City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to welcome you to Albany City Council meeting, Wednesday, August 12th, 2026 at 6 p.m. I now call the meeting to order. Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge of Allegiance.

City Recorder, may I have a roll call, please?

Councilor Thompson? Here. Councilor Van Drimmelen? Here. Councilor Smith?

Here.

Councilor McGee?

Present.

Councilor Newton? Mayor Johnson?

Here. Thank you very much. So before we get started, I'm going to make an adjustment to the agenda. We're going to go into an executive session, so we'll be asking folks to leave, except for personnel. press and personnel that are presenting to talk about some issues. So I'm going to go ahead and do that now. Yes. After that's over, we'll go back in a regular session and invite you back in. The City Council will now meet in executive session to conduct deliberations with persons designated by the governing body to negotiate. Please keep it quiet. Thank you. body to negotiate real property transactions in accordance with ORS 192.660 subparagraph 2, paragraph E. Representatives of the news media and designated staff and other persons shall be allowed to attend the executive session. All others will be asked to participate to exit. Online audience members will be moved into a waiting room. And when the council returns to open session, staff will readmit those online remaining for the meeting in the waiting room. In-person audience members must leave the council chambers and wait in the hallway. When the council returns to open session, staff will open the doors and you may rejoin the meeting. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any deliberations during the executive session except to state the general subject of the session as previously announced. No decisions will be made in executive session. Okay, so everybody cleared out?

613 PM.

Well, council, there's a motion before you. Councilor Van Dremelen.

I move to modify the current settlement agreement between the City of Albany and SVC Manufacturing Inc. to provide the City of Albany with half of any gross sales proceeds in excess of $11 million, but in no event less than $5 million, which SVC receives on the sale of the property it owns in Albany.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Please keep it down, please. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion before we move on? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those in favor say no. Can we do a roll call, please?

Councillor Thompson? Yes. Councillor Van Drommelen? Aye. Councillor Smith? Yes. Councillor McGee?

Aye. Motion passes, thank you. Four to zero. Thank you, council. Next on tonight's agenda is adoption of the consent calendar. Would the council like to make a motion or make any changes?

I move that we adopt this consent calendar as written.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. Thank you, council. Let's move on. OK. Next on tonight's agenda is public comment. Is it time for Albany residents to speak and for councilors to listen? The council will not discuss topics, respond to questions, or make decisions in public comment time. but will take those comments and recommendations or requirements requests under advisement. All persons in attendance at a public meeting shall avoid conduct which is unreasonably loud, disruptive, or profane, Rude and slanderous and threatening remarks will not be permitted. Whistling, yelling and foot stomping, clapping and displaying signs or speech out of order is not permitted. Speakers are limited to three minutes and must follow the council's rules and observe the same standards of decorum. If unable to do so, they will 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.

So was it two or three? This one you just put up here, right?

Okay. Okay, got it. So we have two pieces of written documentation that were sent in by Cameron Sadamar and Mark Stewart. And the first person on the list today is Melody Drown McMasters.

We have three minutes for your comments.

Thank you. So I just speak now?

Yes, have a seat please. Pull the microphone so we can hear you.

My name is Melody Drown McMaster and I live at 1372 Northwest West Thornton Lake Drive, Albany, Oregon. I'm here to offer my personal perspective on agenda item 6A, sewer system.

Can you sit down please so we can hear you on the mic, sorry.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I sort of said, please have a seat. Would you like me to start over? Please restart your time. You disrupted her. Thank you.

You want me to start at the top again? Yes, please.

Okay, thank you.

My name is Melody Drown-McMaster. I live at 1372 Northwest, West Thornton Lake Drive, North Albany. I'm here to offer my personal perspective on Ingentum Item 6A, Sewer System Connection Requirements and Funding Options. I am one of the homeowners mentioned in the presentation materials. I am providing a copy of an email I shared previously with some city and county representatives. This is a stressful time for me. Please forgive me if I become emotional. My life is literally dependent on your decisions, and I want to say the right thing. Last January 11th, my septic system tank lid fell in, creating an open hole in my yard. Not big, but it'll get bigger. And the tank's side cracked. My drain field continues to fudge. Well, it's been eight months. I'm a dishwasher. I'm a washing machine. Yada, yada, yada. Nothing. Nothing backing up. It is perfect. It does not need, because I understand, up the road, theirs aren't working. That's a health hazard. There's no health hazard for me. And so I applied for a permit on March 9th to repair my septic system by installing a new tank, and I was approved by a CRAFT III state-supported low-interest loan for up to $25,000, which would have covered the cost of the new tank. With this repair, my septic would have been back to functioning well, and it does anyways. After several months of back and forth between Benton County and the city of Albany, I received the devastating news that I'm not allowed to install a new tank to repair my septic system i am required to connect to city sewer which will cost 50 to 200 000 i have no way to come up with this amount of money how many people can and we just in general you guys can think about yourselves you could just whack up 50 to 200 000 after um So I'm unable to use my property as collateral because I had to get a reverse mortgage last year so I wouldn't lose my home after my husband died, David died suddenly from a heart attack in February 2025. Even if I were able to borrow that much money, I couldn't afford the loan payments. We're talking $50,000 up. My monthly income is $1,533 in Social Security, which is barely enough to cover my property taxes, insurance, utilities, food, And dog food. If I tried to sell my home now, it would be at a much reduced price because of the septic situation. And I would have almost nothing left after paying off the reverse mortgage to Mutual of Omaha. Then where would I go with my beautiful dogs, Rosie and Mila, who give me unconditional love every day and are my only family since David died?

Thank you very much. Could you hand that to him so we can get the city records?

Sure.

Thank you. Next is Mark Stewart. Just remember, that's your state, whether you're Latin, you live in the city of Albany.

Good evening. My name is Mark Stewart. I do live in the city of Albany. So I submitted 81 slides that has this report that I've got in my hand to the council so you guys have got it. When I made the submission, I was told by the website two times that you've got the option, Mr. Mayor, to extend these three minutes should you choose to do so. I think the public has a right to hear what I'm about to say. June the Public Safety Commission came together and unanimously voted with the members that were there at the time to create a special session to go over this report involving the current oil and energy situation it was a unanimous vote and then it just didn't happen fast forward to the August 5th meeting and it was put on to the agenda to go over the report but before the meeting really got kicked off a motion was raised to just not do the report and it ended up going to a tie and the chair sided with the motion with the addendum that we take 15 minutes to try to do an ad hoc version of this report. which honestly, it wasn't enough time. And it really didn't stick. And I know it didn't stick because the consensus that came back from the commission was basically what I would expect to hear if this were to be brought up even here at the council. That being, this is a federal issue and it should be handled federally. And on the surface, I agree. That is correct. Ironically, though, it is detailed in this report why that might not actually be an option and might not actually happen. I am a little upset and disturbed because we can barely get a quorum usually in this Commission and yet back in May we managed to get the entire Commission together to come out for an impromptu session that was on short notice to go over the flock situation and We had everybody there and that was a crazy meeting because the public actually showed up for that one voiced their opinion very strongly against it and then the Commission and a split vote decided to go against the public and Recommend it to the council So as far as I'm aware, the commission did not vote to have that meeting. So that is an interesting precedent to be setting here. Again, I'm pretty upset about that because a lot of effort has gone into this, and it is very important. As many of choice words as I might wanna throw down right now, the report is more important.

Thank you for your submission. We've all received it and we're all gonna read it. Thank you. All right. Ross Walther? Did I pronounce that right? Walther, yeah, okay.

