,
as a city councilor, my, my
comment is really, I feel for
our colleagues in Spokane, in
the city there. And I just
stand in solidarity with them
and more importantly, the
courageous first responders
that are working there to
tirelessly protect, the lives
and property. While here in
Vancouver, we're also
experiencing those effects of
the wildfire smoke that's
degrading our air quality. It's
just a reminder that wildfires
affect all communities across
our area. On top of that, we
also have our heat dome upon us.
And so we do have a severe
weather alert issued for
tomorrow until Friday. And we
want to make sure that our
residents and the public can
check our website for cooling
centers. Can check the Council
for the homeless website for
locations. And if anybody needs
a ride to any of those cooling
stations, C-TRAN will give them
a free ride. They just have to
say that that's where they want
to go is my understanding. So
with that, just a reminder that
as leaders of a city, it
affects us all of what's
happening across the state.
>> So thank you, councilor
councilor Fox.
>> As I mentioned last week,
there was a Children's Justice
Center meeting last Thursday
that I attended, as your
representative and, as part of
our coordination with the, with
that committee, we were
discussing, a little bit more
on, on our joint efforts to
lobby for changing the law that
basically right now it was, is
a felony. If, there are, is
methamphetamine and some of the
other, drugs that aren't really
that, found in homes right now,
that, you know, children are
endangered by those drugs.
There's been efforts for the
last few years to add fentanyl
to that list of drugs. So that,
so it would become a felony. If
children are present, children
are endangered by those drugs.
One of the issues that we've
been facing, as a, you know, as
a city as, as a county, would
be that there's a lot of
discussion at the state level
about concerns with changing
that law. And I've brought it
all to your attention before,
but I want to say that again
this year. I think we have a
little bit more momentum
locally. So that's why I wanted
to share this update with you.
Definitely putting together a
memo. I'll share it with you
when I'm done, but it'll just
recap all the things that we've
been doing over the last few
months, the legislators that
we've been talking to, and some
of the next steps. So I'll send
that your way blind copied.
>> Thank you, councilor
councilor Paulson.
>> Thank you. Mayor. Just
wanted to share that last week,
Thursday, I accepted an
invitation from the First
United Methodist Church on Main
Street to come to an open house
that they were holding. I
learned a lot, and I'll
summarize it for all of us. So
first of all, just to orient
you, it's 33rd and Main Street,
catty corner from the old
Memorial Hospital campus. They
will not very long from now
have a vine station right out
in front of their front door on
the new purple vine, which will
go from downtown Vancouver up
to Washington State University,
Vancouver. They've been doing a
fundraising campaign to raise
$2.5 million to refurbish their
sanctuary, including a
significant investment
refurbishing their pipe organ
instrument, which is a unique
and distinctive instrument
within the state of Washington.
But also to make some updates
to their sanctuary. It's
currently used as a performance
space by Clark College because
of the acoustics. And it's a
sought after space for folks
who are wanting to do arts in
our community. And with the new
changes to the sanctuary,
they're taking the risers out
and making it a much bigger
stage with a lot more
flexibility for a lot of
different types of events. And
so, they were $60,000 short of
their goal as of last Thursday.
And they're very confident that
they will achieve that goal and
begin that renovation,
posthaste. And they hope to be
open with their newly renovated
sanctuary with the new
instrument a year from this
December. I also learned that
they offer other types of
events, special events, like
they do a performance of the
silent movie Phantom of the
opera, and they play the famous
Boerke music that's associated
with that, that the public is
always invited to join. But
their overall objective, which
I think is the most important
thing I want to underscore, is
that their goal in making this
investment is to create a space
that's part of our arts
ecosystem, where more arts
performers and artists in
general have access to another
space in our community where
they can make performances
happen. And the way that they
said it was six days a week.
This is a space that's
underutilized, and we'd like to
see it utilized more. So I want
to congratulate the
congregation on raising the
funds and making that
investment, and thank them for
adding to our arts ecosystem.
Thank you.
>> Thank you so very much,
Councilor Stofiel.
>> Thank you mayor. So, I'm
going to be chasing you around
tomorrow night for National
Night Out. Check in to find out
if your neighborhood is hosting
an event. If not, there's
probably a neighborhood very
near to you that is, like I
said, I'll be chasing the mayor.
I know for a fact because every
year, every year that I try to
do this, I never get to as many
as I want. And I definitely
don't get to as many as the
neighbor does. The mayor does,
because she moves a heck of a
lot faster than I do. The, the
second thing is obviously
voting day is tomorrow and I
strongly encourage people to
get your ballots turned in
before the election started.
The projection was we would
have a 45% voter turnout
tomorrow, by tomorrow. As of
today, we only have 25% turned
in, which puts us on, on course
for a 35% voter turnout. So a
full 10% less, and, this is an
important election and we need
more than just a third of our
residents participate. Our
voters participating in, in the
decisions that are before us
tomorrow. So turn in your
ballot. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Councilor Hanson.
