City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. So, we have a published agenda for tonight, but I'm going to mix it up a little bit because we have um a lot of participation in the crowd tonight. So, we are going to take council action item A and D and we're going to switch them in order. So, we are going to start the evening council action items um discussing the DMO first but not right this second. We're going to start this out correctly. All right. Welcome to city council meeting uh May 6th, 2026. Going to start with a roll call. Uh Rob

here. Uh Seth here. Indra here. Joel here. Victoria here. Kathleen here. Rick here. All right. Looks like we're missing Eric. So we have a semi full house, but we do have a quorum. And uh Kathleen, uh do we have somebody for invocation? Yeah, I'd like to uh invite Kevin Dar up to the podium for to start us off in prayer.

Lord, we come before you and God, we are so grateful for who you are. Lord, we're uh thankful that we can come here tonight, Lord, knowing that in acknowledging you, Lord, the creator of heaven and earth, the giver of life and the source of all wisdom and truth. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of living in a free country and in this community. God, we know that there is no authority except from you and that it only exists because you have appointed it, Lord. And so, God, we pray for all those represented here, Lord, that you would grant them wisdom, integrity, and humility, and courage to lead well. Lord, we hope that or we pray that they would lead with justice and to seek truth over politics. Lord, to pursue what is good and right for the citizens of this community, Lord, we pray also for those who are struggling tonight. Lord, that are battling addiction or hopelessness or homelessness. Lord, we know that um there's only hope found in you. And so God, we pray um and thank you for the forgiveness at the cross and a new life through the power of your word. Lord, and so Lord, we pray that the in a world filled with confusion and division, your truth would shine brightly, Lord. Help us to love our neighbors and stand for righteousness and walk in humility before you. Lord, we commit this meeting to you now. Lord, we ask that um all that is said and done here tonight uh would bring glory to you and benefit this community. And Lord, we pray all these things in the powerful name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because there is no salvation in any other name for there is no other name under heaven or earth that can bring salvation to men. So Lord, we love you and praise you and it's in Jesus mighty

name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Uh, if you please rise for the flag salute and remove your covers if you got them.

I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you very much. Um, we will now start the evening. Uh, first council action item is resolution reconsidering authorization of the city manager to enter into an agreement with the Josephine County Visitors Association, including the addition of the downtown welcome center operations.

Yes, sir. Seth. Yeah, I'll be recusing myself from this agenda item. Thank you very much, Dana.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, council, members of the public. I'm Dana Pierce, economic development manager for the community development department here. And tonight, we're going to look at the DMO, destination marketing organization contract. As the mayor mentioned, this resolution is a reconsideration of the approval to enter into an agreement with the Josephine County Visitors Association doing business as visit grants pass, including the addition of the downtown welcome center operations. This relates to the city council goals of economic growth by ensuring downtown is a vibrant neighborhood and attractive destination. A little bit of background. This agreement was first signed on June 2nd of 2021 between the city of Grants Pass and the Josephine County Visitors Association. It expires on June 2nd of this year. On March 30th, 2026, the council approved a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement. On April 15th, councelor Nicholas asked for reconsideration. A reconsideration must occur at the next regular business meeting and that's this evening on May 6th. On Monday of this week, May 4th, the contract was discussed at the council workshop and some edits were considered. We will go over some of those shortly. But to continue the background, this agreement sent a general term for the city and the association to collaborate on tourism duties, the lodging tax funding, annual reporting and related activities. The first objective of this resolution is to update and extend the termination date of this agreement. Under the original agreement, the downtown welcome center services were presumed to be continuing under the management of the city, but the city staff has met with visit grants pass multiple times and discussed the details of potentially updating that service agreement to include the downtown welcome center operation.

On February 19th, there was a council memo that went out um that notes that staff conversations were happening with the executive director to transition those downtown welcome center services to their organization. Creating a more complete and consistent visitor experience would be better accomplished under the control of visit grants pass who have trained full-time staff dedicated to tourism and marketing industries. This change is also um expected to result in an estimated cost savings of $45,000 to the city um who will no longer fund the wages for temporary welcome center staff. And now I'm going to invite our city attorney Stephanie Dun up to um go over the detailed um changes to the contract.

Good evening. So after Monday's uh council workshop um that there were a couple of minor revisions that were discussed and we would have some language um available for council to consider if you would like to make these changes. The red lines that we will talk about briefly um have been gone over with visit grants pass and they are um amendable to these changes. Um so the first has to do with the annual presentation. I believe this is one that I mentioned um in passing, which is the contract language said that their business plan needed to be presented in the month of February each year, but practice the last several years has been to have that happening in April. Um so simply to include this red language that would say or as otherwise scheduled by the mayor because the mayor sets the agenda. So they have to do an annual presentation. It's just a little bit more flexible than February to accommodate how things have been happening in practice. The next one that came up as part of our discussion on Monday reg was regarding the annual audit or review. Um the discussion on Monday was to remove references to an annual review and I believe you have received information that they are slightly different with an audit being a little more robust and more um policy based as well as the financial components. Um, so as we talked about Monday, simply removing those references to review and only requiring an audit to take place would be uh a proposed change. And then the third and final proposed change based on the number of conversations we had Monday regarding intellectual property. Um, two things that we would be doing with this. First is um, I know there was some confusion and request for clarification on how the language all fit together in that one big paragraph. it would be to split it into two different clauses. One about ownership rights for intellectual property and one about licensing rights for the intellectual property. Um the black language on the screen is the current language. Um the red for ownership would

simply say that they get to continue to use those materials for tourism promotion purposes and also it includes a um first right of refusal provision if they dissolve or stop providing services where the city would then be able to purchase the rights to use any to have those ownership rights going forward. Um the second piece is on licensing and again it's the same language with one slight modification which is to remove the reference to with city funds and instead make it any intellectual property created during the term of the agreement. So anything that they create during the term of the agreement for promotional purposes we would then have a license to use into the future forever. Um so it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not a particular item was funded with city funds. it just wasn't created during our agreement. So, it it's a little more flexible for us um and a lot easier to demonstrate whether or not it falls within those clauses. So, those are the three um potential rewrites and we would be able to incorporate those immediately because we already have the language if council chooses. So, I think we're we're still reading the screen if anybody has and then we'll let Dana finish and then if there's any questions, we'll be available. So, um I'm just going to continue on um to show the cost implications for this. Um, so in our FY27 tourism promotion budget, there is $735,300 allocated for this. The budget committee did make a motion on April 28th to approve that budget. Um, 28% of the city's annual lodging tax revenue is the funding source for this. There is an expected savings of $45,000 to the downtown services budget and

there would be no added costs related to the downtown welcome center operations. So the action tonight is on May 6. It's out council discretion. You can authorize the city manager to enter into the revised funding agreement with the Josephine County Visitors Association, including the addition of the downtown welcome center operations and then also um any potential additions that will work through with Stephanie. You can choose to not authorize the city manager to enter into that funding agreement. There is a motion here and again Stephanie and I are available for answering questions.

Thank you, Dana. Uh questions for council. Uh Rob Yeah, Stephanie. Um, couple questions. So, in the fir uh well, first, um, I don't see, uh, a rewrite for, um, section 2A, uh, hours of operation. It was agreed the other day, the hours of operation would be as they are now, not 15 hours in the winter.

And I didn't catch that there was a specific request for a language change on that one. I thought that um my understanding of what took place on Monday is that we had the numbers in there, but they assured council that there would be no reduction in current operations and I'm not sure that there's any set standard as far as where that goes. But that I didn't realize that there was supposed to be a language change based on Well, an assurance usually means a language language change. If council wants to see a language change, I can do that right now.

It's required if we're even going to go there. Yeah. Um the other thing that I would uh also question or just I think could be made more clear is if in um uh C intellectual property the uh where it says if contractor ceases to provide tourism promotion services I think that uh clause should be there added for the city of Grants Pass. If contractor ceases to provide tourism promotion services for the city of Grants Pass or dissolves the entity, then the city has the right of first refusal because they be they could continue on doing tourism promotion somewhere else. Uh possibly even under a different name. So it should say for the city of Grants Pass.

Further questions, Indra. Okay, Joel. Um, this is probably for Dana. Um, Dana, what are the existing hours now for the visitor center? We operate 36 hours a week. Typically, it's u Monday through Saturday and it's 6 hours a day starting at 10:00 and closing at 400 p.m. 36 hours a week. And then um the Chamber of Commerce on the north end of town, do you know what their hours are? Um, not off the top of my head. I do believe we have the Chamber of Commerce CEO here today, Terry, if you would allow him to answer that if you need the answer to that question.

Terry, what are your hours up there? Do they vary by season? Our contract asks for seasonal hours, so they vary from winter to summer, but in the uh winter months, we're open Monday through Friday, 9 to5. Uh summer during peak season, we're also open on Saturday. Oh, okay. So 9 to5 that 8 hours time that you're open 40 hours a week in the in the winter. In the winter. Okay.

Um well I was thinking u nobody said anything in terms of the modifications to that part of the contract but we should at least have 30 or 35 hours. I I understand that that comes with a cost of less money for u marketing. So we need to be careful on that. But uh given the existing hours of the uh existing visitor center downtown and also given the hours for the chamber of commerce, they're much larger than that. Um and we probably need to be uh akin to that as we move forward. So I I would suggest uh 30 hours unless somebody wants to suggest a different different edit rather than that. Further questions, Victoria?

I didn't know if Joel was finished. I'm I'm done. Oh, you Okay. All right. So, I guess I guess for clarification then, are you proposing um 30 hours in the winter or are we proposing 30 hours across the board? 30 hours October through March replace I'll keep making changes as long as council directs me to yeah we're going through questions right now so um Victoria any questions

could you go back to the intellectual property changes and I think right above that was right of first refusal Um, could you give me on the intellectual property some realworld examples? Could you explain to me what we're fixing and how this new fix fixes that and what that means for the contractor? Uh, you mean with the the revisions here?

Yes. um primarily clarification to um I know there was some confusion on Monday about how the licensing and the ownership and whether or not there was duplication of language. This just streamlines it, makes it a little bit more clear. Um the so essentially this language, the inmate continue to use the materials that was from the last sentence that jumped over a middle sentence. So it just kind of consolidates things a little bit. Um this piece is new. It's the if the contractor ceases to provide those services, then we would be able to have first right of refusal. And basically, that just means that if they cease operations, we can then acquire all those materials and the ownership rights to them and be able to change them and do whatever we want with a licensing. We would only have the ability to use them. We wouldn't be able to change them and have actually have those ownership rights.

Okay, that makes sense. And then um do we when you say if they cease operations is that if the contract is uh discontinued or they or is it at the end of a contract is it does it specify what kind of ending

as far as the ceases to provide tourism promotion services. Um the proposed language by councelor Pel is that if they cease providing those services to us. The original language that I had in there was just if they cease to provide tourism promotion services at all. Um, so if they choose to start using their nonprofit for something different, then we would be able to acquire those rights as opposed to just they decide not to do it for us, but they want to do it for somebody else. This would counselor Pel's uh recommendation would have it be only if they choose not to do it for us any longer. Yes, that that definitely makes sense. But what I meant was if it comes to the end of the contract, is that the same ceasing of operations as and they and they don't want to renew? Uh are

no no that is different. It's if the contract expires and it doesn't get renewed from either side's perspective, they still would have all the ownership rights and we wouldn't have any right to um the the first right of refusal because they're not necessarily done unless they dissolve or choose not to continue tourism promotion services. So this is this particular section is just for that scenario this the latter. Correct. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Further questions Kathleen? No questions. It's just comments.

Okay, further questions, Rick? Thank you, Stephanie. Um, I want to give an example before I make my question. When I've gone into a restaurant, sometimes at 8:00 at night, there's one employee in there and there's no customers. And I think it whatever business model you have, it's important to recognize the conditions you have. So on the welcome center, I would like to know, do we have figures for how many people come through each day during the winter months? Like on a Monday, do we have one person or 10 people? Um because that would help me determine whether I can support increase in hours in the wintertime.

I believe the visit grants pass does have some of that data that they'd be able to provide and share. So, we got a a small window of opportunity here. So, I got to be a stickler. Per fire code. Everybody's got to have a butt and a seat. So, you guys need to kind of filter in and get sitting down. Um, I'd appreciate that. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we have to make sure that we reading fire code. Go ahead, Dan.

That that walk doesn't get any shorter. Uh Rick, uh we had roughly 7,000 visitors in 2025. Um and on any given day, um we had between 10 and roughly 50. Luckily, we have some representatives who actually work at the welcome center and they can provide a lot of detail here tonight. Um but there are some days where we have five people, 10 people over the course of eight hours. So I'm trying to focus on the winter months. Yep. Um, I would defer to actually some of the people that will be here later. We could call them up now. They're the real pros. Um, and we could talk about the the details of that if you'd like.

Okay. Cuz I'm concerned I would like more detail if we're proposing 30 hours that it justifies. I'm talking about All right. It's a little small on the phone here, but um I guess specifically you're just asking about winter months. Yes.

Okay. And it does have a breakdown here. I am sorry I have to hold this far away. Um if we're looking at January, um it's broken down by by week, I guess. And in January, in week one, there were seven visitors. Week two there was 16. Week three there were 11. And in week four, there were 11. If we compare that to June, we had 48, 26, 44, 61. Um, and then February, five visitors, five visitors, 10, 23.

So then the other question, I realize it's probably not for you to respond to, but does the business model support if you have one visitor a day to have the welcome center open and the the other night I asked the question because you have three people who will be having their office there. Do you actually need does that hours reflect to the people there or only to the employees because I think the business model needs to recognize their overhead. Correct. I right now we don't make that distinction. We as the city keep the hours open and available. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. I would say that's why we had the language at least 15 hours so that we could use our best discretion to maximize the value and to determine if we have five visitors in a week in January, February, maybe we don't need 40 hours during that week. And we would just like the flexibility to be smart with the dollars. Okay. Thank you. All right, further questions. I got uh Indra and then Joel. Indra. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie. Just a couple. Um in eight, number eight, we talked about was that taken out the or reviewed part, we talked about that. And then down in uh 9A about most of the way through the audit may be undertaken by a qualified person or entity. Um I would suggest that may be turned into a shall because I think we would want to insist that someone qualified um did that. I I think the may in that case was intended to mean that we could if we wanted to we could choose it or we could just rely on them to choose it. But if we want to make it a shall that we um we can do that. Just to me it means may be undertaken by a qualified person or entity. So if it's may it means you may not have a qualified person. That's just my recommendation. That's all right now.

Joel, um this is for Dana. Um so Dana, we talked about January and February, which are traditionally really the slowest months of the year, right? October, we got good fishing. November and December, we got hopefully downtown Grants Pass being the center of a shopping experience. uh with celebrations, Christmas tree openings, those kind of things where it seems to me like we would have a lot more visitors during that October through December period than what you talked about in January and February. Um in March, uh it's starting to wake up uh you got some tours, you got some other things going on. Um so you gave us the two worst months. Could you give us the the data for November

and uh uh October and December and March, the shoulder season, which is very important. We're trying to My understanding is we're trying to improve that economic activity during those months because that's when it's particularly tough. Absolutely. Yeah, that sounds good. Um, so I'll just go ahead and go with the totals for the month if that's okay. Um, so in October we had 202 visitors for the month. November 116, December 95

and then March was 102, April 143, May 393, June 191. July 339. So would you think if we're trying to increase business in the shoulder season that it would be important that that visitor center be open? Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're trying to do with visit Grants Pass and the work they do is trying to extend those shoulder seasons. So yeah. Perfect. Any further questions?

