City Council - Regular Meeting

my spot. Hello. I said the paper. Nope. Was here at 6. So I was half an hour already. [laughter] Just

wanted to make an entrance. Yeah, exactly. I thought, well, you know, if I'm going to go back home again, I'm going to stay for at least a half. Would you like to call him?

No, this forum disrespons. Yeah. Yeah, something like a whole day standing in front of my computer at work.

Maybe over there. Maybe your kids said I liked your kids. They were funny. Yeah, I enjoy them very much. They're a handful. Rob standing out financial report get started.

Thank you. Watching it. Go ahead and call this meeting in order at 6:30. Let's uh do the pledge.

Ice flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat]

Looks like we have a full house, so we're good. Um, do we have anybody signed up for It looks like Julie. Yeah, she was. Oh, I'm fine. Do you want me to sign on the right? Yeah. This is just for the public hearing. Are you going to speak at the hearing? I hope to be gone by then. Okay. Go ahead. Me, too. All right then. Um, we'll go ahead and have you come on up, Judy. If you can It's actually We're a team.

You're a team tonight. Okay. I didn't know for sure. I saw you Kai's name on the bottom. I was like, well, is he? All right, come on up. If I could get you to state your name and um address for the record. Yep. Uh, good evening. I'm Mika Bun. My address is 2650 Southeast Locks Road in Dayton. Um, I am the president of the DCDA. And I'll hand it over to My name is Judy Gerard and I'm 305 Main Street here in Dayton. I'm the secretary treasurer for the DCDA, the downtown Dayton Group.

So, uh, we just wanted to come here this evening, uh, just say a thank you for partnering with us over the last 11 years. Um together we've done a number of great things and as you know uh the Dayton Friday night is one of our uh big things that we are able to accomplish for our community together. Um I'm going to um I'm going to go ahead and hand out some uh some flyers here for you. I'm while I'm doing that, I'm going to have Judy uh basically review some of the statistics that together we've been able to accomplish just within this last year. So, uh many how many of you were at Dayton Friday nights this year? Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.

And if you were at Dayton Friday nights, you might have seen one of us uh going around the park about 7 o'clock with a clicker. And what we're doing at that time is we're counting the number of people that are in the park and we do it at 7:00 and then we check in with the businesses, see how many people are in the businesses and we want to know at that point in time in the evenings who's there. That's one of the data pieces that goes into this report. This report is um done with an audience survey that is done two nights in August. Ukaya and others hand out a survey to the uh people that are there. They don't need a pen or pencil to answer the survey. They uh rip spots on the piece of paper that are handed out to show what their answer is. We calculate that information and do a bunch of math to get this report here. And we also have some as as well as the the data point that we do at 7:00, we have some other things that we uh track during the evening as well. So kind of with that as a background of how do we figure this out? That's how we figure it out. So, uh, this year we had about, uh, 4,849 people that kind came to Dayton Friday nights. That's, uh, kind of, you add it all up and that's about what it was. And on average, then that means of 10 nights, we had about 489 people there. We had a low of 185 uh in on the day that they threatened it was going to rain by six o'clock and the cars didn't come out and the people didn't come out, but 185 people did show up and had a great time. It was an excellent band that night. So, they missed a lot.

Uh in our high was old-timers weekend. So, congratulations to you for an excellent uh band or the the gentleman that played country western that night was excellent. That was our our high night. which is often the case with old-timers. Um, on average, we had 22 vintage vehicles that were there parked on uh North Street and uh that comes and goes depending on what's happening up in McMinnville with the cars or the the cruise McMinnville or the county fair and things like that, but on average we had about 22 um old cars that were there and people really enjoy wandering around and taking a look at those. Uh we estimate from the information that the people that responded to the survey said that about um $64,381 was spent over the course of the summer by people that came to Dayton party nights. Where did they spend that? Mostly they spend it on eating, which is good, which is good because that means they're spending money in our local restaurants or they're spending money with the local food trucks or the two food trucks that are that come from that are from out of town. And um when we do the math, it represents about $10.83 that is returned to us for every dollar that you and DCDA spend to put this show on. So that's a pretty good return on the money that is invested. Uh Yukaya and I are two of the 18 volunteers that show up. We have a crew that comes a mix mix and match crew that comes every Friday to help set it up, take it down, make sure everything goes okay in conjunction with our wonderful public works employees that come and help us out. Uh I think it was Eric was the first night and Justin was the other night and he was absolutely fantastic through the whole summit. Very attentive to the needs of the crowd and to the needs of uh DCA. Um, and then you know when you do the math and you go, "Okay, if we had to pay to put this on, how much it might it cost?" Well, on the low end of the scale, it might cost about $9,000 to put

it put on a show like this. If we had to hire help to do it, and it could cost more than that, but that's the kind of the value that the volunteers bring to this. We ask our vendors on the last Friday, the ones that are there, how would you rate this in terms of uh economic value to you to have been here this summer? And they give us a rating on a scale of one to five. And then we also ask them, you know, in terms of how much you sold, kind of give us a figure of, you know, on average, what was your general night take? And so we get that information as well. So generally it's in the middle and ground. It's good for vendors. It's not fantastic for vendors, although some vendors do say it was fantastic. Some of them say e and in the middle it's okay. Okay. But we're here. Um, many vendors will say as we go around and check with them every Friday, you know, how's it going tonight? Well, you know, sales are a little slow, but I really like being here. This is really cool. Like the music tonight. It's really great. Uh, so they're happy to be there, but um, you know, we're in the middle on economic value for them. And, uh, you know, in terms of the information that they report to us, about half the sales are between $1 and $50 and the other half are between 50 and beyond $100. Um then we take a look at well so where do the where's the audience come from and as you can see here most of them are coming from Dayton and within five miles of Dayton and it's interesting on the survey those that did have a pencil or a pen would say they lived on neck road and my perception was that neck road was like inside Dayton but you know I don't know maybe it is maybe parts of it aren't I don't know but anyway we figured within five miles of Dayton people figure they're from Dayton so 48 48 I got my glasses on. It's 46%. Let's say that they're from Dayton and uh I mean from I'm sorry 26 from Dayton, 28 from uh less than 5 miles outside of Dayton. So you do the

math on that and that's most over half of the people are from around here. The other half come from outside of Dayton, from Salem, from McMinnville, from lots of different places. um the residents of our vendors and rather than look at the few vendors that were there on the last night, I went back and looked at of all the vendors that said they wanted to be at Dayton Friday nights, which is 54 vendors who applied to attend, where were they from? And uh 42% were from Dayton, and the rest were mix and match. Some from Portland, some from McMinnville, some from Newberg, some from other Yamhill County places. And um and that's that's sort of been this I'd say that's similar to all the other years that we've had. On the other side we have um we ask people whether they are happy with the party nights or not happy and generally speaking this year 90% were very happy and 9% were somewhat happy which is pretty good. 99% and above you know got a happy word in it. 1% saw some improvement that could be done. um audience comments. Uh they those that do have a chance to write uh fun small town feeling love this music and that was reported to us every week. Every week somebody told us that this band is my favorite. So everyone really enjoys the concerts that we have. Um like the familyfriendly environment for all ages and love seeing the kids play and having fun. The vendors say we love the people and the community, the civic pride, the meeting and talking with others. they like being able to come and being close to their to the folks that walk by and many of them are just appreciative of the opportunity to come. So, as we take a look at, okay, so we had a great time and have 1% that said, you know, there's some improvement that could be done. So, we step back from that and go, you know, there are things that we've seen over the year or the last couple of years that we'd like to see a little bit different, too. So, as we step back and look at that, there's

uh four things in particular that we'd like to look at doing differently this coming year. One, we continue to want to be a strong support for the businesses around the park. And some of the businesses that we talk to about that have a feeling in relation to that. You get food trucks or food vendors. The people that sell food in the brick and mortar like that. Um, but our audience wants to have more places where they can get a graband go. So we are going to take a look at other ways that we can you know be supportive of not only the audience but the brick and mortar folks and talk more about how can we be supportive of youth um increase younger audience. Our audience uh continues to be mostly over 60 and and that's okay because you know some of us do like to come out and do things. I'm not saying that I'm over 60 but uh you know uh it would be nice to have the a younger crowd join us as well. So, we want to see what we can do to increase that number. And we'd like to have many bands with great musicians. Some as we look at the whole swath of the bands that we've had this last year or in the previous year, we had some really great musical groups that came and played. And we'd like to see that every single Friday's got a fantastic music group. Uh, and we we want to increase the consistency of our vendor attendants. Got some ideas around how to do that. But you know what we what we do with those 54 vendors. There's a mix and match every week. You came and you saw yourself as you were at date and Friday nights that some weeks it's a crowd of 15 and some weeks it's a crowd of 25 in terms of the vendors. So we want to see what we can do about increasing and maybe we could have 54 vendors there every Friday. So, those are some of the things that we're looking at. And there are some uh you know, Dave came and talked with us uh at one of our board meetings recently about uh him doing some fundraising using some of the TLT dollars as a match to help get some other uh tribute type bands. So, we're looking at talking with him about what

so what does that look like and what do we do? Our planning for date and Friday nights for 2026 will start in January. Heavy around that. You have anything else you'd like to add with that? Any questions? I got something. It's actually not related to this in particular. It's more of a broad process observation and question for the future. Um, so one thing I've noticed throughout the course of this year is a lot of time when DCBA comes here, it's

chatting uh in the form of public comment. I'd like to see if we can build in agenda items in maybe December and May, June where December we have set aside time where it's like okay we can review this year in review where you know instead of you know hand out in the moment where I'm trying to come up with questions really quick it's okay we have this so we can advance we can write some things out and we can have a a good solid debrief over the course of you know 20 25 minutes um where we can ping some questions and and have that really good dialogue and then maybe in May June it's Hey, this is what's coming up. Um, and because I've noticed just uh over the last year or two years that most of the communication direct comes in the form of public comment, but I think there's an opportunity for us to collaborate in the form of action items uh that that we could put more, you know, uh advanced thought into u our comments and questions. What will we think?

Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Because this is great. I love this and and every single year when we get this, I think this is a a really there's a lot of time that goes into making this and I I want to do the justice that it deserves that you all deserve of like, hey, recognizing the time that went into everything so far this year and then into this and asking, you know, real substantial questions and comments being like, okay, three minutes, what can you come up with? Go, you know. Um, so if if we could do that, that'd be that'd be cool. Well, we'd be happy to be invited to be an official agenda item at some point. So, but you know, let Rosio know what your interests are and we can get it on our calendars and it can happen. Our people will talk to you. You're good.

Yeah, you bet. [laughter] Um, any other questions about this? Well, the other thing that I want to say has nothing to do with this. I want to say the tree lighting went really well. The weather cooperated. Santa Claus was fantastic. The kids were so excited as they always are. But and the and the uh refreshments, as I mentioned to a couple of you, I thought were nicely handled in terms of how you had them strategically located. So, whoever was responsible for all that, I'm sure some of Don's people were as well, excellent job. The other thing that I would say is the manner in which you have maintained the uh pickup of the park leaves. This particular resident really appreciates it. Thank you very much. Fantastic job.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Excellent. Um before I ask for a motion for the consent agenda. Um I thought I saw on page nine and you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong through you down the roll call as as I please absent on October 20. I thought you were excused. I let you all know, right? So I think it wasn't excused

in the meeting. It was an excuse, but if there was something we took we decided not to excuse. That's what I felt. I noticed that because I remember we didn't know if he was coming or not. Yeah. We had a discussion and I remember asking Jeremy, hey, did they tell us he wasn't coming? And then he went on the phone and found out that you but by then we'd already done it. Okay. Yeah. Excuse. So, okay. Got it. And text delete after 30 days. So, I unfortunately had such a way. Yeah. Okay. So, that's like losing a 4.0 school year.

You can't have M1U. All right. So, um, unless anybody else has any amendments to any um, if I may, um, I move to approve the consent agenda, including regular session minutes from October 6, joint session with planning commission October 9th, and special work session of October 20th as amended. Hey. Okay. I have a motion from councelor and a second from councelor Peterson. All those in favor. All right. That passes.

We're going to move into our public hearings. We have well two. We had three, but one of them is waiting until February. So, um, we're going to have the city council public meeting, a public hearing to obtain public comment on the proposed adjustments to the water and sewer rates and the creation of a new public safety. In addition to um, city council, the public hearing to obtain public comment on the adoption of amendments to the transportation element chapter 10 of the Dayton comprehensive plan. So, we're going to start with the little script that we get to read. So, um the city council will now conduct a public hearing to adopt an updated transportation plan.

Yes, ma'am. Actually, we have to do the public hearing for the I asked Jared this. So, the first one we have to open that one and then close it. That's what I thought. We thought we could open it with one and do it. [laughter] Hey, we're at the 3.9 together, but [laughter] So, if you could open the public hearing for the first item.

We'll do the first one then. So, uh I don't have a script for that one, but I'll just repeat what I just said. The city council will hold a public hearing to obtain public comment on the proposed adjustments to the waste uh the water and sewer rates and the creation of a new public safety fee and we will open that at 6:45. I don't have any public comment from any emails or virtual or sign in. So we'll just wait a minute. Okay, we'll close that at 6:50.

Now you can hear.

Okay. And on to the second here. The city council will now conduct a public hearing to adopt an updated transportation system plan as the supporting document to the Dayton comprehensive plan and related amendments to title 7 of the Dayton Municipal Court. The proposed changes are included in exhibits A through D of the staff report dated December 1, 2025, which the city council received as part of tonight's agenda packet. For reference, the city case file is LA2025-02. I will now open the public hearing at 650. Okay. Oh, I guess I have to leave it all. Approval criteria for legisl legislative, excuse me, decision- making are found in section 7.312 of the Dayton land use and development code. These criteria are also cited in the staff report addressed to the city council. The hearing shall be conducted uh persuaded of the city council's adopted rules of procedure. The following procedure will be followed for receiving the presentation. We're just going to open up since we got nobody here.

Sounds good. [laughter] Thanks. Thanks.

Uh so as you said, we're here to adopt the updated TSP into the comprehensive plan. the uh comp the transportation related element of the comprehensive plan is chapter 10. Chapter 10 includes some highle policy goals and objectives and then the actual text of the comprehensive plan is adopted by reference as appendix A as a supporting document for the comprehensive plan. um been working on this as you know with uh DKS consulting and and MIG the consultant team the project management team for uh the better part of this year um if you I believe everyone was in attendance of the joint sessions so what we're looking at here tonight is essentially very very similar um mostly identical to the information that was presented at that meeting um so I'll try and stay I'll try and stick to the actual changes. The exhibits contain the uh the content of the of the transportation system plan update and also contain the uh strike through version of the development code amendments. Um, exhibit A, um, goes over the actual implementing, uh, updates to the development standards, uh, that are that will implement the policies, goals, and objectives that are in the main document. Exhibit B is the document itself. Exhibit C is the um the TSP appendices which are the technical memos that were uh presented to the project management cleaning uh or the project advisory um committee at various intervals throughout the project. Uh, exhibit D contains the updates to the comprehensive uh, goals and object plan goals and objectives in chapter 10 uh, that were

recommended uh, as part of the process. And then um, this is the second of two legislative uh, hearings as part of the legislative process. So there were some revisions that emerged from the first hearing. Um, councelor uh, Commissioner Macken in particular had some suggestions on making sure that um, we were as inclusive as possible when identifying um, the wide range of pedestrian activities that need to be accommodated by pedestrian by sidewalks mainly but other pedestrian facilities. Um so his comments are included in exhibit F and the the uh changes that resulted from those comments are um included in uh mainly on page 16. Um and they're lifted right from the right from the language that he suggested. There's a new definitive sidewalk to make sure that um we when we are planning sidewalks, we're accommodating the broad range of of activity that are activities that are typically accommodated by sidewalks. Um and a new definition of pedestrians uh similarly to be as inclusive as possible. There were some minor re revisions to the actual TSP document too, mainly to incorporate that broad concept of pedestrian activity in those areas where the where the previous version was was primarily referring to the those changes are summarized there. Um, as usual this summer, uh, there's a sample motions, um, on page 16 of the staff report. Um, the recommendation is is item adopt

the staff report. um as proposed uh with the changes that u suggested by Commissioner Mack and they're incorporated into this um into this version. Um there's also the second action item which is the first reading of the adopt adopting ordinance which is the staff reports but it's also appears as its own agenda item frame. Um so those are the highlights of the staff report. and sort of orient you to the to the information that's in there. Um, with that, I'm going to turn the microphone over to Carl Springer of DKS Associates, who uh was really the the project lead, the main project manager for the project over the past year. and he's going to present once again the slightly abbreviated version of the presentation that

there'll be a quiz at the end. Yeah. Okay. Bring it on. That was presented actually at the joint work session. Good evening. Good evening councilors. Good to see you all. Let me say personal note the beginning here. I enjoyed this process. You're a great city to work with. I enjoy working with your staff. Just so you know, I'm retiring after the end of this month.

We love I love you, but I'm retired anyway. You didn't know, huh? Sorry. Surprised. Oh, well, I say a little bit of honor. I've done a lot of CSPs in Oregon, so I This is for me. This is a good way to go out. Yeah,

it's a good good experience. Uh so I've got an abbreviated version of a presentation I think you've seen few weeks ago. So I won't spend a lot of energy on it. If you have any questions feel free but those are the pieces we're going to go through. Keep going. So you should know everybody should know the answer to this question by now what a TSP is. Long range plan for all travelers. When I first started doing TSPs in Oregon, it was far more focused on cars and trucks than it is these days.

For sure. I think it's completely flipped over almost. We're doing cars and trucks, but we're primarily doing safety and walking and biking and those kinds of things. So, it's a little bit of a different world here in Oregon than it was 30 years ago when I started. Um, important pieces for lining up with state and regional policies and getting uh your uh plan approved by DLCD once you do adopt. Next slide. So, why does it matter to Dayton? Uh, it's a a key piece to line up uh your decisions for investments, for competing for grants, those kinds of things. It's very important that those projects be recognized and identified in this plan. That's that's probably the big win. It also gives you some framework for working with development as it comes online for what the city really wants to meet its goals. Gives you some very specific code development code things that Kurt alluded to. It can be very handy. Next slide. The schedule we're kind of at the end. Got this action tonight and then one more I think early in January if I remember right.

Yeah, just second. Second reading

and that will be the conclusion. It's gone pretty much on schedule and uh that just highlights you know some of the interaction the stages of the project and then the interaction with the public uh series of events and then we actually met with your your school kids understand some of the challenges they have getting to and from. So those projects are identified in the tsp as well. Next slide please. We have a couple maps like this as you well you know what and you guys all know this but I do a lot of TSPs and usually traffic congestion is way higher on the list than it is in day. Traffic adjustion is not your number one thing. It's safety and access and comfort moving around and that's perfectly fine but that's the way this plan is oriented to emphasize those things to support those priorities. So what's highlighted here on the map is just those elements that we identified where there was questions about traffic or safety gaps in the sidewalk, strategic gaps in the sidewalk. There's a lot of sidewalks that aren't there, but we wanted to kind of highlight the ones that are important. Uh and then we flagged a few cases where uh upgrading the crossing to the the street needs to be paid attention to enhanced crossings. Next slide. standards. Introduced a couple standards. Uh let's see what's my favorite one here. It's uh yeah, the last one. So, as development comes in there, there's a little bit of a guideline in terms of what kind of traffic study you're going to ask them to do, what that should look like, what questions it should answer as so so it gives you the right kind of information as they come to you and looking for approval. They'll probably do it anyway, but it's always nice for the city to ask, you know, the developer what they want to see. Makes that conversation a little

bit more balanced that way. Next slide. So, these were the projects we identified. We have a a longer roster of projects than what what's shown here, but um emphasis here is primarily on safety and mobile. Multimodal is a word that us geeks like to use, but it's basically anything that's not a car or a truck. That's what it is. You know, it's walk walking and biking and rolling and getting around. And we have a lot of those in this plan. I find that those are uh not only strategic to support your policies, but they're also by far they they compete well for grants and they're also more bite-sized projects than big road projects. Big road projects can take down your capital budgeting for many years as you as you well know. Next slide. So there's a list of the the projects that bubbled up to the top. Now again, this isn't something you have to do. These are just kind of an outcome of the process where we looked at the priorities and we looked at the projects were there and we're showing you what bubble up to the top. And then we took the sum of those total costs and compared that to what the city's currently collecting. that monies that go towards transportation improvements and that's that's the list that we had. So we have available funding over the life of the plan of roughly 4 million given the kinds of means you're support you're providing now but we obviously we have there's a lot more projects that the city might want to do that are goes beyond that funding level. So to get to compete for those looks like grants are the best way to get at that. You want to accelerate getting those projects implemented. Pursuing grants seems to be your best option at this point.

