City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

All right, I have 7pm. I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Irvin?

Here.

Councillor Hink? Here. Councillor Lammerman?

Here.

Councillor Merida? Here. Councillor Settlemyer?

Here.

Councillor Wilson?

Here.

Mayor Soulsby?

Here. I'll rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you.

Items to be added to the agenda.

There are none. We have some special presentations this evening. Item A, library report. Library consultant, Miriam Sisson.

Thanks. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm really thrilled to be here. And I'm here because the Council and Budget Committee were able to come up with a budget that supported the library. and it's staying open. Two of the incredible staff members are here, our librarians. One had a family commitment and couldn't make it, but I am here to say some things that you have in your packet to go over some of their current operations accomplishments in addition to those goals that you read about, and also to answer questions. I'll go ahead and read. The library is operating at 40 hours per week with a phenomenal staff of three librarians at 2.7 FTE. Those staff members are designing and delivering children's programming, managing patron services, including book circulation, collaborating with city departments, and with other community groups, including the Partners in History, providing access to public use computers and resources for job search, email access, schoolwork.

Well, that's not for another couple weeks.

Printing needs and more. While serving the public in these capacities, they are also intent on addressing those priorities that the city manager and the council have asked them to look at. And those top two priorities, as we understand them, are to create a culture of volunteerism, to bring community members into the library to help do the work of the library, and then to diversify the funding for the library operations. There are some other goals there on your report, and that includes continuing to focus on patron and community safety and a welcoming library environment. That's really important. I don't know when the last time any of you were able to be in the library. It is a really fantastic place to be. It's fun, it's vibrant. The average library day, they're serving about 100 people. They keep very good statistics. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but they click when you come in the door. It's like automatic. And if you've worked in libraries for any time, then you will do it in your sleep. So about 100 people a day come through the doors and of course it's been summer reading that's been a super busy time. The fourth primary goal that we're working on is to identify and develop new programs and services, while maintaining the collection and existing services. Progress to date. The community is so eager to volunteer. Last time I had a count, they had about a dozen applications, and they will be interviewing those applicants next week, which we feel very confident that people who are wanting to volunteer at the library are probably going to get accepted. We'll find a job for you if you want to help. Those volunteer jobs, and that might not be something that... you have thought about. There are a lot of jobs in a library that are not a librarian position. And that will help the librarians who have the training and the background to perform. We don't want volunteers accessing patron records. That's private. But volunteers can shelve books, can prep children's crafts, can help with those children's programs. can even in many cases design and deliver programs. We care a lot in this community about children's programming, about children's literacy. I think we can all agree that that is something that is a valid goal for the library to be reaching. I have gotten off the script. Part of that focus on children's literacy is the summer reading program. And if you have spent time around the library during summer, it is chaotic. It's organized chaos. They had hundreds of children through the doors for programs spanning, well, and some outreach programs. They had a kickoff party in Bohemia Park with ice cream. Okay. Popsicles. Okay. That's much less messy and dairy-free is good. So, and then they did an escape room, which no one actually got trapped, uh, in the escape room. Kids had to solve a puzzle to get out. They had to work together, work on their, um, they, on their teamwork skills. They also recorded their minutes, minutes read. That is the goal of summer reading is that, uh, When children are not in school, they will engage with learning, with literacy. And community members here in Cottage Grove read 91,868 books. minutes or recorded that they read that many. So I would guess that there were a lot of people who did not record it because I forget to. So summer reading was a huge success and I just would really like to thank this staff because they planned and implemented that whole thing during a time when nobody knew what was going to happen to the library. So they have brought a great deal of dedication to that effort and the kids benefited from it. Lost my place again. We're skipping from summer reading back to our volunteering. We are glad that there's plenty of work to be done. There's a welcoming staff to work with. The staff estimates that volunteers will be able to start in mid to late September. The goal is to create a pool of active volunteers. And those might be people who work an hour a week. Those might be people who work eight hours a week or two hours a month. It will depend on people's skill sets and availability. Other libraries of similar size and budgets manage with between 10 and 20 regular volunteers. So we feel confident that that can be accomplished. The second primary goal was to diversify funding. The adopted budget for the library leaves room for grant writing and financial support from individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and foundations. library staff have the support of its Friends of the Library, and that's a really important thing to recognize, is that the Friends of the Cottage Grove Library are a dedicated group. They have skilled grant writers. They are also probably the pool from which most of the volunteers will come. In partnership with the Friends, staff will be writing approximately $60,000 of grants during this fiscal year. Staff has already applied for two separate grants, and I feel very confident that they will be successful in those applications. That's the goal, $60,000 and 10 to 20 volunteers to continue serving patrons of all ages. in the fantastic manner in which they have begun. Thank you.

Any questions? Councilor Maraday.

Thank you, Mayor. Could you tell us how someone was interested in volunteering that could find an application?

There's a link on the website. There are some paper copies here. I know they have paper copies at the library.

So the link is under the library section of the website. Jobs under volunteers. And I wonder if someone could speak to the new addition to the library that came about through the 100 Libraries Art Project.

I can. I staff did manage that before I started hanging out with you all. But that is a is a completely free to the city public art installation the artist. His goal is to put it into 100 separate libraries and it is special prisms that are measured custom that throw colorful light throughout the day at different angles it's beautiful.

Councillor Rubin.

I'd just like to commend all who have put their efforts in, who weathered the season that we went through to make sure that services can still be delivered, that the residents of Cottage Grove have a robust library, many programs to benefit from, and that the reading program was successful. All testament to your efforts, so thank you.

Thanks. Anyone else? Councillor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, I just want to kind of piggyback on what Councillor Urban was saying and just commend all of you for the amount of hard work you guys are actually doing. And I love to see the progress you guys are making on the volunteer side of it. And I hope to see this go even further within the near future. And I'd love to see it running again. where it hopefully can be here soon. So on that note, just keep up the good work. And from what I'm hearing, you guys are doing awesome. So keep it up.

Thanks. In case I wasn't super clear or if I forgot to read that line, end of September is the goal for having active volunteers.

Anyone else? Councilor Sattelmeyer.

I just want to say thank you.

Well, I too want to commend you, and I know that this was some tough times for the community and library staff, and we really appreciate your efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item B, utility fee discussion. City Manager, Mr. Sauerwein.

Well, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. I'm passing out a PowerPoint, some other information to you right now.

Thank you.

