City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we're going to call this meeting the border at 631. Let us do the budget. Hi. Hi. I guess everybody saw the memorandum of the Scribner's Notes. Nice getting that in. And I'm. Yes, really. Yes, it was important. I know it was almost.

That would be a good thing.

And it was a strategy.

It was fun.

And by the way, this is the heaters.

Well, Mr. Who is it? Oh, well, probably that's it.

I hope somebody can read this better than I can.

I can read it into the record for you if you want. Would you? I'm looking at one.

I can read part of it. I know as opposed to the drilling of the wells. But we can't have new businesses without it. And we're really not drilling bells. We don't really want to. Yeah, but we're rehabbing, too.

Well, this is all names, too.

Yeah, because he came and made a statement.

A couple of them.

Yeah, in council on public statements. So, I mean.

On the back side, there is additional information.

In the last sentence.

Have you considered building a longer column?

Something about aluminum plants along a column. That's what I thought I was reading. Well, aluminum plants. Aluminum plants.

That's astonishing. I don't know about the Lockheed infrastructure on Seward you see.

And they have a completely different setup than we do. I mean, we can say that we have a letter from Mr. Evers and it will be in the record as part of the record, but I don't know that we have to actually read the whole thing because he did All right. Nobody else that I missed. All right. Nobody got online. All right. I'll move on to the consent agenda.

Madam Mayor, please. I would like to move to include the September 4th Scribner's Airman Memorandum As part of the September 8, 2026 consent agenda.

I'll second. Thank you. I have a motion from Councillor Metken and a second from Councillor Bilderberg. All those in favor? Aye. All right. Motion passes.

I would also, if I may, I would move to approve the consent agenda as amended by the Schindler's Memorandum.

I'll second. Okay, motion from Councilor Mackinac, second from Councillor Pilgrim. All those in favor? Aye. Excellent. Motion passes. All right, we'll move on to our action items. Page 93, this is approval of Resolution 2026-2705, accepting the Small City Allotment Grant for $250,000 from the Oregon Department of Transportation for the Eastside Overland. Any questions or discussions.

I was just going to move because I don't want these. A little bit of a resolution 2026 slash 27-05. A resolution accepting the small city of Lockman grant for $250,000 from the Oregon Department of Transportation for the east side overlay and authorizing the inner city manager to execute the agree and second.

Thank you. I have a motion from Councilor Hoeger and a second from Councilor Taitman. All those in favor? I have a motion. Motion passes. Page 119, approval of Resolution 2627-06, authorizing the City of Dayton City to apply for a Regional Infrastructure Fund grant from BusinessBurden and delegating authority to the interim City Manager to sign the

Yeah. All right. I'm going to approve resolution number 2026 slash 27-06 authorizing the City of Dayton, Oregon City to apply for a regional infrastructure grant, RIF grant, from Business Oregon in the amount of $1 million for construction of a water main transmission line upgrade at your location.

I'll second. All right. I have a motion from Councilman Hilbert, second from Councilman Peterson. All those in favor?

All right.

I just want to say it's exciting finding those friends. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to those grant writers. We'll take that.

Well, Danny helped a lot.

He's not here, so we'll give you the names.

Thank you so much.

Question.

I think we can wrap. I'll never be here because I have to submit it tomorrow. All right, we're going to turn to page 123. This is approval of the city manager. Any questions, discussion, thoughts?

Gretchen, can you just go over this just a touch, just so it's real clear. You're getting permission to get started. You've already kind of put it out there.

What this is permission for the language of the recruitment. So there's a brand new job description. Okay. And there's also an exhibit that talks about the city. So it's kind of selling the city. Okay. Yeah. So all this job description is kind of building on the job description that other job descriptions that you used feedback that I've heard from all of you. discussions with staff and community members about what they're looking for. And then as part of typically the recruitment process, you would have a brochure. So what is the job and then what is the community? And because it's going into the fall, having some pictures of the area for this kind of year is kind of typically the way that you would go. I like to make sure you all were aware of the associated with advertising the job in the Oregon League of Cities and the International City Managers Association, which would be my recommendations for the two spots. Not to say that there aren't other places that might prove fruitful, but the maximum costs for those two advertisements for a month would be $655, might be less. But, and then the most important thing is, of course, setting the salary because having at least something that people can react to is really important in this environment. So those are kind of the four main components of the packet that you can have there. It's really nice to put together.

Just a quickie question. Sure. So it talks about the community because they know Focus There's not like a pop on the wine country.

No, there isn't. There absolutely isn't.

So is that a dimension?

I mean, it talks about it. It does say.

It's about the vineyards and stuff, but it doesn't talk about dating in the heart of wine country, you know, that kind of thing. Because we really are. And I think that's a selling point for somebody who wants to live their life.

That's true.

Especially somebody who's mobile, who's one of those blind people.

A lying yuppie type.

I don't know that. You know, like, true.

So I am of the opinion, just personally, I think before we get to this, I think there's a conversation I'd like to bring forward before this is just, you know, open honesty on the table, complete transparency. You know, is there interest in instead of being introverted, being permanent here from your perspective. If not, totally cool. I was just, I figured that even before we started going down the recruitment path, I think that that style of conversation would interest me personally. And I would be curious what your perspective on it would be as well. I mean, you know, just from our seats going into this on kind of your interest, it doesn't serve anybody, I think, you know, us understanding kind of where you're at before we go down this path is important.

Well, I mean, I accept the position as an interim with the expectation of recruiting for a permit. If there's an interest from the council, and I think most importantly to me, from the staff, to see me stay on as in a permanent role, then that's something that I would entertain.