And on implementation um Kurt talked about these a little bit. Consistency and TPR requirements um that's incorporated. The next one shows more specifically about what's involved. Um, talk about traffic impact analysis, street spacing, block length, those kinds of things. When this the swap area comes in, you can look at how they've organized their development pattern, how the streets are spaced, and you'll have some criteria to say, is this really line up with what we're looking for, or should we be asking for something different? Next slide, please. So, I'll mention this kind of in closing because the discussion of ferry street uh was a big deal in our work, but we also kind of uncovered the obvious that you can't really tackle that problem within the within the time frame of a tsp alone. We identified some potential solutions. We identified the need, but there's further study to be done there to help get the community to a place where they can rally around a particular design, get the business owners up to speed with what's really going on and how that'll affect them. All those conversations have to happen for success and you just it's hard to do that within the little window that we have during TSP. So, we've shown us some examples in that in the document, but by no means are you saying go build that project if you approve the ESP. It's just kind of foreshadowing of what's to come. All right. Do I have more slides? I think that's it. Oh, I do. Look at that. Uh, so just a couple thoughts there in closing. So I know as the council funding is always an issue and I know this city is I think I remember early on in one of the pack meetings there was someone talked about how how

uh keeping the costs for the citizens down was a high priority.

So it's a little bit sacrileg to be talking about raising fees to fund fund things faster but that's my job as a consultant is to give you ideas to to ponder right. So one obvious one mechanism obviously is system development charges. If you have a large large growth area, do you want to consider using a different rate so you can actually build more projects? That's a question. Uh the other one um the last one on the list, utility fees. Same same kind of question. Do you want to implement a new fee program to help do things sooner than you otherwise would? So again, that's something to be done later. It's not part of the plan. These are just ideas. I think that is the last slide, right?

All right. So that's it for me. Um any questions from you all? Any questions? Enjoy your time. I like that. That's good. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I did have one thing I wanted to mention though regarding the ordinance itself. Is the ordinance number uh 668 688 uh 667 or 665 because I see all those listed. Um so on the ordinance itself it's 668 at the top but it's 688 at the bottom. Um and then on 267 when it's talking about the reading I'm assuming it's 668 but it mentioned 665 and 667 in Seattle. So I I just due diligence just double checking making sure it's 68.

There's a word missing in page 26 if anybody is that should have been in there. Okay. The words make just make your motion if you're going to make I don't think as you have to say as as amended. Yeah. Is it 668? 668. Excellent.

Yeah, the three. I think we're on 267. I think we're on page 16 first, right? No. Yeah, first we're on page 16. we have to do. So, um, oh, excuse me. I move the city council adopt a revised staff report with the following revisions that councelor Hover noted and then also a revision of the ordinance within the staff reporting that is ordinance 668 and not 688. Um, and recognized amendments. Second. Have a motion from Oakbrand, a second from Wilkins. system. [laughter]

That's a win. What I got to say? Um, all those in favor I I was I diggity

and we'll go ahead and close public hearing if we're all done everybody. 708 Right. Move on to uh action number one. Action item number one I should say 267 to page 270. This would be the first reading of ordinance was it 668 68. Yes. Um ordinance 668 an ordinance amending the city of D for just a moment. Yeah. At the bottom of that page, it says ordinance 688. Yeah. Yeah. There it'll be corrected on everybody.

Oh, okay. Got it. Rosio is already doing Oh, I see. Okay. Got it. That's what we'll just cover it to make sure we're going to Oh, no. You're good. And true anytime, please. So, ordinance 668, an ordinance amending the city of Dayton comprehensive plan adopting the 2025 transportation system plan and amending title 7 Dayton land use and development code of the municipal code. I move to approve the first reading of ordinance 667 by title only or sorry 668 668 by title 667 668

second motion from councel brand a second council Peterson all those pass 271 do it for All right, Jeremy. Good evening, Madame Mayor, City Council, but I've been here a year already.

Feels like five here. [laughter] One long long long year. My contract requires a annual performance evaluation. We have to do this every year. Every year.

That's your second most important thing next to the budget. So what I have in here is a proposed performance evaluation instrument. The idea was to simplify and streamline things compared to the six-month. The six-month had 30 criteria, just boils it down to eight that I think encompass all areas of my job description from the city charter. the streamlinement even further the according to the instructions if you give other than meets expectations for one of the criteria I'm asking that you back that up with an example constructive comments if it's above average that helps me keep the momentum up if it's below that gives me something to work towards and then lastly there are some written questions at the end, areas where there are notable results, areas where additional focus or support is needed, and then lastly, and most importantly, what are your priorities? There's also a rubric in there to help you gauge what needs looks like, what's above, what exceeds, what needs improvement, what that looks like for each criteria. So, if council approves this instrument, the plan is to turn complete it individually, turn it into the mayor two weeks before your your first January meeting. That's January 5th.

Yes.

So, two weeks before January 5th, give to the mayor. She will take that information and synthesize it into a transmitt letter. The council will come together at your January 5th meeting, review the letter, talk amongst yourselves. If that looks good, you'll bring me in the executive session. We have to present the materials to me. We'll have a conversation. If it needs some tweaking, you'll come back at your second January, review the edits, bring me in the room, and then we'll start the process. I will also provide you a self eval. We give you a self eval. [laughter] I'll try to get that to you a week before at a minimum that you got to turn yours into the mayor. So myself, Eval will reflect over the past 12 months and it'll have a perspective next 12 months section as well. And that's intended to help you. And also as you're working on this, I would encourage you to look at past agenda packets, past memos, emails that I provided you to reflect on some of the conversations that we've had, some of the interactions that we've had out in the community that will also help you as you work through this. So, at this point, I'm just getting the council's input and hopefully your buy in on this process.

Yes. And we are scheduled for an executive session to go over the instrument tonight. If you all want to still go over it tonight, I would I did kind of a rough draft based on the draft. I have some questions I'd like to talk about like how do how do we know this? Okay, we can do that in executive session. Okay. So, we'll definitely have an executive session. That's what I was thinking. [laughter]

Um, so I Jeremy, I really like this um instrument. I think that's really good. Um, I'm really glad that we're boiling it boiling it down a little bit so we can go. So, um, but I just want to confirm. So you're going to get us your eval what by about 15 20 seconds when it's 22nd is when it's due. Okay. Is chairman going to stay charging for this part of the executive session discuss this? Oh we're not executive session right now. It's at the end of the agenda by the 15th. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. I just want to be clear on that date. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. That's great. One question as well. Yeah. Um, is your self email going to be in the same format or will it be in a different format? I'll provide it in a narrative memo format. So, it'll be different. Okay. Cool. Just give me a All right. Yes. Make a motion. I move to approve the city manager's recommended one-year evaluation process and timeline. Second. Have a motion from Council Peterson, a second from Councelor Hillbrand. All those in favor? I motion passes.

All right, we're going to go on to page 285 for the second reading of ordinance 668. [clears throat]

The second reading. Oh no. 667. 667. Sorry. Yes. My apologies. I think I covered this. 79. Congratulations. I went through and wrecked two minutes postcard. [laughter] You can't do the whole reading. The same not gone at all. All right. Second reading of ordinance 667 authoring the establishment of the public safety fee enacting section 202 municipal code chapter one. No. Okay. I'm just telling you that's what we're going to be talking by title.

So, madam mayor, are we making comments still open for comment from city council on this? On which whole thing? On this ordinance?

Oh, uh, you can make a comment. Sure. what would you know I've been reading this thing and thinking about it for a long time and um you know and then I did a little comparative look at what the other communities around here are charging for their utilities for the water and sewer especially and so if the current fee would put us at 500 roughly 500 cubic feet 544 I think is what we were comparing at 15250 for residential in city person and Lafayette's close to us at 125. Sheridan is at 87, McBinville's at 107, AM is also around 130. And it just seems like it's putting I'm concerned that the public grows too because McMinnville is building in a 5% for a year, but Intel canled rate increase would bring us to our level in seven years. So, what we are is at the height of all the communities around here. And I've gotten comments, my house has been on the market, and I've had comments from people who've looked at the house saying, "Hey, the utility rates are crazy. We're worried they're going to get higher." And so, you know, I know we need the money to fund our projects and that kind of thing, but my big concern is not so much for right now, but it's a big increase. And I think it's been hard for people to swallow for the people that I know live here thought. They said, "Man, that's a lot of money." And it came out of kind of came out of nowhere. We're looking at a 20% increase in this sewer especially.

