City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Thank you for joining us this evening in February 9th, 2026 at 4 p.m. for a city council work session. I'll now call the meeting to order. Would you please do a roll call, please? Councelor Thompson. Councelor Van Drimlan, here. Councelor Mloud present. Councelor Smith here. Councelor McGee. I think she's in the waiting room. Councelor Newton. Mayor Johnson here. Are we going to admit the other counselors? I'm here.

Okay. Thank you. So, next on your agenda item is public comment. Public comment is a time for Albony residents to speak and for counselors to listen. The council won't discuss topics or make decisions during public comment, but will take comments and requests under advisement. Speakers are limited to three minutes and must follow the council's rules and observe the same standards of the quorum. If you're unable to do so, they'll be asked to step down and take a seat in the audience for the remainder of the meeting. When you get to the microphone, please give your name and state whether or not you live in the city of Albany. Nothing. Okay. Thank you. Next, we'll get right to it. Item three, department strategy discussions, presentations, executive leadership team, pages 1 through 14 in your packet. Good evening, mayor and counselors. So, this evening and then Wednesday evening coming up, you'll hear a series of presentations from department directors. Each will highlight the primary functions of their departments, recent accomplishments, emerging trends, and the way ahead. The city's strength lies not only in the services it provides, but in the way those services are delivered thoughtfully, collaboratively, and with a shared commitment to the community we serve. This series of presentations brings together department directors from across the city government to highlight the work being done in direct support of the city's strategic plan and to demonstrate how that work is achieved through coordinated crossdep departmental efforts. Each department plays a distinct and vital role in advancing Alby's strategic priorities. Yet no department as you know operates in isolation. The challenges and opportunities facing our city, whether related to public

safety, infrastructure, housing, sustainability, economic development, or community well-being, require integrated solutions that draw on the expertise, resources, and perspectives of multiple departments working together toward common goals. So, these presentations are part of an effort to provide more regular updates on execution of the council's strategic plan, and they're designed to provide insight into how the strategic plan guides daily operations, long-term initiatives, and decision-making across city government. Additionally, they provide context as the city works on its next strategic plan by sharing trends, challenges, and opportunities that may impact the successful execution of the vision and goals for the next several years. In so doing, my hope is that the presentations will improve public trust and increase transparency by providing that context. Department directors will share examples of programs, projects, and partnerships that illustrate not only what their departments do, but how collaboration across departmental lines enhances effectiveness, efficiency, and outcomes for Alby's residents. Through this shared lens, the series underscores a fundamental principle of city governance. Residents experience city services as a whole, not as separate departments. Whether maintaining streets, ensuring public safety, supporting neighborhoods, or delivering essential services, city departments coordinate their efforts to provide seamless, responsible, and equitable service to the to the community. Together, these presentations tell a

collective story of alignment, accountability, and teamwork. They provide an opportunity to see how department plans and activities contribute to the strategic plan's goals, how we measure progress, and how we're adapting to changing community needs. They reflect the city's commitment to working as one organization in service of its residents and to advancing a strategic vision that strengthens the community today while preparing it for the future. I appreciate the director's efforts in preparing these reports, Kayla's efforts to coordinate the process, and I look forward to the conversations that will follow. The first of which will be the council strategic plan conversation on February 23rd. So before I turn this over to Matthew Ruters, our community development director for the first presentation, let me note that counselors were sent a link this morning to the brand new annual report for 2025 and we encourage you to share that report. You should also find a hard copy at your seat uh there on the dis. So let me introduce Matthew Ruters. Good afternoon, mayor and counselors. So, as Peter indicated, I'm Matthew Reckers. I'm your community development director. And just I'll dive right in. I just if you guys have questions as I'm going through, feel free to to interrupt and ask me. Um that's I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. So community development uh our department's mission is to provide solutionoriented thinking partnerships and robust engagement to promote and facilitate the growth, development and empowerment of the city and its diverse neighborhoods. So we operate with 18.8

FTE or uh full-time employees. Uh our bannual budgets or adopted bannual budgets are shown there on the sheet. Planning at 4.6, economic development 9.34 and building division at 7.11. So our primary functions include basically three three major divisions within our department. Current long range planning, economic development and building permitting and inspection. So the current long range planning division is that its primary functions are development review which include the next two bullet points down which are flood plane management and historic preservation. As we do review of development applications, we are looking at if it's in a historic district or within flood plane um within the flood plane, we are also reviewing those as well as any other natural resources that might be impacted by that development. Um our this division also uh works with the community development block grant or CDBG that's managed through our C community sorry a lot of lot of acronyms. our community development commission or CDC um is the one that awards and distributes those grant monies. Um we also this division is also responsible for updates to the development code and comp plan to address needs and comply with new laws. Uh the other piece that you you'll see as a general theme across all divisions is code compliance. So when we have um compliance issues, whether they're not in compliance with the development code, building codes, um they all kind of share in that except for economic development. Speaking of economic development, so economic development divisions primary functions are business retention and expansion. um that's of existing businesses, business recruitment, that's

recruiting new businesses into Albany, um which includes job creation for both of those. Uh and and really focuses on the relationships and partnerships of businesses within the city as well as some of our other partners such as the ADA and AVA. uh it's really focused on economic economic growth and has multiple programs manages multiple programs and and incentives. Our building permitting inspection group or division does all the building permit review um for structures within the city. And I just want to I always try to remind people and it's a quick quick note is the building codes that the city operates under are and I say under very purposely they're the state of Oregon's building codes. The city does not have its own building codes. So we operate a delegation of this the state um they delegate the regulation of their of the state's building codes to us. So this this division or this work group is utilizing those state building codes when we do our reviews. Um they're also looking at in during during those reviews are also looking at compliance with ADA or Americans with Disability Acts. Um and then obviously you also see that code compliance theme again. Um we do run into that frequently uh when people are constructing building or doing building without the appropriate permits. uh we usually go through code compliance cases on those. And then also emergency response, which we don't run into a lot, but um a good example was several years ago a a vehicle struck uh a structure down off of 36th. And when things like that happen, the fire department will usually call our building official who will come out and do an evaluation of that structure just to to determine if it's safe or not. That's usually not a a fun time.

So our organizational structure is made up of a director that's myself uh and then an analyst and an assistant that report directly to the director and then we have a comprehensive planning manager, planning supervisor, building official and an economic development manager with their associated staff that comprises the 18.8 FTE. So, our accomplishments. Um, th this first section is really focused in on the housing implementation plan or HIP as we refer to it. The HIPP came about just a quick history lesson. Uh, several years ago, we initiated what was called the housing affordability task force. And that task force was comprised of uh members of the community, other stakeholders, uh, counselors, at least one counselor and the mayor. and it was really focused on um how do we remove barriers to affordable housing and not not just subsidized housing but all housing. How do we make housing more affordable in Albany? So that that HIPP developed a number of strategies that ultimately was adopted by the council and this year we we saw significant steps forward in implementing of those strategies from the hip. Uh, a couple quick highlights were development code amendments that removed barriers to needed housing. Things like um scaled lot sizes based on home sizes, uh, which really allowed builders to be able to uh, reduce their home size by putting it on a smaller lot. Because before our lot sizes were of of a minimum size of say 5,000 square feet. Well, it was not um economical for them to build a small or tiny home on a 5,000 square foot lot because of the the cost

of the land itself and what it takes to bring that that land to market. Um, we saw SDC or system development charge deferrals for residential which allowed the payment of SDC's to be delayed or deferred until the time of occupancy um, which could be several months and and as you probably are aware, the system development charges can be fairly expensive. So being able to delay or defer that cost to occupancy uh allows the the builder to not have to basically carry the interest of that with their loan. Um we had a surplus property policy the council adopted as well as a CCT or construction excise tax that was adopted in uh went effective on July 1 or sorry January 1. Uh, another item in the HIPP, uh, but was something that's been worked on by for several years by our economic development group was the MUPI or multi-unit property tax exemption, which council just recently adopted. We also um maintained our class 5 rating system in the community rating system. That's kind of a mouthful, but CRS for short. And what that does is it provides a 25% reduction on flood insurance for people that are required to carry it. That's a cost savings of about $60,000 uh for those residents across the board. Uh we also adopted the climate friendly areas or CFAs and walkable design standards. And we reinitiated uh the historic preservation quarterly newsletter uh the pres preservation post which I personally was very excited to see come out. I know there's a lot of folks in the historic districts and beyond that we're excited to see that out. Uh we advertise, you know, uh local events that are occurring that um whether it be in the historic districts

or involving um historic preservation events, uh classes, things like that. So kind of wrapping up on accomplishments, uh, council had adopted a city-wide economic development strategy. We also had saw the industrial traded sector recruitments of Bliss Veliscore and Lacamus and and I wanted to pause just for a second on on those recruitments, specifically Lacamus. um understanding if you're familiar with where Lacamus uh is located, it's in the old WR Grace site. Uh and just how significant that recruitment was for our team to be able to recruit uh an industrial user to go into that that site with those exact needs. That's a the Grace was a very specific built site. So to find an enduser that that's exactly what they were looking for, it's kind of like finding a needle in a stack of other needles. So, it's it's it's pretty pretty impressive. Um, really applaud our our team for for for that recruitment. We saw the the wrapping up of the Albany Waterfront Plaza Street as well as implementation of our shortterm rental tax um program. There was also the adoption of the financial and pro project plan for Cara Central Albany revitalization area for it to sunset in 2027. Moving on to trends. Um the the first trend and and it's kind of a continued trend. I talked about this one last year. Uh we talk about it quite often here at council is continue unfunded mandates surrounding housing and land use. As we enter into uh the legislative session right now, there's multiple bills that we're tracking that um the the state is

looking at additional mandates uh that would be passed down to jurisdictions. So so that it continues on on on the more positive side. Uh I I talked about the HIPP or the housing implement implementation plan and this is something that very proud of uh those strategies from those plans. Sometimes it takes years for you to see the the results of strategies like this. And I'm really happy to report that um you know, one of the things that the primary goal was to create more housing that was affordable. Um and we were actually starting to see some of that already taking place. Uh there's a subdivision out off of Lochner Road where they're actually building multiple models that are under $350,000. Um and that's pretty unheard of. and they're getting ready to roll out some 600 and 800 square foot single family home models which is also very very impressive and that was made possible um through development code amendments from the hip. So uh that that's pretty exciting. We also saw potential for planned growth in East Albany uh east of Interstate 5 uh through the annexation that I believe will be coming to this council in a couple weeks. Um as well as a lot of interest in development on the east side uh that is following our adoption or the council's adoption of the East Albany plan in 2023. So we're seeing a lot of these things kind of take effect. And then also a trend is the state of Oregon's new focus on economic development through the prosperity roadmap. Uh I'm still kind of re researching and we're finding out what all that's going to entail. I think it's specifically trying to address um the the general idea that Oregon was business unfriendly. Um but they're they're really trying to focus in on

