City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah, it should be should be live now. All right. Oh gosh. All right. I would like to call the meeting to order. This evening is a work session. It's just information setting for discussion topics of mu mutual interests and exchange ideas. There will be no votes. Uh there will be no public comment this evening. This is just a work session. We're not deciding on anything. Uh, and with that, I would like to turn it over to John.

Thanks everybody for coming tonight. I appreciate especially the staff. Thank you for coming out and being in joining in. Um, on the in front of you, the documents that I set in front of you, the documents that I'm planning to use to help us guide through this this evening. Um, but I also intend on capturing depending on how you guys were intend on capturing some of those notes up here as well. Um, the first document I'd ask you to take a look at is this one here. Um, bottom line is is uh the whole purpose behind this exercise that we're doing is so that we can get to the point in time where we can see ourselves um as clearly and as best as possible. I'm pretty confident that no matter how hard we work to pursue that um we're never actually going to be able to fully see us because of course there's 13,000 people that live in um in the city. And so I think though we've had a a positive response from the community and contributing to this effort, um it's still nowhere near even not even 1% of the uh of the overall population. But it's our best effort to uh to be able to see ourselves. If you flip the sheet over um it talks a little bit about the purpose of why we're coming here together. Um in short um conducting SWAT analysis with the Lrand City Council and community is a is conducting a found foundational step in building a unified communitydriven strategic direction for the city. So making sure that there's direct connectivity between what we understand from the community and what you understand from the community and what our staff sees as um our reality. and then being able to shape and mold what our priorities should look like going into the next um budget season. Um and so this is just meant to help us inform us that that much more. Anybody have any questions on that? Um down below there, those 1 through eight are some additional granular details of the effort. I don't I won't read off them to you unless you like like but I'll pause there for a second to give you a second.

All right. So, continuing forward, bottom line is SWAT analysis. I'm not sure how many of you guys have ever experienced it before, if we've done it here before, um, or what your knowledge of it. So, um, please excuse me if there's any part of me that seems like I'm talking down to you in any way. I'm not intending to do that. It's just intended to get us all with a shared understanding. Um the bottom line is is as we conduct this exercise, um the SWAT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Um and the lens that I'm going to ask you to look through as we're answering that that those questions is the lens that you have as a city manager and as a me member of the community, let alone who maybe what feedback that you received in your interactions with the community. So bottom line is at least from my perspective, there's no wrong answer to any of these questions that we're going to be asking today through whatever perspective or perception in which you decide to bring information to the table with. So I'd encourage you to um uh to be willing to bring whatever whatever comes to mind. Right now we're just throwing mud at the wall and then we'll have more talk and more conversation about that later in in the future. Um there's another document that I provided to you guys on the on the table. There's one that has the word buckets in the title. Um if you look at that particular document, you don't have to necessarily get to know it now, but um that's a summary um um outline of the trend analysis from what we've received both from what the um city staff has been able to provide as well as what members of the community have been able to provide. It's meant to create buckets of generality of what has come from the information that's been received so far. So that's what that document is for.

So did you ask the community for this information too? Yes. Oh, that was during your

town hall. And then I've had several um follow-up conversations. That's been fairly productive these town halls. Um, I've had a lot of opportunity to go and have one-off conversations with different members of the community and I'm encouraging them to give me other venues to be able to go to as well. And every conversation I bring this document and I make it a part of the conversations and encourage them to bring them back to me or to provide them back to me in whatever mechanism that they prefer. Um, and so, uh, also in the stack of documents that you guys have is going to be a stapled, um, series of SWAT analysis sheets that and it should have on on the top of it either the title of where the it came from or in the bottom who the person was that submitted it.

Um, and so that's that's a that's a capture of everything that's been provided to us. Excellent.

And contributed thus far. My intention is is to take whatever comes from our conversation this evening um and put that up against what we've received so far and provide some more trend analysis in regards to what's coming in and what we're seeing as being the big hitters. Um don't don't misunderstand me when I'm uh talking about this. I'm not I'm not looking at this as um whatever is the the most common thing talked about means that's going to be our priority. What I want to be able to do is is be able through these different interactions that I'm having with the community um to be able to explain them why not. If something that lands on that list is something that seems to be important um but whatever whatever the reasons whether it's resources um I'm incapable or just for what any number of reasons I want to be able to my commitment to the community is that I'm going to go back to them. I'm going to explain to them um why not when we end up in the situation where we can't um or what what the reasons are and or in the best case scenario be able to provide them what a roadmap to getting it would look like um in order to be able to make it happen. Hands down, the primary reason for all of this is so that we're building trust with the community um in increasing our communication and getting them to know and understand better um what the challenges are that we're facing as a city um in order to be able to achieve the things that uh the council says that we should achieve, which of course is coming from what the community says that we should achieve. And so the intent is just to make sure that we're understanding each other simultaneously throughout throughout all of that. Um some common terminology that I've been using is I want to be able to create a menu of options of how we can do any of these number of things that we might come up with um when it's not currently within our resource capability. Um, and because at some point in time, as I see