And we were talking the other day about that new 50 units that is going out in Nick Road and how we may have to pay some of the connection fees for our water and that kind of thing out there as well as a city. And and I'm concerned about that too. And I'm also concerned that in six years time, if we continue, if we did a 5% rate increase like McN does, six years time, we're going to have over a $200 utility bill for a lot of people. That's coupled with the fact that Dayton has a very high poverty of people that don't have a lot of money. And it really feels like he's putting a lot an inordinate amount of the the burden of carrying some of our improvements and some of the necessities of life on the people that don't necessarily have the money to really absorb those fee increases, you know, and so there's a couple things that I was thinking, you know, I was looking at the structure of how we would charge this. So the cut off for the for the first rate increase on the water usage is at 200 200 units which is you 7.5 gallons per cubic foot. That seems like a low number especially compared to other communities both here and statewide. And I'm referring back to the Rogue Valley where I come from as well. And I really like to see that moved up to 300 at least, if not 400 before we go past the base rate, you know, before we kick in those extra. I think it goes up 315 at 280 $3.15 and then it goes up for every 100 cubic feet, you know, after that, whatever. But that in that in itself would be helpful for to encourage people to use less water if they want to try to keep the cost down. And I don't think it's realistic. I don't I know very few people in the summer that use

I will forewarn you just because the cost is down does not make it that they won't use as much. I can guarantee you from living here people can pay that but we can regain it from those people who are the biggest users of that particular resource. And our water is a big deal for all of us. the the users that use that much don't provide enough for us to maintain our systemic nerve end. Yeah. Right. So,

but the people that don't use it, I mean, I'm to five gallon buckets out of my washing machine in the summer time to keep used because for one, I value the fact that they didn't have an issue with water and and two, I really want to use as least amount of water that I possibly can. And so I think the people that do what the people that I know that are doing those kinds of things should be rewarded for that activity. So I think I don't dis agree with that. Right. At one point we had talked about switching the way we build water. Right. And I don't know if that's something we need to re engage in because

too

Yeah. Um, so because I feel like there's topics in the overarch of this, right? So to kind of go back on the first one, um, where it was talking about, um, the fee in of itself and the the high, you know, overall utility fee. Um, this is pulling a little bit out of when we were at the LC um, the the city day. Um, so I apologize if I get any of this information incorrectly. Please feel free to correct me in a moment. But when it comes to local government, there's traditionally kind of it's a free legacy, right? So you've got your, you know, sales tax, you've got your property tax, and you've got your your fees on utilities, right? Um, is that that's fair to say? So, you know, we're already minus one of those legs because Oregon doesn't do sales tax, right? And so the property taxes and the utility fees are really kind of a couple ways that we can do that. But our property taxes are not locked but essentially locked because we can increase them so slowly at such a small percentage per year if I remember correctly. Um and I can't remember which house bill that was it was 90 something. There was two of them. Um that you know if you look at somewhere like Yah where they have they were locked into a very high you know property tax rate. They fund almost that entire city based off propert. But we are really low in that. And so we only really have one leg of that stool to work with and it's our it's our utility fee exchange. And so you know that's that's one of the hard parts in these conversations is you know we've only got one lever that we can work with realistically from year to year to counteract some of these increasing costs. And so, you know, when we're looking at, you know, piece of the pie of, you know, the utility costs, you know, Mac compared to Carl Verier, you know, I I feel like it's it's one of those where it's like, yes, that's a that's a data point, but a a data point can be used for any argument if it's only used if it's only seen in that

specific microcosm. I think it has to be also compared to okay, what are the property tax rates of those municipalities, right? What are the other factors at play? what are the levies that are that are at play in those municipalities? Um, their tax base.

What's their tax base? So, you know, that's just the one thing I think I'd urge a little bit of caution is you're right. I think that, you know, our utility fees are, you know, I we all live in town. I feel, you know, they they hurt sometimes from month to month, depending on the month. Uh, but the the hard part is we just don't have a lot of options. And so, all of the the needs kind of go into this one bucket into this one letter poll that we can do. And there's a lot of the historic data too of, you know, holding off on a lot of increases throughout the years. And I don't want to throw anybody under the bus in this moment. That's not the point of this part of the conversation. But there's a little bit of backtracking that's being done as well over the last few years coming into this year. Um, and so, you know, it's it's kind of a lot of things all hitting at once. Uh, but that's just

Well, they didn't raise any of rates for over 20.

Exactly. And so there's there's a lot of pieces to this. Um, but I think ultimately kind of where I'm at is, you know, I'm looking at this as somebody who's, you know, lives in town and, you know, is looking at great, cool, my rates are going to go up and and that's a bummer, but it's also like, you know, we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars over flush with cash where we can, you know, not do this. This is this is, you know, by by necessity. So I think so maybe it doesn't maybe I wasn't clear you know. So I understand we're in a lot and I understand we have to dig our way out of it in some way. Our tax rate my taxes are more in Dayton than they were in the commitment where I live and I had a very similar house. So we can't really say we're paying less taxes in Dayton. So we're going to counteract that with our utility bills because it's flat out not true. So that being said, what my concern is when we grow, I'm really concerned of an attitude of Dayton in general that okay, we grow, we're just going to rate increase. Okay, here's the 1250 I.

Nobody has that intention in mind. Well, but it feels like it to me. It really honestly does because I've only lived in Dayton for eight years now and since then my utility rates gone up quite a bit and things are more expensive. yourility your rates have gone up because for 20 years before you they never but my rates were similar but look at look at what the comparisons are my rates were similar and I came from a place of municipalities where my rates were far less less than they were here and my rates were far were the norm for but how much did the city actually get to take from

but that's not the point the point is where are we going to take that money from do we want to make it our habit to take it from from a city that has a 37% poverty rate or do we want to work on other schemes going forward? And so the reason I'm bringing this up is not to say no, I don't want to raise the rate. I'd like to do one minor adjustment so that people don't pay that extra kick until they hit 300 cubic feet. That's the only thing that I would like to change. But I'd really like to get a feel for us as counselors as to what is our resource because we have a very limited resource in terms of the 2500 people, however many we have here in Dayton. And so I mean I think a think tank is really in order for city councils to sit down and say, "Okay, what is our future? Where is this money going to come from?" And I know we've got we have our urban renewal project, but a lot of that's untouchable. And I know that we're doing grants for I mean it only applies to that within the urban renewal boundary and that may spread out to other ways and you know in ways that we we can work in expand

you know and we have funding for a lot of our water project which is a wonderful wonderful thing too. Yeah. We have to be viable as an agency. That's why we have the urban renewal district because another option for us to try and but I really want to make sure that we're accountable city council members to to to maybe get work away from some not so positive habits of the past and to really commit ourselves to those future. Go ahead. Well, let me finish what I was saying. Yeah. All right. So, this is really about getting some intentions to not just dump whatever money we need on our citizen. I don't think that's fair. I want to caution you from you believing that that's what this council is about cuz I can guarantee you that.

I'm asking I'm ask I'm just expressing my concern. Now, if that language doesn't really bode well with people, I that's fine. I'm sorry. No, no, no. But I want to make it clear that nobody on this council is cramming down stuff. We have constantly talked about these things, right? Constantly. And we will continue to talk about these things, but we can't grow a city unless we have infrastructure. Yeah. But we can't grow a city by impoverishing our [clears throat] There we have

there's a balance and and that's where you have to weigh it. Like do we not keep raising rates or do we go ahead and get up to speed so that for the next 20 years we only have to raise it 25 cents as opposed to 12. So now that's exactly what I like to hear. Now, that's the kind of attitude that I can really get behind in there. For sure. And that's really what I'm saying here in this this conversation is, hey, I just want to make sure we don't make this a habit. I feel like we are like my budget. I can't spend money I don't have. No. Yeah. I have to I have to budget for the money that I've got. That's not even a priority. Yeah. So, this is this is good stuff. I want to thank you for listening.

Can I add to that as well? So, um one thing Oh, I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Um uh so a thank you because I think that these perspectives are are incredibly important and you know we need to make sure that we're accountable to each other that that is in and to everybody temp quite frankly. Um so we are you know checks on each other in some ways. Um, one thing that I would encourage anybody who's who's new to council is or or returning is, you know, I've been on council for three years now, uh, I think something like that. And we've had a water conversations, rate conversations as big topics in meetings five, six, seven times. And so a lot of those topics, especially the variable rate, you know, conversation or increasing the thresholds, those have been talked about. And so all of those minutes, all of those YouTube, you know, those are easy to find online. And so we could, you know, sit here and rehash the same exact conversation that we've had hours upon hours upon hours over the last few years. What would probably be good is, you know, because I right there with you. It's a it's a very very important topic is watch some of those meetings and read some of those minutes and kind of see where some of those conversations went because I I'm not even kidding. We've probably spent what 10 hours talking about this over the last couple years if not more you like it's been and just like very dedicated topic and so um the hard part is there's no silver bullet um and and that's I think one thing that we circled around to time and time again and so um that that was just my kind of in closing that's kind of my one thing is just there's a lot of good data out there from those meetings and a lot of really really good conversation that is actually touching on exactly some of those topics. Um, so just just an that's it.

From an accounting standpoint, um, Waterland Sewer Service is a business to the city of Dayton. We now I would like to verify this but we have to charge what it costs because if we don't we're going to have to take it from that $1.71 or whatever in property tax9 um we have the lowest rate in property taxes in all the counties so we really can't afford to spend any of that.

Um what I would like to see from Mr. Journey, can you give us um a worksheet or maybe I should be asking you and Rob, um I would very much like to see a spreadsheet with exactly what is going into our water rates. Um, can we tie numbers in from the budget last year to what we're going to charge over this next year and make sure we're covering our costs because that already on the budget here. Um, I'm not sure it's cut down by a lot. Is that something?

