City Council - Regular Meeting

What are we doing in these job descriptions? Okay.

I hereby call this meeting as a Lafayette City Council to order. Please stand for the facts.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Kennedy, please take the floor.

Okay. Well, we have

So let's continue on. Now comes the time of citizen input on non-agenda items. Stuff that has been submitted to you as part of your guys' consent agenda. So we're looking for any input from the public. I didn't see any on the sign-up. So this is last call. If anyone in the audience has anything they would like to share. Okay, then let's move on. Is there any additions or deletions from the agenda?

No, Madam Mayor, but there was a grammatical error in the meeting minutes from last month. Councilor Gogan let me know yesterday, and we revised the minute meeting, the minute, minutes, the meeting from last month, and we sent them out to you, and they're in front of you. You can still consider them part of the consent agenda unless there's something else that needs to be pulled.

Okay. With that, we move on to the consent agenda. I'm just looking for a motion.

I'll move to approve the consent agendas.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Oh, sorry. Well, since it's a consent agenda, I'm with you. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. Consent agenda passed. Okay. Now we move on to actions. Sorry. Actions number 6A. No, that's 7A. Ordinance number 657, granting a non-exclusive gas utility franchise to Northwest Natural. When we get to it, be aware that we have to do a public hearing before we go to vote. Brandon, your report is that you just started the public hearing. Do you want to start with it?

Oh, I'm just letting you know. So this I know we've had some issues with the franchisees franchisee agreements recently, but this one I completely dropped the ball on January 2025. I emailed Northwest Natural saying, hey, this is coming up here soon. Didn't realize till about last month when Kennedy's like, hey, Brandon, what's going on with Northwest Natural? It's been expired. So this one's completely on me. I take complete fault for this. I did reach out to them. We did work with their legal team and David's legal team on just some grammatical stuff. But in front of you today is the non-exclusive franchisee agreement for Northwest NAPSA to continue providing gas services in town.

Okay. So with that, I'm going to open the public hearing. Opening this public hearing, the purpose of this hearing is to conduct the emergency reading of Ordinance 657, granting a non-exclusive gas franchise to Northwest Natural and for the City Council to consider adoption of the ordinance. And now I get to read it in full, lucky me, but it's only a half a page. Before the City Council for the City of Lafayette, Oregon, an ordinance granting a non-exclusive gas utility franchise to the Northwest Natural Gas Company and fixing terms and conditions in compensation of such franchise and declaring an emergency. Ordinance number 657. The City Council of the City of Lafayette, Oregon, the Council and the City, sat for the transaction of business on Thursday, July 9, 2026, at 6.30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Recitals, A, whereas the current franchise agreement with Northwest Natural Gas Company, or number 575, expired on July 18th, 2025, and B, whereas the city wishes to grant a new franchise to Northwest Natural Gas Company, C. Whereas this ordinance being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety of the citizens of the city of Lafayette, an emergency is hereby declared to exist and this ordinance shall be taken into effect immediately upon its passage by the council. So, are there any conflicts of interest? And I open this public hearing. Is there any public testimony? Then I close this hearing. And now I will facilitate council deliberations if there are any. If not, we will be seeking a motion.

I move to approve ordinance 657 granting a non-exclusive, sorry, natural gas franchise to Northwest Natural Gas Company and waive the second reading pursuant to chapter 8, section 32 of the Lafayette City Starter. I'll second it.

Thank you. I have on the table a motion to report in 657 granting a non-exclusive natural gas franchise to Northwest Natural Gas Company and waives the second reading pursuant of Chapter 8, Section 32 of the Lafayette City Charter. Any further discussion?

Kennedy, can you please call roll vote? Councilor Burroughs? Aye. Councilor Cresswell? Aye. Councilor Gauden? Aye. Councilor Kitt? Aye. Motion passes. Moving on.

7B, RES 2026-12, Request for Ballot Title for City Referral Initiative. Brandon.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So after last month's discussion on the 805 ballot title form request, David went back, sent it over to myself and Councillor Gilligan. I don't know if Councillor Gilligan had any time to dive into it and went back and forth a little bit. He was concerned about some of the directives in the ballot title. We need to have one thing we're voting on. And there were just a lot of confusion looking back at some case law on... Grant and expenditure. And he felt that it would just be clean to address just the expenditure side of this in the ballot title. And if approved by council, what happens is this goes out. Kennedy and David will have to make sure it gets to the proper notification process. So there's no public, no public protesting. If there's no public protest, we would then come back and then we would draft the 500 word exploratory statement that would go into the voters pamphlet. So the voters would be able to have, they'll see the ballot title. So the 802 would be on the actual ballot. 805 is on the actual ballot. 802 would actually be referenced in the voter pamphlet so 500 words that's we can talk about the more about the grant the funding from the sdc's um utilize you know just the deferred maintenance that had all these things that we could kind of talk about and tell a story that would be the next process after this if council approves this tonight via resolution And so the wording before you, we also have the Kate, we also have the Multnomah County case, which David wanted me to put as part of the packet, just to kind of see a protest that hadn't been done before on ballot titles.

I know that you answered my question right there and earlier this week that we've got to have the grant in there. Always support keeping this as clean as possible since we have chance later on to dive into.

