City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, citizen and staff. I'm, Mayor Carol Westfall, hereby call to order this council meeting on Monday, February 2nd. The time is 7 p.m. Roll call, please. Councelor Steinberg, here. Council Angelique, here. Council Rouso, here. Councelor McConnell here. Please stand and join me in the pledge of 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.

We will now have public comment. Public comment is a time for citizens to present information to the city and if based on what is presented, additional information is needed and/or an answer warranted by the city. Citizens will be contacted by the appropriate um city staff andor a future agenda item will be scheduled for further discussion. Public comment is not a time set for questions and answers. If counselors have questions, they will presented to staff or the speaker at another time. And our first person up is Ren Shocki. And you have three minutes.

Sorry to say I will ask a couple of rhetorical questions during this. I'm here to talk about safety and contract that our city has with them. I came here two weeks ago saying that I wanted to identify which part of the local government was responsible for this. Found out that it was city council. I've already gone over how I feel. viates the constitution. I've noted the exact court president, but there are Supreme Court cases that this is a unreasonable search and seizure and would be found so um I wanted to specifically go towards the justifications for why it is reasonable for us to have AI powered surveillance cameras in our communities, why that's a thing that we should accept. I heard some sort of stuff like oh you know the fourth amendment and the right against unreasonable search and seizure has already been so violated that what is the harm in violating it a little bit more in order to get some benefit to it to me that is the same logic as saying you know what we're driving in the wrong lane we're going 30 miles hour we're doing the speed limit in the wrong lane the only measured response to this is to close our eyes and slam our floor in the gas pedal sorry slam our foot on the gas pedal it's it's crazy I I think that the justifications for the way that it could help law enforcement also unreasonable because if you look at it, you say like, you know, the mayor spoke to me and said, I could have you talk to the chief of police, explain why this is helpful. You know, we caught a kidnapper because of this coming up from Los Angeles. My response to that would be, if we want to find child traffickers, we should probably go to the White House. If we look at the way that federal law enforcement, which is supposed to be responsible for interstate child sex trafficking or just normal kidnapping, uh if you look at a lot of the stuff that's come out the last couple of weeks, we find out that the FBI for the last 30 years has been covering for people who perpetrate these crimes if they are wealthy, if they are in a position of power. And so what I would

assert, how I feel the dynamic is showing up is that federal law enforcement, the FBI specifically, has left a gap in enforcement where the laws exist to constrain people like us, the working class, poorer people in the community, and exist to protect richer people, do not exist to constrain rich people, and do exist to constrain poor people. And I feel like this is just an extension of that. People feel the absence of law enforcement. People feel the absence of community safety and that is because the FBI has deliberately punted the ball and not done their job on this. I think that it creates the dynamic where people go, "Oh, well, I don't have any confidence that if my kid goes missing that somebody's going to find them, that the cops are going to care, that the FBI is going to put any effort into it. So, you know what? What's the harm in putting myself under a bit more surveillance? They're telling me that it's actually going to be used to help find people." Um, I think that that is bad faith coming from the government. It's designed to get people to give up more of their civil liberties and I think acceptable and I would encourage you guys to suspend or cancel. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And since we have no more forms, um we will conclude that consent agenda. Um the 5.1 the approval of the consent agenda, meeting agenda, and prior meeting minutes from February 2nd, 2026 provided under a separate cover. I'd move to approve the consent agenda. Second. All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Number six, under general public hearing 6.1, an ordinance amending city code sections 6.767, 6.785, 7.145, and 7.187 regarding downtown parking permits. First reading planner planning manager Joe Wall reviewing Good evening, mayor and council. Um, within the downtown parking district, we have what are called courtesy parking permits that are meant for visitors. Um, they're free of charge parking, and the idea is that you could park for extended times to patronize downtown businesses. Um, and some of those services that take a little longer. Um, people have oftentimes talked to us about parking time limits when it comes to whether it's hair appointments or tattoo parlor type items or honestly just frequenting many downtown businesses on one trip, getting a meal, stopping into shops, different items. So, we've over the years kind of received a lot of suggestions that we increase the time limit on courtesy parking permits. So, as it stands right now, it's a 4-hour limit. The rest of our permit parking in the downtown is all day. So, if you have a Pelican pass, it's all day. Um, so in talking to a few different folks and event organizers like Ninth Street Venue, Ross Ragland, and others, uh, we thought it made most sense to basically emuling the all day parking for courtesy parking passes as well. What we've kind of seen over the years is a little bit of a hodge podge with people almost creating their own courtesy parking permits, um, photocopying versions, people putting multiple in their car. um oftentimes employees using courtesy parking permits, which really isn't the intent. It's supposed to be free downtown customer parking. Um so with that, we've come up with a new design, kind of a new way to distribute them out

