City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, you should be able to start. Okay, I'd like to call the meeting to order and then we're going to be discussing the tax a gas tax decision and I'm turning it over to John right now.

Thank you. Um before we begin, I want to be clear about the purpose of tonight's discussion. Um this is a work session and it is intended to beformational and exploratory only. No decisions are being made and no direction is being given. though it is my desire and intent at the end to recap what I'm understanding with the intent to bring a memo similar to the way that we did with the uh the retreat um that would come back with our intended understanding of the of the way forward for council approval. Um, I also want to acknowledge the importance of I think you guys have all heard me speak probably at nauseium in regards to our uh PACE E plan um and the fact that we are developing within that several different other um items um and this of course has a a direct effect to um with that but I think it's actually a very strategically opportunistic moment in time for us um to include this within that the concept of that plan as well and we'll talk about that more as we go forward. Um, so with with all that context in mind, I'll turn it over to Kyle to walk us through background information so we're all working from the same understanding.

Perfect.

All right. So, some of you have been here from the beginning, but you know, John hasn't. So, uh, we did write I did write a memo which was kind of based upon the memo we did at our last gas tax work session in 204. But as a quick overview just to so you know John and anybody watching kind of gets a brief overview of how we got to here. Uh it all started when the council had requested from the parking traffic safety commission different ideas for revenue source generation and one of their main recommendations was a local gas tax. Uh we we took a stab at going after a local gas tax back in 16

15 16 it was on the ballot in 16. Y um we included the results of that one in here. Uh you can see that it was roughly about a 2:1 against um some of the reflection on what how that went down.

There were recommendations of maybe a little bit more of an educational format up front and reaching out to the community kind of giving him a good idea of what it looked like, what the costs were, those sorts of things. So, we did present some of this data before. ODOT no longer has staffing in their gas and tax division to provide you any data anymore. So, they they won't actually send you information. So, this is similar information to what we looked at last time. Looking at it, you can see that projected total tax revenues are roughly around half a million dollars with the volumes that were being pumped between 2019 and 23. You can see some of the CO reactions to traffic in that time, but really 23 we were past that and it's still hovering around that half a million if we were to tax at 3 cents per gallon. So the one we we did back calculate 1 cents per gallon roughly equated to $175,000 a year in funding that would be placed towards streets. So in our first work session, David was nice enough to give us a few ideas on how you present that to, you know, Joe Citizen on looking at what does that look like. So um we took a look at, you know, if you had a 20- gallallon fuel tank and you went to fill it up, it was an additional 60. So less than a dollar. Uh looking at the next one, if you were driving 15,000 miles a year, which is actually conservative for drivers now a day. I think 24 estimate put uh drivers in eastern Oregon around 9 to 10,000 miles a year, which I thought was very interesting.

Uh at in a vehicle averaging 25 miles to the gallon, that was an additional $18 a year is what it's going to cost you to bring the city of Lrand a half a million dollars. So some of the other items to be discussed were trying to estimate transient travelers and people who are commuting to Lrand. Um really not an easy thing to get. There isn't any data out there that you can really pull that from other than if you're standing at the the gas station asking people where they're from. We do have estimates where people are thinking around 50/50. So basically what that means is 50% of the revenues that would be generated from the the gas tax would be coming from people who don't live in Lrand street users who are just coming through. Um the the tax would not affect stations outside the the business footprint the corporation of Lrand. So that includes say the Flying J truck stop. Um it would include the new Jackson's truck stop which is getting a lot more traffic and is inside the city of LRA.

Where is that? It is over on Molehand. So right next to Starbucks, Banner Bank, Denny's Chevron. Yeah. Yeah. That's Jackson. Call that Jackson's. Okay. That's Jackson. It says Jacksonville in the store. Right by Denny's in that. Yeah. And they purchased the area over next to Starbucks and Banner Bank to be used as truck parking during inclement weather. They've just never gotten to the point where they've actually had to develop it. So, gotcha. Interesting. Yeah. And the owner is from um Tri Cities. Mhm. He owns a lot of the gas stations. Yes, he does. A lot of them. Yeah. Cuz I I read somewhere in here where you kept saying Island City, but Island City would not be included, the Chevron out there.

Correct. I think one of the biggest questions that usually comes forth is what's going to stop people from wanting to just drive to Island City because they pay 3 cents less. Right. Okay. Sorry. Convenience obviously. Americans are really known for going out of their way. Yeah. Well, for one thing more expensive anyway. I could say it's really silly when people say that. It has one in town and one out there Chevron. I'm talking about middle town and then the Jackson's. Isn't that owned by the same person? No. Oh, it's not. No. The Chevron down here is owned by somebody else. Yeah,

but the the person who owns Jackson's does own quite a few cast around town. I think they bought out one. Yeah, but he doesn't. Yeah, but he doesn't own the Exxon and the mobile and

the CM one because that is owned by I found out that about that today. I can't remember. It's in my phone somewhere. So it's interesting though because you know as I've I've talked with people lots of people for the last three four years and and when I present it this way where you're literally talking 60 cents a gallon this will be under $25 a year that you will pay and I and and especially when people understand that the the alternatives to this are all worse. Mhm.

So, alternative one is we continue to let our roads deteriorate. Nobody thinks that's okay. Nobody wants that. John just put out your thing on social media and I I looked at those comments. The vast majority of them are streets. The vast majority of the thing that people would want to change most about the grand is roads. So, okay, you want to change it. So, what do we do? We can get taxed directly. So, I mean, if you put that all like just there's no other way to do this. This is a two for one deal, right? Like we citizen Lrand pays in a dollar and gets another dollar back from somebody who's not a citizen but is driving on our roads and gassing up at our pump. You cannot find that deal any other way you slice this.

