City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, my No, my neck is still is my neck. Thank you for joining us this evening, the Albony City Council meeting, Wednesday, February 25th at 6 PM. I now call the meeting to order and would you please all join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. Thank you for joining us. Uh while city recording a roll call, please. Councelor Thompson here. Councelor Van Drimlan here. Councelor McCloud, present. Councelor Smith,

here. Councelor McGee, present. Councelor Newton, hi there. Mayor Johnson, I am here. Thank you. Item three on your agenda, adoption of the consent calendar. Council, do we have any any issues? Uh, I'd like to pull item B3. Oh, wait, wait, sorry. Um, yes, B3. Okay. So, council like to discuss the rest of the consent calendar. We accept the extent uh the consent calendar with the exception of the item pulled. I have a motion. Second. All those in favor say I. I.

Thank you. Councelor Smith.

Thank you. Um, item B3 for those in the audience is the uh minutes from the council's joint meeting with the Albany school board on December 8th. There were three um errors that I wanted to uh uh correct um in our version that these minutes have been adopted by the school district already. Um the first one and the most substantive one I felt was that um school board director Lunford was marked as present and she was una unable to attend that meeting so she was not present. On page 15 of the minutes um uh under the parks and recreation director's report there is a reference to the shark hk foundation. That should be the Sharf Foundation, S C A R PF. And in the uh police chief's discussion of the school resource officer partnership with the school district, uh it reports that we have two active threat skills with the district every year and it should be drills. Forgive me my copy editing, but I I I wanted our accepted version of the minutes to be correct. So, council, do we have a motion?

I move to accept the minutes of the joint meeting with Greater Albany Public Schools uh with the edits as outlined by Councelor Smith. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I.

Thank you, councel. Next on tonight's agenda is a quasi judicial public hearing regarding the planning planning file Z or Z char Charlie charlie-04 to-25 proposal for the zoning map amendment uh from community to commercial to neighborhood commu commercial on a development 730 square foot 4. the order of the tonight's proceedings as follows. Be u A is a staff report. Uh C B is a preliminary questions for staff. C is testimony from the applicant. D is questions from the applicant. Public testimony item E be public testimony in favor of opposition or in opposition or neutral. F is rebuttal by the applicant. G procedural questions for staff. H council deliberations and I final decision. If you are, if you wish to testify, there were three options available as described on the agenda. If you're if you have not yet provided your information to sign signin sheet, please do so now. Be knowing moving. Um, I call to order the quasi judicial public hearing at 6:04 p.m. Do any counselors or wish to declare a conflict of interest? No counselors declaring consequent interest. Do any counselors wish to report of exparte communication contact? Thank you. Do any counselors wish to report a site visit? Do any councilors wish to abstain from participating in the proceedings?

Does anyone wish to challenge the city council's right to determine the the ma this matter and the participation in the council member in the meeting hearing and decision. Okay. If you are here stand attending online, please turn on your camera and raise your hand to be called upon. Or if you're attending by phone, please unmute yourself and state your name and to be called upon. There's no takers. I now call on a reading of the meeting procedures the case or other criteria in the comprehensive plan or Albany development code which you believe to apply to the decision. Please be aware that you must raise an issue with enough detail to afford the city and other parties the opportunity to respond to the issue if you later want to raise that issue on appeal. If additional documents or evidence are provided by any party, the city council may allow a continuence or leave the record open to allow the parties a reasonable opportunity to respond. The failure of the applicant to raise constitutional or other issues relating to the proposed conditions of approval with sufficient detail to allow the local government to respond to the issue precludes an action for damages in circuit court.

Thank you. Will the project planner, David Martino, please present the staff report?

Certainly. So, the subject property is located at 530 um Columbus and also 21505th Avenue. It's one lot and it has a duplex on it currently. And so, the request tonight is to change the zoning of that one specific lot from community commercial to neighborhood commercial. And in this case, it's logical because the neighborhood commercial is like a good buffer zone between existing community commercial and other nearby residential. So, the subject property is located here. Uh it's at again 530 Columbus and it is uh just north of the Rogers restaurant uh KFC A&W and then just uh west of the Republic Plaza. So the review criteria for a zoning map amendment is found in uh development code section 2.740. In summary, consistency with the comprehensive plan, the transportation facilities are adequate. Services can accommodate the development. The new zone best satisfies the comprehensive plan. Transportation plan has been followed and then it's consistent with transportation studies. So the process is a type four quasi judicial process. So public notice was sent to property owners within 300 feet of this property and it was also posted on the property physically. Uh there was a public hearing on February 2nd with the planning commission and they made a recommendation which you're here to consider tonight. City council then holds this second hearing and in the intervening time we did receive one letter of support and that should be in your packet. So tonight the decision options is to either approve the request as proposed, approve it with amendments or deny the request. And any questions?

Council, do you have any do counselors have questions for the staff?

Thank you. We will now taking testimony from the applicant. The applicant please state your name and address the for the address for the record. Good evening members of the council. My name is David Dodson. I'm with Wamtt Valley Planning representing the property owner. My address is 5020 Northwest Highway 99 in Corvalis, Oregon Zip code 97330. Um, essentially my client was interested in reszoning the property because the existing duplex is considered kind of a nonconforming use in the commercial zone. And so by changing it to what is being recommended in the neighborhood commercial does allow for that. So it then no longer becomes a non-conforming use. So um that's what's really driving the request for the zone change. So uh we concur with uh staff's recommendation to approve the request and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Do any councilors have any questions for the applicant? Councelor Mloud. Thank you. Um, can you tell us why this is a non-conforming use or how how this came about? Um, why why it's there?

Well, my client uh inherited the property from her mother and um what kind of came she inherited several propert several in Corvalis and then this one over here and um I helped her do some an annexation on one of those properties and she asked me to help her with this particular property as well. um she's just concerned that if the property were to ever burn down that I don't think she'd be able to reconstruct it. And so there's some issues around that. And so um she just wanted to have the assurance. And I think too from a a zoning perspective, being a planner, I think as David had mentioned, that neighborhood commercial zone really provides a a good transition to what's really a residential neighborhood to the north and then really a more commercial uses to the south. So, it becomes kind of a nice transition versus the commercial right there. I mean, if if if somebody did purchase the property and tear it down, they could put a commercial use there and it's kind of in the neighborhood and so it becomes a little more problematic.

So, you're saying um the the property was um in use as it is before she um before she inherited. That is correct. It's been a duplex for decades. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Any other council?

Thank you. Uh we will now take be be taking public testimony from those who registered to speak. First from those in in favor of the application followed by those in opposition and then with that with concerns and finally those neutral Okay, there's no one in the one only person in favor just spoke. Uh there's no other person that signed up to speak to us about this testim have any testimony. Uh, if anyone wishes to, let me see. If anyone wishes to entertain the exhibit into the record as part of your testimony, please briefly describe the exhibit and then hand it to the clerk. Virtual attendees, please email the exhibits to the city commission, city recorder at cityrecorder albony.gov. Okay, going back over here. We will now be making taking public testimony from from those who did not register to speak. If you are attending in person, please raise your hand to speak. If attending virtually, please turn on your camera and raise your hand to be called upon. If you are attending by phone, please unmute yourself to be to state your name and be called upon. Please state your name and address for the record to provide your information to the sign-in sheet and the presenter's desk. If online, please email your name um and address to cityrecorder. Almanorggon.gov. Does any applicant have any rebuttal? Nobody's Nobody signed up. Anybody in here want to speak

here? Good. Well, the next question is, does anybody have any rebuttal testimony? Since there's no comments, we don't have any. Does the applicant wave a 7-day period to submit additional written testimony, written argument? You wave it. Thank you. Does the city council wish to speak, ask any procedural questions of staff? I'll keep going. I declare the public hearing closed at 6:13 p.m. I That's done. Does the city council wish to um discuss the case? I think council mloud had that right question. Does the city council wish to discuss? No, I did that. There's an ordinance on your consideration on your council your desk in the packet.

I move the city council adopt an ordinance to approve the zoning. We have to read it, right? Amendment. I think we have to read. Yes, you have to read ordinance. Okay. Will the city attorney please read the ordinance proclaiming the zoning amendment title and title only?

Thank you. an ordinance amending ordinance number 4441 which adopted the city of Albany zoning map by the Albany zoning map and adopting findings for the property located at Lynn County Assessor's map number 11S-03W-05 CD tax law 9400 00.

Will the city city council like to make a motion to read the title of the ordinance a second time in title only? I'll move to read the ordinance a second time and title only. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you. an ordinance amending ordinance number 4441 which adopted the city of Albany zoning map by the Albany zoning map and adopting findings for the property located at Lynn County Assessor's map number 11-03W-05 CD tax law 9400.

Thank you. Would the councelor like to make a motion to adopt the ordinance reclaiming a zoning amendment? I move the city council adopt an ordinance to approve the zoning map amendment under planning file ZC0425 as described in the January 16th, 2026 staff report. This motion is based on the findings and conclusions in the staff report testimony presented at the hearing and the findings in support of the application made by the city council during deliberations on this matter. Second. I have a motion and a second. Will the city clerk call the roll call? Vote. Councelor Thompson. Yes. Councelor Van Drimlan. I. Councelor McCloud. I. Councelor Smith.

I. Councelor McGee. I. Councelor Newton. Yep. Like motion passes.

Good. within within five days of the decision. Uh the community development director will provide written notice of the decision to the applicant and any other parties entitled to the notice. A decision of city council may be appealed to land use board of appeals by filing a notice to intent to appeal no later than 21 days after the decision is final. Thank you. Have to run that back one more time. One more. Two more ordinances. Give me a second. I get the right one.

May I hear? Those are probably for the next hearing. Say again. Those two additional ordinances are for the next hearing. I get that. But the next on my agenda is

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm sorry, sir. Sure. I got the right thing up here. Second up. This is the next one. Next on tonight's agenda is a legislative legislative and quasi judicial public hearing regarding planning files alpha November 01-21, Charlie Papa-003-25 and Zebra Charlie 03-25. The proposal is a request for to annex 11 sub separate parcels of land to outside of the city limits along with the adjacent right away. Amend the comprehensive plan designation of general commercial to village center with the concurrent zoning map amendments from Lynn Countyy's UG UGM-5 zoning to a designation to a mixeduse commercial um office personnel office personnel and regional residential medium density attached uh resident the annexation will remove property from the taxing district of of the Albony Albony Rural Fire District protection ction production district. Okay. If you wish to testify, there will be three options to be available as described on the council's agenda. If you have not yet provided your information, please sign in the sheet now. I call the legislative public and quasi judicial public hearing to order at 6:18 p.m. I call order legislation quality system public hearing. We'll do that. Do any councils have to declare a conflict of interest? Um

I think I need to um I did I know the gentleman they they work on the previous project in Albany on the tiny home village hub city. So I have had conversations about them and I direct them to talk to staff. I cool with that. Thank you. So I should qualif disqualify myself. Let me run the meeting. Yeah, Mayor. Um, that's not a conflict of interest. No, let me know. Okay. Okay. Well, dang. I wanted to run the run the meeting.