Anybody have questions about it, Andy?

I think it's a good way to state what we're looking for and then to explain what we stated, what we're looking for.

And I know the last line is concerning because it anticipates city funds, or the grant funds, but the grant funds are contingent on the vote. So I can't say, hey, the city's getting funds, and then it denies, well, I thought the city was getting funds. No, no, no. So we have to be very careful how we word things because we have to go by state statute, and if there's anything that could be protested, obviously then that invokes us on a shorter timeline, but also then we've got to stop paying money for David and building the case for any protestings.

The only reason that concerns me is the whole anticipating funds when the inner time came through. That was one of the big spins was, oh, we're anticipating it, we're in grief, but there's no other way to word it.

And I am just looking for a motion.

I move to approve Resolution 2026-12, authorizing the publication of the proposed ballot title. And notice, Proceeded from November 3, 2026, can you give Comp Station a ballot measure?

I'll second. Okay, I have on the table a motion to approve Resolution 2026-12, authorizing the publication of the proposed ballot title. And notice, a receipt for the November 3, 2026, can you give Comp Station a ballot measure? Any further discussion? Kenny, can you please call the roll?

Councilor Carswell?

Aye.

Councilor Govan?

Aye.

Councilor Kaye? Aye. Councilor Burroughs?

Aye.

Passes.

Okay, on to 7C, IGA with State of Oregon DOT for Transportation Growth Management Grant.

Brandon. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this IGA was drafted from the state. David and I reviewed it. It's pretty boilerplate IGA when it comes to the state's grants, when it comes to the TGM program. And Obviously, when we applied for the grant, what, about a year and a half, two years ago, it was already stated that we would be using staff time and the city contract planner as our matching funds. So when it talks about the match, that has already been communicated and approved as part of the grant process. But it has to be outlined as part of the background, and there's full transparency there. Executing this officially starts the TSP process. We've done a lot of scope of work, legwork, what we want to look forward and obviously you can kind of see as part of the attachment what all the work that's going to be done. I know there may be a question, oh, well, in the IGA, it says the city is going to be responsible for any overages that won't be expended by the grant. Matt, who also was a project manager for our reservoir project, me, him, and Jamie were always in constant communication about labor and project costs. So I can tell you right now, once it gets to a certain level, the state and I will just cut it off. But the state has worked with this contractor many times, and they've never had to go over their allocated amount unless it's something drastic. Just to be clear, total purchase price is paying for what? You mean in terms of the grant match? Yep. City staff time? No, no, no. And the city contract plan?

The total price being paid by state and city. But what's it mean?

Oh, the consultant to do all the work. And to do all the engineering studies, the traffic studies, all that information.

I'll be clear. So you're just paying for $200,000 for consultants? Yes. Yes. Okay.

I have a quick question too. As we're reporting our costs for our part and they're April 30th, July 31st, October 30th, are they approved at that time or is it going to be gone back through after everything's said and done? Once we turn things in and they're approved, are we good?

We'll get milestones. And then so we'll have to put like my time, Amanda's time, anytime that Kennedy or Greg use, Jim Jack's, anybody's time that we use, we'll make sure that it's verified. And then we would send that to the state. Here's our match for this quarter. And then they would line up our match with what the consultants, where the scope of work is and where their milestones are at. They'll make sure that they're financially lining up like we would for any other project we do like Madison Street or Bridge Street.

But I'm just thinking, is the state going to say, OK, that's acceptable. We accept what you turned into us. Yes. Or this one's a little, this one's not acceptable. And we'll know right away. Yes, yes. Matthew was very good with Jamie and Matt when it came to the ARPA. But just to say, are there any surprises come at the end and we're all done? And they say, oh, no, not this one, not this one, not this one.

I'm like a construction project where there's change orders. If we're saying, hey, we're spending too much time on this or there's not enough substantial data, we can kind of shift that priority. But everything laid out in the scope of work has kind of like the directives and like the goals of the whole program. It's all laid out.

So, yeah, that's OK. And are responsible 10 some percent. Being that it's quarterly, if let's say the first quarter, our expenses of staff time is above that. Does that factor in? Let's say it's 15%.

No, because we allocate how much time the staff can practically do this and how much time we're expected to do this. So all that is outlined in the grant match. So we like that.

You know, they're comparing their spending with our spending as we go. If our work was heavier in the beginning than theirs or vice versa, is it grand total?

No, it wouldn't be because we kind of give a max hour how much time staff would actually be allocatable to the project. And that was part of the scope of work. It's like, how much time would it take you to get this? How much staff time would be needed for this? The communications, the events. And then we say, OK, all this time. And then when we turn in the charts for our match, we'll have all those hours laid out for the state's forms.

Let's say hypothetically the state didn't decide to gift us all this taxpayer money to do this and the city decided not to do the TSP, what would happen? Like if we had not got this grant and the city couldn't pay the TSP, what would happen?

