City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Thank you for joining us at Albany City Council meeting July 8th, 2026 at 6 PM. I will call the meeting to order. Would you please all join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Is it recorded? Can we have a roll call, please?

Councillor Newton.

Good evening.

Councillor Van Drimelen. Here. Councillor McLeod.

I'm here.

Councillor Smith.

Here.

Councillor McGee.

Present.

Councillor Thompson.

Here.

Mayor Johnson.

Present. Thank you. Next, item three on the agenda is adoption of the consent calendar. Council, do you have anything for this?

MOVE TO ADOPT. SECOND. OKAY.

I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE.

AYE.

THOSE OPPOSED SAY NO. THANK YOU. NEXT ON TONIGHT'S AGENDA IS A PUBLIC HEARING. IS THAT IT RIGHT THERE? Next on tonight's agenda is a legislative public hearing regarding planning file DC02-26, which includes proposals to amend the Albany Development Code to comply with new state laws and a few of the clarifying amendments. Item one is the order of tonight's proceedings is staff report, questions for staff, and the public testimony. If you, so. If you wish to testify, options were described in the agenda. If you have not yet registered, please sign in as a sheet at the front of the room. Number three, I call to order the legislative public hearing at 6.01 p.m. Ann Catlin will be presenting today.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I wanted to read the meeting procedures. For those wishing to testify, please direct your testimony toward the applicable criteria or other criteria in the comprehensive plan or Albany Development Code which you believe apply to the decision. If additional documents or evidence are provided by any party, the City Council may allow a continuance or leave the record open to allow parties a reasonable opportunity to respond. Please be aware that you must raise an issue with enough detail to afford the council and parties an opportunity to respond to the issue if you later want to raise that issue on appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals.

OK. Please be aware that you must raise a issue. Is that your section?

Yeah, I just read those. So then the next part is the staff report.

Please be aware that you must raise an issue with enough detail to attend the council, to afford the council and parties the opportunity to respond to the issue if you later want to be, again, this is my eyes are killing me.

Mayor, I already read that. Oh, you read that already? Okay. I think next it would be.

Will the project planner and Catlin please present the staff report?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Councilors. My name is Ann Catlin. I am in the Community Development Department. And tonight, we are having a public hearing on legislative amendments that are packaged into two separate ordinances. Most of the changes relate to the need to comply with new state laws. And the reason we have two separate ordinances is that the first ordinance includes Changes to state law that just went into effect are already in effect or will be very soon and then the second ordinance. is proposed to go into effect January 1 2027 because that is when those state laws are that's the compliance deadline, but I did want to note that. Unfortunately, one of the second ordinance which contains changes related to House bill 2138. exhibit in your packet when I saved it from a word to PDF it didn't show the track changes and because of that you have not had a chance to review those changes even though we had a work session about this back in April and the the we want to continue the hearing because of that. And because both ordinances are packaged under one land use hearing, we recommend that you continue the hearing to August 26, 2026. So I apologize for that. But this will give you a chance for me to address some public testimony that we heard today and to answer your questions while the public hearing is open. And then there will be another opportunity for questions residents to provide testimony again at the next hearing. Okay?

Thank you.

Yeah, sorry.

Continue to what date again? August 27th, I believe.

26th.

So it's your second council, regular council meeting after you get back, which is a little bit of a lighter agenda.

Do any counselors have any preliminary questions for the staff?

Okay, well, I'm just going to walk through, and then if you have questions after, hopefully we'll explain some of the concerns that were raised today and any that you may have. So the first ordinance contains several different House bills and Senate Bill 974. Even though the League of Oregon cities and planners across the state have been lobbying against a lot of these changes, many of these changes went into effect, and they have changed the process for most residential developments, those that are reviewed under what we consider clear and objective standards. And so, The changes in the code will modify the notice areas for residential developments. In some cases, it'll go down a little bit. And the level of review for those that are reviewed at the staff level appeals are now limited only to the applicant. then they reduce the process for residential up zonings residential plan developments and residential adjustments or variances from but we're higher land use reviews down to what we call a type 2 which still allows for a public hearing and an opportunity for the neighbors in the notice area to provide comments and request that hearing So we had a question about, well, what about our Oregon citizen protection land use laws? And has this been challenged yet? And to answer some of those questions, there has not yet been a constitutional test of the latest rules that I know of. And when I reviewed the statewide planning goal, one is citizen engagement. doesn't say that every single land use action must have public participation. It is a little bit broader in scope. We do want to have broad citizen involvement and engagement, and we try to do that with much larger projects. When we're developing plans, Changing zoning and we have extensive public engagement for those large policy items we also have as I've mentioned several different levels of land use review and most of those levels do have notice areas which allow for public participation and in this case this level of land use review or part of the Planning Commission hearing and a council hearing and we had to put an ad in the paper and so I That's all I can say about there may be some challenges and rub between some of the new laws that are going into or that have been in effect and what some of the planning goals are. So House Bill 2005, we must allow residential care treatment facilities to or homes in most zones through staff-level review. In most cases, we were doing this, but now the treatment facilities also staff-level review. And then licensed crisis stabilization centers and mental or psychiatric hospitals must be allowed on land that is designated for public, commercial, or unemployment. And these are not considered a land use decision. And a question was raised in one of the gentlemen who testified or provided written comments that we weren't completely complying with the law because there's another piece of that which we don't have in the proposed ordinance or amendments to the development code. And that is that the level of process that we would do. So you can see that this is just one of the sample language in the notes that specify that this is not a land use decision and you know how a decision can be appealed. What we normally don't do is put in for these things that aren't land use review, we don't normally put in our review time period. We just comply with state law. But I am happy to add the language that's on the screen. A local government shall issue a final decision through a type one process within 30 days after a completed application is received. that would clarify and add some language that's in state law that we normally wouldn't add in the code, but it wouldn't be inconsistent, and I'm happy to add that. House Bill 3560, childcare centers must be allowed through staff level review on basically our medium density and higher density zones, those that allow for 12 or more units per acre. And also when co-located within a legally established institutional use, so an existing building. And when that happens, it's normally a change of occupancy and we have people talk to our building and fire staff to ensure compliance with those codes. I am happy to add the language that is in the white box there. When a child care center is co-located with an illegally established institutional use, and it kind of lists all the uses, this is straight out of state law, the center will be reviewed through the Type 1 process to ensure compliance with the applicable building and fire codes. I'm happy to do that. Just to clarify, if people reviewing the language here saw some confusion, this might help clarify. We're happy to do that. And then there were some questions about the single room occupancy, how you are supposed to calculate density for each unit, which is one room, which might be One room, there might be several units. The one room, which is considered the single room occupancy, there might be four of those in one, what you might consider an apartment, for example. State law is in House Bill 2138, but I had this change in this ordinance instead of in the other one. When we're calculating density, and we really only calculate minimum densities because we don't have maximum densities, we allow the maximum height of buildings and the lot coverage to determine the scale of development. So you could have maybe 20 four-bedroom apartments, and the same area and building square footage might be 60 one-bedroom apartments. It's the same building, maybe the same number of people, because we don't have that maximum density. One of the reasons why we removed that is because we need a lot of one-bedroom units, and that maximum density was making it a challenge to address our housing needs. So back to this issue, it came up in both of the testimony letters that you received. This is just, right now we have a, each bedroom unit is counted as a half unit. And we're required by state law to make that allow three times the amount as your density allowed in the zone. And so now we're just calculating that one bedroom as one-third of a unit. It's not 33 units. It's 0.33. I just crossed out the five. Hopefully that makes sense. It's a little bit of a non-issue, but it is – required to comply with state law. And what I didn't mention in the very beginning, this is a question Councilor Smith had, is do we have to, what portion of the laws are we required to have in our development code? Well, the laws are in effect and we must comply with them, but when our development code is inconsistent with state law, it's really challenging to flip back and forth and provide good customer service and help people understand what's allowed by state law as well as in the city. Okay, so another item which we covered in the April work session with the Planning Commission, no other city that I could find in Oregon has a minimum separation between multiple dwelling unit buildings. And our code has 10 feet right now for a one story building and 20 feet for two or more stories. The state building codes, they regulate the separation. The separation, excuse me, is based on, depending on how close buildings are, the more firewalls you have or you may not be able to have windows. You can be as close as 10 feet and still provide windows, for example. So we asked you if you wanted to make modifications to this. And there were some concerns with removing it completely, but coming up with a hybrid. And so this is the hybrid approach that staff is proposing. We are not married to this. Planning Commission was supportive of it. And that is to apply the existing 10-foot separation between buildings Up to buildings up to 30 feet tall, not 30 feet, but up to 30 feet. Most of our apartments are over 30 feet. But the reason why I came up with that number is that's the maximum height for most single dwelling units and middle housing. And so those buildings can be at least that close to each other. And again, you don't have to we don't have to move forward with this change and then apply the existing 20 foot separation to buildings 30 feet or taller. And then there were also some concerns voiced at that work session about, well, this may be challenging for affordable housing developments. Consider allowing a slightly reduced separation. And so we are proposing a scaled separation, the more affordable housing units that you have, if you're providing those, and at the lower affordability level, like at 30% or below or 60% or below, then you might be able to move the buildings a little bit closer if someone asks to do that. So I would love your feedback when you have questions. your considerations about this. You can, of course, when you deliberate at the end of the next hearing, but I did want to remind you of our conversation about this in April. Okay, the second ordinance, again, I apologize. You did not see the track changes. We talked about a lot of these items back in April, and the correct version got in the planning commission packet. I'm not sure what happened. So effective January 1st, 2027, that's when we're supposed to comply with House Bill 2138, the items that were in ordinance number two. It changes the definitions where the duplex, triplex, fourplexes, now we must allow them to be attached or detached in any configuration, and the same thing with an SRO development. then we have to allow bonus middle housing units when one or more of those units in each middle housing development is accessible or affordable and the formula is listed on the screen and then this was a local option that we talked about in April and the recommendation here was was to move forward with it and what it is is We can choose to allow one accessory dwelling unit per middle housing development. And the direction that was provided at that meeting was to allow this. This is not something that you have to consider if you hear testimony and you want to change your mind. I'm just noting that this was a local option that is fleshed out in state law as still a local option. Okay, regarding middle housing land divisions, that's part of House Bill 2138. The notice of decision now only goes to the applicant, and these are actually not really considered land use cases. There's just a specific process outlined in state law. We're allowed to look at certain things to ensure they have utilities and everything. Now there's no, we can't have any hearings or local appeals, and What's a little confusing is that Article 11 is in Ordinance 1, which would go into effect sooner and doesn't include the changes that would be in Ordinance 2, which aren't effective until January 1, 2027. And we do have – this was a comment that was raised in testimony by Mr. Grayson. We do have this language here. correct in that second version, but it's possible he couldn't see any changes because you can see the truck changes. I don't know if you have questions about this, but the process is outlined in state law, and there's not anything we can do about that.