to businesses where they could request them of us. Um we would print the business name on them and have numbers. And with that, we took it to the downtown parking advisory committee in January. They reviewed that proposal and unanimously thought that it would be a a good idea. With that, there's a few other minor modifications to our parking code, kind of cleaning up as we went through. Just as an example, we used to have uh full-time and part-time permits. Now, there's only full-time or just standard permits. So, suggest taking out the language part-time as it doesn't exist anymore. I'm going to ask did uh well no we shouldn't ask questions but I would encourage folks to to watch a nice video that was prepared um within the agenda um by an anonymous staff person but um I think it's very good and it will be sent out to downtown businesses and made available as part of a campaign to make people more aware of courtesy parking permits. So with that overall I think it's a positive program. It's something that as other parts of town develop and they say, "Hey, you know, you don't have to pay to park at a place like Walmart." I think it was very important for downtown businesses to have

free parking for their customers as well. So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions about downtown parking, courtesy parking, and the suggested revision to make it all day to line up with the rest of the downtown parking permits. Very good. Questions or comments? Do you have that video? Well, there's there there's there's a URL. We'll we'll make it I I was just encouraging you might you might check it out.

Very good. Thank you. I'm going to open it up for public hearing at this point. Anybody wishing to speak on this agenda item can do so. It's parking. And seeing and hearing nobody, we will close that. So, I will entertain a motion. Move to introduce the ordinance for first reading by title only. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Are we reading? Oh yeah. Yeah. City manager. Sorry.

That's right. Um, action 6.1, an ordinance amending city code section 6.767, uh, 6.785, 7.145, and 7.187 regarding downtown parking permits. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Seven. Uh, legislative action. 7.1 a declaration of city council's ve vacancy council ward five seat due to a resignation of Kelsey Mueller went effective February 2nd, 2026 and city attorney Mike Swanson. Nice to see you back.

Thank you, mayor. Uh, nice to see all of you. Um, I've been here a few times on this particular issue over the last couple of years regarding a vacancy. It's my understanding I go out of town and all of a sudden things change on the council. Um but councelor Mueller went did uh resign. It is a two-step process for the vacancy uh according to our charter specifically section 31. So at this time it would be incumbent upon the council um to basically have the declaration of a vacancy as well and then it is up to the council to decide how best to fill that vacancy. Um you have the right to do so by appointment. Uh we've discussed this in the past. Um oftentimes when a position is vacant but will be coming up for an election in the fall, um council has chosen to just leave it vacant uh so as to allow the people to decide. Uh there have been other times when the vacancy occurs very early in a term and therefore the council has stepped in to make an appointment to make sure that there's not an outstanding absence for too long. And so those are the two choices that would be option or open to the council. Um and it would be entirely up to the four of you to decide if you have any questions.

Questions or comments of Mike? Um Terra Russo. Russo. I think because of the time frame of the vacancy and it going into an election year that it would be um my opinion that we leave it open and let people put in their applications and see who wants to get elected for that spot. Um it's kind of what we've done in the past when it's a year or less. Um so that makes sense to me. Yeah, I agree. I was going to say something similar because we're in an election year. just the nature of what we're doing. Our boards should be deciding who sits in that seat, not the council. So, I would agree.

