City Council - Regular Meeting

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Oh, yeah, they're just with the A.D. drink. They have a beautiful waistcoat. You know, all they're doing is when you're throwing it in there, you know, it's not a little thing. And then they're putting those little plastic bottles on top.

workshop started we are june 1st 2026 city council workshop um we got a few items on the agenda today and it looks like um we got everybody in house except for seth So we do have a full house, except for one. And without further ado, we're just going to get rocking and rolling here. So first on the workshop agenda is the first quarter work plan update. And we have Aaron here with a presentation. Go ahead, Aaron.

Good morning, Mayor, Council. It's my privilege to be able to provide you with the first quarter update on activities and how we've been addressing your council goals. Just to briefly skim by this, you're very familiar with it. We do follow a strategic plan. We have a very comprehensive strategic plan process, which provides staff clear direction on where you'd like to see us spending our resources to help develop the budget and utilize our staff time throughout the year. One of the things that makes this successful is we do have it set up in a SMART goal format, so it's very specific and measurable, makes it a little easier for us to monitor our success throughout the year. There are five goals that we have in our strategic plan, and those are followed and supported by eight outcomes, and those outcomes are supported by 28 expected results, and ultimately we have about 88 total initiatives that help make the strategic plan work. Some of the highlights, I'm gonna go through some of those five goals that we have, starting with public safety, really specifically talking about the expected result of Grants Pass having a nice feel across the city and throughout our neighborhoods. One of the things that's important that we have as an initiative is strengthening collaboration coordination among community safety partners and we do this every day. There are multiple very clear activities that show this and I just wanted to highlight one of those. It was something that occurred at the end of March There was an unfortunate accident that occurred. And as soon as these kind of things happen, it's all hands on deck. And this is just an excellent example of our community partners and how we're here to support each other. When you saw earlier today, the sheriff just came in to say hello. He thought there might be something on the agenda that might be important. I mean, we have great people that really come together, especially when it comes to emergencies. This particular item, we had everyone from both counties, both Jackson County Sheriffs and Josephine County Sheriff, we had Oregon State Police, we had Grants Pass Fire Rescue, AMR, Josephine County District Attorneys, Rogue Area Drug Enforcement, Oregon State Police, Crime Lab, and even the United States Postal Inspection Service was all there to help create a win at the end of this tragic event. Continuing with regards to strengthen collaboration coordination among community and safety partners, and I'm sure you're very well aware of this because this community is very engaged when it comes to volunteerism and coordinated efforts. We have coordinated with Josephine County Sheriff's Office and county partners to complete the Everett Bridge Emergency Alert Training Program. This is something that Chief Sanchez has spearheaded and this is an extremely important thing because with the efforts that the chief has undertaken. Grants Pass Fire Rescue now has gained access and the capacity to issue emergency notifications for both city and county hazard areas. And this really closed a critical gap where we did not have the true authority and ability to send out notification, emergency notifications. And now we do have that. So I want to thank Chief Sanchez for heading that up, working with our community partners in the state to make that happen. So we do have that access now. in case of emergencies, you can be well informed and your constituents will be well informed if there's any kind of notices that need to go out and we are the ones that can push that out there. Another great thing when it comes to facilitating a comprehensive public education program under public safety is we were awarded almost $300,000 with regards to Defensible Space Grant. That's really sort of like, you've heard of the WUI, the Wildland Urban Interface. Well, this is sort of dealing with that. These funds have been provided to our Grants Pass Fire and Rescue, and we're gonna go around, we're doing door-to-door knocks, we've provided a lot of information. Last podcast, Chief Sanchez and I talked about this program, and the phones just lit up afterwards. So people are very excited to start participating in this. This is an opportunity, actually, I can tell you all about it, but Chief Sanchez, will you just mention again, is it another opportunity for us to promote this program and really the benefit that this has to the community?

Well, thank you, sir. This is definitely a teamwork thing, X team and all of us working together to get it done. I can't just take credit in my team. But OSFM, there was a previous grant that we lost due to some other issues before with the county that we were working together. And we were able to bring it back, and OSFM, the state, granted us to make it our city and open the door up. It was a very... that had a lot of stipulations that made it almost impossible to use. So they opened it up for all of our city to use, and we're so excited about it because it's that WUI area, that borderline, we're gonna focus on the residents first, focus on that five to 10 feet of defensible space. We get to go out there as a team, We get to write a prescription using an app that we have through the state, and we get that prescription to them. Now, our residents do not have to pay for this, anything that we recommend. So if you have bark dust and we agree to put some gravel down, that invoices directly to us, the city, so it doesn't even have to come out of their pocket with that prescription that we give them. And they can sign up. We've already had hundreds of phone calls, hundreds of emails. We set up a separate email, firedefense at grantspassoregon.gov, which is awesome. And they sign up first come, first serve. And we're focusing on that WUI area first. And then what's left, we'll finish and go around the entire city, which we're partnering with all of our residents in this, which is really exciting. And it's a huge win for our citizens here. Go for it. Well, it sounds like there's questions. Yes.

Could you repeat that website?

Oh, the email is fireddefense at grantspassoregon.gov. Councillor Nicholas, you had a question?

Yes, so your priority are the areas interfacing with the woodland areas, like on the edge of the city? So my question is, a lot of, in my ward, a lot of old growth and a lot of big trees, oak trees and all that. Is that a priority or something that residents can get help with for trimming back?

So the way it works is the way the grant's written is we're focusing on the five to 10 foot space first from your house, because that's where a majority of the homes burn when embers go up in there or right up against that. But there is a potential. I don't want a blanket statement says yes. So there is some potential to go and trim up the six foot depending on how high the tree is. and make sure that that barrier from the ground to six foot under, we can have contractors. It has to be a licensed business. It can come in, we can write the prescription for that. But the WUI area, like you said, is the focus first, and then what's left over, we'll be able to work throughout the city to make us more resilient.

It's sort of like medieval times. We've got a castle, and the castle is the city, and we're trying to create a moat around the castle. So that moat is that interface that we're wanting to focus on first, and then come into the heart of the city.

So how long is the interface open for applications on a first come first serve? So when will people more within the city know if they're eligible or if there are funds left? Is there a timeline?

So the timeline is it's first come first serve. We have $296,000 to spend. We have until the end of this year to spend that, December 30th. And if we need be, we can extend that, but it'll be until the funds are used up. And we're going to use it as much as we can throughout the entire city.

Thank you. Further questions? Rob? Then Victoria, Rob?

Yeah, when you talk about an example you just used was bark near a house or whatever. Well, a lot of people have, in some cases, planted many decades ago a lot of shrubs right near the house as well. So when you write a prescription, is that for removal of shrubs? Or how does that work?

One of the great things we did with the state is that if you, so there's a list with a QR code too, when we send you that prescription that we use, which is almost like a, this is what we're agreeing to pay for, is exactly what it is, and we write that down there. There's a QR code that allows you to see, these are the plants that will burn, less likely right like the arborvitas that you talk about in the shrubs some of those burn at a higher rate they're more likely to catch on fire even when they're green so this would allow you to do is we can even provide you a 250 gift card through this grant to replace those plants now again this is voluntary we're not going to come up we don't want the public to think we're going to come up and tell you to change your landscape we're going to make those recommendations in partnership with you in order to increase the resiliency throughout the community

Things like cleaning debris from roofs, that would also be on your prescription.

And cleaning the gutters or adding the one-eighth inch metal stuff over your soffits to prevent the embers from going in your house and catching it on fire during a windstorm or a firestorm.

Thank you. Victoria?

So are you focusing on or is there more priority going to be given to properties that are near wooded areas that are just outside the city, or does it matter? That's the first question.

So again, what we're doing is just like, actually he made a really good analogy, like a moat, like a castle. So the surrounding area of our border, that wildland urban interface, is the main focus first come, first serve, and then we're gonna work our way in from that.

Yes, ma'am. Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. I just wanted to be clear about that. And then you said with the prescription it could be something changing bark to gravel and then you talked about gift certificates. Would there be like gift certificates possibly for gravel or for any materials that were needed to remedy based on the prescription? Or is it?

Yes, we're gonna try and focus more on replacing some of the plants with their gift certificates because the prescription with a contractor or licensed business, if someone's gonna replace it from the bark dust to gravel, we can just write that in and they can replace it and invoice us. So to give them the enjoyment of going to pick out some other plants on the list, you know, because I know most of us like going out shopping and decorating our houses.

Well, that sounds great. Thank you.

All right. Continue on. Please.

So under public safety, also one of the things is building upon and implementing data-driven strategies to prevent crime and address public safety concerns through predictive analytics and and evidence-based practices, and one of the things we are also focused on within the organization is continued learning, especially when we have individuals that have accomplished something great, as great as Captain Tyler Lee, who ultimately went to the FBI National Academy. Graduating from the FBI National Academy is not just an academic achievement, it really truly is a mark of elite leadership and a gateway to a professional network and a commitment to bettering the community. I can't express enough about this. One, because I'm not fully versed in all that this FBI Academy actually does, but it is a huge accomplishment, and I'd like to see if the Chief Hintzman could take a moment, and I'm gonna talk a little slower as he finishes chewing, to really talk about the true impact of having an individual from our organization graduate from the FBI National Academy.

