Council - Regular Meeting

We'll call the Dallas City Council meeting for Monday, March 2nd, 2026 to order at 7 p.m. and ask the city recorder to call the role. Council President Briggs, here. Councelor Barrytos, here. Councelor Blosser, here. Councelor Fitzgerald, here. Councelor Holesapple is excused. Councelor Jance here. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. Councelor Spivey here. Right. Would you please join me in standing for the pledge of

allegiance allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. No introductions. Right, we'll move on to public comment. I have a script I need to read before we do that. Uh, for the record, please provide us with your name and whether or not you live inside the city limits. You have up to three minutes. It's your turn to talk and ours to listen. You are responsible for the content, even if it was written by someone else. Please direct all comments to the mayor. Do not direct your comments to individual counselors, staff members, or the audience. Defamatory or lialist comments will not be accepted. Is expected that you'll maintain decorum and respect for each other. A wide variety of viewers watch these proceedings. Therefore, we would kindly ask that you refrain from the use of offensive language and name calling. Distractions take attention from the speaker. The audience, city council members, and city staff are asked to focus on the speaker during their time by being respectfully quiet. And the first person I have up is Annne Herd.

I see the moon. Yeah, gorgeous.

I'm Anne Herd, president of Friends of the Dallas Aquatic Center, and our only purpose is to raise money for the aquatic center. And we've been doing a pretty good job. I've got to say, since December, we've raised over $30,000 for the work that's being completed. Now, the first thing we spent money on was um a rather inexpensive $2,500 lift for the lap pool. We have a therapy lift for the therapy pool that uh the Scatter Day family gave us $10,000 for that and that's what that lift costs because it's has to do a lot more things uh and be wheelchair accessible and so forth. But anyway, after that $2,500, um, we needed $15,000 to complete what's happening now, the replastering of the leisure pool, which includes the river and it and take down the old um fountain, multi- faceted fountain that was um required a lot of upkeep. It's very expensive. So, they they took that out and they put in a whale slide, which is very cute. Next week, our next meeting, Dean Sprag and I will be here and we'll be on your agenda. We're going to present the video of everything that's happened and you can see how beautiful it looks now if you haven't already been at the pool. So, and then the spa pump broke and left a lot of people out in the cold, not not able to go in the hot tub, but they the people that use a hot tub donated over $12,000 for the new U motor and pump and that was put in and it's now working really well. It's almost blows you out of the pool, actually. But, uh, you know, geysers. But um anyway, it's really terrific and we're really pr proud of what we've done and um we will we have like I don't know we'll have like $300 in the trust account with the city when

we're all finished but we'll you know money will come in again and um all the banners but one have already paid for 2026 uh over $16,000. So that's fantastic. our businesses support us so wonderfully and um so I I'm really happy we're taking a little breather this month or not having a meeting but we have our annual meeting on April 14th um in April when we're supposed to have it on the 14th at 9:30 in the morning but I'll see you before then. Thank you.

Have anyone else in the audience who wants to testify tonight? Do we have anyone on the phone? All right, then we'll close the public comment. Move on to the consent agenda. We have two things on the consent agenda tonight. Approval of the work session miss work session minutes of February 17th and the February 17th city council minutes. Does anyone want to remove anything from the consent agenda? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Been moved by councelor Shane and C and seconded by councelor Blosser. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed.

Passes unanimously. All right. Any reports or comments from mayor or council members? Seeing none, we'll move on to reports from the city manager and staff. Brian. Right. Thank you, Mayor Slack. We have four items tonight. Um, three of which have reports and then just a a little oral report from me at the end. Um, so the first one is the Dallas Area Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center annual report. Um, we have a a working relationship with them. We're grateful to have them in our community. And so, we will invite uh is it Sarah McMasters, the president, current president of the Chamber of Commerce, to come up and give that report.