Well, I just want to make sure I want people to know that I do know the people that are built are trying to do this. Does any counselors wish to report a exparte contact? So, I did talk with both of the gentlemen, everybody involved, and we just talked about the vision that I had for Albany. I took them on a tour of the city. That's pretty much it.

True.

Sir, why don't we take a five minute break? Would that be all right? Well, we have to Can I do that? City attorney. So, take a five minute break. Uh, come back at 6 6:30. 6:30. 6:30. Well, I said

So I want to clarify my comments uh my communication with the principal or the applicant. Um I have known Darren Nichols for few about three years now I believe and uh he he came to me about this project and kind of shared his vision and I I took him and introduced him to David uh not David Martin Matthew Ruters and staff and then I stepped away and then things started happening in the background. They brought back some drawings and let me take a look at them. Uh they showed me the site so I did make a site visit and um another thing all I saw was where the property's going to go. We went to the VFW. I talked with the VFW folks. They seem pretty excited about it. So, for me, I don't think it's a conflict, but apparently some of the council does believe I have a conflict. And so, um, I think I should step out of this hearing because two years before, uh, one of his partners was my former campaign manager and she also had a file lawsuit against the city. And so, during that time, I've stepped away from the dis. So, I'm going to ask council president to please come this hearing. I'm getting real excited, guys. You know, this is this is uh gonna be real fun. Well,

I love the game of musical chairs.

And this just protects the process and integrity of the process, which is it happens. I mean, this small town, I know everybody. I refereed football 25 years, got yelled on softball fields for 15. So, this is nothing new. Waiting for a city attorney. Apologize to the the delay. We make sure we do this right. You have a bunch of ordinances.

the recorder. Are they almost done? Right.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for that. City attorney. Um, she did talk to the she's a deputy city attorney. Um, based on the conversation, there was expert communication. and I did share that with you. But for there to be no appearance of impropriy, I'm going to ask my president, my council to finish this hearing. Okay. Do I have to leave the room or can I stay in the room?

And you can do it like the Olympics and hold up some note cards and tell me how good I'm doing. If I get like a 10, 8.5. All right. Does anyone wish to challenge city council's right to determine this matter or the participation of any city council member in this hearing or decision? All right, seeing none, um, if you're attending online, go ahead and turn on your mic on your camera, raise your hand to be called upon. If you're attending by phone, please unmute yourself and state your name if you need to be called on. Are there any site visits that anyone wants to also claim? Yes. Is your Is your microphone on?

Um, yes it is. Is my microphone not working? Okay. I just It is working. Okay. Um, do I need to maybe adjust it? There we go. That might be a little better. Um, I I did drive by the site um numerous times over the last few months. Um, and and that's that's all I wanted to to declare was that I've I've drove by a few times and taken a couple looks. Who said that microphone? It's right by my house. I see it every day. Okay. Anyone else? No. All right. So, let's go ahead and call for a reading of the meeting procedures.

Sure. For all those wishing to testify, please be or please direct your testimony toward the applicable criteria of the case or other criteria in the comprehensive plan or Albany development code which you believe to apply to the decision. Please be aware that you must raise an issue with enough detail to afford the city or other parties the opportunity to respond to the issue if you later want to raise that issue on appeal. If additional documents or evidence are provided by any party, the city council may allow a continuence or leave the record open to allow the parties a reasonable opportunity to respond. The failure of the applicant to raise constitutional or other issues relating to the proposed conditions of approval with sufficient detail to allow the local government to respond to the issue precludes an action for damages in circuit court.

All right. Will the planner uh project planner please present the staff report?

Okay. I'm David Martin, project planner. Um so start starting here I wanted to share with you the East Albany land use plan. This was adopted in 2023 as part of the East Albany u uh refinement plan. And so the areas that you see here um are designated as commercial and um residential, medium, and low density and employment land. It's all around the vicinity of Walmart, especially behind it and to the south. So, the subject properties, there's 11 of them, and the numbers on the left represent the number of the property that you'll see in the cover sheet of your staff report that refers to each of the lots that are being considered for annexation. And then the map on the right shows those properties uh in sky blue color. Um, and those are the ones that are uh being considered for annexation tonight. So, in summary, uh first part of this is the comprehensive plan map amendment. that's being proposed. So, presently in the East Albany plan, uh we have an area of general commercial that's up kind of the north northwest of the site. The center of the site is dominated by village center designation. We have medium density residential to the southeast and then employment land to the furthest to the southeast with a little bit of urban residential reserve. And so how that would break out with this proposal is the uh the general commercial designation would go away in favor of village center. Uh so we have village center zoning here or comprehensive plan map actually uh village center and then medium density residential and employment land. For the zoning uh the properties currently have Lynn County zoning. Um most of them are the UG UGM5 acre uh lots with a little bit of uh residential reserve UG uh with primarily 1acre lots.

Upon annexation, provided this is approved, the zoning of the site would be primarily mixeduse commercial with medium density residential to the south and southwest and then office professional to the southeast. So the review criteria for annexations can be found in section 2.110 of the Albany development code. In summary, there's eligibility criteria and then there's also the infrastructure criteria. Do we have the ability to serve the site with an adequate level of urban services? Is the infrastructure available to serve the site and will they be available in a timely manner? So, a quasi judicial comprehensive plan map amendment review criteria are found in section 2.220 of the Albany development code. And in summary, that is uh would the map amendment be more supportive of the comp plan? Would it be consistent with re relevant area plans uh such as the East Albany plan? uh would it be consistent with the comprehensive plan map pattern and also consistent with statewide planning goals for the zoning map amendment? The review criteria u are found in ATC 2.740. In summary, is the zoning map amendment consistent with the comprehensive plan? The transportation facilities are adequate services can accommodate development. Does it best satisfy the comprehensive plan? Has the transportation plan been followed? And is this consistent with the transportation studies? And so for the land use process, this uh annexations are a type four legislative process. The assignment of comprehensive plan map amendments as well as zoning is a type four quasi judicial process. So public notice was mailed uh to properties within 300 ft of the property which numbered about 90 letters. uh and the property was posted at five locations. Uh the public hearing was

held February 2nd before the planning commission for their recommendation. City council is scheduled then to hear the hearing tonight and to consider any written testimony that was received. I believe you got one piece of testimony from the Fair Housing Council of Oregon supporting this uh proposal. So the key points then uh we're looking at annexing 11 properties. This comes with comprehensive plan map amendments, zoning map amendments. We've determined that the properties are eligible for annexation and that the proposal satisfies all applicable review criteria. So, your decisions tonight uh is either to approve the request as proposed, approve with conditions, or deny the requests. And are there any questions?

Any questions from council? I have questions for the project. So, okay. All right. No questions for uh Mr. Bart now. Um any staff? Council doesn't have any questions for staff. Just want to make sure. Okay. All right. We'll now be taking testimony from the applicant. Would the applicant please state your name and address for the record? Good evening, councilors. Darren Nichols, uh, East Albony Town Center LLC, 1860 Northwest Crocker Lane, Albany, Oregon. Um, thank you very much for the opportunity to visit with you tonight. Um, first of all, I just want to say we concur with staff's uh, report. want to say a special thank you to David and to Matthew and to the rest of the team at community development for their staff work on this. They've done an excellent job and we we concur with the findings that they've put in front of you this evening. Um it might be helpful just to talk a little bit about the history on this project. Um we are uh first and foremost a housing developer and um in particular we try to provide housing that's workforce affordable. Uh we do that mostly without public subsidies. So, um, we look for sites that are affordable and, um, in communities that need housing, which Oregon needs lots of these days. Um, when we first began looking at this site, we we were really just looking at one small piece of it. And then we realized kind of through the negotiation with the land owner that it was actually much larger family-owned property that the city had done a lot of work on as part of the East Albany plan. And um as we began to look kind of more in depth, we realized there was an opportunity to do something um special here, something more than just a housing

development, but actually um more of a community um town center feel, something that would provide housing, but housing that's supported by all the things that people need in their everyday lives. So that that began kind of a visioning process and a conversation with city staff about um a shared effort. And I would be remiss if I didn't say um thank you to all of you for your leadership in working through the East Alb plan and adopting that in 2023. But also um I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to the uh city staff for their partnership in this. It really is a partnership and I think um that partnership be really important going forward as we move from tonight's decision about annexation and zoning towards actually putting um in place the development that's going to support people who live in Albany and work in Albany and is going to help kind of generate the future that you all have wanted and envisioned for your community. So, we've been operating under a development agreement which you authorized um I think back in October and an annexation agreement. Um so, your city staff is bringing you the annexation proposal but really on behalf of this greater vision and we look forward to fulfilling our part of this from tonight's decision going forward. So, happy to answer questions and thank you.

All right. Do any counselors have questions for the applicant? Um, I have a question for you. I'm curious about um if there are any specific infrastructure improvements that you're prepared to fund as part of this project, like road signals or utilities, storm water. Just want to make sure that we can confirm that there's be no request for general fund subsidies needed.

Well, thank you for the question. Um, like any other development, we will pay our fair share. Um this particular project involves um more inf infrastructure than a typical project would require in part because the state and the city have adopted a a pretty substantial um transportation change in the pattern for the neighborhood. So I think um following tonight's decision decision that will one of the next discussions we'll have will be around the design of the roadway the access points um where and how to extend sewer um and I think that's a conversation that we'll need to have with uh the city manager of community development to figure out um how how best and where does the access points need to be and where does the sewer need to come from? those kinds of detailed design questions and that will be a pretty involved process.

Um, thank you. And so speaking of traffic, um, for traffic mitigation measures, what are you willing to commit to upfront? Um, not just for any future phases, I'm just wanting to know if you're willing to fund any intersection upgrades if thresholds are are met. We'll we will do whatever is required as part of the development tonight. We don't have a development proposal to put in front of you. This is just a question about annexation. The next step will be actually designing um the development.

