City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening, Kami. Welcome to July 8th, 2026 city council special called work session. And tonight we had a couple of fun pieces that we're addressing regarding the Kambi charter and then upcoming swim center levy. And so first thing we're going to order a business is to talk about on the charter fund. front is to talk about chapter 10 as it relates to Canby Utility and the possible transition of verbiage and whatnot of water back to Canby Utility and put water and power under one roof. So we've got Kerry Duncan here from Canby Utility and we've got a couple of the board members. Gentlemen, would you like to introduce yourselves?

Board of Directors.

All those in favor? So

Thank you guys for being here.

Yeah, you guys are more than welcome to join us up here. Okay. All right. Perfect.

So there's been a bit of conversation here on the whole Chapter 10 issue. And so I believe, Carrie, I'll turn it over to you to walk us through what we're going to be talking about.

Thank you, Mayor Hodson and members of the council. I'm very grateful that we were able to meet today to go over some of the language in Chapter 10 of the city charter. The board, members of the board, met on June 30th to review the information that the city council had discussed and provided back to Canby Utility Board members. in terms of the charter changes. And we're very pleased with the updates that the city provided. And I think we're all consistently on the same page with all of the language. We did have... two articles that we wanted to discuss and those two were related to bond issues and short-term loans. Those were some specific areas of language where the nuance I think was in the original charter language a bit unclear what it pointed towards. So we were working to clarify the language. And I think that we had some additional suggestions to help maintain authority of the city and the Canby Utility Board to issue bonds and also to allow us to really proceed forward with our water project that we're working on and have a successful project. So, I do have some handouts with suggested language. I'll just pass those around.

Mr. Mayor?

Yes.

Does Patton have a copy of this in his email?

I don't know, but we'll make sure that they each get one here after tonight so that they can view it or read it when they view the video.

Okay. So this looks at chapter 10, section five, H and I, debt issuance or bond issues and short-term loans. And we did meet, Emily and I met, and Randy as well, to go over some of the language that was proposed and what it could mean to debt issuance. So there are- Anthony, M05DM.

if you just joined. Sorry about that folks. I'm sorry about joining late.

So there are some decision points which we wanted to discuss with the council to really understand the goals of the council and how they align with the goals of the board. So some areas that we discussed were to discuss whether to broaden language, to authorize the board to issue revenue bonds and otherwise incurred debt. whether to require approval of the voters for incurring debt or expending revenue greater than the department's gross revenues for the previous fiscal year. And I'll walk through some additional requirements that the state ORS has on debt issuance related to voter approval for a bond issuance. And then if requiring approval of the voters under what conditions for both debt and expending revenue, for just incurring debt, for exploration, construction, and development of energy sources. And then, so really we wanted to see what specifically we're looking at in terms of voter approval. So as the current language walks through for bond issues, the sentence that is key for the board related to this, So really we look at bond issues and so original language is the board may authorize a sale and issuance of revenue bonds necessary to finance the acquisition, construction, reconstruction, improvements, and extensions of the utility system. The board has the power to provide funding for operation, maintenance, or expansion of existing facilities. A vote of the registered voters will be required for any exploration, construction, or development of energy sources. over the amount of that department's gross revenue for the preceding fiscal year interpreted to mean both. This is an interpretation in here that is both issuing debt and expending revenue. So a key area is that very last sentence was placed in related to the whoops, um, energy crisis, which happened back in the eighties where in, in, um, Washington and BPA were building a nuclear power plant, um, energy utilities all over the region were, um, you know, kind of embroiled in, in a debt issuance crisis at that time. And so this specific language was added in specifically for that situation. Um, as our board member kind of recalls at the time. That situation is no longer present, but really that language was added in specifically to that. So the board met and discussed the language, and on the other side, we'll have a couple of versions related to that. The first part is just the term bond issuance versus debt issuance. I think that now some of the funding mechanisms that we are looking at to fund our water project could include a federal loan, a WIFIA loan, or a revenue bond. And so the board wanted to clarify that these were debt issues. And then the other area that the board wanted to point towards was to call out the current current state requirements and participation of voters in debt issuance. So they've recommended adding subject to the voter review process under applicable state law. And what that refers to, although we don't put the ORS specifically in there, but ORS 287A-150, which is titled Authority of a Public Body to Issue Revenue Bonds, it actually walks through a process where... Sorry.

Sorry. There's something...

So in order to issue revenue bonds, such as a water revenue bond, which is what we would be looking at, that process per ORS requires the intent to issue the bond to be published in a newspaper for at least 60 days, at which time voters can petition, if the voters petition to pull the bond to a general vote, then it would be required to go to a vote. And so that's really the minimum requirements per ORS. Our charter adds additional requirements to that by stating that a debt issuance for and the way it terms energy sources or energy supply would automatically go to a vote. And so after discussion of the ORS and the protections and the voter participation that's involved in there and the charter, the board did recommend that we refer to state law in, in terms of the voter participation for that. Um, and then, and remove the language that was more historic related to that whoops incident, um, for the, um, you know, for the, um, automatically having a bond issuance go to a vote. Um, So that would give you version one that we've proposed in this issue. And I know Emily worked with me to draft this language, so I don't know if you have anything to clarify or add to that.