it, as I'm sure all of you see it, and I realize you guys been playing this game here a little bit longer than I have. Um, but, um, when it comes down to it, we're going to need some skin in the game. Um, we're not, we can do the best that we can and we can squeeze the tur turnup and get as much blood out of it as we possibly can, but at some point in time, it's going to run to its end. And I think all of you know that already that we're we're not in any danger at the moment, but we can probably see danger on the horizon. So the intent here is is to be able to start recognizing right now and today what we need to do um what what what what we want. Let me let me what we need, what we want, and what we would like to have. Um and then um my intent is to come back to you guys with a plan on how we accomplish each and every one of those things with proposed timelines in which we would we would uh attempt to accomplish them. But um also that's dependent on how we end up resourcing it, right? Um so more to follow in regards to that. But I'm I'll be honest with you too going into the next season and I we can't get into any budget conversations tonight. Um next month we're going to come in and have conversation about budget science and talking about Heather has agreed to help me look smarter um in the room. um next month when we come in to um be able to talk about what's happened historically and why. Um that way we can see it'll be better clearly understood going forward as to whatever it is that we're saying we can do as well as um if we want to make sure that we achieve that goal of a balanced budget, what services we're going to have to cut in order to be able to make that happen. and we'll make recommendations as to what those services are if we want a balanced budget. Um, if we uh if we're willing to do business similarly to the way that it's been done, then my intention is also to come back with a road map to how

we're not going to keep doing that. Um, and how we're going to get to the point in time. But that's going to take, my guess is at a minimum, we're still in the analysis stage, but it's going to probably take at a minimum two to three more years before we're going to be able to see ourselves there. And I think I'm being a little bit optimistic when I say it that way. Um, but I figure let's set the goal like um high and and shoot for it and and do the best we can. We can get ourselves there. So, with that being said, does anybody have any questions or any comments on what I've stated or shared with you already?

Yeah. I'm sorry. Say it. Oh, she said Siri. Go ahead. It looks pretty self-explanatory the way it's all broken out, broken down. I'm just slightly concerned with the the discussion we just had about balancing the budget because to me that's a non-negotiable. That was the council's highest priority for this year.

So, I don't know that I'm ready to hear a game plan of balancing in two or three years as much as I think. And I and I understand that would you unfortunately weren't able to be present for the uh um stated expectations and the agreement that came from the room was that we would allow for this conversation to take in take place in December before we ended into the season where the absolute would be the case. There was some grace that was given in there in order to be able to get there. What I can tell you is we can accomplish everything that you want, right? But it won't be keeping the services we have.

So you got to be okay with that. And as long as you're okay with that, then I'm going to come back and tell you what we're not going to do in order to achieve it. But understand, as you I'm sure you you know, that means some people aren't going to be happy. But I'm I'm good with that. Generally, the nature of budgets. Yep. Yep.

Okay. Um, so, um, to begin, what I'd like to be able to do is us talk about what you see as strengths within our community, within our city, um, within our government, within our operations. Um, things that you feel are strengths that we exhibit or that we have already. I think we have a strong staff. You want to um expand on that a little? Well, I guess I think that they're knowledgeable. They they do a good job.

I think the strength of the community, the people that support the rest of the community, volunteer work, all that. I think that's a big one of our community. Very strong. But it's also a weakness because we're we're running out of people to volunteer. It is. It's a two. But I think that's a national thing. It's not just for our community. Yeah. I think for our community. Yeah. But I mean it is a fact here. It Yeah. And it's going to be perfectly okay for you to have in fact on one of the sheets you'll see on ours that has accountability in all four quadrants. Um and so absolutely it's okay for these to show up more than once. You're not limited to one-time use.

I think as far as the city goes that there's a broad um array of services that serve as in the city the city government. The city itself. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So, we've got a library, we've got nice parks, we've got a pool, we've got police and fire and and uh we serve, you know, a a broad range of the community and outside of the city as well. That's age. Okay. Anything else?

I think our location speaks for itself as where we're at. I mean, I agree with everybody said, but this is my dad to impress my dad. It takes a lot. And he just thinks this is probably one of the most gorgeous places, you know. So, I think that's going to be on all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Feel free to to look at the other options in there if you want to if something resonates with you. I'm going to sit here only so I can keep writing down the list.

I think that goes with the community, but I I find it amazing. I know we're having a hard time finding volunteers like for the ball drop and other things, but in a pinch people step up in our community. Um um it's I'm really impressed with that. You know, volunteers, volunteers especially. I mean, I have to find a lot of things for theater and so forth and people are more than willing to to help out which is pretty amazing. That's kind of going on with to the businesses, you know, like with the parks, you know, they come forward, they help, they do, they donate, they donate. Yeah, they do.

That could be another strength is our businesses. Our businesses. Yeah. Can you expand on that a little bit more? Um, how they support the community and what they offer? Right. Would that include like how the chamber has gone working with the schools like just recently the 1 28 all of it? Yeah. The interaction and the community. That was huge. That was huge. That was so nice. And that's a new chamber staff too. It is. Two thoughts here. I think that um in the past our fiscal position has been a strength. Fiscal position.

Yeah. have been very uh attentive to ensuring that we have put ourselves in a in a position fiscally where we're not, you know, going to end up as some surrounding communities have. Um I also think that to some extent uh the size of the community is something of a strength as it lends to a sense of community. You know, people know one another. It's it's easy to walk through town and and really be aware of virtually every business in town. Um, and I think that that is to some extent the strength. There's a more intimate feeling here than you would get in a city twice our size. Oh, definitely.