Okay. So, um let's talk about some market conditions though. So, if the market conditions change and the project builds out maybe at a lower intensity, you know, you just never know sometimes um than what's currently projected. Um how does that impact any infrastructure obligations that you would have? Um, I just want to know like is the city going to carry the risk on that? Are you going to still be able to fund through if we're going to need those infrastructure upgrades?

I think those those are decisions we haven't made yet. Um, we spent most of the day today working with a a development partner, an award-winning development partner who has done a lot of work in and around the Portland metro area on communities similar to this. um and with some representatives of a market analyst firm who specializes in kind of figuring out uh how to get this right on the financial side. So I would say we're at the very beginning phases of of figuring out what this will actually look like. So I think you probably have seen a conceptual drawing was very conceptual. It's not actually a design. It's more of a kind of a density proof of concept. Councelor Newton, I I would say that this hearing is on the annexation. So the questions about the project are for a later phase.

Cool. So why is annexation necessary now rather than waiting till development is more imminent? In order for us to proceed with any kind of development proposal, the property has to be annexed in the city. It has to be under city's jurisdiction. As long as it remains in Lynn County, it's not it's not eligible for development. So, this is a in a step-wise series of decisions, the decision to bring it under the city's jurisdiction and apply city zoning is what would enable us to bring forward a development proposal.

Okay. Um, I have a question that might be for staff if everyone's okay with indulging me with a few things. Um, I was curious, you know, we talk about frequently about growth paying for itself, right? I'm curious, uh, Mr. Mark now if you know if this the projected net fiscal impact of this annexation is at full buildout and over what time frame would it become revenue positive for the city um if at all just want to understand you know where where this would be at for growth paying for itself or if it's going to rely on existing taxpayers. I don't have an answer for that question. Okay,

looks like we have Come on down, Director Reders. Thank you. Got it.

Good evening, council. Um, so to answer your question, councelor Newton, the this is kind of the annex annexation portion of this and as part of that, they are entering into an annexation agreement and that agreement, you know, binds them to follow all of our plans and everything else just like when they get to the actual development portion. interesting piece about this property as I talked um to to the council when we initiated this process was there is a the extension of timber through this property is a fairly major extension. I don't I didn't bring the slides with me tonight but if you recall uh going back into our memory is timber is not just a local street. It is a multi-lane with roundabouts um pretty major thoroughfare that's going to be built. So to your point is will the developer whoever develops this um whether it be this group or somebody else for whatever reason that may be I'm not saying that's going to happen but any development in Albany just in general the developers have to pay their fair share. They're required to install all of the um frontage improvements all the utilities to and through. That's the we have a two and through standard. So you extend your streets, all of your underground utilities, sewer, water, storm water, um across your frontages, sometimes multiple frontages, and any of the internal those all the that requirement is placed on the developer, not on the city. In the case of this project, when it gets to that point of development, since there's an oversized facility, they're they're developers are or developments are required to pay for what would be the the local standard. So, 32 feet curb to curb and all the standard utilities. In this case, timber extension is going to be much larger

than that. At that time there is some opportunity to uh that we have a capital project list and on that capital list it talks about whether a project is SDC credit eligible or not. So, as they oversize a facility more than what they'd be required to build normally, they could be eligible for SDC credits, and those are just basically paid through SDC funds, and they get credits when they actually go to do their building permits, if that makes sense. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible.

Um, so help me understand. So upon annexation, I'm also curious about like any new service costs that we might incur like for police, fire, public works, parks. Um what costs there will be triggered immediately upon annexation. And then we know how those are funded. It's by the current taxpayers. We aren't bringing in any money um yet from these properties. So, I'm just wondering if there's also a gap that we're going to incur um from the beginning of annexation to when revenue begins to materialize.

But once as soon as the property is annexed, it then you know it starts to bear the the city tax, property tax comes with that. Now, obviously, as we we know how taxes work in the state of Oregon, there is there's a gap there. Um, now until the property is developed, there really there's not an additional burden on uh I'm not gonna say all of our facilities, but um you you don't have residents living there until a development is complete. So I I I think to your point is even at the point of full buildout, is there still this gap? I mean, this this project isn't going to solve the the property tax problem that Oregon has where it's capped, right? So, that that's always going to exist, but is there community benefit is the question I think might be asking.

Do you have an estimated amount on what the property taxes would be if full buildout?

I do not. It it'll be highly dependent upon what's actually built like say tonight and is just the annexation. Um, we've seen some conceptual drawings. I I haven't written the the numbers on that to see what a property tax could look like. Um but that'll be determined by what's actually built on site. The next step after annexation will be those development proposals. Um I don't anticipate those meeting to come before council unless they were hate to say but by appeal if there was a land use decision that was appealed. Uh those will go through our standard land use processes whatever probably in multiple phases. Um so there's there's still multiple steps here.

Question and uh councelor Smith has a related question I was going to ask earlier um the we are just talking about annexing the property nothing else that automatically triggers city property taxes. Correct. There will be a difference between what they're paying for farm farm ground and what they're paying for city annexed urbanly reszoned property right away whether it develops or not. Correct. Correct. Thank you. Then it looks like councelor Thompson.

Yeah. U back to uh transportation. you know, the the overpasses the overpasses bring everyone east of Albany, you know, points east coming into the core of Albany. Um I believe ODOT had um thoughts at some time in various planning of upgrades of the interchanges um but I don't believe so now. Can you can you speak that's out of your jurisdiction can speak about the future of the uh the intersections? It it is it is but you know just general knowledge obviously there is for for both the interchanges um for Albany there's there's been a plan for I say a couple decades now.

Yeah.

Uh when when and if those get done uh we're not sure. But interestingly enough, one of the plans for the Highway 20 interchange, there's um there's some challenges around Fescue Street because it's pointed right at an off-ramp and that's that's not ideal. Um the timber extension is actually through the East Albany plan and even prior transportation system plans that ODOT's highly involved in. The extension of timber is actually part of or is the fix to that problem. Um it then directs traffic up that timber um extension up to a new signal at Highway 20 and then the existing fescue street turns into a ride in writeout condition and so that that's been part of that plan. It was included in our TSP for well I can't remember our last t last TSP was 2009 2010ish so for for quite some time um this has been in the plan. We we actually talked at length about it when we were doing the East Albany plan in 2023. Uh that that was a a necessary piece.

Also just cur I know it's not directly related to this project but do you know the you recall the uh farmworker housing project would that need to also be annexed in or is that already in city of Alb limits? And then I believe they were sharing a road. Is that I I'm trying to remember a conversation I had. um about a year ago. So, yeah.

So, the Farmworker Housing Corporation development is currently under construction that's uh along Goldfish Farm Road and it's its extension. It actually lies just to the east of this project. Um and I think actually we'll back up to a couple be adjacent to it in a couple places. So, and I know that um the EATC group has been in coordination with the farmworker housing group at one point in time. They they've been part of the the discussions. Okay. Um Council Mloud, you have a question. Yes. Thank you. Can you please speak to the immediate need for city services upon annexation such as fire and policing services? What will be needed um from the city upon annexation?

So if if if annexation say occurs tonight, tomorrow, is there a change? No. I mean it it's going to take development to trigger that that additional need for service. Is it do you now have um you will have 11 new properties that previously weren't in um the city that now will be uh granted on the fire side they were being served by the Albony Rural Fire District already. So it's it's this they're the same people but um under a different title because they're outside city limits. that there won't be an an immediate need or change there because there won't be there it's bare ground or vacant land right now with the exception I think there might be some existing homes out there the the real demand will be seen upon actual development where you you see an increase in density out there

but immediately it would be um up to the city to police that area and to um protect it from from fire and vandalism and um anything else that that may need to happen through the police department or the fire department. Correct. Correct. It would it would now fall within our jurisdiction, the city's jurisdiction.

But to your point, uh Director Ruters and councelor, the fire the Albony Fire Department already services that area through Albany Rural Fire District. So those property taxes that support that are paid to the rural fire district. Upon annexation, they would be paid to the city. As far as police services go, um I'm pretty sure that between the police and the county sheriffs, uh they respond based on, you know, who who can uh who can most appropriately handle it at the time. I know the police department would not refuse a call for service if it was, you know, one block outside the city limits, which is what it is currently.

So, I don't think you would see a sudden demand on services until, as director Rutgers mentioned, uh, the properties were developed to such a point that there were so many residents there that just by, um, just by the the quantity of people there, that demand would go up. Councelor Thompson, I got another road in that area, Three Lakes Road, which is kind of a rural um road. Wouldn't that see um potential increases in this area? How does that or is it part of the plan? I suppose I should probably look at the plan in more detail, but

yeah. So, when we starting to get um a little bit down in into the weeds a little bit on on the transportation impacts, you know, until we actually have a development plan, um we won't know what those those proposed impacts are. They go through as we look at um any of the zone change, there's what's called a TPR, transportation planning rule analysis that was done. As we looked at what was originally designated in the comp plan and as we changed that comp plan designation, they had to go through a TPR analysis to demonstrate that by moving um those there isn't a significant impact to the transportation system plan that's already been designed based on those those comp plan designations. So that's that very high level evaluation is already done. when they get into kind of the next step of actual land use development that'll be putting units on the ground. That's where they'll have to to do you know transportation analysis based on the number of trips they generate.

Okay. Thank you. When would a development plan be completed? The at this point the we're just annexing in at that I mean it could sit for I mean I don't want to speak for the developer but it there is no um requirement that it develops immediately. It'll be at the property owner's discretion of when they come in for an actual proposal to develop the land.

Anyone else? All right. Um, we'll begin taking public testimony from those who registered to speak, first from those in favor of the application, followed by those in opposition or with concerns, and finally from anyone else who's neutral. If anyone wishes to enter an exhibit into the record as part of your testimony, please briefly describe the exhibit and then hand it to the clerk uh right over there. Uh, virtual attendees, go ahead and email your exhibits to city recorder city of albonyborggon.gov. All right. Looks like I'm showing David Dodson. Is this the Oh, okay. This is a different sheet. Okay. Old sheet. I apologize. Ah, Sheric. I'm kidding. Okay. It looks like we got goose egg. No one is signed up. Does anyone in the audience want to come and speak in favor? All right. Go ahead and state your name and if you live in the city of allitz, uh you can join us right up here.

Okay. At the microphone, please.