Thanks, Erin, especially for giving me a few minutes to chew and finish my pizza. No, this is a tremendous achievement for Captain Lee. Preparing people for the next level is incredibly important, but preparing people for the next level to lead a best practice organization is more important. You have hundreds of like-minded people from all across the country and all across the world gathering to learn and to better themselves, but to also better their communities. identify trends Look at what's coming around the corner and just being prepared to take the city to the next level for what's going to happen next technology is an easy example, but also to there's communication there's wellness there's a wide range of Education platforms that they went through over this several week process but also to to add a to Captain Lee's accomplishment, he decided to do the certificate program. So it's kind of in between a master's and a bachelor's degree program that he received from, I think, the University of Virginia. So he also gets that. And then also to maybe to share more about Captain Lee and his commitment to education. He's also working on his master's degree, and I think he's going to finish it within the next six to eight months. So not only is he working full time and attending the FBI Academy, he's also attending college after hours to better himself, to ultimately better our community.

Continuing on with regards to how we provide a safe and vibrant healthy neighborhoods and communities, we do a lot of volunteerism and extra activities and the police department is one of those that does that also. We did a department, took the plunge in the Special Olympics of Southern Oregon And that included members of patrol, dispatch, records, parking enforcement, and even the chaplain program. So that's a neat community event, and they've done that multiple years over. We also have the Battle of the Badges when it comes to American Red Cross and donating blood. We also, from a Grants Pass Fire and Rescue, we do the Smokey Bear Fire Safety Education in local schools. We participate in field days. We do child passenger safety education and car seat fitting. And we support a number of other organizations within the community. Moving to fiscal stability, one of the things we did is targeted performance measurements to ensure efficient and effective allocation of resources. When necessary, we keep council informed on the financial health at all times, but then when necessary, we also come to council with regards to potential policy decisions associated with our fiscal health. We did that this year where we had discussions with council with regards to new measurements when it comes to fund balance requirements. and reserves and provided that discussion in advance of the budget process to provide that policy direction for the budget committee, which ultimately created a very smooth budget process this year and provided us with great direction in developing the budget. Under economic growth, we have a few items I'd like to highlight. Increase the marketability of our industrial lands, there's a few key things here. We did establish an industrial lands group as a rapid response team for industrial lands and future business recruitment where we have a number of people within the community that discuss our industrial lands and how to better market those. We were part of a big group of people everywhere from the state on down to local, the chamber, everyone was really involved with trying to create an opportunity for us to receive and secure $2 million in funding to help with our industrial lands and our wastewater deficiencies that we have there, and that was a very successful campaign. We also utilize Oregon Prospector to market industrial properties in Grants Pass, so we're on at least the radar of people who are looking at moving to Oregon, companies that are looking at moving to Oregon, and industrial lands available. We also work with SoReady and other property owners regarding two inquiries for enterprise zone questions and three inquiries for property zone benefits. Continuing economic growth, one of the things is, some of our goals is to expect more results from a standpoint of more activities, events and recreational activities. This year we had an extremely successful Art Along the Road. You may recall that we had some transition internally during the planning process and we had a number of staff members that stepped up in order to create an opportunity for us to have a very successful Art Along the Road this year and we've already met a number of times to have another successful Art Along the Road in 2026. Under the initiative Provide Increased Opportunities for Residents and Visitors, a grants pass to experience programs and activities that foster improved physical, mental, and social well-being, something that you've heard a lot about already. There's been a lot of success, and that is the Dollar Mountain Bike and Ped Trails. What a great opportunity, and I'm sure most of you have been up there already and been able to utilize that. I saw some of you at the grand opening, which was exciting. The park superintendent, Josh Hopkins also attended the Oregon Governor's Conference this year and provided a TED Talk. It was about five minutes in length, and it's online if you want to take a look at it. He represented the city just incredibly, and I'd recommend you taking a look at that video if you wanted to. I just want to do a shout-out to Josh Hopkins for that. He really painted a good picture on how recreational opportunities like our trail system can help not only from a quality of life and livability standpoint, but also increase economic vitality of a community. Continuing under economic growth, support year-round arts and cultural events. We have staff administered the spring 2026 cycle of tourism promotion grant program, and council awarded six organizations funding to promote further events and activities that will attract tourism. So we've gotten some monies out there to help INCREASE THOSE ACTIVITIES. UNDER HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS, UNDER THE INITIATIVE WORK COLLABORATIVE ACROSS SECTORS TO IMPROVE SAFETY IN INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS, WORK WITH ELK ISLAND AND MINT TO PROVIDE A SHELTER AND WRAPAROUND SERVICES. THIS IS AN ITEM THAT WE'VE HAD A LOT OF DISCUSSION WITH. I WANT TO GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO OUR ATTORNEY, STEPHANIE NUTTLE, WHO HAS REALLY HELPED WITH THIS PROCESS. AND ELK ISLAND HAS BEEN VERY focused on getting something open. And we'll have some more information for you at our Wednesday evening. We'll be able to provide you some additional information on what that looks like and how that's gonna be open in that transition. So we're looking forward to giving you a little update on Wednesday night on this. Under infrastructure, develop contingency plans for system failures and natural disasters, including backup systems and mutual aid agreements. So this is something that we're all concerned with. I know the X team has talked about it often throughout the year, and Chief Sanchez, it's on his mind often also as the one that's sort of got some responsibility for this. One of the things he did through his partnerships within the community, he reached out and we developed a memorandum of understanding with River Valley downtown which is gonna provide city access to their new facility for a point of distribution for emergencies. This is a big deal because if we do have something that goes really wrong, we need an emergency operations center, we need a point of distribution center, and we need those things in order for us to make sure that we provide quality services in the event of a disaster. And having a point of distribution identified that will likely be standing still after a major event is important. And that was, I want to thank Chief Sanchez and the community partners in River Valley in order to have that partnership so we can have that in place in case something like that happens. Increased wayfinding signage. We've been doing that. We're going to try to do some more when it comes to some of our restrooms and parks also. But here are some examples of maps and signs that were stalled at the Dollar Mountain Kiosk and Trail Features. Another thing I wanted to highlight for this first quarter was expand our tree canopy. We are a tree city USA. One of the things I think that makes Grants Pass beautiful is it is green. It's not like a lot of other urbanized areas that has a lot of concrete. We truly do live in a green tree city USA. We had a community partner, our community forestry, who did receive a grant and we are able to plant 150 trees and city right-of-ways, and that'll be coordinating the efforts throughout those plannings for that. But that is, again, another opportunity for us to keep our community green. And the final slide is under infrastructure, promote volunteerism, sponsorship, community stewardship, programs for parks and streetscape. We had Rogue Valley Mountain Bike Association volunteered and provided funding for a contractor to route a new dollar mountain route. And they're going to do some hand building on this section. And they're professionals. They know what they're doing. And it's an exciting addition to our trail system. Worked with a donor for purchasing two benches to be installed on Dollar Mountain. And the benches have been ordered. And we received donations from the Grants Pass Garden Club for City Arbor Day celebration event. So those are just some examples in the first quarter of community and how they're participating in helping us build great infrastructure. And that concludes my report. Any questions, Mayor Counsel?

Thank you, Aaron. Any questions to council in regards to all the information that has been presented? I know you guys had questions for Chief Sanchez. So Indra.

Yes, I know council talked a while back about recognizing special achievements. So I'm wondering, and we don't really do that before, and I hope councilors would agree with me. So like Captain Tyler Lee said, That's a huge deal, the graduation. The people that help with Special Olympics that go above and beyond, the garden club that's helping. I know Speedo Rito and the bike club help clean up the trails. I would really like to see, maybe at the start of our meetings, recognition of the people, the volunteers, besides our staff we see every day, which do great things, but the people behind them that are doing great things, and I'm just wondering if we could make a point, and Mayor too, to recognize people at our meetings.

So ultimately, yes, the answer is yes we can and we would be more than happy to help facilitate that type of community recognition whether it be an internal colleague of mine or something that we've done that shows that needs to have that little extra spotlight on them or someone in the community or a nonprofit in the community. We'd be happy to do that. All we would need to have is some direction from council to say yeah, we'd like to incorporate those and maybe once a month in one of our two business meetings, we highlight a community member or organizational colleague.

Well, I would go ahead and propose that we do that at least once a month, maybe. It's a short, quick thing, a couple minutes to recognize them. I hope some counselors would support that as well.

Well, it sounds like I'm seeing a lot of head shaking. I'm looking at the mayor and I think what the mayor and I will do is we will start incorporating some of this and likely, I don't want to speak for the mayor, but likely I think the process would be, because it is more of an informal thing and the mayor helps set the agenda, is working with the mayor. I'll provide some suggestions and we'll work with the mayor to identify where on the agenda those things might fit.

Yeah, I agree with you, Aaron, and that's why I was writing down here. Basically was thinking more of like local recognition that we could have as part of a monthly process. That's kind of what you're looking for? Yeah, I think that's great. And we'll work on that on the next agenda setting meeting.

Certainly. That's exciting. Thank you, Councillor.

Victoria.

