City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's 7 o'clock.

Turn on the microphone so you all can be here. It's 7 o'clock. It is welcome, everybody, to the Hermiston City Council and Urban Renewal Agency, Monday, August 24th edition. I'm going to call the meeting to order. We have a quorum, barely. We are expecting one more member to be here prior to a whole lot of stuff going on. But with Councilor Meyer, Hayward, and Linton, and Barone currently absent, with Councilor Barone going to be late. With that, can I get everyone to join me with the flag salute? 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.

Thank you.

Always inspiring to hear people say that. Mr. Smith, do we have any changes to the agenda? Okay. First up, presentations. Umatilla County Fire District number one on measure 30-175. Chief Stanton.

Good evening, Mayor Primmer, counselors, and city staff. Thank you for allowing us to be here tonight. Give you a little summary of what's going on this summer and what we're looking at for this fall with measure 31-175. See if I get this right. A little bit about the summer, obviously we've been real busy here locally with several significant fires as well as our normal call volume of medical and rescue calls as well. Several months approaching that 600 call a month level, which is quite a bit for us, as well as supporting fires within the county, such as the Large Hagen Paradise Fire Complex up on the Umatilla National Forest, as well as other fires throughout the state. So busy, busy year so far, and hopefully we're going to get to the end of that. Usually by after Labor Day, it hopefully calms down, and we're going to keep our fingers crossed on that. Talk a little about the apprenticeship program or one of six places around the state that have apprenticeship firefighters And that's going great. They finished their Academy up this summer Started in April and that's five young men that are we're in that program. It's a two-year program grant funded by the state So it's a great program to see These young men being able to develop their skills through that program and for us. It's kind of cool because it's like a farm club and And so if we have an employee leave, that's how we hire right from there. They're a union member. It's kind of like having that apprentice electrician or plumber in a way. So very great program. We're excited about it. And then, of course, we have our SAFER, those 16 funded positions for that large SAFER FEMA grant that we got in 2024. And they're doing awesome. And they are all on the line now. And some of them are still doing some training. They go through a 15-month training. I'll call it a probation. It starts with a three-month academy and then a 12-month probation, which is additional learning, classes, schools, testing for the get-off probation. So we're excited about all their accomplishments and where they're at right now as they're seizing their skills and excited about what they do to help us and help our community to provide that level of service. So last year was a pretty busy year, 6,200 calls. Obviously what we mostly do is medical calls, over 5,000 paramedic EMS calls. Of those, 317 were critical care activations, 239 motor vehicle accidents. And that is probably one of the things that continues to rise almost every year is a lot of you know, MVAs in our jurisdiction, you know, before I maybe come before this body and talked about distracted driving or speeds and stuff that continues to be the problem a lot with those motor vehicle accidents, something I want to be proud of. And it's really, for our men and women that do all the work, is we have a 14% cardiac arrest survival rate. And you may think, oh, that sounds horrible. And we want it to be much higher. But across the nation, the average is 9%. So we are five points above the national average. And we continue to strive to make that be our goal. We'd like to be at 20% or higher, obviously. But those are just tough numbers to beat. And obviously, last year, 270 working fires. That's between wildland fires, structure fires, car fires, that kind of stuff. One of the things that people don't think understand is our busyness. 70% of the time, our calls overlap with another emergency in progress. Obviously, we've talked about 80% of those calls require a paramedic EMS response. Now, that will vacillate up and down. Some years, it's been as high as 90%, such as back, I think, 2021, high point of the pandemic. A lot of EMS, obviously, 90% we ran that. But that's about where it lays, 80% to 85% of our total call volume. And the big thing is we usually rely on our partners three to four times a week at least. Umatilla, Echo, Boardman, Pendleton coming in to help us too for some of the call volume. 56% increase calls over the past 10 years. Some places have seen higher than that, but that's a steady 5.6 if you average it out over 10 years. And we've been seeing that for quite a bit. Most of my career here, Pendleton's always been in the growth stage, it seems like, for my 32 years here. So But still, it keeps adding on and adding on. And the big thing I think of it is, is, you know, if you look at that bottom thing, 27 times last year, we got another call after we were on five right then. So that means six calls at a time. We can't staff six calls. We can't really staff five calls. So it happens here. But that's one of the things that's great about these new 16 positions and being able to staff that third fire station 24-7 is that reduces that time that we have to rely on our partners and have that where you have to wait that 20 to 30 minutes to get an ambulance here out of Boardman or Pendleton. So the Safer Grant, that's a big deal. That's kind of what we're here tonight to talk about. 16 people we hired through that. Darn near $7 million from a FEMA grant. And that's a pretty big... We were only one of two departments in Oregon that got that, Woodburn being the other that year. So they don't give out a lot of those. But it was huge for us to get that, to jumpstart staffing a third station and getting us to where we have enough people to really... serve our communities and we serve the four communities with hermiston being our biggest obviously 80 of our total calls are right here in the city limits of hermiston so you are the center of everything we do here um so with that with those extra people they've helped us to reduce response times dramatically the year before we had to have 98 times we had to have board member Pendleton coming here with an ambulance. Now that's a 20 to 30 minute delay. If you're having a heart attack, that's not a place you want to be waiting for. We have cut that down. We've only, we're in single digits still this year and now we're almost done with August eight months. So it's making a difference having these extra bodies, three staff stations. Obviously, you know, the one downtown, we have one out on East side station 22 on pumpkin center and the one we're kind of new, the new staffing, I'll call it the one we're staffing with these people. is Station 23 on Weston Road. That funding does expire at the end of 2027 after a three-year stint of that money from the feds. So obviously there's big funding gaps. This is probably nothing new that you don't already know. I'm sure you face it as well. Our revenues come from property tax, which is about 55% of our revenues. About a third of it then comes from ambulance billing. The rest is miscellaneous income or grants. The problem is, as you all see, is rising costs of personnel, wages, benefit packages, the equipment that you use, the materials and services you use, it just continues to go up, and that's where the environment, and it's outpacing what your revenue sources are. As you can see up there, there's a chart from 2015 to 25 of an ambulance. $190,000 was the approximate cost in 2015. Last year, it's $375,000. Battalion Chief Ed Clark handles that for me. He just told me last Friday that the new one now is $410,000 this year. That's just crazy because that's not sustainable to pay stuff for that cost. Obviously, the bottom line, grants are just not sustainable long-term funding mechanisms. So the reason we're here, the board of directors, even when I went to them about getting the safer grant, I told them, hey, we're going to have to have a levy to back this up at some point. And they said, we understand. Go for the grant. When we got awarded the grant, we had to accept it by their, obviously they had to go through a vote, accept it. I told them again, we're going to have to go for a levy to back this grant up. And they said, we understand that. Let's keep moving forward. So we did. Or they actually voted. So that's kind of where we stand before you. So a five-year local option levy to replace that grant funding. This money is not for any new programs. It's to keep us where we are today, to sustain our levels of service where we are today. It's set at 89 cents per thousand assessed value. We were told by the assessor's office on the median home in Hermiston, that's about 14 bucks a month or a cup of coffee, if you will, or an energy drink a week. So that's kind of where it breaks down. Again, it talks about this is to retain our 16 firefighter EMTs and paramedics, maintain our current staffing levels, and replace that grant funding that's going to go away If it's not passed, that's problematic for us. We're going to have to lose those positions. That means fewer responders available for all those emergencies we're running, and the call volume isn't going down. And that means probably at station 23, we're going to have to turn the lights off and not have any 24-7 coverage out there. We just don't have enough people then if we lose those 16 positions, which is what's really on the chopping block here. So again, it does not fund any expansion or new programs. It's just keeping where we are today. And that's really the bulk of what I want to talk about tonight to kind of tell you where we're at. And obviously, you're the main city we protect. And you're our home, too. And we are your fire department. So that's why I'm here. And if you open to any questions or comments, you might have. Council questions?