I do have a question.

Yeah.

Well, go ahead, please.

Yeah.

How are they different? How is the current language different from what the language will be in January?

Yeah, so right now the decision goes to anyone who provided testimony and not just to the applicant. So now the applicant will only get the decision and will only be able to appeal. It's been a little bit of a challenge because state law said we could – mean limit the notice area to 100 feet but then basically says it's not a land use decision you have to basically approve these things if they meet the standards and the code and so it it was sort of disingenuous to i mean there isn't really anything we can do if the development proposal meets the standards we have to approve it and so an appeal it it's an exercise in frustration for all of us because there isn't anything we can do and so this change is now not even providing that notice to anyone who may have written in notes or comments and they cannot appeal That's the change. And this is in state law in House Bill 2138. So we've had a couple years and we are waiting until the very last day for some of these changes because we don't like them either necessarily to comply with state law. This is not something we're trying to fast track or do anything with. We're just trying to keep up with updating our code to reflect state law.

I don't know if I answered your question. You did, and my follow-up question is how many applications have we had for middle housing land divisions?

Three or four, around that many. We had the first one was pretty controversial. That was the River Bow one up in North Albany. And then there have been a few smaller ones where the changes were sort of minor. The land divisions allow for more home ownership opportunities and selling those middle housing units. And so I think the state and the legislature feel that's good because we want to have more variety of housing options for ownership and renting.

Go ahead and continue until we get to the York staff to answer questions.

Yeah, I'm just going to wrap up real quick. So, the review criteria in the Exhibit B, we have to, comply with the comprehensive plan and the development code policies. Most of these changes are necessary to comply with state laws. There were some items that were brought up under testimony and I'm happy to talk about those a few items. I try to have staff comments for all of those to explain the proposed changes. And then next up, there was a question about something in Senate Bill 974, which is not related to anything in our development code. It's the time that engineering staff over in Public Works has to review permits, not just land use applications. And the Albany Municipal Code is actually proposed to be amended this evening, and Erin Hamster will be coming up to explain that. There were some questions. by Mr. Grayson about this and inconsistencies, but after those changes go into effect, there won't be inconsistencies with Senate Bill 974. We can provide you with more information. I don't want to read the bullet points on the slide here, but that's coming up next. Okay, so we recommend that you continue the hearing to August 26th. And if you have any more questions before testimony, I'm happy to answer those.

So item six, does the council, councilors have a preliminary questions for staff?

A couple of new questions. Yeah. Is there any way that staff could come up with, I don't know, kind of like a quick and dirty back and front, something that's in layman's terms that folks can understand about the land use process, about the language that's changed and about the upcoming laws, just something that's really simple because A lot of this for some people is just like a lot of jargon because they don't work in this field, right? And so trying to understand and process it all at once is a lot. So if we can just have something, I don't know if that would appear on the website or something that we can be able to give our constituents, something like that.

Yeah, I do like that. We have a summary at the very beginning of the staff report, but what I can do is pull that out into more of an executive summary that maybe is just informational and figure out how we might post that on the web the way our lay news cases are posted. But I'd be happy to do that, especially when I repackage this for the next hearing. Yep.

Do the councils have anything? I have an additional question. Go to Councillor Thompson first.

Yeah, so we're going to propose to August 26 both ordinances? Yeah, because I included them.

I mean, you don't have to. No, I'm happy to. But I mean, things that are already in effect with state law, we'll just have to kind of do the balance between what's in state law and know that we've got what we think. no, we'll be adopted eventually, right, in August. So, you know, just be considering that when you get to August. I mean, you know, we can handle, because we know what the changes are going to look like, and we can still provide good customer service, knowing that what is in state law, what, you know,

Yeah, no, I hear you. My second point is this will happen in August. It's very frustrating to have something before me that says, oh, by the way, you can't vote no. This is editorial comments. You know, it's it's taking away. local control, it truly is. And some of these issues, I think if we held an Albany-centric change on some of these things, some of these things might pass, but some of them for sure would have a lot of discussion about it. And you're telling me, and so even in August, you're telling me this is something before you, but you can't vote no. Well, I'm going to try to vote no anyway. I mean, don't put it before me.

Yeah. Well, you can vote however you want to vote. The laws are in effect or will be going into effect.

Right. Okay. Well, fine. Yeah, I will. But it's a very limiting argument to say state-required, state-mandated, have to do it. Well, okay, fine. If we have to do it, then just let the state do it, and I won't weigh in on it. But I'll save my comments until August 26th, Carolyn. Okay.

ANYTHING ELSE? I HAVE A QUESTION.

I'LL GO TO MARILYN AND STAFF.

Well, this is a little one. The requirements are being cut back about how people have to be noticed and the distances and the number and so on. We have a standing practice of over-noticing. Are we gonna continue that in defiance of state law?

right we do have um still have all of our regular noticing requirements and when we have to we have certain lanes applications we have to do an ad for the you know like these types in the paper um and we have to notify the recognized neighborhood associations um so the um What I was going to say is that in the table, you can see it's just changing the notice areas for a couple of things and where we could be just kept our you know notice areas as they were unless we had to change them for state law and I can. tell you what pages those were on. I think it's page 46 of your packet for the Type 1L level review. Some items for residential development proposing 20 or fewer dwelling units, lots or spaces. We currently would have a 300-foot notice area, and it has to go down to 100 feet. But then state law says anything over 20, can't have any more than 500 feet, but we're keeping that 300 feet up to where it's 50 or more dwelling units where then we jump up to 500. So I think state's fine if you have less notice area, but we're trying to keep as much notice area as we can. And of course, neighborhood organizations, I mean, they'll tell people and word will spread and we take all comments. It doesn't matter whether you're in the notice area.

Thank you. Council Member Gimlin.

While I can understand Councilor Thompson's frustration with being told by the state to do something that you don't agree with, I would encourage a reframe on amending the development code in line with state law, in line with the comments that we've heard tonight about we're responsible for implementing this either way. And yeah, sure, it feels weird. Maybe can't vote no. But by not amending the development code in line with state law, we'd really only be punishing our own city's staff and asking them to do the extra work of, well, this development code says this, but then state law says this. And I think that if we disagree with it, we lobby at the state level. We make our displeasure known to the people who are actually responsible for making that decision rather than punishing the people who work for us and not wanting to align our development code with that law. That's just the comment that I have to offer on that. Mr. Newton.

I took the words out of my mouth. I was going to say, hey, we were just talking about having legislative priorities. I see that we got this here with all the blue text. But will this also be emailed to us?

Yeah, it was emailed to you this afternoon. You might have been at work. I was at work. I didn't see it. Or driving. Thank you. And it will be, of course, updated in your packet. It's correct on our project website for people that are looking. So I apologize. But we will, the next time around, we'll also have a, I'll pull out a summary from the staff report. Did anyone have any more questions so we can get to public comments?

I just had one comment about the Type 1L. I'm concerned that only the applicant can appeal. Can you give us some on that?

So those are staff-level decisions, and I don't know why the state has changed that law. I really do not know why. So those would normally have gone to LUBA and maybe – So I think to just, against my better judgment, which is something one of my colleagues just used today and I kind of liked it, public engagement and how that's changing. That's what we want though, correct? We want public engagement. There's still a notice area. But unfortunately, it's a staff-level decision. So if somebody submits an application that meets the review criteria, we basically approve it with conditions. It's hard for us to deny an application. We always work with applicants to get something that meets our development code. So that doesn't happen. So then to appeal a decision by somebody other than the applicant, I guess it would maybe just be around a specific item that they maybe aren't happy with that might be a requirement in our code or not. I don't know why the state did it, but it's been a staff-level decision, and those, rather than having a local appeal, we do have a couple local appeals. Those mostly would go to LUBA, which is a little cumbersome and overbearing already as it is, so... I don't have an answer for that, and I don't know if your legislators can provide an answer to that.

And the other thing was the residential treatment centers and neighborhoods? Yeah. No one knows type 1L or type 1?

So we already allow, so residential care treatment homes up to 16 people are allowed by, those are homes anywhere and that's allowed. Now it's facilities, which we're changing the word to centers because that aligns with state law a little bit better. we were requiring in some cases conditional uses for some of those but We already it's just in our higher density zones where we have to allow the staff level review It's not in the lower density zone so we can still have a conditional use review Process which is staying put for the lower density zones. It's just our higher density zones where it has to be a staff level review and

Any other councillors?

Councillor Newton. Just wanted to rephrase. So that was in relation to residential, so where people live there. The property on Elm, I believe, is not where people live. They would be living there. It would be a business. People would come and go. So just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you.

Mayor Johnson asked about the business on Elm or the home on Elm. It's not going to be a residential.

Sorry, not Elm. I apologize. Oh, my gosh.

Ferry Street. Ferry Street. It's not going to be a residential where people live there, which is in relation to this bill. Yes.

