City Council - Regular Meeting

always gets quiet right before Yeah. Want to be the first one to talk right [clears throat] before the storm. It always gets quiet. [snorts] Or before you fall asleep, whichever. Hey, look at the time. It's military time. [clears throat] and watch the house. No, like all the time. Ask you something afterward.

It's already broke. Okay. So, let's get started. Uh, call to order. Flag salute. Please stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much. Uh, first thing we're going to do tonight, we're going to do the o oath of office for city council ward one. Julie, will you please uh take charge of that? [laughter] I'll have you stand right here. I'll hold this for you the recording. Okay. Okay. And I'll have you raise your right hand and repeat after me. I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution and the laws of the United States and the laws of the United States the state of Oregon

the state of Oregon and the charter and the laws and the charter and the laws of the city of Lebanon of the city of Lebanon and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully perform the duties perform the duties of the office for which I have been appointed of the office for which I have been appointed. Congratulations. Thank you. [applause]

Is there anybody here for pictures or are you solo? Okay. [laughter] All right. Thank you so much. Welcome. Welcome. [laughter] Now the now all the excitement begins. [cough] So um already called the meeting order. did the oath of office. Please call roll. Julie,

Mayor Jakola, present. Council President Steinhevil here. Councelor Ki here. Councelor Angel Ford here. Councelor Salvage here. Councelor Mlan here. Councelor Workman here. All

righty. Thank you. Uh next uh agenda item is consent calendar. Following items will be considered routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will not be separate discussion on these items unless a councelor so request. In that case item will be removed from consent calendar and considered separately. First item agenda Lebanon city council agenda February 11th 2026. Council meetings 2026-01-14 city council executive session and regular meeting and 2026-01-28 regular meeting and approval to award Vine Street waterline 5th to 7th project two 25713. Is there a motion? Move for approval.

Second. Uh motion's been made to approve. It's been second. All in favor? I. All opposed?

Motion passes. Uh, no presentations tonight. We'll move into public comments. Public comments. Citizen may address the council by filling out a testimony card prior to speaking and handed to city recorder. Each citizen is provided up to five minutes to provide comment to the council. The council may take an additional two minutes, ask clarifying questions. The city recorder will accept and distribute written comments at speaker's requests. Remember, five minutes. I'll hold you to it. [laughter] Relax. We don't have too many tonight. Uh, first up, K. Cortez. Okay,

I'll call you up in a little bit then. Jeremy Jeremy Gther. Did that go through a metal detector? [laughter] Yeah. Since he since he walked in with that thing, I haven't used my phone. [laughter]

All right. My name is Jeremy Gunther. [clears throat] I live here in Lebanon. And I am part of a local ham radio areas group. And one of the missions that we do is simply try and prepare locally for any kind of emergencies that our local government cannot foresee and cannot support. So it's usually collapse the system to the point where the citizens need to take care of themselves. What we have here and what I want to present tonight is something called mesh core. If you go home and look it up, look for the term meshtastic. It is a much more widely used term and it's the predecessor to this, but you'll find much more information on meshtastic. This is a emergency radio system that is fairly inexpensive. You can get into it for as cheap as $25 and it connects Bluetooth to your phone so the modern day user can use it. It works like a text message app like Signal or Telegram. It is text message only, not voice. And if the cell towers go down and you have no other means of communication, you can get on this device and you can text a local ham radio operator who can then get your message out to the world. Currently, we have been building this system for the past year or two and we now have enough nodes sprinkled between Lebanon and Sweet Home that most of Lebanon, most of Sweet Home is now covered. So, if you live in the proper town of either one of those, you should be able to get on this this system very, very easily. Generally, it costs between $50 and about $300 to integrate with this system, depending on if you need a full mast mounted to your house, that kind of stuff, or if you can just step outside the front of your house with a little teeny node. Um, but I want to bring this awareness to the town that we now have this system available. So those who want to get themselves prepared should that these cell towers go down again because it's happened multiple times in the last few years in Lebanon where we've lost all cell phone and internet connectivity locally. If you want [clears throat] to have the ability to talk locally with your

friends and your neighbors, um, this is a very easy way and a very cheap way to do that. And currently the system is being built out with multiple teams on the West Coast and we have connectivity from Grants Pass through Portland. So see if I missed anything on my list here. Um, nope. That's it. If you want to get get a hold of us, we meet every Tuesday 6 PM at the Lebanon Hospital. Cool. All righty. Thank you, Jeremy. Jeremy, just a quick question out just out of curiosity. [clears throat and cough] In the event of a blackout, you know, like in the event of a blackout like they have in like Iran is going through,

would you be able to communicate with other people even though the the government shuts down the internet?

Generally speaking, yes. And that comes with a bit of an if. The way the government shuts down the internet is two ways. They can either pull a physical plug [cough] that you then [clears throat] have to route around or they can use something called a frequency jammer. Um, the frequency jammer is impossible to get around if they can tune the frequency to the one that you're using. However, because there's so many nodes, the chance of them being able to blanket our entire town and choosing to blanket an entire town this small is very, very low. So, in most scenarios, yes, this would still work, but there are ways they could suppress it if they really wanted to.

Okay, thank you. You still have a minute and 38 seconds. Well, if there are any other questions, I will answer them. Otherwise, I'll give it back to you. All righty. Thank you so much. [clears throat] Next up tonight, we have Marilyn Belure and Susanna Aurorio Berdette.

[cough] [clears throat] Make sure the mic's on. It's green, it's on. If it's red, it's off. There you go. Thank you.

