City Council - Regular Meeting

I think Jefferson Jefferson Jefferson All right, there we are.

Wash. No, it's been in my car. Maybe is this the key? All right, we're there. We're there. Does it work? Yeah, it's still have my head pen. Yeah. He put him on everyone's face. All right. All right. Go for it.

Okay. Thank you. Um well, I call to order this meeting of the Lafayette City Council. Please rise for the flag. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. We do have some counselors on Zoom, so yell at us if I don't catch that you want to talk. Um, Kennedy, can you please call roll? Yes. Uh, councelor Pollson

present. Councelor Burroughs here. Councelor Carwell present. Councelor Goen here. Councelor Kit here. Councelor Mackey absent. And Mayor Minson here. Um, it was kind of hard to hear. Kayla, do you want to say something? See if it was just the one time thing or Yeah. Are you able to hear me now? Yeah, perfect. Just didn't want you to not be heard. Okay. Um, we are coming up to citizen input.

Okay. Um, citizen input on non-aggenda items. Um, I believe the first one is it Wendell or Wendy? I have Helen and I can't read the other starts with a W. West. Sorry. Oh, see, now that you said it, I'm like, "Oh, of course I said that." Um, so the way we do public input is we call you up. Please state your name and address for the record and um we give you about three minutes just to share. This is a time for council to listen. So, um, if Wes would like to come up.

Wes Anderson. My mom lives on Fifth and Market. I want to know why you're picking on her. Put a sidewalk in. I'm sorry. Can we She's a fixed income coming. You want her to spend a bunch of money? Put a damn sidewalk in. Put a sidewalk in or repair a sidewalk. Put a new Well, the whole you got to put a whole new path guy. Is it cracking or buckling or something? Yeah. Yeah. But she's on a fixed income, right? Is it a trip hazard? Is it maybe a safety hazard? Been the same way for 40 years. So, um, is this one of the ones that received

They were one of the residents in town who received um the sidewalk notice. We had about maybe two dozen or so and and that location was one of the ones who received the sidewalk notice to come into compliance by the end of the year. Forgive my ignorance, but will sidewalks be part of the city's jurisdiction? No. No. Um if we install them in a subdivision or developer installs them, they develop but we don't actually take take care of them. Okay. And we as a council a few months ago, maybe like months ago. Yeah. Gave um directive to Yes. We were just recollection of my we um were deciding if we were going to try to like buy some cement for people. Yeah.

Okay. Um yeah, I you normally during public input is not a time to like really dig deep into it. It's a starter to know that we've got a resident that has concern. Um I would like to follow up with you. I do know though that this is um if there's concern about you know being picked on that's some that might be something different than the um topic at hand which I know is a citywide um code enforcement um due to safety that it is um we had somebody fall within the city and get injured and um so it kind of came to light that we did have a lot of um sidewalks that for years have been not taken care of and the city hadn't followed up on that. So that's also why extra time was given. Um yeah, and I can follow up more with Brandon on your guys' specific location and then give you guys a call and we can talk a little bit more.

Yes. Okay. I certainly don't think it was our intent to cause cost people to have to spend a whole bunch of money to fix something. Don't have the money and go spend it. Did you get an estimate? No. No. We got a a letter a thing on the back door that said warning on it. Okay. I don't know who put it there, but it was about the sidewalk. Okay. That we hadn't complied. Well, it's it's also um Also, part partly for your protection, too. I mean, I'm not saying that it's all bad, but if somebody trips on your property, you're going to be liable for that.

You guys said over the years, it's not our property, but it's ours to fix. We said it isn't many times over the years. Who said it isn't your property? Yeah, city property. Why don't the city pay for it? Okay, we have to maintain the sidewalk. Even though they see our property abundance, we have to take care of that sidewalk. But if it isn't our sidewalk, as far as I'm concerned, I would like to take the sidewalk out and fill it on up with lawn grass

if that's an option. We can ignore if that's an option. I am not versed with H code or what um with the development clerk and stuff, but um let me talk with our city admin and his staff and gain as much information I can about your property and then I'm happy to facilitate further dialogue with the city and get a little bit more information. See what we can do specific. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. How long did you still want to speak or was that all No, that's pretty much Yes.

Um, Brandon, can we move the podium so that we can see the TV so that there's no way to see if our counselors Thank need our attention. Okay. Okay. Um, the others are part of a presentation. So, this is last call for anyone in the audience. Um if there is any other further public input. Going once, going twice, gone. We will move on. Um next up is additions or deletions to the agenda. Do we have any additions or deletions that need to be taken care of? We don't know about ma'am.

Okay. Okay. Then next up are guests um presentation for recology. So Brandon, I'll let you introduce some more. They can introduce themselves, but I recognize Dan.

Um I'll um Yes, Madam Mayor. Um so this is our annual report with Recology. um come every year. Um last year they they came a little late uh due to due to me but uh normally every April or May they come by they present their annual report for the preceding fiscal year and then that would um uh based on their report it would trigger their um allowance for a rate adjustment which you have later on tonight for resolution uh 2026-05. Um, so Dan Blue is here, the government um, relations advocate to kind of go over everything with recology last year.