rectifying that where they can and economic growth. So looking ahead, um challenges for our for our department, you know, the the continued unfunded state and federal mandates. Um those will continue to be a challenge uh as as we we move forward. Um employee turnover and succession planning is always challenging for staff as you as you see institutional knowledge leave with that employee. Um and then also as this council wrestles with quite often is that that balancing of um needing to planning for growth and growth itself. Um there's some push and pull there. Understand that. Uh with that comes opportunities, you know, new employees or new new experiences. Um we're always looking for new and creative engagement with our community uh experts and the industry. We've got a new strategic plan and corresponding updates uh to the comprehensive plan based on that strategic plan that will get up updated and adopted. And then obviously, as I I've touched on multiple times, the the new HIPP strategies that are in place, just seeing those continue to to take effect is is pretty exciting and creates a lot of opportunities. Also, uh there's two new city grant programs coming out. one through CARA and then one just a general city uh grant program and then an upcoming plea planning fee analysis. I'll pause just for a second on this one because just to explain what it is. So it generally our planning fees are extremely low compared to most jurisdictions. So what that means is our planning fees or the the work that our planning staff does is highly subsidized by the general fund. So we're going to be looking had an analysis that uh really focuses in on um

true cost recovery for those and those those updated fees will be brought to council for evaluation. I can tell you that generally um there'll be some application types that you'll want to have some subsidy from the general fund. That's pretty standard. Uh a lot of ours are significantly uh undervalued currently. So, we're we're looking to to address that. With that, that is the end of my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Will we be uh talking at any time in the future about a business registration program?

I know business registration has has come up uh has been brought up by council a couple times. Staff are always willing to to bring that forward if if that's something that this council would like us to explore. it's it's been picked up and kind of um then put on pause a few different times. Um but if that's something that this council desires, we're we're more than willing to to dive back in.

Councilors, I I like the idea of the business registration. I brought it when I first got on council. Um I think it's a safety tool also because chemicals are in these buildings where these firemen and police officers are going into having material safety safety data sheets like the military has and we will give our department and our public safety apparatus the ability to know at least know what's possibly in that room so they can approach the threat or approach the fire differently um with more options. So I I think it's a good tool um I know we've had some changes at local Chamber of Commerce and um I'm looking forward to hopefully get that put set set up.

Great. And and on that note for business registration, I know that

um practically speaking, especially during COVID, one of the challenges that we had was a bunch of money that we needed to be able to we wanted to be able to get out into the community, but without a business registration, we didn't I mean, obviously, we can go doortodoor. Um that's that's pretty pretty challenging to do. Um the other advantage to a business registration is um kind of that first touch with people that are coming in getting ready to start a new business. U making sure they have all the right permits, land use applications in place. Uh because it's really tough or difficult conversations when they've started down a path and it's either not possible or they've gotten so far down that they have to kind of take things back apart um because they didn't get the appropriate permits. So we we can absolutely look at that. Council McGee, councelor Newton, you have anything?

No, I'm just I'm excited about what's happening in the East Albany. I'm good to see it come to fruition. Thank you. Yep. Nothing right now, but might later.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, director. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Kristen Preston, the public works operations director manager. Sorry, I just permitted myself. [laughter] [gasps] And good evening, mayor and counselor. I'm Stacy Belcastro. I'm the city engineer with the public works director. Kristen and I are currently acting as interim co-inter public works directors while we um wait for our public works director vacancy to be filled which is going to be happening soon. Yeah. Very exciting. Do you want to advance it?

Great. So you can see here the public works mission statement working together to plan, build and maintain essential utility services and infrastructure for the Albany community. And we developed this mission statement a few years ago um in support of the city's mission, vision, and values. And today we'll be highlighting how public works services and accomplishments align with the citywide strategic plan and mission. So, the public works department is the largest, the city's largest department in terms of both personnel and budget. We have 142 full-time staff working to provide the essential services, including delivering clean drinking water, ma making sure our streets and sidewalks are safe, and then also collecting and treating waste water and water. public works um budget of $255 million is also the largest in the city and it supports our ability to keep the city's infrastructure functioning. Um we are one of the only departments that does not receive property tax revenue. I wanted to highlight that. Um instead our budget comes primarily for water, wastewater and storm water. We have enterprise funds and then the transportation services are funded from multiple sources including state and federal gas tax and then we also get in lua franchise fees from water sewer and storm water. So the primary functions of public works can be broken up into these three main functional areas. The first one is the operation and maintenance of our existing services and infrastructure and that's further broken down by utility.

So our drinking water utility has treatment distribution and our canal system. The storm water utility has treatment and conveyance. Our wastewater utility collection and treatment as well as our environmental services group. And then our transportation utility includes street maintenance, the municipal airport and the transit service. And then we have our automation, GIS, asset management, our technical services work groups that support all the utilities. Um, overlaying all that utility work, a key primary function is ensuring regulatory compliance. So each of our water utilities has specific permit requirements and regulations that um tie to the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and other federal state laws and regulations. These require ongoing monitoring, compliance, and reporting to Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Health Authority, and other agencies. And our transportation services have regulatory oversight by the Oregon and federal department of transportation as well as extensive requirements and oversight by the Federal Transit Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration for the airport. I know it is a [laughter] lot. Um the third core function involves infrastructure replacement, repair and expansion. And under this core function, the department focuses on the replacement, repair, and expansion of the infrastructure to ensure continued reliable service. Public works staff also conducts development review in coordination with our community development department who you just heard from. For this um we ensure that public improvements align with the

development code and also meet um engineering standards and specifications and all federal and state regulations. So here you have our organizational chart and the way we are currently set up is we have four managers that report directly to the public works director. I'm going to go ahead and talk about engineering services. The engineering service groups includes 21 full-time employee. These are the staff that um work on long range infrastructure planning. This includes our water master plan that was recently adopted. I think it was 2025. And then we are getting ready to start working on our wastewater master plan and then also our update to our transportation system plan. This work group also includes the engineers and engineering technicians that design and um provide inspection services for our infrastructure improvements. And then engineering also provides customer service. So people will come to our counter. It can be a developer or a citizen. They may be interested in a property. They want to know if the property has water or sewer service. If not, they want to know what the cost would be to provide service to that property. And then we have operations which is the largest group in public works uh which is the group I oversee. uh we have the most people and we maintain and operate the city infrastructure and our groups are are organized by utility utility that you can see below there and functional areas between engineering and

operations. We do a lot of work in public works and we manage large and small construction projects and have ongoing maintenance projects. So there's a lot to keep track of. So we have the administrative support and contracting support staff as well as financial services internal to public works. Two things to note on our org chart this year. Uh utility billing that was in the financial services group was moved to the finance department and GIS um was in the IT department and is now in the public works uh asset management group. Next, we're going to talk about some acco accomplishments. And I'm going to start with the regulatory accomplishments. Uh this year, our or last few years actually, our wastewater team has been working with DEEQ on the development of a new discharge permit at the wastewater plant. This is our first uh new permit in 25 years. So, um there's a lot of changes, tighter requirements, and we anticipate a final permit in the next couple of months. Uh similarly, we have a a newer storm water MS, it's called an MS4 permit. Uh we received this a few years ago and it's a general permit, excuse [clears throat] me, that applies to Albany and other similarly sized communities like Corvalis and Springfield. And DEEQ is revising that permit currently, which we anticipate will work result in more work for staff and more stringent requirements in the future. uh to meet these regulatory requirements and other demands, we need to be innovative. So that's our next area focus. Um and you all know about the shrub hub and greenhouse. Uh this this was an idea from staff to grow our own native plants for storm water planters and vegetated facilities uh for education and outreach efforts. And

there's a potential to sell the plants to our partners who are doing restoration work. And there's also a potential to maybe expand our efforts to include growing our own street trees or plants for the parks department. Uh the next innovative idea, this says automatic meter reading conversion, but it's actually called advanced meeting meter infrastructure. Um there's a difference I have found out. Um so the AMR that's listed here is oneway communication where you have to be present to read uh the meters. What we're having is uh AMI, which is uh two-way communication. So, you don't have to be there at the it's um information is over the radio. Um so, and that will give us more timely like almost instant instantaneous information to help address leaks sooner and just be more efficient. And the status of that is we have the radio antenna installed. We're waiting for FCC approval to start using it. Meanwhile, our water distribution crew has changed out is changing out about 30 to 50 meters per day. So, they're really making some movement on that. And then the last area is energy management. We continue to work with the Energy Trust of Oregon, especially at our water and wastewater uh plants where we have large pumps and equipment that use a lot of energy. Um uh let's see. So a recent example of that was um we replaced some blowers at the treatment plant that costs nearly $500,000 but will cost the city only about $50,000 after the uh energy trust incentive. And I just learned about another project last week at our um fine water plant. uh one of our high service pumps that needs to be replaced will cost about $55,000 and we're going to

get half about for the incentive. So these are really important for keeping our utility rates down. All right. So I am going to continue discussing our compl accomplishment. The ones shown on this side all have to do with money. So like other departments, we are trying to use innovation, identify grants, identify efficiencies in order to make a dollar go further so that there's less impact on the funding that we have in our department. Um, and that equates to less impact on rate payers as well. So the first project shown on this slide is we received a $1.64 $64 million local bridge program grant from the department Oregon Department of Transportation. This is to complete pre-esign work on the Third Avenue bridge located over Calapouya Street. This bridge is has the lowest um deficiency rating in Albany. So, we were very thrilled when we were awarded this grant and it sets um the city up once the pre-esign is completed that we will be better situated to provide or apply for future grant funding once the pre-esign is completed. I wanted to talk about Cox Creek. Um the third phase of the Cox Creek project was just completed this past fall. Um, but the project was actually identified as a high priority project back in 2015. It's needed to prevent sanitary sewer overflows and then also to increase the pipe size so that development can happen east of Interstate 5.