Councilor Jerome?

I think you guys have done a beautiful job at making sure that people are aware of the measure. I've seen signs all over town everywhere I turn, and it's like, oh, there's a sign. I wanted to know what information would you have in Spanish about the measure? Have you thought about that?

Yeah, we have. We're getting ready to roll out some stuff in Spanish to make sure everybody understands what we're doing, and it helps to have stuff like AI and stuff like that to help us to move through those translations.

Thank you. Other council questions. Okay. So I think it's one of the things that we need to bring up, though, is that although you get this grant, what does that do to compression? How does that affect you? How does that affect us?

You bet. Of course, we had to work through that as well. If there's no compression at all, if everything was no caps or nothing, we wouldn't need that full 89 cents. You know, that was a working, trying to work with the assessor's office. And I will tell you, I'd be happy to send the emails. They were very little help with me trying to find some estimates. So good chat GPT and I worked with formulas and the state laws and stuff, and I did come up with some estimates that I hope are in the ballpark. The district would lose around, best figures, estimates, about $700,000 to compression. So it gives us enough to keep those 16 employees, but not a lot of extra money. So that's where we're sitting there. As far as the city's concerned, by my calculations and estimates, again, I couldn't get hard numbers at all from our tax assessor. It looks like it's going to be around $140,000 of compression, additional compression to the city of Hermiston.

Did you concur with that, Mr. Smith?

Yeah, and like I said, I did talk to a prior assessor, and he thought that we should have had better information back as well.

You had an estimate for us from the assessor's office.

I think it's important to bring forward, though, that no matter how this takes place, the cost to the taxpayer doesn't change. The maximum amount that the taxpayer can be taxed at the current rate is where they're at, in the city anyway.

One of the things, obviously looking at all the tax codes within the city, It's property by property. It's not a certain area. And that's what makes it difficult, I think, to figure that out. But yes, there'll be some that they're already in compressed at $10. Anybody in that spot wouldn't pay any more in taxes.

Just for the record, Councillor Barone has joined us. on the dais as well. Thank you for getting here, sir. Do you have any questions for Chief Stanton in regards to measure 30-175?

Not at this time. Thank you, though.

All right. Any other questions, comments? Councillor Roberts.