Could these two conversations be happening concurrently? And so can we proceed in this pathway, but then also bring something forward to the next meeting where we get feedback from staff, we get, you know, we kind of have those two conversations at the same time and see where that, if it doesn't make sense for us to wait on this until we have our internal conversation or.

I will just say my experience, not to say that you cannot, of course you can. In the environment, in the recruitment environment, individuals that are looking at a position like this are going to watch and listen to your conversations. If they believe that there is an internal candidate that is a strong candidate, they are going to not applaud. They won't waste their time. That is very, very unlikely. I think there are people who won't watch and who are just looking or just putting their resumes up. You won't. And people that I would expect you to want in the position will be paying real close attention to whether or not there's an internal head.

Okay.

Yes. You're right in here. We have two projects. Critical time sensitive. We could lose a whole lot of money. If you are willing to stay, I would recommend that we don't make any more changes right now. Bringing in somebody who is going to take time away from what we need to be doing right now. Councilor Tacker.

I agree with both of you two. And maybe we present more, maybe a contract extension initially, like just to get through, because I agree with the big projects, especially the potential of the road and the transportation. If that's an option, obviously it's something that we would have to all discuss, but maybe start it out as maybe a contract extension, get your feet a little bit more wet, as it were. I don't know.

She's not the type of girl to keep them wet after too long, though. She wants to dive in. I am. Councilor, go ahead.

I just want to know how you build a lot of long-term commitment to this position.

The ICMA guidelines for professional city managers requires you to make a two-year commitment in a permanent role. That's your minimum commitment in order to... in order for you to maintain your professional prevention. OK.

So a minimum of two years.

That is their expectation of city managers, yeah. I would want to stick with the professional kind of expectation, yes.

How do we proceed? I think a lot of us are very interested in hiring a permanent physician. I just don't know the steps for which we need to go. I know the staff loves you and the council loves you. They do love you. So I just don't know how we move. Sorry, that's the procedure.

It's kind of a very clean procedure, so.

Can I add on that too? So to your point, Gretchen, I think one thing that you mentioned is external candidates, you know, if they're watching something like this meeting and then they see that there is interest, then it could, you know, make them not want to apply. You know, I think personally, I think we would want to, whether it's proceeding with an internal candidate or coming to the end point and then mutually agreeing to not, I think that if I'm an external candidate, I would want that assurance either way. And so I think just personal opinion, I would almost want to see where this goes one way or the other. And then if we mutually agree, hey, we want to proceed, or hey, we don't want to proceed, then if we don't want to proceed, then the external candidate knows at that time that they're not competing for somebody who's already here. And so I don't know if I'm reading that incorrectly or not, but I would see it as almost a reassurance to an external candidate of, oh, they did their vetting, they went through that internal process, you know, and so could we get stronger candidates at that time? So I would like to see where this takes us on an internal conversation first, personal opinion, see where we all went. And then, you know, we kind of take it step by step in that method. I know timing is a little bit tricky, because we don't have a lot of time, but can you remind me what our agreed upon short-term contract was?

January 2nd.

January 2nd. So we don't have time. But is there something, whether it's a special session or a work session, you know, this month's executive session, you know, I'm wondering if there's something that we can get on the books to go down this pathway. What do we think as a council?

Can we do a book session? Sorry, can we put an executive session to this on our two weeks from now, our next meeting? We have a meeting in October.

We haven't scheduled it. We typically have a work session, but we don't have anything on the agenda yet.

So if you'd like to propose an executive meeting, whatever that is.

I support that.

And sounds like.

No, no, that's next. Monday the 21st. The 18th, the 21st, whatever.

Yeah. And that would be the LOC. That would be our last opportunity to do the legislative priorities because you have to vote by the 25th, I think. So if we're going to do it, we need to be on the 21st.

Well, we would like to do that. Yes. Thank you.

I would like it. I put a few hours into those remaining meetings.

So then I can propose that we kind of table this program next until two weeks.

What is the estimated cost on our recruitment process?

$655 if we do it internally. And just to be clear, if you run it internally and you use me to run the recruitment, then I cannot be a candidate. So if you wanted me to compete for a position against other candidates, then you would have to hire a recruiting firm.

So let's table this recruitment process until we've .

And what is it that you'd like me to bring and prepare for the executive session?

Yeah, I'd like to be able to make you an offer, but I just don't, I don't, I don't have a legal lease. I don't have a right. I don't want to create that. So someone else needs to be said.

I don't know how to write contacts.

Okay.

So I guess that's, you know, my contact for you to react to your mom.

Okay. For us all to react. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

A couple questions. Is it possible for us to receive a feedback was, I don't know, proper process would be anonymous, probably anonymous, anonymous feedback from staff at that meeting. Because I think that's absolutely something we should have and kind of their perspectives all around. And then Another piece of this is kind of where you see, because I think that's a good check-in point for where we're at in this process is, you know, your perspectives on the first, you know, X amount of time, you know, where you see us going, where you see our pinch points, you know, where you see our opportunities. I think this meeting can be a couple different things, a check-in as well as the longer-term conversation. First one.

Yeah. So typically, to do a good 360 kind of anonymous evaluation of feedback, the staff will need to have a point of contact on the council that they can provide that information to their people.

Well, I don't mind collating the information and all this stuff. I'm good at it. I have to do it. It's a small town. Things you can say about some things.

Yeah.

So we'll have to coordinate comments from staff to the mayor prior to an answer. If you need to go to something.

Let me know.

Thank you.

Thank you. So then we're planning exactly.

Yeah. Cool. Should I make no problem? Question on that, though. Can we table it just until the work session? Yes. Okay.

Just make sure that the table, the city manager recruitment program for Currently for just two weeks until our next meeting, our executive meeting on September 21st.

I'll second. Councilor Peterson in the second from Councilor Hildebrandt. All those in favor? All right.

All right. All right.