Hello, my name is Nicole White. I'm the quartermaster of the VFW 584 here in Albany. Um so I've only been the quartermaster for about two months. Um and just getting my feet wet in regards to how everything works. Um but this project was presented to our members um at least almost a year ago just as the idea of it happening. Um we are part of the the annex um only because we border this and it would be encroaching upon um the easement to build that road on both sides of our property to where we lose probably a third of our property in this build. Um, but the developers came in. One of them actually, um, I believe he's a member of our post. Um, but, uh, they're looking to basically offer us a new location and we're the going to be the first build in this, um, this new development. So, but the they can't negotiate with us until this is annexed, if that makes sense.

Like an exchange an exchange. ask am I allowed to ask ask questions? Can I ask? I don't have answers. I'm just telling you that we're we're here. If you could raise your hand if you're here in representation of the VFW.

One, two, three, four, five, six. We're dominating the room here. Um, but we're excited about this project. We support this project. Um, only because our building is like from I don't know when. I know it was donated to us in 1992 and we've kept it up. But if you've ever came there, I mean, we're doing the best we can with what we got and then this opportunity to actually serve more veterans and then um there's a possible housing project. Um but all of that is dependent on this annex. So we're here to support the annex to further support the veterans of Albany and Lynn County.

Excellent. Thank you for your testimony. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak in favor? Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak neutral? I'm getting there. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak in opposition or with any concerns? All right. Um, does the applicant have any rebuttal testimony? All right. Thank you, Mr. Nichols, for signaling that you do not have any rebuttal testimony. Um, does the applicant wave the 7-day period to submit additional written argument? Thank you for signaling, Mr. Nichols, that you do wave the 7-day period to submit additional written comment. Um, does the city council wish to ask any procedural questions of staff? Seeing none. All right. Um, I declare this public hearing closed at 7:07 p.m. Does city council wish to wish to discuss the case?

Do I have to gavvel? I guess. Okay, it's we gave. I get to gavvel. It feels really aggressive.

Well, yeah. Um, so here we are with a significant request for annexations. 11 properties, like I don't know how many acres, maybe not the biggest ever, but significant. Um, and I think we've heard how the game is played because it becomes the details will be dealt with when there's a plan before us, when there's a development plan that comes before us. Um, but at that point, the properties will be annexed and part of the city. And the argument will be, well, they are part of the city and legally able to do X, Y, and Z. That's how it goes. We just heard um the council. We had uh both the national community survey and we had results from the strategic plan and one of the themes that came just on Monday. We heard about the strategic plan and one of the themes was public was asking us to focus on providing foundational public services well before expansion and I can't think of anything that goes against that concept than this this annexation it it is bringing metro area type development at least planned and I realize and here's here's the difficulty everything will be have to be based on the economic realities for the developer. So they may change what the plans are, but we have seen plans and they include sevenstory apartment buildings which I just do not think that are part of um that's not small town Albany that we hear even if people didn't

come to speak against this particular development. We've heard that over and over again what they want and it was clear in the strategic plan. It was also clear we also heard from various directors last week. We heard from police and fire especially and they all in varying degrees talked about the challenges of service increases that they are facing. And when this is all built out that would be significant service challenges. And that's going to be paid by us. It's going to be paid by the current residents. Um, and I hadn't even dealt we asked some of the questions. Transportation, I do not think I do not think, you know, I talked about the ODOT plans. I don't know if you've following the news, ODOT doesn't have any money. The ODOT changes on the interse on the the the overpasses is going to be in a plan for years to come. And all of that all of that gives me pause. Um, it gives me pause and and I think we have plenty of of current projects being built in this city uh within the city limits. I don't think you ask anyone on the street, do you think that Al's been building a lot? I think you get a affirmative answer. And and so that that that's where I'm at. I got real concerns about this um this proposal. Um, councelor um, Thompson, I hear you. I do. But I also hear our residents. And I also want to say I go back to your comment of being small town Albany. I think that we have we're moving past that. We are growing and we need to get with the program. We either need to get in front of growth as I keep stating or

we're going to be behind the eightball. And I don't think that thinking that seven seven stories is this huge skyscraper in the sky that's going to block everything and if it is going to help folks who have certainly served our country in some shape, form or fashion, I don't think that it's an issue. Um, and I think that again we need to understand that growth is happening whether we like it or not. And we could either again be in front of it and try to get with it or we're going to be trying to pay play catchup. And I get the resources that we have that's going to obviously increase. But that that comes with a growing a growing city. And that is what we are. We are no longer Albany from 1920 or 1950 or even 2015. We are Albany of 2026 and beyond. And we need to be visionary and diligent in thinking in that way. Councelor, I agree that we are we are growing and we are a city that is growing at an unprecedented rate. I think we're experiencing some growing pains in the process. Our roads, police, fire, and infrastructure are already strained. The projected housing needs analysis for the next 20 years is 8,000 to 11,000 units, and we are already well on our way to meet that goal. Unrestrained growth is the mindset of cancer. This annexation will strain our city infrastructure, our city resources even more than we can already handle. And I think that we should be working to improve our city services and infrastructure before we bring more area into the city.

Council venture. Oh, councelor Smith. Sorry.

Thank you. I've heard the words proposal and metrolevel development and unprecedented growth rate. I want to remind everybody that we're talking about annexing bare property drawing redrawing the city limits and changing a map. We are not talking about a proposed development. We are talking about making it possible for bare land to develop someday. It could be a very long time. It could be tomorrow. None of us knows that. We are not growing at an unprecedented rate. Our average growth rate for the last 25 years has been in the two% range. Up until this year, for the last five or six years, we were the third fastest growing city in the state of Oregon. We aren't any longer. We are the fourth fastest growing rate growing city. It's we've dropped down to about 1.4% per year, while the city of Woodburn has taken the third spot at 4.7%. So, a dubious honor, I'm sure. Um, I think we need to focus on what is before us, which is the annexation of the property, the change from one fire district to another, both of which pay taxes for fire services, and let the development come to us when it's ready. Um, I'm reminded of a friend who said years ago that she wished there was something that you could spray on a kitten so it wouldn't ever grow up. We're a cat. We're grown up and we need to we just need to accept that and deal with it and get ahead of it when we can. We're

getting ahead of it here. We have an opportunity to weigh in on development proposals when they come to us. But this there is I I have I see no objection to to annexing bare land and getting an increase in property taxes from that. It's going to happen. I think that the way we get ahead of things is by hiring more police, fire, improving our roads, improving our water system, improving all of the things that make a city a city before we make this city any bigger and how do we explain that to the people who are paying for it now and complaining about the cost of it now because those costs are high. How do we sell tell them we're planning for 20,000 more people? So, we need to do this now. Put put in these things that are not going to be used until those other 20,000 people are here.

They will be used. They will be used by the people who are already here. Councelor Van Drivlin, you had com comments you wanted to share?

Uh, yes. Thank you. Um, I'm going to I mostly concur with councelor Smith on this that to the question at hand in front of us, which is the annexation. Um, I feel like this makes perfect sense. Um, this is land that is contiguous with the city bound. It's not just within the urban growth boundary. It's it's right on the city line. Um, and if we feel the need to rein in what the development looks like, um, that is a question for when the development plan comes before us. Um, I don't think that to me it makes any sense to try and hold up what are right now concepts of a plan, if you will. Um, by saying no, we refuse to annex this property into the city. Um, I hear the concerns absolutely about increased need for services, but again, those come with development, not with annexation. Um, to director Rutgers's and the city manager's point, um, this this is bare land. The the increase in services based on the actual question in front of us would be minimal at best. And it particularly on the question of fire, it's the same agency responding whether it's one taxing district or another. Also to the point of people talk about small town Albany. Albany is a community of nearly 60,000 people in 2026. I am in data all day long most of the time and a community of nearly 60,000 people particularly in Oregon in our context

that is not a small city. Uh we have lots of small towns in Oregon. Albany is not one of them and we need we need to act like it. We need to act like the community that we are. Um, and so I I I'm supportive of this annexation. I believe we're the 10th largest city in Oregon. Councelor Thompson.

Yeah. Um, you know, back to the notion of population in in the PSU at the end of 2025 made a estimate. They later revised these, but their estimate for 2025 in Albany was a flat 0.03% growth. It was just a handful. Um, we but we talk about this notion of growth. growth happens when we do things like a proven annexation. And the folks I'm not I did not come I did not make in my head the idea of a sevenstory. I'm not trying to say that's a big I know there's much bigger but that was part of the um the the developer in front of us had a whole series of what what they plan to do. And I realize that economic realities will depend will determine whether those come to fruition. But as sure as I'm sitting here, I guarantee you if we annex them, we approve this annexation, they then come before us with a development plan that they say that's legally okay and that's hard to change. That's how it works. Um, when Walmart came to Albany, uh, that was first promoted as Walmart plus a kind of a mini shopping area. That never came to fruition. It was up to them. We can't tell them what to do. Um, it could be more or less, but I'm I'm taking them at their word of what they put out as a high density um intensive development that's going to be um stress on our transportation. And I hadn't even gotten to schools. Um, it's going to be stress on those, too. And I realize it's years in the in in the future. I get that. But you're asking me to approve or deny it now and I have to kind of take all that into consideration. Uh I'll also say there was a time not that long ago 10 years ago this would be

before the voters. The voters would be deciding this and interests the realtor interests went to the legislature and got that changed. uh and they got to change because they can more likely influence and have better success amongst bodies like this. Um you imagine if they were trying to get this approved by the voters, I think they'd have a hard time. And and that's what I'm saying. You know, we can pick apart people's feelings about whether Albany is a big town or a little town, but but they're telling us they're telling us how they feel. And that's that's where I get it. I don't this is not coming from me. That's what I hear. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. Um, just wanted to say that we can welcome growth and still insist on wisdom. I'm thinking about the words of Tom McCall. Um, we must use the land wisely or we'll lose it. I think that's loosely about what he said, right? Um, so if this development is structured to be fiscally responsible for the city and align aligned with our long-term plan, I believe it could strengthen Albany rather than stretch it. But I think that really just goes to see like what's going to happen ultimately with this development plan. All right. Um, so go let's there's two ordinances uh council for our consideration in our council packet. Would uh the city attorney deputy city attorney please read the ordinance proclaiming annexation in title only. An ordinance proclaiming annexation of properties identified on Lynn County Assessor's map number 1103

W9D. Tax lot 600700701702 80080191902 140243 2500 2700 and 2800 amending ordinance number 4836 which adopted the city of Albany comprehensive plan and amending ordinance number 4441 one, which adopted the city of Albany zoning map by amending the Albany zoning map and adopting findings of facts and conclusions. Thank you. Would a council like to make a motion to read the ordinance a second time in title only?