Going once, going twice. All right. Uh thank you guys. Um, at this moment in time, uh, we will open up for public comment in regards to this council action item. So, if you are a member of the public and would like to weigh in on this council action item, this is your time to speak and only about this topic, meaning this council action item. We will have general public comment at the end of this proceedings. So, please uh step up to the mic, introduce yourself, and you have some time.

Hi, I'm Hila Lipson, executive director of the Grandpass Museum of Art, and I'm also on the board of the Josephine County Visitors Association and have been since its inception. So, here's the deal. We need tourists to thrive. The influx of extra people in this community bodess well for restaurants, retail, and other venues like the museum. Just to qualify or to qu to quantify the power of tourism, let me show you a few numbers. Last September 24th through November 14th, we had,9 visitors at the museum. We have a guest book and many of the guests sign in. What we found is that during that period, it was a special exhibit. People represented four foreign countries, 16 different states, and 20 Oregon cities. Many of these people stayed in hotels or motel. The heads in beds provide taxes for promotion of our community. And many of these visitors didn't just visit the museum. They ate in restaurants. They purchased goods from retail stores. And they participated in other attractions like Art along the road, for example. JCVA was created five years ago for the purpose of promotion. The results have been good. As Lindseay Jones, executive director of Ivy Kand do says, the current tourism promotion model is effective because it's coordinated, datadriven, and regularly regionally impactful. I believe the key words here are data driven. That means we watch outcomes and we adjust accordingly. JCVA can pivot when necessary and respond to changes. It's called destination marketing. The important thing to note and remember is that the funds for JCBA come from motel and hotel taxes. It's not taxpayer money. It's not a blip on anyone's property taxes. It's designated to be used for promotion of tourism. I highly recommend that the council renews the contract because it'll allow this

organization continue its work in a cohesive and effective manner. I have seen it in action and it's very wellrun and it should be celebrated. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next, step up and state your name and you have two minutes.

Yes. I'm Patty Crumpton and I've worked in the welcome center now for almost four years. I am here to express my support for uh visit grants pass to manage the community downtown center downtown welcome center an important and first impression for visitors and the resource for local residents. The welcome center is more than just a place to hand out brochures. It's our front door to Grants Pass. It's how people experience Grass Pa Grants Pass, where they spend their time and money, and whether they return or decide maybe they come back to live in our great county. Effective management here directly supports local businesses, tourism, and the vitality vitality of downtown. The reason Visit Grants Pass is the right choice. They already manage marketing and promotions of our city. They understand our brand, our local businesses, and what travelers are looking for. Visit Grants Pass can be, excuse me, streamlined and consistent using metrics already tied to their tourism strategy. They collaborate bring together local lodging, restaurants, retails and other organizations. Managing the welcome center would strengthen the network. I by having trans uh visit grass pass uh to the welcome center. It is the professional tourism management without additional city staffing and overhead. The approval would make our our story stronger and we would better be better together. I would consider this. Thank you.

An answer to Mr. Riker, we do on days that we've had maybe 10 people in. I have had amazing things go on in that welcome center from people who want to come in sending packets out and they actually come into the welcome center after when they when they plan their vacation here. So, it's important.

Thank you. Hello, I'm Valerie Love Lace um city resident and I have been on the journey with the DMO from its very beginning. If you remember, it was once run by the city and it became somewhat of a disaster. So, we went out and got put an RFO for people who were willing to take over it and we got this excellent company from Ohio. I can't remember their name but they were able to like take that 30 um thousand foot view and say exactly what needed to happen and so it has been happening. Their first recommendation is what we put together a dis DMO which is a destinating marketing that is separate from it from the city. So that separates it that gives us professionals in the business of tourism who know what they're doing who know how to do it who know how to do metrics and measure it. The first step was de developing that destination marketing organization with a board which has worked. I was on the leazison for the board. We've since gone through a change in the DMO. So we've survived survived a lot of change and it's only gotten stronger because now we even have local people who are here working in our community to support our community. So that has been really strong. So that has been that says a lot for who we are. The second step in that part of it was to build a a downtown association and have the DMO work with that association to help build up their confidence so that local businesses could become a part of taking over the events for some of the cities to take the pressure off the city and that's working as well. So you're crazy to even think about not having and giving this destination marketing what they want. and I think it's very important to have them downtown because that kind of puts the puzzle together. So, I am speaking very strongly here in support of our DMO and getting a contract written and signed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Colt Foster and I'm the owner of Foster Strategies, an independent contractor for the Grants Pass and Josephine County Chamber of Commerce and for Weekend Beer Company. I'm also a multiple year member of the board for visit grants pass. I'm here tonight wearing all of those hats because this decision matters to every single one of them. Tourism tourism is the second largest economic driver in the community. It puts real dollars into our hotels, restaurants, shops, and into paychecks of Grants Pass residents. And here's something worth saying out loud. While the majority of Oregon has seen a downturn in tourism, Grants Pass has continued to increase. That didn't happen by accident. This is a direct result of the work of Visit Grants Pass, strategically marketing our community and managing the assets that bring visitors here. I see this from the inside both as a board member and as someone who works closely with local businesses. Our small businesses community business community is already working hard in a tough environment. Without this contract and the investment behind it, many of those businesses would be in significantly worse position. Visit Grants Pass has shown strong stewardship of these funds. They've been flexible. They've been accountable and they've delivered results. Renewing this contract is how we protect the momentum we've built and ensure the growth in tourism continues to benefit every resident in this city. I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, counselors. My name is Kate Battles and I've worked as an independent contractor managing the Visit Grants Pass social media uh and blog um for the past uh seven years before it was Travel Grants Pass. Um and the past seven years I've watched this organization evolve and grow into one of the most successful DMOs in the state. Like many people in Grants Pass, I was not born here. From the East Coast, I moved to Grants Pass on a whim after accidentally discovering it on a road trip out west. I'm not here because generations before me planted roots. I'm here because I chose this place. I moved here for the friendly people, the beautiful downtown, the emphasis on local business, and the amazing natural wonders that surround our valley. Because of this, I'm a fierce advocate for Grants Pass on the clock and off the clock. Working for this organization has been a joy and it's also taught me how important tourism is for our local economy. Just ask our downtown business owners, our local outfitters and guides, hotel years, wineries, and our county parks. I want to continue to share our amazing businesses, festivals, and outdoor activities while shining a light on the positive opportunities we have here. Unfortunately, if funding towards tourism is cut, the outside world will not uh see the the outside world will only know us by our headlines. And Frank, to be frank, they haven't been too great in recent years. At its core, Visit Grants Pass serves as the city's storyteller. It promotes the region's unique assets. From the beauty of our three river valleys to the charm of the historic district, bringing in visitors who might otherwise pass through southern Oregon without ever stopping by. Every overnight stay, guided trip, and dinner out generates revenue that circulates for our local economy. In the end, supporting Grants Pass is an investment in the economic resilience, community vibrancy, and long-term sustainability. Tourism isn't just about visitors. It's about creating a stronger, more prosperous Grants Pass for everyone who calls it home. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello. Uh my name is Ally and I'm the founder of Sapphire Social Media Management based in Grants Pass. I'm here to speak in support of renewing the contract with Visit Grants Pass. Tourism, like Colt said, is Josephine County's second largest economic driver. Visit Grants Pass puts the city in front of people who would otherwise never think to stop here. They tell the stories that most small businesses and city departments do not have the capacity to tell. My agency works in social media, so I understand what it costs to build visibility from scratch. And I understand what it's worth to have an organization like Visit Grantspass that has already spent countless hours building an audience, roots, and relationships and more on behalf of Grants Pass. Without Visit Grantspass, we lose our most active advocates in the tourism space. Foot traffic drops, awareness fades, and businesses like mine, which depend on a healthy local economy to serve local clients, feel the gap. I hope the council will move forward with the intent of continued growth in this city. Thank you.

Thank you. Wow.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Shannon and I am an owner of a small business right here in downtown Grants Pass. I'm here tonight in strong support of renewing the contract with Visit Grants Pass. From where I stand, not on paper, but on the sales floor, tourism matters. The people who walk through my doors, who eat at our restaurants, and who shop downtown, many of them are not local. They are visitors. And they are the reason small businesses like mine stay open, grow, and continue investing back into this community. Visit Grantspass brings those people here. This isn't just about hotels. When visitors come, they shop in our stores, fill our restaurants, and experience our downtown. That creates real revenue, not just for businesses, but for the city through lodging taxes that go right back into things like public safety, parks, and downtown development. As a business owner, I can tell you those dollars matter. And just as important, marketing a destination doesn't happen overnight. It takes consistency, strategy, and time. A five-year contract gives Visit Grants Pass the ability to actually build momentum instead of starting over every year. I see the impact firsthand. This is not theoretical. It is real. If we want a thriving downtown, if we want small businesses to succeed, if we want outside dollars coming into Grants Pass instead of relying on locals alone, then we need to continue investing in organization that makes that happen. I respectfully urge you to renew the contract with Visit Grants Pass. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am Sue Densmore and I'm the executive director of the Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau. The monument and preserve is a gift really to Josephine County. They're really only two, maybe three if you count timber line which is owned by the Forest Service of opportunities like this in the state of Oregon and we're thrilled that the Oregon caves is healthy and the Grants Pass serves as a gateway. It is critical that the community of Grants Pass always encourage people to go on to Cave Junction and we in return send people from the coast into Grants Pass. There's only one road that goes from the freeway to Grant to Cave Junction and back again. And so I would encourage you um Tori when she was here and now Dan and his team and Griffin have just been fabulous to work with. They have been very supportive of the Oregon caves and of the friends and we just encourage the renewal of their contract and the use and the management of the welcome center too. We we always appreciate having people be able to stop there and where in the heck is the Oregon caves? They can always help us find it and we just appreciate your support of this contract. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello everybody. I'm Claudia. I'm with the bearded baker and as a small business owner, we have seen firsthand the benefits of vis visit Grants Pass. People are no longer discovering cities from a dusty magazine rack at a trades truck stop anymore. They're discovering them online, through videos, through social media, through a digital storytelling through seeing real people enjoy real experiences in a city that actually looks alive. If a city doesn't exist online, to most travelers, it simply does not exist. Visit Grants Pass is not just posting food pictures. They're literally helping keep the city visible, relevant, and economically competitive. While slinging cheesecake downtown, I cannot even count the amount of people that have actually come up to us and said, "We came because we saw it on Visit Grants Pass. We came back because we saw something online. We had no idea this was happening until we saw it on social media." That includes our locals who didn't think anything was happening. The videos, photography, reels, event promotion, and business exposure they provide are worth thousands to small businesses that could never afford this type of media coverage on their own. We can keep treating growth like it is the enemy while simultaneously asking why businesses struggle and storefronts sit empty. We cannot fight modernization, fight tourism, fight visibility, fight downtown investment, fight events, and then act shocked when our economic growth stalls. At some point, we have to decide whether we want our city to evolve or just keep re reminiscing about the good old days. Uh, good evening, mayor, counselors. My name is Bob Hackett. I'm the executive director of Travel Southern Oregon, the state's regional tourism office with a contract with Travel Oregon. I'm here uh to uh voice strong support for renewing the contract with Visit Grants Pass. that 28% investment that you all make back into visit grants pass to market your community. Uh the 2025 numbers from uh Travel Oregon's Dean Renan survey, which

they've done for 30 years, uh just came out and that that 28% investment um generated $178 million of visitor spending in in your community last year. Um it was an increase of um 4.5% in earnings, $64 million in earnings by employees uh in Josephine County. Uh and an increase of 3% and 2100 jobs that are working in this tour and travel industry. Um travel visit grants pass can and should take credit for that in a very challenging um tourism environment where a lot of communities are down and yours is not. and to have a professional long-term. Um, and I do encourage if you can extend that contract as long as you can. Conditions are constantly changing out there and to have your professional team be able to continue that story through is going to continue to yield these kinds of results. If you can go up 3% every year, stick with them. So, we highly support you renewing that contract.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi. Uh, my name is Sam Thornberg and I am the owner of Chili Goose, a new business downtown. And I have a bit of a unique and wild visit Grants Pass testimonial. I'm going to talk for the two minutes, but if you don't listen to anything else, here's the TLDDR. I had the choice of moving anywhere in the world, and I moved to Grants Pass, site unseen, because of Visit Grantspass. My family moved here from Southwest Florida in September of 2024, and I can confidently say we would not be here without Visit Grantspass. We found ourselves in an unusual position where we could relocate our family anywhere. We looked both internationally and domestically, narrowing down our potential new towns. We had no connection to Oregon previously, but had stumbled upon Visit Grants Pass on Instagram while scouring the internet. In all of our searching, and again, of the entire world, Valencia, Spain was our second choice. It was the first time we were truly excited. Seeing art along the road, the tree lighting, hailgate boats, concerts in the park, the gorgeous landscape, the climate, the community, it gave us a glimpse into local everyday life that no other town was providing. It immediately felt right. And I could see my family here. I could see myself strolling the growers market. I could see myself floating the river, my kids at the skate park. It was everything we wanted and the antithesis of where we came from. And we would never have known about it without Visit Grants Pass. I didn't even know this part of the country existed to be honest. I'm from Southwest Florida, the swamp. Our lives are incredibly different and significantly better since moving here. And I can I can't thank them enough for sharing the town with us. I think when you live in a town for a while, you can start to be blinded, caught up in the flaws. But Grants Pass is a gem worth showing off and supporting that effort. The community, the events, the downtown, the parks, the rivers. That's truly not normal. I looked at all of the small towns. I promise. Um, my friends call it my little hallmark town. This place is truly special and if you continue to

share it, people will come and I think that visit Grants Pass is damn good at their job. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Faith Lamir Baiton. I am a small business owner in Grants Pass operating Latitude Wine Tours. I moved to Grants Pass over 5 years ago after four years as an engineer in California. Upon moving here, our region's beauty and thriving wine scene inspired me to take the leap and make a career change to tourism and hospitality as a wine professional. I've been deeply involved in our local wine scene ever since, working in tasting rooms and downtown businesses and with our local wine maker nonprofit. In 2024, I made the life-changing decision to start my own business, taking wine enthusiasts on tours of our beautiful wineries. I have told many people in this room today, I never even considered starting my own business until I moved to Grants Pass. It didn't even cross my mind as a possibility. But I was very impressed by our active chamber of commerce supporting um our local business owners. And I was even more impressed by the work being done by Visit Grants Pass, bringing visitors to our town. And I felt that if I were to start a business anywhere driven by my passion for hospitality and wine, Grants Pass was the place. As a small business owner, I depend on the work Visit Grants Pass does to bring people to our area. If people aren't told about our beautiful Applegate Valley or Rogue River or farm-to-table food scene or energetic live music culture, they will never discover Latitude Wine Tours. My meager marketing budget cannot carry the weight of marketing a whole region in addition to my own business. That's why Visit Grants Pass has been an irreplaceable partner in my journey as a small business owner. Grants Pass is a singularly unique town. I'm proud to live somewhere that people want to visit on their hard-earned vacations. And without visit Grants Pass's work bringing tourists and their dollars to our town, my business dreams alongside the dreams of so many other small business owners would be snuffed out before they've really had a chance to get off the ground. I urge you to renew the agreement with Visit Grants Pass to ensure our town can still be a place where small businesses thrive. Thank you.

