Rumors & Questions

Sonoco Recycling was already shutting down operations in Sumner, so their tanks have been emptied out as part of that process. I don't know for sure if the chemicals Sonoco used to use were exactly the same as what Nippon had or not, but whatever Sonoco had is gone. The State Department of Ecology really handles that process, and the City is just aware of their progress. Ecology staff are at the forefront of monitoring various chemicals used in all industry, promoting safe storage and handling plus responding when something goes wrong. They have an ongoing webpage with details from the very sad Longview incident if you'd like more information directly from them on what's happening there: https://ecology.wa.gov/spills-cleanup/spills/spill-preparedness-response/responding-to-spill-incidents/spill-incidents/nippon-dynawave-industrial-incident

1) The music system is causing huge problems for IT to keep managing alongside all the other urgent requests to keep hundreds of devices and online services working. It’s not unexpected since we used the cheapest equipment option and put it outside for years on end. We’re currently evaluating whether we keep wrestling with this semi-failing system or try to find the funding (and time) for a new one. 2) The hanging baskets have been growing in a greenhouse as usual. The big cost is not the baskets themselves but the seasonal employee it takes to water them every day without fail once they’re out. (Rain doesn’t count.) That seasonal employee began yesterday, so the baskets are scheduled to go up tomorrow per the usual timeline.

It's so wonderful to hear how much you enjoy the music. It's not so wonderful that none of us can hear the actual music at the moment! We checked our streaming station, and it shows it's playing. We may have an issue with the system itself. I think we need to call IT. (The system can be a bit finicky.) 

While we're talking about the downtown sound system, we should mention that we do not currently have a plan to return sound to Heritage Park or add it to Hops Alley. We were just asking Sumner Main Street Association if we should pursue grant funding to get that added and perhaps upgrade the entire system. They said yes. Sounds like you'd be in favor too! 

We have no ETA; they’re still working around the city, and they are not the only fiber company installing material in our right-of-way. Apparently, multiple companies decided that cities need lots of fiber now, and not the kind you get in cereal. When such companies come into our city, there's less control from the city than most people assume. We can negotiate terms, but we can't outright deny the companies' access. And, we don't really know when they will start offering actual services to residents. 

Yes, the project is running behind schedule. It sounds like some situations arose between the contractor and Sound Transit. In other words, we didn't cause the delays!   

Yes, all of these concerns and more were addressed during the 2024 permit process. We actually posted about this project over a year ago on this Rumors page. I'll repost it here so that you don't have to scroll down.  

The City did receive a proposal from a BESS in 2024. The GreenWater facility proposal came from a company called Bright Night, who is planning to develop this facility on private property in Sumner’s Manufacturing Industrial Center. The owner and developer went through the Pre-Application Process, which the City encourages any large project to do in order to review any impacts, zoning issues or other challenges before a project applies for permits. This project did that pre-application. From April through July 2024, the City put the project through a State Environment Protection Act (SEPA) Process for the full development and a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) process, per our code, for the transmission lines. These processes involved a lot of both required and proactive engagement to review concerns from the City, from East Pierce Fire & Rescue, from the health department, from neighbors and from the public. Topics reviewed included everything from ensuring drive lanes accommodated the turning radius of a fire engine to assessing this project’s proximity adjacent to one of the City’s wells. You can still review all the topics addressed and assessed, including water supply and fire safety. 

UPDATE: I'm hearing that the documents you want on the Notice of Decision page take a really long time to load. There are multiple big documents, so that makes sense. Let me try to give you their links directly. Here's the link to the Emergency Response Plan: https://sumnerwa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Emergency-Response-Plan-ERP-BESS-Tesla-Draft_v1.pdf that answers your question about the preventative measures. You'll also want to review the SEPA Checklist which is available here: https://sumnerwa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Noticed_-SEPA-Checklist_Revised-4.24.24_v3.pdf. That gets you details on all the other factors evaluated, including groundwater. Hopefully, this makes it easier to get to the details quickly. Also, I'm checking on a direct contact for Bright Night. As soon as I have that, I'll update the answer again. 

To ensure concerns were addressed from the public the process included public notices, signs on the site, posts in the City’s e-newsletter and on social media, and postcards mailed to neighboring properties, inviting them to a public information session held on the site. Bright Night also attended the City’s Spring 2024 Open House at City Hall to share information and answer questions. Although the formal comment periods have ended now nearly two years ago, this new technology may continue to generate questions such as yours. If you have concerns, please do not rely on rumors heard from your neighbor or viewed on social media; instead, please contact Bright Night directly to talk through your concerns and get your questions answered.