So it was really good to hear some of these really great things. So I just want to say thank you, first of all. And do we, I know that you probably do, but are these blurbs put out on all the city social media and website? That would be a good thing for the public to see too there, so people could be aware. And then there you could put the announcement that these people were going to be honored this time. So anyway, to put it out on social media. is what I was thinking would be great too. I know sometimes I've seen them, so I know that there's some, but special focus on some of these great things would be good.

That's a great suggestion, Counselor, and we do already push some of this information in the weekly reports or the manager's monthly report or other press things, but if we were to actually have something where once a month or twice a month we're going to be doing something, then we can have a special something category that highlights those throughout the year.

Any further questions? Kathleen? Do you have certain roadways where you're going to be planting these 150 trees?

I think Bradley Clark would be the best one to answer that one. Yes, Counselor. We do have, I think there's several hundred potential spots that have already been identified and We'll be working closely with the contractor that was just awarded the RFP to sort of identify those as they come down with the trees. But some of them are existing tree wells that had a tree in them historically and haven't for a while. Others are new areas that have never had trees. But they are all throughout the city. We do have some mapping that kind of shows where those could go and would survive well.

And are those major roadways, mostly?

It's a combination. Some of them are in residential neighborhoods. But yeah, there are several along some of our arterials and collectors, too. You bet.

All right. Seeing no further questions, I appreciate that. Thank you, Mayor. Just to clarify that that was an informational update only, and so there's no action required. We'll go on to our next council, I mean, sorry, council workshop item is non-bargaining cost of living adjustment. And we have Aaron's, we'll keep ownership of the podium.

Great, I'll just stay here and move on, move forward. So next item is non-bargaining employee salary adjustment recommendation. In the interest of full transparency, I want to disclose that I would also be included in any cost of living adjustment approved by council. While I stand to benefit in the same manner as all non-bargaining staff, my recommendation today is based solely on organizational need, market competitiveness, and the city's adopted compensation practices. I am presenting this information in my official capacity and in accordance with government ethics standards, ensuring that the analysis, methodology, and recommendations are objective and in the best interest of the city. Each year, I come to you to discuss and request a review and adjustment for the non-bargaining salary structure in association with COLAs, which are the CPIUs each year. These are things that are given to the bargaining units each year, and to try to make non-bargaining whole and keep up, we also ask this of the non-bargaining, for the non-bargaining group. This would be a council action. And for 2025, the CPIU this year was 2.71%. So there are 33 non-bargaining positions that are listed here, and this is the individuals that we're talking about. So we're talking about 53, individuals that are not represented in a collective bargaining agreement. So what we have right now from a standpoint of what we've either approved or what we will be approving, just to give you a snapshot of maybe a three-year process, either behind what we've done or what we're looking at doing. Non-bargaining, the past three years, non-bargaining did receive a four or three and a 3.02. The International Fire Association of Firefighters received in 24, 2.5 to 15% with an annual of 6.98% increase. In 25, they received a 4%. Battalion Chiefs received an additional 1.25%. And then 1126, another 4%. Teamsters Collective Bargaining Agreement for the past three years has been four, four and 3.2. Grants Pass Police Association recently had an agreement and it's a newer agreement. So in 25, they received 6.5. In 7-1, 25 mid-year, they received another 1.5. And the start of this year, they received a 3%. And through 27, they're also scheduled to receive another 3% at the first of the calendar year of 27. Grants Pass Employee Association was a 4, 4, and 3% in the past three years. To give you an update on upcoming negotiations from a bargaining unit perspective, we have the International Association of Firefighters. Their contract expiration is 12-31-2026. We anticipate receiving notice any time from them of their intent to bargain. And so we'll be looking at bargaining for them and this will be coming to you once we get some parameters from them. Teamsters is up 12-31-2026. 31-25, and we're currently in negotiations with Teamsters. We're also in negotiations with Grants Pass Employee Association, as Grants Pass Employee Association did fold into Teamsters this year. So now we no longer have Grants Pass Employee Association, they are part of the Teamsters negotiations. And then the Grants Pass Police Association, as I showed you on the previous slide, has their collective bargaining agreement go through the end of calendar year 27. Recognizing that there's always movement in the collective bargaining agreements when it comes to cost of living adjustments. This is why I'm in front of you today. Like I mentioned, it's an annual thing. I come to you before the end of the fiscal year as we try to provide COLAs to the non-bargaining at the beginning of each fiscal year. It's easy for us to take a look at and budget for when we know we'd be starting at the beginning of the fiscal year. We're asking for an implementation of a CPIU of 2.71 for the non-bargaining for COLA. What this is is this is an increase in the budget. The 2.71% equals a $225,150 increase for all 53 positions. Of the $225,000, it would be $99,337, which is coming from the general fund. The rest would be coming from the enterprise funds that we have. So the total increase for this request is $225,000 with $99,000 coming from the general fund. A few alternatives with this request is, and we're looking at a potential call to action date of June 17th where we would place this on a future business meeting as a council action item. Council can provide direction to place on a future business meeting. Council can provide direction to place on a future business meeting with modifications, you can request additional information and schedule an additional workshop or provide direction to take no action. And with that, I turn it over to you, Mayor and Council.

Thank you, Aaron. Bringing it back to Council for questions in regards to this topic to Aaron. And I got Rob and then Kathleen. Rob?

Yeah, thanks. Two questions, Aaron. When you say the general fund portion, the recommendation is 99,000, the rest is enterprise funds. So some of the enterprise funds, it would seem as though are, we'll say logically or common sense related to a particular department's activity. We'll just say public works, it would seem like that's related to a couple different enterprise funds. Like I'm not sure how enterprise funds would would be applied to, we'll say, police or fire, or could you explain that?

Well, this is just a breakdown, because I know council in the past, the reason why I broke down the total cost of both enterprise funds and general fund of all of the non-bargaining group, which is the 53, cost $225,000. Of that, there are a number of non-bargaining that are just general fund funded, say, for instance, If you've got anyone in police and fire or parks, community development, those are all general fund in nature. Wanted to show you what the cost to general fund is because council has been cognizant of that and wanting that additional information so that's why that splits there.

I understand that part. So can you explain specifically like what enterprise funds are being used for this and what, which groups they're being used, they're paying for?

I get it. So the enterprise funds you're talking about are superintendents, one, our department director, like Jason Kennedy, our assistant public works director, our superintendents and supervisors in water, wastewater, streets, transportation, stormwater.

Okay, so that made sense to me. So that basically, it's just, I guess what, I just don't understand if there's such, because you just named about five positions, but yet that's, the enterprise funds are paying more than half of this raise. So I'm just wondering, there must be a lot of other positions being paid by the enterprise.

Yeah, if we sit down and we take a look at this and we go through, let me get the marker out and we'll break this down. So we've got location description. If you take a look at that in the location description here, you've got an idea of where it's coming from. So you have finance, HR. Of course, HR would be IT, police, fire, finance, finance, planning, economic development, building. Building would be like a separate. Public risk administration would be like enterprise. Parks is general fund. Water distribution is enterprise. Parks would be general fund. Facility maintenance is probably a mix. Water treatment is enterprise fund. Finance would be a potential account. It would be sort of a mix. HR would be sort of a mix. Planning, general fund.

So excuse me, so how would, say, HR be a mix? What enterprise fund has anything to do with HR? Because I think, is HR not a mix?

They're not enterprise funds. So I think there's just a miscommunication as far as vocabulary words. So it's general fund and then all the other funds. So there's special revenue funds, which is going to be building and streets. And then we're going to have your enterprise funds. That's going to be water, wastewater, and stormwater. And then you're gonna have your internal service funds, which are going to include administration, which includes HR, finance, management, and legal. And then you're gonna add to the other internal service funds, IT, support services, which support services includes CD management, public works management, garage, I'm going to miss one here, but it's basically the entirety of the rest of the city's operations included in that $225,000.

Okay, so I guess what you're saying is that if you've got other, whether it's finance or anyone else that has, I guess, any administrative... for lack of a better word, skim off of these different funds, then it could be attributed to an enterprise fund? In other words, because it's not clear why, we'll say finance would be associated with an enterprise fund specifically.

Yeah, let me just correct it. It's not just enterprise funds. So enterprise funds are only considered the three, water, wastewater, and stormwater. And so I think, again, we're just misusing the word. it's all the funds throughout the rest of the city that are included in this. And so anybody who is not in a bargaining unit, technically, and so there's a lot that are in administrative type roles like HR, IT, finance, legal, and management.

Okay, thank you. And one other question I had, Aaron, was getting back to slide five, I know that in the last year or so, sometimes we've, you know, council's been presented with what the COLA looks like for non-bargaining compared to the COLA of different bargaining groups, you know, and how it's lagged behind and so forth. And I'm just, I'd like to know how, an actual cost of living adjustment for say the firefighters could be as high as 15%. I could understand how they might get a raise or whatever, but why would that be called cost of living at 15% or why would at any given moment, even though I know if you add up the two halves of the year, it averages out to 4%, but at any given moment, like why would the police association be getting 6.5% or firefighters 15% and that be called a COLA, which then later is gonna potentially be compared to the COLAs that non-bargaining has gotten but lagged behind on. So could you explain how 15% would be attributable to a quote-unquote cost-of-living adjustment?

Well, as it says there, that was also associated with salary schedule adjustments that was incorporated into not only a COLA that year, but also salary schedule adjustments. And the average increase was including the COLA slash salary schedule adjustments to try to make those positions that were lagging behind.