Anybody have anything else? I Well, I personally think our council is great. I mean, we are very cohesive. We work well together. There's not bickering. There's nothing. And you're not afraid to say, "No, I don't agree with you." And somebody will accept that it's okay. You don't have to agree. What is it when you have old-timers here that are doing the business? Like Justin, your business is generational, you know, things like that. They've the people not just left there, they've come back to the area and develop businesses. I think that says a lot for maybe back to community. Oh, or carry on with business. The kids leave and then they come back to

raise it. We're at 60. 60 years. Yeah. Well, that's a lot. It does. We have several hundred year plus. I was going to say isn't Goss that isn't Goss is Cher's Flores Fitzgerald. Yeah. Oh, really? Cherries Flores is 100 years. You You okay with me saying generational community? Okay. I think that's important. I think that says a lot for the community. Okay. Anything else anybody wants to add? In your short period of time being here, what would you say our strengths are?

What have you observed? Um, I I would say that the directors that we have are true SMEES. Like they they genuinely uh um they genuinely know their business,

which makes it nice for someone like myself who's transitioning into the uh that's huge into the uh the position. Mhm. definitely a mutual respect. Uh I probably could come up with a whole whole long list of others. I I I would have to add um there's no shortage of people with opinions in the community. And what I what I can say is that's at times painful. Yeah. Um but I also I see it as um opportunities to build relationships and build trust. Well, and if they're willing to come forward and say that, that means they're comfortable with

and they expect Yeah. they they know they're respected for saying it.

Yeah. I' I I'd like to think so. I'm sure that, you know, so far everybody that I've spoke with, there was one um family that um that is is located in the urban um renewal area and um had some very distinct complaints in regards to their experiences with um trying to update their particular business in accordance with the rules and the dynamics and the red tape that they feel like that they were uh um having to navigate in order to be ble to do what they need or wanted to do. Um, when I first showed up to meet with them, they they actually showed up to the uh um to the what do you call it? Town hall that we did.

And at the town hall, they um spoke um just told me enough to say, "Hey, we we really want to talk to you."

Um and then when I showed up to the meeting, um they were hot. Like they had a long laundry list of complaints and things that they felt wronged by. um people on our staff that they did not waste any time or energy being able to tell me like what they thought negatively of them and they and they showed the reasons as to why or they demon they explained the reasons of why. I fortunately I'd learned enough at that point in time to be able to have communication with them that was able to give them a side of it that they didn't know a side that they didn't understand. um which in my mind um like right right around that point the tone of the conversation um changed and we had and like no kidding we ended up talking for two hours and I would bet the first 45 minutes of that was that just letting them vent

um and then the last hour and 15 minutes of it was this positive I I actually walked away feeling like we were becoming best friends for life um and so it was an incredibly positive experience and I continue to dialogue with them right now there's some stuff that they're planning on doing with their with their business in the future. The truth is I think the team paid all the tax um already and somehow they're going to think I'm a part of it because I think Mike and their team laid the foundation to make it actually really simplistic for them um going forward for the the follow on work that they want to do. But understanding the why behind things were things that they just wanted the time to have that. Um for me people a lot of times people just want to be heard.

Yeah. Not always to get a solution but they just want to be heard

100%. Um but I I also think that uh um some of those voices are the voices that are having the most impact on the community that isn't showing up to these meetings or isn't going to this. And so I feel like it's it as much as there's times where I'm like I don't want to go to another one of these meetings or one of those meetings. Um the bottom line is is at some point in time the I think we've talked about this before. Um the community in order to keep what we have we have to increase what we ha what we have for our financial health or for our reality if you want to keep it. Um, sure the an option is to cut things, but I I'm guessing that there's that's going to be a hard decision to make because the types of things we're going to have to cut aren't going to be easy things to cut. Um, so then the next option is going to have to be we have to increase what we have coming in for money. This is I'm not telling you guys anything that you don't know what yourselves. Um, we owe a plan on how we're going to make that happen, but I also know that the plan in order to make that happen is going to cost resources in order to make it happen. But we can't. As good as it's been being done, this is what I tell the people when I talk to them, too. Um, and and the upside is in these conversations, they're they're they're talking like they want to bring resources to the table, like they want to contribute. And I feel like it's because like Kyle and I went out on a um a community neighborhood um wanted to talk to us about all the problems on their streets. Um I want to say Foley. Don't don't

It was Foley. It was Foley. Okay. Is that the neighborhood? Yeah. Um went over there like six neighbors came and we met with them. We talked with them. We we like we're we're standing with them looking at the road like, "Yep, this is not good. We agree with you. There's no part of us that's trying to sit here and tell you differently." Um but we talked about all the realities associated with why it's the way that it is and why it's a trouble and where it's at on the priority list, which they were happy just to see a list

and know that they were on a list even though it wasn't a promise to to have it done by a particular time. they just happy to be on the list. But in that conversation, they talked about um like, well, what what additional reason like can we just go ahead and pitch in and throw money at this to try and help get our particular road fixed? We said, well, this is a really good idea. Thank you. But give us a chance to to do some more work on our own before you commit that kind of a make that kind of a commitment yet to solving the problem. Um, so bottom line, the purpose of me sharing all that with you guys is just simply that relationship building part I feel like is making the is going to make a difference in the long run. Yeah.

Now I would add maybe one more thing on that. You don't have to write it, but I think there's a tremendous amount of diversity of thought in our community relative to the surrounding area. What I mean by that is, you know, we have a mix of, you know, university uh professionals at the hospital and then we have, you know, our our ranchers and our farmers and our our, you know, our kind of blueco collar laborers and and we all are part of a community together in a way that I think is um uncommon nowadays. And it's not like the city is being driven by some, you know, intellectual subgroup that's that's driving this. It's it's no like we we we're intimately involved with all of the other members of our community and their circumstances. And so I I think that that is actually a strength that we have because it it creates more dialogue around the issues that we face, the decisions that we make. You know, we're interested in how this affects anybody in the community in their various circumstances, probably a little bit more than you may see elsewhere.