Thank you. How do I'm uh Timothy, best known as Banjo Like the Dog Young Bloodood, uh president, ring leader of the medicine show revival. And uh soon you'll know us as the the force behind the initiative to make Grants Pass the healthiest city in Oregon. Uh with that, I believe I believe people will come together no matter what. I believe it to be innately human to want to be involved and inevitably members of the community will assume positions on the spectrum of possible roles from spectator to organizer. These are confusing and trying times and people are undoubtedly feeling a broad stroke of emotions from fear to blind faith and and I believe we need outlets. I believe people will inevitably come together and it's events and the purposes behind those events that organize potential chaos into co-creation and can usher in usher us into something that strengthens what we have. Consider the child without guidance who's more likely to get in trouble or the dog without a toy who's chewing on the furniture. Aside from the obvious financial benefits of tourism, the events and the purposes behind them that organizations like Chamber of Commerce, Medicine Show Revival, Main Street and so on that vi visit grants pass markets and makes it makes accessible are necessary to the community's capacity to come together and create something good and grow together. I believe visit Grant's past is essential for the prosperity and general well-being of the community and it would be counterproductive for all of us to move into a future without them. Thank you. A little shorty. Okay. Good evening everyone. My name is Carrie Boltz. I'm a

downtown business owner, a winery owner, a motel owner, and a strong advocate or tourism buff here in Josephine County in Grants Pass. I don't typically attend the city council meetings unless I feel deeply passionate about an issue. And when I heard visit grants pass has an impact and their impact might be in question, I knew I needed to be here. Tourism has always been close to my heart. I discovered that passion back in college and graduating 2015 when I worked for Hellgate Jetboat Excursion. From there, my love for the industry only grew. Over the years, I've built meaningful relationships across the street, across the state with Travel Southern Oregon, Travel Oregon, Discover Clamoth, and Travel Medford. It's a network I'm proud to know and one that I've actively engaged with. Recently, I attended the Travel Southern Oregon Conference or Travel Jam here in Medford, and I have to say, I never been more proud to represent Grants Pass in Josephine County. The work visit Grants Pass is doing stood out. In fact, when Travel Medford presented their upcoming content strategy, I realized Visit Grants Pass has already been doing this for over a year, storytelling for us. And that says a lot when people mirror your what you're already doing. Their content, their content is not only telling the story of downtown, but telling the story of our entire county. I see the impact firsthand. At our winery tasting room in Brookings, I hear visitors come from Curry County talking about Visit Grants Pass and what's going on over here and the impression it makes on everybody. I'm going to jump down. Um, I've seen their impact in my own business. When I partnered with them on a vendor call for 419, we went from 20 vendors to 50 vendors in less than one week. That kind of reach absolutely matters. Their work is also what inspired me to get involved locally with Main Street Grants Pass and the small business task force. Because of Visit Grants Pass and that traction on social media, I have come to get involved with my community. We have a you unique identity in a special corner of the state and tourism is a critical part of sustaining that here.

Thank you. That's it. That's all we got time for.

Good evening, mayor and counselors. My name is Ashley Bradfield. I've lived in eight states across the country and I've called Josephine County home for 10 years. I'm the co-owner of Crash and CMAC Productions, a nonprofit consultant. I also volunteer with Music Oregon, Main Street Grants Pass, Bluegrass Pride, and the Williams Citizens Advisory Committee. I'm here tonight representing the entertainment industry to advocate for Visit Grants Pass as an essential partner in supporting our local tourism and entertainment economies. According to the National Independent Venue Association's 2024 State of Live Economic Impact Study, fans attending independent live events generated more than $130 million in off-site spending in 2024 alone in Oregon, filling hotel rooms, supporting restaurants, and shopping locally. More than 110 million of that spending went directly to lodging. The entertainment industry generated $1.4 4 billion in economic output. While Oregon's broader arts and culture sector generated 8.9 billion, supporting over 50,000 jobs and contributing more than $400 million in tax revenue. And what did venues and producers identify as their number one operational challenge? Marketing and bringing in audiences. That's exactly where visit grants pass comes in and plays a critical role. Destination marketing organizations support the outreach efforts of small businesses and entertainment producers that bring tourism dollars into our community. That's not just cultural value. It is measurable economic impact. At our own events in Grants Pass, people have traveled hundreds of miles, averaging over 500 miles traveled. Just last weekend, downtown Medford saw over 6,000 people just because of live music alone. We don't know the numbers, but that was likely tens of thousands of dollars into their local economic activity. Organizations like Visit Grants Pass help make those outcomes possible. They

amplify the work of independent producers and small businesses that are creating a vibrant, livable, and economically sustainable community.

Thank you. Tonight, I'm speaking not just as a business owner or event producer, but as someone who genuinely loves this community and wants to see it thrive for generations to come. My name is Charlesy and alongside my partner, I co-founded Crash and Cmac Productions here in Grants Pass. Through our work in live music, events, and community activations, we have seen firsthand how important tourism is to the health of our local economy. Not just for hotels, not just for ticket sales, but for restaurants, bars, shops, artists, venues, and countless small businesses that rely on people choosing to spend time and money in our region. And that's why organizations like Visit Grants Pass matter. If we want long-term economic resilience, we need a diversified tourism ecosystem. One that includes arts, entertainment, live music, food, culture, and yearround experiences that give people reasons to visit Grantspass and reasons to stay engaged in our community. We have personally experienced the support and partnership of Visit Grants Pass as we've grown our company and expanded the kinds of events and opportunities available right here. They understand that live entertainment is not just recreation. It is economic development and impact. It creates a ripple effect throughout our community far beyond just our ticket sales. I also want to speak to the importance of stability and longevity within organizations doing this work. Strong community infrastructure takes time to build. Relationships take time to build. Momentum takes time to build. When organizations are forced into constant rebuilding cycles through instability or turnover, valuable resources get diverted away um from growing tourism and opportunity. Instead, those resources get spent on retraining, rehiring, and starting over. Those don't move communities forward. It moves them backwards. I love Grants Pass. I want my kids to

live in a community where real opportunity exists and a place where small businesses can thrive, where arts and culture are valued, and where people feel proud to call this place home. Thank you.

Good evening, counselors. My name is McKenna Listair and I own a downtown business and building on G Street. And my husband Kevin and I are southern Oregon natives raising our two daughters here. We've invested in our downtown, in our team, and in the future of this community because we believe in what Grants Pass can become. I'm here tonight to speak in support of renewing the contract with Visit Grants Pass. When a woman drives in from Medford, Eugene, or California and walks into our business, nine times out of 10, she found us because someone somewhere told her that Grants Pass was worth the trip. And that someone is visit Grants Pass. They are the reason our visitor traffic exists in a measurable way. Downtown small businesses don't have million-dollar marketing budgets, as you've heard tonight. We can't buy billboards on I5 or run statewide campaigns. But what we can do is open our doors and pour our hearts into our storefronts and trust that someone is telling our story to the world beyond Josephine County like Visit Grants Pass does. They tell that story through Saver grants pass, through their visitor guide, through every traveler who walks into the welcome center and leaves with a list of places to spend their money. Our places tourism dollars are the seed money for everything that makes downtown feel alive. And without that visitor traffic, the lights start going out one storefront at a time. I understand that council has real questions about reporting and accountability and those questions deserve answers. I'd simply ask that as you work through them, you remember the small businesses and all of us on the other end of this contract because we are counting on this partnership. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Well, I didn't really bring anything that is prepared. My name is Alan Masters. I have lived here since 1979. And when I heard this lady talk about she could live anywhere in the world. She was thinking about Spain. And when I think about Spain, what do I think about? Running of the bulls. You know what the town is called where they do the running of the bulls? Anybody? Anybody? Pimplona. Pmplona was known for people getting gouged by bulls and only idiots go there to get gouged. Well, we kind of have hung hunger games going on across the street over here. And so, are we going to be known for this horrible thing that's happening in our town right outside our door? I think that we need to have a reset of how we look at this whole this whole thing because really Dan and this whole operation is the marketing arm of Grant Pass, Oregon. So, I was asked to go to Pamplona, Spain because it's kind of funny she mentioned that because I worked for USA Today Travel Features, Fortune magazine, Las Vegas Means Business through Money Magazine, Travel Weekly Magazine, Mexico Travel Bureau, Las Vegas Convention Center Association, United Airlines and Rap City Magazine on United, CNN Money Travel Features, Car and Driver Magazine, RVI Recreation Vehicles. I've done a lot of travel and it's the marketing arm of our t our town and if we don't tell the world if if you go to a football game and there's no cheerleaders a lot of people just sit there but the cheerleaders make it all kind of happen. Dan's our cheerleader and we need to support him. And I think we need to up the budget to like a million dollars because I have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a couple of minutes about one town called Pmplona,

Spain. So you wouldn't think about just people getting gored by bulls. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, hello Mayor Council. My name is uh Trevor Yerish. Thank you for giving us the time this evening. Um, I almost didn't come up after Sam uh spoke because that really should be the loudest voice in the room tonight. I mean, that message is real and that story isn't just anecdotal. There are m many people that come to our town because of that experience right there. Um, but I would like to encourage you to approve the agreement with Visigants Pass. There are a couple reasons. One being that visit grants pass, they do actually a good job at delivering detailed metrics regarding the job that they're tasked to do. And when they're asked for more metrics, they create more transparency. They give more metrics. They don't argue, push back. That's a good partner to have someone who will create the transparency that's asked and required of them. Um, second, the part uh the part of quarter the part that the quarterly report can't fully capture is that Dan Buck and his team, I say team, his team of one. It's amazing that there's two of them that get it all done, but they're moving the brand and the perception of Grants Pass in a real way. Oregon business ran a feature last month calling us one of the Pacific Northwest's most intriguing tucked away destination. I I have it open right here. The headline is actually Grants Pass is quietly becoming Oregon's most surprising adventure town. And right below that is an image produced by Visit Grants Pass. So I I think like this stuff is a slow burn. One year, two years doesn't this stuff doesn't happen in 3 months or 6 months. this stuff happens in three years, in five years. So, I would ask you to

consider that. I also don't know why they're put together. They're this and the welcome center. I think that those are two separate contracts. They represent two separate functions for Grants Pass. Um, and it is muddying the water when you're trying to get both done at once. So, thank you. Thank you,

Mayor and City Council. Thank you for your time tonight. Uh, my name is Michael Ocoin. I've lived in Grants Pass for nearly 40 years. I'm a local realtor. I serve as vice president of Main Street Grants Pass and I'm in the community every single day advocating for our merchants, listening to our neighbors, and working alongside with city staff. Tourism is obviously our number two economic driver right now and is more important than ever com considering the recent headlines. We cannot deny that our town thrives and survives on tourism, whether we like it or not, because sometimes it feels like we do everything we can to make it harder and then we wonder why our local businesses struggle. Food and Travel Magazine, Food and Widen Travel Magazine, Wamit Week, Explore.com with over eight million monthly readers, Northwest Travel and Life, The Oregonian, Oregonian Business, as Trevor just announced, uh, called us the most surprising adventure town. That is not by luck. That is worldclass media portfolio earned for this community by Visit Grants Pass. Cycle Oregon, USB BMX National Regionals, both right here in Grants Pass here soon due to the Grants Pass. There are voices, well, a voice in this community opposing visit Grants Pass. I simply ask council to consider whose interests are being served by that opposition because the people who work hardest to tear something down are usually the ones who benefit from its failure. This community deserves better than that. Visit Grants Pass is a main artery for this community. working quietly, working hard, and deserving for far more appreciation than it gets. The five-year contract as proposed is a commitment to doing this right. I urge you to approve it, and I thank you for visiting Grants Pass.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Sheriff, uh, city council members. Thank you for your time. My name is LJ Norman. I'm the founder of Norman Design Company LLC here in Grantspass and I'm here tonight to speak in strong support of item 1D, the resolution to renew the agreement with visit Grantspass. As a strategist who works in web design and digital marketing, I know what effective outreach looks like. When I relocated my business here last year, a major factor was the phenomenal job that Visit Grants Pass does marketing our community online. But I'm not here just to share my story, my story. I'm here to talk about the numbers because the data proves their strategy works. In a single year, visitors injected 155.7 million into our local economy. That spending supports over 2200 local jobs. And through their digital efforts, Visit Grants Pass generated over 14 million social media impressions and drove 113% growth in their Facebook audience. Their targeted advertising yields an incredible return. For every $1 spent on ads, visitors spend 128 billion or $128 in our region. Excuse me. That's a that's a big jump. I saw it be there. Uh furthermore, the the events they help promote bring massive foot traffic. Boat Nick alone generates an estimated 1.14 million in economic impact. Visit Grants Pass is not just making our city look good online. They are an economic engine driving tangible revenue to our small businesses, restaurants, and hotels. The transient lodging tax dollars invested in them yield massive returns for our community. I urge you to report to support this agreement so they can continue this vital work. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Sorry, I need the glasses there.

Uh mayor, counselors, uh my name is Sue Sloum. I am a a tenur full professor of tourism management from George Mason University. Uh but I live here in Josephine County and I have the honor of serving on your tourism advisory committee. Um nothing I'm going to say today is overly new from what other people have already been sharing with you. There's ample scientific evidence that shows that for every $1 spent in destination marketing, you will receive a return of $10 in economic impact. uh we understand fiscal responsibility but fiscal responsibility is not just about reducing the bottom line or tightening the the strings. It's really about making good investments so that your constituents can benefit from those investments, those with good returns. Tourism marketing is vital for rural communities that need to diversify their economy. I'd like to add that there is a reason that destination marketing organizations are not generally part of the government. Uh something that Grants Pass has obviously already experienced in prior cycles. Uh but we all know that government bureaucracy is not conducive to creativity and innovation and business grants pass is really a creative uh entity that needs the room to be able to function in that sphere to continue the success that they've already shown. Um I want to um just remind the counselors that we everybody here are all here because of our passion. We want you to make informed decisions. We are all of us experts in the field. Grants Pass is a valuable asset for you and I hope you'll use us. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Ashley um Ashley Cruz. I am president of the Grants Pass. I also own Weekend Beer Company. And I'm not going to lie, uh, hearing the stories from, uh, moving here sight unseen, um, all of the incredible business owners that rely on Visit Grants Pass, the 170 some odd million dollars that was made from that little 28% that uh, Visit Grants Pass was uh, uh, in had been invested in uh, got me a little emotional over there. I'm not going to lie. Um, so thank you all for sharing um, your stories. I think this means a lot. Um, we see a lot of visitors at Weekend. Uh, what we hear and what everybody hears is that this town has such a beautiful small town feel and everybody loves it and there's no corporate chains here taking over and there's all these small local restaurants and they love it and they were built by people who live here and love this place. Uh, like me and I can tell you we need tourists in this town. All of us know that. I think it's pretty clear from everyone here, we need the tourists. We cannot support uh we cannot support local businesses just by locals alone. Um with all of the negative reasons that Grants Pass has been in the news today, we need Visit Grants Pass now more than ever to show people that we are not just what they see on the news. And we've done that as Visit Grants Pass. Um the T the 28% of the TLT dollars are designated for tourism. So, I do appreciate your support in renewing our contract and letting the pros do their job. Um, also because I have the time, I just want to give a little shout out to Dan and Griffin over there to say that we are so incredibly proud of the work that you've done and thank you for everything you've done for our town. It has made an incredible impact on my business and clearly everybody else's.