The Oxford House, basically.

Yes. Okay. But like residential treatment.

Yeah. Okay. Any other councils have anything? Okay, item seven, we will now be taking public comp testimony, first from those who registered to testify, followed by those who did not register to testify. Prior to giving your testimony, please state whether or not your name and what your address is in the City of Albany.

We didn't have anybody sign up.

If anyone wishes to enter a exhibit into the record as part of your testimony, please briefly describe the exhibit and hand it to the city recorder. Virtual attendees, please email your exhibits to cityrecorder at albanyoregon.gov. There's nothing on the sheet. We will now take public testimony for those who did not register to speak. If you're attending in person, please raise your hand and come and speak. If you're attending virtually, please turn on your camera and raise your hand and you'll be called upon. If you're attending by phone, please unmute yourself and state your name and your address to be called upon. Please state your name and address for the record to provide your information on the sign-in sheet and the presenter's desk. If online, please email your name and address to City Recorder's address. Okay, hearing none, does the staff wish to, I have to read this verbatim, does the staff wish to respond to any testimony presented? Okay, do any council members have questions for staff? OKAY. THE CITY WILL CONTINUE THE HEARING ON AUGUST 26, 2026 AT THE REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING. THANK YOU. OKAY. PUBLIC COMMENT IS NEXT. Public comment is a time for the city residents, Albany residents to speak and for councilors to listen. The council won't discuss topics, respond to questions, or make decisions during public comment, but will take comments and requests under advisement. All persons in attendance at a public meeting should avoid conduct which is unreasonably loud, disruptive, or profane. Rude comments, rude and slanderous and the threatening remarks will not be permitted. Whistling, yelling, foot stomping, clapping, and displaying signs of speaking out of order also will not be permitted. 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 and take a seat in the audience for the remainder of the meeting or be removed from the meeting. When you get to the microphone, please give your name and state whether or not you live in the city of Albany.

First up is Remy Hill.

Hi there. My name is Remy Hill, and I am a resident of Ward 3 here in Albany. good evening counselors i'm glad to be speaking with you all again alpr cameras remain a public concern and i was interested to see that the city attorney is briefing you all today on the legal ramifications of an ordinance prohibiting their use by private businesses i don't know what he's going to say however i do want to add some thoughts to this conversation before he speaks Surveillance with a profit motive, from cookies and online tracking to ALPRs and offline tracking, has become ubiquitous in our society. Some say that it's an unstoppable force and not worth worrying about. I disagree. It is worth protecting our privacy for the very reason that, if we don't, someone will take it from us. Don't give it away casually. Stop shopping at or seeking temporary employment from the people shopping at Home Depot should not carry with it the hidden cost of possible abduction by masked men, jail time, or deportation based solely on appearance and without due process of law. It shouldn't carry with it the risk of allowing private companies to monetize infringements of your personal privacy. That isn't reasonable. That isn't just. That isn't right. And I encourage you to consider this carefully. Customers shopping at Home Depot should simply be customers. They shouldn't be the product. Monetizing our data changes that relationship. And we need to consider carefully how we move forward as a society with that. As I said earlier, I don't know what the city attorney is going to say tonight regarding this specific ordinance that has been proposed. But I do know that I want you all to think about this issue very carefully. And even if we can't come to an agreement or approach this issue in this particular way, to find some other way to approach this issue, it's a pressing issue of our time. and I want you all to approach this with as much consideration and vigor as you can muster. I look forward to hearing more and hope you'll take proactive action to protect our privacy. It matters to all of us. Thank you.

John Schoenenhals, is that correct? Schoenenhals. Schoenenhals, okay.

Hello, I'm John Shane Halls. I'm resident of Ward 3, and I live and work here in Albany. And I'm here to speak about the ALPR briefing. Regarding the feasibility of a total ban, I hope the City Council will consider a ban on private use of ALPRs, even if a total citywide ban is not possible. I was at Pride the other weekend, and I was glad to see some of you there. And the thought of these cameras putting those members of our community at risk makes me sick. Not to mention, obviously, our immigrant neighbors and those seeking abortions in our state. I think that Albany residents have a right to privacy and against unreasonable searches that these cameras provide to the state. Thank you. Thank you. Rebecca Bond.

There she is. Hello.

I'm Rebecca Bond with the Albany Visitors Association, and I'm here to share with you tonight the new Albany Visitor Guide. Hot off the presses. It's being distributed throughout the state at our welcome centers, the Portland Airport and the Eugene Airport. We are distributing it to all of our hotels. We also have kiosks at the train station, at the expo center, at the carousel, and of course, our welcome center downtown. It's available online. I sent a PDF version to Eric, so you have it for your record. And I'll put these on the back counter for you if you would like to take one tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Jasmine Flores.

Hi, my name is Jasmine Flores from World War II. I want to start by addressing some comments made by Councillor McGee at the meeting in May regarding her being followed and nearly ran over. I understand how scary that is and no one should have to go through that. But the fact is that many women have to have gone through that, if not most have experienced this. And as a person of color myself, I know what it's like to be physically assaulted due to racism. But that doesn't mean that I approve of masses of people being surveilled just so I can have some false sense of security. And regarding claims of this technology being used to find missing people, I actually know what it's like for someone that I love to go missing and never being able to find her. Do you think that any of those cameras were used to find my friend? No. Her body was found by pedestrians, which is how most missing people are found, if they're found at all. And unlike you, counselor, my friend didn't have the privilege of having a position of power or have enough money to be deemed important enough to use that type of technology to find her. The truth is that there are countless cases around the country of this technology being used for nefarious purposes. The negatives far outweigh the alleged positives. I also want to remind all of you that you are here to represent us, your constituents, not big corporations like Lowe's. Our private information, like what is linked to our license plate numbers, should not be easily accessible to some retail store. Our information is worth a lot more than the few dollars that they may or may not lose from petty thefts. And if Oregon Community Credit Union can remove their cameras all across the state, then Lowe's should be able to remove theirs from our city. If this ban is not implemented, then the people will have to step in and start a campaign to boycott companies like Lowe's. But if this city council takes its job seriously, then you will listen to the working class people of this community and save them the trouble. With the price of living soaring to record numbers, with ICE kidnapping our neighbors right off the streets, With the sexual predators in the federal government constantly coming after our fundamental rights, I really hope that you could do this for us. Thank you.

Thank you. Olivia Reeder, is that correct?

Hi, my name is Olivia Leader. I was born and raised in Albany. I look around at our city council and I see a lot of people have dedicated so much time to protecting us. I am here to talk about the banning of flock cameras or ARPs. It's terrifying. It's terrifying for all of us. Our security, our sanctity, our safety is really at stake here. This is a small piece in a very massive puzzle. What's at risk is a lot more than just our data You know, people are being ripped off the streets. People are at risk now more than ever. And now with a government that we can't trust anymore, they have everything on us. That mirrors satellites in the sky that can track us everywhere we go. And now they can track us and see who's in our vehicle. Everywhere we go. That's terrifying. I know I, as a young woman, am excited to start a family. I'm finishing college. I have my partner of four years. I'm terrified to raise a kid in this community. I cannot imagine. I have two foster siblings. Both of them are Hispanic, and they're terrified, too. They go to South Albany, and every day, they come back with these stories of these... The racism is rampant here, and it's rampant in our federal government, and I'm worried for their safety now more than ever, knowing that they can't get out of the car and know that they're safe. People should be safe at their own homes, and these cameras are popping up on residential streets, parks, parking lots, public garages. It's insane what's happening. I'm terrified, and I hope you guys, the council, who is looking after us, who is in charge of our safety, of this community, take that to heart and keep us safe. We need you guys more than ever just to secure us. That's all I have to say. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Brie Irish.

Hi, my name is Brie Irish. I do not live in Albany. I live in Corvallis, but I am part of the Benton County Democrats. And for the last meeting, we sent a letter urging opposition to these flock cameras and surveillance. And to be clear, I'm not an official emissary of them tonight, but I was part of that effort. And because of the nature of how close Albany and Corvallis are, and especially because of North Albany being in Benton County, that is why I decided to come tonight to speak to you in opposition to flock cameras and hopefully bring some stuff up before the city attorney talks about his report. Specifically, I really want to talk about our Fourth Amendment protections and how they have been degraded over time from the proliferation of AI and mass surveillance as well. Most recently, there was a bill introduced in Congress called the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, of which Congresswoman Bynum was a supporter of that bill. and essentially would have created a technology sharing center to combat organized retail crime, which on its face does not sound terrible, and I'm not deeply opposed to that. However, businesses and private businesses do not have to protect your Fourth Amendment the way that governments and, you know, THE CITY, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE TO PROTECT IT. SO ESSENTIALLY, THE BUSINESSES THAT DO HAVE FLOT CAMERAS OR THE OTHER TYPES OF AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READERS THAT THEY HAVE WOULD GO INTO THIS INFORMATION SHARING POOL AND IN THE TEXT OF THAT LEGISLATION, THE DIRECTOR OF THAT TECHNOLOGY CENTER WOULD HAVE BEEN APPOINTED BY ICE. So take that with how you will. It creates a very real possibility that instead of, you know, in the case of Woodburn having their flock cameras used by Border Patrol and ICE, that then they would switch to the private business cameras and using that the same, which has far less protections than the city of Woodburn would have been able to provide. So I really want to stress that as well. And the changing the landscape is changing legally the Supreme Court just ruled at the end of June On a fourth amendment case that was not on flock cameras, but regarded geofence and location data protections And we know that these companies will push the limits with regard to our safety and security and our privacy and I think it is smart to protect our data before it is leaked before it is used maliciously and The Supreme Court justices themselves said that the Fourth Amendment protection space is very malleable and changing right now, and I believe that the best way forward would for Albany to protect our private data before it is used nefariously. Thank you.