Well, good evening again, Your Honor and members of the council. Clear back last December, city staff let the council know that we would not be including any utility fees in the 2026-2027 budget. But at the same time, we said that we would come back in August and we would start discussing the potential for utility fees in the future. City staff is plowing ahead. We're already working on next year's budget. So this is an apropos time for us to have this conversation. Now, our goal is for the city council to provide city staff with clear direction regarding utility fees in next year's, the 2027, 2028 budget to potentially finance general fund programs like police, library, parks, et cetera. And we may not get there this evening. This may be the beginning of a conversation rather than the end of it. But the sooner we can have clear direction from the council, the sooner we know what funds we have to work with in next year's budget. So what I'd like to do this evening really is two things. First, I want to give you some background. Take this as an opportunity to discuss our current city utility charges and what available payment assistance programs we do offer folks and some of the proposed changes to those assistance programs. And then let's dive right into utility fees. I think first we just need to define what is a utility fee. And then I'll give you an example from law enforcement. Again, this is an example and not a proposal. And then we'll end up probably where we started. And again, talking about utility fees in the 2027-2028 budget. So when you pay your water, sewer and stormwater bill, you pay into eight different categories. Now this is important and I'll get to that in a moment, but you pay a water base fee, you pay a water consumption fee and a water improvement capital fee. The same for wastewater, there are three. There's a base fee, a wastewater consumption fee. I think it's weird that we talk about wastewater consumption. And then also there's a wastewater improvement fee. For storm, we have the equivalent service unit, which is essentially for a single family home, and then also the improvement fee. And so if you have something like a large parking lot at a grocery store, they're going to pay significantly more equivalent service units than a single family home. Now, the reason that I said this is important is because if you look at your actual water bill, you will notice that instead of there being three different categories for water, base, consumption, and improvement, there's only two. There's one for water and one for water improvement. I have been asked on a number of occasions by people, well, you tell me my water base fee is $28.79. Why does it say 65.23 on my bill? And the answer to that is because that also includes the water consumption fee. And it's my understanding that we have a limited number of lines that we can have on the software and our water billing, which is kind of the main reason that you see this. John Potter, So you also have the water improvement out separately, but when you go down to wastewater once again, you have the wastewater base and the wastewater consumption. John Potter, In one line item, so the numbers don't match what was approved by the Council, because you actually have to combine numbers. John Potter, For the wastewater improvement, the storm drain and the storm drain improvement. they have their own individual line items. So when you talk with constituents, it's important to be able to draw the distinction because as I said, I've been asked on more than one occasion why the numbers don't match between water base and what people actually see on their bill. I've also had some questions about what kind of assistance is available if somebody's having trouble paying their water bill. Now, our overriding philosophy is that if somebody will work with us, we'll work with them. We set up payment plans. We help people catch up if they get behind on their bills. Look, everybody has had a point in their life where the amount of money they owed on their bills exceeds the balance of their checkbook, okay? We've all been there. And we try to work with people that get behind on their bills. There's a couple of different ways we can also actually reduce somebody's bill. The main one being that we do have a assistance program that for folks that are 65 or older, if they're disabled, as defined by the Social Security Administration guidelines, we do require them to meet some poverty guidelines and provide us proof of their income. If that's the case, we can reduce their water base and their wastewater base so that they only pay 41%. Now, this is kind of an odd number, and we tried to figure out where this came from. Mindy did some very serious dumpster diving into the city records, and this was something that was established clear back, I think, in the 1990s, or maybe before that even, which is part of the reason in a moment I'm going to talk about some alternatives we're looking at. There's also community organizations that help. Community Sharing provides grants to households if their water bill has been shut off for non-payment to try to help them get back on track. And something that we'll be bringing you in the future is some proposed changes to these assistance programs. We're talking with our friends at Community Sharing and we're trying to come up with a way that they can help more directly than they have. They work with some of the very same folks that are getting behind on their water bills on a number of other different ways in the community. And so they have some expertise and some experience with that. So more to come. We'll be bringing you back some recommendations. So let's move on to the utility fees. What is a utility fee? Well, simply put, it's a separate fee listed on your monthly utility bill. The revenue from that fee is for a dedicated purpose established by the city council. The fee can also be adopted by a vote of the people as well as by the city council. And what I've passed out to you this evening is a large spreadsheet, which shows the fees from about four dozen different cities around the state. Now, there is no state enabling legislation creating what is a utility fee, and there's no official list of what cities have adopted. This is actually a list that was put together by a group of city managers that wanted to try to come up with and be able to compare what was happening in different cities around the state. The majority of the cities on this list are from the Willamette Valley or the Portland metro area. And this is a snapshot in time. This is a snapshot in time from this last spring. I know of already some of the fees that are listed in this spreadsheet that have been adjusted since they were originally put in here. I just went with the spreadsheet that I already have. So just to give you an example of how a utility fee could be used in Cottage Grove, we have about 4,033 city utility accounts. It's a moving target, and obviously it changes practically from day to day. But if we were to charge $10, we would generate $40,330 a month, or about $483,000 a year. In real terms, that could potentially fund two police officers and two community service officers. But I want to be really intellectually honest about this. If we were to do this in next year's budget, there is no guarantee that we would continue to be able to fund these positions into the future. There are things that we do not control. The cost of PERS, the cost of medical insurance. There are things we may have a little more control over. We're going to negotiations with our police union at the end of this fiscal year, their contract ends. So we'll be going to negotiations probably in January. So if we were to adopt a fee, then that fee would only last as long as it would last to continue to fund additional officers if, in fact, we were to have an increase in the cost per officer. Does that make sense to everybody? So as I said earlier, let's end up where we started. City staff is looking for clear direction from the city council. We've had a lot of conversations about utility fees. We just need to know what we're going to be including as revenue in next year's budget. And as I said, we may not get to the end of this conversation this evening, but we definitely need to know since we're already in the process of starting to take a look at where we're going to be a year from now.

Questions?

Councilor Irvine.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Sauerwein, for presenting this. The utility fee for, I'll just kind of opening bid where I'm coming in on this. We made a large adjustment to the structure of our utility fees, but the allocation of staff resources into the utilities. That was a big increase. That was a, I would describe it as loosely thumb in the air, kind of, we don't have hours to base this on, you know, I'm strongly in favor of getting those hours. I understand that they're being tracked under this budget. And so once those are ready, that gives a more solid baseline to say, okay, what would we be adding to that budget? Beyond that, I'm highly in favor of this advisory vote process, the soliciting of information from the community through, you know, the I think the November ballot was our generally agreed upon no extra costs kind of process. um process to say hey if we were to do this who's in favor what do we you know we want to improve these these items these areas uh xyz areas these mechanisms you know what what's what gets the support of the community so i want that foundation and then i want to hear from the community and then i want to that's kind of where i'm going counselor satemeyer

Yes, I totally agree with that. We've had things where we've gathered information in a bunch of ways from the community. Sometimes I guess it's more credible than other times. It would be wonderful for us to put together some important questions to ask as to what are the priorities of our community and give us... the footing to know how we should proceed with things. I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea that at the end of this meeting that we may be able to give guidance other than let's see what the voters say and how do we get to there.

Councillor Wilson.

I'm leaning heavily in that direction to having an advisory vote with some ideas behind it. This is what we are thinking of doing. Are you in favor of that as a community? Whether it be road improvements, whether it be funding additional officers or funding the library. If we can have something on the ballot as an advisory vote, it's not going to cost anything, say yes or no, just getting a feel of what the community, we're supposed to be representing the community, and without their input, it's really hard to do that. Through that advisory vote, we're going to get a lot more information from what the community is feeling is important to them. So if we can, I'm thinking along the lines of Direction for staff would be to have ballot measure wording that would get a good feel from the community.

Councilor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, Council, Mr. Sauerwein, would it be up to us to determine whether or not We wanted this to be like a couple-year bond type thing or just set it to where it's got a sunset period kind of timeline. If we were to implement a utility fee, we set it to where it expires in three years, five years, something like that.