Thank you. Yes, our hearts do
go out to the folks in Spokane
and the 647, perhaps as many as
800 structures that have burned,
sent a note off to the council
over there. And I understand a
lot of support is coming from
the west side of the mountains
to help out with all of that,
National Night Out city manager
just, news came in just a few
minutes ago, the largest
National Night Out festival is
at fair, fair Fircrest. They
are canceling their National
Night Out because of air
quality and heat. I sent a note
off to public health to see if
they are sending out any
notices, because now that
Fircrest has canceled other
neighborhood associations, of
which there were 12, were had
it on the calendar. And I don't
know if a notice is going out
to those neighborhoods.
>> Yeah. William Cooley, our
community engagement manager,
shared Chris's update with all
the neighborhood associations.
>> So each neighborhood
association will be making
their own determination then.
But the largest one at Leroy
Hagen has been canceled.
They'll look for a new date. A
lot of vendors and everyone
else have rented things to do
that, but that is a big
cancellation. However, whether
it's supposed to cool down. And
then we have the Arts and Music
Festival, fourth year here at
Esther Short Park, with evening
performances of the Vancouver
Symphony each of those nights
and huge turnouts. So let's
hope this smoke moves on
somewhere, but doesn't settle
here in Vancouver for that. All
right, City Manager, you have a
couple items on the agenda.
Long range facilities plan
briefing, please.
>> Yeah. I'd like to welcome
the staff from General Services
up here to talk with the
council about this. This is
something that has been a I
wouldn't necessarily call it a
background project that we've
been working on for a while,
but it's a way for us to really
gather some data on the age and
condition of our facilities. So
we really have a clear
understanding of what it's
going to take to be a good
steward of our public
facilities moving forward. So
I'll just ask them to go ahead
and give you the council, the
summary of the findings.
>> Hello, I'm Geraldine Moyle,
the general services director,
and the group before you is
here to give a briefing. Like
Lorne said, on the city's long
range Facilities plan, General
Services initiated this work to
understand the city's existing
facility portfolio and through
collaboration with all city
departments, identify the gaps
in needed facilities that allow
us to provide services across
the city. You may have noticed
in the report that was provided
to you in the council packet
that it lacked punctuation.
This was a document compression
issue, and we are working with
Sarah to ensure that a more
readable document is included
in the record. You should have
found a more readable document
on your chair. We did excellent.
When with that, I'm going to
turn it over to Linda Carlson,
the property management program
manager, who will introduce the
team.
>> Hello. Linda Carlson,
property management program
manager. The Long Range
Facilities Plan is intended to
serve as a strategic planning
tool that evaluates our
existing facilities, identifies
future space and operational
needs, and establishes a
framework for making informed,
data driven investment
decisions over time. This plan
also supports the future growth
of the city. To do so, the plan
was initiated during the
comprehensive Plan process and
completed in late 2025, to
allow the incorporation into
the 2026 2036 Comprehensive
Plan. While the plan looks well
into the future, it is designed
to remain flexible and evolve
as the city's priorities,
service levels, and community
needs change. Our consultant
makers Architecture and Urban
Design will outline the
planning process and
methodology methodology, share
the key findings,
recommendations, next step
actions and implementation
benefits and begin a discussion
about the city's long term
facility needs and priorities.
With that, let me introduce you
to our consultants, Julie Basak
and Beth Batchelder from makers
Architectural and Urban Design
Urban Design. Together, they'll
be presenting an overview of
the planning process and the
goals that guided the
development of the long Range
Facilities plan.
>> Good evening Council. My
name is Beth Batchelder and I
am with makers. Thanks, Linda
for the introduction. We are a
small planning, women owned
planning firm in Seattle, and
we also have an office in San
Diego. This effort was also
supported by McKenzie, who is
an architecture firm that has
offices here along the West
Coast, but especially in
Vancouver and Portland. So
looking at your overall
facilities and the history,
Vancouver has done a great job
over the years, keeping pace
with growth and the facilities
investments. That said, and
including the significant
projects that are underway,
notably the public works
facility, the operations center,
which stars for that, because
you're light years ahead of
many other jurisdictions. That
said, you know, that there has
been significant growth, recent
growth, and there's going to be
over 40% growth within the next
20 years and more investment is
needed to keep in your
facilities to keep pace with
that growth. So this long range
facilities plan is an effort to
strategically think and plan
for facilities investments to
address all these issues, to
improve your city services and
anticipate prepare for that
regional growth. This process.