Thank you. Hunter Hawthorne.

Evening Council, Hunter Hawthorne, resident of Ward of Fun, otherwise known as Ward 1. I want to just thank you all again for the actions you guys took a couple months ago on sunsetting the contract the city had with FLOC. I think that was the right decision, and I hope that you all will as we listen to the city attorney's report tonight, take proactive measures to go ahead and ban flock citywide, flock cameras, including through the use of private businesses out in parking lots. I think it's important to understand that There are different companies, and you could maybe put Lowe's and Home Depot into this category, that have essentially monopolies in cities where sometimes people don't always really have a choice of where they can go to purchase the things that they need. In addition to the fact that you have employees who are also private citizens, they don't necessarily have a choice either as to whether or not they are surveilled by companies. these systems. And as you have heard timeless testimony about this in months past, this data is really vulnerable, susceptible to being leaked. And as commenters here tonight have presented to you as well, accountability can only occur after the harm has been done. And so I just want to remind you all of that as well as you listen to that report tonight. So thanks.

Thank you. William Black. Did I say that right? Yes, William Black. Signed in. OK. So next on tonight's agenda.

Next on tonight's agenda, the legislative public.

Did he show up? No. No. But we stopped that a long time ago. Next on tonight's agenda is an action item for consideration of adopting an ordinance amending AMC Chapter 115.06, private construction of public improvements to incorporate Senate Bill 978 requirements. Does the staff have a report?

Good morning, or good evening, Council and Mayor. Aaron Heemstra with Public Works Engineering, Assistant City Engineer. And Catlin kind of gave you a brief overview of the Senate Bill already 974. That kind of came down with some requirements for local jurisdictions. And this portion of Senate Bill 974 pertains to public works and review of infrastructure requirements. for residential development, putting our reviews on infrastructure on a chess clock, essentially given us 120 days to review infrastructure and approve a permit. And so the updates in here are to reflect basically that chess clock and the requirements for us to do those reviews. Currently, staff reviews these projects between 30 and 60 days, kind of depending on the type of project. So we really don't see this impacting us too much. So this is just kind of a procedural update. The only change I really see is doing a completeness letter at the beginning of these reviews now.

Say that again, please.

The only thing I really see staff having to do now is providing a... The only thing I see staff having to do differently now is providing a completeness review letter. And then since we're doing the update, we looked at a couple things within the AMC to kind of update based off how we currently do projects. The main ones are the pre-construction meeting, making sure that staff is actually at those, as opposed to developers doing those without staff being able to attend those meetings. And then I did see the public comments that came in. I just wanted to touch on those. So this Senate bill is for permit approval, not just plan approval. So we do have that 120 days to issue a permit, not just approve the plans. The review fee is part of the application. So we can't take in an application until the review fee is paid. So that was one of the comments from Mr. Painter as well. And then there's discussions in his comments about the 120 days. There's a section of the Senate bill that talks about the local government approving the plans and the developer providing documentation such as bonds, permit fees within that 120 days. So that's why we use that 120 days after that to issue the permit. The applicant as well has the ability to apply for an extension for up to 245 days as well. With that, staff recommends approval of the ordinance to update the AMC 1506 unless anybody has any questions.

So next item is does the council have any questions of staff? Councilor Newton. Councilor Newton.

So if Senate Bill 974 is directed at residential development, I'm curious, why are we rewriting all of Article 15 instead of adopting the narrowest ordinance necessary to comply with state law?

So we don't have two different procedures for using these permits. Since we already currently do everything within 120 days, it's so we don't have two different processes for different types of development. It's just having one process across the board for everything.

Wouldn't that open us up to some liability if we aren't able to meet those timelines, since it would be kind of truncating one on one end?

We're already well within the timelines.

Let's just say, though, that in the future we might not. Like, what if something happens and we, I don't know, budgetary issues happen and we're down to, you know, just Stacey Belcastro? You know, like, let's just think horror situation, you know? I'm just wondering why we weren't adopting the most narrowest thing necessary in relation to this bill and instead rewriting all of ordinance 15.

So I believe the reason we did that was just so that we had the same procedures, process, policies across the board for all these type of projects, not just residential.

Councilor Newton, I can offer just a little bit more on that. Our public improvement process or plan review process, the lion's share of those permits that we see come in are for residential uses. You know, you're thinking about residential subdivision that comes in and the developer is required to build a certain amount of road improvements associated with that development. We usually don't see a lot of commercial development having to do large PIP projects, but certainly understand your concern there. The lion's share is for residential.

Okay. I just think that good governance means separating mandatory compliance from discretionary policy. Those two issues feel really intertwined when I'm rereading how this was written.

Any other councillors have anything? Okay, so you just said that our current process we're within typically 6070 lower than 120. Yes, okay, so this basically this gives them more time right gives us more time to if we needed it right. This just puts up.

The maximum a maximum that we can take to do it, I know other jurisdictions are well over that 120 day currently. We just typically we're way under. We have our own internal policy for review turnarounds being two weeks. Two to three weeks is where we aim to, once we start a review, to sending it back. Any other counselors have anything?

So this doesn't create any kind of undue burden that 120 days. So I actually really like the idea of having single maximum single source like that that actually seems to simplify things to me and and that also is good governance all right does the council wish to discuss the ordinance I'm curious if everyone here on the dais understands which changes are required by state law and which ones are representing a local policy change

You guys do? I read the packet, yeah. Twice, three times.

Okay.

I must speak for myself. I read it again today.

Well, let's review it again. Counselor Newton?

Yeah, would you, do you want to go through and. Yeah, I'm surprised.

Can we get a.

Presentation.

Yeah, do we have a presentation? Can we go through and. to show where things are actually required. I'm just curious why we didn't want to adopt or even consider a more narrow focus or have two options before us.

No, just because staff felt it was pretty straightforward. And the only real option was adding in two policies versus one policy, adding in a whole new section just for residential versus just changing it to add the same procedure across the board for everything. Yeah.

You know, I hear from several counselors frequently, and you know, while this may not be an issue for our city, I hear from a lot of folks, and even like at legal organ cities, everyone's like, oh my gosh, these mandates from the state, yada, yada, yada, these mandates from the state. I'm just wanting to understand why we would give up any additional local control or, you know, changing things to be even more, changing things that we don't need to. So, but yeah, it'd be great to Have a comparison.

Yeah.

Do you want me to go through?

That'd be fantastic. Yeah. Page 255.

Is that what we're going to be on? 259. 259 is where the strikeout. Is that where you want to start?

That'd be fantastic. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. So the first section is talking about the drawing specification approval. As of right now, there is a one year from when a plan gets approved to when it expires. And with the developer being able to apply for additional extensions, they can have up to three years. With the new bill we decided to tailor that back to just having a single timeline that kind of matched the bill and basically makes it so when developers are ready to go to construction, they can apply and then not sit on a plan approval for three years. Where specifications standards can change, and then we have to bring the whole thing back into review again or deny it, and they have to apply again. So having plans that are actually ready to go to construction that actually come in for review is where we thought would be. better to have this 120 days and up to 245 because currently we do have several projects that have been sitting out there for close to three years with no plans of ever moving forward but they're just we have to track them to see where they're at so all the tracking is on staff for those ones that hang out there for three years with no fees for um extensions And then the next portion the applicant is able to. request an extension up to 245 days that's not really an application for an extension they just request the extension and they get provided that 245 days.

So with that extension, so the the drawings with the initial time plus. The extension if requested the drawings to be valid for up to one year is that is my math correct there, we have you have the 30 days.

For the completeness review or then you have 120 days the extension to 245 which about eight months okay so it's a total of 245 days so i'm reading provided that the total of the extension does not exceed 245 days.

Which would which would put it at 365.

Is that correct? Okay.

Okay. I mean, that seems pretty reasonable to me. And I mean, we've had discussions on this council about folks having approval or agreements for things and not moving forward with them and not liking that. And this actually seems to be in line with that.

Thank you. Okay next section all right. The next section of drawing review application fee just this was there's some cleanup here changing itemized construction. estimate to engineers estimate construction plans and reports, which is kind of what we're doing right now, so this was just a little bit of cleanup trying to match our applications and stuff we already have and currently using. and then um down here at the bottom there is after review fee has been paid the city shall review the application and when 30 days deemed the application complete or specifies additional materials that must be included for application be considered complete As I touched on before, there is basically an application fee, which is our review fee, which is part of the application. So we don't process the application until that fee has been paid. And once that's been paid, then we start that 30 day completeness review. Exact same procedure that planning does with all their land use cases.

Any questions about that?

Next.

This next section for permit issuance, it's pulling a section out of the Senate bill that talks about after the final engineering plan's been approved, the applicant shall provide permit fees, forms, bonds as required within 120 days. And then listing the timeline is not told after plans have been approved. There's a section in the Senate bill that this is almost verbatim coming straight out of it with the addition that the timeline is not pulled just so that we don't have an application with approved plans sitting out there indefinitely. If it were pulled, we could see a plan approval sitting there that never expired. So that's why we put in that that it's not pulled so it goes within that 120 days just for that timeline. And then we did some striking out on some of the items below. That we no longer need. That just evidence for them having a paper copy of standard construction specifications sensor online and available now. down in the permit fee section, just clean up there, adding in all of our utilities, not just water and sewer. So adding in transportation and stormwater. Section two, just adding in itemized engineer's estimate again, just since most things we do are based off the professional engineer's estimated cost of constructions. Section the next section with pre construction conference. Just to ensure that our city representative is available at all pre construction meetings and that engineers are the developer and their engineer doesn't leave the city out of the pre construction meetings. So just that they coordinate the pre construction meeting with the city. And then the city representative is also one that must be attend the pre construction conference. And then the last one, this is one that is a condition on the permit, but we decided to bring it into the development code that there is no use of the public infrastructure until the city has accepted it in writing. That's already a permit condition, but we decided to bring that one into the AMC just to put it in there and codify it. That was the last of the changes to the EMC. Councilor Newton, you good?