I guess the big reason for this proposal from CUV is to... Correct me if I'm mischaracterizing, but to seek maximum flexibility to issue bonds and otherwise incur debt to do what it needs to do to provide water and energy to the city. Right now, that last sentence of the registered voters is required for these kinds of expenditures if necessary. That amount is more than CUB's gross revenues for the prior fiscal year. That's a little bit hamstringing for CUB in light of the big water projects that are coming down the pike. That requirement is something that could impact CUB's ability to get funding for the water treatment plant, for example, and that sort of thing. So the thought from CUB is we have this constraint that really arose from a specific situation in the 1980s that has long since resolved and has not arisen again. Big projects coming down the pike. Kind of goes hand in hand with the council's consensus to already broaden CUB's authority over both water and electric. This is the time and place to give CUB the tools it needs to be able to issue debt and otherwise finance these kinds of projects. Last time, in our last work session, we talked a bit about that last sentence. And what we talked about was how to clarify the term energy sources to make it clear that it would apply to water and electric. Well, by adding clarity, it added another layer of handcuffs to CUB's ability to finance the projects it needs to finance. In the interest of clarity, well, okay, so to pursue that clarity interest, if you want to keep the registered voters, then we should, that registered voter requirement, then we should be very, very clear about what kind of expenditures that applies to. But Cubs' ask today is to remove that requirement altogether to give it as much authority as it can to do these projects. That in the same vein, the other proposed changes in Cubs version one is, you know, in that second line, it says the board may authorize the sale and issuance of revenue bonds and the added language is, or otherwise issue debt. That's what Carrie said about, you know, we're looking for bonds and then we're also maybe looking to take out federal loans that with heal loan. Adding the phrase or otherwise issue debt makes it clear that Cub would have that authority in addition to issuing bonds. So different types of debt. The addition of replacement, so we have a very holistic list of actions that can be taken. And then adding water and electric utility system to be clear what we mean by utility system there. And then Carrie did an excellent job explaining the reasoning behind adding subject to the voter review process under applicable state law and explaining that state law. So the point there being that state law already provides a check and balance. authority given to the public to check and balance Cubs ability to issue revenue bonds and Cubs position is that state law check and balances is adequate and the the additional constraint in the current charter language is harmful to the mission and also not necessary.

And then to walk through the short-term loans article, I think at first we did not think we would need any changes to short-term loans, but discussing with our financial advisor the process for debt issuance, it is during a big project like the water treatment plant project, which is planned. Occasionally a strategy is to, you know, because a bond or even especially a federal loan can take some time to issue utilities. And I saw this at the city of Gresham and Rockwood Water PUD would issue a short-term loan to, for example, start construction and then issue once that federal loan is is closed then pay back the short-term loan with that. So our financial advisor advised a bit of extra flexibility on short-term loans. The current language included a short-term loan shall not exceed 50% of the department's gross revenue. And what CUB is proposing is to say department shall not exceed the department's gross revenue for the preceding fiscal year. So we would change that to from 50% of the fiscal year's revenue to a fiscal year revenue is what is being requested in this change. So before I go on to version two, does the mayor or council have any questions related to that proposal?

If version one is okay, why do we need version two?

Version two is a backup. Version one is most definitely preferred, but we drafted version two in the event that if council is absolutely opposed to version one. Version two is somewhat, it maintains more of the original language. It does have more restrictions on debt issuance, but it would allow us to complete the water project, but it would still maintain restrictions on electric supply debt issuance which could impact the utility in the future if for example we the utility wanted to put in a generation project like a natural gas generator or a solar generation project. So we this was a backup if this version one was not well perceived by the city council.

I guess I would lean on my city administrator on our legal to get your advice on this.

This is purely a policy call. The language drafted in both version one and version two are legally sufficient. The question really is a policy call on how much flexibility do you want to give CUB?

I don't have a problem with the writing of version one, and the one thing I think it might help out would be the applicable state law and putting the ORS on there, the actual section. Number one, it'd be easier to find, but it's very clear that that's what the intent is.

We talked a lot about that, and clarity is the big advantage of putting the actual state law citation into the charter language. The big disadvantage is that state laws change, maybe not the text, but they get numbered to a different number, and then you have a bad reference in your charter, and it is far more difficult to amend your charter than it is to... renumber or change state law. So the risk is that you, you know, the legislature does something and it's infinite wisdom and now you're stuck with bad reference until you can send it back to the voters to update. Okay.

Councilor Patton. Yeah, so I just want to make sure I wrap my head around this. So one version of this is saying that Cub would be able to go out and issue bonds without voter approval, and one version would be with voter approval. Could I just get some clarity on that?

Yeah, so the preferred version, which we're calling version one, completely strikes the last sentence of the current charter language, which would require CUB to go get voter approval for any of the listed expenditures that are an amount more than CUB's gross revenues for the previous fiscal year. That's striking all that is the preferred version one. Version two retains part of that voter requirement but limits it very specifically only to expenditures to develop energy sources other than the energy sources used currently at that time for the electrical system. So it leaves water completely out of it. Sorry, go ahead.

No, so I guess what I keyed in on there is I think if you go to the voters and say we want the unfettered ability to borrow money to do projects without any say from you, and we are essentially imposing a tax on you, that is not going to go anywhere. That is going to fail. And so... Where does the tax come in?

I don't know. Well, if it's a bond, these are revenue bonds.

Oh yeah. They're different. Okay.

Yep. Not general obligation bonds.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. Cub doesn't have authority to issue go bonds.

Okay. I would just say thank you, Councilor Patton, for calling the question because that's how we tease out what we're talking about. So revenue, which we didn't talk about earlier, versus geo. Revenue, of course, they can have revenue-backed bonds, and geo bonds are an entirely different thing. Good question. So looking ahead to the...

versus GO bond.

That's correct. Yeah, we do not have the option. CUB does not have the option to do a GO bond. That's not within, typically within a utility's ability. Now, the city could issue a GO bond for CUB, but there aren't really circumstances where CUB could issue that on its own.

I've got to talk, because that was one of my questions, was the voter piece and that efficacy. Did you have a question as well?

Yeah. Sorry. Jason was already, Council Patten was already headed down the road I was headed. So he asked the bulk of my question. So ultimately, what in layman's terms would this mean to the voter when we get questions, because we will, are they going to pay more? Why didn't we get to vote? I mean, what would be the Reader's Digest version of the answers to those questions that you know we're going to get?

Absolutely. So today the city has the authority to issue a water revenue bond without the approval of the voters. as long as that bond is published with a 60 day notice, you know, in a, in a publication, the voters still have the option to, uh, to appeal that to a vote. So there, there is a public process. Um, what we're recommending is that, uh, as the responsibility for water will, will go to cub that same ability that the city has today under the charter, uh, continue for water projects. So it really would mean no change from today's city's authority for water projects. And again, the voters can always appeal that to a vote with 5%, I believe 5% of signatures of registered voters. And then the version one does expand the authority over electric vehicles. and it would allow that same process to occur where if CUB were to do an electric project, it would be published, the intent would be published in the paper, voters could pull it to a vote, but it would not automatically go to a vote. And that's this voter review process in the ORS we talked about earlier. Okay, correct.