Well, I would um we need to be charging what it costs to do things and then figure out how much of a cushion we can build in because that's the only way we can reduce rates is if we don't charge the customers for maintenance or repairs or for future infrastructure. But the infrastructure is the part that is so hard on them. And another thing to remember, our sewer rates as listed on the water bill include $26 for the bridge. Um, that was a mount, you know, $13 two years in a row that was not about sewer. And so have you figured out it was

that? Um, what we see on our water bill or on the sewer charge contains the $26 debt payment. Have you did you learn how to separate that? So, I know how to separate it on the bill. What I don't know is first I heard of this was last week talking to you, right? Okay. So, by the is there a chance by the time we put this new charge onto our bill, can we have it all separated so we know exactly how much is sewer, how much is the debt payment, how much is the public safety. Um,

well, I'm not talking about the public safety. Let's get back there. Well, um but what we're already what you see on the water for sewer contains $26. That isn't sewer. And so compar if it's for the building of the infrastructure, it's for sewers. It's for the bridge. Yeah. But it's not the cost of providing sewer services. If we're paying $26 a month and it's associated with the sewer, it's part of providing cost for the sewer system. Well, what we're paying for is the Well, my concern is this, council max, and that's when we put this new 50 units in. Sorry, um,

when we put those 50 units in over there, that we're going to be paying for the infrastructure cost on that, too. Where's that money going to come from?

I thought that's why we weren't building them because we didn't have that money yet. But, um, I'm not sure how this Okay. Something Mar show was told, um, we couldn't get infrastructure funding for the steel span of the bridge. They told her, "Well, you could just put the pipes across the river." Um, technically speaking, the bridge isn't needed. It isn't really a part of delivering water or sewer services. Um, it's helping protect the pipes as it goes across the bridge.

It's also used as an emergency bridge when there's an emergency. But that isn't [clears throat] really connected to the cost of providing water and sewer. But it is because the those pipes had to hang on something. So, we might as well use something that's utilized by everybody and benefits us all. Otherwise, it hangs there on just some nothing across the bridge. Otherwise, you have to do it under the water and that's 300 times more. Well, yeah, we had it there, took it out, and I think we thought about putting it back under the water. It was a discussion, but the cost to do that is is Yeah, that's why we put it up and over.

Well, I didn't really have time to talk about that. I just really want to make concerns as council member. Okay. Well, let's move on. We can move on. Yeah. Thank you. And whether or not anybody's willing to amend that to a base rate of 300, I don't know whether that be even doable. That's really what I'm proposing. Madam Mayor, if I may, we're on item number three with respect to the public safety fee and we're still waiting on a motion to approve the second reading by title only. I did that. I did the reading. I don't think we did the motion. Yeah. Okay. Well, who's going to do the motion?

Go for it. Move to adopt ordinance 667, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Dayton authorizing the establishment of a public safety fee enacting section 20 to municipal code chapter 1. Reading. I I don't I don't think I don't think there was a reading by a motion to approve reading by title only. I did that approve already. I don't think so. Yes, you did that. No, 66. No, it wasn't. It was 667 because I said 668 and you said no 667. We just need a motion to approve the first reading. Yeah, second reading. First no, first reading. We did it, but whatever. The second.

Somebody make a motion to accept the first reading for this. A second. I move to approve the second reading of ordinance 667 by title. Second. I have a motion from councelor Gilbr and a second from we'll give it to councelor Dra. All those in favor? I I. [clears throat] All right. Thank you. And can we finish the other motion to adopt? Yep. That's after the So, I have a motion from councelor Peterson to adopt ordinance 667. I need a second,

I think. Okay, I'm so lost now. Anyways, okay. I have a motion from counselor Peterson and we need a second and a second from councelor Macken. All those in favor? I All right, motion passes. Thank you. And this the all caps following the reading by title. The next recommended motion is as follows. And sorry. Okay. Page 295 for the fee schedule. And just

we've already talked about it. So a motion or something. Madam Mayor, if I may, I have just a couple like to draw the council's attention to a couple things. Uh, a couple corrections that our utility billing specialists brought to my attention this morning. Your minor details, but I do want to make sure you have accurate photo. So, I have a table on page 299. That table is Mhm.

So this should you get 200 cubic feet. This says gallons is cubic feet.

And then you're charged at tier one for the next 200. And then you're charged at tier 2 for the 144 to get 544. So somebody using 544 cubic feet, it's about 4,000 gallons, they're not being charged at tier three. Okay, that's what this updated table shows. So based on this updated calculation of what the new fee would be, that's a $36 increase per month to their water bill for the usage of 544 gallon. Correct. Okay, cool. Well, that fixes that as far as I'm concerned.

So that that's for water. Water has a 5% increase in the base, 5% in the volumetric. Sewer is the big big one. This is what we discussed this during the budget process and these numbers are based on what the budget committee endorsed. So sewer is 19% across the board.

Uh and then I want to note on page 295 water rates were last adjusted in 2022 not 2021. I also want to know on page 298 on this comparison for outside of city, those are all 200 cubic feet. So your allowance for the if you're out of city limits for the base is 200 cubic feet for all all levels. Okay, that's all I had. Just wanted you all to have correct information. Cool. Mor. Yes, please.

I move to approve resolution 202526-12, a resolution amending the city of Dayton fee schedule to add a public safety fee, update water and sewer rink schedule, and add a franchise application fee. A second. I have a motion from council, a second by councelor over. All those in favor? All right. Motion passes. May I make a comment? real fast.

Sure. Um, so I do really appreciate, by the way, uh, Jeremy, in the public safety fee paragraph, that final sentence, uh, or final couple sentences where it essentially says then for fiscal year 2627, the fee could be lowered to account for full fiscal use collection. So, I think that kind of goes in line with our conversation of, you know, if the levy goes through, is this a temporary addition? And it's just acknowledging that. And I wanted to say that I appreciated it. Certainly. Thank you. All right. Uh we're going to move on to page to the 307. Uh this is that drew an approval of the cancellation letter for the water tank maintenance contracts.

Anything to talk about with it or just a funky requirement in the contract. Cool. I mayor. Yes, please. I move to authorize Mayor Frank, Council President Hillbrand, Councelor Mackin to sign a termination notice letter to Utility Service Company, Inc. for their water tank maintenance contracts for the 100,000galon tank and the 600,000galon tank. I'll second. [laughter] I have a motion from councelor Brown, a second from councelor Wilkins, and all those in favor. Motion passes.

Yes. Uh Jeremy, I have a quick followup question to that. And in the information here, it talked about going out to bid. Is there is that an immediate thing? Are you going to go out to bid on it immediately once the once it's terminated or is that going to be something that's a bit of a delay on the bid process? Don, would you like to touch on it? [snorts] It'll probably be more immediate than not just because we have to stay on top of that compliance. So, okay.

All right. We're going to move on to page 345. This is the approval of amendment number three of the utility bridge project loan with DEQ. I just want to say that 19 cents on the final loan amount is pretty [clears throat] in a quarter and we be [laughter] all right. Isn't this a little lower than we were expecting? I was hearing seven.

Um, so this might be good news. I know. We did have those ARPA funds that from the county and from Oh, they need to reduce. Okay. Adds up to this. Yeah. All right. All right. I'll entertain a motion. All right. Madame Mayor, please. I move to approve amendment number three to the loan documents with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and authorize the city manager to execute the loan amendment document.

One second. Okay. I have a motion from councelor M and a second from councelor Wilkins. All those in favor? I motion passes. Okay, let's move on to page 30. This is the housing housing infrastructure financing program application review. All right. This is a grant that opened up in midocctober as a quick turnaround time. We believe it would be in the city's best interest, at least to try to squeeze something in before that deadline closes.

This is a new funding opportunity that's designed to address one of the barriers to new housing construction in this state, and that is infrastructure. Our city engineer advised us if we're going to turn something in to target the water main transmission lines that would serve development and neck road. So that's within our UGB urban growth boundary. And in your packet, which Ria is pulling up here, but it's on 332, we have a water main transmission lines. So, one would be a 12inch main going up Highway 221. Then some eight and 10 inch mains, different areas that connect with it. Main sure make sure there's enough pressure for fire service.

Uh we we're still working on numbers and other details. Uh at this point, we're asking for city council's endorsement of this so we can go ahead and get it in. And once the contract, if if we do get it is approved, of course, we'll be bringing that back to you for final approval. At this point, we're just getting your buy in for a potential $2 million water project to serve next road. That's awesome. Don, you have anything to add? Uh, I just know that this has been a a real big topic with all of the con preconstruction meetings we've had where everybody's gung-ho, wants to move forward on that project and then they get to this waterline and it seems to be the roadblock that nobody can financially figure out how to work through that. So, this potentially could I mean it would add fire flow for everybody on that side of town, but that this might be what stops the u people from pulling out of that project over there. So,

I know we've been talking about this for like a quarter of the century now. We need to get that land developed. the people have been wanting to. We got to do it before they lose it cuz um Madame Mayor, when you're ready, please.

All right. Um, I authorize staff to submit a housing infrastructure financing program application to Business Oregon for water transmission upgrades for neck road housing development with an estimated project budget of up to 2 million and authorize the mayor to signification upon its completion. Six. Motion from councelor back in a second. Council Grant. All those in favor. All right. Approval of resolution 2026.

Dave, we've touched on this before. Jeremy, is there anything else to refresh on? Nope. Just close now to fund. We need to transfer some money to zero it out. Yeah, if you look on you look on page 20 of the financial statements funds there getting there for over this year. Excellent. Madam yes please. I move to approve resolution 2025/26-13 a resolution authorizing an inter fund budget and line item transfer between the general fund and the ARPA fund and dissolution of the ARPA fund. I'll hold $42.

Okay. Second. Have a motion. Councelor Hills brand a second. All those in favor. Motion passes. All right. I want to move on to page 349 for the community center analysis discussion. I believe Dave has some information for us on this.