Yeah. I I just to tag on to that a little bit like EOU is amazing like the uh um I reached out to them to talk to them about us working together on a economic development um effort where we work together on it and them uh giving us some students to be able to help us in that effort. Um and they're 100% on board. We're still shaping it, but they're 100% on board to try and help us make it happen. So I'm kind of excited to see where that goes. Let's see. So, um, that was strengths. We can, if you happen to think of something else while we're navigating through this, don't be afraid to weakness as, um, um, don't be afraid to throw it back out there. I can always go and add it to the list. Um, and also in front of you, you should have a blank SWAT sheet, too. So feel free to um write on there if you like and if you want to give them to me at the end of the evening here whether it makes the list up here or not um um feel free to to fill those out if you'd like. Mhm.

Um so same same question but through the and through the same lens um what do we see as weaknesses um within our community and our city um problems weaknesses finances or money money yeah revenue maybe related to that you know there's a there's a lack of economic vitality there is I think growth is one of our weakness. Our what? Growth. I think we all not enough or too much. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough growth. Sure. We're stagnant. If you look the last 50 years, our community has not grown. Oh, I think like I think location definitely, you know, winter months.

Yep. That is one of our biggest weakness and that's nothing we can do. No. It's just where we're located. What was it you said? The location is our in the winter months. Oh, yeah. We'll move the grant. huge. Well, we're also having an older population. See, last I looked, we're we're an aging population. We are. Yeah. But where did I just see demographics that it's not as aging as I thought? Oh, really? That'd be interesting. I Oh, I remember looking at the last census data and thinking it's it's not as

Yeah, maybe the hospital had that timing of things getting completed or getting things started. It's like sometimes they're kind of like great ideas, but it's kind of stagnant for anything started. Um, can you expand on that a little? permits, how low the process is. You always hear about people can't get the permits and bureaucracy of it. Yeah. Yeah, that would be or red tape. Red tape. Yeah, red tape. I'm going to say our recruitment to trying to get good staff here that when they leave to replace Yeah. applicant pool isn't

isn't isn't very deep. Yeah. cost of housing as well and that that uh limits the applicant pool sometimes too. Yeah. I don't really I think the quality try to rent an apartment some of the problems are not there. Well, and if you have a pet, try to rent an apartment or a house because the the market is so compressed that landlords say no pets. you know, we're saying that, but yet I was just talking to somebody who was trying to they were trying to sell their house and their houses aren't selling either, right? Well, maybe it's because of the new. Yeah, it is. But that's there's probably probably a long list of reasons as to why.

Yeah. And it's also this time of season. Oh, I know this season is a terrible time. You do that in the summer. I think one weakness is um you know we we there may not be enough turnover in some positions and what I mean by that is you get used to doing things the same way every time that sometimes there's uh you can be closed off to new ideas complacency then complacency is probably a good way of phrasing that yeah people don't like change sometimes well I think I viewed that sometimes because they're not thinking outside the box. I don't mean necessarily a turnover.

Yeah. Like I'm not I'm not saying hey people need to be fired. That's not what I'm saying is you know again it you you look at organizations that turn over very frequently and there's a constant injection of new thought, new ways of thinking and revisiting old ways of doing things. And so I think that's more what I'm after is is just the idea of hey it's okay to look at things with new eyes and ask the question is this the best way to do it? I think that's a weakness. We're not we're not open to new like you said and open we kind of box oursel in our thinking. It's this is how we've done it. This is what we're going to do. We have to look outside the box. Yeah.

And find be innovative. Um, if you don't mind, I'd like to add into that maybe or build off of it resilience. Um, one of the things that I've discovered as I've come into the organization, um, is the mere anticipation of change is is high stress. Um and um it's like across our staff there's a lot of conversation about potential future change. Um very little um has happened as of yet in regards to change, but there's certainly change on the horizon. Um and the anticipation of that is incredibly high stress. Um, that's one of the reasons why I started sending out that that weekly message now, too. So, I'm trying to help bring down the pulse of stress because I I I recognize that I'm new. I'm different. I'm new eyes. Um, but I still have to figure out the pace in which to go that's right for um for the community's needs while at the same time um not not risking breaking the teams that we're that we're leading.

Um so, trying to build that resilience Well, what's been a weakness in the past and it seems to be improving was basically the difference between the community and the division between the city and I know that that's one thing that you're trying to bridge. That's been a big weakness I think because a lot of people sometimes know Yeah. they don't know what the what the city's doing. Yeah. They don't know what the city's doing. They don't know who to contact. They don't know all this kind of stuff and where can they find the information and not everybody on the internet. Well, sometimes it's hard to find it on the on the website. I say that I have a hard time.

I'm going to add to that. One of the things I've learned um in getting out into the community and having the opportunity to to visit with people of all ages um there are there are definitely distinct differences in how people want to be informed.