It would affect us for grants. It would affect also too as we start looking at the buildable land inventory and the housing capacity study. A lot of these projects would have been done later on because unless it's going to be a specific subdivision, the city is going to be on a lot of those traffic studies and a lot of Yeah. So it's, unfortunately, I think we've talked about this in the past when we were talking about the floodplain overlay stuff. We'd have to spend millions of dollars just to look at, you know, doing something at Terry Park because, you know, all the requirements from the feds and the state just to do, you know, a solo report. Just one of these, an added step when it comes to development and infrastructure projects.

Okay. Then I'm looking for a motion or

I'll move to authorize the mayor to execute the intergovernmental agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation for the Transportation and Growth Management Grant to complete the City of Lafayette's transportation system plan update.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Okay, I have on the table a motion So I'll try as a mayor to execute the intergovernmental agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation for the Transportation and Growth Management Grant to complete the City of Lafayette's Transportation System Plan update. Any further discussion?

Okay. Kennedy, can you call the roll, please? Councilor Kitt? Aye. Councilor Goggin? I'm going to abstain. Councilor Carswell? Aye. Councilor Burroughs? Aye. Motion passes. Okay.

Moving on to discussions, master fee schedule draft. Brandon, I'll hand this over to you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So last month in discussions, there was a directive to city staff to bring back what other cities are charging for their general fee master fee schedules. And as you see in the updated fee schedule in the olive color, you'll see Carlton, Dayton, Yamhill, McMinnville, and Newburgh. Oh, no, you have the big one right here.

Yes, my computer.

I didn't know you had a bigger one because it didn't have a print set.

Nothing's changed.

Well, what's changed? Did I clean the two?

No, nothing's changed. It's adding all together. It's just like a sales template.

No, I was asked to bring more data.

I'm going to take a moment here to announce a conflict. Okay.

Okay, so Councilor Pilken is taking a conflict. Okay, so Brandon, anything specific or are you just looking?

I mean, it's just more of a discussion point to see how we want to move forward. You can see compared to all the other cities where much cheaper in terms of the cost of doing business. But at the end of the day, it's up to the council if they want to move forward with this.

Just information, how long has it been?

I think I communicated last month. There were some that were over 20 years. I think the right-of-way permit hasn't been addressed since 1999. Some of these haven't been addressed in a long, long time. As we've been modernizing the fees and our rate structures, this is one of the things that when we're looking at how we can leverage future general fund monies, this is one of those ones that we're looking at how we can... strengthen the general fund without putting it directly on a rate payer. And this would be more user. And like mentioned last month, there was some concerns about the right-of-way permits. And Greg had mentioned, I think it was like 95% or so are coming in from PG, Northwest, Natural, Ziply. And they're not paying anything to do work in the right-of-way. And obviously you can see what these other cities are charging for right-of-way work.

And for the ones that aren't that, let's say Tone, let's say it's me, it... That comes into play, like that I'm doing a big enough project that I don't have enough space on my property and I need to use the right-of-way, whether it's to store material with permission and stuff like that, right? So the right-of-way doesn't automatically trigger.

Yeah, if you're building a new driveway or adding carpet guttering or... What else? What would something that would be part of, what's the smallest scale thing that a resident would probably need to get that for?

I mean, we've had as long as like just a resident want to put rock out in the right of way, take out their yard, put rock in there. I mean, do we charge for that? So like no digging involved in inspections required from the city to go and inspect.

Let's say I want the amount of yards of rocks for my backyard. If I don't want them to load it into my driveway in order to load it into the city.

That would just be storing it there. That's not an issue.

My driveway is fine. I'm saying if I didn't want it in my driveway, then it would trigger... Oh, I'm getting this load dumped off for a few days, getting the permit to use the right-of-way to dump it there.

No, it would be construction items. You're talking about storage, like storing rock. Anybody can store rock there with permission.

And building an extension on the back of my house and having them deliver everything straight to there and send it into my driveway. I could choose to put it into my driveway, but instead I'm...

Right? No. Construction. If you work in the right of way. If they're building a canopy, and they want to bring the canopy over into the right of way, that would be something like that. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Any type of digging.

I've had right of ways or easements, as long as they're accessible, as long as you're not blocking the access to that easement, and then it should be okay.

And there are, it actually came up this week where we've actually had to deny a right-of-way permit for somebody who wanted to do some infill in their stormwater system because there's talk, I mean, Gordon has mentioned, you know, within the next 10 years or so, we're probably gonna have to adjust the stormwater system. So if we do that, then we'll have to go in there and spend all this money to take all that stuff out when we have to go, to do any stormwater mitigation. So that one was, hey, this is going to probably happen eventually. It's going to be pretty costly for us to come in here and tear this up. You may want to do something more temporary. And I think that was kind of communicated to the owner.

It was a tough call to make. I consulted with Amanda and then we consulted with Brandon. We really wanted to give this resident a yes. But when you start working in an open ditch... wanting to reconstruct it. That's a tough one. Sure. I understand.

I just don't want to see RFDs get to McMinnville levels.

Oh, no, that's the thing.

We were just shown.

There's a lot more to manage in McMinnville and Newburgh, especially when it comes to right-of-way management. So those fees may be able to be justified if that staff feels that it's justified, but we're nowhere the scale and organizational structure in McMinnville is to manage right-of-way.

Okay, so the road is pretty much the only, is the biggest change that impacts the actual homeowner's checkbook. Now, a new resident moving in, obviously, the developer builds these fees into that.

