City Council - Regular Meeting

Yes. Why? I got looked at.

Oh yeah. Hey,

step on over here. Absolutely. All right.

The base rate is 584 5844. And then you get 300 cubic up to 300 cubes for the evening. Then after that charge 100 right there based on your perfect So this is

metric based on 500 that's That gets me% base. And then your water is then they have max So first residential 172 and we don't have a significant song by the way. Yeah.

You know, so it's like transmission to the They just itch. Jeremy, ready? Yes.

All righty, everybody. on the call to order at 6:34 p.m. Please stand for pledge of allegiance to the flag United States of America. to excused absences. Uh and then uh so before we really get started, I wanted to thank everybody for being here tonight. Um this is a very important topic uh and something that we've been talking about for years when it comes to water infrastructure, water billing, you know, sewer infrastructure, sewer billing, you know, ever since I got on council 2022, it was like the first thing that we talked about uh and and it's just continued to be a really really big topic because it is so important to our town. So, um, you know, town halls like this are really important to have because there's a lot of history to this. There's a lot of, you know, nuance when it comes to infrastructure to the billing, etc. Um, and so the goal tonight is to really, you know, answer any questions that you have. Um, hopefully peel away some of the ambiguity. Um, and then, you know, just make sure that we are being as transparent as we can be. Um, so it's going to be a pretty free form town hall. Um Jeremy, our city manager, Jeremy Codle, is going to have about a five to 10 minute presentation. Um and then we'll open it up for Q&A. So uh this could be very conversational. It's not going to be a lecture. You know, we're not going to be talking at everybody the entire time. We really want it to be a dialogue. Um that's to me that's that's a very small town thing, right? Is to to have that conversation, have that dialogue, and it's to be that community. I'm not a professor, right? Um so if you have a question when we get to the Q&A, please feel free to raise your hand. Jeremy will call on you. And if you're if you'd

like to, you you're welcome to come up to the podium. If you'd rather, you're welcome to stay in your chair. It's pretty small room. We can hear everybody. No need to break out the mics. Um so if whichever you prefer when we get to that, we'll be here for as long as you have questions. So, you know, if we get an hour and a half into it and all the questions are answered and all the opinions are voiced, then we call it good. If we're here three and a half hours, we'll be in these seats. So, you know, we'll be here for as long as you need. Um, so without any further ado, I'll go ahead and turn over to Jeremy for his presentation and we'll kick things off. Thank you, Council President.

Folks, my name is Jeremy. I'm your city man. Before we get started, I'd like to introduce our team. We have Benny Western. He's our city engineer with West Tech Engineering. Benny, how long have you been our city engineer? 20 years. 20 years. Who knows where all the valves and bolts and pipes are buried. We have our public works supervisor, Don, and then our city. So, folks, I'll echo what our council president said. This is this is intended to be a conversation. We look forward to your questions and and your concerns and sharing progress that we've made over the past year. So, I just want to give you some background. This time last year, we had our first ever water. You all remember what pat in January last year we city staff myself included all in order handing down announcing water in January the wetest month of the year the months leading up to that we had had increasing unaccountable water scratching our head trying to figure out what's going getting worse and worse and worse and worse. That's why we issue water fertility by some time so we can figure it out. We're also running the system so hard that it started to create bubbles and water cloudy water. There was a lot of concern on community Facebook pages about that. Even though it was farmless, people were understandably concerned about what's

going on. Public works to their credit, they did a lot of trial and error, a lot of exploring of undiscovered parts of our system and they found lying that should have been decommissioned years ago and they fixed it and our system started to recover. Which brings us to to today. What have we been doing to ensure that you have secure safe water to the city? Around that time last year, we started having conversations with the city a while ago. As you may know, we share a well down near the airfield. We have two wells. They have two wells. We have one well. This dates back to the early 2000s. make long swim to shore laughing at it hooked in the m water line. They don't need it as much anymore. They let us out of the goodness of their heart use the welf. But then we negotiated an agreement with them giving us exclusive usage of it and in exchange we take care of the maintenance, the debt of the souls. A win-win for both of us. It's not a long-term deal. This is just a shortterm measure until we figure out what we want to do with the joint globally. But it goes to show what you can how you can work together across city limit lines with your partners in ways that benefits entire community. We also started a project that's been 10 over 10 years to make it. Over a decade ago, the city brought bought the Fisher Farms problem. You're headed out very street going back that

farm on the right. We've had that for over a decade. The idea that activated well and funding has been a barrier. In summer last year, we obtained grants and low interest loans do permitting and study to determine what it's going to take to get those wells up to standards. We also obtained a grant from the legislature to construct those wells up to municipal drinking water standards. That process is underway right now. Our hydro geologist has been out there testing those pumps and testing those widths and working with the state to help us develop next steps that also in the early 2000s we withdrew from some regional water efforts and there was just a lot of concerns about the costs associated with that. As we're all struggling as small towns with water across the county, we realize that long term, we've all got to work together to secure our water. So, we rejoin those regional efforts. We're working with the council of governments which is a regional planning to partner with the other small towns Lafayette Carlson and Dundee and and McMendville Water and Light to study the possibility of a regional interconnection. There's no cost to us for this study. The Council of Governments got the grant to do it. Only cost to us is our staff. participate. We're also looking at some funding to develop a long-term plan