Yeah, our city manager uh asked me to take a look at this by uh do an investigation into on community use fees and and see what we could do to maybe get this community center back open because it's definitely something that the residents here would like to see back in play. Um what you'll see there is basically the history of when back in June 2023 when I came on board that was the first project actually that Rochelle had me do and we then adopted in October a new fee schedule that was more in line with what u the facility actually was worth and also in comparison to other cities. That next page illustrates that um analysis that was done to see what the comparison was with the surrounding cities of our size and so forth in both Yamhill and outside of Yamill County. Um that first document says Dayton Community Center uh event center. That's our old rates. And then the next Palmer Creek Lodge Community Center is our new rates. So you can see that we increase things in a fairly substantial manner. And when you get to uh if you were to skip to page 355, you'll notice that our income rose when we made that decision, um our use declined a little bit in one year and then following year even more so, but our income overall, our um our our rental income uh actually went up substantially, which was good. then and it showed that even though we had made that increase, it didn't affect the uh the use of the facility. Uh then I took on page 354, I summarized what our costs are to operate the community center. And to the best of my ability, I took this and did averages over three-year period

of time. um to get to an amount that would approximate what an annual use or payment would be to operate it. Um I think for some there's you know you look at those expenses and go elevator. Well, some of those things are just required. I mean unfortunately um one thing we do know is we try to avoid calling that elevator company because every time they come out it's $1,000. So it's it's certainly a high fee. Um, carpet cleaning, you know, that's an average. That's obviously, you know, gone down recently because we've removed carpet from the downstairs. Um, so all in all, your your your total average annual cost of 33,000 I feel like is pretty accurate. And when you're seeing that we've been bringing in 20,000 or so, we have a deficit then of $13,000. So I I I went ahead and looked at things and I said, "Well, you can do a fee increase. You can increase things 100% and you could cover double that income of 20, make it 40, cover your expenses and also have a reserve for maintenance. But we know that we just raised the fees two years ago in a fairly significant way. Um, we could increase the number of annual bookings. Well, that requires it requires the interest to be there, right? And you know certainly we could market it more aggressively and so forth to get greater and greater use but it also means when you get greater use you get greater cost association with the operation. Um so you know a combination of those two things could be looked at. When you look at number four on there as an option, it's a partial change of use considered long-term tenant occupancy of one half of the facility equal to the operating deficit, continue to rent the remaining half as currently utilized or just go to a complete change of use where the community would not be able to

access the facility. I I would like to pursue the pathway of looking at what we could do to maybe get a permanent tenant for half of it and where we could continue to use the facility for community use. One of the things I looked at um you know I go back to that economic development study. There's things like that the community wanted like daycare this that those are the kinds of things that might be viable there especially upstairs where you don't need a kitchen necessarily for that use. and then we could maintain the kitchen for use of the community when they rent it out downstairs. So, um what I'm basically asking is if I can pursue analyzing that further, uh my steps would be looking at what our square footage is over there on both up and down. What logically would be the kind of square footage or cost per or price per square foot that we could that we could generate from having a tenant? and then reaching out to some potential people out there, including some that may have operating daycare here in Dayton already out of their homes to see if there's interest that way or outside as well. Um, obviously we can go to a commercial real estate company and go down that route, but I think that both Jeremy and I included that it might be in our best interest to just see what's out there ourselves first and see if we can generate some interest. So, as you can see, and I just looked at this before I came in here, but you know, typical rental rates on things like this are buck 25 to a buck 50 square foot. I think the square footage downstairs is 2500 square f feet. Upstairs is probably very similar. Um, if you could generate a couple thousand or more per month, that's $24,000 a year, and still be able to rent out the facility similar to how you are right now. you'll cover your cost and also be able to cover your maintenance um going forward which would be a huge benefit because there is some

work that needs to be done there currently right now. So I just wanted to share that with you and see what your thoughts were, your feelings were because I'm certainly uh willing to go ahead and research this further. Yeah. Yeah. Um so a few follow questions. So, one of the things that's come up in the last couple years as one conversation regarding that building is the potential as a in part city hall in part library. I don't see that in any of the recommendations on this. I'm kind of curious a as to why. Um and then like if is that idea kind of kaput, you know, is it possible to maintain half of it as a community center and then half of it in the city hall, you know, idea like kind of where we at all of that?

I think it's cost related more than anything else. you would have to come up with the money to be able to do that and that's obviously going to be millions of dollars. Yeah. Um we obviously do have some money set aside right now. Yeah. Roughly I think 800 $830 $850,000 set aside for capital improvements of that nature. Um which would allow us to at least go down the path. I think Jeremy would better be the one to respond to that than me um as to what the potential is. But this is more of a shortterm um objective to try and just get it open again so that the community could once again enjoy it. Sure. They they've uh hit the nail on the head. It's short-term. Gotcha.

Uh our next step is going to be a facilities study and my goal is to bring that to you in January. hope to engage a firm to do a facilities analysis that will in turn inform hiring an architect and that in turn will result in construction documents. Realistically is going to take us a year to get to a point of starting construction. So the question is, do we just let it sit there for a year when we could be trying to get at least somebody in there on a short-term basis? And and it, you know, getting somebody in on a short-term basis might not work, might not be feasible, but we can we can at least start looking at things.

If we bring somebody in there to rent half of it, are we going to have to do any kind of uh changing of the building inside to fit The nice thing about it right now is both upstairs and downstairs have bathroom facilities that meet, you know, requirements. We have an elevator that meets ADA requirements. Um, we have our heating system now and a cooling system operating. So, that's that's good news. I think that when you look, especially relative to upstairs, that kind of lends itself to it's almost like a gym in some ways. So, well, that would ultimately be the best thing. Yeah, it definitely would be that would happen,

right? But that would be um that would be the way I would say would be the least u costly way to go about doing it where you wouldn't have a big requirement of having to do any kind of associated changes. Our security system would allow us to program the thing and divide it off so that downstairs wouldn't be accessible to upstairs and vice versa. So that would be helpful as well. Okay. Hi. [clears throat] I think it's a good idea to I'll pursue it and hopefully come back to you in January with some additional information.

Excellent. All right. On to 10 local auction update on page 357. And I think what we're trying to give this is some dates for city hall. Um, excuse me. Yeah. Thank you. And we're talking February.

February preferably. So if there's any dates that you know will work for you, it would be an afternoon probably starting at 6 or 6:30. Um, so this would be in conjunction with the school district. Um, we talked to Amy and she would like to have like a parent uh night uh resident night where everybody can come in and listen to sheriff's department and their take on what's going on in Dayton so people can be informed of what's going on um where their calls are taking them and then council would speak to the levy um renewal. Oh,

did you have something? Yeah, I knew you had something. THAT'S I ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING.

I'm like going since everybody gets done talking about anything. Um, so I had a light bulb as soon as you mentioned um the sheriff presentation. So in one of the most recent uh meetings, I brought up um Scarlet Communications and chatting with Kitri about any kind of marketing around the public safety levy. any kind of um interview with the sheriff that could be put out on multimedia, you know, methods, I think will go real real far or if it's coming directly from the sheriff's department of like, hey, this is this is what we currently do. Maybe and I don't think they can necessarily weigh in on the levy, but you know, it's like giving the data on on the work done, you know, could go a long ways. Uh videos, you know, today's day and age are, you know,

that's the the way to go. That's the way to go. So that's all I got. So, I have a question. Yeah. Um, so we're looking for an early evening event that will happen at the ele in the elementary school gym or or the high school gym. Um, we're not sure yet. We'll talk with Amy once we have a date and see what Do you want a couple of dates? Yes. Is there a day of the week that you prefer?

Saturday. What would be the best advice? I think week night is better. Think week night, not a not a Saturday. Yeah, I do. Kids are going to be out. People are going to play. Well, they're playing sports and doing that sort of thing. Maybe like they usually play Tuesdays and Thursdays is what it used to be. So, you want to do Wednesday? My kids not in school. Because in February is your is it soccer season in spring or fall? It's both. They do both. When sports are wrestling and basketball. Okay. So, we just need to figure out what game days are. So,

well then they have the sports schedule. Oh, that's easy to get that from OSA. OSA website. Um, I mean, so maybe we want to say [clears throat] 10, 11 or 12 depending on what the sports in February. So that's Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, whatever doesn't conflict with something you're doing. What you mean? That'll mean we'll have a meeting on February 2nd and then again the following week and then again the following week after that if we do work session just preparing. Yeah. We used to hang out so much that

those are fine dates for me. All those work for me. No. Okay. I'm going up at the school sheriff's office and let y'all know when things are confirmed. Uh, you want to show them the wage? Oh, yes.

We have So, our website is live. That was publicized in Merry Street News. We got the QR code.

We're going to be continue to build this out. Cindy was working on it today. Uh, we got some different tabs up there that show different things. Scroll up there. We got the survey. Surveys at tabs right here. You can click about the levy. Get the history on the levy. Levy infographic. The information and graphic form. I love visuals. That's beautiful. [laughter] I don't know. There's just something to be said about visuals. We got some financial data and friends. And then we got financial information. More graphs.

Perfect. And I'm waiting on workload data from the sheriff's office. I've asked them for the past five years of workload data. When we get that, we'll slice and dice it into the graphical format. Put it on here. Cool. And you can sign up for updates to your email. Oh, cool. Are there crime documents statistics in there? Yep, that's what I'm waiting on. I think that'll be helpful, too. More crime. So, it's just city website address 2026 levy review.

It's good thing he didn't live here when we didn't have police services. lived in K Junction and I know what I'm trying to say. Was out for seven years or something like that. Yeah, we were out a while. You don't know what you got Wild Wild West. Just kidding. Now they had no sheriff for seven or eight years. Not one sheriff that there was one sheriff and that was it. Jails were closed. Nothing in the streets. Great justice. They did. That's what it was.

Smith and Wesson were on the When we have no deputy, we have no crime. It says so on paper. When you bring the deputy back, that's when you have your crime. And then because they start getting caught.