Al, good evening. Is this set for me to enter? Perfect. Thank you. So, a couple of quick introductions. We have our Chamber of Commerce executive director. She's also the secretary of our board, Tara Townley, and then the president of the visitor center board, Steven Greco. I am currently, as Brian said, I am currently the president of the Chamber of Commerce. I'm also the treasurer of the visitors center. So, I'm dual role there. Did they get the materials? Okay, you all got the materials. Those are for you to keep and go through afterwards. Nothing that you need to know for the presentation. There we go. So, the first slide is just the mission and vision statements for both the Dallas Area Chamber of Commerce and the visitors center. We use these every year to guide our operations. This is our bedrock and our foundation and we continually visit these to see are we coming back to these as we make our operations throughout the year. This is our current executive boards for the Chamber of Commerce and the visitor center. As you see, Bigfoot is a member of the Explore Dallas board. A little bit shy. Didn't want to be here tonight. He doesn't like uh closed in rooms. We're working on him with that. So, we were able to complete our shared location. Some of the pictures you see on here are of the remodel of the location as well as the community coming together to the board and various community members to just beautify the location. We were able to do a ribbon cutting and we've actually been able to host various networking events in there. It's been really great to have that up and running. So, the value of the chamber facilitating with the visitors center is ongoing. We listen to we listed our top values here. Not going to go over every

one of them, but this is just a beginning list. As I said, our value to the community having that collaboration is just ongoing and immense. We were able to fulfill our contract compliance for 2025. Here is the list of our top items that we were able to work on this year. Make sure there make sure I'm on the right page. We have developed a robust portfolio of business education opportunities while we're also expanding our networking and promotional initiatives. Got a couple of neat pictures there, some ribbon cutings, our annual community awards banquet dinner. We recently received our results of our 2025 tourism business survey and I have the summary here. We had some really great turnouts of various diverse businesses in town. So, we were able to get some really great information on how tourism is affecting our local economy here in Dallas. In 2025, we prioritize strategic collaborations throughout our community. We recognize that these strong partnerships are essential in fostering an engaged and resilient community. 2025 brought the first Bigfoot event to Dallas. We had an amazing time. The community embrace this event with open arms. We will continue to grow this event as we go along. We use community engagement and involvement to create a tourism opportunity. We were able to put on this event with under $10,000 and we were able to create over $5,000 in profit. And then there's some other

great numbers here. So, this is a pretty awesome event for a first time and we're going to continue to utilize that to grow it. So, moving into 2026, we plan on I don't know why that adjusted weird. My OCD is looking at that going. But we're going to continue to forge those relationships and those alliances and create some new ones as we come into 2025 or 2026, sorry. We're also focusing on some organizational and strategic internal plans so that we can move forward with some efficiencies and just overall better growth of our organization. our 2025 year end. We utilized funds from 2024 that we did not need because we did not have a working location. So, we didn't have to pay rent at that point. So, we kept on to those funds and we were able to use those in addition to the 2025 funds to complete the year with a positive income. This was largely due to a decrease in payroll expenses from what we were expecting. When you look at the 2026 budget, you will see that there is a we budgeted a loss knowing we had some adjustments that we were making in payroll, but we did not have the final numbers. So, we left them in there just to be a little bit conservative. At this point, we are um we've already made that up and so we are in the process of doing a revised 2026 budget that the board will approve.

So, that number is already good. we have already efficiently created. We um some opportunities. We also looked into ways we could create advertising opportunities at less of a cost by creating opportunities for sponsorships within our advertising. So things like our brochures can actually just pay for themselves without us having to utilize our operating budget for that.

Talk to Annette there. She's better at getting sponsorships than anybody I know. She is. She gets me every year. All right. So, we just want to say thank you again for the collaboration we have with all of you and your support of the visitor center and the chamber of commerce in facilitating that visitor center. And I open it up to you guys for questions. Have any questions? Go ahead, Larry.

You guys have been doing a great job. Um, and understanding that we're going into a new budget year and things look really tight, if there was one thing that you could use some additional funds for, what would it be and how much would that cost?

When we look at payroll, that has been where internally knowing that there is a crunch and working within our means instead of coming and asking for more. Our philosophy right now is how can we internally create opportunities but one is and I think this is organizationswide is staffing you know creating staffing and opportunities for your staff to have things that they need such as health care you know and those things are continually on the rise. So that would be where we could see potentially seeking additional funds is for additional payroll and increasing that

questions. All right. Thank you. I did my job. You did great.

Right, Mayor Slack. Our second topic is 7B. It's on page 20 of the packet and that is the Southeast Miller Avenue and Southeast Lock Rail Drive intersection improvements. Uh I'll invite our uh public works engineering support services supervisor Michael Pierce uh up to the podium and address this topic.