for all of the options on the table. The joint wealth field, what do we want to do with it? By litigate it out, do we just sell it? We figure something else out. If so, how do we make that work? Do we pursue pursue a long-term regional water time water? So, how can we afford it? How do we make it work? How do we take care of some of the deferred maintenance on our procedure? We have a water main transmission about five miles out of 10 kind of going up in the mountains. That water main transmission is almost 100 years old. If we could repair that, our consultant estimates we could get about 10% of our maximum production capacity back. It's like getting yourself those apps where you cancel all your subscriptions and it's like getting yourself a 20 30 $40 raise every month. That will get the impact here if we can flood those leaks in that whole line. We did a water loss audit last year. Without that watershed loss that I just mentioned, our total system water losses, those are leaks throughout the system that we don't know about. That'd be about 2% of our total water, which is pretty darn good. Don and his crew have an outfit that comes out every year that examines our entire water pipes, finds leaks and to fix it. And Don and his crew are are very quick on getting out to fix leaks when we find it. Lastly, we're strengthening our public works team. We've had team members in the process or recently earn

certifications. We're creating a career pathway for our operators so that they're motivated to continue getting those certifications to train and to learn and cross trainin. Our staffing is down in the public works department by one employee. It's been that way for about four years. As we work through the budget process, we're going to look at adjusting their staffing so that they have people that can rotate on call. We're not having to do that every week. you had more time for themselves and families that spread out the portfolio. We're also achieving efficiency. We're saving money. We had a contract that was costing us some amount. What was that cleaning contract? $80,000 a year.

$80,000 a year. We canled it, brought somebody on board who can do it for 20,000. We're looking at some new equipment that can help us be more effective. There's a what's called a sounding device. It's like a stethoscope that you put up to ground your leaks. You go John and his team will go out there proactively find it. And then something else that's a big deal is we have a great big old background. Not a lot of small towns have it. So when there are leaks, they can go in and suck that water up and get in the hole. All kinds of vacancy stuff. And other small towns, you have to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for somebody that So that's what we've been up to over the past year. I'm sure you may have some questions about your water and sewer rates. I've got a whole bunch of budgets and other stuff over there that we can talk about. For now, we'll we'll open it up to you to hear what questions and concerns you have.

You want to talk about just water or can you take other questions?

We're here to talk about water, but we can take other questions. Well, um I I did read an article in the news register sever several weeks ago that the syndicated an $89,000 consultant fee and I'd like to know a little bit more about that because you know the same thing residents that we're low on money. So then you raise our bills that many of us retirees can't afford. And then I read that you pay a fee like that when you know the olden days you wouldn't get somebody in to do a bid on the building that needs to be refurbished and then make your decision. So I'm just wondering what's going on in that reg.

Absolutely. That's a great question. So in and in case you weren't aware, the city in December ran some flooding in our city hall basement had about six inches of flooding that led to us vacating the house in that building annex. There's flooding has been a problem there down there. It's just not safe. This time around this time last year we sold 12 lots. 12 remaining lots from the date villages subdivision. So those are those as you're going down Ferry Street on the right out those are those new houses you're see affordable housing units we have some enforcable pedments to make it affordable which means they're they're required to keep it below a certain level. So, we sold those lots. We netted about $300,000 for that setup.

Could you sell them to? We sold them to community home builders. Then community home builders turned around. They they sold it to the buyers. Are they going to build on it? Yes. Construction's underway right now. They diligent. What street is that? Right past center mark. Yeah. All right. It's kind of tucked in there off of center market or right past center market.

So, so we solve problem we took that money and we put it what's it called? The building reserve fund. So that that money is segregated. It doesn't touch doesn't touch my my pay. It doesn't touch the water plant. It doesn't touch the sewer plant. It's just building. So, we're using that for our city hall and library project and we're using that money to to hire and we did go through a competitive process. We had we had nine people who wanted to work with this fun day. Uh so, we got some competitive bids on it. was selected a company that's done a lot of municipal uh facilities studies and conditions analysis and and we wanted to to do the facility analysis because we're potentially looking at this building and we want to get an idea of what all it's going to take to get it up.

Thank you. Sure.

So, do you plan on raising our water rates again because I I mean, as we're all sitting here, I mean, seniors on very strict strict budgets and I'm I'm telling the $150 a month for my water for one person is killing me. You know, I mean, and then I found out, you know, when I met city hall, it's like, oh, we only have 94 accounts that are paying for water. So, is that included in the $8 million that you guys took the loan out on, or how does that work? Can you break the budget down for us? Like you've got 92 families or you know participants. What does that amount to every month and then how that budget is broken down? What like what's getting paid? What's what monies are going out? What monies are being set aside for loans and stuff like that?

Like system as a whole pretty much. I mean, you've got 92 people that enter. That's not the So, is that those 94 counts? Are they the only ones paying on that $8 million loan that you took out for the bridge? That's correct. But they're not all single family residences left. We We had We have a lot of singles though, a lot of Yeah. Right. As your business is being

Yeah. And when that hotel comes in, is there going to be enough water or are solar group going to do something to help facilitate that water? Danny Don, you want to take that? Yeah. Well, when the hotel gets built, anytime construction occurs, they have to pay what's called the system development charge, which is There's two parts to a system development charge. One in broad terms, let's say half of it is to pay for needed for their impacts on the on the water system, water storm grade system that are the impacts from their new development. So essentially they're paying upfront for their for what their impacts are on the system.

