City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. okay all right uh follow the regular meeting of the state council and her brother's order monday june 27th edition I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That's all. I got there, yeah.

Yes, it would probably help if I turn my microphone on. Okay. Mr. Smith, do we have any changes to the agenda? No changes. All right. So first up, presentations. Hermiston School District update for the 25-26 school year. Mr. Bacon, come to dazzle us, I'm hoping.

Pressure's on here. All right, well, good evening. It's nice to see everybody. It's been a little while, so I brought a list of things to talk about here tonight, so I'll try and go through it so I don't take up your whole evening. Okay. But just to give a recap of different events that occurred over the year and some recognitions that students have received, I'll go down and just kind of hit the highlights and do the 30,000-foot... view of all of these. You know, we're a year behind with graduation rates. They come in the year after. So once the school year has been over, then we have to go through the fall and process everything. Final completers, all of that's factored into the state. So we received those results at the beginning, well, Christmas time this year, this last year. And our four-year graduation rate for the 24-25 school year jumped up almost 5%. So it was from 80.1 percent to an 85 percent which exceeds that state level which was sitting at the 83 percent so we are excited to see that trend starting to head that direction. We're also excited to recognize again here publicly just the recognition that Delaney Wiesler received when she earned the OSU Presidential Scholarship. Also we had Sebastian Booth who won the Congressional App Challenge win. He was the winner on that deal. And he had developed an app where you can go in and see current events across the globe. So that was a pretty neat app that he created and was able to share out there. Students from Arm and Larvae at the National Broadcast Journalism Conference, they finished first and third in storytelling. And so they were able to present their video that they created and shared at the conference that won them those honors at the last board meeting. So that was a pretty neat video that the kids put together. And then we were fortunate enough to have two of our students recognized as the Mid-Columbia Conference Athletes of the Year. And so what it takes to earn that recognition is excellence in academics and excelling in community service and also competition out on the athletic surface, whatever that may be. So Hayden Larson was the male MCC athlete of the year, and Kate Doherty was the female MCC athlete of the year. We also had... Our FBLA students compete at the state level. And they did well enough. They'll be competing at the national event this summer. And then also competing nationally will be our FCCLA students, where we'll have 12 of them going and competing nationally in DC. And of course, they get to hit their right July 5. So they're going to follow all the exciting festivities of the 250th celebration. Along with FCCLA, we were able to actually host the state competition here out of Hermiston, which is the first time that's happened. So it was pretty neat for our kids to be able to show off in the facilities that we have here in Hermiston and all the work it takes to put on one of those. So our staff did a great job getting that ready to go. We also have our student-built home is up and ready to go, and so working on getting that sold. They were able to have their open house this last month, couple weeks ago. Pretty neat. One of my favorite parts of the entire build is to crawl in underneath the house. They put it in the garage, so you don't have to crawl in from outside to get underneath the house to mess with any of the duck work or put mousetraps. So it was pretty neat a change that they've done they haven't done that before in any of those homes Then we also had our construction students at our tech twos They built a mini playhouse Miniature home and for Monta Vista homes so community partnership Monta Vista was going to purchase purchase that from them wanted to use it and then turn around and donate it back to the students and And the construction class who then raffled it off again to be able to sell it to a community member. So it's been passed around a little bit and moved. Kiwanis even used it for a little bit for the tree lot to help promote getting it out there. So it was just neat to have the kids be able to put their 6-7 house out there and get it going and be able to present it a little bit. So good job to them. Our Army JROTC was able to host their inaugural event here. We had 12 schools coming from Oregon and Washington participating here and facilitated that. And that program continues to grow. We'll have a second instructor with us this next year. As we work through all the hiring process, the Army... has to sift through, which is a lot, by the way. So we're excited to have that. And then our Education Pathways students continue to receive training. They went through it again this year, which is called our ERCI training, which is our enhanced core reading instruction. So our teachers receive this same level of training and then implement it in the classrooms. We're able to have our Education Pathways students go through the training themselves. not alongside