Page 135. Approval to reject business organ loan for the water system financial analysis rate study. Did you want, did anybody have any questions? Did you want to mention anything, Gretchen?

If anyone has any questions about the staff report or any concerns, I wanted to emphasize in the event that you didn't have a chance to read the staff report and my reasoning for this recommendation, we were fortunate enough to be awarded thanks to the hard work of Abram and for CEO on a grant with HUD. And I also wanted to take the opportunity right now to let you know that they're going to come on site. They're going to be meeting with you. They're going to be meeting with members of the community. I think the urban renewal agency, they'll be meeting with staff, all of the staff. And it is a, It's a technical systems and capacity building grant. It's 18 months long, and it has a number of really important financial components that include some forecasting. And I think that what we are hoping is that we have the internal capacity with the assistance of this group to be able to do some of the things that, especially the rate study, that weren't anticipated that we would be paying a consultant to do using this grant. So rather than paying $140,000 back with interest, we'd like to see what we can do in terms. And if we can't, we can always come back and go after a loan if we really need to do that. But I would like that to be the the last possible option available to us.

Is this strictly for water? Or could we use this as an opportunity to change how we build this sewage? That's been a community request. I've been talking about this for somewhere around 28 years now. We need to build sewer according to water usage. Is this something that we can work into this?

Well, I am not sure if the scope of work is broad enough to be able to add that, but I will say for the benefit of everyone here and just overall transparency, we are having those conversations. That was one of the first things that Denny brought to me as a priority. He hears you. He knows that this is a priority for the community. And so, you know, we are starting to have those conversations internally to try to understand what is possible and what we need to do to be able to bring you options to react to from a policy standpoint.

Absolutely. Yes. May I? Please.

I move to reject the loan offered by the business Oregon in the amount of $140,000 for the water system's financial analysis and rate study project. I'll second.

Got it.

Okay. I have a motion from Councilor Peterson, a second from Councilor Rankin. All those in favor?

Aye.

All right. Motion passes.

All right. Down to our discussion items. Local option levy update, page 137 of 38.

Any questions or comments? Yeah. Please.

I've been doing some math. We passed this levy in November of 22. Yes, we already are aware of that. Jerry covered that. We don't want that. Six years as opposed to five. That's not what I'm talking about.

Oh, good.

It would have taken it back July 1st of 23, right? If we approved it in November, it would have taken a bit July 23.

We know it got voted in May of 22.

And it was in effect immediate because it was an emergency already. So it went into effect in 22.

Oh, okay. So we are in the last year. Okay. Alrighty, that

I do want to just bring up a question about thoughts on what is our plan B should the community vote against this study? Great question. That's what my husband would say, but not everybody has one of those.

28 we start working on passing this or we talk about it for the next few years that's about the only thing we can do will be regularly put it forward on the next March ballot, but well there you could play may sorry.

You have to do that. I would say, I mean, as you can see on this list, I passed everything and we are legally allowed to do in favor of this levy. The rest is really on our shoulders.

You got to be passing those informations around.

I think we do need to continue the messaging. Um, there have been a few, I saw your post on Facebook. Um, there's also been a few people, um, talking about some recent burglaries with their vehicles. Oh yeah.

One of them was my brother-in-law.

Yeah. So, uh, took some of his camping gear out of his truck. Um, but I think just reminding people, you know, it's not only that getting your children It's your property and your neighbors. And I think we just need to talk about it every single day to people that we walk, you know, that we run into.

I just want to have an idea of what, I mean, because we can still call the sheriffs. They're still going to come. They just won't be in our town regularly. So we have...

I'm going to say we have an excellent example to use for a national night out. What could have been bad with the argument with the annex. The way it was described on Facebook, somebody asked, well, why all the noise for so long? But somebody came up with the idea, the noise distracted and disoriented the subject. The noise allowed the law enforcement to kind of herd them into a spot. Science was in play. What we had available from the sheriff's office got him into custody. I mean, if we didn't have it, the outcome could have been different. And we kind of need to play that up, I think.

I'm wondering if we should, on our own, maybe write on our Facebook pages some kind of little message as to why we think you should vote in favor.

And the Warner Village Church. Because I wrote something. It hasn't come in the Warner Village yet.

That is city resources. They can't do that.

We can do it on our personal Facebook. No. But we can say ourselves. And that's why I'm saying perhaps we ought to each take a moment. Maybe not all at once, but you know, maybe a couple times. Say something on Facebook about it. And also talk to your neighbors. And if you're you know, or a church or a football game or something. You should go to a teacher and support your local church. Yeah, yeah.

Do we have any signage that we can put out?

We're not allowed to provide it. The city can't do any of that. We have to use our own monies.

Some studies have groups that are organized through their body.

Oh, I see. That's why you support community groups.

Thank you.

That's allowed because it's not the city staff.

So three primary topics on this that I think are very visceral, very real and good feedback with the community is the vandalism and the burglaries at the bathrooms, especially the detective work that was done to find to develop who did it and just address those multiple situations are good examples of what the Sheriff's Department does for us just on a general basis. The code enforcement is funded from this and code enforcement complaints are pretty regular. There's a lot that happens outside of public eye. And so they'd be losing a pretty significant, if not the entirety of their code enforcement arm Um, and then the, the piece of this that I think will resonate the most with folks is it's for the kids, you know, uh, deputy tuition functions as a pseudo SRO, um, and the schools, whether that's for preventative measures for, you know, education for, for, for all different kinds of aspects and, and SROs for, for towns and communities that have dedicated school resource officers, like They are an incredible resource. A lot of banks used to be ours.

True enough. Yeah.