I think and then the other half of the SBC is for them to pay essentially it's like a catchup fee that to pay for their for the use of the system that's already in existence.

Is the city giving them a tax break on the on their building and that type of thing? Not not as far as I'm aware. I mean, the taxes are not the tax rates are not set by the city as far as I'm aware. No, there's no no tax tax credit, but there is something called an SDC credit, which to add what Denny mentioned is the SDC. The system development charge is what you pay as developer for your portion of it having the expanded system to serve. I just don't see how you expect 94 people or, you know, accounts to pay on a $8 million loan, especially when the majority of them are senior citizens with, you know, a fixed income and the prices of everything are going up. It's like, what do we except for our salaries?

Yeah. I mean, I know that's not the burden of the city either to take care of us, but it's a concern that we have to be able to live from day to day and month to month. So, I mean, are they going to have another increase next year, the year after? I mean, it's it's gotten to the point where,

you know, I mean, it's not affordable. It's not. Yeah, it's not affordable, you know, and unfortunately people don't recognize that until you become old people like us who are living on a fixed income. So, I mean, I think some way along the way, I mean, there should be a discount for seniors or something that's, you know, available to help them out a little bit.

I have some thoughts on that and then I'm really curious to hear what the council has to say to the facility. What I will say in response to rate increases, I can promise that there will not be an increase this year. Most likely there will be and here's here's why. This our our budget year starts July June 30th. So in our upcoming budget year, this would be the first year that we start making debt pay repayments on utility bridge. So we're likely going to have to increase rates to to cover that. However, however, we did a pretty big increase of sewer last year. Probably have to do an increase in water this year. But as you know, we we created a new public safety fee. I think we're going to be able to drop that and then as we get through this increase, I believe you want to start seeing those rates go up.

So when's the new rate increase going in? It would be when are we doing this year? January 1st. I think it kicked in February. If we haven't started paying yet, then hopefully increase two years in a row. Then if we haven't started paying on the debt and now you're saying that the increases are now pay the debt but what was the increases to begin with then

we had to put according to the agreements in our debt we had to set aside certain amount amount of money they call it debt reserve and when you're looking at the $8 million loan that's that's quite a bit of money. We also had some capital needs that we had to to catch up on as well.

When you're talking about a water shortage, I don't know about everybody else, but my little alone, I can't even use what I mean the monthly limit. So, I'm also trying to figure out, you just showed me on your computer where the other towns have a base limit, the lower the discount. So, since conserve water, it doesn't pay me to conserve. We're talking about 900 people. A lot of them seniors turn on the walk away for five minutes. So, you know, the wonder about that balance, you know, to keep, you know, like Lafayette, it's 300 cubic feet compared to our 400 um what is that? 400 gallons. And so you had to do an adjustment, right? Am I getting this correct?

I'm not sure significant. So our base rate is it seems like it's higher than what needs to be on our basic lower than dollar two for a little bit, but I mean then if you went over then you due to your increase, right? Is that what I was seeing on your computer? Okay. So yes, you have a base rate. That base rate gives you a certain amount. Yeah.

And then if you go over that, then what's called the variable rate kicks in. So then you get charged for x every every monthly allowance. If you stay under you, you should stand. But if you stay under that, then it should be less. You shouldn't be charging us a base rate if we're staying under. You know what I mean? You're not using that, you know, 4,000 gallons a month. Why am I having to pay for $4,000 a month or 4,000 gallons a month? And I don't use that enough, you know.

I don't think that's very I minimal water and this summer I'm not going to be out watering. I can't afford it. So I mean the we understand where you're coming from but hopefully you understand where we're coming from issue usage and not just a flat be 10 in the house and then see

you know that's the whole thing. I mean it's like when I have my bill like why is my bill exactly the same every month? Well but if I don't I made sure that I because I'm wet person so I'm aware of the water usage. So if I'm conserving then why am I getting build the base rate every month?

So two two responses to that. When when I build my rate calculations in a way that's been done rate studies does the monthly rate is is intended to capture through fixed costs. So your fixed costs are costs that that the city incurs incurred before even. So there's things like insurance, there's things like the debt payments we have to make, there's things like the employee salaries. So that monthly cost is intended to capture all of that. And then the the variable cost, the cost per gallon once you go over that that allowance that covers things like electricity, chemicals over time. In other words, the expenses that you have based on increasing water production.

So there's no in, you know, we're using less. There's no, you know what I'm trying to say? incentive, not an incentive for anybody to use less water. Well, it seems like on this graph, the other childs have a lower um base ratio on their water consumption, too. So, that way that makes sense because you're saying that all towns are challenged with water. So, it' be a good thing to use less water. that if you use lower you get charged. Exactly. Yeah.

Sure. It puts a lot of stress on system and we use less right now with the calculations of 900 people turn off that that brings up the second point I was going to make is something that I've seen in other cities and that I did in the city where I was at before here is we did have a public utility assistance program where if you met certain guidelines, you didn't get like a 25% discount. So that is that is something that we could do here.

I mean PG does that you know I mean even if it doesn't help us I mean there's probably other seniors putting on less. Exactly. You know I mean I really think that's a good idea you know truthfully I mean there should be something I mean It's obviously not your guys's fault that we have to live on a strict budget, but but the thing is is you guys should be able to do something to incentivize something, not just for us, but not just retired, it's single people, you know, single parents,

you know, and stuff. So, I just don't see how 94 accounts have to pay for that $8 million loan. You know, what is the what is the budget every month as far as um money's coming in, money's going out? Well, while I'm looking I've been doing a lot of talk maybe.

