City Council - Regular Meeting

Um, I will go ahead and take a roll call for tonight's meeting. I got Rob here. Uh, Indra here, Rick here, Victoria here, Seth here, Eric here, Joel here, Kathleen is not here. All right, so we have a quorum. So, we're going to get going. And uh Victoria, we have an invocation tonight. Yes. Tonight, our invocation will be from John Sled.

Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you that you are the creator. You are the sovereign Lord. You superintend the affairs of men in our nation, in the world, our state, this county, and this community. We thank you for your protection over us and the liberties that we enjoy. We thank you that you've created beautiful things and we thank you especially this month for trees in Arbor month. I ask your blessing upon this council councilors Pel, Nicholas, Riker, Marshall, Benham, Schllo, King, and Cone that they would be unified in purpose. They would conduct their business wisely, productively that the citizens of this city would be blessed by their their hard work and their diligence, their attention to the needs of the city. So give them uh unonymity and if they argue, help them to do it well with diplomacy to conduct all the business that needs to happen this evening. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

All right. If you can please rise for the flag salute and take your covers off if you want. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Thank you. Um, so tonight uh I have uh to start out a proclamation for Arbor Month. So, I'm going to read this. Whereas Grantspass has been recognized as a Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation for the 38th year. And whereas Grants Pass has used grant funding to plant 37 trees on school district 7 campuses. And whereas Grants Pass has used grant funding to complete a comp comprehensive public tree inventory. And whereas Riverside Park will host will host the Pacific Northwest chapter of the ISA Southern Oregon Regional Tree Climbing Competition from April 10th through the 12th. And where is Arbor Month is recognized in April by the state of Oregon. And where is the Grants Pass celebrated Arbor Day on April 13, 2026? And whereas Grants Pass recognizes trees are a community resource that can cut cooling costs, moderate temperature, moderate temperature, clean the air, create oxygen, mitigate storm water, and enhance the beauty of our city. And whereas now therefore I Clint Sherf the mayor of city of Grants Pass on behalf of the city council do hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as Arbor Month. In the city of Grants Pass I urge all citizens to support efforts to care for our trees and to support the city's community forestry program. Further, I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the hearts and promote the well-being of present and future generations. Thank you. I don't know. Do we present that to anybody? Okay, cool. All right, moving on. The first thing on the agenda

tonight for our business is a public hearing for community block grant. Um public hearing regarding housing and community develop needs needs and priorities for the fiscal year 2026 year 2 annual action plan. And we have a presentation Good evening. Ann city planning as an entitlement uh city that receives federal grant funds from HUD. They require us to hold three public hearings in the new program year. And tonight's hearing is the first public hearing of our new program year which begins October one of this year and we have met all the relationship to the council goals. The hearing tonight is to apprise the council of the results of the needs and priorities survey which will be incorporated into the 2627 year 2 annual action plan and as specified by the city's CDBG cit um citizen participation plan a public hearing is required before the draft a is developed and published for public comment. These are the national objectives. 70% must go to predominantly lower middle income benefit. 20% uh maximum can be used for MA planning and administration costs and 15% regardless of the national

objective must be the max for public services. Our five-year goals uh which were attached to your background. Exhibit A is affordable to and decent housing, homelessness, and non-housing community development. We had our survey that we opened on February 9 and we closed on the 16th of March. It was available on the city's web page and also to uh the city's Facebook and it was emailed to our CDBG contacts and posted on Facebook there. 82 responses were received and participants were asked questions on homelessness, affordable housing, community development and public services. And as you can see the homelessness and housing, the community feels we should work on permanent housing with supportive services, transitional and emergency and temporary shelters, medical respit housing, uh special needs housing for the homeless, mental health, seniors, veterans, youth, pre and post addiction housing in the community development area. They would like to see more uh regarding job creation, retention, employment training, startup business assistance, commercial industrial rehabilitation, small business loans, and business mentoring services. For public services, uh they'd like to see more help with mental health, homeless, addiction recovery, crime prevention, life skills training, employment, job skills training. public facilities. I'd like to see uh us work on more centers for homeless navigation, youth centers, child care facilities, job vocational centers, and senior citizens. Uh public improvements, infrastructure,

code enforcement. They'd like to see more of trash and debris removal, downtown rehabilitation, improved transportation options, public beautififications, sidewalk improvements, historic preservation and water system improvements were on the list. The needs and priorities is tonight. You can see this is our yearly process. February 9th through March 16 was the survey. Tonight is the hearing for needs and priorities. June 9th through July 14th will be public comment for the draft year 2 annual action plan. August 5th will be the adoption hearing before you again. August 14 will be the last day I can submit the adopted year 2 annual action plan to HUD. October 1, our program year begins and September 30, 2027 is when the program year ends. funding allocations. This is the second year of the 2025 2029 5-year consolidated plan. The city did just receive last week our allocation for the year, which is $312,469. 15% of that will be allocated for public services. 20% of that will be allocated for planning and administrative services. and the remaining mount of 203,104 will be allocated for weather rehabilitation program, public facilities, microenterprise activities, and site and public improvements. And any funds that we have remaining from program year 2025, which we're currently in, will be allocated according to the category. This year we to show more transparency

we put out an RFP for public services. Uh we of course award only 15%. Uh we had it posted to the city web page and the city Facebook page on February 2nd with a 30-day period to complete. We received eight applications. We put together a review committee and uh to help us select and review the applications. During the review of the applications, four were deemed eligible to receive an award while four others were required to provide additional information. The four applicants that were deemed eligible were Boys and Girls Club, Hearts with a Mission, Maslo Project, Welcome Home Oregon. We're waiting on responses from the other four which are 715 VOTE, Rock Food Pantry, St. Vincent Depal, and UKAN which does our emergency housing. And once we've received the revised applications, the review committee will review them again and determine if they met all the criteria that they required. And to be fair and equitable, the city plans to divide that award that is given to the public services uh equally among all of the applicants. Now, this public hearing does not commit any funds. Projects in the 26 27 year 2 annual action plan are funded from CDBG funds and the award amount as I mentioned earlier is 312,469 for this new year. Call to action. You must open the hearing to public for any other public comments. No other action is required. There's no resolution or acknowledgement um because this is merelyformational to

apprise you of what the survey and the community feels we need to uh address in our new program year. And then following the public comment of the draft 2627 year 2 AAP in July, it will be brought back to the council in early August for your consideration and adoption before it's submitted to HUD for their approval. Any questions? Thank you. Uh, any questions from council? Indra? No. Joel, no. Seth, Victoria,

um, I was just want as you were giving this really great presentation and thank you so much for it. I was wondering when the uh survey opened on the website. If you don't remember off the top of your head, you gave us the closing date, but I just uh February 9th. February 9th, it closed. It opened on February 9th and then closed on the 16th of March. Oh, okay. Thank you so much. So, it gave them about uh right five weeks. Yeah. Good. Thank you, Eric. No, Rick. No. Rob. No.

All right. I got one question. So, the serve is the survey. So, you mentioned in your presentation and I'm just trying to get the dynamics. Um, you kept saying the community what the community wants needs, but you proclaimed that the survey only resulted in 82 people. That is correct. Yes. Okay. So, is there any other resources besides the survey that you're getting community information on the community needs? And I can you explain that a little bit more? Do you understand what I'm asking? Yes, I do. Um, actually the um public service people that I work with, our partners in the community are constantly updating me on uh and I'm sure the city as well on what the community should be working on. Maybe we can work on it better.

Perfect. Perfect. It was just a little misleading in there saying that the survey and then I was like only 82 people and so thank you very very much for your clarification. At this point, um, we will open up for public comment on this presentation. That was basically information only, but if you any, um, buddy from the audience wants to weigh in, now is your time. Noting that there will be another public comment portion for this before it's adopted in the June July period. So, I'm not seeing anybody jumping up. So, at that point, uh, we will move on. And thank you very much. Oh, any further discussion from council? Seeing none, we will continue on with our next council action. Resolution authorizing wait resolution authorizing notice of intent to award the non-bargaining salary and compensation study proposal. And we have a presentation from Aaron. Right. Good evening, Mayor Council. Subject and summary today and mayor already introduced it. it it's uh council's desire to potentially authorize a notice of intent to award for a non-bargain salary and compensation study proposal. The RFP went out and this was based on uh council direction and so we went out and we did an RFP. We received um uh a number of responses but the RFP does require the selected consultant to evaluate the southern Oregon specifically city council called out Medford, Ashlin, Clement Falls, Central Point and Roseber. The consultant will work closely with HR to help provide a full market analysis, recommended salary adjustments and

documented process for maintaining competitive ranges into the future, which should then uh be reported to city council. As stated in the RFP, the price was determined based on qualifications for the award. The proposal received were listed here in order uh with Synergize HR being the low bidder. We also have Jackie Kennedy from CenterJISED uh on virtually so you can ask questions with regards to the proposal if you so desire and those are in front of you in the packet. Cost implications is 15,900 low bid, high bid is $35,000 and your alternatives is to approve low bid or you can reject all bids. And again, as I mentioned, Jackie Kennedy from Synergize is available for questions.

Thank you. Um, we'll bring back to council for questions. Rob,

Erin, I noticed in one of the proposals and probably maybe all of them um there was uh uh one of the applicants uh presented their liability insurance coverage. So, I'm wondering on liability, if the if the city were to adopt someone's plan and then were later sued by an employee for an equity issue or something along those lines, is that uh fall back on the the um the consultant that recommended that we took that action or what does their liability actually uh cover their insurance cover? I it would not if you adopted something whatever you adopt and the consultant is just making recommendation it they're not going to be liable for the the the recommendation you adopt like say some there was a pay equity issue um that would be covered by our uh potentially covered by uh city county insurance and we go through that process with our own insurance that we have uh Rick

yes Um, I was chairing a committee before looking at the non-bargaining group before and one of the terms that came up was a rubric used by a previous consultant and I'm wondering does synergized HR do they use a rubric or they just stick with facts and figures and then if they do use a formula or rubric are they willing to disclose that to us to So we understand how they were able to formulate and come up with the results.