Just a comment. None of us like paying more taxes. And I think we've seen levies and even the tax increases that we do here get heavy pushback. Um, I just want to say that there are some things that just inherently cost more money. And, um, I know in my line of work, I also see the, the expenses outpacing revenues, and that's just a reality of, of inflation. We see it in our personal lives at home and our pocketbooks. It's no different when it comes to local government. Uh, we don't have the printing press, so we don't get to print extra money. So we have to unfortunately find those revenues and, uh, Funding public safety is critically important, so I encourage people to really look at this. Think about the importance of if you or your loved one were in need, you want help to be there. It's just something that sometimes we have to do, and I appreciate you bringing this forward. I think that you guys do a phenomenal job, and I want to see

the the citizens of of hermiston and the greater hermiston area continue to get the level of service that you guys are providing so thank you thank you that's kelso yeah thank you for presenting tonight chief that was a lot of good information i had a question though you said your call volume has grown about five percent year over year for the last several years and i think that pretty briskly outpaces our population growth how do you account for the discrepancy

Well, we kind of got a jumpstart through the pandemic and that one year it had a, as I recall, maybe 8% and then it's kind of leveled off a little bit. Um, obviously everybody had to experience that. Um, I think one of the things, and it's kind of a double-edged sword, is we're growing because we're in a spot that sees growth, whether it's data centers or advancement in agriculture, wherever it is. We're lucky to be in that area here on the Columbia Basin and in Hermiston that we see the growth. But with that comes those issues like increasing call volumes. Other than that, I don't know how we continue to look at cost containment at the fire district and continue to plan. We just did a strategic strategic plan a year ago. So we're working off that five year plan on how we combat some of that stuff. Some of it is using good data analysis and we do that right now. We contract that out to a. Affirm so we make good decisions based on hard data not what our gut tells us So hopefully that is the key part is making good decisions based on data where the stations need to be staffed at Where we put people to the help the most people the most of the time So I think that's the best thing we hang our hat on is using the data to help us make good decisions Any others

Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. It's definitely, you know, the citizens need to take a hard look. And, you know, we understand it could cost some of the city services because, you know, it will affect city services as well. But at the same time, you know, when you call, you know, when your house is on fire, your loved one is hurt, you want somebody to be there. So it's important.

Thank you, sir.

All right, with that, we are up to the first opportunity for citizen input. And this is a citizen input on non-agenda items. And so anyone wishing to bring anything before the council that is not on the agenda is asked to limit their comments to not more than five minutes, state your name and place of residence for the record, and direct your comments to me. Do we have anybody wishing to speak?

Welcome. My name is Stacy Stanek, and my address is 330 East Carter Drive here in Hermiston. I'm here tonight to comment on the indoor aquatic facility that is being considered by the council and will be voted on next month. I'm a swim parent. I've had the pleasure of watching both of my children, who are now college students, participate on the Hermiston High School swim team for the entirety of their high school careers. I have watched them make friends, learn how to become leaders, and discover their own perseverance and grit. I have watched their teammates, some of whom could not swim on the first day of the season, become proficient and race in the district meet three months later. Being on the swim team here requires an extra level of dedication. Both the girls and the boys teams must be bused to Boardman during the week for their practices. In the winter, the boys team travels to Wenatchee, Cheney, and Pullman on a weekly basis for meets. They must log a lot of extra practice time on the road without even being in a pool. Last week, five swimmers from Hermiston volunteered in Richland for the I Can Swim program. This program offers an opportunity for individuals with developmental disabilities to learn basic water skills and gain independent aquatic movement with the help of a swim buddy. It is the third year that my kids have helped with the program. The time spent is always fulfilling for the swimmers and the buddies alike. When my kids were very young and learning how to swim, we only had the summer to take swim lessons, much like it is today. We always crammed them in, as it's really important to have water safety skills here in this area, but it would have been great to have access to winter swim lessons, not just in the summer. An indoor facility here in town would be such a blessing to our swim team and our community. I believe that surrounding towns with swim teams, like Pendleton, who are also being bused to Boardman, would book the time and pay to utilize our pool. We could bring swim meets to our area in the colder months, stimulating the local economy. We could host programs such as I Can Swim, which also bolsters our sense of community. I appreciate you taking the time to listen and thoughtfully consider adding this benefit to our town.

Thank you, ma'am. Others?

My name is David Hanson. I live at 1737 West Alleluia Avenue here in Hermiston. And I would just like to ask the council to take a very hard look at voting on measure 3175 as individuals. I would also ask you to put out publicly that you support measure 3175. I happen to be a member of a committee of about 30 individuals here in Hermiston who have come together to support the levy, to put the manpower and the money behind making sure this levy passes. This is your fire department. This is my fire department. And as a guy who's got gray hair, I really appreciate the paramedics. I can tell you that they came to our house, actually to the farm, when my wife got kicked by a horse and broke her femur. The one thing that she said was so amazing about having been picked up by this fire district is how compassionate, how well trained, how caring, and how professional they were. She won't forget that. In fact, she's now out campaigning on behalf of 3175 as well. So I would ask the city council to back up your fire department and put it in writing that you support us. Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir. Others? Seeing none. Moving on to the consent agenda. Do we have any council questions for the consent agendas items A through E? Seeing none. Public comment? Council comments? Does the council wish to remove any items? Council Roberts?

I'd like to remove items C and D.

We're going to remove consent agenda items C and D. OK. And any others? Seeing none, can I get a motion to approve items A, B, and E?

So moved. Second.

Been moved by Councillor McCarthy, been seconded by Councillor Drone. Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay.

Hang on here. Okay. Council Roberts, consent agenda item C, you wish to remove?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. I noticed a mistake in the minutes in the section where we took the vote to continue the meeting to the August 10th meeting. It says that it was motioned by Mr. McCarthy, seconded by myself, and then that Councillor Linton and I were in opposition. I went back and looked at the video to verify. Councillor McCarthy made the motion. Councillor Hayward seconded. The vote passed with Councillors Kelso and Barone in opposition. And so I would request that we amend the minutes with those changes.

Any council questions or comments on that? Okay. Go ahead.

I'm curious if we can, without independently now verifying that, because I don't...