Yeah. So, uh, are you okay, advisor? Um, so there's a little bit of the historic context, too. So, one of the things when I first joined up here, I had so many questions about the of water infrastructure and water bill because, like I mentioned before, even then, it was it was the hot button topic back in 2022. Um, and what was explained to me was that there was, and this is not intended to throw anybody under the bus. It is purely data data driven. So there was a time period in the early 2000s where there were zero rate increases whatsoever. So it was 2001 and 2007. Um and what that ended up doing because even though we started doing marginal rate increases after that it ended up compounding need. And so when we get to the 2020s when you know prior city manager was here um different different council at the time you know the the big conversation was when do we increase rates because there was a time I think it was I don't know if it's 22 or 23 you may know better than me on this but there was a time where we we needed to do two or three different rate increases in a year to try to play catchup. Um, and we pushed off we pushed off the the water increases for at least a year, year and a half be because of this. You know, we we all live in town too, right? And so, you know, it's one of those where we we wanted to try to manage a soft landing on some of these. So first and foremost throughout the years over the last you know four years at minimum you know it's it's always been where can we we know that we have to do some of these increases but how can we do it in ways that it is at you know delayed so it's not around Christmas time so it's delayed so that it's you know not around you know x y or z different reasons u so this is something that you know again just to reiterate you know has has been first and foremost has been a primary topic and I'm really glad that we're getting these town halls going again

because and I wish that we did it back in 22 and 23 because I feel like now all of these conversations are really coming together and it's just one almost gnarled mess whereas if we started to address them farther back I think we could have addressed them a bit more one at a time because that suggestion is a great suggestion I wish we thought four years ago. Um, so the other piece of this is um I lost what I was going to say. No, there's all sorts of stories. Um,

no. Okay, I'm going turn over to you for a second. Kitty, is there anything that you'd like to add? Oh, well, first and foremost, as much as it hurts, the city has to cover the cost. Whatever it costs to produce the clean water and get it pumped out, the city has to cut the cost. Otherwise, we have to take money from somewhere else like parks. We don't mow the parks. This is why we are trying to do small regular increases. We will need to increase costs every year. Hopefully just a couple of dollars. But when the costs are going up all around us, we will go under if we don't pass them on. One bit of history I can tell you is that our base rate used to be 600 cubic feet. You talk about not any incentive to conserve. We have brought that down twice, I think. Um, it is helping. Um, but one of the big conversations we did have had to do with that bridge. In order to get the loan, and we absolutely had to have it, we had to agree to withhold money from people on a monthly basis. It just happened to go through the utility bill. We have to guarantee that we could make the payment. So, $26 of what you're currently paying for sewer is designed to be the debt payment on that bridge. So, we can make the payment. Um, but we do we we at one point before we got into that $13 interest times two, we heard that we were charging the right

amount. The people who said you're charging exactly what you need to for water,

but now we need to get into how can we more equitably charge sewer? um having everybody paid the same amount whether it's one person or 12 that's a problem and small town seem to have trouble doing that but I am hoping um I'm pretty certain we will be looking into that again although well one increase suggested might have raised sewer rates by about $40 a month for average water user. It wouldn't have dropped rates for the individuals. So, um that was one of the reasons we didn't put that through because it didn't seem right. But we um I believe we will be looking into that again. Um making the sewer charges a little more equitable.

How does the $13 for the SH thing, how does that work? Is it just the 94 accounts that are getting build that $13 for the sheriff's department and not the rest of the county or the rest of the city and the city limits? How does that work? That's that's correct. For every utility customer within the city limits, they get charged that 1265 of money. So, actually well, you don't have to pay the $13.

Let me let me back up. That's not the case. So for a a single family residence, if you have a utility account, it's 1265 a month. But if you have a hotel or like the vintages where you have multiple units, then it's for each unit. But what about the farms and stuff that are, you know, out around here that are in the Dayton addresses? No. you know, so why are we paying why are we putting that bill even though they're using the sheriff's department?

So the dedicated deputy is for city limits. So the levy that we have right now that we're that we're trying to renew in the fall. So that's for our dedicated deputy that's here for 40 hours a week. So out in the county you'd get your county services, but this this public safety fee in the levy is for a dedicated singular deputy that's you know predominantly you know in schools around school time. Um he helps you know with feeding deputy twist if you ever seen him around. Really great guy but um you know he he is dedicated to town. Um and so in county is is you know county pays county taxes and they get county service but this is very specifically you know the the dedicated dedicated there is also because you pay some county taxes in your in your property taxes there's a little bit of crossover with county service in town but this public safety fee addresses the singular deputy that serves the town that's you know part of public safety le

if you ever see them if you went to the meeting before Mhm. That was over and you guys want to raise that rate which will raise the water sewer bill again to cover the deputy. Oh yeah. Next le is property tax. It's not utilities. Levy is going to go to property tax. So that's going to wipe out the $13 or 12 something. Yes sir. For the deputy off the water sewer bill. Okay. But then there'll be a rate increase on water and sewer. You guys probably I had another double function on this. the hotel. Mhm.