Evening everyone. Uh what you'll see in your packet there is a site plan for the intersection improvements of Southeast Miller Avenue and Southeast Lock Rail Drive. Uh these are ADA improvement um an ADA improvement layout. Uh back in the summer of 2023, uh the Dallas school district received a grant from uh Safe Rosa School, ODOT Safe Rosa School. Um this was an education grant um that basically sent every uh sent the school district uh in partner with the city of Dallas uh to go out and kind of observe what uh students how students get to and from school and what are some obstructions or obstacles that they over they overcome uh to get there. Um is there any unsafe situations? Are they cross crossing at unsafe areas? um together with uh the Dallas School District and Alta Plus Design um they drafted up a uh recommended list for all the schools uh in the area. Um one of the primary ones was actually the Miller and Lockale intersection. Um currently there is an east west crossing availability. Um but you cannot actually cross Miller. Um, in it in its current layout, um, to get to Witworth Elementary, you actually have to go one block to the west, then cross, then to go east. Um, due to this, you typically see uh, students jaywalking. Um, they'll walk to the end of the sidewalk there on Miller and then cars to either stop for them or for them to just be able to jet across really fast. Um so when we were looking at the um phase 5 street rehabilit street street rehabilitation and ADA improvement project um around the high school um it's nearing an end. We have

one more ADA ramp to go. Um we were kind of reflecting on what all the improvements and how well that turned out and then it came across well why didn't we add in these improvements? Uh so the Oregon standards and specifications for construction allow for um outside of contract work scope scope work to be included in the contract. So prior to closing this contract we wanted to add this in as a change order. Um with that layout you'll see that there are um actually eight ramps uh there that will be installed. Um this would be in north south or crossing Miller on both sides as well as crossing Lriel. Um with the configuration it does uh push back the stop signs on Miller a little bit to be able to fit and meet those ADA federal requirements. Um but based on field observations, sight distance, you know, kind of stepping back and looking at how vehicles can see, how far they can see, we do not see any um vision clearance or safety issues with that. correct me if I'm wrong on that intersection is smack in the middle of a school zone.

Yeah. So, these improvements would be built to current ADA standards. Um that is why there's two per corner much like what ODOT is doing now uh throughout our our area. Um and this I think would be a great addition to our ADA improvement project to close out that one. Um,

so with the increased uh crossers, rollers, I think you you said rollers and walkers. Um, what will that do to traffic? I mean, I never really paid I mean, I always noticed that those barriers were there and they were there for a reason. I don't really know why, unless it's just to keep people from crossing right there because of the um the volume of vehicles. So, Chilling, I think, has some input on that.

Years ago, before the that intersection became a four-way stop and it was just a two-way stop, the idea was to move the pedestrian traffic down to where it is, where the flashing lights are right now, where it comes up from the dog park. knows to move it. Now that it is a four-way stop, the safest area for pedestrian crossing is at the stop signs. It gives them a chance where those blinking lights are not always accurate, especially that blinking light, it tends to blink all the time further down. So that's why moving it down. And the question I had also was the increased distance across. Anytime we increase distance, it increases the amount of time it takes the car to get across. So technically it could slow us down a little bit, but if you're putting more pedestrian traffic at that intersection and not stopping everything down, you're not going to jam up traffic cuz right now we have a traffic jam created by that dog park.

So is that one coming out the blinking line? No. Oh, because that's a great I mean it's in a good location because it's a directly to the high school and there's a lot of kids that do use that. Sure. So Shane. Yeah. Again, once again, correct me if I'm wrong, but the net effect of this should essentially be simply not should be not to increase the volume of traffic, but simply simply relocate some of it from where it is now to to here. But in terms of the total volume um shouldn't have an impact I wouldn't think.

No. Uh what I've observed I believe it's Eubanks Lriel then Eubanks then Fenton. I always get those streets mixed up. Um but what I see is a lot of people darting out off of Lockal um onto Miller and then at Eubanks there kids are trying to cross or roll across um and they're not the most visible. So So they're crossing now. Now we we're trying to get them to do it in a safer place. Yeah. Okay. Section is always the safest intersection. One thing I did notice though that is a very poorly lit intersection.

Is there any possibility that we can get another light or brighter set of lights in that area? Because I think there's only one on I want to say it's on the south side and I know in the evening it's not the easiest thing to see especially with if you're having kids possibly at wintertime events coming across that intersection. We might want to light it up. It's a good point. civic power and see if we can get, you know, one kitty corner to better illuminate that intersection. Definitely council brakes

having personal experience of hopping the fence and crossing illegally. I do that every Friday for the football games and there's a lot of people that do that right along behind me and I would agree with councelor Schilling that it's a dark intersection. We could should put a light there. So, I really think this would help. But is this the only intersection that we've identified in the whole town that needs this that can use these funds? Um there are other areas um that could are potentially more expensive um on that safe routes list. There also are on-site improvements. Um so this wasn't just for the city of Dallas. This is also for the Dallas school district. Um this is probably the highest priority uh safety wise uh of that list.