I'm a city of Albany resident. I live at 310 Clover Ridge. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight regarding the requirement that I construct a new section of public sewer main along Dunlap Avenue as a condition of connecting my home to the city sewer system. I want to be clear, I'm not opposed to connecting my home to city sewer. What I'm asking is that I be allowed to make the connection that actually serves my property without being required to construct approximately 150 feet of additional public sewer infrastructure along Dunlap Avenue that my home does not need. My house faces Clover Ridge, my utilities come from Clover Ridge, and there is already an existing sewer main as well as existing connecting infrastructure on Clover Ridge available to serve my home. I do not need to connect to sewer from Dunlap Avenue in order for my home to receive sewer service. Dunlap Avenue along the side of my property is a privately owned driveway requiring Me to construct a public sewer main along the side of my property is therefore not about providing sewer service to my existing home, is about extending public infrastructure for potential future needs beyond the connection I am requesting today. The city engineer has also confirmed that there is no sewer main extension project on Dunlap Avenue listed in the capital improvement program, and that there is no immediate imminent development plan that would use this new sewer main. That means I would be required to construct significant public infrastructure today that my home does not need for development that may or may not occur sometime in the future. This is an existing single family home. I'm not subdividing my property, creating additional lots, or proposing a development that creates new demand for sewer infrastructure along Dunlop Avenue. The sewer extension the city is requiring would provide no additional sewer benefit to my home beyond what is already available from Clover Ridge. I also believe the history of the neighboring church is important. When Grace Point Church connected to the city sewer, from my understanding, they were allowed to defer certain public improvement requirements through a petition for improvement and waiver of remonstrance, rather than being required to construct those improvements immediately. That demonstrates the city has previously recognized circumstances where required immediate construction of public infrastructure was not necessary or appropriate. I understand the city's policy regarding utilities to and through a property, but policy should also be reasonable reasonably to the actual circumstance of the property. In this case, my home can already be served from Clover Ridge and requiring Dunlop Avenue sewer extension does not improve sewer service to my home. I respectfully ask the Council to look at what is actually necessary to serve my property today and to allow me to connect my existing home to the public sewer system through an existing infrastructure on Clover Ridge Road without requiring me to construct or finance a public sewer main extension along Dunlap Avenue. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you very much.

Next is Mary Stade.

Good evening, Mayor Johnson and members of the City Council. I am Mary Staid, head coach and team market owner of the Willamette Valley Jaguars, a professional basketball team that competes in the basketball league. We are pleased that the president of the TBL, David Magley, has joined us here tonight. And I am also joined with our organization partners, Cindy Murphy, Dr. Barry Jerkins, our franchise player, Tavo Johnson, and community partner, Akita Ramsey from Akita Clips. When I first joined the Willamette Valley Jaguars as the head coach in April of 2025, I remember wondering what did Jaguars have to do with Oregon. At first, I thought the name was simply a team name, but the longer I have been a part of this community, the more I have become to understand that the Jaguars can represent here. When I took the Jaguars, When I look at the Jaguars today, I no longer ask what a Jaguar has to do with Oregon. I think about what the Jaguar meant in Oregon, specifically to the Willamette Valley. It can represent a community that is strong, connected, resilient, and willing to invest in its young people. We may be a professional basketball team, but our identity should extend far beyond the basketball court. We have also made our games more about about what happens, more about what happens between the lines. Through our Game Changer Nights, we bring attention to local nonprofits, community organizations, causes, individuals, and businesses that are making a difference in the Albany community. Showing up for our local businesses, showing up for our organizations that need support, and showing up for the community that supports us is what we are all about. We are proud to call Albany home and we want to be a long-term community partner. not simply a tenant, not simply an entertainment option, but an organization that contributes to the quality of life and identity of this community. I appreciate the city council allowing me a few minutes tonight to introduce the Jaguars, and more importantly, to share our vision for what we can accomplish together. We believe the Willamette Valley Jaguars can be more than a basketball team, we can be a community team. And we would welcome the opportunity to work with the city of Albany, local organizations, businesses, schools, and residents to make that a vision, a reality. Thank you for your time and your service to Albany and for allowing us to be part of this community.

Thank you. Next is David Mowley. Mowley? Magley, excuse me. Magley.

Thank you, Mayor. I am the president of the Basketball League with Mary. Thank you all for your support of our organization. We want to be a community asset here. We want to be the person that you look to when you need something for your community, whether it's the nonprofits, whether it's the homeless shelters, whether it's reading to schools, we will not be successful if we're not visible and we're important to what we do. I'm not taking up three minutes. I'm not going to take up one minute. I just want to come and say thank you all for supporting us. We have 40 teams. We're broadcast to eight in Canada, 32 in America. We're broadcast to 145 countries. Every time they're on, they're talking about Albany, Oregon every time they play a game. So we want to represent you well. Thank you all, and thank you for having us tonight.

Thank you. Next is John Robinson. Is he here? Oh there he is.

Good evening. I'm John Robinson. I'm a resident business owner in Albany. I want to address a council about the events of the past week. As you know, I filed a complaint against Carolyn McLeod on Monday, and on Thursday, she resigned her office. I believe that she chose the easy way out because she didn't want to face her fellow counselors in executive session and answer the hard questions in person. This matter is far from being settled just because she's resigned. Her resignation letter contained a lot of deflection. She never took ownership or admitted her wrongdoing. She maintained her incorrect understanding that she can live wherever she wants during her term. She also accused me of attempting to, quote, intimidate, stalk, harass, and weaponize public records, whatever that means. I've not done any of that. What I have done is attempted to hold accountable a publicly elected official, and that right is the right of every citizen. But Carolyn has chosen to use these socially charged words to further place herself as a victim when the truth is the city of Albany are the actual victims. The citizens of Albany are the actual victims, in particular Ward 2. We still need to ask some hard questions and get all this settled before moving forward. For instance, the Democrat Herald has reported that Councilor Newton knew about Carolyn's move earlier this year. The follow-up question that needs to be asked is why didn't Councillor Newton bring it to the whole council's attention? Does she also wrongly believe that you can move from the ward you serve? Councillor Thompson has not publicly answered either of those questions. Until everyone can affirm the same belief of the charter rules regarding residency, we cannot move forward. And so, I'm requesting a council meeting agenda item where the council can publicly query each other over this matter and get the input of City Attorney Sean Kidd and City Manager Peter Trudson. You cannot all be on the same team and serve with unity if everybody has a different understanding of the rules. So let me close with this. You should all be commended for the sacrifice and countless hours you devote to serve the city. So thank you for your service. It's a thankless job, and it's not lost on people like me. I understand the time commitment, the calls day and night from people whining and complaining. Sometimes that call is for me. But that's the job you signed up for. If you can't or won't follow the rules and act ethically, then maybe this work is not a good fit for you. Because we need people who hold a higher standard. There should never, ever even be a whisper of something inappropriate going on. You all need to be holding each other accountable. So please do some individual self-evaluation. I'll be your biggest supporter, but you have to act ethically and with integrity. Again, thank you for your time and your attention to what I consider this to be a very important matter.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Next on tonight's, was anybody online? Nobody online? Okay. Next on tonight's agenda is is an action item for consideration adopting an ordinance amending AMC Chapter 15.06, private construction of public improvements to incorporate SB 974 requirements. The first reading was held on July 8th, 2026. A motion to read the ordinance for the second time entitled only was not unanimously passed, not unanimous. Charter Section 37 requires unanimous consent to have the second reading in the ordinance in the same meeting. Would the city manager please read the ordinance a second time on title only.

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

Council like to hear from staff on this topic? Councilor Thompson?

Yeah, maybe, so you've already, you're proposing the updates that you're required to make. How do you feel about staff time in relation to this?

I don't think this will affect staff time at all because this requirement puts a time clock on us. We already have a stricter one policy-wise in place already. If anything, we have to send out a couple more letters, and I've already created templates for those anyways, so it's not really going to affect staff time at all.

You know, I, thank you. I just add, you know, so we've had time since we first heard this and I went through the underlying bill and the back and forth in the legislature and numerous cities and even a couple of counties. It was not unanimous. The final vote was not unanimous. Some cities and counties raised objections. Of course, the bill was amended as that's the legislative process, but, um, You know, like I said before, we're told we have to adopt. It's what we do because the state law would supersede anything we did. But I just have to say, once again, this is Salem dictating to us and other cities, and other cities were more forceful against it. And I just, I think it's more of the same. And I hope it ends at some point.

That's all I'll say.

Thank you.

Councilor McGee, do you have anything?

I do not. Council?

Okay. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance? And is there a second?

I move to adopt the ordinance as presented in the packet.

Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Thank you, Council. Next on tonight's agenda is an action item for ordinance to repeal an outdated ordinance, ordinance number 5293, Albany Police Department Inventory Search Procedure. Does the staff have a report?

Thank you, Mayor. This should be a quick one for you tonight. City Recorder's Office maintains a list of expired or outdated resolutions and ordinances. We dealt with the resolutions earlier tonight in the consent calendar. We did discover this ordinance number 5293, which pertains to police department inventory search procedures. That was a pretty old ordinance, I believe from 1997. It has been contained in APD policy. It is covered by case law and is regularly updated. As this one is an ordinance, we could not handle it by the consent calendar, so it's presented here tonight for possible action.

Does the council have any questions of staff? Councilor McGee?

No.

Okay. Does the council wish to discuss the ordinance?

I think the next thing is it needs to be read in title only.

That's the next step.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's an ordinance for your consideration on page 43 of the council packet. Would the city manager please read the ordinance in the title only?

An ordinance repealing ordinance number 5293 relating to procedures for Albany Police Department inventory searches.

