City Council - Regular Meeting

[Music] ahead and call them this meeting of the Lafayette City Council to order at 6:30. Um, okay. So, tonight as we open the meeting, I did want to take a moment to acknowledge the last day or so and the events that have happened. Um, I want to be very clear in what I'm about to say is coming from me as the mayor in my seat, not the council or the council on behalf of the city. Um, I just want to say that it does not matter from what viewpoint we sit at listening tonight or but no matter what viewpoint you're at, it I believe that we will never see eye to eye with everyone or with everything. But without a doubt, the assassination on Charlie Kirk was a despicable action. I condone any action that uses violence to silence someone or is meant to silence a person's right to freedom of speech. And it's disgusting and against the very spirit and of our country. To the family of Mr. Kirk, your sacrifice to support your husband, father, and son to do what he had such patriotism and conviction to do does not go unagnowledged. Thank you for sharing him selfishly or selflessly with his country that he had such passion for. And personally, Charlie, thank you for setting the example to me to serve with conviction and reminding me that healthy debate is the way to go. And tonight, I also want us to remember and pay honor to one of the darkest days in our country's history. So, I've invited our um fire chief to lead us in tonight's pledge of allegiance. But first, before he does so, I would like to ask for a 30 secondond moment of

silence to pay respect to all the first responders and Americans who died on September 11th, 24 years ago. Hey chief, would you lead us in the slow motion?

Yes. Before I begin allegiance,

I'd like to pause on the significance uh of this day, September 11th. So on this day 24 years ago, 343 firefighters along with police officers, paramedics, and thousands of civilians made the ultimate sacrifice. Their courage reminds us why we choose this calling to protect others no matter the cost. The truest way we honor them is through our actions every time the bell rings and that we answer the call. Tonight we remember their sacrifice, their example, and the unity that carried our nation forward. So please join me in the pledge of allegiance. 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.

Thank you, Chief, for joining us tonight. No, did not apologize for Thank you for your service, Chief. And also our deputy who's here today. Yes. Hello, deputy who snuck in. Uh Kennedy, could you please call roll? Councelor Folson present. Councelor Bur. Councelor Cwell present. Councelor Bill here. Council here. Council Magson

here. Okay, we have quum so we can continue. Um it's now time for citizen input. Uh I do have one that was sent in. Um, we have any I don't think we have any based off of who I see in the audience, but just double check. No,

you're okay. I'm just getting lose. Okay. Okay. So, this came to us today and was asked to be read um by Leonard Macau who is a resident of Lafayette. One of the things you need to take into consideration when you might consider raising rates, two things. As a public service, you need to treat every dollar you take in, you should cut cost of operation to the bone. This is not your money, it is ours. This community paid for the sewer system and the water supply system. Oh, sure. You may have acquired some grants from the state or federal government, but that money came from us, too. Number two, every time you raise water and sewer rates, more yards turn brown. In the 11 years we have lived here, we have always maintained a beautiful yard. This year, we had to let it go brown and wait on the fall rains. As retired couple, we have to cut our cost to the bone. The next statement, although it is an item that is on the agenda, I'm going to read it now um to be considered later on since I've already since it all came in once. Next, what I put on your on my front yard is none of your business. I have been talking to my neighbors about this and without exception, they agreed that you are overstepping your boundaries. What we do on our property as long as it is legal is our business. We did not sign up for an HOA type regulations and we don't want to live like we did. If I want to park my RV on my brown front yard, I should be able to do that. I cordially submit this for your consideration, Leonard Mott. So, that is entered into the record. Um, any final call for public input? Okay. Then we will move on to number five, additions and deletions from the agenda. Does anyone have anything? I just want to double check. Brandon, you don't have anything to add, right? Okay. Then I would like to um invite Portland General Electric who's here to

join us tonight. Um from my understanding this is maybe the launch. Is this the first stop in your new initiative or second? Oh, second. Okay.

Well, thank you, Mayor Wson and Lafayette City Council. Thank you for having us. My name is Wendy Bise and we are here as part of a team and you are correct. Uh we were in Scots Mills not too long ago and you were our second stop. Um and the reason we're doing this because PGE is really wants to get more proactive and coming out to the communities and sharing what we're doing as well as um having a dialogue with you and hearing about what's on your mind. And as a part of PGE uh being more proactive, I was your contact, Brandon, and the mayor and all of you. And um we uh transitioned not too long ago to my colleague Tyler Kelly. He is your new repres PGE representative and always a phone call away. Um so that um we be more proactive. My bandwidth was I was just spreading and we really want to be more proactive. So, I'm we're really happy to be here. With that, I will introduce Tyler and have him come up.

Thank you, Wendy. Thank you all for having us here tonight. I really appreciate it. Um, as Wendy just said, my name is Tyler Kelly. I've been with PGE. Just a little bit of a background about me. I've been with PG for just over nine years now. Uh while I am relatively new to the LGA team, uh I've had the honor of being assigned as the new local government affairs manager for the city of Lafayette and for the entirety of the Yam Hill County. Um, I've actually been looking a little bit more into a lot of the Yano County and specifically the city of Lafayette and I've grown to really appreciate a lot of the information I've been seeing about your work here and your deep connection to your history and your desire for providing quality of life to your residents. I think that's something that we can all really connect on. Um so uh with us here today as well is our vice president of uh strategy and advanced energy delivery Larry Beckadall. He's been with the company for a very long time and is very knowledgeable and a leader in this space. So he's going to speak a little bit on some of the work that PG has been doing to uh help out in the community. Uh but mostly the reason why we're here today is just to hear from you all because I know that you all have issues that you know you want to work on and that we can we want to figure out where we can best serve and and assist with that. Um so without further ado, I'd like to bring Larry up here to move on with the presentation. Thank you all for having

great. Thank you Tyler and Mayor Robinson. Pleasure to meet you and council members, administrator Brandon coming down here. Um, I have to say your words were moving. When I hear democracy and I hear we can still disagree, but we can still be neighbors, it's really important. So, thank you. I I appreciate the the words. Um, so yes, Larry Beckall, senior vice president for advanced energy delivery. What is that? You haven't got it's been around a while. Um, and if I go into my history just briefly, um, I was with Pacific Core, um, when I started, um, all over the Northwest from Wyoming to Northern California to Montana. Grew up in Montana. Um, tell you that to say I've been in a lot of communities and and u, and I really have a passion for what goes on in communities and how people come together. Uh, but more importantly, I left Pacific to Clark Public Utilities District. So I was in Clark County there um in Vancouver and uh to see that side of you know what is a utility and then I went on to Bonavville Power and ran the transmission uh for Bonavville and before coming to Portland General Electric and I came back to I came to Portland General Electric to connect between transmission distribution and customer and to kind of see it from all directions and um so I will just say this no matter the color of money the electrons are the same. The physics behind it is the same. Um, but it is a commodity that's really important, I think, to all of us. It's become more and more important as we've evolved as our society. And, uh, so when we talk tonight a little bit about things like, you know, safety, resiliency. Now, our communities really do depend on that happening. And so, uh, look forward to moving on that behalf. I don't know. Um,

a small screen. Uh, but but there was a picture on the front that I I I have to give Tyler some credit to say what was the the locks and are they still back on in this area? Uh, at some point we'd love to, you know, dig into a little bit of history. We found that they are still around, but a little bit different than beginning times

and I'm assuming that's probably under the core of engineers. Yeah, it's actually at the county park. So if you're if you're going if you're leaving Lafayette going uh 99 towards Newberg, it'll be like right before you get to the train track, there's a little split and it'll kind of go down and it's over that way, but it's still kind of part of the Lafayette community. Well, you know, in that era, um PG got started.

So 1889, um from Wamtt Falls to downtown Portland, in fact, the first long distance transmission lines in the nation were I don't know if everybody's aware of that. It started out as a singlephase DC line that went to AC and then three-phase AC. And at the time, you had Chicago World Fair going on. There's this fight between AC and DC. And who's going to win? Tesla, you know, Westinghouse, Edison, and uh AC won out at the World's Fair. Um transmission line, why did we build it here? We like to think because we were innovative and thinking about the the future. Um I'm half afraid that they built it there in case it failed nobody would know about it. So um so there is a rich history and and when we think about that even as we were in Scott Mills we found that there was a dam there they are still working on trying to remove parts of that and it's like okay how do we help what what is it that we can do to make those connections and so as you think about the history here love to to uh um think about how do we partner and and and make those things happen. So, in in terms of um we actually have 12 PGE employees who live and work here, which I was pleased to hear. It's kind of nice because uh we can tap into them and and try to think about, you know, how how are they connecting? Um we have a little under 3,000 employees presently in the company and uh you know to us hearing where they live, what they do uh really makes a difference. um growth 240% um since 1990. And why I say 1990 because we have not built any new transmissions since actually the 70s.

So growing 240%. Uh we were recently in the city of Wilsonville, it grew 300%. We go to Sherwood and Twolitin, it's grown 600%. I'll bang that in just in terms of okay, communities are growing. That's can be really healthy if it's done well. People think about it, but we got to plan together. There's nothing worse than a surprise and and I know a city right now that we're dealing with who has got a big surprise and um and and so it takes partnerships. So, anything you can do as you're thinking about planning, how can we be a part of that? how can we think ahead and and get ahead of some of these things instead of it being a surprise and and having to struggle. Um you know again number of residential commercial customers you see there you also see franchise fee payments um that we do here for the city as well. Um, on the next slide, uh, we talk about kind of our business and some of the things that, you know, we focus on and and I'm going to go back. I know, uh, mayor, you had conversation with Maria, my boss, and and, uh, we've done a lot to think about the the this the January, February of uh, 2024 was not our moment of glory. U, in fact, I call it the perfect storm. We had held off on doing rate increases for some time and in January, boom, rate increases came. We had bills that were half December, half January. People trying to figure out what what happened, what you know, even to understand it was complex. Um, on top of that, we had a winter storm right after that. So, a lot of customers out for up to almost two weeks. It was a really tough period of time and then we talked about the next rate increase that

was going to come. So it did not land well. I know you provided a letter. There were a lot of letters across from many communities. And our lesson learned number one is you're better off to do small chunks over time. You also need to really think about your cost and what can you do to control your cost. And I think it was made mention even in the customers, you know, questioning uh the residents and the letter saying, okay, how much um every dollar that we spend is something from a customer that we need to really think hard about. So I I challenge us all. You know, we are doing that presently. We'll talk a little bit about that as well as we go. But storms, um extreme weather, we're seeing it. Um I think everybody's feeling it. whether it's heat, we're seeing mortality rates in trees much higher than we've ever seen. Uh which means potential for wildfire. Trees falling into lines is not a good thing. And so as we think about wildfire and education together in our communities, how we become more resilient as communities. Cyber, if you're all dealing with that as well. If there's ways that we can help, um we do have, you know, export that are kind of constantly into that. um that we're happy to share ideas and thoughts as you know um you're thinking about the city. I

actually had a question on that. So there was a city uh in Texas whose mayor had a threat a death threat um and the energy company has had a security system CPS energy and they were able to reach out to the mayor's office, reach out to the city police and say hey there's a credible threat on social media. Do you have anything like that where it can kind of scale threats to like public officials locally? we could. Okay, we could and and um you know how we work through that to make sure we

keep things private that need to be etc. Um happy to to explore that. Um we're all kind of learning in that space uh as we grow. Um earthquakes, you know, we're all feeling that that's that's out there. In fact, we had to move one of our buildings and our control center as what we could see of a future. Um so and and and finally, uh regional energy emergencies. I'll just say this that um there are concerns about do we have enough energy as a northwest we're bringing in a lot more in the winter time from down south um which is great being there and available is it going to be natural gas in a similar way in fact we have on October 9th putting together both gas and electric and saying to ourselves how do we think about it because 98% of our gas comes from British Columbia right now down the I-5 corridor. There's a little bit that comes from the Rockies um but limited. And so we've got concerns as we look at the future um of our communities. Uh how do we make sure that we have enough energy? And and so I just share food for thought that we're working on that and as you're thinking about growing the community, we want to be a partner together on that. Um, so resiliency batteries, we've added uh 500 megawatts of batteries. What does that mean? We have a system total of about four and a half gigawatts at its peak. So it's 4,500 megawatt. So roughly 10% of that peak we now have in batteries. If I were to give you a little bit of a scenario, um, two summers ago, uh, during the hot spell, the peak cost of electricity was anywhere from a,000 to $2,000 a mega an hour when it's normally $30 a mega.