So is it all coming from a grant or 108,000? No. So the 108,000 would actually be from uh SDC's and our uh ADA curb ramp program. What's that fund look like? Is it barely cover this or is there a lot of excess? A lot of excess. We currently have 100,000 in our curb ramp program. Um and then our SDC's are Yeah. Should we prioritize some of the other the others that were identified in the study to maybe not them not forget about them next year or they are currently on our list of items to go through um yeah okay depend on the price tag.

It's just going to depend on the price tags whatever they are. So, out of the $18,000, how much is going to be coming from the ramp program and how much is coming from STC's?

It's pretty well 50/50. Yep. Cuz there's uh currently four ramps there. We are expanding to eight ramps. Um so it would be um half of that for the curb ramp program and then half of that for our SDC's. Um, and forgive me my ignorance on the cost of concrete in ramps. Uh, $108,000 for four corners, $25,000 a corner. Um, did we get other bids? I mean, are there other or do we have to use this particular contractor because we're using the ramp funds? Uh, no, we can definitely go out to bid. Uh, this is just an opportunity to add in um since we're already doing that work um at a very good price.

So, they bid it. They already said, "Hey, we'd do it for 108." I asked them for a number uh just to come prepared to add what it would be to add into that project went outside of them. Could we still use the ramp fund? Yes. Okay. It seems kind of high. Yeah. So, what we're doing is we're we're just adding on to an existing contract, right? So, just a change order. If we wanted to, you know, go out for bid and get just all the contractors who wanted to bid on, you know, just this project, we could do that. it would require us to put together a bid package, solicit that, and then get the, you know, the bids in. So, we're not going through that process in order to just expedite this getting done with an existing contractor who's been doing good work for us.

From our factor to add to that, and that is it would take that much longer and prices would continue to creep up. Um, you know, or maybe the um, you know, you might have more competition and maybe that would help drive the price back down. So it's you're just you don't know what you're going to get when you go out for bid, right? So add in there when you go out to bid, you do also have additional costs like mobilization, demobilization. Um so you would the the potential to go higher would is definitely there. You've we've done a few corners before in our time. So and I trust you to tell me this is pretty much where what we're looking at.

Okay. When I got that number back and saw it, I was like, "Wow, that's actually pretty cheap." I'm glad you told me that because yeah, choked a little on that number. Look to you. Ramps aren't easy. Um there are high requirements with very minimal thresholds. Um so, uh that price on those ADA ramps is actually very very good. Shane, I'll just uh to move this forward. Um I'll make the motion. I move to approve the pedestrian safety improvements proposed for the intersection of Southeast Miller Avenue and Lriel Drive.

A motion by councelor Shane, a second by councelor Blosser. Councelor Schilling, sorry. Councelor Jans have a question. Yeah, I I too agree with I think we should look into the lighting before anything happens. It's pretty dark in that area with uh for safety as well as is there any um consideration of removing that? There's a crosswalk a block away and then another one with the light another block away. Are we going to get rid of that one between the two or because that could it would force kids to either go to the the main intersection or the light? Like I I don't know.

Definitely is uh something we can look through. So um we could uh close a crosswalk and say use crosswalk to get get to either control intersections. Um that is something I'll have to look into the the rule books um and ensure uh to close a crosswalk you actually have to have justifiable reasoning because in the state of Oregon every intersection is a crosswalk. Um so you just need that that design exception uh have to meet that design exception criteria and I believe this does but probably like five car links away from this one that you're putting in. So or maybe four now that you have to move it back.

So is there any chance of us doing this in house? Um due to the um expertise of ADA ramps um we do need a specialized uh the contractor that actually bid on this uh Jelco construction is ODOT ADA certified. So, can we instruct staff to or to mandate that it's in a light poles included or h how do we

you know so working with Pacific Power um determining you know where the power supply is how to get power there if it's not um it wouldn't get done this construction it wouldn't get done this you know soon in this fiscal year um it would definitely have to be next fiscal year maybe not even this summer so it would require a little bit of time um good news is is I don't think that you're going to impede the ability for an additional light pull to be put in because those would go behind the sidewalk, not in the sidewalk or in the location of the sidewalk. So, um you may have to remove a panel if there's, you know, uh wiring that has to be, you know, put across in the ground. Um so, that might be an impact, but I would say my recommendation would be get the sidewalk work done, work on the lighting, you know, now. We can start start on it now, but it probably wouldn't be installed till later.