So hands down the best way to proceed forward with this. I think we can add in another flavor that might make even more attractive to the uh to the citizenry which is you going ahead

um if we make it a limited duration tax and the reason why I say that is because within this um pace plan that we're building is the opportunity for us to create relief in the future that might make it so we won't have to keep it. Um, and I I feel very optimistic that the way we're granted I might be naive. Um, but I feel optimistic that we can show them a very good actionable plan that's going to give them a picture of how the relief is going to be created and how that could translate into what we're talking about right now. Um and so if we I would argue that if we pursue this as a limited duration um to be fill the gap so that we're not going back to the way it was before ARPA um while at the same time this gives us the chance to get the framework in place and get it to start to pay out while this is filling the gap keeping the progress going forward that they've started um and then at the same time putting that in place and then in the worst case scenario we have a little bit of overlap between the two which gives us more opportunity to do more more rapidly um in uh in you know probably like 5 to 6 years down the road from now. So,

so my question, Kyle, is I don't know that I have a good sense of what a half a million dollars means as far as paving roads. That was one of the question how much would that can we put this in terms of how many road what it would mean to a citizen? Because to me, I mean, and if we if we decide to carry this forward,

and by the way, I'm all in favor of that, right? Um but I think I think it's got to be done. Um, if we decide to carry this forward, I I think again that the education piece of this is so critical to its success and I want to be able to put this in terms that people can wrap their heads around like you know people who are clamoring for repave my road, repave my road. How many how many roads is this let us do? Like how just can you translate the money into what that means practically? I mean a lot of it depends on the type of project you're going to do. So like Second Street where we're redoing ADA ramps, we're redoing curbs, we're pulling up everything and redoing the asphalt, you're going to get about three blocks, okay, for half a million. Okay.

When you look at the other street projects we did, your Harrison, your Division, your South 12th Street, you're probably looking more on the lines of like 30 blocks. That's a lot. It's a lot. So when we subbed out for the grinded inlays, we did walnut alder 12th in and that was all of them. And that was roughly around a million bucks. So you could say all of N and all of 12 would have been done with half a million dollars. Wow. So what I think would be that's just your overlay though. Is that what you're talking about?

That was a grind and inlay. If we don't have to do the grind, you could probably almost double it. And that's where you're probably at like 30 blocks. And how many of our roads are in that kind of condition? I'm sorry. No, no, this in that kind of condition. That's all pretty much everything on the north side because we have no curbs. Overlays are really easy to do when you have no curb. Uh when you think about like Eminem Avenue from 4th up to the hospital, there's no curb left. So those are the ones where we need to do a grind and inlay because we have nothing that really gathers the storm water and directs it to the storm water system. And how much is that? That's the one that's like 12th and in where you would get a really good chunk. But then some of those notes like 18th and so forth

on the edges there's big holes there now. That's what he Yeah. Yeah. And that's needs edge cracking. Yeah. Yeah. So, one thing I think may be helpful too, I know I know that you've created sort of a, you know, priority or next up list for roads, which I think has been fantastic, and I've seen citizens pay some attention to that. But again, like that, it would be interesting to say, okay, like, hey, here's what we're planning this year, but by the way, if this gas tax passes, we get this

and the next year we get this many more, and the next, you know what I'm saying? And then, you know, I think too the the bigger issue here is you explained it previously to the council, Kyle, is we fell behind the curve on what it takes to maintain our current roads at existing conditions. We some point in the past made funding decisions that put us behind that curve.

And so, we're playing catchup right now. I don't know if we have a sense of what it means to get back on top of that curve where we can now be at a literally a maintenance perspective where we know we know the dollars it's going to take every year barring some unforeseen event to just maintain road conditions if present because my understanding is that right now we can't like we are we're deteriorating faster than we can repair funding wise yeah I think that has to be communicated to our citizens like this gets worse if we do nothing.

But then how how do if you if you retire it or you like you were saying not have it continue then roads will go back that way. It'll go back and get worse. Yeah. So yeah, you're 100% right. So we've got to keep it going.

Yeah. That that's exactly the thought process in the plan. I think that's what everybody's getting after. But the key is what you're highlighting over here is is the level of education and interaction we're having with the community. I can say that I feel like the framework is in place right now and is gaining momentum in the civic engagement that we're doing and we've already talked about how central this is going to be to our efforts going forward. Um and so I if I understand correctly some of the failure from the past was a lack of adequate um education to the public. Um, and so, um, combining what you guys have shared here today and what you brought to the conversation, I feel like we are increasing our odds of success significantly, um, through what we've started and what we will continue to do and build even better over the next um over the next six months to a year.