It has been verified. Okay. Okay. And consent agenda item D?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. In the vote for ordinance 2383, it said that Councillor Linton and I were in favor. We were actually not in favor on that one. So it looks like maybe a typo.

Okay. And again, that has been verified by the city recorder. OK, so can I get a motion to accept items C and D as amended?

I also have another observation.

Okay.

For the August 10th meeting also under the council reports. I believe that Councillor Linton asked to rescind R-E-S-C-I-N-D her vote and not rescind R-E-S-E-N-D.

Copy. Okay. Any others? Okay, so can I get a motion to accept consent agenda items C and D as amended per council?

So moved. Second.

Moved by Councillor Roberts, seconded by Councillor McCarthy. Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. 5-0 or 4-0. 5-0. I can't even count today. All right. Well, those items were removed and taken care of. Ordinances, Ordinance 2383, creating LID 324. This item was presented during the public hearing on July 27th and again on August 10th. The public hearing was closed on July 27th, and as such, no other evidence or public testimony will be taken. City Attorney Tubby will now read the ordinance by title only. Mr. Tubby.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First reading of ordinance number 2383, an ordinance creating local improvement district number 324, describing improvement, setting boundary, providing for payment by benefited properties, securing such payment by lien against the benefited properties, and calling for construction. Mr. Mayor.

Do we have any further council questions or comments? Councillor Brown.

Thank you, Mayor. My comment is not to oppose the creation of the LID nor the assessment of linear square footage for the LID. However, moving forward, I think that's what this ordinance is for, is for creating the LID and the way that we are assessing the LID. What I propose to council to consider in the future is the way that we're doing this right now is the whole project is 1.2M. The city contributes 305,000, thereby reducing it to about 900,000 that is split amongst those five properties. Well, my train of thought is right now that 305 is being equally distributed amongst the five properties and then they're being assessed by linear square foot. What I propose in the future is instead of equally spreading it out amongst the five properties is to try to do it in an equitable way to support some of these property owners that would have an undue burden. What I'd propose, and again, this isn't to amend this LID or anything, but it's for future consideration, is if there could be a base credit, let's just say the council could decide, but just for sake of, so you understand where I'm coming from, is if every property got a base credit of $50,000, 50,000 times five properties would be 250,000. there'd be about $55,000 left to distribute from what the city has to distribute the 305. And so I would say that that $55,000 or whatever would be left over would be equitably distributed amongst the five properties. Now obviously I'm not here with a formula or anything like that. I think that's something that we could consider in the future because I know what we're voting on today is merely the creation of the LID and how the council is going to assess that LID. And so I just wanted to merely propose that idea of how the city could distribute the $305,000 that it already has planned to distribute. and so those are my comments um again the ordinance 2383 i'm in favor of it but in terms of how it's going to be distributed once we get to that point i'd like to i'd like for us to get a little bit creative and be it more equitable rather than equal for the five properties okay can i ask a question sure cancer drone

City Manager Smith, isn't it like whenever there's been a project like the ship project where after the LID was approved, after the project was completed and after all the, I guess the result of how much the project cost didn't it come back to the council for the council's consideration to see? Because some of the information that we get are estimates, but it's not until the project is finalized that you get the true numbers. And wasn't that at that point where the council gets to also look at those numbers and make a decision then too?

That's correct. we're working off of estimates. If this ordinance gets adopted, we move forward, we put it out to bid, and a contractor builds the project, then we know exactly what it costs, and then we would allocate the cost based on the first step would be this ordinance. And then if the council wanted to make any changes, additions, subtractions of city money or other ways, then at that point, the council would take action to actually allocate the cost to the individual properties.

Councilor Roberts.

Yes, thank you. I was also thinking the same thing that... You know, we have this $305,000 figure on there, and that is also part of the estimates. And if the project comes in much lower, which a lot of times it does because we tend to estimate on the high side, the city's contribution also can end up being lower. And my suggestion, like Councilor Bruin mentioned, is, You know, we consider when the time comes keeping that $305,000. We've already allocated that as an estimated amount that we're willing to spend. And then we can discuss, you know, how to allocate that when the time comes. You know, I'm a firm believer in that the way we've always done it doesn't have to be the way we always do it. So we might have a little bit of discretion here. I'm also a firm believer that, you know, laws, regulations, um, should not be viewed as absolutes. Sometimes there are exceptions and I think this could be considered an exceptional case. Um, that would be for the council to decide, but you know, that said, um, you know, on August 10th, we decided the linear foot model. I opposed it, but the decision was made. And so, um, since the decision's made, I'm ready to go forward with the LID. Nobody's been opposed really to the LID. Even the property owners are for the LID. It was just the allocation model. And so, you know, tonight I'm ready to move forward with that, just with the caveat that when the time comes to allocate those costs, we consider those mitigation factors.

Any others? Okay. With that, can I get a motion to adopt Ordinance Number 2383 and become effective 30 days after adoption by the City Council?

So moved. Second.

And moved by Councillor Barone, seconded by Councillor McCarthy. We'll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Moving on to ordinance number 2384, annexation for 4N2814BCTL602, Bounds Trust 1225 South First Street. Mr. Tovey will now read the ordinance by title only. Mr. Tovey.

First reading of ordinance number 2384, an ordinance annexing certain real property on South First Street, describing said real property, withdrawing said real property from special districts, and designating zoning. Mr. Mayor.

Are there any council questions regarding ordinance 2384? Seeing none. Any public comment on 2384? Seeing none. Council comments? Seeing none. Can I get a roll call or can I get a motion to approve the finding of facts?