I will say that we've had probably 4 inspections in the last 2 weeks. The contractors doing work in the right away. Super taps water taps that takes time out of my day. I've had Chris out there a couple of times. Our new supervisor. So that takes time out of his days, maybe some of that. do for our time spent out there inspecting their work.

And I think that needs to be said out loud, is that we need to recoup the cost of even providing these services.

And we've done that with our building permit fees the past couple of fiscal years. But looking at just the major variance, the major variance, there's a lot of work that is put into that. And we've been charging $200 non-refundable fee. And then you have your deposit. $200. I mean, that's Amanda's time, some paperwork time, and then we start getting Holly involved, and then we start getting David involved, and Gordon involved, and Greg involved, and it becomes a process.

I think people understand the concept of time. You can put it to them that way, not like we're not just... Raising fees for the hell of it.

Yeah, we're not padding our fees so that we can be so in the black as we head towards the sewer stuff. It's so that we're not draining our account. And we're not draining our people. Yeah, that is paying for itself. And it's also one of those things where it doesn't jump in some areas, but that's what happens when it doesn't jump for some years.

One inspection they wanted at 4 o'clock, which is after 3.30 when we generally leave So we always do the best we can to accommodate our contractors. We stay late that day to give them.

Over time or.

Yeah. And then if we like, look at the land use applications. So we talked about type one, type two, three, and four applications. All these things are done as part of the application process and they don't get charged. So we're getting Gordon involved. We're getting, you know, we're getting the contractors involved. We're having meetings on site offsite and yeah. Yeah. I mean, $0 is being put towards that effort. And obviously those type 1, type 2s, and 3s, those are going to be subdivision applications, applications like for Family Creek that just happened on Bridge. That was a type 2, I think, right? Yeah. I think it was. Don't quote me on that. Yeah, I think it was a type 2. Amanda and Gordon are working on it. It was a type 2 application that probably took 25 hours, $0 that went to it. So it's more about just right-sizing the general fund to recoup the costs that we're using, but also, you know, But all that really need here is a discussion. If there's anything that needs to be omitted upon council consensus, the goal would be to bring this back to council next month for a resolution and then hopefully address this every year, minimally like we would the building permit fee schedule. We could do like an every five-year thing, but we can kind of guise that after seeing how the first year or so this goes. Any concerns, any omissions, anything that we maybe want to discuss more?

Please, but I understand why we're doing it.

I want to thank you for the effort that went into making the comparisons, giving us some foundation to stand and see what our neighbors are doing.

I concur. I concur. I concur.

I concur.

Yes.

So we don't need a motion, right? No, no. I will. I will be moving. I will be bringing a resolution at the next council meeting.

Okay. Then we are moving on to eight B city hall. Random.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We've been talking the past few months now about additional office space for city staff and how that's reaching to the council room. Before you are too Very loose options. We've talked to a few contractors. Obviously, anything we do have to go out for a bid, but based on labor construction materials contingencies, we want to present two plans. Now, the reason why the second option is there is I think there was some discussion about, well, let's see a couple of options. The second option, while more preferable, it would mean a budget transfer. which is something that we may not be amenable to doing this year. But just the basic additions of pretty much extending that bathroom to being a second bathroom and bringing in two offices in this way would be the first option. That first option would dramatically cut down the size of the city council chambers, which would mean that we would have to do some just retrofitting at the community center to help with acoustics for city council meetings, because we wouldn't be able to hold court in city council meetings here.

or mining commission? Yes. What's the cost of that?

That one's roughly around $200,000.

No, no, no, no. Is the retrofitting of moving council chambers over to the community center. Is that part of this 200,000?

No, but that would be minimal. That would just be sets and soundproofing and working on audio and moving everything over there. The second option, which would, well, and the front office is getting done regardless. The front office will have an expanded window, a more permanent window instead of the one we had from the COVID era with the plexiglass. If you go to a bank and you have like the closed windows or the lock, we wouldn't have to use the gate anymore. We would have, it would extend out We would also bring all of the information that we have over there, like the brochures. It would kind of come out. It recessed. Yeah, it recessed. And then so we'd be able to serve more than just one resident or community member at a time comfortably. Because sometimes if we have one person here, one of us will kind of come around then like they're trying to have a conversation and we try to have a conversation. So it'd be a lot cleaner to have more than one conversation going on at the front at one time. And that would be the two rooms. That would be the top option. The second option includes two rooms, a little break room area because we all kind of eat at our desks. We don't really have anywhere to go. I mean, we can eat here, but if there's meetings, there's just kind of a free-for-all eating in the car or something. And then we would also, so we would make a little nook, break room there with a little added nook for if there was a meeting or somebody had to work virtually or say if somebody had, Gordon came by. Over here? Yes. And then we would add, we would then retrofit the sheriff's office to the other side of the city hall we would then we would then close off the bay area have two doors for ingress and egress and so then we would also have a better public facing for the sheriff's office or a future police department because then it would be direct access to knocking on the door ringing the doorbell instead of them coming to city hall us trying to get a hold of them so there would be more direct access for public safety all along here and we and we'd be moving the um But that would be moving the sheriff's office over there. And they will have a little bit more room too. I have also asked the sheriff's office if we're able to do that, if we can maybe get some financial compensation help along with that. That really hasn't really been discussed in detail because I don't know if that's something we're going to want to do or not.