Okay. Is there a motion to read the ordinance a second time and title only?

I'll move to read the ordinance a second time.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Oh, thank you, Counselor. We got a delay. So we was passed. We had a roll call. We'll do a roll call.

We need to read it a second time in title only.

An ordinance repealing ordinance number 5293 relating to procedures for Albany Police Department inventory searches.

Would the city, okay, we've read that. Is there a motion that did that? Okay, we kind of lost here. Would the city manager did that? Is there a second?

We need to have a motion to adopt now.

So we have a motion to adopt the ordinance. I'll move to adopt the ordinance.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Will the city manager read the ordinance a second time on title only?

We already did that part.

Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? So all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. Thank you. Motion passes. What's the next one? Appeal. Adopt by motion, pilot program include youth members in the select city advisory groups. Matt Herring has a presentation on your packet, page 47 to 51.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'll be pretty brief tonight. This is an idea that came out of our very first Civic Academy. It's taken us a while to... formulate this proposal, but we have it before you tonight. We wanna start a one year pilot program involving high school age youth on five of our citizen advisory groups. And they're listed in the memo. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them at this time.

Is there a presentation?

There is no presentation. It's all outlined in the memo and the attachment.

Just processing, I think Councilor McGee kicked off this idea from the time that I got on, before I got on council. But secondly, you know, there are on the school board, obviously the nature of school, there are student representatives. And over the time they're, This is a message to all the chairs of the various committees that will have students. You have to be intentional to make sure they're heard. And I think being able to, I don't know how you phrase it, but when they are selected at their schools, there should be kids that are willing to speak up. That's the biggest thing, just that intentionality that we need to hear from them.

Yeah, I think we hit on that in the attachment to the memo. I saw, I did. I'm just, you did, and I'm just reading, I think that's the biggest thing.

And I'd say not just the chairs, I'd say the other adult members have to.

We reached out to the chairs of the groups that are listed. There's actually really strong support from the Transportation Advisory Commission. They're super excited, especially with all the work coming up with the TSP update and that sort of thing, so.

Yeah, no, this is great. This is great work here. So, Councilor McGee, do you have anything?

I do. Thank you, Councilor Thompson, for the alley-oop. I appreciate that. I'm super excited about this. You are right. This was something that I really, really wanted to come to fruition, and I'm really excited about the CAGs that were chosen to have youth representation and anything I could do to support this. Please let me know. I am super excited about this. I think it's extremely important to have our youth represented represented and to hear their voice in our communities. This is moving us forward in a really positive direction. So I'm grateful for it. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Counselor. And for me, with the FOA Mayor Contest, this kind of leads right into creating that excitement. And I will share with you that we've had several winners in a row at first place at state. And one of them graduates from the University of Idaho next spring. Hadley Hoops-Efka reached out to me today. She sent me a text about what's going on with her. She's going to have her bachelor's and master's. She's going through a master's program. and it's exciting for that program, the Infraward Mayor Contest, people like her would be great on one of these commissions. So I'm excited about this as well. So great job, Councilor. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I just need a motion.

Councilor Van Gemelen?

I move to approve the one-year youth representative pilot program for the 2026-2027 academic year as outlined in the packet. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Thank you. Motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. I had to pause for her to get it. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great job, Matt. Appreciate it. Adoption by motion, award of a contract, SS-25-02, 2025 pipe bursting to K&R Plumbing Construction Company in Clackamas, Oregon, to replace existing sewer mains in the end of service life. So Stacey Belcastro is gonna give us a presentation or talk to us on page 52 to 53 in your packet.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. So I have the next TWO ITEMS. FOR THIS ITEM, STAFF IS RECOMMENDING THAT COUNCIL AWARD A CONTRACT TO KNR PLUMBING. THIS IS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE, EXCUSE ME, THE 2025 Pipe Bursting Project. THE CONTRACT AMOUNT IS $799,862. and we received three bids for the project, ranging from the low bid up to just over a million. The engineer's estimate was $825,000. So this project is included in our current capital improvement program and is funded in the current budget. Staff is recommending that council, by motion, award the contract to the low bidder, K&R Plumbing.

Council, any questions for the engineer? I don't have, Councilor McGee, you have any questions? I don't.

I move to award the contract to K&R Plumbing per the recommendation from staff.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Thank you, Council. Next on tonight's agenda, thank you very much. Motion passed.

I think I'm still here.

Oh, you're still here? Yeah. Oh, sewer system, okay. You're looking at her smiling at me.

Yeah.

Yeah, informational briefings with staff reports, sewer system connection requirements and funding options. Stacy Belcastro, pages 56 through 71 in your packet.

Thanks.

It's working. I always panic when I have to do these, but okay. All right, so good evening again. Tonight I'm going to be reviewing sewer connection policy and funding for mechanisms that are used to extend public sewer in Albany. The staff memo and this presentation can be found in the agenda for tonight's meeting on pages 56 through 71. I'm going to review the current policy to extend and connect to public sewer, and then we will look at recent requests from property owners along with some past examples that highlight some of the reoccurring challenges, especially when failed septic systems are involved on residential properties. And then finally, I'll be presenting some recommendations and next steps for council to consider and asking for council direction regarding the recent requests and if Council wants to go forward with developing assistance options in hardship cases.

Could you please keep it down while we're having discussion, please?

So on this slide, it's a high level look at the policies that shape how sewer extensions and connections work in albany there are two distance based rules both state and albany municipal code require that a property connect to public sewer if it's within 300 feet now recently just this january this year the state law was revised and so now If sewer is 200 feet away, they will approve a minor repair on a residential property. The other policy that impacts how sewer extends is the to and through policy. This policy ensures the orderly expansion, but it definitely can impose a significant cost on an individual property owner, especially when the connection is required because of a health hazard.

Absolutely.

So the question I have refers to this 250, 200 foot rule. It allows repair and alteration to a septic serving a residential dwelling when it's at least 250 feet away. Does that apply to anything we have going on now?

It doesn't, no.

And on that one, when you say a minor repair, what does that mean?

That could be a lid's damaged. Maybe there's a crack in the tank. So we do work with the Benton County or Lynn County sanitation person, and they, like, work with DEQ to determine, like, what's going to be required.

So probably not a full septic replacement, but a system that can feasibly be repaired would kind of be an easy thumbnail for.

Yes.

Okay, cool. Thank you.

Okay, so we do have some tools available right now for cost recovery and deferring the construction of infrastructure that a property owner can use. The first tool is connection charges and capital recovery agreements. So these are the main reimbursement tool that's available when a property constructs infrastructure that somebody else can connect to. the city collects connection charges and when there's a capital recovery agreement in place, if and when another property connects to the infrastructure, then they're partially reimbursed for their investment. In 2018, I wanted to note that council voted that connection charges should be collected and moved to the general reserve account in each of the respective capital funds for the utilities. This allowed their use to be reviewed with development of the capital improvement program. So before 2018, there was a specific line item for connection charge reserve that was in each capital fund, water, storm water, transportation, and sanitary sewer, and those funds were restricted to only be used on infill projects. The petition and waiver is a document that is signed and recorded on a property. It defers construction of infrastructure when it's untimely to construct the sewer in this case. The documents can be confusing for property owners So a situation that has happened in the past is a petition and waiver will be recorded on a large parcel, that parcel subdivides. The document stays on any individual property that's created and it's common that people don't understand what that document is obligating them to invest in and pay for future infrastructure.

So let me ask you a question. So would that be something that the Realtors Association could benefit having that education? Yes, actually, yeah. So I'm going to talk to some realtors that I know and see if they would appreciate something like that and figure out a way to make that happen.

Thank you. I mean, that's something that should come up on any title report.

But remember, some agents don't, they work with, the agent might know, but the title report, people don't, you do know. So the education up front would then prevent, you know, that would trigger that action.

There was considerable discussion about this very thing when your subdivision was built. Nobody knew. There were P&Ws all over those properties and nobody knew about them. They had not been told by their realtors and they were, most distressed to find out that they were obligated to something they hadn't had any prior say in.

Thank you. Sorry about that.