Well, I still just think it's interesting.

So to clarify, some of these changes are required by the state and some are not? Correct. Is that what you're saying? Thank you.

Just the ones that refer to the timeline are the ones that are required.

So you're saying the majority of the changes are not required by the state?

All the ones that refer to the timeline, all the other ones are just clean up of the code based off policy and how we actually do it now since the code has not been updated in a long time.

Thank you.

Councils have anything?

Have anything?

I do. Are you familiar with a, I'm not sure how to describe it, it began as some kind of an addition on an existing home at 909 Fifth Avenue Southwest about 10 years ago, more than that. Was that project ever finished? That is an example for me of something that was begun and carried over. The building permit expired a couple of times and was held open and open and open and open despite continued complaints about the neighbors who watched an unfinished accessory building become larger than the main residence without ever getting done. Would these changes tighten up that kind of process?

Currently, we do have that three years in there, so it does expire at some point. Currently, the Senate bill did not have that type of language in there for when an approval would expire or when any sort of residential permit was expired, and we felt that we needed something in there.

That's an example of local policy that's more restrictive than state law or different from.

Correct. Thanks. Councilors, anything else? Hearing none. Item five, there is an ordinance for your consideration in the page 258 of the packet, of the council packet. Will the city attorney read the ordinance first time in title only?

An ordinance amending Albany Municipal Code AMC Chapter 15.06, private construction of public improvements to incorporate Senate Bill 974 requirements and general code updates.

Is there a motion to read the ordinance a second time in title only?

Move to read the ordinance a second time in title only.

Second.

Any discussion?

I think that if state law requires five changes, let's just make those five changes. And if staff thinks there's another 10 changes that should be made, we should evaluate those in their own merit instead of packaging everything together. That's my two cents.

So I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no.

No.

Bring this back.

Can we do a roll call on that?

Can we do a roll call vote, please?

Councillor Newton?

No.

Councillor Thompson?

Yes.

Councillor Van Drommelen? Aye. Councillor McLeod?

No.

Councillor Smith?

Yes.

Councillor McGee?

Aye.

Opposed, two.

Yeah, it's 4 to 2, so this will have to come back.

We'll bring this back on the 27th or in August 26th. Okay, moving on in the agenda. Okay, so I'm going to take a 10-minute bio break. Be back at 7.22.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

I'll now reconvene the Albany City Council meeting at 7.22 p.m. Please take your seats and let's get ready to move forward. Action item B, resolutions approve an agreement with ODOT accepting local bridge program funding for 3rd Avenue Cavalcoy River Bridge, preliminary engineering. Oh, Stacy's here. Stacy Belcastro, pages 271 to 291 in your packet.

Good evening, mayor and counselors. So the Oregon Department of Transportation, they administer a grant program. It's called the Local Bridge Program. It provides funding for eligible bridges projects here in Oregon. The city has been successful using this program in the past. Most recently, we constructed improvements on the Salem Avenue Bridge over Cox Creek. During the most recent funding cycle, so the funding cycle for this program matches the STIP, the State Transportation Improvement Program. we submitted applications for two projects, the Third Avenue Kalapuya River Bridge, and then the other project we submitted an application for was the Ninth Avenue Saniam Albany Canal Bridge. While the application for the Ninth Avenue Bridge was not successful, we did hear from ODOT last fall in October that they were approving the application for the Third Avenue-Calapuya River Bridge to receive funding of $1.64 million, and this is to complete preliminary engineering. The Third Avenue Bridge crosses the Calapuya River. It is the primary access to Bryant Park. The southern end of the bridge shares the abutment is integral with the spillway for the Santiam Albany Canal. If anybody's ever walked out there, it's quite impressive. There are limited facilities on the bridge for pedestrians and bicycles. It's load restricted. It's been load restricted for many years due to deterioration and scour issues. With this grant funding, preliminary engineering will be completed to evaluate both replacement and rehabilitation options for the bridge. And doing this work will position the city to pursue future funding to construct the preferred alternative. The city's required local match is 168,000, and it will come from the street capital and restoration fund. Staff is recommending that Council approve the resolution authorizing the Public Works Director to sign the ODOT agreement accepting the grant funds. Are there any questions?

Council, do you have any questions at all? Okay, there is a resolution.

I MOVE TO ADOPT THE RESOLUTION ON PAGE 273 OF THE PACKET AUTHORIZING THE PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR TO EXECUTE AN AGREEMENT WITH ODOT ACCEPTING THIS FUNDING.

SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION BEFORE WE MOVE ON? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SAY AYE. THOSE OPPOSED SAY NO. THANK YOU COUNCIL. NEXT, ITEM SEVEN, INFORMATIONAL BRIEFINGS, STAFF REPORT, REPORT OF THE AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READER PROGRAM, TECH ORDINANCE BY SEAN KIDD, CITY ATTORNEY.

THANK YOU. SO, COUNCIL, AS YOU MAY RECALL, A FEW WEEKS BACK, YOU'D ASKED ME TO LOOK INTO THE viability of whether or not the council could adopt an ordinance that would ban the use of not just flock, but license plate reader cameras, or what I'll refer to as LPRs, citywide completely, and that would include on private property. As you recall, also, we have terminated our contract with Locke at a prior meeting and it banned them in the city on public property, but this ordinance would go further than that. So I've been looking into this. I'll start out, I'm gonna tell you this will be a somewhat brief meeting or presentation because I do not wanna create, a roadmap if we were to be sued and lay out how that would work for somebody who might want to do it. But in any event, I'll briefly go through this. As you know, at the end of March, I think March 31st, the governor signed Senate Bill 1516, which kind of outlined and set parameters around how law enforcement can use license plate reader cameras. did stuff like, for example, they're required to delete the information within 30 days unless it's in an open investigation. They have to log in to the system in order to do that, to look at the information. That way, people will know who's logging in and for what purpose and what they're looking at. That's something similar that what law enforcement database systems around the state require now of law enforcement as well as attorneys, like when I'm doing prosecution. When we log into the system, they know who's doing it and what we're looking at. And that way, if there's situations that people can abuse and you probably have heard of many of these cases where somebody will stalk somebody and look at, you know, their information and stuff that that person can be caught pretty quickly and terminated from employment and removed from the system. So the state's put in some parameters around that. So we'll look at this, whether or not we could do an outright ban of all of it. So the first thing is we go back to law enforcement. The state has already said, that the police can use these cameras. Now we already know that Benton County, Linn County has them in their cars. Linn County Sheriff's Office is going to have them in their cars. They may have them now, but if they don't all have them, they're coming. Oregon State Police Department already has them in their cars. So then the first question would be, can we tell law enforcement that they can't use those cameras within the city limits of Albany? And the answer to that is clearly no. under state preemption. The state has said they can use them. We cannot say that they cannot use them. So if we did that right out of the gate, I believe we would be challenged. And I believe if properly challenged, that would be very difficult to defend. So if law enforcement is allowed to use them, which under state law they are, and we prohibit other parties such as private private citizens or companies from using them we could run into equal protection clause challenges because we're allowing some people law enforcement to use them for security purposes to for surveillance purpose whatever it is they're using them for but we're telling private citizens or private companies that they cannot use those in the same way to protect whatever it is they say they're protecting and i'm not here tonight to say that i you know support for or against them i'm just laying out what what you know we're dealing with here um because you know there's there's been a lot of people who have come in before and testified and you've read it online you've seen it on the television of what people speculate it could be used for and some of what they it is being used for um and then we've also heard from the other side we've heard from all enforcement we've heard from actually the flock people of what they do and what they're using it for. And I understand it's a controversial issue, and I understand that there's definitely a disagreement on what the actual information is being used for. But some of the things we could run into, like I said, we could run into an equal protection challenge right out of the gate from law enforcement. We could run into First Amendment and free speech challenges as well. We could run into Fifth Amendment takings challenges. Because if someone buys something, for example, if you have something, you spend a lot of money on it, and then the government says, you can't use that. You can't use that anymore. And we're not compensating for it. Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, that's considered a taking. And we would be liable for damages for those if properly challenged, at least in my research. Again, we talked about state preemption. We also have equal protection and due process challenges that could come up. I talked to our insurance carrier about the situation. When I called them and I mentioned that we were looking into doing this, their first response to me was, we highly advise you don't. But I said, be that as it may, if we do, are we protected? Are we covered under our policy? And I got what people will always say is the lawyerly answer, which is it depends. It depends on what the lawsuit is. It depends on what they're suing for. Is it an injunction? Because if it is, then probably not. If it's constitutional, probably you're covered. at the beginning, but then they control, if they say, okay, there is a constitutional issue here, we're going to defend you up to a point, but if we tell you that it's a violation of the Fifth Amendment or the First Amendment or the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment, you have to stop, or else any damage you suffer, we're out, and that's on you. So we can, you know, also I was told, and I didn't know this, actually, and I had to look at it a little bit, but she told me that individual council members on constitutional lawsuits can be held personally liable. I asked if they would be covered under our same policy. She said they would, as long as they were acting within the scope of their duties as a city councilor. And she said that they would probably be the same attorney who covered the city that would cover the council members. However, there could be potential conflicts of interest, and then they would have to assign different attorneys for different counselors if there was a conflict of interest we've had some something like that's not like this issue here but we've had before where we've had members of our uh you know our city manager has been sued several times, and he's been covered under our policy. So it's not unusual that the mayor or the city manager or someone gets sued in their capacity. In fact, we've got a lawsuit going right now where we have three employees of the city of Albany that are being sued by an individual up in, well, I won't go too far into that, but anyway, they're being sued and they're covered. I look at I tried to come up with some examples of how this might play out. So for example, if you have a, if we were to, trying to put something that we're actually talking about currently within our city, and one of those is street maintenance. If we were, and we're talking about implementing a gas tax and going out to our voters and asking them to approve a gas tax so that we can start fixing some of our local roads that are in dire need of repair. One of the pushbacks from people against the gas tax, besides the economics of it, is the fairness of it. And that is that, well, what about electric cars? Electric cars that don't use gasoline and they cause just as much or more damage on our roads because they're heavier. And so they're doing more damage. What if the city were then to say, okay, we're going to pass an ordinance to ban the use of electric cars in the city of Albany? And I wonder how that would go over. I mean, would people say, oh, that's a great idea? I don't think they would. I think we'd be challenged on that. This is, we've got a lot more, and I don't know all of the businesses or obviously individuals who own these cameras. We've heard testimony tonight from people who say they're on local streets. They very well may be. They should not be on our public streets. If they are, they're on there illegally because we have banned that. But if they're in people's yards, if they're on poles in their yards or whatever, at this point, there's no way for us to know that. There's no registry of who has those cameras and whatnot. So I don't know how you enforce it. There's a good number of businesses, and I have been told that there's at least 30 businesses that are known to law enforcement that have those cameras in the city of Albany. There's probably more than that. So one of the challenges would be enforcement if we wanted to go down that road. Do you want me to go ahead and answer questions now and then I can keep going?