We were seeing these swings coming from California that were spiking and and moving around. If you've heard of what they call the duck curve, it means when solar comes on during the day, they had more than enough energy. In fact, they were paying us to take it, actually paying us to take it. So, negative prices. Um, and then the evening would come, the solar would go down. You'd hear this sucking sound from the Northwest pulling all the energy down into California. So, they're paying us a lot. Well, the economy doesn't work well for very long that way. But the fundamental was that you needed something to levelize. So they put 13 gigawatts of batteries in to California and they have now effectively levelized. So the prices this summer peaked at just over $100 a day. So does it make a difference? Batteries are new to our industry. Um we think about where they located. Do we work with fire departments? Pacific Northwest National Labs helps us with safety and to think about how to make sure that we don't put them in places and how we operate them, how they're built, how they're, you know, the safety systems. You've heard fires associated with lithium, etc. thermal runaways. We've found ways to to protect against that. But anyway, what I'll say is it's a new tool for us and we're using it. We're taking advantage of it and it's trying to help us keep our power cost down. Um, second, you know, modernizing the grid. Um, as I mentioned, transmission, we haven't built since the 70s, and I could go into history of even from Bahanville. Bonavville has 75% of the transmission in the Northwest. It all came from the New Deal in the 30s where we built all the dams, the 40s, World War II. So, the aluminum industry came and because of that, that's when the transmission was all built here in the Northwest. So we haven't done

anything since the 70s but yet we've had a lot of growth. So so as we think about it how do how do we move ourselves? Um if I go you know clear you know and we think about uh prices and I I know that we started with that um our operating costs um we are reducing our operating costs. Maria's commitment following all the letters was that we were going to keep bark prices below inflation and and with the pressure of power cost you know what's been happening in the region it's tough so in fact we had our first layoff in in since I've been there um this summer and kept your have you kept your prices below inflation

we have last two years uh last year I don't know if it's been two over the last five years. No. And that's over the last 10 years. Not no I would say when you got back 10 years now you're getting close. There was a period in there where where um we were just doing small increments that was below inflation. Over the last 10 years, how many years do you think your prices have been below the inflation rate? Um so between 2018 and 2022 [Music] that period of time where we weren't putting rates increasing because of co or for other reasons co was the driver um

okay so we made a mistake let's go postco let's go 2021 to today how many years do you think you were below inflation from that point um one 20 20 itself

yeah That's why I say we hit 18% in 2024 January and and unfortunately you're making up for back to 2020 2019. So our commitment is keep it under inflation now and and um that's what we're working on. Um, yeah, fair cost allocation. I put that in there because, you know, heard a lot of people say data centers are causing inflated energy prices. We just passed legislation in the state of Oregon. Uh, when we talked about cost causation, if you are causing that, you get to pay for it. So we can have special contracts with them now and have them pay for the um infrastructure that they're uh driving. So things that are going on in Hillsboro, but we're also seeing it now um potentially Woodburn and Salem. Um data centers, you're seeing that nationwide. What we'd like to say is that okay, let's when the aluminum industry came in, it built out the system. Well, let's leverage that again and help us build the system that we need. Let them pay for it. Let's not, you know, burden everybody. So, so we're heading that direction and uh just calling that out because that's been a major issue for um maximizing external sources of funding. If you've heard of us talk about a holding company and a transcode, we have transmission costs that are extensive and uh because we haven't built. So if we do a transcode, we can raise funds in

a different way um to keep cost pressure down for all customers. So So that's what we're trying to leverage and happy to go into that sometime if if you're curious. Um but we're looking for those avenues. How do we do this and keep cost down for everybody? Um offering customers programs um and lower cost. We can we can talk about that a little bit from our um our assistance program. And uh of the residents here in um Lafayette, we have 212 that are participating in our assistance program. That's about 50% of the those that are eligible. So, we know that, you know, again, more people can be helped uh with those programs and those can be seniors, those could be low-inccome, lots of different reasons why people are in that category. Um, but the program is there. We want to encourage people uh to be able to use that where needed. wildfire. Um you can see uh we now have 12 zones um across our service area across the Wamut Valley. Um these are the high fire risk zones that we pay special attention to because they have the highest probability of of fires and uh that's fueling um the configuration of the system and how far as a fire department and uh all those considerations we take into account in determining where these are and how they're located. How do we harden them? Um you can see where uh zone 12 there um becomes you know probably one of the closest here. But even as I drove you know in looking at some of the vegetation um how best do we approach wildfire? How do we harden the

system? There's lots of technology that we're putting in um the pano AI cameras. They're cameras that are looking for smoke. When they see smoke they alert us. It's no longer somebody having to sit at a camera and watch it. It actually can detect it and tell us. So now fire departments are using that across all of our service area and it's been a great tool. But we are looking for ways whether it's covered wire or undergrounding. We've got to do a better job of thinking about wildfire and protecting ourselves. So as we have the meetings, you know, I encourage everybody to participate, learn about um you know, what is how do you protect yourself, what to do, uh you know, your home and u and and also working with us and that could be new installations. Um I would start there again if you have that opportunity. Um, would you do underground? It's a whole lot easier when it's a new facility than when it's something that has to be taken from overhead to underground. Um, energy or energy supply. Um, this kind of gives you a a feel for, you know, we we've got some, you know, targets for the state, um, that are aggressive. Um, but this gives you a flavor. You know we are at 36% relied on natural gas generation right now. Hydro you can see is 26% wind 15 and solar 4. I will say the solar will pick up um we're doing combination now solar wind and battery. So like hot days you get high pressure zone you have zero wind but you got a lot of solar mix that with a battery. Um, so you're trying to utilize the system in a better way because otherwise transmission is sitting vacant and can be used during that period of time. So we're watching

this happy to share with you uh at any time you know mixes how you even as a community um might be involved. Um so you heard Tyler Wendy talk about collaboration and how do we do that? Um we do have some committees that we're going to be putting together. I'll let maybe Wendy answer some questions about that. Um, but we'd like to have more interaction, but we'd also like to hear more. Um, and and you know, given I I'll just say you have an administrator with some energy background. Um, I think it'd be great to uh use utilize that a little bit and talk about what's possible. I think there's some great ideas that we can put on the table. So, let me stop there and roll through questions.

Okay. Well, I want to acknowledge first of all your PGE. It's not a happy fun conversation. Um, I want to be respectful of the fact that we are all professionals here. Well, I'm not a professional mayor. I just play one on TV. But, um, and I I want to address that elephant in the room that it's not a I I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one that was like, "Oh, yay, PG. This is going to be a fun conversation tonight. Um, I do appreciate Wendy. I met her last year when we sat down when we presented that stack of letters to Maria. Um, that one of the things that I really pushed was you're not you're not acknowledging the small cities at all. Um, celebrating this huge big thing over at a larger area. We don't we don't celebrate that we don't get we don't get to benefit from that perk. Um and one of the thing just real quick and then I want council to know that this initiative of you guys trying to dialogue with smaller cities um from what I was shared was came out of that letter that we sent you guys. And so I just I thank council for making that stance. But the one thing that I made very clear to Maria was I understand that I don't get at the end of dialoguing. I get no say in your rates. Um I can tell you my feelings on it. I can tell you my neighbors feelings on it. But the one thing I can control is that if you're telling me our rates pay for X, Y, and Z, I'm going to fight that my city gets their share of that X, Y, and Z. Not oh well, we did it at a larger spending area. But now I'm gonna shut up because I already poured my heart out to Marie.

But and I think um to since Larry wasn't here to benefit um I do want to acknowledge that mayor, your leadership and this council leadership really provided us um valuable um feedback and insight and absolutely was one of the driving reasons for how we needed to pivot very quickly about how we engage with smaller communities. So, I I do want to say thank you and this is this is part of that effort and we have um it's exciting. We have lots and lots of city councils that that will be traveling all over the valley uh the middle valley. So, thank you for your leadership and and getting our attention. Question.

Yeah. Wendy, remind me what your title is. I'm a senior local government affairs manager. Okay. Larry, senior vice president. Okay. And I'm so sorry, the the young handsome man here, Tyler Kelly. And I am a local government manager as well. Okay. And how long have each of you been with PG? 36 years. 11. Nine years. Nine years. And uh we talked about how the last four years, one of them, the rate increases were under inflation. Did each of you get raises all four of the last four years? No. No. a year that I did not. Me too. It was one year. One year. One year. Same. Did you guys get bonuses last four years?

Yes. Correct. Yes. But we're still raising rates higher than the rate of inflation. And I know none of you make that call, but you can understand why cities like ours who have a lot of folks on fixed incomes have have problems with PG. And frankly, look, all three of you all are paid by PG. All three of you are here. Do all three of you need to be here tonight? Wanted Wendy to be here to make sure we make a transition and Tyler to be here for sure. Um,

okay. We we I think I think part of the reason we have Larry's um what we heard from the mayor last year is we wanted to really convey how important your community is, how all of our communities are. What's your competition in our community? Um we don't we have we have assigned service areas. Yes. Okay. In Oregon. Um I'm going to make a motion that we table this discussion and move on to the next agenda item. I'll second that. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. Um, Kennedy, I have a motion on the table to or a motion on the table to table this discussion for this evening. Um, can you please call roll?

Councelor Pollson. Councelor Carzwell. Hi. Councelor Gilden. Hi. Councelor Kent. Hi. Councelor Mackey. Hi. Okay. Motion passes. So, we thank you for coming out and presenting and for your time. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Um consent agenda. We only have one item on there. Um speak now if you need a pullet. If not,

yes. Um, if someone would like to approve the consent agenda as presented as presented um from the August 14th, 2025 city council meeting minutes. Second. Okay. Um, Kennedy, can you follow up? Um, councel. Hi brother. Hi Pson. Hi Matthew. Hi. Hi. Okay. Agenda has been consent and pass.