with all of our teachers because we do it at different times throughout this course of the school year and then our pathway students are able to go ahead and provide tutoring to our elementary students throughout the school year so it's a great way to help our pathway students really kind of get their feet wet in what teaching reading is all about so when they're ready to go off to college it really helps to develop and build that grow your own program bring the kids back a great connection between our elementary and our high school kids. So far, it's just been a win-win. So we're able to continue to support that and watch it grow. Athletics, we were able, once again, Dan's team bringing home a state championship. And hip-hop, wrestling for the first time. Boys in the WIA first place finish. Girls finish second. So congratulations to the wrestling programs that are continue to excel. And then our cross-country team was the only program that competed at the state level in the fall. And they did a great job. I think they had 12 athletes compete at the state cross-country meet in Pasco this last fall. So again, excelling there. It was neat to watch. Moving towards kind of the district format just a little bit, or not format, but district level type stuff. For the 20th consecutive year in a row, the district has received and earned the Government Finance Officers Association Certificate for Excellence in Financial Reporting for fiscal year 2025. Each year, it seems to build a little more pressure to make sure that that's not the year you don't meet the standard for that. So that adds to it each year. summer learning grant came out ODE Department of Education shifted how they are awarding the monies for summer learning grants this last year. It became a competitive grant and only issued it to one district in the state. Dr. Mooney was able to find and work with three other superintendents in Oregon who found an error in how they awarded that. grant and then worked with ODE to correct that. And as a result of that, we were one of the three other, well, four total, including Hermson recipients that also received that grant. So there were five school districts across the state that received it. So that helped immensely as we were rolling out and getting things going for summer program again this year. The board, you may have heard, took action this last month here to rejoin the ESD. That'll take effect July 1 of 2027. We'll begin this next year of processing how that looks and how that transition happens. There's a lot of legal work and how the ORSs are written that we'll have to follow and make sure the guideline and then be able to answer questions staff have and get everything squared away and ready to go. But that'll be happening. And then we had our one-year anniversary-ish, a little more than that. Depends on what time of year you were talking about it. But with Umatilla County Health and the department working out of the health center there at the high school, we increased our number of visits, 83 visits this last year with the expanded options that they were putting out there and supporting. So we had 510 visits this year out of that wellness center, which is 510 times kids didn't have to leave the building and go somewhere else to seek any medical questions or care that they needed. And then the last thing I'll tackle with, and I'm going to read all of this so I don't mess it up as I'm reading through it, but graduation. This year we had 376 graduates that were walking across the stage this year. We had one valedictorian, four to three, honors diplomas, and to earn that honors diploma, I think we talked about it last year or the year before, but you have to earn 27 credits instead of the 24. You have to take, and if I remember correctly, it's like seven of the AP courses out of the 15 that's offered at the high school. And then there's a list of things, requirements for students to be able to earn that. But to have 43 of them was pretty exciting this year. We had 95 seniors graduate with honors, and then 241 programs of studies completed. And those are programs in healthcare, agriculture, engineering, business, education. So students take courses in that to learn more hands-on about it to get ready as they head out into the workforce or college. students also we had 16 that committed to military service representing all of the branches and then seniors reported to the school district 9.3 million dollars in scholarships were earned by this year's seniors and nearly 5.7 million of those dollars were connected in participation with our path to scholarships workshop that our staff puts on for kids to really help them Locate what scholarships might fit them well and how to fill them out. as they sort through them because a lot of times well it's a challenge like i've had two kids go through and apply for scholarships and it's a lot of work and so somebody going through it for the first time it's a lot so we're able to provide that support and it paid off so out of our local organizations we had over 170 000 that came just from local organizations here inside the city limits here so overall very successful 2025 26 school year and uh we are i think right at 64 days until the start of the school is what i was told today um going through stuff um but yeah we're uh back at it and going it doesn't seem to slow down so any questions for me council questions great you can say a comment