I have many questions. I know you do. First of all, before I come over here, are you adding funding? Like, is there going to be a sink?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all this stuff, yeah. Well, no, it would just be a little milk area that we can kind of have, like a little seat and chair and have privacy to eat.

So it'd be like the fridge and the microwave?

No, not like a kitchen. It'd be like a break room, yeah. Small break room, and then it would also have a little area that if, say, Gordon was here or Holly came by, had to do something real quick, they could just kind of be right there and not have to worry about that. And then it would have the enhancements to public safety on that side.

How many bits have you had?

Well, we haven't got any bid yet because we don't want to go out for bids because this hasn't been approved by council. Let's talk about this. Yeah, so one contractor that we work with on quite a few city projects and then another one that was referred to us by an employee. So we just kind of said, hey, let's talk about this. Let's brainstorm it. The rough estimate numbers. Obviously, things can change with bidding. It was confirmed because I know there was some communication in the past about once you do anything over there, you got to do all this grandfather stuff. There's no foundation work. There's no structural work being done on the outside. It's all internal. So no issues with engineering reports, like any outside foundation issues, no issues that would...

But it wouldn't change this wall, which is a structural wall.

Yes, yes, correct. But we wouldn't do any major engineering like we would if we were doing a whole wide-scale operation. So we can use that. Yes, yes.

How much does it increase your capacity for personnel? The bigger one? Yeah, the bigger one. How much does it increase your personnel capacity? Or does it just make the current personnel more comfortable? It makes the... Both of them make it more comfortable.

Sure. The second one may be better for scale, especially with public safety, depending on what happens to public safety long-term, but also kind of gets more of a community presence on the police aspect, because a lot of times you can't access police, so... So sheriffs are contractors, they're tenants, right? Yes.

Love you guys, but 1099s, right? So keep that aside. How much does it increase our capacity for city employees in this building?

a net gain of, let's be comfortable and say two. Because we would be moving Robert away and Kennedy away. And so the customer service area would be much more flowy because we would just have our utility.

So in the future, we grow bigger and we need two more staff members in City Hall.

We're going to build the City Hall for that. Now, I mean, the second option would be able to make that happen. Yes, I honestly don't see how much more we can grow out of City Hall at the moment. I mean, I think it would probably take a significant influx of a need for somebody, but I think the way we have the current organization, I think I don't see any growth at City Hall for a long time.

Well, because it... Adding two offices here doesn't, for instance, the desk that's in the hallway now, from my understanding when Jamie walked me through all this, this wall goes forward a little bit in the hallway. So in the future, we can't put another desk. Correct. It goes away. Correct. It just takes that workspace and giving them an office. Correct.

Correct. How many square feet is this place? I should ask that. I'm going to defer to Greg. Greg, you know square footage. What would you say, sir? The whole place.

I'm going to say without the garage, and please, this is a guesstimate. Sure. I'm going to say maybe at best 1,000. And that's probably being generous.

No, no. Your square footage is going to ask for paint estimates. Well, you're bringing that up. So,

Two people seems like a bandaid fix, adding two seats, right? Because you could be well over that capacity in five years. I'm not trying to tell you, I don't want to be fixed. I'm trying to make sure we fix it on the appropriate scale.

Yeah.

Right. And I just feel like adding a net of two seats may not fully prepare us for future growth. Does that make sense? I completely understand that. Yeah. And I think you probably agree.

You're just trying to fix the issue that's in front of you. Yes, because I know no matter what we do, we're probably not going to get a voter approved bond anytime soon for the city hall. That's not the prerogative of council.

What are you really thinking about costs for bigger than, I mean, it's, I think it's more than a thousand square feet, but even at like 2,000 square feet, like, yeah, what did it really cost? So like, for example, There have been buildings that have gone for sale, the same one multiple times in one scenario right here on 99. What would it have really cost to acquire that building and then retrofit it?

If we're talking about the old one over here across the street that's now a Head Start?

I'm talking about one that now pours beer, but sure. And really good cider.

Yeah, my concern, retrofitting, depending on single story versus two story, because we wouldn't be able to access that second story with 88 stuff, right?

Yeah, but if the price is right, if we're talking about $600,000 to just fix this one up, and buildings have sold for slightly more than that in this area on 99 in the recent years, retrofitting for a second floor, if it's a building with a second floor, you're talking about $100,000 for an elevator, you're not talking a substantially higher cost for an entire new space that's way more square foot around.

I'm just still going here for more options. And I'm also thinking that a 600,000 based off of, My walkthrough, even just the numbers that were thrown out to me during that walkthrough was that even the 200,000 option, I was like, two to three, two, 250, 300. I was like, whoa, this just says 200. But if that's the starting number there, and then that's 600, my concern is that we're gonna open a can of worms with that big of a remodel, and it's gonna be more than 600,000. And if we can hit that million dollar mark, one, that's a lot of money, and two, that triggers

About, yeah, sure. So I think my thing is putting $600,000 into this building to add a net of two seats. If five years from now, we need more than two seats, and we have to do a bond measure, and then we sell this building, we might not get much more than $600,000 for the fiddlestick, and that's what we paid for the renovations, right? And that's where my concern is. I'm just trying to figure out how to most efficiently maximize space for growth, because your team might grow more than two people. But that's our best option. And we have to fix the meantime, right? If that's our best option, that is what it is. I'm just trying to explore what else might be out there.