Thank you, Brandon, mayor, members of council. Good to see you again. Um, I have a very brief presentation. Some of it might be a little bit um, of a reminder. Maybe there's some folks in the audience that haven't heard before, but I'll go quickly. I want to uh, you know, reconsider over your time this evening. So, thanks for having us here. Kade Klein Stubert's in the audience, our waist zero specialist. Just want to point point that out. I think some of you have interacted with him recently. Um so what we're doing tonight, if you can go to the slide,

I just I can talk through it. Um we are going to talk a little bit about the rate review and then uh I'll just do some highlights about ripcology and then provide some operations updates including customer service and then I'm available at the floor answering any questions that anyone has. So uh switching it up a little bit this year. We're going to jump right into the rates. Um, unfortunately, I am here uh to deliver the news that we're seeking a 3% rate increase. This is primarily driven by uh sort of the extraordinary uh unelastic fuel prices which are just going up. Um it's a big part of our operating costs. Uh and so we built that into uh our projections for this current cycle and uh it's a big hit for us. The 3% increase that we're seeking is uh pretty close to the 12-month year-over-year CPI, which I think is at 3.1% right now. Um, what this would look like, you could stay on the slide for a second. Uh, what this would look like is a 62 cent uh increase per month for the 32gallon curbside customer and $13 per month for the 90gallon customer, which I think is the most common uh garbage customer you have here in LA. the one that's weekly. The one that's

it's a weekly garbage every other week recycling. Okay. Monthly bill. Okay.

Uh and just as a review, the way we do this each year by uh April 1st, we submit to you an annual report, also a cover letter, proposed rates, and a third party rate review, which should all be in your packet. Um we take a look at actual costs from the previous year projections like fuel labor costs uh those kinds of things for the current cycle and then we see where there is a gap and unfortunately this is another year where there is a we're asking for a 3% CPI base rate increase. This will get us um close to or within the allowable range that's established in the franchise agreement. So with a 3% projected uh 3% uh rate increase, it would put us at 86.45 uh for our operating ratio. Side please. I just share this slide to highlight what I've already said which is that um kind of circling those rates for so you can see the 32gallon curbside cart customer and the 90gallon. Next slide. And this one shows what the impact would be for a twoyard uh commercial customer, which would be 681 per month. So there is that. Uh next slide, please. Just a reminder, we're 100% employeeowned company. Um we're we have people who live in this community. We have drivers who've been with this uh company for 40 years. We're very proud of that. Um next slide, please. Just a reminder that we serve uh much of Yamh Hill and a sliver of P County. We have transfer station. We have a compost facility. We have a collection company. Uh we serve all of those juris jurisdictions that you can see on the screen. Next slide, please. Couple of highlights about our outreach. Uh I know we just did a uh city cleanup day and then we piloted a residential curbside which had some uh wins and also I think we had some challenges uh which we are

taking notes on. I'll be working closely with your city administrator to see if the city would like to do that again uh next year and uh improve some of the coordination and also the messaging to some of the customers that participated. I think we served eight houses and there was a little bit of confusion about what could be put out of the curb and what couldn't and I think there was some confusion on our side about who was picking up what when. So I think there was lessons learned um but room for improvement. Uh also talk about some of the other things. I know we support the hill county fair. We've done a earth day poster contest which wrapped up recently. Some students from uh Lafayette uh did participate in that program. Uh each year we pick a winner and the winner gets their poster, their Earth Day poster put onto a t-shirt and it's handed out at an event at our transfer station which is pretty cool. Um and right now we're in the middle of doing interviews for our relatively new artist and residents which we picked two artists and we provide them a stipen out of our profits, not out of your bills. Um, we provide them with a stipen to take uh trash out of the transfer station that would otherwise go to the landfill and make art. Excellent.

Just some examples of the many pieces of garbage turned into art. And I'm really excited about the artists that are are going to be starting up soon this year. So, we have a good we have a good group to pick from. So, we'll provide more on that later. Not tonight. Next slide. Can't really see this very well, but uh recycling modernization act is in play. It took effect July 1 of last year. The only real changes for Lafayette at this point in time are that you have now the uniform standard standard statewide collection list for your recycling carts. What that means to you is that you can now put gable topped milk cartons. You can put the aseptic shelf stable uh containers like almond milk or um you know broth. Those can all go in the cart now. As well as n nursery pots. Uh, Oregon DEQ did decide to take aluminum foil and aluminum trays uh off the curbside list because it burns up when it gets recite recycled at the aluminum smelter.

It's okay. Nobody's going to date me for putting it in. I still do sometimes, too. It's okay. I thought this is one of the new ones. I was like, "Hey, do not put diapers in it."

No diapers. No plastic bags, no tanglers. I do want to focus on this one. This is called a recycle on center and it's a new depot that they're being deployed across the state. I think they're putting like 250 of them in across the state and it is a collection point for hard to recycle materials that you don't want to put in your curbside cart like styrofoam, plastic film, the six-pack rigid plastic six-pack beer holders and some other materials, shredded paper. Um styrofoam's not there yet, but they're getting closer to bringing styrofoam into this. What they do is they provide a shipping container at no cost to jurisdictions. If you would like to explore one here for Lafayette, we're definitely putting one in at the transfer station or at least uh commencement services at the transfer station. It's funded by the recycling modernization act. They pick up the containers, they empty them. Uh we don't have to pay for any of those costs. So, it is something for you you to consider and we'll talk more about that. Next slide, please. Couple of quick updates about customer service. I will admit uh three years ago our customer hold times when people called us were kind of atrocious. Um we have worked aggressively over the last 18 months to now uh people wait less than a minute on average to get a hold of someone and if they do get put on hold it's more like 30 seconds on average. And so this is a pretty big sea change. We're really proud of this work. Uh the second thing I want to share about customer service is that midsummer we are going to ditch our 40-year-old customer account system. And um sorry uh we're going to ditch our our ancient 40-year-old customer account system which is like a black screen with green letters on it for a modern uh customer account system. This is going to improve our uh timeliness and getting information back to customers when they do contact us. It's going to improve our routing of information at the curb. It's