We have worked extensively with
city staff. We've had oversight
leadership team that's helped
with with everything we have
done, many interviews and some
focused work sessions. We've
also toured 27 facilities and
then worked closely with your
leadership team and city
manager throughout. The scope
of this project. We covered 30
city owned facilities and also
included the planned facilities,
five leased facilities, all
totaling just about 827,000ft².
And that covers the five major
functional areas administration,
public works, the parks,
recreation and cultural
services, and your public
safety. Looking at your overall
portfolio, you have a decent
base in assets, but it is aging
and over half of your
facilities are functioning
suboptimally and that is just
going to that. And the
conditions are just going to
continue to exacerbate as it
anticipates growth. And you
continue to absorb that growth.
Also, to note, every you are
budgeting currently annually,
2.4 million for major
maintenance. But in order to
adequately cover according to
industry standards, maintaining
your facility, your current
facility portfolio, the goal is
to actually increase that to 4
million annually. So looking at
all of the challenges that your
facilities face, I'm going to
do a quick recap of your your
issues here. Police your
headquarters. They need to move
out of that facility. It's
undersized and it's aging your
precincts while they are in
decent shape there. They are
not that old. They are at
capacity and they do not have
any room for growth. Your
evidence storage. You need more
space there. And also there is
no long term solution currently
for training for your police
department fire. You have some
really new facilities, but you
also have some aging ones,
specifically station five that
is in poor condition and at
capacity. Your training
facilities are also inadequate
and new stations have been
noted as needing in the water
to serve the waterfront area,
as well as Northeast Vancouver.
Administration is doing pretty
well. You have a gorgeous
facility here at City Hall.
It's in a prime space in your
city. But there's some things
that are needed that were noted
by your staff, such as larger
meeting space, some training
area. We know that the parking
is limited. We know you also
have done some work on some
mobility studies. And we also
are aware that the you are
planning to address many of
those issues by the development
at Chocolove, including
addressing the customer service,
parks, cultural parks,
recreation and cultural
services, your community
centers, you have some really
old ones that you've been
investing in and some new like
Firstenburg, lots of really
heavily used and active places,
but they are at or at capacity
and many of them do need
modernization. And then there
are some, such as the LUP
Senior Center, that are just
underutilized. We've also noted
that some storage is needed to
support supplies for your
downtown events and volunteers.
Public works, you are very
familiar with all the needs
there. The facilities are in
critical condition, which is
why you've chosen to move
forward with those investments.
And we also noted that your
Water resources education
center is underutilized. This
facilities plan, we focused on
some some six facilities you'll
see in your packet. These
facilities were the ones that
were most challenging, and they
also had quite a few different
potential solutions. And we
worked through those in staff
with staff kind of talking
through the different
possibilities in order to move
forward with some
recommendations.
>> Thank you. Beth, I'm Julie
Basak. I was the partner that
oversaw this development, and I
am delighted to summarize our
recommendations, the cost
estimates and the funding
strategy. A little context
first, as you all know, having
been involved in a number of
facilities, projects, major
investments in facilities can
take over a decade to complete.
So these are a marathon, not a
sprint. This is about setting
the city up to serve the
community for generations to
come. It's really smart that
you are not waiting that while
that you're investing in plans
like this one, so that in the
interim, as you are positioning
to fund those major investments
over time, you have guidance on
where to target resources, how
you can improve use of the
space that you currently have,
and how to set in motion things
like land acquisition that help
you in the near term. With
relatively small investments,
position yourself to have the
most flexible, cost effective,
longer term investments in your
facilities. This map and list
summarizes all of the key
recommendations from your plan.
We're not going to go into them
in detail, but I will summarize
some of the high points in the
immediate time frame. So the
next five years focused on
police headquarters for two new
and two remodeled fire stations.
The customer service
improvements at Takach love the
work you're doing at the Arts
Hub, the major project at the
operations center. And then
once that project is done,
depending on the future of
community court, providing
space for that facility in the
near term, we recommend
remodeling some existing
underutilized space at the East
Precinct, as well as addressing
some parking deficiencies there,
helping provide vehicle
evidence storage expansion with
some additions at your evidence
storage facility. That's the
area in which their storage is
most efficient. Remodeling and
eventually rebuilding station
five, doing some minor
improvements to shuffle rooms,
improve meeting spaces, and
potentially activate the first
floor of City Hall facing the
park, and then doing some minor
improvements and connecting
Marchel and LUP to improve the
use of those spaces. Medium
term identified the fire
station, fire station serving
the waterfront, and then a host
of operating opportunity
>> Be driven projects.
>> That are either.
>> Based on potential
partnerships, such as the joint
training facility or when
growth demand. So when your
population is there and you are
ready, then you're going to
need to invest in some new
public safety, as well as parks
and recreation facilities in
North. Moving on to costs. A
couple caveats. We have taken
costs that were already
available from the propositions
and or your own budget, or were
provided by a Keesee Cost
Consultants, who was our
partner on the project for all
of the recommendations where we
have phased them in a
particular year, we've
escalated the costs. However,
opportunity driven projects
we're using our $2,025 as those
can happen any time in the
future. So we didn't have a
year to escalate. They are full
project costs, including soft
costs, sales tax. ET cetera.