Thank you.

Councilor Waterman and then Councilor Patton.

I think that answered my question. I just wanted to make sure that the appeal to the vote still worked for the revenue bond as well as the GO. That's all I want to clarify.

We're all on the same page here, it sounds like.

Councilor Patton.

Yeah, so I think what you just said there about... Essentially, this is not changing anything regarding these particular bonds. It's just shifting the ability of those bonds to be done from the city council to can be utility. I think it is going to be crucial that when voters are educated and we do the whole process of rolling this out, that that is explained, that they understand that they're not losing any authority. It is just similar to how we are shifting the water infrastructure to the UCAM utility. This was something that the city council was able to do because the water was with them. And now all that transfers along with the water pipes to you folks. That I think is gonna be crucial.

Nope, the green light, nope. There you go.

I think as far as the voters are concerned, they have all the authority under state law to put it to a vote. And so we're not taking away their ability to vote. We're changing the way it happens. But if somebody is really upset about it, they can run a petition around town and force it to a vote. So we're not taking away the ability to vote.

Okay. Perfect, thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

I guess I would just say to that point that was just made about the voters will still have the right. I guarantee you that if you pulled 50 people from the city As you walk down the street and ask them if they have read the city charter and understand this, they will tell you they have no clue what you're talking about. And with it being brought to light in the voter's pamphlet and in this verbiage, it doesn't matter whether they understand that they can do a petition and send it to a vote. They are going to key in on that, and they are going to think that something is up. I'm sorry, but a lot of work has been done to undermine the entire country's trust in government. And we are right along with everything else. So we're going to have to really look at this from a very pessimistic standpoint and make sure that we have our bases covered in order to get you folks what you need to do what you need to do. And looking at this any other way, we're setting ourselves up for automatic failure. And I am not for that at all.

Yes, Randy.

I was just going to add to that point. The staff is afforded the latitude to go out and do informational, I won't even say campaign, but informational meetings with Carrie about what this does. We can't advocate, but we can go to Rotary, Kiwanis, Chamber, mailers that are fact-based and not opinionated. We work with legal counsel on all of that as well to help try and explain to Councilor Patton's point just what's... going, what's at stake here?

Yes, Council Member. I think that's very important. I think definitely working with community leaders and making sure you're educating from that level as well so that when they're getting questions, they can help be the voices to the community as well.

You all are different. You can advocate until the cows come home. Same with these folks who are on the board.

Is there any... Based on what I'm hearing here, it doesn't seem like version two needs to be discussed. It seems like...

I think we just discussed it by comparing the two.

So obviously in a work session, we can't necessarily make a decision on that. So I think we'll see this in our... and move on.

Yes. I would like to see, I would strongly urge us to take this version one forward with recommendation to the council.

Not in consensus at this point, but yeah.

Not in consensus, so, okay.

Great, so you'll see this in the next meeting. It'll be part of the resolution referring all the revisions to chapter 10 to the ballot.

And I'd like to thank the water board as well as Carrie for the work on this. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. This is a dual team effort. Thank you, guys. Just getting started. Uh-oh.

Okay.

We wound them up.

Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Ron.

Thank you all. Appreciate it. Next item under the can be charter discussion is item B, the residency waiver.

Yes. There we go. So this is an update from the last work session where we discussed the residency waiver and we got consensus on the exact language to send to, Randy, should I send this back to you as well? Yeah, here we go. All right. We should move the ends off and push us together closer now. Sorry about that. Circle shrunk. So what you got in front of you is the ballot measure language for the revision that council reached consensus on. This will come as a finalized resolution to you next week. The one outstanding bit of business that from the work session was for staff to come back with a list of Considerations for rules for council to adopt to govern how it applies this residency waiver. His language says that the council will adopt rules to govern how it applies its ability to waive the residency requirements that exist in the charter language. So staff's working on that. I've got just some general discussion points to run past you all here today to get a little bit of temperature taking and start chatting. I wasn't able to find great examples of other cities, similar procedures or policies or designs, but just thinking about it, I have a few thoughts for us to go through. Types of rules or criteria in applying the waiver could be things like why is someone requesting a waiver? Something like familial obligations within a certain area outside of the city's jurisdiction. The financial strain of having to move within the city or closer to the city. Where exactly would the council permit someone to live if not within city jurisdiction? Does it have to be within the state? Probably so. Are you gonna let someone commute over the river from Vancouver? Is this the area where we wanna talk about a 100 mile radius around the city? Within that radius, council will be willing to grant a waiver, but outside it's an absolute no. things like that. And then how long the waiver will be in effect. Is it a temporal thing? Like it's because your current charter language says that someone must, doesn't, you don't have to live in the city at the time of appointment to a city administrator, but you have to very quickly thereafter move to within the city. So it's that very quickly thereafter that could also be subject to the waiver. Like maybe you give them six months instead of, within a few weeks or maybe it's a year and a half or two years. Lots of options, lots of ways to skin this cat. My advice on developing these rules as we have the conversation today is that we should be shooting for rules that are clear in their application so we understand what they are. A layperson could look at the list and understand what they mean and the goal of their application would be. They should be objective as possible. They should not be based on the employment parallel would be protected characteristics. So we're not treating people differently based on characteristics that are inappropriate for the position or even unlawful, for example. And that have a sense of fairness and are designed to further a certain policy of having a city administrator within a certain geographic area. So I think maybe the first step is to talk about the policy. Why do we want to have a residency requirement and how can we alter it on a case by case basis without fundamentally undermining the why? And then go from there and talk about ideas that fall within those categories from that.

That's just my proposal.

Council can do what council wants. Well, I guess the first question or the way that I would start off is to try to clearly articulate the why behind having a residency requirement. Is it because we want the city administrator to be familiar with, can be in a way that a resident or someone who lives close by can only be? Is it because we want the city administrator kind of boots on the ground experiencing the same issues that your members of the public experience? Things like that?

Yes. Both of those things.

Okay, cool. I'm going to write that down.

