Inside the City of Tumwater

Date: March 16, 2023

To: Mayor Debbie Sullivan City Councilmembers City Employees

From: John Doan, City Administrator

We Have a Dahlia Superstar on Our Team!

People

Paramedic Joins Us from Hoquiam

Eli Fox is joining the City as a Firefighter/Paramedic, filling an existing vacant position. Eli graduated from River Ridge High School, the Tacoma Community College Paramedic Program, and the Bates Technical College Firefighter Program. Since 2019, he has worked for the Hoquiam Fire Department. Great to have you on the team Eli!

We’ve Added Another Police Officer

Javkhlan Battumur, who goes by “Jack,” has joined our Police Department. Jack was born in Mongolia and came to the US with his family. He grew up in Colorado, spent 7 years in the US Army, and left his final duty station at JBLM. He continues to serve in the National Guard. He and his family live in the area and he is the BHHS girl’s JV volleyball coach Maybe we need a City volleyball team? Welcome, Jack! He is awaiting an open slot at the State’s Law Enforcement Academy.

Our very own Wayne Lobaugh was featured in The Centralia Chronicle for his hobby of raising and hybridizing, dahlias. Wayne has received seven medals from the American Dahlia Society. Check out the article about Wayne and his dahlias.. Is it any surprise he supervises our parks maintenance crew?

No. 21 UCLA Women top ASU 81-70 in OT

We don’t usually report women’s basketball scores here, but this game was special because Tumwater Golf Operations Coordinator, Tyler Trimble, was one of the referees for this opening PAC-12 tournament game. Next time you are watching college basketball, watch for Tyler!

Q. How Many Catch Basins Do We Have?

A. Answer: 3,610

Catch basins are very important because they are the link between our street systems where chemicals, debris, and runoff enter our stormwater collection and treatment systems and our natural systems (streams, rivers, lakes, Puget Sound). Having an inventory and keeping them clean is very important to our goal of keeping the environment clean. This month, our water resources/stormwater team completed a 4-month project of inventorying all of those catch basins.

The team that did the work, includes Dave Kangiser and Matthew Joseph from Water Resources, Jennifer Radcliff and Georgianna Strobin from the GIS Division, and the Stormwater Crew of Mark Teigen (Lead) along with Jeff Cota, Dale Kapsandy, Levi Loewen, and Timothy Bell. Thank you for the great work Team Catch Basin!

Next up, is cleaning and maintaining about 1,000 of those catch basins.

Events

Stream Team News: Spring Edition

Facts about beavers and other information about our environment comes from are featured in the Stream Team newsletter. Water Resources Specialist Grant Gilmore plays a major role in the regional efforts to educate the community about the environment and our efforts to protect it. You can read the newsletter online.

Places

Big Things at DRC

The Development Review Committee is looking at:

• Feasibility Review of the conversion of 94,000 s.f. of office space at Point Plaza East (4-6) to approx 185 residential units. (This is an interesting project because it is a direct result of the dramatic move of office workers to teleworking during COVID.)

• Formal Review of the Belmont Flats Project – 15 acres of mixed-use development with 614 residential units, 10 live/work spaces, and 27,500 s.f. of commercial space.

• Feasibility Review of “Tumwater Commercial 101” – proposal for 9 commercial lots on 54 acres at the SW corner of I-5 and Tumwater Blvd.

• Formal Review of 29,200 s.f. metal commercial building at 8913 Select Ct. SE.

Remember that Feasibility Review is often speculative and happens at the very early stages when people are considering projects. They often represent a minimal investment in design and frequently do not materialize in the form originally presented. The formal review is the last step before submitting a building permit and usually demonstrates a significant investment in design and engineering. Projects reaching formal review usually materialize.

Garden Club Forms

The Wellness Committee is launching a Garden Club for City employees. Just a couple of the benefits of gardening include increased exercise, improved diet, reduced stress levels, and improved mental health and social connection. Cathy Nielson, in Transportation and Engineering, is leading this effort. Activities will take place during lunch hours and outside of normal working hours and are completely voluntary. Please reach out to Cathy if you want to be part of the gardening fun.

Nightwork at Capitol Blvd & Trosper Rd.

Inside The City

Illustrating our Mission, Vision, or Beliefs in Action.

Sometime, the To Do list goes out the window.

On Wednesday, a little before noon, our IT team was happily doing their work when at 11:09 a.m. the fiber optic line that connects most City facilities got cut. That included the connections to TCOMM, Golf, T2, Old Town Center, museums, the water filling station, and the SCADA system that monitors our utilities. Ouch!

Several systems, like the Police and the utilities, were able to switch to radio backup.

Lance Inman, our IT Team, and staff from departments were able to create interim fixes with golf using the restaurant internet, OTC using the daycare connection, and T2 using a new cellular fix. Restoring the regular connection happened Sunday.

A huge shout-out goes to Lance and his team (as echoed by several City staff) for going “above and beyond” and thinking outside the box to get things up and running during this surprise interruption!

UPDATE: City Administrator Recruitment

The deadline for the first reading was Monday, and we have at least 18 applicants. The recruiter anticipates that a couple more applications will trickle in. This number of applicants, which includes candidates with traditional and non-traditional backgrounds, is similar to those they are seeing in other jurisdictions.

The recruiter will screen the applicants, designate a smaller list of semi-finalists, and then conduct phone interviews. From there, a recommended list of candidates will be presented for consideration as finalists. Then, the finalists will be invited to the City for in-person interviews. Interviews and a public reception are scheduled for April 10 & 11.

We are excited that we have this amount of interest in this important position. Tumwater is a good place to be!

Please let me know if you have any questions.