We are now on to our discussions. So our first one is veterans park preliminary design. Did was everyone able to see or understand or read the print out that you guys were given? I know I went online to zoom in. Oh. Um, Brandon,

thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, so as we were talking about um coinciding with um with finishing up the park master plan upgra um the comprehensive plan update, um I had gotten with um Tetrate Tech on just saying, "Hey, I think this I think this park plan is going to move forward. um let's do some preliminary work on uh a veterans park design so we can get in front of council as soon as the parks plan is is approved so we can show the community we're doing some type of work for the parks plan. Um, so, um, I commissioned Gordon and Greg early about a month or two ago to look at, um, a site plan based on some of the discussions that we've had with the planning commission and city council and kind just kind of bring you that preliminary design tonight to kind of look it over. Um, if there's any concerns you have, any questions, Gordon's obviously here to talk about that. He's the one who designed it. Uh but we wanted to make sure this is the path we want to go forward before we start um hiring you know going out for bid hiring contractors etc. So um in front of you is the is the design um Gordon if you want to come up and I guess discuss anything in here that you want to go into detail with. And real quick, I just want to point out, this is a question I had to ask Brandon because I was like, where's that adjacent piece of property in the diagram and I was shared that that technically is not it's our property? It's rightway property, but is not within the boundaries of the park. So, we can still do stuff with that, but it's doesn't fit under the plan. Just that made a lot more aha for me. So, I wanted to share that with you guys as Gordon shares things.

Okay. So, I'll I'll get going. So, what you have here in front of you is a pretty picture. This is not designed. This could not go out for anybody to bid. There's no dimensions. There's no details. This is just, hey, is this what you guys want to see? Do we need to change, move, do whatever? So, that's that's where we are in the process. So, it's a very flexible point in in the project. And as Brandon indicated, uh, Greg and I sat down and Greg said, "Well, I think this is what we want to do. It's a dog park. We want to make it an enhanced dog park." Um, so that was the direction. And you can see the colors here show what's been done. And so I'll just say what that is quickly. So the red is a fence and you can see it splits the park in two. That's big dog, little dog. That's essentially what that is. And you will see at the two existing entrances, we're going to have to do stuff to make those actually ADA accessible. So,

do both have to be ADA or just one? Uh, only one of them to get into facilities. Both of them you got to be able to get in. I mean, yeah, right now the standard dog parks. It's double fencing for safety. Yeah. So, that's also what you see here is on each one there's a red square around it around the entrance. That's the double gate. Okay. So, essentially, you can't have a gate open and dogs go running out in the street. You got And the bridge street one is the one that has the ADA connected to the crosswalk, right?

Well, you have a crosswalk there. So, we're putting in some concrete so you can get to the gate. Yeah. The other one on Washington is actually the uh more ADA accessible. You got a sidewalk along the entire street there. We're coming in putting some sidewalk inside so somebody can get to those new benches. Okay. And sit down at a bench. So, anybody that's, you know, in a wheelchair or uh unstable on their feet on unstable, they can get to these benches and get to the park. So, that's your major ADA access.

Okay. Uh so you will also see there's four dog watering stations, two in each of the areas. Uh we have to bring a water line to get that. Uh we did put uh three extra benches uh several trees around one of the benches up on the north side. Eventually that'll give shade to the bench. Um, one of the other things, some of the fence has slats, some of it doesn't. So, we were just going to put slats in to give a little separation, okay, between the yards and the fence, I mean the park.

Okay. Um, so we were also told we want a flag pole with lights. We just pllopped one down. location can get moved, put anywhere, but we do have to bring power to that. How tall is the flag pole? What? How tall is the flag pole? However tall we want. Yeah, however tall you want it. I think that would just depend on what size flag we want. Yeah, flag pole, if I remember correctly, determines the side of the There's minimum or the taller the flag pole, the the bigger the flag. Yeah, I would think with it being Veterans Park, it probably would be one of the bigger flag poles in town, but like bigger than city halls.

Yeah. So, you know, no details on that right now. You know, tell us how tall you want it. We'll Okay, we can do that. We were told there's a memorial boulder. Now, our design has nothing to do with that holder. We're not doing anything with it. We're not doing anything with the memorial. Uh, I have some questions on well, they're going to be plantings. They're going to be You're marking the space. You're not designing. Yes. I'm just showing where it could be. And we just plopped it down near the flag pole. Obviously, that can be shifted, moved,

which is where my conver my conversation started with Brandon because I was like, why is the flag pole there? And I thought we were using that patch area and it's because it wasn't part of property. So, you know, want input. Is that the right spot? Do we want to have a larger spot for the memorial so that you can do stuff other stuff besides a boulder? So, that's all input that we'd love to get from you guys so we can adjust. When I read this, is one side designated for I know one's big dog, one's little, but have we designated which side is which? No. Okay. You know, and even the fence right now it's just sort of splitting it. Yeah.

Yeah. Does it have to be that way? No. Um, but it gives you a good picture of what the intent is. I was even looking at this right now and thinking, "Ah, why did I make that 90°? I could run it off at 45 and easier to for people to walk in." Oh, and I think the small dogs could use less space than the big dogs if it came down to it. Sure. I mean, the space is big enough that I don't think it matters that much. Well, and I like that we designed it long way so dogs can run instead of splitting the line down bridge to the other thing that that does and one of the main reasons I did that is you can access either side

and get to both little dog big dog like that. So that's where we are right now and obviously that we were given a a limit on the budget also. So, we had to say this is what we think you can do. Okay. Um, you know, there's other things that could be done here, other trails, more plantings, all sorts of stuff that can be done. Uh, but yeah, not just initial cost, but that

uh there is, by the way, an irrigation system in here already. So when we put in this sidewalk over near Washington on the inside potential it hits that irrigation system and we got to do you know re move it. Yeah. Yeah. You know irrigation system as built are notoriously schematic and not very accurate. So we don't really know where those pipes are until we hit them. Call ahead. And we're still pretty confident that the water stuff can be done internally, right? A lot of the water line and the connection and the fountain small enough project to

Oh, yeah. That's all. Yeah. Essentially, that's private. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure because as we talked I know. I just want to make sure because I know we talked about that, but in terms of installing, we're still going to be able to do that with the team we have. Okay. Yeah. But we still have to get it on the design. Okay. So anyway, that's where we are with this open for and I know you know you guys probably want to look at this and maybe scratch a bunch of notes on it. I just have two initial comments. First one is I think the closer to the one entrance or the other that the benches could be the better it is for our elderly residents just you know have to walk all the way to the middle of the place to sit down

like the ones on Washington. Uh either either way I mean which it is but like I'm looking at the benches in the middle here, right? Like Well, there's one bench that's there. Can Is that movable though or is that like what? Yeah, I'm sure it's concreted. Okay. But that one with the trees, we I'm just putting thoughts out there. That's okay. And I mirrored it on the other side. So, there's a bench in the middle for people that do walk and then there's two benches that are right near the entrance. I could scoot where where am I missing on Washington Street side and that's what he was saying was concrete stand there and there and then there's sidewalks so they could get over

No, that that that's my only input on that. That's great. Yeah. And I love the detail of putting paved to those benches. Right. And that Yes, that existing bench over on the south side. one of those green even if it's concreted in public work to put it in. We need like any sort of signage put up where it's like a risk assuming you're assuming the risk of bringing Oh yeah, we would put the standard like you know curb your own dog, you know, um leash law. We would put the city like we would put all the stuff when it's officially a dog park. Whatever whatever. Yeah, there would be.

Yeah, it'll be like me a dog. It'll have like city um city code and it'll have like dog on the leash. So we'll have all those signs when it's officially a dog park. Okay. Yeah, we've already talked about that. My only other piece of input and I don't know how the council feels, but I would like to see the flag pole air on the side of larger than smaller. Absolutely. And I do understand that lighted is important because of you know flag etiquette and rules and we don't have staff to take it down each night. Um, so I think in the long run paying to light it is going to save us compared to having to pay someone to I mean feels more like a something

especially because there's a memorial there and I think that the details of what we decide to do with that memorial boulder or what direction we want to go that doesn't have to be decided in order to start on the design I think. No, it doesn't. I just need to know where you want it. It should be close to the flag pole, especially which is where it is here. Yeah, that's where it is. But the whole thing, flag pole, boulder, do you want it more in the corner? Do you Yeah, I like it along street. Yeah. Whether it's Bridge or Washington, Bridge seems a little bit more open because of the trees. Because then if someone wants to enjoy it, they don't have to go through the whole dog park. Yeah.

So, pros and cons of the two streets. I prefer bridge. I like I like where it's at. Bridge is a It's going to be more visible. There's more cars going by. You won't actually be able to get out and go walk over to it. There's no sidewalk on and I understand that. Yes, sir. I mean, not yet. Right. Could be in the future. Um, yeah. I like I like that it's towards the, you know, sides. It's still in the middle, so it's prominent. Um I like Yeah, I on the Washington side. Isn't there just that giant concrete? That's what I was saying. It's not part of

darkens it all out. Some big trees there, too. So, which we can still do something with that area, but since it's not within the park limit, we actually don't have to be as strict with you. put a sidewalk eventually at some point on bridge on bridge. Yeah. So then then passerby can enjoy them. Yeah. Yeah. I think my only thought is one of the things I was thinking just just to is this fence I got coming like that like now I have to save that paper because you drew on now it's falling record.

Then it gives a whole it makes it a whole lot easier a lot more room. Well, and I did you see what I was doing? Um, which then makes me feel like that, which also gives a little bit more space to the other side. Yes. And gives I I immediately was drawn to like big dogs up on the top and Yeah. the big dogs. Let the dog Let the big

Let them pee on the big boulder. What? No. Um, yeah. I I see no um design issues with this. I think I think it fits our I think our overall goal was to do a dog park correctly but not privously. Hey um so I know we we mentioned do um sidewalks two times in this conversation. Do we want to look at doing sidewalk a small sidewalk project adjacent to they're already out there? Yeah. So,

well, I mean, not right now. I mean, that's part of the project because I mean we can do some type of connection and I think we can do park SDC's to have a sidewalk in front if we want to look at that, but I don't know. I mean, it just came up twice from two different council members. We look at it see I'd be interested in seeing if that's feasible. I mean, it's a desire, but is it I love the idea. We just have to see the numbers. Caveat. Yep. I think the overall right now you have a ditch right there. Yeah, that's what I was concerned about. If you do a sidewalk there, you're going to have to do storm drainage as well. Can we do a parked sidewalk and not a street sidewalk? Does that make sense? Like you mean inside the park? Yeah,

sure. Kind of like we have a path. You mean like bring it around into the park as like so around the monuments? Yeah. So instead of putting this bench here or I'm pulling that one, putting a bench over here with by the monument and yeah, you might have to go into where the dogs are at, right? But having having a sidewalk within the park, I meant the sidewalk on the on the street.

Yeah, but I kind of like the idea of push the fencing in and put the put the sidewalk kind of right around the monument right out front. That'd be approaching it kind of like um my comments they have like that because this is an already existing fence right so our only difference would be we pull the fence and just put this as I mean there's a little bit but I would like to see that's demolition and new and sign yeah so cost issues there that you so then the other question

there's nothing to do on the weekends I heard that. Yeah, I I like the idea of like paving the whole monument section into not the whole thing. We got to get numbers back, right? These are just design ideas. We got to get numbers back and we'll figure out Yeah. This is just all instead of a flag pole in the middle of the grass with no way to get to it, right? Yeah. I know one thing that I think we talked about, but we just didn't get it on here. Uh put a feeler out there for all of you. Uh we have some old hydrants down at public works for the dogs that you know

we've all seen pictures on Facebook, you know, whatever of painted hydrants, you know, look like a maybe a dog or we could put a hydrant at each of the large dog small dog park and paint it up. Yeah. Me and Robert. The dogs love to salute hydrants. We call that our mural. Who's going to paint it? Uh, probably not me. We can do a community thing when it comes to public works paint it. Yeah. Let let either be a kids contest or a contest to design the two fire hydrants. I mean, those hydrants are just sitting down there. They're not usable, but we use them as spare parts.