So your sense is it would make more sense as a separate project. Do you need direction on that? No. Just letting us know that you want that done. We'll move forward with it. I think the general consensus that is it's needed. So So we'll we'll we'll look at investigating getting an additional light there. It could be into it now. Right. We'll talk to we'll talk to Rep or not Republic, we'll talk to Pacific Power right away. Council Bantos,

has there ever been any thoughts of having a a crossing guard or crossing monitor the since this is an intersection that's looked at as highly um you know high risk for a crash or high risk of injuries. You know what else have we thought about of how to mitigate that? So, typically with crossing guards, those are um provided by the school. You know, it's often a teacher or an aid that might do that. Um we can talk with Witworth Elementary School. I'm less concerned about high school students um needing a crossing guard, but um you know, the elementary school, you know, the fourth and fifth graders. Um you know, they may want to see that. Um it would also depend on how many of those kids walk to school versus get dropped off by their parents or a caregiver. Um but we can have that conversation with them. Well, one school that was mentioned that I thought about is W uh Witworth, which is an elementary school. Yeah, the high schoolers I think, you know, they

Yeah. get through that intersection pretty good. Yeah. So, we can reach out to the principal at Wworth Elementary and see, you know, uh maybe they have numbers on how many how many of their students walk through this intersection and um and they can make the determination on whether or not they feel a crossing guard is warranted. And the other thing is and in the meantime while we're looking for the funding or while the lights come up, you know, it would be nice to have the human element there of a crossing God. Other discussion I have a motion on the floor. If not, all those in favor say I. I.

Those opposed passes unanimously. Thank you. Hi, Mayor Slack. Our third item is the Dallas Independence Mammoth Enterprise Zone presentation. Um, Charlie, did you want to introduce Alex? Yeah. All right. We'll have Charlie Mitchell, our economic and community development director. Mayor, um, we're going to have a brief, uh, presentation for you. If I can find it. Is it already?

There's no big foot in my presentation. Darn it. Can't see where my cursor is. There we go. Okay. Um, so the item you have in front of you tonight is just a presentation for for your information. I'm going to turn it over to um, Alex Bras from Sedcore who's going to do the presentation. Uh, it's on the Enterprise Zone program. So, part of it's going to be just kind of getting you up to speed on what the program is all about, but also to talk a little bit about some legislative changes that are going to require some future action uh coming in front of the council uh in the not too distant future. But tonight, it's just information only. So, at this time, I'll turn it over to Alex. Thank you.

Hi everyone. Uh my name is Alex Paskkas. I work for Sedcore. I think many of you know Sedcore. We're the Strategic Economic Development Corporation. Um and I'm here to talk about the exciting topic of enterprise zones. Um we uh I give you just a little bit of background um in this presentation just on Sedcore. Um and then we'll talk about just enterprise zones and then some fun legislative um complications that uh the Oregon legislature has introduced into this program and uh just provide some information about uh what you'll see in the future um for this program. So, so we are SEC core. If you're not familiar with us, we are a threecount nonprofit uh regional economic development organization. Uh we're founded in 82. And what we're all about is leveraging public and private partnerships. So, we're looking to attract and retain high value jobs, investment, tax base, just for lack of a better term. Um but we especially focus on traded sector companies. So that's a term of art that talks uh talks about companies that are making something, growing something, manufacturing uh anything for a national or international market. So what I frequently talk about is we work with maybe not the coffee shop but maybe the coffee roaster who's trying to scale and to get into a bunch of distribution as an example. So um we really look through the lens that healthy businesses uh healthy businesses provide quality jobs that drive healthy communities. said another way, healthy communities are built on healthy businesses, employing people, and healthy jobs. So, um we kind of have a a bunch of different uh focuses. Um job retention, creation, of course, being the number one, revenue, uh excuse me, diversification of economy, and of course, the revenue that accompanies that. And then, of course, just quality of life and sort of a little bit holistic package. So, we've talked about anything from housing to child care and whatnot even in front of uh city council here. though. So, the reason that we're here is to talk about enterprise zones and also I will also look to your city