Um and the we at one point in time the internet became the thing right it was the rage. Um and then we created web pages and we started tell pushing everybody to that and it's the primary method of communication. The problem is is we like we can get frustrated with the fact that we put the information out there um and people can get to it and they can read it. Like there's nothing that we are working on or that we have that people don't have the opportunity to know about but it's dense. It's that person reading it because it's such a oneway communication and you have to seek it out. Yeah. Yeah. And a majority of the people, I shouldn't say majority of the people, it's not easy for them to navigate through a computer, right? I think

or I mean, how how easy is it for us to get frustrated when you're not technologically savvy anyway? And you're trying to find something, you think, okay, what what word should I use to try to find that? Yeah. And that's very I I've done that on the our website. I'm thinking, okay, I want to know this one particular piece. Yeah. So what do I have to go around and around and think okay what else can I call it? What else can I try to use a trigger word? The challenge is the communication now has to be omni channel. And I will tell you that there was somebody that I talked to the other day. She says well how do I know this stuff? I said well it's on Facebook. I don't have Facebook. It's on the computer. I don't I don't know what to do with our residents don't have internet. Pardon? You know what percentage of our residents don't have internet access?

Quite a bit. It's not it's not insignificant. Yeah. that does not have it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like all you have to do is go to the library and you see people coming in there. But everybody has a phone and they can get on that. But sometimes searching things on your phone is far worse. This person was telling me she was really irritated. I said, "Well, you know, you can do this. You can go online. You can if you want to know what's going on with the city, you can uh click into the the parks department or you can go into public works. You can do any of those. Mike's job." But they she well I don't know how to do that. And it's like well what do you want me to do? I don't know what our answer is because there's no newspaper here unless you go to the eastern going you listen to the I don't listen to the radio. Well

yeah. Yeah. The problem is real. It is real. It was very frustrating with her. And I I mean I know we're here just to discuss the the problems. Um I'll share the everything you guys are talking about and you're saying right now we've noted as a team already, right?

Um and we're already strategizing things to do to try to get after that. Um and that's all stuff that we'll talk about when we get forward. I for the sake of our respecting your guys' time, I don't want to necessarily give you everything we're already doing unless that's where you want to go with the conversation. But um but what I can say is duly noted. It um the information is not only uh dense, but it's also complex. Um and we owe the community to simplify it and communicate it to them where they receive the information as best as possible. We're not going to get everybody, but we can do the best we can. So, I guess one of the things would be public perception of things. It's the way they think it is that it isn't necessarily that way, but that's their perception of it. And the perception isn't that they can't get to the city. They they don't know what the city's doing.

Yeah. That's a perception. Yeah. And where their money is going. That's what I hear. Yeah. What am I paying for? And the reality of it is is we can we can put everything we can that we want out there and make everybody have the access to the information, but if it becomes frustrating, the go-to response to that is we're not trustworthy. Right. Right. Um and and it's our responsibility to figure out how to solve that problem. Right. Um as much as I would like to say learn how to use a computer or go to the library, but that's that's we don't have the luxury of giving that as a response. Um, but I'm I'm hearing you. Okay. Um, any other uh um weak We filled this in a whole lot faster than the strengths, by the way.

That's not a good thing. No, but No, actually it is. If you look at these, you get a lot of them that have more weakness than they show. I'm trying not to look at that. I'm trying to Oh, I didn't read them. I'm not looking at the number. They're pretty equal numbers here. Some of them. That one's not. Anybody have anything else that they want to add to that? The first impression of the community is long lasting and there's times when it's all spruced up, all beautified and there's times like now, of course, it's the weather with all the icky leaves out and sidewalks are covered and I don't know, just kind of looks dirty. I don't know how else to explain it, but Well, they've been sweeping the roads with the with the leaves.

I know, but sweeping everybody's That's what I've heard favorite notes. Yeah. I'm gonna throw in the list life. That's Yeah, that's um if that's all right. Some of the buildings. Yeah. I personally feel like Lrand is amazing. I do think it's beautiful, but I think there's a lot of ugly, too. Yeah. Um, and I think when we're looking to try and make it attractive to get people to come here, that is going to be when you when you take that and combine it with the difficulty of trying to find a home, let alone find a job. Um, it just what I what I think we should be getting after

is multiple streams or like we're not going to solve the problem, but we can solve several small um contributing factors to make it one less of a reason. And to me, this is actually a huge Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Mhm. Okay. Um, if is anything on the strengths list that you think needs to be over on the weakness list as well? Doesn't have to be for the same reasons. It can be I think they already said location during the winter and stuff. So, let's see. Location during the winter for people because we get locked in. Yep. You

know, I never believed that when I first moved. Somebody says, "Oh, we get locked in real." Oh, yeah, we do. Okay. Um, opportunities. That's what they make of it.

We have room for growth. Yes, we have the land. Oh, we do in our urban growth boundary and can expand it. I think education is a tremendous opportunity. Can you expand on that? Yeah. Um I, you know, I see patients all day long and I've practiced in other communities and this community by far when I ask a junior or senior in high school what their plans are for the next few years has the lowest percentage of children who want to go on to receive advanced education. But that will be economic driver of our community.

So, you're saying that that the opportunity is to increase or improve or encourage um education? Opportunity is to en encourage and improve education and skills so that our our community members are more employable, are more apt to develop and bring in new businesses and new skills. We also had the opportunity with with the um high school for those to learn the trades as they were building those buildings. I think that's incredible

because there's a lot of talk of you know AI and a whole bunch of things other replacing other jobs but the trades are really really important and I think apprentichip I guess we have those opportunities

community partnerships or something I think we can expand on that and um take it as an opportunity to fill long-term some of our chronically underfilled positions in dispatch, police, fire. um to use those um those connections with with um the schools and EOU to create our own future employees. I think having a business park is a big good plus to bring in businesses and so forth. So we have that opportunity to bring in

lots are left. Expand what? How many lots are left? Three. Yeah. I think I just saw Wasn't there only one or two left now that you just sold? Two. Two left. Oh, two. Um, speaking well we I I keep trying to talk about other stuff. We're not here for that. I think if we look back on your thought about blight in the community, there certainly is an opportunity for beautifification of our community. Yeah. I like that you said that.