Move to read the ordinance a second time in title only. Second. All in favor? I. All opposed? No. All right. Um, looks like it needs to come back to a later date. um date to be determined or would it be at our next uh council meeting? I think I think as the deputy city attorney just said, it needs to be a date certain. But if you specify at the next meeting, then that will make date certain. We'll see TBD. I'll let staff work out when it will be coming back. No, we we have to specify the dates. All right. Do we want to specify when it's coming back?

Council meeting. Next council meeting. Next council meeting. All right. Okay. Next Wednesday is when we vote. So yes, Wednesdays we wear pink and we vote. And because this has failed to reach a second reading, I think the second ordinance with this agenda item doesn't need to be covered tonight because that's the ordinance withdrawing from rural fire district. Okay. All right. Then we will go ahead and address those at our next meeting. Mayor, would you like to take the DAS again? How'd I do? Okay.

Why was I a little nervous? I don't know.

Wednesdays we were pink and Wednesdays is when we vote. I shouldn't have said that. That was a little too cheesy. Next. Yeah, I want talk later. Give him a minute. I want I would like to talk to you later. Later. Yeah, March 11th. March 11th, we'll be here, but probably in bigger numbers. Bring more.

Thank you folks.

You're welcome. Thank you for coming. Next on tonight's agenda is the public comment. Public comments are time for Albany 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 unable to do so, they'll be asked to step down for the remainder of the meeting. We're sitting the audit for the remainder of the meeting. When you come to the microphone, please give your name and state whether or not you live in the city of Albany.

Two comments, right? Mark Stewart. Oh, I was waiting for them to Usually there's a little clock that shows up. Oh, there it is. Uh, thank you everyone. Uh, my name is Mark Stewart. I live here in Albany. Um, I anytime I come here, uh, I aim to inspire everyone and, uh, I get frustrated with my own brain because, uh, I I'll have what I want to say written down, ready to go, and then I hear things and I get totally thrown off. Uh, I will say I don't envy this council. Uh, you have all chosen the least boring time in modern history to be in government. Uh, and I hope that all of you who are up for reelection uh, run and I hope that you all win because I don't think I'm going to have time to bring new faces up to speed by the time these midterms roll around. And for the record, it's not fair what lies ahead of you guys and what you're gonna have to deal with. Um, even today we are all operating under this notion that everything procedural, everything legal,

everything normal, business is normal is continuing like normal. And it's not. Uh, man, I wish there was a mechanism where I could have raised my hand earlier after public comment was closed because I didn't realize that I had something to say until I did. The cost of developing that new annex land uh can literally change overnight based on whether or not someone tweets something mean at the president. We are not in normal times anymore. And I I am wholly empathetic. I have no idea how any of you could possibly, reasonably, effectively make any decision under this umbrella of chaos that we all find ourselves in. That said, I will very quickly try to get to what I wanted to say. Regarding the city strategic plan, I had two questions. Is there a plan in place for the midterms this year if the federal executive interferes with or even cancels the democratic process entirely? Uh that's a real possibility. He's he's talking about it himself. The administration's talking about that. If that happens, we it's going to be hectic. I mean, at a minimum. Uh second, uh is there a plan in place to deal with uh the homeless population that's going to grow under these unprecedented economic times regarding tariffs, regarding a a president that has co-opted the entire federal budget?

Yes, sir. Thank you. Um no one else signed up to speak. Mayor, I believe Remy Hill is on the signin sheet. Is he? Oh, he's under No. Well, public comment signup sheet. He's not on here. It should be It's so small. Drinking water, please. Thank you, Remy. Um, like your nice report. I'm sorry. What? Nice report. Okay.

Good evening, counselors. I have a simple matter to bring to your attention tonight, which you might already have a solution for, which I'm not aware or you might not. However, if not, it's worth considering given the business that's about to be brought up at the council meeting tonight. It relates to wastewater treatment, specifically the treatment of wastewater with bleach, uh, also known as sodium hypocchlorite, which we're going to talk about in a contract negotiation later. Disinfection byproducts such as trihalmethanes and halo acetic acids are known contaminants of concern, often present in drinking water. They're produced through the interaction of chlorinated disinfectant such as bleach with organic carbon. Since they've been known about since the mid 1970s uh and were among the first contaminants to be monitored via the Safe Drinking Water Act, they're hardly a new concern. Given that, it's no surprise that we test for their presence in Alby's drinking water. nor is it surprising that it passes those tests routinely. They're not tested for in wastewater, however, which is regulated differently than drinking water. Given that the proposed plan to treat waste water from Albany and Millersburg involves the use of chlorination via bleach, and given that waste water tends to have higher levels of organic carbon than that present in drinking water, if this is not something that is going to be monitored, then I feel compelled to stress that it should be. We already test for these contaminants in our drinking water. So, taking samples of post- treatment uh wastewater and testing them in Alby's own testing facilities should be trivially easy to do. Not doing so, however, could result in causing unnecessary damage to the important ecosystems of the WAMIT, as well as easily preventable harm to the people who swim in or otherwise interact with waters of the Willam. It turns out that our wastewater uh passes these tests. Excuse me. If it turns out that our wastewater passes these tests, then we could easily stop. But we should take

this a precautionary stance towards this as this will simultaneously benefit the environment, the citizens of Albany, and close one avenue of legal liability down the road, especially as it relates to talking water gardens. Thank you for your time, counselors. I hope you have a nice night. Thank you. Okay. Next on tonight's agenda is an action item for consideration by adopting an amendment to AMC 15-08.030 economic improvement district assessment duration. Does the staff have a report? Good evening. So tonight we're bringing this ordinance forward because we discovered during the last uh economic improvement district that we were trying to stand up that municipal code limits it to three years. This ordinance is just to align with OS. It would allow us to do any term up to the five years that OS currently allows and then in the future if OS changes then our code would automatically fall in line with it. Uh this doesn't mean that tonight we're creating that district. It just means that we're changing the potential term. It gives us a little more flexibility. Uh we could do anything from, you know, 1 2 3 4 5. So um if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those.

That's the next question. Does the council have any questions for staff?

I can just comment. I it takes a lot of time to set this up and to uh collect the money and to monitor all of that stuff. And it seems like five years would give a little bit of breathing room to everybody. Let things settle out, get into a routine. Is that a fair assessment? You know, I think that um it's interesting because we have consistently done five years in the past here at the city and we were kind of used to that and then during the last district um it was on the night that it was coming to the last public hearing that I happened to notice that it was in code that it was three years. So, um, yes, it it definitely is a lot of work and you know, having it every five years is definitely easier, I think, on both the ADA and also on us

and the people who pay it. And the people who pay it, they don't have to worry about it so much. Thank you. Thank you. Council, any other questions? Thank you. Uh, does the city city I already asked that question? Um, there's ordinance on the consideration on page 150 of the council packet. Would the city attorney please read the ordinance and title only? Yes. An ordinance amending Albany Municipal Code section 15.08.030 to modify the duration of economic improvement district assessments.

Is there a motion to read the ordinance a second time and title only? I move to read the ordinance a second time in title only. Is there a second? Second. All you have a second. All those in favor say I. Oh, excuse me. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you. Would the city attorney please read the ordinance a second time on title only? Yes. An ordinance amending Albany Municipal Code section 15.08.030 030 to modify the duration of economic improvement districts assessments. Okay. So, there's a motion. Is there Excuse me, I'm lost.

Yep. Will the council like to make a motion to adopt the ordinance? Christopher Dan Grimmlin is raising his hand. I move to adopt the ordinance as written. Oh, comment. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you. Passes. I thought you had a question. That's why. Sorry I interrupted, but now Christopher Van's giving me a quizzical look, but I you raised your hand. I thought you had a question, which is why I flagged it. I apologize. I I was simply seeking the floor so that I could make a motion. Okay. I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. Mortified. I was reading this. So, yeah.

Okay. Okay. Next on tonight's agenda is an action item for consideration of adopting proposed amendments Albony Municipal Code AMC2.27. I think we have I think we have a Oh, there's another ordinance. No, there's a resolution. Where's the resolution? I don't have 153. Just a second. The regular council guide should have the question. The one at the bottom approximately in the middle of an ordinance resolution. The resolution that we're working

well the resolution portion of it. There's a resolution on page 153 of the packet for council consideration. Council move to adopt the resolution setting public hearings for the purpose of considering a downtown voluntary economic improvement district. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you councel. Thank you. Now next on the council agenda.

All right. Cooking with gas. Next on the tonight's agenda is an action item for consideration of adopting a po a proposed amendment to Albony Municipal Code 22.27 Community Development Commission. Does the staff have a report?

Uh thank you councelor. I'm Ann Catlin with the community development department and you're going to hear from Caitlyn Martin with um the community development department. So just a really brief recap. Um in December staff proposed amendments to AMC 2.27 which governs the community development commission and um during that discussion council requested additional information regarding appointment structures and term limits. Uh staff returned in January uh for options for the council's consideration. Tonight we present a revised ordinance and while support for these options was not unanimous, the ordinance before you reflects uh the options that receive the majority council support. Uh if adopted, the ordinance would reduce the commission size from 10 members to seven with each council member having one appointment. Uh transition to an allout atlarge membership structure and establish a term limit of three consecutive three-year terms and would also add conflict of interest provisions. Uh these changes are intended to improve operational efficiency and provide greater clarity. Um so staff originally proposed an effective date of January 1st. Uh this was to maintain the current commission during the 2026 program year application review process which is currently underway. Uh given the complexity of the CDBG program, continuity during funding evaluations is critical. Um however since that proposal three commission members uh have resigned reducing the membership to seven and under the current structure uh six members are required to establish a quorum and to avoid disruption in conducting commission business staff now recommends that the ordinance take effect 30 days after adoption which is consistent with standard practice. Uh suggested motions have been provided on the dis and thank you for your time and we're happy to

answer any questions. Does the council have questions of staff? No, not a question. Just uh thank you. I think I think you captured what what our discussion was perfectly. Thank you. The other counselors, thank you. I do have one. Are you going to stagger so we don't have everybody going at the same time? Yeah, that that automatically happens with the um clerks and and the appointments. Yes,

that's make sure that you know all six of the or not seven need to be replaced at the same time. All right. Thank you. Um does the city council uh wish to discuss the ordinance? Thank you, Councelor Thompson, for making your point. Um there's an ordinance in for consideration on page 157 through 159 of the council packet. Would the city attorney read the council the ordinance and title only? Yes. An ordinance amending Albany Municipal Code Chapter 2.27, Community Development Commission. Is there a motion to read this ordinance second time in title only? I'll move that we read the ordinance a second time and title only. Second. Second. Have

a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you. Will the city attorney read the ordinance a second time on title only? Yes. An ordinance amending Albany Municipal Code Chapter 2.27 Community Development Commission. Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance? I move to adopt the ordinance. Second. I have a motion and a second. Thank you, counselors. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no.