Thank you for highlighting some of the CTE programs, but I also want to highlight the students that participated in taking the national certification to be phlebotomists. And out of 24 students, 22 passed. So each year, they also seem to increase the number. So that's really great for some of our students to be able to enter the workforce with this certification.

kudos to to mrs spew for or stevie um for the work that she does and um and the other teacher i forgot his name mr galindo thank you mr galindo yeah yes and i believe i don't remember the specific number that the percentage that mr spew shared at graduation on the number of students that are participating in our um in those programs compared to last year. I want to say it's almost 20% of an increase from last year to this year. So the programs are growing. It's neat. And we could probably stand up here for a long time tonight trying to identify different supports and recognitions that are provided to our students. But there's a lot.

Thank you. Good job.

Well, that was great information. We like hearing what's going on in schools. It's a reflection of what's going on in the community. I love the fact that the trades are being prepared for jobs, not just one plus one. They're getting out there and having the ability to have a job as soon as they walk out the door. That's fantastic. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to bring us up to date and look forward to hearing from you next. All right. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Next up, citizen input on non-agenda items. Anyone wishing to bring anything before the council that is not on the agenda is asked to please do so. Do the following. Limit your comments to more than five minutes. State your name, place of residence, and direct your comments to me. Come on, Virginia.

Virginia Rome Garcia, 435 Sunset Drive, Hermiston, Oregon. Sorry. I'm just here to let you guys know it was a very nice event, very eventful and well attended event for the Juneteenth. And I appreciate the city of Hermiston being part of it. The park was very well cleaned. And so it was just a very, very nice, well-attended event. No problems, no issues. Everything went very well. And that's really actually all I have to say. And I'm glad on the school district that students have all these different options. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Anyone else?

OK. Moving along. Next up, consent agenda items. We have consent agenda items A through J. With the council's permission, I'd like to pull G, certifying the election. Are there any others that council would want to pull? Do we have any council questions in regards to items A through J? Public comment, A through J? Council comments? OK. Can I get a motion to approve consent agenda items A through J minus G? So moved. Second. Been moved by Councillor McCarthy, seconded by Councillor Hayward this time. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Okay, the reason I asked to pull item G, the certifying of the Ward Council and Municipal Judge primary results, is that Councillor Roberts actually brought up in a number discrepancy that was listed in there. And I'll give Mr. Smith the opportunity to explain what the Elections Department told him and what it was about.

So I don't get it wrong. I'm going to read what she took. One of these, okay, so there are different kinds of ballots. That's basically the summary. But we have ballots that are called permanent limited that are issued to overseas individuals whose return to the state of Oregon is uncertain. This is also referred to as a federal-only ballot. The only races on those ballots are U.S. Senator and U.S. Representatives. One of these ballots was returned and showed in the statistics for ballots cast totals for the precincts included in the City of Hermiston, yet the City of Hermiston races were not on the ballot itself. I ran the statistics by ballot style to show the difference. The first page in the attachment shows. So anyway, that extra one is a ballot that shouldn't have been counted in there because they didn't even have the chance to vote on Hermiston-related elections. But somehow that's just the report they sent to us on accident. And so it's really the lower number that is the total for the Hermiston ballots that is on the report that you're looking at.

And my reason for pulling that was just for total, I hate using buzzwords, but transparency so that, you know, if people look at the, look at the numbers and they say there's a, there's a one vote discrepancy, you know, that we did actually look at that. We did ask why, and we did get an answer on as to why that was, was the case. So, um, City Council Chambers, Good for you, Council Roberts for bringing that up and with that. City Council Chambers, Do we have any questions or comments in regards to that. City Council Chambers, Public comment okay.

City Council Chambers, No.

Can I get a motion to approve consent to agenda item G?

So motion.