The the existing pipe was constructed in the 1950s and it was failing and also undized in places. When the project was first identified in the master plan, we were not sure how we were going to be able to fund the improvements. The cost estimate was over $20 million. Staff was able to um one work our with our f finance department and refinance existing debt. This resulted in annual savings. And then we were also able to identify both state and federal grants totaling $3.25 million. And then council approved using ARPA funding, the American Rescue Act funds um towards the project. And I'm happy to say that the fourth and final phase is expected to start in 2027. and we did not think that that would be possible when we were first discussing this project over 10 years ago. Um, public works was awarded two community path grants of $420,000. This is to complete pre-esign for a community um a multi-use path across the Lion Street Bridge and then also um pre-esign for safety improvements at the Queen Avenue and Giri Street intersection. Similar to the local bridge program, by completing the preliminary engineering phase, these projects will be ready to received um grant funding for construction in the next cycle. We also used ARPA funding to construct backup generators at the Albany Millersburg water treatment plant, strengthening the city's resilience and

emergency preparedness for supplying drinking water. And then finally, staff has been discussing street condition and funding with council over the past two years to try to addition try to identify additional street funding and creative solutions. We aren't there yet, but we are hopeful. I mean, I feel like we've made more movement than we have in the past 20 plus years since I've been working at the city. And we're hoping that we can continue these discussions with council and the momentum will be there to finally come up with some creative solutions to help address this problem. Um to highlight a few trends, we continue to see high costs for materials and services and I mentioned the regulatory burden, the requirements being more complex and therefore more expensive. So the new permits represent a higher workload for our staff. Uh as a result, we continue to work to be more efficient and look for innovative and creative solutions as well as alternative funding idea uh funding sources such as grants and energy incentives. And probably a theme you might hear from the other departments, we continue to experience heavy workload and have a retiring workforce. All right, looking ahead, I'm going to cover the challenges. As mentioned previously, it is going to be challenging to comply with the new permit conditions. Um, they're essential to protect public health, the environment, and maintain the city's legal standing. However, meeting the obligations and requirements that are required in these permits does

come at a significant cost both in staff time and financial resources. Each new permit, rule change or emerging contaminants such as POS require planning, technical expertise and often will result in multi-year projects with substantial expenses. Um, these efforts are critical, but they do place ongoing pressure on our workforce and on our budget. The other challenge is ongoing lawsuits. The department is involved in lawsuits as both a plaintiff and defendant. We are vulnerable to lawsuits if citizens feel we are not complying with laws, particularly the Clean Water Act. And we also are notified routinely of tort claims over injuries and property damage that are alleged to be our fault. These cases require significant time and resources. I mentioned transportation funding. It is one of the largest issues the department faces. We know that the condition of Alby's streets and sidewalks are a top-of- mind concern for citizens. We take care of over 190 miles of paved roads. The limited funding available to do this has been focused on keeping the busiest streets in good condition, but that leaves virtually no funds for our neighborhood streets. Likewise, we also have limited funding available for operation and improvements to our transit systems and our municipal airport. We you probably are going to be again this will be a common theme in other other um department presentations, but we also are experiencing staff burnout and turnover. Recruiting and retaining technically

skilled staff is difficult and we also are it makes it difficult to plan do succession planning for retirements even when we know that they're they're coming. It's hard to replace that institutional knowledge. Now looking ahead to opportunities uh as you heard we have a new director coming so new leadership new new energy uh which will be great. Um we have some planned expansion uh work for our composting facility and the shrub hub. Both our moneys saving re revenue generating projects uh with products that we can sell. And we have active projects to assess the airport and the Vine Street water treatment plant. And these assessments will help guide decision making for for the future for those city facilities. And then we continue to to work on master plans for the transportation system and the wastewater system, which are routine planning projects, but exciting to have current comprehensive evaluations of our utilities to help set the direction for the next 20 years. We'd be happy to take any questions if you have them.

Council, any questions? Council Cloud. Thank you. Um, I do have a couple questions. Um my first is about transit system funding and expansion. Um do we have any plans to expand the bus service or um

we do not have current plans to expand the bus service? We expanded it in 2024 the Albany transit system and the loop was expanded I think in 22 I don't recall but we did major expansion at that time. um and redid the whole trans Albany transit system. Um and we're now implementing that and the funding is mostly through federal and state grant funding which is not keeping pace with uh expenses. So when was the um the route through North Albany um

in 2024? It was it was shortened or Yes, it it used to go I don't know exactly how far into North Albany, but there was a loop through North Albany. Now it stops at the um park and ride. And um is there is there any way we we would in the future be able to um run the bus service uh seven days a week or or later into the evenings? more service is more buses and more drivers and more money. So, if we can find more funding,

do you know if there's a um a need for that or um has there been any community outreach um about that about expanded service in the evening? Not recently. There hasn't been the community outreach on on that. I'm I'm curious to to learn if there's if there's a need for that service. when they did the service expansion, I wasn't involved in that work, but it was uh done through the uh that AMPO um the local Okay.

Um and there was extensive outreach and um uh there was a report. So I I believe that they did sort of that research in in that study. We could revisit that. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, also can you uh for those listening at home, can you can you tell us again how much of our property taxes pay for local streets and how are um local streets funded? The street fund receives zero property tax dollars. So no property taxes go towards local street funding. Correct.

And how do we how do we pay for local streets? How do we do that? We receive state and federal gas tax funds and first we cover our operations and then what's left over we use to construct our capital improvements. The federal gas taxes we get through the MO and so we don't get them every year. On average, we get approximately $3.1 million annually to construct capital improvements to our roads. And it it seems like a lot of money, but it it doesn't go very far. We have 190 roads that we are currently maintaining. And I don't know how many miles are in poor condition, but it's quite a bit. So, so, so you said that state and federal gas taxes um are are the majority of our local street funding. Is that correct? What are some other things we can do to fund local streets?

So, we also do the street fund receives water, sewer, and storm water in lie of franchise fees. And so, those go towards operations and um capital improvements. and we've been having the discussion like with council for two years. There are other options to to fund streets, but um it's going to take some work talking to council in the community. Okay. So, it sounds like service fees and um and gas taxes are um the majority of ways of how we can repair our local streets. Is that it's what Albany has available right now? Yes.

Great. Thank you for that information. Um, that's that's all I have. Thank you, Councelor McGee. Councelor Newton, you have anything? I have a question. This is Councelor McGee. Um, what are we doing to kind of combat the staff burnout and turnover? I'm a little concerned about that. That seems to be an ongoing thing that we that I we've heard before, you know. Yeah, we do try to to plan for succession planning and just be as supportive to staff as we can be. Um, yeah, it's a tough one

and I think it's something the city's working on in in general. Uh, I know HR, they'll probably talk about this. They've been doing some uh focused training with supervisors to help um get our supervisors trained up and I I think it's that sort of and focusing on training and uh is kind of a morale morale booster for our staff. So I think you know not just our department but citywide we've been kind of focused on that sort of thing is is focusing on what we can with the people that we have. Mr. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor may also add that we're Kristen was right we're looking at it from a citywide perspective and you will hear from HR about it. But in addition to what she had talked about, there is attempts all the time to look at workload and how to better more efficiently distribute that workload. I would point out too that that staff burnout slash turnurnover. Some of the turnover is due to the simple um uh graying of a workforce as people reach retirement age and we see a lot of that in the in the near future. So there's there's a lot of attempts on a lot of different fronts to address that issue and you again you'll hear more from HR

and not to steal from HR's thunder um you know they work are working on a workback policy for retirees which has been very helpful. we already have somebody doing that and it eases the transition uh for someone leaving and also training people who are here to who want to apply for that job. And and I'm hoping that and that's good to hear and I'm hoping that when we post when we're posting positions that they're competitive. Yes. And attractive to people.

Yes. And I would say I've been doing a lot of recruitments lately and I've had we've had better luck uh recently and had some really good qualified applicants and I think um HR working on the the compensation and just comparables with other agencies has really helped.

That's so I just to like kind of piggyback on that actually something I had a question about as well. Um because we lost our executive director Chris Bailey, right? and she was planning on retiring. I'm just wondering if we've done like a post-mortem like to learn that she like left the city of Albany and ended up going and taking a lesser role like with the city of Corvalis like that is such a major blow because we lost a lot of that institutional knowledge. I'm just curious is that is the job of the executive director for over basic like over so much like this is such a large department. Is it too much? Are we looking at that? Are we doing kind of a post postmortem work through on this? Yes, we are. Question for HR, but

no, Councelor Newton, it it is something that we're looking at, but as you know, we have a new public works director coming on board in a couple of weeks. And so, uh the the effort to really tackle that is uh in suspension right now until uh the new director gets here. But that is something that you asked if there's any kind of a post-mortem done. uh HR does exit interviews with every employee that leaves. Uh obviously some of that information is is privileged and they use that just to try to improve our processes. Uh but an exit interview is done with with every departing employee. But again, we're looking at um any possible restructuring within public works to try to ease that burden. It is the largest department in the city and uh it is a challenge under the best of circumstances. So we we are monitoring it and we'll take whatever steps we need to take.

Thank you. Thank you. Councelor Smith, do you have anything? Yeah. Um three things, two little things to start with. How do we know when our water meters are being changed? What should we look for? Will there be a You will look for a knock at the door. [laughter] Mhm. Um, so they are doing everything they possibly can to get ready to change out the meter. So it's your water's only off for a couple of minutes. And so right as that happens, they'll knock at the door and uh let you know. Okay.

Uh, number two, I'm um always encouraged when I hear about the projects that we do with the energy um trust. That's such a great organization and th they those grants just seem to pop up at just the right time for when you least expect it, I guess. Yeah. And we have a really good relationship with them and so I think there's a good trust uh between us and them and you know we have good project management and so I think we get and we have somebody assigned to us who helps us with projects. So it's really good arrangement.

That's great. Number three is um on a different t. Um there is a bill before the legislature in this short session, House Bill 408, which deals with establishing a um short-term task force to review transit funding, public transit funding. Um there is a hearing on that on Wednesday morning. I'm going to be speaking on behalf of the city and the Lynn County Transportation Advisory Committee that I'm appoint an appointed member of. Our transit system is heavily dependent on state highway improvement funds and um I'm we are um eager to see that task force u be funded at the list of potential membership on the task force is nearly two pages long in the bill. It's incredible. It's everybody who could ever

if do you know what a bus looks like? Do you ride a bus? Do you need a bus? Do you um anyway, do you work on a bus? Lots and lots and lots of representation across the state. So, um it's encouraging that that is under consideration and that public transit is getting some kind of attention that way. We appreciate you testifying at that. Oh, you're welcome. I'm I'm on the um League of Oregon Cities Transportation Policy Committee as well. Also, I'm the vice chair this year and um it's just streets are my thing. So, [laughter] I'm happy to help.