Can I just go into blight? I'm This is I just have a question. Is there so many regulations that we have to go through that we can't have volunteers to help with the blight, you know, like depends painting and just, you know, polishing up. And I mean, I know they can't build apartments or any of that kind of stuff, but just to make it look more appealing from the outside. I mean, is there a bunch of regulations or or what? Um, I'll have to do some research. I don't think we have as much problems with the ability to get the people to do it. It's how we resource them to with the things they need to do it.

But sometimes a lot of people would would would donate to depending, you know, I mean, there's a whole but I think a lot of people would like to go ahead and help a lot more than we give them the opportunity to do so. Um, at their most recent town hall, we uh recognized a group that Stacy recommended um for they take it upon themselves to go up and clean at the parks. Yeah.

Um and so I actually this I'm glad you brought it up. um recognition I would have to throw into here because part of the reason um which kind of feeds into what you're um talking about a couple of different things that I feel like we need to do better about in recognition is the people that are in the community that are doing those things. Um so then if hopefully the word's getting out that we're paying attention and we're helping other community members to know that they're that they're doing it as well. So that hopefully the thanks isn't just coming from us but it's coming from others get other people to do it too. So

um simultaneously I want to I I would like to see us put a stronger effort into and this is in the recognition category. Um our committees and commissions are doing some significant work and putting in some time in order to to bring what they're bringing and I I don't know that they get adequately thanked um for what it is that they're doing. Um, and so I' I'd like to I mean, if the world was my, we'd have a we'd throw a party just for them and say thank you, but that's a whole another conversation in itself.

Um, I just thought of something, but it goes back on the weakness side. It was brought to my attention at church one time. Um, Union, town of Union has a public restroom for community and they were saying that there's no community restroom like at Max Square or anything like that. and people go into businesses unless you, you know, partake in their business or whatever, they don't let you use a restroom. So, there's um if you look through those documents that I gave you guys, you'll see that that's on there as well. Is there one of these? Okay. We've had them before, but chamber. Oh, yeah. No, the ch there was public restrooms downtown for a while

for somebody said they were right. I didn't say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People go to the library, unfortunately. I bet if people are downtown, there's there isn't any, but there was. I I don't know how uncommon that is. I think that's that's actually quite common in many communities. And I think you have removed that because I don't think Austin has a downtown public res. Yeah, but you have to look union is downtown. I'm just saying you want to encourage more downtown issues. Yeah. You you'll end up having people camping out in there.

Oh, then you close them in at dusk or whatever. I'm just just throwing it out there. Yeah. There's there's a lot of reasons why not to do something and there's going to be reasons to do that. Right. But I I think if what you're saying maybe public services, there are opportunities to, you know, improve that'd be under room for growth. Some things like that. I think that's fine. um public services and an example would be toilet levity. I feel like I should write toilet.

I think you can use it. Molly stand next to that. Okay. to do. Oh,

here's here's here's my perspective on it. Um, if we haven't done everything we can do before we go to the taxpayers to ask them to increase their taxes, then we should probably be considering what we should be doing before we go to them and say, "Let's increase your taxes." when they when some of them know very clearly that there are people that they think should be paying taxes and aren't. And so from my perspective, if we're not doing everything we should, we shouldn't even be talking about um um adding some additional taxes. But I I'll with that being said, if you don't mind, I'll add to the conversation um special districts

like Island City. What's that? I was just joking. I said parks, library. Well, that that would be that would be an annexation, but but actually it's funny you bring that. So, by my list of things I was going to close out with is I want to do this if you guys are up for it. I want to do this exercise with the city council from Island City, all of us. Um because I think we should be looking for opportunities in my mind um would be county island city I

Island um we should be looking at again these are just things that are on the menu right um we should be looking at how we can work together or join services in some way or another that's going to help us reduce cost for both of us and gain efficiencies. What's that? A win-win for each. Yes. Exactly. But I think that's going to take Yes.

And and to me like some of the things when we're talking county which includes the sheriff's office um when we talk about that um that's going to probably make a lot of people really uncomfortable. But it should be on the menu. Um, any other opportunity to make something in the past that's happened that Oh, why would it make I'm I'm just curious making who uncomfortable. Um, well, it depends on what the the the topic of conversation is. There's any number of things that we could be potentially talking about would that could be efficiencies gained, but there

perceived differently though. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know if there was like past history, but No, no, I don't I don't have a particular thing that I'm saying would be a problem. What I can say is is that um anything we share with the county or we entered in a partnership with the county on um could be perceived as a diminished uh level of authority that we have because we're now sharing it and it isn't just us deciding for ourselves. Now we have to share in the decision- making. Um and so that yeah there's going to be people that aren't going to like that. Got

I agree with you though John. I mean there the cooperation between surrounding communities um at least in my time on the council we haven't seen it from our side. I suspect meetings have happened in the past but we've not we've not generally been privy to much of that. So I I can tell you I've laid the groundwork for us to have all these conversations with them with every one of those that are listed here. Right. Um we just have to we just have to um Island City's got some current challenges that are making it a little bit difficult, but they're on board. Um the county I've talked with all the commissioners, they're on board and I've spoke with the sheriff and they're on board. And what I mean by they're on board is they're on board for the conversations. Right. That's a start. Mhm.