And I completely get that. I just, I know we're, You know, I don't like to spend. And that's the whole thing too. We only have $350,000 really to make this happen. And if you want to make anything happen long-term, especially with the, and this council, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, no major park projects, no major projects until we get done with this wastewater. This is probably the only, I mean, it's to the point, I mean, I hate to say it, but like, I may have to go to the community center if you don't get any space. And I don't want to have to work in the community center, but like Kennedy, when she comes back from leave, she has to have her own room. For a variety of reasons. For a variety of reasons. And customer service is getting too tight.

Okay, so.

And I don't, yeah. But then.

The cheaper option, which puts, you know, bump here. That, from my understanding, is structurally the same, whether it's the $200 or the $600 option. I know that. The $600 option then, from what she walked me through, changes the front more because that space isn't needed by as many people. But structurally, this is about the same, either one. So if we did the $200,000 option, that still gives us in the future, we could still finish the rest as a second phase. We're not doing this and then, oh, if we had done... This looks the same, whether it's the 200 or the 600.

Option 600, we push this out because then we don't have to move over to the community center to have city council meetings.

Well, I to save my residents, you know, half a million dollars just to. Not even get more. Feats for staffing. I'll move my moody over to the community center for meetings.

Yeah, and I think, look, everybody here knows I don't like to spend the city money. I hate it. But I also want to look at the long-term benefits financially, not just the right now. And I think we're not adding seats. Out of the options in front of me, I won't say this often, the more expensive one makes more sense to me. Adding seeds makes sense. With all the projects we have coming up, and the city's going to grow and the staff will have to grow with it. And if we pour $200,000 in this and we don't get any seeds, where are people going to go? We're just going to have to do it again. I'm going to balance the two evils. Sure. Oh, no, look, you're doing a great job. These are good options in front of us.

You and I had the conversation of staffing and getting quality staff is hard i watch all the others i pay attention to all of our not just yamhill county but other how hard retaining staff is or drawing them in and if you're having somebody squeeze over a filing cabinet versus taking a job somewhere else so i get where there's it could benefit us for being a place where people do want to take the position

And I might be able to throw Kimmy on the spot, but I guarantee Kimmy would feel a lot better coming in every day knowing that she can unlock an office and she has things in her office instead of being right here having to listen to me when I'm trying to have her call home.

Office is, you know, luxury compared to like a cubicle, but that's not even a cubicle. That is a desk next to the small bathroom in the home.

Yeah, I wish we could actually get a ballot measure because, I mean, we're raising some of this stuff. What's it going to look like, you know? and then update City Pullman. Like, that's going to look great.

Yeah, but they're going to actually do a ballot measure. But it got turned down with the fire department the first time through.

But, you know, that's the way to go about it, to where the community is involved, we get what we want, and it doesn't look bad. It's not necessarily about what we want. It's more about what we need, right?

Yeah, and so...

I mean, I'm going to use, if I get for reference, I'm going to use McMinniple for reference. New failed ballot initiatives because over-building and over-selling what is needed.

Also very poor financials compared to that.

Yes. Yes. So I'm just trying to be mindful.

Yeah. No, one city, well, both of them threw in more than they needed. They threw in what they wanted.

I do. I just, I do think that this city over the last five or 10 years has built a better reputation for fiscal conservativeness. And we've done well with that. So- I think that when we go ask for money for certain things, it's need-based. It's not because it would look nice or because, you know, city beautification, keep that term. Or I wasted the money here and now I need the money for. So it's a need to service the residents, right? And so I just, I can't really wrap my head around the idea of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to not add seats, right? So if we're going to do it, I think we need to also have We don't have to look 20 years down the road. We don't need to add 10, 15 seats, but we got to add seats. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have mock-ups of this at all, like back and forth in drawings? I do.

So that you can visualize it? It may be information that if we get an out, It can be, I may have to share it with you all.

Well, what I was going to ask is, can I make some mockups and give you some ideas to see if we can maximize space?

How about I send counsel while we have? That's great. And then maybe we can talk about this next month again.

Sure.

Okay. Yeah.

This obviously isn't a no or anything.

I know, I know. I don't ever come to you asking for a role without really talking about it. So I want to make sure we talk about this and we curate it because this isn't just the city hall for the city staff. This is y'all's institution that we are taking care of.

And to protect you guys, I would love to see something in writing from the powers that be about touching that area. Yeah. Not that I don't trust you in sharing out. It's not going to trigger anything.

We can get something from Gordon.

I just, you know, I recently did an office renovation and I needed to have two seats and I added eight. Right. That's because I'm terrified of doing it and then having to do it again. I'm sure you don't want to do that either. Right.

or not be able to do it in like eight years or whatever.