Second. It's been moved by Councillor McCarthy, seconded by Councillor Hayward again. Roll call. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. All right. Congratulations to the victors, I guess is the right way to put that. Um, unfortunately for some of you guys, now the work's going to start starting. So, um, but, you know, congratulations to everybody that ran because, you know, it takes, it takes a lot. It takes a lot to, uh, even put your name on the ballot, put yourself out there as, as being, you know, up for. for public scrutiny. And so it's a difficult position to be in in some cases. And so anybody that chooses to put themselves in that position should be commended. All right. Next up, resolutions. Resolution 2433, renewal of IGA for IT services with cities of Milton-Freewater and Pilot Rock, Morrow County, Umatilla Rural Fire Protection District and an amendment to the IGA for IT services for the City of Echo. Mr. Smith.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So the Milton Free Water, Pilot Rock, and Umatilla Rural Fire is basically a straight renewal for a three-year term. The agreement with Morrill County is a straight renewal for a one-year term, and the reason why they've chosen that, they keep saying they would like to come back and adjust some other provisions within the agreement, and we've said, sure, we're willing to talk about it, but they continue to just renew, so we're gonna keep renewing until they come and share with us what they would like to change. Then the last one has the most changes, the City of Echo. They had previously been on an on-call only, and they got a new city administrator this last year and have decided that they want to go to a monthly contract with four hours a month, and that's $6,240 a year. And for us, that's not a lot of money, but it actually helps us better plan our hours and know what's going to be expected. Okay. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Council questions? Council?

The standard. Do we have enough?

Yes. She only has a few more months to ask that question. I got a feeling she's going to come back and ask that question in the future too, just because. As well she should. Public comment? Seeing none. Council comments?

Councilor Kelso. Thank you. I just want to say really quick that I think our IT department in the city does a great job. And the fact that our customers keep renewing with us for the service and, in fact, want to expand their hours is a testament to that. So well done, IT department.

I would echo that as well. It's not every business that gets that kind of return service. Can I get a motion to adopt Resolution 2433 and lay upon the record?

Motion to adopt. Second.

And moved by Councillor Hayward, seconded by Councillor McCarthy. Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Now the big one. Refer amendments to the charter to the November 3rd, 2026 election. Mr. Smith.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So now this is the official placing or putting on the ballot the items that you voted for last time. And so it just is more specific about which pages and what types of changes and be happy to answer any questions. We've kind of gone over this quite a few times and I think I'll just defer to questions.

Questions. I guess I'll ask the only one. No takesie-backsies, right? After this.

Not after this. Okay. Public comment? I'm sure you could repeal the resolution before it got, before August maybe, but after that, no taking back.

Okay. Public comment? Council comments? Council Roberts?

Once again, I want to commend the Charter Review Committee for the work that they did on this. You're right, Mr. Smith. We have gone over this a number of times. It's been very thorough. It's been a very open process. And now it's up to the voters. This is not something that we're dictating or mandating. We're saying tonight that we're going to put it to the public to decide. So anybody watching, listening, tell your friends. Pay attention on this one. This is our constitution for the city. It's an important thing. And now the public gets to decide.

Now I'll let you ask your question.

So being fully aware this is something going on the ballot for the citizens to vote on, would it just be like one package or would they have multiple? This is going to be one package. You vote it all up or down. Perfect.

Okay. And just I didn't want to mention we we will be doing factual presentations about this to various community groups or anybody who will listen and just so you know we can't take a position as staff on whether it's good or bad, but we can tell the facts, what it does.

Mr drum.

that was one of the questions that um i had but so will it it's not going to have in detail everything that is changing it'll just have like an explanation it'll have what's in the resolution um page two of three is the big summary okay so on on different pages it tells what

The changes are.

Okay. The other question would be, I know that you present to civic groups, but have you considered maybe being like at the Hermiston Drug for people to, if they have questions, I mean, I think that was the best turn on that.