That detail would be detail that would be best asked by uh to Jackie Kennedy from Yeah. from Synergize. Hello everyone. I can jump in and answer that if if that's okay. That would be great Jackie. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, so kind of how I don't have a rubric per se, but how the process works on our end is when we collect the data, we have a very comprehensive spreadsheet that we use that covers everything from the data that we received by the city. So every city would be listed, each position would be listed, the min, mid and max, so the minimum, middle, and max range for each position. So all that data is on just one tab and this is a very long and convoluted process. So I don't I don't want to bore you guys. But to answer your question, all data we receive, everything we analyze, all the numbers behind what we do is inside a spreadsheet that we do provide to our clients. So the city would receive a copy of the spreadsheet that covers everything from wages to benefits, anything being surveyed. So you have that, you know, that right there in front of you where it's transparent and defensible data.

Thank you. You answered my question. Thanks. Uh Eric, do you have any question? I do. Um I'm not sure if I'm using the proper terminology here, but uh there was a something that um when we were as council, we were going to table the whole thing with the city manager taking him off the scale pay the regular pay scale. I'm not sure if I'm saying that the proper way, but I didn't see anything like that in here as far as we were asking for advice for for uh the um from the consultant. I don't know if that's going to be part of this or if that's something that's going to happen afterward.

Actually, that scope that's ultimately up to council whether or not you want to take the city manager position and keep it in the salary structure with non-bargaining or if you want to keep it separate.

Yeah, we were just wanting to get advice from the consultant. Um, so I don't know if that's going to be on here or not. That's what I'm asking actually. And to answer that question is that's really up to you guys how you feel more comfortable, you know, with transparency and how it's all laid out to the public as well. I recently completed a survey in California where they wanted everything completely transparent. So the city administrator in that case was listed in the data that we provided. But with that being said, I do want to note that along with this spreadsheet that we provide with all the raw data, we also build out a report. So the report was shared. So not every nuance behind the city administrator may have been shared, but like recommendations were called out inside the report. So we're happy to include the um city manager in this. I mean that's fine. We've done it either way or we can also have it more so just reflecting to the public recommendations. If you guys have like specific concerns that you have, I'm happy to kind of reanalyze that and answer any more additional questions.

No, I I think uh I think there's a misunderstanding of what I'm asking. Uh

I believe councelor Nicholas brought this up before as far as having to take the city manager off of the and again I'm not sure if I'm saying it properly but off of the regular pay scale and and uh so we were wanting to hold off on that and wait for advice from the consultant whichever one we pick um so as to make sure that we're it's being done properly and that it is being done properly. Um, can does anybody on the council know what I'm talking about as far as specifically uh if I'm saying it wrong or improperly, please jump in.

Victoria,

yes. I think we were looking to see what the parameters of taking the city manager off of the steps and having a separate pay scale uh or maybe not even a pay scale, just something different. And so we talked about this a little bit and so Jackie maybe you could tell us if you would be able to give us information back about what the city manager's salary would be like on a pay scale. But then also a second option of having the city manager outside the steps entirely um and still have it reflected with uh market range within our southern Oregon area.

Sure. Okay. Thank you for that. Yes. I'm sorry. I was misunderstanding. I apologize. Yes, organizations can have multiplestep processes. different positions can be in different steps. I am happy to provide a couple different options so you guys see that in and like in black and white what it would look like to the city and to the taxpayers and them as options when I create these reports. It is recommendations to the city for you to really, you know, work with me to see if you agree with it. If not, we can analyze it even further. But I'm happy to provide as many options as you'd like to have a full transparent visual of what you're looking at.

Go ahead, Eric. Is are the prices going to remain the same or is it going to be uh uh increased because of that additional ask? No, the price would stay the same. Thank you, V. Victoria, did you have any further questions?

Yeah. Hi, Jackie. and and thank you so much. Um, when I was looking through your proposal, you had an eight-step process and a part of that on weeks 3 through five, you said where data is limited or varied between jurisdictions, synergized HR will apply a practical and standardized approach to ensure results are accurate, comparable, and reflective of current market conditions. for my first question. I wonder if you could explain that just a little bit more fully for us. Sure. I'm sorry. I'm trying to go I'm trying to skim through here. Um it was on page eight.

Yeah,

I've got it. Thank you so much. Um so so basically this is kind of like a a safety net for us as well where if when you're looking at comparator cities a lot of times there might be some some I don't want to say conflict of interest because I know a lot like most city positions and pay budgets and pay is transparent and available to the public anyway. But we put this in here just because we don't like to call out anything specific that will tie a title to a certain name. Even though it could be obviously people will know who the city manager, city administrators are for each city, but we just don't put that in our actual report. We don't call out the names. So we just make sure that everything is practical, transparent, but doesn't really impact any conflict of interest. I don't know if I'm making any sense. Happy to answer any more questions around that.

Oh yes, thank you. That does answer. And then um in looking through different proposals, your company has an eightstep process. There were some who had uh 13st step uh and months long. I really love that yours is a is a like a 8 to nine week process and that really seemed wonderful to me. But my question was in some of the other proposals they included like a year from now or uh into the future being able to come back to the company and ask about different shifts or projections for the future. Is that something that would be included in your proposal or or offered from your company?

Absolutely. And that isn't you're right. I don't have that in my proposal, but I do offer it. The city in California just recently on this call mentioned I am on standby if they have questions as they roll out and implement things that they can reach out to me. I think to make you guys, if you would move forward with synergized HR, we could include that in the contract. We could list a um bit of verbiage in there to say that for like for a year in advance we could be there to help with any implementation questions, any shifts, any type of adjustments that need to be made to a certain extent. You know, we don't want to do a whole other study on top of that for the same fee, but we would be on call for like some advisory services.

Okay. Thank you so much, Seth. Yeah, I have two quick questions. Erin, this one's for you first. Um, did we or did the city contact any of the references or even, you know, for instance, this this city in California? I'm just curious to see what they had to say. I believe HR did some background references to make qualifications on the ones that brought forward. We did receive a couple of other applica uh responses, but they were non-responsive, so they were not included in this in this package. So, we did some initial backgrounds.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was just curious because it it would be kind of nice to to hear from that other city, you know, just to see what they had to say about the experience. And then I have a question for you, Jackie. Um, regarding the the timeline, 6 to 8 weeks, because all the other ones that we received were um greater than that. I do like, you know, shorter timelines and obviously saving money. I just I'm just curious, you know, in your experience like with this other city you just recently worked with, did that timeline actually um happen? I mean, it's just, you know, I I guess I just don't want it to be too quick and then, you know, we we rush through things. Um, some this seems like it would take time to do something like this,

right? Exactly. So, a couple points. Well, actually, I have three points. I'm happy to provide the information for the city in California as a reference. I I don't think I included it on this proposal because it wasn't completed yet. So, I'd like to provide the references once we're done and closed out. So, that's something I'm happy to provide to Karen if you guys want to look into that. And also for the um one of the reasons why I feel like my steps are probably shorter than others is that I am a smaller firm. I'm not one of these large firms that has multiple contracts. So, when I accept contracts, I'm able to sit down, really focus on those myself and my team. So, that's why we're a little bit um shorter. And then um what was the last part? I'm so sorry. What was the other part of your question?

No, that that mostly answers it. It was mostly just about the timeline um and and I guess how you know with these other cities you've worked with did was that timeline um possible or did it go over? Yeah.

No, so California I believe that one was a 10w week um I think it was a 10-w week contract. I'd have to look and verify but it's California there. I was also had a lot more nuances to that study that I don't always have with other states. So, that was a little more um time consuming, but we did finish on schedule. And I've not I've never not completed one on schedule, put it that way. That's even with sometimes there's things outside of our control where, you know, we need information from the cities we work with. Sometimes we've been delayed in receiving that information and we've still finished on time. Okay. Thank you. Joel, do you got any questions?

Andrea, do you have any questions? All right. All right. Thank you. I don't think we have any more. Oh, sorry. Rob's got one more. Go ahead, Rob. Apologize. One more. So, um, it it seems as though um it's, you know, you you present the advantages, I guess, of being smaller and more uh um possibly agile organization. I guess that that, you know, can be a that's the positive can be a double-edged sword. I'm just wondering um it's your company has been around for how many years in this this company?

Just just short of three years. I started my own consulting agency. I have about 20 25 years experience in HR and I just started my own started my own company about three years ago. Okay. So, um it I I didn't see it in your u in your application. And I'm just wondering uh how many municipal clients have you had uh of similar size to Grants Pass?

I would say because I do also so let me also explain my company here too because I have a two um business model to my company. So I work with tech startups as one half of my company. So that's half my portfolio and then I also do government contracts. So I don't fully focus on government contracts 24/7 because I have a two business model approach but I would say probably within the past um year and a half maybe it's been about five on my own but I do I have also partnered with a company out of Dallas Texas and I have worked on joint ventures with them as well. So, um I'm not sure if I missed it in your application. Were those five municipal clients listed because there was I saw one from California and I'm not sure who the other four were and I

Yeah, I did not I didn't list them all just because of spacing and I was trying to get all my experience and our experience wrapped up in one. But like I also have worked with companies and um and here in Colorado PBLO as well. So, there are things that I have not listed, but if you want more references, I can get those for you as well.

Um, well, I I certainly would feel more comfortable if we had a reference from more than one city of you doing the kind of work that um we are looking for. Um, you know, what some of the others that applied literally had, if not hundreds, they may have had a thousand reference cities that they were presenting in their application. And I realize it's a double-edged sword. The fact that you could be uh more agile and uh give us more attention is a plus of a small company, but how small do we want to go? So, I'm just um one one municipality seems a little light on that part of your resume.

Well, I don't and I don't have hundreds. I do not have hundreds of cities. I probably don't have a fraction of what some companies that have been doing this for a long time and the larger organizations such as CPSHR, Evergreen, those types of companies. So, I don't have that and I'm just going to be transparent with you because I just three years ago left corporate America where I worked with Fortune 500 companies and started my own business. So, I have worked a lot with on federal contracts and um municipalities. A lot of that is through my joint venture through KS Consulting in Dallas, Texas. So, I guess, you know, I just want to be transparent with that. I don't want to waste your time. If that's something you're looking for with somebody with hundreds of city, you know, references. I do not have that. I am a smaller company. I'm growing and I also work with tech companies on the side. So, it's not a government full-time that I work with.

Okay. I guess there's a big there's a difference though between someone that has hundreds and someone that is only listing one. So, do you have any more municipal references that you can provide to our staff so that we do backgrounds? I Yes, I can do that. I also worked for a municipality before my consulting days. So, I worked here in Colorado for a municipality as HR manager. So, I do have that experience as well. But I can provide more references for you. Great. Thank you.