going to improve our feedback to customers if there's contamination in their carts, etc. And most importantly for the customers, they'll have a much more streamlined and efficient building system. So, all of this is coming at midsummer. Uh we will provide not notice to customers and um go from there. So, wanted to provide those updates. Hopefully, we're cool with everything that's happened. Whatever. I don't um Okay, I think that is it. I'm happy to take any questions. I have a question. Um so, in 2022, gas was 528 a gallon and you were able to do the job for 9% cheaper and you're asking for another 3%.

9% cheaper. Well, here from 2022, you needed a bump, right? Yes. So back then it was 528 a gallon. We're we're up over 650 a gallon for diesel. I think fuel prices are up about 26%. Um I mean everybody's seeing it at the curb. Um it yeah it is what it is. So the the way the model works, we take all of our costs. Uh we take some projections about what the future holds and we're pretty conservative on the fuel. Um but we also have some labor cost increases and as well as cost increases in coffin view landfill. So those three things together um gets us to this point.

So just out of curiosity it kind of falls with us. You mentioned you know with the 3% that would put you in we talked about that percentage for the ratio. Yes. What just out of curiosity before the 3% what where were you at? was the without the 3%. Um I believe we're just outside of the allowable range. Okay.

And I think uh city administrator has reviewed the financial reports. And if you look at the one line item in the in the annual report, that is the revenue requirement. That's the new dollars that that 3% represents. So if you take that that revenue requirement number out, not asking anybody to do math on the fly, but that's how you arrive at what the what the ratio would be without that. Okay. So if next year the fuel has gone down, which this is supposed to be temporary, God willing, um will you refrain from increasing our rates then? Yeah, we will. Sorry. We will. Um

that's a great question. Thank you. Uh I would love to come to you one time and not ask for a rate increase. Trust me, I do this with 23 jurisdictions. The model um is evaluated by our internal folks by third party review. It is established in the franchise and your city administrator has reviewed it as well. I can't tell you what next year will bring. I would love to come here and just give you good news. Unfortunately, CPI has been 3%. Last year it was a little lower. The year before that it was quite a bit higher. We experience costs like every other nor uh small business, big business and the difference between us and others. Yes, customers don't have choice of who they who their garment caller is. We don't have a choice of who we provide services to. We actually don't have a choice on what the rates are. It's established contractually through our arrangement with the city of Lafayette. So,

yeah, I think I'll leave it at that. Um, do any of our counselors online have any questions? Okay, I have a question. Yeah, um bottom line 2025 the operating margin and the calculated operating ratio. Yep. Um I remember last year we we spoke a little bit about that and at the time raising rates um it seems like it's uh quite a ways away from what was projected last year. Yeah. And I unfortunately don't have last year's in front of me, but um I'd have Yeah, go ahead.

Well, operation marketable was uh 17.54 and calculated operating ratio 82.30. Okay. Either now I'm not a Yes, that's that's the actuals. That's the actuals. So I'm not an accountant. You you're either going out of business or you did better last year than you thought. One or the other. What? Tell me, tell me what you want. Yeah, we are not going out of business. Um, we did lands pretty good for last year. Yes. And it's outside of the operating real projection forward without the the actual number. Yes. For the operating ratio for going forward, correct?

Yeah. Is outside for last last year. No, you made more money than what you were um supposedly inside the 80 uh 85 to 95. Yeah, we were at the 82.3 last year. So, yes, we were So, you made more money. Yes. Okay. You made more money than you were projected to make last year. And why why why do you need a an increase this year if you're making more money than you did? Well, you seem to be sitting pretty good according to the numbers that I can see.

Yeah, and that's that's perfectly fair question and what I understand is that based on what we are have projected given the the changes that we've seen in fuel prices, cost of labor, etc. Without the rate adjustment, we fall outside that range. So, that's why the rate adjustment is somewhat um not automatic. it is articulated in the franchise agreement to to allow us to come for a CPI adjustment in these circumstances and so yeah may I go ahead

I I think the concern is um as somebody who does government accounting you want to try to try to be as close you can not really go beyond that obviously today we have a little issue but that's because of some grant revenue um what would stop ology from having projections every year that would then they turn around and they're out of that margin. Yeah,

we have we have no way to go back and say, okay, well, how do we recoup the cost the cost savings for the the profit growth from this if you're just going to have this set projection every single year? How do we ever recoup the benefit of the cost increase or the the revenue increase on on the end of ecology? Yeah. Is that what I'm kind of getting at? Kind of. Kind of. Um it just it seems like uh the rate increase almost seems automatic. Last year was 2.99 and this year it's 3.0 which is allowed that's that's allowed in the contract. I understand that. Yeah.