So, uh, I am Marilyn Belure and I'm a a member of Ward One. So, welcome, Council Me. Um, I am here to introduce my new friend, Susanna Aoyo Berdett. She is a community builder and engagement coordinator with the farmer with the farm workers housing development. That's FHDC and um she is just going to speak to you and I just came to introduce her. My five minutes is up.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Uh, I really appreciate each one of you in the panel and and the community in Lebanon because you are followed because you give us so many opportunities and this in this time I just want to say thank you. Um, Lebanon police um have been doing a website to be able to communicate with residents and they are making everything possible with this opportunity. But they have been working for these three years that we have doing any kind of activities just to promote union. [clears throat] Then um I want to say thank you the police. It's it's amazing [laughter] to come with you guys and actually to feel that my younger ones are feeling um safe and part of the community which I hope that they grow and and they make better stands for for their choices of life. Um, FHDC is a nonprofit organization with over 30 years of experience developing and managing affordable housing in compliance with uh fair housing laws and we currently operate communities in Ston, Silverton, Woodburn, Salem, Lebanon and pretty pretty fast going to start Albany. We are almost finishing. Then we going to have um as as as Lebanon have 140 units we are trying to get um almost the same amount. It doesn't going to be only for uh units but it going to be some houses then which I think it's going to be pretty good for the community. Uh we actually um are so grateful the partnership that we have with other organizations to make possible to make affordable and sustainable sustainable

the the the way we could um not just give um a unit to live but this is the starting point to do something bigger and better. Um, as I get introduced as Susanna Royo, I born abroad and have a privilege to live between cultures and understand the importance uh and the difference between merely translation translating words and thoroughly interpretating cultures. I understand firsthand the lines and structures that need to be built in medical service, school education, and cultural responsive care in order to create an effective bridge of communication with other sectors. I am an open and willing to contribute alongside with all of you as a community builder and engagement coordinator, a role that allows me to build bridges between people, languages, and opportunities every day. And I was invited here just to let you know about the murals we have, the art models we have in the buildings. They actually are talking about your history. The time we we start building up one of the the residences. Um we have um a teacher, an art teacher, now he is in in Woodburn in Chera, but he was a PCC teacher in the university. and um he actually tells so many stories with their draftings then you are already in the history line with FHTC and peace is what it means pass colonia pass is peace is unity that's why we have the white dove and they have so many uh faces without uh cover up for the cover it's talking about cover but we could have so many opportunities to actually engage page and talk about the art, but this is just not making it

beautiful, but we want you to have a value with our community, then we are open to help and start helping. And I want to applause Lieutenant Padua and Miss Dala because they really get forward with us and we feel part of the community. Thank you so much for your attention. Thank you. Thank you. questions.

Okay. Is she going to come or do you want to come up and Okay. Well, first of all, before I read what I have to say, I want to thank the Lebanon Police Department because on Sunday, I got my wallet stolen at the Dollar Tree. And Da Johnson gave me hope to go look for the homeless person that stole my wallet. She said, "I will find her." On Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday went by, I got a call from the Fleming Police Department from Lisa and [clears throat] an email from Da. They found my wallet at behind the police department on the railroad tracks. Everything was intact except my money. She's going to be accountable. They know where she's at. So, I'm very grateful for the support because they weren't going to give up on me. So, I'm very grateful. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Frank Stevenson, Mayor Kenneth Chakola, city manager Ron Whitlatch, and the city council members. We have some good news for the existing condition problem on North Second between Tangent Street and Mullins Drive. That's narrow two-way residential street with parking currently on both sides. This comes from myself, from Da and Maggie. So I gathered residents feedback on North Second myself, talking to each one of them what we presented to the city council members on January 14th, 2026 to

make it more accessible for all of us to get through in both directions. Unanimous means 100% agreement with zero opposition. The decision that was reached was unanimous from what I understand. I think [clears throat] one backed out today, but 10 residents, that doesn't include myself, which would be 11, agreed to the yellow curb parking on North Second. I know for a fact that two places that are north of me would probably not agree, and I didn't contact them because there's no communication. [clears throat] There is one house that I wasn't able to speak to with one, but that's okay. Thank you for your time and appreciate each and every one of you respectfully. K Cortez and Da I don't know what happened to Daisy. She must have had an emergency or something. She was supposed to be here. So, I'm very grateful. I just wanted to give you an update and we can hopefully move forward and get it done.

All righty. Thank you so much. Thank you. That that'll be coming to the city council in March. Pardon? That that will be coming to the city council in March. Okay, good. Um we're just waiting to make sure we sent letters to everybody and we're waiting to make sure we don't get any feedback for the public hearing. I've got to leave because somebody's with my husband, so his caregiver. So, but thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thanks, Kate. Got to take this with me. [clears throat] You know, you know, I'm going have to say, chief, that this this is starting out good for you. [laughter] Need to need the jail to put that lady in. Let's spend a lot of money on [laughter] this.

We'll move on to regular session. First item on the agenda is Cheetah Lake CMGC uh amendment two. Public works director is not here, so I would imagine the city manager is going to take the lead on that. He is preoccupied. Let me get to that little section there. Um, so what we have before you tonight is u approve uh request to approve CMGC GMP amendment number two to the cheetah lake park project. Uh as you remember back in um what was it ear later this summer earlier last summer uh the council approved GMP number one in the amount of $1.2 million. Uh basically that was so that we could begin construction [clears throat] and take the rest of the park project and figure out exactly what we had the ability to do with the funding that we had. So over the past several months, we've worked with Knif River uh a team of us have worked with Knife River uh and have come up with basically a final plan for that. They have provided a GMP2 amendment um which is basically that's the way the CMGC process construction manager general contractor you can do multiple amendments uh to the contract. Um their amendment to this one was 3 point roughly $3.5 million. Uh it accomplishes the core infrastructure for the park. Uh some of the ADA parking, uh restrooms, sight lighting, and all the underground utilities. So if you total all that up, uh that makes a total GMP, guaranteed maximum price, all these acronyms of $4.69 million. Uh staff is recommending that we move forward with that and sign the amendment and move forward. I'm available to answer any questions.

