The Federal Way City Council voted 4-3 to pass a resolution in support of the Emerald City Behavioral Health (ECBH) organization to apply to operate the first youth psychiatric residential treatment facility in Washington state.

Two weeks ago, the council declined to vote on a similar resolution to support Connections Health Solutions’ application to operate a facility at the same address, which was remodeled under a King County contract with another operator, then abandoned in 2023. This facility is approximately one block from the Federal Way Community Center.

The first two potential operators for the building located at 822 S. 333rd St. in Federal Way would have offered crisis care for mental and behavioral health issues for adults. The new and approved operator ECBH will focus on offering mental health and substance use services for ages 13 to 20.

While both Connections Health Solutions and ECBH requested city support, it was for different reasons.

Chief Operating Officer Michael Clarke told the council that ECBH needs the city’s support in order to serve Medicaid patients. These federal funds are distributed by the county, who has a policy not to pass through reimbursements for Medicaid to operators without the host city’s support.

Connections Health Solutions’ request instead came as part of an application to run a crisis center as part of a countywide network of response as detailed in a levy approved by voters in April 2023.

The ECBH facility will be a psychiatric residential treatment facility for youth, not a crisis center.

The addition of the April 1 resolution to support ECBH was a last minute surprise for many, added after Councilmember Susan Honda invited Councilmember Paul McDaniel and Councilmember Hoang Tran to meet with the ECBH and take a tour.

In a press release before their city council presentation, Clarke shared that the facility will include 94 beds total, including 10 detox beds, 24 long-term residential beds, and 60 short-term stabilization beds.

In order to offer services at this capacity, Clarke told the council they plan to build a second floor on the existing building.

Community Development Director Keith Niven clarified in an email after the council meeting that “staff will need to ensure whatever is proposed in that location meets all City and Building Code requirements.”

The facility will also include “full outpatient services, family therapy, and post-discharge planning as well as integrated co-occurring treatment for youth with mental health and substance use needs,” according to that press release.

Clarke described the project as “both historic in scale and deeply personal in purpose.”

In that press release, Clarke shared that when he first walked into the building at 822 S. 333rd St., “I didn’t just see crisis intervention. I saw crisis prevention — something even deeper: habilitation, not just rehabilitation. Many of our youth are not returning to a prior baseline. They’ve never had one. This project will give them that foundation for the first time.”

Council vote

Several councilmembers stated that they wanted to wait and have more time to vet the potential facility operator before voting.

After extensive discussion on the dais, Councilmember Jack Dovey brought forward a motion to delay voting by two weeks. In a friendly amendment, Councilmember Jack Walsh suggested 30 days instead, bumping the decision to the May 6 meeting.

That motion to delay the vote failed with Councilmembers Lydia Assefa-Dawson, Paul McDaniel, Susan Honda and Hoang Tran voting against it.

McDaniel then brought forward a motion to pass the resolution as written. Councilmember Honda seconded the motion, and it passed 4-3.

Councilmembers expressed that they moved to vote on it that night rather than waiting because they didn’t want to waste any more time providing the service to the community or miss the opportunity to have an influence in who operates the facility.

“To be honest with you I am disappointed that many of us in the community keep saying the things that we need for this community,” Tran said, referring to the community expression of a need for a mental health facility or a crisis center.

Tran said that every time the opportunity comes up to actually do something, he’s noticed “for the last many years I’ve been on this council” that the response to these opportunities is a “mentality of ‘not in my backyard,’” and the opportunity is lost.

“It is not acceptable,” Tran said.

Unlike the strict deadline attached to the resolution considering support for the crisis center on March 18, this resolution could have been delayed.

ECBH representative Clarke told the council during their presentation that they were more than willing to take their time and provide tours and more information to all councilmembers before they decided.

Councilmember Honda said her urgency in voting that night is based on the fact that anyone can move into that building without the permission or support of the city council and that it is already zoned for and renovated to be a crisis center or mental health facility.

“This is not a crisis center, this is mental health treatment for children,” Honda clarified. “If you are looking at the news or talking to educators or talking to parents you know that since COVID, our kids are in crisis and our kids need help and there isn’t help available.”

“I think this is what our youth need, not just our youth in Federal Way, but our youth in general, and there’s nothing like it,” Honda said.

Councilmembers Dovey, Walsh and Linda Kochmar and Mayor Jim Ferrell expressed varying levels of support for the idea of the facility, but shared the sentiment that it would be better to delay the decision in order to follow due diligence and have more time to evaluate the company that sought to operate it.

“In all probability a month from now I would have been voting ‘aye,’” Walsh said after the vote, saying that “the council has spoken and you folks have my full support and I hope that it goes very well. I wish we could have vetted it a little bit more, but what’s done is done, so you have my full support.”

Kochmar stated in her final comments that “I’ve been around in this business in this city in the state Legislature long enough to say you need due process to get a good result, you need to investigate…you can’t just say ‘oh you’ve got a good idea, I’ll go with you.’ You need to have fairness, you need to have people come from the community who say what they think, like a public meeting. You need to have committee meetings and you need to allow our staff to do their job.”

After the vote, Mayor Ferrell said, “congratulations Federal Way, you’ve got a psychiatric facility.”

Former Youth Commission Chair Juan Juarez-Ramos told the Mirror after the council vote that although he has personally been advocating for services for at-risk youth in the city, he wishes the resolution could have been delayed to allow more time to be vetted by council and the public.

Trenise Rogers is a community member who has worked extensively serving youth with mental and behavioral health issues, and also spoke to the Mirror after the council meeting. She shared that although she is passionate about youth psychiatric care and she does support the work, the process of passing the resolution is “not consistent with how we normally do business as a city” and there was a clear “lack of communication and understanding amongst the council” displayed in the meeting.