As well as expected to come back during a disaster or an emergency or a declared disaster. Okay. I think it's imperative that they be within the proximity for recall to the city in the event of a disaster. Yes.

So familiarity, accessibility, skin in the game, because I can't think of a single word to better describe that.

There's a vested interest by the city manager or city administrator when they live within the city limits, for sure.

Okay, and so given those kind of guiding principles for having that requirement, what are reasons why you would be willing to waive or alter that requirement without undermining those principles? For example, an undue burden on an otherwise exemplary candidate, for example. Is that a reason why you would consider wavering or altering?

I guess that's a good way to put it. But I would still be considering the distance and where that person lives to be able to check as many of those previous boxes as possible.

So you wave, maybe the thought is then you have a great candidate. They just can't make it into Canby proper, but they live within X miles of city hall, for example. So is that somewhere where you'd be interested in like a radius? So if you can't be in Canby, but you're otherwise great, then that'll be fine as long as you live within 20 miles, 50 miles as the crow flies or something like that. Is that...

Yeah, probably. I mean, I would like to see them be able to get here 20, no more than 30 minutes.

Okay.

I mean, if there's a disaster, you kind of want to hear ASAP.

I think it's reasonable. I think it's reasonable to go 20 minutes to the city limits.

Okay. Yeah, I would do that too. And I don't remember what the exact, maybe Pete knows if he's still here, but your AFSCME contract, the on-call response time?

I'd like to say it's 40.

Okay.

Yeah, but off the top of my head, I think it's 40 minutes.

Different position, but there's already precedent in city, well, contractual obligations with AFSCME about, you know, response time things, so... And that might be more utility than an actual mileage measurement because you can be five miles away in the worst traffic of your life and never make it within 40 minutes.

It's called Boone's Bridge.

Exactly.

Are there any other requirements for any other position within the city, police chief, et cetera?

No, we don't have that.

I'll just be honest. For me, I just have heartburn with the whole thing, period. I understand all the reasons why we have it, but for me, telling somebody they have to uplift their entire family and sell off their inherited family home instead just to have a job seems kind of... draconian and harsh to me. I think definitely within a radius, because the closer you are, the more you're still involved. But yeah, I think definitely we can work on the requirements. Again, just all the reasons how we can get as close to those, you know, being part of the community, et cetera, but how close we can get to that without having it be kind of the all or nothing is definitely the right way to go. So half an hour, when I look at half an hour, especially around this area, you have to look at that half an hour could be range from a half an hour with no traffic to two hours with traffic. So a half an hour could be Beaverton. And we know what 217 and everything is like trying to get, you know, from here on the, you know, on the average day. So just trying to get here from Wilsonville sometimes is a half an hour, depending on whether you're trying to get on the freeway or not. Yeah. So, you know, we take that into consideration.

What about the time component of it versus a mileage component?

Yeah.

You know, or, I mean, yeah. What kind of mileage? Get down into the, you know, the council creating the, you know, the rules of what would constitute the ability for us to do a waiver, right? Like what cities? You know, to me, I don't think Lake Oswego is out of the question. If you go north, I think I wouldn't say anything further south than Salem. But again, if we've got a candidate that is south of Salem and they're going to commute every day, does that hold us back from choosing that person? Do we make that exception for that person? You know, I think it's, we can put a lot of parameters around it, but at the end of the day, it's still going to be like, what are we, what is each council or each council going to be comfortable with in terms of the city manager to be able to respond to city staff if they're not here or to the city if they're not here. So go ahead, Jim, and then we'll go to Councilor Patton.

Yeah, I see where you're going with that Brian. I think that the difference as a city administrator is it's crucial in the event of something catastrophic or something big that they need to be recalled as soon as possible. I mean, I could live with the 20 to 30 mile radius of the city limits, I think is reasonable. We've already done that with prior city administrator for over two years. with Salem residents. So anyway, I think that something reasonable, but I think the expectation is that once you're notified, we expect you to come in right away.

And another tool for this is to, when it comes time to start the recruitment process, step one should be to take a look at the job description to make sure it reflects the desire or the requirement, I would call it a minimum qualification of the job, is to be able to respond to the city in times of emergency, to be a regular presence at city hall in the community. And if it's a situation where you have a candidate who is maybe in Salem or somewhere, great in every other way except for that, and you, the council, grant a waiver to allow that person to be the city administrator despite their residence in Salem, and on the promise that they would be able to fulfill the minimum qualifications and functions of the job, which includes being here, and it so turns out that for whatever reason they aren't able to be here like is required, then that's not a waiver or alteration issue. That's a can you do the job issue. That's a performance problem that would be addressed through that particular arena as well. So as we develop this list, we should also keep in the back of our mind what we want in the city administrator job description too.

Yeah.

So I hope I don't break up here for whatever reason, the way the phone is taking me, it is not very good self-service. So anyways, I, when we sat down in our office, subcommittee and had a map through circles to say this is this many minutes or this is this many miles. One of the things of heartburn that I had was if we make it restrictive like that and we don't put some wiggle room in, One of the radiuses took us out to halfway, like out to like Newburgh. But it was only half of Newburgh. So it's like, okay, so if it's 20 miles, or if it was whatever miles, and this person happens to live four blocks away from where the radius ends, Then they're not eligible. And I just that the whole point of doing this is, yes, it would be preferred for the city administrator who live in the city limits 100%. But with the cost of housing and all of that. it really, really reduces the pool of candidates that we have to be able to put in this position. And the other thing that we end up being kind of stuck with, I shouldn't necessarily say stuck with, but where we end up getting sort of pigeonholed is that we are either going to look at getting more younger candidates And they can either rent or there's a house here and then they've got to move on because they can't afford a house. We might be restricting people who college and. Maybe they're getting closer to retirement, no interest in selling their home and moving to Campy because Campy is not where they want to live after retirement. It just really hams us for getting a quality candidate that's going to do the job that we need them to do.

So would I guess a solution to that? Sorry, go ahead, Councilor.

Are you there, Jason?

Yes, I just felt that was the end of my, yeah, that was the end of it.