Yeah, as I said earlier, there's really no enabling legislation at the state level, so there's not a lot of guidance. It's my understanding that cities have done just that. They have adopted a utility fee for a specific purpose, and they've put a sunset clause on it. In some cases, I think they've said, we'll do this for one year and come back a year from now and the council will have to act again. I am also very supportive, by the way, of doing advisory measures and trying to gather that information. We can come back to you with some specific questions. I would like to put it on an election where there's going to be large voter turnout.

um there's always the side issue as if it's not you know the general primary we end up having to pay for it uh so but i mean you know i i like the idea of advisory measures counselor thank you for that answer and uh i basically just want to piggyback off what the other counselors have stated on on getting uh input from the community members especially with the amount of grievances about current water rates and what the bills are and then uh us well this body deciding to add an additional fee on top of that I just I can only imagine the amount of complaints that would come in on the additional charge uh and I would like to see if we did implement something like that kind of allotting it to a road improvement fund. I see Mr. Merida has got his infamous bag of gravel with us today. But I do know we have a large deficit in the street improvement funds and the amount of work that needs to get done. So I'd like to see if we did do it, it kind of put in that direction because it's something that's semi-temporary, but it helps the community in a whole and it It gives somebody like a goal to look at and say, okay, well, these projects need to be done versus we need to fund these positions for this amount of time. And then they're going to lose a job or something along those lines. Thank you.

Councilor Meredith.

Thank you, Mayor. One of the advantages of the utility fee is exactly what you just stated, is you can impose it at any time and you can remove it at any time. It's not like a bond measure. It's an additional source of income. Another advantage is that it doesn't have to go to before the people if there was a very stringent need that the council need to buck up. And despite what people felt, we need this money for an essential service, it could be imposed. Our neighbors to the north in Crestwell rely very heavily on the utility fee. That's how they pay for their law enforcement. And similar, they have a tough fee for their roads, which is also an additional fee. So it is a valuable funding mechanism. If you're asking for an advisory vote and you put too many topics on, I'm not sure what the data might look like. What do you think you're going to do, this, this, or this? And if you give people too many choices, I'm not sure where the data might be. So perhaps a survey could give you better information on that. And just put a general question, would you be willing to support a utility fee? And then find out exactly where the public would support or would not support a utility fee. Education is huge. Public education, as mentioned, I'm looking at our road slowly deteriorating. We did dedicate quite a bit of Council and community members time to look at different proposals and to fund road improvements and we did do quite a bit of public outreach and trying to educate the public about what the, these measures would bring to them and what it would cost, and it was rejected in a pretty round fashion so. And that was something that was expressed very strongly by the community. They wanted the roads improved. And that's why we dedicated the time of the ad hoc street committee to try to offer some solutions. So if an advisory vote would be placed, it would be my recommendation to say, would you be willing to support a utility fee, yay or nay? And if so, then rely on a survey to see where the areas that would be where the public would like to see that support go to. I would hope that we can provide some relief to our police department who's been running. long and hard on thin personnel. So if we could get them the resources they need, I'm certain that the public would appreciate the results of being better served by our police department.

There was a time when I was thinking November is a long ways off. Have we already missed the window?

We've already missed the window for the November election. But having said that, if you were to want to put advisory measures even on the spring primary ballot, you know, there would be time for the council to digest that and perhaps add it to next year's budget. If the council were perhaps to select to do that, then we would go with the revenue that we have when we're budgeting for next year. And the council would basically have between the May primary and the end of June to be able to make a decision based on the information they gathered from that. You know, you can, you can, I said, you know, do it at a different election, but it's, as I said earlier, you know, I, I don't want us to have to pay for the election if we can avoid doing that. Thank you.

And we keep talking about advisory votes and I have a note in a different section to talk about something that's. was going to be looked into, I think, from one of the previous meetings when reading the meeting minutes, which is if we call for an advisory vote, is it limited to the ballots of those inside city limits? Because there are similar issues of forming school district boundaries for a library fund or a special district of that nature.

As we talked about at the time, if we were to want to create a new district, whether there's been discussion about parks and rec districts, discussion about library districts, and we wanted to use the borders of Cottage Grove School District, Southline School District, or if we wanted to perhaps use Cottage Grove and Crestwell School Districts, we would need to work with all of those other jurisdictions and the county as well. Um, you know, I, I don't think you can put an advisory measure out to people outside the city said, because you're talking about an action that the city council would take that affected folks inside the city. Now it's a, it's the difference between whether you're talking about a utility fee or creating, you know, a new special district.

I met a mayor council. So I, we obviously, as you stated, missed the November window, uh, But I do know we have quite a few events coming up like the Monster Ball Oktoberfest. Would there be an opportunity to where we could set up two boxes, a yes, no box with marbles or something and have just a general summary on a utility fee kind of bulletin where people can drop a marble in a box at those events. That way it'll kind of help give some input in addition to the other methods, like maybe a couple of public hearings before the end of the year or before the new budget comes out or some other avenues?

We can certainly do surveys, but generally speaking, the surveys are a little bit anecdotal as opposed to a formal process like an election.

Well, my input is I believe that it would be important to specify what that utility fee would be going to. I think if you just put it out there, a utility fee, that most people would vote it down. And they're going to want to know where that fee is going. So do we have, Councilor Lammerman?

Sorry, Councilor, so to kind of piggyback off that a little bit. I think the community with what everybody gripes about would really get behind a street improvement fund. I don't know if they'd necessarily get behind a public safety type fee due to when everybody looks at the budget, the police department gets a huge amount of our general fund versus the other areas. And everybody complains about the roads. I think the majority of the people would get behind That money being set aside specifically for road improvement.

Well, one option would be for staff to come back to you with a couple of different ballot measures, advisory measures, and kind of let you take a look at them. We'll start at the 10,000-foot view with ideas, and then we'll turn to our legal expert when we start actually drafting something to be on the ballot. But I think we could bring you back a couple of ideas for you to take a look at.

Is it possible to do two advisory?

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say you could do any number of advisory measures on a ballot. You know, I'm always mindful of issue raised by Council Member Maryday that people are like, well, I like this one, but I don't like that one. And, you know, I mean, but yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with having an advisory measure that says, would you support a utility fee for the police department? And then the next line is, would you support a utility fee for streets? You know, the example was given earlier, the city of Crestwell that has both of those measures. There's certainly, if you look through the spreadsheet, cities that have any number of different utility fees that they're charging.

Councilor Wilson.

Yeah, I'm in favor of that approach at most, too. And those are the two, I think, that would be the most helpful.

I was going to say, go ahead.

As I say, you know, we'd be happy to, as I said, we'll bring you back some, you know, potential advisory measures. You know, again, understand that, you know, this is kind of the city staff at the 10,000 foot view. And if it's selected, you know, we'll obviously have to work with the experts to actually wordsmith something and draft it.

Thank you. Councilor Sotomayor.

And once again, I'm just asking a guess at a timeline. This is probably when we should be having this discussion for a May vote?

I was going to say, I don't think we can start this conversation too early. And the option for the city council as we move forward is whether you want to wait for the May primary or whether you want to expend city funds to have a special election. lower voter turnout, and again, you know, something that the city would need to pay for, so.

You have what you need?

Yeah, as I say, I definitely feel like I've kind of got some direction.

So I do feel pretty strongly about the initial point of the underlying allocation of staff compensation into the utilities. But I presume we don't need a full year's worth of data to project some pretty reasonably high accuracy numbers for the next budget.