And notably, they are based on
information provided as of the
Pre-final report, which was
completed in December 2025. So
council has already seen costs
evolve in 2026. For your
current ongoing projects. These
costs in the report are timed
for when we finished analysis
in December of 2025. This chart
summarizes costs by phase. You
can see in the immediate term,
there is a significant
investment, primarily driven by
that orange bar, the operations
Center. The projects in this
time period are immediate
critical issues, and the ones
that are scheduled later are
less critical or designed to
serve growth over time. You can
also see that after this
significant investment, there's
significantly less planned to
meet your facilities needs in
the near and medium term.
Although if you focus on the
gray maintenance portion of the
bars, you'll note that every
five years we recommend
increasing your maintenance
budget to match closer and
closer to industry standard,
which you reach at 2040. So we
recommend a stepped approach in
which you plan to incur to
increase your maintenance
funding over time. Opportunity
driven projects North Precinct
North Community Center, joint
training facility and some of
those new fire stations. Those
will be planned in the
appropriate time frame as
growth demands and funding
allows. Speaking of funding,
how are projects of this
magnitude accomplished? Many of
you are probably aware, but
just in case we have seen that
many, many of our city and
county clients, have
transitioned to councilmanic
voter approved and revenue
bonds as the way to get these
facilities done. We have a long
history of successful voter
approved bonds in Washington
state. We pulled together some
interesting facts we thought
might be helpful for city
leadership and council. A
number of fire bonds, some
variety of police and public
safety bonds, as well as those
combined with other types of
city facilities. And then a six
successful parks and recreation
bonds as well. Obviously,
council will decide what the
appropriate funding strategy is
for each of these projects when
they come before you as part of
the budget process. But working
with city leadership, we
thought it was useful to
identify a potential funding
scenario so you'd have a sense
of understanding how will we
how could we fund these
projects? You can see the
immediate near-term. A fair
number of them are already
budgeted, although I will note
that fire station five new
construction and police
headquarters and proper
property are not fully funded
by what is in your current
budget compared to what we
recommend in this plan.
Remaining projects in the
immediate near term would be
funded through General fund,
current or future levies.
General obligation bonds,
ratepayer funds for the Public
Works Operations Center, and
some potential state and
federal funding. In the longer
term, those projects are funded.
We typically see with levies,
voter bonds, and then impact
fees for the areas that will be
supported by needed by growth.
Okay. Wrapping up here, we
would like to close with two
slides, one that summarizes
your next step actions. So
those are to complete the
projects that are already
underway, as well as to
initiate planning for the next
step of near-term projects.
East Precinct Evidence Facility
station five re construction,
City Hall and Marchel Lebowsky
establish a project funding
strategy. So consider and work
with your staff to understand
how you plan to fund those
future years of facilities,
investments and work to
increase the maintenance budget
over time. In summary, this
plan will address your facility
deficiencies, reduce risks, and
bring your maintenance up to
standard. It will ensure your
fire and police functions have
the facilities they need to
provide. The emergency response
your community depends on. It
will consolidate public safety
training, which we think is a
really interesting and
potentially beneficial project
to solve a major need of both
your fire and your police
department in a very efficient
and cost effective way. It will
extend the life of your beloved
parks and recreation facilities
while planning for their future
replacement. And finally, if
it's appropriate, it outlines a
plan to activate the first
floor of this building so that
you could have a more dynamic
presence once the customer
service functions are moved to
Chumakov. Thank you very much.
We'd love to answer questions.
>> Thank you very much,
councilors. There's a lot here.
And the document that you have
at your seat helps explain
several pieces of that. But do
you have some questions right
now or comments? Councilor Fox?
>> One of the pieces that kind
of rose to the top for me when
I was looking at the diagrams,
talking about the growth of the
city and the city population,
and I was just, well, I have
two questions around the growth
piece. The first one is the,
the amount of square footage of
facilities. Was it just based
on population growth or was
there something else driving it?
>> So I think you're asking
about the square footage of
facilities here.
>> Yes.
>> The we that is the orange
solid line is a representation
of when you constructed
facilities and they were added
to your portfolio, they were
probably added based on
population growth, demand and a
variety of other factors. So
we're not really sure the
motivations if that was your
question. The dotted line
moving forward is including the
future facilities, square
footage that we recommend in
the plan. So it shows, oh,
actually it jumps to what is
already planned and budgeted.
So that probably includes the
new operations center, square
footage and new fire station.