Well, there you have it. We went without a code enforcement officer for three months in between and the same thing happened. We didn't have anything wrong for three months. Yeah. But before I let everybody free with their comments and concerns, I want to discuss the July fireworks show. Um, do we want to do it for July 3rd on the Friday when we already do the music and everything? We're already tied in. Haven't we already signed No,

no, we haven't signed anything. No. Or do we we it was brought up but it was never determined. And then or do we want to do it on the actual day, Fourth of July day? We want to vote on it as an emotional vote.

I have an opinion. Um, I think personally I think we should have it on the 3 because I feel if we have it on the 4th because this coming year is the 250th anniversary. Uh, I feel that we would have to do something big for that event. Um, and in the situation right now with budget and everything else, I think it'd be better for our community and pressure on the people putting the event together to tie in with DCDA and the Dayton Friday nights music that we've had for the past two years. I think that's we'd have a better event that way than trying to try to push something through and try to do something big on the fourth. It also stops us from uh trying to fight with like you know Newberg and

another St. Paul. Yeah. And St. Paul puts on a big one on Fourth of July. So does Newberg and it's just Well said. Yeah. Council Tyro, do we get a discount by moving it to the third from the board actually? Uh it is it is a little less. I don't have the exact numbers. Um, so, uh, last time it was either 10,000 having it on the third or 15,000 having it on the fifth or fourth, sorry, that was for the same one that we had the one time, correct? Yeah. Yep.

That was what 15 minutes of fireworks. Yeah. 15 to 17. Yeah. All right. So, does anybody have any qualms about it being on another day or anything? I think it makes total sense to have it on the third. Honestly, I like the idea of the third. It draws more people here during that time. You save money. Okay. So, I guess the third it Okay. Um the next question before I move on to your comments.

Uh this year because we don't have a budget to really allow for it, we would still like to do some sort of a Christmas part. So, I'd like to ask if council would be interested in doing like uh we each bring something. Sure. Yeah. And then we can take care of our staff. [laughter] Thank them and have our little holiday party. We could probably just do it right here or like a pot. Yeah, like a potluck kind of a thing. And um Okay, so spouses. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I make a mean bolognese.

Is that right? I bring a mean bag of chips. Perfect. [laughter]

Daddy on this. I can just bring you all to a really great freaking place. [laughter] Some good food and good drinks. I guarantee a date. Um, we can pick a date. Do we want to pick a date? We're talking about December 20th. Um, yes. I cannot do December 21st though. You're do the 19th or 20? Assuming we want to do it on a weekend.

You can't do the 19th. No. Would the staff rather a week day or week or weekend? Week day. Week day. What's a day do you prefer or st the staff prefer, I should say? Probably Thursday. 18th. 18th. Yeah. 18th. Good. What do you think? I like it. 18th. 18th. Yeah. Okay. So we providing all

volume right now I think we talking about staff too. No us okay they will take we take care of them. So th Thursday the 18th at 5 o'lock. Okay. Thursday 18 to 5 o'clock. Perfect. So I can reach out to each of y'all individually and just coordinate who's bringing what. Make sure we got it all covered. Perfect. Love that. And we be bringing it to here. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. We got a kitchen in there, too. So, yeah. If we need to resist something, whatever. You know,

I can we'll take this offline, but I'm not able to get them for more back. That would be fun. Be pretty amazing. I got some calls to make on that. So, we'll have it here in city hall. Yeah, we don't have to pay any fees for nothing. [laughter] Well, do we want to do the community center? It's so big, you know. And the bypass, they have the whole other side of the bar. Yeah. That is not used on a Thursday. They can send a bunch of pies there.

Pizzas. Yeah, let's talk about it. And they would be more than happy to pay. I'm I'm fairly sure. That's cool. All right. Um, council comments and concerns. Chris, uh, none at this time. Council, no. I piece. No. So, uh, you may have seen um, in the Dayton community page uh, today, there was a fire in town this morning and a family's house was lost. Um, I wonder what that was. Yeah, that was Aby's house.

And so the Dayton um school district has put out a call to action uh for the community for um you know, they got a 2-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 16-year-old for you know, we're heading to the holidays and you know, that's all of our worst nightmares, you know, especially this time of year. Um and so they're going to be going through a lot. Um the Dayton Food Pantry is getting involved. I saw that today, which is excellent. Um, I'd like to see if there's ways either as a, you know, governmental body, um, or as individuals that we can participate in in this. Um, I saw that they started a, um, uh, sorry, GoFundMe.

Well, they started at uh, I think it was at First Federal in in Mac, they started a basically an account for for them. It's not in the classic GoFundMe, you know, methodology. It's a different way. Um, but I can provide all that information to Jeremy um for on an individual because then he can disseminate it out. I can't to everybody. Um, but I think it would be good for us as representatives of the community to participate in this. Um, and if there's ways, I don't know if there is, this isn't asking for anything in particular, uh, but if there is any way for the Dayton government to participate in this, um, I think it's just a really good, uh, community caution because if we don't catch every person's whose house catches on fire and we don't do something, we're going to get called on the rug for that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, maybe it's just on the individual perspective. Say two-year-old. What were they? 2-year-old, 15 year old, and a 16-year-old. So, they're doing um like you sponsorship. That's my daughter-in-law's stuff. You'll send that information to us, too. Sure. Cool. Thank you. So, um wanted to we can take a collection, too. You can donate to First Federal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably too. Yeah. And there's like an actual like account name. That's And I I'll send all that to J. Yeah. got but um that's all I got. All right. Uh how about you sir? Any council comments concern? None of them

wanted to follow up on PGE. Have they talked to you about when they're going to come talk to us? Not yet. Um I am very interested after those power outages. I have so many questions for them. what is, you know, what are we facing in the way of aging infrastructure? Want to make sure that it doesn't fall through the cracks. And I had a teeny tiny brag. Um, I'm on the Energy and Environment Policy Committee for another year. I was asked by the Women's Caucus if I would represent them this year. Nice.

I don't know what that entails, but I'm happy to do it. Um, and I think that's it for now. I would have served on that committee, but I didn't have the energy. Well, you're not exactly what Oh, lordy. I got to tell you, these last few months have been kind of dry for new jokes. [laughter] When I say something, it's not because I'm trying to be funny. It just happens. It never happens. We like that. Yeah. All right. Um, tourism and economic development,

Mr. Dave. Well, I'm not sure how to proceed since we now have this in written form. So, I don't know if you need me to review it if that report is How about if we have any questions for D? I think that'd be great. Yeah. Did you all read the reports? Did you like how the reports were laid out the way they are? Thank you very much. So, good. So, if you don't have any questions for Dave, we're going to move on. Public works. Thank you. We have any questions for public works?

Thank you. public works. Can you go down the street where you guys put our bathroom on my my street and make them put those trees they cut down back up? Put the trees through the bathrooms. You know the one you guys trim? So you put the bathroom in to begin with? The house is forclosed on. So the bank came in and chopped every goddamn tree down in that pardon my French in that lot. Wow. Wonder why the bank is that and those some of those trees had to been at least 200 years old. They chopped every one down. Should have ordinance a tree cutting or

I was going to say a lot of cities too, but I've had a lot of people complain about it. But I would love to have a tree or I'll takeard this year. They cut all of them all around the side. They're gone. It's wiped. When I drove in from work today, I was like, "Oh, knife through your heart." It is a knife through my heart. Yeah. They just did it today. Smell it. Was so hear the screaming of a tree. Yes. Is this a house next to between her and

it's right next to the park. So, if you're if you're coming from Ash on the right hand side, there's the blue house and then the old brown house there. That one right next to the park. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. It was kind of old. It It needs help, but the trees are not the problem. It's the house. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Anyways, yeah. Can we um I'd like to see is that something we confirmed to council maybe as a street ordinance that we can look at. I think sorry we got a lot of ordinance updates. [laughter]

Well, we had an interview today too and I said, "Can we let I don't know. Yeah. So, okay. Anyways, do we have any other questions for public works other than on them? I want them a little um so Don, I wanted to touch base on McFougle well number two. So, it's causing a 130 gallon per minute shortfall since 2019. Um how does that then compare? Is that enough to be relevant especially this time of year? Probably not, but I just wanted to double check and make sure that 130 gallons per per minute isn't enough to cause any kind of issues that have been pursued.

So far, it hasn't. It's just taking added time to fill the springs reservoir. Uh we did get in touch with the contractor. Um they were hoping to have the parts before Thanksgiving. They showed up over the weekend, so they actually called and they're going to be out tomorrow morning. So cool. By end of day tomorrow, if everything goes smoothly, it'll be back up and running. Excellent. So,

and then it's got um they didn't replace it with the exact same model because it's outdated. So, they went to a newer updated style. So, basically, anything that happens maintenance-wise, it's all plugandplay. where the old one was completely dismantle and send out a part for machining. Yeah, this is you undo a couple of bolts, toss a new piece in, bolt it back up, drop it back in the ground. So, this is going to be maintenance- wise for us, nothing going to be a huge win on that well. So, that's great to hear and really cheap. Yeah. Yeah.

Turned out well. Uh then the next one is uh so the two water leaks that are mentioned in the next one under goal a were those uh minor leaks major leaks if minor leak just want to make sure. Um and then the last was uh the sweeper. I thought it was back up and running. Did it break again? Yeah. Oh this time where we fixed we fixed the broom head. Okay.

The motor the electric motor or hydraulic motor went out on that. Um everything ran fine. We've got it down to it's either an electrical connection between the cabin chassis and the accessory motor or it's the starter for the accessory motor. So, we're hoping to have that diagnosed this week. Um, but yeah, if fingers crossed it's just the starter and should we get a graph for a new one? It was outdated when we bought it. I know. I know. That's why I was like, we don't need to keep fixing it. [laughter]

Any chance there's another one like that available so we could kind of sort of start over? We need to find somebody who is upgrading theirs. So, maybe it'd be cheaper just to pay somebody to come do it. Because then we don't have to maintenance any of those things or pay for any of that stuff. Man, I wonder how much that would cost in comparison. Probably an Did we find not a bad get them under contract kind of thing? Yeah, because there are street sweepers that do that and have contracts with cities all over the place and they pay for the maintenance and repairs and all that kind of stuff. So,

okay. Um, anybody else have any comments or questions for Okay, finance? Anybody got questions? Not yet. Just got finances. Um, I did have one update and that I believe it's Thursday that I'm meeting with the DCBA.