Okay. So to that point, then, you know, when we look at, like, okay, what are those filters that would allow the council to amend living within or waive that city requirement, do we look more like, okay, so where is that 30-mile radius? And to Jason's or Councilor Pratt's point, if it's great, it intersects Newburgh, you know, so do we then go and just create part of the, here are the list of cities that you could live in, you know, or if it bisects, you know, a cross-section of the town, then we just consider it all of the entire town. That would work.

That would make more sense to me. Yeah.

Because otherwise it would look like boring. Yeah.

The nice thing about that is it's a rule with your certain application. You know, it's a measurement of maps and there's really no room to, you know, quibble with where that 20 mile or that 30 mile ruler lands and its inclusion. It is rigid as Councilor Patton said, is there's not, you know, you open up the pool candidates more than just requiring them to live in Canby, but it is still maybe a little rigid in its application. Another thing to consider is, which also has pros and cons, is if we're thinking about this more in the candidate's ability to do the job, which includes everything that Counselor Davis has said, then maybe the waiver is provisional. and will be revisited after a period of time to see if the place of residence is an actual handicap for the performance. So that's kind of a nice flexibility for the council. Looking at it from the other side, the candidate may not like the uncertainty that comes with the council's ability to review the waiver based on performance down the line. candidate might be like, well, I'm, you know, I'm going to work really hard, obviously, and try to do everything, but it may work for the six months, first six months. And then six months later, it's no longer working. And then my review is out a year and it gets taken away. And then what do I do?

Right.

Yeah, I don't like the wishy-washy nature of that, saying, well, you know, it's provisional. It's like what we're dealing with with the park maintenance fee, right? I mean, because it comes up for vote every so many years, it's like, are we going to have the money to do parks? Are we not going to have the money to do parks? You know, this is doing that with somebody's livelihood. I mean, I would not want to work for a company that says, hey, hey, you know, this is, well, I mean, I guess I do because I'm an at-will employee. But, you know, for something like this, I don't want that to get in the way. And as far as like a radius or like time, something like, you know, 20 minutes or, you know... 20 to 30 minutes or, you know, 20 to 40 mile or 20 to 25 miles or something with a reason, something to give it some definition, but still give some flexibility in being able to say, look, yeah, you know, you're right on the line and we really want you as a candidate, but we're gonna have to make this. We're gonna have to make this.

Councilor Patterson suggested not having any kind of a time or mileage area.

I'm saying do a time. We have the time be sort of like the target is this distance or this time. But you know, if a candidate is a reasonable If a candidate is outside of that area but still within a reasonable distance or time that they can be considered, something along those lines. Because for me, if it's like 20 minutes, okay, well, if it turns out that it's going to be 23 minutes, that's reasonable. But if the person says, well, I'm 30 minutes away, that might be a little different story. Or, you know, it's like 25 miles away. If it's set at 25 miles and the first is 26 or 28 miles, fine. But if they're 45 miles, then that's a whole different story. That's what I'm kind of getting at. Because if we don't put parameters on it, I don't think it's going to pass. Because people are going to come in and say, oh, well, now you're going to get a city administrator that's going to work from home. And they'll never be here. And their office will be empty. And we'll hear all that all over again. And I don't want that. I don't want that to be used as a tool to undermine the work that we're doing to try and get quality candidate in the future. Not only now, should Randy decide he wants to stay or go or whatever, but for city councils in the future, I don't want to hamstring them like we are hamstrung now.

Okay. Council President Hemsley and then Mr. Ely.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I want to clarify, we are flushing out language that would be in a council policy. This isn't language for the charter.

This is not language for the charter. It could be policy. It could be code. I don't know if that would be my recommendation. I would probably recommend policy.

So council policies easily changed. It could be a range, 20 to 25 miles, 20 to 25 minutes, as Councilor Patton was suggesting, a target that we're looking at this, but it's going to be at our discretion at whatever interview time we're at or future council's interview time. And as far as a provisional, it kind of already is. They work at the pleasure of the council. So if this guy or gal's coming in and it takes them an hour to get here when the building's on fire, that's going to be in the performance review, is it not? So it's kind of provisional anyway. So I don't think we need to spell that out. Yeah, tie it to performance.

Just a data point. Pete shared with me that our police department has a 30-mile distance requirement for take-home vehicles, 30 miles.

in the day, not Chief Trow, but Chief Smith, he lived in Beaverton and had a signed vehicle. So before I come to you, Councilwoman, the last time we had this conversation, I'm looking at the No, he topped it over there. The last time that this came up when we went to the voters, it was to remove this entirely from the charters, if I'm remembering correctly.

And it went down.

Yeah. How do we know?

Is that the one that was like by three votes?

I think so.

It failed by like three votes. What year is that? 2014. 2014. Check me on that. That just came to me. It might not be right.

2014. It was on there to change the charter and it lost by three votes.

That's right. Potentially right. 2014. 2014? No. I was on council in 2014. 2004? I mean, if you need a four. Was that 04? Yeah. No?

When were you there again? It was a little later, 2002 or 2011.

Okay, it must be 2004 then.

It could have been, but I have no sense of time.

Well, if you have a four on the brain, I'll start there. And no can't be 14, because I was here for that, and that didn't happen.

But the bigger concern was more about, you know, what the ask was last time, and that it didn't lose by much.

Right.

I mean, that, did you just want to try to remove the whole aspect of it entirely?

No, I think it should be a waiver. Annexation, annexation, annexation, annexation. We had a lot of annexations that year.

Something we should consider too is the general conversation seems to be as if the person already lives in those particular areas, but if we're hiring somebody from the outside that's moving in, is that still applied to them as well? Because moving here versus another city financially, et cetera, would be a different issue. I think as well, so it should apply for both of us. Do we set up a...

two lists, one if you're in the area, one if you're moving from, you're over in Eastern Oregon, you're not exactly gonna be able to commute in, so is that a, you need to live within city limits, or does the same radius apply?

Were you gonna say something, Randy? Did you have something else?

Just a couple more data points on our union. Sorry, Randy, go ahead. A couple more data points from Pete on our union contracts. 45-minute response time for public works and 90 minutes for wastewater, hour and a half. Yeah. Anyways, that's all.