I have a few questions. One, what's the name of our insurance company?

CIS.

CIS, can we get their response in writing?

I don't know.

Okay. Can we get all this information to debrief in writing?

No, I'm not going to put it in writing because I'm not going to, it becomes public record then in which people are able to. to use it. I don't want my research to be used against us in a lawsuit. And because it would be, I would, I would argue it's attorney client privilege at that point, but they would already have it. So I want to make sure that that doesn't happen.

So can we get a list of the 30 businesses? I didn't think there were 30. I thought it was like Lowe's Home Depot and like, I mean, just off rattling off the top.

I think you've got Lowe's Home Depot, Walmart, Target, maybe Winco using ALPR. using LPRs. Can we get a list of the 30? You would have to get from law enforcement. I don't have it.

So, curious, have any other cities in Oregon or even the United States, if they... We would be the first.

We would be the first city in the United States that I'm aware of that would put a ban on LPRs on people's private property. Now, I know we've heard that people said, oh, there's been a lot of cities that have done it. If they have, They're not out there because we've looked. And in fact, I think some of you on the council have looked. And to my knowledge, no one's found any.

So if anyone in the public knows of a city, they can email us and we can send it over to you?

If someone knows of a city who has banned them on private property, and again, since our last meeting, there's been other cities that have banned them on public property. So I don't know if there's a confusion there. They've banned them on public property, which we have as well, or if they're thinking that it's private property. But there's definitely going to be some challenges to that if we were to do that. I can tell you that if we're not covered under insurance, we will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending a case like that. because these companies like Lowe's and Home Depot are not going to just say, oh, OK, well, we'll just take them down and do what you say. We'll have third party property rights groups who will join in these lawsuits, because it's a private property issue. And even in Oregon, and I should say especially in Oregon, they're notorious for being very, very protective of their private property rights. So that would be an issue that I think would cause a good bit of litigation fatigue and money. I can give you an example. Some of you all know we have a city that I won't mention that is in a big lawsuit right now with our government. They took that fight on. They have basically incurred almost a half a million dollars in legal fees. They have basically gone through their emergency fund. And now they're going out and asking individual communities for money, sending these letters to mayors and city managers asking for donations to help them recoup some of that money. And the case is still going. So I don't know. And again, when we're going to our citizens and we're going to be asking for potentially street maintenance fee increases and stuff to cover these costs and our taxpayers are already feeling strapped, this is another thing that I believe would cost a lot of money. And we right now, and I won't say this case, although it's public record, we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on another case each month. And it's not a case that's covered by CIS. So it's one of those things, do we have the financial resources to be the first to take this fight on? And that's for the council to decide. I'm not going to say we should. I'm not going to say we shouldn't because that's your job. I'm just saying, as my predecessor before me would say a lot, if this was properly challenged, it would be difficult to defend in my opinion. And I know that we've had some people say that, well, we might have people step up and help fund this for us. That's a risk that you guys have to be willing to take and putting that on our taxpayers potentially. But I've got some other questions. Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you for that information, Mr. Kidd. I think this sounds like an uphill battle on a slippery slope and could be very difficult. So I want to make abundantly clear that ALPR cameras are not closed circuit systems. There are still people who believe that they are, and I want to make sure that this is understood. These cameras take detailed pictures, they store information, and that information they then allow to be searchable by Who knows what they do with that information? Also, who knows? They capture detailed data and it creates a searchable database. We don't let our law enforcement do this and I don't think we should let private companies capture our data either. We need to protect our personal data like we protect our homes, our families, our bodies, and our dignity. My question, when it comes to data that they collect for you, Mr. Kidd, is it's my understanding that there are businesses in our community who have these ALPR cameras that collect our data, but they don't prosecute shoplifters. What are they doing with our data? Do you know?

I do not, and I... I have a good idea, but I won't obviously say, but I have a good idea of who you're referring to, but I do not know what they do with the data. They don't share that, and so I don't know what they do with the data.

Okay, so another point of concern I have that I've heard brought up from members of the council and members of the community is that we don't know for certain how many businesses in our community have these cameras. We heard 30 tonight. Yesterday I got a list that only had about six businesses. So if people in our community don't know who has these cameras, how do we know to protect ourselves from these businesses when we don't know who has them? It's going to be difficult. I think that we need to look into the possibility of requiring some kind of signage outside of businesses that have these cameras signage at the entrance to their parking lots that indicate they use these types of cameras and to go one step further and to have signage require signage that identifies where in the parking lots these cameras are so that people know where their data is being collected and from what angles. It also concerns me that people are saying if you don't like going places that have these cameras, just go somewhere else. We've seen Lowe's and Home Depot have them. Those are two major hardware stores. If we need to go to a hardware store that doesn't have these cameras, They have a monopoly at the moment.

McDonald Hardware in Ward 1 on First Avenue is locally owned. I know we've mentioned big box corporations, but it's a local small business here in Albany, McDonald. So just heads up. They're wonderful. Perfect. Thank you for that. Let's hope that they're not also on the list. I don't work for them. I don't do anything with them. Just saying. We're saying big box names. I'm going to shout out a local business. Thank you. I appreciate that.

So I would like you to look into the possibility of creating an ordinance or creating some type of signage requirement. Would that be feasible, Mr. Kidd?

How's the council feel about that?

I have a question before we... My question was, nobody forgot about you, because mine is tied to what you were saying. Sorry, okay. So, and what Councilor Newton was saying. Because is this requiring them to have signage or so, would that infringe on their public or private businesses, small or large? Some places have very private places that people shop at that may not, people may not want to know that they're shopping here. you know, at a place that's kind of confidential or low key and it's a small business, they may not want to put a signage there if it's drawing attention to something that like people don't go to.

I don't understand your concern.

I didn't say it was a concern. I said it was a question.

Oh, I'm sorry. Then I don't understand.

My question is, is it infringing on private or small businesses in our community that are probably already strapped for cash or whatever? Is it infringing on their rights as business owners? That's my question.

That could be an argument if we were to pass an ordinance requiring signage that we could be challenged on that. I don't know of anywhere in Oregon that has done that. I do know that recently the state of Minnesota has put into law. a statute that requires signage on private property when those cameras are being used. I know in other states, and the LPR stuff is relatively new, at least to the controversial stuff that's going on, so there's not a lot out there on it, but I did look, and Minnesota does have a law on the books for it. A lot of places have... see if somebody brought up closed circuit. And you'll see in a lot of places it'll say closed circuit televisions are in operation. They notify people. And some states, like Florida I know, requires businesses to have those signs up. I think that's a possibility. Yeah.

That we could be challenged on it.

Well, I think it's a possibility we could do it. There's always the possibility we could be challenged on it. The one thing I don't know is has Minnesota been challenged on that law yet. I don't know that. And like I said, Moses is pretty new and is an example. Home Depot is being sued right now for the use of LPRs on their property in the Northern District of California. But that lawsuit was filed in May of this year. So it's new enough where I don't believe Home Depot has even filed their answer to the lawsuit yet. That's a public... People want to look that up. I mean, it's on the internet. You can look. It's like about 57 pages of... A lot of dry reading, but some of it's, you know, I guess interesting. But most of that lawsuit is centered as a class action. Most of it is centered around violations of California privacy laws. So it would not necessarily apply here unless the state of Oregon were to adopt privacy laws.

We did in the 2024 legislative session.

Well, I mean, so maybe there could be a class action against them there.

So this sounds like a legislative priority that we could get on board with for the next upcoming session, just throwing it out there. But also I'm down with, I'm in favor of us exploring doing this, but also taking it further to the state level.

And I think, I think, Councilor Benjamin.

So a couple of things and a question for the city attorney. So I think it's important to, we're using the term ALPR, automated license plate readers, really broadly here. And I think it's important to note that when we're talking especially about a ban on a technology, I think what we're really hearing from the community is concerns about a particular subset of this technology. Because an automated license plate reader that's used, for example, by a single entity in a closed system for parking enforcement across a large parking system in lieu of stickers on your vehicle, you register your plate, you pay for your permit, Van drives through, little caterpillar antenna looking cameras. The data's not going anywhere other than do they have a permit? Do they not? Will we issue a citation? Do we not? I don't see that as especially problematic. The networked, like I don't even, I don't know what term I'm supposed to use here. And maybe if Mr. Kidd has a suggestion here, if this has been called a particular subset or class of this technology so that I can refer to it correctly. But the networked ALPR where the data goes into a broadly accessible database, I'm not interested in saying someone can't use this as part of a closed system. It's a camera that reads a license plate. And the technology is neither inherently evil nor good. It's how it's used. And I understand the concerns about the large network systems that go into a database that you then don't know or have no control over how that's being used. So I just want to clarify where I sit on that, where a total ban on ALPR to me would seem a bridge too far. I do have a question for Mr. Kidd, though, related to the comments about, you know, like, a ban on this could get challenged on this grounds. Cities, counties, states, what have, like, places ban things. How do bans survive legal challenges? Like, what... what makes it so that a ban on something because like municipalities ban fireworks um i get it like when you're talking about damages would be relatively small in any case involving you know someone not being able to bring their fireworks into the city but like it's just it's an issue that that has come up recently because we're just on this side of the fourth of july um Like, what makes it so that a ban on something can, because, like, places do ban things.