I mean, the money's in the city hall fund. I mean, I would hate to transfer money from the general fund, but I mean, the money's there and I mean, models will use it, but I will share those drawings and then kind of go from there.

Quick question, a little bit off topic, but relevant. What happens during construction?

Um, we would probably have to, so the goal was, the goal was to do this when we had people on leave. So we could just maybe work up, we'd probably have emergency operations out of the community center. We'd probably do some, we could probably do some things virtually, but one or two people would have to be on site. Yes. Um, we were hoping to like do all this this summer when we have people away. Um, yeah. but like even if it was getting a portable office and putting it on com in commons or whatever to we we would make sure that the residents are taking care of it yeah yeah yeah yeah it was most likely from what they said it would probably be a week week or so of construction now three weeks yeah he said i can't see it i cannot change we've been told we can probably knock this out in a week as long as nobody's around no uh the big one No, the small one.

Oh.

Yeah, yeah, the small one they said about a week. Because it's just for circumstances and that.

So, yeah, you know, the big renovation would be, but they could do that in stages, right? That'd be impressive.

They said it wouldn't be that long.

But you're adding forms, right?

This one's being pushed out.

This one's pushing that way a little bit.

You can't physically move. This one would be more expensive because you're going to have to actually move the wall out, create the wall holes, create the space, create the little nooks. They may be optimistic to try to sell us on it. It's like a lawyer. You know how those lawyers are. They went one month.

I feel like I had that conversation one day. Okay. So this was this discussion that you feel comfortable with?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll get that information ASAP and then I'll send it over to you in tomorrow's notes or something.

Okay. So with that, we're on to department reports. Brandon, I'm going to hand all of number nine over to you to facilitate.

All right. Awesome. Real quick, there's going to be a new community development report, as you see, since Amanda's taken over code enforcement. I'm going to try to model something over the next few months that gets pretty consistently to how Greg does his public works reports. So the first one's there for you. One thing that we've talked with during the buildable land inventory and with Holly and Amanda and like the situation with the parks, none of our parks are actually zoned public parks or public zones. So one thing we are going to be discussing with all next month is maybe classifying all of our parks as public zones so we can protect those parks going forward. What are they classifying now? In whatever area they're in, residential too. I mean, it's a park, but it's not an actual zone. So Veterans Park is like an R2 right now. Does that have to start with the Planning Commission? We'll talk to you about it first. But the actual process? Yes, the process will be a part of that. And for instance, I mean, we're six, seven months out from that, but if Veterans Park was zoned public, a 50-foot flagpole would have been allowed. So we'd have to go for a minor variance, and that would have been able to be approved by staff. we would not be able to do it with right now but these are obstacles we're talking about obstacles about developing parks and protecting these parks so that in the 15-20 years somebody wants to sell a bunch of parks to make a homes we can maybe protect these parking to keep the parks there so it would help protect like your council can't just say you know what we're going to develop commons park into pretty much yes and then it protects wastewater it protects city hall um why would you want i guess i'm a little confused why you would want his own city hall that way No, a public, anything that's owned by the public, we would just, obviously, if we ever were to buy a public under the building, we would obviously make that zoning.

Yeah, I think what you just said triggered in my head the difficulty of the city. If they ever did move into a new city hall, the disposition of this one would become more difficult.

But then, obviously, you've worked in You've worked with developers before where the city, the sales are going to be contingent based on a rezoning of the previous owner. So that would be predicated on if we ever wanted to sell this in 15, 20 years, John Doe wants to buy it. Okay, well, we need to rezone first and we have to put the zoning process. Yeah, that makes sense.

As far as code enforcement, it looks like in June, 47 tickets were closed when 45 were open. That's pretty good.

Yeah, a lot of it's the high grass. And then we had some, we had, we put some education out, what, maybe about three weeks ago on inoperable vehicles. And then we started getting an influx of inoperable vehicle cases. Madison Street work is done. It was striped this past week. Thank you.

I was very proud to be driving through. I was like, oh my gosh, our street looks so much better today.

Thank you. Next to Greg and the team, I think there's just a few more things like a checkoff list you have to do, but nothing major.

Yeah, there's a couple of items still left to do. They got some backfilling to do behind the new sidewalks that we put in.

We're not closing down to one lane.

Yeah, we're done. Maybe. There is one manhole down by... water street and that when you drive over it you get kind of this but that's not a multiple day not enough no so i mean when that gets fixed yes they will obviously have to close that portion of that laying down to fix it outside of that i didn't really see any other items that needed to be addressed nice i heard more

comments about the traffic from the Madison construction. Oh, yeah.

You would think it would have been, yeah, it was, I think they did an article on it.

I do think that we should be very proud that our streets are, things are happening with our streets because they look good. Our If you drive anywhere, like between, like I do a lot of driving here in Newport, and the roads just are horrible in some of these towns that have probably bigger budgets than we do. So we should be very proud that our streets are looking as good as they are getting.

And the town has done three pretty significant projects, well, four significant projects in our time together. So we're taking care of the basic services, what cities need to be taken care of.

You get a lot of credit for that, Brandon. You've done a good job. Where the focus is.

Just FYI, Chief Tim and Jake went out to Conflag yesterday. It looks like where they're at, they may be coming back tomorrow, hopefully. So hopefully everybody gets back safe and sound.