Council German, Councelor Thompson, um is I I like the automated media reading when I worked at Turbo Navigation. They had the Nomad and the Ranger. And I worked with PG& to connect a wand to those and the guy would ride his moped down the street and pick up the signals. you know, that's more manual than what we're talking about, but I'd like to see that progression to better use of technology. So, I'm happy to hear about that.

Thank you, everyone. Good evening. Um, tonight I am here to talk about finance and we have grown a little bit. As Kristen mentioned earlier, uh, in October we, uh, have utility billing as part of our department. So, right now it says that we have 25.6 FTEEs. Last week we lost an employee um and we are not planning to fill that position because we have some plans for an IVR going live we're hoping this month. So

uh interactive voice response it's a way for people to pay over the phone without having to talk to someone directly. Um we'll talk about that a little bit later too in this presentation. So for financial services, um, which is what we also call finance, we do a lot of tracking. Um, we're responsible for payments that go out the door. We do payroll, we do vendor payments, debt service. Uh, we work with departments on their procurements and making sure that they're doing those legally. Um, that they're doing them the right way and that we and ethically, you know, that we're above reproach in in all of our procurements. We're also responsible for tracking money that comes in the door. Anything that comes in, we cashier it and then we we have all the documentation that backs up where that money came from, what department it should go to, and take care of um anything money related. In this last year, we were able to hire a budget manager, and I'm really excited about that because we're able to focus more on long-term forecasting and do some strategic planning for the city as a whole. And it really is an opportunity for us to take a deep dive into what it's going to look like five years out, six years out, 10 years out potentially. And she also is really good at helping departments understand their budgets. For municipal courts, their main purpose is customer service. You know, when people come to court, it's probably not their best day. Um, they don't necessarily want to be there, but I have to say that our staff is fantastic in in dealing with everyone who comes to that window or comes into

the courtroom. Uh, Judge Meyer, as she talked about in her presentation, really listens to everybody who comes in and we are able to uh be very fair. We're able to uh we have payment plans in place. We have different options for people who aren't able to to pay in cash right there. Um, Councelor Smith, you had asked about this. I think earlier this week and we talked about some of the options we have available. So, I'm not sure everybody knows this, but we are one of the courts that have uh we have payment plans that we offer minimum of $35 a month. There's no interest charged on that. We also have a work crew or community service option for people who just are maybe that $35 is a little too much of their budget. And then uh we also have the diversion program that we recently expanded. As Judge Meyer also talked about, the mental health court has been a very good program for us and it really has enabled us to help people get connection with resources that they need. With utility billing coming on, it's kind of been a steep learning curve for me because um Patty and her crew know everything and I am pretty new to utility billing, but uh I've I've very much welcomed this opportunity. They also handle customers who aren't always happy about things that are going on. Um you know, if somebody has a water leak, they're going to come and talk to utility billing to try to find a solution for that. They track everything for water, sewer, storm water, uh the city services fee. They do all the billing for that. We're currently moving from one uh

software system to another one. Um I'm very happy that we are planning to finalize that transition this month. So fingers crossed everything goes well. we will be moving from Springbrook to util 360 and be only in one system. That's been a goal of ours um since I I inherited utility billing and and I know it's also one that the that Patty, the customer service manage uh supervisor has also wanted to do. So accomplishments. So this year we've done several things that have have been goals for us. We've transitioned to a digital budget book. Uh if you went out to the city's website, we are on clear gov. You can go out and it gives you some different ways of looking at the information rather than just a big binder. We're also going to be moving our acter the annual comprehensive financial report to clear gov. Uh that's on that's our goal to do for our 25 financials. Uh we completed the banking conversion. We moved from US Bank to Wells Fargo and also from Bank of America for our uh purchasing cards to Wells Fargo and we had very good partners with at Wells Fargo who had made that transition pretty smoothly for us. We did do that too with losing staff. So the person who was primarily in charge of that program left and we were able to step in and take over and get everything done with minimal disruption to other departments. We've also really been focusing on transparency and doing uh more regular

reporting and then also having information available on our website for our citizens to go look at. the photo enforcement program. We went from having one camera that was uh a red light camera and we have transitioned into four cameras that are both speed and red light. And we just hit the first year of that of Queen and Gary being uh the speed camera also. And another thing that we're proud of is we've enhanced the utility billing low-inccome assistance program. We've made it easier for people to qualify for uh low-inccome assistance by providing information like a SNAP, their SNAP's benefits or uh an OP benefits um letter. And we have that available on the website as an example for people to see and and they can apply for assistance that way rather than having to bring in all of their pay stubs and everything else that they used to have to do. So, some different trends. Um property tax reform, as I'm pretty sure you all know, um has been an issue for Oregon cities. Uh it really is a it is really difficult to um to get enough revenues to cover expenditures when we're capped at 3% of assessed value each year. Uh we're also really trying to make more of an effort for datadriven uh decision making. you know, doing that long-term forecasting, looking at uh other information that we can get in order to make decisions not just, you

know, for the next two years, but also into the future. Some of these are going to take longer term uh decision- making. We are still trying to uh implement as much technology as is reasonably possible for us that will make our lives easier. One of the things that we're going to be looking at is an e procurement system and we're just in the very early stages of that, but we're hoping that that will help us not have to hire additional FTE. And the shortage of municipal auditors is still an ongoing issue, not just for us, but across the country. Um, there just aren't a lot, and it takes longer to get your audits through. I had an email from our auditor last week and she had talked about how they had had a staffing staffing issues where they had somebody who was out for six weeks and so that's why they were a little slow in getting some things back to us and of course increasing pension costs. I think everybody has heard about the issues with PERS and increases that we're going to be seeing in the next bianium. So looking ahead, um some of the challenges that we face is I have a long-term employee who is very very knowledgeable and when she leaves, you know, I think we'll be okay, but we're just going to lose that depth of knowledge that she has. Um revenue is not keeping up with expenditures. It's an ongoing issue and a lot that's due to the structural revenue constraints that we have. you know, other than creating new ones, new new fees or uh one of the things that we're wanting to look at, I think that Matthew talked about was improving cost recovery. You know, are we really charging what we need to be charging in order to do the jobs that we need to do?

The implementation of the IVR system I'm really excited about. Um that's going to be an opportunity for people to make a phone call and pay their water bill and you know they won't have to come in. Um, it helps us with control issues and uh I I'm PCI compliance which I'm going to I totally forgot what the definition of that is but basically we don't put ourselves at risk with losing people's personal information or credit card numbers and this way it's we don't see the cards they are doing the entry and making their payments. Uh, one of the other things that I think is a great opportunity that we've been talking about in court is a community court. It would be really similar to how the mental health court works, but it's going to be for people who maybe don't have the mental health issues, but they do have um other issues that maybe they need some resources for. For example, if let's say you have somebody who stole formula, you know, shoplifted because they don't have money to feed their child or something like that, we would do the same type of thing where we could put them into uh communication with with the different resources that are available for them. and it would end up being a diversion program where if they met all of the uh all the qualifications and and did everything they needed to do that we could de dismiss those charges for them. So I know September and Jalisa are currently researching this and I'm I'm really hoping it's something that we can look at implementing in this this next year. That's everything I have. I am open to any questions.

Councilors councelor Thompson Council Mloud Council Mloud Van Drumland Council Smith. How does the IVR system work? I if I want to call and pay my bill over the phone, am I talking to a person? You are not talking to a person. Can I talk to a person if I want to talk to

You can still talk to a person. Um, so we were just talking about the implementation of how that's going to work. And so it's going to be the same number that you would call to talk to somebody, but it would be an it would be one of the the options for you to choose bill pay. You can still talk to a person um if you have a question about your bill or something like that or you need a little additional information. Um once you have talked to that person and you are ready to pay your bill, we will we will trans you transfer you back over to the um to the line where you would make that payment. So if if if it's just a straightforward I want to pay my bill, it's just a boom boom boom and it's done. Yes. But but if you have a question about the bill or you want to yell at someone because it's too high or something, you you have that option.

You certainly still have that option. Thank you. Yeah. Council councelor um McGee, I'm really excited about the community court. It's very um something to look forward to and hear more about. Councelor Newton. Um no, nothing right now. Well, is this an AI thing that we're talking about or something else? I'm sorry. Is this AI? This new portal thing?

Well, it's not really AI. So, what happens is you would call the number and it would ask you for your account number and you would type in your account number or say your account number, whatever it is. And then it's going to ask you, it's going to tell you this is how much your current bill is. And then you can choose to pay all of it. you can choose to pay a portion of it. Um you can pay more. Um so you can you can choose how much you want to pay on that bill and then you would enter your credit card number and um go through that process and then it will let you know. It gives you a really really long confirmation number. Really?

So if you do pay that way and you want to write that in that confirmation number, you're probably going to need something this wide just to get it because it's long. We're we're trying to figure out if we can shorten that, but not necessarily our call. I I asked Thank you for that. I I asked because when I was scheduling my flights to Southern California on Price Line, do would you like to talk to me? And I put yes and my she the Penny came on and talked to me. I scheduled all my flights. Five minutes done. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I was asking about that. Thank you. I don't have any more questions.

Thank you. Oh, yeah. Um, we're going to take five minute break or 10-minute break, a bio break because it's been an hour. Reconvene at 15. Oh, excuse me. 19. Sorry. Be a long

Director, you ready? I'll go ahead and reconvene the meeting at 5:18.