Okay. So I think, again, you know, the preferred is that they live with inside the city limits. And I think we should stay with that. And the job advertisement can say that as well. A preferred candidate, the preferred, not required, but the preferred is to live with inside the city limits. And it's just like qualifications, right? We'd prefer that you have a four-year degree. but we'll consider if it's not a four-year degree or equivalent. So the preferred candidate is to live with inside the city limits, set aside our current interim city administrator. And so the preferred I think is gonna be the key to it on the advertisement for the position. I'm good with the 25 minute from notification, 25 minute to the city limits. And again, I think it's important for the citizens want to know that that person is going to be recalled. And as soon as they pick up their cell phone and they're notified that within 25 minutes or I'm sorry, 25 miles, 20 to 25 miles of proximity to the city limits.

Gotcha.

You know, that's where I'm at. I think that that's fair. But the key to it is moving forward is to try to get a candidate that lives or willing to move within the city limits. And if they can't, financially, whatever, kids, school, whatever it might be, bring those reasons forward to the city council for consideration.

Yeah, and thinking that through, so I agree, being clear in the posting about the expectations, both preferred living within the city and also that you are available to be within the city if not living within the city. Thinking about how that, say a person gets a conditional offer and wants to seek a waiver to this requirement as part of the contract negotiations. That's where I envision this taking place. which contract negotiations are sometimes easy, sometimes they're not. So this would be one more facet. Yeah, one more facet to that process. And we would want it to be a somewhat formal process too so that the candidate's reasoning for why they are seeking the waiver is committed to writing somewhere for the entire council, the mayor to review together and to make a decision based on the facts down on the paper in writing to protect against claims that Council made decisions based on unlawful reasons or, you know, in a way that didn't comport with the policies that you had in place at that time. That's a few steps down the road, but just thinking how the structure would work.

Councillor Patton, then.

Yeah, I am not, again, I am not for removing the restriction. I was never advocating for removing the restriction entirely, at least that I can remember. But I think the... voter, the makeup of the voters that we now have in the city compared to what we had back when this originally came up has changed dramatically. A lot of the people who live in the city now moved in here from out of the city. They're, you know, I would dare say many of them work away as well. And so I think I have a pretty good feeling that by doing this, we can get it over the finish line, but I would still not recommend trying to get rid of it all entirely. I'm not an advocate for that. Okay.

Again, was just posing the question. Councilor Waterman.

I lost it listening to Councilor Patton. Kind of back to Emily's point, is this something that has to or can or should be part of the hiring process to decide beforehand or does it have to wait until after the hiring process? Back to your point of and legally can make decisions based on that, et cetera.

So the question is, can counsel, where in the process?

Do they have to request a waiver during the actual application process?

I would maybe not at the stage where they submit the paper application on their resume, but in some point of the candidate evaluation process, like the interviews and such, I think this should be addressed then because, um, one of, one of the core reasons why we have this residency requirement is because it goes towards the candidate's ability to do the job. And doing the job means being accessible, being available on quick notice, being here in the city, understanding city issues, what members of the public are going through, et cetera, et cetera. So just with any candidate, you're evaluating them for their ability to do the job. So I think this residency conversation has to take place in that evaluation conversation. And I'm I don't know what your recruitment process looks like, but I know your chief process was comprehensive. And if there had been a similar question, there would have been ample opportunity to talk about it.

From the candidate side too, though, if they're going through the process, you know, are they going to... Are they going to... risk the, okay, I'll wait until I'm hired to find out whether I'm going to have to sell my house or not, you know, type of thing.

Yeah.

So I think that kind of has to be almost fleshed out of it before that part. And we don't want to be at the point where we go through all the trouble to hire somebody and say, oh, by the way, and then they're like, okay, well, now I'm not going to take the job.

That's a good point. So it could be something, just kind of thinking this through, you know, you make a conditional offer of employment to a successful candidate and the condition typically includes successful completion of a background check, maybe a credit check if it's the type of position that you can do a credit check for. For this particular position, the city administrator position, the conditional offer could be, you know, contingent upon those things as well as, we are not going to give you a waiver based on the information you gave us, or we are going to give you a waiver, and here are the terms of the waiver. So they're on notice before they quit their job and put their house up. Yeah.

Okay. That makes sense. Okay.

So, Emily, where are we?

I think we are at the point where it would be most helpful for you to see words on paper. And I think maybe because this topic has a few different components, it might be helpful for you to see, like, an example job description that reflects the requirements of the position. And then... a policy that includes kind of our vision statement here, the reasons why we want this, what we're hoping to achieve, and then the underlying preference that you be in the city, but willing to consider exceptions to that, grant exceptions, as long as you are within I heard like 20, 30 minutes. I'll just kind of put both in there subject to further discussion. And then we didn't talk so much about the reasons why you would be willing to grant, but I heard things like schools, family obligations, housing crisis, knock on wood, and financial constraints include statements like that as well.

So just for grunts and giggles, so Woodburn? From here to Woodburn is 21 minutes or 12 miles at this time of night. Beaverton is 29 minutes and 22 miles. So, again, just as a reference point, you were saying you're throwing out kind of that 25-mile radius gives a pretty big area to be able to find either A, a candidate, or B, a place. subjected to this council. I mean, we live in this amazing city of Gamby.

Councilor Waterman. So for tonight though, the whole point is the charter part. Is it just literally that one sentence down here? The council may waive or alter residency requirements and adopt rules to govern. Is that the only change to the charter?

That's it.

Okay. So in that sense...

nods to bring that this is a good thing for council to approve.

And the title and caption and summary and explanatory statement are there too, if you have any thoughts on that. But absent any thoughts or input, that's what you're going to see in resolution form next week.

Councilor Patton.

Yeah, so one of the things that was talked about during the subcommittee was that, well, yes, this conversation tonight is about the charter and changing the charter to say that it reflects the policies. One thing that came out of that subcommittee meeting was that we need to ensure that the policy is pretty ironed out before it goes to the vote. As we are doing our outreach to the community to say, look, we're changing this based on policy. Again, this talks about the current state of people's trust in government. If we say, we're going to do this, we're going to create a policy, vote on this now, and then we'll make the policy that's not going to fly. We need to be able to say, we would like you to vote on this, and this is pretty much what that policy is going to look like. use that as an opportunity to get people's feedback on that policy so if we start to feel that it's going to backfire we have the ability to make some adjustments before it actually like goes to the vote and do some of that work so we have that done in advance and it is more likely to pass okay

Any other comment? Are we done with this particular piece? I think we're done with at least the aspect of the verbiage change.