If you want to give me some suggestions, I'm happy to go talk to people about this.

Perfect. Thank you.

Any other council questions or comments? Last chance. Okay. Can I get a motion to adopt resolution 2434 and lay upon the record? So moved.

Second.

Okay. Moved by everybody but Councilor Hayward who seconded it. I think I'll give it to Councilor Duran on the motion and second to Councilor Hayward. Okay. Roll call. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Wish I could vote so I could vote yes. Still want the one change, but hey, you know. Passes unanimously. Congratulations. So... Once again, here we go with our charter. This has been a very, very open process as Council Roberts pointed out. And the fact that we had, the public is the folks that came up with this, not us. This was done by the public as opposed to a council making these changes. So I'm pretty happy with the process. Next up, monthly financial report. Mr. Smith.

Yeah, since Lily was trying to rush to get to this item on the agenda, I'll turn it over to Mr. Clough.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Councillors.

Yes, sir.

For you tonight, I have the May 2026 monthly financial reports. I will note at the beginning of this that I do like presenting these reports when I have the same thing to report as the last month. No fires, nothing that really jumps out at us that's a major concern. But with that... noted I'll move through the reports. For the Hermiston Urban Renewal URA, since I can't say urban renewal agency, we are 92% of the way through the fiscal year for both the URA and the city, 11 months. revenues and expenditures are meeting expectations, and we're right where we're at. The one thing to note is that we have not utilized the capital budget for the North Hermiston Urban Renewal, and that's expected because we just purchased the right-of-ways notice here, finalized that in April, and we'll be moving forward with the design and then finalize the bidding hopefully this winter. Right, Clint? It's this one, right?

I just want to get through this, maybe.

Okay. As I noted before, we're 11 months into the fiscal year. Monthly revenues ended over projection by about $1.8 million. This is primarily due, again, to the receipt of property taxes and timing of franchise fees. As noted with the URA revenues are meeting expectations. We're right on track for everything. Um, I will note that in your review of the financial reports that were sent out, there's one red number in our revenues and that's for the, um, Other services, which has to do with the ODOT grant that we got for, or State of Oregon grant that we got for the transportation fee, they, we passed that, instead of passing through the city, they paid for it directly. So that does not reflect it as a revenue or an expense on either side of our system. reporting so i just wanted to point that out especially this close to the end of the fiscal year general fund again the there were four departments that were selected for further evaluation of those three of those are are ex over budget and um we don't anticipate those um creating any issues for the general fund but they are city city council non-departmental and then the public safety center as for the reasons noted in the report and in the powerpoint there that were previously shared the special revenue funds the eotech revenues reflect the partial reimbursement from the campground project and the rv project is underway we haven't um the revenues for the um big for the what was the show shine thing that we had the car cartoons the cartoon festivals we think that went well i have not seen those not as well as oh well darn it but um those are not reflected here that's what i was trying to point out so those will be reflected in the june um accounting so with that utility street funds. The only fund that's again is the regional water fund. We are about $201,000 under projected revenues. And, but on the flip side are, Projected expenditures are currently only at about 450 under actual expenditures. So when those offset, we are still ahead in meeting expectations. So although revenues are down, expenditures are off further than that. So we're doing OK, and we still anticipate making that shortfall before the end of June in the next couple of weeks here. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Morgan. capital projects.