So moved.

Second. Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Can I get a motion to impose conditions of approval?

So moved.

Second. I've been moved by Councillor McCarthy, seconded by Councillor Roberts again. Roll call. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Finally, can I get a motion to adopt ordinance number 2384 to single meeting and become effective 30 days after adoption by city council?

So moved.

Second. Moved by Councillor McCarthy. I'm going to give that one to Councillor Kelso since he speaks so infrequently on these. And he was, I heard him first anyway, so roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Potion passes unanimously. Next up, let's see. July 2026 monthly financial report. Mr. Smith.

And Mr. Palacios.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councilors. Tonight I have the July 2026 financial reports for you. This is the first month of the new fiscal year. We are 8.3% of the way through the new fiscal year. For Hermiston Urban Renewal, the North Hermiston Urban Renewal Area project, we're awaiting bidding and anticipate that to go out to bid during the next construction season, next spring, summer of 2027. Being the first month, again, as I shared earlier, 8.3% of the way through the fiscal year. Monthly revenues, because of the timing of revenues, property taxes, and primarily franchise fees at this point in time, we're about a million dollars under budget, but under projection, but currently on track for budget. So we're So we're just hanging on until those property taxes come in in November, and then the quarterly franchise fees start to come in, usually in August this month. Monthly expenses were under projection by about $109,000. Several departments were over budget in comparison to projection, and those are flagged for further evaluation. Parks utility, those ended up actually over budget. That's due to seasonal activity that happens because of the timing of the year and when that work is being done. municipal pool seasonal activity as well all the people are enjoying the pool during the nice month during the nine months during the nice months of the year municipal buildings we had a um Repair to our roof generator. So that was that took a bit That was an anticipated repair, but we were So that that was a large repair that was not planned for and so that threw the budget off a little bit City Council is the annual membership. We pay for League of Oregon cities each year in July I want to assure you that That one we are watching that a lot more closely this year, and so that is just that will flatten out as the other line items are well under anticipated budget and budgeted items for that for city council. fund balance want to take a minute and share a little bit about this, so the our. Our policy is to require 15% minimum reserve. We try and plan for that, and then we account for that throughout the year and have an estimate for this current fiscal year, that projection is set at $2.85 million. The prior year reserve balance was 2.94, and that dropped a little bit because we had that transfer that went out that was an expenditure on a budget basis. from the general fund over to the building fund, which did not occur this year. So that has been removed from that calculation. Fund balance so far, I don't want to jinx myself, but fund balance is estimated to remain above the minimum reserve for the entire fiscal year. But we do monitor that closely, and I will make sure I let you know well in advance if we start seeing any issues with that. special revenue funds, EOTech event revenues and timing of project reimbursements was one of the causes for them to be under projection for that first month. And the RV project continues. We just ended the fair and some other activities out there that I'm happy to report that um we did make use of the rv park so that was good so that's that's a good thing and that continues to be a project that's near completion utility and street funds observations for this is a street fund this one as i share at the beginning of every year and probably be sharing further at least through january there is a timing of the federal allocation turnover that we get that's based on federal gas tax turnovers that we get. We get a one-time payment in January, so that's why these projections are low. All the other revenues are on trending and on track and expenses are actually tracking below budget expenditures. Regional water fund, I only point this out because it was, it did get flagged. It's $1,000 under revenue projections for through the end of July. And then, but we are currently $29,000 under projection for the expense side. So they're offsetting each other. So we're still, that's a positive. With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Smith.

Mayor members of the Council, I just wanted to let you know, Mr. Morgan is at the conference in Ontario, along with Councillor Linton. And so I'll, I don't know all the details of these projects, but I'll hit the highlights of the of the main one. So gear and Harper's going well. They they've, I think, completed most of the underground work out on River Road, and they're moving forward with the remainder of that, that project. The 10th Street Bridge is under design, and we're anticipating construction in the winter, which is kind of off cycle for us, but we need to do it when there's no water in the canal. Dogwood's moving forward. That project's going well. The backup generators are on order, and they're continuing to prepare the locations for those, both at the Regional Water System Intake Pump Station and at the treatment plant out at 207 and Feedville. Orchard, I know that's been a bit of a pain point for a number of folks. So I was just through there this evening. It looks like they've completed the extra work or the work that was impacting the intersection at 207 and Orchard. I think that they've got it paved to... flat again there's no metal plates so that should open up that that to a little easier traffic going through there let's see what other the East Evelyn gravity sewer line is moving forward as planned and is on schedule and let's see uh the the couple that we want to flag just from a the well number four it had been out we'd awarded it and it was supposed to be moving forward there was some problems with the contractor getting all of the parts and there's been some tremendous delays we may need to cancel that contract and move to reschedule it, rebid it. We're still trying to work through all the details on that, but it's just gotten so much delay, we can't keep waiting on it. List station number five, we're starting to design changes. And then, Mr. Brum.

Thank you, City Manager. I just had a question. I don't have the timeline in front of me about Orchard, but when can people anticipate it opening and be ready to go?

Still fall, but I don't have a better date yet. But it has moved very well. We're very pleased with the work the contractor's done, but it's a long stretch of pipe that they're working on.

Thank you.

And if I may follow up? Sure. You should allow yourself to be recognized before speaking. You're recognized now. Thank you.

I was wondering about the rebid on well number four. When bids are made, I don't think anyone knows what the bids are until it's finally released, right? And so if they rebid on this.