Key station, you know, for the dogs. Yeah. So then do and it brings in culture, right? So I mean do we it seems like everybody likes the overall the overall schematic. Obviously it says some tweaks but maybe in the next meeting maybe we can come back with what it would look like for a sidewalk to go through what it would look like to do sidewalk. I don't think we need a sidewalk to go down the whole thing like the whole sidewalk but to the maybe look at the sidewalks. It's going to be a crap shoot anyway over there. Maybe we look at doing some sidewalk work. Wow, the road's already

So, giving us that quick option of here's what it would cost to put in an official sidewalk road sidewalk and here's what it would take to put in streets already shut down. Yeah. Well, yeah, but that Oh, no, no, no, no. They don't. The same. No. Well, that would be you you give me temporary $100,000 authority, you know, and then I can probably get something done in the next two days. But I Yeah, I would like to see what it cost to put a little pave path to the the monument. So, you want a cost for a regular sidewalk? That's what she wants. And then a cost for something on the inside. A couple ideas,

which then if the one comes in lower than the other, then it says, "Look, you think like November, probably November council meeting." November council meeting come back. He didn't hesitate. He was like, "Sure." Yeah. I I I think that part of our goal with doing Veterans Park first was that this could be a speedy thing. So, I'd like to see it back sooner than later. I don't want to have any special meeting.

Well, I can tell you right away that the sidewalk on the inside would be cheaper. I know. the entrance that ditch and just Yeah, you can. I don't like those ditches over there. You can do anything you want. And you're probably if you're put the dirty. Okay. So, there's a lot of stuff that I guess first, does council feel like they've shared everything that he needs to in order to have them tweak it? Yep. I'm ready to move back. Do you have everything you need from you have everything you need from us?

Um, what I feel like is Okay, I've got some options to bring back before you. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't have details yet about how much room we want for the memorial. And so that would be something that I would Is it in the right spot? And I think it's in the right spot. We want more room for it or plants around it. I think that the more we making sure maybe there's a little bit of room to do a bench right there eventually if somebody wants to sit there. in memory

like bench and plants that stuff can be added later if there's long we could go after an organization or a private person that wants to donate a bench in memory. Yeah. So just something for you guys to give me some feedback on is how big an area do you think you might want for that because it'll impact where I put this fence. This looks okay. I think it looks fine. I'm just saying like if that where it where it's looking like it'd all be sitting. If a twoerson bench can be right there, great. Just if it's too tight for that, I would say okay, let's plenty of room for benches. Yeah, fine. One bench is fine.

It's just I don't know how big the boulder and and if you want I don't think we're going to have the world's biggest boulder. And if you want to be doing landscaping around, then you get to go after grant fun. Now, do we want to leave do we want to leave a spot for any like doggy like exercise stuff or is that something maybe later on? Is that what a dog park is? Well, I mean like you know like doggy stuff. No, you know they have like little like slides and like tunnels later down the road. Okay. There's plenty of things. So yeah, I think it's just the sidewalk thing that where the boulder is that whole thing and then just whether or not we can get like 200 foot tall flag

mass flag taller than downtown Newberry. Are you serious about the 200 foot? Wait, can no about 190. Hey, if you want to do a world record, I mean, I'm all about self-promotion. So if we want to go for the for like the tallest, I'm all down for an eco stretch. undertight.

You gonna have McMinnville telling us? So, for example, are you thinking maybe a flag hole like the size of the one over at the community center then or you thinking bigger than that? Level 30. No, I will let you know. I'm working on something with LCAT to possibly put a flag pole of Berkens, too. I'm looking we're looking at possibly exclusive. No. Well, I know. I'm just letting you know like so I think that's going to be a decent one too. Similar to like I'm game with as many as we want to put. All right. Okay. 7:30. Okay. Thank you Gordon. Yeah. Well, he's still he's still got two more agenda items. Okay. I tried.

Okay. So, we are going to move on to 8B which is street improvement projects. Um, I was not here for you guys' discussion last month, but I do want you guys to know I did watch it and try to absorb it of what led us to tonight. The Brandon staff report. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, in this year's budget, we have Sorry, that was for C that I made that statement for. Sorry, but I did. Sorry.

The the 2526 budget included $300,000 dedicated to Shre projects. um want to start working on what the project's going to look like for the end of this year. Um after we finish bridge, we want to keep the momentum going. We're doing great work. Um everybody as a team to to improve the infrastructure in town. So while we're keeping the construction going, we should start talking about the next street improvement project. So in front of you is a list of projects that city staff feels um are probably the most important for the city. Um but we want to dialogue with you to see if this is something that you like. um this the schedules that we have if you think there's another street that may need more attention. Um the reason why we wanted to focus on Madison is because we're already doing a lot of work on bridge and Madison is another gateway to the town. We can also add sidewalks to that um enhance um ADA ramps, sidewalk payment separation um and then also work on the actual street rehab similar to Bridge Street. Um I also know there's discussion about connecting all the bridge from third to second to line up with the street. Um the pedestrian crossing and all the work being done on bridge between bridge and 12th. Um and then also we discussed Canyon View needs is in massive need of a chip seal. I don't know if you've driven down Canyon View recently, but it's probably one of the worst residential streets in town. Um so we wanted to look at addressing that too. Um, in the projects below, there's some possible combinations to consider. Um, like I said, we have $300,000, but we all know there's going to be cost overruns. Um, so we'd like to kind of top that out at $250,000. So, um, there's a couple of possible possibil combinations to consider. Um, one 2 A and three, one and 2D, 2 A and 2 C, 2 C and 2 D, or then just 2B alone. um kind of an alakart kind of plan if

you want. Um if you think there's other streets that reconsider, we can come back to you those later on. But this is just a staff recommendation to take a look at tonight. And you mentioned a little bit of buffer in case we go over. But this isn't like the ARPA funds where if we didn't spend them, we lose it. If we come under from what's in our budget, that rolls over to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This this will be con this will be street money. any type of sidewalk installation. If you want to go to sidewalk installation and AD ramps, I think there's some street SEC's we can use for that.

Uh I I'd have to look in the STP. If the STP says sidewalks, then it's in your CIP, then you can use letters. We still need to be careful with that though because we're not going to have many. Mhm. Yeah. I think that that hit kind of what's in my thought of like I want to see repairs on our roads that we need it and we have the money. We have the money, but I don't want to be so nearsight and like big bang for our buck right now and wish that we had kind of carried money over for bigger project. Sure. Sorry.

We will we if the transportation bill does pass, it looks like it's going that way. We will definitely we will see some additional money coming into the city yearly on streets as well. So we'll probably see closer we'll probably see closer to $600,000 or so compared to the we're seeing now. Great. So okay I probably we probably shouldn't talk about the future of traffic money right now. That's a whole new can of worms. Okay. So anyone have I guess any questions on what each of these are? not just put money but and I know fiscally it doesn't make sense with the budget we have laid out but I think 2 a 2b makes sense to do together but I know it put you over the seems like a

well they do make sense to to do together but myself so I I was actually walking out there tonight before the meetings and you know it's sort of split up highway to railroad railroad park if you were going to do one of those to highway the railroad. So that's a little bit worse condition. Yeah. Are we looking at that like next year we might have how much if he's saying there might be stuff coming in which is just taxpayers.

Um this might make sense to hold off. It's the truth. it might make sense to hold off until next year so where we could look at just doing both of those because it's going to be more cost effective to do them at the same time. Well, we have 300 now. We might be able to do both of what if we did like So that's what I'm saying. I agree. I'm agreeing like if we did one and three that finishes off bridge that we were able to tackle the whole ridge road and it takes care of Canyon but that only spends about a h 100,000 which saves some money to put towards yeah I just don't think that portion of bridge was the constituent's biggest concern. I don't think it is either. I agree with you.

I'd rather use that money next year to make a bigger impact if that's the case. Well, and I think no matter what we choose, I think it's important for us to acknowledge that the city is looking at that side of town. Absolutely. And I appreciate that because I know that it's been like last year the request to pave that one road and it was said that it doesn't for the amount of citizens that is it water street. Yeah. That it and then we went on and continued it on a bridge work. But so at least we're exploring.

No. And and I think this I think a lot of this is feasible. It would just be a lot easier if we have the money this year. And you know, plus what we might have laid out for next year, we might be able to knock out a little more in one place. And I think Brandon would agree when we get bids, they're doing more at once. We get a little better price per square. As much as it's nice to keep the momentum of doing projects one right after the other, it might be worth this wait a year, right? So that input on that.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned a minute ago about spending $400,000. Um, we do have $300,000 that are unappropriated in streets. I don't think I don't I would hate to do a budget amendment so early in the year, but we may be able if if we wanted to do the project, we can do in a budget amendment to bring that extra money into our call for suspendance year. Something you might want to put a little I mean that's consensus of the council, but something you want to look into on the financial side and see if it works.

I mean, we could I mean, we can do whatever we need to. you're the bearsers of the fruit, but that's where we we have $39,000 put away for another for later on. But if the council felt, hey, you know, let's do this, this, and this, we can always make the finance happen because we have the money. I think I'd want to chew on that idea versus waiting till next year when there's a little more wiggle room. I think I want to chew on that. I'm not sure how I feel about that. So, are we looking at either chewing on it like that? Our focus seems to be 2 A and 2B. Did we get a um a bid if we did both of those the schedule A and B together? You mean 2 A and two?

Yeah. Sorry. Well, I mean you can always I mean it even says on the bids um I mean all bids can not be accepted. I mean, do we have that? I was just wondering is like because those were bidded as individuals. No, no, I think these are estimates. I don't think we've gone out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't got anything yet until we get approval on this where council wants to go and they were those two were done together. Great question.

We have done that before on projects where we have multiple schedules for a paving project. The one thing you got to be careful about on that is you got to tell them, okay, this is the base bid. If we're going to award something, it's going to be this because otherwise they don't they could get a small project and they don't want just the small project. Now their mobilization just went out the window. And that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Because two A and two B together is a pretty good size project.

That makes sense. And then you and you looked at the mobilization cost on the chip seal, right? I saw the email yesterday. You were talking about the the Yamahill County chip and seal cost. Okay. Okay. I I Yeah, we did, right? Yeah. So, one one of the differences between a chip seal and a overlay or grind and inlay. So, overlay or grind and inlay, you're getting like at least 2 in of new asphalt. And that does two things. It's it's a little bit structural, but it also kicks in ADA. So, it's a big enough improvement that, right? A chip seal is not structural. It's a band-aid. Yeah.

Well, you know, the county does it all over the place, but it runway road. Yeah. It is a surface treatment, but the but the powers at BC, it has not an improvement that kicks in 88. It doesn't kick in the ADA. It's just a repair surface improvement. And actually, you know, canyon view if you walk it, it looks bad, but structurally it doesn't. You don't have rudding or anything. So, a surface treatment alligator could work there and it just makes the driving surface better. How many houses are on Canyon? 25. Yeah.

Like not like the portion that we do paving. Um, probably 25 or so. 30. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty decent size block. I mean, I've driven it many times, but I And with Canyon View not seeing a lot of heavy LE is probably a better route to go with that one. Yeah. I just don't think it's an urgent. Yeah. I wouldn't put that seal out on Madison, but it wouldn't last. Okay. So counselor counselors that haven't spoken up, I want to make sure that you have a chance to chime in if you want. Not forcing you to.