Any further questions? Um um yeah.

Okay, Rob. Go ahead. So, so, um, I believe our city staff forward you an email that I sent that had some concerns as far as the, uh, the list of the transparency and, you know, I'm not I have no idea, you know, how much of our our drama you've you're aware of, but we had another consultant that essentially said, "Trust trust my my um my proprietary formula." And that's that's as far as she would go with explaining anything to us. Um, did you got that you got that email that had my my concerns on there? Yes, sir, I did.

So, did you see anything listed there that was any kind of uh concern for you or that you wouldn't be able to deliver or that you don't nor that you don't naturally deliver as part of your uh part of your package?

No. I mean, honestly, when I read your email, it just it seemed a little off to me because I if you saw once you would speak to city of exor California that I worked with to just and I'm saying that because I just completed them, but I am a data person and for me to sit, you know, a lot of times people I'm required to sit with boards and go over the findings and my report. If I don't understand how I got there, then I'm just, you know, a hot mess. So, I need to be able to understand the data, too. I didn't see anything in your email, and I even have it here in front of me that worried me because I do provide probably more data than what somebody needs. So, um there's nothing in there, sir, that really bothered me. I just And I don't know I don't know anything else about the drama. I just know from your email that you obviously had something go horribly wrong and I would hope that I would not be that.

Okay. And um I I just uh in that email there was just some examples and I'm not any kind of uh uh professional finance person or professional HR person but the way that um the example of how the data would be easy for council to understand uh laying things out you know in um ascending or descending order from one town to another or from within our own organization and um where our non-bargaining pumps up against the the union group, things like that, laying it out very clearly because that was another point where a lot of these figures were essentially you had to hunt all over the the uh the data sheets to put them together for yourself. So, I'm hoping that you uh as part of your normal course of business, it sounds like uh you have some of the same concerns that that I guess our council would have uh that you would lay things out in a really easy to understand manner. And um it'd be great if we could see uh how you laid it out for exit. Uh because it's that's this is exactly the you know that that was the second part of uh uh what made the other data first of all it was lacking and second of all it was laid out in a really in a way that wasn't easy to understand. Um would we be a yeah would we be able to see like ah some of your finished work to see how you lay it out? I could sure I could send you I don't you know I couldn't send the whole thing but I could maybe send like snapshots of each tab on my spreadsheet so you can see you know how the data is laid out what all is there like I'm looking at my spreadsheet right now and it's about eight or nine tabs long so I have would be happy to do screenshots just so you could see like this is portrays what I would get now it's not in ascending a descending order. They didn't ask for that, but that's an easy fix on my end.

Okay. Yeah, that would be great. So that that council would know what what to expect specifically, what we could expect from you and and the style of your work. That would be it'd be great for this particular council and probably the entire council. Thank you. Perfect.

All right, any further questions? All right, seeing none. Thank you very much, Erin. Thank you, Jackie. Um, so at this point, uh, we will open up for public comment. Is there anybody in the audience that wants to weigh in on this council action at this time specifically on this topic? We'll have general public comments later, but if you want to weigh in on this topic, then I'm just I'm just reiterating. So, go ahead and step up and and restate your name. A lot of people jump up and think it's general public comment time, but we do that later. My name is John Slater and I was asked to come and pray for you.

I have kind of an ignorant question. This is just a question more than a comment. the do these compensation studies include the municipal revenue streams? So I I flipped through your document and I just wondered as you compare salaries of directors and department heads etc. Are you looking at the amount of money that comes into these cities so that when you evaluate a particular position it's relative to the income stream of that city? Is that a consideration?

Thank you for your comments. Anybody else from the audience? All right. Thank you. I'll bring it back to council for further discussion or action. Rob,

well, I I uh I typically um lean towards hiring a uh a lean, more agile, smaller operation that's a little bit hungrier and a little more focused and takes possibly a little bit more pride in doing a really good job. So, um, Synergy could be could be a good fit as far as what I typically appreciate, especially since they because they probably have lower overhead because they're a little smaller. They're also less expensive. That doesn't mean they're necessarily any less uh less competent. Um I I'd like to see uh an example specific example of their work and uh exactly how well it does it is explained and how well it is laid out so that we're not hit with a surprise in eight weeks because council will not be interacting uh with the consultant. The staff may be interacting but we will not be interacting. So I'd have like to have a little better idea of exactly what their work looks like. Um, other than that, um, it sounds uh, very reasonable to me and I I do appreciate smaller, more agile, less expensive, a little bit hungrier uh, small companies. Rick, I feel very positive about Senator G's HR and feel we could possibly move forward tonight. Um, I like her responses to my questions and I just have a sense that the information we would be getting as a city council would be understandable and and um so we would know what direction to go. Thank you.

All right. Further discussion, Joel.

So, um, she's done a very good job of listing her resources and I haven't heard anybody called those resources. Um so um I think that's negligent on our part. I guess I could have done it or we all could have done it individually. I didn't I didn't do that. Um but uh I I would say uh I I see nothing wrong with hiring her provided that the re the uh references that she's provided including the the city in California come up with no red flags. uh to to not do that I think would be negligent. Okay. Uh Eric, did you want to weigh in?

Yeah, I I agree with a lot of what was said here. um to to answer uh uh John's email there or email uh your question, what we've done obviously is we've asked for the local area um to get to get a an idea of what the local area comparisons are to the other local cities. So that's that's kind of where we're going with this. Southern Oregon, specifically Bedford, Ashlin, Clamoth Falls, Central Point, and Roseber. Um, so a comparison to that to make it closer to what we're doing here, um, to what we'd like to be have. Um, but yes, I agree with everything else that everybody's talked about up here, smaller organization and also uh the references would be important to uh to get so that we can um get more specifics. Thank you,

Victoria.

Yeah, I think I agree with most of what everybody said as well. I would be comfortable moving forward tonight contingent upon um references and uh I don't know if it's would be appropriate or not but it would be really good for council to get updates. Uh this particular contract is break broken up into weeks one through three. I don't remember exactly, but after each of the phases for council to get I don't know if it needs to be a comprehensive update, but just uh get some feedback after each one of those uh phases so that if we had any questions, we could submit them. So, I would th those would be two um items I'd like to see added. References and then the ability for council to get updates throughout the project and be able to give feedback.

Seth? Oh, yeah. I guess I'm in favor of all that. Does it make sense to make a motion tonight then to approve contingent on those or move forward get that information and on the next meeting motion to? That's what we have to do, right? That would kind of be up to you guys. But if you did postpone it to get So basically I think the the downfall of postponing the award to get more references extends the timeline. So maybe a more efficient way would be like you suggest maybe um approving the award with the contingency of getting um but what if you get the the references back and you're like I don't then that's kind of your call

then because it was contingent upon uh the reference clean reference check and sample documentation of work. Um if it came back and there was red flags we would not be signing I would not be signing the contract because there's a contingency on the resolution. I'd be bringing anything to council that did not clear about a reference about reference checks. So, and then we would give you sample work product like was was asked also and if there's I'll give you a report on on the background checks and if it's good then we can continue to move forward with the contract.

I mean I guess it's fine. It just seems like to stay above board. I Rob, you might have you might know where I'm going with this. I just I just wanted to make sure it's clean. Indre, did you have anything to add? Okay, go ahead, Rob.

Well, the length of time it's going to take is exactly the same either way. So, to me, it would make sense to see the references. And personally, I'd like to see an example of their work um the exit California um work that they did. So, we know exactly the style of their work and what we can expect, but it's going to take the exact same length of time. um you know if once the references come back it then has to come back to us to another meeting to essentially give the go-ahad. So um either way you know there's no advantage to going forward tonight before we've seen the references. There's zero there's zero time advantage to that. So going forward before we've seen the references and before we've seen the work is not any faster. And that's that's just the math, right? It's uh so I I would just like to see again references and that that may be able to be done very quickly. Example of work may be able done very quickly and if it's that important to us we could even have a special meeting to approve and it shouldn't take very long. It could be uh it could be a 15-minute special meeting or less to then move forward once we've actually gotten all the information. I I see no advantage at all moving forward before we actually have actually approved it.

Victoria Well, it just seems like forward motion is probably good and uh so I would just and although I understand that the time will I I'm not sure if I do agree the time would be the same because um hashing through a lot of the things would would probably take a little bit more time. So I think in the time of efficiency I would like to go ahead and make a motion to adopt this uh propo this RFP with the contingency that we receive and uh approve the um the references and also the second thing would be to be able to give feedback throughout the project. the council will get updates that might be in the form of a memo um with each step. Okay. So, you have a motion on the table with a second from Rick to approve um the adoption of synergy RFP with contingencies. Seth,

that sounds okay. Okay. But again, I'm just I'm just confused because if if we get the references back and one of us disagrees or let's say we all agree, then we're technically deciding again that we're we're it's almost another vote in a sense, right? I mean, so that's why I'm just saying like doesn't it have to happen in a public meeting? That's that's my only concern. It's not it's not about I'm going to let uh Stephanie weigh in this because I think that is kind of the question is if you go forward and award uh uh award with contingencies, how does the actual legal RFP process work?

It depends on who gets to decide whether or not there's excuse me red flags. if it's something pops up and Aaron sees it and then it would be paused and brought back to you. If that's what you're talking about as far as a contingency based for those um references, that wouldn't need to come back for any kind of a vote. It would just be it either goes forward because there were no red flags or there were red flags so it was brought back to you. If you're talking about council needing to see the uh references and council making the decision on whether there's red flags, then it absolutely has to come back for another vote.

Rob. Yeah. Um because we're dealing with a company that is so small and has so little specific municipal experience. Um I' I'm I'd like to see some example of their work. It'd be one thing if they had hundreds of satisfied customers and um you know one day uh this this firm may have hundreds of satisfied customers and we can be one of the references but um uh I'll be voting no until we can see actually some examples of their work and until we've actually uh gotten their references. That would be the correct order of doing any kind of contract and any and especially when we're dealing with someone else's money, the taxpayer dollars. um to move forward for the sake of forward motion makes no sense to me until we've actually seen their work and also um uh you know had at least staff had the ability if not counselors as Joel mentioned that you know he may have said seen uh expressed some interest in um looking for um some of the references but I mean I want to I want to go forward with each step here with certainty and that can be done if we get the references and see an example of their work. Uh because I' I'd have to vote no before we get those those pieces of information.