Oh, okay. Cool. Excellent. I I have one followup question with regard to the uh funding was for the Fisher Nursery well developer feasibility sake um or the reduction in the potent in the loan from the state. When would we hear back from them on if we were chosen what the applicable amount is? Is there a deadline that we should know more from the state on what our impact is on that loan? The 1.2 too. That's the grant. Oh, sorry. Thank you. I apologize. It's not the one. The grant. We'll we'll know as the legislative session and 26 gets underway. Gotcha.

So, I would say by spring or so. Yeah. Cool. That sounds good. Thank you. Sorry, I'm following up on the wrong thing in the wrong line item, but All right. So, if nobody has any questions, we'll move on to the library. just had so audit to begin the day because audit to begin at all. Yes, that's what is Yeah. Nothing happened today, but it really strategically began today. Yes. Okay. [laughter]

I like that. Yeah. We didn't do it, but it began [laughter] there. There are some things that that I have to do this week on that. Okay. Same thing. [laughter] All right. And I didn't see any questions for Cindy that I had. Did anybody else have anything? No. Okay. And how about for CO to the recorder?

I got nothing. Thank you. That's what I got to say. Thank you. Okay. Now, we're moved on to the long city manager. H32. Where is my city manager?

Here it is. All right. So, the code enforcement officer and I conducted a citywide code compliance review. We identified 10 properties. I'll give you a flavor of of what we identified and the letters that we sent out. I won't give specific addresses, but I'll give you a flavor of like what areas of town that it was everywhere. So on on Mill Street, we have multiple junk vehicles, miscellaneous rubbish, noxious vegetation. Couple on Aler Street with uh junk and noxious vegetation. Couple on Ferry Street with abandoned vehicles and other attractive nuisances. Um Joel Palmer way a trailer junk trailer in the right way. Ash Street uh junk issues. Second and first street again little junk and noxious vegetation. One letter that I thought went out that didn't go out has to do with a potential dangerous building. We will get that notification out this week.

So one of the items on the list has already been taken care of. a few others. We've had citizens come in and talk to us about a plan to give them some time. And for all the others, when if we don't hear anything by the deadline, we'll take the next steps. Uh on the integrator of record RFP, this is I've been talking about this since July. There's been a lot of work on this. I screwed up and missed an important detail. I didn't publish the public notice in the right news. So that on the plus side that made your packet 200 pages lighter. Wow.

Nice. [laughter] Our packet. You mean the notebook? Yes. Have two notes.

Yeah. Exactly. So you'll see this in January, but the beauty of this is is the way that we set up this procurement is that we'll bring somebody on board potentially for 15 years and they could do public contracting and maintenance at the same time so that I'll get somebody on board to do all all those. So I think the investment do it right has been worth it. Uh Fisher Farms project, we're going to have our kickoff meeting next week. franchise renewal. I was referred to a a telecommunications attorney by our law firm. So, I'm I'm working on that. Uh I submitted or Kurt prepared and submitted on our behalf a wetlands technical assistance grant. This was another program that opened up with a quick timeline. So, he got that in for us.

There will be a resolution from city council in support of that for sure. and we check the box to hire a DLCD consultant if we get it. Okay. Uh the COG informed me that there's economic development administration funding for other infrastructure projects. So, I'm going to have some more conversations with them. They said there's a ton of money just for Yanhill County that hasn't been tapped into yet. Let's get on. Let's get on it.

Sure. uh sustainable infrastructure planning projects that opens up in February. So, this would pay for a consultant to do some of the long range infrastructure planning for a water system. Uh there's a lot of different things that we've been considering such as tying in Macwater and Light, buying out Lafayette, a lot of difficult decisions to make. they can compile all the data, project all the long range trends, and help us figure out the best strategy. So, I'm going to be looking at that in February. Um, I signed engagement letter for audit costs 36,000 that includes one single audit. Uh, I had various community contacts,

business, the B and bond attorneys. Uh the Dayton Hotel applicant has submitted a an appeal request. We're tenatively scheduling to bring that planning commission on January 8th. And when can we get a copy of it? Well, when we publish the uh the notice, the hearing notice, right? what they just I mean I'm just waiting to confirm that potentially this okay that's going to be a big document just the notice is not that

but the actual well I'm interested in what they actually well but you're going to post what they're trying to get changed right uh the statement is only a couple pages oh yes that that'll be online well the entire state They're just proposed the statement is just a few pages of what they want to change or whether it's just a notice that there is a new document outline. That's two different things. The the the statement that they made will go out with the notice. So you'll see exactly what they submitted. Okay. For appeal, but the notice

the notice will be online and the and I assume you're seeing the actual administrative decision on the website.

Yes. customer. So, it's got a few more details to work out and then you'll see that online. I will let let you know when when those materials are available. Um, following up on on another ordinance update related to open burning, I did have some correspondence with DEQ just to verify some information. Uh, Rob Hallebertton on the planning commission verified his intention to step down at the end of this year. And the Ferry Street News, there's call for applications. We potentially bring somebody to January. If you know anybody good, give them my or who's interested, give them my cell phone number. I'm happy to take somebody out to coffee and get them interested in planning mission. U I have various other activities listed. One of which is the team and I had a call with Northwest Natural Gas. They're exploring the possibility of coming to Dayton. So, they'll be coming to you in January for your input on if that's something that we might want to.

They tried to come here about 25 years ago. Probably enough money in town for them. They did. What I heard was it would double our homeowners insurance rates. Um, do you remember when they were going around? Do you remember when they were going around? I mean, I think you and I are the only ones remembering those things anymore. Yeah. I know I don't remember them. I um I wouldn't have even talked to them at the time because doubling the insurance rate.

I would love to have more of that background because that's something that we were scratching our heads of of why they were turned away. Um, I think it was partially the cost to um, actually do the infrastructure was part of it and I don't think there was enough interest in it because the cost for people to put it in their homes to plummet in there. Yeah, we have to add it. Yeah. Um, so it was just not worthwhile and there is a little bit of environmental danger right now. The fire,

we don't have any fire danger. um you know crops the fuel is only about this high. So even if Sam Sweeny's whole farm burst into flames, it's not going to cause much damage. But if you bring natural gas in, there's a potential. I think that was part of it. Um but just the added cost having to bring it into the city and then bring it into the individual homes. No. um for whatever re reason they're interested in re-engaging.

They're re-engaging because they're trying to push natural gas in as another mechanism to warm our homes. It It's a It's just another push because there's also good things about me gas, too. I love cooking with gas. Yeah, I missed that when I moved up here from California. I went, I have to use [laughter] electric. What the hell? Curse my stove nightly. Yes. I mean, once you cook on a gas stove, it's very different. Induction gas electric.

Couple other items. I signed with Lafayette. Uh had some conversations with New Bing Department. I'm going to continue those conversations about uh modernizing our building fees. Uh right now our general fund is subsidizing a lot of building department and the building department needs to be self- sustaining. Uh upcoming work plan. Mayor Frank, Council President Hildebrd, finance director and tourism director are meeting with the school district on the 9th. What questions do you have for me? [clears throat]

I know you do. Um, so this is somewhat adjacent to what to was mentioned in here when it came to code enforcement. This reminded me of something I meant to bring up a little bit earlier. So when you mentioned noxious weeds in the code enforcement, something I've been seeing around town more and more common is the prevalence of horsetail weeds which are incredibly invasive and they're as bad if they have been to get rid of.

Um, so a great example of that is the corner of Barcelona Horton Sweeney. Um, so that that is a an area that's pretty overrun. Um, and it's progressing down swing and also uh there's areas of Joel Palmer that are like that. Um, and it's one of those that it just I I saw it when we first moved in in 2021. It was this tiny little patch a little ways down Sweeney that's just started creeping up neighborhood and you know it it's one of those that I mean you you'd have to manage a space for you know weeks, months and even years to to get rid of it. So, it's one of those that, you know, before it gets really pervasive, especially in city- owned, you know, properties like parks and things like that. What did you say? It's a horsetail weed. Um, so they

Yeah. North. Yeah. Yeah. And so they're you if you drive any like go out on a county road, you'll see them all along the roads. Uh they're just they're they're very very invasive. Um so, uh it's just one thing I Oh, I wonder. Yeah. At least it would be fun to break those up when we were kids. I've never heard them called weeds. They're a weed because up in Washington in some spots they grow all over the place. Yeah, cuz it's a we [laughter] also like the water and the the I had somebody tell me one time, a weed is only a flower in the wrong spot. Oh, I like that.

And I know somebody who feels that same way. I like that. I actually like the those worst talents. So, but they do only belong in certain places. I think if they didn't grow like like so subterranean and they're so difficult to get rid of that wouldn't be an issue. I'd rather see the English ivy and the other stuff go way down the the walking trail. But anyways, um okay. So, we are we going to discuss the Well, we first have to and go to the executive session. [laughter] So, we'll go ahead and uh move to

have a good night and our regular meeting at 8:30 and we'll begin at about 8 executive session. Are you going to meet me in during the talk? Yeah, if you want to. Um, if everybody doesn't need you can just stay out here, right?

He's on your desk. Yes, please. Do you want to stay part of the meeting, Chris, in with us for the executive meeting to go over the um uh review? I I'm if I may, Madam Mayor, unfortunately, I I would recommend not doing executive sessions over Zoom. If you have to if you do them over Zoom, you have to let the meeting do it over Zoom. It's all right. I can I can guy to get off the meeting. Um, so hey Chris.

Yeah. Could we meet separately outside of the Zoom? Sure. Just only because I don't Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to leave it open