Okay.

Move forward with that and then are we, so to Councilor Patten's point, we maybe need to iron out what those waiver pieces may be to include in the language of the voter pamphlet?

Well, I think what we talked about in our subcommittee meeting was that we were going to see if the council would be up to this change. And if so, get some ideas from the council as to what restrictions would be in this policy. So is it like, is it just the driving requirements? Is it other things that we would want to see in this policy? So that way we have a good understanding of what the council is really looking at and looking for so that, you know, the subcommittee can also begin to look at that policy and what that policy would look like.

Okay. Yes, Councilor Davis.

Hey, Jason, what I heard Emily say, and maybe I'm wrong, Emily, but to our direct staff and Emily to come back with what the ideas that we already came up with that would be in that policy back to the city council. And I agree with Jason, we should have those before we put it out for a vote of the people so that we've got those concrete as far as policy goes, but I'd like to, you've already mentioned some of them and I think the ideas that we've already given you. So maybe have you work with staff with either the city administrator or Pete to come up with what that policy would be.

Absolutely. We'll put a draft together. We can have that for you at your next council meeting. The one that's a week from today. We were hoping to, have council adopt the resolution referring it to the ballot next week. If you find that the policy that we bring needs a little work, would council still be willing to refer the measure to the ballot while the policy's a work in progress?

Okay, great. waiver guidelines.

Okay, great, thank you.

Great, yes, Councilor Davis. Thank you, now that we've wrapped that one up, I would ask the councilors that are present in the meeting tonight to give some consideration to an idea that I had moving forward to deal with the current situation that we're in with our current interim city administrator. And that is that, if you'll recall, the council has history of allowing a city administrator to live outside the city limits in up to, it was almost two years, in regards to the residency requirement. And I'd like the council to give some consideration to coming up with an employment contract for our current city, interim city administrator to, in the event that this passes or fails one way or the other, I think that I've got a vote of confidence in regards to our interim city administrator. He's fitting in extremely well. And I would hate to lose him to another city, especially not that he, I've heard that he is looking or that somebody is making offers, but I think it would go a long ways for us to have a vote of confidence to move forward with having maybe the mayor. And I would volunteer to sit down and work out an interim or work out a that if this charter fails, allowing up to two years for the city administrator to choose to move within the city limits. And that would give him plenty of time to consider, well, am I happy with this or am I gonna let it go in two years or whatever? But I think it would be a vote of confidence on our part to move that contract forward.

I can definitely, so is that an interest of the, it's not really the scope of the work session right now, but.

Well, I had asked for this to be put on a work session three weeks ago. We had two counselors to be put on, and so I'm covering it under residency for discussion since it hasn't appeared on the agenda yet.

Could I ask a quick question? So the city administrator residency requirement in the charter doesn't apply to the interim position. I guess that's a statement, not a question.

I'm saying offer a permanent contract.

Okay, understood. Sorry, I got confused there. I think this is why our colleagues didn't get the idea.

Councilor Patton.

Okay.

So I agree if Randy would want to stay here longer, I will give a vote of confidence to that. But the heartburn that I have is that if you want to do a two-year interim contract, fine and well.

I would just, Jason, I would just, my recommendation would be to handle it handle it as a regular contract, employment contract, but very similar to what we did with the last city administrator and allowing, you know, recommending moving inside the city limits as soon as possible, but no longer than two years. So it's not an interim contract, it would be a permanent contract.

Well, but the problem is that this is the problem that I have with that, is that if we do this and we are trying to get this whole thing over the finish line. And it comes out that, oh, the city council is doing this, even though this kind of skirts around the current city charter. It does not look good. And it's like, well, the voters are coming to us to say they want us to get rid of this thing. But they're already moving with making a contract that kind of gets rid of that kind of skirts this rule. I am leery of doing anything that is going to cast what we are trying to do here in a bad light. So if it's a two-year interim contract, that's one thing. But as far as, I mean, Emily, to me, would we be able to do that even? Would that not run afoul of the city charter?

Question being, could we have an indefinite interim city administrator position?

No. Sorry, restate the question. To actually offer him a full-time two-year contract as a city administrator but not have it be interim, are we even able to do that?

It would be subject to the residency requirement under the charter. Yeah. But there's no obligation to go through a posted recruitment process or anything like that.

Basically, does the vague... language about when, as soon as possible, how long is as soon as possible. I think that's where the legality of that comes in.

Yeah, it's promptly thereafter.

So it's basically a precedence issue.

Yeah, how long was it?

So we've had some precedents, I guess you could say. So the previous city manager came down to finding homes within price range to be able to do it. The previous city administrator came up from California, but he did rent an apartment in town to meet the requirement. Before he bought a house. And then I believe city administrator that we hired, Mr. Ellis, was almost a year, year and a half, I think, before he found something. They were building. So, I mean, there's been some, but again, that was a case-by-case piece. It was in regular updates on So, yeah, we do have, there's history there, you know. But it was a case-by-case basis. It's not a, I don't think it's precedent-setting. You okay?

Yeah.

The, you know... My thought behind this is not only is Randy doing a great job, in my opinion, Randy's doing a great job as our city administrator, and that I would hate to lose him, but say the charter fails in November, then we're gonna be right back here talking about the exact same thing anyway, because we're gonna wanna keep So why not head that off right off the bat and work on an employment contract with him at this point under our current charter.