So Stephanie, I have another question in regards to the legal procedures for the RFP. So if the RFP is not awarded tonight, um because we're asking one applicant for additional information, does that courtesy have to be afforded to all applicants? um my brief review of the RFP because I wasn't involved in writing it, but my review of that says that we are allowed to ask a single applicant for additional information. Okay, thanks for the clarification. Uh Victoria was first and then Rick. So, Victoria,

so Stephanie, um, in the scenario where I'm assuming that staff looks at the references and, uh, can council be forwarded the summary of what staff sees in a memo or would that have to come back to an open meeting?

Technically, we could forward it. That being said, what the potential is is then we end up with a serial meeting issue if there's any discussion about that content that is comes from it. So, we we can provide information. It just is can be a little bit risky if we do that. Couldn't council just email you with uh questions that they any questions that they had and then you would be able to let council know there's five counselors who have a question or something that and then it wouldn't be a serial meeting. It would just be that then puts me in the position of potentially being an intermediary.

It oh in a serial meeting. I understand. Thank you. I'm I'm getting the appetite. I'm getting the sense that the council has the appetite to actually review this information. So, I think I'm going to let Rob weigh in, but that's kind of what I'm seeing from here is that the council really wants to weigh in on information. So, I think that's going to open up a different path for us, but I'm going to let you weigh in, Rob.

So, even though Aaron didn't say it tonight and he should have said it the very beginning of his presentation, um, at least I don't remember hearing it. He has a major conflict of interest here, as does every staff member. When Stephanie has led these conversations, she's led off every single one of them acknowledging her uh conflict of interest because she's a member of this group. So to actually to run the red flag check through the staff that has a overt conflict of interest is not in the taxpayers's best interest, pure and simple. So we can take the time and again it doesn't have to be much more time. If Jackie seems uh willing to work with us, if she gets that information to us, if we have to, we could have a special meeting and do it very quickly. We doesn't have to necessarily be two to four weeks out. But to rely on staff who has a conflict of interest to filter this information for us is not not the way that I was brought up and that's doesn't feel right in any cell in my body. And

and thank you for that comment, Rob. Um, the conversation that I've heard tonight is staff was not offering or suggesting that they would do the red flags. It was two different scenarios that that Stephanie pointed out if you did. She said it was up to council decision if council wanted to do it. So, it was kind of an explanation. I didn't see any staff members saying that they wanted to go through the red flag. The bottom line is there was no mention in the beginning that staff had a conflict of interest, even though it should have been said, right? And the point is is that it seemed like some of council was asking staff to be in that position. That's the point I was making. I didn't say the staff offered it, but that was what council was asking. And

yeah, that's I was just clarifying because I I I didn't I didn't feel that the staff was saying they wanted to control this completely. They were just giving us a couple scenarios. So Rick, you'd have more comments. Yes. After hearing additional council discussion, I'm in agreement that I feel the whole council wants to review the material that's coming forward and we're probably looking at another meeting. So, if the motion stands, I would not be voting for it tonight. Thank you. So, with that said, do you withdraw your second? I withdraw my second. Okay. Because that's probably an easier way to do it. Um, Victoria, go ahead.

Well, I was just going to withdraw the motion. So, uh, but to clarify, I was not asking staff to weigh in, um, to put up the red flags. I was asking them to report back to each of the counselors and asking if that could be done through a memo. So, I was asking staff to be able to do that, but we cannot do that because of serial meeting uh, concerns. So, I withdraw the motion, but it it's moved because the second was removed. Do you want to just amend your motion? Why don't you go ahead and withdraw and give us a new motion? Oh. Oh, I did. I did. I

give a new motion. Well, I make a motion that let's just get down the road. We've kind of got the sentiment the information that we need uh from the RFP are references. We need uh I would like to make a motion to get references and uh the screenshots that she was talking about about what her work would look like, examples of the work and um all before and then we'll come back at the next meeting or a special meeting to be announced uh to vote again. Thank you.

Okay. So, you have a motion on the table that has been um reiterated with a second from Rick that uh the council receives the information requested in in regards to references and screenshots, basically examples of her work um to push the award to a later date. Joel,

well, that process surely will work. But the one thing that um I feel is um probably more efficient, you just have one council person work with with the uh with the city manager. The city manager has hire and fire. Uh but uh but either way will work. Um, I mean, uh, you get eight people involved in checking references, that gets messy in a hurry, and I understand only one person's going to be calling. Um, but, um, yeah, council is just going to review the information. That seems really cumbersome to me, but Okay. Any further discussion? There is a motion on the table.

Any further discussion, Victoria? Just as a clarification, Joel, it it would just be reviewing the extra information, I think, because we we had a ton of information to review this time that we did individually and came with our questions. So, I don't think it would be that that any more cumbersome. Any further discussion? All right, we have a motion on the table with a second to um postpone the award of this RFP until the council has time to review um references as well as examples of work. And no further discussion, I'll go into vote. Victoria, yes. Um Seth,

yes. Uh Joel, yes. Indra, I abstain. Okay. Um, Rob, yes. Rick, yes. Eric, yes. Okay. Majority rules. So, that goes ahead. An RFP is not awarded tonight, but we do have a request for staff to get more information. Staff have direction. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Uh, next on the agenda is a resolution approving commercial activity at Riverside Park and a fee waiver for the 2026 concerts in the park season. Looks like Bradley has a presentation for us. Yes, I do. Mayor, council, members of the public, Bradley Clark, um, get this little thing up here. Uh, community development. Uh we all uh kind of go pretty quick through this since you're uh pretty familiar with fee waiver requests. Um but the one tonight before you is uh from the Grants Pass and Josephine County Chamber of Commerce and uh we have uh both uh Christian Terry here tonight representing them. Um and uh primarily the the goal that supports this request is public safety by enhancing the level of community use involvement and presence in in a public space. So here's the background. Most of which came from their application. Um 36 year more than 36 years of this uh concerts in the park event. Um and I point to the last item there. These are the dates that specifically we're talking about here tonight. June 16 and June 23, June 30, July 7, and July 14th. So these are five Tuesdays in June and July uh where the request tonight pertains to MUN code 6.46 is kind of what triggers this commercial activity. It is commercial activity for a couple of reasons. They are expecting more than 150 people at any one time. So that triggers the commercial activity. Um they also have uh vendors and and uh food uh vendors and things like that that are going to be part of the activity. Um the fees that would typically be charged are listed there in the second bullet totaling a little over $3,000. Um and they are in their application

requesting that full amount to be waved by the council. Um it is a free series to the community as uh most of you know. Uh 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on those Tuesday evenings. um estimating 2,000 attendees, a familyfriendly event, and uh they are proposing to have alcohol and food vendors at the event. Here's the site plan. Pretty similar to last year's layout if you went. Um the the the main pavilion being here and then a a portable stage being brought in uh here uh closing off the main entry uh both north and south uh for um for for that main driveway for vehicle traffic. Um cost implication as I mentioned a little over $3,000 of fees being waved. Uh call to action is tonight and you can approve the request um to wave all or part of the reservation fees as well as the uh commercial activity permit. There's a motion recommended for you.

Thank you. Um any questions from counselors? Rob. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I'm going to go the other way. Indra. No. Joel. Seth. Victoria. Rick. So Brad, in the past when you we've traditionally waved it year after year, correct? Everything or only part are those fees? You you have in recent years waved 100%.

Okay. So after the fact, I realize this is a very reliable event and we don't have problems. Have we seen any damage occur that we the city then picked up the tab because it did not have a

um not no nothing significant. Um, you know, Josh has reported back that you know, maybe there's some sprinkler heads that uh been broken, but there's a very good relationship between the park staff and the chambers u chamber and um you know there's always been no problems with uh with any repairs. There's good communication if something you know gets broken or maybe a tree limb gets you know they inform us right away. Um so no, I'm not aware of any significant costs that we have incurred as a result of the event. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Any further questions? Okay, I don't think we have more questions. So, at this time, um, we can open up to public comment if anybody from the public wants to, um, state their opinion for this council action or against this council action. Now is the time. All right, seeing nobody jump up, I'll bring it back to council for further discussion and or action. Rob, anything?

Um, yeah, it's I I've I've brought this up before with a different group with Parkatch Group and I was comfortable with them uh waving the uh damage deposit because I think that they actually uh do more benefit to our parks and that they would do harm. Um I would feel comfortable again because it's a the chamber is a community fixture and this event is really tremendously beneficial for the entire community. is not just a money maker for them, although it may be a money maker for them, but it's beneficial for the whole community. But I just want to go on record again as saying that I uh in general, I don't think that uh ref um uh waving a damage deposit is the smart move. There are exceptions and Park Watch would be one and maybe the chamber would be another. That doesn't mean other groups I would be in favor of that, but for this one, I'd probably be in favor of the entire waiver.

Thanks, Rick. Anything? Eric, Victoria, I just wondered if the band shell will be in operation for any of the concerts in the park this year. It's kind of beyond what we're talking about here, but it would just be so nice for them. Um, so I just wondered.

Great question. Um, we have had uh several discussions back and forth. Um, and that certainly was our goal. Um, we ran into a pretty significant time delay because of the FEMA rule that we weren't expecting last fall, which puts several months behind in terms of us finding out how we could comply, doing a mitigation plan. Um, we are still on schedule um right now that it to to have it done uh prior to the event, but um in talking with the chamber, I think they just, you know, felt uncomfortable because the timeline just got so tight. Um and so for for them to feel more confident in in in their planning um they just chose to kind of repeat what they did last year. But at this point um we are still on schedule to have it completed by the event.

Thank you, Seth. Yeah, I'm going to make a motion to approve the resolution allowing the commercial activity and grant a waiver of the park fees at Riverside Park for the uh 2026 concerts in the park season. All right, we have a motion on the table to approve the resolution and a second from Victoria. Any further discussion, Joel? So, I'm a little bit confused on um deposits versus fees um are they all fees or are they uh are some of them fees and some of them deposits that that the person gets back?

Yeah, good question, counselor. the the deposit is the only one that that gets refunded in full, assuming that that we don't need to use the deposit to pay for any repairs. Um the others are are not uh refunded. It's just the deposit that we hold until completion of the of the event. So then when I look at the motion, it it waves the fees and not the deposit. Is that technically I guess that's what I heard. Yeah. Well, that's up to council if you would like to include that, but I I think but the but the existing motion uh waves the fees but doesn't wave the deposit.