And I just want to say thank you for that.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Terry Hopkins, president and CEO of the Grants Pass in Josephine County Chamber of Commerce. You've heard a lot from me over this topic over the last month and a half, whether it was the partner presentation, uh, workshops, one-on-one meetings, sitting by your side in uh, budget committee. Uh, so I'm going to keep this very short and just wrap up all of those communications and come here to you with a sincere thank you. uh when we decided to pump the brakes on this conversation, it admittedly was very frustrating to me and very scary with uh June 2nd deadline and knowing that Visit Grants Pass has already made some tweaks to their marketing plan in the case of what if this does not continue. Uh but at the end of the day, uh I I again it was the right thing to do and I come here to thank you. You know, you guys have shown us that you care about answering to your constituents, about uh fiscal conservativeness, about really diving in deep. This is a big pot of money. I mean, this is a lot. And so, I value you for that. While at some point in time I felt frustrated, it's because I live it and see uh these comments every day of my life. But the thing that we haven't noted and again concluding our budget committee yesterday, uh I I know that you all see, but it's not just the impact to these business, it's every constituent in our community when we're talking about being very careful about raising rates in utilities, property taxes, levies. You know, I I just want to stand up here and remind the one thing that hasn't been said, the transient lodging tax dollars and that investment that returns is funding $579,000 in public safety. this year, $383,000 in our park system, $153,000

in economic development, and $153,000 in downtown development. That's all money that our visitors are paying and saving our taxpayers to fund those services in the city. So, thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, uh, mayor and counselors. Uh, my name is Kathleen and I'm a 60 plus year resident of Granspass. I'm not here as a business owner or someone that might profit from tourism. I'm just here as a local person advocating for a visit Grants Pass and how I utilize their publications and and what I read of the events that happen in town. their weekly music lineup tells us where to go and have dinner and listen to music and and they promote all our little events like art walk and and all the things we do here. So, I just would um love to encourage that that that goes ahead and and for us locals, not just tourists, we locals really depend on uh knowing um what's happening around and uh I would be uh kind of in the dark a little bit without them. So, I encourage you to please um vote to fund uh the extension for them for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council. Thank you for your time. I am Doug Bradley. I chair the tourism committee for the city. I am on the board of Visit Grants Pass and I operate I'm responsible for the operations of two hotels in Grants Pass. So, it's not going to be surprising which side of the fence I fall on with this topic. Um, and obviously I'm here tonight to urge you to vote yes on the pending Visit Grants Pass contract. Um, it's clear Visit Grants Pass delivers measurable value to the city of Grants Pass through visitation and hotel occupancy, ultimately increasing the transit lodging tax collections from from these facilities. Uh, Visit Grants Pass is able to deliver measurable return on every dollar spent. And I'm not sure that's a common characteristic of of most of the private contractors that you deal with. Um, so based on transparency, a proven track track track record of success, and the fact that we are perfectly positioned with the momentum we've built to serve Grants Pass as the premier economic driver for years to come. Your vote matters. Please vote yes on the visit Branspass contract so we can continue to service this city. Thank you.

Thank you. And I want to thank everybody also that has come up tonight and shared their stories because I hope you'll understand the impact of these lives that Visit Grants Pass has touched. So, thank you.

Thank you. I waited slightly last. Um, counselors, thank you. I realize you're all volunteers and you volunteer yourselves for a lot of grief at times. So, we do appreciate the fact that you analyze the data and try to make the best decisions for your consistency. Different viewpoint. Today's visitors are tomorrow's residents. You heard that from a lot of people. And tomorrow's residents are tomorrow business owners. those people that decide to invest in downtown. I am one of those investors. So, I also realize that there's money for the city to be made in all the permits, which I have been paying regularly. There's money to be paid for our local businesses that provide the services to build out those new business organizations. HVAC, electricians, floorers, framers, they all get paid and they all contribute to the economy of Grants Bass. So, a vote for I thought I was last word. Thank you. A vote for visit Grantspass is a vote for a vibrant potential future because nothing is guaranteed. But again, appreciate all your efforts and I greatly suggest and endorse extending the contract of visit grants pass. Thank you.

Thank you,

Ward. Warren, I'm glad I came uh to be here so I could see all this enthusiasm and vitality that is downtown Grants Pass. There's no way you can sit here and watch this group of people and not be impressed. This is the group that makes our downtown what it is. Um, so I think you all know I'm a business and property owner downtown and have been for about 40 years. Um, and I learned a long time ago it's important to reinvest. Um, and so I think what we're doing with Visit Grants Pass is we are reinvesting tourism dollars to bring in more tourism to build our city and our downtown and make it bigger and better than ever. Um, and I have known since day one, going back into the early 90s, I knew the original staff people that did the tourism program. And I've known all of them since then, including the one that preceded Dan and the one that preceded her. Okay? And I'm telling you, these are talented people. Um, I have a degree in marketing, advertising, and promotion, and I've used that in my own businesses. Uh, I worked in radio, I worked in print. Um, and these people are talented. Um, Kate Battles does 95% of the content. And she's a pro. She's classy and she's professional as a photographer, as a writer, and every day she's consistent. She's putting those uh posts out on there that are promoting our businesses, our local businesses, and helping them. And I think it's important. And Dan Griffin uh does a great job. And Dan uh I think is being local, and I think he's the best manager that this program has had. Uh I think

they're doing a great job. Um and I think they need to memorialize the reasonable hours for the welcome center and the contract. Uh but I think that the contract should be renewed. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there any more public comment? Okay. Thank you very much. Um I will acknowledge uh council has received a number of emails in um support of this and I would be remissed if I didn't acknowledge that we do have one person in our community of opposition to this. With that, I'll bring it back to council for discussion. Victoria.

So, I just want to thank all of you for coming. It was uh uh it it was a worthwhile city council just to hear all of you being so passionate about downtown and Grants Pass and business growth. Um, and uh, from my perspective, this was on a consent agenda a while back because it it was supported. It was supported by me and um, any contract can always be improved. But, uh, I I thought it was a little unfortunate that you guys all the the anxiety that you kind of felt about possibly losing it. um I I didn't care for that and uh because I do support it and um I have seen the numbers the numbers speak for themselves and uh so when I know that I personally when I got elected that the one thing that's going to help grants pass is economic growth. We can't do anything about a lot of things, but we can make sure that we can try to grow business and business opportunities in Grants Pass and Visit Grans Pass has done that. They can show it on paper with numbers and it's a very good investment in our community. However, having said that, it was just it was a lot of fun for me to h um listen to all of your stories and just to talk about uh just to hear what a great group of business owners we have. So, thank you for coming out and doing that. And uh we know that Visit Grants Pass is doing what it set out to do because the TLT dollars are up. We heard that Monday at the workshop. uh and that the investment in the economic

development is going to have a really great payoff and um I don't want to stop anybody from from speaking but I would like to just uh make a motion to authorize the city manager to enter into the revised funding agreement with the exception of raising the hours to I think it was 30 Not not with that because I like the 15 and for them to have the opportunity to make that business decision with the Josephine County Visitors Association including the addition of the downtown welcome center operations.

Thank you. Um we are in further discussion and we have a motion on the table to approve the um downtown welcome center oh sorry the the DMO contract as revised excluding the revision to the hours. Is there a second? There's a second from Rick. So with that I'm going to continue on with discussion. Uh, I had uh Joel and then Indra and then Kathleen. Joel.

Um, I'm a little bit unclear on the hours and it's a minor point. Um, one of the things I'm thinking of is the hours um in the in the shoulder season and off season for every reason that you folks said need to be increased because we're not going to stay where we were. we're going to move ahead and uh that requires a business model that anticipates that and those hours in that shoulder season and winter season need to reflect that. Now, there's opportunities there that we haven't taken advantage of. For example, one of the first three wild and scenic rivers in the nation is the Illinois River. It can only be run in December and January and and it's has just much clientele as mountain biking, but it's it's a very rigorous sport. Uh and not very many people know about it because it hasn't been marketed. Um and there's a lot of things like that. And so, um I would I I like the hours and I I uh think we need to not stay where we are. Uh there's no reason for us to have a visitor center with the smallest amount of open hours of any visitor center in southern Oregon. I don't think that's appropriate, especially considering where we want to go because of what you've said. So, um that's why I support those expanded from what the contract says, hours. I wouldn't expand it beyond what the existing visitor center had. Uh, and I might even decrease it a little bit because there is a offset cost in in marketing, but we're not going to stay where we where we are and we need to anticipate that and we need to have management uh of uh and a realization by everybody to move forward in in an aggressive manner

um like visit Grants Pass has been. So, um, I I would encourage and and I was unclear, Victoria, on your motion what it said with the hours.

Oh, so I I just heard the argument that at least 15 gave them the it gives them the option to save the money if they need to. And I I mean, it seems to me like they're going to expand the hours as they see it expanding. I just wanted to make sure that they had the opportunity to make that decision if that makes sense. So it's it says at least 15 hours. So but and you wanted to inc double that. Um I

well actually I'm not doubling it. I'm not decreasing it to 15. I'm I'm I'm uh probably decreasing it from what it is today. And it's it would be smaller than any other visitor center in southern Oregon. Oh, I think I may have misunderstood you then. I thought that you wanted the winter hours to be at least 30 hours. That's correct. Oh, okay. And I was thinking in the winter hours from the the numbers that they gave us to give them the the the opportunity to to keep it at at least 15. Just kind of anticipating that probably if they see that they need it to grow that they probably would just to give them the option.

Well, and and I'm I'm the opposite. I I think we need to be aggressive and I think uh and it's not aggressive because of uh it just wouldn't be a big negative change from what we have today. We don't want to go backwards. Um and um and and I don't think it's a big deal from what I heard the honorable Dan say because he's going to be down there anyway. Uh Amen.

Amen. Yeah. And um and then I then I heard the lady who was working there before said, you know, if you get one visitor a day and and all of a sudden they move to Grants Pass and and they come in January, why not? Uh that that's a big that's a big difference. And I see Mike shaking his head, who I have a lot of respect for, real estate guy, because he'll find her a home. Okay. So anyway, so I I think we need to have at least a minimum of 30 hours. So currently you have a motion at the table to approve the contract as amended tonight except for increasing the winter hours from a minimum of 15 with a second. Um I don't see Victoria offering a friendly amendment. So we're going to continue with discussion at this moment in time. Um I I had Indra and then Rick and then Rob. Indra.

Yes. I I often say on matters, where are the business owners speaking up? And here you are tonight. And so I'm um I'm very uh it's it was heartwarming to hear your testimonies really on the business. Um I did ask for the reconsideration and the reason for that is because uh originally the contract went through on a consent agenda with absolutely no discussion at all and I had a lot of questions on it and I do ask a lot of questions that's because I'm have an oversight for public money and it is a lot of money as Terry mentioned and I wanted to be make sure there was accountability for the public money and that was my sole purpose with that. It is unfortunate that there was stress and anxiety. This in my opinion should have happened in February back when it's supposed to happen and that didn't happen. So I do worry about that going forward. I think we shouldn't work wait till April. I think we should see the reports early so if we have questions they can be addressed. Um, with that said, the energy and enthusiasm uh just is amazing and Grants Pass is really blessed to have business owners such as yourself here and so thank you for coming tonight. That's what I needed to see and hear. I spoke with some of you um in the past few days. Um so I got a lot more information and uh I am in support of extending the contract for five years. I would uh propose however that we do keep the hours that are currently at the at the welcome center.

I agree with Joel and I think it was 36. if it has to be a, you know, 30 in the winter, I'm okay with that. But I I think it should be up in that that range. And uh I guess that's um that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Um we have a motion on the table to approve the DMO contract as amended tonight except for extending the winter hours past a minimum of 15. We are still in discussion and I have uh Rick, Rob and then Joel. So Rick,

so the reason I'm in support of this motion is I feel it's important who the business person is to have some control of their business and their format. Um on Monday in the workshop, I asked Dan, I said, "Okay, so you're going to have two or three people having offices in that building during the off season. Does that mean you lock the door?" and they said no. So even if somebody walks in, there's going to be somebody to talk to. So I just am in favor of this because it gives the business person a little additional flexibility. Thank you. All right, further discussion. I've got Rob and then Joel. Rob.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks everybody for coming and I pretty much I agree with almost everything that was said tonight was except except for one part of the motion that's currently on the table which is the hours. Um the uh you know on on Monday when Dan agreed to keep the hours uh as they are and he was very clear three times he said that the the it would stay open the same hours during the winter as it as it did this year. uh which which pleased me because frankly when I looked at this contract the thing that jumped out at me the first red flag was or one of the only red flags was the reduction of hours in the winter uh to 15 which is just again as Joel said it's it's um far below whatever the standard is in um the rest of southern Oregon and I know in March I actually checked and and uh every visitor center in the five cities that I would call uh uh that that abut us or that are around the southern Oregon, every one of them was uh in the 30 plus range for the downtown welcome center. So, so the red flag for me was or the thing that jumped out to me that I wish uh you know uh had been discussed before it was put in writing was the number of hours and Dan was quite clear on Monday when he said look we're probably going to be in the building anyway so we can just keep the doors open. So, you know, and he mentioned he or Main Street or Griffin are going to be there. So, you know, they should post a sign on the door so that the hours are open. And uh if it's only them, that's fine. You know, I can I can tell you because uh well, I would say that apparently uh Dan is very good at what he does. And I would say that he is, for lack of a better description, it's not exactly accurate. He's more of a wholesaler. Uh, but I don't know that he's a retailer. Meaning, I'm not sure if he would understand what it's like to be downtown and what it's like to only be open 15 hours and what that would mean for customer service. And um, frankly, 15 hours actually could put a

kind of bad spin on somebody's visit. Uh, if they come down Sixth Street and maybe they see a few empty storefronts and they, oh my gosh, the visitors center was closed when I got there. It was only open 15 hours. That's not a good look for me. And for people that watch Monday's workshop, the thing that really um kind of uh I would say uh motivated me to um uh to re to revisit this contract again was the 15 hours because getting back to um I know one of the uh um people in the audience tonight mentioned that back in 21 um the city paid or 20 maybe DMO pros to do a comprehensive study on on the tourism and that's uh how we got started down this path and uh the quote that I I read on Monday was in their report and it was about 60 pages they quoted a Texas A&M University study and part of that was that what they found at the Texas um&m university study people who visited downtown welcome centers um as contrasted with interstate welcome centers or outlying welcome centers people who visited downtown welcome centers spent 35% more than they anticipated on their trip because the attractions restaurants etc are nearby and you know when I look at that to me that is not consistent with reducing the hours to 15 and I don't know that there's any um one who runs a downtown business in this room that would think that that is a good idea idea. Uh the 15-hour reduction is just not something that a I don't think a retailer could get behind. Um frankly, or someone who understands or actually feels what it's like to do business downtown. Um you know, we did the council did back in I

don't know, uh might have been 22, 23, something like that. Um we allocated $650,000 for the remodel of that building and it came out really nice and there's no doubt about it. And there was talk at that time of, you know, should we remodel it, you know, or should all the all the tourism, you know, uh, responsibilities uh, just go to the north end of town to the chamber and council made a commitment at that time to $650,000 to keep that building open because we knew the value and 15 hours a week is not keeping that building open in my opinion or not to the extent that it needs to be. So, um, you know, it's, um, I can tell you as a as a retailer downtown, some of my slowest days, and it's not it's not all of them, some of my slowest days allow me to spend more time with certain customers and give them uh, a better impression of what we offer, better impression of what's um, how they why they may want to come back, etc. And there's some times when we're really busy and I I wish I had that extra time but if we had let's just say on the slowest months and it was very interesting that you know the on this contract the months were grouped together October through April or something like that and when Joel asked for the figures earlier I mean October, November, December all had a lot of action in the welcome center. So to to potentially put that 15 hour there is just um to me that would be um negligent um by the council. But um you know it's um again for somebody that uh is downtown every day I think that we know that a 15-hour welcome center is really not sufficient and there could be days when it's really slow. There's no doubt about it. Which allows you to give more time to those customers. Um

the uh again I guess that's that's about uh really all uh my thinking on this. Again I thought on Monday that we had this detail worked out. Uh Dan did say that he uh you know since he would have an office there and um Main Street would likely in the long run have an office there and Griffin would have an office there that it would be no problem to keep it open uh to the existing hours. That's basically what he said on Monday for anyone who watched. And that would mean that they could be sitting behind a desk doing whatever they do and if someone comes in the door, great. They get a chance to interact with them. But um I don't believe that's going to happen if the um if if there's a 15-hour um if we allow 15 hours in this contract. So, I I'd be willing to actually for sure uh vote to approve this um with uh 30 or 35 hours as the minimum in the in the winter. And frankly, um if there are slow January or February, that doesn't mean that November and December are slow. It doesn't mean March is slow. And um if there's a few slow days, hey, you know, businesses don't make a profit every single day. But this way it allows the visitor center to support the businesses that are down there for more than 15 hours more than 15 hours a week. So yeah, I I I'm going to need uh an amendment from that to uh to go to 30 hours before I would vote for this because I I just don't think that 15 hours is is an appropriate number of hours to uh to um to be in this contract.