But under the current charter, what we are trying to do will violate it. Am I wrong? No, you're not. See, this is the problem. I understand what we want to do, but in those other cases where we were setting precedent of whether it was a half a year or a year or a year and a half, those people went into the job with the expectation and the knowing that they had to eventually move into the city. We know, and it is now on record, that the person who would be getting this contract has no interest in moving into the city. Therein lies the problem for me. I mean, I'm all for trying to find a way to make it happen. But again, I do not want to sink this ship before it's even had a chance to get out of port by doing something now that makes it look like we're doing something against city charter. I'm just not for it. I'm all for an extended contract. It's an interim or something along those lines. But based on what I know of what we've been talking about now for several years now, is that there is really no way that we could offer a full-time two-year contract with the understanding that this person, and no offense to you, Randy, I'm not going to say you because it could be anybody, with the knowledge that this person has no interest in moving into the city. And then to say that, well, we're doing it now because we hope this will pass, and if it doesn't pass, we're going to come back and hope this will lay the groundwork for doing it. To me, it sounds like we're trying to lay the groundwork to violate the city charter, and I'm not going to do it. I've already been down this road before. I'm not doing it again.

I guess for me, we already have the mechanism in place. There is no current limitation on the interim position unless there was a very specific need to be full-time for whatever reason. I think I honestly agree with that. with councilor Patton, I think that we need to make sure that we are doing, we don't give any indication that we're, that we're trying to skirt one way or the other. So I think, I think there, there is sensitivity out there for any vote that goes out. I mean, even just with the, with the school. So yeah, I think the interim position is still a very viable option. Sure. And it's already in place. And I think we should focus on the education and getting this passed because really it's only six months away. Right. So six months is not that much.

How long is it? November? November. Yeah. Okay. Well... Better shoot it out there. I think just, then can we look at working out a true interim employment contract with Randy? Because you'll recall that there's several things that are not addressed in his interim contract. such as, you know, 401k, retirement pay, none of those things have really officially been negotiated. So maybe it's time for us to revisit the interim contract then.

I would totally get behind that. And if we want to make it a more extent, if we want to, you know, extend it to be a year or whatever, I'm fine with that. But yeah, I mean, keeping it under the interim. So everything seems, so everything is above board is, is what I'm looking for.

Okay. I can live with that too, Jason. Um, so my recommendation would be then for us to, uh, move this, I guess, to the city council for discussion as an agenda item. And, uh, my recommendation there would be that we, uh, ask the mayor and, uh, uh, Randy and our, um, HR director and Emily to sit down and work out an interim employment contract with Randy is what I'd ask the staff to do is to put that on the agenda.

If it's appropriate, we have done, I've been working with other HR directors and kind of compiled the list of what other cities are currently offering in terms of compensation package for their city administrators. Most of that isn't typically posted on the salary schedule. So myself and other HR directors have worked together with like-minded cities and have a general idea of what the various city administrators are currently earning in their compensation package. So I'm happy to share that so you guys can kind of take a look of what like-minded cities and city administrators are currently offering.

Well, if the council agrees moving forward, then you and the mayor and Emily and Randy can get together to work that out.

Okay, thank you. The next item under our work session this evening is the swim center levy.

Come on up, Nathan.

Okay, I have a request to take five. So we're gonna take a five minute break and we will come back in five minutes.

Recording stopped.

Thank you, Kami. Welcome back to our work session after a small little break. We are now going to talk about the swim center levy. We've got Nathan and Mr. Ely going to take us through it.

Just draw your attention to our handouts, which is a draft. ballot title in front of you. You'll have this in front of you next week if it's the wish of the consent of mayor, you and the council tonight. We are putting this out there as a straight up renewal with no changes, 49 cents per 1,000. And you can see the different amounts that it would generate. We've done a lot of work behind the scenes on this. This is operation and programming money strictly for the Swim Center. So, Nathan, any color you'd like to add?

I mean, not really. There's not a whole lot to discuss here. at the risk of slightly correcting Randy. Yeah, please do. The key sentence I think here, I had asked Emily if we could get a little more flexibility in the line property tax revenue would be used to fund Municipal aquatic services and operation programming maintenance repair renovation modernization and preservation of aquatic facilities Previously that was somewhat more restricted Current programming being one of the key items there. It didn't include the word modernization and so one of the concerns I had was You know, can I add a lapse one? You know, can I, do I have any flexibility whatsoever to adjust programming within the structure of the levy as it had previously been written? And similarly, you know, do I have to go like to like on a pump? Or am I able to take advantage of newer technology on pumps? I mean, I realize these are kind of quibbling things, but I haven't previously sat in the seat, so I didn't know how restricted I needed to be with that. And so Emily and Maya both worked hard to change that just slightly while still being within the threshold, I suppose, where we're calling it a renewal.

Yeah, it's a renewal of a levy if the new ballot measure is for substantially the same purpose as the previous one. And the previous one is for the language, I'm not going to quote off the top of my head, but for operations and maintenance of the swim center. And the way this language here we're proposing reads is, falls within operations and maintenance, just a more specific way of explaining those two categories. The things that we'll have to be careful about, because this is an operational levy, not a capital one, is to make sure that the maintenance projects and the modernization projects don't cross the line into capital projects under state law. But that's just something for us to be careful about as we are hopefully bringing in the proceeds and then figuring out how to spend them.

So does 49 cents per thousand cover the projected cost of running our swim center? It does.

Pretty straightforward. Yeah. Unless you want to talk about any other... Yeah.

Yeah, we're doing what we have from... Yeah, it's operations, not capital. So that's a whole different conversation that I know that we are working on on a multitude of different levels and layers.

Councilor Dave, you have a comment? I would just say my recommendation would be to move this forward to the city council for approval. Agreed.

Head nodding here. Councilor Patton, are you nodding your head or shaking your head? or not hearing us at all?

Okay, it's three to one if he doesn't want to. Yes, Mr. Ely. I would just, more specifically, Mayor, I do have the budget in front of me tonight. To your question, which was a good one, does it cover the expenses? And we're being very frugal here with this ask, the 49 cents. we could easily have come to you as staff and trying to bump it maybe a quarter or something. I don't think that's the right thing to do, but Nathan was right. We do cover personnel and materials and services barely with this million dollars a year. So you're to the plus in the black as written. And you can see it'll raise a little bit more and more each year for the five years. That's all I'll say about that.

All right. So we will move it on to the council for debate and approval. Okay. Good job. Thank you. All right. That's the last piece on the agenda for our work session this evening. I will take a motion to adjourn. All right, Kami, we are adjourned from our work session. Thank you very much. See everybody next week for council meeting.