Oh, one one more comment. So, I know it's in the 26 budget, which means it would have to be construction would have to be done before June 30 or it goes over into the other year. In order to do that, you're you're betting that you get some good weather in April, May, you're probably bidding it out in February. So, you're probably starting design next month. So just a time issue if you we want to do it in 26 to me that's just another reason to wait to hear where we compare those two things together

because then we could be ready to do it at the end of we don't have to wait till the next end of the next year we can just until the second year funds are available. Brandon, what are your thoughts on and I know I know you want to get these projects knocked out, but what are your thoughts on kind of so we can pair those two big ones together?

I think we should at least do something. I mean, we have money there. I mean, even if it's a small project like a chip and seal along Canyon View or something, I think we should at least do something. Um, but I mean, at the end of the day, you are the policy makers. I I I I would hate not to do anything and and especially if costs go up next year. I mean, we're seeing where some of the economy stuff was going. I would be worried that that cost may not be as tight as it is this year. That's what it goes down next year.

So, a $250,000 project is big enough to get paving companies attention. It won't be their top project, but it's big enough. That's not a throwaway project for them. So like can we look at doing an estimate or putting out a bid to see what it would be to do those two projects together? Yeah, I think I want to do them together. Even if that means we need to explore the idea explore it of you mentioned we might be able to get the other 100,000 from street plans to do that. I would rather explore that and try to do the two projects together and do something small. Unless you want to look at doing another street that needs a chip and seal it. So if we're going to trip and seal Canyon View, maybe we chip and seal another another shoot or two and we get to like 125 130.

I just feel like the other projects are more in need. Well, and if we're talking about a potential like just for sake of numbers, right, 10% increase on cost next year. My asshole's down right now. It could go up 10%. We don't know. I'd rather do a $400,000 project and say 40 grand than a $50,000 project and save five grand. Mhm. I understand that too. Okay. So, see 2 A and B would come out together. Just another thing to think about. I know I brought up a minute ago, but the transportation bill can be a game changer if it passes what it can do to projects. Actually, we'll have that for other I mean, it's not like this. Yeah, I I I just want I just want to make sure that you know

I don't I don't want to start spending or even like chewing money like because then it sounds like we're we don't have to. So well and then support of it. Well, no, not spending the money that we have but spending money that could possibly come down. So if we do it now, it it may be cheaper than it is next year because next year things go up, they're going to start charging us more. Obviously gas goes up, oil goes up, car registration goes up, that's going to be a cost on us. So, if we do it this year before the bill, if the bill's going to pass most likely, if we get ahead of it now, we can probably at least try to avoid some of the cost increase. So, it's kind of both saying like why can't we find out now what it would be to do those two big project? I'll hold that if you want to.

Okay. Move forward with design on 2A and 2B 2 A 2B and see if we can make it work to I mean, we have the money. It just all depends if you want to spend that money and I can put it in schedules. I think it I think a few options. It's a pretty little project. Like putting 2 A and 2B together since we have the money. Whether we do it together or separate, it's still going to cost, but to do it together makes it another really good size project. Less traffic interference and one time, not a oh, we just finished construction on it, now we're going to start again.

Okay. So that does include some ADA ramps and it does include some uh extruded curves to separate the sidewalk from the travel lane. Okay. So there's it's not just the paving. So that sounds great. Okay. Okay. We think are we thinking next month or we think next month for I what I'm hearing is start designing on this put it together so that we can bid it out like February is that right? Yeah. I want Yeah. Sooner the better since we're on the time frame of it.

Okay. Moving on to 8C. We should have gotten a chair tonight. Um regulations. So now we're on to the agenda. I'm saying that I popped myself up with you guys. Okay, one more thing before we finish up AP. So, while he's working on the bids, the design the design um I'm taking that as I should probably work on that money. I'm pulling off bringing a possible budget amendment if needed because it looks like be ready for that. Okay. Yeah. Want to make sure I'm everybody's on the same page before I work on that. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Okay. Well, now you got to update your presentation for later. We just

Oh, no. This is better. This for last year. Awesome. Okay. Um, now we're on toy. So, yeah, I've caught myself up. Uh, blah blah blah. Um, Brandon staff report.

Everybody's looking. So, in front of you, you have um some photos. Uh let me bring these up. So, over the past few months, we've been discussing um driveways. I think this all started with front yard parking and how do you define a driveway? What's a driveway? Um a driveway according to the LCDO is for corner. All the current requirements include for corner properties, driveways must be located at the farthest point from the intersection. A driveway definition is defined as a minor private way used by vehicles and pedestrians to gain access from approved public access or rideway onto a lot parcel. And then parking in yards. Driveways are the only exception for vehicle access in front yards. Parking outside of a designated driveway in a front yard yard adjacent to the street is prohibited. So we wanted to showcase to you on what are perceived to be improper driveways at least according right now to the current code.

I want to make it very clear we are not targeting these homes. They just were random examples. Yes. Okay. So obviously you see in front of you um you see a lot of gravel here. Um there's no real defined driveway for that uh tow truck to park. Next to it, you see another one where you have people parking in the driveway and then you have a little bit more of uh front yard front yard that's being used as a driveway. Was

yeah was we have one here. This is one, this is actually one property where you have a driveway, but all along outside that driveway, you have people parking along the gravel and then again in front. So essentially, this is serving as two driveways. One of them is an approved driveway, one of them is not an improved driveway. And you can already see the enclosure onto the gravel um on some of those. One side he's got six cars, the other side he's got three in the front. And and there's no issue with the amount of cars. Is that all one property? Yes. Oh, okay. The yellow and the bluish color. I thought there were two neighbors. Okay.

And then um another one here that it's it's improved very well. I mean, the gravel's laid out very well and nice, but it's considered a front yard. It's not an improved driveway. He put all gravel in park cars on it. And then next to

And then next to that you see another lot that just has parking everywhere. No defined driveway, parking on gravel on an open lot. Now below that you see permitted driveways, what a driveway is supposed to look like. So by showing you these photos, a few things the council can decide. council could decide right now the driveways that we currently have structured and permitted are the way we want to continue um allowing driveways to be in town. Um you can say let's look at expanding driveways to be gravel with a very loose definition or we can even test the planning commission at looking at expanding imperous cover. Impervious cover is the amount of space the lot has for use that's not on the structure. So for parking, landscaping, other incidental things for the property right now, I think it's like 30 to 40% if I'm not mistaken on most lots in town for the impervious cover.

30 already 30 I think. Yes. So I mean so depending on if what that So if we want to expand driveways, we may have to look at expanding um the the coverage of the lot because right now most those designs for the driveways are going to stay within that 30% lot coverage. anything outside of that we would probably have to look at expanding what lot coverage would be and you know the standard right now is about 30. I know you had something on you were going to share something about driveways.

Uh sure. So Brandon asked me from an engineering standpoint where we stand on that. So in the development code we typically say one driveway per lot. There are special circumstances. Um, specifically like a large commercial, you can have two driveways for circulation. Um, but typically for residential, it's one driveway per lot and there is a distance from intersections and that's per site distance. That's just a safety thing. And then we have design standards that show what a driveway section looks like in the rightway. So that's your if you were looking here

like your ceiling jose your approach your that's where the sidewalk is and coming down to the asphalt. So we have design details for that and it's concrete and it tells the thickness and all that but it also indicates that on residential driveways are 14 to 24 ft wide. So 24 is max and 14 is min. So the houses that have already paved in double the car garage driveway and then they have it paved for that RV parking or the third parking

once once they're on site they can do that. It's the driveway that the code that the design standards cares about the apron width. Yeah. The apron width where it crosses the sidewalk. Once you're on private property, our standards, design standards don't say, "Hey, you've got to stay there." They could go out like this. And I've seen that. And I don't know if the your development code has Yeah. But you're saying from the driveway standard size, you're talking just the entry. Yeah. Entry. Okay. So, where do where do RV pads come into this? What where do RV pads come into this? Because this is longer than 24. longer than 24 ft

when you have, you know, when you have like a twocar garage and then right next to that they have the RV pad. They go That's what I was talking about. Yeah, exactly. That's that's more than 24 ft, right? Where does that So, that would have to be something that they go in off the apron. Off the apron. Yeah. Off to the side. So, here's my next question, and I think you're going to tell me the same thing applies, but if they have an RV pad and it's gravel, but it's not on the apron currently, that's permissible. in the sideyard. In a sideyard, from my standpoint, yes. I don't know if your code says anything about No, you can have a gravel. So, here's my question.

The the picture with the improper driveway you mentioned they put in the gravel. They parked their car there. That's in the front of the house though. That's in front. That's the front yard. So, and from my understanding, from asking Brandon and Robert, the side yard starts at the front of the house, corner of the house, not the front of the yard. So, so as somebody who actually lives near this house,

this and at first I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but as somebody who cannot pull out of their driveway because we have so many commercial vehicles parked on the road. I applaud this person for taking at least some effort into making it look nice instead of you literally cannot drive down my road without hitting or or being close to being hit by a car because of all the commercial vehicles that are parked. So, if we're going to go after driveways, maybe we should start also going after the excessive amount of vehicles that are happening on that side of town because my neighbor has four

four vehicles. My other neighbor has multiple children who all have cars and they are blocking in our road. So, this may not have gone about it the the right proper way, but I applaud this person for not putting all of their vehicles on the road and yet again blocking people's ability to drive down roads. This is a multi-ter issue. All this standard is talking about is the throat. I understand that. This is a bigger issue. Is there any other I want to be respectful of Gordon. Of course. No, I want to go the route you're going. I think this is frustrating. Um, this is what happened.

Is there any further questions on what defines a driveway for Gordon? It cannot be broken. The new ones are supposed to be concrete, but after you get on private property, our our design standards don't Let me rephrase. Within the apron, new newer homes, like if the home is built or if they're changing their driveway within the apron, it cannot be grab. It's supposed to be concrete. Okay. For our design, but our code allows for a sideyard to be gravel. Two very different things. Okay. So one's in the rightway, one's on private property.

I think I think we all from aging as councelor Kit said like this is a multi-ter issue and it's one issue that's going to push into another issue. It's going to snowball something else. There's cause and effect all over this. Um, I need to know, are we looking at this from a safety aspect of why we're talking about where people can park on their property right now, or are we looking at it from an aesthetic? I think we're going to look at whatever angle. Okay. I just preference.

I mean, I understand why we don't want things to look trashy. I get that. But this one house, they they put the effort into making it look at least decent. Um, so I I get that a lot of this looks bad, but it there's I don't know. Like we're going to enforce one code. We should be enforcing some of the parking codes. Well, part part of the problem is is people have tons of kids and that's not the problem. No, but there's nothing there's nothing we can do about that. People have park further down the road. It's part of life. We can't go saying each house you're only allowed three cars.

We can't work vehicles that are quite large that are block. I I contact Brandon. It's also just standard residential vehicle. Here's where if I'm a if I'm a painter, my work gives me a painting van. Clearly, I don't do like man work. I'm making this up, right? Like if I if I have a painting van that my work sends me home with and you know I need to park on I'm gonna park on the street, right? Like that's legal. There's nothing wrong. You might just have to park two blocks down and walk. Society has changed where they're sending work. Sorry.

However you feel about it, I think that's some way of some businesses skirting having to pay for storage for their own vehicles and putting it on the homeowners. No, because I mean some of it's pay more for those employees to drive home more gas. Yeah. No, some get um sent out from wherever location they're at. You can't just like ban people from parking.