Did we sacrifice anything? anything change that we Yes. So the amphitheater when we started in on the amphitheater we really wanted to have an amphitheater. Um unfortunately the amphitheater costs roughly 2 and a half million. So what we will get out of this is we'll get an access road back there. The power backbone back there uh with splitter cables likely a rock padded area back there uh so that they can still use that for concert venues. Uh some of the ADA uh accessible parking will be back there as well, but it's going to take additional grant work in order to get a national amphitheater. Yeah, I saw that part. I just want to make sure there wasn't something else.

No. And we'll have the ADA restroom, all the uh multi-use paths, uh lighting, the whole place will be lit so that it'll be accessible uh you know, in the dark, too. Yeah. So, cool. Thank you. Uhhuh. Any other questions? Just going on how many microphone how many seats would have been in this proposed amphitheater?

Well, when we talk when we talk about an amphitheater, maybe maybe amphitheater is not the word to use stage. Uh the stage was that much. The amphitheater actually the way it's set was was just a small incline on grass and it would have kind of surrounded the stage with ADA accessible sidewalks through it. But the stage itself was what was the the the major cost. Could be a no seats. A lawn chair event.

Yes. Yes. It wouldn't have been wouldn't have been seating. Um I don't think we would ever I mean at least to to run a venue that big. Well, one, we don't have the staff, and two, um that's a lot of infrastructure to put in for something that you're hoping that you're going to get draw enough of a crowd to, right, with the permanent type seating. So, Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll entertain a a motion if there's one [clears throat] out there. I move to approve. Second.

Motion's been made to approve the amendment number two. It's been second. All in favor? I. All opposed. Motion passes. Move on to resolution next on the docket. Resolution 2026-02. Public works director is still not here. So, who am I handing this off to? Brandon. Finance director, please.

Thank you, [clears throat] Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Uh before you is a budget, uh a transfer let me try this again. Transfer resolution. Uh what we are asking for is to um budget for a grant that public works applied for through a warehouser sponsored program. Uh the grant is to purchase some trees uh and that will be planted during a planting event at Mark Slooh uh along with some equipment to water those trees over the long term. Um it's a $25,000 grant. the city was successful in obtaining that grant. And so what we are looking to do with this uh supplemental budget is uh authorize the spending of that because the department doesn't have enough in its existing resources um to to handle the the appropriation. So uh what we are doing is adding $25,000 to a donation uh or grant line item and subsequently $25,000 on the expenditure side um to authorize spending of this money. and I can answer any questions if you have them.

Sure. Uh, for $25,000, how many trees and what kind of trees do you get? 140. I think I might take back the statement of which I can answer questions if you have them. [laughter] Um, that's a really good question. I don't know, maybe Ron might know how many trees. I don't remember the amount of trees that it was. It was a lot.

I think at Parks, Trees, and Trails they said 140, but I could I could have that wrong. Uh it was quite a few trees. Um and this is all put in by donation. I believe warehouser employees will put the trees in. And then of course with that we get a water wagon. And people ask what's a water wagon? Well, it's a it's a wagon that you can hook behind like a side by side or an ATV or a small pickup and you can take out on our trail system and water the trees. So uh I don't have an exact number in front of me and without Jason here I couldn't give you an exact number, but you're probably pretty close. It was a lot. I think that's what it said in the meeting, but I could be wrong. Yeah. Any other questions?

All righty. Will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution? Resolution number 2026-02, a resolution authorizing a transfer of appropriations for the city of Lebanon 202526 budget. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second. Motion's been made to approve the transfer. It's been seconded. All in favor? I.

All opposed. Motion [clears throat] passes. Move on to direction to proceed with the municipal jail. I barely could get that out. You know, I'm going to say something here. You get up here and you think you're all prepared and [laughter] you get you get marvels in the mouth and sometimes you sound funny, but anyhow. And local option levy process city manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so this is an item that was brought back on the uh Janu January 28th meeting. Uh, staff presented information to the city council regarding basically operational needs, fiscal needs, and a potential use of a local option levy to fund the jail uh the municipal jail. Uh attached to the agenda item tonight were the two PowerPoint presentations uh from the the two work sessions that we did uh one last summer and then the one we just did on the 28th. At that 20 January 28th council meeting, uh the council elected to table the agenda item until February 11th uh so that everybody could be here. there was a couple of absences. Uh so they wanted to make sure that everybody had a chance to u at least vote on this. So basically in a nutshell and I'm more than happy to answer any questions, but the purpose of the the opportunity to revisit this was to allow anybody to ask any additional questions for the counselors that weren't here to ask questions. Um basically to review any of that material that you wanted to review. Um and then looking at the recommendation that we had should council want to proceed with a local option levy. Basically what we uh uh put in the staff report was priority one and would be to hire a uh consulting firm to help us through this process. Uh what that does for us is it gives us the opportunity to do some polling up front before we're fully committed to going out to the voters with a levy. Um, and then there was a couple of other things, you know, that we would work through that. Should you want to hire a consultant to do that, I would we would most likely have a work session on the February 25th [clears throat] meeting of this month. Uh, what the consultant would do was would go through