Okay. So we have further discussion with Joel and Kathleen. I'm going to ask both of you. Is this further discussion to increase the hours? Yes. Okay. So, one of them is to increase the hours, one of them isn't. So, I would look to Victoria so we don't go round and round and round and round and round and round and round about this. Would you be entertaining to a friendly amendment to your motion to increase the winter hours to 30 hours? That is what Joel was going to do. Perfect. And I was going to

even better achieve your objectives. So, we have a motion on the table with a friendly amendment to approve the DMO contract as it's um been adjusted tonight with the increase of the winter hours from 15 to 30. Rick has acknowledged that he continues his second. Kathleen, would you like further discussion?

I just want to give credit where credit's due. I think um Dan has made a good impression on us coming to the workshop and other several other times coming to council and presenting his case and I'm very excited about him taking over the uh welcome center. I think it's going to be a good fit and all of you have just uh with your collaboration just cemented that and I think it's a good fit and I'm all for it.

Thank you. Any further discussion? All right, we have a motion on the table as stated a number of times to approve the DMO contract as we adjusted it Monday as well as we adjusted it this evening. If there is no further discussion, I'll go into a roll call vote. Victoria, yes. Kathleen, yes. Rick, yes. Rob, yes. Indra, yes. Joel. Yes.

All right. Motion passes. Thank you very MUCH and thank you all for your participation. But we are continuing on. Next council action item is a resolution. And as you exit the building, I would appreciate if you guys could keep the volume down so we can continue on. Um, next council action item is a resolution approving commercial activity at Riverside Park and a fee waiver for the 2026 Frog Oair event. And Aaron will take over.

Good evening, Mayor Council. This is a request from Legacy Family and Leadership to grant a commercial activity permit and wave park reservation fees at Riverside Park for the 2026 Frogo Fair event. This is a children's event. It's been held in Riverside Park for over 50 years. So, it's a long lasting community event that we've had. The event is scheduled for Saturday, June 6th. Per municipal code commercial activity does require um some action by council. The city has adopted a fee schedule also and they're asking for fees to be waved. The following is the fees individually listed. They are requesting the city permit the fee waiver of $1,150.75. Now, I do want to mention that in a workshop, it was discussed that city council potentially look at and consider not waving in the future the uh refundable damage deposit. So, if that's something that you'd like to modify from this, it could be something you can do and it can be recognized in your uh motion. This is a free children's festival. It's got live music. There's estimated around 2,000 people that attend this. It's family friendly. It has vendors that provide food and retail merchandise. This is just a schematic of the event itself at the park. And again, the revenue source, if you're do wave, if you are waving this, would ultimately uh come from park reservation fees. And your call to action is today. You've got some alternatives and a potential motion. And as I mentioned, there was one that was potentially of council interest, which would be to change the dollar amount, removing the $625. With that, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Aaron. Uh questions to council. Rob. So I don't I didn't see the breakdown of uh um damaged deposit. Was that is that the whole amount there the 1150 or is that No, the 1150 the breakdown here is 1150 is number of other things. It's a reservation fee. It's the the portable platform fee etc. The refundable damage and the key refundable uh deposit is uh the refundable damage is $625. Thank Thank you. Uh Seth, you have any questions? Andre, you have any questions?

I do. Um, so it it it appears that council um is leaning towards waving fees for parks to give people the opportunity to use them without the big fee. Where So my question is where when that money is not given for the fee is that it's just not put in the park fund. What fund does that fee go into? It is it is primarily the the park funds that are making up that difference. Um the park reservation fees are helping with that. This it costs money for us to uh to provide some of these services including including the park fees. So um

it's general fund. Yeah. Park park fe it's general fund dollars. So we don't budget the park budget specifically assuming we're going to get so much in fees. We do anticipate fees coming in from park usage in park uh whether it be a field usage or or a band shell reservation. There are fees that we try to anticipate in good faith what they may be and those for the general fund is what you're saying. Thank you.

Joel, you got any questions? So looking at it from a policy standpoint, Erin, um with the refundable deposit for damage um in all our permits for the parks, have we ever used that? There actually has been a time when we have utilized that for I think some sprinkler heads that were broken or something like that. Um what's the probability and how often? It doesn't happen that often. Usually the individuals that are doing this that are asking for the fee waivers are community events that have utilized the parks for a long time and they understand uh the usage and and the the respect for the park system. Sure. Okay. Thank you.

Victoria, you got any questions? Kathleen, you got any questions? Rick? Okay. Any further questions? Okay. Uh thank you very much, Aaron. Yep. And at this point, I will open it up to public comment. Is there anybody within the public that wants to weigh in on this council action item to wave fees for the park use for the Frog Fair? State your name and you got two minutes. Trevor Yish. Uh live here in Grants Pass, downtown business owner in Grants Pass. And more importantly, father. Uh I have had two kids that grew up going to this event. This event's been around How many years has this event been? Uh like 50 years.

50 years. So like I mean I remember this event from when I was a kid growing up here, right? So uh this is it's an important sort of I guess small amazing cornerstone for the children in our community and families, right? Because I I got to be a dad there helping my kid build things. So it's just a really good feel-good event. It's um there's a ton of volunteer hours that go into making this thing happen. So being able to wave some fees to make it possible without them having to go work extra hard to get extra sponsorship dollars to cover fees is is just helpful to the volunteers that do it all. Right. So thank you all for your support and thanks for all your energy and effort and uh appreciate you. Thank you. Any further people from the community want to weigh in on this council action item?

All right. Seeing none. Fitch, will you open that door? Please. Okay. Can you guys keep it down because we can't hear over your chitter chatter? I know you're excited. Please move along. Thank you. Okay. At this moment in time, I bring back to council for further discussion and or action. Kathleen, thank you, Fitch.

Yeah, I seeing as this is a regular annual event, they know this uh these volunteers know what to expect. They know what to do uh to keep our park in order. I would just like to move to approve the resolution allowing commercial activity and to grant a waiver of the park reservation fee at Riverside Park for the 2026 Frog Fair event. Okay. So, there's a motion on the table to approve the uh fee waiver. Do within your amendment or within your motion, are you accepting or or are you including the waiver of the security deposit or all of them?

All of them. Okay. So, the motion is on the table to wave all fees um for the event uh Froggoair and a second from Seth. Uh further conversations, further discussion. Indra. Yes, I'm absolutely for waving the fee. Um, and and I'll vote for it, but I do I I do think we need to discuss a little bit the deposit because I think the deposit it's refundable, correct?

I think it keeps people um with that in mind that they need to be careful and not cause damage, but also I think it needs to be consistent and fair across the board. So, we have some groups that have been uh coming to the parks for 50 years, but we might have a group that's in a year and they're new. And so, are we going to make them pay a deposit because we don't know them, but we make others not pay a deposit? I just feel that that inconsistency might be a little unfair. And because it is refundable, um they'll get that money back. So, that that would be my one concern. Okay, we have a motion on the table to wave all park reservation fees for the frog offair event with a second. Any further discussion?

All right, seeing none, I'll go into a roll call vote. Kathleen, yes. Uh Rick, yes. Seth, yes. Indra, yes. Joel, yes. Victoria, yes. I'm giving him a second. Rob, how do you vote? Thank you. All right, passes. Uh, next council action item is a resolution approving a fee waiver for Riverside Park for the 2026 Kids Day in the Park event. Aaron,

yes. Thursday, there is a request mayor and council for from Park Watch GP, which is a nonprofit organization to grant a waiver of park reservation fees for Riverside Park for their 2026 Kids Day in the Park event. This is the third annual Kids Day in the Park event. This event is free to the community. There'll be games and karaoke and complimentary snow cones and hot dogs provided. The event is scheduled for Saturday the 26th. So, the fees associated with their usage of the park, it totals $440 and are listed on the screen. Park Watch is requesting the council wave the $440 fee. This does require council action.

Thank you. Estimated, yeah, estimated at 500 attendees. And there's your potential motion. Thank you, Aaron. Uh, any questions from council? Okay, seeing no questions, I'll bring it back to public comment. Uh, this opportunity is for public participation to comment on this council action item and only this council action item. Anybody in the audience want to step up and make comments about this action? Go right ahead. Please announce who you are and you have two minutes.

Amy Wright County. Um, it's actually the 27th. Is it the 27th of June? It's the 27th, not the 26th. Anyway, I've been going the last two years. It is so fun. There are so many kids, so many happy kids. Everything's free. The parents, I mean, they're just smiles everywhere and I think it's great and and it's a really big community event. We're so happy to be involved and um I think it's great what you're doing and we're a nonprofit and we have a chance to get the fee waved and thank you very much.

Thank you. Any other members of the public want to weigh in on this council action item? All right, seeing none, I'll bring it back to council for further discussion and or action. Seth? Yeah, I'm going to make a motion to approve the resolution to grant a waiver of the park reservation fees at Riverside Park for the 2026 Kids Day in the Park event. Thank you, Seth. And a second from Victoria. All right. Any further discussion? Seeing none, go into a vote. Seth, yes. Indra, yes. Joel, yes. Victoria, yes. Kathleen, yes. Rick, yes. And Rob, yes.

All right. Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you for all you guys do. All right. Last item on the C council action items for this evening is resol excuse me resolution authorizing notice of intent to award a non-bargaining salary and compensation study proposal. Aaron

yes good a uh good evening mayor and council. Uh there was an RFP process that council wished to go through to have a compensation study done on non-bargaining salaries. Uh it would include comparable agencies such as uh Medford, Ashlin, Clamoth Falls, Central Point, and Roseber. They work closely with HR to provide a full market analysis and recommend adjustments accordingly to council. Council did review and consider synergized HR during its April 15th meeting. Additional information was requested for synergized HR before an award was to be made. And on April 15th, the city did receive notice from synergize HR of their intent to withdraw from the selection process. The May 6 council packet includes the addition of references, checks, and sample of work from the remaining respondents that are are still listed here. Evergreen Solutions, Logic Compensation Group, CBIZ, and Gallagher. This is ultimately council's decision on where they like to go. You've got alternatives. Council can approve the low bid. Council can approve the another bidder uh based on your findings. And council can reject bids. And then there's a potential motion. Any questions?

Thank you, Aaron. Uh bring it back to council for questions. Rob, do you have any questions? Not now. Seth, do you have any questions? Ender, do you have any questions? Joel, do you have any questions? Victoria, do you have any questions? Kathleen has questions. So it says in here it's uh even though uh synergized SR uh withdrew their proposal it says however technically they are not able to withdraw. What does that mean?

Well it means technically by OR that they once you've submitted a bid you technically legally can't withdraw. However, you asked for additional information and they did not provide the additional information. So, they're deemed to be non-responsive and so that provides you with the other bits that are in front of you. Okay, Rick, do you have any questions? All right, any further questions?

Going once, going twice. All right, thank you. Thank you, Erin. At this moment, um, we open up for public comment if there's anybody in the audience that wants to comment on this council action item. Now is your time. All right. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to council for further discussion and or action. Rob.

Yeah. Thanks. Um so this was of course a lot 500 pages worth, but a lot to look at. Um there was um you know it's clear I'm sure that uh everyone on the council wants to choose somebody who's uh honest, reliable, easy to work with, uh has has good references um to to back that up. Um I'm sure that we're all on the same page on that. Um after really combing this very carefully, what became uh clear to me regardless of price um there were so many uh there was no standard way to present this data. um different companies even within their own presentation mixed between bar graphs, pie charts, um scatter plots, line graphs and frankly um many if not most of them I found to be of almost no value whatsoever or I I I couldn't I couldn't without a decoder ring I I couldn't figure it out. So, and if just uh council, if you want to turn to your packet, like Evergreen, who actually got a bad um uh review, and I would probably throw them out for that reason, uh bad recommendation, but what I what I found was by going through all these different charts and graphs and so forth, there are certain things that um would make it easier for me and I think it easier for all eight counselors to actually understand some of this data. But if we look at like just some of the examples on evergreen of things that we wouldn't want from any of the I think pages 12 123 125 um it's like uh 129 uh 131 is really bizarre even though there is color on the page so the printer had

some color I just look at black lines I have no idea what that could possibly mean all equal black lines across the page. So I when I you know when I want to when we as counselors want to be able to discuss this we want to be able to you know essentially speak English to each other and understand what it is each other are talking about. But but some of these especially from evergreen another one on 131 I have absolutely no idea what zeros and ones and twos mean on an entire chart with no other explanation. So to me there was a lot of examples of what we wouldn't want because I don't think that we could it could move our process forward at all. Um you know we we need to have our information presented in a way that all of us can can understand and this was also true for for uh most of them they I had many different examples of things that were extremely difficult to understand. So there's things in these in that we don't that that I don't think that I would want to see. Um there's also um um I'll bring that up. I'll bring that up later. But um on the last one um the one that happens to be the most expensive um they do some things um a little bit better. If we go out to their appendix on page uh was it I think their appendix starts at four uh what is it? Uh 413. Gallagher starts on 413. So, if we go out to 413, um, here's at least they are speaking English. We're reading from left to right and top to bottom like everyone in America does, right? So, we could all we could discuss this. We can compare it. And they've got all the other cities that they're comparing. I guess their client is the city of Upland. They have all the other cities that they are comparing to, which makes it really easy, right? Or a lot easier, I should say. There are some columns that I would

think are missing there, but at least that's that's getting closer to the style. And and they're pretty much the only one in this book that's doing that. And I'm not suggesting that we necessarily hire the most expensive one, but we may be able to ask one of the less expensive um uh respondents to come up with something that's like that. And what I, you know, handed out to council earlier was just an example of um just a piece of paper that had uh an example of how to me an easy way to lay this stuff out would be and it's um you know the example was Medford police chief and it had the salary range below that Clamoth Falls police chief salary range, Ashlin police chief, Roseberg etc. And it went from top to bottom really easy for us to understand. And then below that, how we would go within our own our own um u internal, in other words, police chief salary, captain's salary, lieutenant salary, and there where it bumps up against the police sergeant salary. Really easy for us to compare and contrast one city to another. That to me is something like that is would be helpful because I think all eight councilors could actually have a intelligent discussion doing that without a statistician helping us along. I mean, some of the scatter graphs were just unbelievable. They just look like a shotgun blast on a page with very, very little um explanation. So, to me, that's whoever we choose, I think we should be um asking them if they can come up with a way of presenting the data that will actually be helpful helpful to us. And the example I gave, I think, is a really simple way. Um I'm just going to say I'll say one one more concept and then I'll yield the floor. Um uh I think every one of the the respondents had had parts of their um uh response saying something like um they

will conduct a meeting with the internal project team or things of that nature. Um, and to me because uh, you know, they'll check in at certain intervals and they'll check back to make sure that things are are moving along or done the way we want them to do it. to me that uh I think it's really important that whoever we work with the internal project team uh includes a very heavy counselor um um presence or uh a very heavy councilor presence because every single one of our employees has a major conflict of interest. Every single one of our employees is on the list of potentially getting a getting a raise. So any any of these groups, any of these respondents that we want to do business with, um to avoid the huge internal conflicts that our employees would have on this, uh there needs to be counselors on that um you know, on that team that would then interact with the uh um um with the consultant. But those are those are the two points that I wanted to make. And again, one is just we should ask whoever it is we choose. And um I don't really want to choose the first one because they got a pretty pretty bad review. Um but any that we choose that they lay out the information in a way that uh we can easily understand, we can discuss among ourselves and that the public would understand. And I gave an example of a way that it could be done and that I don't see any reason why they you know any one of these people couldn't lay it out in a real simple easyto read English.