Well, it's been awarded. And you guys have approved the contract, but there's been some delays in getting the equipment and the parts to do the work. And so it's to the point where we're gonna have to either do some redesign or something to get that project to move forward. Thank you.

I don't remember offhand, was well number four one of the ones that was gonna get decommissioned because of the PFAS?

I believe it is. Okay. And that might be part of that discussion. I don't know. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions at the moment before he continues? Okay.

Okay, now Sherman Park, the bids have been opened, we've issued a notice of intent to award, and unfortunately they did come in a little bit high, and so we're working through the process with Anderson Perry to try to bring that down into the range but we were anticipating with the grant funding that we had acquired. So we're still hopeful to bring that forward next month for a contract award, but we have some work to do in trying to get it within budget. And with that, I'm happy to answer any other questions.

Councilor McCarthy.

Just, I think it's remarkable that we have bids that are over an estimate. That's what we were just talking about.

Others?

Seeing none. Okay. Moving along. Any other things you need to bring forward, sir? Okay. Can I get a motion? Or do we have any council questions? Other council questions? Okay. Public comment? Did we forget anything?

No, we were just... Oh, no, haven't got there yet.

In close. Council questions, public comment. Council comments. Okay, can I get a motion to accept the monthly financial report as presented?

So moved. Second.

And moved by Councillor McCarthy. Seconded by Councillor Roberts. Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Next up, community survey report. Mr. Smith.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, every six months, Zen City does a survey, kind of a kind of a survey that we can track our services, how are we doing, how are people feeling about it? And so, Lily's pulling it up, so just a second. But that, I think that, I'm gonna highlight, the complete report was in your packet. I'm gonna highlight a couple of the items that I like to really pay close attention to. and to show that we're really staying pretty solid and steady, even though this one, we went down a little bit. But if we look at it over time, we're really tracking about in the same range. So one of the things that measures is a quality of life item. And is this going to be good? All right, OK. So this time we had about 412 residents completed the survey. And this number, about 41% of them, rated the quality of life in this as positive. Now that's down 6% from the last six months. And you can see the negative is up seven. Kind of look like people flopped from one end of it to the other. And the middle, the neutral didn't move much. So this is just one that I like to watch. And if we take a look at this, but you take a look at this over time, the far left of the graph is 2022 is which one we started these surveys. And so we're staying in the same range. It goes up a little bit, comes down, both on the positive, negative, and in the neutral. So those swings, they, like this one, is noteworthy. They mark those that are over 5% movement on positive or negative. So just wanted to show you that even though this time it moved a lot, last time it actually moved up about the same amount. So these are the demographics related to that. The... The others that go into kind of a quality of life area, how likely are you to recommend Hermiston as a place to live? 37% did go down 4% this time. The negative went up two. So a little bit less solid on that. But again, I've looked at the longer term. It's really staying in that same range over time. How likely are you to be living in Hermiston five years from now? 51% this time. This one came down seven. So that one's a big... Kind of a big drop. Now, some of these are some of the more specific pieces of our community, things that people are pleased with, not as pleased with. You see there's three, two of them have the double bars, noteworthy. moving the positive move down 6% and 7% on quality of parks and rec amenities and access to quality education. I don't know what you can attribute to these two. I haven't observed a dramatic drop in the quality of what our parks are looking like, what our services have looked like. So it's kind of tough to see. It's kind of a, I don't know, maybe it's a different set of people that answered the survey this time. Then we've got the waste and recycling services. I think we had a lot of discussion about that. I would imagine the rate change had an impact on that one, making it stand out a little bit. Then overall cleanliness and maintenance went down on the positive. And then the ease of getting around by public transportation. And again, I don't know what changed. We didn't reduce the amount of time or the amount of bus service or anything like that. Had no change in our taxi rates during this time frame, so I'm not sure. what would have caused it but you know we just kind of watch this and try to see what we can do to to uh meet the the interests of the community is there any questions on any of that so far that's questions chance roberts

You'd already kind of mentioned the demographics, but do you look at the demographics to see if they're shifting over time? And that would give us an idea of whether or not the same people are taking the survey, if we're seeing a shift in who's taking the survey.

Well, I mean, I have not watched that as closely. I do know what they do. They do some statistical work. Once they reach a certain number of respondents, they do some statistical work to make sure that we are meeting the demographics of the community as we find them in the census and so forth. So I know they're trying to make it as close to ours as possible. I'm not a statistician. I don't know what that all means, but I know that they're trying to make sure that it's a representative picture of our community.

Mr. Kelso?

So are these people voluntarily going to a website and filling out the survey, or are they contacted by the survey company for their opinion?

These are volunteers.

Okay.

Self-selectors.

We really don't have any way of knowing if it's the same group of people or not. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Others? I'm going to give everybody else a chance first. Any others? Councilor Roberts?

Do we even know if they're in the city?

Yes, they are geofenced. They can tell if they live in the city. Perfect.

Councilor McCarthy?

I believe these are pushed out on social media, for example, to people within the zip code at the time that they see the ad for the survey, correct?

Correct. I think it's even also correlated with where their cell phone is registered. Right. Okay.

Others? Okay.