Yeah, I fully understand that. That's what I would have thought, but by the same token, that should not be in the COLA column. It could then later be compared to the COLAs that non-bargaining is getting that's lagging behind on it. Of course it's going to lag behind because nobody in non-bargaining is getting 50% on COLA. So I'm objecting to 15% being put in the COLA column if it's not actually the COLA.

It's not accurate representation, right? Okay, then you could take, if you object to that, then that's fine. You could object to that, but that was a collective bargaining agreement. and the agreement stated that there was gonna be a COLA slash salary adjustment in that year, and the range was a little bit different based on the positions. But the COLAs were, in essence, that's what it was for, besides that one category, really, the rest of them were sort of classified as COLAs. That COLA does represent some people getting a larger increase to help with a salary schedule adjustment. That's why that note is there. I'm just trying to state that. You are correct, that doesn't include just a COLA, because a COLA is just what was either bargained for in the collective bargaining agreement for that year for a COLA. And for the initiation, the first year of IFF's contract, it was negotiated that there were some changes that needed to occur to the salary schedule that was above and beyond just providing a COLA. So that contract had that stipulation in it. So it wasn't just a COLA they received.

That's obvious. It wasn't just a COLA.

Why would you guys put it in the COLA column then? It's stated there on the screen.

But it's still also stated that it is in the COLA column, which will then be averaged in when we're looking at how the COLAs compare to different groups, including non-bargaining. But it's not a COLA, and yet it's in that column. So it would really be nice if you could actually make that more clear and accurate moving forward, because it wasn't a COLA.

Well, at this point, this slide does not try to state or do an accumulative of all of the ones over the past three or five years. I'm just trying to paint a picture of what was provided. to those. If you'd like more information or if you'd like to have this.

I don't need more information. I just need the information that you're presenting to the council and the public to be accurate. It's under the COLA column at 15% and you're just saying right now it wasn't the COLA. It was in addition to. So don't put it in the COLA column is all I'm saying. It makes perfect sense, right? If it's not COLA, don't put it in the COLA column. Just say yes because it makes sense.

As I said, this was combined with a COLA. There was a mixed thing, Councillor Pell. It's stated there that this is above and beyond a COLA. I've made that clear.

Any further questions? I got Kathleen.

Erin, can you explain why the Grants Pass Employee Association merged with the Teamsters?

Not sure if I'm the right one to be able to say that.

I mean, it was separate all these years. It was. And now all of a sudden they've merged?

That's probably a better discussion for an executive session.

Any further questions for Erin in regards to the COLA?

Okay, before we get out of questions, they're asking for a call to action on this. So basically, either proceeding forward with the proposed COLA as stated in the presentation to modify it or table it for more information or take no action. Just restating that before I end the question portion. Victoria.

So thank you for the presentation. Yes. I'm just wondering if we need to see what the rest of the salary schedule is going to be. I am not proposing this. It's a question probably for the dais. If people want to see what the rest of the salary additions are going to be and So do we need more information is the question for all of you up here. Or maybe not. Maybe we did do the COLA last year and we all agreed. I think it may have been unanimous. So maybe we can go ahead and do it now. But there was just something, yeah, I was thinking, hmm, I wonder if we need to know what the rest of the salary increases are going to be and add this to that discussion, which might be a heavy lift. but it's just a question for all the rest of you.

Okay, since we didn't have any more questions for Erin, we will go into discussion and or action. So thank you, Victoria, for weighing in on that, and we'll go ahead with Joel.

I think that the CPI is pretty reasonable, and, you know, Victoria's right. You want to have cumulative knowledge, and going into that, then we will have the cumulative knowledge of what the Consumer Price Index was going for. what that increase in salary was as we go forward. So I would rather make the decisions on adjusting the steps, knowing that increase, rather than not knowing that increase. And so I think it's a real reasonable increase, and we need to do it.

Okay, further discussion, or does a counselor want to step up and propose a direction to go forward with?

Rob?

I'll make a motion to do the COLA for non-bargaining at whatever it was, 2.71%. And that would be effective, is that July 1st, is that right, or no? Yes, July 1st. July 1st.

Do we have a second on that? I'm so, so sorry. I was like, you know, like when you're walking and all of a sudden that flagpole just comes up and you just walk right into it? I think I just did that. Sorry about that. Sorry, Indra. A second from Indra. I know, I looked at you like a blank stare in the fog, right? Um... It's not that I didn't recognize you. It's my own brain fart over here. Okay, so we got a second from Indra, and I apologize for that. Any further discussion? So we have a motion on the table with a second to proceed forward with the presented COLA effective July. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll go into a vote. Rob?

Yes.

Kathleen? Yes. Joel? Yes. Victoria? Yes. Eric? yes rick yes indra yes all right so you have full direction yes thank you thank you perfect uh next on the council workshop's agenda is allenwood development it looks like brad will lead us to the presentation

