City Council - Regular Meeting

public works director. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so we are here uh for the util let me start over the yearly utility update. Um, and at the end of this, we'll give you an update on the city services fee. Um, our kind public works director will go through this PowerPoint and we'll chime in uh as as needed. Um, so if you got questions, please ask along the way, but uh, it's just kind of an update where we're headed and, uh, go through some of the financials and the rates. So, take it away, Mr. Williams.

Thanks, Ron. Mr. Mayor, members of council, your favorite time of the year. I know you guys look forward to this this night more than anything. I'm going to read this document to you word for word and we'll get out of here. Now, the objectives of our work session today are kind of to give you a utility systems update. We're going to cover water, our wastewater system, storm drainage, and then at the end of my little presentation, I'll get out of the way and let Brandon cover some financials. our our water in our water system. We're really still focusing on water main replacement projects, tying in deadend lines, uh fixing water quality issues throughout the city with leaking mainline replacements. Our plant still battling green peter draw down issues. Uh maintain that. Thanks, bud. You went too far. Uh, our water treatment plant has produced over 515 million gallons of water in fiscal year 2526 through January. We have 88.7 miles of distribution main throughout our city. Uh, we have multiple multiple large and small diameter water manes that need replacement. Our highest priority mains are those with leaks that are undersized, dead end lines so we can create loops for water quality. And our our ops crews have just been spending all their time replacing broken mains, installing new meters, and just general upkeep of that system. With our average yearly funding for our line replacement, it allows for us to replace about 2500 to 3,000 feet a year.

Um, depending on size, location, and of course, bidding climate, which changes routinely. That gives us about a 160year replacement cycle on a main. If we put one in the ground today, we'd be able to replace that in 160 years based off our for current replacement cycle. The good news about that is the current replacement life cycle on ductal iron is a 75 year time frame. So we're a little bit behind the curve there. Of course, some upcoming projects we have in our water system. Got a Grant Street waterline replacement is from Main Street to Fifth Street. Uh I've got some hoops to jump through yet, but that that project's in design. that will replace a 2-in little steel line. Um, increase some fire flow and really help that that part of town. Uh, Sherman Street water line replacement main to second. Those projects will be tied together. Uh, we have a large North Fifth Street reconstruction project with all utilities and roadway tangent to Mary Street. Our Cedar Street project is we'll we'll continue to work on design and we've got a Vine Street waterline project uh from 5th to 7th Street that is just getting underway currently. As we jump to the wastewater treatment plant and get into the wastewater system, our wastewater plant has treated approximately 703 million gallons of sewage in fiscal year 2526. We are uh currently right now replacing the bar screens at the intake. Everyone that's toured that knows what that looks like when we walk on top of the aeration basins.

We just we just started that replacement now. And we have design underway for our solids handling system that will take care of our bioolids that I continue to come here and whine about. We see a substantial increase in sewer sewer lines and laterals that are failing. It's age of system. Our our crews clean and TV 23,330 ft of mainline uh televised 17,920 ft last year. We have approximately 70 miles of sanitary sewer main within our collection system. Current funding for sewer replaces approximately 2,00 to 2500 feet of sewer mainline per year. Obviously depends on the same thing, size, location, and bidding climate. It gives us about 170ear replacement cycle on a sewer main. A life cycle cost for concrete older pipe, which we have quite a bit of in our system, is 50 to 75 years. our newer PVC 3034 pipe approximately 100 years. So that's that's a good increase. All the aging pipes that we we're finding it replaces it just contributes so much uh infiltration inflow that then we're treating rainwater in our at our wastewater treatment plant which is kind of driving priority projects at that plant. uh heavy rain event will see 200% flow increase from normal levels. Some up upcoming wastewater system projects have a highway 20 sanitary sewer lining project. We're we're holding off on that to see what happens with the development

of the old mill property. Um, North Fifth Street Reconstruction, Tangent to Mary, our wastewater treatment plant, solids handling design plan. Look to have the design completed spring summer 26. Um, it'd be definitely late summer, but the Cedar Street reconstruction again is in design. And the Sherman Street sanitary sewer replacement main to Second Street. We're I think uh kicks off the 16th next week. Um we jump into our storm drainage system. We have 63 m 63 miles of storm drain mains and 52 miles of open channel ditch that we maintain. Um our drainage mainline replacement is is a little small. almost 1500 ft every two to three years based on the the limited funding we have in that utility get approximately 200,000 per year for capital projects. So our replacement cycle is just not worth putting a number down there for. It's way out. Most of the collections crew spends the large portion of the spring and summertime mowing and clearing ditches to keep water flowing through the city for the storm drainage system. We do have a new storm drainage master plan with a a good capital project section which has many recommendations for improvements and upgrades along with typical life cycle replacements within that system. It'll all require additional funding to meet meet those requirements and keep the systeming operational. Our upcoming projects for storm, we have