Yeah, no, this discussion is great. So please interrupt if there's any questions. The last thing on the petition and waivers is they create confusion for property owners. because of this past councils, not this particular council per se, but past councils have asked staff to limit their use to avoid situations like the subdivision that Councilor Smith brought up. So the way infrastructure is built in in Albany basically three ways. So it's a property owner funded extension, and there can be a capital recovery agreement in place if it's applicable. We could also form a local improvement district. And with a local improvement district, that means that properties within the boundary will be assessed cost of constructing the infrastructure. And then the last way is city funds construction of the infrastructure. Sorry, I just combined construction and infrastructure. So the next set of slides, they're gonna provide examples of the current and past sewer extensions. Some common themes that you'll probably key in on is that the cost of extending Infrastructure is very expensive. Situations are often triggered by a health hazard, so it's not necessarily a property owner's decision to connect to the sewer. And construction of new sewer lines will impact a property's ability on whether or not they can repair their septic tank. They may be 350 feet away and then you know, one month and then the sewer gets extended and they're in a completely different situation. So for 2634 Valley View, the property owner reported septic issues to staff and I believe they even spoke to council under business from the public. There is public sewer at the east property line Current policy to and through requires that the sewer be extended across the Valley View frontage, and the estimated cost for this project is $200,000. In 2010, I wanted to point out that the property at 2600 Valley View, they experienced a septic failure. In this case, the city elected to fund extension of public sewer that allowed that property to connect. and also impacting the current property's ability to be able to repair their septic system.

So what cases drive whether the city funds it or the homeowner funds it?

It's a council decision.

Thank you.

1372 West Thornton Lake Drive. The property has a failed septic and the estimated cost to construct sewer to and through the property is approximately, again, $200,000. I will say that staff has been working with Benton County Health, who has also been doing work with the Department of Environmental Quality, DEQ, and In this case, we believe there is a path to defer construction of the sewer. Planning department and the engineering department would have to sign a document saying it wasn't timely to extend sewer at this time. A petition and waiver would also need to be recorded on the property, but that is a path to deferring construction. This site also has some, like this area also has some history. So like just two years ago in 2024, there was a property, 1357, that had a felled septic system. In this case, the county sanitarian decided that it was a minor repair. I believe they were able to get Roto-Rooter out there to clear roots from some pipes. and so they were able to repair the septic system, but initially they were going down the path to construct public sewer. Again, it was too expensive, and so they withdrew that request.

The property, Ms. Drown-McMaster spoke earlier and she said that her septic has not failed. It needs repair. Yeah. Anyway, just wanted to make sure I heard that correctly.

Thanks for that clarification. Yeah, and that's probably one of the reasons why the Benton County Health has been working with DEQ to explore the option of doing the repair versus extending the sewer. So this property is within 200 feet, so that new law doesn't come into play. But in this case, there is another path. So still staying in the same area, I wanted to bring this up that in 2010, or no, 2006, so 20 years ago, but I mean, in the whole scheme of things, not that long ago, there were two septic failures that resulted in a request that the city form a local improvement district. And initially, you can see the properties that were going to be included in the local improvement district, the boundaries, the black old line. And initially, there was 50% support from the benefiting properties for this LID. But after staff shared what the estimated costs were to extend the sewer, that support was withdrawn. And the two properties that had the failed septics were able to replace them. This kind of shows that septic failures often can happen like in geographic clusters, probably due to just the timing of construction. but that kind of exasperates if one property extends the sewer, or if the city does, it's gonna impact another property in that area. 310 Clover Ridge Road. This case illustrates an optional connection scenario. So sewer is available on Clover Ridge Road, but extension along Dunlap Avenue would be necessary to meet the to and through policy. So staff has not initially offered this property the option to sign a petition and waiver to defer construction of the sewer down Dunlap. That extension does need to happen. It is an option. I guess the worry is that if the property to the west were to have a health hazard, then they would be paying to extend the sewer across 310 plus their own frontage. But with the petition and waiver, it's possible that council could elect to do a local improvement district. It just kind of illustrates all the the different concerns when making these policy decisions.

So the gentleman just spoke today, right? So 310 Clover Ridge, so it looks like there's a connection near his property, but we want him, he's been asked to extend past that?

That meets our to and through policy. And it is especially burdensome on a property with multiple frontages like this.

You understand? Yeah.

No, I hear what you're saying, Mr. Mayor. if I may.

Yeah, please.

So I've heard the capital improvement plan brought up a couple of times with folks talking about connecting to city water, city sewer, like, and folks checking with public works and, and finding out like, well, this isn't in the capital improvement plan, which for short segments sort of makes sense, but also like, bear with me here as an infrastructure person, um, our general philosophy and indeed our policy is that we want homes and businesses within the city to be connected to city sewer as a general exist and, and what it would take to actually remedy that. And so that the council could at least have that in front of us and look at the like, okay, how pervasive is this issue? Where is it geographically concentrated? Because I think from some of these slides, I have a pretty good idea of where this is most prevalent, but what would it actually take for the city to take some action on this issue and writ large. And I get it. We're like, that's part of what we're starting down here today, but do you kind of get where I'm going on? Like, I'd like to see this. Some kind of mechanism. Yeah. Like what would it, what would it take to, to, for us to at least start chipping away at addressing this more broadly, kind of like the same way that we're talking about with street funding in, in a little bit here. Like, does that, would we be able to do that?

Yeah.

And what kind of work would at least get some information on what it would take to do that?

yeah i mean staff could come back to a future work session um director trombino actually kind of took a first step to look at that trying to estimate how many septic systems there could be within the urban growth boundary there's no um like specific record found that tracks that but the estimate was quite large. Yeah.

Thousands? Regardless of the fact that the real estate person in me says, like, well, this is a known property condition. Also, as you say, people aren't expecting estimates of hundreds of thousands of dollars to extend a sewer line. I mean, I understand how much a sewer line costs. They're not cheap. And the bigger they get, the more expensive they are. But... I don't think that the average property owner is prepared for what that looks like. And I think the delta between what the average property owner might be able to contribute toward that and the actual cost of construction is probably diverging wider every year. Is that a fair characterization? Yes. So I think we need to do something systematic here.

So, Director, you have something?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor, Council. As Stacy indicated, we've had quite a bit of conversation about this post the request. And so I did, basically what I did is an analysis on existing homes. You can kind of figure out how many have utility connections overall. So basically the round figure is right around about 950 septic systems still inside the city boundary. You can validate that. What we'd actually have to do is pull every single permit from both counties, right? So that's the work that would be required to do that. And we can do that. I was just trying to get a ballpark figure. So if you say about 950, most of those systems, so a septic system typically lasts 20 to 40 years. The vast majority of those are probably 1974 or earlier. So you can see that we're in the cycle, but likely they are at the end of their life, hence why we're starting to see these issues crop up. So that gives you sort of a basis of where that is, and then I think we can do some more analysis to give you a broader, like, hey, here's the... Yeah, because I'd like to know, like, how many lineal feet of sewer...

Are we looking at like to, in order to like, cause that, that depends on a lot of things. Like not every property is going to have the same amount of frontage, like, you know, skinny little lot. It's going to be, you know, maybe 50 feet of sewer main versus 70, 80. Yeah. Like 200, 300 feet. so that's good data yeah that'd be some good data to have definitely because like you said we're going to more and more of these as things progress because they're on their way useful life yes well and and nominally like by the end of their useful life we're supposed to be retiring those systems like the property owners are supposed to be retiring those systems and connecting to city sewer yeah that was always the plan yeah

If I can comment.

Go ahead, please. This is a great idea, and I'm kind of seeing it in my head as part of the regular list of things that we do every year, like the pipe bursting projects and the slurry seal and picking areas where this work needs to be done, including it in the capital improvement program and just the next one that comes up on the list, we do it next year. Is that ridiculous or is that kind of where it's heading?

No, I think it's a balancing issue, right? There's still capital improvements that have to happen, right? And it'll be a balancing issue like all areas that we wanna maybe exercise dollars into, there would be a balancing question. And so I think we'd have to show you obviously the ballpark range of a cost

but also sort of weigh that against priorities that we have of improvements that we need to make in in say the sewer system as a whole or the water lines as a whole so it's a balance issue so thank you so what i'm thinking is uh is there a way we can create a program that we can get grant funds for this to help you know going forward not just our own our money but for state infrastructure funds to help with some of these changes or making these improvements

Yeah, and there's a history of that happening. So the North Albany health hazard area, I think that was 1990 around that time. And then there was also the Draperville health hazard. And both of those projects did have part of the funding were grants, typically through the EPA that helped fund the extensions.

Thanks. Thank you for your presentation. We're not making, you're not done yet. You're not done yet.

I took us down a rabbit hole.

It's all right. No, but that was, that properly came up. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. Go ahead.

No, this is great because actually the last slide, I'm sort of asking for direction and was hoping to get this type of recommendation. So, I mean, I guess I could quit, but I have a couple more examples. Go ahead. Okay. So this isn't a recent request, but it just provides history that I think is relevant to these recent requests. And in 2016, the property at 2650 had a failed septic system. They were required to extend and connect a public sewer because of a 2011 project that 1066 completed. In this case, the city council did elect to fund construction of that sewer. SEWER LINE, AND THERE WERE FOUR PROPERTIES THAT ENDED UP CONNECTING.