Further discussion Joe Um, first off, I'd like to compliment the staff on on completed staff work, and that includes contacting the the uh references. I remember um just very briefly whenever I had to fill a job, if I went to my supervisor without having called the references, the meeting was over and u because I didn't do my staff work. So, thank you, Karen, and thank you, Erin, for getting that done. I appreciate that. Um the second thing that struck me as I went through the applications was um budget constraints. Um no company or no government has retention or recruitment without consideration of budget constraints. And and here's another compliment for Aaron and uh JC in the the budget that we've just approved. I think they put forth a realistic uh budget constraint for us to look at in this area. Uh it's not hard and fast and I'm not sure how that translates. Uh but that will need to go through that screen because you just don't have recruitment or retention at any cost. You know, um Aaron wouldn't support that. So we got we're going to have to go through that screen regardless. Um the other thing is uh the difference in cost between 25 and 35,000 to me is pretty insignificant if we get what we want. And um I agree with Rob that uh the most expensive one was the easiest to read and and it's what I want. And so given that the spread in cost isn't that great and if we can get what we want with that uh $35,000 investment, then uh I would support that. Uh but it

also needs to go through the budget constraint screen uh that we have that we h approved with the the most recent budget and with the reference checks that every that staff did. So thank you. That's where I'm at. Any further discussion, Victoria?

Yeah, I really um when we went through this before and the applicant was on the phone, I felt um satisfied that that was going to be a really good contract. And so, and it was going to be affordable. Uh so I just don't think that I am willing to spend so much more um after looking at all I mean we've been through them twice now. So um I don't know what the other alternative is but we lost our affordable option and uh but I'm I just don't feel like I can justify going 10 you know. So, so thousands and thousands of dollars higher.

Any further discussion or action?

Rob. Well, I I certainly would prefer to um spend as little as possible. Um unfortunately with the uh the um we had one before that was of course a a startup that had obvious market penetration pricing and um which can be a great option if uh a new company is really um you know hungry for business and wants to do good. It's just the only problem was without an example of their work or how they would lay out uh data or anything like that there's it would have been foolish to move forward and they chose to not give us that. But at this point, I just like to know because uh uh what is an alternative way forward? Uh do we have an alternative way forward? Because for me, um this is a pretty serious issue. Um you know, we've got I mean, we we were told uh a while ago just on one just a single pay equity violation if that were to happen. And we we found out that the state law I guess in 23 or 24 um really um uh makes it a lot tougher or a lot a lot it really reels in uh or makes makes cities focus a lot more carefully on pay equity issues and others. And um what one pay equity issue, the penalties if we we lost one one out of just one uh one case, two years back pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees and cost, city and employee attorneys, liquidated damages, and penalties. That would be for like one employee if we had a a problem that we didn't have. Uh but by hiring a a consultant to me, um I think that we would probably have a more defensible position that we're actually uh trying to do our best to uh make this right and to uh avoid um pay equity issues, compression issues, and things of that nature. And I I don't see this is not a mom and pop. uh I don't see myself sharpening a pencil or uh Seth or

Indra the business owner sharpening a pencil and we're being able to come up with something that would be professional and um defensible. So I I think it's inevitable that we have to spend money and it's unfortunate that we um you know this is where we're at but um this is what staff did back in October of 23. they went out to, you know, it had to be done, you know, and it's just uh we're still now we're back in the same place and money needs to be spent unfortunately. But that's that's just reality unless somebody has a different alternative, you know, if if if uh Victoria's against spending the money on it. If she has another alternative, I' I'd love to hear it. If anyone anyone has an alternative um to moving forward with professional, I'd like to hear it.

Further discussion? Um Joel? Well, I can certainly respect people trying to to hold the budget line, the uh $35,000 one. Uh it's not just because of the risk of any lawsuit because that doesn't scare me, though. We need to take that into account. Um I just need to feel we need to do a quality study. That's understandable for the value of our employees. And um it's it's a it's the right thing to do. um not only for the taxpayer dollars so that we know we're within our budget constraints but that we also treat our employees with respect and and we come up with the right answer. Not that the $25,000 wouldn't. Um, but when I looked at the presentation, the $35,000 was much more understandable to me and I I could uh I could uh understand it and talk to talk to Victoria about it and listen to her thoughts on it and understand what she was saying. So, um, anyway, that's where I'm at.

Uh, further discussion or action? Um, Rick, I like the comments that Joel has made. I feel we could, you know, choose a lesser uh fee, but the problem is if we don't get the product we want, then it's not money well spent. So, um I would be also in favor of the of Gallagher's I believe is how it's presented. Thank you. All right. Further discussion or action? Rob,

to me, I think there's and again it's it's in the overall scheme of of you know, city budget, it's a fairly small difference of money. um literally uh what one of them is 27,500 the next one is 29,700 and then there's Gallagher at 35 but uh another option would be and I'm not uh it may not even be cost effective but uh we could ask either Logic or C Biz um you know if they'd be agreeable to laying out the data in the way that would be most helpful for us because clearly what's in the packet it's almost it's it's not you can't even understand But um that would be you know if we wanted to save uh you know $6,000 or something like that $6 or $7,000 we could go back and ask them will they present it. We are the customer and um you know it's obvious that there is no objective standard because they all do it differently. we are the customer and we could ask them if they would uh tailor a product for us and that would bring us out of the 35 or we could go with the one that seems to be willing to lay it out in English uh from top to bottom, left to right in a way that again we could have meaningful discussion with each other about. So either way I I'd be willing to go either way with that um a lower price one and ask them if they can work with us or go with Gallagher and we're still going to have to be able to work with them as well. further discussion. I got Seth and then Kathleen and Joel. Seth?

Yeah. I mean, I would be in favor of Logic as well. I mean, I get what you're saying, Robin. Um, it seems as though I I would I would assume they'd be open to taking suggestions from council. I mean, you know, I've I've looked at Logix and compared them to, but I mean, it's spreadsheets, so ideally, they could they could pull the data that we want and and display it in a way that we want. So, and that one's obviously not the highest. So, yeah, further discussion, I got Kathleen.

So, I like what Rob's saying, too. Um, but, um, until we can nail that down to know if, uh, one of the other firms would do it because they might adjust their fees if they're doing it differently than what they've given us. Um, so until we have that information, if they'd be willing to change their format, I would just like to make the motion to reject the bids.

So, you're making an official motion. Okay. So, we have a motion on the table to reject all bids. Is there a second for that? A second from Victoria. Okay. So, there's a motion on the table to reject all bids with a second. Further discussion, Indra,

I was not in favor of the last one that fell through. We already did a consultant at quite a cost. I don't know was that 25,000 and we didn't get the results we wanted. And I I think all of these are overkill, like way overkill for what we need. And again, I know our staff, we value them as experts. I know we're down HR, maybe someone's coming on soon, but I don't I think this is something we should be doing internally without spending the money. Uh, further discussion, Joel.

So, where I'm at is um I think this is probably cheaper than even doing it in-house. um between the four that are left after synergized um on the on the references evergreen solutions I I don't I don't feel comfortable saying this publicly but they got some bad reference and that and you very rarely get that people don't usually give a bad reference uh just because it u there's some liability associated that but but uh when a person does get a bad reference on something so I would be okay with any of the other three Um, and I like Gallagher's presentation. The marginal benefit of it, uh, I think is worth the marginal cost. But, um, I I I wouldn't reject all bids at this point in time because I think we need to get this done.

Further discussion, I got Rob. Um, I guess from anyone who would favor rejecting all the bids, I' I'd like to hear a um any uh positive suggestion of how to move forward and how do we resolve this? Okay. So, we have a motion on the table to reject all bids with a second. Uh, any further discussion? Go ahead, Kathleen.

Uh, I think I did just suggest that we would ask the companies if they could reframe their work and give us what we're needing and um go from there because they might adjust their prices. They might uh come up with something different. Um, I think that's fair to say we need it to be in this kind of format so that we can read it. Okay. I'm going to ask for some consult from Stephanie. Um, if a motion to reject all bids is approved and we reject all bids, what is the course of action going forward?

Um, if council still wants to look at a consultant, we would have to start the RFP process over. If council just wants additional information on the bids, then you could table this to another meeting to be able to obtain that information. Otherwise, you'd be starting over.

Thank you very much. Um, so we have a motion on the table to reject all bids with a second. Any further discussion, Rob? I'm I'm definitely not in favor of starting over and having another RFP process. Uh, I would be much more in favor of potentially uh asking uh I would I would either potentially choosing Gallagher at 35 or asking the next lowest bidder at 27,500, would they be able to um in the in the same way that the last time we were going to we reached out to the lowest bidder and they were going to come back to us with additional information and um they decide to drop out. I think if we reached out to either logic compensation group and say is this the kind of thing that you can do for us at the same price uh we can bring that back to a another meeting um and that would be you know the next lowest bidder and we can find out if they would do the work at that price and then we can we're still moving forward in a positive way. So, I have to consult with Stephanie one more time because I don't believe that is a process available within the RFP. If you reach out to one applicant within your RFP process for additional information, do you have to do the same for all?

Ordinarily, I would say yes. No, we had to send it out to all of them. We didn't do just one person last time. We had to send out additional information requests to everybody. That's part of the RFP process. Ordinarily, that is the case. But in this particular one in the RFP, it specifically says that we have the right to reach out to any individual for additional information. So it is in the RFP that we are able to ask just one for information. And that's what we did last time, right? We we did we did ask um the lowest bidder for additional information initially. That's why they were here to present. Um and then subsequently all of them were asked for the references and the um work product after that. But we did only ask for one for the initial additional information.

Okay. And I apologize, Rob. I I actually misunderstood that last time. I thought we I thought we had to do it across the board. Okay. So, we'll bring it back to the discussion more. You have a motion on the table to reject all bids with a second. Any further discussion before we go into a vote? S.

Yeah. I mean, I kind of agree with Rob. I I don't really want to kick the can down the road, but um if if we want to ask Logic if that's something that they can um provide to us, I'd be okay with that. I I really don't want to reject the bids. I think we've come this far, so kind of got to continue forward. Otherwise, we're going to be back to square one. So, Rick is up for discussion, but I want to reiterate, we have a motion on the table to reject all bids. If that goes into a vote and does not pass, then you are still open for discussion and or further motion. So, Rick,

so I will not be supporting the motion that's on the table. Um, I feel When you have a competitive situation, if you have one company that provides a product and then to say to the other ones, we want you to copy their product. I don't think that's appropriate. I think you choose the person who produces the product that you want and then you're be willing to pay the price. Thank you. Okay. So, we have a motion on the table to reject all bids with a second. Um, if there's no further discussion, I'm going to go into a roll call vote and see how that plays out. If this motion does fail, then the discussion is still open and there still can be action going forward. So, we will be voting currently on a motion to reject all bids. Kathleen,

yes. Victoria, yes. Um, Joel, no. Um, Indra, no. Seth, no. Rob, no. Rick, no. Okay. Motion is denied. Does not pass. So now bring it back to council for further discussion and or action.

Joel, um, just a quick discussion. Um, I like Gallagher's presentation. Um, logic got good good uh, references. um they were a little harder to decipher. Um if we get back to them with some different format of giving us that uh I'm okay with logic. I'm okay with logic ciz or Gallagher and my preferred one would be Gallagher because I don't think the increased cost is u is unreasonable given their their presentation anyway. So I'm I'm okay with logic. Further discussion and or action. Seth?

Well, yeah, I'm okay with logic as well. um and Gallagher potentially. I don't I don't think we should ask Logic to I I agree with Rick and what he stated. Um go back to them and ask them to try to basically replicate something else that somebody else brought to us. Um at least in this instance. Um so I think we'd pick between either or further discussion andor action. Rob,

you know, when I look at Gallagher, Gallagher is to me um the easiest to decipher and the best for best layout. Um if you looked at their columns, to me, they still had had uh there were still things there that frankly we would probably need some more information on. And it's the best one, but I even if we were going to deal with them, I would want to ask for a little bit more. So, if you turn to 413 when you get into their appendix and you look at any one of their their columns where you've got uh salary effective date uh next next salary increase um um next percentage uh increase you know I guess there could be a discussion there but um they don't say uh how many steps there are in in a u in a different city. they don't they don't uh say the uh the percentage between the steps. So there's more that that we would want to see from Gallagher too if they're going to uh if they're going to be the one that we choose. Um I think anyway we would want to know um you know what their you know what their finished product looks like. But then again the number of steps the the uh percentage increase between steps the number of years between steps. So there's things with Gallagher that we need to we need to ask for modification on too. Um, so any way you look at it, we're going to be talking to somebody and negotiating with somebody to to fine-tune that product. But I' I'd be okay with Gallagher, but I'd be okay with going either way. So, um, but again, Gallagher is not a is not a perfect product either in my opinion for the reasons I just stated. We're going to need more a little bit more information from them. Further discussion and or action. Go ahead, Joel. Please.

I want you to do something. Okay. I don't know if I can go back and forth another time. This is all risk management. You and you don't know what you're going to get till you get it. Um I I'll make a motion to award the contract to logic compensation group uh for the 275 um and um give them some feedback and possible requests for uh different formats and information. I'm not. Okay. So, there's a motion um from Joel to award the contract to Logic. Um do I have a second from that? I have a second from Seth. Uh further discussion. Yeah. Go ahead.

So, this is kind of situation we're in with the uh the last group. Um I think we agreed that we weren't going to award a contract until we actually got an answer to our question. There was we could probably reach out. We may be able to have that answer within a few days. whether or not they'd be agreeable to coming up with a a little bit um uh easier to read much easier to read uh format. So, we could go ahead with that tonight. I I'd rather reach out to them first and say, "Are you willing to do it for this price?" You know, as Kathleen was talking about, they may want to change their price. I don't I don't see why they would because this is actually very simple, but um you know,

so Rob, you want me to amend the motion? Well, I I'd like to I'd like to Yeah, I I would say that the what I'd like to see is to possibly give staff direction to reach out to um uh Logic and um show them the uh the easyto read English and say this is just something you can do for us. You know, that's that's what I you know, that to me makes the most sense. So, you know, reach out to them and see if they're willing to willing to help us in a way that we need to help. So, we do have a motion on the table to um award to logic with a second from Seth. Um we do have a council discussion to maybe withdraw that motion and give some staff direction. So, I will continue with discussion. Um Indra and then Rick. Kendra,

can we vote to award the contract contingent on the getting the information we need and the price staying the same and so that we don't have to bring it back for a vote? You could do that. You'd want to be very clear about the specific requirements of the contingency, but yes, you could do that. So clarification question would be if if the council does vote to award a particular applicant with discretion on getting the proper information if that information isn't provided since we've already awarded it to somebody. Do we have to start the RFP all over again?