Go ahead, counselor. I honestly think uh wait until November is too long. I we I've been through this a couple times, but I think waiting for nine months is without a councilman is too long and I think we need to do it by appointment. That's just my opinion. Councelor Angelie. Um, I'll admit I'm kind of torn on it because true that the election process is super important, but I agree with what Phil's saying there. It does leave us in a compromised position when it comes to quorums and things like that over a 9-month period, and I've seen that happen as well. Um,

again, I'm still on the fence on that one. Okay, so Mike, tonight we just have to declare the vacancy. So if you don't want to declare how you fill it, we just need to declare the vacancy if you guys I mean it does sound like it's you're two to two at this point. Mike's torn on it, but we just have to declare the vacancy for sure tonight. Yeah. Is everybody good with that? Any more questions or comments on that? No, we just need to declare and talk about it. Okay, just a moment. Is Yeah. Well, the only question I would have is then how would we then talk about it? We'd just be in the exact same spot at the next meeting.

Well, I mean, you Yeah, you guys can you can definitely can talk about it tonight at the meeting. But I just mean you guys if you needed more time to think about it individually, you could do it at the next meeting, too. But if you guys want to talk about it, feel free. So, by declaring it open, then we have it open. Yeah. And we continue forward. If you guys want to talk about it and you want to make a decision tonight, I would recommend just make talking about it and then coming to an agreement agreement and then making the motion to declare the vacancy and then how we're going to fill it if you want to do that tonight. So, any other questions? Go ahead, council. So, with four on the council instead of five, we are in the position that there could be a tie. So, procedural question, what if there's a tie? Mayor breaks the tie.

Yeah. No, that that would help. That's how we would typically handle a procedural issue. Uh but again, the important thing is this evening to declare the vacancy and then if uh council so instructed staff uh we could do some research if you wish for us to do so. Um I think most of you have recent enough memories though of some of the past vacancies that the the only research that would come forward is okay well couple of years ago this is how we handled it. uh more recently this is how he handled it. Um and I think that almost all with the exception of councelor Angelie I think have been involved in this process on one side or the other of it.

But yeah the the vacancy declaration would be the important part and then if uh council wanted more time to discuss this that is entirely up to the four of you. I have one. I think it is hard failure, right? Like carrying the weight when there is an open seat and nine months can um can feel like a long time to to move things forward. But also like when you look at the um administrative steps of you know picking appointing somebody but also going through when the uh election opens and when people are putting in their applications as well. it it really gets close to each other as far as like a six week span if you look at it

um of when you're not working on it. You know what I mean? So that's I think the struggle because you're absolutely right, but then also when Nicole's working on that process on either end, appointment or getting ready for an election, you're bumping up along to a similar time frame. And so ideally having the public choose and letting people apply looks like more of an ideal scenario. However, you know, carrying that as the four of us is difficult sometimes. Um, but knowing that we have you as well to help with that, you know, that helps me think through that as well. So, okay. All right. Um, Councelor Studenberg,

I I think we're probably ready to vote on it. Frankly, I don't think there's any point in heaven for the discussion. It's pretty I think Mike's the only one that's uncertain. So, I I think we can just go ahead declare the vacancy and and decide how we're going to do this. Yeah, I'm open to that. Okay. So, are we ready to vote? I need a motion. I'd move to declare a vacancy of the council ward five seat. And I would uh move to have the city recorder take applications for the war district 5 seat and for the city council to appoint an applicant at a future council meeting. Is that just declaring?

Just declaring or is that a a deciding appointment? I'm putting it out there. At this point we'll vote. So So I need a second. If there is no If there is no second. There's not. There's no second. Okay. There's no second. Somebody else make a motion. Anybody else wants to make a motion? Can I make a motion to declare the open seat? Is that what do I need to say? It's on the script. Yeah. Of the council board five seats. You'd be declaring the vacant seat and then either option one or two. Mhm. Um

or you could just declare the vacancy. You actually have to Right. Correct. Mike, you don't have to act on either of those two options this evening. If you need more time, I would like to make a motion to declare the vacant seat w. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Councelor, did you have a question? Well, then we're just right back to where we were, which is more time to think about it. And then Yeah. And I'm not sure that that's going to give us any sounds like everybody else. But and if I may, the other the other choice would be I believe it's on the script as well to go ahead and choose to to leave it open. I think we have both of them written out there.