the Grant Street project, it coincides with our other Grant Street projects that we're doing out there is all going to be one one large project. the design for Cedar Street. Again, the minor capital projects we have placing drainage pipe manholes and catch basins and then just the general upkeep and maintenance on our storm system. All our projects are kind of tied together. I'd like to note that it's the only way we can really do a project anymore is if all the utilities happen at once along with the street rebuild financially. So if you guys have any questions whatsoever about what I presented, be happy to answer them. All right, I get to do the financial part of the presentation. Uh so on the board uh is a kind of a snapshot of what our five-year plan looks like. We have this for both the water and wastewater funds. Uh as they're kind of the the bigger ones that we're working with. Um what you can see up there for first the water fund. Uh we we have done our best to estimate what expenses we certainly have next year, right? We know most of what what is coming next year. Any potential increases in personnel costs, PERS, um materials and service increases, uh related debt payments and the like. Um what that is showing is that over time we're moving from an estimated $1.8 million next year all the way up to just about $2 million in 2031. Um if you look kind of at the bottom line then so the second to last line is total resources less expenditures. So this is the money you're bringing in and

then to subtract the the expenditures that you have for the year. We are dragging on that fund balance. So at the end of 2026 what we project that fund balance to be is about $6.7 million. Um, this plan on the board assumes a 3% uh potential rate increase each year except for next year. So for 28, 29, 30, and 31. Um, and you are still at a point where you're kind of dragging that fund balance and spending more than you are bringing in. Now, because there is significant fund balance there, right, you you have plenty that at the end of that 5-year picture, you're still north of $2 million in available fund balance. However, um you know, one of the things we've been focusing on is making sure that we are not spending more than we are bringing in. Um and so some sort of I guess course correction or new revenue will be necessary in order to to rebalance that as we move out into the the last five years. from a visual standpoint. Uh this is uh the a a visual depiction of what what I was just showing you. The green bars represent the revenue coming in. The orange sections uh and the blue sections are the expenditures. Um and we've stacked the uh expenditures next to the revenue so you can kind of get a a a good idea of the fact that again we are spending more than we are bringing in. Um the the box just represents what is kind of the projected numbers, right? So starting with 2027, that's next budget cycle. Um and then the four fiscal years after that on the wastewater fund side, things look a little bit better. Um we have next year

Thank you. You're welcome. for making it look better. Okay. I I do what I can, I suppose. I can't

um we are planning next year on kind of moving forward as as uh the public works director as Jason alluded to on that um bioolids project out at the wastewater treatment plant. So you are seeing an extensive amount of money down there, $27 million coming out of the wastewater fund uh for the purpose of that project. that is supplemented by $10 million um in what we'll call state money. So, $2 million in grant funds that were just recently allocated uh by the state of Oregon in in lottery funding for us. Uh and then an $8 million loan that we would need to take in order to to fund the entirety of the pro of the project, at least based on the information that we have today. Again, same picture. you have expenditures uh for the the five fiscal years starting with 2027. Um the in 2027 that blue section there in the middle you see the yellow number the total revenue list operating expenditures is significantly higher than previous years and than the other outlying years. That's because of the the loan and and state grant money coming in. So that disappears in the outlying years. Um and you get a more realistic picture of what we are spending and and and bringing in compared to uh taking on additional funding. Um we anticipate that if we take the $8 million loan in order to finish this project, repayment would likely begin in 2029. So that has been figured into the debt service. And you can see that additional $200,000 um going from 2028 to 2029 um and that $200,000 annual principal payment uh in addition to interest um would last you 30 years.

So it is certainly a a big weight on you know what we're committing this fund to. Um, and I say that because as you get further out into this 5y year and into 2031 down at the bottom of the screen, you have $343,000 more in revenue you're bringing in than what you're spending. But as you go further out into this, right, the 10 and 15year picture, that debt service isn't changing. And so this is going to start to tip the other way just like it did in the water fund. Um so while we look okay in the next 5 years and again these are snapshots this is the best information that we have available to us um and so things this is a plan things can certainly change um but the best information that we have says over the next 5 years we would be okay. This assumes a 6% rate increase on wastewater rates. Um and then a 3% increase in each of the fiscal years after the blue section. Uh all told at the end uh this this fund does have a debt reserve requirement. So 271,000 which would leave you at the end of the five years with about $2.1 million in available fund balance. And again, visual representation for you. Um, you see the big spike in 2027. That's our project. Uh, and then kind of falling back to what we'll call quote unquote normal levels in the outlying fiscal years. So, with that said, uh, we've talked about all of these different funds. What staff has proposed for rate changes this year is is a 6% increase in just the sanitary sewer section. So on an average