Motion's adopted. Your ordinance is adopted. Thank you. Resolutions award a contract WWTP 26-2 AM- WFR disinfection studies Stacy Belcastro pages 160 to 162 in your packet. Evening Stacey.

Good evening, mayor and counselors. Staff is requesting that council by motion pass the resolution that's included as attachment one um page 162 in your council packet. Approving the resolution will allow us to award a contract to the consultant Kennedy Jensen in the amount of $200,0007 $200,763. This contract is for pre-esign that's needed to evaluate the disinfection system at the city's wastewater treatment plant, the Albany Millersburg Water Reclamation Facility. The disinfection system that is currently used at the plant is not going to meet the new regulatory requirements that are outlined in the city's new discharge permit. This is the NPDES permit which stands for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. So sodium hypocchlorite or liquid chlorine is what's currently used to disinfect um discharge at the plant currently. As part of the pre-esign effort, the consultant will be evaluating it along with other alternatives including non chlorine alternatives such as ozone, um ultraviolet, there there's other alternatives. Um some benefits to non-clorine alternatives is you don't have the chlorine byproducts. And so during the pre-esign, we will be looking at these alternatives and using criteria such as um operations and maintenance concerns as well as cost with the goal of landing at a selected alternative which will meet the new permit requirements.

We did use a formal request for proposal process to select the consultant for this work even though the contract amount didn't require it. The reason we did this is it gives us the benefit to be flexible. So when we select the preferred alternative, we will be able to continue working with Kennedy Jensen. They'll develop a scope and fee in order to design the preferred alternative. Staff will be coming back in front of council to present that amendment and then um would be requesting council approve the amendment. Um otherwise we would have a preferred alternative and then we would have to pause and go back out for another request for proposal. Um and that's about it. Are there any questions?

Council, any questions? Do I have a motion? I would move to um approve the request. Second. Have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you, councel. Next is business from the council. Councelor Thompson. Uh no, I don't have anything tonight. Thank you, Councelor Newton.

Yeah, I have something I wanted to talk about you talk to you guys about, colleagues. Um, so when this council, this is back in 2024 when we first approved flop cameras. Um, I know some of you guys weren't on council, but at the time I was the only no vote. Um, and back in 2024, I raised concerns specifically about data sharing, about what happens once this surveillance infrastructure is in place and whether Albany will be able to truly control how our data is accessed, you know, outside of our city. Recent reporting shows that federal immigration enforcement agencies accessed Alby's license plate reader data hundreds of times. You know, nearly 200 direct border patrol searches in June, 335 side door searches that same month and another 188 in December, totaling about 720 immigration related searches across just two months. You know, that directly contradicts prior public as assurances that immigration enforcement agencies were not searching Alby's data. We were told that the city retained complete ownership and control of its data and that immigration related searches were prohibited. We were told that data sharing was limited to Oregon agencies. Yet the audit analysis presented to lawmakers the capital suggests something very different has occurred. Oregon has been a sanctuary state since 1987, prohibiting local governments from aiding federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant. Whether through direct access or side door searches by out ofstate agency, the result is the same. Albany residents data was reportedly used in immigration related searches.

That is exactly why I voted no back in 2024. This is why I asked about data sharing concerns back then and that is why I am incredibly deeply disappointed. Even if some of these numbers are later disputed, the fact that there is confusion about whether our data was accessed at this scale demonstrates a failure of transparency and a failure of control. Public trust requires more than technical asurances. It requires certainty. For those reasons, I would like to make the following motion and move that the Albany City Council I'd like to direct the that the Albony City Council direct the city manager and Albany Police Department to immediately suspend operation of all flock safety automated license plate reader cameras currently in use within the city of Albany. Direct staff to take all necessary steps to terminate the city's contract with flock safety at the earliest lawful opportunity. Hall installation of any additional flock cameras pending further council direction and return to council within 30 days with the public report detailing all agencies that have accessed Alby's flock data. The number and purpose of searches conducted all data sharing configurations and agreements. Contract termination terms and financial implications. Confirmation of data retention and deletion protocols. Second.

I have a motion then a second. Well, first I'd like to say something. Absolutely. Before we did that, um it was one center that brought that information back. I'd like a second because there's just allegations right now. I'd like a second. I would like a second source to verify or or not verify whether or not it happened. reacting to something that came from one organization is irresponsible because it's going to cost the city a lot of money to rectify this then I'm happy to amend my motion to have that we immediately suspend instead of cancel fine with that okay so I'll I'll edit my motion if you like

and I think as a city is responsible it's supposed to be we need another source to verify that it actually happened all right then I would move to that the Alb city council immediately suspend use of all flock safety uh cameras and impose a moratorum on further deployment until council adopts a formal surveillance technology policy. I will agree. We're discussing Yeah, we're in discussion on a motion that's been made and properly seconded. Okay. So, we'll start with the first one. If that fails, we'll go to the second. There we go.

Tech. So, we we can amend a motion that's been properly made and seconded is and is on the floor for our consideration. So, but once once the motion has been made and seconded, it belongs to the body, not the particular council member who made it. So, we can discuss it and we can vote to amend that motion under consideration, but to go back and have someone edit it is not proper parliamentary procedure. Correct. You can you can move to amend your own motion. I'll allow some discussion right now. Councelor Tom.

Yeah. Um I I was told by the city manager tonight we would hear from the police chief and that's what I'm looking for right now. May I? Yes.

Okay. So um the the data provided by the Oregon Law Center are flawed at best and erroneous or false at worst. uh license plate readers provide a tool with which we can solve the kidnappings of three-year-old children. We can find silver alert victims who have suffered from Alzheimer's or other dementia. Um it is an emerging technology. Certainly it's a new one. Police Chief Harnen is here and I'd ask her to come forward. I did tell Councelor Thompson and also Council Mloud on Monday that we would uh have more information. I would urge the council not to take a knee-jerk reaction to something that is as uh as serious as this and provides such a good tool for for us. clerk has our city reporter has one for the record.

All right. Good evening, mayor and council. Uh interesting development for sure. Um, first of all, uh, let me start by, uh, saying that I echo the concerns that our community would have on this data, uh, and I do assert that we are doing everything we can as a city to make sure that we're in compliance with the sanctuary's uh, laws of the state of Oregon. For those who didn't know, I sit on the sanctuary promise commission to talk about the sanctuary hotline. So, I'm very familiar with what the laws are. I'll be very clear about that. Um, again, a little bit alarmed by this. Uh, I got the letter uh last Friday. Uh, we went and took a look at the data that we supplied to the Oregon Law Center and as I noted in my response to the Democrat Herald, I cannot reproduce what they're seeing. So it's we're talking about four to five million pieces of data that have come in over since we signed the contract in 2024. One of the things that was pointed out to me today is that if you look at our network audit data from January and February of 2025, you'll see that the Albany Police Department shows up there on that audit list. We didn't have cameras installed until the spring of 2025. So, we're going to show up as a consumer of that data. So assume you have a license plate that you're looking for in the database 123 ABC and you enter it into that database and do that search you're going to ping everybody that is on that

network whether they supplied the data or not. So when I looked at the data from the Oregon Law Center, are there entries there? Certainly. But did that data come from us specifically? We don't know that. Uh because the exact data that was searched for is not in that audit log. What raised alarms for me was the fact that we were at the exact same numbers as Eugene and Medford or in the county down there, which uh and when we talked to the legal uh council for Flock, that is the pool of Oregon agencies. That's not necessarily Albany. So, I I need to make that very clear. That's what raised some alarms with me. So, going through the presentation a little bit, I need to tell a little bit of a story here about the history of LPR in Albany. There's actually two pieces of equipment. If the council members that were on the council in 2023 2024 remember that you approved us accepting a uh radar trailer that measured speed and recorded license plates. That is an LPR device. That LPR stores the information locally which we did for our some of our problematic locations for speed in the city. It also has the option to share that data and that particular device shared to a federal database controlled by the federal government that is housed in Idaho. That data is not being shared with that database. It's only being kept locally because we don't have any control over what happens to that data. That was a decision that we made and that tool we just use it as needed in neighborhoods uh when we can. Then came uh the grant from the CJC for organized retail theft which is what paid for these particular cameras. There's only one operational in the city currently. At the time that the council approved

that grant, we were not a flock customer. The contract was signed after that grant was accepted. However, any LPR company is going to have this same issue. They're going to have to answer to the constituents and the departments in Albany or I'm sorry in Oregon as to where that data goes. And so, one of the things that was at foremost from my perspective as the chief of Albany uh and resident uh in Oregon was what was happening to that data. So obviously we saw a change in national initiative around immigration with the change of the presidential administration. Our cameras came online in the spring of 2025. We wanted some assurances that we were going to be in compliance with the sanctuary promise laws. We turned off you'll see on some of these settings that you'll see that immigration filtering is enabled. Federal share is off. Now Flock has made some progress on doing this better. So when um the Oregon Law Center did see data saw federal partners show up in there, that's because they had access at the time. After June of 2025, they did not. Fast forward to the national lookup. One of the things that we were alerted to at the other customers within the state of Oregon that were flock customers is that the national lookup was a reciprocal agreement. If we wanted to go and look at data from other states, they got to look at ours, but we're all in one big pool. That's where the problem started to creep up on us about that side door issue. And it came up in the fall of 2025 and the Oregon agencies met and said, "Hey, we are vulnerable here to the violation of the law. What can we do to get out of the national lookup?"