A lot of towns are and I think this is where this write off thing's going, but uh uh they are expanding letting uh walk parties go in and the turnover is no property tax is that's what's going to go on with this. They're going to pay for a lot of water and sewer to get in here and then no property tax is going to hit them for many years because Malala did that and now the fire is trying to figure out you know cuz they're walk and now the fire department is sitting here going how are we going to protect these people? So I wondered about the hotel. Is there a tradeoff out of our budget? That's good. You know, that you're bringing us in and then there's no tax to take it out for them. There have been no discussions on tax on everything.

Mr. Chairman, would council have the say on that um if somebody was to suggest it or to come before council? Yes. Good. Is there any history of that that you're aware? Not in this city, but it is a common economic development tool. I don't see it passing. That's just a personal opinion, but that doesn't sound like a good idea. Is there really a need for a big hotel here in town? Who do they think is going to stay there? Is there something we don't know? Good question. So

then this is getting a little bit away from from utilities but I no you're okay it's hey open forum the questions are are wonderful. So um and this is just my personal opinion you know we're trying to build up the the business sector right so you know bypass loan you know u was everything and so when it comes to that solar property you know there's been a lot of suggestions on you know gas station grocery store what have you require them they'll put they'll try to put in what they want to put in we can't if they if they're like hey we put in a hotel we can't be like well no you're not going to do that you're going to do this instead said. So, while while some of those alternate ideas are are really cool ideas that I've heard, um that's that's not what's coming before us right now. And then the hotel in of itself, there's kind of a twoprong benefit in just in my personal opinion to something like this, whether it's this one or another one, what what have you. So, back in 2023 4, we increased our uh transient lodging tax. So transient lodging tax is a tax for anybody from out of town that stays in town at any of our short-term rentals. So I think vintages, think Airbnbs or nice hotel. Um and so on any nightly stay, I think it's a 12% tax now. 11% tax. Thank you. Uh 11% tax on that day that is paid by folks visiting from out of town. So what I see as the benefit of that is it is tax relief in some way for our residents because we're able to tax folks from out of town or you know there's and there's some requirements for TLT if you have to put X amount towards you know marketing of your town and things like that but then you have a freedom of use of a certain other percentage. I can't remember if it's 6040 or quite how that shakes out, what the requirement is, but um but that that tax would allow us to then, you

know, uh use it for infrastructure, things like that. So something like this in just in my personal opinion and not speaking on behalf of the council um hypothetically I think that it's a cool idea because it it allows us to migrate just even if it's just a small portion of tax burden it allows us to migrate a small portion of tax burden to folks visiting and not just just us.

Tax burden on eliminates tax burden on who? Ideally, it not eliminate, but it would it would help supplement some of our funds in other ways that aren't just taxing us. Um, anybody who visits from out of town for the wine regions, for, you know, uh, dinners, that kind of thing. Like at the initon right now, um, on each bill, they have a percentage that they have to pay for the TLT dollars that then that can that can go towards, you know, these other storage funds. Am I representing this accurately? Absolutely. Okay. Just want to make sure hopefully to the hotel and they'll be using the the different things in town. Exactly.

And so please tell me we're not going to become another college then. It's like no, please no. I'm telling you. I moved from there. That's where you join a town. I'm telling you it's bad.

There's been so we have this really uh wonder and again I apologize Jeremy. We'll get back on on track here in just a second. There's this really cool firm that we're working with out of out of McMinnville who um who helps with a lot of like town brand imagery and I guarantee a lot of the conversations that we've had here in council when it's come to how do we want to represent Dayton, how we want to talk about the amenities of Dayton, you know, the history of Dayton, the agriculture history of Dayton has been first and foremost. So, you know, though I'm new personally, there's a new council, we do have members of the council who, you know, know the history of Dayton, who can represent the history of Dayton quite well and articulate that very well. And nobody here wants to to lose that. No,

what makes that fully agreed. So, um, yeah, I hope that answers on a during the summertime, the park thing, that's like talk. That's cool. Yeah, that's, you know, so we don't want to think we're bitching the whole time. Smile.

Yeah. No, this is Hey, honestly, like like we we Sorry, Pete. Um, when it comes to the city council meetings, you know, there there's usually a couple folks who may attend who may voice one thing. Our ability to have conversations like this is really minimal. And so this this is great. This is a wonderful meeting so far. So all these questions are are fantastic. Thank you. Um, you know, light fire up just a little bit. K, go ahead. Last summer at our last Friday night, I spoke to a woman in an electric wheelchair hot pink. She came from Eugene to come visit us. That's part of what we're looking for. Um,

it's wonderful. This town does a lot of things. I've got a stack of all the different things that are coming up here in town and I appreciate that. It's just that our issue is that we have a fear of not being able to deliver. I mean, I understand where the town's coming from, too. Everybody's hurting. Yeah. And I guess Oh, no. You're fine. Um there doesn't seem to be any place to go. Yeah.

Um it's not going to be any better anywhere else. So, we're working um the transient tax does give us a little bit of spending money that isn't coming from the property taxes because that's offhand the city's general fund. How much of how much of a percentage is the property tax versus at least half 50 to 60%.

Yeah. um all that money is accounted for the streets and parks and you know everything else. So this tourism I'm not a big fan of crowds like that appears to be where we need to go um smartly smartly.