this whole process with you. As you you know, staff [clears throat] can't do a lot of the work that that needs to be done. It's a council driven levy. uh we can provide factual information, but past that um you're going to need a consultant to probably guide you through most of this. The cost of that we're estimating to be roughly $50,000. Uh that would most likely come out of the contingency line item in the general fund. So, I will leave it at there. If you have questions, hit any of us that were here uh and let me know what you think. I had more of a comment than a question. Uh just to point out if the counselors that weren't here last month, one of the things we talked about was the cost of that hiring the consultant at 50,000 and I [clears throat] asked that well if one of the earliest things that's going to happen is the polling to see if the community is going to be behind this whether we go go through it or not. And I asked Ron, I said, 'Well, if the polling comes back and it's, you know, we're 35% approval or lower and it's clear that this is not something the community is going to get behind, are we still on the hook for that around 50,000? And and Ron said no, because, you know, you're only basically paying the consultant for what they've done up to that point. And that it'll be the total cost of the consultant from the beginning to the end if this all goes all the way through is going to be the 50,000. Correct.

Correct. Okay. And how are they getting the polling numbers? Where do they get them from? So that is a great question. I've never done polling curious consultant. So basically they they do random polling of members in the community. There's multiple ways to do it. You can do it through text polls, email polls, phone calls. Um and that's why we would have the consultant come in. That's that's where this body is going to help them craft what questions to ask, you know, what do you want this to look like and and how do you want your poll done? So, only because you see participation in voting, things like that, and people aren't coming around. So, it's like I'm hoping that something like that would come around.

Yeah. And there's a certain percentage that they try and target um and I don't have that off the top of my head, but you know, they'll send out, let's say they send out a 100. I think they would hope for somewhere around 30 to 50 back. Gotcha. But it it depends on how many you as a body decide. Do you want an extensive poll? I think the poll that we got quoted in the consultant that we're likely to go with uh based on our procurement process. Uh it was a $7,000 poll and I don't remember Brandon off the top of my head what what the [clears throat] uh how many people that included but um don't think it had

and I don't know that it did either. I think that might have been the other proposal that we saw that was it didn't include the mechanism of which they they pull either. No, it it could be up to this council I think. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. with with all the data points and stuff they can gather now and demographics. I think part of the conversation will be hey who who do we want to target? We'll try to be unbiased [clears throat] about that. Of course, we want a a good cross sampling of everybody. So, we we we touch the whole community and th those are all things that the consultant will be able to explain. [clears throat] Uh I've never done polling so I don't know I don't know the answer to that question and that's why we would bring them in

and the consultants original proposals didn't include you know what their target would be. So like Ron said I think that's where you know they'd need to come sit before you. You can ask those types of questions figure out what those questions are going to be as far as that are going to go out through that poll. Um they'll be able to give you all the information on on how it how they send that out, where they get the information from, all that stuff. We we we sat with one of the consulting firms for an hour and I believe she went through a majority of that stuff, but that's been three weeks ago, four weeks ago. I was just noticing, you know, the climate of the police department, everything seems really good. [clears throat] Therefore, I'm just hoping that the the public will come around and, you know, start to see some results from it. But then if you don't see anybody participating,

sure, that's what I was curious about. Yeah. And I that that's a very good question and that's something that maybe if you don't get the results or you don't you have a lack of results M maybe you ask a question different, try a different method, but keep in mind every time we change that comes with a cost. Comes with a cost. Yes. So, uh those are things that we'll have to keep in mind. And um if you get to a point and you're pulling and it says, you know, what you got back, that's where this body's going to have to decide. Let's say it comes back low, right, for some reason. Um I think they're probably going to tell you you want to be at least over 50%. uh support before you even attempt it and probably more like 54 to 55

so that you've got some some wiggle room in there. And if it came back low then I think they're probably going to recommend to you don't don't push this out [clears throat] unless you want to do a big education campaign um you know to try and sway voter opinion on what you're trying to put out. Comes with a price. Yeah. Yes. So it's it's well I' I'd point out that we'll we'll have to make that decision, but there's a margin of error either direction. Absolutely. Yeah.

Jumping ahead to the actual voting. Um is this an issue where it's just um put before the public and if you have a majority of of yes votes then it passes or is there a certain threshold of of voter engagement necessary? No, it's it's if it's in a general election, I don't believe that you would have it's whoever came out to vote. If you had 50% voter turnout and you had 51% of that 50% that said you're yes, then that vote carries. All right. So then yeah wi

with that then from a polling aspect it would seem to me that that we need to focus on on the engaged voters and and and those that are apathetic uh and and generally disinterested not solicit their opinion if if we can somehow strain those out and I I don't know how you I they may be able to look at past uh folks that have voted. I I don't know. I I it's a good question and and one I don't have an answer to, but I mean come with your questions if we hire a consultant so that we we can vet all this stuff out. Michelle, did you have something on your um you look like you were thinking how to respond to something? [laughter] I never looked like that.

Yeah. Um I think yes. I think we would obvious we would direct whoever the consultant is probably to focus on the likely voters, those who have voted in previous elections. I think that's most likely where we're going to get the richest data. Um, I just want to remind everybody again like this needs to maintain um it needs to be councilled and that's part of why I asked that we move it to this meeting is I really just wanted to make sure um hopefully based on a roll call vote that everybody was in favor of moving forward with um exploring a um jail levy. So it's our football.