No, as we've discussed, we're actually going to be focusing on three departments in the months of September and October. The city manager's office, the finance department, community development, and actually having people fill out daily time cards with what their work is. being mindful of the fact that this is a bit of a snapshot in time. I'll pick on Lori since she's sitting here. If we were to have a large human resources issue in one particular department, it could very much skew the data that she's spending 90% of her time working on that one department. Well, again, that's a snapshot in time, but I think we can go back and scrub the data a little bit and get the information that we need. to be able to do next year's budget. Having said that, at a staff level, we've already discussed we'd like to do another two-month snapshot in time next spring. Be a little late for drafting the budget, but good information to have. And then perhaps do it again next summer. Again, being mindful of the fact in different times of the year, departments' priorities and things they're working on shift. So it's always going to be, there's always going to be just a snapshot. But I think we can feel pretty confident with the information that we bring to you in next year's budget based on doing two months' worth of work.

I would just note that I understand that that's extra overhead on all staff, and that's much appreciated so that we can make as good of decisions as possible. But I can just hear my employee's voice in my head right now.

We've had that conversation.

Yeah.

Item C, quasi-judicial hearings. Our city attorney, Terry Connolly.

Thank you so much. So at the last meeting I attended, which I believe was the last council meeting, first meeting in August, we discussed that we would, I would be providing you with a training to better understand one of the many hats you wear. So this, I guess, is being passed out. Mindy, I'm going to ask a technical question. Is this, you want me to use this? Okay. Does this? No, I just don't even, it's not, it doesn't look like it's, okay. We're going to do a little bit of playing first. I'm always also very good at saying next slide. What am I pointing at? Okay. All right. Well, we may do a couple of false starts, but well, you know me, I'm Carrie Connolly. I've been the city attorney for a while since 2014. We're gonna discuss quasi-judicial hearings. And what I was saying to begin with is you as a councilor, council and councilors wear many different hats, your policy makers, your lawmakers. And in this context, you're going to apply the law that has been previously adopted. So the characteristics of a quasi-judicial decision maker is think of that as judge-like. You're like a judge. And what does a judge do? A judge applies a particular confined set of facts to already adopted law. If you as the decision maker don't like the law, that's a great thing to take note of. for later action, but in a quasi-judicial process, you don't change the law. You do have a legislative function, and so there are legislative land use hearings that you also perform in that function. That's not what we're talking about. So I just want to be really clear about the distinction. Quasi-judicial is judge-like. You have one plaintiff, essentially, but it's the applicant. and you're applying a set of already adopted criteria to a set of facts that you're developing through the hearing process. We do have a hearing coming up on Thursday. It's an appeal hearing. That's how this council functions as a quasi-judicial decision-making body. They're not very common. And so I just want you all to be really comfortable with what's going to happen on Thursday. But having said that, this is a very general training and discussion. We are not going to discuss anything about Thursday's hearing at all, other than I want you to know how the evening will proceed. What does a hearing look like? What are your responsibilities? What do you get to do? What do you don't get to do? So I'll move ahead. So In your code, quasi-judicial hearings are also known as type three hearings. So you've probably heard type one, that's administrative. Type two, administrative planning commission. Type three, that involves a full hearing, bringing in evidence. You hear the evidence and you make a decision based on that evidence and the rule of law that's already been adopted. Just to overview, boy, I'm getting warm. To overview the full process so you understand what it looks like from beginning to end, the applicant starts this process by submitting a land use application to staff. Staff looks at it, works it up, works with the applicant, makes sure it's complete, and then sends out notice to the public so that the public's aware the city's making a decision on a particular use of land within the city. Once the public has that notice, the record is developed. People submit written testimony. They take note of when the hearing's going to be. They come in and give testimony. It can even, post-hearing, there can be some, the record can be increased. And it requires an impartial decision-making body. We're going to talk a lot about that. What does that impartiality require? But as a result of After the hearing, a decision is made, a decision that's based on the applicable criteria. That's everything that's in your code that says, here's the stuff that has to be met in order for this particular use. And then you have findings that draw evidence from the record to show each of these criteria were met or can be met. We'll talk about what that looks like. And then if somebody, either an opponent or or the applicant or anyone involved in the process is upset or unhappy with the decision, they can appeal. This appeal, some appeals, Planning Commission appeals come to you. Appeals of your decision go to the Land Use Board of Appeals. And the Land Use Board of Appeals, I just want you familiar with that term, LUBA, because you might hear LUBA and go, what? What is that? I don't understand. They're not a city agency. How is it that they have jurisdiction over our decisions? I see a question. Councillor Settlemyer.

I'm sorry. I'm a little bit confused. When we are talking about a decision, are we just looking at the same decision that the other body was looking to? Or are we specifically looking at the appeal points and judging whether or not those appeal points change what the decision should be?

Right, we'll talk about that a little more, but it's a great question because you will be looking at the planning commission's decision, but you'll be focusing on the issues that were raised in the appeal. And so that's the criteria that you should be hearing testimony about. That's the criteria you're focusing on to say, did the planning commission make the right decision with regard to the issues raised in the appeal? Yeah. And then so for Luba, Luba can only consider issues that were raised before you. And they not only reviewed, did the decision, did a decision from the city, was it made pursuant to your adopted applicable criteria? Was the decision based on substantial evidence that's in the record, that's properly in the record before you, but also was this tribunal impartial? And again, we'll come back to talk about what that means. But just to reassure you, this is, like I said, it's a very prescribed process. The mayor has a script. The script ensures that things proceed in a particular order, that statutorily required statements are put into the record so that everyone, the applicant, and any interested party receives the same information. They know They need to address the applicable criteria. They know they need to raise it if it's going to be an issue for appeal. And it also ensures that you have the opportunity to put information in the record to make sure that you're impartial, you can make the decision based on the record, and that the applicant has an opportunity to rebut anything that you think you know. that may or may not already be on the record. You're putting it in the record so that they can rebut that. Yes, Councilor Irvin.

Thank you, Carrie. This impartiality ex parte contact, I think is kind of where my mind is centering on. I think I understand that, you know, for to go out and get gather knowledge that isn't available or wasn't made available to as independent counsel judges in this case, that that would create a difference in knowledge that we're all supposed to be. When it comes to some specifics, maybe the criteria, the elements that are brought up in the appeal, where does case law come into the research pool? Because I imagine a judge is someone familiar with, where does the research on how other things have been decided in other cases on similar topics come?

That's, so you ask staff, you want to ask, if you have questions, you would ask staff, we don't, how has this type of criteria been interpreted in other jurisdictions? Has it ever been challenged? It would be nice to have some time to do that research. If you conduct the research on your own, you would, and we'll talk about, you put it in the record. So if you happen to have done investigation, which I mean, you are not supposed to do on your own, but if you do, we'll put it in the record and we'll talk about that in two seconds. Maybe not two seconds, three minutes. Okay, so we're moving on though. I understand you also have other things on your agenda, so I'm trying to be thorough, but quick. So before the gavel, the staff report is already out there, I believe. I mean, so seven days before any hearing, there is a staff report that includes the full record and that is fair to review. So always come to a hearing prepared and review that. Conversations with staff are not ex parte contacts. So if you have questions about the record, you can ask them in advance to understand it a little bit better, the record. The staff report sets out the applicable appeal criteria. So getting to your, comment, Councillor Settlemyer. It identifies these are the bases for the appeal. This is how staff thinks they could be resolved or thinks how they're addressed. And then you get to make your decision based on the entire process. Provides you with a proposed decision. And then on appeal, like we were just talking about, it summarizes the planning commission decision and challenged portions. Yes.