They took our brush rig with them, right?

What's that? They took our brush rig with them, right? Did they? Yes. Yes, sir. One thing that we haven't been so consistent on and we were talking about it today, some of our water shutoffs have disproportionately affected the Spanish speaking community in terms of their communications with them. And I know in the past, we've been a little lax on putting everything out, putting things out with Spanish translation for certain things and not for others. Kennedy and I were speaking today and Greg doesn't know this, nor does Jamie, but next week we're going to implement everything that gets out is going to be in English and in Spanish. When it comes to disconnection notices, 48, second notice for code enforcement, we've noticed there's some language barriers and the notices received from Robert or Amanda. So we think it would just, especially with how big of a Latino community we have, we just need to just have everything.

So that pink door hanger that goes on your door will now be English and Spanish. Yes. Who's doing the translation?

Well, we have, if you recall, we have a 1% pay for Spanish differential. So Brandon will make sure all the official city communications. With some of the Facebook posting and stuff, Google Translate does fairly well, and we would just make sure it lines up correctly with different dialects of Spanish.

Do we currently have employees who speak Spanish?

Yes. Okay. Greg is leaving us. We all saw in an email two weeks ago that Greg has accepted a job in Eastern Oregon. And after five years, Greg will be on a swan song the next six weeks.

Even if I name the new sewage plant after you?

So any complaints, potholes, any complaints in public works, please make sure those are addressed by Greg before he leaves. Let's make sure he's working. So, we will, we will miss Greg, but we'll have some question for Greg at the next council meeting. And lastly, it was made public a few weeks ago. We had a great turnout at hot doggy competition, but pal professional wrestling will be here August thirtieth Sunday doors open at two fifteen PM at commons park. We're hoping it's a major event. I know some people are on vacation this July 4th. This July 4th is a fantastic event. Social media impressions with the PAL Pro Wrestling has been shared. There was excitement on it. I even know Councilor Carswell was giddy after the hot dog eating contest where he's going to buy tickets. So it's a first-time event. It's not everybody's cup of tea. It's a niche product. They're targeting that PG-13 demographic. Tickets are on sale.

Praise that. They're not targeting PG-13 kids. It's they're dropping down the guard to be more PG-13, but it's not targeting...

Yes, it's going to be PG-13 friendly. It'll be outside. We're going to have a couple of food trucks. We're going to have a local... We're going to have it goes open at 215, but there's a link for tickets on the website. And I know they're working with sponsorships in town and with the business community. So I think we're going to have three food and beverage trucks and beverage. Well, adult beverage. I think there may be a barbecue spot coming into town. And then also Mayor Malkinson was able to get Kona ice for us. And then we're hoping this is a big success. They want to make this like a yearly WrestleMania type show for them. They want to get into McMinnville more.

You're expecting...

Out of towners. Yeah, I think this is probably going to be 70% out of town, 30% in town. So I'm going to, I want to make sure she's looking fantastic that day. I want to make sure we're on our A game from our business community and our, and just how we look because this is the first time that many of us, many people may see us and I don't want it to be the last time.

And we've had a few businesses we've talked to trying to open their parking lot.

Yes, yes. Hamlin Dance Studio and then the church will allow people to have parking. We are going to be blocking non-residential access to Second Plate Circle for safety purposes because you won't be able to have all those people parking there in addition to Peacocks and then also the fire truck agency.

They moved over to the shed.

So, yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Council reports. Council President Paulson's gone. Councilor Gogan, anything to report? I do not have anything to report. Councilor Croswell? No. Councilor Burroughs? No. Councilor Kithill?

No.

I'm going to have to screen for us and send this to you. Okay, so quick thank you to LCAT and all those others involved with making our 4th of July a success. Other things is I think the biggest thing going on with the county that might impact this is they are ramping up and talking about dog control, which will actually benefit us tomorrow. a bunch of us mayors are meeting with the sheriff just to all make sure all the cities are on the same page of what they're expecting for input and on which like committees and stuff like that, that they're wanting. So if there's anything specifically you want me to ask Sheriff Elliott directly, let me know. I got to enjoy an evening over at St. Paul with, they call it legislator night is for elected leaders, policymakers, and it was just really cool to... What they were giving a tour for was what hit me. What hit me was learning about their amount of volunteers and the volunteer community, and it kind of inspired me, but also made me go, oh, how can we keep building that up? How can we be known as a city that the whole city jumps in to team up? As mentioned in an email, we are in the process of refurbishing ballot boxes. One will be here as a flag drop-off box. We're working with the VFW. The county's clerk office donated them, and Dynamo Trucks North America is in the process of finishing painting them for us. It's not costing us anything, but it'll be a cool place to drop off and retire flags. I've got three of them. the plan is uh commissioner johnston has a bunch of like super that we do on that officially you you know i don't know it's not a ribbon cutting but you know so i'll let you know um and then lastly community garage sales are this saturday so you get your cash or venmo and start shopping other than that i am looking for kayla's or commissioner paul or counselor paulson's favorite thing but she's not here so someone else

Move to adjourn. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Adjourned. Well, it's been an hour. Good job.