Can I say something? I totally agree. We need to do something totally for the roads. And I have some information. I talked to a lot of um uh the gas owners, okay, uh today and stuff. Um my my Yes, we we got to do the roads somewhere. Like we talked in the past, we didn't apply enough revenue obviously in our budget for roads. Also, we never increase it for the price increase, which is our fault because we should. I mean, just like you have to do your employees, you got so much a percent. We got to do that. Um because the fuel state tax here in Oregon is 40. Then we have all the fees which is 32.9. So per gallon we are paying an extra 72.9 and the federal tax is only.184 and so forth. And one of the gas owners I was talking to, he um she was basically saying that um there's so many apps on

on thing that you could check gas out. I just pulled up one of the numbers uh for the CM country store, you know, the gas, because that was the main manager where she was at. And she says um she believes totally the roads need to be fixed and 3% compared to what wanted to do, 6%. Um I understand um but she says what is going to stop people stopping at Baker because they can see by their app at Loves and Maverick. not going to stop. And then Ar um Arrowhead and Pendleton. The thing is is we're we're also I'm not saying not to go for this,

but I mean we need to think about all this. I think also the thing is is we're basing it like oh 50% of our revenue will come from people going through. We really can't do that. I mean I hate to say this but I fill up every flipping time before I come into the grant. I only fill up if I have to in Lrand. I'm sorry, but I do. And you know, that's just what I do. And Sinclair, you try to get into Sinclair sometimes and you can't because they are the cheapest in town

and and people are like that. I'm not saying doing this. People want the roads, but I also think we need to increase our budget for roads. I think I think we can't just depend on this even if it's just a short term or long term. It's not going to cover it. We are so far behind. Let's talk about that. Yeah. There's only certain ways we can increase a road budget. So currently why why is there only a certain way? Because it's a fund of its own. It's a fund of its own. So street and roads are funded through the federal gas tax which is that 18. That's where we get the majority of our money. You also have the street user fee which is a fee we bill on water bills. That's correct. Yeah.

So that one you as a council control direct tax to a citizen though. No money coming in from us. No money coming from anyone else. That's one to one. So you take half a million dollars. That's a half a million that you just taxed our citiz. That's just a a wave of your hand. Yeah. Um there's, you know, federal money that comes down through ODOT. But when you look at general fund dollars that come to streets, there isn't any. There isn't an there isn't a month there isn't an annual aotment that comes to Well, I know, but why can't we add more to that budget? Why can't we where are you going to get it? Where are you going to take it?

Yeah. The problem is so go back to early on me coming into the seat and that's talking about balanced budget. Right. Right. Um, so if we're already struggling to be able to make sure we're doing it the way that we think is is most appropriate, well then that's going to compound the problem even more. So what we're not going to what we'd have to do is is we we'd either have to cut services to meet it or we would have to pull money out of savings in order to be able to cover it knowing full well that we're probably not going to get it back, right? Um, and so it's it's not that you can't do it. The question is whether you should. That's half a million dollars. Like this is not like I can pull 10,000, especially with these other tools that we have. Yeah, but what if we don't make the half a million dollars out of it?

So you What if we don't? I mean, I'm just throwing that. I'm being the devil's advocate here. You're right. If we don't, there's a problem. You're right. Unless gas utilization goes down, that's the protection. Yeah. So, I mean, if let's say gas utilization, let's say that 5% of people decide, I want to drive to Island City because I'm furious that Lrand is taxing me or electric cars. 5% of I you can do the math, but we're still awfully close to half a million dollars. Anyway, you slice it. This is the big dog. It's the big dog and you're you're getting it at 50%. Or I mean, so you say, "Okay, well, maybe it's not 50, but let's say it's 40." It's it's it's it's a big win any way you slice it. Anything gravy on top. I agree with that, but we need to think about other things,

right? But there's there's no other way. No, I'm 100% on board, but I'm tapped out as coming or we're tapped out and coming up with another idea and an alternate way to go about it. What does he mean by you just said uh cutting something? You'd have to cut something. Oh, we'd have to cut services elsewhere. What though? Whether we reduce staff somewhere or reduce budget in some way another in order to be able to pull money from somewhere else. it we could you could probably get away for a limited amount of time to be able to pull some money from savings in order to offset this. But at the same time in this greater plan that we have going on right now in order to do this fiscal transformation, we're already making that part of the plan.

So if we're going to if we're going to bring that into the mix too, well now we're going to exhaust that money even faster than what we would be if we um exercise any one of these other plans. Um there's there's a number of ways that could be done. I would argue what we're talking about here is the best and most responsible thing we could do for the community. Um, even though it's not a matter of we're going to be able to convince people to like it, what we can convince them is is that we're we're we're getting them what they're asking for. And this is and we have to fund it. And this is the mo I would argue the most responsible way we can do it with while not reducing the other services that we're providing.

Well, see, I'm all in favor. I mean, if if that's what the community wants, you know, I think that's what, you know, I mean, I they definitely want the streets fixed. Well, they definitely do, but the word um in my opinion, the word adding uh tax, they're just going to go through the roof. But I think if you like you're saying your presentation and how it's going to be sold to them, so to speak. And also saying um like just now in the budget, like you're saying, no, no, no, you can't take it from there, whatever that I didn't know that. and you only get the monies for fixing roads in certain areas. Educate them. 100% agree. And I think where we might be able to gain some favorability too is in that limited duration conversation, right?

Um that we would revisit it in the future for if the desire is to keep it, but for the community to decide. Um but we have an already um planned sunset date of when it would end. But that gives us time to give this other plan um opportunity to work. So are you saying we would just implement that or have them vote on it? Have them vote on it? Good. Part of the vote would include a sense of let's say like no later than 10 years from now. Well, I just use as an example the the I thought no, please. My concern with that is just I mean I I'm trying to look 10 years forward and I think there's just no way. I mean the the costs just go up. The road the road costs go up

and then you start your whole process. I think I think there I think there could be a way though. But again, we're limited in how we can even generate money. Like we can't pull out and we know that this isn't if we decide to move forward. This isn't the only gas tax referendum that's going to be on the ballot. The states is still going to be on the ballot.