>> Yeah. I guess the yeah,
looking at that chart just made
me wonder again, kind of the
line the, the progression there
was quite a dip. I guess I
wasn't at the city at the time.
I mean, I was a resident of the
city, but I observed, you know,
during the recession in 2000,
you know, the early 2000 that
the city, basically had a lot
of leased facilities that they
ended up getting rid of. A lot
of staff were let go. And, and
so I would imagine that there
would have been a dip in square
footage that the city no longer
utilized. I'm not sure if they
gained that square footage back
over time. It seems to me like
they've been slower about
growing city facilities since
that time. So I just kind of
would like to better understand
that. And then also,
understanding it's not as large
of a proportion of our
workforce of the city, but
those folks that, you know, can
work remotely seems to me like
we, we've been talking about
that from the city center
development standpoint that the
growth and, you know, that
they've been saying that office
space is not in demand. And so
I'm just wondering how that,
you know, conversation about us
basically not, you know,
turning back our ideas about
having kind of mixed use
housing downtown and just
having housing plays into us as
a city saying we need more
office space in these coming
years. So I'm just kind of
trying to understand, more of
this more current workforce
trend, understanding that like
police, fire and parks are kind
of a separate discussion. So
that's where I'm at. Okay.
>> I can look into the trend of
our square footage from, back
prior to recession to where
we're at now and to see where
we've grown and what we've,
where we've been stagnant or
where we've decreased. And get
that back to you on that.
>> I appreciate it and kind of
the decisions about the use of
the space. If, if those kind of
new, new thinking has been put
forward since that time.
>> And I can just add that I
think it's a great point that
this graphic, I don't believe
includes leased space. I think
it is only city owned square
footage. So whatever additions
and or dips would not be shown
there. So that's a great point.
And we should note that in our
report. And I would also say
that we as part of this
planning given the trends in
workforce, and the different
ways of work, we did not
anticipate growth. In the
office area. So it was driven
by growth in emergency services
and parks and rec and public
works.
>> Okay. And my last question
is, there was a part of the
report that talked about the
underutilization of the Water
Resources Center. But then it
just that's all it said. So
could you expound upon your
ideas on how to better utilize
that resource center or not use
it anymore? I mean, we're
spending money on updating it.
A lot of money.
>> We actually talked through a
bunch of different scenarios
and we know that the public
works facility that is being
built eventually will be at
capacity. We also are aware of
some other leased facilities
that are being used by the
public works folks, such as the
Wasch facility. So I think that
this is an ongoing conversation
that needs to be maintained as
you move into a new space,
similar to administration, with
the move to Chocolove, you,
once you finally get settled in
the brand new operations center,
that will help you to
understand where your city is
growing, where your, your
operations are going to be
needed. We discussed there
might be some potential need in
the west side of the, of the
city to have a public works
satellite or even, equipment
drop space. It's really just a
matter of looking once you have
in are in your new facility
trying to understand what is
needed after that to be able to
accommodate your staff and your
operations. That could include
better utilizing the, the
recreation education center, or
it could also be possibly
making use of other spaces,
getting rid of leases. It's
really just something, a
conversation that still needs
to occur.
>> Okay. Any additional
questions, Councilor Fox? All
right. Councilor Perez.
>> Thank you. A little bit
along the same lines, I would
like to see all the lease
spaces that we have and getting
that more bigger picture. And
I'm coming at it from the lens
of our, of our budget, in the
future, was there and I like to
see the facility consolidation
recommendation that was on here
and wondering if there's going
to be any more. Once you do
take a look at the, the leasing
spaces, did you look at surplus
or divesting or disposition of
any facilities?
>> Actually we did. And I
cannot remember. Yeah. Thank
you. Geraldine. I don't, I
think we through the
recommendations in some cases
there's divesting of facilities
as for example, the public
works operations center,
obviously a number of
facilities will be divested
once that is constructed. I
think other, I can't remember
other lease.
>> I mean, that was a pretty
obvious one, but looking at the
entire ecosystem ecosystem that
we have for facilities, if we
have a list that at least at a
certain time, we would want to
identify a surplus or an
opportunity to divest,
especially within the context
of our projected budget.
>> Julie. Would it be fair to
say, rather than divest part of
what your analysis looked at
was how to better use space
that we no longer need, such as
City Hall because we shrink,
there's more opportunity.
>> Yes.
>> And I also think in the
future, if you do invest in a
joint training facility with or
without other jurisdictional
partners, you'll be able to
recapture the variety of
facilities that fire and police
currently have in use, as well
as not paying to rent training
facilities, which is a
significant, cost, annual cost.
I will say to, just to clarify
the, the least square footage
was not included in this
particular chart that we were
speaking of. But overall, your
facilities, we did look at
anything if it had city staff
or it operated a city function,
regardless of if it was leased
or owned, was part of what we
looked at.