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. This is an informational item, also no action today, but in particular for those councilors who were not involved at the beginning stages of this project, we wanted to kind of give you some of the background. You will have in a soon upcoming meeting a development agreement on your agenda, and both I and the city attorney will be Kind of giving you more information at that time. But as you prepare for that meeting and that decision, we wanted to take this workshop opportunity to kind of just set more of the framework for you. So that's the subject today. Give you a background status report. This is city-owned property. And it's on Highway 238. Relates particularly to the council goals of housing and infrastructure. So the property we're talking about, called out in the word subject here, right down near the very south tip of where the urban growth boundary is on Highway 238. This is on the west side, fairly close to where 238 begins to turn. This is on the straightaway before it curves where the golf course is at. So that's the general location we're talking about. Here's a parcel map. The green parcels outline, there's three of them. The red is the city limits, so you can see it's fairly close to the city limits today. It is annexed, has been annexed for quite some time. The blue is the urban growth boundary. So this is actually a butts up to our urban growth boundary line. Everything on the west side of the creek is outside the City of Grants Pass urban growth boundary. So here's an aerial that provides some of the key features of the property that we're talking about. There were two former home sites on the property. Today there's kind of an old metal shed that remains there and there are a couple of wells, but the residences themselves were demolished quite a while ago. We'll talk about this a little bit more, but you can see this kind of cluster of trees here on the north end. That's a wetland area. There's another couple wetlands area around the property, and then Allen Creek extends basically north-south in this area, and it abuts the west side of the property. There's also a pretty good size irrigation ditch that runs along Williams Highway here, which, just as a reminder, is a state highway. So a little bit of the background. The city's had this since 2005. We acquired the property from Actuarial Pension Retirement Services Trust for just a little over $1 million, mostly using Parks Acquisition SDC funds. In 2010, we added the property to the Parks Master Plan. In 2019, we've talked about this before, this PAVE effort that was a combination of city staff and several different citizens looked at over 40 properties that the city had around the urban growth boundary. This was one of the ones they included in their list to recommend that the city look at. They did even then recommend retaining a portion of the property for a park. but because of the housing shortage at the time, they thought maybe some of the nine acres could be used for housing. 2022, there was quite a bit of discussion at the city council at that time related to the strategic plan goals to increase housing supply. And council directed staff to look at the feasibility of doing some kind of residential development on the property, as well as retaining some of the land for park land. We started looking more into that seriously, knowing that there was wetlands there on the site in 2023. We hired Schott and Associates, and they completed a wetland delineation, and here's what they came back with. You can see this cross-hatched, kind of these blue diagonal cross-hatched areas, the largest contiguous wetland on the property. There's about just a little over one acre on the 9.7 that came in as delineated wetlands. There's another pretty good-sized one here just to the east of that one. So that's where that came in at. We came back to the council in August and council then directed staff to publish a request for interest. Different than a request for proposal, the whole point here was just to say is there any private developers that are interested in partnering with the city to do some kind of housing development here. Council did look at different ways to approach that. At the end of the day, the RFI said we wanted to have a mixed income project. That was one of the fundamentals. There was several others that wanted the road to continue on north-south. Arroyo Drive currently stubs up from a little bit south of this site. That was another key piece. They wanted Arroyo to continue on. But for the most part, it was let's use the balance of this property besides the future park to get some new housing for the city, protect the wetlands, and do kind of a mixed income mix of rental and ownership. So then in 23, the council reviewed the RFI content. We published it in December. The RFI deadline was in March. We received one valid response, and that was Pano LLC and Inc. Built Architecture. Pano is represented by Robin Smith. She has 30 years of affordable housing experience. She's been involved with creating over 2,500 units of multifamily housing in four different states. Inc. Built Architecture, founded in 2017. They have been involved with over 500 units. So very qualified team. They've done a lot together as well, not just this project. And so we proceeded in the conversation. This is a statement that was in the RFI. I'll just call out the last sentence. It's there in your packets. You can read it. But basically says the purpose is to identify experienced collaborative housing developers who share the city's vision to leverage this unique opportunity to meet housing needs in South Grants Pass. So they came back with a proposal of how they would propose to lay that out. We continued with many different conversations in the summer and the fall of 2024. We did enter into an exclusive right to negotiate, just a type of real estate agreement that basically said, yes, the city commits to this group, that we will only continue the conversations with you. In August of 24, council approved Pano LLC for about a $238,000 grant. This is out of our Housing Opportunity Fund. This is construction excise tax money. this was for their home ownership piece. That program, you have to spend a certain percentage of the money on home ownership. You can't use it all on rental. So even though the majority of their project is rental, they do have some home ownership piece. And so this grant was there um that you'll see in a minute is not proceeded yet that portion of the project is is approved but their focus is on the the rental side of this project so no money has been dispersed but the the grant was was approved by council november of 24 there was a there was a neighborhood meeting that we held at allendale elementary This was to kind of inform the community of the conversations the council had been having. There was about 30 residents that came to that. It was... At that point, we had a lot of conversation about rezoning, which they ended up not doing, but it did give a kind of a high-level overview of what the project would entail, kind of the access points from the highway coming up from Arroyo, and several of the neighbors did have some comments and concerns, but we, I think, addressed those adequately at that neighborhood meeting. January to June of 25, the preliminary engineering kind of started. They put together some of their plans, and then the formal planning and development application was submitted in July. The Planning Commission held their hearing in September, and then, as I mentioned, there was some concerns. I would say the main concerns that were brought up were, number one, traffic and the impact of this project, particularly on Allen Wood, which is the existing street that is just north of this. Also concerns about the Royal Drive kind of coming up, you know, being servicing this project because they're in Arroyo on the south end. There are already numerous houses. And so they raised some concerns about that. questions related to the operation and how it would actually be managed. And PANA was there to kind of address some of those. The appeal period started after the Planning Commission approval. There was no formal appeals that were filed. October of 25, they approved the findings and then it was right about that time that the developer, received notice that they would receive over $37 million in LIFT funding. This is a program that the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department has. Here's the concept, or I shouldn't say the concept, this is actually the approved PUD site plan. So again, here, Allenwood Drive is on the north. Highway 238 is on the right side of the screen here. And then Allen Creek is on the left side of the screen. So you see here an extension basically coming off of Allenwood Drive where the cul-de-sac is running south and then stubbing to the Greg Jacoby property, which is about five acres here on the south side. And then there is another new public street that extends out close to the highway. ODOT is not allowing a full access for this project onto the state highway. You may be familiar with it. There is a bit of a Arc in the right-of-way there they were concerned about some visibility issues As well as just the volumes and sort of making both right hands and left-hand turns out of the site They are approved for emergency access by ODOT and then during construction they'll also be able to use that site, but everything else will either run north out of the site or south out of the site and The home ownership piece, which are townhouses, is down here in the southwest corner. This orange piece is where they propose the community center to be. And then this eastern portion adjacent to Williams is where the rental phase is at. So there's, I believe, four different types of buildings that are in there. kind of represented there by different colors. These are all attached units. There are no single family or duplex units. These are all triplex or above. You can see the large wetland area kind of called out here. And this about three acres is where the future city park is proposed to be. So we'd have a small parking lot that would be added up outside the wetlands here on the north side of the wetlands. So you would come on off of Allenwood Drive and you would have access to parking there. And then most of that Allen Creek frontage would be retained under city ownership for part of the park. Here's a couple of the elevations that were in their approved planning and development. It's not all of them, but you can see there's a two-story example here, there's a three-story example, and the community building elevation is there on the top. A few other features from the project. In terms of ownership, there would be two nonprofit corporations that would own and operate the project long-term. One of them is NeighborWorks Umpqua. They are based out of Roseburg. They have many, many years of experience managing these kinds of affordable housing projects. They've actually been in conversation with the city for several years, since I've been here at least, and probably longer. They have a keen interest in sort of expanding to Grants Pass. So they partnered up with the development team, and so they are one of the nonprofits that will have ownership and management of the project. Oregon Human Development Corporation is the second nonprofit that is involved in managing the site. As I mentioned, it's about 9.7 acres, three acres for the park, 110 rental units comprised of triplex and quadplexes. There's 94 parking spaces that are in driveways and 49 spaces on the street. There's 19 ownership units that are approved with the PUD. I will add that since then, in their conversations with the state, that may reduce a little bit. We don't know that exactly yet. Again, that's phase two, and so they're still kind of in negotiations on that piece. And then the community building is 3,500 square feet. So one other important piece, and this is really, in my experience, unusual but pretty exciting, that as a public-private partnership where you have some of the infrastructure for the project actually being constructed by the city, in most of the cases, the developers take these on, but we were pretty clear from the beginning the city would not use any of its own funds to build out the infrastructure. But Robin, being the keen developer that she is, identified pretty early on a grant that was opened up by Business Oregon. And there were only private, there are no private parties that can apply for this money. Business Oregon set up this pot of money and it's just for tribes and cities and counties and special units of government. So they couldn't apply for it. So they said, well, would you be willing to apply since this is an affordable housing project? We said, well, we will apply, so we did that. The Business Oregon Infrastructure Finance Authority Board, which is kind of a regulatory group within Business Oregon who reviews these grants and kind of oversees this money. came back and said that we were approved as a $1.9 million grant for transportation infrastructure. They got 31 applications for this pool, and we actually came through as number two out of 31. So we were one of nine awards, and we were, as I mentioned, number two. So that money was approved. That basically kicked off the ability for the engineer to kind of go into more detail about the infrastructure and how that would do. So Ryan Cross, engineering out of Klamath Falls, is who is preparing those drawings. He's also the engineer for the developer. And we expect that those formal bid documents will be in like, say the next four to six weeks would be published, and then we'll take it from there in terms of the contractors. This slide just shows which exact aspects of the project that the business organ grant would be for. So you can see kind of this red outlined area. So essentially it's the extension of Arroyo Drive from the cul-de-sac down to the southern boundary and then the public street out to Williams. Everything else would be constructed by the developer. So as I mentioned, there is a development agreement that's gonna be forthcoming to the council. This is an agreement for the disposition and development of property. The parties to it are the City of Grants Pass and Allenwood Homes LLC. The Allenwood Homes is comprised of PANO, which is Robin Inc. Build Architecture, Northwest Onqua, and the Oregon Human Development Corporation. And again, the purpose of the development agreement is really that legal document that will be used to convey property, to outline terms, talk about the phasing. Many of these things are already covered in the planned unit development that the Planning Commission approved, but this really formalizes it. And of course, any time the city-owned property gets conveyed, you need to have a more formal agreement. OHCS, given that they have a huge stake in the project, 37 plus million, they are requiring that the developer close on the portion of the property that's rental, not on the full property, but the portion of it sometime in July. So that's why we're kind of getting this to you today so we can kind of keep this moving. Cost implication, city, we've put in about $25,000 on the wetland study. We did an appraisal. We've had some survey work done. The developer has put in $600,000 or more on all of the engineering, all the architecture for the building designs and things like that. The revenue source for the city's piece is LB 6388. This is our surplus property sales fund, which has about 356,000 in it. I mentioned those grants. We have our CET grant that was approved, and then the business organ. And then, not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but one important piece, because Parks SDC monies were used back in 2005 to acquire the property, any proceeds from the sale have to go back into that SDC account. So these would not be funds that would go into the surplus property fund. These would have to be set aside for future park acquisition. Call to action, informational only today, and just to kind of prepare you for the forthcoming development agreement, but happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Brad. I know this property's been in the works for a while, and it'll be nice to see it keep going forward. Bring it back to council. I don't know if anybody has any questions. Rob, Eric, and then Rick. Rob, go first. Thanks.

So it's... you probably mentioned in the very beginning, but this is, the rental aspect of this, this is low income, or what level of income is this?

Yeah, so I think they're coming in right between 60 and 80% of area median income.

So that would be required for, I guess, probably what the developer's gotten, and also just to trigger our, eligibility of our CET grant, right? It's got to be that kind of level. Correct. Correct, yeah. So, on the ownership units, what kind of restrictions as far as income goes on those?

So, those could go up to 120 percent of area median income. Okay.

So, I don't know that it's any kind of major obstacle or whatever, but where would you, would you foresee a bus line running through here? Because I see that there's, what, 129 units, but only 143 parking spaces, so that's a problem, for sure, unless these are gonna be, a lot of these people are gonna be using public transportation, so where would, what would you foresee as far as a bus line goes, do you know?

Yeah, we had a brief conversation with Scott. Scott runs the JCT, Josephine Community Transit, Chansey. You know, he's by far the most flexible transit operator I've ever worked with. I was surprised. This is certainly not on their radar screen in terms of changing a route. But he didn't close it down. Basically, as the need changes and amends, they'll adjust their routes. But...

I mean, 10 years ago, right, somebody might not have built something with so few parking spaces. Then state law changed, and they're allowed to build them with basically no parking spaces. So it just seems to me that that ratio of parking spaces to units just tells me that it's going to be a major problem unless a lot of those people are taking the bus. So you would hope that somehow a provision is made for that. Otherwise, people aren't going to be happy there, and you want them to be happy.

Yeah, absolutely, right. Yeah, there is both off-street and on-street parking, which does exceed what the total count is for the units. So it's not that there's no parking in the project, but you're right, it is a lower ratio than what you would have seen, say, 10 years ago, for sure.

But it sounds like you brought it to the right people's attention. So it'll be up to Scott Chancey to... Yeah, so at least there's conversations being had, which is nice.