All right. Thank you. Um, Eric Aiggonoy, library director. We'll get going. Um, so first slide. The Albany Public Library is an essential resource promoting community, lifelong learning, and quality services in a safe, welcoming space. As we go through this presentation, I'll I'll kind of highlight those um FTE19.05. It's a very small person, the 0.05 is. And um but what one metric that the state keeps is the number of FTE per thousand residents in your service area. So ours comes out to about 0.35 and the state average is right around 0.5. So we're we're under that. We're getting by with what we have. Um vision and mission. I won't uh I I'll just kind of let you enjoy those. I I I like our vision and mission quite a lot. Um I'm really proud of of this of how our staff connects to it on a regular basis. Um, values is another fun one here. Uh, we always when we do our interviews with our values, uh, for new hires, we we show them this list and then we ask them which one of the values best rep or they feel most strongly about in their interview. Um, and and it's it's a lot of fun. Um, we've only had one person say fun as their as their value. um they did pretty good, but you know, I I think I'd really like to see somebody go full boore on taking fun as their as their main value. So, um all right, primary functions, uh access, community, and lifelong learning. Um access, we remove barriers in order to provide resources and services to the community widely and equitably. Um, one great example of this is the uh mobile

hotspots program that we have at the library. Uh, we lend mobile hotspots for folks that don't have home internet access or um, you know, or slow internet access. So, that's that's been a really popular program. Uh, they're on hold all the time and it's it's it's a great service for us to be able to provide. uh community. We are a vital community center fostering residents sense of belonging and connection. A great example of that is if you've been in the main library recently in the uh garden room, we have the a community clothes line. And so what it is is people who've who've uh knitted or winter hats, gloves, things like that. And they don't have to be knitted. You could buy them at the store um as well. And then they you you hang them up and then if people need those they can take some. And it's it's been a really uh wonderful project. We thought we just going to have one line. We actually had to expand it to two lines. And I think that just you know it's it's a really neat community uh act um little service that we've had and it's been really wellreceived. So

I have a question. So if we we just drop off stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure how much longer we're gonna keep it keep it up, but we're it's it's been going for about a month now. So, yeah. So, the winter months basically. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Um, org chart. It's always so much fun. Um, you've got this roughly breaks down into we've kind of got our two supervising libraries that are roughly adult services and youth services, uh, more or less. One one thing that I always highlight here that's not shown is uh with our volunteers we have about 3,000 last year not about we had 3,770 volunteer hours. So that's the equivalent of 1.5 FTE roughly. So that's uh a tremendous amount of work that we're able to get uh from volunteers and they do everything from shelving books to covering books to um they work in the friends of the library bookstore things like that. So um w without those volunteers we would uh be in a world of hurt. Um, accomplishments. Accomplishments are going to be kind of similar to the previous ones uh from last year, but I I have a little a couple new takes on them. Um, we're in our second year of the Library of Things. It continues to be extremely successful and um pressure washer and the uh metal detector continue to be our most popular items, but the the cooking items have really uh picked up as well. And what we've really tried to do this year is connect those library of things to our library programming. So this is a a great example of a program. It's it's the uh cookbook club that we do like once a month and folks get together. They they pick a theme each month and we try and encourage them to check out cookbooks from uh our collection to to find their recipe and then you know if they need us some equipment they can check out something from the Library of Things. And it's just been a really fun way and we're trying to pair those uh library things with the programs just to

kind of keep it more of a just for the whole the whole practice. And and I've got to tell you this uh this cookbook club is called Readers Digest.

People I So people laughed at me. So I this was going on for like eight months and I was like I don't I don't I don't get it. Um, so I got it now. Um, anyway, uh, also summer reading, you know, it's it it it's just such a a source of great pride for, uh, myself and the library staff. Our our summer reading program continues to be just incredible. We had nearly 5,000 registrants this year, which, you know, if you look at a community of this size, to have 5,000 people participating in summer reading is really, really impressive. Um, we also host 130 programs if you uh during summer reading and that goes from our just our regular story times to the big events like big city trucks. So we we really uh try and encompass as much as we can in in that in that time and we've really been successful not only the number of people but the number of people who complete the program as they as they go along. our retention rate is one of the highest in the state and um which is something to be proud of. I think the connection uh piece I think what one of the aspects that makes it so successful besides our amazing staff is the uh connection that we have to Albany. So a lot of our a lot of our prizes are local prizes. So we got things from Blueberry Meadows, The Carousel, Hasty Freeze, Bose Family Farms, Margin Coffee. So I think that really, you know, it help, you know, it's the community supports the library and in turn the community gets to go support these businesses who support the library. It's it's just a nice relationship. Um, this picture here is one of my favorite. This is from our uh flower crown event, which is one of uh which we do this usually the the night before the Pride Festival. Uh families can come and make flower crowns and and

this year they did uh decorative sunglasses, too. and it's grown to be probably I'd say one of our two or three busiest programs of of the year. So it's it's it's great. Um tween space are uh we wanted to kind of continue this this this various stages and so uh we've got a lot of twins and um we wanted a little space for them because you know the kids spa the kids space is for babies. They don't want to go to the kids space and then the teen space is you know, not quite what they're ready for. And so our staff uh really worked hard to kind of create this area. We tried to ask them what they or we did ask them what they would like and they of course picked dragons in space. Perfectly logical. Uh we worked with Cheryl French uh local artist. She she did that beautiful mural that's just a lot of fun and it's been great to see the the the twins kind of in that area. They've got their collection nearby that they can check out. It's it's it's really a cool uh thing to be able to provide. Um this sli this other picture here, this is this is a little more of an internal one. Uh that's our IT guy Jeremy. He doesn't know he's in this slideshow. Um but uh what this is, we we were able to purchase new selfch check machines this year. And what this really highlights to me is is Jeremy and the entire IT staff for the city. We were we were we had our previous selfch check machines. They were based on magic and bailing wire was the only way that they were actually like operating. [laughter] Um much much to the chagrin of the vendors who would call me constantly, I think you're about due for an upgrade. I'm like, no, no, we're we're making it work. We're making it work. Um and and we did we made it work for as long as we could. But um I think that was really beneficial to us to be able to keep those machines

running so we could plan when we wanted to buy the new machines and didn't have to make and didn't have to make a desperation purchase because they're not cheap. It's a big investment and we wanted to be able to do that. And so um you know Jeremy's awesome. He's uh he does so much to keep us keep us going and and saves us just tons of time and and money. Um I'm gonna go through my trends a little quickly. I think um you know one thing that troubles me is uh uh the fewer and fewer people are reading and then also access to books is is becoming more challenging. Costs are rising. We had an interesting development the end of this last year where Baker and Taylor, which is one of our major um book suppliers, uh went out of business. Um uh so that kind of left one really big supplier out there and um it's the one we use and we're we're happy to have them close, but they've been they've been they've been more they've been busier and then you know, you know what happens if you don't have competition? prices just go up. So, that's been a real uh uh difficulty um there in managing those prices. And I say to people, you know, like what does that mean? The in the library world, there's kind of two book suppliers. And so, this would be like Coke or Pepsi going out of business one day. That's kind of what it was for us. So, um looking ahead, uh

director AI. Yeah, you have it on here. I was wondering

I do have Yeah. Um, you know, I one thing that we've seen, uh, we get a lot of self-published authors who would like to, uh, like us to house their books and, um, we're seeing a lot of those books now become AI. And they're actually we we found some of our vendors, uh, that are actually selling AI generated materials. Um, you know, it's just kind of uh something we're on the lookout for. It's it's not it's not great. From my personal perspective, I I'd like to believe that the the uh the art of writing uh is is still something that we value, but you know, we'll see. Um yeah, so that's

Thank you. Quick question. Can you go back one slide, please? Sure. Maybe. I don't know. There was um [laughter] Can I Yeah, I can.

There is a mention of unhoused population. Can you uh can you speak to that please? Sure. Yeah. I mean I I you know the unhoused population is is I put it as a trend. I mean it's always it's always something public libraries are working with. Um you know I've I've been in public libraries for a long time and it to say it's a trend. I don't know that it's necessarily gone up or down in the last year or so but it's it's still something that we see. It's still um it requires a lot of not well yeah the requires a lot of extra kind of uh training uh for our staff to know safety training for them and then also you know most my staff have done the mental health first aid training um those sorts of those sorts of things. We were uh great relationship with uh the PD to be able to help us when we when we need help there. Um, but you know, honestly, you know, the thing that I love about the library is the library is one of the last places that you don't have to be anybody or buy anything to go. And so, you know, the unhouse population is welcome. We have pretty basic rules. Everybody follows the same rules. Everybody can be there. So,

wonderful. Thank you. They actually read books and check books out. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We work with um a couple uh we have kind of different card levels in which you know if they don't have a home address they can actually uh we we limit the number of items that they check out and usually it's it hasn't been much of a problem. Um great to hear.

How does that work if someone comes to the library and says I want a library card but I don't have an address. Yeah, we have a um we basically have kind of a form that they can fill out. Um and then it's it's it's essentially it limits both the number of items that they can check out, but it also limits the um the period that the card can uh is good for. It has to be renewed pretty frequently. Whereas our a regular library card is renewed every two years. Um you know, we we renew them. I think it's every couple months that we ask them to be uh to get renewed. And so um we haven't had as many takers, but we do have have plenty. Um yeah, so it's Yeah.

So uh one of the things that I really um uh like to um think needs to happen more with our unhoused population is is meeting u meeting them where they are. So my my question then would be when someone comes in and says, "I don't have an address. I want a library card. Uh do do you offer them any other types of services or resources or recommendations when that happens? Do you meet them where they are in that moment?

Absolutely. We have um we have a our staff has developed a really great uh community service list of all the different uh material all the different places uh organizations all reach out frequently to um the um creating housing coalition. And they have their other outreach a aspect. Coat, thank you. Yes. Reach out to coat quite frequently if we have folks who maybe need new clothes. Uh something like that. So yeah, we work we work with all those community organizations. We'll always offer folks if you know you know without without prying into their lives, but we want to you know if there's if there's an opportunity for help, we try and get them some help. So

wonderful. Thank you, Councelor McGee. Councelor Luton have anything? I don't have anything. Thank you. Councelor Smith, just a small uh point, but it's a big one for me. I always like to remind people that artificial intelligence, the first word of that is artificial.

So that's about what I think of it. Um I am reminded of many people who have been in this room, sat on this dis sat in the chairs out there during budget discussions about the library. Um the sacrificial lamb of the budget and some have even opined that people don't need libraries anymore because everything's on the internet. You have just told us at great in great detail, delightful detail of all the things that the library does that would ne people would never have thought of even 10 years ago. It's it's incredible. It's um I can't imagine a livelier place really uh on a day-to-day basis. I former library director uh always reminded us that this the library is the last truly democratic institution and that's proven by the way you treat everyone whether they have a fixed address or a mansion to live in. Um it's thank you for doing a great job and services that are underappreciated

by those who don't know. Council van German councelor Thompson. Um, go ahead, please.