The education is the state taxes and not all that money as I understand it stays locally. Right. That goes back to we just get a chunk of it. We just get a chunk of that. This all stays local. We can tell them exactly what we do with that money. They know exactly where that dollar is going. The state, they don't, right? That goes into the ethereal whatever and then distributed out however the state decides to do it. Um, I'm batting 100% on this. I I don't know how many times I've had this conversation with with people here in Lrant. It's

it's been dozens, I'm sure. Is it hundred? If not, it's I've had it, too. But I'm literally batting 100%. When I finish that and I said, "Would you be willing to do that if it meant improving our roads?" I get it. Yeah. I would $20 is what you're talking. You drive a vehicle, average number of miles. If you drive less than that, fine. If you drive more than that, do a little bit of math, but there's very few people who aren't commuting to Portland, you know, on a real regular basis who are putting more than maybe 20, 30,000. I mean, at 30,000 miles, this is less than $40 a year.

That's insane for what we can achieve with that money. And again, I think just explaining to people, it's the only way we bring in outside dollars into this money. It's cheap. It's a discounted tax is where it is.

I can tell you that Kyle and I went out and spent some time on one street where we we through all this engagement that we've been doing, we've been able to set up people like, "Hey, invite us out to come and talk to you on your neighborhood." and we went out and stood on their street with them and we were looking at it with them and we were like, "Yeah, this is we're in full agreement with you. This is junk." Um, but I can tell you that while we're there, they're saying, "Hey, what can we do to help? Like, can we personally fund this?" And we told them, "Well, they they could do that." Um, but our answer to them was, "Hey, this because this was in the early conception of all these things we're talking about right now." Um our answer to them was give us a chance to build the menu before you're you're starting to pay. Um and so they were happy about that. Um and then this is another option that we're putting on the menu for them. Um but when it comes right down to it, I I feel like the education is going to be the key and that interaction is going to be the key. Um I of course we would be happy to execute this in whatever direction that the council ultimately decides to issue. Um, but I I do feel like um when we end when we one of the things that's going to be a reality in this PACE E plan that we're talking about um is I think I I think we're going to be able to do a great job of showing the community how hard we're working to keep them from getting any additional taxes beyond this. Um but I also don't feel confident that it's going to answer the mail fast enough um to get us the kind of rapid result that they're going to want or need. Correct. Um, and so I I I see that there's a decent likelihood that we're going to end up at a place in time where they can see with confidence that we've done the best that we can, but there is no other choice but for us to establish most likely a special district. Um, and when that when they arrive at that conclusion, depending on which form of special district we decide to go, we're going to have substantial relief to the

uh um to the general fund. And in doing that, we w we will be able to find ways to use our own funds to be able to supplement um some of this work for the going into the future.

But agreed like that's a lot of a lot of uh speculation. Um but I I think the more we the more we work with the community and the more we interact with them and educate them and the more we build trust and show them how we're traversing this at the times that we're traversing it. um then and they're going to be constantly aware that the the extra emergent one is going to be cut services and they're not going to want it worse than it is right now. They're going to want a resolve and if we can't get it through the first three steps, well then the fourth step gives them a guarantee fix. Um the fifth step is go back to worse than it was before.

So I I think you know we keep talking about how much education is going to be critical here. I will say um John, as you mentioned earlier, I think you've positioned us well to have avenues to do that that we really have not tapped into before. You know, these town halls, these educational meetings is as as you get out, you know, outward facing to people. I think it gives us opportunities to achieve that. I mean, we we want people to

we need them to vote their feelings, but we want them to do it with both eyes open. they need to be positioned to make an informed decision and I think in the past they haven't been they haven't understood the math you know they they hear the word tax they imagine some egregious thing when you look at these numbers this is not egregious in fact it's extraordinarily reasonable um and so you know I like I would love personally to see something like this planned for the November ballot even and I realize that we may be butddting up against the state depending on what they decide to do I mean I think they're trying to get theirs on May You know, we'll see what happens there. But, um,

I'm I'm done with sherking this last, but oh, it's going to be unpopular. Whatever. Okay, it's it Yeah, but it it's down to us doing the the leg work to educate people and and to come up with a strategy toward that end. But I um Anyway, I I would strongly be in in favor of pursuing something like that. I know we're not making decisions tonight, but I think it's good to know. Yeah. Um, so you know, I I I would hope that we could utilize a strategy that incorporates a lot of that and and maybe we need to build some more things in, you know, question answer sessions, whatever, education sessions, go over these numbers with people, get it out. No,

how many people read the newspaper anymore? Like, you know, how do you disseminate information in this day and age is is it's a difficult challenge, but um, we've got to be able to do it. And I think when you get these numbers in front of people's eyes, they look at this and say, "Hey, this is what I want and this is hands down the best way to achieve it." Maybe maybe they vote in support. I

I would like to see us considering the single moms who are working two jobs and can't afford $20 worth of gas in their car. I'm not saying that we shouldn't go forward this at all. I 100% think it's a great idea and I agree with everything you're saying. Um, David, I also think that if we're going to be talking about educating, we also need to remind ourselves that we need to be educated on the poverty levels in this town and the impact it's going to have on people who need to travel to work. And one of the ways I think that we could potentially help folks in those situations understand the gravity of the situation is by comparing that $40 a year in gas to the maintenance that their car would have to undergo when they hit too many potholes and things like that. Um

what's alignment these days? Where's Justin you? Well, I know and I'm just I'm just saying there's there's realities and sometimes people um they're so wrapped up in in the traumas they're living or as well as elderly people and their fixed incomes, right? $40 is quite a bit. Yeah. And I realize that's $40 a year we're talking and that overtime is only a few bucks a month. But at the same time, it's just I think it's I think we just need to honor all of our citizens and our poverty levels are high

that I'm glad you're saying that. I I'll make with assuming that the guidance that we get is to move forward in this, I'll make sure that our messaging includes addressing that um so that we're speaking to it um in a way that makes sure that the community knows that we're sympathetic to it. Um while at the same time the problem is real and we still have to solve it. This is literally I'm not a coffee drinker, but for those of you who are right, this is two to three cups of coffee a day. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Or maybe maybe two cups if you go to Starbucks. Like that's the time for you to put this in because but the poverty folks don't go out to Starbucks, right? You know what I'm saying? I beg to do. Okay. Some some do and some don't.