manager to provide any other color commentary since he's been around the block when it comes to uh enterprise zones as well. Um but enterprise zones incent new businesses by abading property tax on the increase investment in a project. So um not ne not all the tax but just the increase um for either three or 5 years and we'll get into that. Um enterprise zones are sponsored by the city, port, county, tribal governments. Um and it's usually of course you know focus in industrial areas industrial zoning. Um there are currently 73 enterprise zones in Oregon. 55 are rural, 18 are urban and the local governments are responsible for creating, amending, managing and renewing most of these zones and that'll run through 2032. the legislative. Yeah. Uh presumably arbitrary. Yeah. So the fun complication I guess or uh maybe not a complication yet but is that the PK county or the Dallas Independence Monmouth Enterprise Zone which is in PK County. Um you'll see here on the map and sorry yeah it's probably good enough. Um you'll see the different sort of geographic zones that are represented. So, Independence, Monmouth, Dallas, and then if you see the little spot in Rickall as well. And so, uh, that means there are four zone sponsors. You're one of four zone sponsors for this zone. So, this will become the reason why I'm here will become obvious shortly. Um, so what um, the businesses that are eligible like I said are sort of traded sector. So, manufacturers, processors, shippers, call centers, headquarters, um, and hotels or resorts are also allowed in some zones. Um, retail, construction, financial, and certain other defined activities are ineligible. This is all outlined in statute. I'm kind of just giving you the the hit list from from actually the Business Oregon um page. So, the standard zone abatement is pretty straightforward. It's a

three-year abatement. It requires a minimum investment of $50,000 in new real property. So that can include newly constructed buildings or structures, new additions to an existing building andor machinery that we say bolts to the ground. Um and so that have a fixed machinery and equipment. Um there is a job creation component that is required to uh get an enterprise zone. And so that requires increasing the employment of the firm by at least one new job or 10%. Um we'll talk about the waiver. Um and then you have to maintain that employment throughout the exemption period. Uh the other caveat is that you have to enter into a first source hiring agreement with the local work source Oregon office. That just means you need to po post your jobs with work source. So the extended abatement is uh is a uh up to five years in total and there are additional criteria that are layered on uh in addition to that three-year abatement. So, first you have to have local approval as zone uh the zone sponsor. Um and then the average of the compensation including benefits during all the years of the abatement must be at or above 150% of the county average. So for PK County that's $78,000. Um and so the employees that were getting hired would need to uh have that at minimum that that pay. So

question. Yes. Does that last bullet apply only to the employees hired in order to qualify or does it apply to any new employee that comes on board during the exemption period? Uh the employees the new employees that are hired. Okay. So if they hire two new employees uh to to qualify for yeah then if they you know 6 8 months a year later hire three more this doesn't apply to the three more because they've already qualified. Yeah. So you have to if you have the the extended abatement you have to have all those jobs hired for the period and then additional jobs which we disclo you know. Yeah. So so is that 150% of the average which is 78,000 you said?

Yeah. So it's 115,000. 78,000 is the is 150%. That is the one. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. This is also going to go ask for a pay raise.

Yeah. This is this is also why we didn't want to make any action tonight. This is just informational so we can talk about um because enterprise zone is a little bit I will say the fourth and fifth year has a couple other um stipulation and I think the special local approval is the piece any fourth or fifth year project would need to come before the zone sponsor. So that would be you all. A three-year project doesn't it's just kind of a paperwork um piece. Um so the the the reason we're here um is to talk about the new additional rule from 2023. Um the legislature created an additional requirement where zones that want to offer the fourth and fifth year abatement must establish a school support fee between 15 and 30% of the annual property tax savings the company gets. So this is you're Yes. Right. So the business needs to pay a fee to the school district.

What's that?

Uh yeah whatever they pay a fee that they would Yes. That's right. Right. And so the because and the reason we're here is because there are multiple zone sponsors and we have two school districts and four zone sponsors. Your face looks like my face. Yeah. Um so that's why we're we're doing the uh doing the round the uh round the horn in Pole County with all the zone sponsors. And so um I've actually um both school boards. So when I say both Central and Dallas school districts are the districts that are affected. Both of them needed to establish a fee. Both of them had to set it at 15%. Now we come to zone sponsors to bless the fee and there there'll be proposed language inou um with the district that just establishes that. And so that's

so is somebody currently applying for a four and fiveyear abatement? There is a business that is interested in apply so no commitment. We don't have anything, but that business is also uh not in Dallas and but we still have to run through this kind of process and we want to make sure that our uh enterprise zone is all sort of up to speed with current legislation. So that's that's what we're kind of running through this process.