bill, which our average um bill includes essentially five units of water through an individual meter, uh we are looking for about $4.15 a month on that utility bill. Looking at the bottom line just on the utilities, that's a 3.3% increase to what they're paying today. So you can see that right now on an average bill you're paying $125.88 for the utilities alone. We're asked we're looking for $130.3 in this scenario. That $4.15 change. Jason,

yeah, let me let me walk through the rate increase here a little bit and the purpose behind it. So, we've got a master plan project that sits, I want to say, somewhere around $40 million. We don't believe that it's going to be that high. We've set aside approximately $20 million of our own reserves. We just received another $2 million from the state. So, that puts us at 22 million. Um, there's a lot more projects that have to come after this. Um, so the 6% is purely being set aside for debt service on the $8 million loan that Brandon's talking about. Uh, that's what we assume if we take an SRF loan that we can get uh, we can make those debt service payments with that. So, there's really really no change with that. What we're really looking to do here in in the next uh, council meeting would be to start the design process with a consultant. Uh Kennedy Jinx is working on that proposal. We've almost got it ironed out, but we're proposing to go with a 30% design and hire a CMGC contractor so that we can get some real-time pricing. Um, we Jason and Brandon and I have looked at this and it's a daunting number and it's just not broken out enough to where we can give a we we're we're pretty confident that it's going to be upwards of around 30 million, but until we can get some real-time pricing and see what that is, um, there's a potential that it may be more than that. Um, we just don't know. So that's why you'll see uh when we come back at the next council meeting that we'll be looking to start that uh 30% design uh so that we can get them on there.

That's probably just a dumb question. What's that what's that mean 30% design? What's that refer to? So basically you've gone through and you've selected your equipment types, right? Because the dryer itself is just a big piece of equipment. And so you've got to go through that process to where we've narrowed down, okay, this is the type of dryer that we want to use. Uh you've got some engineering drawings. 30% means you've got a pretty good layout. You know what you're gonna build. Thank you. It's just a percentage of the product.

Yeah. And so you bring that um construction manager, general contractor on board and there's no risk because they're they're basically getting paid to provide their cost estimating services and any value engineering. And it's really good good good to have a contractor on board uh cuz sometimes engineers screw things up

and don't look at the constructibility of things. So um that's the reason for that and plus they will be able to go out and actually get real time pricing um so that we can come back and feel confident in a a guaranteed maximum price and know what those numbers are. So that that's that's the kind of the direction we've taken. It feels a little bit slow roll, but I think we're uh neither one of us, including Brandon, are comfortable enough with just going guns ahead until we know for sure exactly what we're up against. It's pretty simple. That's why I didn't understand.

So, that's that's the uh that's the the the message behind the increase there. Um you know, if you look at it from a master plan perspective, uh and we said, "Well, it's going to be $40 million." Um, we can't tell you that it's going to be $40 million. Just looking at some of the stuff that's going to be in there, we just don't know what that cost is going to be. I mean, looking at what what we're looking at here, we're we're pretty confident it's going to be somewhere around 30 million. Obviously, if it's less than that, then that discussion happens. But one of the reasons we need to go forward with a rate increase is so that we can start our process with uh the state in terms of the SRF funding and that's state revolving loan funding. We need to be in a position to where we can cover said debt service uh in order to take out that loan. So uh and that is probably a six to eight month process by the time we pull all the financials and get all that stuff started. So we want to be we want to be positioned well um because every year we are uh behind this uh you know that's another year worth of inflation and on a project that big it's it's it's very big. Uh and just to give you some idea of what we think it's going to take we're looking at about a four-year project from basically start to turning it on. So it's going to take a while to get all this put together. start like shovel in the ground, start or start with you with the prop plan.

Start start design because there's a we've got to go through an environmental review which uh anytime you're doing stuff like this, it's got to go through a DEEQ review and get blessed by them. Um it's got a whole bunch of stuff that's that's got to happen that um doesn't go as fast as we think it should, but um it it takes some time. So So the state's involved is the state's involved. Yes. just average-wise I've been here. What is our average increase yearly going back like 10 years or so if anybody knows that?