But when you're looking at your wick your wick vouchers and and your food stamps or it's not that SNAP, like it's just it makes a huge difference. And maybe yeah, you get to splurge every now and again, but they're not going every single day. I wouldn't imagine because I've lived it in my lifetime. There was no way I could go. I could barely afford diapers for my kids or formula when I needed it because they stopped nursing. Like I just, you know, these are realities that we need to face and some of us have a a higher income and don't have to think about those realities. And so it's important that we That's true. Well, it is true. That is true. True. Um Kyle, that one meeting we were at, you put out that spreadsheet of the roads and the projected. I think that would be something really beneficial to share to how

Yeah. the money is going to be spent, where it's going to be spent, so they can also have a visual of it. That actually calmed down a lot of people. It did. Oh, then my road my road is on the list. That meant a lot to people. But the people whose roads weren't on the list weren't happy. But if you could, but they were just happy to see there was a list. That's what they came back said. Like, I don't care if I'm not on the list. I just want them to know there is one. Now, what do I got to do to get on it? Yeah. That's true. And I think that's part, you know, kind of addressing some of the comments I've heard of the educational process. This

this isn't due if we want to put it in until I think it was Stacy sent me the date, but August 14th. There's plenty of time for an educational event where you can actually approach the voters, show them the numbers and say, "Yeah, what would make this palatable to you? What would make this pass? If I tie it to projects, if I tie it to a time frame, if we tie it to no other new taxes, if there's a new tax by the state, we drop it because we don't want to compound problems. And we will receive a portion of that 6 cents. The way that the state sends money down is they the the state gets 50, counties get 30, cities get 20 and they don't dictate how it can be used. It's just specifically roads. It's specifically for roads. It's

I think if that's made like educated and let everybody know then Yeah. So, um, a lot of people,

one of the things that's going on in the backdrop right now is on Friday, many of the staff, not Kyle this week, um, but many of the staff, one of the things we've started to do for the civic engagement effort, um, using social media, um, is they're all meeting with either ADAD or, uh, um, uh, Brent Clap Productions um, to create different things to tell our story from the city perspective. Um, and that's all going to be going out on social media. Kyle and I have had not extensive, but significant conversation already about how a big portion of the things he's going to talk about is going to be, especially depending on what comes from this meeting, um, focused on education and having to do this. So, I can tell you that over the next month and a half, one way or another, you're going to see a lot coming out from them. I mean, in regards to the city, um, this could be easily woven into stuff we've already started to program money for to make sure that we're getting after this. So, we're not going to wait till August to start talking about. We're going to start talking about it right now.

And visual learning and really, we're already kind of because I tell you on that Facebook when it blew up last week, um, everything I kept telling everybody was, um, hey, we're talking about this tonight relates to this and then you can email me or you can watch the presentation, whatever the case may be. It's probably how you found out about it, right? Kyle, can we revisit what you were just saying because you you said something that intrigued me a little bit. So, okay. You know, if the state passes a gas tax, I don't think it's going to, but if they do, I don't think so. A gallon, you said it's broken down. State gets 50, county gets 30, city gets 20% of the whole pot. Right. Of the whole pot.

So 20% of that six cents is two cents. Yep. Right. So, we're already better off if we do a 3 cent. But you made it sound like we could reject that. I Well, I mean, the way that you can formulate a a local gas taxes, you can put conditions on it all the way down. You can say, "We only want to collect our gas tax during the summer when there's high high visitor traffic. When in the winter when nobody's coming through, we don't have to tax. We can turn it off." You can put a timeline on it. It sunsets at this point or this amount of money. you can tie it to a list of projects that says once these projects are done we turn it off.

Um I think in the past one of the biggest hurdles we've always had with citizens is is that um their view of how we do work doesn't lead to confidence that they want to give us more money. Their belief is you get enough fix them. Yeah. Hence the civic engagement and us telling our story so that they know with confidence that we're spending our money the way that we're responsible.

But I'm intrigued by that. So would it be possible then for us to craft something that says if by some off chance the state decides to shove a gas tax down, then we'll, you know, for whatever percentage of that we get, we would drop our local one so that it stays, right? like would I mean I wonder about something like that being palatable and and do we avoid some of the political conflict with what the state's trying to push if we did something like that you know where we say hey we we recognize that people are worried about that they're thinking this could be three and then six

and so we're saying whatever portion we get of that you know projected amount that we thought we would deduct that amount you know what I'm saying you know what I'm we would let the state's amount backfill this with our three our three I mean if we have that much control over how we craft it that might be a nice selling point and I I think as the early educational outreach that's kind of what you're asking voters what what makes this palatable because I'm coming to you and saying hey give me three cents from now until eternity we know that's not palatable

that's not what anybody wants to hear so how can we craft something in that educational experience that says, "Hey, I'm willing to give you that much rope. If you hang yourself, we're done. If you don't, if you use it wisely, we'll revisit it and we can do something different." Um, but to build that confidence and and for me, that's kind of building off of what we did with the ARPA funds. Um, I know I've constantly said for the first time in my career, I actually got some compliments. They were backhanded sometimes, but they were complimented. Uh, to have somebody say something good like, "Hey, you guys did a great job on the streets." not one particular project, but hey, your strategy was seen and and we appreciate it. Yeah. Um