Also have a question. Um so because we have two school districts, does each school district get a fee of 15% or is that 15% split between the two school districts 7 and a half each? My understanding is that it would only for the sort of the district that would be affected would get the fee. So if a company's going in independence, even though everybody's a zone sponsor, only the central school district would get the fee. The school district where the business is located within that district boundary gets the fee. Correct. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

And we clarified with business Oregon that, hey, why does everybody have to go through the same process? And they said we have to. So we are um so like I said the administr this is more or less an administrative hurdle that going through the zone sponsors. We need the council to agree and just bless the 15% fee. Um and it's also important to note and I'll just keep reemphasizing that it's not uh if you a fourth or fifth year project came in you would still see it. You would be able to talk about it. Um there could be additional stipulations. Um some uh some cities ask for more. Um, some cities ask, you know, you can kind of do run through the gamut.

What I think I just heard is that all four of the of the zone sponsors have to agree to this even though maybe only one of them is directly affected by it. Yes. Yes. Okay. Just getting clarity. That's all. Yes, that's correct. So, is that No, this is just to get us up to speed on the fee. And so, um, I, like I said, I've gone to the school boards of Dallas and Central to get the school boards to approve, uh, to set the fee at 15%. And fortunately, they both set the same fee. So, let me let me let me So, the the business that gets the abatement pays the fee. Sorry. But let me let me clarify to his last

only this time. So, when Alex comes back to you, he's going to ask the Dallas City Council to approve the 15% fee. Um after that though, anytime there's a fourth or fifth year abatement, you will come back to us to ask for the approval of that abatement. So um whenever there's a fourth or fifth year anywhere in our zone, whether it's in Monmouth, Independence, Dallas, or PT County, that requires approval of the council. My understanding was only for the sponsor where the the business was located. This just sets the rule for the 15% fee. All right. So then my understanding then in the future if we have a business that locates in Dallas correct then the council would negotiate with that business on any terms

that you want imposed on that business to have a fourth or fifth year abatement. Correct. Uh Kim just whispered something in my ear that prompted a question. Let's say this all goes through the way that everyone is hoping it does that everything gets approved including the the fee the 15% fee. The business is happy. Everybody's happy. a year from now, another business right next door wants to do the same thing. Does that go does that an additional 15% fee or does it come out of the one that already exists? It's business. It's project by project, business by business. So, it's not just for the whole zone. It is just That wasn't exactly my question. Okay. But

well, what what go ahead. My question was, will that 15% fee change with the new business? Is that up for negotiation each new business that opens? No. So, the school support fee is fixed at 15%. And then if there is a project that comes in, so a business is making a $2 million investment, for example, um, and wants to do a fourth or a fifth year abatement, they would actually need to come before council and have a there's a negotiation with staff and with everyone else. And then you would see that project. It's not just a and that 15% could change for the new business

that school support fee is fixed. What we're talking about is additional uh negotiation for a fourth or fifth year with the city which is the zone sponsor. So the school district's out of it at this point. The city council's still in it. So for example, you know, Alex talked about two things that are statutoily required with a fourth or fifth year abatement. Um the employment number, right? the at least one employee or 10% whichever number is greater and then the 150% of the median uh wage of PK county. Um but Dallas could say we want you to be at 175% wages instead of 150. You could require that of a business or you could say you could ask for a 15% fee as well.

We could ask for a fee as well. We could say hey we want you know some kickbacks our our you know we don't want to give up all the tax. we're going to give up so much. Or we could say, we want to have you have so many more employees than the minimum statutoily required. So there's different requirements that you can put in place on that business in order for them to get that fourth and fifth year abatement. Um, so that's what it's not a per business thing. It's the how it's established.

The negotiation between the negotiation between the city and the business is case by case. the school support fee after you decide 15%. So when Alice comes back, he's going to present 15% fee. If Dallas City Council approves that, all the other sponsors do as well, that fee is set for every business now and in the future. Thank you. In the enterprise zone for a fourth or fifth year abatement, right, council by

uh Brian, how many fourth and fifth year abatement requests has the uh city of Dallas seen in the last 5 to 10 years? But we have we have seen enterprise own requests and we've approved enterprise own applications under the standard program of three years.

So it's a little bit clear as mud but also yeah it's uh yeah it's a little bit of an like I said an administrative piece. Um fourth and fifth year projects are pretty uncommon. Um, but because one company indicated that they might want to apply, it's kind of set us down this path to make sure that the whole that the whole uh Dallas Independence Monmouth Enterprise Zone can even offer a fourth and fifth year abatement. So, so you're going to come back sometime soon and ask us to formally approve this. Are um what about have the um what am I trying to ask? You've got four city councils you have to talk to. Um, are we the last one? Are you still making the rounds?