which would only restrict the Oregon uh agencies and their data. It took a while to do that. We were trying to put in some filters. Finally, what Flock did is just put us in our own state group so we could push out everybody else and only be in the state of Oregon. So on page two of this uh packet I just handed out to you is you'll see that once we went into the uh Oregon only group and got out of the national lookup group. These are the only agencies that have access our data since the complete shut off which is in December of 25. Before that we were filtering it wasn't working. So January and February and I confirmed it this afternoon. There is no access to our data outside of Oregon in 2026 all the way through to today. So again, we have 20 or so agencies getting or departments getting access. In the bottom, I put 14 uh as PDs and some sheriff's offices. Uh our average monthly searches uh to that total database is around 2500. Before that was 350,000 a month. Huge difference. That's a loss of us being able to go look for a certain vehicle nationwide. But the safety is that it is limited to Oregon only. Uh and so uh and you see at the very bottom since that uh filter or that change has occurred the federal or outofstate searches are zero. And that that's a key thing for me to make sure that we're safe. The other thing that occurred here is that uh you have to put in a mandatory reason. Uh there's a drop down that is required for you to be able to search the database. And so I went and pulled the top 15. There's a whole list of these. These are the top 15. As you can see, they're

fairly serious offenses, most of them. And so that's going to ping against that database. Uh I wanted all of you to see that this is not just a random fishing expedition. we're actually looking for specific uh criteria. Also uh on the I think it's the fourth page uh is the screenshot of our transparency portal. One of the things that we saw is uh one it it shows who has access to our data. It shows our limitations to immigration and federal authorities. Also, uh you have the potential, it's cut off at the bottom to download a um spreadsheet of all the searches done against the the data. Uh we discovered uh in the last couple days that one of those columns was missing, which was the reason code, those the reason for search. As of today, that is back. Flock won't put that back uh in for us at our request. on the last page and I know this is a little bit blurry. I'm happy to share the slide deck with all of you is it shows the various levels of control that we have over our data. So uh we don't auto approve. So if somebody wants to come on and say hey I want access to this uh it's not auto approved. You can see that out of state sharing is turned off, that immigration filtering is turned on, federal sharing is disabled, and only we're sharing information within the state of Oregon. A couple other points I want to uh bring to your attention after uh conferring with uh the vendor is that uh yes, they did a pilot program, most a lot of vendors do with various police department. They did have a um pilot program with the federal government that

is was terminated last summer and there's no current agreement in place uh with immigration authorities. We've also increased uh very clear-cut uh filtering options on this particular platform uh as well as uh there's warnings about participation in the national lookup uh data pool uh which again we have pulled out of we're only in Oregon. Lastly, on the Oregon Law Center recommendations, I would I would look at uh the page three uh and four. They make some recommendations. A lot of that is working its way through the current legislative cycle. uh the chief's association, the sheriff's association, a member of the ACLU, uh and other interested parties have been working to negotiate these particular um criteria that they want codified in law and all of these things we currently do as the Albany Police Department and I support that will keep us on the right side of the sanctuary promise laws and that's uh the big concern here. It's a very valuable tool. Uh for those who don't recall, we have a two-year-old homicide victim where we were able to locate the suspect in Medford based on an LPR hit. Also, we had a suspect located in California well before we were a client of LPR technology that was trying to get to Mexico that murdered a local businessman in Albany. And so the silver alert, the the dementia uh type criteria also is a a huge benefit. We had an Amber Alert that came out from uh the Portland metro area and these cameras are exponentially faster in getting uh good resolution out of there.

And lastly, and I'm happy to take any questions, is that uh the agencies, the police departments in the state of Oregon are working hard to make sure that one, we have good, valuable technology available to law enforcement in the state of Oregon while staying on the right side of our existing laws. The problem with the national lookup is not not all states have our laws and so we can't guard against that. So that's why you're seeing the departments pull out of those particular um that that lookup. So we're staying local. The downsides we don't have access to their data either. Uh also one of the downsides not particularly affect Albany but affects uh the Portland metro area uh is you have Vancouver. So if we're limited Oregon, you don't have any of the the data available if Vancouver or Clark County are accessible. So things to think about there, but I'd rather have limited access to a very valuable tool than no access at all. I think that is not a good trend to have. Technology is here whether we like it or not. Um, and again, I apologize if I haven't said this uh before in uh we and I have all of the data sheets to share with anybody who wants to take a look at it and member of the public can take a look at it. December 24, January 25, February 25, you're going to see Albony Police Department show up because we had a contract with Flock. We had no cameras and no information to supply to that database. So I think that the the data presented by the Oregon Law Center while Grant I agree with their recommendations is not painting an accurate picture of how our data is being used. And I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you for that chief. Um I appreciate getting information from the source and I have nothing else to say. So, um, so what if one of the other jurisdictions does the national lookup? It would prevent they still won't be able to get access to our stuff. They would have No, the national lookup would not have access to our stuff. Other agencies in Oregon would have access because we're in an Oregon pool. But what I'm saying is that can that be shared with the federal government? No.

It's filtered out, right? Are are we relying solely on Flock's internal reporting to verify access or do we have like independent ability to verify backend access? That's what I'd like to know.

So, we run a query uh off of the system itself. So, we'll go out and ping what our So, there's two reports that come up. There's the network uh audit and then there's a Albany access audit report. They're two different reports. So it'll show what we are doing and then shows what the actual national network and access here. If I run that report today, which I did for last uh two months, it just shows the state of Oregon. Who's who's controlling our server infrastructure? Is it APD or is it Flock?

I'm going to have Sean uh Park come out and talk uh about a little bit of how that structure works, but the the data is in the cloud. It's uh and I think he can probably speak to uh how he's got the the nerdy answer to that one. I love nerdy answers. You good evening. Um the flocking infrastructure resides on Amazon Web Services cloud services AWS. Yeah.

AWS and it runs on the GovCloud which is a a more secure uh cloud environment similar to our government cloud and M365 environment. So to a large degree, you're taking them at their word in the contract on how secure that is and the uh the precautions they take to keep it safe. Um we do know that Flock has told us in their documentation that they use industry standard protocols for securing the data in transit and at rest and those are the same protocols that banks and hospitals use. So there is a degree of faith there that you have to take from that vendor and I'm not aware of any third party type of access to their systems that would allow you to audit that. Would love to have that.

Has fogg provided a written technical explanation addressing the legislaturator's findings from the Oregon Law Center. I don't believe that they've put out uh a response to that. The testimony was just last week. Okay. Um, I'm curious if council directed a temporary suspension pending independent verification, would that create an operational risk? Depends on how long that goes. I mean, we're just without the the tool.

Okay. I have a question. You you said that they did a pilot program. Did they not disclose that with you all when you when we went into contract with them? Were you guys unaware of the pilot program? because I think that you know when I think that would have benefited us to know going in that that was a possibility.

I at the time that we signed the contract I was unaware that they had a pilot. The pilot they engaged in uh I believe uh occurred after we were already customer. So I don't I was not aware that we were notified uh or I don't think it's in the contract. I have to review the contract. But what they knew from the very beginning that we had some issues around federal sharing of information based on even in 2024 different initiatives around immigration the laws were still on the books. So that that law was still in place regardless of how it was being enforced.

Does that answer your question? just feel like it's a disingenuous of them not to tell you that that was a possibility that that could have been shared. I just feel like it was trail of trust blindsided in a sandbag. I mean,

yes, if they claimed that they do pilots all the time and there was a possibility of sharing that should have been disclosed and the fact that it wasn't or if it's in the contract and we overlooked it, it just feels a little negligent and disingenuous from them. That's that's what my point was. I don't believe it was in the contract uh at the time. I will tell you that the other big vendors uh out there that we are not customers of have contracts with federal government. I guess I'm feeling like that means like there's one of two things and like thank you. Thank you so much. Um appreciate the work you've put in for this report and to configure the system to apply with Oregon law. I appreciate a ton of the work that you're like all the work that you're doing. Um, thanks for confirming nationwide lookup currently disabled check. Federal and out of state searches show zero since that change. Prohibited uses include immigration enforcement and access is limited just to our Oregon agencies. Um, I'm still just stuck on that the legislature showed 720 immigration related searches tied to Alby's network. And I know you can't replicate those results.

So, to me, that means that like one of two things is true. That means either the legislature was given inaccurate or misinterpreted audit data

or um there are aspects to the vendor's system architecture that is not fully visible at the local settings level. And honestly, neither of those scenarios is comforting to me at all. And I want to be very clear, this is not about distrust of Alb Police Department. Not at all. Um, it's just about caution like like what Councelor McGee said with how something happened. We didn't weren't aware of aware of it. It's just about caution when there's a private company that controls the back end of a surveillance platform. Um, and when there's conflicting data that I'm hearing at a state level, I feel like the responsible course of action is just not to push forward as if this is normal. Personally, I think it would be responsible for us to take a pause just out of abundance of caution just until maybe we have an independent verification that Alby's data hasn't been accessed in ways inconsistent with our sanctuary law. I I feel like, you know, I'd be happy to amend my motion, you know, officially um to, you know, I'll go ahead and be official with this. Um amend my mo my previous motion um and move that the Albony City Council immediately suspend operation of all flock safety automated license plate reader cameras pending further council action. you know, halt the installation of additional cameras and then direct staff to um obtain independent third-party verification of whether Alby's license plate reader data was accessed for immigration related searches, whether any federal or out of state entities accessed Alby's data prior to the disabling of nationwide lookup. Um, and the full technical architecture govern um governing the data sharing. Um, and I think that, you know, I not sure what this timeline's going to look like. I think we should maintain the uh suspension until council

votes affirmatively to resume operations following a public review of that independent verification. So, this could be like, you know, 30 days or maybe 60 days, but I want I want to be able to give us I don't want to put a number on it. I want us to be able to actually um have a public review of that of that independent verification. So that's how I I would choose to amend my motion and my second is in agreement with the amendment. Can I make a another um give you some more information?

So it uh so the June um 2025 uh audit report. We did uh our own analysis inhouse and we do have the capacity to do that and and we have the lovely Microsoft co-pilot that helps us with that and did a keyword search and looked at the results of that and you could go like the report calls out HSI. We have a narcotics task force called the line narcotics task force. There's two agents from HSI that are on that task force that do solely narcotics work. We have a current of very serious sex abuse involving a child where HSI is assisting us. Uh so I think we have to be really clear too that just because they're mentioned doesn't mean it's immigration. If there's an immigration or border patrol specific one, yeah, that would raise my some red flags with me. But just because it's HSI or just because it's uh DHS or just because it's FBI or US Marshalss because US Marshalss will pick up any of our felony suspects that are out of our jurisdiction. Doesn't necessarily mean it's immigration. You can read into the data and say, "Oh, look at this. The federal government's looking at the LPR data." That could be true. That could not be true. But just because the the federal government's mentioned, I think we have to be real careful there because we have legitimate active operational relationships with these federal partners that we need to have.