WHERE'S 1066 AT? IT'S... OH, I SEE. OKAY, WE FOUND IT.

OKAY. OH, WHOOPS. AND THEN JUST TWO YEARS LATER, THERE WAS ANOTHER FAILED SEPTIC AT 2565 SKYLINE, AND THE PROJECT THAT WAS DONE THE PREVIOUS YEAR MEANT THAT they were required to extend and connect to public sewer. And in this case, again, the city elected to fund the sewer extension, and there were three properties that connected to the sewer.

So was there any fees that those homeowners had to pay to connect?

All the property owners that connected to sewer paid connection fees and systems development charges, and they're currently, City of Albany, sewer customers.

Thank you.

So staff's recommendation and request tonight is provide guidance for the current sewer connections. I think we have a path for 1372 West Thornton Lake Drive The property owner at 2634 Valley View Drive, I believe that they're having to do monthly maintenance in order to keep their septic system functioning. And then for 310 Clover Ridge Road, the option would be to, I guess, evaluate the to and through policy and the use of petition and waivers. And then, you know, The other, I guess, ask, and I think, I know the answer is, does council want us to schedule an item for a work session where we can discuss about the number of septic systems left in the city, and then also talk about developing a program for hardship situations?

Council, you okay with that? Councilor McGee, you okay with that?

Yes, I think that will be appropriate.

I think so as well. So yes, I have direction.

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next on tonight's agenda is street maintenance fee structure, recommended phase funding approach to local street preservation. Director Paul Trombino, pages 72 to 121 in your packet. OK. That's the hardest part. Want to get set up? We can take a quick break. You guys want to take a quick break?

Yeah.

Well, let's take a 10-minute bathroom break and a bio break and come back at 724.

724.

I'm aware of that.

Councilor McGee, you still online?

Yep, I'm here.

Okay, let's go ahead and reconvene. I'm going to reconvene the meeting at 722 p.m. please.

Okay. Good evening, Mayor, Council, again. Thank you for your time this evening to review and discuss streets condition and a plan to address them. We will walk through the condition of our network, place some options in front of you, and then also obviously a staff recommended phase plan. Okay, so the Street Maintenance Fee Authority already exists in ordinance, which I think you're all familiar with. It's number 6050, adopted in September of 2024. The rate structure has also been completed, so the rate model itself. A condition analysis of street conditions was most recently completed in 2025. and again showed declining network. And I think as you are obviously keenly aware, streets consistently rank as one of the community's top infrastructure concerns. The rate structure is built on the Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation standards and has been benchmarked against peers in the state. So this really shows a snapshot of our streets. We are sort of at what I would call the low end of fair condition. This is across, important to know this, 34 million square feet of pavement. 29% of the network by area is already very poor or failed. And the deferred maintenance backlog stands now at about 125 million. Though, I think the most important number on the slide is 42%. 42% of the entire network is poor or worse condition. Clearly with that much of the entire street system in poor condition, every resident feels that each day. So this slide really kind of shows you just a breakdown by ward. You can see sort of the map on the right, which also kind of gives you a good perspective on where the streets, good streets are obviously in green. As the color gets into more of the orange, that's your poor condition streets. But it really shows you that it's in every ward. And so that is an issue. So what we're going to talk about is every ward every year and really starting to focus on making improvements. So this slide, So first thing we really wanted to provide was a clear measurable goal for pavement condition. And the first condition is really trying to set a floor, right? And what you see in there in a number is really upper fare to lower good. The common national target is a 70. I'm showing what we're trying to target is something around a 68. And the reason is we're trying to be realistic and balance towards what I would call is an achievable goal. The second is a guardrail. Essentially no more than 10% of our streets in the worst condition, which is really very poor or failed. And then thirdly, ADA. ADA ramps are included in every figure that I show you tonight. Resurfacing is considered an alteration under federal rules. So as a result, that legally triggers any sort of ADA upgrades. So we built that cost into all the numbers consistent with Albany's ADA transition plan. So this slide provides a picture of revenues we typically receive per biennium. And so a couple of things sort of as you look at this. So this is, we're just trying to average it, trying to get you a sense. Obviously that could change depending on which, what's kind of happening within the city. BUT OBVIOUSLY YOU SEE ABOUT STATE GAS TAX IS ABOUT 9 MILLION. IT'S MOSTLY CONSUMED BY OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ON THE EXISTING SYSTEM. THE NEXT ONE IS FEDERAL STPG WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY STATE BLOCK STATE TRANSPORTATION BLOCK GRANTS. THOSE ARE THE DOLLARS THAT COME THROUGH THE NPO. AND ABOUT 800,000 IN TYPICALLY YOU KNOW THAT TWO YEAR CYCLE IS WHAT WE WOULD TYPICALLY SEE. Those can only go to arterials and collectors. Transportation, system development charges, typically somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million, are restricted to growth projects and those on higher level streets. And then the last source is franchise fees. And those have some flexibility in franchise fees, and those are about $5.5 million.

Yes, please.

Councilor Smith.

In lieu of franchise fees, now go to the general fund.

Is that correct? These are our utility. Yes. Those come into our fund. The other ones go into the general fund.

Okay.

So if you think of utility, storm, sanitary, water, those are in the fees. That's what those are. The rest go into the general fund.

But they're not being spent on street maintenance yet, right? No. OR ARE THEY?