But if you're if we're going to justify it by numbers you're you're showing your numbers that last year's increase did what a increase is supposed to do. We made more money. They seem to be doing pretty good. ship sailing straight and this year we need some more money.

Yes, I I understand the concern. There's a couple things. Um within the franchise, uh the city could ask to do a full rate review, which would be a deeper dive rather than sort of the semi-automatic CPI based adjustment. That would be called a full annual rate review as opposed to just a franchise-based um adjustment. That is CPI. We are capped at a 4% on CPI. If you if we were to ask for some anything more than 4% at this point, we we would go into a deeper process of further analysis. The city also can look at the franchise agreement and see if there are terms in there that you're uncomfortable with. And I I think that's where we have done um what we normally do, looked at our actual costs last year, and yes, we made more money last year than the original projections. You're you're correct. Um we can't control all the factors about whether there was a construction project and we saw a bump up in uh Dropbox revenue. This year we're showing a projection for Dropbox revenue to go down because construction is slowing. So some of those things can affect a smaller uh jurisdiction like this pretty significantly in that swing. Um I don't do the numbers myself, so I'm here to report them. But, you know, there are some mechanisms within the franchise agreement to either do a deeper dive into our finances, like how we calculated those numbers um or make other adjustments to the terms of the franchise.

Well, I don't think the city of Lafayette wants to be good partners with you. I know I love people to come and get my garbage and haul it away. You know, it's a it's a it's a great thing, you know. Um, and if you're making good money, um, like you know, services could increase a little bit. You've done great on the on the whole time. I I had to make a couple phone calls over the year and it is incredibly better.

So, um, things are good. I just want, uh, the citizens to see the benefits out of working with a company that's doing well. Yeah, and I I appreciate the need for transparency and if there's anything that any questions that you have that I could take back to our finance team who actually run these reports, um I'd be happy to bring those answers back to you. Um we can I can work with your city administrator to do that. Um but again, I think there is yeah I mean there are variables that fluctuate year to year that we might not have anticipated when we came back last time.

Okay. So it's, you know, like with the fuel, I hoped too that it comes down in the coming months. I could get much worse. I don't know. We have no way to really project that. Sure. Sure. That's where we are at this point. One more quick question. Sure. And I making sure I know this because it might be something someone asks. So you talk about, you know, different cities that you service. So everyone didn't just get a 3%. Do you just did you just mention like that's something that could impact the small cities? Yeah. So does each city you readjust that within that CPI? Yes. Okay. Typically cities it might be getting less

for Recology Western Oregon both here in the valley and at our coast which we have 11 jurisdictions there. We use the same CPI adjustment. We your costs and expenses are are uh calculated individually. Um and so we try to we try to come in at a at a CPI that is reasonable across all the jurisdictions. Um we find that incremental adjustments help avoid the double digits. I I don't know if you saw Metro Regional Government for example today passed a 10% TIP increase which has ripple effects across the entire region. I know public utilities in many of the cities I've been at because I'm in the same meeting as those those agenda items are seeing pretty high utility rate adjustments and we're trying to be conservative. We're trying to continue to provide that good service but also prepare for future fluctuations and that's kind of what the CPI is built for. Yeah, I I wish I was the economist and I could answer maybe some of the questions a little better. But again, you have the tools and the resources to think deeper should you want to. If there are questions that I haven't answered, I'm happy to take them back to our team.

Hey, I do want to thank you real quick. This past year, I called you and I thought it was like your business like landline and I was going to leave a message. It was like after hours and you like answered and responded because oops, it was a cell number or something. So, I just appreciate you because I was like, "Oh, we can talk about it." And you were like, "No, we can talk now." So, I just I do appreciate that and my apologies. I thought it was my boss likes to call me at all hours, so I'm used to I appreciate it. Uh, thank you. And yeah, if there are any follow-up questions, let me know. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. So, um I think we talked about this later. So, that was just the presentation. Um, so introduction of new contract with city planner Holly. Is it Byum? Yes. Let's see if Polly gets on camera. There we go. Hi there.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. Just real quick, I wanted to introduce all the members of council and the community to our new uh city contract planner. As you all have been made aware, we're doing some um organizational changes in the community development area and Amanda is taking on a greater role um a leadership role and in that role we were looking for somebody who would work better with her. Um and um our needs going into the future of Lafayette um as you all know Jim Jax has been here over 20 years. He's been he's done a fine job and he will still work on some long range planning like we are currently doing with our transportation system plan. and uh our housing capacity study. Um but we fel felt that after, you know, two decades of giving some great work to Lafayette. Um it was time to maybe readjust um staff needs and the community needs um with it with a new contracted city planner. So um I wanted all to introduce you to Holly. Holly, take the floor.

Thank you, Brandon. Hello. Good evening, mayor and counselors. Um it's an honor to be here tonight. Um I just wanted to briefly introduce myself. I've worked as a contract city planner through the council of governments for about eight and a half years. I've served communities in Marann Pulk and Yamhill counties and um I'm looking forward to learning more about Lafayette um working with Amanda and Brandon and serving the planning commission and city council. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have, but I don't have a any additional presentation planned tonight. Don't think this was mostly just a meet and greet.