All right, we have some projects going on around town, you may have noticed. Today we closed the intersection of Gear and Harper, so it's going to be closed for quite a while. We just had an open house here in this room with all of the impacted businesses. We sent a mailer out a few weeks ago inviting them to come ask their questions, and so that was a good opportunity. I think it went well. So yeah, the gear project is moving along Northwest Second Street project that one should begin seeing some actual movement with equipment showing up on site probably this week regional water system backup generator, that's just We've already put in the purchase contract. So we're just waiting for delivery The aquifer storage and recovery project is well underway now I think Last I checked, well, we're injecting 1,350 gallons per minute every minute that we're talking. So we're on our way towards injecting 700 million gallons of water by next April. So we're well on our way towards that project. So things are going really well with the ASR project. The Orchard Avenue waterline project, you've also probably noticed we closed the street there recently, so that's just closed to through traffic, so that project is underway and moving forward. Well number six chlorination structure, we tore the old building down and we have the footings in place and should start going vertical here soon there as well. Dogwood, that's associated with the North 2nd Street project, so it should also see equipment mobilizing here in the next week or so. 10th Street Bridge project. They finished the geotechnical boring here last month and design is proceeding for a wintertime construction. East Evelyn Gravity Sewer Line should probably see construction beginning here in the next couple of weeks. And then lift station number seven rebuild heading towards advertising that project in the fall. That's that.

And on the We're on the general fund side. The only project that we have kind of in line right now is Sherman Park, and we're waiting to release that bid package to seek bids from contractors.

All right. Any council questions on the monthly financial report? Seeing none. Public comment? Seeing none. Council comments? all right can i get a motion to accept the may 22nd or may 2026 monthly financial report as presented so moved second then moved by counselor mccarthy seconded by counselor hayward i think i just need a stamp for you too uh roll call yes yes yes yes yes yes motion passes unanimously

Okay, a committee report city committee and liaison reports, do we have any s. yeah on the 16th five my memory serves me correctly, we had the trt funds meeting, where we have presentations from all sorts of organizations in the Community. We had, if I recall correctly $265,000 worth of requests and had about $125,000 to award. So if anybody wants to say no to $100,000 worth of request, committee appointments are open. It was quite a while. We actually went through everything. And everybody that requested was able to receive at least some, if not most, of what they asked for. So we were happy that we could all come to a decision on that. We had some scoring parameters. Everybody submitted on time. And everybody that presented did a good job. looking forward to seeing how that moves forward as we get some new things. Uh, there's some exciting events, uh, both, uh, both organized independently and in conjunction with the city. So I look forward to seeing what those, what they're able to do with those funds.

Excellent. Other committee reports, council council.

Yeah. Thank you on, uh, Thursday the 18th, I attended the EOTech committee meeting, and there was not a quorum at the meeting, but nonetheless, we had a lot of information shared. Mr. Mark Morgan over there gave a presentation on Placer AI, which is a web service, basically gives cell phone intelligence data. So if you have a venue or have any sort of interest in how people move about town, this service that the city subscribes to can show you that data and basically give you a lot of business intelligence around how people act and where they go, which I thought was, as a computer nerd myself, I thought was pretty fascinating and very cool. We have a consulting group working to update the EOTech strategic plans, and hopefully there will be a first draft presented sometime in the September timeframe. Fair planning is coming along, and my favorite part, the live animals, apparently there are gonna be a lot more of them this year, so that's pretty exciting. The kids are raising a lot of animals, which I think is great. Let's see. We spent 15 minutes talking about a dirt pile. Did we not, Byron? Back me up on that. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Is that Mount Morgan?

Oh, okay. Oh, gotcha. There you go.

Let's see. Heroes is working on getting their donor wall placed. Looks like it's going to be on the north end of the lacrosse field there, and so they're working on getting that put together. The north RV park is on schedule to be done before the fair, and the south RV park is going to be starting construction here in the next couple of weeks. And we're doing IRZ is further evaluating our water rights and to see if they are significant and adequate enough to meet our needs there. That's all I have. Thank you. Perfect. That's a very good report.

Councilor Duran.