How about you? I'll just uh kind of go back. I had a comment about um like our the water the costs. Um a lot of it again to kind of tie in with Drew was there was deferred maintenance as well over many many years. And so we're we've been slowly playing catchup. Um and with that we're impacted with inflation. The cost of pipe, the cost of uh hourly wages are going up. So, we're having to battle that as well with trying to do it slow enough but still keep up with it. Um, and then the number one thing uh you can ask Dawn on this one and manager is safety. Safety is number one concern when it comes to water. It's going into everybody's house. You have to focus on safety.

Well, you know, if you could do the discount thing if it's paid by the due date, that would be awesome. You know, for people over 65 or something, you know, it's like There must be something. Those are good ideas that I think we should absolutely kind of start thinking about. Yeah. When we have full counsel, we should chat about that. Sure. Can I Well, go ahead. I do have one more thing I want to say, but I can wait if you want to go ahead. Do it.

Okay. Um so one of the things with the utility bills too and why we see so much fluctuation in that is historically with with small towns the the way of funding functions more or less on a three-legged stool right so you have and this is nationwide you have sales tax you have property tax and then you have more or less your your utility fees now in Oregon we're functioning with a two-legged stool so we don't have sales tax um now in the early 2000s and I I'm going to get my house bills wrong but there where uh two house bills passed in Oregon. It was 90 something for both of money 198. I can't remember what they were. Um but essentially what that did was it it locked in property tax rates at that current rate and then established a requirement that you could only go I think it's 3% uh up each time that you increase your property taxes. So if you look at towns like Yah is a great example. So, Yah had a really high property tax rate when this bill was passed and their property taxes were locked in at this high rate. Dayton, by comparison, is a very very low property tax rate. Um, and so when we when we function within our funding sources, Yah is able to to pretty much uh do everything that they want just based off of their problem taxes. But but here we actually have a bit more of that adverse. we rely more on that utility fee to to carry its own weight because property taxes, you know, are are lower um here than they are, you know, our base rate of base was was locked in lower than maybe a lot of our surrounding towns. So, um it does seem because what we see every every month is our utility fees, right? We don't see our property taxes in the same visibility light that we see our utility fees. So this fluctuation in the utility fee is really because it's one of the only levers that we have to pull as a city government. Um you know no sales

tax that's never going to change. Um property taxes locked in by you know house bills from the early 2000s at least you know increase not by very much. Um so utility fees are are really what we're working with. Um, so you know, not that it, you know, not that it helps, but hopefully the context at least of of the levers that we have at our disposal helps a little bit. Uh, because the end of the day, we don't have any CEOs. We're not getting bonuses, you know, we're all here volunteering. We just we just want to make sure the town doesn't go under. Uh, that's the that's the main like that, too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Jeremy.

All right. Our city senior quarter has crunched some numbers that I'm going to share with you. So you remember just a few moments ago we were talking about how many gallons you get just with the base monthly rate. So in Dayton you get 200 cubic feet in that base rate. So 200 cubic feet is about 1500 gallons. That's $51.31 a month. In Lafayette, you get 300 cubic feet at $5844 a month. In Carlton, 500 cubic feet.

Wow. So that's that's over 4,000 gallons right there. And that's $6463 a month. And then in Amity, you get 276 cubic feet. Let's see how many gallons that is. 2,000 gallons. So yeah, those are Carlton's hooked up to McMinnville. They are, but they're not it's not turned on. It's not turned on. Correct.

So an in 2,000 gallons is $51.707. Something else, too. We're talking about the tiers and incentivizing people to use less. We're one of the few small cities that has three tiers. Meaning that the more you use, the more gallons you use, the higher you get charged. You get ratcheted up into that tier. But it's cheap. It's not cheap. The tier is higher. Well, the base rate cover more than the tier because it's $148 per 100 gallons in the deer. And I looked at computer.

Oh, what my We have 375 I think on the first tier for feet after the 200 cubic feet. Okay. How much for uh

$3 double check. And then that goes up. It's like $4 and then it goes up to six. Okay. So tier one, that's after the 200 gallons. That's three $3.15. And then when does tier two kick in?

Yes. cubic feet or cubic feet. We're talking cubic feet here not. Nice. And then tier three, that's that's the highest. That's $6.30. That's at after 800 cubic feet, which is almost 6,000 gallons. Thank you.

Well, then it was nice talking to you. But I mean, at least we have a better understanding of that's what we do have a little conversation. And we got a great idea, too. That was one of the good suggestions. Or, you know, I would if you couldn't do that for everybody. If one once a month you could choose somebody to get a reduction in their rates, something that people could look forward to or a surprise, right? I think the problem is where I live on Ash Street, a lot of the people the front of their properties are city, the back half of county

and that's where their wells and septic tanks would be. So, I mean, it makes sense that those likely people Yeah, city academy. True. Thank you guys very much. I I a lot actually. So, I'm glad I came even though small audience retired.

That's right. Y'all uh pick up a business card on on your way out. It's got my cell phone number on there if if you ever have any questions or I can ever do anything for you. I'm just a phone call. All right. Don't we have an opening on our budget committee? We didn't we have one? I believe we have two.

Well, we have two. We need citizens to come and work through the budget with us. It's an excellent opportunity to really understand what's going on to have you. We need seniors. We need the older, wiser people to come out. Yes. Just the old words. You are as old as you feel. I'm about to turn 10 years old. Miss Beverly Bart will be 10 years old. the 24th.