At that time, is it kosher to ask the staff to explain things or are those questions we should have inquired ahead of time?

This is before the gavel. This is all pre-hearing information. You get to review the record and the proposed decision, proposed conditions of approval. If you have questions individually, you could ask staff. that communication would never be communicated to another counselor. We're not going to have unlawful public meetings, but those are not ex parte contacts because we want to make sure the body understands what they're reading and what staff is suggesting exactly, which speaking of, so Senior Planner Crowe, do you have anything you want to add with regard to that?

No, I absolutely encourage if you have questions, I am more than happy to explain it. I know it's a pretty giant packet, but I'm more than willing to help out.

So again, before we're continuing with before the gavel, before the hearing starts, even the record is available. It's not only available to you. It's available to the public. It's available to the applicant. Things are continuing to come in. The record would continue to grow up into and through the hearing. So just know that it's, you know, you're not receiving privileged information that it should, members of the public should know, anybody who's interested also gets to know what is being read.

And that's part of the record and part of the staff report.

I just want to spend a minute to talk about a de novo appeal. So there's certain kinds of appeals that are on the record. That would have been if the planning commissions, the material before the planning commission and their decision came to you and that was all. You just look at that, you see the appeal and you make a decision based on the evidence that was already in the record. That's a de novo appeal. However, not an on the record appeal is what you're doing. And that means you're like we've been talking about, more evidence is coming in. You're going to hear from interested parties, pro, con, on those appeal issues, the limited appeal issues. And that's why you get to have a hearing where you're taking testimony. So that doesn't mean, however, that you can't put limits on speakers. It's highly encouraged, actually, to have an efficient hearing so people Things don't get repeated over and over. You don't get lost in the fog of just, you know, seven hours of testimony. And that question had come up. So I just wanted to spend a little bit of time explaining the difference between on the record appeal, a de novo appeal. So now we're going to move on to this impartial tribunal idea. So it's based solely on the record. If it isn't in the record and it's in your head, we wanna get it in the record. If you have independent knowledge or beliefs, we wanna get that into the record so that everyone else knows what you're thinking. Everyone being members of the body, council, the appeal body, and also members of the public and the applicant. Individual knowledge is placed in the record. In the alternative, and this is not encouraged, members would step away. If you literally cannot make a decision based on the record independent of your own personal beliefs your strong held personal beliefs in that situation i would say that you're biased there's prejudgment bias and you can either rehabilitate yourself by putting that information in the record and saying I can make a fair decision based on the record. But if you can't, you would put the information on the record and you'd say, I have prejudgment bias. I cannot participate in this decision-making process. And it is part of the script. So we're going to get to that part of the script where the mayor is going to ask, is there any ex parte contact, prejudgment bias, conflicts of interest? And that's your opportunity to address each of these pieces of information. It's a really high bar for disqualification. The problematic situations I've seen are where a decision maker has signed a petition against a particular application where a decision maker campaigned on a no growth campaign and particularly no Walmarts, for instance, or they have a family vendetta and they're like, you'll never get your property in here. That has nothing to do with the city business. That is a personal issue that person has with the applicant. Those situations create a disqualifying prejudgment bias. Most others can be put on the record. And as long as you make the statement, I can make a decision based on the record, then you can participate in the decision and the vote. The effect of failing to disclose, however, the entire decision is invalidated. So it gets appealed one of the, before my time, one of the famous cases on prejudgment bias. I think, yeah, it was a Cottage Grove case involving the racetrack and it was appealed and it was sent back to the city because certain decision makers should not have participated. So, you know, thanks for that clarity in the law. Conflicts of interest, organ ethics requirements. I think this body is pretty darn familiar with your ORAS 244 obligations. But if you have any kind of potential financial potential conflict or actual conflict, which is either a potential financial interest in the application or its outcome or an actual financial interest, for instance, you own the property. And if this is approved, that property will sell to this applicant. That would be A very big red flag, and we would want you to announce that and step down. Now, the failure to disclose wouldn't invalidate the decision. It's not like ex parte context or prejudgment bias, but it could subject you to the very unpleasant investigation and potential penalty process at Oregon Government Ethics Commission. So ex parte contacts, this is, I should have put it first, maybe, but it's the biggie, I think, because in a small town, it is almost impossible not to have heard something about issues, matters that are coming before you. There are Facebook posts that you may inadvertently have read, or you may vertently have read them. You may have tried and been following the issue for a while, and technically anything that was posted about this, any site visits after the application was filed, qualify as ex-party contacts. The best thing to do is if you're approached in the supermarket or you receive an email from a constituent about a matter that's coming before you, have a script at the ready so that you can just say, the appropriate place to talk to me about that is going to be at the hearing on this particular date. I can't discuss this matter with you now. If somebody emails you and you read it and then realize, oh no, I can't respond to this. You can say, this is, thank you for reaching out. You can put this in the record and I'm prohibited from discussing this to the extent that anything does get through that fence. You're going to have written it down. You're going to print it out. You're going to bring it in. You're going to put it in the record when asked, and we will, you'll, you'll read it out loud also into the record. And that rehabilitates you as a decision maker because it makes sure, again, everyone involved, the other decision makers, the audience, et cetera, have the same information that you have. Site visits, like I said, it can be hard in a small town because a lot of people live next to the subject parcel. And so you might've grown up next to it. I played in those fields. I can't stand the idea that that's gonna be a shopping mall. And so that's important or it's inappropriate as a shopping mall because I know that the traffic's really bad in that area. Put that in the record, let the applicant have an opportunity to explain to you why they're taking care of that problem. Anything about ex parte? what it is. It's so kind of amorphous. So the tips, think of yourself as a judge, protect yourself as that impartial decision maker, develop your script like we talked about, keep track of contacts that do get through, be vigilant as the hearing approaches. It includes your own unique personal knowledge. I talked about the emailing, conversations in the supermarket, passing the site, reading Facebook or newspaper articles or op-eds. For instance, all of those ex parte contacts, you can totally take care of it by putting it in the record. The worst is when somebody says, I have no ex parte contacts. Two bad examples I've run into. One is somebody says, I have no ex parte contacts. And then later when the applicant is testifying, somebody, the decision maker leans forward and says, I researched your business. I know that your business practices, et cetera, et cetera. well, you said you didn't have any ex parte contacts, but you did this independent research. So you would have wanted to announce that when asked at the time for ex parte contacts. And then the other is where somebody says, I have no ex parte contacts. And somebody in the audience stands up with a post, a Facebook post that either they wrote or they responded to or they were clearly involved in. And hopefully that person is holding that post and you can put it in the record because if they say there was a post that I saw, it's very hard to recover Facebook exchanges from days prior or weeks prior. So if you have something like that, just do a screenshot and save it and put it in the record. So moving on with the public hearing procedures. So you're going to be asked ex parte contacts, bias, conflicts of interest, and then you move on into testimony. And again, it will be very clearly cued. The applicant gets to go first. Then proponents, and you can do it in any order you want, but I believe that our script is in this order. So applicant, proponents, neutral opponents, and then the applicant always gets to speak last. They get to rebut. anything that was placed into the record that they think is getting the facts wrong. They have an explanation you haven't heard. They just want to remind you a lot of what you heard wasn't relevant to the applicable criteria. Anything they want to say, they get that rebuttal time. Just make sure that people understand The script is really clear to explain in advance. People are going to have X number of time, X number of minutes. We're going to keep track of it. We're going to be fair. People don't get to interrupt other people. Everybody gets their turn. After the testimony, staff can try to address stuff you might have heard that might be confusing or to remind you again of the important applicable criteria. And then these potential post-hearing steps, those are helpful for general post-hearing procedures. But when you're up against 120-day timeline, which means that the city needs to issue a final decision within 120 days of the application being deemed complete, or it goes to circuit court and they might receive an approval, you just want to get that final decision done. So normally, in front of a council, we ask for a decision that evening. Councillor Merida.