So, you know, it's one of those... Yeah, yeah. But it's one of those things that... It sounds better than true. You know, it's for the kids. You know, you've got to take care of the kids, you know, and Debbie Twitchell is an incredible resource for our kids. And so I think Those touch points, those topics, I think are really important for the messaging and the communication of it. Then I had to be lost, but I forgot what it was. Quite a quick question.

If we ever get visited by ICE at a large scale and the schools are dead and out, that would be traditional of the sport.

If I ever comes to this town and I'm there, I will probably get arrested.

And speeding. I mean, we have several roads where people here the sheriff's vehicle i mean they're just it's going to encourage them to do it all yeah and then the other streets yeah so again you know we just have to remind people so based on some of the conversations that were had over the last couple of months i did reach out to um

the sheriff's office and actually had a meeting with the captain, Captain Willow. And I wanted to share with you all that, you know, the discussion was doing some education, helping people understand what it is that they do. And so our community has a better grasp on kind of the breadth of the services that they're providing. If you have a relationship with the sheriff or Captain Whitlow and can have a conversation from an elected official's perspective about the importance of doing that, I think that would help in the overall outcomes.

I think that would be a caring topic as well.

I think they need to hear it when they look at it.

I can guarantee they need to hear it from us.

Where did you went? I haven't seen you back in months. He wasn't in our national event.

I saw him at the fair.

Oh, okay. I guess he was able to work.

Yeah, his shift must have changed.

Yeah, when I saw him at the fair, he was working days. And then he said he was going to be going back to nights again. And he did that.

Yeah, our back was shipped again.

Yeah, he's coming back. So, yeah, but I would definitely recommend having A conversation with them for sure.

It'd be here at me. I mean, they're free and they're able. I mean, could we request their possible attendance at the upcoming work session? If they can't make it, they can't make it.

Well, we have a few more months, so I get to warn them ahead of time. Ice comes to this town.

Yeah, we'll probably leave that topic out of it for now because we've got to cover some of the money, but you're on the regular.

Yeah. Well, and maybe even if we have any events that are going to be happening, we can invite them to join an event, like maybe have a booth and kind of meeting it too. It's not part of what it's about, but the farmer's market, we have one on the 27th and maybe invite them to be there because we do get a lot of foot traffic. Yeah. Thank you. I know I can reach out too.

Can we have the booth there at Thurman's Market? Have a couple of chairs, sit and talk to one another.

Oh, you did, actually. Yeah, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to. I mean, you may not be able to meet when we necessarily need a booth, but I think if, you know, we make time.

Invite people to talk to us. Tell us what you want.

Tell us what we need to do with It's cool. All righty. On to item number two, event planning. Page 139 to 147. It's nice to see it as a topic. Thank you. Thank you. That's impressive.

One of my many, many, many PowerPoints. So we want to try to know what happened with and you all are interested in that. However, because of the labor negotiations that are going on and the shift in labor and things that we have to do with jobs that we are getting out into our place. Staff is very thin, spread very thin. We're understaffed. So we need help. We can't spend an entire day looking up bans and calling and negotiating when we have, for example, 10 minutes. So My goal is to present to you the list of items that are necessary for an event and give organizers a tour. We need organizers, coordinators, the people that will be there at the event. I don't know if you know, but sometimes when there is an expense that certain things that are out of their job descriptions. So events falls into that category. So we are asking if there is any interest among council to take on an event to coordinate and organize. Councilor Tygro has done a single So he knows the ropes, he's being a good support person. Or if you know of any residents that are interested and that you've been trusted with the event, incorporating the event, and then finding the volunteers to work with it. Like I said, the staff needed a staff report. I mean, a master list of everything that's required in order to put on an event. which are attached as well. And it also notes where staff will be supporting. So it's not like, here you go, do it all on your own. It's, okay, we can help with flyers. We can help with vendor applications. We can help with trade applications because that goes to our website. So things like that are still going to be staff support. Where we are needing more support is in the other details, the theme, the a band working the event, who then, things like that. So.

So would he be provided with a budget to hire a band or whatever and stuff until he was sort of figured out the plan?

Yes, so there is, as you approved in May, a budget for each event. So once there's an event that you want, we will provide you with that budget number. And that's where you will be working from. And to decide if you're going to do a band or you're going to do trophies or ribbons. And I mean, we have places that we order things from. We can either, you provide us, okay, this is what I want, order this for me. We order it and do that. Or I order it, here's my receipts. Now we inversion. That's how we use.

I've had this conversation before. I think now would be a good time to kind of fold in at least one of the, well, two of the pillars of the DCDA board and get their support for creating the subcommittees, because they're already doing that, and . So they have contacts, they have the bands. They're kind of the perfect entity right now to kind of help support the city in that role. Me being on the organizational side pillar and Wendy being on the promotion pillar, I think having a conversation with us too, that we can, a deeper conversation, and then we can bring it back to the DCGA board I think that's probably our best bet. That's a good start maybe.

I don't think the DCDA has enough volunteers or the bandwidth to do all of these events.

True, but there are other subcommittees. We have the farmers market subcommittee and on that subcommittee there are individuals that do have some bandwidth that are already in talks of doing some of the combining events. There are also some individuals at the schools that are looking to do their own kind of Latin event, festival slash thinko type event, so we can blend that in. We've got a meeting next Wednesday, in fact, with a couple of them. So, I mean, there's potential out there.

I'm not saying that there's not potential, but if you spread yourself so thin, you only have a bunch of dumb ass events instead of three good ones.

I will say, as we got this up, that that would be a good partnership with city council members and other organizations or other bodies and people like that. And I would recommend that we each of us individually partner I think the DCA is a great entity to partner with from us to offer our support and recruiting help and make it happen and show it up to make it happen and all that kind of thing as a partnership.