Uh, we've done a work session uh with the independent city council and still making the rounds and still it's three city councils on the board of commission. So, you still got some hoops to jump through before we can nail this. Well, I hope not a lot of jumping, but maybe just to clear a couple low hurdles. Understood. Yeah.

So, just to add a little bit of history and context to why there's so many zone sponsors, um, the enterprise zone program, it was introduced in 1985. um the state limited the number of zones across the whole state to 30. Not a lot, right? Because there's 200 200 plus cities and 36 counties. And um so uh between 1985 and 2015 when they did away with the number cap of enterprise zones, it was amended four times to add more zones. Um so cities and counties were allowed to combine um to create a single zone. And so that's what happened here, right? So we were we created our zone at the time that there was still a cap on the number of zones that were allowed in the state. So in order to kind of spread that peanut butter thin so that you could have that tax abatement incentive across multiple jurisdictions, jurisdictions went in together to play nice. Um, now that there's not a cap, there may be an incentive for cities and counties to say, you know what, let's uh disband our enterprise zone and recreate a new one just what covers our city to eliminate the need to have people like Alex go to all the different zone sponsors and have everyone cooperate on a business that's not even in your community. So, there's there's some things like that to consider in the future, but that's why he's here. That's why this is more complicated than it should be.

Questions for Alex? We'll see you soon. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time.

All right, mayor. Uh the last topic tonight is just a quick oral uh it's more of a question um but a quick report for me. There's no written report in the the agenda packet and that is uh a joint work session with the Dallas school board, not related to the enterprise zone, although maybe we'll talk about it a little bit. Um but the school board asked uh recently through their superintendent uh to me whether the city council would be interested in having a joint work session with the school board um to discuss just mutual interest uh topics of mutual interest um maybe growth patterns in the community um demographic you know some demographic questions um you know maybe some opportunities for shared resources things of that nature. We don't have a formal agenda at this point. Um, but we were looking at the date of July 6th and it would be a work session. Um, so we would probably start around 6. Um, and maybe have an hour and a half long meeting. Um, so it would be the night of a regular city council meeting. Although we typically don't have that first meeting in July because it usually conflicts with the 4th of July. However, 4th of July is the week before and the first Monday is on the 6th. So, my thought was, hey, we could probably have that meeting, not really conflict with the holiday weekend and uh just have this be the only topic on that agenda. Just looking for some headnots from the council on whether or not you think that's a good idea and if that's the right date.

Sounds like a good idea to me. No, there would not be a regular council meeting. This would just be the only agenda, a topic. It would just be a work session on July 6th, right? So, and we would have we would have it here. Um, so I would propose probably a two-hour time frame for that meeting and we'll keep the agenda relatively short so that it's, you know, we don't spiral into topics that aren't on aren't on the agenda. For me,

curious to, you know, I see all these kids running around downtown during the lunch hours, but they're all not school district kids. And I hear that the, you know, the population is dropping over there. I'd be I'd like to see what we can do to help what their issues are. Two. Sounds like I'm getting head nods. No one's really saying terrible idea. All right. We'll plan on uh having the work session. It'll be a joint. It'll be here in this room on July 6th at 6 p.m. Just that's my last report. Mayor,

how many uh how many positions on the school board? There are five school board members, I believe. Five or six. So, five. Five. Just curious. So, we'll kind of do what we do for the budget committee and wrap like we did with the last meeting with the planning commission. Just kind of extend some tables and have a meeting. All right. Uh, last item on the agenda is second reading of ordinance. Ordinance 1919. Thank you, Mayor Slack. Ordinance 1919 is an ordinance amending the provisions of the Dallas Municipal Code to add commercial indoor recreation as a land use category.

Question about this. Uh I mean we've we all know what it's about cuz we had a long conversation about it. But since we're not declaring an emergency here, assuming that it passes tonight, which is the balance of probability, when does it take effect? 30 days. 30 days following tonight. So you would be looking at April 1st. questions. If not, I'll ask the city recorder to call the role. Councelor Berentos, yes. Councelor Blosser, yes. Councelor Fitzgerald, yes. Councelor Jance, yes. Councelor Schilling, yes. Councelor Shane, yes. Councelor Spivey, yes. Council President Briggs, yes.

All right, passes unanimously. Uh, is there any other business to bring before the council tonight? Seeing none, we'll adjourn at 7:51.