So we had a Parks and Rec meeting on June 11th, and Director Arts gave a lot of information to us. And they have new staff members that have joined the Parks and Rec department, and they have hired a coordinator for the aquatics manager. Her name is Mia Moreno. And another coordinator is Andrew Guerrero. And these are longstanding employees of the Parks and Rec Department over the years. So they're not new faces to them, but new in their position. So we're very grateful that they're able to uh be fully staffed they also hired 110 lifeguards this summer sometimes they end up with 80 because you know kids come and go they get other jobs so that's quite the number of lifeguards that they have hired um and we went over how many trees were given at the giveaway um 1200 trees were given away um this spring and uh We talked about the bridge over at Bell Park. Horizon Park has their basketball court installed, playground installed. And a ribbon cutting ceremony will be planned for sometime in July. And they talked about the second graders that went from the Hermiston School District to the pools to get information about swimming lessons and just all kinds of good lessons that they learned from there. Kiwanis supply them with goggles, sunscreen and books prior to the second graders going to the swim lessons. So we're very grateful for that partnership because they are taught about, you know, safety most importantly and They shared about the Stars and Stripes shootout on July 4th. The event, the Stars and Stripes event starts at 3, fireworks at 10 p.m. The Melon Fest is scheduled for August 22nd. And they also shared about the meal program that the city offers. And it runs from June 15th through August 13th for 1 to 18-year-olds.

so we're very grateful that we're able to do that especially right now with um rising costs so that's the report excellent counselor meyer and as usual our our very best citizen input comes from counselor kelso he's got some valuable information that he imparts whenever he shows thank you You're welcome.

Maybe a slight exaggeration.

Excellent. Okay. Other council committee reports? Any others? Okay. Mayor's report. Let's see here. We had the music festival, the cartoons that over the, from what I understand, that was not well attended.

No, I was, I emceed the first night.

Oh, that says a lot. I mean...

Mr. Davis from EOTech described it as a great event that no one saw.

Yeah. Okay. Honestly, I would say that, actually. I would say, actually, everything that was there, especially the bands where I was present at, did a great job. I just wish more people were there for them.

Well, in the past, some of the events, they've all started off, most of them have started off kind of paltry, and they have grown, but we'll see on this one. Um, let's see. We had, uh, the, uh, cattleman's beef show. Juneteenth was talked about earlier. Thank you, Ms. Uh, Rome. Yes. Thank you, ma'am. The Disability Walk was also on June 20th. Coming up, we have had the fire departments, they have an open house on the 25th from 3 to 6. The grand reopening of the Cozy Tavern is on the 28th. Farmers Market starts again on the 25th. we you spoke of the or nope you didn't the watermelon slam pickleball tournament on the 25th on this this saturday from 8 a.m to 1 p.m from what i understand that's going to be a pretty big event are we expecting people from all over okay Also coming up, we got the, as Councilor Duran spoke of, Stars and Stripes shootout tournament three-on-three on the 4th of July at Funland, plus the fireworks and celebration starting at 10 at Butte Park, or at 3, I should say, and the kids' triathlon on the 25th at 8 in the morning. uh of july that's it weighs into the future and then the music the movies in the park are going to start here in july as well so a lot of good stuff coming up in the in the immediate future um and i appreciate uh mr bacon coming in and giving us the update um i know we kind of push you guys back on the back burner a little bit. So maybe we'll see a little bit more frequently in the future. But aside from that, that's all I've got. Council President.

Thank you, sir. I just want to also remind everyone, in addition to some of the events talked about, the Chamber has a resource social media lunch on July 6th, where Alex from the Chamber will be doing some simple ways to sharpen captions for social media, everyday business aids, learn what to post, things like that. That'll be on the 6th of July from 1130 to 1. And then the annual Chamber Summer Mixer at Bennett Gardens on July 9th at 6 p.m. Both of those events are ticketed events, so I encourage you to come out. And that Summer Mixer is personally my favorite thing that one of the favorite things the Chamber does because it's the opportunity to kind of share with with the community your feelings on business your feelings on the business community and learn a little bit more about what's going on so i encourage you to check that out as with all of the events that the mayor and i have talked about you can also just google hermiston live there's a number of other events from both chamber members city events and things like that you can always see what's going on any given day thank you sir council council reports

I want to remind the public out there that they have reduced the speed on 395, so pay attention to the speed limits. Fire safety is big since fire is going. Let's be careful out there with fireworks coming up here in the next couple weeks. Then also the class of 2001 will be in here in the city of Hermiston this weekend for the 25-year reunion. All right.