I think there's never going to be another time. We're never going to get a pot of money where we can say look at the performance and see what we did when we had the funds and we can continue it if we have them, but we don't have them. Which is a key part of our messaging going forward is if you don't want this to stop, this is our way we keep it going right now. Has has park and traffic safety and maintenance advisory commission just go to pitmack. Yeah, pit smack. Okay. Has pit smack. That's great. I love it. Um have they been talking about this recently as well or did you just bring this forward again to the aircraft one? They endorsed it. Well, I know they endorsed it long ago though. Yeah. I was just wondering if it was talked about recently.

They endorsed it in 24. I know, but it's been 2 years. So, I just wondered if if it's come up again with them and if they had any other thoughts. It stays on our unfinished business. So, every time we hold a meeting, we talk about it. They are all still invested with playing a part in the educational campaign. Okay. Um and they're all on board. Okay. Good. Well, I also think if we go through this, we do the council needs to be involved. We're happy to help, I believe. Oh, you know what? That's interesting. Like we could even get you guys involved with the uh um with the civic engagement portion of it with art with what we're putting into stuff. I might have to figure out how to come up with a couple extra dollars to because we hadn't thought about it from that lens. But we're right now

repost whatever you do on our line social. Oh yeah. At the very least if you're doing it that way yet whether or not you want to be the face of it. That's that's but if you want to be the face of it wants to be the face of attack be united. It wouldn't just be like you alone and be every we should be the face of it too. Well, not just a Yeah, I would have. Yeah, we have to be careful about like we have to approach this from an education standpoint, not a telling people how to vote. Right. So that's what's really important with this August date is like once we file it,

us staff has to stay completely out of it. So then it has to it's all you guys. We are held by RS. So you have that deadline to educate and then we can stage this so that we're doing the education point up front and then when we um because we'll be in a new budget year and we're already working on numbers for what that civic engagement dollars are going to look like. Um, and so we can make sure that that's built in that we're having you guys be a part of that as well. Right. I mean, I just think if we're going to do this, we should be upfront, too, and say we're in support. We're support and this is why. Yeah. I still like that word tax, but

Yeah, we don't. But it's But we we also can't sugar coat it. Like we don't have we don't have to say we like it. We just have to say it's the only way to solve our problem. Word is that's the thing. Well, to piggyback on that, it's not the only way to sell. All right. Yeah. Yeah. It's just the most palatable as you because I mean I mean when you look at

I I always joke with John that that our streets are kind of like a micro example of his base plan because you can pull off the whole city and look at it in this little little little piece of our city. And you know, we have the the primary and alternative and and those are our options as we move toward the streets. We have one where if it it's an emergency, it just takes, you know, me coming before you with a with a move saying, "Hey, we need to jump our street user fee and we need to jump it enough so we get this much funding just to keep our our streets so we can travel." And so that's the emergency.

But I think your guys' guidance, John's guidance has always said, we don't want to shove something down the citizens throats to say, "Hey, you want better streets, we're going to give them to you." We want them to have choices. We want them to look at it. And that that's kind of when I look at the overall arching pace plan, what we're looking at with the streets. We're we're looking at those primary and and alternative options to kind of say let's run down these roads and with if they don't work in the next 6 months to a year, then we go to the next step. Yeah. But we make them aware that if if we don't pass this, then the emergency is we have to do it that way or we just let this actually we let the streets just fall apart.

Yeah. And and really this is to me the most compassionate approach, you know, and and as you talk about, yes, we we want to be cognizant of the single parents and and people that are living, you know, paycheck to paycheck. But the reality is we do worse by them if we do nothing because we get further and further behind this curve until we get to the point where we are forced to do something extreme. And that comes again the only way we can do that forcefully. That's a 100% tax burden right right to every citizen lrand. This is we're talking probably 50%.

They're probably doubling their money in this if we take this route. To me, it's it's hands down the most compassionate approach to do what simply needs to be done. I agree. It's just people get scared and this is this is when you also look at the gas tax and the methodology that the state plays behind it. It's higher users pay higher taxes. Our other alternative when you're going to use the street user fee, everybody across the board, I don't even care if you have a car. You may ride the bus because you can't afford a car. You're still paying us $4 to $8. You may not even live here. Right. Right. Well, if you're here and pay that bill. Yeah, that's true. You may just own a rental here. You're paying us for that, too.

And it's a fair tax. You know, the reality is we have a lot of our employees who come into LRAN, they drive our streets, they work here, they play here, they go to our, you know, parks and our libraries and our pool and and they wear they place wear and tear on those roads. Um, and this is a way of saying we assume that if you drive here, you may also fuel up here. And if you fuel up here, great. Then you get to help contribute to the condition of the roads that you wear down. Right.

In the same sense, people who are driving through town and we're going to get fortunate because a lot of people drive on the freeway. And to your point, Denise, it's 45 miles between Pendleton here and Baker in here. That's why people are going to stop here because they're looking at their gas tank and thinking, I'm a quarter tank. Do I really want to push on another 45 minutes or do I just want to pull over here in the Grand and grab a burger? How many people look at an app to see what the gas is the next day? I've never done that. I can tell you I go to Sinclair's because it's cheaper. Sure. Well, I do too, but um but local one. Yeah. I go in Milton Freewater. Well, Pendleton is cheaper than here there Baker is, too.