Thank you, City Attorney. Where are we in the timeline for that? The 120 from the hearing that we have, or is that from the beginning of the application?

The day of completeness was in May, so it runs September 2nd is the deadline.

Yeah.

It's coming up. So your deliberation and findings, sorry, the primary point of the deliberations is you're going to be reminding each other what criteria applies, what criteria do we have questions about, how do we want to interpret that as a body if there's a lack of clarity. You want to be really clear with staff, like, We understand the Planning Commission interpreted this criteria a particular way. We're interpreting it a different way. We want, you know, we believe there's basis in the record to say X, Y, and Z, whatever that is. That's what you're talking about during deliberations. You're deciding whether can a particular criteria be complied with if you condition the application. So you say, You can build your subdivision. We need an extra road in order to ensure connectivity. We don't want a cul-de-sac. We need that road to go through. That would be a condition. So you're changing the application in front of you a little bit, but you're saying yes, yes, and. In your deliberations, you're addressing the arguments made by participants in front of you. You're interpreting the ambiguous criteria. You're choosing between conflicting evidence. You're going to hear a lot of, it is absolutely possible, or I've tried to use the subdivision. So we can absolutely address all the traffic needs of the 360 home subdivision. and opponents are going to say there is zero chance they can do that on these two connecting roads. And you're going to have to weigh the evidence. There might be expert testimony on both sides, and you get to decide what do we believe, and then you explain it to staff why one competing piece of evidence is more persuasive than a different opposing piece of evidence.

Yep. On the evidence point, do we have a definition for what qualifies as evidence in a quasi-judicial hearing?

So the only important fact is it couldn't be... Actually, I think I've skipped right over that. Hang on. So deliberations and findings. So you don't want to consider factors that are outside of the approval criteria. So the evidence... It might be really persuasive, like my property values are going to plummet. But if your criteria doesn't say it has to improve everyone's property values, then property values are irrelevant to your decision-making process. Another one would be, like I was talking about, it's really great for our children to be able to play in this field. Well, I mean, I know community values is a little too amorphous or ambiguous to be an approval criteria. So you look to see what the approval criteria is for any particular application. And if the evidence presented ties to that, great, you can consider it. If it doesn't, it might come in. It might be testimony you've heard, but you have to separate yourself from that and say, that's not what I'm going to base my decision on. Does that answer your question? Because you're going to hear, I mean, always.

I'm just trying to parse out that's subjective, that's subjective, how you determine whether it relates to the criteria. I guess that's why there's appeal processes.

That's why. And that's why you're provided a lot of guidance from staff that really outlines in the recommended decision in the staff report. Here's a lot of testimony, this stuff. I didn't think was relevant to any of the criteria. Here's what I thought was relevant to the criteria and here's how I break it out. Here's this criteria. Here's the facts I think are important. Here's this criteria. Here are the facts I think are important. You might disagree. That's why you're making the decision, but it's great guidance. And then you'll see in the ultimate decision and in staff's recommended decision, you'll see each criteria, you'll see the relevant facts, or you will add some facts or you'll take away facts. You'll apply those relevant facts to the criteria. And then we talked about if the facts support that a criteria is satisfied, great, move on. If the facts do not support a criteria, that is satisfied, you decide, can it be satisfied? Is there a way we can condition the approval so we can find that this criteria can be met? If there's nothing you can do and the criteria cannot be met, that's a denial. Even one criteria that can't be met, that's a denial. Moving to that, top 10 tips. Top tips for defending at LUBA is make your final decision within 120 days. It's 100 days for certain housing applications. Be comfortable with the record. Interpret ambiguous terms and be clear about that interpretation. You weigh the evidence and the experts. Be thorough and consistent in your findings. We would never want a criteria that just under it says met. and then with no explanation why it's met and clear and non-discretionary conditions. So, and then also, you know, just be really clear about your ex-party contacts, any bias, preconceived notions and financial interest in the site. I am happy to answer any questions and I know your staff is available also to answer questions.

So what I heard is as soon as we as a body make this decision, it goes to Luba.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. No, if it's appealed, if it's an appeal of your final decision, your local final decision would be appealed. That requires a petition to Luba within 21 days. It's called a NIDA notice of intent to appeal. And then that starts the whole LUBA appeal process, which your city has been through before. So, I mean, it has its own timelines. You as a body, as a council would not be involved unless a decision is remanded back to you. And at that point, then you have guidance about we disagree with this interpretation of this criteria or your decision. Here's what LUBA wants you to do.

Yeah. Councilor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, so quick question pertaining to the expert day and the impartial decision makers and prejudgment bias. So hypothetically, let's just say instead of Walmart coming to town, they were looking at putting an oil refinery or something along those lines. I know we have to be pre-biased, but once it comes before us, are we able to weigh in possible issues caused by that being there? Or is that something that they would have to present fact-wise to us? Like, let's just say the off-gassing of something or something along those lines having an effect to the community.

Right. So the answer is it depends on what the applicable criteria is. So what it really depends upon is what did the prior council consider was important when it adopted the development code? So the prior council has thought through, here's the kinds of industry that we want to incentivize. If it comes in, here's how we want to regulate it. And if... you're then posed with an application that fits with what a prior council thought was a great idea, then you probably aren't going to have a basis to deny it because the applicable criteria is what it is. There's no changing it. So if you want to consider off gassing and noxious fumes, but noxious fumes isn't one of your applicable criteria, then that means, oh my goodness, you're going to probably approve this one, or maybe you're going to slip in a condition that says you're going to have some kind of air purifying thing, if we can tie it to some kind of criteria. But what you're really knowing is we're going to direct staff immediately. We need to tighten up our criteria, and we don't want this to happen again. But it has nothing to do with that particular application.

Thank you.

Yeah. So I appreciate that you were flipping through this because we want you to have this as a resource. You can review it. You can remind yourself. Maybe it'll prompt some questions. And our conversation was that I don't think I'm needed for the rest of the meeting. So I was planning to leave, but I'm happy to stay if you have questions. If anybody thinks I'm needed for the rest of the meeting, I'll stay. But otherwise, I'm going to reduce your fee.

Get off the clock. Get off the clock.

Thank you, Ms. Kelly. Yep. All right. Thanks so much. Yeah.

Appearance of interested citizens. This is a time for citizen comment. The council will first take comments addressing items not listed on the agenda for a maximum of 30 minutes. The council will then take comments addressing action items on the agenda for a maximum of 30 minutes. Individual speakers must be recognized by the presiding officer, provide their name, identify whether they are city resident, and if so, their ward. Please limit comments to three minutes or less with council approval. Comments regarding any matters scheduled for a public hearing may be provided only during that hearing. The council will not make any decisions based on public comment. However, staff and council may choose to ask questions or comment following the conclusion of citizens' comments. Johanna Zee.