The motion on the table was to approve the resolution as stated. So that would be re re um Yeah. The deposit was included in that full 3,000 amount. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah. That's what the motion on the table is right now to approve the full resolution as stated which was the full full amount for the fees and deposit. Uh any further discussion? I had Eric. Well, it's a it's a question. Um I brought it up last time as far as uh alcohol was requested for this event. Um my question is uh is the insurance going to be okay? Are we going to be okay with insurance to cover any anything that is involved alcoholic related, alcohol related?

The chamber generally um supplies the insurance and then they are required to use a a certified server. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So, we have a motion on the table to approve the resolution as stated which would includes all fees and deposits and with a second. Any further discussion? Andra, I just wanted to say it's such a wonderful event and I'm fully supportive of waving all the fees and deposits. Any further discussion? All right, we'll go into a vote. Seth, yes. Um Joel, yes. Indra, yes. Rob, yes. Rick, yes. Eric, absolutely. Yes. Victoria, yes.

All right. Resolution passes. Thank you very much. All right. Finally on our council action list tonight is a motion to readt the city's investment policy and JC will lead us in a beautiful presentation. Have lots of charts. I mean you set a pretty big bar last time with all your uh you know with your your scales and your models. So I do not have expecting grandioso tonight.

I don't have any models or hand puppets tonight. Sorry. I'm just going to talk about the investment policy. um and its relationship to our council goals is fiscal stability. So just as a little bit of a background, uh we this was the first RFP that I actually initiated with the city when I got here was to get an investment advisor on board. And so we have uh government portfolio adviserss um as part of their contract uh they collaborate with the city to do edits to the investment policy. Now because we uh are uh restricted by OS which is 294.135 which requires local governments investing in securities with maturities longer than 18 months to annually adopt their investment policies. So that's why I'm here today. We have to do this annually. Uh this year GPA recommends no edits and that was in exhibit one. Um also outside of this kind of readoption of the policy uh there which again isn't in the policy but the direction given by previous council uh direction is to keep at least 3 million in local banks in the form of certificates of deposits and or as a kind of a second part to this presentation you can make edits to the uh corporate list that we can invest in. So, a little bit of some more background here. Uh, last year we did really well. Uh, we did about $6.7 million in interest earnings for the city. Uh, this year currently we're about $3.4 million and I do expect us to be in about that $4.5ish million range. Um, and the reason for that decrease is interest rates are going down. Um but you can kind of see in 2023 that is when we uh initiated the contract for GPA and you can definitely see that there is a benefit for us having that contract. The cost implication there is no cost implication as we have GPA under contract for about another year and a half.

And here is the call to action today. And so I have a first motion mayor and then I have a second part. So, we just need to make sure that we do readopt the investment policy and then I have further direction that I can get from council from there. Okay. So, questions back to council. Uh, Rob, you got anything? Pass. Rick, pass. Eric, no. Victoria, nothing right now. Seth Joel,

I just one quick question on on page 265, which is um the it's page five of of the policy exhibit A, it says, uh periodic at least annual review of all authorized investment advisors under contract will be conducted by the investment officer to determine their continued eligibility within the portfolio guidelines, and they must notify the city immediately if any of the following issues arise and there's four different issues there. Did we get that report this year? Yeah. So, we didn't have any. So, I only report those things when there actually is an issue.

Okay. So, there was uh so uh it didn't happen. So, we did we got no notice at all. But the re but the review was conducted by the by correct. Yes. And so that is actually an SEC rule uh that I have to report back to you in the event that something does happen. In my career, I've only seen it happen one time. Right. It's just serious if it does happen. Okay. Thank you. Uh, any further questions, Indra? Okay. Any further? Rick, go right ahead. So, Jason, I think you already stated it. Um, how much do we pay this person? Uh, we pay them only $35,000 a year. Thank you.

Okay. Any further questions, Eric? Will this be uh reviewed or brought up to the um budget committee? Uh we don't normally bring this to the budget committee. Uh it's part of the council's policy decision to make that and then from the policy decision and obviously we bring the revenue projections from that policy decision into the budget committee. Thank you.

Any further questions? All right. Seeing none. So, uh, I'll open up public comment real quick and then we'll come back to you. Uh, at this moment in time, uh, this we forward the public an opportunity to weigh in on this council action item if you want to speak in favor or against this. Now is your time. All right. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to council for discussion and or action. And this is a two-parter. So your first one is to retain the investments as JC has stated it and then he's going to have another question for you. So I would look for further discussion and or action.

Victoria, I move to readt the investment policy as attached exhibit A. All right, we got a second on that. Second from Seth. Any further discussion on that? Seeing none, we'll go into a vote. Uh Rob, yes. Rick, yes. Eric, yes. Victoria, yes. Seth, yes. Joel, yes. Indra, yes. All right. Unanimously passes. And what was the last ask you had? So, I have a brief presentation for this next part. All right. Back to you then.

Yep. Uh so just for continued council direction, we do have some local considerations for certificates of deposits and then you can make corporate considerations to remove certain entities as investment opportunities that don't align with council values and goals. And again, I bring this back to you every year as an option. So on September 21st uh 2022, council gave direction to me, the investment officer, uh to keep a minimum of $3 million in local banks in the form of CDs and then allow for all eligible corporate investments per ORS and the policy. And then that is in exhibit two and that is subject to daily change and that list is actually on page 260 in your packet. So per our investment policy and per the state's rules, uh we can have a 10% maximum holdings in CDs and 5% per bank. Um potentially why people or policy boards like yourself want to invest in CDs is they feel that there's a local connection to the community and a partnership through those CD investments. Currently, we have $3 million held uh with Rogue Credit Union. For the corporate bronze and commercial paper, you can have 35% maximum of your current portfolio and 5% per issuer. Um, and I'll kind of go through this in the next couple slides that some entities have disallowed certain corporate bonds opportunities even though allowed by policy or RS because the values of those companies don't align with their governing bodies val uh values or goals. I'm just going to give you an a an example here. So, this is taken from the city of Portland's investment policy that was adopted on November 17, 2021. Uh, from time to time, the city council may remove a specific industry classification from appendix A, and I have appendix A for you on the next

slide, which they went through and listed certain classifications as to what they did not want uh the city to invest in as far as their securities. And that was on page 10 of their investment portfolio or their investment polic policy. Just to read them out loud, some of them are uh oil products, small arms, alcoholic beverages, casino and gaming, correctional facilities, and then security services. So some of the costs complications, CDs potentially from our investment advisors may be forgoing more profitable investments. uh corporate bonds and commercial paper, you may be foregoing more profitable investment opportunities. And then also, if we're going to cross certain corporations off the list, you may be inadvertently removing others on that list. So, some of these other corporations invest in other corporations. And so, inadvertently, you may be saying you don't want one, but you're actually crossing off multiple corporations. So, I have two called actions. one for the CDs and your alternatives obviously are to uh retain the $3 million minimum uh increase the $3 minimum or reduce the minimum for CDs and then I have potential motions depending on how you want to do that and I'll take questions if anybody has anything

uh questions yes so local banks do you rotate that around to different local banks how does that work. That's a good question. I don't rotate per se as far as it's this one, bank A, now it's bank B. I actually when they mature, I go out and do like I do an RFP or a quote and I make sure that the city gets the best price for their investment at that point in time. So, how long have we been with Rogue Community Credit Union? Or do you find that one bank is always the best and the money stays there?

No. Now, if you go back through our investment um reports, uh we were with Evergreen for a little bit with all 3 million and then split between Evergreen and Rogue. Um there these CDs have typically been on an annual maturity basis. So, every year we just kind of go back through and reevaluate and they're on they're staggered, so they're not 100% at the same time. Thank you, Joel. Got any questions? Um yes, when I was reviewing that list, there were several banks in Canada. There was four banks in Canada and a couple of them had uh um you know they had a ratings but they weren't the top. Why are we investing in Canada banks?

They're an allowable corporate entity that we can do. They distribute our risk better because they're in a different country. Uh that's probably a better question for the investment advisor, but I would say anything on the corporate list when they are attractive as far as in regard to US treasuries or other really risk-free rate kind of investments. Sure. Um if there's the opportunity there, then typically there's an opportunity to make more interest, make more money off those investments.

Sure. I don't want to open the can of worms and say we need to remove them at this time, but it seemed kind of odd that we were investing in Canadian banks. Seth, got any questions? Victoria, the investment firm, uh, I don't know if this is an answerable question or maybe it is. Um, how often do they update on their, um, investment strategy? Do they take things on and off as the market changes? I mean, that's why we pay them. So, I'm sure that they do, but I just wanted to ask, do they do that? Because let's say they thought we shouldn't be putting anything into Canadian banks right now. I'm not I'm not saying that that's so it's just an example.

Yeah. So, there's a specific like rating that they have to meet to meet the OS guideline and our policy guideline. Um, and so this list changes daily. The one that I gave you is just a snapshot at that point in time. Uh, the lists will shrink and the list will get longer. Thank you. Eric, got any questions? Joel, I mean Rick, you got any questions? Sure. JC, um, what are the term limits that we usually do for the local investments and what is the ballpark of the rate of return?

Oh, I don't know off the top of my head. So, normally with the CDs, uh, we'll do a one year or 12 month, uh, CD. I would say we've been probably pretty close to three, three and a halfish as a guess. I mean, I could probably look up the exact answer and it is in our investment report, too. That's good. Thank you. Any further questions, Rob? Thank you, sir. Any last questions, Indra? So, going back to the Canadian banks, are we able to instruct our investment firm that we don't want them invested there if we so choose? If you so choose.

All right. Um, see nobody with further questions. Thank you, JC. And at this point, um, is another opportunity for the public to weigh in on this council action item, either in favor or opposed to it. You have your time now. Not seeing anybody, so I'll bring it back to council for further discussion and or actions. Looks like you have alternatives on the screen with potential motions. You have anything more further discussion, Rob? No.