>> I'm sorry. Geraldine, what
did you say? That we only
looked at what? I didn't quite
hear you. Your microphone
wasn't on.
>> I don't recall us
identifying many buildings to
divest. Divest. A significant
amount of the analysis, though,
included how to reuse this
facility as we shrink our
footprint. Okay. If you think
about the uses we're moving to
Chumakov and our recent
shrinking already of, each of
our departments square footage
in this building that has
provided a significant amount
of space that we are actively
leasing. And we just leased the
south west quarter of the sixth
floor to Kpf. We continue to
have the rest of that sixth
floor available. Our fifth
floor tenant, will have space
available in August of next
year. So we will have
additional space and we will
have significant amount of
space on the first floor
available for lease as well. So
it, a lot of it is about how we
compress our square footage in
this building and perhaps
others, in how we reuse that
space for other uses.
>> So this long range
facilities plan really isn't
all encompassing of all our
facilities.
>> It is encompassing of all
our facilities that employees
report to work.
>> Okay. But it doesn't
identify where employees are
not reporting to work.
>> Correct. So we don't have
that many facilities where
employees don't report to work.
>> Okay.
>> I think, if I may, Geraldine,
it's also important to note
that most of the time when
we're vacating a facility, a
lot of times they are ones that
are economically obsolete. And
so our focus would not
necessarily be on surpluses or
disposition, but on
redevelopment of the site. The
operations center is a good
example of that. The current
VPD headquarters might present
some opportunities to do
something unique over in in the
reserve. So that tends to be
what we look at is how to take
the properties that we own and
leverage them into fostering
new development, rather than
just a straightforward
disposition.
>> And I, and I guess that's my
point, is that if we're seeing
trouble with budget in the
future, we should be looking at
making some hard decisions. And
part of that is assessing where,
what services or what areas we
no longer use or need. If we
identified the water resources,
education and other areas that
are underutilized. That's just
an identification. What is our
plan for that? So just a huge
concern for me not having a
complete picture of all our
facilities that we lease and
own or rent out, whether
employees report there or not,
so that we could be smart about
how we're working this. I get
the operation center, I get the
fire and public safety, and
that's good. But we have this
other piece of the pie and
picture that we also need to
acknowledge and identify, at
least be transparent with it.
>> So absolutely. And that is
certainly something that we can
bring as a supplement. I would
add to that our underutilized
property without buildings,
right? We own a huge amount of
property that's vacant. That
was not a focus of this. This
the focus of this was
facilities. But if you add that
plus those buildings that we
lease out, which I believe
looking at Linda is relatively
few actually. We can certainly
provide that information and
continue this conversation.
Yeah.
>> All right. Thank you.
>> Councilor Harless any
questions? Yes, councilor
Stover.
>> Thank you, mayor, and thank
you for the report. So I'm
going to just kind of go
through in a lot of different
questions I have. What is
DVPDVPC.
>> Domestic Violence
Prosecution center.
>> Okay. Thank you. And when
you come back with that list, I,
in this new Andreasen facility
is still a black box to me and
I'm not seeing it here. So
wanting to understand where
that is and how that fits in.
On page seven of the report,
there are solid lines and there
are outlined lines, but I'm
struggling to understand what
those mean.
>> That is part of the
optimization for accessibility
and the, the faintness of some
of the hues is difficult for
folks with visual impairment.
And so we outlined the boxes
that were not as saturated with
color. There is no difference
in the outline versus not
outlined.
>> Oh, so.
>> The older facilities are are
full color bleed and the
lighter facilities are younger.
>> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Makes
sense. Can we go to slide 15? I
thought it was 15 is definitely
not that slide. It was showing
near. Yes. So we have oh okay.
That was confusing. Immediate
one is immediate. I was reading
intermediate but then it says
near term. So I was getting
confused. Okay. Got it. Now I'm
there. Thank you.
>> Councilor Paulson. Any
questions?