Thank you for that additional information. So I would like go ahead council. So, so to clarify what's under consideration now is the amendment to the motion because councelor Mloud I I assume that you would like to second that motion to amend. I did. Okay, cool. So, I figured as well. So, I would like this I I'd like one of y'all to make a motion to have the Oregon Property Law Center prove it. We microphone discussion. Turn it on. No, turn on your microphone. Sorry, I wouldn't be want everyone to hear your voice.

So, I I got the motion in second. Thank you. Um part of the discussion is is if we're going to do this, I would like the Oregon property laws or public law center to come and prove this where they got their data from. So, if some of y'all can make a motion or do I can I make a motion to do that? So, we need to resolve the amendment that's on that's on the table right now and then we could make another amendment to the motion to add that. Absolutely. Wouldn't be a separate it? No, it could be an amendment to the motion to add it to the motion under consideration, but we have to resolve the amendment first. So, we have a motion for councelor Newton's um

and then you can say, I'd like to amend the active active motion on the floor to include that we'd like to have the Oregon Law Center come and present their data as part of the stipulation for um council action. Council action. And my second is in agreement. Okay. So, there we go. Amended the amendment. There we go. So we No, we we we need to resolve the amendment that is on the floor right now before before we move to other amendments. Right. Okay. Yes.

To the chief. I just want to understand that if this goes through this would impede and could hinder what you do as your job in an effort to work with other organizations if this was to go through. Am I understanding that correctly? It would impede our operational ability. Yes. Yes. Um it's not going to change our our existing federal relationships. We we already have walls in place to prevent that overlap with immigration. They understand that and they respect that. Uh that won't change. Uh but our ability to use these cameras for investigations will be impeded.

So it will hinder your a way to effectively do your job. Yes. and relying other traditional policing meth methods which are what say that again counselor new how did you handle issues like this in the past we didn't have the option so uh for instance the suspect in in Medford we had no ability to locate that person without this technology other than him getting pulled over by a car incidentally we had no idea where he was the LPR told us he was in the Medford area and the United States Marshall Service assisted Medford in getting him into custody so we could bring him back up here to Lynn County.

Okay. This would just be for a brief period of time until we get data clear. It's a brief It's a brief period though. We we need a brief period. It could be 30 days. We'll put a stipulated timeline on it because I want to be able to have like get the Oregon Law Center if we're going to have them come and tell us how they got that data. Sure. But it could be 30 days. I just

I can't support the motion for the reasons stated by the chief. It would hinder their ability to do their job. I can support the mayor's uh motion to have the Oregon Law Center come and tell us their side of the story. is discussion over. So, as a point of order, what we need to do is vote on the amendment to councelor Newton's original motion and decide whe Yes, we do. Procedurally, I don't think procedurally, we absolutely do. I I would like to hear from either the city recorder or the city attorney on that

clarification. We we do need a vote on the uh amendment right now and then we can go back and resolve the earlier question. So we have a motion on this second. Which one where are we at? Let me get We're at the earlier amendment that was made uh previous to discussion that took place to amend it again. So I can read my short text if you want. Yes, please.

The motion that I have was made by Newton. It says uh amend the previous motion of a council suspicion of suspension of the operation of cameras pending further council action. Halt additional cameras and direct staff to get thirdparty verification of immigration data access or federal or out ofstate access. Uh and a full technical architecture governing the data sharing until council resumes operations following public review. Okay, that's the last one you seconded. Accurate. So, we have we're going to vote on this one now. Have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I.

Okay. So, now that's the main motion under consideration. So, can we do a roll call vote, please? Thompson, I. Councelor Van Dremelan, I. Councelor Mloud, I. Councelor Smith, no. Councelor McGee, no. Councelor Newton, yes. Believe motion passes. So that motion passes. Okay. Now the next step would be my motion. No. No. Because what? So did was the roll call intended to be the vote on the the motion as amended then? Yes. Okay. That was not clear. My vote remains unchanged. But

that's why I did because I want to know. I didn't hear any voices over here. Excuse me, council, if I could ask one question. Um, would a vendor certification uh of of the of the results indicating that there has been no um disclosure of Albony data suffice for the purposes of resolving the ambiguity of what happened with in in regard to the the conflicts between the data that you're saying? Would a would a certified vendor report suffice for providing you asking do we trust flock to tell us no we're good

I I understand where you're going with that but we're we're dealing with a blackbox vendor and so I don't I don't think I can get my head around the realistic idea that a third party's going to come in and allow to be to audit that thing so would a a certified report from that vendor first steps with that would be having actually what the mayor recommended having the Oregon law center come and tell us how they got their data and that might be able to assum questions we might have. Agreed. And then um maybe next steps would then be having a third party or a flock or someone just to see how things can move move forward.

Okay. Council comfortable with that. Okay. So now I make my motion. I'd like to amend the previous decision or motion to have the Oregon Poverty Law Center public. No, we you don't need you don't need to amend the previous decision. You can make a main motion now. So, I'd like to make a motion to have the Oregon Public Law Center come and show us where they sourced that data and how they reported that data to us because I found issues with it myself. And so, um I would like council to have to u support this. A second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed say no.

Thank you. Mayor, I think we need a counselor to make that motion. I believe Oh, do we have to? Okay. I believe we do. All right. I'll vote. I can't vote. I'll make a motion that we have the Oregon Law Center. Public Law Center. Who? Public Law Center. Oregon. It's the Oregon Law Center. It is Oregon. Okay. Okay. I was right. Um Yeah, I was wrong. It's getting late. Oregon Law Center come to present to us regarding where they got their data from, how it was obtained, and what it was used for. Second. Thank you, council. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I.

And I have no other existing council business. Thank you. Sorry, it's only 40 minutes. That's okay. Okay, Council Mloud. Oh, thank you. Wow. How do I follow that? I'm sorry. Wow. Okay. No sorry necessary. Those those 30-minute commutes, man, they get my brain going.

Well, um I will attempt to follow that. Um to what Mr. Stewart spoke about um earlier. I just want to reassure you that in Oregon, our midterm elections are managed entirely by the Secretary of State's office and the county clerks, not by the president. By law, the Oregon Secretary of State is our chief of elections officer and ensures that every vote is conducted fairly and on schedule. I also wanted to say thank you to Albany Partnership for Housing for 35 years of service as a dedicated local nonprofit housing provider and for consistently offering some of the lowest rents in our community. I'm proud that the city of Albany has been a long-standing supporter of this important work. Residents often ask what the city is doing to address housing costs and Albany Partnership for Housing is a strong example of how we invest in extremely lowincome housing to support those who need it most. Lastly, I would like to thank the city for the award that I received Monday evening, the city of Albany public engagement greatest of all time. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the community members who shared my link to the community engagement survey. I was assisted by Katie Police, Remy Hill, and Casper Oliver. Thank you for your support and for reaching out to your networks with the link. That's all I have. Thank you,

Councelor Vanlin. No additional business tonight. Councelor McGee,

I have two things. Maybe three. I'm gonna make it quick though. Last week, Wednesday, I had the opportunity to attend the f familiarization tour with the Albany Visitors Association. And we got an opportunity to go around to several different businesses in Albany. Knife uh River Training Center, which is absolutely beautiful and awesome, and it was my first time there, and I highly recommend going there for a tour if you have not been. Um, we went to the Thompson's Mill. It was nice, cold, but nice. Kind of stepping back in history, which I'm a history buff, so that was awesome. Then we were um escorted via bus to the Cibbrous Beastro for lunch, which was really good. Shepherd's pie and like some really tasty um chocolate with some like sorbet on top. I didn't get the name. Um after that we went to the Albany um historic carousel of course did the tour went down to the basement rode the carousel when after that we went to the Natty dresser got opportunity to hear some history there then we went to my favorite place in Albany the pics and last or the next place we went to sorry it was a long day we were there from like 8:30 to 4 so after the pics We went to the Albany Regional Museum and then the Albany Civic Theater. We ended and I am really really grateful for our Alby's visitor association and the work that they do because they bring people here um in an effort to showcase and show off what Albany has to offer. And not only did we do the tour, we got really beautiful gift bags. And things that were in our gift bags were um like free carousel rides for children, growing seeds, all types of great brochures, everything

that Albany has to offer and more. So, I'm really really grateful for our AVA and all the work that they do and continuously do and it is um does not go unnoticed. So, thank you so much to Albony Visitor Association as well as their um shepherd Rebecca Bond for doing that work because it is hard and coordinating all that and we had a great time. Uh the second thing is um had an opportunity to participate in the National Organization for Women Portland chapter. Uh me and another um resident here went up to Portland, were on a panel, discussed sort of the historic history of black women and the women in the movement considering this is Black History Month and it was a really amazing um talk and we were at the historic Cinema 21 theater in Portland. And lastly, I will get my car back on Friday after that accident that cost $10,614 $10,616.54. Be safe everybody. Good night.

Wow. I'm glad you're getting your car back, though. Councelor Smith, nothing this evening.

Okay. I only have a couple things. Um, last Tuesday on the 17th, I was at Memorial Middle School for 5 hours. Our kids are awesome. I I thoroughly enjoyed every question. I showed them the city's website. I showed them how to look at our strategic plan. I took my strategic plan notebook with me. And the kids had more questions than I six sixth graders had more questions than most adults have. So, I I really appreciated them. I was there five hours. And I went to the cafeteria to sit and just talk to kids and kids weren't eating. They were standing talking to me. I'm like, so I went to the principal's office and they find his furniture food. And then um that's enough.

Wait, did you just say you got sent to the principal's office, though? Sorry. I know. Just kid just kidding. I went to the I know. I'm just had to make a little joke. And um the kids were amazing. I I very expressive, you know, like the parks, they want to know what's going on with the waterfront. They I was totally taken back by them and and I did talk to um some developers that and so my job next thing is to take them to talk to Sophie and I've already turned them over to Sophie. So, and that's how it works here. Somebody comes to me, we sit and talk, they share their vision, I take them on a tour of the city, and then I turn them over to Sophie Adams, our economic development manager. So, that's how it works. And so, anyway, I'm done. man is your time.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. The only thing I have for you is to let you know that uh with uh the workload being what it is for March, uh we're able to cancel the 23rd work session and the 25th regular session. And um for those of you with children, that'll give you a spring break uh free. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Wasn't going to be here anyway.

Now you don't have to have to worry about it now. Okay. So with that, our next meeting will be March 11th or March 9th and March 11th. And um for me it's a great year because great month. My late mother's birthday is March the 4th and my uncle that just passed away is March the 4th. I met my wife on March the 15th. My sister's birthday is March the 15th. And so it's a March is a birthday celebration type month. So thank you all and I'll see you on the other side. All right. See y'all.