Correct. It is our football. Well, with that being said, I'll make a couple of comments. I appreciate Dave Workman, you know, uh, spearheading uh, reopening the jail and and focusing on this. [clears throat] Myself, I I'm very biased about this. You cannot put a price on your safety and security, especially if you've been a victim of a violent crime. And I have. So, you know, when when people start talking about, well, you know, it's going to take this much or these few dollars to to accomplish this goal, I just come back to my original thinking. You just can't put a price on it. Uh, you know, I think that uh Michelle made the point of educating the public. Great idea. I think that uh I think if everybody was in was as informed about our safety and security and the crime. And as the as the chief is, I I think it's a a hands down thing. Um [clears throat] it everybody always wants to know, well, what am I getting for for my buck? You know, if I if I put out another, you know, $200 a year on my property taxes, what am I getting in return? Well, the the chief of police can probably answer that better than anybody, but it allow it gives him the flexibility and the and the uh ability to uh not only uh uh you know police Lebanon, which is a growing town and and uh you know, crime is getting worse. Uh it uh it gives him the opportunity to explore other things that he can do for the

community like uh maybe assigning one person specifically towards petty theft and petty crimes which is always been a big problem in Lebanon. You can't leave stuff out in your carport. You can't leave your vehicle. You know, you don't make the mistake of leaving your pickup unlocked. Uh that's happened to me a couple of times [clears throat] and we should not have to live that way under that threat of you know getting ripped off or or uh injured by somebody every day. K. Cortez got up here and spoke about a woman in broad daylight at the store stealing her purse off the counter and then, you know, the the efforts that she's had to go through with the help of the police to track down this person and and, you know, get something done about it. She got back her purse and everything in it except for the cash.

I'd assume that that person isn't lodged any place. Just just saying. So, timely. So, you know, it comes back to what I said earlier. I I'm very biased. Um I think moving forward with this is uh is our opportunity to do something for our community to make it a better place to live here. I'm not going to disagree. [laughter]

All righty. Thank you. Is there any other comments or questions? Well, it sounds like someone's requesting a roll call vote if we do this. So, [clears throat] do I need to include that in the the do they need to include that in the motion or do I just call that? Actually, you make the motion and then somebody if somebody's requested it, then you just say there's been a roll call request. All righty. Is there a motion to to to proceed forward on this or let it let it let it die right here? I'll move to approve. I'll second. I think we I think we need to clarify a little bit exactly uh what we're moving

um and and Ron might be able to uh identify this a little bit better, but right now we're moving to proceed at least to the first level of getting hiring a consultant spending up to a certain amount of money. We're moving to retain a consultant to assist with the exploration of a jail levy. No, I I get I get what we're doing as a communications [laughter] person. Yeah. Yes. And I still move to approve that. So, did you remember all that? Have to say all that. [laughter] Yeah. Yes. Well, then no. Feel free. You have to withdraw your motion. I withdraw my motion there. Uh, I move to retain a consultant to assist with the exploration of a jail levy.

Second. Motion's been made. It's been seconded. Um, someone requested a roll call vote earlier. We do request a roll call vote. Thank you. Uh, city recorder, please. Councelor Workman, yay. Councelor Mlan, yay. Councelor Salvage, yay. Councelor Angel Ford, yay. Councelor Ki, yay. Councelor Steinheel, yay. Motion passes. Okay, we'll move on. You got your marching orders on that one. It sounds

Yeah. So, we'll be we'll be back before you at the uh if we can put it all together, which we should be able to at the February 28th meeting. Um just so everybody's aware. Uh Sean Tate, our uh lobbyist, is going to take point on [clears throat] being uh kind of kind of the middleman between us and the consultant. Uh so, you're going to see a lot of him and hear a lot of from him uh throughout this process. So, what was the date on that meeting? 25th. Uh, February 25th, Brandon. Thank you. Noon. Uh, yes. Noon. All righty. Thank you. We'll move on to department report. City manager.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, couple of things to report on. We still have two seats left at the city table for the Distinguished Service Awards banquet. Did I already say you? Yeah. So, I can't I can't remember. One, two. Okay. So, uh, I will put you guys down and you just need to go to the chamber and pay for you and your wife. Everybody pays. So, I will put you down. Perfect.

Easy. They're going to be so happy that we got that filled. Um today, uh myself and the mayor and a couple others from our wastewater treatment plant. Uh we actually toured the wastewater plant with um field representatives from uh Congresswoman Binham's office and Senator Mkeley's office. Uh we went through the plant with them. We're getting ready to um put in a capital funding request for the wastewater plant uh which we'll be doing here over the course of the next week. Uh we also have a capital funding request before the state legislature that will be providing testimony on Friday for our request for the again for the wastewater plant. So just to keep you up to speed on that, we've spent a lot of time uh looking at bills this session. It's been a whirlwind. Uh we've had a lot of department directors that have been involved in that, which is kind of cool to see. Uh in fact, Brent even got to uh provide some testimony the other day. um he wrote a letter and um they thought he had was such an expert in the field that they wanted him to [clears throat] testify before the committee. So he did and did a great job. Uh so we're we're moving that stuff forward based on the um our government affairs and our um oh the plan that we just developed here. I can't think of I'm drawing a blank but um uh strategic plan. know our um platform

legislative legislative platform. [laughter] Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm here for you. It's been a long day. It's been a long day. Um so we're we're moving forward with that stuff. We're still uh kicking every rock over to find funding u whatever we've got to do for that wastewater plant. Um clean up at Champion Mill has started. uh our crews. I think I alluded to this a couple of months ago that we were going to go through and do this. Um the property owners are providing the dumpsters. Our police department has been out there. Uh our public works crews, several of them have been out there doing cleanup. I can tell you that we're as of yesterday, I want to say four 30yard dumpsters and more to come. So,

thanks. It is it is a it is a definite mess and I some of the pictures I've seen is it's amazing to me that we've got that going on. So not to split it. Do you know what date that you started with that? Somebody asked me what date we started that. Uh yesterday. Okay.