Yvonne Aziz, Ward 4. Just had a couple of general questions regarding the quasi-judicial hearing. And I just wanted to first say that I know we heard a lot of things about taking all the facts into consideration, but a lot of this is very vague and left up to personal interpretation. If it was just facts, we could put it into a computer and have an algorithm and have our answer for things, but you are elected because of your life experiences because of your ability to discern common sense and that. So I just invite you to not give up your personal authority to outside sources, you know, providing information, just my two cents on that. Then I had two questions. One is in your packet for Thursday, have the recordings of the two planning commission meetings been included?

Mr. Stewart?

Okay, so video recordings. Do they have a copy of the video recordings, a link to the video recordings for Thursday?

Mayor, I think that Senior Planner Crowe would probably be the best to answer that question, and she just stepped out.

Okay, so you guys don't know yet, necessarily, if you have that. I just thought it was an important thing to have... So Lenny, I had just asked if the recordings from the two planning commission meetings were included in the counselor's record for them to review for Thursday's hearing.

So we really cannot speak about the hearing for Thursday. I will say that all applicable materials like before are posted on the website. So they are available for folks.

Okay, wasn't looking for other folks, just specifically you guys. And then the next was, I didn't really hear it here, but who decides the time limit for each speaker on Thursday so people can prepare? Who decides? Because I heard it was kind of left up to a decision for, you know.

Well, it is. Good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. Our general rule for time-limited public hearings is three minutes. Having said that, it's up to the chair and the body to decide whether or not they want to change that. And that's certainly a decision that they can make.

Okay, so we won't really know until that time.

If there was a request at the time of the hearing for people to have longer to speak, the board could certainly consider that.

Okay. Thank you.

Public hearings. There are none. Consent agenda.

Thank you, Mayor. I would move approval of the consent agenda, but I want to make a comment on one of those. Second.

We have a motion with the second.

Yeah, I guess the discussion. There was a point when we were getting the insurance uh presentation there was a question about whether or not uh the rates that we were paying were tied to budgeted positions uh versus actual and what i learned i think after the meeting was that in fact that the budgeted positions were affecting the um liability insurance. I believe there's one other line on that. So I thought that was important information for it wasn't in the minutes because it wasn't answered in there, but just so we can let that swirl around. All right.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item eight, resolutions and ordinances. Resolution supporting an industrial site loan fund grant application for engineering and permitting for the Cleveland Street Bridge. Public Works Director, Mr. Stewart.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So this item is, I actually have two items that are very similar, but I'll focus on the first one. Business Oregon is now accepting applications for the industrial site loan fund for 2026. City staff is desiring to participate in this program to fund engineering and permitting for the Cleveland Street Bridge over the Coastal Fork River. Cleveland Street is designated as a proposed east-west collector street. in the Codge Groves adopted 2015 transportation system plan, which crosses over the Coast Fork River intersecting with Highway 99, providing critical secondary access for the industrial lands that is landlocked between the railroad tracks and the Coast Fork River. This grant development, as it will proceed, industrial land access to the largest, the city's largest unconstrained, contiguous and buildable industrial land area as identified in the city of Kiesgrove's economic opportunity analysis completed in March of 2025. So I want to share with you that There is importance to have the secondary access to help future development of the industrial site. In my effort to try to find a way to build a bridge, the first effort is try to get the project ready for other monies to come along. So right now the state is offering two opportunities to fund up to $250,000 for engineering and permitting. Each program requires a one-to-one match. So if we're only funded in one, we'll be required to fund the total costs one-to-one up to $250,000. So the idea is to try to... get state funding as much of it as we possibly can to develop the engineering and the permitting. Once we have that, then we can start applying for actual construction projects. So this specific fund is available statewide. There's $25 million available for grant applications. There's two different criteria is up to 250,000 for technical support of requests and up to $4 million is available for the actual construction of items. So the idea is to get the engineering. know what the engineer's estimated costs are, get through the permitting process so that it's a project that is ready and deemed available and competitive for the funds in the following year or two, whenever we get this completed. So I hope I explained that. It's necessary for the industrial site, depending on the level of development, to have a secondary access. and so to maximize the development potential for the property, the bridge is critically important. But ultimately, our transportation system plan calls for this connectivity, and it's been in the plans for the last 11 years. So staff recommends that the city council support the resolution, which would, it includes the necessary language that is necessary for the grant application.

Councilor Rubin.

Thank you, Mayor. A question, I mean, we have two items that are, as I read them, going for the same, to affect the engineering and the permits and process, is that correct? We, both of them are one-to-one match. Both of them are maxed at 250. Is the intent to see if we get one and then not accept the other? If we have a double match, we could be on the hook for 500,000. If we wind up with that, do we have that? Those are kind of my questions are coming from.

So Mayor, Councilor, very good question. So my hope is, is that ultimately we at least are awarded one. The total estimated costs, I'm still waiting for the actual breakdown from Dow. They're going to submit the actual engineering costs and permitting costs for this project. I hope to have them in the next day. Their estimate was $500,000 for this. So if we're blessed with being awarded one of these two grants, we would be able to receive $250,000 worth of of funds and we would be matching it. Now, if we are doubly blessed and we receive both grants, then it's very possible that we don't have to pay any of the city funds. The match will come from the other program. And that's not uncommon. It's the first time I've heard it from an ODOT, but when we applied for the $300,000 loan fund grant for the stormwater master plan, we originally believed that we were going to have to pay one-to-one match. They were going to give us 150 in the grant, and then we would be required to match that amount. DEQ went to work internally and found another source of revenue that actually matched the 150. So the city of Kite Grove didn't have to pay any match for the stormwater master plan.

Mr. Stewart, it was my understanding that there was some changes in legislation at the last session with grants, especially for population size. And so they were bringing down the matching amount for smaller cities. Does this apply at all? Do you know?

Mayor, I'm not sure. The next grant that we'll talk about is actually designed for government entities with populations of 25,000 or less. So that's a specific grant opportunity that's targeted for the smaller cities. But it still shows up to a one-to-one match.

And do you think that that would be, I mean, I would think they would update that, but I know that it is pretty recent that this happened, but it was supposed to be a sliding scale or due to population, but we might want to look at that.

That wasn't brought up in the presentation from ODOT. So maybe that'll be something that we'll hear after the fact, but at the present time, I'm operating with the expectation that if we receive the maximum amount and the costs are, about 500,000 will be required to do the one-to-one match.

Councillor Meredith.

Thank you, Mayor. Director Stewart, I was just curious in reading this. This will incorporate the concrete beams that we received from the state in the design. And also, is there going to be a crossing, a lighted crossing or self-regulated crossing on the railroad tracks at the intersection of Highway 99?