Yes. And I just want you all just to know just so if we have a joint session, we'll probably be having a joint session soon. Um you'll know Holly um Jim will be at the next city um the next planning commission meeting next Thursday, but um all of the um planning commissions going forward outside of the TSP and the HCA will be with um with uh Holly um as city planner. So I just wanted you all to introduce her. All right. Thank you. Thank you folks. Thank you. Have a good rest of your evening. You too. Thanks. Okay. So, now we are on to consent agenda. I'm looking for a motion. Page 23.

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Got it. Okay. I have a motion to approve that. Um, any can we call the roles? Yes. Uh, councelor Pollson I. Councelor Burroughs. Hi. Councelor Carzwell. I'm sorry. I wasn't able to hear. Councelor Carwell. Hi. Did you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Councelor Gogan. Hi. Councelor Kit. Hi.

All right. Okay, consent agenda passes. Next on the we're on to number nine actions. So the first one is a resolution 2026-04 general funds transfer fire department. Brandon, did everyone get the updated? Yes, it was emailed yesterday and there's paper copies for those in attendance. Okay, I will hand it over to you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So my my six uh budget shrink has come to an end. Um, not a bad thing. Um, we did get the OSM uh OSFM wildfire staffing grant. Um, and with the rec with the recoup of some of the con flag from this year, we did go over um we are um using obviously the revenue gain from the um con flag and the staffing grant to help with the costs of the overrun. Um, so we are asking um for the $15,000 from the materials and services uh to transfer over to the fire and uh the fire personnel side. It says 10.

Oh, this was the previous staff report. Um, yes, it's the um resolution right here. That's $15,000. And so $5,000 of that is coming from the FY2627 um grant. So the way the OSFM grant works and chief of s if I am uh mistating something it runs from uh May to October and we have to use the money by October.

Um we were originally trying to hold off until July. Um but with the fire season starting earlier um I did say okay well I'll use some of that 5,000 to cover some of the expenses in this fiscal year. So we'll have 30,000 less to use instead of the 35 next year. supply that's coming over here to help with the staffing. And then the con flag um overage was revenue that we already received. So it's a total of $15,000 that will be uh moving over for the uh fire to materials and services from materials and services to the fire personnel. So okay,

we have the money we have we're not expending additional money from the general fund. This is money that we received the revenue from the uh staffing grant and from the con flag um rollouts last summer. Okay. Is there any further discussion? Brandon, do I have to read? It's a resolution. Do I have to read any of this or we just pass the motion? Uh you can pass the you can pass it. Okay. So I move to approve resolution 2026-04 transferring funds within the general fund fire department. I'll second it.

Okay. I have on the table a motion to approve resolution 2026-04 transferring funds within the general fund fire department. Any further discussion? Okay. Um Kennedy, can you please call roll vote? Yes. Councelor Goan. Nay. Councelor Carzwell. Hi. Councelor Pollson. Hi. Councelor Burroughs. Hi. And councelor K.

Hi. A. Motion passes. Next up is resolution 2026-05 uh recology rate increase effective July 1st, 2026. I know we just talked, but Brandon, if there's anything further, you No, nothing additional. Everything in the uh resolution packet has the um information, the exhibits that will show the rate increase if approved and then all of the um contractual information along with it.

Am I based off of last year, so I could be mistaken? If we don't approve this, we kind of forfeit our contract. Well, we we would um we would then have to uh seek an audit um at our cost to audit the um the organization's part where um they're tied to us. Yeah. And then our other option is if we felt like it wasn't financially good to keep going, we could always look into a different company, but there's not many companies. Yeah. There's no other company outside of inter internally, which would probably cost a lot to start going. Well, I'm not saying that we couldn't find somebody else to do, but yeah. Okay. Um, any discussion on this?

I think it's important to note that they're not they're not asking for a full 4% increase.

This is lower than some of our other rate increases we're having to do. Um, so I don't think it's unreasonable. There's a lot more costs that go into this than just the increase in fuel. And so, um, I don't see why there should be any reason why this shouldn't happen. Okay. Can I I just want to piggyback on that as well. So, I know people were discussing the fuel costs pretty heavily, but honestly, some of the biggest expenses businesses are seeing or outside of that stuff like health insurance for employees. 3% is a pretty small increase considering what a lot of utilities and other service providers are doing.

I agree. Any further discussion? If not, I'm looking for a motion. I move to approve resolution 2026-05 approving Recology Western Oregon rates effective July 1st, 2026. Second. Okay. I have on the table a motion to approve resolution 2026-05 approving Recology Western Oregon rates effective July 1st, 2026. Any further discussion? Kennedy, can you please call roll vote? Yes. Councelor Burroughs. Hi. Councelor Carwell. Hi. Councelor Gilden. Hi. Councelor Kit. Hi.

Councelor Pollson. Hi. Okay. Motion passes. Okay. Next up is 9C, second reading of ordinance number 655 amending the LZDO to allow mobile food units in the C1 district. I just do you need anything to share? You can the reading, right?

Okay. The purpose of this is to conduct the second reading of ordinance 655 amending the Lafayette zoning and development ordinances to allow mobile food units as permitted use in the commercial core C1 district LA 2025-01. Does council object to reading this ordinance by title? No.

Okay. This is ordinance 655, an ordinance amending the Lafayette zoning and development ordinance to allow mobile food units as permitted use in the commercial core C1 district. Is there any staff updates or requested revision since our first reading? No, Madame Mayor, we had no requests come out of the public hearing. Okay. Um, is there any further comment from council? Okay. Is there any audience questions or comments? Okay, then I am looking for a motion.

