Special Meeting: June 27, 2008

Mayor Everding opened the meeting by announcing that he and Council Members Hunt and Huson had met with City of Tacoma planning staff that Monday. He felt it was a good discussion, but they left the meeting with the sense that Tacoma would not act very quickly to take over Ruston’s planning and building services. He felt Ruston needed to hire someone to staff the newly functioning planning commission and perhaps help find a permanent planner for the town.

The mayor suggested that Huson be tasked with finding someone by the next council meeting on July 7th. Huson said some of the Point Ruston team had suggested Kari Hayashi, who had recently retired as a planner for Tacoma. Point Ruston has spoken to her about the potential of working as Ruston’s interim planner. Once they clarified the work would be primarily focused on Point Ruston and helping find a new planner, she sounded agreeable. She was very familiar with the Point Ruston project.

Huson said he would contact Hayashi to confirm she was interested and bring a contract to the next meeting. Council Member Stebner cautioned that Point Ruston should not be involved in the negotiations for her services.

The meeting adjourned with jokes from some council members about the shortest meeting on record.