So is Baker. We've not seen the drop of gas price. I wish Well, but I wish we could get the truck stop on board. And I And I I it almost makes me want to kind of talk with the owners. I mean, I would hope that if they're capitalists, maybe they look around and they're like, "Oh, they can charge 3 cents more." Then I can, too. But but you know I just that's a I think a lot of the truckers that come through are big fuel users and um you know I I I I regret I know at one point there was talk about you know annexing that part of the city. I think it would have solved that issue

um and been another little boon to the gas tax. Again most of those long haul truckers they're not local citizens but they would be paying into that fund which would be really nice. be a little bit off topic to try and get off to that now. But I think we should talk about that more in the future. But what about the opposite? When all of the people who own gas stations in Lrand start seeing that nobody's coming because they're charging 3 cents more than everybody else, are they going to close their margin down 3 cents just to bring those prices down and then the volume comes back? It's possible. I mean, yeah, we all don't know what margins sit on the gas stations in the Grand. Why is it higher? Is it fuel delivery costs? Is it not buying enough? We don't know. We haven't boycotted.

Well, mainly one owner has the majority of the gas stations and he pretty much dictates what the prices are. Well, and if he wants to make money, he needs volume. Yeah. Yeah. One way or another. That's true. I I just I mean I Kyle, this is a marvelously put together presentation. I think this is great. I think if we can break some of this down into a, you know, sound bites, that's a great start for, you know, building an educational model for how we want to present this. I do think, again, I I would I think it's useful to have that information on how the dollars translate, you know, what what does this mean? 30 blocks.

Yeah. That's impressive, you know, and and if we're saying, hey, especially if we can start to give examples and say, you know, hey, you all know what this road looks like,

this is how many blocks of a road like this this translates into, and by the way, we're going to commit to doing that as a city. Like, we're going to responsibly use these dollars to try to improve your lives and and the quality of our of our town. Um, I I just I like that. Again, I my my personal experience is this goes over extraordinarily well. People are pleasantly surprised when they hear how minimal of a financial impact this is. That I think there's shock value when you hear gas tax and then and then when the reality sets in, there's pleasant surprise at what that actually looks like to the average person. Yeah. And Ricky making the comment about the wear and tear of your vehicle, too.

It's a lot cheaper than This is cheaper than alignment. Yeah, it is. It is 100% but people don't always know that when I you can I know you can't but you know in one of the presentations whatever to say 30 block radius or whatever the you know I can't visualize it but if you said you know from here to here these street names whatever and stuff people can then visualize oh that's the 30 block radius or something um I think that would be very beneficial. Yep. especially if you do a visual uh presentation. I can do that. I can I can scope half a million dollars worth of projects of really poor roads and say, "Yeah, this is the change."

And really, we've we've talked about this is prioritizing roads and and which is a proper way to approach it with the budget that we have. We've said, "Hey, you know, we're going to look at um uh you know, core core areas um collectors, arterials. We're going to look at at how heavily traffic they are." And unfortunately, what it leaves is a lot of these residential roads that are in the poorest shape. And maybe we say something too where we say, you know what, we're we're going to not just divide this the way we've always approached it, but we're actually going to start at the bottom of the barrel. we're going to take a portion of this money and that's going to go to the poorest road whether it's the one that has two people living on it or the one that has

you know I like that idea 100 and like wouldn't that because because the person who lives on one of those residential roads on the north side or wherever that's in rough shape and is saying well I'm still never going to see my road on this list if we take that approach maybe they're looking at and saying you know what I see my road now here if if we commit to using a little different strategy than we've out of necessity improperly done in the past. Maybe that's another palatable point for it.

I think I think we could actually gain a lot of traction with that approach. Um some the one of the streets that we went out on was exactly that. Like one of some of the logic we had to give them was the amount of traffic that would that they had on the street is one of the reasons they're so low on the priority list. So to actually give them a shot at the lottery of their street being on there based off of what you just described would actually get us the opportunity to do well for them. I mean, for heaven's sake, you could have a lottery. These are the 20 worst roads in town. We're going to pull them out till we exhaust, you know, this percent. I mean, you could have some fun with it.

We take the revenue and put it back into the streets. Like, my voice has been heard and my problems may be addressed in this in a way that they have in the past. And I think I think if we can do that, I mean, that's that's how we're trying to be responsible as a council. It's how how you guys are trying to, you know, do the best work and it's what people want. So, um I I think if we can get around that, then the ugly word tax starts to sound a little better and they and they see it for what it is, which is a means of accomplishing a very important end and then they had a buy in it as well. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We want their voice. We want them to decide. We want their buy in. I mean, you want their buy in. Yeah.

That's what we're supposed to be doing. So once if passed, if on the ballot and then passed, how once enacted, how soon do we begin collecting the revenue so that we can start working on it? Is it immediately? Yeah, the state collects it and distributes monthly. Monthly. Okay. Thank you. So we don't even have to collect it. That's nice. Yeah. Oh, wow. Do you have anything you want to add to it, Heather, as a suggestion? No. Um, so with I said, does that make more of a burden on you to collect that money from the state? I guess not because they already send it in. Do you have to verify it?