>> Thank you mayor. Thanks for
the presentation. And, first of
what I'm assuming will be many
conversations in the years to
come. We've got a lot of work
to do and a lot of facilities
to talk about, a lot of
difficult discussions about how
to prioritize and pay for
potential investments. It's
been helpful for me to
understand the scope of the
report through the dialog
that's already taken place. So
facilities in the context of
this study means places where
employees show up to work. And
that that helped me answer what
I thought was a question. And
then I looked at this page
again and I realized we have
the arts up on here. And so now
I'm back to my question, which
is the arts hub doesn't have
any city employees reporting to
work there, nor will it in the
future, but we've included it
here as a facility. And the
reason why I'm getting stuck on
this is because, Geraldine, you
mentioned that we have a lot of
city owned properties that
weren't included in the scope
of this report, some of which
is vacant land. But one which
comes to mind for me is the
historic reserve, which is a
significant amount of assets
that we own. We don't operate,
but is not in the scope of this
conversation. I know, but we
don't have employees employed
reporting to work there, but we
don't talk enough about our
ownership of that asset, our
management of that asset, our
financial commitment to that
asset. And we should. And so
whether it's in conjunction
with this study or if it's a
separate work stream or in a
workshop where we talk about
that, it was in our
prioritization poll that we
took a couple of weeks ago
about the budget, but there
wasn't really a lot of detail
about what that means in terms
of financial commitment or
planning. And it's been a long
time since we've talked about
that, but that was essentially
a gift that we accepted from
the federal government that
we've put in the hands of the
historic trust to manage on our
behalf. But we own that
property, and we have an
obligation to that property. So,
whatever mechanism we can bring
that into the conversation, we
need to do that. And then these
are minor quibbles, but we can
wrap, we can renovate the
historic, the police
headquarters. It has historic
status, but that doesn't
preclude renovation. So that's
a little bit of a misleading
statement. And also to say that
the arts hub is largely dormant.
I bristle at that notion as
well. Those are just a couple
of examples of I could go on. I
don't want to belabor the point,
but there were some factually
inaccurate statements in this
report that caught my attention.
So I'm looking forward to the
ongoing conversation. But also,
I think it's important. And
this kind of builds on
Councilmember Perez's point,
like this is part of a broader
conversation about budget
issues and revenue challenges
that we face and prioritization.
And I know it's important to
start a conversation someplace,
but I think it's also important
to contextualize the
conversation. And if we have
adjacent issues like the
property, we own an historic
reserve. I think that should be
part of this conversation as
well. Thank you mayor.
>> Thank you. Hang on just a
moment. You have a couple
bubbles on this map that might
be off. You have one on an
island in Oregon. The purple
with a white dot. We would love
to annex that entire island,
but I think Oregon wants to
keep it. You also have a blue
bubble with a dot way up high.
Police headquarters and
property. What is that one?
>> That would be in your report.
It has an asterisk because this
is where we are assuming would
be a good spot to put a future
headquarters for the police. So
the property has not been
identified, but knowing that
there is potential to move to
the north and to grow in that
direction, that is just a
potential spot. It is not
actually naming any specific
place that this is planned.
>> So would that still be
complete immediate project?
>> Your the headquarters there
you currently have in your
budget, $20 million set aside
for relocating police. So this
project does include some of
that budgeted funds, but that
does not cover it totally. Just
what Julie was saying earlier.
>> So I would hope that people
would understand that, but we
might want to clean up those
two bubbles. Councilor Hansen.
Okay. All right. Thank you. All
right. Thank you so very, very
much, city Manager. Let's move
into cryptocurrency.
>> Thank you mayor. So I'll
start off by saying that the
the resolution that was
included with the council
packet has been edited quite a
bit. The one that was provided
that we was in was included,
was provided prior to the
county legal review and to our
legal review and what it really
did. There's a newer version
that in essence keeps
everything the same except
narrows the scope, because what
the resolution was asking the
county to do was to actually
get into regulating
cryptocurrency related
businesses. That is an
interstate commerce issue which
doesn't fall under our
jurisdiction. So it was really
narrowed down to the point for
what we could actually impact
at the local level, which comes
down to the location of
cryptocurrency ATM machines.
And so the reasoning behind
this is just because
cryptocurrency crime in
particular targeting seniors,
has been something that has
been observed as being on the
rise by the Vancouver Police
Department. In the last
statistics that we have,
Vancouver had about 124 people
that were impacted, but the
dollar amount involved was over
$15 million. And that's just
Vancouver. That doesn't include
other communities in the county.
Some other ones, like
battleground, had a significant
number of cases. Camas had a
significant number of cases.
And so the approach here, I
think, from the Elder Justice
Center, was to ask the county
to take the initial action on
it. What we're seeking from
council tonight really is the
head nods that the council is
okay with Councilor Perez being
able to act on your behalf to
sign this resolution from the
Elder Justice Center that will
go to the Clark County Council,
then if the Clark County
Council chooses to advance it
forward and adopt an ordinance
that would regulate the siting
of cryptocurrency ATMs,
Vancouver would then follow
suit with one inside of our
city limits, so that there'd be
kind of a cadence of events
here. I'll ask Councilor Perez
to weigh in on if there's
anything that she feels needs
reinforced or that I may have
missed in that discussion.
>> Just, just a moment,
councilor Perez, let's get the
resolution up on the screen
because, what is on our
documents right now is
everything with exchanges and
mining. So, Miss Dollar, could
you bring up what is under
consideration tonight? And
scroll down to the second page
that if you could blow that up
a little bit larger city
manager, this is the document
that says the board encourages
the city of Vancouver, to
explore regulatory mechanisms
consistent with their
authority's da da da da da. But
it wants a county wide ban on
cryptocurrency mining.