I'm not saying ban, but like my neighbor has a boat that blocks part of his driveway. He has two vehicles and he has two work vehicles. So, between his driveway and and this is not just because it inconveniences me. This is a good this is a example. We've got a boat. We have a car. We have a truck. Then we have a work van and another one across a park across the street. So he's because he has his boat, he can't park his at least one of his work vehicles there. So he's now parking it. And I've had to call Brandon like it blocks the fire hydrant. Like one day it just outright block the fire hydrant. And I took very short sent to Brandon. But this person who's a perfectly lovely person because they choose to have a an extra thing like a boat or anybody who has anything extra and they're and their driveway is small is now in coming

and I get that but if they're moving their vehicle as much as they have to well that's where I'm getting at of how strict do we want to be on where they can put in their yard their boat because if we're going to be very strict it's going to put it in their driveway and then their cars are going to move out because they're not going to put their It's also a safety issue. Anytime there's ambulances or anything that's trying to go down the street, they barely fit down the street at this point. Well, that's not a parking issue. That's a it's a multi-tier issue. So, because we don't we this is a growing issue, especially in our neighborhood. I don't know about the other neighborhoods, but especially in our neighborhood, Joe's in this neighborhood. It is a huge issue over there. And it is a safety issue because you can't see around these vehicles because they're so large.

Kids everywhere. Kids everywhere. Kids are darting out in front of the in between these large work vehicles. So this is a multi-ter. I think this is an issue of whether that street should be a no park no street parking street. I think that's very separate from what we're talking about with drivers. Well, but this So this person found a solution for all their vehicles. They put them in their front yard, but that's not a solution for them. It's not a solution. It's against our codes. It there's a lot of issues with that. I get their frustration, but I'll have to put my RV in my driveway and then my cars on the road. And you have the right to do that the way it's written.

Street, but that's what I'm saying. You have the right to do that as long as you're moving your cars every so often. You know, it's first come, first serve. Who gets there? You might have to park two blocks down. And I get the frustration, but we can't tell people you can't have a boat on your property. I mean, if it's allowed that parks there for a year. Yeah. Did you report? Everybody reported it. So where? Yep. Everybody reported it and it's where do we enforce don't we? Now they moved another broke down part. Yes, they did. Which one? Robert's like I'm on the I'm on it. No, here here's my thing. It's I mean we can go into the oneoffs of like you know the

Bye Gordon. But I think I think the big the issue at hand here is driving, right? We can go into the anecdotal evidence of street parking that I'm sure everywhere in the city people get frustrated about cars parked on their street. Grant periods where there's going to be more teenagers at certain points. I remember that in the neighborhood I grew up in. There was a time period for about 30 years. It was really heavy parking. All of a sudden we all start graduating and now a lot of the people are still living there but don't have many teenagers anymore. Parking's not an issue. Look, my household has a teenager who's about to get a license. Got to help me. Uh, and it's uh, you know, there's going to be another car. Now, heaven for, now look, all of our neighbors have kids who are like five and six. When those kids turn 16, that place is going to be flooded with cars.

That's what I'm saying. It's legal to park on the street. I'm not saying it's not legal to park on the street. What I'm saying is the excess of owning so many things, not it's a safety issue on our street. But my point is that's a different issue. If you want your street to be no parking, that's fine. But that's a totally different issue. We should make people walk right to the dog park. The problem is we are not a walkable town because there's not really good public transportation and no one works within the town.

I was. So, I I want to be very clear that my I care about aesthetics, but my number one concern is um vehicles that park across the whole front yard so tightly that if a fire was to happen tightly, if it's the front yard, they're not supposed to be in the front.

I'm saying safety wise, my thing is like that's what's on my radar more than I I like the aesthetic part, too. Don't get me wrong. It's that's what's black and white to me is like the one that came to us last last month or whatever. The flag that flew up for me wasn't okay, this looks horrible. It's how how is the emergency supposed to reach the front door and now all those now all those cars are out.

And I'm not Yeah. And I'm not pinpointing him. There's one on my street that they have put pavers down and they literally have car car car car mirrors folded in so they can get their cars so tight. I don't know how they get out and they probably crawl through each one. Everybody has to close their mirrors and leave. But I know and then they have more cars on the street and that's right where it's so tight that part of me wants to be like we should only have parking on one side because you can't get through. But then that takes parking away. But it's my concern to there isn't the look, it's the annoyance of a neighbor of how many cars do you need? It's the safety. Like

when I've moved in on street, there was signs that said no parking. And then when they built the house next door to it, they pulled all the signs. And your culat person that lives around out of the seven houses were the only house that both of our cars are in the driveway. Every house around me has eight vehicles at a time. to eight vehicles. So when we pull through, that'll be the hardest part about teaching Michael to drive is to not hit the neighbors without we're we're live. So please tell me exact which area of town are

near the new development. Um, so yeah, I think we have to be concerned about cause and effect, but we do have to focus on each thing or we're just going to I think you sum it up to if you have side you have side just driveway or side yard just no parking front yard. And I want to clarify you can parallel park in front of your own driveway. Yes. As long as you're not blocking. You can block your own driveway. You can't block anybody else's driveway. What I was getting out on some of these pictures is an age. You probably can't do that.

So, here is this house. He's got nine cars. He's got an extra wide driveway that's got six in it. He's got three more in the front yard, but it's all drivable. Now, he's not my back to what is a drive. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't your yard in your front yard in front of your house is not a driveway. I agree. I understand a side that that makes perfect sense but not a front. Okay. So there's that one picture where the whole front yard is dirt from the road

up to the property. The whole thing the one kit was respond and they park everywhere. doesn't have it doesn't have an actual Oh, the unimproved. Yeah. What's the driveway? And that's another big issue with this town is we have two types of town. Yeah. We've got this side of town that has no sidewalks, no defined driveway.

Our things grandfathered in from when those houses out were built. includes driveways right there and that's their front yard. The driveway right there. So, they're encroaching on the front yard and the side. Okay. We have Can I try to get back on track? Yes. Brandon, what do we need? I need direction from y'all on what we need to I mean, I think we need to tighten up our definition of the driveway here. I I think either need to tighten the tighten up the driveway the definition, which would take some work with the planning commission because then we would have to go through the obviously go through the zoning issue. um or if you want to look at expanding a lot coverage.

Here's I think I want to be very clear. I think that our definition of a driveway makes many of these things improper already, but I do think it makes sense to tighten it up. I think whatever our definition is needs to be very concise and not open for interpretation. I get that every lot's going to be different, but whatever happens, we also need to somehow communicate one why we're doing this. We're not trying to become as tight of an HOA or you know, it's we must be getting a lot of calls for how much time we put in. We're getting more and more worse. So, can we It sounds like we need to get the planning.

Yeah. Is that right? And but it'll probably be a few I mean I can probably put something on for next week. Yeah. Well, they got one coming up next week where they're talking over mobile food carts um being allowed um now that we got the planning the planner situation figured out for the for the time being working on that stuff. So I can add to the the agenda next week just on doing that. So what if if we wanted to go towards the planning commission, what is our choices now of giving directive of how strongly are we enforcing this right now?

It needs to be I mean it's the well that's that's part of it is you're going to have some people that won't do it. They will not move them. I cite them. They don't go to court. Our next step would be an abatement and yeah but then the lean is so for something that they're not going to pay for. They're just going to finally say, "Yeah, but so where's the money coming from to have these towed?" RVs are about three minimum is $3,000 an RV. They have a tow and we I think we have like00 here in Portland. I say nobody wants them. Yeah. Last year I think cost us $4,000. I think we start if we start doing that it's going to set up the example that we're serious. Has to be has to be

I agree. I agree if we're going to do it. I also just want to throw out there that if we're going to say, "Hey, we're going to start enforcing this and we mean business." I can't tell you guys what to do, but remember people know where we live. And I mean, what do you mean start? We have been enforcing. No, I mean the leans on the towing and if they're not the ones that we've towed are abandoned. So, we haven't had But that's the law. Yeah, they That's the law. The law needs to be enforced as far as a bandage. No. Period.

People are being cited for parking in the wrong place and they refuse to show up to court and they refuse like the process. There's due process for a reason. The due process has been offered. If they ignore it, they get towed. I mean, that's that's the way the law works. Am I am I nuts right now? I guess what I'm getting at is I have $20,000 a year for abatements. I can burn that up pretty quick if we start towing vehicles. We start to vehicles. People might get messed up. We got to start towing vehicles. Okay. If we need to figure it out, we'll figure it out. But the law has to be You're not choosing on your own just to go over budget. You're going off of our directive of saying we understand that this

Hold on. Hold on. Be clear. Brandon off of our Sorry. Yeah. Sorry, I said I meant our director to Brandon like and then his director to you. Um, yeah, I just I just want to finish saying that we need to be very aware that we need to set the example contract to company that services for we've talked about that with the RV guy. Um I can get I mean if if we think it's going to get aggressive Robert thinks so I can reach out to a few tow companies to get some bids that I can take care of because it'll be under my my um allocation to spend and I can get a few

nobody around no other tow companies around here. They will not tow it. They don't want them in their lot. RVs cars cars are not a problem. Well the cars so that's okay but we're saying you should pour it. Brandon, you're you're a smart guy. Robert's smart guy. If Robert says, "Hey, it's gonna make sense to look at a contract." Look at the contract. You know, that's that's I feel like us stepping and saying not to be micromanaging. That's not our job. Your job is to administer do your thing

because if we tow, then we recoup that cost back and eventually they'll have to pay the the the tow truck because we got to tack our feet onto it. And then there'll obviously be some type of thing with the with the judge with the court because when the judge came by last time when judge came by last month I was like what do we need to do to start doing this like we just need the word till we start charging people by the day because compliance is only going to happen if you charge them by the day and not just a onetime flat fee they're not going to do anything you know so I mean just so be it

especially if your budget's 20,000 you get somebody to contract you for 10 for the year for however I just I want to be very clear since we're live and people might try to twist this. We're only enforce the law. Don't go beyond it. Don't stretch. Enforce the laws that's written. I I don't think that's crazy. So, and that means enforcing the laws between what's being reported to us and what's being seen by us. Like, are we doing or are we just enforcing all what's being reported? We do a lot of discretion like I mentioned on I mean we're proactive and reactive.

Yeah. But most of the calls we're getting for like Robert to go out there are going to be hey like parking the wrong way RV trailer jump broke down vehicle. There's been a lot more discretion on let's leave that until we've kind of had this conversation. The discretion thing that's outside of council's per we can give you policy direction. We can't tell you which circumstance makes sense to give discretion. That's that would be my Here's the thing though. the vehicle is parked the wrong way. No, there's been banning discretion. There is no

Well, you know, if you see if you see a car parked in the front lawn and you go up to the guy and he says, "Hey, I'm so sorry. I just it's hot out. I just took 10 minutes to go grab some water. I was just unloading some stuff, you that discretion. But if it's been parked there for a week, like that's a different story. I think that how we approach it is as important as h what we're approaching." And that's not just, you know, ding-dong ditch of, oh, I got you. Well, and it's remembering when they come here asking for exceptions or saying they're being picked on and stuff, we need to be backing up the code. We're asking code enforcer to enforce this and so we need to be standing that ground here as well.

And that's, you know, when they come for public input or whatever, that's on me to make sure that we're holding to our rule that we're not discussing it tonight. We thank you for your information. What do we want to discuss it? But that's why we don't throw our staff under the bus cuz then we get partial information that we think the picture's painted to us and then we find out it's a whole different Yeah. So instead of him driving to Colorado, we could get him a record. What? Instead of him driving his the Colorado pickup, we just get him his own tower. Yes. Here we go. Are we uh ready to move on? One. I will get with the planning commission to see how we can define driveway a little better. All right.