So there's also an option in your charter and ordinances to create an advisory board where each of you have the opportunity to nominate You can structure it in any way that you want and we can work through what that might look like. Or maybe you'll have two members each that you would nominate and appoint as a group. So you bring in two nominations and then you'd have a slate of nine people that would be in charge or maybe The only reason I would suggest that is because one of the things that Rocio and I have talked a lot about and Cindy too is the city, people do not know the difference between one entity and another. It is the city's brand. It is the city's reputation. So there's a level of... control that you would want to have over the way that these events are done, some of the considerations that are put into the events. And because the budget is city money, it might make sense to have an events committee, an advisory committee that you have eyes on, that each of you have some input on.

You're talking about a lay advisor? Yes.

So just to make sure I'm dragging around. So essentially it's, the question is, who is in control? So is it city council slash city administration that has the ultimate say, or are we delegating control to, you know, an entity such as DCPA? I think to Gretchen's point about the safe brand, that's important. You know, once you delegate to, you know, 501c3, then they can just take it. Not that DCPA would ever do anything you know, negative. That's not what I'm, you know, trying to apply, but there is some safeguards and some safeties that do kind of come off a little bit in that way. I would be really interested in personally seeing the interest from DCDA in, you know, like the force behind pulling these off so long as the check marks are still, you know, whether it's us, whether it's an advisory board, you know, that oversight. So they're only because like, Big and Bright Night, that's DCBA brand. You know, Breakfast with Santa, Cinco de Mayo, like all these things are city branded. And even if it switches, let's just say hypothetically, we say, OK, DCBA, you can take all these. You know, anybody who's been here for an extended amount of time, you know, associates that with the city. And so there is that consideration of if hypothetically, if something didn't go off, quite the right way. DCDA wouldn't be on the hook for that. We wouldn't be on the hook for that. So personal opinion, I think having DCDA be the arm of enforcement for lack of a better term, I think is a really good idea. Whether that's from promotion from Wendy, whether that's from operations from you. But I think the city needs to retain some kind of final authority to file check more.

I see that as a collaborative effort. I see the advisory board, we have an event, we assign the city council or two, or we volunteer as city councilors to liaise with them on the ground, hands-on, feeding the mud, getting them on, showing up for the event, handing out ribbons and that kind of thing too, as partners and team members. And with the understanding that the advisory board is to meet a certain standard, a legal standard that the city has to have. Not that we're going to be enforcers, so to speak. That's my concern, is that people are actually helping. The city council, the enforcers, it's just risk mitigation.

I've been thinking about this, and I was thinking that maybe we should just have a discussion at the beginning of the year. People think about what is on their plate, and we lay out the events assigned. Let one counselor take the lead on every one of the activities. Then we get the DCDA involved. But we have a counselor who takes the lead. I would take Gretchen's worksheets maybe one step farther. You have little boxes to check with specific dates that you add in, very specific instructions along the way. And as a group, we help make sure that no balls are getting dropped. If somebody has a problem, step up right away and say, hey, we need help here. But I would like to see one counselor in the lead If we bring DCDA in, it's a team effort, but council is still the main. Part of what happened this summer is nobody knows who's responsible for what it seems. So we need to put that in writing so everybody knows. Yeah. That was the only way.

Yeah.

But there's still a question of just what DCDA does, what the city does, who's in charge here. If we put it in writing, that will be helpful.

But to rip off of that a little bit, I think the thing that's really on our plate is tree lighting and breakfast with Santa. Maybe we add that to the upcoming work session, or just, did we take that on this year? Because in 2027, the first city grant event, that's Cinco de Mayo, right? So, you know, for getting things in favor, for working with the PCDA board, you know, there's a lot of time we have to build something out if we as a council take this on. You know, we can do council-led for the first one, and then we see, okay, how do we want to build this? How do we want to structure this? How do we want to, you know, just have the infrastructure for long-term success?

I think you guys are kind of missing the point in bringing community members, like into it. When I did events, we were in on the ground. We came to council. We reported what your chairperson came to council, reported what we were doing. That's how we checked it. There were no damn check boxes. That's too micromanaging. Sorry.

We're talking about that one thing you're talking about is the advisory board where we get...

Volunteers from the community to be on AIDS. Because then they have ownership in it. Then they care about it. Then they will step up to do what they want to do and have. And we partner them. And we, exactly. We act as a collaborative party with them.

And they come here and report to you every time you meet.

And they come to hear the report of the relationship with the counselor who's taking care of that event.

Yes.

So it's all on an album. Yes. You know, it's a pleasant collaboration, not some kind of structure.

I see it as a bridge. You know, right now we're two separate entities. There's a hug. There's a hug. Yeah. Sorry. I agree that January will be fun to really hash out the 2027 events.

And I also agree that we need to do this.

Yeah, this is like right now. So my suggestion would see if there's any school groups that want to earn money as well, because they might come and do maybe the hot chocolate or something.

I'll go for the cookies again, because that's fun. Okay. And then breakfast and Saturdays, yes, too.

I have a couple of questions, and I think, Rosita, you can answer them if you don't. Caravan of Lights is scheduled for the 12th. What does that mean? It's scheduled for somebody organizing that? Second question. Does Public Works still put all the lights on the gazebo and those things? Or are those outside of the job description?

That's a good question. Thank you.

They're currently in the job description. We're negotiating.

Okay. So today... Because that's a huge thing. as of September 8th for us to figure out how to do without their help?

Today it's in the job description. And hopefully we'll have an answer soon about whether it's going to stay. Okay.

That's the gazebo looks so beautiful the way they put that together. Okay.

I just like to ask a question because the DCA Diane's room How do you feel about this discussion? Are you okay with what we're talking about? Do you have some reservations?

