2025 DEI Comprehensive Plan Amendments

Background

The City of Ellensburg initiated the 2025 annual docket cycle review process to consider amendments to the City’s Comprehensive (Comp) Plan, as outlined in Ellensburg City Code section 15.250.090(D). By the submittal deadline of March 31, 2025, the City received 309 comprehensive plan amendment applications by the Community Development Department. Per the required code process, at the second Council meeting in July, the City Council reviewed suggested items to move forward for consideration in the annual docket review process. 

At the City Council meeting on July 21, 2025, Council voted in favor of docketing two items for the 2025 Annual Comp Plan Docketing process. Item one (25-01) includes the City’s six-year Capital Improvement Plans, and the second (25-02) includes 308 applications (which includes all but one application from the original 309 that was not docketed) related to Chapter 9, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion of the Comp Plan. In addition to docketing 25-02, the City developed a community engagement plan. Council approved a detailed version of this community engagement plan at their meeting on August 4, 2025, which included two Community Conversations and one Common Ground Workshop. Solutions from the Common Ground workshop will be incorporated into a recommendation for Chapter 9 and brought back to Council at their meeting on October 20, 2025, before moving forward through the 2025 Comprehensive Plan amendment process. For more information, please review item Agenda Item 11.B from the August 4, 2025, City Council Agenda, which can be found here. 

Link to Chapter 9 DEI

Community Engagement:

Community Conversation 1: Wednesday, August 20, 2025, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.; Hal Holmes Community Center, 209 N. Ruby Street, Ellensburg, WA. This event has already taken place.

Community Conversation 2: Saturday, September, 2025 from 1:30-3:30 p.m.; Hal Holmes Community Center, 209 N Ruby Street, Ellensburg, WA. This event has already taken place.

View Slides: August 20 & September 6 Presentation Slides

Themes from Community Conversations:

• Remove DEI Chapter of Comprehensive Plan (PDF)
• Keep/Modify DEI Chapter of Comprehensive Plan (PDF)

The online comment form closed at 4 p.m. 9/19/25.

Common Ground Workshop

The Common Ground Workshop took place on October 4, 2025. Braver Angels’ Common Ground Workshop brings people together who see a public issue in different ways. The goal is to share perspectives and look for possible solutions. In these workshops, the two “sides” are not always divided by politics. Instead, organizers identify the main values or concerns of each group and invite equal numbers of participants from both sides to work toward common ground.

There are two ways to be involved:

• Participant – takes part in the discussion and helps develop ideas. 
• Observer – listens to the conversation without joining in. 

By the end of the workshop, the two sides create a list of shared values, concerns, and ideas about Chapter 9. This list will be given to the City and City Council for future action.

Six community members have been nominated by people who attended the Community Conversations to represent each side of the issue: remove or keep/modify the DEI Chapter of the Ellensburg Comprehensive Plan. The workshop will have limited seats available for Observers and registration will be required.     

Common Ground Workshop Pre-Read

Participants representing the view to Remove DEI Chapter 9 of Comprehensive Plan:

1. Christopher Hobbs
2. Jessica Hanna
3. Jennifer Patteson
4. Julieanne Cleman
5. Cari Vickers
6. Judy Ratcliff 

Participants representing the view to Keep/Modify DEI Chapter 9 of Comprehensive Plan:

1. Tory Jones
2. Sasha Geise
3. Griff Tester
4. Allison Dermond
5. Laura Brant
6. Cody Natland

Common Ground Workshop (with limited participation and observers): This event took place on Saturday October 4, 2025, from 10:00 a.m.- 3:30 p.m.; Hal Holmes Community Center, 209 N Ruby Street, Ellensburg, WA. Only those registered Participants and Observers attended. **Agreements developed during the Common Ground Workshop will be posted on this page after the workshop.** 

What Happens After The Workshops?

Before moving into the Planning Commission for further review and incorporation into the 2025 Comprehensive Plan amendment process, solutions developed from the Common Ground Workshop will be captured and brought back to the City Council and community for validation, 

Note: It is the intent that the results of the Common Ground Workshop will guide recommendations for Chapter 9, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, of the City's Comprehensive Plan. The City reserves the right to create additional steps that may be added to ensure solutions developed through the Community Conversations and Common Ground Workshop reflect sentiments of the community as they move through the amendment process. Planning Commission members and Councilmembers are asked to be observers only and not participate directly in the Community Conversation events or the Common Ground Workshop.

Final Points of Agreement

At their October 20 meeting, the Ellensburg City Council reviewed six options regarding the next steps with Chapter 9. The Council voted to direct staff to pursue option 3 from the agenda packet. The next iteration of this will appear at the Planning Commission Public Hearing on November 13, 2025. View the October 20, 2025 City Council Meeting.

Schedule for 2025 Comprehensive Plan Docket:

Update

At the December 15, 2025 meeting, the City Council adopted Ordinance 4977, 2025 Annual Comprehensive Plan amendments.

Contact Us

For questions, contact the City Manager's Office at (509) 962-7221 or email citymanager@ellensburgwa.gov.