Okay. Um that puts us to the end of that which leads us to um Brandon's financial report, but let's take five minutes to anyone that needs to go to the bathroom. Let Brandon get set up. So, we are recessing for five minutes. Recessing that house that help the Yeah. Are you awake over there? Oh, I think

the report Brandon because all you

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, I just wanted to spend a few minutes going over the end of the June fiscal the fiscal year that ended June 30th. Um, I've been doing these every a few times a year since I've been here. And I just keeping with financial transparency, I want to give you the final the final numbers uh for FY2425 um before we start getting um involved in the audit. Um so I'm just going to kind of run through some things. If you have any questions, you can kind of stop me. Um general fund revenues last year, we actually exceeded uh we had budgeted three a little less than 3.8. We had about 4.2 2 million come in. So, we had about 10% more growth in the general fund than we projected, which shows that our general fund is continuing to be increasingly healthy. Um, in terms of expenditures, uh, general, you know, general fund admin, uh, we only used about 47% of our budget there. Um, on planning, same thing. Uh, you got about 72% of our budget. that was left remaining at the end of the year. Um, in the building, we had about 5 57% of our budget remaining at the end of the year. Um, police services obviously is always going to be pretty close because we budget pretty conservatively for that. Uh, we had about 5% remaining at the end of the um, fiscal year. Um, general fund general fund parks, we had about 27% left. That's one of the funds that we tend to use um get pretty accurate on when we budget. Um our fire is another one. Um we had about 5% left over. We thought we were going to be pretty a lot closer than that this year. Um but due to the wildfire grant for the salaries, we had uh staffing class. Some of that helped out a little bit. Um so total general fund uh we had about 35%

remaining um from budget. So um can I pop in with a question? Yes. How much was the grant on the fire? Um, it was a staffing grant. I want to say it's like15 or $20,000. Okay. So, we still we still would have been under just tighter. Okay.

Yes. It been it would have been tighter. Um, so yeah. So, general total general fund we're seeing some we saw 10% growth from what we projected the budget. Um and then we also had about 40 uh 36% of our general fund uh remaining at the end of the fiscal year in our general fund. Any questions on concerns, comments? All right. Um when we go into our revenue accounts, u our sewer fund, um we projected 1.457, force 57 we had about 1657 so about 14% more projected in our sewer fund revenues than we had budgeted for expenditures uh we had about 33% um left untouched at the end of the year um on the water fund side um we had uh 5% oh sorry my bad uh sorry let me go back to that I'm looking at the the wrong percentage in the sewer fund uh we budgeted that. So, yeah, we had 33% less. Oh, the other one I forgot to carry the minus. I'm sorry. I don't listen to me. Late night. Um the water fund, uh we were about 5% less where we needed to be on the um revenue projection. On the water fund expenditures, uh we had about $4 million. We spent less than three million. So we had about a quarter of that left at the end of the year on the streets. That's the um state revenue that we get shared um our our share of the gas tax. Um we had about 14% remaining at the end of the year. Um on the expenditure side, we had only spent about 30% of the budget. Obviously, a lot of that's not going to be actually be spent in a year because we we always have some cash carry forward um in capital outlay for big

projects. Uh see where SDC uh we saw some we saw about 23% growth in our projected SDC revenue um last fiscal year which is always good uh meaning more people are building than we projected. Um on the expenditure side I mean we spent nothing. We spent about 91,000 out of the million dollars in the account. So we only spent about 9% there. We know that those are going to dwindle, right? Yeah. Well, that I mean and most of that's um the SEC's are being held over for um what we do for the plant. Yes. Yes. So yeah, we we rarely spend anything out of there unless it's something that we have to that's going to be for expansion of the the the system.

Water SDC's uh we had budget about 1.104 104. Um we brought in about almost 20% higher in revenue for what we projected. Um similar with the water SDC though the water SDC we had a bigger expenditure just because we had a lot of the final procedures with the reservoir and the SDC was um one of the funders. The water SDC was one of the funding mechanisms for that water reservoir. Park SDC. Uh we saw some growth about 19% from what we planned um what we budgeted for. The expenditures we spent nothing last year which is always good when you don't have to spend anything. Um and then as you can see our capital improvement plan list there. Um everything is complete. I'm going to go ahead and say the bridge street repairs are complete because they're just about done as is the Highway 99 pedestrian crossing. Um the only thing we really have left over is the water the wastewater facilities update which hopefully should be done fairly soon. And then one thing um that we didn't have to use was the city matching funds um

the grant because um the uh we didn't get the um sidewalks and school grant. So I mean that's pretty much the gist. Um these are pretty standard in my time here. here. I don't know if you have any questions, any concerns, any comments with the numbers? Nope. No, I think we're continue to be healthy. Um, and I just want to make it clear, we did invite budget committee if they wanted to come. Yes. Yes. So, that they're either viewing um at home live or they're going to be watching on YouTube.

Okay. Any further questions or you guys ready to move on and move on? Uh, department reports. Brandon, I'll go ahead and let you take over department reports. I know there's some changes, but if Brandon does not touch on something that you guys want him like a question on a report, he doesn't go into detail, please speak up.

Um, got one I got something a little bit more in depth than public works. Um, but real quick, um, so the fire department's got a new um form. I mean, not the fire department, um, um, sheriff's office. You can see it's a little bit more smoother. It's a little bit more cleaner. Um, you can kind of tell um, it's kind of similar to what we're doing with um, the code enforcement. Um, so it's a lot easier to navigate. So hopefully I told um uh Captain Whit that I appreciate the visual upgrades to the reporting. It seems like most cities are doing that. So um I think they just kind of fell in line. So that's great. It looks really good. Um couple things on the administrative side. Um don't forget we have our special work session for strategic planning on October 16th at 6:30. So, we'll have our meeting the 9th and then the next month the next week we'll have our meeting here while planning commission's at the community center. Um, we will the planning commission uh next week we'll start looking at mobile food units. I know we spoke about that about a year ago that there seem to be some uh some want for expanding for mobile food carts. Now that the planning commission is caught up on other things that we have we're working on, we're going to start working on how we can make food carts um a full-time use here in Lafayette. So, um you'll probably be seeing something come to you within the next three to four months. Um city hall will be closed tomorrow at 11:30. Uh we have a yearly all staff training. So, we'll be here just going over some uh sexual harassment.

So, it's open in the morning and then you close. Yes. Well, yeah, we'll be closing 11:30. Um we'll be providing once for the team and we'll be having um the we're going to be going over the employee personnel changes um that you all approved a few months ago. um workplace harassment um and then some other stuff. So um bridge street work starts Monday. The the big big big work um everybody's been notified. Um you saw some communications come out on Facebook, our app, the newspaper. We did door hangers today. Thank you to Greg and his crew. Um so Monday they'll start doing that and then I think the following Monday you'll start seeing everything go down to about one lane or so. um once they really start getting into the membrane and digging up the guts.

How long are we expecting it to? We're thinking probably like the first second week of October. Yeah, I think they projected about a week. I It's not supposed to last very long. Yeah. The actual one lane. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the one lane it probably probably be Monday through Friday that week. Um just FYI when you get a chance um there was a fishing attempt from one one of our counselors. Yeah. Um so phone call to get from him. So, we want to make sure if you haven't done your computer training, um it was a it was almost to a point where money was going to be exchanged. Make it very clear, Mayor Malcolmson will never ask you guys to give me Apple iPad or Apple Cards. Okay.

Yes. So, there's some training that you all have as part of that. If you can complete that um just as signs, I know um some of you should know signs of fishing or or cyber security scams, but just for those who may need some refreshers, we have some um training for you um that's available. And then um I have reached out to Dayton. So Dayton is kind of putting a pause on this waterf um latch on to us. Um they're they're looking at possibly going for a more forensic like um financial strategy for their water rates to where they can kind of look at affording their future planning for water. So in the interimm I have asked um Dayton city manager and city attorney to draft up a memor memorandum of understanding to where we can memorialize that this we will not be paying anything um in the t in the interimm for our shared system costs um while they figure out what they want to do with their water system um like I mentioned last year the goal is to take any additional money that we were going to be paying to the shared services of the water treatment plant to put that into Mac water if we need the water expansion which we probably would but then also keep that into our uh water account since we're not going to be since we're pretty much locked out of using the water treatment plant. Um I think after that moment um after the council agrees to theou which I don't I don't foresee you the council not agreeing to that. I think we need to have a discussion on do we need to discuss getting out of the system long term but I think that's going to be a much broader discussion. I think that's going to take time and seeing what we have for resources and permits and whatnot. But I know if there's a concern even if there is things done to the with with Dayton, we still won't have access to that water. I think we we we haven't had much access to that water outside of we're supposed to be at 50%. That's always been the goal, but since I've been here, I haven't seen anything more than 20. And I mean, and we were paying for the 20%

share of water, but we're still paying 50% for all the costs. So if there's a way that we can make up that water and save on the like we were paying like you know we had a breakdown twice a year from Dayton city you know city manager we're paying the water supervisor so all these things that were in char part of running the plant we were paying 50/50 for but we weren't getting 5050

yes we were getting 20% water so we may need something to look at long term um as we start talking to as the regional plans going but also what we can do with water line to uh look at but obviously It's a much bigger conversation. It's not going to be done right away or even 6 months to a year, but I think the most the most pressing need is going to be the MOU to Dayton. So, we're not make we're not making payments for something that we don't have access to, but that'll have to be formalized by you all. Um, and then lastly, so um hopefully you took a look at the public works report. I'm going to def defer this to Greg here in a moment. Um, but we had some um compliance issues last month. if you want to kind of talk about that a little bit and how we can kind of move forward and what that looks like in the future.

Yeah. So, it's not something that I was looking forward to to uh come to you all tonight. Um, unfortunately, it did happen. Uh, we had a couple three to be exact non-compliance uh for the month of July. Uh, two of those were not operator error. Um first of first one was uh the temperature uh that can't be we can't control the temperature of the water. It is what it is um unfortunately um

if we I sorry I just got to clarify if we can't control the temperature of the water how are we not in compliance? Do they want us to Let's rephrase this. So, we all know the the plant wasn't built to where it should have been. And when Chad came in came here two years ago or a year and a half ago, you all seen the the the UV lights where we had the we had the um the coverage. We had some cooling mechanisms. We were trying to use that instead of actually installing a cooler. Installing a cooler thing before we we didn't order that like we It's just the way the plant was built.

Yeah. The way the plant was built. So, our UV bank needs a cooler. The cooler is probably going to be more than the the press that we the uh uh screen screen press

the screen press that we said, "Hey, do we want to spend money now and risk non-compliance or do we want to put $300 400,000 into a coolant system for something that we're going to have to tear up in a couple years?" Luckily, when we do the the temperature situations like the BOD, there's not a monetary fine behind it. It can ding us on our permit, but like for our permit renewal in four or five years on how many times we didn't meet the temperature flow, but in terms of a monetary fine, that's not going to happen. The EEQ knows our systems out of whack. Um, but it's still a violation and we at least wanted to make sure that we communicated that we were not in we were not there. Um, this is one of those things just like the the the the screen. I mean, do we want to spend a million dollars for a coolant and a screen when we're going to have to cut this up in a few years? I mean, that's just one of those things we have to kind of mitigate right now.