I personally am okay. I know that there's going to be some board members on the DCDA that will want to talk about liability and all that kind of stuff. So those questions But ultimately, I think the partnership should be, I mean, it should be. Yeah. I mean, a perfect example is merging the events, the breakfast with Santa, and then we should have the caravan lights and manage it with the tree light.

Yeah.

I mean, that should all be one event. We should have all the businesses have like this competition of lighting up their storefronts. Yeah, so the whole park is that we have a couple days. And yes, I do believe that the DCA is willing to to hear and to probably help in some capacity. I personally am, you know, vouching myself. And I'll come out for some of you.

Are there concerns from the council, though, with respect to how late the caravan of lights is? And will we get the same type of pushback that we did because the expectation is that the breakfast with Santa and the tree lighting is always much closer to Thanksgiving?

Well, breakfast with Santa last year was roughly the 13th, wasn't it? Yes. But the tree lighting is something separate. Yeah, the tree lighting is always something separate. We're shortening their Christmas season, their... when they're going to sell stuff by two weeks. If we don't light that tree and get this hunter going the first Sunday of Advent, if you will, we're risking it. Is DCDA set on the 12th?

And there lies the conversation that needed to be had. I don't know if it's completely out of the realm. I'd have to check with our promotion board member to see if there's already been a marketing on it. I can't say for sure if there has been or not. Could the, and this is me kind of.

There was, there was in the, in the series.

Did they? Yeah, there was. Could members of the DCPA be part of an upcoming work session where we could hash some of this stuff out or, okay.

Why not? I think the various street news, we can, if we, if two weeks from now, we work with DCA and decide to change the date, I don't think that, that would be it. We just do a big splashy article saying, what was the date? Hey, y'all, how about such and so and that? You know what I mean? It's like people are, changing their airline tickets to make sure they're making it to the party.

I don't know if changing all of that in six years is necessarily a good idea. Like maybe leave them on the dates of their new student for this time around. But get together and have the discussion for next year coming up so we can plan.

Well, if we do the work session in two weeks and if members of the PTA board can attend, which I think that's a good stress test, but a little bit of a stress test of like, okay, can we get the collaboration off from get-go on that real quick? in a positive way. And so, you know, members of the DCDA board can attend the work session or we can have those conversations. However they go, whether that's, you know, it's not going to change the times, it is going to change the times, you know, we change when we do the tree lighting, you know, we can work out all of that. But I think this is a good opportunity for us to see if that collaborative opportunity is there, if they can come to the work session in two weeks, at least a couple members of the board. And then, you know, we can kind of see how, that's just a good case study on how it worked.

And really, in all honesty, the parade of lights, if it's held with the tree lighting ceremony and the cookies and cocoa, what it's going to go like is a caravan of lights, cookie, cocoa, are going to be concurrent. And then everybody's going to go and look at the lights for a minute, and they're going to leave. So it's going to be, everything's going to be almost a one-woof. That's a big part of That is a big part of it. Last year, the superintendent, we were lining up all the way down the park, just to get in there and go keep them simple. And everybody was really pleased.

The benefit to being able to consider doing something like that is also from a staff support perspective. So if we are in a negotiating position, it's a lot easier to discuss, one, day or two days of the weekend rather than three separate events.

That's true.

Chris, you think the board would be receptive to that possibly?

Yeah, I'll talk with them tomorrow.

Okay, cool. Please let them know that we know that we're asking them to upend their evenings in a couple weeks. We definitely want to acknowledge it's like, hey, they're the ones we're going to have to move their their evenings are wrapped in this first iteration, and there's a lot of gratitude for that. So I just, please mention that. Like, hey, you know, we see that you guys are the ones who are moving your calendars around to make this first one work, and we really appreciate it. But, yeah, that would be the only thing I'd want to make sure that they heard.

That's what I was on the record with. This is really good stuff. I don't know who loved it. It's really... This is faceless. Put a party on him in the park a couple of falls ago. This is awesome because this didn't exist for us. We were shooting from this for a lot and having a lot.

So thank you for this.

So what I'm hearing is that we want to weigh in on the sighting. about the tree lighting, Marcus would say that until we have one session.

Or session two.

Okay.

And that'll be prior to the anniversary. And the DCVR should take it home. Three months before Christmas, exactly. It's 21st.

Last year, Rocio and I, it

The night before Christmas just doesn't seem to be big drawing more i'm always wondering if we could talk about restructuring storytelling, I think that goes in our conversation next week and we're talking about the event yeah great thing right there yeah. I have ideas. Not one big story time, but a series of small ones where you kind of just sit and have kids around you. Different stories. Definitely like to talk about it.

All right.

We're going to move on to council comments and concerns. And we're going to start with Councillor Boper.

There was something I wanted to say, but I can't remember what it was. Now, I just want to say that I like the discussion. And I support. I'm just going to go out there to support the direction to go on in terms of our cities.

I just want to give everybody an update on the farmer's market, the first review. We had 24 vendors. We had, I don't know, two vegetable stands. We had Three or four flower stands. Yeah, we have about four baked goods and several crafts, different types of crafts. Some toys, some actually handmade crafts. We got a lot of good responses back from the patrons that worked through the coffee one.

Which coffee gun was it?

It was, I don't have the name right off the top of my head. But they were fantastic. They loved it. In fact, I believe it was them that said that they had gone to the Saturday Market in Salem and had a booth. They made more of the Dayton Farmer's Market than they did the Salem. And all the vendors had great things to say. There was a few suggestions, which we were well aware of, but it was nice to have it writing from them so that we can work on it for next year. um but they had they had a great time we're getting hopefully two to three more vegetable vendors for this september event and a lot of people are looking forward to it already yeah because we can't buy good vegetables in marketing so um that's all i got

I have a list, and one of them was yay Christopher the farmer's month. Yeah. That was really, really.