WELL, I CAN'T, LIKE, WHEN YOU BREAK OUT THE DOLLARS, WE STILL ARE PUTTING SOME INTO STREET MAINTENANCE. I COULDN'T TELL YOU WHAT BUCKET THAT'S EXACTLY. I'M JUST TOTALING THOSE UP. WHAT WE'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IS REDIRECTING SOME OF THOSE DOLLARS. THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT. THANKS. Okay, so we framed up three options for discussion. You see a do nothing, a fully funded, which requires about 14 million to cover that deficit a year, and our recommended approach, which is a phased approach, which includes prioritizing additional funds in 2026 for maintenance work, plus a five-year phased street maintenance fee, which starts at $1,128 and goes to $1,528. And that is basically from what is your typical house size in the city. And finally, taking some of the franchise fees, about $2 million of those, and reprioritizing those towards street preservation. The intent is visible results, and I keep saying this, in every ward, every year. I went the wrong way, sorry. Okay, so we're gonna kind of go through some of the options a little bit deeper, just to kind of walk them through so everybody can kind of see. And the first one, I think it's fairly clear. This slide is the cost of waiting, and it's the most important, I think, from an economic perspective, the economics of this in the presentation. If we do nothing, the pavement system will likely crash, I actually think probably in the next 15 years, as I would not expect a straight line deterioration at a likely crater at some point. And we shed about $11 million in pavement value every single year. That's roughly $218 million added to the future repair bill. So do nothing costs the least today, but by far the most over time. Next is what I'm sort of calling the fiscally complete answer. A steady $14 million a year, ADA is included in that, obviously, meets both the payment goals by 2046. The outcomes are strong. As conditions rise, very poor and failed drops to under 10%. The strategy here is classic asset management. Invest in good first. With the full funding, we apply the right treatment at the right time from day one, preserving good and fair streets, IN A LESS EXPENSIVE WAY BEFORE THEY FAIL. SO EVERY DOLLAR BUYS THE MOST CONDITION, RECONSTRUCTION IS RESERVED FOR STREETS ALREADY PASSED SAVING. THE CATCH IS THE ASK. OBVIOUSLY, IT'S ABOUT $25.48 ON YOUR AVERAGE HOME A MONTH FOR A SINGLE FAMILY. THAT'S THE HIGHEST AMONGST ALL OF THE PEERS IN THE STATE. SO IT IS FISCALLY COMPLETE, BUT A VERY DIFFICULT ASK. VERY DIFFICULT ASK. So, our recommended approach. A delivery-first phased approach. Start smaller, show results fast, and as some of the things I think we try to do every day, earn trust. We're not waiting to start. In 2026, we already doubled our inlay and milling program and launched a new rejuvenator program to extend the life of newer streets. Reprioritize franchise fees, shift that two million a biennium from the flexible funds that we have, for a pavement program for five years that funds immediate the 2720 excuse me that funds the immediate work but in 2027 the worst area east of Lyon that's one that we hear a lot of comments about with minimal impact to the CIP step two is adding a street maintenance fee if you launch it JUST BEGIN A DATE, JULY 1, 2027. AND THE FIGURE THAT WE'RE MODELING IS $1,128 A MONTH. WE'LL TALK A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THAT. AND THEN STEP THAT UP OVER FIVE YEARS, A FIVE-YEAR RAMP, SO EACH YEAR. THEN INDEX TO CONSTRUCTION, ESSENTIALLY INDEX THE FUNDED CONSTRUCTION COST. It's peer competitive from day one and demonstrated delivery, I think, provides a context likely for further discussion for funding in the future. This is what the plan actually delivers on the ground. Now, in 2026, the doubled inlay milling program and new rejuvenator program are already underway. YEARS ONE THROUGH FOUR, THIS IS WHAT WE'RE SORT OF FOCUSED ON, IS WORST FIRST, OKAY? SO THAT, IF WE DID THAT, THAT'S ABOUT 24 CENTER LANE MILES, 47 LANE MILES, 200 OF THE WORST SEGMENTS REBUILT ACROSS ALL THREE WARDS STARTING EAST OF LION STREET. The treatment is, in essence, a three-inch inlay on the center 24 feet. So we really try to get that main travel way into good condition. We would then crack and seal that. We would deal with ADA ramps as are needed, and then a slurry seal the following year. So basically, that is the first four years of the program. In year five and beyond, we pivot to preservation. That is right treatment, right time. We'll still use crack slurry, seal, rejuvenator to keep good streets good with overlays, and then you'll likely see major reconstruction WHERE THEY ARE TRULY NEEDED. SO THAT'S OF COURSE SWITCHING BACK TO REALLY WHAT IS A GOOD ASSET MANAGEMENT SCHEDULE. THE RESULT, WORK IN EVERY WARD EVERY YEAR AND CONDITION IS HELD NEAR TODAY'S LEVEL INSTEAD OF SLIDING. SO IT HAS A NET BENEFIT OVERALL. This, here's how the fee is actually built. So this kind of gives you a framework of what the fee structure looks like. Obviously, there's a residential side and a non-residential side, right? And then those are broken into various groups. SINGLE FAMILY HOMES ARE TIERED BY HOME SIZE, SO SMALLER HOMES PAY LESS, LARGER HOMES PAY MORE. THE STANDARD HOME, WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY 1,251 SQUARE FEET TO 3,000 SQUARE FEET, STARTS AT 1128 AND STEPS TO 1528 OVER FIVE YEARS. THAT'S THE WAY WE'VE MODELED IT. COMMERCIAL IS BASED ON TRIP GENERATION, AND THAT'S USING, AS I MENTIONED BEFORE, THE I.T. STANDARDS. AND THOSE ARE PUT INTO BUCKETS, A USE THAT DRAWS MORE TRAFFIC, PAYS PROPORTIONATELY MORE. EVERY RATE STEPS UP OVER THE FIVE-YEAR RAMP AND THEN INDEXES GOING FORWARD. Okay, so this is what the fee generates. The total street maintenance revenue grows from essentially about 6.2 million to about almost 8.5 million across the five-year ramp and as the rates step up. IT'S IMPORTANT, THERE'S TWO THINGS ABOUT WHEN YOU SEE THIS MODEL. THAT IS USING A SET DATA STANDARD, RIGHT? SO THE DATA THAT WAS DEVELOPED IN 2025, THAT'S HOW WE'RE MODELING THIS. SO THIS DOESN'T ACCOUNT FOR IF THERE'S MORE GROWTH IN THE CITY EACH YEAR, IF THERE'S BUSINESSES THAT COME IN, THAT WOULDN'T DO THAT. SO THAT'S WHY IT'S KIND OF SHOWED AS A STEP. IT WOULD LIKELY VARY. And I think most importantly, it stays balanced. 51% residential, 49% non-residential. Every year, businesses and residents share in this proportionally.

So question for you. This is local streets, not the stuff that's funded by state and federal, right?

Yeah, so the dollars that we, you mean on a system side? Yeah. Yeah, we're modeling the local system. So our arterial and collectors and all of our local streets. Yep. All of those streets that are ours.

That are ours. Yes. Because some are federal and state, right?

Not ODOTs or not FHWAs, yes.

Thank you. Yeah, I agree.

Yep.

Okay. Make sure I covered everything. So. So, sort of what the plans deliver. I think three numbers capture the recommended plan. 200 of the worst streets rescued in the first four years. Network conditions stay steady through 2031, as you can see in the chart. INSTEAD OF SLIDING, AND ALL THREE WARD SEEN WORK EVERY YEAR. THE DO NOTHING SYSTEM, AS I THINK YOU KNOW, OBVIOUSLY COLLAPSED. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S GOING TO BE A STRAIGHT LINE. I THINK IT'S PROBABLY NOT. THE RECOMMENDED PLAN HOLDS CONDITION NEAR TODAY'S LEVELS. IT DOESN'T REACH THE OVERALL PAVEMENT GOALS BY ITSELF. THESE, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE WE'RE NOT, WE HAVEN'T GROWN TO THAT FUNDING LEVEL, RIGHT? SO THAT'S WHY IT DOESN'T SHOW THAT. SO JUST THAT'S WHY THERE'S THAT LINE THAT STRETCHES IT OUT. AND THEN THE KEY THING IS THESE ARE ILLUSTRATED TRAJECTORIES, OKAY? BUT THE DIRECTION IS REAL, OKAY? I CAN'T TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT THE PAVING CONDITION IS GOING TO BE 20 YEARS FROM NOW, BUT THE DIRECTION IS REAL. THE PLAN HOLDS UP THE LINE AND SETS UP OUR PLAN, WHAT I'M PROPOSING, DOES HOLD THE LINE AND IT SETS US UP FOR A REALLY GOOD FINISH. So this table puts all three side by side. And I'll try to keep this really short and sort of simple, and only focus on the next five years, because I always think that's the most important. And that's essentially through 2031. So in 2031, Do Nothing continues the slide and likely accelerates with a $192 million backlog. Fully fund improves conditions, as we've talked about before. And I think most importantly, the recommended plan holds steady with its PCI, with very poor and failed held at 30%. That's steady, not growing. That's the whole important piece here from a plan perspective. So we're doing something that, like I would say, we would never recommend to go first. That's not a plan that we would bring forward. But it's important that we address the issue. And that's what we're trying to do here. is really address that issue. And that allows us to then swing and really take care of the system overall going forward. So our recommendation is to bring back a resolution for option three, the phased approach prior to the end of this year. The key thing is that allows us to make sure that the utility billing system and the necessary software structures are ready to be administered that tiered fee correctly before it launches. As you know, this is not your typical fee, right? It's not like a stormwater fee or a water fee. So it's an important equation that we need to spend time with the finance department to really make sure that we know how it's going to function and work so it works seamlessly for the utility building team.

So the ordinance will be five years. Is that what I'm hearing?

The way, so yeah, so the way the resolution is set, right, is it shows you a five-year tier, right, is what we're proposing. And I think a lot of that detail's in the packet that you should have. And then indexing to what we would use as the ENR construction index after that. So it just kind of steps it, and all groups get that step. You know, it's a comparable step as a whole.

And that's to be consistent with our other financial changes we've made over the last two years, really trying to make sure that we're never doing that major catch-up on systems again.

I like the phased approach. Council, you have anything? Councilor Thompson?

Yeah. Love the work done to redirect in lieu of franchise fees. That was great. Totally supportive of that. not supportive, you can bring back whatever you want, but not supportive of a fee, supportive of we've got to go to the voters first. We've got to go, there was no discussion in here of a local gas tax. Is it a tough mountain to climb? Yes. Why are we here? We are here because council after council, we've been talking about this I mean, for a decade at least, if not longer. And now here we are. Council after council wouldn't even take the step of discussing a local gas tax or a utility fee, not even talk about it. Reluctantly went through it in 2018, but kind of half-heartedly, some council members, they openly said they didn't want to campaign for it, didn't want to push it at all, make the case to the public. And so this is where we're at. I'm saying make the case to the public about a local gas tax that would be, you know, if we were talking earlier about seven, maybe a few months ago, seven or eight cent per gallon. Yes, at 12 gallon fill up, you know, you're talking about a dollar. A dollar of fill up be far less than some of the numbers here, the monthly. But it still would be, I understand it would be a tough sell. I get it. But we have to ask them first and then deal with the reality following that. I think it looks a lot different. The utility fee looks a lot different after we have asked them for a choice.