I thank you. I did have other other comments. I My my first comment was just specifically about that that slide. Um, the uh going back to the community clothes line, I I love that. It's great. It's amazing. I recently um brought some um some scarves that I knitted uh to the community clothes line. And actually, one of them was really important to me. It was one of the first scarves that I ever made uh years ago. I did make sure to launder it before I brought it in, but I I hadn't worn it in a while, and I wanted to to be able to give it new life with uh with someone else who who might need it, and I wanted to see it live on in that way. Um, the Library of Things, I think, is great. Right now, I have the kiche pan, and I promise I will wash it uh by hand before I return it. I will be very careful with it. Uh, but I I love being able to to check things out from the library of things. You didn't mention the um the Tiny Art Show coming up. That's right. I as a former arts commissioner, I I'm going to plug that for you. The Tiny Art Show is um uh taking submissions now. Is that Is that correct? Through through when?

Um March 7th, I believe. Beginning of March. Beginning of March. Yes. Sorry, I had that. I've I've already created my first uh potential submission for that. So, thank you for doing that. And um I I I have to mention the maker space in the children's area. My daughter loves the maker space. She in fact will uh will tell me that she wants to go to the library to go to the maker space uh because it has such amazing arts and crafts supplies that that we just don't have at home. So thank you for making that available.

Yeah, you bet. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. I I do want to mention March 7th, library on court, the fundraiser, and I've been informed that we uh have received a donation from the world champion uh Seattle Seahawks. We have a we have a foot uh autographed football uh with all the all the members of the team that will be up for the uh um the silent auction. So, you know, if you're a fan, I'll never spend I don't like Thank you. That's wonderful. Um, who's the next department head? Oh, PR BNR.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Good afternoon. How do I compete with a signed autograph football? Thanks, Aaron.

All the cool events you do. I was gonna say he said the fun folks don't apply to them. Obviously, they come to us. So, um, hello Kim Leane, Parks and Recreation. And before we get going, I want to point out, um, and introduce Tommy Reer, who will be a face that you'll be seeing up here and around quite often as he is our new parks and open space manager. And so, thank you, Tommy, for being here, and you'll get to hear about him a little bit later on. So, um, once again, mayor and council, thank you very much for this opportunity to chat a little bit. Um, parks and recreation, what do we do? We promote healthy living through our recreational experiences and serve as stewards of a public parks and facilities. Our FTE has grown thanks to this group over the last year as we were able to add two FTE. So total between facility maintenance and park maintenance and recreation, we are at 27.8. Uh broke it down for our budget, we have $32 million parks and recreation budget. This includes our um contingencies, reserve, CIP, um system development charges. Operationally, we run at about 10.5 million annually. And then our facility maintenance crew runs at 2.5 million. Primary functions. So, we're separated into parks, recreation, and facility maintenance. We maintain 32 parks, five trail systems, 11 sports courts, 12 sports fields, an outdoor fitness park, 26 playgrounds, one dog park, three boat launches, and a partridge and a pear tree. Um we also provide uh urban forestry services for the entire city. So there are about eight a little over 18,000 trees in our current uh canopy inventory. Um this doesn't include all of our parks trees but just the ones that are of note like Oregon white oaks or emerald you know ash um because we need to be on the lookout for the emerald ashbor. Uh 209 trees were planted in this past season that just wrapped up. 90 of those trees were replacements, some of which you'll see in our downtown area, as well as um 119

that were subdivision trees. Our crew waters 699 trees this past year. Uh and we just tried we take a lot of pride in being a Tree City USA. We just received our award for the 32nd year and you'll be hearing a little bit more about us as we get closer to Arbor Day. Community beautifification is also something that we do. So planting, signage, our beautiful hanging baskets out there. hopefully a lot of the things that you see in our community and say, "Wow, we live in a beautiful place." I like to think that our staff um and our team are are partially responsible for that. On the recreation side, we do everything from youth to seniors, land and water programs, and everything on wheels. Uh major events like river rhythms, Northwest Art, and Air, and Fun in the Park. Uh this year, we're going to be joined by some roaming programs. So, you're going to see some concerts and movies out at our neighborhood parks for the first time. And I am so delighted that our residents um are going to be able to see their tax dollars at work, hopefully closer to their homes. Our Riverfront Community Center is our primary programming space, but we also operate Albany Community Pool, which is owned by the school district. Cool Pool seasonally, um and then Maple Lawn, we are working on programming that space. For facility maintenance, we um are responsible for 25 building complexes with interior square footage over half a million. um and landscaping. They are responsible for over 76 acres. They do both interior and exterior work as well as preventative and emergency maintenance. Here's our work chart. It looks a little bit different than it has in the past. Thanks for 2FTTE and some restructuring which I'm going to chat about a little bit, but we have a recreation branch, our admin branch, facility maintenance, and then parks. All right. Accomplishments. I did a test run of this with the parks and recck commission and I waxed poetically over Lehigh Park. So, I'm going to read it word for word to keep me under the amount of time I spent last time. So, using community development block grant funds about $155,000 and city services fees, Lehi Park and

the playground were finally refreshed. This 1986 uh playground was removed and replaced with the city's first sensory playground designed with those with sensory needs in mind. With community feedback as our guide, the playground features play elements that provide um opportunities for those with alternative mobility needs. A friendship swing, a cozy dome to allow for integrated play, sensory panels, and static free artificial turf. Added bonuses like the mini library and a perimeter fence provide safe um and enjoyable environment for our folks. In the spring, the arts commission will paint fun obstacle courses on the sidewalk to increase play opportunities, bring a little bit of park beauty and quirkiness, um, and provide elements that could potentially support occupational therapy. So, love, love, love, love Lehigh. If you haven't been out there, please come out and join us and play. Uh, restructuring. This is a big one. So in addition to the two additional FTE in the last budget cycle which are much appreciated um because prior to that we were down about 25% in our staffing since 2018 and this was the first time under my time here that we've actually been able to add staff. That's huge. Thank you. Um retirements are upon us and as a result we spent this last year preparing to find ways um to improve the transition and our long-term position outcomes. We took a look at our current needs, our community expectations, and our staffing support and morale, as you've heard about burnout. So, we made some changes. One, our parks and open space manager. With Rick's retirement after 25 years, we removed major event logistics, facility maintenance, so that our new manager will be able to focus specifically on our parks and natural areas. With our ad one of our added FTE, we created a new position which is our parks operation specialist to do major event logistics, adopt a park le be an adopt a park leaison and support um and then provide additional boots on the ground maintenance as we know that that is what you all were hoping to see. On

our recreation side, with the departure of two of our clerks, we changed those to recreation positions and moved everyone down to the riverfront community center. Our recreation assistants are a little bit like our Swiss Army knives uh as they take care of customer service, administrative tasks in addition to programming. This move is hopefully going to create more energy and collaboration across the team as well as providing our patron with more effective and efficient service. Changes have also been made within facility maintenance as it's not located uh under parks parks division anymore. It's underneath me. Our uh lead has moved into a supervisor role. We now have two facility maintenance twos and two facility maintenance ones. So, thank you once again for that added FTE. We're already working with other departments to find ways to um collaborate more on processes and contracting to to realize those efficiencies. More accomplishments, technology integration. You've heard quite a few of us talk about this. Um we're trying to make our team more nimble and efficient through through using technology, especially with all of the staffing changes. Um, I came last year to talk a little bit about OpenGV and I presented that we were going to start using this asset management software. We went ahead and developed it and kind of got everything going in the summer and spring and I'm happy to say that we are now adding data into that that hopefully you'll hear me talk about more as I'm up here presenting on various projects. I want to give a big thank you to part uh public works as their crew. um specifically Lisa Kirk has helped tremendously with this transition and it's we we are successful as we are because of their support and collaboration with us monday.com um we are using it to to document our tasks for special events um our river rhythms and northwest arter um because they are very well executed and that takes year-round planning with about a half a dozen staff um with some of them leaving on uh retirement on the horizon we're using monday.com to kind

of integrate all that information into one area um and create some automation. So, uh we're very excited about that. And then just in general, if we can put anything online with an automated online form, we're looking to do so. In regards to alternative funding, last year we applied for nine grants, received three. Um were declined for three, and we're waiting to hear back on three as we speak. Um, we're always looking for grants, but we also need to make sure that projects we're putting out there are aligned with currently identified needs, our staffing resources. We need to make sure we're able to manage the process should they be successful, and that the amount is worth our time and initial investment as grants are wonderful revenue resources, um, but they aren't free. Sponsors, last year, our resource development um, generated over 418,000 in in kind and cast contributions. This is lower than previous years, but when you consider the economy, we still find it incredibly impressive. Um, and then the foundation, they're having a more active role. Uh, last year, working once again in partnership with public works, we sold Hub City Compost, um, and generated over $1,100 to go towards that program, uh, that foundation. We're going to do it again. So gardeners out there, put April 19th on your sorry, April 11th on your calendar as we hope to see you out there supporting not only public works and hub city compost, but our great uh foundation. Additionally, through their connection, we were able to uh gen secure another $75,000 worth of um funds that we would not have maybe been able to recognize without that 501c3 tax exempt status. As far as trends go, retirement, you've heard it a lot. We've lost almost 70 years of city of Albany experience in the last two years. A few more on the way, but thankfully for our department, we think we've crested the hill. Aging infrastructure, most of our facilities were built in the 50s, 60s,7s, and 80s. Um, we are excited. That might be a strong word, but for our facilities assessment is it'll actually give us

quantifiable data on the health of our buildings so that we'll be able to make more data driven decisions as we move forward in planning. Inflation as we go to track tackle projects, our money isn't um buying us the same amount as it had before like across the board. Um vandalism. So, as you can see from the top left hand photo, uh sensils vandalism continues to be an issue in our parks and facilities. destructive acts that take just a few seconds uh to complete cost the city thousands of dollars. For example, that door at Coolpool, $900 just for the door, not for the installation or maintenance from somebody deciding to throw one rock through there. Um and sadly, a lot of times once it's remedied, we move on to the next occurrence that's happened. So, we're documenting these now in open gov to get a clearer picture of the amount of time and and money that actually goes into to tackling these things. We have an incredible crew of adopt a park and graffiti chasers that are out there addressing issues that need that are that are that they're able to. Um and we're taking additional steps internally to hopefully deter um so thanks to opioid money, we'll be placing cameras across many of our most hit parks and and amenities. Transate camp cleanup is another thing that takes a significant amount of time um pulling some of our skilled staff from their core duties. Thank you again. As last year in the budget process, $80,000 was put aside to help with this. Um we've already spent over half of it and have a lengthy list piling up for when the weather dries out we're able to get back in. So um thank you very much. It's not uncommon for $10,000 to be spent on one single camp cleanup. And then lastly, the cost of meeting community expectations. We've been used to getting services and fees uh programs for very low cost or free. Um, and we're needing to operate more like a business. So, free concerts with national acts, aquatic programming, new playgrounds, beautifification. Um, all these take dollars uh to produce. So, uh, we need to increase our cost