Commercial cryptocurrency
exchanges. And that is not what
we are talking about.
>> Yeah. The the one that was
included in the council packet,
there was a revised version
that was provided, but it came
in too late to add it to the
council packet.
>> So do we need to get the new
copy.
>> Let's see.
>> I can there is only on that
now therefore be it resolved
paragraph instead of mining, it
is now cryptocurrency automated
teller machines. And commercial
cryptocurrency exchanges and
large scale cryptocurrency
related businesses. Operations
have been struck. So it just
focuses on ATMs.
>> Yeah. If you give me a
second, I can actually share it
with Miss Dollar and she can
pull it up in teams. Thank you.
>> While they're pulling that
up, councilor Perez, would you
like to talk about the
resolution?
>> Sure. So this resolution is
drafted by the Elder Justice
Center, which I sit on as a
representative of our City
Council. Chair Sue Marshall is
the county, council
representative on there, and we
have the prosecuting Attorney
General's office, and we also
have our, detectives and VPD
Zachary on there. And so this
has been identified as a big
issue, with fraud and abuse of
our elderly community. So to be
able to address this issue, the
decision was made to have a
resolution by the Elder Justice
Center Board that could be used
at the county level and
parallel at our level, at the
city, to work together to
protect our vulnerable
populations. So the data that
City Manager has shared with
you, is data that has been put
together by Detective Patterson
and shared with the entire
Elder Justice Center board,
just to see across the board,
all the cases that have been
happening. So for if you look
at the adjusted loss with all
the data on there, it's over
$21 million on there. And a
good chunk of that is in the
city of Vancouver. So the step
is. Approval from city Council
that I can sign on as a
representative on Elder Justice
Center. Then that goes to the
county council, where Sue
Marshall will present it. And
if they approve and accept that
ordinance, then we can make the
decision to then pass the
ordinance for the city. So it
would be county, and then it
would be our city, and
hopefully other other cities
would follow suit.
>> So there are other cities in
the state of Washington,
Spokane, Spokane Valley, and a
Cortes, Kennewick and such who
have done something similar.
There we go. Thank you so very
much.
>> So there's the the cleaner
version with the one that would
actually be up for
consideration with the Elder
Justice Center.
>> So if the county passes this,
then it comes back to the city
of Vancouver to determine the
regulatory mechanisms that work
within the city. Or do we
expect the county to have
overall mechanisms?
>> So part of the reasoning
behind having the county also
take action becomes that, if
you think about the UGA, it
really wouldn't do the City of
Vancouver much good to do a ban
in the city limits if they were
still allowed out in the UGA,
because people would just
direct them out into that area
to get to the get to the ATMs.
So countywide action could
occur first. And, we could, I
believe, follow with an
ordinance of our own.
>> Of our expectations of the
businesses that have these in
them and how they are removed
or reported. ET cetera. ET
cetera. So our regulations
might be different than, say,
battleground. Okay. All right.
Thank you so very much.
Councilors. Do you have any
questions of Councilor Perez or
the resolution? Councilor
Stauber?
>> Thank you, mayor. Thank you,
Councilmember Perez, for
bringing this forward. Thank
you for legal for looking it
over. So we have talked about
other cities, but other cities
are not listed here. So I would
love to see the other justice
board, amend this to bring the
other cities into the
resolution. So other than that,
I'm fine with, giving authority.
>> Okay. Any other comments?
Okay, I'll entertain a motion
then.
>> Move. Oh.
>> Oh, go ahead.
>> Move to grant Council Member
Perez authority to. Sign on
behalf of this Vancouver City
Council, a resolution of the
Elder Justice Board. Directing
the regulation and banning of
cryptocurrency automatic teller
machines.
>> Second Fox.
>> Any additional comments? All
those in favor, say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Opposed? Motion passes.
Thank you so very much, City
Manager. Any other item?
>> Just to note with some of
the earlier conversation
amongst the council, we have
already posted the information
about the air quality warning
and the heat warnings on the
city website, including our
information about the
procedures around cooling
centers. And then just for the
benefit of the staff, we would
be looking at our own air
safety protocols and heat
protocols to protect our staff
that have to work outside.
>> So, City Manager, would you
ask William to go ahead and
send that note to the
neighborhood associations that
are planning National Night Out
events so they can make
decisions?
>> I believe that was done
before the meeting concluded.
>> Perfect. Thank you so very
much, councilors. That
concludes the business of the
Vancouver City Council for
today. And we will now go into
the community forum. This is
the opportunity for folks to
talk to us about any item not
on the agenda, and it is also
our policy not to videotape
this. We always audiotape it.
So let's go ahead and turn off
CVTV