That's where I'm at. Dr. Van Drummelen?

so first off i want to say thank you director trombino um for the extremely well thought out data driven approach to the street maintenance fee um from from my perspective the idea of a local fuel tax is is discussed in here um it's in line with the council direction of that wouldn't be on even be on the ballot until 2028 I'm seeing nods. That's which I have a lot of thoughts about. We can't wait until 2028 to start raising revenue for this issue. And I really appreciate the side by side comparison of the three different scenarios. The do nothing scenario is by far the most expensive and really illustrates that if you want to get out of the hole, first you have to put down the shovel. And because of past inaction, that's going to involve raising revenue. Like, whether that feels good or not, the condition of the streets doesn't really... doesn't really care about how we feel it's going to cost to replace them. And I don't feel good about ballooning that cost to, what was it, $343 million in deferred maintenance with a system where we have 10% of our streets that are not in failed condition. 2046 might sound like it's a long way off, but from a capital projects perspective, that's a terrifyingly short window, to be quite honest, to me. So... While I don't like paying fees, I don't really want to pay more for the streets, the right thing to do is to pay a reasonable amount for the streets, fix the streets, and stop them from degrading further. So I'm very much in support of option three. I would like to see that come back to council. I've received feedback from constituents even today that they support. I would imagine that they live along some of our worst streets based on feedback that I got from one person today who lives, in fact, east of Lyon. So I really appreciate this. I don't think that option one is an option. I don't think that that's a reasonable ask of our community. And I think that at least stabilizing the system is the direction that we need to go. and I could sit here and give you my thoughts all day long about how we got here, but that's not really what we're discussing. That's not really... We have a job in front of us, and I say we do that job. We take this up and we do something. We don't even push it out to 2028. We do a thing that we can do now, and we also... continue to try and figure out where can we redirect money where can we like where else do we absolutely have to raise revenue if that is in fact the case um but but stabilizing the system can't can't wait and we can also to add on to that we can also go back in 2028 and put it on the ballot and then make changes to this ordinance or this resolution if it passes And I agree with Councillor Thompson's assertion that that doesn't seem like a fun proposition to me either to implement a fee and then go to the voters and ask for a gas tax. However... I do think that the approach of demonstrate progress, do something visible with the funding, worst first. Again, from an asset management perspective, you're absolutely right. Like worst first isn't how you would typically do it. But like that... as far as how we're going to build trust with, with the folks who live in this community on, on, are you actually doing something with the streets?

Yeah. Yeah.

The like, like reports on like what we've done, what it looks like, how it's, how it's improved quality of life measurably for Albany residents. Show maps. Yeah. Show, show maps, show, show budget documents of like, this is where the money went and this is how we improved Albany with it. Like, I think that, Yeah, it's not how I would choose to do it either. But again, I don't think we can wait. And that's where I'm at personally as an individual council member. We must do something.

We're up here to do something.

If no one else has any, I'll be speaking twice.

Let me ask Councilor McGee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Councilor McGee, do you have anything?

I do. I do like the phase-in approach. I agree with Councilor Vandermillen. We have to do something now. We have to show good faith, and we haven't been able to do that, and I'm really moving forward. I've got emails from constituents from both ends, them that doesn't want a fee and those who are okay with paying a fee, but we have to do something, and I think we should be able to to show good faith and at least start doing something. It is imperative. Our roads need immediate attention like yesteryear. So I am in favor of the phase-in approach.

Councilor Smith. Councilor Smith.

I agree with Councilor Von Dremelen and Councilor McGee. We can't wait. We've been saying all along that, well, we have been blaming previous councils for not doing anything. And we are becoming, we have the potential, the opportunity to be another council that doesn't do anything, that waits for a public vote on a gas tax when we know that that's not a popular move, and waiting two more years to to pass a gas tax or attempt to is think of how things get exponentially worse every year. We're falling off the failed road cliff and we just can't wait. I'm in tier two on the chart, so I'm gonna be paying $9.28 a month for my 1,008 square feet house with two, well, too many vehicles, two,

You're a problem.

I am a problem, and so are my neighbors. I venture that of all the counselors in this room, I am the only one who drives home on bad roads from start to finish. We have a PCI 6 street two blocks from my house. and our streets are very bad. So I get to enjoy that. About two months ago, I was going to Corvallis, middle of the day, crossed the railroad tracks on Highway 34, just west of Oakville, and my car just went, you know, every wheel, I thought it was gonna fly off. I pulled over to the side, I sat there, and I thought, okay, I gotta either go on or go home. One way I got a drive, I've started the engine up, everything's fine. On my way home from my appointment in Corvallis, I stopped at the Jeep dealership and they said, when you stop, did you start it up again and everything was fine? Yes. Did it do this? Did it? Yes. Steering damper. Oh. It came without a steering damper when I bought it, but it wasn't doing that. But they put one in, it's been driving beautifully for, it's just got under 24,000 miles in seven years of owning this Jeep. It's an off-road vehicle. So I had to wait for the part to come in. And while I was waiting for the part to come in, the service manager says, watch out for railroad tracks and potholes. I said, we're in Albany. And he laughed appropriately, but you can't avoid it. You can't avoid it. And I tried. I tried. I rerouted my driving habits, and it's hard to avoid what's there. There are people in my neighborhood who walk all the time. for their morning constitutionals, they're walking on the pavement because we have a lot of curbside sidewalks with driveways. Yes, so it's easier to walk in the street, although it's not easier to walk in the street because the streets are alligatored to such a point that if you don't break your ankle at a city council, you're gonna break it on a walk. People want the streets fixed. We can... People can cover anything in news stories. And the comments that come back, they have nothing to do with the topic of the story. They say, why don't they fix the streets? Damn streets. We're trying to fix the damn streets. And this is the way to do it. We have to start somewhere. I don't buy the argument that some people don't use streets. They do. They have garbage service. They get mail. They buy stuff from Amazon. Their neighbors and family come to visit. And occasionally ambulances show up and help them. Everybody uses the streets. People don't think about the streets because they're there. They don't think about the sewer pipes underneath either. They shouldn't have to. That's right. We put an awful lot of money into our public health utilities, and the streets are every bit as much a danger to public health as a bad sewer line or unclean water. We've got to fix them.

So I'm hearing from the council that they want you to bring something back.

Councilor Thompson.

One final. There are, I'm not completely knowledgeable at the Secretary of State rules, but off the top of my head, there are four monthly ballot choices in a year. March, May, August, and November. So that would be four choices to put something on the ballot in 2027. I just wanted to clarify that. We're not, we had one consultant say 2028, but prior DHM said the 2027 ones would be better. So that's where I was going with that. I just think we talk about trust. Asking for their vote would show a lot of trust. Another fee on top of the city services fee imposed by council is going to be a difficult sell. That's all I'm gonna say. Thank you.

I'm sorry, I have something else to say. I'm sorry.

Don't even worry about it. Go ahead, go ahead, Councilor.

Councilor Thompson, I do hear you and I feel you and I understand. And it will be a tough sale, but we have to, again, it's very imperative that we do something. We were put on this council to do a job. We have to do our job, the here and the now. Of course, fees are not popular, any type of fees. But I also think having horrible roads is definitely not popular as well. So I just want to let you know, I do hear that. And I hear that from my constituents as well. But I also hear that folks need better roads. And I think this is probably the way to start moving the needle on that.

So, Counselor, would you like to bring back something for us? Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thanks. Great work. And are you going to give us, we got a copy of this, right? In the packet.

Yes.

Perfect.

Excellent. So yes, this is public. So people can download it and take a look at it. Okay. Next is business from the council. I'll start with councilor McGee first since he's online.

I'm just really happy about this youth seat on our tags. I could not, um, Be happier to hear that news. Also was able to look at our council manual over the break just to refresh myself and got an opportunity to meet with city manager stating that we will have some parliamentary procedures coming up in the next year. Whether it's a new council or remaining council, it'll be a good time to start off the year fresh. So really happy that that's going to be on the agenda. And that's all I have for now.

Thank you. Councillor Thompson.

I'm trying to think of things that have happened since we last met. Yeah, a lot. True. I think a lot of us were at the grand opening of the new Sybaris and the old electric railway building in the Hackleman area. And I think it's already added some vibrancy to that neighborhood. I want to make a request. I don't think this needs to be in policy, but currently we are in the period of filing is happening from now until August 25th. And I know, I just think it's good practice. I know I'm probably one of a dozen people in this city who looks to see who is filed every day. A few people do, a few people do. And I just would request that, I think it's good practice, because I think it's what they do at the county. I guess they do in other cities. It's like the end of the day at five o'clock, there's an update, or you can be assured that this is who has filed as of today. whatever day that is. So I just would ask that that be kind of the guiding principle at the city.