Okay, thank you.

For the questions, I had Eric, and then Rick.

Thank you for the presentation. I think Rob touched on a little bit of what I was going to talk about, but I've got an additional couple of questions regarding the highway. It goes from double lane to single lane, going up where it is up there. So was there a study or anything like that that brought up the question, does it need to be brought to a double lane highway because of the extra amount of people that are going to be living up there? Is there anything in the works for that?

So they did do a traffic impact analysis as part of their entitlement process. I would have to look on that specific question about the widening. I know that the question about speed limits was raised. This is 45 miles an hour in this area. That's something that ODOT, as you get into urban growth boundaries, I think they express a little bit more willingness to look at. But until you really hit a certain density, they're not going to change the speed limit tomorrow. but they will continue to monitor it and look at it. There was a close examination of the intersection of Allenwood Drive and Williams Highway, because that's where you're gonna see the vast majority of the impacts, is right here at this intersection, since there is no left in, right out option here. So there are currently, I believe, four units on the north side of Allen Drive, four units on the south side of Allen Drive, and then there's an existing single family here on the other side of the ditch that also uses Allenwood Drive. So I think it's nine or 10 existing dwelling units that use Allenwood to exit the project. So you are increasing that number dramatically, but when you look at it from a traffic impact analysis standpoint, and you compare that intersection count to where we see within many other parts of the city, it's actually there or a little bit lower in terms of the actual turning movements and the actual traffic counts. There's a lot of streets, public streets that we see in City of Grants Pass where you have 200, 300 or more units that are coming to an intersection and making those turning movements. So there was some requirements that ODOT asked for and the developer's gonna have to work closely with them and with the engineer to make sure that that is designed to meet the minimum specs.

Further questions, Rick?

Thank you, Brad. Can you go to slide 14? So I'm gonna take the comments that Rob was making a little bit further. Do you have a ballpark figure how many bedroom units will be in that development?

Oh, their application, I think, does outline that. I didn't get the bedroom count.

So another way to maybe define it, you probably have single family, I mean, one bedroom, two bedrooms, three bedrooms? Or are they all just one bedroom?

Oh, no. There's a combination of sizes there. Yeah, and I can certainly pull that up, or we can send you the floor plans.

Well, what I'm after is, as Rob has already pointed out, adequate parking. When you have a two-bedroom unit, you can almost expect there's going to be a second vehicle. And I'm also concerned about guest parking. Is there any provision for guest parking in addition to the residence?

There's not. Go back to the site plan here. So there is on-street parking on Arroyo. There's on-street parking on this extension here. This private street that runs east-west here is going to be built, even though it's private, it's going to be built to city public street standards. So you'll have some on street there. But I think if I heard your question correctly, are you asking is there any other dedicated parking just for guests and visitors? And there's not. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. Any further questions? Victoria.

So, thank you so much. I learned a lot that I didn't know about the project before. I'm wondering how many... Do you know of how many projects like this there are in our area, Southern Oregon, or throughout the state? Kind of a weird question. You should know it. Maybe not off the top of your head, but I wondered if you did.

Oh, well, there's lots of multifamily residential going on in Southern Oregon.

Oh, yeah, I mean this particular where it's run by a nonprofit, and it'll

Oh, oh, in terms of the ownership piece. Yes, yes. Are you talking specifically to these owners, or just?

No, just generally this type of development.

Yeah. You know, the Jackson County Housing Authority, I would say, is probably the largest. They're a quasi government. It is different than this one, because this is not a housing authority project. I don't have the answer to your question. I mean, it's not that unusual.

I was just curious as the presentation was going along. And you mentioned, and it's in the packet, but what's the name of the nonprofit that would run it, you said?

Yeah, there's two of them. Two of them. It's NeighborWorks Umpqua and Oregon Human Development Corporation.

Oh, OK. And so I'm wondering, I was just, it's kind of a natural, for me anyway, a natural question. So this will be eventually, it'll be run by them, so they'd be like the rental agency that runs it. Right. And that's why I asked how many we might have in the area. I'm wondering then what happens if these organizations no longer, I mean, want to run this development, is there an example of how it would transfer? Could it transfer to private? Would it transfer to another nonprofit? And so that's kind of another question that you didn't probably come prepared to answer, but if you can give me a little bit of an idea, that would be great.

Yeah, well, the ones that I have seen, I mean, they're, you know, these organizations, this is their entire mission, you know, is created to provide these kind of property management services. As I mentioned, there's a community center here. And my understanding is, you know, they plan to actively use that community center, you know, to be there for the residents to be able to, you know, take classes, you know, on, on finance management, to kind of work with them on those kinds of things. So that really is the whole purpose of why they were created. So is it possible that they will disband and not receive money? Certainly I guess that's a possibility. I think both of these organizations have been around a long time. But I don't know the type of agreement that they would have in place to sort of as to cover if there was, you know, if they had to leave the project. Because they couldn't operate anymore.

So I don't... And you said there were 19 ownership, but it's probably going to be less than that. Are those the single, double, triple units, or are they just the smaller houses, or...

Yeah, so those are the ones that are going to be here in this southwest corner. Gotcha. So those units have not been designed yet. The examples that I showed you earlier were the rentals. That is their phase one. There's, what do we got here? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven pods that are shown to be the ownership units. So I think they'll just kind of see how their pro forma works out once they get to that point in terms of the specific size of those. But they are proposed to be townhomes, though.

Okay, all right. So I'm just... how would it work within a whole unit where some of them are owned um and then selling them would they like go back to the non-profit or just sell to another private just like any other sale uh would that be how or would they maybe would the nonprofit have first right to to buy back or i i'm just wondering how that works sure sure yeah and you have you have just

top me out on my knowledge so basically when you deal with low-income housing um there's usually a deed restriction on it even if it's a for sale home per the state of oregon in regards to their grant funding there's a deed restriction that's put on it and so basically that would carry through so it does not go back to the original nonprofit in the beginning so if it is a sale from a sale person to a sale person there is usually a deed restriction that that follows that piece property for the allotted time period that is that is written in that grant money that was established to or procured to fund the building of the house oh perfect thank you

And I will, Counselor, ask Robin to address that. My apologies that I didn't get her here today.

No, that was great. You gave me a lot of great information. Thank you.

Further questions? I've got Rob, Kathleen, and then Indra, and then Rick. So, Rob?

So, to expand possibly on the deed restriction concept that Clint was just mentioning, typically, right, because this is low-income housing, so typically there's For the rental units, there's basically, the people are incentivized not to be operatively mobile because if they get too much income, they typically can't stay in these, a low income place. What about on the ownership units? Can somebody who owns one of these units get a better job in two years and go above the 120%? Or how does that work? In addition, to go back to what Clint was saying, if these units go way up in value, can somebody then essentially double their money? And who can buy that? Does the deed restriction then also say that the next guy that buys it also has to be no more than 120%? So I guess my number one question is, the ownership units, can these people never go above 100? Because I know in the rental units, you can't go above, right? Or you get tossed. On the ownership units, what happens if somebody gets a better job and they're now above 120% of income, what happens to?

Yeah, and of the projects I've seen, the critical piece on that is whether there's a community land trust involved or not. Community CLT projects, community land trusts, have a very, a little bit more rigid standard on that. They usually, you can, as long as you are there, you're gonna be able to stay, but if you, but the land trust has like a 99-year lease, essentially, where the ground is owned by the trust, but the unit itself is owned by the, kind of like a condo, where what you're actually buying is the structure and the square footage, not the dirt. Unfortunately, I can't tell you for sure if that's the model they're using here, but they are, if there's any kind of, state money involved, they're going to be having deed restrictions and they're going to be monitoring that pretty closely. But I don't want to misrepresent, so I am going to ask Robin to write a response to both of your questions so that you can have that information soon.

Thank you.

Yeah, there was a conversation that was had at one of the LOC conferences I had in regards to this. And the way it was explained to me was that when you have deed restrictions on for sale units what it does is it kind of hinders that progression for the person that's living there not necessarily to job wise like you're stating Rob but the deed restriction requires that you can't take a 17 percent interest or appreciation on that house when you turn around and sell it two years you have to you have to there's a there's a lower income appreciation that's built into that deed restriction. But it was a conversation at the LOC because it does not necessarily help people when you're wanting to try to go up so that person could stay in that house and not really progress positively into society and get a better and better and better job. So it was kind of a... a devil's advocate, if you'd say, conversation that I heard at LOC. There's good things to it, and there's bad things to it. But I believe that the deed restrictions for, unless it was like what Brad said, when it's a land trust, the deed restrictions basically just caps out that appreciation for the next time you sell it. Further questions, I had Kathleen, Andrew, and Rick. Kathleen?

So Brad, yeah, this is really informative. Thank you. Why... Is it not possible to extend the Arroyo Drive extension out to 238? Seems like that would help some of that.