Okay. Chancellor Brown.

More just like a question for the city management, because we won't be here, but by the next time we're here, 4th of July is already come and gone. So I guess anything special for the 4th of July, anything to expect from the city?

Firework.

There is a commemorative coin available that Parks and Rec is selling. And then I believe we're working to enhance the fireworks. I don't know all the rest of the details.

Love to hear it. Do we have a date on when, if, and when?

Them burning off the Butte. I have not heard the date on that yet.

Okay.

I guarantee it will be that day if nothing else. It's not before then. Okay. All right. Councilor Roberts?

I just wanted to bring up, so the council is aware, the Pendleton City Council is going to be holding a special meeting on Monday, June 29th at 7 p.m. They're conducting a public hearing on a proposed settlement agreement in their lawsuit that was filed against the city's arresting ordinance by the Oregon Law Center on behalf of individuals experiencing homelessness. And this is something they've been ongoing for a little while now. And I've talked to Mr. Smith and read our ordinance. We feel like we're probably on good solid ground, but it's going to be a good opportunity to hear what those arguments were so that we don't fall into the same trap, I guess. And so I plan on attending that just to kind of hear what's being said about it. June 29th, 7 p.m. It's at the Pendleton Convention Center, but I believe they're also going to be live streaming it.

Okay. Others.

On June 18th, I participated in the Oregon Latinos and local government meeting where they came to share information about what the organization does. And pretty much they help build bridges between Latino public servants. They develop or they invest in leadership, growth, mentorship and professional development and help support to create community where Latino leaders feel valued and empowered. And we had board members from the OLLG here And for the most part, the people that attended were from the city of Umatilla and Boardman in Hermiston. Well, no, we didn't have someone from Echo. But it was really neat to be able to get together and just kind of learn about sort of like what happens at the small... region meetings you know where we kind of share some of our challenges and and how we can improve and how we can work together to be better servants and so I walked away feeling really great that they were able to come because we really haven't had I think this is the first meeting that they've had in eastern Oregon so it's pretty that was pretty important and um It was really nice to hear from some of the panelists, like Josie Chavez from the Umatilla School District. And it was, I don't know, it was a really neat meeting that I attended. This Thursday, I will be joining Mayor McKinnon to go to Lapine for the Oregon League of Cities board meeting. So I'm excited about that and wanting to not only learn about the latest things that are happening, but also get to see Lapine for the first time.

Excellent. Any others? Councillor Kelso.

Thank you. On the Friday, the 12th of June, I was able to attend the Good Shepherd Community Health Foundation's golf tournament. And, um, I think a good time was had by all. And I just wanted to comment and say that I think it's great that so many of our local businesses and business leaders and civic groups come out and participate in that tournament and raise funds for what I believe is an excellent cause, scholarships for local students who are going to pursue careers in the medical field. So well done to our community. It's always great to see, once again, our businesses and our business leaders and our civic groups come out to support the youth of our community. Thank you to everyone. Any others?

Mr. Smith.

So the only other thing that I didn't hear mentioned before is if you remember, you're all invited to attend the Rotary meeting this week on Thursday at noon. The club's going to be unveiling a peace poll out here just outside of City Hall on the east side. And so after we do that, then we'll come in. They are providing lunch. So just wanted to remind you of that. Okay.

Any others? I just mentioned that's the same time and date that the Cozy Corner ribbon cutting is happening. That might be a natural migration down the street.

Okay. Anybody else have anything for the good order? With that, we're adjourned. Before 8 o'clock.