Now, before COVID, they would post whenever somebody put the end of that day, the paper would have something. Yeah. I don't know why they stopped that.

Yeah, I mean, in the old normal days, yeah, you signed up, you kind of got an email from Mary Dibble. So anyway, kind of going back to that, but now we have it on the website and that's great and that is good practice, but I just want to encourage that.

Are you done?

Yeah, that's all I have.

Okay, Councillor Benjamin.

All right, I'm going to break from my usual practice, and I have quite a number of things tonight, actually. So I have notes. The first is I'd like to request an update on where we are at in getting the citywide mixed-use commercial zone fix for council discussion and potential action, specifically the... WHAT'S CURRENTLY IN PLACE FOR MUCK EAST OF I-5, APPLYING THAT TO THE REST OF THE MUC LOTS IN THE REST OF THE CITY AS WE HAD TALKED ABOUT AS A POTENTIAL ACTION ITEM AFTER THE LAND USE DECISION FOR THE APARTMENTS AT 53rd AND PACIFIC.

Okay, we'll get that.

Okay. Let's see. What next? Okay. I have two requests, actually, based on feedback from constituents in my ward and indeed in my office. own neighborhood over off of 53rd, the delightfully named Animal Kingdom. So there continue to be concerns within the Spring Meadow Brookfield neighborhood about emergency access, the one way in, one way out condition that has existed since the neighborhood was established in the early 2000s. Understanding that I wasn't there. In the year 2000, I was 12 and didn't live in Albany. But I own a house there now. And there's over 600 homes in that development. I understand that it does not look as originally contemplated. There were potential options prior to the development of ceasing to expand to kind of the north and the west there that could have involved connection to streets to the north, the loop back to Pacific, or even on the very expensive and time consuming side of things. And I have no idea if this was actually based in reality, but folks have even mentioned, oh, we were supposed to have a bridge. Yeah, maybe. But that obviously none of those ever happened. Design compromises were made to shore up that single entry and exit point. I understand that the street is wider than would typically be put there to arterial standards. It's got a mountable center median for emergency vehicles. And the bridge is built to higher than standard and to a Very high seismic standard. It's even been quoted to me by city staff that that's, aside from the new Van Buren Bridge over the Willamette into Corvallis, possibly one of the safest bridges in the area so that access doesn't get cut off in the event of a major earthquake. We live in the Pacific Northwest. That's something that we live with. In Kansas, you live with tornadoes. Here we live with the potential of earthquakes, possibly even volcanic eruptions. But I digress. So the first request that I have for the city staff comes directly from some folks in the neighborhood, particularly in light of the fact that we are delightfully surrounded on three sides by wetland, woodland, trees. potential fuel for a wildfire. 26 years ago, that may not have seemed like a large concern, but anybody who's been following the news recently has watched entire neighborhoods in Spokane go up in smoke. And folks who are surrounded by foliage tend to think, well, could that happen here? So in the event of some sort of natural disaster. A request has been made in the neighbor to ask whether the city can assist with what an evacuation plan for the neighborhood might look like and even an interest in a potential drill from some neighbors so that people can learn and practice the plan and folks could get out in the event of a fire or another emergency. Is that something that the city can do? That's a good question.

We will look into it.

Okay. Excellent. I said I would pose the question. I was like, I don't actually know what the answer to that one is. So, cool. I'm interested in hearing more. There might be other areas of the city that might be interested in something similar. So, I'm all about things that can be modular and portable, as it were. The other thing that I want to bring up is... that physical access piece and understanding that the neighborhood is surrounded by wetland, which there's a lot of considerations that go into building anything that runs through over or across a wetland. However, In light of the concerns, changing conditions, more severe fires over time, things like that, I've spoken to particularly Director Rutgers about what has been discussed previously, what would be feasible, cost effective in the short term to assist with this issue. And one idea that he made me aware of is an emergency access only road into or out of, depending on how you look at it, extending from, I believe, Moose Run to a BPA easement north of the neighborhood that could then provide alternative access to Pacific Boulevard in the event of an emergency scenario. And I'd like to request that we hear some more about what could that look like? What would that cost? Is it... would it be out of the box expensive to do something like that? Like, I just, I want to learn more as a way to potentially enhance the safety of, of 600 plus homes within ward two. Is that something that we could get more information about possibilities? Yes. Cool. All right, this will be my last thing. Apologize for being a little bit long-winded tonight. It's your time. So Mr. Stewart has come before the council. And he has, for weeks now, attempted to get an issue in front of the Public Safety Commission. And he's been keeping me abreast of this as my appointee to that commission. namely how limited or significantly more expensive fuel supplies could impact Albany's emergency services, particularly police and fire, but not strictly limited to that. He pitched to the commission in June, like he told us today during public comment, that he'd be willing to give a breakdown of the issue and the information on which he bases his concerns and all like I want to stress again what he said in public comment all members of the commission who were present at the at that meeting unanimously voted to call a special session to hear him out and consider the issue and whether future planning was warranted what local officials could do things like that that special session was never called and okay, maybe it might've been truly infeasible in July. Like, I'm not gonna speculate about that. Then the item was placed on the regular agenda for the August 5th meeting. And then a member who was not there for the previous meeting and the previous vote put forward a motion to remove that item from the agenda. The motion tied 2-2, and the chair broke it, taking the item off the agenda. I don't think that that was fair to Mr. Stewart. and the amount of time and effort that he put into the research and the recommendations and the very earnest concerns about the safety of the Albany community, whether the commission or this body would then look at those same concerns and make the same conclusions. And so I also, like, he's shared at length his concerns and his potential recommendations with me. And quite frankly, I think that they have utility beyond the current moment, not just an armed conflict disrupting fuel supplies and making them more expensive, less available. What if we had, again, we live in the Pacific Northwest. What if we had an earthquake that cut off fuel supplies for a while? Like... What would the city's operational needs be? How could we potentially meet those in the event of a different disaster, whether natural or manmade? And so I think out of respect for the concerns that Mr. Stewart is attempting to bring forward, I think that someone needs to hear him out. And so I would like to move that this council allocate no more than 45 minutes at the August 24th work session for Mr. Stewart to present his concerns and recommendations and we can ask questions and then decide what, if anything, we want to do from there.

It's not the time. It's not the time.

45 minutes?

That's a long time.

Not more than.

Including presentation questions, the whole shebang.

Okay. Okay. So the actual presentation would be much less, perhaps. Yes. Yeah, okay.

Okay. Is it August 24th?

Yes. That's our next work session.

Do we have the agenda for that already?

Legislative priorities is on the Monday board.

Yeah.

Yeah, I said that question.

I have a motion before the council. Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no. No.

No.

Thank you. Okay, next up is Councilor Smith.

I had a suggestion for the August 24th work session as well. Since we're supposed to be discussing legislative priorities, I would like that topic to be postponed to a work session in early September and to invite all of you to log in to a Zoom meeting that's being sponsored by the League of Oregon City's Women's Caucus on Thursday, September 3rd at 5.30 to discuss those legislative priorities. That's the sole purpose of the call. Nicole Sting, the legislative director for the league is leading that discussion. She will talk about the process with which the priorities were developed, the work of the various policy committees that have been meeting throughout the last six months to go over various topics that may end up at the legislature and i think it will be good to learn that from her directly because we i know that other members of the council have questions about how those priorities are developed what they mean to albany in particular and what and how albany fits into the the other cities in the state when it comes to addressing changes to state law. So if that's possible to make that change and for our council to zoom into that meeting, that would be terrific.

I think, Councilor, that we can actually do both. The August 24th session is important because we do have a deadline for turning in our votes for the LLC priorities. But we could hear the presentation from Kayla, who will give that to you, and she'll cover more than just the League of Oregon City's priorities, she'll cover the council's renewed, I shouldn't say renewed, the council's relatively new interest in being more active in legislative advocacy outside of the League of Oregon City's. So it's those issues and topics that are of interest perhaps just to the City of Albany. She'll be talking about how we might go about doing that. So you can hear from her about the LOC priorities and you can also tune in on September 3rd to Nicole Sting's presentation and if the council would like to then subsequently wait until afterwards until after both of those presentations to vote on those priorities, I think we can do that as well. I have to check and see what our deadline is, that's all.

I think it's September 25th. And thanks, that's what I was aiming for, was to get as much information as possible for our council to make informed decisions when we vote. The other item that I was going to mention, is that I clearly stated my position about the street maintenance fee for Albany and I will be making myself perhaps more popular statewide soon. I've been appointed by the governor to serve on the road user fee task force. One of 11 members statewide who are gonna be, we'll start meeting in end of September. This is the next step in the,