recovery across all of our programs. This we're curious to see how our patrons respond as we don't want to outpace folks as we are here to serve. Um, so we're working at trying to figure out what programs we need to align in order to continue to make us sustainable as we move forward. And then looking ahead, challenges. Um, unfortunately, we've been more reactive instead of proactive due to staffing and just generally the environment. We're hoping to turn the corner on that a little bit with our added FTE and our additional restructuring increased costs. we've chatted about um despite um what we even with the added FTE we are still understaffed um and overacred and overparked compared to our uh the national average that's been compiled. So that's a tricky balance that we continue to weather. Um new staff despite no matter how amazing they are, they're still getting in here. They're still figuring things out and with a lot of change, we have um you know some work to do in order to get them fully up to speed. Weather continues to create challenges for us with heat, with smoke, with ice. Um if they're not episodic that's causing issues with our staffing, being able to be out there providing the services, um then we're out there cleaning up after major events like floods or ice storms. And then alternative funding. Money's tight for us. Money's tight for everyone. So we're competing more and more with other granting agencies. um and with our sponsors as they're having to look at their bottom line opportunities. There are plenty um one being those new staff we were just talking about. Incredible new fresh perspectives, fresh ideas, um and optimism and energy. We happily will take those and add those to our team and hopefully continue to serve our community better. Technology I chatted a little bit about. um with our partnerships. If we're not able to provide something, we are happy to look someplace else and figure out ways to continue to serve our community. If they've figured it out but need a broader network, come and chat with us.

We'll get you in our activate guide. We'll get you in our facilities. And [snorts] then in general, we're just reimagining our service delivery models, our programs, and our activities. Um and trying to find new ways to get our volunteers engaged and active. We live in a very um generous community. people want to give their time to think that they're to things that they're passionate about and thankfully parks and recreation is something that we find people passionate about. So, we're always just trying to figure out additional ways to get people plugged in um and having fun making their lives easier and continuing to make Albany a great place to live, work, and play. And that is all I have.

Thank you. So, um I do have a question about uh volunteer opportunities because I do hear um from members of the community who uh like to talk about the graffiti and the um the transate camps and uh so if we want to turn complainers into problem solvers, how do we do that? Um with is that with the adopt a park graffiti chasers and um can you speak a little more on that?

Yeah, certainly. Folks can go online. Um we have these cards that we've um have that have PD my PD connect on one side so they can go ahead and scan the QR code and report the graffiti that then we find out about. Um and on the other sides it says wants to volunteer. So yes, we have an ample group of folks through adopt a park and through our graffiti chasers that are able to be out there. Um, camp cleanup is a little bit different as we don't necessarily want folks without proper training being uh out there cleaning up those situations as there are health hazards, needles, drugs, um, other organic matter. Um, and so we want to make sure that folks who are dealing with those are are properly trained. Um, but as far as general trash pickup, heck yeah, we would love to have more folks out there.

And can you speak um, thank you for that. Can you speak to the um the availability of volunteer opportunities for um people of all ages, for example, groups of uh Girl Scouts, contact Jill with Adopt a Park. Uh I personally know another Girl Scout troop that's going to be out there doing a park cleanup as we get into April. Um so yes, there are plenty of opportunities. We try to align activities that um are going to best serve the skill set and the interest levels of different groups. Um, so yeah, contact us, let us know. Adopt a park is the easiest way to get involved. Perfect. Thank you. No problem. Any other counselors have anything? Councelor McGee?

Nothing. Councelor Newton. I I I want to just say the energy your staff has is amazing and they're always willing to talk to you and share information. So, I I appreciate that and I look forward to the concerts this summer and um looking forward to continuing on watching your team do the work they do. It's going to be great. We'll have a lot of fun. Thank you all for the time. So, where did he join us from? Where'd your new person join us from? Wilsonville. Wilsonville. Yes.

Awesome. 1 hour and 14 minutes from my house to Wilsonville. it.

Good evening. I'm Sean Park, information technology director. Thank you for your time this evening. Um, I appreciate appreciate the opportunity to talk a bit about our department. Our department has a strong focus on customer service as we provide [clears throat] IT systems and support to each department and employee across the city. We also work with partner agencies in managing shared systems and services including the Lynn County Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's Office. We have 13 FTE and the two-year IT budget is 7.3 million split across two budget programs. General IT, which is the largest portion of the budget and comprises all of our citywide services along with a permit tracking program for our building and inspection services.

[clears throat]

The IT department is structured into two divisions, infrastructure and operations, with cyber security surrounding our work in both divisions. The infrastructure division provides the foundation for the city's technology systems and at its core are data storage systems that currently house about three pedabytes of city data. Data storage is closely linked with our server systems with most data housed in the city's two two data centers. One here at city hall and the other at the main library. We are responsible for storing all city data ranging from city council agendas to body cam video evidence. And we also maintain disaster recovery infrastructure needed to restore systems and data due to a cyber security incident or other calamity. infrastructure also includes the city's copper, fiber, and wireless networks together with data storage and servers. These [clears throat] networks create the city's private cloud, offering secure, cost-effective, and reliable access to city systems. They also manage the citywide phone system along with alarms and emergency alert systems. The infrastructure division lays the foundation while the operations division ensures our business systems run smoothly and securely. This includes managing automation and reporting systems as well as finance related systems like budget, payroll, and time sheets. In public safety, IT operations manages patient charting, records, dispatch, and body cam systems. They also handle citywide systems used by all departments such as email, document management, archiving, and office productivity and collaboration apps. They also manage systems that provide online services to the public, including the library catalog and recreation management systems. The operations division also provides 247 technical support to 450 employees through our help desk system, which accounts for most of its workload. On an average day, it is actively working on

300 support tickets. We provide in-person tech support as well as phone and remote assistance. In addition to about 500 user systems in offices across the city, we also support on average about 120 remote users, 400 smartphones, and the security and management systems behind them. Today, it is managing a total of about 1,000 user devices. Cyber security is integral to our operations, ensuring system availability and resilience against threats. This encompasses proactive threat monitoring, regular vulnerability assessments, and comprehensive management of security controls across all city systems. [clears throat] Our cyber security strategy also includes incident response planning, training, and exercises to facilitate recovery from security incidents. The 13 positions in IT are represented in this org chart. We currently have two vacancies in active recruitment. um one system administrator and one information system support specialist and we hope to have those filled by late spring so we once again have a full roster. Accomplishments this past year include a core systems uptime of 99.9% with less than 10 hours of core system downtime in 2025. The downtime was either planned maintenance, which was scheduled after hours to minimize impact to our users, or business systems that were offline due to vendor issues. In 2025, we resolved 8,700 support tickets, which is a 33% increase over 2024. Additional accomplishments include in 2025, 500 user systems were moved to Windows 11 via upgrade or replacement. We also deployed over 150 laptop and docking station systems. Instead of regular workstation computers, replacing two systems with one for employees who work in hybrid environments.

To support all the new laptops, we rolled out a new roaming wireless network, which allows staff to stay securely connected to the business network no matter where they and their laptop happen to be. We also completed a migration of the city's core financial system, Munis, which provides budget, payroll, human resources, and employee services. This work was necessary because the Muna server operating systems had reached end of life. It rebuilt and expanded the red light camera data processing and automation systems and implemented a one laptop per officer system at APD to replace shared systems in patrol vehicles. The aging air conditioning system at the library denny center was also replaced. I apologize to my colleague Eric. It does not help his people, just the computers in the data center. Is there another slide behind this one?

Pardon? You have an update slide. I'm sorry, I didn't understand. Is there another slide? Uh, nope, same slide. Okay, same slide. All right.

Yeah. Um, yeah, Eric was mentioning earlier that the library HVAC as a whole need to be replaced at Maine, but we replaced the data center, which is just a little tiny room downstairs. That doesn't really help his staff very much, but it keeps our systems up. Um, let's see here. There were many process improvement efforts in 2025, including library staff scheduling management, streamlining of the employee onboarding process, a rebuild of the transit paratransit management system, along with citywide training on the new monday.com dashboard and workflow management app. In 2025, thankfully, we did not have a major cyber security incident, but we mitigated several minor incidents involving user account breaches and supply chain compromise. Due to the safeguards and security controls we had in place, there was no negative impact to the city's business systems. Fishing attacks via email continue to be a primary threat. In 2024, we used thirdparty services to conduct a full audit of our security posture on the internal network as well as our Microsoft M365 cloud environment. The audit provided valuable information that allowed us to strengthen the security of our systems and provided a a baseline for future security evaluations. In 2025, we reached 98% compliance with the recommendations found in that audit and continue to work on the remaining items. The trends we are seeing are a continued increase in user support requests and the number of systems that we manage. These are natural symptoms of systems evolution over time. uh we continue to see an increase in the usage of cloud applications with vendors moving away from platforms that we run internally on our own systems. This increases vendor lock and control and has resulted an increased cost to the city and we don't see that trend changing. Cyber security remains foundational to our operations and we operate with the understanding that cyber attacks are not a matter of if but when. This shapes our defense strategies and proactive planning to protect critical systems across the city.