I move to approve the second reading and adopt ordinance number 655 amending the Lafayette zoning and development ordinance regarding mobile food units in the commercial core C1 district and authorize the mayor to sign the ordinance. Second. Okay. I have on the table a motion to approve the second reading and adopt ordinance number 655 amending Lafayette zoning and development ordinance regarding mobile food units in the commercial core C1 district and authorized the mayor to sign the ordinance. Any further discussion? Hey Kenn Henny, can you call roll vote? Yes. Councelor Goen.

Councelor Kent. I councelor Pollson. Hi. Councelor Burroughs I. Councelor Carzwell I. Okay. Motion passes. We are on for discussions. Um Fire Capital Reserve Fund Brandon.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. So, I know I've been going back and forth the past three months with will he, won't he, will he, won't he? Um, we did confirm um this week at the bond council uh two things. So, we did find out when we originally sold the bond um in 2019 that we had to make we had either use all the money by 2024 um and members of the staff were not involved in the discussions with that. So, we had never actually looked at the bond sale. We did find out in the bond sale that we did have to pay some interest back on the what we've gained on the bond um in like 16 months. So, we'd have to make a check of about $2,000 out to um for the bond for overp payment or over um over um over revenue of the bond. There's a certain term for it. And so, but we did confirm uh with the way the language is represented and the way state law reads that we can use the remaining funds for the fire engine. So, um, that will leave us, if the budget passes next month, it will leave us with about $923,000 in there. Um, I know we originally put the extra $100,000 in there. And I would cautiously keep, I mean, I would still keep that in there. Um, because I know Chief has been looking at some fire engines and we've heard everything from 625,000 to 730,000. So, we have a little bit of wiggle room as we figure out the the bidsp spec, how it comes back by the time we get it, what this looks like. So, I think we're very comfortable be able to purchase a uh a fire engine in this next fiscal year. So, I wanted to give you that update. I know originally we can spend it, then we couldn't. We had to adjust additional money into the into the fire capital funds, then we confirmed. So, we have plenty of money. Um and so we we feel very comfortable going into next year we'll be able to purchase that engine.

And we confirmed it like in writing. Yes. Okay. Yes. Want to make sure that it wasn't like hearsay and somebody spoke at a turn and then No. Yeah. No. Jamie and I met with the bond council a few times over the past few weeks uh to to confirm it and we are all good. So, okay, that's makes me feel makes me feel a lot better because if not, we were just gonna have that money sitting there and then just having to pay back all the interest we gained on it. So, at least we put it over to the fire capital reserve fund and we'll be able to use it for the fire engine next next fiscal year.

So, sorry for some of the stress on that. Um, I tend to move quickly and sometimes I move quickly the um uh answers go back different format because I like to keep you all up to date on that. I appreciate that. Okay. Any further discussion? Yeah. Are you raising your hand or not? No. Okay. Sorry. I just had a scratch. Sorry. Right. That's the only reason. Okay. So, um we can move on then. Chief, you're getting a fire truck. That's good. She needs to find a fire truck. Yeah, that's it. That's what I meant by getting She's going to go out and test drive. Okay. Yes. Yes.

What's wrong with the fire truck over? it is aging out um and is going to become more um expensive than it is to to in order for it to work. So, it's considered like a classic if you look at today's vehicles. It would be um Chief, what year is it? It's uh 1999. So, it's getting harder to find. Keeps getting harder. How many? We have two fire trucks. The brush ray, right? Yep. I mean, how many times have you have the responded to? Um,

and we have to have two because um, one, if we only have one and something happens to it or it's not working, then we can't respond. And also the vehicle, the one that we're replacing gets moved down and our main one right now becomes that secondary one which also stretches its life expectancy. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And I'm sure if you have any further questions, Chief probably has unless you want to talk with Brandon or you're welcome to reach out to me. We can get those. I did a uh it's a very glance online of what a 1999 firet truck goes for. It's $7,000 maybe. A lot of cities buy them just to use in parades and such.

So they uh so it it really isn't worth a whole lot of resale value. But anyway, for me, like I said, I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking. I did a couple of different websites looking at different things. And it's uh it seems like it's it's definitely uh time to put it out to pasture. I shouldn't say that too loud. Not going to lie, not yet. It's almost time to put pasture once it's a lot of them that age are, like I said, just being used for braids.

Yeah. And as councelor Kit was mentioning the the parts become obsolete and then yeah so okay I hope I remembered everything chief shared me correctly regurgitated that correctly. Okay so we are on to department reports Brandon I will let you um facilitate the the department reports. Great. Um before I go through some um updates, uh Greg, can you just touch base on the um system overflow that happened? Yeah, so it wasn't wasn't an SSO, sewer system overflow. Uh it was a sampling mistake that was made.

Yes. Yeah, that was made back in March. Uh unfortunately uh some bottles got mixed around and we used the wrong sample bottle and so we missed a sample which put us into a non-compliance. Any questions? So has there been anything implemented to prevent this from happening again? Yes. So we did implement a actual work order that will populate uh every month so that this uh hopefully does not happen again.