Yeah, so Oregon Department of Transportation has, you know, minimum specs that they look at. There's a whole list of them. They look at visibility, they look at speed, You know, they look at history of accidents, close calls. They look at the projected number of turning movements. How many are going to be turning left? How many are going to be turning right? They look at the design, the geometry of the street. I mean, all of this is taken into consideration. So when they get a proposal, and that proposal says we want to access your highway, They basically look at the study that was done and then they make a call about the safety side of it. And in this case, they did not think it would, at build-out, be prudent to allow for a full access there.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's that much further to the highway. It kind of looks like it's

That specific location on 238, I guarantee it would have came down to the sightline visibilities because there's a dip in that road and then there's a crest in that road. So there's certain parameters on how far you can see before you stop in the middle of a highway and how far somebody can see you. So I guarantee that specific location had to deal with sightlines because, just like Brad said earlier, there's a dip and a hill there and it's a visibility.

Okay. So my next question was... Am I understanding that the wetlands are going to become the park part of this?

A big chunk of it. There's all of this from Allen Creek. You see the edge here to the wetlands. There's a couple hundred feet. That's not wetlands. So there will be an opportunity to do some other improvements there. But even in the wetlands portion, You know, we haven't started at all in the design, but it is not uncommon in wetlands to, you know, you can still do things like boardwalks, kind of make it more of an educational sort of park, but a lot of that thinking and the design work still needs to be done.

Okay. And do you know, for instance, these people that want to develop it, if they are mandated to use union labor?

I do not know for sure on the prevailing wage question where that comes in at. I would think so because there's lift funds. Yeah, state money.

Yeah. Okay, thank you.

Further questions? I've got Indra and then Rick. Indra?

Yes. Thank you, Brad. The Pano, Robin Smith, is that out of Roseburg as well? Or are they local?

No, they're up in the Portland metro area.

Oh, okay. Are there you and some of these you might have to just write down questions because you might not know them but are there some units they've done nearby that I Could go look at do you know of any developments in Roseburg or Medford that they they've built I

or Klamath Resorts? I don't think that they're that close. They've done a lot in Oregon. I think their most recent project was actually up in the Northeast in La Grande. But we can get you a list.

That would be great. And then I also had questions regarding the nonprofit that's going to manage it. Did they receive... funds for placing people in that? Like as part of their nonprofit business, actually receiving grants from the state to actually find housing for people? Do you know that?

Most of what Northwest Umpqua NeighborWorks does is both build and then manage affordable housing. Not so much of that. transition piece that comes before that, like moving from homelessness into housing. So I think their primary focus is on the more permanent housing, not transitional. Was that your question?

If you can find that out for sure, both of them, I would like to know that too. You bet. Is there an HOA of any kind?

Well, typically HOAs are not needed or used with rental projects because they're single ownership and they're a property management company that oversees the day-to-day management maintenance, which is the case on the 110 units on the right-hand side of the screen. On the townhouse piece where there's ownership, it's a possibility, but I don't know if they've made that decision yet.

Okay, I just wondered, because the community center usually involves an HOA, so there possibly could be for the home ownership side.

There could be. But again, the community center is part of what the two nonprofits will be owning and managing. So that's going to be a service that is there to provide for all the residents.

Okay, and then is there any, I know that all of these kids living there would go to Allen Creek Elementary. Is there ever any coordination with the schools?

Oh, absolutely, yeah. We met with Tim Sweeney. We don't usually go and meet. But in this case, because of the size and because it is a larger project for South Grants Pass, we wanted to go meet. So we did meet with the superintendent as well as their finance person. They do not anticipate that Allen Dale would exceed, but it is close. It's getting to that capacity. If it is, they did not. express any concerns about being able to service it. Sometimes they move kids around and they bring in modulars or there's other ways that they can address it. There's a ratio that they look at for number of elementary kids per unit, number of junior high kids per unit, number of high schoolers per unit. And it's obviously you don't know for sure until all of them are filled and at that point there would have to be some conversations. We did also talk about bus service. Right now the school bus stops very close to the intersection of Allenwood and It pulls off onto the shoulder, and so that's currently where any kids that are here in the Allenwood Drive, they walk down and then they get onto the bus there at that corner. They said that would not likely continue. With a school bus, I think Councilor Pell's question earlier in terms of public transit, We don't know, but in this case, for the school system, they did say that they would be willing to come into the project.

Okay, thank you for correcting me, Allendale Elementary. And then, so no major concerns there, it sounds like?

Correct.

Okay, and then last, you mentioned 60 to 80% for income. What is that, monetarily, per year?

Oh, every year HUD puts out a new chart and they do on one person, two person, three person, four person households. I think the four person household this year for median, I believe is around 56,000. So you, that's the household. So you basically take, that's the 100%. So 80%, you know, 40% you take, and that's for four. So if you have a two-person household, it's gonna be lower.

Okay, thank you. All right, further questions, we got Rick and then Eric.

So Brad, looking at the slide 12 that you have posted there, the north-south road is Arroyo Drive, is that correct?

Correct.

Okay, is that a 50 or 60-foot right-of-way?

I think it's 50.

Okay, so as... things go forward and you're trying to encourage walking and using alternative transportation, multimodal path is one way to address that. Is there any inclusion of a multimodal path on the west side of Arroyo?

I'd have to look at what Ryan Cross has drawn up, but I don't think, I don't know if Jason, if you've seen it, I think it's probably just our standard, isn't it? Which is a detached Our standard drawing is a detached sidewalk, so it's not attached to the curb. So that's the minimum requirement. But if I heard you right, you're saying is it wider than our standard sidewalk? Yeah, I don't.

And how wide is the landscape strip in there? It's five or six feet?

I think our standard is five.

Five.

Yeah.

So is there the opportunity to shrink the landscape strip down and move the trees over into the wetland and put a multimodal path in there?

Well, there might be. You know, I mean, engineers can do a lot, but...

Okay, and last comment, and I don't know if... I think as the city moves forward, and I'm seeing in Portland where parking is no longer a requirement, but it becomes a major issue, if angle parking, like 60-degree parking, were included on that west side, you could almost double the parking on the street parking... And I guess I would like to see that encouraged. I realize their design is on the drawing board at this time, so if that's something that they could consider, I think that would be a real advantage. I realize we cannot legally require it, but we could, do we have the opportunity to encourage that? Is that correct?

Well, yeah, you know, again, you're talking about backing, so you would have to back out onto the street?

True.

Yeah.

That's what you do on other streets. Okay, thank you.

Yeah. Lastly, Eric, questions?

On slide nine there, we were talking about the RFI and all that. Were there any other competitors that put their hat in the ring, or did that already get discussed?

We had a couple that expressed some interest in sort of just when it was open, but did not end up actually submitting. So we did not have any other formal response.

So it was just one?

Yeah. The one that we currently have?

Correct. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, Brad.

You bet.

I know we drilled you pretty good, so thank you. All right, that concludes our agenda items for today's workshop, and we'll go into the last portion. We do have a executive session planned for later on here. So bringing back to agenda review, does any counselor have any questions in regards to the upcoming business meeting that was published and should have been in your hands? I saw one hand. Victoria, and then Joel, Victoria.

Well, I thought it was up for Wednesday, but now I'm not so sure. But I'm going to bring it up anyway. So in our further discussions on the Owl parking lot, I wanted to make sure that we went back and reviewed the I don't think it's finalized, but I wanted to make a point of saying that we need to look back at that, at the vote that was taken and the discussion that was taken. And I thought it was on Wednesday, but I don't see it. Maybe it's just written in a way that I don't recognize it.

We had a discussion about that.

It's not scheduled for a meeting on the 3rd yet. Oh, it's not on the third. We did talk about, if you're talking about the, we had direction from council to establish like a six-month pilot project for the all usage.

Yes, that's what I'm referring to. So the parameters of the six-month pilot project, we need to come back to that. And so, but it isn't up for Wednesday, so maybe I need to say it again on agenda review Wednesday, but I'm not sure. Should I just do that then?

I would bring it back for Wednesday's agenda review, but I thought you staff had questions.

Yeah, I do have some questions also with the pilot project, just to get clarity. We were going to do a memo to council letting them know what we thought we might need additional clarification on. So likely it would probably be ripe for putting it as a future workshop, and we can provide you a memo, and then we can think about those additional clarifications we need before we move forward with a true pilot of that area.

Okay.

So for clarifications, council did not necessarily, council sent staff in a direction to develop parameters for a pilot program. With my conversations with staff, they had some questions to further clarify that. So we can bring it up if you want to bring it back up in Wednesday's meeting. That's great, but what we were thinking of is staff presenting council with a memo in regards to what they have so far with their additional questions, and then we can discuss it further at a future workshop.

After the memo. Okay, thank you.

Okay, anybody else in regards to Wednesday night's meeting? Joel.

So I was looking at the urban renewal agency budget, and we had that motion during our budget meeting where it looked like policy was changed on urban renewal budget without council involvement in terms of where the money was going to go. And so moving on that motion that was made, is that going to be discussed during that topic?

So as we sort of touched on during the council and community budget committee meeting, the budget committee made a recommendation to provide 18% into the wastewater fund. Keep the policy as it was approved by council. That's correct. It was also stated that what we'll do moving forward is that frees up about $220,000. Correct. And so that will be determined after this action is taken. And that's freed up. We will come back to council at a future meeting for you to provide direction on what you would like to do with those funds.

So we need to schedule that then?

Yeah, that ultimately needs to be scheduled. So it would be good to put on the back of the calendar or something like that.