I wanted to say a couple things about that real quick on on the uh on that cleanup. This has been a long process. It wasn't something we we did overnight. Um work with many different uh stakeholders in this property owners, uh a lot of different people. We found services for the people out there. I believe there was eight that were out there. Yeah, there there was more than eight, but we offered seven services. [clears throat]

Services, transportation services, a place to stay, and they all refused. So, with that being said, we move forward with the with the process that we're going through right now. Um, and like I can't emphasize it enough. It wasn't a a uh a thing that we just did off a whim. It was a very long process. Went through a lot of due diligence to make sure we were finding people's services and um and sometimes you have to make the hard decision. So, okay. Uh last, unless you all have any questions for me, we selected the Cascades West Council of Governments uh to do the CDBG grant for the library. Uh they will be writing it. Uh we will in turn be doing a lot of the environmental with an environmental consultant to be as prepared as we can this summer when we actually submit that grant application. So that's underway. Uh so keep your fingers crossed. And with that, I really don't have anything else unless you have questions for me.

Yeah, just a a a quick question, Ron, on this cleanup that we're having to do out there. Uh that's taking away from cities and employees normal duties like maintaining parks, fixing potholes in the streets. Instead of doing those things and their their functions, they're out there taking care of that. And then there was a second question I had was how much is it costing us to do this?

So, the property owners are paying for [clears throat] the dumpsters. Um, we've got an agreement in place or or will have an agreement in place that they'll either pay the the time and equipment that we have out there. I don't know. We won't know until we tally it all up or it will become a lean against the property. Um, at which point it sells then that [clears throat] lean gets paid back to us. But I think when we all visualize that out there it it's in such disarray that it it that we got to do something with it. The property owners didn't have the mechanism to do that. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong. It's also not necessarily the city's responsibility financially to do this. Um that's why we've we've set it up the way that we have because we can't be responsible for cleaning up uh the these properties where the property owner they they've got some some responsibility. They have the responsibility and they've got the liability. Um so we're going to keep it cleaned. Um, we're going to keep it mowed down, sprayed down, and um hopefully that uh the encampment back there was was massive.

Do the employees have to wear a hazmat? I you know I they're all in an excavator, so we're not touching anything. Uh we're I don't know what they're wearing, but we're we're not we're not going through uh it it's all getting loaded by excavator. So,

and and some of the cost on the the operation has been uh donated from uh business community. Um some of it like like Ron mentioned the the dumpsters were provided by the the land owner and then we're we're assisting with some of the labor. So, it was it was a partnership between all three stakeholders in this. Um I I was telling someone earlier today that you know you go down there and you look at that and it's like what kind of community are we to allow someone to live in those conditions? It was it's very very bad. And um I'm glad I'm personally glad that it's getting cleaned up. We tried, like I said, we tried to offer services. They refused them. And uh but you know, I think that, you know, our law enforcement in the city of Lebanon is going to have some some additional work because they're going to absorb into the rest of the community at some point. So,

yeah, that's that's one thing I was thinking there was uh if these people don't want help and they don't want to change and nothing's going to convince them of that, are where are they going to go and are they going to set up camp somewhere else? So, so we're chasing we're we're we're chasing a cat around the house with a broom and uh and it just keeps getting away from us.

Yeah. There's there's really [clears throat] no mechanism. I mean, we have our our ordinance where you can sleep at night, right? But short [clears throat] of that, um the way state law reads and federal law for that matter, there's really not a lot more we can do. and and a lot of these folks are on private property, right? So, our law enforcement, while they may have a trespass order on maybe it's the Champion Mill or wherever it's at, we don't have the resources to police that. Uh and to give you an example, um they were out there yesterday and there was seven individuals that were back there this morning, right? And so our law enforcement's out there again um removing those individuals. Uh, I will say with compassion, we did let them take stuff with them and we tried to work around their stuff so that they could take it. But keep in mind, they've also been given notice. Uh, and we gave more than ample time for that notice. We even extended that time out uh for them to move the stuff. But at some at some point, we've we've we've got to clean that up. Number one, it's it's an extreme health hazard. if you could see some of the things that I'm getting pictures of. Um, it's it's a health hazard. Um, and it's a safety issue and to your point are where are they going to go until they accept resources and want that change? Yes, that is you are correct.

Well, I I just feel that somehow we need to start thinking outside the box and and you know just quit quit doing the same thing over and over again. We need to do something different. Yeah. And and as a as a city, I think we've I I'm not sure what more we can take on from from a a legal perspective. There's not a lot more. This this issue has been discussed and discussed and discussed and billions and billions and billions of dollars have been spent on it and it hasn't helped. So I would agree with you a change needs to happen but from from our perspective we can only do with what's inside with the law and there's not a lot more we can do inside three limits.

Yes. Well I think one one option I don't want to say it's like a whack-a-mole but that had got so entrenched in there. I think the challenge is is to move them faster because I would I'd be really surprised if that same bunch of people doesn't try to settle in some other little community someplace and I think we have to make it as uncomfortable for them to be in those places as we can and cause as little damage to our property and the private property.

Yeah. And and agreed with you and and that's that's my point with the with the private [clears throat] property issue. Well, we may have a trespass order um and we can send our law enforcement out to these areas, right, and we can issue citations. I mean, it doesn't and they'll get an arrest citation, right? Because there's no nobody's going to take them as far as housing them. Um but we don't have the resources to post somebody out there 247

and within hours they're usually back because there is no there's no accountability, right? So, we all know that. So, it it's it's really I think and Frank can probably allude to this way more than I can, but I think it's probably just as frustrating for them. Yeah. And [clears throat] there are some things we're trying to do, too. And keeping the vegetation down. Yes.