And is was the mixup of sample bottles like a fluke? Yeah, to my knowledge we have never mixed up a sample bottle um in any previous uh months or years. This was um like a one-time thing. um my opinion it was just an honest mistake uh that was made by um staff but that but that member of the team has been held accountable so we we don't take the we don't take issues like this lightly especially from all the years that we had issues so um there's definitely accountability on on on public works team members when stuff like this happens so yeah there was there was there were some some actions taken as uh Brandon had mentioned

but Greg you don't see needing a change in procedure like how you handle things or No, I think if this was a fluke, the change in procedure was was the work order I think that we implemented. So, um you know, fingers crossed this won't happen again. I'll have to come to you all um for such a a mindless mistake, I guess, if you will. Um for lack of a better word, uh use happens. Bottles can get mixed up anytime. Yeah, most certainly. Uh, but we just need to pay a little more attention to which bottle we're driving and using. Okay.

All right. So, a couple things. Um, so I will be meeting with Kennedy and David next week to start going over the language for the city referral for the Canyon View Pump Station. Um, so I'm hoping we'll have some type of draft language for council to to digest in uh June. Um, and so normally what we would have to do is after we approve the language, we would have to actually put it out there, and correct me if I'm wrong, Kennedy, um, we put it out there, um, in August for a 30-day um, like appeal where a resident or community member can appeal the language on the ballot and then that runs to midepptember, Kennedy, correct? Uh, September 3rd.

September 3rd. And then, um, obviously if there's any issues with the with a member of the community having issues with the language, we would then revise it. um if the secretary of state felt it felt it was a warrantable change in the ballot language. So we'll be moving pretty pretty swiftly over the next few months to get this in front of you, get it to the secretary of state office and then get everything ready in time for voters um come September, October. Um so the ADA, so we had to have some ADA compliant updates for the website. Those are actually pushed back another year. Um, which is great because, um, we're actually going to be looking at, um, some different, uh, possibilities on what that looks like costwise. So, we'll be able to include that in the, uh, 2728, uh, fiscal year budget. Um, been speaking with the owners or the board of the WMAT Vineyard property um, north of town. And I know we mentioned it loosely in the past, but

behind 16th. Yeah, the one north of Morgan's Vineyard, right? um that's running east to west um from uh bridge uh towards Dunway. They are actively on the market looking to sell that property um with poss with putting the goal is to put some affordable housing there. I've talked to a few developers that they want me to get in contact with. Um and I'm also going to reach out to Sedcore who's our economic development strategic partner on trying to find them some people to talk to and who a developer who wants to buy it or a buyer who wants a developer. But um with the wine industry kind of um not doing as well as it had been in the past, they're looking to offload some land. So how big is that? I'm sorry to ask you that.

Um 20 48 40. Yeah, it's it's outside of our urban grow.

Yes. And so um that in emails in the past, I've talked about a possible land swap. The governor's office has been made aware. We've been talking about that property um since last year when the the the first initial developer came by and says, "Hey, what can we do?" And we left them a list of here's water, here's sewer, here's transportation, here's bridge street expansion, here's all this stuff. Um it it would be a costly battle um in terms of, you know, trying to make everything happen, but the governor's office um would be amanable to looking at what a land swap would look like similar to what Wilsonville did this year in the legislative session. They don't come a lot. Um, and they're very few and far between. But if there's an appealing case where that UGB land wouldn't be developed, which unless there properties are knocked down, those aren't going to be developed anytime soon, we may be able to do a a UGB land swap for a land that's already ready to come into the city. So that's probably going to be a five or six year process, sevenyear process, but um the foundations are starting now. This can be the next mealbrook. Well, I just want to say it's the next

Well, in terms of the next development, the next development coming into town, the next widescale development, I'll say that the next big growth of town.

So, uh Madison Street work will start on Monday the 18th. Um this is the street work that was approved um with the bid uh the bid process and um we'll start seeing all that work done. Um I do want to shout out to Greg's crew. Um, we found some, um, storm and water line work repair that needed to be done. Um, didn't contract it out. We did it, uh, internally. Uh, Chris, uh, who's one of our new employees, uh, took it by the horn and pretty much got it all completed back against the wall. Got it done this week, um, before uh, Bridge Street work is getting done. So, kudos to Greg and your team for working super quick on the on the storm water line on Madison. Yeah, that was all our staff that that did all that. very soon.

Sure.

Um, uh, bingo's tomorrow. Um, we are also getting our first professional wrestling event here in Lafayette, uh, August August 30th at 3 p.m. P Wrestling will be coming wrestling um, outside at Common Park. Um, I've been to a few of their events before. I think this can bring two to 300 people in town if it's marketed right and um, depending on how they price it. Um I uh I have asked a member of the community um and Mayor Malcolm said to help kind of facilitate just discussing with the business community how we can kind of make this a successful event for everybody in the community. Um I know they're looking to get into the into this part of the in this part of the area. So I'm excited about it. Um and so with work being started um you all remember the email that I sent over about the Madison I mean the um Veterans Park work. Um we had a challenge to the bid process. Um David did agree that there was a an issue of contention and instead of trying to fight it in court just to go back out and bid it. Um so those bids will come back to you next month in June. Um that may give us an edge. We may be able to get pricing cheaper since the the previous bids were kind of uh are there and accessible. Um, one thing that we didn't really felt that we needed to navigate that we would have to navigate is I thought we were exempt from certain flag pole uh zoning laws, but we are actually a part of those. So, um, I would actually be seeking a variance for the city on behalf of the city for the flag pole at Veterans Park. Now, with that, I would be going to the planning commission, and I would have to um approach the planning commission on why the the a 70 foot flag pole would be needed versus what uh a 42 foot would