Also, since then, the City has also updated its code to more clearly specify requirements and process around battery energy storage systems in our commercial and manufacturing areas. They will not be an allowed use in any residential zones.

Like most issues, homelessness does not "see" borders, so Sumner has impacts all the time from things happening in other jurisdictions, as our choices also likely impact our neighbors. For that reason, we work across borders on solutions too. Frankly, the thing outside our borders that will most impact Sumner is the State's proposed bill HB 2489, which narrowly passed out of committee yesterday. Through this bill, the State would prohibit cities from clearing any public space including sidewalks, parks, etc. from activities including storage of personal belongings. Visit our Legislative Agenda page for more information on this bill and our concerns with it. 

No. In fact, we’re taking some measures specifically so that we don’t need a new City Hall anytime soon. It is true that the current City Hall is beyond capacity. Our staff fit, sort of, thanks to hybrid work schedules with some working alternating days from home to share the limited spaces in City Hall. We also repurposed former hallways and closets as offices. However, we have not been able to add other key necessities like restrooms, so things still get a bit tight, with minimal restroom facilities and minimal storage even for key records that must be retained. We really don’t want to build a new City Hall, so we’re buying our community some time and space with a creative plan to move the Council Chambers out of City Hall. Then, our current Chambers can be used for badly needed offices and other necessary spaces. 

Where would Council Chambers go? We are currently designing a building to provide a community space in Heritage Park. That building’s main purpose will be a ground-floor indoor gathering space that flows with the park’s exterior features. It gives individuals and groups spaces to work and meet indoors, similar to the outdoor seating we had at the park last year. It would also be a space that could be rented for special occasions. The inspiration for this is The Hangar at Kenmore. The building also includes a second story with five staff work spaces. During design, we added a third story for the Council Chambers. In addition to freeing up badly needed space in City Hall, this move also allows the new Council Chambers to be used as a secondary, smaller space for other public meetings that complements the large gathering space that is the building’s primary purpose. Construction is not funded yet, so we have no time-frame when this building will be constructed and the move made. The current construction at Heritage Park is to build Phase 2 only, which is the northern-most tip of the park (closest to Main Street) and does not include the building. We see where things get confusing, but we can also assure you that moving Council Chambers and adding a few work spaces for staff does not equate to a “new city hall.” 

Those were the crosswalks with the decorative daffodil stamp in them, right? These seemed like a good idea when we installed them many years ago. However, we found two big issues with them since. First, they were very hard to maintain and refresh as the color/design was stamped into the asphalt rather than a normal paint that we can easily repaint. Second and more important, since those were installed, the general idea of decorative crosswalks became a larger debate nationally. The Federal Highway Administration's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) directs uniform traffic markings across jurisdictions. They have emphasized that all marked crosswalks* should be the standard white bars with no variation. Our insurance also noted that any deviation, even the daffodils, puts a higher liability on the city if someone were to be struck in that crosswalk. 

While we like decoration, the priority for crosswalks needs to be safety. Since the old crosswalks were stamped into the asphalt, we patched the roadway, and the new compliant crosswalks are much easier to maintain and refresh as needed. We've redirected our artistic pursuits to other channels, like wrapping utility boxes with artwork, that hopefully don't involve other complications. 

*Just a caveat to drivers. A crosswalk actually exists where two streets intersect, whether it's marked or not. Once the City marks a crosswalk, we have to follow MUTCD guidelines for safety, but that doesn't mean drivers are off the hook to still yield to pedestrians even in an unmarked crosswalk. 

The short answer is yes. The biggest update currently happening is construction of the missing separated trail along Fryar Avenue, a project going into construction this year for $7.2 million. (Yes, these projects are very expensive.) We're able to do this one thanks to a Federal grant for design and construction funding from a WSDOT Bike & Pedestrian Grant. There are lots of other plans for bike lanes and improvements, but there's not a lot of other funding to do them. You offered some great suggestions and the one I'd also add is smooth roadways. Crumbling roads negatively affect everyone, vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles. We know that even our routine road maintenance is underfunded, and we're falling behind. We go after any grant we can find, but it's highly competitive for the grants that are available, and there's no grant funding for residential road maintenance. All this summer, the Council has been considering a Transportation Benefit District (link) to provide a revenue source specifically for roadways. You might want to explore this more and what it would mean for Sumner's roadways, including for bicyclists.