Generally, they send me an email that it's on its way. But I mean, do we verify that they're giving us what they say they're going to give us or what they should be giving us, I should say. Is there any way to verify that, too? I would guess. Oh, yeah. I'm sure they know how to do that. Okay. Just just check. We were we were asking the same question like how do we know we're going to get exactly um the hotel room tax. Uhhuh. Where does that monies go? That's in the general fund. It can only be used for certain things. That's what I thought. Okay. Um I sent you guys an email out about that today. Yeah. Oh, I haven't read it. What's that? I haven't read it. Okay. You're about talking to the people on it. Yes, it was. I wanted to come back and say we can't use that. So, yeah.

And see, a lot of people don't like they're like, "Well, my water bill is expensive. Where where's that money?" Well, you know, portion of it goes strictly to the water fund. That could only be used towards water. A lot of people don't understand. Well, I pay a water and sewer bill. Yeah, you do. Yeah. But this could only go towards those type of things. So, yeah. So, we get that a lot in our office. You want to close?

It's all yours. So, u with that in mind, I think I would have gleaned from our conversation here is that we do have a propensity to want to pursue this. Um, I will take what we've gleaned from this conversation, draft it into a memorandum that I will then distribute for the next council meeting. Um, and then we can bring it up for discussion and agree that we can officially make a decision on that we want to move forward on this or not. Um, and then I'll try and incorporate within that at least a rough um, uh, articulation of what the civic engagement would look like leading up through now till the the uh, November ballot time frame if if approved. Are you guys wanting to do like a uh combined pit snack? I don't know. Kyle, you you you're going to have six. You have six people now. Wow.

So, I don't know if they would be interested in I feel like you guys have so many like ideas and I feel like collaborating together and try to take some of the workload even off of you to be able to come up with materials uh sound bites, stuff like that. And just kind of give us a chance. Yeah, it's a great idea. Give give me Kyle and I an opportunity. We'll have we'll come back to you with a plan of attack if and in options where possible. That's great.

Yeah. And we and we should invite uh I mean that's that's right that's right in their wheelhouse and and we want their thoughts. I mean they're going to they're going to have ideas that are great ideas that we can add into the pool of things and carry forward. And I think they're eligible to help after that August 14th deadline to be able to help with that educational push. is something sending something out with water bills. Does it have to be done before the August? Um well that's the tricky part. So last time when we did the charter Oh yeah.

I actually sent something to the elections division to get it uh like a safe harbors to make sure that it was written in a way where it takes out the neutral part. It has to be like we're not pushing for a yes, we're not pushing for a no or whatever. Um, so we have to be strategic with the after we file it with the county. So that's a good question because I feel like we could probably utilize putting anything in right now um sound bites or anything that you know, whatever we come up with um for like let's go, let's do this. And then um once we hit that August 14th date, we'll have to be more strategic. So I'll have to prepare that. But

a ballot measure then at that point. Yeah, ballot measure with the title and then um it'll be filed with the county's office and then I have to make sure that I can send this piece of paper in and so it's not like pushing for a yes or a no. It has to be strategically clearly see and that's after the August 14th date. So I want to be clear about that. Who writes the paragraphs in the voter pamphlets? Well, the county doesn't put out a voter pamphlet. That's that's why we switched to the water and sewer bill last year and had um just one piece of paper that I typed up um sent it and got it approved and then we sent it to the water department and they stuffed them in the bills.

So So am I wrong? So in the past because I I mean I just remember that we always pick up the pamphlet and we read through things and it's nice because there's explanations about whatever and what what it actually means and breaks down into. So that doesn't happen for local measures then. Is that what I'm hearing? Okay, that's correct. That's unfortunate because I think that's that's a really valuable resource and all in one spot. I think a lot of people walk through that as they're filling out their ballots. Is there is there legalities that keeps us from being able to do it's all the county control? Okay. It's county pamphlet. I I don't know if they just

I'll talk to them and see if they if they Yeah. I mean, I just I don't know if that's an option, but I just I feel like there have been measures there in the past that kind of break it into plain language like this is what this means. And I think especially if we if we were to decide to proceed with conditions in place about what would happen if it was paired with a state asset or something. I think that that would be really valuable to have explained, you know,

that's the strategic part. If it if it if it was even in the pamphlet, it has to be written in a certain way with that statement. Yeah. But I think like that's a controversial statement to say you know if if voted you know this has conditions to say if this happens I was just saying yeah the ballot title and the ballot statement attorney do you remember that is correct right but yeah it was my understanding when we tried when we asked about the county the pamphlet last time we the 2024 when we did this the charter referendum they were they told me that they don't put out u the county does not produce a pamphlet.

So, it's not going to be listed. It's county controlled. That's why we did it the way we did it. So, they won't send it out with the with the ballots even. No, you just um would they I think I asked and I can't remember if there was going to be a cost, but I can double check on that. Again, there might be a a cost, but it might be worth it to have that before. They can't you can't have a information sheet put in with the ballot. Is that you're asking? Yeah, I was just wondering if you could. Yeah, I'll have to call. I don't know. I'm just asking. Yeah,

I just I mean, we want we want to leave this we want citizens to be able to choose how they how to handle this. But I think like like I said before, I I want I want this to be an informed decision. And I think last time it was not an informed decision. No, it wasn't. And and so yeah, the leg work is all going to be on that front end. for us to say we want people to understand fully what this is, the good, the bad, the ugly, the whatever, but not to just hear the word tax, right? No. Yeah. And it wasn't it wasn't publicizable at all. Many people didn't

neither was social media is so much bigger than it was 10 years ago. So, we have so much that we can do, right? Good. Right. Well, Madame Mayor Promp um unless you have anything else for us, I think I'm understanding the way forward and more to follow in regards to