Okay. So then each time we can do some questions that we focus on so we can set up follow-up questions. So we were concerned a little bit of just trying to understand what kind of arts and cultural events people – what they'd like to see, how they are reacting. So this one went up a little bit from the last time, but this follow-up question is probably the more interesting part. The number one important thing that we could do to improve the availability of a variety of art and cultural events is to do a better job communicating and promoting the events that are already occurring. That's something that's good from our standpoint, not trying to create new events, but try to do a better job of getting the word out. And then the next two are programming for adults and seniors and then children and families. And then you can see further down there is support a museum or a cultural center, things like that. Or invest at EOTech and the community center. So all of those are the options that were chosen by the respondents. So this one... We focused on it because we combined it. It used to be two separate questions. It was ease of getting around by foot, ease of getting around by bicycle. We've been scoring very highly in both of those. We're trying to understand that a little bit. So we combined it, but then did a follow-up question. What's the most important thing that we could do? Improve the quality and condition of sidewalks and paths is the number one. And then after that is just correct sidewalk and pathways, adding those into the network, and then expand walking and biking options. So again, just information for us as we look at services we're providing, how we can do a little bit better to meet the needs of the community. This one, I know the chief pays attention to this one, overall sense of overall safety. We went up about 3% on the positive, but also went up 3% on the negative. So kind of a mixture. And then the number one thing was address public drug use and helping homeless individuals find services. That was the number one by a long shot. Again, something that we work on and I know the chief tracks closely how much time we're spending with homeless services. And I think also, you know, as we've, I think the PATH and the Stepping Stones program is kind of getting stronger. It's being, it's on its feet moving forward. So hopefully we can see, continue to see maybe some of this. improve and and see if there's some other areas that we can do street lighting would be the number two which has been on a council goal for a little while so and then the last piece of the survey we did we can do rotate so we asked a question related to health and wellness facilities and these aren't repeated over time so not as much as far as changes but One of the top ones here is keeping it affordable to the public. And that's, we've done some additional work specifically talking about the health and wellness facility. And so getting an insight into what people consider to be important. And then how do you, do you feel Hermison's going in the right direction? This one may be a little concerning, down 8% on the positive side, up 12% on the negative. So here's some of the follow-up questions or options. So what do you like about growth? Expanded dining, shopping, new job opportunities, top two there. And then the biggest concerns, traffic congestion, cost of housing and rent, and then just rising prices overall. So a couple of those, we can try to have a little impact on those. Some of them we can't, but again, opportunities to see what we can do.

Okay, that is all I had.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions.

Okay. Any other council questions on Mr. Smith's community survey report? Seeing none. Have any public comment? Seeing none. Council comments? Okay. No actions requested on this as this was presented as information only. So we're going to move forward. Next up. Committee reports. It's from city committees and liaisons. Do we have any committee reports? Getting away cheap on this one. Okay, none. Mayor's report. Well, let's see. We've had a fair. We've had a rodeo. We've had melon fest. all of which I saw some parts of it in one way or another. Fair and Rodeo seemed to be a success. From what I saw, it was well attended and it was well taken care of. Thanks to the chief for providing additional staff for working up there. That made, you know, As somebody that was doing that, it made a big difference having those extra bodies up there to take care of things. And so your assistance in that was greatly appreciated, I know, by myself and other members of other agencies. Again, the rodeo seemed to go well, too. No real issues over there. So Mellon Fest, I was there for a short time. I did not participate in the seed spitting contest as I arrived a little bit too late for it. So to sign up. Maybe next year. Uh, but it looked like it was very well attended, uh, extended, uh, another block, uh, this year, a lot of, a lot of, uh, participants when we arrived, there was, it was for all intents and purposes, wall to wall people. And so it was very, it looked like a lot of, it was a lot of fun was had, you know, we got a, got a few sprinkles here and there and, but the wind wasn't too bad and the weather was very amenable. Yeah. So whoever took care of ordering the weather in for that, I appreciate it. And then coming up, we have a ribbon cutting, from what I understand. If anybody wants to participate at it, it is at Hortensia's. On September 3rd at 1130. I'm not sure I'm going to be available for that one. So if anybody else wants to go to that wave our flag for us, that'd be fantastic. Let's see. Thanks to everybody that's been participating in all of our committees and such. I know this time of the year we get really busy. So some things tend to get. pushed back a little bit i know we've had a lot of uh hard discussions over the last couple of weeks or a couple of council sessions and so you know everybody participating and you know getting getting their two cents worth and with inflation i guess we can go four and a half cents but uh I cannot thank everybody that's participated in all of our processes. This is what we signed up for. This is what we were elected to do, make some of the hard decisions. It isn't always easy to make some of the unpopular decisions, but we have a... We have a city that we have to take care of and do what we think is best. And I think each and every one of you guys up here has taken that responsibility to heart. And I thank you so much for all the work that you've done. So with that, I will turn it over to the council president.

Thank you, Mary. You mentioned most everything that I wanted to mention. But I do want to point out on top of things organized by the chamber tomorrow, we have the resource lunch, 1130 to 11. And it'll be all about fraud prevention and financial wellness with guest speaker Devin Bailey. So I encourage you all to take a look at that.

Excellent. Council reports. Anybody have anything they want to bring forward? Councilor Brown.