No, because you're awarding the con you're voting to issue that notice of award. And I would also note that if I remember correctly, we have a 7-day window for protest once the award is done. So, we can use that time frame before a contract would even be signed anyway. So, you could have a contingency. If that contingency is met, then it on that seventh day, the uh contract could be awarded.

Further discussion, Rick? I'm very uncomfortable with the direction this is going because basically you're giving a product and you want to be bid at at a certain price. people come forward. Then if you say, "Okay, you want to go to the low bidder or because the high bidder has a product you want, but you go to the low bidder and said, can you match it?" Maybe we should go the other way, too. Go to the high bidder and said, "Can you match the price of the low bidder?" So, um I'm a little bit concerned that we're doing a copycat here and it's not um a level playing field. Thank you. Further discussion, Rob? Yeah, Rick, I I understand what you're saying, but that I don't agree with that because we're not asking uh in any way, shape, or form logic to copy Gallagher. What or or we might be, but we haven't decided that. What I was proposing was the sheet that I handed out is that the data comes back in this form. And that's what I would thought. That's what I was hoping we would take the logic and see if they would match this. We're not asking to match Gallagher. We're asking to come because this is actually simpler than Gallagher. It's easy to read. It happens to be um uh frankly the way that Vicky Aldis from the Courier had studied this and it made it really easy for all of us to understand, you know, and that's what we're asking for. We're not asking for them to copy Gallagher. We're asking them to bring it to a really easy way for us to understand it. And we we know from firsthand experience, it was a lot easier for us to understand it when when Vicki laid it out this way than it was when McGrath did the thing. So, we're not looking to copy Gallagher. you know, it's not I understand what you're saying and and I wouldn't like doing that either for that reason. It's but that's I don't think I think we'd be asking to come up with something more like the sheet that I handed out because we could discuss it. It'd be easy. And so that that's kind of a hopefully that explains what I'm proposing and maybe makes you feel better about it.

Go ahead, Rick. So, we're choosing a consultant on the basis that they can furnish the information, but the proposal they gave us, we didn't like the information. So, um I'm having difficulty with that. Thank you. So, the way I'm interpreting this and I'm going to look at Joel because you made the amendment and you I mean you made the motion and you were accepting Rob's friendly amendment for request of more information or not? Well, I'm perplexed. Um, because I understand Let me Let me clarify. So, it's either a yes or a no.

Yeah, let me clarify real quick. So, the way I'm understand and then Rob can correct me if I'm wrong. The way I'm understanding Rob's request is he wants to reach out to the applicant and ask for a more palatable result graph slash so it's easier to interpret. Correct. Right. Okay. So, Rob is asking you for that amendment to your motion to award logic with the request contingent that they can provide a more palatable simplistic result form. Stephanie, is that legal?

I believe that the best way to ask it is going to be will they work with council to provide their results in a format as council desires. Is that and every single one of those consultants should say yes to that question. Okay. So, so that that what I heard you say is that is legal. Yes, we can ask them to present the information in a manner that is palatable to Okay. I I I just need a yes or no. So, yes. Okay. Okay. Um so I'd be willing to make that amendment if it's legal.

Okay. So you that we have a motion on the table to award logic with the request that they work with council for a more palatable understandable result or okay does everybody understand that further discussion Rick? So when they come back with the revised proposal do we then review that before we make our final decision? Go ahead.

They're not actually revising their proposal. What they're telling you is that whatever format you want to see the information in or whatever helps you understand the information they're presenting will they work with you to make sure that that happens. So they're not saying this is the format I'm going to give you. They're saying I will work with you to give you what you need.

Any further discussion? The way this discussion has gone convinces me that why are we paying 27,000 if we want it in this format the way Vicky Aldis did a nonprofessional in 9 or 14 hours that we understand and we would use from I don't understand why we can't do that with staff internally and save them money.

Okay. So, we have a motion on the table to award uh applicant logic with the request to work with council to provide more palatable results once they're done with a second. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll go into a vote. You will be voting to award the award the contract to logic with the request of working with council for palatable results, easily understandable results.

Joel, how do you vote? Yes. Okay. Um, Victoria, no. Uh, Kathleen, yes. Uh, Rick, no. Uh, Rob, yes. Seth, yes. Indra, no. Okay, so I got four yeses and three nos. So, it does. Motion does pass. So, I'm gonna turn to Erin and Stephanie and ask, do you fully understand what we just did? Yes. Thank you. So, one other thing, Clint.

Yes, sir. I'm um I'm assuming and I don't I don't I don't want to assume but the example that I gave I want to know that that is um acceptable to everybody. Is that something that they can read in a format that they can can deal with? But that that's my suggestion but it's really simple. So that's that's what we hopefully what we voted on was to provide this what was in front of council as an example. Okay. So are you amicable, Stephanie, to provide that to logic with um as a pal palatable format that we were looking for that council is looking for.

I think ultimately what we'll do is potentially have a workshop and have them online to where you can provide them additional direction through that process. I think part of the work plan provides that opportunity. So we can move forward with that uh with a discussion at a workshop.

Okay. Does that align a little bit with what you're thinking? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. That concludes council action for the evening and we go on to general public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to address the city council on items not related to public hearing or council action items 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, courteous manner. Citizens and council members will be allowed to state their position in an atmosphere free from slander, threats, or 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 the attempt to resolve this matter. Okay. So, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, and I'm just going to go with the presented order that they were given to me. Amy, right? Come on. You already got up there once. Let's do it. Please restate your name and you have two minutes.

Amy Wright County. Awesome.

I usually watch you guys every time you're on in the comfort of my home. And um I I love the language. I love learning about the government and everything, the way everything is run. So I I do appreciate everyone in their comments. Um I talk a little fast. Everything was worked out last night. I get real fired up and real worked up, but u I have some of my comments here. Um, Parkatch has boots on the ground. We we we see some things. Anyway, um we we've been going to Morrison Park and helping the the nice people wi with watching the restrooms and otherwise things get out of control. We've been there. And I'm sure you've heard about it and others will talk about that, but we've been going there and we really love talking to the the families and the children and just kind of let them know someone's there. And and another thing is our police. You know what? They have to take care of all of Grant's past. And I cannot even imagine the undertaking of taking care of all this. And it just my thought is uh we need a different entity. We need someone if we're going to have to live with this. I know something's happened with the marketplace, but I was just thinking, you know, if we have to live with this, someday there needs to be a professional that's in charge of them and telling them they get a microphone and they tell them what's allowed and what's not allowed. I mean, it's not clear. They're just, you know, the police will come if you call them, but um wow. Anyway, um biohazards everywhere, max emissions, harm reduction, we find it everywhere in the parks. Um, uh, let's see. Oh, let me tell you this real quick. I was helping a a little old man. He was down by the welcoming center. The, this was two weeks ago. And I said, "What's wrong? Do you need me to call an ambulance?" He's like, "My back." He could not even move. He could

not even move. There opens the bathroom door. And this guy comes out there with a brindle pitbull snarling at me. Is that all right? Next up, we got Fitch. Okay. Hey, thanks. Thanks. That was your time. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Fitch. You got the microphone. Restate your name and you got two minutes, sir.

Mr. Fitch, return resident. When I submit a foyer request, I expect it to be filled out instead of you following your pattern of habits of destroying evidence on Q. You have a pattern of that habit. It's going to be real simple to prove. You're going to be getting a litigation packet by the end of this month for your conspiracy. First one was trying to trespass someone four different times, which is a jeopardy. Double jeopardy. Four times. You were informed by the law enforcement that you couldn't trespass me because you didn't like what I was saying. So, your law enforcement gets with your city council and your county commissioners to get with your city attorney to see what they can do to get me trespassed. Your last trespass had the intent to get me killed. So, I suggest you look at that litigation packet and resolve this problem. You're not going to sweep it under the table. You have until September. But this fraud, this retaliation and vindictiveness because you didn't like someone coming up here and telling you you screwed up. Coming here and listen to you guys cry about you having to deal with the tr the homeless situation is just so pathetic. You screwed up. Deal with it. Fix the problem. Move on. If you don't like me telling you you screwed up, get the hell out of the chairs. Am I done? Nope. Pathetic guys. Pathetic. You got a problem with me? Come talk to me. Don't throw me through. Don't weaponize a court with your frauds and your lies and your alibis and using a woman that will do what you ask because the last attorney told you screw off because

you didn't listen to his advice. Have a good day, gentlemen. Ladies, thank you. Next up, we got Ward Warren.

Thank you. Um, I think there's a way to prevent the hubbhub that basically arose over the visit grants past contract. And I think it comes down to following the city charter. Uh, and I think the city charter is a very important document that maybe everybody up here should read every two or three months, maybe every quarter. Uh, there's some important stuff in there. U, first of all, we need if we would had a little more public transparency on the consent calendar. I watched that 5-hour long workshop uh and I can tell you that I didn't hear the renewal of the visit grants pass contract and basically uh I totally disagree with the fact that the council wants to save 60 seconds by not reading the titles of what's on the consent calendar because if I'm sitting at home spending 5 hours watching that I want to hear what you guys are approving and I think a lot of other people do. So I think you need to go back to reading the titles. It takes you no more than 60 seconds, 90 seconds to read that and I think it's important for transparency that it happens. I also would like to read a passage here from the city charter under the duties and powers of city manager and that is see that all ordinances are enforced. That's a huge challenge but it's a good goal. uh we have a municipal code and a development code and most of the items in those are not being enforced. And so rather than when you go talk to the county commissioners, maybe instead of property deals, you could concentrate on priorities like public safety in this town. And one thing I think we need is an exclusion zone. And I know not everybody agrees with that, but if the police chief says it's a good tool, I think that we ought to respect that. We need a municipal court. That's also in the charter. It needs to happen, but it could be a year or two or three, who knows? In the meantime, we need an exclusion zone in this town like Ashland

has, like Met Medford has, uh like Roseberg has, and they've expanded them because they've been successful. Nothing to lose by trying it, and you can always rescend it. Thank you. Okay, next up, we got uh Sophie. Restate your name and you got two minutes. Uh my name is Sophia G. I'm a resident. Um, you pull it down for a little bit there. There you go. Thank you.

My name is Sophia Giz. I'm a resident. Um, I'm here to discuss the literal concentration camps um for the homeless instead of a shelter, the criminalization of homelessness instead of a proper inhumane response, which would be providing unconditional treatment, housing, food, water, and other basic necessities needed for human beings to survive, which should be provided to all homeless people. Because it seems you have forgotten that people are humans. Not not only instead of a shelter, you criminalize and concentrate and and in turn irreversibly hurt these innocent people who just need some help. You decide your money would be better spent not on helping these people who need help who need help the most or any people for that matter. You choose to spend money hunting these people down and push them further into these situations, these concentration camps into homelessness with ridiculous and counterproductive fees and imprisonment with ridiculous, arbitrary and plain horribly wrong citations, fines, and punishments. How does that begin to make any sense? Not only have you done that, you have also decided to spend the money on unnecessary spending such as one example I recently heard of the plan to build a new plaza and stage center for the town when we not have not one but multiple stages in the high school PAC, the fair ground, the fairgrounds, and more. This is a needless waste of money that is a slap in the face of the people you swore to serve and um help improve the quality of life of. I can assure you nobody is happy with any of these decisions. Never mind the people and the people's lives you have killed and ruined. You have sworn to protect these people. You have failed to the utmost degree and should be deeply ashamed of yourselves and immediately rectify these actions. You swore to protect these people and you have ended their lives. You are failures, disgraces in every sense of the words. I not ask but demand an immediate rectification of these actions.

Thank you. Uh next up we got Brian. Brian Welen County. First of all, I just want to say that I'm rather disappointed that the uh little co little league coaches and parents can't be here tonight, but they had a game at 6:00 and practice at 5:00. So, as a member of Park Watch, we are very dedicated in the last couple years of cleaning up our community parks so they would be safe for children and parents to play in. April 1st was the beginning of Little League for Three Rivers Baseball Leagues. Like last year, it was very committed securing Morrison Park prior to children showing up at practices and games. Last year was a mess. Tents everywhere. A man died in the field next to the tent in a tent next to the games where children are playing. Drug dealers are using our bathrooms at every park daily and nightly. This has to stop. It's happening again. Last Friday night, we left. As soon as we got home from Morrison Park, one of the coaches called up and said, "We got four people in the bathroom all doing drugs." We uh jumped back in the car, went back over there. Absolutely unacceptable. We went called the police. We called the police five times. We got very we got a very busy day with the police because of the unoccupied and the serious problems of talking to Chief Hensman. And in the middle of April, we agreed that we we would partner with Parkatch and monitor the safety and the security of our parks and our games and our practice in at Morrison Park. We

never saw them almost all day every day and we're very grateful that on Saturday the three officers came back over and were there most of the day. Uh this is a huge problem. It is not addressed. We're going to have a serious nightmare with a child. The parents wanted to be here tonight, but they're busy. Thank you. Okay, so next up we got uh Catherine. Katherine Mafy County and I am going to be reading a letter from a mother of one of the little league boys that happened to be at the park on Friday night. And the letter says, I am writing as a deeply concerned parent concerning the growing homeless and drugrelated activities in Grants Fast Parks, especially in areas where the children's sports and family activities take place. Saturday, my 14-year-old daughter went to a public park bathroom at Morrison and witnessed a woman actively using drugs. The woman was startled when she saw my daughter and dropped the drugs onto the floor. In addition to this alarming situation, several other individuals who appeared to be under the influence were sitting in the bleachers in plain view of the families and children openly discussing drug deals on the phone shortly after a truck arrived and picked them up. This is unacceptable. Our park should be safe spaces for our children, families, and

community events, not a place where our kids are exposed to dangerous drug use and criminal behavior. At the time, there was only one officer present, and he was clearly outnumbered and unable to safely manage situation involving multiple individuals. We urgently need increased law enforcement and presence in our parks, particularly during sports events and family hours. In addition, while walking the park around baseball fields, I stopped to take a picture of trash that belonged that had been stored in the trees inside a black trash bag. The individual claimed ownership, jumped over the fence, and aggressively came to me. As a mother walking with my infant, this is terrifying and completely unsafe.

Thank you. All right, that concludes the p general public comment portion of our night. And can I get the consent agenda on the screen? We have a consent agenda as listed and posted in our packet. Be looking for council for discussion and or action. and Joel.

So, um JC, I just had a question on the quarterly report on the general fund. Um it it shows gez, I should have had the page here. You probably know it better than I do. Anyway, um what I was looking at was the u the balance so far as uh the percentage that we look at to meet our standard and we're three4s of the way through the year and your impressions on what that means for are we on target or not?