I think, like, fireworks, when, number one, one of the biggest challenges, and you'll, if we have, Marsha's not here tonight. Oh, she'll tell you that one of the... I saw another officer back there earlier, so I thought she wasn't in. But I think she'll tell you that when it comes to fireworks, we just don't have the manpower to enforce when people are shooting off fireworks. And we've talked on this council before, and we've had people say, listen, Let's pass an ordinance to ban illegal fireworks.

You don't, yeah. That's besides the point. I'm not advocating for anything.

So one is the enforcement, though. That's one of the challenges. So another is when it comes to fireworks, I don't think you're going to have a takings argument for that. I don't think, I mean, unless if people go and buy them and they use them. or don't use and say they can't use them. They already knew ahead of time. This is stuff that people have already got. People have already have in there, you know, and you're, you're given an example of, you know, the closed circle ones and, and, and saying, well, where, where do we draw the line? And I don't know the answer to that either. I mean, we would have to get our IT people to tell us what exactly, which, what, What is and isn't considered, you know, I don't know. I mean, I don't know the technology. When you go to the car wash in North Albany, if you pull up and you have a membership, the gate opens. How do they do that? Because it's reading your license plate. Is it closed? I don't know. But it's not just reading yours. It's reading everybody's because if you don't have a membership, the gate doesn't open. And how do they know? because it's reading your license plate. What did they do with that information? I don't know. We don't know what that is. We don't know where that information is going. I doubt that it's getting shared with the public, but I think the concern is it's being shared with law enforcement, and maybe I'm wrong. But that was the initial concern, that it was being shared with law enforcement, being shared with the federal government and ICE. It seems like this... The push against it now is more than that, and it's being shared for other purposes, but I don't know. I don't know. I'm not trying to think of an idea or an example of something that was banned that the state allows in other places. I'm trying to think of something. Maybe you can help me that we could use as an example here.

Yeah, most of what I'm coming up with off the top of my head are actually things like product recalls, which are voluntary by the company that makes the thing. Like, that's not a ban. But, like, places do ban things. Like, Monmouth used to be a dry town. Like, alcohol has been banned and unbanned in places.

I think the state allows cities to do that under home rule. i don't believe in like i said in in the case of of lprs they are being used by the state in our city And I don't think we can tell the state they can't use them in our city because of state preemption. 100%.

I totally understand that argument. I'm just, like, based on what I'm hearing, I'm having a hard time understanding how a ban on anything could stand up to a legal challenge, which doesn't seem like it matches with my experience of reality. That's where I'm at. Does that make sense?

Yeah. No, I get it. I mean, like I said, we're, you know... There's, when I went through this with our insurance carriers, attorneys and stuff, I mean, like I said, I don't want to create a roadmap of what those arguments would be for First and Fourth, 14th Amendment and Fifth Amendment. Although Fifth Amendment, I've kind of shared a little bit. I mean, if you spent $20,000 on cameras, if you're, we've been using them all night. As an example, if Lowe's or Home Depot spent $20,000 on flock cameras, and put them in their parking lot, and we said, well, they're no longer able to be used in our city, I believe that they would say, well, that's a taking. You owe us compensation for that if that's the case. And then are we prepared to do that?

Impossible damages. OK. Yes.

So in response to kind of Councilor Van Dremelen's, you know, and I've been kind of thinking as listening to Sean talk about, you know, in situations where products have been banned or something has been banned, and everyone that I can think of, it generally, and Sean, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, is it's usually based on, there's usually a state law or a federal law that's behind it, right? And then they've provided an option to a jurisdiction. You think about marijuana or mushrooms, There was state law that backed that, and they provided an option for jurisdictions. You could put an outright ban on it, or you could permit it. It's usually not, at least that, and I am not an attorney, just to be clear. You didn't play one on TV? That's right. It is. State of Holiday Inn Express. Exactly. But it is generally, at least to my knowledge, it's based out of state law that is giving jurisdiction an option to ban or not to ban.

Okay, that's actually really helpful and actually could be a potential avenue of advocacy for the city to ask the state in the next legislative session to give us options. So that's actually probably one of the most helpful things I've heard.

The legislative priorities, which we talked about. So that makes sense.

Thank you very much. Are we all good?

just to kind of condense my thoughts from earlier our residents should be able to be aware of when they enter a place where the cameras are used because we've seen time and time again we don't We don't know how many are being used or the general public doesn't know how many of these cameras are being used in our city. So if there was just simple signage alerting us that there are data collection cameras in use on this property that they are entering, that would be extremely helpful to just have an informed public.

Thank you.

Next on tonight's agenda. Can I ask for clarification on that? So is there a consensus on the council for me to explore that? Yeah. Yeah.

That sounds great. When can we expect that back?

Just to make sure. Well, it'll be after the break.

I know we have a little bit of a break, but like August 10th meeting, is it 11th or 10th?

Yeah. Yeah.

26.

Well, I think we actually have a 10th and a 12th meeting. We do. But I won't be here that week.

Okay. But I won't be here that week. Okay. All right. So August 26th.

Probably be back on that week.

24th or 26th, we'll have it.

Let's look. I'll look at what's on the agendas. And then if it's not, it sounds like we have a few things coming back on the 26th that could be interesting. controversial, but if it's not too packed, I could put it on the

work session that night although we don't want to adopt it that night that would be something you might want to look at first before and take a look at and see if yeah and see if it's something i i think that taking a look at it at a at a work session and being able to talk it out like i think that that's in alignment with some of the stuff that we've talked about as a council just in terms of process or are we talking about the 24th of august that yeah we'll discuss it and like as a work session throw spaghetti at the wall that's my birthday all right i'm gonna love that

There you go. Happy birthday.

Thank you.

Well, in like a month and a half.

Here's your present.

Yeah.

Thank you very much, counsel, for the discussion. Thank you, city attorney, and also acting city manager. Our city managers at the conference down in, and deputy are down at the conference. Next from the council is business from the public. I'm going to start with board one.

Business from the council.

Oh, excuse me. Business from the council. Counselor Thompson.

I don't have anything tonight.

Councilor Newton?

I have, well, I have a few things I'll be emailing to staff, like about an ordinance suggestion from one of my constituents, but it's about rabbit husbandry. But I also had a question. Yeah, rabbit husbandry.

Rabbit husbandry?

Yes, raising rabbits for me. Yeah, the breeding and keeping of rabbits. Yes. Okay. So I had someone reach out to me about the apartment complex plant on 53rd and Pacific. They were looking for the findings report from the outcomes of the appeal from city council. They said they aren't able to find them. They are only finding the one from planning commission and they're wondering if they're looking in the wrong place. I didn't see it as well online. And since I have Mr. Rutgers right here, you want to email that to me and I can forward it to this resident?

I sure can and I can also provide an update during business from manager.

Sweet, and then I also have some questions about a few things that I brought up on June 10th. I was asking, I also asked staff to evaluate opportunities to preserve the right-of-way for potential future lane expansion on 53rd Avenue as development and traffic expands, just to make sure that we don't have congested roadways in that area. Do we have an update on that?

You looked into it? I would have to check with Stacey Belcastro to see if we've got an update on that, but I have not seen one yet.

okay and then i also was wondering if we had an update from staff yet as well on the items i brought up on june 10th in relation to what our civic academy folks brought up uh the text alerts the accessibility improvements um at city facilities etc do we have we began looking into those or do we have any i just think accessibility number one like that should be we should be rushing to make sure that our community is more accessible. And so I'm just curious if we have any updates.

I will get a status on those and get an email out to you. So I'm not sure. Wonderful.

Okay, cool, thank you. That's all I have.

All right, thank you. Now, Councillor Smith.

I have three things this evening. The first is a request from a city employee to hang a version of the United States flag in the spot inside City Hall where the pride flag hangs in June. This is a modified Betsy Ross flag. The stars and stripes, well, the 13 stars in a circle, the stripes as traditional, and in the middle of the circle are the dates 1776-2026. The flag is one of a number of modified versions of the American flag that were developed as branding for Freedom 250. There were other modifications that were created for America 250. That was the official organization that was put together in 2016 to commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States. Anyway, as our flag policy requires, this request has come through a city councilor to the council for consideration. It could fall under subsection seven of section two as a commemorative flag, which can be displayed for a period of time that's customary for the subject that's to be commemorated. Commemorative flags are defined as a flag that identifies a specific historical event, cause, nation, or group of people that the city council chooses to honor or commemorate consistent with the city's mission and priorities. The following are not... allowed as commemorative flags and will not be considered by the City Council a flags of a particular religious movement or creed to avoid the appearance of city government endorsing religion or a particular religious movement or creed B flags of a political party to avoid the appearance of city government endorsing a political party and see flags advocating a certain outcome in an election I Will state my personal views and invite discussion of this request. In my opinion, no flag states support of the United States at any birthday better than the 50-star flag that hangs on our pole all the time. That's simply my, I think there's no bigger statement than that. If you have discussion of this matter, we can perhaps come to a conclusion and pass that decision on to the requester. Councilor Newton.

Is it just for this month? Like just for July of the year of the 250th?

One moment.

And who?

That's a check.

Okay.

Let me check that.

And then I have a second question as well. I know that the pride flag was donated.

This was privately purchased.