I would I would put though like that but more internal um you know cooperative efforts between the city and major employers and entities like the university, the hospital. Yeah. Um, you know, we we have many large employers and and there have been some efforts made, but I think many have commented uh you you almost wouldn't know that Lrand is a university town. You go to most university towns and you know they're university town because it bleeds all the way through the community.

It does not here. has been talked about ever since I've lived here. But that remains, I think, a tremendous opportunity. I've also had conversations with EOU for us to get together with them and do this exercise as well. In fact, I think we're programmed to do it in February. That was just the soonest that their schedules were going to be at a low enough and ours because we're January is going to be a crazy month for us. Um, that's just as I know it. You guys probably know better than me. Um, but fe February we'll get together with him and have more conversation on it.

Um, Tim Cidell is the one I'm doing most of my coordination and I've met with the president as well. Um, anything else? Anybody else in mind? anything from the previous two that we think should carry over to here in some way or another. What's that? Put that. I'm sorry I can't hear you. Put that guy right here. Offering to hold it. I'll hold it. There you go.

All right. threats. What do you see as threats if we do not um deal with the the reality um or deal with something um in any particular way? If you would explain the context of what you see is what the threat is and what the context of the threat is. Long-term financial picture. Yeah. Yeah. That's number one. Number one number one on everybody's list. Yeah. 100% agree. I also think um some sort of a natural or unnatural disaster, fire, train derailing and blowing up

or you know like housing is a threat. We don't have enough of for the workforce. So therefore then then you follow with workforce is a threat. We don't have workforce is definitely a threat.

Yes. Um, one of the things I heard that um was logic that was offered in regards to uh why one of the pieces of why Amazon wanted to remain quiet for so long um was because um they recognized that they were going to be pulling from our current um workforce in order to be able to employ their people, which then meant some employers were going to lose employees most likely um in order to to get people going over to that to work for them. And so that's that I would add to the threat of the workforce being we don't have we don't have enough to fill what we have.

Um and uh let alone when we have technical positions. um we have to sometimes accept um a lesser capo a lesser qualified person for positions and then build them up into the grow them into the position um because of that that lack of applicant pool whereas you go to the larger cities and of course you know the conversation we have when we go into these these uh what do you call it collective bargaining um the organiza our employees always want to reference these larger cities as being the comparison which is yeah they can go there it's going to cost more to pull from too

right but they have a larger pool to pull from and so it's just a really not so cool reality go ahead I was going to say so that means another threat would be our lack of economic development so that kind of goes hand in hand with the other things I'm sorry no you're you're I also think um drugs both illegal and legal hospital. You have to pass a drug test and we have trouble finding entry level people, non-professional people who can pass a drug test.

I was told that three major employers within the last 5 years suspended their previously required drug tests because they were unable to fill enough positions when they did the drug testing. Too many failed. the mills are I heard that Walmart did as well. Yeah. Because they couldn't fill their positions if they did drug testing. Yeah. Um so major issue I John I think one that we have to be aware of here is that um you know as you mentioned one of our great strengths is our staff

but our staff also um you know this is a threat because uh you know planning department is two individuals right? We're we're looking at um you know financial so to lose any one of our directors or other upper level staff is a is a big deal. Yep. And so on a city level that's a threat.

100% agree. um just to add to the nuance of that too. Um Mike Pino, I'm going to throw him under the bus um for it. He's 5 years out from his intended planning retirement date. um in order for us to be able to get somebody to be even half as smart as he is at that a couple years out from his retirement date, we're going to want to have somebody there that we can train. But our current without risk, our current fiscal reality isn't allowing for that.

Um and so if we want to try and mitigate that problem, we either got to get more money coming in or we're going to have to figure out where we're going to be willing to accept risk. Right. Well, it was have to say you can't retire till you're 80. I mean, that's I've told him that, but he just like he is now. He's laughing at us. Yeah. But but yeah, I mean, but really though, because we've had such good staff who are so skilled for so long, it unfortunately also creates a threat that that when they go, you lose institutional knowledge. You cannot recover for years. Um,

did that guy retire from his sewer sewer? I don't know. Is it while Oh, no. He hasn't retired yet. He hasn't. No, he hasn't yet. What about like cyber security? Uh, for for threat threats of having our city services uh held hostage. How much of our city's services are online are reliant on pretty easily? Yeah, I was think I mean you can't run your office without your computer. We can. You can. Sure. We live by We couldn't access private things, but

Yeah, we could. We do it. We do everything we do without computers. Oh, you do? I'm impressed. No, no, we don't. But we could. Yeah. I just say because they couldn't our computers would Mike have access to, you know, all the information that he needs to do his job.

So, we just had this conversation um last week. Um, you'll hear more about this later, but uh, our IT department came back to us with another hefty bill that's coming um, in regards for us to be able to set ourselves right for all the things that need to be done. Um, and as a the staff um, unanimously agreed like this is like absurd. It's ridiculous. While at the same time, there's literally no way around it. Um, short of going to like what you're saying. Um, and that that's just not in this world today. that's not just not possible. And the reality of it is is the people that we're we we create our own problems by um Microsoft is a great um tool for us to be able to utilize, but we're dependent on it.

Um and so now now to transition to something else um is like seems literally impossible. Our current IT is not delivering the services in a very good way in my opinion either. I don't think we're getting our money's worth. I and they're asking for more. That's another topic. We can Yeah. Yeah. I'll leave. It's it's a it's a hard subject. It is. But Eastern Oregon is a problem on many fronts.