Uh thank you councelor King. Um for everybody following along that's page 596. Thank you. I'll wait for people to flip there if they'd like to follow along. So, what councelor King is talking about is the percentage at the bottom uh of the page which says 48.4% which is the current um ending fund balance as of March 31st, 2026. Um, as a little bit of history, um, March 31st of 2025, we were at 51.3%. We ended the fiscal year at June 30th, so the fourth quarter of fiscal year 25 at 39.76%. Over that time period, that's an 11.54% drop. If you do the math from this 48.4%, 4%. We're looking to be approximately in about 36.86%. Uh which is relatively close to what we projected the be the ending slash beginning fund balance. So that 36.86% is approximately around 14.6 million. Uh which is about $400,000 away from our projected ending beginning fund balance of fiscal year 27. um which is about 1% difference.

Uh thank you JC. So our our policy talks about 25%. It looks like we're going to be at you project 36%. Did my memory is uh lacking. Yeah. 30 between 36 37%. Um, I will make note though that that percentage automatically drops when you move to the next fiscal year because all the expenditures have gone up. So that same dollar amount that we're talking about budgetarily that goes down to about 33% just as the the the clock strikes midnight.

So we need to continue to monitor. The the other thing I question I had was the revenues. Um um we're we're short of the revised budget revenues, but we still got a quarter to go. Yep. Okay. So, we anticipate we're going to be on track for those revenues.

Yeah. That should become uh from what I'm looking at, this is all relatively normal. So, from the top down, uh the 95% of property taxes, that's approximately where we were the same time last year. Um, and we finished the year a little bit above 100% for about 300,000 280,000ish above the budgeted amount that we projected, which we seem to be right on track with a a similar number. Um, your franchise and other taxes. I know that number looks low. Um, but we actually acrew franchise fees and lodging or sorry, and business tax and other things uh outside of the June period because we have a 60-day acrruel period. So 50% is normal for that. So you should see almost a doubling of those revenues over the next 90 days so to speak.

Okay, cool. Thank you very much for your expertise. Thank you very much JT for your input and we still have a consent agenda. Would bring it back to council for discussion and or action. Kathleen, I approve the consent agenda. Kathleen makes a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? Uh Joel seconds it. Any further discussion? All right. Uh going to a vote. Kathleen, yes. Uh Victoria, yes. Joel, yes. Indra, yes. Seth, yes. Rob, yes. Rick, yes.

Cassent agenda passes. Thank you very much. All right. Now, on to matters for mayor, council, and staff. I will bring it back to council. Anything that you want to add tonight, Kathleen? Um, I was wondering since we just heard at the budget committee meeting that uh union or teamsters negotiation is underway, could we uh have two council leaison at these meetings? Yeah. Uh the council can attend those meetings if they so desire as just an observer. Yeah.

And sit in the room and and watch if you so desire. And could we have the dates and times that these meetings are being held? Uh yes. I think the first one is this upcoming Monday. At what time? I'd have to confirm the time. Okay. If we could just have a memo on that, that'd be great. then everybody would know that wanted to attend 9:00 a.m. at the city manager's conference room. Uh further matters. Uh Indra and then Rick. Indra.

Yes. I just wanted to address the young lady. Thank you for speaking. We take criticism also a lot as well as good things. But I just wanted to let you know that the council has awarded a $1.2 2 million grant to uh Parker Elk Elk Island Trading to start Parker's Place Village. So for those who want help um we'll have a safe place to go and we will be closing those camps which I agree are um pretty bad. So that's what the council has done. Um, I also I I agree. Um, I I don't think it would hurt to read the titles on the consent agenda for the public um in case they don't have it in front of them. So, I would be in favor of that if uh any other counselors thought that was a good idea.

Okay. What's direction? Is that a question? Well, I No, I propose that we Sure. I will have you guys read the consent agenda. We will pass it on to each council member. We'll have their turn to read the consent agenda. Thank you. In fur full.

Okay. Um, also I wanted to address um Morrison Park and others. Kids are our greatest asset and thank you uh Parkatch for all you do to uh help keep our kids safe in the parks. it it does not go unrecognized and um I don't know what we can do about that. So, but we definitely uh need to come up with a solution so that does not continue going forward. We have um council is making public safety a priority. we are hiring officers. So I'm sure um in the near future we can solve that problem hopefully. And then the lastly I did want to talk about um Eric mentioned at the budget committee the animal shelter which is a county asset but I know that the uh city and county are now working together and communicating. Um the county is putting a levy of 80% funding um just for operations. I hope as most of you probably know. So the 80 the um 80% of their operating funding is going to be from the levy and I spent a couple hours there um talking with Laura and Torine a couple weeks ago and um they really need capital improvements as well. It's pretty bad and that's for the whole county of which Grants Pass is part of the county and now that we're cooperating together. Um I'm just going to ask and it's part of public safety as well, the safety of people around uh dangerous pets or things like that. Um, so I would just implore that when the city meets with the county that maybe

that's something the city could help with is the animal shelter and I would be for that. Thank you. Other matters. I had uh Rick and then Seth and then Victoria. Rick, I'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting past 9 o'clock. Second. All right, we have a motion to extend the meeting past 9:00 with a second. Everybody in favor say I. Oh, I didn't hear everybody, so it didn't pass. There's not enthusiasm either. Just kidding. Go ahead. Um, was that it, Rick? Do you have anything else to add?

Okay, Seth.

Yeah, I just want to give a quick update and Kathleen, you can feel free to jump in about Park Barker's Place. We had our um meeting last week on Thursday, I believe it was. And um you know, they're making progress. They're working a lot. Uh sounds like they're like 40 days straight or something like that, maybe more now. Um little nerve-wracking, getting close or less than a month away. I proposed in the last meeting that we we meet again in maybe a week or two. Uh because hypothetically our next meeting would be the Friday before June 1st. So um which is only 3 or 4 days after that. So, I think we're going to set up another meeting. Um, and yeah, we're just providing feedback on the manual for Parker's Place. Um, so yeah, hopeful there. I don't know if Kathleen has any comments she wants to make or anything that stood out to you.

Um, I guess what stood out to me is that they're very um enthusiastic about us making proposals or having input on this. um which you know that's good that they're open for public comment or what people see as as important to evaluate. Uh there were definitely some red flags that needed to be evaluated in that manual and I think we addressed them and they took note. Um it is very nerve-wracking. There's a lot still to do and uh we're just hoping it's going to come into place so we can close our resting sites.

Uh Victoria,

yeah. Um, I spoke with Parkatch before this evening and um, they were so I just wanted to kind of give a shout out to Chief Hensman because the the response to the park was was all day coverage for the kids who were playing little league. And I thought that was pretty wonderful. And so I just wanted to thank Chief for that and and our police department for that. And just to kind of um reiterate what Park Watch is saying is uh the park it well summer's coming. I mean, we knew this probably was coming. People are out are going to be out more. Uh, but I just want to thank you guys in advance um for anything for everything that you're doing in that situation to keep keep the little eager safe to keep everyone safe in the park. So, um, yeah, hopefully there are some good solutions coming up, but I just ParkW Watch does such an amazing job, um, volunteering in our community and you're you're so valuable. So, thank you for what you do and um, so thank you. Grants pass, please.

Uh, any further counselors? Robert.

Yeah. I'm just want to read an email that uh was sent to uh Mayor Council today. Um it's from uh John Connor who's the owner of the hall downtown. Um he actually wanted to be here tonight but asked me to read this instead. Um I'm here to speak about the impact of the outlot construction project uh is having on downtown businesses, especially those of us on H Street. While I understand the long-term intent of the of the public improvements, the current reality is that the access has been confusing. Visibility has been reduced. Many customers simply believe this part of downtown is too difficult to reach. For businesses like ours, this has real consequences. The hall has been downtown for 12 years. Since the pandemic, our sales are still down close to 45%. And during this construction period, we're now seeing daily sales down roughly 30 to 50% this month. This is the time of year when we are supposed to start recapturing sales after a long lean winter. Instead, many of us are taking another major hit. Food and beverage is the heart of downtown. Restaurants, bars, cafes, and similar businesses create the energy, traffic, and sense of place that bring people here in the first place. But food trucks, outside forces, and constant new developments are affecting the very core of who downtown merchants are and what we have worked so hard so many years to build. I also do not believe there's been clear communication about what the owl lot is ultimately meant to be or what the regulations and long-term use of that lot look like. That's that uncertainty adds to even more stress for the businesses surrounding it. If projects of this size are going to move forward and directly disrupt businesses activity, then financial relief should be put in to the project from the beginning. That should not be an afterthought. Imagine if the city suddenly had to operate on 30 to 50% less tax revenue. What kind of impact would that have on this town? This is the kind of burden small businesses are being asked to absorb. It's simple math.

It's just not sustainable. We're asking for clarity, fairness, and real consideration for the businesses that continue to hold downtown together. Uh John Connor, that's the hall. And um I will uh I will uh verify that the uh I I got several calls today from people who just want to know if we're open because they actually got to the downtown area and really couldn't find a way to my store. It's just um that whole situation is at a really bad time of year. The reason the Christmas tree came down this year uh about a week early was to start that project in early January so that we would be done by now. And frankly uh from everything that I know from the construction community, um the city staff was the main cause of why that got started a month and a half late. They were making changes to to uh selections on materials that uh at the last minute and other issues and the city was really in this case uh no friend at all to the downtown businesses by putting this out another month and a half.

Any other counselors?

All right, seeing none, I'm going to give my two cents here. So, I appreciate uh council sending myself and Jason Kennedy to Washington DC to lobby for to lobby our senators and representative of Oregon to get behind us and try to get some of our brick funding back. It was a very successful trip. I thought um it was successful because I felt that we had got three senators, two Democrats, and one Republican representative to actually get on board and support us and lobby FEMA. Now, we just got an email before I came in tonight um from Senator Merkel's uh regional representative, and if we could get it on the screen. Um, so Merkeley, uh, I can't even say Bonichi and Widen put out a joint press release encouraging FEMA to revisit the brick grant funding starting with FY2020, which is where our $50 million brick grant was. And we are actually named by name, City of Grants Pass in this press release. So, just to bring it full circle, your guys's putting faith in me and Jason Kennedy, our director of public works, I believe it kind of paid off. We didn't bring you back the money, but we brought back the support from our federal legislators, and hopefully uh that's enough to put FEMA over the edge, and we'll get some uh some relief funding back. Anything else from staff? All right. Thank you. Um, at this moment in time, we have no executive session noticed or scheduled. Uh, I would be looking to adjourn a motion to adjourn

this city council meeting and convene into urban renewal agency meeting because we have business to attend to. Motion Indra. So motions motion to adjurnn and go into urban renewal agency meeting. Correct. And a second from Seth. Any further discussion? Seeing none, let's vote. Seth, yes. Indra, yes. Joel, yes. Victoria, yes. Kathleen, yes. Rick, yes.

All right. Our general uh city council meeting is adjourned and we are convening an urban renewal agency with our board action a resolution awarding Future Properties LLC and urban renewal blighted building removal and underdeveloped land grant for up to $50,000. and we have Dana to lead us off in a presentation.

Thank you, mayor. Um, so the subject tonight is a resolution to authorize the payment of a matching urban renewal grant in the amount of not to exceed $50,000 for demolition and debris removal um of blighted buildings, street storm and utility upgrades, sewer water lateral installation, and fire suppression installation on property located at 1414 Shady Lane. as it relates to the council goals of economic growth. Some background on the property. Um several years ago the proper for several years the property has been neglected and blighted. The site includes multiple dilapitated buildings. It was overgrown and it was attracting unhoused individuals. Future properties. They purchased the property in 2025 and began clean up to the site. There still remains a burnt home structure there. Um the owner has approved site plan to replace the blighted structure with 12 multifamily housing units. This request uh is for assistance for the demolition and debris removal of the blighted building and then upgrades to the infrastructure to start construction. Um this project request qualifies under two different projects in the grants pass urban renewal grant and loan program. One of those is the blighted building removal replacement and the other is underdeveloped land. The upgrades um I listed initially but that need to be included are the demolition and removal of debris, hard construction costs for replacement of the blighted building, um street storm utility upgrades, water, sewer, lateral installation, and fire suppression upgrades. Here's an image of the site, and you can see um it's it's surrounded by other residential units to the south. There's

a nice community garden there with the neighboring church. And this site also or this site map shows you um its relationship to Redwood Avenue there. Here are some images of the building that's currently on the site. Um you can see that it's quite dilapitated. It's been burned and it's filled with all kinds of debris. It's going to require a professional to remove it. And then um images of the site plan that they provided. These are this is the site plan showing 12 units. They're um six duplexes. And then another image here that shows the elevations. A little bit more background related to urban renewal. Um this project does meet the goals and objectives in section three of the urban renewal plan under goal three of redevelopment and development. And again it meets those project eligibility um for projects six and 13 which is the blighted building removal and the underdeveloped land. It also progresses though the housing development project which is project 16 in the urban renewal plan. The cost implications in our FY26 URRA budget there were $250,000 allocated for grants. $67,45 has been previously awarded to six grants and what remains is $82,595. This current request uh the eligible project costs exceed $200,000. 25% uh of the estimated allowable expenses will meet the maximum of $50,000 which this request is for. So the call to action is this evening. You can approve the resolution awarding future properties and urban renewal blighted building removal and

underdeveloped land grant for up to $50,000. You can modify the grant award. You can deny the award. Here's a motion for you to use. Thank you, Dana. Bring it back to council for any questions. Joel. Okay, Rick, do you have a question? Yes. Thank you, Dana. So, was Chief Sanchez or Rural Metro given the opportunity for learn and burn? Not that I know. Um, judging by the pictures, somebody already burned it.

Uh, a learn to burn for certain things like this does require an extensive amount of um regulation and stuff to go through asbestous abatement and then we have to have it we have to send it out for lead and all this other stuff. So the expense for a building like that would outweigh what the training that would come from it since it's already in the condition that it is. It actually wouldn't be suitable for our firefighters to enter. But thank you. Okay. Thank you for that response.

Uh Kathleen, any questions? Victoria, any questions? Joel, any questions? I know you have comments, but you have any questions? Nope. Andrew, you have questions? I don't know that we've had a demolition. So, can you tell me um they have the site approval, but the money for the demolition though, do they get that upfront or how does that work? And how are we assured that once it's demolished and we've helped with that that they do do the building part?

Right. That is part of the requirement of the grant is that something has to be built within um a two-year period if um they do get money for demolishing demolishing a building. Um it is a reimbursement grant. So they pay for the demolition and then when they provide the receipts we would um reimburse them for that. Um the majority of the $50,000 would really come from the site prep. So doing the infrastructure for the building of the the um houses because just because the dem demolition isn't that much of the expense. Okay. Thank you.

Seth, you got any questions? Rob, you got any questions? All right. Thank you. Yeah. Discussion now. Joel. Well, unless there's further discussion, this really meets the uh the intent of the urban renewal where you have private investment uh and you have um urban renewal dollars that uh partners with that. So, unless people object, I'm going to move to approve the resolution awarding Future Properties LLC urban renewal blighted building removal, an undeveloped land grant for up to $50,000. And with their own money, they're going to build housing.

All right. So Joel, so motions to approve the grant as stated. And there is a second from Victoria. Any further discussion? Nope. All right. Joel, how do you vote? Yes. Victoria, yes. Kathleen, yes. Rick, yes. Rob, yes. Seth, yes. Indra, yes. All right. Grant passes. Thank you very much. That concludes our business for the urban renewal agency meeting. I would look back to council for a motion to adjourn for the evening completely. I make a mo I make a motion to adjurnn. All right. And Indra seconds it. All in favor say hell yeah. Let's get out of here. Oh, you got

ribbit. Okay, you could do ribbit. All right. Thank you for your participation tonight.