One quick note. So yay me, but the committee that is on the farmer's market for us right now, they are fantastic.

I guess what I meant is yay Christopher. Yeah. Yes. All right. Well, tell them. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. I do want to announce October 3rd, make sure that we are doing the living history event in the cemetery. Three of us in this room are participating big time in that event. You can sign up for a tour time, 11, 12, 2, 3, or 4. There's a QR code. Buy tickets, bring your friends, bring your family. And it's a Saturday. It's a Saturday. It's an event on October 3rd. So that is a big project. That's a downtown association event that I'm helping to coordinate and thank you Gretchen and Drew for your participation. I want to applaud both Chris and Drew for running for mayor and wishing you well. We won't hurt either way. You guys are both fantastic. I hope that the one that doesn't get the nod for mayor will be able to work out staying on as council if you guys are rock stars. So thank you for all that we do for this town. On a sort of negative note, dogs, dogs, dogs. We have the noisiest, we have really barking dogs, horrible in my neighborhood. And can you advise what we call, what do we do? Code enforcement. Code enforcement as in city? That's me.

Which is paid by the levy. Just a heads up, everybody watching this.

Yeah, actually, we're going out and doing 100% tomorrow. So if you give me some information, I'll make sure that you look into it.

And I will second what Councilor Peterson said. They said it's a little dog, noisy town out there in Linden. I guess it's horrible.

It's horrible.

It's rude.

I don't know how people can be so rude. And it's also not good for the animals. They're so anxious and upset. It's not good for them.

I think our kids don't listen to all of that.

You live behind my house. That is, but we'll still have good stuff.

All right.

Okay. So first, first and foremost, you know, I think we are all very aware of this, you know, what we do and, and this community it's built on relationships, it's built on collaboration. And I think that an area that we need to do better in as a community, as a council, is really reinforcing development, whether that's business development, whether that's residential development. We have prime spots in downtown that can be developed. They're owned by businesses. We had interest in property southeast of town for development. That didn't go anywhere. We have to I think some applications for changing zoning that are on the stack that can be addressed. We have opportunities here for what our future looks like, not just from an infrastructure standpoint, but from a development standpoint. Our property taxes, one of the only ways that's going to increase is new residential development. That's what's going to allow us to fund you know, decades upon decades and decades of whether it's infrastructure, whether it's, you know, community center, you know, the, the property taxes are really what's going to allow us to grow as a community. Uh, and I think what we can do on that is especially business leaders have positive relationships with those who have interest in town. Um, You know, I don't think it's, you know, shocked anybody in this room, but it doesn't look like Twin Towers is going to come back to the table for the hotel. You know, I think that there's conversations that we could have had that could have influenced that in a positive way. And there might still be conversations that we can have that can influence that in a positive way. And so... you know, this is a reminder more than anything else, but, you know, we're, we dictate a lot of this table, but the conversations that we have are what allow for the decades that are yet to come to have, you know, certain amenities, certain resources, certain infrastructure, certain developments. You know, I think in those conversations, this is kind of segwaying into point two, you know, it's not just us that are responsible for these relationships. I think the county has done us a disservice on Dayton Landing in just their lack of communication since we submitted an offer to them. And if they are not interested in coming back to the table and having that conversation, then for me at least, that really puts a doubt in my head about any kind of goodwill interest in the Fisher Farms property. Um, you know, I can see that property being a wonderful residential development. That is the only residential area we have.

Right.

Yeah.

So, you know, if something as simple as

date of landing has stalled out for decades, I would be really concerned with putting our trust in a system for converting it into a fairgrounds property when we have an ability to potentially really increase our property tax revenue from those properties over the course of decades in residential development. So I would encourage us as a body and as individuals to really place a value in our own individual conversations but also see how those conversations are going back to us are they with goodwill are they going anywhere is it just empty words because from what i'm seeing on certain topics specifically dayton landon i'm getting a lot of empty words and i'm seeing time after time after time empty words being said and nothing being done no goodwill gestures no how can we actually go forward with some of this and it's making me increasingly more concerned that these efforts towards the fairgrounds in the west side of our town is not going to go in a way that is beneficial towards our community. And so on the relationships, on the communication piece of that, on the fairgrounds, on the parks, on development, that's all my thoughts on one. A couple of specific things, following up on the auction, uh for the um couple pieces of property down by the river a little bit of commentary that was related that was a little bit concerning is private interest in those couple properties which seem like they're going to come back for auction at a later date and using them as like boat storage and things that maybe are not aesthetically pleasing you know somebody vocalized you know, wanting to purchase that small piece of property next to the boat ramp because it's cheaper than paying for boat storage. And I don't think as a member of this body that that's the aesthetic that we want for this town, especially just to purchase the store stuff on it. And so when these properties come back around, you know, the other piece of property, you know, there was some interest in it and maybe not necessarily developing it, but keeping it from being developed. That's kind of tucked away. I think that's a separate conversation. But even though it's a small piece of property, it's a small sliver of land, when that one riverfront parcel comes back up for auction, I think we need to have a serious conversation on what we're comfortable with. And if we want, speaking of control, if we want that control to be taken out of our hands, because right now nothing's being done with it, but we have the opportunity to really make that concrete in the time to come. So when that comes back forward, I think maybe even our work session, it'd be good for us to have a conversation that's a little bit longer about this, about what our funding sources can be, how high we can go with this, what our commitment is to such a small piece of land purely for the purpose of aesthetics. But I don't know if that could be a topic that could be added to the work session or not. And then my last piece is the VFW. You know, this really circles back in the communication and the relationships You know, I think that VFW leaving Dayton is one of the saddest moments of my tenure here on council. You know, I think that they have been an incredible community member, collaborator, you know, with the city and with the community for ever since we moved into town. You know, what they've done for the flags out and, you know, really choosing Dayton to be a centralized hub here in town. We moved to Newburgh now, obviously, but we have VFW members who are very prominent on their leadership that live in town. And even though their home base isn't here anymore, I think that there's an opportunity and even an obligation for us to honor that relationship and that collaboration in the time to come. You know, the BMW brought forward funding for flags. I think it's small things like that even that have value. You know, I was chatting with them about it recently, and the next time that they would need to buy flags is probably two years from now. They shelled out $2,000 to replace them this year for digging. even though their post isn't here anymore. And so I think that there's an opportunity for us when budget season comes around two cycles from now for us to build in some money to really start and re-engaging that collaboration with the VFW. And then I believe that there's also a hometown hero in Dayton that's nominated. Has the VFW gotten in touch with you yet about that? Okay, I will read. you know, resend a message on that because I shared your contact information a couple days ago. But I think that's it for me for today. You know, I think my soapbox is really just, I've been thinking about collaboration relationships a lot recently.