Part of the temperature, too, refers to the flow of the South Yamill. Um, we are definitely a lot lower this summer in the Yamhill than what we were this time last year. And we passed last year. We passed last year. We compared we compared this year's temperatures with last year's river flows and we would have actually been in compliance this year had the river been flowing

better like it was last year. We It's an unfortunate situation. Um again we we can't control the flow of the river. It is what it is. Um, EPA sets the standards for the temperature of what our temperature has to be when we dump into the South Young Hill. If you look at, from my understanding, if you look at a lot of cities that discharge into a water body, u, they have the same issue that we have. They fight that temperature year after year, summer after summer. Um, like Brandon mentioned, we can put chillers in, but it's going to cost a ton of money,

but it's all environmental influence, right? Ambient temperature. It is. So, it's what, two months out of the year that you face that being strong?

Yeah. Yeah. It's only It's only an issue it ever happen in the summer time because that's when we have the UV tents out and we have all the all the cooling mechanisms. The rest of the year, it's not an issue. It's always going to be June, July, and August. Outside of spending a lot of money, we've we've tarped the EQ basin, which I think you've all seen. We've painted the outside of it white in hopes to help, I guess, cool that water uh before it hits the South Young Mill. Uh last year, we did put up all those tents down there as well, try and cool that water. It's It helps. It most certainly helps. you know, even a half a degree helps. Half a half a degree can can either make you still be in compliance or out of compliance. Um, there's really nothing left to do to try and help cool that water outside of putting chillers in.

So, the temperature was what's what's that's one of three. What was the next one?

So, the the second one is is the BOD. That's pretty much your loading coming into the plant. Again, we can't control um what the city sends us. It it is what it is. Uh BOD is your it's basically your breakdown of all of your waste, if you will. Uh that eats up the oxygen in the water. Um the oxygen helps break down the waste. Uh, the more we bring in, the less oxygen we have to help break it down.

And we not trying to be funny, but we try to find the day of the month that's happened and it happened to be the day we had the garage sales in town. Hey, because we have more people in town. I I don't want to I don't we don't want to That was just a random day. It's like, wow, everybody was in town. Everybody was using the bathroom on a Saturday. It just seemed that was the one day we pinpointed where we failed. I don't want at the citywide garage sale. It just happened to be that day. I don't Thank you for the clarification. Well, there was a farmers market going on, too. So, again, that's just And so, is that a monetary fine?

It is not. Um, it's it could be down the road. DEQ most certainly has the authority to look at your fines from past years and go, "Okay, you've been in non-compliance on BOD's for the last three years. I think we need to maybe give you a little bit of a fine. Uh there is no fine opposed right now. There will not be. Uh but I will never tell you all we will never ever get fined for something like this." that wasn't an issue in the previous fine chart. It was more of the actual testing and the numbers behind the testing more than it was the BOD or the temperature issue.

And again, that's the BOD loading. Again, that's that's that's not an operational error. Um, a plant can only treat what the plant can treat. What's next?

The next one is uh a failed QAQC on the E.coli. coli that we run. Um I take full responsibility for that. Uh I should have had better safeguards in place for my team to remind them that we need to check expiration dates on any and all products we use whether it's water or waste water. Uh we use some colard which is what we mix with the water to read out our ecoli. uh that colort was expired by a couple of weeks um by DEEQ standards. You have to repeat that as a non-compliance. So yes,

it wasn't the sample. It was the tools that we used to take. It was the tools that we used to run the sample. You have you have a plan to make sure that Yes, I do. Um, we now have a work order in place to remind us that we will from now on check all water and wastewater products that have an expiration date. I went as far as mentioning to the crew that when we get a new product in, I want a black Sharpie used and I want that expiration date wrote on that product like big. So it the expiration dates um for lack of a better way to explain it, they are written in fine print. Yeah,

they are very hard to see, very hard to remember with all the uh products that we use. Uh but yes, that one was that one was human caused. Um that one is more on me for not putting a better safeguard in place for my team. But you got a plan moving forward. We do have a plan moving forward. And are we looking at a monetary fine on that one? No, we are not. Okay. It's it's a QAQC which is still a non-compliance. The E.coli passed. We still submitted the E.coli sample to DEQ. The E.coli sample was still good, if you will. It's just the quality assurance that failed on it because the product was expired. Okay.

Manufacturer says you can use that product for a year after it is expired, but DEQ does not care. The date that that Do they supply that the the the product? No, we buy it. We buy that. They don't have a consistent product that they require everybody in the state to use the same time. No. Well, yeah, the colar packet packet. We buy the 18hour one so that we can read E. coli out in 18 hours. They do make a 24-hour one. Um,

there's several different manufacturers out there that supply these these colored packers packets. Um, again, the expiration dates on those are so written so small uh small that um they are easily overlooked. But we do have some good news on cost savings. We can before we wrap up tonight, if you want to share the cost savings on uh from what Chad had mentioned. Yeah. So all that flows um along with uh public works uh discovered that our DEQ permit does not require us to run as many samples every week is that we have been running.

Um we do have uh an extra person uh that we've hired recently that has some um pretty good background in wastewater. Um, so came from Maine, by the way. With that coupled with all that flows and our current employees, uh, we feel pretty confident that we can also save some money in running some of these samples in house rather than paying a lab to do that. That's about 20 or 30 grand per fiscal year. So, some bad news, but we finished it out with some good news. Nobody wants to get sandwich there. No, I appreciate you bringing this. Yes.

Yeah. I mean I mean that if if we mess up we got to we got to we got to own it you know. So savings we can afford an unexpired why put it on the streets. While we were on this why we were on this subject just to put a feeler out there for you all. Uh there will be another non-compliance next month coming already. Yeah. That second month we were just referring to. Oh thanks. Okay. Sorry for the bad news, but hopefully the good news made up for a little bit of it. The temperatures are chang but unless anybody had any questions on the long manager report. No.

Okay. And I didn't we make acknowledgement that there's a community development report now. Okay. Um Council Pollson, anything to report? Um I'm going to need your help with this because I found out Larry had shot me an email, but it was to my old email that I no longer have access to. Um, and I heard from Katie today from the owner of the shed, but there's an event going on September 15th um, with the LDA. It sounds like they've invited some people. Yes. Business owners owners and like Yeah, it's some a meet and greet at 6:30 next Monday. Nice. And so unfortunate community center, right? I heard that you might be there.

Yeah, I'll be there. So, um, depending on a dog situation, I may or may not be there. It's going to depend. Okay. So, um, if you can't go, I can go. Yeah. Okay. Um, who's next? Councelor Gillan. Uh, nothing. Just want to say I appreciate the mayor's words, the start of the meeting. I appreciate that and the world. I appreciate that. That feedback. Uh, council Carson. Um, nothing except there has been some flux um with membership of the McMondill School Board.

Um, so it's a little bit up in the air, but I only had a day or so since I found out. So, nothing. We Yeah, there was a resignation due to um a member moving out of district. Um, councelor Boros is not here. Councelor Kit Hill, uh, Elcat reached out um to invite me to the meetings about the Harvest Fest. Unfortunately, I already had some stuff going on last night, but I will attend the rest of it because Harvest Fest is October 11th. So, um, their meetings will be uh every Wednesday until that happens if anybody else wants to go. And I

um also want to add that I appreciate the words at the beginning of the of city council. That was definitely on my mind. Is it okay? Um, councelor Mackie. Okay. Okay. Mayor's report. Um, we have made contact with Senator Market and I know that it's a whole different thing and it's not a city related thing, but people are probably asking you. they finally got a through a ninemonth wait with PGE forg um and so they are I I I've noticed even the lights are on more like I think they were waiting for that to go through before they

Okay. Um yesterday, for those that aren't aware, uh MAC McMinnville Habitat for Manity um hosted a block blitz, which is they found homes in our neighborhoods that needed um some yard upkeep uh lowincome um residents that physically can't. Um I would like to thank our city admin and code enforcement. We worked together to try to find those families or those homes that were having code compliance issues and reaching out and making sure they knew about the opportunity to put out an application. They um thank you to George Fox University and a group from AP. Uh there was a lot going on of taking care of our residents and they plan to come back um later in October for some of the other houses. Um, Brandon and I have tomorrow a quarterly meeting with both chairs for budget and right

next Friday.

Next Friday. Yes. Sorry, I I wanted but it's been a week. Okay. So, we have coming up a quarterly meeting um with our chairs. Uh it was a request from them after the last time we met that they wanted to just touch base with both of us and make sure that they're up to date of anything that might impact budget and planning commission. Um, speaking of that, there is an opening on planning commission. I've spent a lot of time soliciting for applications. A few have come in. I feel it's now time to um meet with those people. One thing that is on my radar and if you have any concern, let me know. Is stacking um the all of the planning commission living in one neighborhood. And right now, that's the opening the applications that have come in are from the neighborhood that's already pretty heavy. So, I'm I don't know how I will move forward, but if I don't bring forward a nomination, that's probably why. Um, I just want to make sure that one side of the neighborhood's not one pocket of the neighborhoods or town's not having control over major planning stuff. Um, holidays are coming up. Um Brandon and I are starting to work on coordinating with that with um LCAT and streamlining some stuff. It's still making it fun. Brandon and I have been invited by the Oregon Mayor's Association slash I'm going to mess it up. The Oregon Association of City Managers close.

Okay, it's close enough. It's like OA, CMA, and OMA. Um to be part of a joint panel at an upcoming uh joint workshop at the LOC conference um that they're doing a whose job is it and like newlywed style and so we've been asked if we would compete as a team. Um so it's kind of fun. Um we are in the talks with the McManville School District and an outside um group um as a followup from the youth safety town hall was the question of are there resources available that we're not tapping into to see about um bringing an open basketball night to Washer Elementary um for the youth. Um so we have a meeting with all entities involved at the end of this month. I'm hoping to come back next month and tell you guys some good news. Um so yeah, uh Washer Elementary School, um WD me shared with me that it's going really smooth. So I just want to give you guys an update after, you know, last year when we made changes that they seem to be sticking that um he has not given out any tickets. I did watch him three minutes into the school year light someone up from his parking spot just to say wink wink. Um, harvest fest. Speaking of, it is longer in the day. It's 9 to 3. And Brandon and I would like to know what

it's 10 to three.

10 to three. Okay, that's even better. Maybe you said okay. Anyway, if you are able and willing, please reach out to Brandon or I if you can help cover the city booth for an hour so that he and I are not there the whole day. Um, so I'll just send out an email to you guys and see if anyone's available. Um, because it's not a policy thing. It's just a sign up to cover the booth. Um, and lastly, I attended the board of commissioners meeting today and I think we outdid you on time if we go for two more minutes. Um, they discussed dog control and new new conversation, nothing finalized. Um, but some interesting facts about dog control because it does impact our citizens. I learned that only about 10% of dogs are licensed. Um, that right now it's and licensing is a county code thing. um that the licensing um fee they've been sending to the cities that have their own police departments, the the licensing fee, 75% of that's getting kicked back to the cities. Um and so they're discussing about bringing a little bit more back inhouse with um some of the licensing so that um they might be pulling that back Lafayette because we already contract with the ML County Sheriff because we haven't been getting that 75 our share of the 75% so that won't impact us. Um, but they are looking at what it will take to do a little bit of the code enforcement on it in house instead of contracting out. And I got yesterday, so I I paid attention. Other than that, um, I just want to thank you guys for um, I watched the meeting that I missed last time and just want to extend a thank you to Council President Pollson for chairing that. And now,

you're welcome. And now I move to adjourn. Amen. A second.