Rumors & Questions

Those are the Flock cameras we've been talking about. There are 12 throughout the city. They actually have their own project page; here's the link to learn more: https://connects.sumnerwa.gov/flock-safety.

Maybe! I'll share your thoughts with the Traffic Safety Committee, which is a team of all the different departments (Police, Public Works, Legal, etc.) who meet routinely to review traffic issues and improvements. A few years ago, we floated the idea of school zone cameras to the Council. They did not want us to pursue that, so we never really got to red-light cameras. We just pursued and installed Flock cameras, which help us find criminals and vehicles with alerts. That brings no revenue, but they sure are helpful.

Different circumstances need different things, and this is a situation where one size does not fit all. If you were planting these trees in a forest or in a park, then, yes, it likely would be better to plant directly into the ground. Main Street is a different situation where the tree is in a crowded space that must accommodate pedestrians, ADA access and commerce happening around it. One of the key reasons we’re choosing to use a planter is that when these trees get too big for the space, we have the option to easily move them elsewhere rather than dig up our sidewalks again. The planters also greatly reduce tripping hazards for people’s safety, which is our priority.

Sure! It's been on the Ryan House project page for a few years now. Visit https://connects.sumnerwa.gov/ryan-house and look at the Document Library on the right-hand side of the page. There's a lot of documents there, and I promise you, the deed is included.

Sure! Any comments submitted to the clerk by email or as a hard copy at the meeting are attached to the minutes of that meeting. So, for example, in the screenshot below, this email received for the December 2 meeting appears after the minutes for that meeting. To find those, go to https://sumnerwa.gov/council/agendas-minutes-videos/ and select the meeting date. To access past meetings, scroll up. This is a style feature from our vendor that we can't change. It's great...once you realize it. Then, after selecting the correct meeting, click on Minutes (highlighted in this screenshot). The minutes are posted for a meeting after they're approved by the Council at the next regular council meeting. So, these minutes for December 2nd went online after they were approved at the December 9th special meeting. Typically, they will appear after two weeks as the Council's regular meetings are usually the first and third Mondays of the month. This is a bit beyond your specific question, but it's worth clarifying that this is how the public sees the record of these comments. Councilmembers receive them before the meeting (if by email) or at the meeting (if submitted in print at the meeting).

Multiple aspects affect the safety of our roads. One part is indeed engineering. We received a Federal grant to study several intersections along Main Street, including at Parker Road, for potential changes. We'll be conducting that study this year. We also have a Traffic Safety Team that meets routinely with staff from Public Works, Police and other departments to review and assess ways to improve road safety throughout our city.

Unfortunately, engineering only gets us so far. We also get complaints of drivers blowing through two-way, four-way and even signaled intersections. The collision at Parker & Main early this morning involved a driver under the influence. That's why another safety component is enforcement. No amount of signs or lights can overcome drivers' poor decisions involving speed, distractions, DUI, or even aggression. Our police department uses education and enforcement to try to reduce those behaviors as much as possible, but unfortunately, it's not within our power to eliminate them.

Good question! Here's the answer from the Deputy Chief: 
Parking enforcement in residential areas is typically only done in response to calls for service. And, complaints that are a safety risk (like moving violations) are prioritized over parking complaints. At night, we typically only have two officers working, so they don’t proactively enforce parking violations.
Thank you to everyone who takes the extra moment to park facing the right direction.

The City did receive a proposal from a BESS. 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. Over the past few months, the City has 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 only. 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.

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 Open House at City Hall to share information and answer questions. Although the formal comment periods have ended, we recognize this is new technology may continue to generate questions. 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.

Moving forward, the City is updating 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.

The challenge is that we don't control that light; it's under the jurisdiction of Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Our Traffic Safety Team, which includes staff from Public Works and Police, shares a lot of the same frustrations you have mentioned for quite awhile. We have reached out repeatedly to WSDOT to ask them to adjust the timing, suggesting that after the lights on SR162 turn red, there should be a couple second delay before the light from Rivergrove turns green. Sometimes, the red-light runners are simply running red lights. We've seen drivers get more aggressive across the region. In other cases, though, a heavy vehicle, like a dump truck, physically can't stop abruptly, and the light settings should account for heavy use by such vehicles. Members of Public Works and Police have repeatedly reached out to WSDOT to no avail. Perhaps if you reach out to them, you'll be able to succeed where we have not. As for enforcement, that also means that Highway 162 is outside Sumner Police Department's jurisdiction and is under Washington State Patrol or Pierce County. While our officers can operate outside our jurisdiction for mutual aid (major collision or incident) or task force patrols, it would not be the most appropriate thing for our staff to purposefully patrol outside our jurisdiction. It's a very awkward circumstance where we don't have jurisdiction on SR 162 but then have it again within the neighborhood.

Earlier in the year, we contracted Pierce County to repaint the road stripes. We also used a different contractor to redo some crosswalks in the city, but it sounds like this particular one was not on the schedule for this year's repaint. The City’s Public Works crew will take a look at the crosswalk you mention to see if it needs attention sooner. 

With all that said, though, a crosswalk exists wherever two roads intersect. This is a good time to remind drivers that you're to yield to pedestrians at all crosswalks, whether there's paint or not. Lots of crosswalks throughout the city have never been painted, yet they exist.