Rick, do you have any further discussion or a motion? Here, I'd like to make a motion to retain direction for investment officer to retain at least three million in the local banks in the form of CDs. All right, got a motion on the table with a second. Any further discussion? Eric, you got anything? Victoria? No, we got a second. Is this our vote or No further discussion? I'm just gonna go to No. Anybody else raise your hand? Okay, we'll go into a vote. Uh, Rick, yes. Uh, Rob, yes. Indra, yes. Joel, yes. Seth, yes. Victoria, yes. Eric,

yes. All right. Motion passes. And I got one more. One more. This is just for the corporate side if they want to make any revisions. Now, before you guys vote on this, I will say if you're going to want me to cross people off the list that we actually do a separate workshop to bring the investment advisors to actually coach us through how that should work. So, re remind us where our list is. What page again? I think it's page 260. Okay. So you're looking for direction to either keep the list as is or start to cross people off. And if you want to do that, we you recommend going into workshop. Yep.

Is that understood? Any questions in regards to that, council Rob? So how recently was the list um scrutinized by the U adviser? So they do this every day. This list that you have in front of you is more of an example that they pulled and I believe it's on here as of 1212 2025. So it's three or four months old. Yeah. So this list is but daily they actually have to per law keep a list up to date. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions for JC on regards to this? Eric, go ahead.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm I'm I'm looking at uh slide appendex A with the uh prohibited industry classifications. Number one is the integrated oil. Um, but yeah, we have Exxon. Am I Am I looking at that wrong? Am I Is it That was an example from a different city. Gotcha. Okay. That's not ours. Yeah, that was an example from the city of Portland. Sorry. Thank you. Yep. Any further questions in this Okay, you Rick, you got another question.

JC, do you also have a ballpark of what that has been pulling in interest rate? Uh yeah it's uh I believe our book yield for entire entire investment portfolio is slightly above 4%. Okay thank you. Any questions? Okay seeing no questions. So on the screen you have potential action and basically looks like we're deciding to keep the list as is and or if you want to start scrutinizing the list then JC recommends that we go into another workshop with that. So Indra, you have discussion?

Yes, I I would like to uh bring in the investment people to talk about the list. I do I mean I understand we want to look and get the best uh investments for our dollar, but I also um think we talk about shop local even if it costs more and and I would like to see our investments be in the United States and not Canada. Any further discussion and or action? Rob,

um if you actually, you know, look at this list, I believe virtually every one of these companies is worldwide. There is no I don't I don't know there's any shop America or shop local company on this list. There's some major criminals on the list, but um I mean there's not much good can be said about Black Rockck. Um but I mean these are all worldwide companies. So we can we can bring this person in, but if you want to actually get local, you might you know this we throw the whole list out and maybe that's what we want to do. But uh I don't really see um I personally don't want to go that far. So, you know, I I would go I I would stay with this list even though there's companies that I personally find repulsive, but that's just me personally and I haven't heard from any of our constituents um any movement on this. This was in our packet. They knew what we were doing tonight and I haven't heard anybody that said we want to divest from, you know, Black Rockck or JP Morgan or whatever. So, I'm okay with the list the way it is. And like I say, it's all international.

Yeah, they're all global basically. And the ones that are listed in Canada, I can p I know personally those are the biggest banks in Canada and they're they're a global reach. So they're a global investor. I think all these that are listed here have a global reach. So um further discussion Victoria.

Yeah, if you look at um the investment policy interest revenues slide, I think that it really speaks for itself. There are I agree with others that there are companies that I would not personally invest in probably, but we're investing for all of our taxpayers and that is a very good return for our money and I think that is a financial and sound decision for our city. So, uh I wouldn't want to second guess their investing expertise. Further discussion, Indra?

Yes, I I understand they're all global, but they're headquartered out of Canada, Montreal Bank. I don't think there's a branch around here. So, I'm looking at what's headquartered in the US. So, I I just would like a workshop. Any further discussion or action? Joel? Well, one of the things uh we're talking about a topic here that's really out of my league. And um it seems like the more flexibility you give a financial advisor, the better he can do for you, which would include keeping every everything that's on the list. Um I

they collect the fee for a reason. Yeah, they do. Uh and not to limit limit the choices that that person has. Uh and given that I'm kind of conflicted because uh I do I do like to put invest taxpayer dollars into organizations whose main shareholders are US citizens. Um so anyway, it's just conflicted. Rob,

yeah, we we had this real similar discussion several years ago and the bottom line is the better our investments do, the more we can invest in local the more money we have to bring in grants pass. And so if we have less, then we're going to be doing less positive things in our community. So, you know, we can have this discussion forever. It's philosophical, I suppose, but I I personally don't um I don't see the I I I personally don't see the benefit of going to a workshop because again, uh I'm okay with it the way it is. All right. So, you want to turn that into action? Yeah. Can make a motion to uh approve.

What specifically are we we talking about this? I can't second one from the bottom. I'm sorry. Am I somebody else make the motion? I can't I don't have my glasses on. Go ahead, Rick. Sorry.

Like to make a motion to keep the full list as allowed by the investment policy in Oregon Revised Statutes. There's a motion on the table with a second from Eric uh to keep the list as is. Any further discussion? Rick, I think it's interesting if we look at the investors within a company or corporation, you could find out the majority of the stockholders in the Canadian company are US citizens. So then how do you actually get an inventory of that? Of course, a lot of it's private information, but I trust what the investment um advisor is recommending and and looking at his expertise, and that's why I'm supportive of this motion. Thank you.

Any further discussion? We have a motion and a second on the table. Indra, just in response to Rick, trust but verify. Any further discussion? All right, we'll go into a vote. Rick, yes. Eric, yes. Victoria, yes. Seth, yes. Joel, yes. Indra, no. Rob, yes. All right, motion passes. Did we check off all your boxes? Thank you, JC. All right.

Yeah. No, no puppets were harmed. Awesome. All right, that concludes uh all of our council action items tonight. So, we're going to go into general public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to address the city council on items not related to a public hearing or council action item for the council. The intent is to provide information that is pertinent to the city's jurisdiction. Each speaker will be given two minutes to address the council as one body, not two individuals. At the conclusion of public comment, council will have the opportunity to respond. This meeting will proceed in an effective and courteous manner. Citizens and council members will be allowed to state their positions in an atmosphere free from slander, threats, and other personal attacks. Signs or placards, outbursts of applause, campaigning for public office, or other disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. If you have a question regarding any government provided service or a current city policy, please contact the city manager's office in an attempt to resolve the matter. All right. Um, we had blue cards submitted in and these are not in any order. So, um, Jax, go ahead up to the podium. Restate your name and you have two minutes.

All right. Thanks. I'm Jax. I'm a full-time student at RCC and I live in Williams. Um, I have a couple things to talk about. Firstly, I want to comment on what Rob mentioned about Black Rockck Corporations and the like. Speaking for a vast portion of this community, I deeply implore divesting from these dangerous and insidious companies. Building upon this, Oregon's AI data center market is the fifth largest in the nation with facilities consuming approximately 11% of Oregon's total electricity supply and growing. Major operators include 58 facilities statewide with over uh 24,000 megawatts of power. These are Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, which leverage the region's cheap hydro power. with the power act um HB 3546 that passed in June of 2025. It aims to regulate new mega data centers. Over 32 um existing facilities continue to operate as usual. Um there is another setting up shop along the Columbia River currently and we need to curb the regional destruction of the Pacific Northwest. We are already in a severe drought. Fire season is worse every year and supporting these developments is abhorrent, irresponsible, shortsighted, and disrespectful. I encourage everyone to stay informed about these sites secretly establishing themselves because it could easily be us next. Consider the quality of life for our community, children, soil, and waterways. Separately, if you can look around this country and see no red flags, you've lost the plot. You're still relying on an administration that greenlights pedophilia, that sacrifices your sons and daughter to openly back Israel and make the rich richer, we're screwed. If the barrage of lies doesn't give you whiplash, maybe it's time to put down the Kool-Aid. How many times

can our values be betrayed and subsequently ignored before we wake up? If you can tolerate an administration committing relentless human rights violations, we're Thank you very much. Uh, next up I got uh Holly Christensen.

Hello, my name is Holly Christensen and I am a resident of Grants Pass. Um, I'm here to voice my concerns about the Beacon Hill Pro or Beacon Hill Park project as I live very close to that area. I have spoken to most of you and so most of you know my stance on this project. Um, for those of you that I haven't spoken to, I would still like to have a personal conversation. I've emailed you guys and I would like a response. That would be great. Thank you. Um, and then for those of you that I have spoken to, you know, my number one concern is our overwhelming homeless problem. I think it's completely irresponsible to even think about starting any new park until we know that the courts will be happy with what we are doing with Elks Landing. Hello. I know that we are all hopeful that this is going to solve our homeless problem, but until it's done, we don't truly know how things are going to end up. Also, even when Elks Landing is done, the homeless are going to be able to still rest in our parks during the day. I don't know why we would want to give them more places to rest when we can't even utilize the parks the way that we should be right now. I have been driving around taking pictures for the last week of what's happening in our little parks. On Saturday at Ogal Park, I stopped and within literally 30 seconds, I witnessed a drug deal go down. I witnessed a homeless guy have all of his stuff displayed drying um on the cazebo and two other homeless people taking a nap. I don't know about you guys, but I sure wouldn't be taking my children there to go have a picnic. And I know no one else would be either. So before we start thinking about a new park, let's get our current parks fully back to a place that everyone in our community feels safe to take our young children to. Again, I'm not anti- park. I'm anti-creating new problems before we before we solve our existing problems. Thank you.

Thank you,

Peggy Hopkins. Good evening. My name is Peggy Hopkins and I've been a resident of Grants Pass since 1977. My husband and I moved from Santa Cruz, California because we had just gotten married and we wanted to raise our kids in a wonderful place. Our children in the 80s had the most wonderful life here. They played capture the flag at midnight. We had horses at the horse hotel. We showed at the fair fairgrounds. I never hesitated to leave my three daughters at the horse hotel for the Saturday afternoon and worry about them. Things have changed, folks. As I looked around yesterday, it's so funny. I didn't think I would be here today. The amount of businesses in this town that have closed or left is overwhelming. My husband just told me tonight before he left that Black Bear closed today. Are what are we doing to encourage businesses to come here? If I was owned a business and I was thinking of coming to Grants Pass and I pulled into Sixth Street and stopped at the A Street. Oh, hell no. Excuse my French. I'm not moving my family here. It is so sad to watch this town go down. It just goes down the twos. I don't know what to say. Have you tried to get an appointment with a doctor lately? They're all leaving. My daughter was a surgical tech at this hospital over here for 13 years. You can't get an appointment in less than six months. So, as a as a 77y old lady that is looking around and watching our city die, this is a city I love to death. I love that I got to

raise my kids here, but we need to put things in priority or we are going to lose this beautiful place that we live in. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Serena Steel.