I think it was Councilor Kelso that mentioned in the last meeting, but about the softball team and how well that they did. And so I just wanted to ask the council to formally invite the team to acknowledge the good things that they've done for the community in representing not only Hermiston, but the state of Oregon. I've been in communication with the coach a little bit, and maybe our city staff could

work on some dates but they do seem interested we've reached out and they haven't responded so encourage them to respond sounds good then thank you nice try others counselor kelso

Yeah, I just wanted to thank everybody involved with the fair. I was there for the whole week and just had a great time. It was well done again this year. And I think, you know, if we don't have the best county fair in the state, I'd be shocked. I think it's just a great time and it's awesome. And so thank you everybody involved with that. I spent Saturday of fair week volunteering with the Kiwanis doing Rascal Rodeo, which is a program for learning disabled adults and children. It gives them a chance to ride a horse, which is kind of really neat. There were about 80 people, maybe 100 people who participated, all told. And it was just a great Saturday of people. I mean, I had a grin on my face the whole time just seeing these people get on these horses and ride around, some for the first time, some scared to death, but they did it. And it was just an awesome Saturday. So I wanted to thank everybody involved with that, too. That's all I had.

All right.

Any others? Councilor Roberts.

I can jump in on that. It's, it feels kind of self-serving, but it's, it's, it's not, um, you know, obviously my role at the fair is different than others and I don't always go as a spectator. I do get to interact with a lot of really good people up there and it is fun, but, uh, I also want to take the opportunity to thank, uh, chief Edmiston and his staff. I want to thank the, uh, responders from the other agencies that contributed personnel. One of the big things that I hear from people is that they feel it's a very safe event because of the presence of security and law enforcement up there. And we couldn't have such a good fair, in my opinion, a safe and family-friendly event without those people. So just publicly here tonight, I want to thank all those agencies that contributed to make that a safe event.

Okay. Counselor Jerome.

want to echo what you guys have said about um the fair and all the volunteers it certainly takes a lot of people to uh to make it run as smooth as it did um starting from the parking lot getting finding you know directing you to your spot and from there you know all the civic groups also that gave of their time to sell burgers or whatever the case was to be able to um you know help community members here so i want to thank everyone law enforcement everyone all the volunteers the employees that were working extra hours to you know so that other people could have fun i also want to add that the city chat is going to be happening on the on september 4th at 11 30 at the hermiston food pot and i just want to encourage people since you're going to go out and eat why not also, you know, partake in the food that is sold there. So we hope that we have a better turnout. I'm still kind of not sure if I will be participating in that. But I would like to encourage other community members that might tune in or read the minutes, hopefully, or actually that have read the minutes because this has been mentioned before that this is happening. So hopefully, you know, we will have a good turnout. And that's it.

That's at 1130, right? 1130. 1130 at the food pod across from the post office. Correct. High school, one of the high school parking lot in Brazil. Yeah, I think that one will probably be very well attended just for no other reason having high school kids involved, which I would love to see. All right. Last chance for anybody? We've got everybody, haven't we? Yeah.

Okay. Mr. Smith? I have nothing further.

All right. So with that, we are going to recess for executive session. City Council of the City of Hermiston will now meet in executive session in the executive session room for the purpose of discussing matters pertaining to the review and evaluation pursuant to standards, criteria, policy directives adopted by the governing body, the employment-related performances of the chief executive officer of any public body or a public officer or employee or staff member, unless the person whose performance is being reviewed evaluate requests and open hearing. The executive session will convene pursuant to ORS 192.660 , to discuss matters pertaining to the review and evaluation of employment-related performance of City Manager Byron Smith. Representatives of the news media and designated staff will be allowed to attend the executive session. All other members of the audience are excluded. 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 announced. No final decisions will be made in executive session. At the end of the executive session, the council will return to open session, which the audience may attend. Executive session will last approximately 30 minutes. With that, we are in recess. We're going to reconvene the regular city council meeting to consider the approval of changes to the city manager employment contract. Mr. Smith.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, all I would be requesting this year. There's some things that I would like to do from a health and wellness standpoint that aren't covered by our insurance that I would like to ask for a small increase. I know it all will go into the salary bot. box or whatever. It wouldn't get separated out or separately accounted for, but from my standpoint, I would like to call that out. Just some things that I would like to be doing that aren't covered by insurance. And I'd be willing to answer any questions if you have them.

Council questions? Councilor Kelso?

Yeah, I would just like to ask how you arrived at this number of $550 a month. I know it's all general salary, but you have said it will be used for wellness activity.

It's basically there's a couple of wellness subscription type things that I would like to do that monitor things at a higher level, and that comes under that amount that would cover that.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Any others? Councilor Brown.

Thank you, Mayor. City Manager, you said this was an increase, right? So what was the previous amount? And, of course, we know the request is $550,000.

I mean, there's nothing under this banner before, so that's the whole increase. Thank you. $550,000.

Any others?

Councilor Robertson.

Mine isn't about the amount. It's just a curiosity. This is Amendment 12. What's the reason for amendments instead of just new contracts as they come out?

That's just kind of how we started doing it. I was just talking to them about it. What I'd like to do is put it all back into a contract that we can look at the whole thing and then kind of start from there again. But I didn't get to that this year like I wanted to.

Okay, fair enough.

Any others? Any public comment? Seeing none.

I can tell. Council comments?

Any council comments? Anything at all? Okay. Can I get a motion? Do I have a motion? Any kind of a motion?

I move that we adopt the amendments as requested by the city manager.

Second. Okay, been moved by Councillor Kelso that we accept the amendments as written and as requested, and been seconded by Councillor Duran, I believe. Oh, Broome. Okay.

Roll call. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously of those present. Okay. Any other items for the order?

I just want to say thank you very much. I appreciate another good year and look forward to more and really appreciate the evaluation. I don't know if anybody's still watching online, but I wanted to say thank you.

All right. Anything else? We are adjourned.

And we give this back.