Yeah, that that could be a You've got the You've got the main motion down. You've declared the vacancy, right? Okay. Can I make another motion? Yes. Okay, sure. I move to declare a vacancy of council ward 5 seat and to leave the seat vacant until the November 2026 general election fills the seat. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Okay. Any opposed? Okay. And opposed is one. Okay. Very good. Thank you. got. Yeah, I got it. Thank you.

All right. Sorry, that was bumpy. No, that's fine. You're You're all good. Um, anybody anything else that you want to say or you're fine? Okay. 7.2. The authorization of airport um connect Oregon grant application for the reconstruction of taxiway project. Airport bis Oh, sorry. Taxiway F project. Airport business manager. Um, Colin Grady. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Manager, and City Council. Uh, introduction, Colin Grady. New airport business manager.

Um, uh, my request before you is, uh, simply just to apply for a grant through Connect Oregon or through ODOT. It's their Connect Oregon grant program. So, that's the it's super simple. Uh, if you have questions, please let me know if you have any questions. I would move to authorize staff to submit a connect Oregon grant application to the Oregon Department of Transportation and accepted if it's offered. Second. I was closer to my All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Thank you. Quick question.

Yes. And yes, welcome Grandandy. Colin Grandandy. Thank you. 7.3 an ordinance amending city code section 8.150 and 8.155 which adopts the 2024 edition of the international property management code second and final reading maintenance code what I

there were some scriers errors I just have to put on the record your honor I apologize I'm throwing a monkey witch into things um excuse me um after this was passed last time. You know, we typically do the red for the new and the scratch out for the for what we want to take out. Well, our scratch out was a little bit exuberant, shall we say? Um and we ended up scratching out the phrases that we wanted to scratch out, but we needed to leave them in for the code. For example, on um if you look at section E for the original one, we say the phrase code official shall cause. We put a line through that. Well, if we do that, then it's going to be a blank in our in our um code, but we wanted to have that phrase out. So, it's one of those things where we're taking it out over here and putting it in there. And I believe uh Nicole, did they all receive the new copy? Okay, great. And then also under what was the new section C, we had uh the entire thing the phrase code official shall in section 1063 CB be replaced with phrase municipal court judge May.

Um that is the only place in the entire uh international property maintenance code where we would not want to make that change. So those are the two scribers errors that popped up. I do apologize. Um, but like I said, we just were kind of exuberant in our uh deletions and so I do apologize. Doesn't change any of the real substance to anything. It still helps us adopt the updated version and it just makes it read much more cleanly this way. Thank you.

Questions or comments? I'd move to pass the ordinance for second and final reading by title only with the scrier's amendments as noted by the city attorney. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Um, city manager, please read the ordinance by title. an ordinance amending city code sections 8.150 and 8.155 which adopts the 2024 edition of the international property maintenance code and I would move to adopt the ordinance second. Um roll call please. Councelor Stinberg

here. Council Angel I. Councelor Russo I council McConn. Other matters. Anybody for other matters would like to say anything? Okay. I did that. Um, counselors, would you like to contribute to other matters? I think we shall. Okay. No, we have a That was interesting. We have a um a I guess you could call it a state of the ward um meeting coming up for both wards two and three on the 24th. 25th I think. 25th. Yeah.

I apologize. I don't have my calendar in front of me and my brain is working at half staff right now. It is a Can you help me? 6:30.

6:30 and it's going to be um located at Discover Clamoth and BS Coffee hosted by them. and we are going to be meeting with folks in Ward 2 and Ward three uh constituents for to kind of give an overview of what's going on in the wards and and answer any questions that we can to kind of create a little bit more interactivity and communication with the folks. So it's going to be a nice uh about an hourong session and uh expressing that and then some um dialogue afterwards with folks. So, we look forward to meeting with anybody for that. Mhm. And how were they how were they told about this meeting?

It's out over social media right now and we're going to try to push it out even further and word of mouth. So, spread the word, please. Very good. That's great. All righty. Anything else on um other matters? I would just like to say it's very icy out there. Everybody be careful. Um we now have snow. So, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Meeting is adjourned.