But I'm not in disagreement with you. I I think you know a threat that we're all looking at is you know what what happens in the modern economy with job displacement. Um so you know I I have in insights into some fairly large companies who were talking about you know 20 30% workforce reductions in some sectors that are being replaced by computer technology right and um you know thankfully I think we're a little bit insulated from that just with the nature of of our local workforce but we're not entirely insulated from it right

and Yeah, it's a little bit different, I think, than the than the other workforce that we're watching. This is this is a threat of actual Yeah. replacement. Yeah. Just jobs being lost because they're no longer needed. Mhm. Yeah. Um just so that you guys I'm being transparent with you guys. I wrote over here on opportunities grant writer. It's something that we'll that I plan on talking to us about further um in our coming sessions.

Um but I I feel like we have some great opportunities there, but it's going to take some cradle to grave work. Um all right. Any uh anything else that anybody else wants to add to the threats? I don't know that it's necessarily is a massive threat, but we have aging infrastructure. Yeah. You know, maybe that ties more into long-term financial or something like that, but equipment and stuff. Would you include that? Yeah. As well. Um, let me ask you guys this too. Kind of things.

Just that you kind of stirred a thought that's loosely related to that. Um the way our laws are written right now um we put a lot of onus on the residents for things like sidewalks. Um it's a responsibility that they have to do it. And we can see that as we look around that's not a priority for our for them and understandably, right? If they're going to have to spend money somewhere, they're going to spend it somewhere else. um maybe it's not not necessarily it's not a threat, but when we're talking about the BLE topic, um if if we are if we know that our community isn't going to fix the problem, then what do we do to fix the problem? Um and I think ignoring it isn't isn't isn't going to help us.

So, I don't know. Um, well, take for example, say the sidewalks where the weeds are growing over the sidewalks. Who would who would fix that? Is that over? No, I'm talking about like on the like code enforcement type stuff. Yeah. Is that like since it's on the main drag, is that ODOT's responsibility or who does that fall onto? Um, I'll have to do some more research to be able to to answer the question specifically. I I'm thinking since the residents are responsible for the the sidewalk then that's going to make um them responsible for the the the overgrowth as well or the businesses. But like you said like over the overpass the sidewalks on the overpass. Yeah. I'd have to I'll have to look into that.

It's not going to be ODOT because they don't they don't do it. Yeah. I don't know. Well, they're public streets. I mean the city's streets. They're not except for Main Street or Adams. Yep. Yep. Um but co isn't okay. That's what um were we supposed to be done by seven? Yeah. I think it's up to you. Okay. Yeah, it's up to you guys. We can keep going. I think just finish it up. I think so. Okay. Um, so with your guys's uh willingness, what I'd like to do is is take the threats list here and I'll send it out to you each individually and then I would like you to rank order which ones you think are the highest threat and which one is the least threat. Well, I think we all agreed on number one. Yeah, definitely.

That's already our one. That's our number one. That and that that that's good, but I want to give us the opportunity to not be influenced by each other. Got it. um and uh and and then have a what I'll do is I'll take an aggregate and share with everybody what the results are from it. Okay. Um so that for the most part as far as I'm concerned I'll take this information aggregate it against what has come in from uh from the other sources that we've had. Um we have in the future plans to be able to do the same exercise with um these different um was it the other one? The other one. Could I add something on the threats? Yes. homelessness because we're still having Yes. Because we're having an issue too with

I mean, we took care of the parks, but now it's kind of a back seat and Yeah. about them camping and and um um RVs. Yeah. Parking and sitting up because that just doesn't do anything for the community. Agreed. So, I'll I'll do a summary up of what we um talked about here today. Um send out the uh some basic instructions in regards to the ranking of the threats. Um and then we'll revisit this topic again in the future when we come together for budget science. Okay.

Um which is currently scheduled for the 15th. And then um for those that are going to be in attendance on the 8th of December will be the uh personality um uh SDI that we're that everybody was sent out which we're we're closing in on the uh the completion date suspense on that. So if you need a link resent to you or anything like that then you just do it the one time correct. Yeah, just the one time. Okay. I think you just resent it to me. How do you think now? Yeah. Now I'll have mine. Yeah. It really makes you think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think I think when we do the exercise that we're going to do here, which currently it looks like my wife's going to do the exercise for us,

um, but when we do that, I think it's going to have even more value to you. It's it's a it's not that I'm Mr. Knowit all, but out of all the personality type things that I've done before, this is the the best one and gives you the most information that you can actually use. I did not like it. Oh, you didn't like it? Nope. Okay. I didn't either because the question would be how would you react to this situation? I'm like well if I were dealing with you I would do it another way. If I were dealing with my brother I would do it another way. If I were so I couldn't give I wouldn't a situational answer and I found that too that I didn't like it you know and then I whack my brother but I would never do that to anybody else.

You would think about it but you wouldn't do it. Yeah. That's actually really fair. Um, I went to a training and had these kinds of personality tests and they always suggest just pick one. Pick a lane. If you're going to do work, do work. If you're going to do individual home life, do that. Oh, through the whole thing. So, it's not all over the place, right? So, it was hard to I mean, I tried to keep it in my role here, but it's it yeah, it was kind of hard to answer. It was some of them were very hard, honestly. And I don't know if it reflects how I would actually react because I I thought I don't think I'd do any of these. There were a few of them that way. Yeah. So,

well, I appreciate everybody taking the time to be here tonight. Um, and I'll hang out here for a little while if you want to talk to me about anything individually. We'll see you guys in a couple of weeks. This was this was very nice. So, with that, if we have no more questions, I will adjourn the meeting.