Okay.

So I'll go ahead and move on and then come back to you.

I have two other things.

Oh, you have two other things.

Yeah, I'm sorry. My two other things are I had two emails regarding fireworks enforcement. and had my first correspondent who asked about whether or not we enforce them. I explained how the system works and what needs to be done. He was happy with that, but also volunteered to help with any efforts that we may take to enhance that or change what we do. I have not heard from anything other than two other people. My third thing is that before we return from our break, we will be starting out into the fray of the annual election period. Anyway, I just wanted to remind my fellow counselors and members of the public that we have a number of positions that are going to be available for people to file for election starting on August 1st. One seat will be open-open. Others will have incumbents. And anyone who files for a seat on the city council should be aware that these seats are nonpartisan. We are not affiliated with nor represent any organized political party. We represent the people of Albany, period. I would also hope that for all candidates who either are in these chairs now or may want to sit in them, that there are no efforts to delay making important decisions before the election. We have a lot of work to do that's very important, and I want to make sure that we do as much of it as we can without the distraction of a campaign. I will continue looking for the original message about the flag.

That concludes my presentation.

I'll come back to you when you find it. Councilor McGee?

Sure. I have three things. One, just following up on a request I gave to staff regarding on Juneteenth as well, Juneteenth, June 10th, excuse me, regarding the parliamentary procedure update refresher, as well as the council conduct manual and a charter refresher. That would, if we can get that when we come back sometime, hopefully sometime in August, if not at least early September. The other thing is from the Civic Academy, not this year, the year before, we talked about a youth council, which I have been trying to get since being on council, and was told that we would have to wait to the next biennium. Well, we are about to be in the next biennium, so that I would want staff to look into that again about a youth council, at least having a youth representative youth representation on each one of our citizen advisory councils would be really helpful. So we can put that idea back out there and get that back on staff's radar. And Oh, if you are interested in the Braver Angels event that is happening in the LBCC tomorrow to talk about the Declaration of Independence, I believe it's at 6 p.m. So if you are interested in that, you are more than welcome. I don't know if any other counselors are going to that. There was a few of us who attended the 250 here at the Lynn County Courthouse. So if you, again, are interested in the Braver Angels event, it is happening tomorrow at 6 p.m. at LBCC. That's all.

Okay. Are you funded? Yep.

The request was for the rest of the month of July.

I'm with it. Council, you all good with that? Once we see the flag, the flag the rest of this month? No? The commemorative flag that she proposed.

You're saying are we?

Just bringing it back. No, just bringing it. Oh, that's right. We have to do it now.

No, we have an ordinance. We would need to just say if we want us to have an ordinance. We already have it under the current resolution.

Yeah, you just need to make a motion if you wanted to, Counselor.

Make a motion.

My motion is to deny the request. Oh, okay.

Second. Second.

Well, there's that. Are we going to discuss it? Or do I have to do anything because it was dying?

There's no.

Yeah, there's nothing. Yeah. Okay.

Well, we didn't die. We had a second.

We have a motion on the floor.

So there was no discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Thank you. Now it's killed. Okay, I have tomorrow, as well as Braver Angels, is our first Real Rhythms concert.

I think you missed a couple people.

An entire ward.

Oh, I'm sorry, I am so sorry.

Counselor McLeod.

Thank you. I have a couple things. I received a comment from a constituent about a noise complaint, not fireworks related, but vehicle muffler related. And I informed that resident that if they know the identity of the offending vehicle, that they should be contacting APD about it. If they can identify that vehicle, APD is the people to call about that. Also, I visited the splash pad at Monteith Park with my daughter recently. I noticed a small boy about 10 to 12 years old covering the drain at the splash pad, and that was creating a large pool of water. It created a backup, so it wasn't draining. The pool was about six inches or more. I tried to just go over there and simply remove the items from the drain. I don't want to say what items it was because I don't want people to get ideas. I tried to remove the items, but he repeatedly kept replacing them. I tried to explain to him how his actions can damage the splash pad and make it so that Other kids wouldn't be able to enjoy it if the system was damaged. He said he didn't care. That's what happened. I contacted the public works director and told her about the situation and told her that I asked the kid nicely multiple times and did not get a positive result. I told the public works director, I'm sorry, parks and recs director that I was concerned for the infrastructure of the system if kids keep doing this. And she wrote back to me that they're gonna brainstorm on what can be done to keep people from doing this and that she shares the frustrations when people continue to make poor choices that impact others and our facilities. And maybe we can just remind kids if we see them at the park doing things they shouldn't be doing. Tell them not to ruin it for the rest of us, please. Let's see. Also, let me pull up my other notes here. I wanted to thank Remy Hill, John Shamehals, Jasmine Flores, Olivia Leder, Brie Irish, and Hunter Hawthorne for coming to speak during public comment about the ALPR issue. Thank you for engaging with your city government. This is wonderful to see people out here and doing this. And lastly, I, like others on council, recently participated in a public reading of the Declaration of Independence, and that was super cool for the 250th of our country. It was very moving. I was glad to be a part of that. That's all I have. Thank you.

So my first item is just a very public thank you to our communications director and deputy city manager on Monday at our work session. I had to dip out and go get my three-year-old twins from daycare and bring them back to the meeting. And they were right there along with counselor Newton who donated the remainder of her snacks to my boys. So thank you to you as well. Our city staff, go above and beyond in unexpected and ways that are not required of them. And I just want to give credit where credit's due for grabbing city coloring books and whisking them to the dais seats. And they actually didn't want to leave after my wife showed up to pick them up. One of them uttered the phrase, no, I need to stay at city council, which I don't know that any three-year-old has ever said before. Yeah. But they're unique individuals. So I also have one more businessy item. So I was not here at our meeting on the 24th. However, I did review the materials and the video and wanted to bring back an item from the city manager's report at that meeting. related to the city-owned lots at 9th and Jackson Street that we declared surplus and attempted to sell and then ended up not selling. And the city manager reported, after there had been some complaints in the community about the cost to continue to trim the brush and maintain those lots, because while they're vacant, that doesn't mean that there are no maintenance, to the tune of about $2,000 a year. Thank you. which, while not a huge expense, we have no plan to use these lots for any city use at this time, which is why we declared them surplus. That is, in fact, what surplus property is. And the city manager also brought up that he had checked in and that the offer from Van Vliet Foods still stands for those three lots. And if that is in fact the case, I think we should revisit that as a council because I think that my reasoning on where I would fall on that today has has changed based on my understanding of the process that we chose to solicit bids for those lots and the fact that we're still doing nothing with them. So, I mean, I think that we need to either come up with a plan to use them. Or we should sell them if we still have a willing buyer. Because as I like to say, doing nothing is often what costs us quite a bit of money in the long term. And I would hate to see us continue to spend even just a couple of thousand dollars a year maintaining these lots that we have no plans to use when we could get something out of them, even if it's not quite what the appraised value was.

Is that it? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.

Can that be on the agenda at a future council meeting? Okay. There you go.

Yes. Thank you. Okay. Again, Braver Angels and the city's first concert is tomorrow, 6 o'clock. I will not be able to attend that because I'm going to the concert. So Fire Fabulous Thunderbirds will be here tomorrow. I did receive a request from a couple cities about our low income assistance programming. And I was wondering if someone could connect me with whoever I can get that from in the staff and appreciate that. I had a visit from a mayor that was I'm really interested in that program. And a couple city council from other cities reached out to me about that. The Lions Breakfast this year, if you haven't participated in the Lions Breakfast, it's always during the 4th of July weekend. I know that they saw probably 6,000 to 7,000 people over the weekend. And it was an amazing event. I've talked to a lot of great people. I met some very, very people from different cities. So the Lions Breakfast, they did a great job this weekend. And then there's the Albany Farmers Market Appreciation Day, and myself and a few other people, and we doled out 450-ish Sundays to the community. And the kids love raspberries and blueberries and Marion berries. And so that was a great fun for them. And if you look at the visitor's guide, the farmers market is on the front page of the visitor's guide. And then got the request. And I received a lot of really positive feedback from community about the fireworks, text messages, emails, and several people said, can we just do that every year and stop doing our neighborhood fireworks? And so I'll probably be coming back in the August timeframe and asking for what that would look like for the city and the three of us to get together and make that a longer term thing. So other than that, I will wait for the city manager's report.

Thank you, Mayor. So I just had a couple things, actually just some updates on the, for Councilor Newton, the request on the apartment complex, 53rd, that staff report should be on our planning website, but I'll double check that and I'll get that sent out to the council. And just also another update on that, That project is being appealed to LUBA. So the council decision there will be going to LUBA. We just got notice of that appeal this last week, so. And then on the night.

I'm sorry, which one was that?

That was the 53rd Street apartment complex.

Thank you.

Yeah, behind the bowling alley. And then to Councillor Van Dremelen, the 9th and Jackson properties, I actually had planned on putting together a memo. I've actually received a formal email from Mr. Van Vliet expressing his continued interest in that property. So I'll be putting together a package and was intending to bring that back to council for further consideration of HIS BASICALLY EXISTING OFFER, SO WE'RE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION. BUT CANCEL WILL GET AN OPPORTUNITY TO DISCUSS THAT AGAIN. AND THEN THE LAST ITEM I HAD WAS JUST A REMINDER FROM OUR I.T. DIRECTOR, SEAN PARK, IS HOPEFULLY EVERYBODY BROUGHT THEIR SMARTPHONES AND LAPTOPS AS WE NEED THOSE TURNED IN TONIGHT FOR JUST SOME UPDATES. SO IT'S VERY EXCITING STUFF. After that, end of report.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Acting City Manager Matthew Rutgers. He actually has another Hattie where he's Community Development Director. Next meeting will be August 10th, 2026 as a work session. And then Wednesday, August 12th for our City Council meeting. And with that, I'll adjourn the meeting. Have a good evening.