Hello. My name is Serena Steel. I am the Jazzfest chair with the Grants Pass High School band boosters. I had the opportunity to listen to the city council meeting that took place on March 18th where you guys awarded your tourism and lodging tax grant funds and I just wanted to come tonight to express my gratitude for the award that you gave us. Um as I listened to the meeting um we were uh our weighted score based on our application was quite low and we were not considered for any funds at all. But as the meeting went on and the discussion um ensued, uh you guys ended up awarding us with $2,500, which um is huge for us in today's market, trying to fund raise for our students. Uh $2,500 is going to go a long way with our fall program. Um spreading the word about our program, bringing people to our show, and um be us being able to continue to support the kids in the way that we do. Um, for example, my event that I'm in charge of is Jazzfest, which takes place this weekend. And I have a very, very small, minimal budget. And as I've been trying, um, countless hours to spread the word, um, amongst the community, advertise in every way that I could, um, everything comes with a price tag. And so I'm trying my hardest to try to push my event in every free market that I can. And, um, it's hard. And so $2,500 to take into our fall show and promote our event um is going to be huge for us. So I just wanted to come tonight and say thank you for that um because again we weren't even considered in the running um at the beginning of that meeting. So thank you very much guys.

Thanks James.

Uh hello good evening. Um James Steel I'm the president of the Grandpass High School Marching Band Boosters. Um, and I would like to just also echo um what my wife Serena just said. Um, we were made aware that we unfortunately were kind of lower in the the point standing um, initially when the tourism grant um, application was submitted, but upon getting further word that um, you had further discussed it um, we just wanted to express our gratitude. Um we are a program that is very very proud 30 plus years um presenting an event in the in the Rogue Valley which is one of the very um few marching band competitions that takes place in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Um if you're any way familiar with the marching band circuit a majority of the programs that we have take place in Portland, Eugene or North in in Washington state. So to be able to have funding, even um $2,500 that helps us extend our budget brings in not just families from our current program, which is currently 275 members strong in both both North and South Middle Schools and Grants Pass High School, but also in um from high schools from Northern California as far as up to Seattle. Um we are um renowned in the Pacific Northwest for the um hospitality that we give our bands that visit us from the city. Um as well as not only giving the students in the band programs that experience the event while they're here, but allowing their families to experience the uh just the splendor of Grants Pass. It truly is a beautiful area and we have the opportunity to bring um so many people down and it is in thanks to um the support that we have from our amazing city. So again, I want to echo that and um just thank you for the continued support.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, that concludes the portion of general comments within our meeting tonight. Uh next up on the agenda is the consent agenda. Can we get that up on the screen? Okay. So, consent agenda. So, we did have one starred item, but that uh council member did not necessarily correspond very well with us for the questions that need answer. So, that is not been remove or that's been removed as a start item. So, we do not have any start items anymore for consent agenda. Any discussion andor motion for the consent agenda? All right, we got a consent agenda in front of you. If there's no discussion, I would be looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Indra, that's what I was asking for, but nobody's talking. So So can you elaborate elaborate a little on the one that was asked to be pulled out? Nope. That's why I can't That's why I didn't pull it out. Why? Okay. Because the one council member had expressed an opinion to get that item started and correspondents went back and forth and no no questions were answered. Uh Victoria even brought it up again and we still didn't get any insight on what the questions were. So, we're not going to start because we don't know what questions to answer. Thank you.

There's no further discussion. I'd be looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda if you guys are ready. Victoria, just a quick comment. I think it's it's a matter of of traveling. So, that was probably the communication problem. So, but I move to uh accept the consent agenda. Approve. Thank you. All right. We have a motion on the table to approve the consent agenda with a second from Seth. Any further discussion? All right. Seeing them, going to a vote. Victoria, yes. Seth, yes. Joel, yes. Indra, yes. Rob, yes. Rick, yes. Eric, yes.

Cassenda agenda passes. Thank you. Next. Next up is matter for mayors, council, and staff. First matters for mayor and counsel. Anybody have anything to bring up? Indra.

Yes. Thank you, mayor, and fellow counselors. I'm asking for a reconsideration of the May 30th special meeting number four consent agenda item A, the resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with the Josephine County um visitors association, including the addition of the downtown welcome center operations. This agreement was placed on the consent agenda and voted on uh by council on March 30th at the city council meeting with zero discussion. I understand it wasn't starred or asked to be brought out. I'm I'm wondering um I don't it was just there in the consent agenda with no discussion and I would like to bring this item to a workshop for council questions and discussions for further clarification on what I view as some significant issues um with the agreement. My concerns are as follows. Um, first, as of Monday, the Secretary of State's business names search showed that the Josephine County Visitors Association, Inc. is inactive as of April 2nd, and that's who we would be signing this agreement with. Um, so I don't know how that's done. But also just reviewing um the agreement itself, I find there are very weak performance accountabilities in the agreement and very limited city oversight. I can go into details, but right now I'm just going to kind of highlight um what I viewed as the the main serious issues. If you want more specifics, I can go into it, but um I won't start with that. I believe there are financial risks and deficit implications um within the agreement. There's a

problem for me uh with the intellectual property and termination provisions concerns. Overall, I feel the agreement is heavily contractor friendly. It prioritizes the DMO's operational independence while giving the city relatively weak tools to enforce results or quickly correct course approving it on the consent agenda which we did before even reviewing financial information. We didn't get any financial information until the workshop and the presentation. So, we actually approved it at a meeting before receiving any information in the agreement they have. We were supposed to receive a presentation in January and and we were supposed to receive um quarterly updates on it which we never got. So, I just have questions. I feel like we passed it in the dark and and I think we need a big discussion on that. While I I think we didn't do our due diligence in uh questioning and getting questions answered. While the 28% TLT allocation and welcome center integration make sense in theory for tourism promotion, the combination of limited oversight IP retention by the nonprofit costly exit provisions and the organization's current spending trae trajectory creates meaningful financial and accountability risks for public TLT dollars. some key questions that I would ask among others and I'm I would think counselors would have additional questions. Why were stronger performance metrics or spending guard rails not included? They get a it this is a lot of money the TLT dollars.

What is the current status of the required reserve fund and fullear TLT projections? has an independent review of past marketing ROI um been conducted. I think there's an issue with me for the hours. Um we didn't see P&L or balance sheets from the organization. So just a lot of questions that I feel is enough that we would need to bring it to a workshop and actually have a presentation and a discussion. And then I did ask um at the workshop which I don't know I didn't check email today I don't know if we got information but on their sheet I don't know where where it went the finance sheet here it is um the bulk of the money 374,000 is just under marketing campaign I asked at the workshop for that. I would like to see that detailed out. Um what is that marketing campaign? And then um I had a few other questions on the uh statement of activity. So I would like council support to reconsider our vote from March 30th.

Rob.

Yeah. Thanks, Ninja. Um, I support a reconsideration um, for all the the reasons you stated, but I guess just to generalize or to summarize for me, um, it doesn't seem as though that this contract was um, uh, negotiated as a as a really good deal for the the taxpayers. And um you know with regards to you know if you look at the downtown welcome center it's uh we spent recently $600,000 to um to refurbish it. It's probably the most valuable piece of real estate in our downtown. And um we'd be giving that rent free to an organization with very very little um uh with their ability actually to put a they can put their own business in there. They can sell all kinds of merchandise and everything else and rent free. I mean, who wouldn't who wouldn't want that that deal? Uh if you're a downtown business person, everyone would want that spot. And yet there was no no one else was offered that spot. and all they'd have to do is essentially, you know, hand out some uh marketing brochures. So, to me, that that was given to them. It was very generous. And I'm not saying that I'm against them having that spot. They they should be a perfect fit. But, um, we didn't get or we did the the city, the taxpayers didn't get much in return for that. I mean, the way that contract was written, that that welcome that that uh welcome center would only be open 15 hours a week in the winter. And um you know that's just uh we didn't get we're not getting enough value for giving up that really the uh the ability to run that um and into as a uh money-making operation which they'll have the ability to do at no rent and we um we we giving up a lot and we're not getting a lot back in return. So that needs to be looked at more carefully. So, I'm I'm and again, I'm I I I I support the reconsideration because there's a lot of

other things that and other counselors may have also spotted other things in the contract that really weren't looked at from the taxpayers's perspective. Any further discussion, Victoria?

Yeah, I would probably or depending on what other people say as well, um be open to reconsidering. However, I I did get an update on some of these things and I know that they reached out to all the counselors uh and I actually did get an update. So, I think the information was available and the other thing that I wanted to correct was I think in the transfer that we are able to um reduce staff in the city. So there was it wasn't a gigantic savings to the cities but there there was a significant savings to the city but if people want to look at that um I don't think it's time to litigate that that contract on the dis here today without the people here to be able to um answer back questions but um those are just two things that I wanted to correct and then I'll decide based on what everybody is saying um further whether or not I'll be open to reconsider considering.

Um, so Indra's brought it forth and I'm I'm assuming you would bring it forth as a motion to do reconsideration. Okay. So, we have a motion to do reconsideration of uh the resolution for the the contract for the DMO contract. Do we have a second for motion? Second from Rob. Uh, any further discussion? Joel. Well, open open display and transparency is important and uh with the questions being raised, it's a good opportunity to clear all that up. So, so I I would support the motion as well and it's uh just a uh it's to the benefit of uh the the contract and the contractor spoke to both sides that that information be disclosed openly. So, that that's good.

Okay. The as far as I understand, this DMO contract was a renegotiation of the original DMO contract, which had a 5-year lifespan. The DMO was established many years ago by the city council to take tourism burden off of the city staff and put it onto a private organization that could fully um handle it in a better manner. And it did did take a huge um it took a significant financial burden off the city as far as staff and resources to that tourism realm. Um again, this DMO has been established for years from previous counselors. Um we do have a motion on the table for reconsideration of this contract with a second. Uh if there's no further questions, we can go vote on that.