That's all I got. I've got nothing for tonight.

I have to... Oh, when did the newsletter get mailed out?

I don't think they've hung ours yet. It was sent to print on the 31st, so it should be the holiday of the 31st.

I'm okay now. I need to okay. I was curious, Mr. Ruckels submitted a grant application for the Dog Park Cup Parades. It seems like we should have heard by now. Do we know?

Yeah, we put it in the report. Yeah, we did. But it was in the report, I think, August that we got that grant. We did? Oh, okay. We got that grant. Wait, we're in the middle of...

I know we got some great money.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, She's being very humble as usual. Finding the deed was a real adventure.

Because I did read something from a community member suggesting that just inside the gate, we'd build a little area where people could take walkers and just come in and sit and watch the dogs play. So even if you don't have a dog of your own, you can still come visit and get some benefits. I've been thinking about turning it into a dog park and petting zoo where people can get pets from the doggies. So if that is any part of what I would like to ask in the future, how much money did we ask for in this grant? And what is the scope? He didn't tell us much of anything. It would be nice to have some of that information. Because I don't recall seeing any of the details.

Yeah, there was a staff report, I believe, with what he was going to do.

Maybe you can send that back to Kitty. Sure, send his staff report. The most long report they filled out. Yeah, the old way.

Well, maybe not the long form. If there's a summary, that would be good. But I'll take the whole thing. I am curious to follow her.

It's around $100,000 or so.

Sounds right.

But yeah, but it's in collaboration with Nat River. They are needing some of the to create the wall. More of like a runway kind of situation that's paved, that's easier on all of them. Yeah, OK.

All right. Um, and did we did we get? Did we get the check signing figured out? Have you got access? Is your on the list?

I think that sounds last form.

Oh, the base. Okay, um, I think that's it for tonight.

Yeah. Just have one little thing. I was at the dog park the other day. I know the bombs in there are just epic. I don't know what's going on. The place looks like a war zone. So Kathy and I spent some time because we had a garbage stack.

Is there a garbage can over there?

We picked up a grocery sack full of dog poop.

We might need to check that because the people who use it on the regular, they just do pick it up.

Yeah.

They work together. Hey, your doggy just did this over here. You must have missed it.

I didn't miss all the dogs because there were some big, big piles.

We were there about a month ago, and it was really good. I have a cat.

Well, everything I've been saying about social infrastructure is really coming true. Those who use it really are benefiting. It's a good thing.

Right. And I've got no comments. So did everybody read the city management report? Does anybody have any questions, comments, concerns, or did Gretchen want to add anything?

I just wanted to ask if anyone had any feedback on the use of the status update as a tool. This is something that when I came on, I talked about creating so that you can kind of see where we were and the progress towards specific priorities that have been laid out by the council. Is this a format that works for you or are you happy with it? Would you like to consider having that as a regular Yeah. I like it too.

Yeah. Excellent. All right. The only question I wanted to ask was, what repairs to Courthouse Square Park bathroom again? Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't remarked that to him.

What are they doing now?

I don't think it was any vandalism. We had a couple of

We have a water line that feeds one of the toilets in the utility room that broke. Just wear and tear. We had a toilet valve that went out the back for a minute so the toilet wouldn't flush completely and just dribbled water in. So I don't think there was any change or... No, I was like...

I think it's mainly just maintenance items.

Oh, no.

I do have one. The railing, the cable railing on the pavilion, I think what's happening is the kids are finding it and popping those things out because there's, I don't know, the last time you went out there and seen it, but just, I think it was last week, there was shoe areas, two lines that were pulled out, and it didn't look like there was vandalism. It just looked like somebody looked heavy and climbed up there. Electrified.

Actually, I don't know. I don't say this, but I'm saying it was fun with the apples. This will be signed up.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember there were little signs that were put up there. Please don't step or climb on the wire or whatever they had, you know, I'm pretty sure most of those have been taken.

I think exchange those signs for signs that say electric fence.

No.

Yeah. It's a beautiful design.

We were in the park Wednesday for the summer reading program and there was a running club. I don't know who, I don't know if it was the school or if it was outside of the school, but they were doing their stretches and every single one of them, including both adults, at one point in time, put their feet on the wires. I think that's actually a new group that's doing that. I just saw a post about it today saying, come down to the park for free extra spider screening or something like that. I have a question. Under the general city of Dayton management update,

It has a Latino maker food and wine for video, but it doesn't have a date or a time.

The 5th and 26th of September. The 25th of that, I believe, at the Long Road. And the 26th is on 3rd Street in McWendell. Thank you, Kathleen.

All right. I'll entertain a motion. And yes, we've done.

Let's go.

So moved. We are adjourned. 755.