Mayor, Councilor Maraday, two very good questions. So the first is, yes, you are correct. The city was able to acquire 11 concrete beams, which would be the required amount of concrete beams for the bridge project. At the time that we acquired those, I think it was about seven years ago, that us acquiring those bridge beams would reduce the cost of the potential project by a million dollars if we were to buy those beams today, that I'm sure that they are more than that in today's price. And they are long enough to span the entire Coast Fork where we would like to, where it's designed to go in. So that'll help us with permitting. The number of permits we have to go through and there's, so it'll reduce the actual permitting costs. The second question is, is that we've done some preliminary analysis of how to continue Cleveland or future gateway across the railroad tracks. At this point right now, the alignment was designed to intersect with Carnegie because it's with the bridge and the road would be located within the city's urban growth boundary. The preferred alignment would be to slide it to the south someday at a later date when the urban growth boundary expands and be able to line up with our street. But in the short term right now, this piece of property has road and a road easement taken off of Rachel Road. So the railroad crossing and access to this property would be via Rachel Road, which is a county road, and it's been extended into the property. So right now the bridge would go across the river and there'd be a intersection there, a three-way intersection where you'd stop and then turn to the south to connect to Highway 99.

Councillor Lamberman.

Madam Mayor, Council. In regards to the second supporting resolution is basically the same thing. Would there be an issue if we made a motion with both resolution numbers or do we need to read the second support resolution?

Mayor, Councilor Lambert, it looks like the city recorder would support we could have a motion that refers to both resolution numbers and do it on one motion.

Is everybody okay with that? Because I'm ready to make a motion.

If I might just be ahead of that, I just wanted to get on the record that the second program, the second opportunity is through the regional infrastructure grant, which is designed specifically for entities that are 25,000 or less in population. And the amount of money available is a one-time effort at $10 million. So with the same parameters, 250,000 is the maximum for the technical assistance, which would include engineering and permitting. Thank you.

Councillor Lambert.

Madam Mayor, Council, thank you. I move that the City Council adopt resolution numbers 2187 and 2188, authorizing a grant application to Business Oregon 2026 Industrial Site Loan Fund for engineering and permitting of the Cleveland Street Bridge.

We have a motion.

No, I was just offered an amendment as well and the regional infrastructure fund.

Same thing there.

I understand the amendment. That's just to reference this.

I accept the amendment.

Second.

Second.

with the second. Any discussion? Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Wilson?

Aye.

Councillor Lammerman?

Aye.

Councillor Hine? Aye. Councillor Irvin?

Aye.

Councillor Meredith?

Aye.

Councillor Settlemyer?

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby?

Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

So item C. Good evening, Your Honor, members of the Council. This is just a follow-up to our last meeting with the folks from the downtown group. As we all know, they're applying for grants for the remodeling of All-American Square, and this is simply a resolution of support from the Council for their grant efforts.

Councillor Irvin.

Mayor. I move to adopt resolution number 2189 supporting downtown Cottage Grove and seeking grant opportunities to remodel All-American City Square Park.

Second. We have a motion with a second. Any more discussion? Will the recorder please call the roll?

Council Setemeyer.

Aye.

Councillor Wilson. Aye. Mayor soulsby. Aye. Councillor meredith. Aye. Councillor Heinz. Aye. Councillor Irvin.

Aye.

Councillor Lammerman.

Aye.

Motion carries unanimously. Concerns from Council. I'm serving.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to recall a great Bohemia Mining Days celebration this year and a great WOE and appreciation for everybody that put the time, effort, and energy into that. They were really enjoyable.

Councillor Wilson.

I was going to echo on the WOE. That was a well-turned-out event. some great participation by the scouts. Counselor Merida being there, attending that. Great turnout for the animals showing, logging, and

an event that i'm heavily involved with which is the the grand prix event for the kids uh there'll be buster businesses offering specials and we'll have guests from out of all around the country and even a few international guests coming to attend a conference on the uh filming of the general If you didn't get your tickets, the show is sold out for the cottage theaters filming a showing of the general, but there may be tickets available if you get on the waiting list. I do want to talk a little bit about volunteerism. If you... are interested in following the part, the application process for library volunteers, that would be great. And hopefully we can establish a general volunteer culture. I was talking to director Stewart today about the maintenance of our beautiful downtown since we included in the design was the sparkle sidewalks and already some of them are getting stained and stuff spilled on bicycles, skid marks, etc. I was talking to the applicator, the applier of the sparkle sidewalks, and he recommended periodic pressure washing. City staff is not able to do all of that. So maybe downtown Cottage Grove could coordinate with either business owners or volunteers that would be willing to spray their portion or help with weeding the beds along Main Street as the city staff is stretched to the point of not being able to do that. So there's plenty of opportunities for volunteers.

Councilor Lambert.

Madam Mayor and Council, I just simply want to state parking lot across the street looks phenomenal. I don't think I've seen it look that good in a long time. So good job for that.

Thank you. Report from the City Manager.

Well, good evening, Your Honor, members of the Council. Just a couple of quick items. We've talked about doing water treatment plant tours, and I'll email these dates. I'm going to rattle off to everybody, so have them. But on Thursday, September 17th, we're planning to do a tour for the City Council. And then in October, November, and December, We'll have dates that'll be available, not just for the city council, but also for the public as well. So we'll be able to get everybody. Hopefully we can find a time. Everybody will be able to join us for a tour of the water plant. Mindy has asked that if you want to register for the LOC conference, you get in contact with her. I think she sent an email to everybody. That's going to be on October 15th through 17th. So again, if you're interested in attending, please let her know. In last council meeting, we talked a little bit about the community promotions budget, recognized the fact that $10,000 was awarded to South Lane Wheels, which now has ceased its operation. And at the time, there was a discussion about moving that money into the city manager contractual services line item. Also would note that you've all received a letter from the police guild. So be looking for direction from the city council as to whether you would like to move that money into the city manager contractual services, but also recognize that you also received the correspondence.

And I just want to differentiate that the police guild is an independent body and it's not under the direction of our police chief. Councilor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, Council. I'd just like to see if anything, keep the money within the community promotion portion for this budget. That way we have it available come next budget cycle, because I'm sure we're going to run into a lot of the same issues. And then we wouldn't run into any conflict with the guild or any other entity like that.

Councillor Urban.

Thank you, Mayor. I have a general preference. I share that. Just leave it where it is, let it build in that fund, and we'll address it next year.

Councillor Lemon.

Sorry, I do have a quick question. The funds in the community promotion portion, do those build interest, or would we need to change those over to a different holding entity to where it can build interest?

The community promotions is within the general fund. So like any other general fund dollars, they will wash at the end of the year into the general fund. They can be reconstituted in community development. They can be reconstituted in a different department.

But will they build interest?

Well, they build interest to the extent that we deposit all of our money in the state pool, which earns, depending on how the market's doing, somewhere around 3%, 5% interest a year. And finally, all I would say is, I appreciate everybody's attention this evening while Kerry was giving her presentation. We've really kind of, I think, gone above and beyond trying to make sure that everybody in the community knows that we do have a special meeting on a Thursday night, which is a bit unusual. And so hopefully everybody who wants to participate will have the opportunity to do it. We listed it in the Friday update. Thank you to Cameron for making sure that we talked about it on the beeper show. and other ways that we've been getting the message out.

And I actually do have one more thing to share. This Wednesday at Music in the Park is going to be the one-year kickoff for heading towards our Wild Dogs Celebration Mural Fest and the 50th anniversary of Animal House. And so we'll do a little talk on it at intermission. And we will also have a booth there. So if anybody else wants to sign up, all committee heads will be there or will be accessible. And we will be allowing people to choose what committees that they feel is their niche. And we really encourage you guys all to do that. Right. Well, our city attorney is off the clock. So there is no report from her. Items removed from the consent agenda. There are none. So this meeting is adjourned.