You have more comments on your motion? Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. I just want to

I just want to stress that this in no way am I saying they're not they're a bad organization or not a good fit. I I think in theory it would be great to have our DMO in there and work. There's just a lot of questions. I'm specifically um concerned about the um the IP, the uh branding, the property rights and and I think uh that really needs to be looked at. The IP retention is not standard. Um I've looked at Bend and Clamoth Falls. Um usually in government, the city owns the deliverables and not the contractor. And so I think that's an area we really should look into as well. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion on the table for reconsideration of something previously passed with a second. Any further discussion before we go into a vote, Joel? Well, I I I um it's not pertinent to the vote. It's pertinent to what would be presented if we do do vote it. So I I'll I'll hold withhold my comments, Mayor. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions or comments before going to a vote? See none. All right. Um, Indra, yes. Um, Joel, yes. Seth, no. Victoria. Yes. With reservations.

Eric, I'm gonna abstain. Um, Rick, yes. Rob. Yes. All right. So, we have five for yes, one for no, and one abstain. So, reconsideration passes and that will be brought forth back. I guess as soon as we can figure that out, right? Yeah, we should do it for date certain for Nick's business meeting. If you want to do a business meeting or were you want me to do a workshop? I I think it needs to come back to the next business meeting because it was it was at regular meeting. So

So are you okay with amending your motion to come back to the next business meeting? A workshop in between. We we could do the presentation at the business meeting but without any action taken and then do the have the so have the workshop and then two days later have it on the agenda for the actual motion.

Okay. So, we're going to have to see where we can work that in then. Okay, we are still in uh matters for mayor council. Any other comments, questions? I see Eric. Okay, first off, I want to, you know, after hearing what Holly Christensen and Peggy Hopkins had to say there, that was um it's unfortunate that and I think that's a lot of the um the uh sentiment that a lot of our citizens have here in in this uh in this city. And it's uh and I'm going to go back to some of the laws that uh that are being passed here in Oregon. HB3115 and SB48. HB 3115 as you as everybody knows uh it's um it's I've been I've brought it up many times. It's what governs what we have to do for the for the homeless and camping in in in the parks. Essentially targeting Grants Pass and other cities throughout Oregon. Um that's what we're that's what we have to abide by unfortunately and that's what's causing a lot of this turmoil. Um it's very frustrating for us up here on the dis to have to deal with that. And now we've also had to the city's had to do had to pay $1.2 million to get Elk Island, Parker's Place, Mint, whatever it's being called right now. Um which is going to end up uh not having mandatory treatment or uh any kind of incentive program that's worthwhile. Um unfortunately a lot of the um individuals

not having any drug treatment, they're going to go to the parks, they're going to go to elsewhere. Um and it's going to be a problem. Uh I hope it's not a problem. I hope that I'm wrong. Um but that's what we're dealt with here. As far as making the pump track, um I I I think that would be a a a a good idea based on um the based on the popularity and it would bring folks and uh other businesses and and as well as u revenue to the city. I understand your your both of your concerns with that and it's unfortunate that uh we're we're in this position. Um going to uh SB48 as some of you may know SB48 is the perpetual revolving door. Uh it essentially dictates to law enforcement what they can and can't hold on to as far as uh people that are arrested. That was a law that was passed years ago um in uh by by our lawmakers in Salem to counter any kind of discrimination. I'm not sure exactly the the criteria, but they pretty much get let go. I've got an article here from the Daily Courier. April 3rd, 52 year old woman, I'm sorry, 52 year old man was arrested his 26th 26th time. Uh that's probably got something to do with SP48 as well. Um I've got I've got one here that says u if you read the article there, another person was arrested for his 11th time. These are all issues that we're having with laws that are being passed by this

state. And it sickens me to have to even bring this up. But every time the general public asks us questions and and says, "What are we doing about the homeless?" Well, our hands are pretty much tied. We went through a lawsuit. We we had all that done. And it's very it's very frustrating for us up here and it's unfortunate and things have to change. So, we need to think about who we elect uh for our lawmakers up in in Salem. We need to be very careful with that. Um that's where I'm going to leave it. Thank you for for hearing me out and uh um I'm just a frustrated counselor. Thank you. Victoria.

Yeah, a lot of what Eric said I agree with as well. I wanted to also address Holly and Peggy. Um it's it's kind of a layered issue I think because uh the Beacon Hill Park did have a lot of support in 2019, but I have heard from many constituents who really want that survey to go out and I was very happy to hear that it will be going out again. And uh then to add an additional pump track up there, uh I would probably have to have a pretty good uh presentation on traffic flows and everything for for something like that up uh in that area. Uh so that that's a different issue aside from the homeless issue. Uh but so the the Beacon Hill Park is is layered for me, but I'm very happy that the public will be able to weigh in on that again. And uh so that will be something that people will be able to come to council uh to have the survey. I'm I believe last Yes. Yes. So uh just to make sure I wasn't giving out any bad information. And then beyond that, adding the parks when um we are still dealing with an issue that is statewide and it's nationwide. That kind of gets back to what councelor Schol was talking about. Hands s they are tied. And even so, it's it's amazing what our uh police and and emergency services through fire does to to help our community through that. And every week there is a report. I believe it's online every week. I know that we

are given updates every week about uh different calls and things that the that the police are doing. So people can it it all it all feels very bleak but there there are a lot of actions that are being taken that might help people to uh feel a little little bit better about things. Um the state laws are the issue and uh so yes um SB48 and and 3115 people have tried to repeal those uh without success but that doesn't mean people shouldn't stop trying and uh because it really needs to happen because local communities we need to be able to um make you know civic uh priorities for our own community. So I I it's probably not a lot of great comfort, but just so that the public knows we do hear you on those issues and uh and the band boosters. Uh it was really great to have you guys come in. Thank you so much for the thank you and just to have that feedback. you know, we kind of had a hunch, you know, I know how big, you know, uh, Pride of the Northwest and all of those things are and and and what it brings into the community, but to hear from you that it will be able to help you expand was really great feedback. Um, and then I don't think she is here anymore, but I wanted to quickly talk about data centers. They they are an issue in our state and people should be research. I don't have an answer for you and I don't have the expertise on it sitting here right now but uh it is something for people to look into about the placement of data centers in in your community. So I I

that so I just wanted to mention that as well. The one thing that I did want to bring up for I don't know as though mayor it is on. So, I wanted to ask about exclusion zones coming up on the agenda. I didn't see it on the back sheet, but maybe I missed it somewhere. So, that's just a question for mayor. And the agenda was uh exclusion zones.

You got a there's a memo that went out councilwide April 6th in regards to the exclusion zones and that was our first data spit out for that topic. And yeah, it is still on It will it will be coming up in the future. We're still collecting data. Our staff is, but that was kind of the first uh digestion of of preliminary research. Anybody else? Joel, thank you.

Oh, I'll be real short. Um, first off, I think we can all identify with what Holly's talking about because we've all experienced it personally. Um, and if that's what we focus on, that's going to continue to happen. If you go to bat thinking you're going to strike out, you strike out. Um, as I look at the concert in the park, as I look at the tree climbing competition this weekend in the park, as I look at Park Watch and what they've been doing, as I look at the uh, shelter uh, that's being built by Bart, if I look at the court order and what it says and how we're relieving that so that we'll be out not under that. Yes, there is some uncertainty. Yes, there are fears. And there are hopes for an even better place. And so I think we as a council need to recognize those fears and then as we proceed forward focus on those hopes because we need to dream a field of dreams. I just saw that movie this afternoon. Um my wife cried during it. I'm not sure why but she cried. Uh but it is um what you talk about your fears are real. So and I I I want to recognize and acknowledge that.

Rob, I'm sorry I passed over you. You had froze your hand earlier. Go ahead. You're good. All right, Indra.

Yes. I just wanted to recognize those who spoke tonight. It it really does matter when you come and speak with us in person. we listen and hear you. And then I wanted to give an update on the small business task force. We had our first meeting um today from 4 to 5:30 and uh great group of business owners. I'm super excited. I think we're going to get a lot done. We went over goals and uh just dynamic people who want to find solutions and help small business. So, I'm very excited about that. Um, we're going to meet every I want to say 2nd and fourth Tuesdays. Uh, our first meet, our next meeting will be May 13th, then the 27th, 5:15, room 108 city hall. And that the public is welcome to come. You can um listen and speak probably. You just can't vote on things if we vote. But um encourage anyone who's interested to come to that. Thank you. Last call. All right. I'm not going to say anything because I think your counselors took all the oxygen out of the room. So, said enough. Staff, we're we're pushing up on 9:00. Close enough. So, too, I want to go home.

I've just got one one brief item I need to address. Uh during tonight's meeting, councelor Pel suggested that I should have declared a conflict of interest when I presented the request for proposals related to the compensation study. I want to respectfully set the record straight. My role this evening was solely to present the RFP materials for a third party salary study, a procedural and administrative step that does not determine outcomes. The purpose of an RFP is simply to request proposals from qualified firms so the council can evaluate options separately, which was used as an example. Our city attorney presented information to council regarding compensation decisions. That was a different action impact where the city attorney was in front of council asking for specific wage increases, including her held position, an appropriate time to state conflict of interest concerns. Presenting RFPs for a study does not create an actual or potential conflict of interest for me or staff. I take transparency and ethics very seriously. I just wanted to clearly state that. Thank you. I have to respond, Erin. Not one time in five years when you've talked about um compensation wages for any bargaining group or any or the non-bargaining group or at any other time when we went years ago from from um seven steps to 10 steps and you introduced that at one point. Not one time have you ever said that that you had a conflict of interest. Our city attorney has has said it every single time. I don't remember a single time you doing it. So, if I was out of line tonight, I apologize. And in the future, when you do have a conflict, I hope you're mentioning it because you've never done it in the past.

I accept that apology and appreciate that, counselor, and we will make sure to continue to characterize those appropriately if there is a a conflict of interest. Thank you.

Yeah, conflict of interest is always a topic that we want to keep at forefront. So, I'm gonna actually suck some oxygen out of the room here, but we are intermixed. Everybody up here is intermixed in this community. A lot of these counselors have businesses and so forth. So, we try to be as transparent and as forthcoming as possible. If something does get missed, we always rely on other counselors to point it out. That's great. But we all are only human beings and we try to do the best job we possibly can. Thank you for your participation tonight. If there's no other staff members, I would just ask for a motion to adjurnn. Victoria, a motion to adjurnn with a second from Rick. All in favor say yay. Let's go home. Thank you for your participation tonight. C. Um counselors, staff, and citizens.