So, I don't know if you answered my question like what is our what does the money coming in and money going out every month with what what what are we paying for every month besides the um the sheriff, the bridge, the water and the sewer and like salaries. What is what does that overall budget look like? because I know I did the I did the math of how much approximately is coming in. Let me try to find those. I just add my financial statements. Let me try to find all the city. Okay, here we are.

Okay, I've got our And then we have a budget that is set aside money that is going like say like sorry I know I'm thinking down um according to mine on average $156 per 904 people on the thing comes to 141,000 approximately. So it it varies by by month. Like during the summer months people are use more water.

So you see our you see it start to go like this and then in the wet months it goes like that. So, when I'm looking at our monthly financial statements for January, our total revenues that we brought in for that month were set about $71,000. And then our total expenses for for January was about 99,000 almost $100,000. 71,000. a year in the fall. For that month, we were, but remember once it starts to warm up, people want to use more water and then you want to start to see our revenues go like this.

That might not happen this year. People might not be watering more.

Looks like we'll have a lot of brown yards this time. Thank God that's what we're trying to look for alternatives may not raising their own vegetables and stuff and then bad stuff. Is there anybody in town that like still operates on their own? Well, in

uh the last one that I was aware of inside city limits was one that the school had for irrigation purposes and I my knowledge I'm not aware if that's active or not at I have a question have you guys ever thought of um getting solar panels for the schools to make some money that you could sell back to PGD I've read some articles that other schools and other states have done that if if I may please.

Um you'd have to take that to a school board meeting. Um it's that's that's all up to them. That makes sense. Um, I would love it if we could put up some solar panels to reduce our own electric bills, but then again, that takes an investment to put them up and get the system running and where's that come from? Yeah. Yeah. So, there, you know, they're going to have that. Um, but yeah, we aren't or the school is totally separate from us. The bonds are theirs. Um the fire district is separate except that they get their water from electricity.

Mr. Jeremy, I've been functioning under an assumption and pictures. I think I should confirm it. What we put on the water bill related to water and sewer charges can only be used to produce clean water and process the sewage. Right. We can't take water bill money and use it for streets or parks. Correct. Correct.

Well, you pay um part of what you're paying goes to the debt payments to pay for the bridge. Part of it is going to supplement the police levy, but everything else that is charged in water and sewer, that money can only go to producing water and the prostate. How many residents are there in the

24 to charge some sort of fee because they're living in the city? I mean, that would only be fair. Maybe probably not if I were the one paying it and not getting city water, but I don't know. It just seems like everybody needs to do their fair share in this town to make sure it continues on. The idea is that all that So, the meter numbers and the residents would be different. Oh, right.

Right. So, the idea is that pretty close to that max amount is is a meter. Yeah, I don't I can't imagine very many would not be from that that town like it's never right. I mean, we don't have any other else in town, right? One thing. Go ahead.

I've been meaning to throw an idea. I would like to hear from the community. What do you do to conserve? Do you have any special tricks? We should bring that together and disseminate it and distribute it and maybe even offer a tiny bonus group. The one who comes up with the most original and productive idea. To your point for the gardening, uh, my wife was put into water catch. So, uh, I need to look and see. I suggested put a bucket in the shower where you save your water.

Yeah. was well concerned. Um so council Macken brought something Jeremy that um is was really an a sweet observation with regard to what you can use the the funds from court. Um could you very briefly touch on how the funds system works? Uh because you know the city doesn't have just one bank account, right? So there's a series of funds that all do a series of purposes, but also like a very very brief touch on on like what you can and cannot do between the funds, right? So you know what's locked in, what's um does that make sense?

Yeah. Okay.

So in government we have a lot of different funding sources and there are different laws and different regulations and we have to be careful how we spend that money. So we we put we have what's called a fund. It's like just imagine it's like just a special bank account where you put this money and it the money the special money coming in stays there and then you can account for every dollar and how it's spent to make sure that you're following the rules. So with we have a water fund. So when you pay your water bill, there's a part that is for the water fund that just goes into the water. Then you have your sewer sewer portion of your bill that just goes into the sewer fund. We have a street fund. We get some highway tax money that just stays in that special street fund and we can only use that by law for fixing the streets. We have gosh, what other funds do we have? We have um we have the building reserve fund that I just mentioned that can only be used for building projects. We have an equipment replacement fund that's only for equipment projects. And then everything else goes into what's called general homes. That's everything else that doesn't have a homes somewhere else. So like our library, our parks, portion of my salary, uh certain c certain city council expenses, uh our property taxes go with the general fund and the state law is very strict on how how you can and can't transfer money between the you know the idea is that you know we can't take water money and use it for you know something that is not designed that

U so get checks accountability. Now did you guys lay the city staff off one day a week like on Fridays? Do you want to talk about it? Okay. Lay off. No. So it was a restructure of the work week, right?

Okay. Um so the idea in today's day and age as a small town, you'll make yourself as appealing as possible for for a good workforce, right? Um, and in today's day and age, uh, a 410 schedule is seen as a very desirable work schedule. And so making the town appealing, you know, in multifaceted ways, whether that's, you know, and this is any town, whether that's, you know, salary, whether that's, you know, benefits, whether that's, you know, a work schedule, all of that adds up. And so we did some studies in earlier this year um that kind of seconded some of that perspective and so we ended up transitioning to a 410 work schedule um for the most part I think um so that you know that was seen as an an added benefit of employment so we can retain our excellent talent. Yes. Uh just to be fully aware though, public works handles water, sewer, all that all the stuff. We are still 24/7 365. So if there's ever an emergency whether the office is open or not, you can call you can call city hall and you can get the number from the automated system or you can call non-emergency WCOM. They dispatch out whoever's on call in public works and we're on it. So, well said. Well said. Thank you, D.