be, which um a major variance, a minor variance would be about 20 to 30% of the total area. And so without the so currently right now it's 20 it's a 20ft cap. We look at about 20 uh 42 ft is right now where we'd be able to go with a minor variance but a major variance we would would actually be needed for the 70 ft. So I would actually have to go with the planning commission. I would ask a member of the city council to join me for that. Um and we would have to um lay out a case on why we feel that this is um an item that needs to be a variance. So, um, the minor you can

the minor I can sign off on, um, a major we would actually have to go in front of the planning commission. Um, we are I am working with Holly to see if there's any exemptions that we can maybe possibly carve out to not have to go for variance. Um, this is completely on me, complete oversight. We when we were talking this whole process of the design and the and the and the planning and the zoning, it was an assumption that we wouldn't have any um zoning issues with this, but we aren't going to have to seek a variance to to go to the 70 feet. So, I um I'll be working with um the planning commission on that. It'll probably go at the June meeting for the planning commission and I'll talk to them and see if they feel that the variance will be warranted. So,

um question on that uh when the bid goes out, is it clear that uh that light bulb uh needs to be an interior hailard? Because we did talk about residents, we did talk to the Yes, it it was going to be a change order at the last meeting. was mentioned that would probably be a change order. Um, and lastly, I would just like to suggest that you take councelor Gilgan to that meeting. I made the same suggestion to Brandon, too.

Okay, I will do that. Um, and then lastly, um, I know this is more of a personal thing. Um, Brandon Jay is graduating high school. Uh my son Brandon Jay is graduating in about two weeks and being a city manager's um uh child is very hard. I'm not saying it's not hard for members of council or a CEO of a of a Fortune 500 company, but um he's moved around quite a few times um for me to get my feet wet in the position coming to a place that I love. And I know it's been hard for him um to adjust and it took him a while. Um he's thriving now. Um, but um, I just want to apologize for all the moving and the stress I put on you in your high school in your high school career. Um, I love you, kiddo, and I'm proud of you. So, um, thank you for sticking with it and being a great kiddo.

Congratulations on his graduation. He's going to go do great, wonderful things. Okay, so that's all for I mean, not Congratulations, Brian or Brian. Brandon Jr. Mayor, can I interrupt a second? I add something for the public works report if y'all don't mind.

So, my apologies y'all for not uh catching this uh earlier when I spoke. It was brought to my attention uh by council burrows. Thank you councelor Burroughs. Uh there was a a minor mistake made on the current city consumption. Um after looking at it, it uh mirrors previous month consumption. Uh the actual city consumption for the month of April should be 7,778,992 gallons if you can make that correction. Okay. So then the city distribution percentage would actually be would change to be reflective of that.

No, because if uh my spreadsheet's not attached to this, but if you look at the actual spreadsheet that calculates out the uh percentage loss, uh that consumption is correct on that sheet. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for catching that, Council Gross. Got it. Okay. Um, so then we're on to council reports. Uh, Council President Pollson, anything? No, not today. Councelor Gilligan, nothing for me.

Uh, Council Carwell, Council Burroughs, um, we'll apparently wait for councelor Khill. Um, Unless we just skip over I suggest we just move to mayor's always check with her later.

Okay. And then councelor Mackey is not here. Mayor's report. Um thank you to the public works team for all the work they did in Okay, I'll pause. Councelor Hill, did you have anything to report? Okay. Uh, thank you uh to the public works team that not just came in on a Saturday to run the recycle, but um I was very impressed with the upbeat positive um attitude and um also thanked to you and another staff member who found some volunteers for for it from their family members. Um yeah, so thank you for that. Um, also it's a weird thank you because it's kind of myself but not really. Um, thank you to uh Northwest Christian Church that um chose Lafayette for a service project and they donated all the paint and supplies and the manh hours um the community center interior is now um repainted um kind of where Brandon gave a shout out to a family member. I would like to thank my husband who the majority of that work ended up falling on him after the team uh was not as large as expected. Um so thank you to my husband who gets wrapped up into fun events. Um he put in probably about 14 hours of work over last week, two weekends ago. So but the community center is starting to look really pretty. Um I have scrapped for this summer the idea of a movie night. Um, I agree that it's a lot of money and I just don't have I was up against a time clock to make it work for this summer and I'd rather do it correctly and find um maybe sponsorship for it so that and then knowing that Brandon was working on a wrestling event, I decided to instead

of dividing conquering my energy for events that I would um pour it into that. and Brandon and I are also discussing what we might be able to do um him and I boots on the ground for this summer for um the youth in town. Uh the bookmobile is returning um and um more than ever I think it is important that we without spending money that we don't have um support the youth in this town. For those that are not aware, um there was a large altercation at Joe Dancer Park recently that um involved um students of McMinnville High School during um school hours uh minors and one was um injured through a gunshot. And then also there have been a lot of arrests and um I do know that some of those um involved do reside in Lafayette and so I just want to share that and remind us that we as a small city we're not immune to some of the stuff that's happening at the large scale. So um other than that I'm looking for a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn. Second. All in favor? I meeting adjourned. Example.