Artificial intelligence continues to present new challenges with potential to transform how we do business. The trend among public agencies, including Albany, is to take a cautious but proactive approach to embracing this new technology in a responsible and effective way and leverage it to improve improve the delivery of public services. We currently have a citywide team of 20 employees across all departments who are exploring the AI tools found within our M365 business apps and taking a closer look at how AI can improve efficiency and productivity. We are also testing internal AI agents trained specifically on city data with mixed results and the opinion today on that is that it has potential but there's a ways to go before it's ready for business. All of these trends underscore that the number and complexity of systems is continually growing as the city's business and needs business needs evolve. Uh looking ahead in challenges, we face challenges in keeping up with cyber security threats and regulatory requirements. Those are changing constantly while ensuring our systems and public services remain available, efficient, and secure. As our infrastructure and system complexity continue to grow along with their support workloads, the expectations and strain on IT staff continue to increase leading to employee burnout which we are managing to the best of our ability. We have several opportunities looking ahead. We are optimistic and con committed to enhancing the services that we provide. Filling vacancies will bring bring an influx of new talent and new energy, allowing us to build upon our efforts to create a forward-looking and adaptable team. We're really excited about filling those vacancies. In 2026, we're upgrading our network security and consolidating device management across systems to provide secure access for all users, regardless of location or device they happen to be using. This streng strengthens our security posture while improving user efficiency and productivity. We will also leverage further grant funding to conduct another cyber cyber security audit later this year to

continue our bi-anual cadence and stay on top of that constantly evolving threat landscape. And finally, while we face growing system complexity, increased support workload, and everpresent cyber security threats, we work hard to ensure we are positioned to address those challenges through infrastructure modernization, process improvement, and automation, and strategic grant investments in critical upgrades. We will continue to deliver systems that are secure, efficient, and responsive to the community's needs. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. questions coming over here. 8,700 help desk tickets. Probably several had my name attached

and mine [laughter] and I appreciate that. I had personal um assistance from four members of the IT staff in the last year, including one right before this meeting um on a variety of things. uh and my problems were all solved in time generally quickly, some of them remotely. That's fascinating for me. Um so I appreciate you being there and being so responsive so quickly. And I also want to thank you for the cyber security training that we are routinely um encouraged to participate in because now I'm afraid of everything and I have helped I have trained other people to be afraid of everything.

Well, thank you for that. We're happy to help. Um, and rest assured, none among you are on our frequent flyer list for ticket requesters. It's Council Mloud. Yeah. Just um, thanks for helping out when we get weird emails. Yeah. So, just just thanks for that. There's It's never going to stop. Council McGee. Council um, Newton. I don't have anything. Thank you, Council Newton. You got anything? Nope. I'm good. Councelor Thompson?

Very likely. I am I'm going to send a request in tomorrow because when we've trans transitioned my emails, Alex Johnson.2 whatever and then and Alex at and then mayor at I get three things every time from the Chamber of Commerce and three things every time from this. So I'll be requesting to get rid of those other ones. I just want to be sure that you read though. Yes. Well, so my my email is blown up because of it. So I I'll send a request in. I'll open a ticket on your behalf right now. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Mr. Mayor, that brings us to the end for this evening. And then uh next uh on Wednesday night, we'll continue with police, fire, uh HR, and the city manager's office. Thank you.

Oh, that's that's that's a wrap. Let me go to the next page. The next on tonight's agenda is business from the council. I'll start with councelor McGee. Yes. I have a question regarding um House Bill 4148. Um it was a letter that was written and signed by you um Mayor Alex regarding the support of that bill. I just don't remember us as a council speaking about that. That's part of the goals that we set up. That's part of the strategic goals we set up. The TLT we we can uh we can discuss that in a minute. Uh Kayla's going to come up in a few when you turn to the city manager for report. Uh we'll talk a little bit about the legislative session.

That'd be great. Thank you. Is that it? Councelor. Yep. Councelor Newton. I also am concerned about that letter uh because I don't agree with that bill and I wouldn't have I don't we've had this I feel like we had this discussion a few times. Um so yeah, looking forward to discussing that. Not a fan of that bill as it's written out currently. I was surprised to see that letter uh published. Um heads up would have been nice. Uh and then number two, I just want to confirm for the Wells Fargo property Lman is paying that right still paying monthly. Is it like I just want to get a confirmation on that.

Uh [clears throat] Gina's can Gina is here. Can you give me a head up or do you know if he's paying on every month on the monthly payments for Wells Fargo? Yes, he's he's current. Gina says he's current. Wonderful. Okay, good. I'm assuming it's like a monthly like has like a auto auto pay. I don't know if it's auto pay. It's 30 He's paying 3500 a month and Gina says he's current on on those payments as of now. Okay, thank you. Okay, that's all.

Councelor Thompson. Yeah, I really didn't have anything, but that last comment was ARRA related and I I just before this meeting and I was late, my my apologies, but I had sent something that I wanted in front of all your um spots on the desk related to ARRA and uh the staff pulled it because it was ARRA, not city council. And uh you know that that's that's all I wanted to say. I did have something ARRA related and I I stepped back because we're not meeting as ARRA but um I think the discussion could have happened. I'll leave it at that. Council Mloud,

I will save my comments for Wednesday. Thank you. Councelor Van Gremlin, nothing tonight. Thank you. Councelor Smith, I covered mine earlier. Um I'll I'll save mine for I'm really sore right now. So, council, I'll turn it over to you, sir. City manager report.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, ARRA items yet, they do have to be uh spoken of at a at an advertised ARRA meeting. So, um the item that councelor Thompson um sent in, we'll be taking a look at that and staff will uh put a an analysis towards it and send it out to the ARRA members. I know that there's some concern um about timing, but again that that is rightfully rightfully has to be held at an ARRA meeting. Um okay, I would ask uh Kayla to come forward. I apologize for this booming mic. It sounds very loud to me, but we're going to have a a short uh update on the the u the legislative session that started on the 2nd of this month. Um 4148 is just one of a few. Um the council prior to several members of this council being on board did um establish a legislative agenda and uh transient lodging tax reform was part of that agenda. and 4148 does a good job of of providing flexibility to u to cities to spend transit lodging tax dollars in the way that they need to to address the impacts of tourism. Um that was the council's feeling last time we looked at it and hence uh the request from LOC to the mayor to sign on to that uh to that letter. So let me turn it over to Kayla at this time.

Yeah, good evening council. Um, so, uh, we are through week one of a very rapid, very short legislative session here. Um, so, as you can imagine, things have been moving very quickly. Um, if you have not already, uh, Peter did send out in the Friday report the link to the legislative tracker. Um, because it would be really, um, impossible for us to be able to send an email for every single item. We have crowdsourced that from all of our departments so that you can go into that at any time. Um, see what we're monitoring, the analysis behind it, why we're looking at that. Um, and then also some of those position uh spaces based on the council priorities that were adopted for the 2526 legislative process. Um, so I do encourage you to go take a look at that. Um, that being said, when we do have our council meetings, um, I am going to make it a habit in the city manager update uh to provide you an update on kind of where we're at and what's coming up um that we know about. Things are moving very quickly. So, um, even though I did a poll only two hours ago, I guarantee you some things have already moved. Um, so in a recap of week one, um, the first bill that I wanted to draw attention to is House Bill 4084. Um, this is the governor's bill on economic development. Um, you did see an email go out from Peter um, in regards to our economic development manager, Sophie Adams, uh, testifying on that particular item. Um this is um an item that supports uh council's uh healthy economy goal um in regards to supporting family wage jobs here um in Albany and and other cities uh through providing additional flexibility and tools um for economic incentives. So essentially just gives you another power another item in your toolkit um in order to facilitate bringing some of those industries to Albany. The next item that a position was taken on was HB4156 uh which is GMT funding sustainability. Um so I'm going to say this once and then I'm just going to refer to it as GMT but that is ground emergency medical transportation. Um so that is a very nice way of saying your ambulance

services. Um so this is a substantial funding mechanism for our single role uh function here in the city of Albany. And for those of you who do not know, um it is something that is um looking at some significant cuts due to changes in Medicare um and how that is reimbured. And so this uh bill is actually looking um at options to provide some backfill sustainability for that funding which ultimately um impacts our capacity here for our ambulance programs. Um, I'm going to skip over uh 4008 um because council member Smith already covered this. Um, but this is that transit funding um item. And then that brings us to um as Peter just noted um SB5 1562 and HB4148. Um so these are the two LOC bills pertaining to lodging tax. Um so I will note that uh the LOC has pulled forward um the exact language that was left off at the end of last year um regarding um the lodging tax flexibility. Um so what these would do is they would move in their current form um the split from 70% for uh tourism promotion, 30% for city impacts of tourism uh to a 40 60% split um with the 60% being available to cities to address tourism impacts. things like impacts to police and fire, impacts to our roadway infrastructure, um which does get wear and tear uh from visitors coming into the community. Um I will note that that's not a requirement, that just is additional flexibility there. Um, we did, as was noted, uh, submit a letter on that, um, as this was a legislative priority for the council and because, uh, that public hearing was scheduled, um, over this work session, um, which is why we're also providing the update here, um, we're trying to do it as timely as possible for you. Um, so with that, I will turn to just a little bit of a look ahead. Uh, so this week, the legislator legislature is going to have a shift to a significant focus on transportation funding. And there's going to be several bills coming up on

Wednesday for work sessions that are going to be worked through. Can ask a question before? Yeah, go for it. What was the other bill you mentioned with 4148? Uh so 4148 is the House bill. Uh Senate Bill 1562 mirrors uh that 4148 bill. Um [clears throat] so they're they're exactly uh the same language.

Okay. Um but yeah, so this week um we're going to be shifting in towards uh transportation funding is really going to be the name of the game this week in the legislature. Um with several of those bills scheduled uh for work sessions. Um staff is not currently recommending a position even though um there is a uh council priority for transportation funding packages. And the reason for that is because everything we're hearing from the League of Oregon Cities is really that these are going to move substantially and they're nowhere close to what that final bill is going to look like. Um, so knowing that we're staying in a monitor status until we can kind of see where that shakes out coming out of those work sessions and then we will provide updates as that becomes available. Um, I did also um want to note because I did get a question about it. Um, there will be um there are still some bills that are going through rules right now um in regards to some of the uh state ethics commission's decisions that were made last year um regarding serial meetings as well as uh food at meetings. Those have not come up yet, but we are still watching how those move through. And so with that, I'm happy to turn it over for any questions.

Smith, today was supposed to be the deadline for introducing new bills. Correct. I believe so, but I think they uh the LC update was that since it had been brought up in rules and rules was reviewing it, it's technically introduced even though it's not for full discussion. Okay. Council have anyone else have anything? I I think today was a deadline for bills that were not rules or money related. Okay. Okay. Peter, you have anything else? Kayla? Nope. Sorry, I just spilled my drink on myself.

I would just say that uh I checked and there was a reference to PCI compliant earlier this evening by Gina Joerger. That's the payment card industry. So, it's the security that surrounds the use of credit cards. Thank you. So, with that, I think we're done there. I will So, our next meeting is going to be Wednesday night at 6 PM here in Chambers. With that, I'll join the meeting. Thank you. Write those numbers down. God, my neck is killing me.