Um, you know, there's make it as open as possible, as visible as possible. um probably can't get as far as knocking all the mounds of dirt down and making it just a flat surface, but that would even help. Um I was actually just going to um respond to Councelor Mlan. Uh just to put it into perspective, when we did the cleanup on Porter Street of that, uh that property that was on Porter Street that's actually in the county um but it, you know, pretty everybody thinks it was in Lebanon. Um just that one I think it's about a a quarter acre lot on Porter Street uh cost $80,000 and that's with the county doing it which is substantially less than if it had been done by a private contractor.

All righty. Any anything else? Nope. That's all I've got. Got more questions. Okay. Items from council. Councelor Mlan, you have anything? No. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure. [laughter] All righty. I'll think of something later. Okay. I bet you will.

Um, please please be aware of the the memorandum that went out uh in the packet for uh if you're going to be absent, make sure that myself, city manager, and city recorder know. Um, and the reason why is is uh uh we we've seen that, you know, one counselor will call like the city manager, one counselor will call me, one counselor will call the city recorder, and then we find out at the last minute you're not going to be here. So, if you if you contact all three of us, just a simple email, I'm not going to be here. Um, and then we're all aware of it, and we can kind of plan for the meeting. So, okay. All righty. Is there any uh Did you have anything else to add? Okay. Is there any uh uh press comments? Yes, please come forward.

Hello, I'm Sarah with the New Era. Um this is uh kind of for Dave and Frank. [clears throat] A couple of questions regarding the operational levy situation. Um, you kind of alluded to the you mentioned violent crimes and I I'm wondering what you consider violent because and I wanted and in line with that I wanted to ask you because I understand that the municipal jail would be for misdemeanor crimes and if it was like felony or something it would go to circuit court or they would go to Lane County Jail, right? So, what is the most violent thing a person could do and remain in the misdemeanor category if you can answer that? uh assault assault 4, which um is substantial pain and black eye, bloody blood bloody nose, so forth. Yeah.

Okay. Um and those people that commit these misdemeanors, um I don't know, this is not really, you know, you're on one end of the the process and the court is on the other end. So, I don't know if you know these answers, but how often and how long do these offenders um end up going to jail for through court on average? That would probably be best answered by the judge who sentenced them. Um average is 15 to 30 days. Oh, okay. And but I understand then so if you if you have your jail open and someone commits a crime, you put them in jail and I'm assuming for most of them you're holding them there until they can get to court.

No, not necessarily. They come they you know it would be an arrest. They come to our facility where we would um book them in but then give them a release court date and time where they would go see the judge. Then the judge has that sanction to sentence them uh to our facility. Okay. So they commit the crime, you have a jail, but they don't stay in jail. Jails there for after court has sentenced them. Say that again. So I um because I think the conc sorry because I think the main concern is that right now you don't have any teeth to correct. So these people are committing crimes. You give them a court date, they don't show up, and then you got to, you know, find them and cite them again.

So if if they don't show up to court, now they have a warrant. now we can go out and arrest them and hold them until their court date because of the warrant. But okay, so say your jail is open. Um we're we're funding that and um somebody punches Dave Mlan in the face and he wants to press charges. Um no offense to you. [laughter] Just trying to keep this light and funny. Um obviously after the investigation they would be arrested, they'd be brought into our facility. They'd be they'd be booked in. and they'd be given a court date and time and they would have to go see the the judge at that court date and time and then at that sentencing when the judge goes through the process and you know it's like any other facility that we have out there it's the same process

but felony crimes will be held because they're violent if they're violent they'll be held at county jail until they actually see or go to court we don't have that capability at municipality yeah so you give them a court date, you you book them, but then you just release them like that day or the next day. Or do they actually see the judge within a couple? Well, it depends, right? If if the court is in session, um they can see the judge that day. Okay? If it's not in session, then they need to be sentenced to our facility. Okay? And that can only be done by the judge. Okay? But right now, the judge has no teeth in the game either and can't sentence them to anything

until you get them in the courthouse. Well, ever I mean there's situations we have, you know, DUIs carry mandatory jail term, [clears throat] uh, you know, escalating as they go up in the number of DUIs, but even the the first DUI, if it's not a diversion, they have a requirement for 2 days in jail. Um, and we aren't able to do that because they also won't be taken at the Lynn County Jail. So, there is an exception that we basically has to be found every time for uh uh uh uh basically public work. you know, the not public work, but the compensatory service. Um, so they have to they get imposed compensatory service as opposed to jail time. And again, a lot of the people that that get picked up, this isn't their only thing that they're they've been arrested for, right? So, they may have two or three or four different charges that they are on bench probation for. Each of those potentially carrying a suspended sentence. So they could potentially have, you know, uh, months of suspended sentences that they've now violated those terms of their probation. Um, which now they all have suspended sentences and they violate them. We still can't put them in. You know, we still can't say, "Well, we told you not to. You did it again. Um, we'd like to put you in jail, but we can't." Um, so it's it's it's making its way around the community in Lebanon knowing that really you get caught, you're going to maybe you're going to get taken down to the Lebanon Police Department. you're going to get, if most of them have already been fingerprinted, but fingerprinted, uh, you're going to get a citation and you're going to get told to come back and see the court. And they know if if they don't show up, well, they might get arrested again, but again, the same exact thing is going to happen. So, there's got to be escalating consequences and we don't have that right now.

I think it just clicked with me because I was thinking with the court once they actually show up in court, he still can't sentence them to jail because I I guess I was thinking they could go to Lynn County Jail, but I guess not. Like when they're sentenced, it has to be municipal. They technically can, but they're not I want you no space. There's a process in which our if if that's the the sentence that the judge is going to impose, our court usually calls the Lynn County um okay jail first to determine if there's bed space available.