Well, okay. And as we learned at our public safety town hall meeting, even though we have the deputies specifically 40 hours a week, we have county sheriff or deputies available to us 247. So, we're actually our our public safety levy gets us more than just that one deput um we get a lot of talent and extra this and extra that a whole lot more coverage. Yeah, I agree. We need somebody the speeders on fair streets. Yes. My god. Terrible. And that's Hey, I live right on Perry. I got you. But

on Ash Street, it's like well I live in that whole home book right there and you can hear them come from the store and it's like I call it the day and day tournament. Yeah. Because it's that's exactly what it is. We don't get actually very many dollars on tickets. That's a whole other conversation. the dalmation in the in the window. You guys have

um and some of that too, like there's been a lot of really good work done on like the transportation master plan, the bark master plan, things like that in in the last year, multiple years from start to finish. Um, and like in the transportation master plan, the speed limit going, you know, Barry West is is addressed in there's a there's a lot of that, you know, because we we did um like different community meetings and things like that. So, a lot of that feedback is is accounted for. And I've talked to the sheriff's about every time I see them and I'm like, "Hey, you sit on Perry Street, you make your quota." Yeah. You know, and guess what? Never see them there.

There's no place for them to sit. I've asked there is no place they could legally sit. I've offered my driveway and they can't see from it. Yeah. Place there's no place on fairy street. Yeah. I don't know. They can sit right the water tower is right there. There's a little back end right there. Yeah. So, actually I I did see him sitting there in that exact spot. I saw him sitting there on I'm not going to say it on public forum. But yeah, myself.

I'm like, "Oh, the one day I forget sitting there." I know. But all right. Well, I'm not in here personally. So, you guys, thank you very, very much. Really appreciate it. And you did a great job. You're giving me a lot. So I wish more people was nicer talking to you, you know, but and we appreciate the job that you guys do for us. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm done. No, I know. Oh, I was going to see if Judy had any questions. Uh, but no, no, no, you're good. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. I just I was

I have no question. I just, you know, but thank you guys for what you're doing and having a telephone, giving people a chance to have conversation. I think these ladies in front of me ask the questions that I see. Facebook, you know, community Facebook page. There's not as many people that are on that Facebook page complaining about this issue that are here tonight. Perhaps they're all on YouTube watching their own. One of the things we both say is when we do see social media language, it's us versus them

and how them want to tax us to pay your salary because then I think you've done a good job today explaining how that doesn't work that way. Number one, and number two, the people that are our council members are us citizens that were voting that serve in this capacity. you guys have a hard problem in terms of helping make things here and I think that you your answers tonight have not shown that you guys have as great questions and you know the fire and you guys I just want to appreciate that thank you appreciate that duty back any questions my friend no sir you got it

I was going to ask about the you were mentioning getting cit citizens involved with budgeting what does that mean or how to get involved that Great question. Twitter on days in May. Um there is an application online that you can fill out. I didn't have your

um the first Monday in May and the third Monday in May. Um there is an application you can fill out online if you have the app or you go to the website um or call city hall. They'll walk you through it. I mean, you can fill out an application. Um, it's a wonderful experience. Um, I have an accounting background, but I'll tell you, I've learned more on the budget committee than I did on several years on the planning commission. Um, everything the city does is managing money, bringing it in and managing to spend it. There isn't a whole lot more outside of it. That's I mean that's everything managing rent. So

can somebody tell me one more time where the housing developments very at night? Um you can get into it. It's behind center market. Yeah, pretty much. It's right by Oh, what they're building now? Oh, okay. I thought you meant like a big so I don't really know because I had to I dealt with them when I lived in Carlton so just and I was thinking this big subdivision that's what I was thinking apartments or whatever and it's for housing is that so uh so it's

yeah it's the USDA 502 direct loan I think is what it is but it's the um the buyers of the house. Also, it's sweat equity as well, so they help build it. Um, so it's a really cool program. Yeah. What was it? 60%. Oh, yeah. Because you sell it 60%. So, 60% of the house is is built by buying it. Uh, with supervision, of course. Yeah. But, uh, it's it's a really cool building. How do you get involved with something like that as you know to look into something like that?

Uh, Community Homebuilders is who I would look up. They're out of sision and Mac and Chris would actually Chris would be a good person to talk to about that as well. Chris, yeah, he he's he's got all the info there. Uh, cool. So, if everybody's good, final final opportunity. Anything else at this moment in time? You got it. Council councelor Mack. Well, I have one more thing. Um, I have some information about Davy Crockett. Very few people know. He had three ears. Really? He had the left one.

Yeah, he had the left one and the right one and the wild ear. Nice. That's a good one. I haven't heard that one. Uh, Cyra, I just want to thank everybody for showing up and asking those questions. Okay, thank you. We're all pirates here. I have a joke for I have a pirate joke. Oh, anybody wants to hear it? Yes. It's a pirates favorite letter. Not our No, that is the sea we love. I love it. That's good. Yes. On that note, I will adjourn this city hall at 7:4.