So under agenda review, we need to put that on the back and schedule it. I had a second item. And it also requires a policy change. And that, it was my understanding, and I might be wrong, about 50% of the time. The tourism tax, I understood there was some change in the tourism tax that would allow us to give public safety a increase, a bigger percentage of the tourism dollars. And that would require a change in policy that would have to be discussed by council. And so I would request that on the agenda. I don't have a position on it now, but I think we need to address that.

Yeah, we put that discussion of TLT allocations on a future workshop, which will be July 13th. July where? 13 ah, okay. Good. Good. Thank you. We did listen to you last time Hey, well, you always listen.

I don't know.

It's you are corrected We the council sought a desire to have further conversations about the allocations or reallocations of that And so we did put that in a workshop because that's kind of where we need to start that.

Okay.

Thank you Anybody else in regards to Wednesday night? Indra Okay. First, make sure that we get through Wednesday night. Everybody good with Wednesday night? No questions, changes. Okay. Agenda review completely. Indra.

Yes. So I see that we have the municipal court on the June 15th and exclusion zones, which seems easier to do. And we talked about before way back on August 3rd. Is there a reason that's put way back there? And can we talk about that as part of the municipal court discussion or at the same workshop perhaps? Seems like an easier thing to maybe do that would be more helpful at this time.

I think from a standpoint of the exclusion zones, that of course is a standalone topic. Whether you have a municipal court or not, it is a standalone topic. Now a municipal court may provide more justification or more tools for an exclusion zone. You potentially could have those under the same meeting, but it's the exclusion zone discussion I think is gonna be lengthy in nature also, and the municipal court already is lengthy in nature. Plus on the 15th we do have a time slot that has been agreed upon with logic compensation for the discussion of logic. So it can be together if you'd like to have it together. However, putting that item also on the agenda may create an extremely long meeting.

It doesn't matter to me whether it's together or not, but it seems like the exclusion zone could be something we can start pretty soon. And with the unmanaged camps closing, I feel like that would be very helpful perhaps through the summer to get that going, whereas the municipal court while I'm pro-municipal court, depending on what we hear, that's a long process, and that's gonna be way out, and so I would prefer to have the discussion on exclusion zones as soon as possible.

Okay, I'll take that into consideration, and I'll get with staff, and we'll see what a best course of action would be.

Can I just say something to that? Sure, Kathleen. So we're gonna be talking about ordnance, amendments, use of public space at the meeting on Wednesday. Does that have something to do with Exclusionary? I mean, it's not exactly exclusionary, but it's... No, it helps.

It does help. If you read the staff report, it's kind of an interim mechanism. Exclusion zones would be more part of the overhaul that I referenced in the staff report on that. We'd be looking at developing new ordinances as opposed to just making some modifications to existing ordinances.

Any further questions in regards to the future agenda? Joel.

So a citizen brought up to me and I talked to Jason about it. He says well that probably needs to come before council the maintenance of Right away in alleys remember that conversation we had Jason and also the water sewer that from the curbside to the main pipe and From that citizen's perspective, she thought there had been a change in policy without council involvement on who was responsible for maintaining those public right-of-ways and alleys, and also for when your sewer pipe collapses, that part that goes from the curb to the main pipe. The lateral. Yeah, the lateral. And so I would like to have that put on the back to discuss that, if in fact there was a policy change without counsel. And again, I don't have any particular position on the pros or cons of that, and that we would examine that and see what we want to do.

Okay, anybody else? Victoria.

Yeah, I'd like to know what the update is for the survey for the Hillcrest. A beacon park? Okay.

I'm sorry, the survey? Is that your question?

Yes. Yeah. Just an update about where that is.

Yeah, so the subcommittee put together the questions, and they have finished those, and so we're just looking at those, and then we'll forward them to council probably tomorrow or the next day.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

I had a couple of people come up to me and ask me about the signage, street signs being worn out and also the lanes on the specific, basically the paint on the lanes. How is that taken care of and is that just a constant battle with maintenance?

Yes. Short answer. ODOT is looking into the signs. I know that they did get a price with their slashed budget. It may be a challenge for our local district to get the money to replace all of those signs, but they are aware of it and will be working to replace them. If you have specific areas where the lines are LIGHT, YOU KNOW, DEFINITELY GET THOSE TO US. ODOT IS DEFINITELY RESPONSIBLE FOR SIXTH AND SEVENTH AND SOME OF THE OTHER AREAS BUT THEN THE CITY TAKES CARE OF IT IN MOST OTHER AREAS. ON A LOT OF THE LOWER ORDER STREETS LIKE JUST IN Single neighborhoods where it's a very, you know, just a, we often don't repaint because sometimes not having the lines forcibly slows people down. It's actually a tool that we can use, you know, where the sides of the road are because of the cars parked. But by not necessarily having the clearest lines, you can actually keep traffic at a reduced rate.

I'll get some specifics next time if they... I didn't get any specifics, unfortunately. One more question in terms of the parks, specifically Morrison Park. We had some issues there over the weekend. We had a few people write in emails to mayor and council about the drug usage, specifically in the bathrooms. Was there anything that we as a... city can can do to try to prevent that from happening because essentially the kids are all using the parks for baseball it's baseball season they're all doing that so so let me weigh in on that one um so yeah those uh those uh complaints were not

those complaints were heard. And so I've directed Aaron to give me some prices in regards to doing some signage on all of our parks and public bat restrooms. If you go into other places, sometimes you see ordinances that are put up on the wall just to reiterate stuff. So we're gonna go back through that. We've had this conversation way about over a year ago about putting extra signage in the park. So we're gonna get a dollar figure and then bring that to council for them to weigh over and see if that's a viable option to do some extra signage in those parks.

So to put that signage up, though, what is that going to be able to accomplish, I guess? Is it going to help our police department? What's the purpose in it, I guess, is what I'm asking.

I think part of the purpose is additional awareness. That's one thing we talked about. All users of the park will be more aware of what acceptable activities are and that we do have codes associated with those acceptable activities. One of the things we're also looking at and considering is retrofitting some of the lighting in the restrooms to blue lights to help deal with the usage of the restrooms. And so I know from a park infrastructure perspective, we're looking at those type of avenues.

So there are robust conversations going on right now. When information comes available, we'll bring it back to council for any deliberation. Thank you. Further comments? We do have an executive session coming up tonight. I mean, this afternoon. Rob, and then Kathleen, and then Victoria?

So Jason, I know in the past you've always responded to any emails I've sent you about what Eric was talking about with regards to striping and trees and so forth. And did you get one last week? Because I gave you a specific block, specific stripes that were worn to nothing. I sent it to you last week, but unlike you, you didn't respond. So I'm just wondering if you got it.

Sorry, I don't recall seeing that email. I'll search for it right now. If I didn't, could you resend it?

Yeah, I don't have my phone on me right now, but I'll resend it.

That'd be great. Normally, if I get an email, I'll respond and send it on, and we'll get the work done.

Right, thank you.

Kathleen? I just wanted to bring up that there's a lot of conversation about the jump track going on lately, and I noticed pump track, excuse me. And I've noticed that there's been some parks being talked about in the committees, and I saw a list a while back, and it had Gilbert Park in there, the baseball diamond, because it hadn't been used very much this last year. And I'm not seeing that anymore on the list of possible places for this track to go. So I wish that that could be incorporated in some of the discussion, because it looks like...

Yeah, that's city-owned part. I mean, that's a school district, Grants Pass school district owns that. We actually just basically lease it back and operate it for them. So that would have to be a discussion.

And they couldn't be interested? And has anybody approached them?

Ultimately, I think when we have a facilitated discussion of this again, we can bring up all options. But one thing that has been discussed before is How much infrastructure does the city want to put in place on property that's not owned by the city? And that cooperation. So it's a policy decision on what council would like to do. That can or cannot be included in the discussion when we go to have more formal discussions on where that might fit.

Victoria?

Yes, just a quick comment on signs. It's a different topic, but it's driving up 7th Street, there are some signs that are upside down now. And are you aware of that, Jason? And is it in the works to get that fixed? I'm just curious. I know it's probably not our purview, but I just wondered.

They are not. I will report those. I think the one on the other side of the street actually disappeared. There was the two for the courthouse, and one's upside down, and the other one's gone.

Thank you.

Okay, so last topic on the agenda here is I have spoke to a number of counselors. I have not spoke to everybody. I do apologize, but I will be from here going forward, at least through the summertime, we will be rescheduling our workshops to start at 3 p.m. in the afternoon. there is anybody that has major discrepancies with that come please see me it fits a little bit better in ice my schedule and then some other people schedule because they can do some stuff in the morning staff is seems to be on board with it so our next coming up workshop on the 15th will start at 3 p.m. in the afternoon okay And that takes care of the rest of the workshop and we will adjourn and go into an executive session. So I need to read my spiel. Okay, council will now meet. In executive session for the purpose of discussing those subjects previously noticed for this executive session. This executive session is held pursuant ORS 192.660 and more specifically under the subsections of that statute which have been publicly noticed for this meeting. Representatives of the news media and designated staff shall be allowed to attend the executive session. All other members of the audience are asked to leave the room. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during the executive session, except to state the general subject of the session as previously noticed. No discussion may be made in, or no, sorry, no decision may be made in executive session. At the end of executive session, we will end that executive session and be done for today.

Stephanie.