If there's not, it's back to the drawing board on that. Um, and that's generally what we get at this point is there isn't bed space available or or staffing capacity to handle additional additional folks there. I can tell you in six months worth of props, we haven't been able to get a jailb. Okay. So then last question, sorry, I know we all want to go home. Uh, I think it was a couple years ago you mentioned I think when we closed the jail um that at that time after Lebanon closed there was um only three municipalities in Oregon that still had a municipal jail. So what are the rest of the cities doing when they have all these misdemeanors? Good question to answer those cities. Okay. I might have to

I would suggest going to the court one time and just watching the proceedings and you'll get a full understanding of what what we're all talking about. Okay. You'll you'll see them just folding door. There's no teeth. There's two components. The way I always explain it, there's two component two components to the criminal justice system. There's enforcement and there's the accountability component. Right now, we just have enforcement. That's it. Unless it reaches a benchmark, you know, that's pretty high. I I think you're going to find most communities are, you know, in the same boat we're in currently right now. The the difference is we have the option to do something about it where other cities might not have that option.

And and a lot of the cities, if they have a county that doesn't have the the limitations that Lynn Countyy's jail has, they would have more opportunity to to use that. And most of them would have also contracts with uh that county uh to, you know, to basically take their people a certain number or whatever to the extent that there's beds available. Um which is, you know, it's unfortunate because I know how overwhelmingly Lebanon passes the uh the law levy every year. Um it would be nice to be able to have access to some of those some of those jail beds. Did you hear that, Michelle? Just kidding. Okay. Always got to throw a joke already. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Is there is there anybody from the public that would like to do additional remarks? Please come forward.

Can you give them [clears throat] last I have what I call a frog in the pond. [laughter] I never know when it's going to rivet. And uh that kind of introduces me as a uh retired respiratory therapist in this town. I live over on Filbert Street and u I retired with Samaritan Health Services. I uh wrote something at the top of the agenda earlier that said grip list instead of gripe list. And I kind of like that. Try to get a grip on something instead of throwing it out there. Have no idea how to handle something. Um the three I try to handle no more than three things at a time and that was uh homeless and that's already been addressed a great deal. Uh a thought that I have about that is Applegate and Crossroads. Are they working with the homeless to get them affordable housing? And is it really affordable housing? And I'm I'm sure this has already been addressed. So I'm I'm addressing a mountain already. [laughter]

It is affordable. They are working with them. There's still limited beds and they still have to want to go into that type of housing. Yeah, sure. There always limitations that way. Uh I was trying to think of who runs that. Michael Co. Couch. Couch. Yeah. House. Michael Couch. Couch.

Couch. Okay. Thank you. Uh and I know a former council member KJ worked with uh works with that. Also, there's a friend of mine, Paul Knapper, which we're probably all familiar with in one way or another and had to kind of deal with Paul. Paul's health heartfelt concern is with the homeless. That's just what he does pretty much 24/7. And I appreciate that. Uh as a respiratory therapist, when I've been here before, the mayor said, "Hey, we haven't seen you here for a while." So, as a public citizen, I should show up more often and uh maybe not contribute, but at least listen. And uh so, um my concern is for the health of the community. Next week I turn 81 uh by grace and uh whatever I can do for the community will serve out my days in goodstead. I'll be happy about that. So I don't need anything back. It's time for me to give everything I can. And I gave 50 years of my life to respiratory therapy and many hospitals in Oregon. And I'm happy about that. And I hope the patients were happy too. Um when I drove out to Cheetah Lake to take a a little walk around the lake and it was gorgeous out there this evening. I noticed a little encampment of homeless out there and I hadn't seen that before. I make it out there about once every other week or so and had a uh a motor van out there also. They're probably crashing in the van at night. And I got a salute when I first pulled in there and I thought, "Hey, I'm trying to work with you guys." You know, I served at St. Andrews breakfast for these people for for a number of months over the last year or so. And uh so I was concerned about that, but we all are. And um that brings me to hot rods also, which the chief has heard from me and the staff there about people making a cut uh through uh what is it? Milton to Elmore, cutting through my street, which is Filbert Street, where I own a home there. It's been a

whole lot better thanks to your This is the third kudo for you. [laughter]

You're not going to be able to get out the door. The force is definitely with us. Thank you. Thank you for not cleaning that up necessarily, but addressing the situation and making people being responsible. It all comes down. It's either my responsibility or your responsibility, but it's going to fall somewhere. So, that was pretty much it except for traffic concerns. And I should probably take this to city hall, I guess, about uh the turn on uh Russell into Porter. We mentioned Porter. I knew I actually that that guy who had that property there that it took it was so expensive to clean up. I had him as a patient of mine for a number of years and so uh I don't know it it was just really kind of heartfelt very concerned over that. So that's pretty much what I have. Thank you for letting me be here and speak and it's after 7:00. I know everybody wants to go home.

Thank you. What What was your name? I'm sorry I may not have introduced myself. Robert Gully. Gully. Gu Ly. and I'm a retired respiratory therapist. I still serve uh your mom-in-law over at uh Oregon Veterans Home. And so I'm doing what I can to for the again the health of the community. When when you see a guy out there on the on the sidewalk sometimes holding a sign, it's healthc care for all or healthc care is a human right. Uh so thank you very much. Thank you.

Any other public comments? Alrighty. Okay, next scheduled council meeting is 2026 0225 council meeting work session at noon. Um after that it's 2026 0311 city council work session [clears throat] 5:00 p.m. and regular meeting at 6 pm. And this meeting is a