I'm going to take a stab. So, we've probably done inflationary mostly. Um only time you're seeing numbers like this is if there was a dire problem or if we were gearing up for a big capital project. And there haven't been any years where we didn't have some increase. uh last year we did not we did not do any increase last year and I think there was a few years before that where where we didn't do any increase and um

so we we we try and stay on top of it with the inflation piece especially with the construction cost of capital um if you look at what costs have done over the last few years um it's astronomical uh what's happened in the construction industry so um and it cost us more you know the longer we wait So, any other questions on that piece of it? Looks like Jason has some more comments.

I I have a question. Uh, no, just just uh to talk about that point while we're working on the financials. Our master plan calls for $95,550,000 in projects. And those are projects to meet regulation. I think I've said that to you before. Those aren't projects because we want to try something new or we want to do something else. These are projects that we are being told that we have to do to meet new conditions in our permit. So the time frame of those is the only variable there, but that those projects are are going to have to happen.

Hold up. Don't run off. So in dur during the time that we start the planning because we do have our new permit, we start the planning and we move forward. Is there like a uh a uh a hold on deeq to hey let them finish our project or can they still come in and go hey you're in violation of your permit?

Yeah they could if we violated our permit we would still face penalty right now. We're not under a stipulated agreement with DEQ, which is the only avenue to not face that. U we don't want to be in one. There's some other things that get out of your hand, then we have a we're confident we can continue to to meet our permit. Long as the goalpost doesn't keep moving.

Okay. So, one of one of the things that Ron mentioned was, you know, the need for this is is to set us up so that when we get to that CWSRF funding, um when they're taking a look at our our financials and where where our rates are, can we handle an $8 million loan, right? without, just for reference point, without a the without the rate increase this year, without that 6%. Um, if you were to just leave it as it is, um, you would actually end up with a with a deficit in the wastewater fund in that 5year span, assuming the loan was still taken, right? So, that that's part of this is like Ron said, just preparing for that loan process and preparing for us to be able to handle that debt service for the next 30 years. And one other thing this will do as you it's going to a 6% generates about 450 roughly 450,000 a year. Um we may not take the loan right away. We may just get geared up for it. Right. So then you're taking that cash from that rate increase

and you're buying down that loan what you would need the loan out for. So there's we're still working through the financials. We've got some other things that we're looking at in the financials um that I won't put out there quite yet because we haven't vetted them with with um SRF that may may make this even better yet, but we know we're at a point here, and I think Jason alluded to it, we got a lot of projects to do out there. It's a 70s vintage uh wastewater plant, and um it's it's time to make those upgrades and and on top of that with uh complying with regulation. So,

so you kind of I was just about to ask that question. When what is the drop deadad date on taking the loan is it depends on the timing of the project and the the the development process of that. Right. So, you've got design to up to 30% and then you bring on the the CMGC component of this. um that I think at that 30% that's where we'd need to move forward with the loan funding because we wouldn't be able to to go under contract with any sort of contractor um without having that loan secured right because as soon as we do the contract with a with a general contractor we're moving

the first phase of this the 30% would be paid out of out of cash we would have no intention of I mean so that you can and basically you're setting aside that until you have to until we come back to this body with a guaranteed maximum price on the project itself. That's when the loan needs to be put in place. Um

we do think that's next fiscal year. We are we are trying to move this ball forward. One the the quote unquote faster we move on this, right? Then the each year that you wait, you face escalation costs, right? Nothing nothing gets cheaper anymore. Um and so moving forward on this as soon as we can allows us to try to keep cost as low as possible. Um, and it also gives us a solid direction on which way we need to go over the next I mean this is going to be a three-year project um once you get started. So, um, from start to finish with construction and turn turn in that key. So, four year four year sorry four year. Um, it's what they've got pencled out so far.

Yeah. So, we're trying to move on this next fiscal year, which is why you saw that capital funding in next year's budget. Um, now does some of that bleed over into future fiscal years as the construction happens? Yes. But we do need to have loan stuff guaranteed once we get started. And I guess I didn't sleep enough last night. I'm not understanding the need for an 8 million. What's What's the trigger of an $8 million loan? We have a $450,000 surplus because of this increase. Doesn't that service that loan? What What's I I missed something in there. That's exactly what that $450,000 That's what it's for, the 450. But if we But if we're making it while we need the loan, h it to take you

10 years. The $8 million loan would allow us to get started now and pay it now instead of paying it out over the next 30 years. They're going to want to know. They don't want to wait. They like to be a year. I I wouldn't come and do the project. Not quite enough when you're facing down an $8 million gap there. They they don't like just 450 years. I'll sleep better next time. Um, so I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Jason's favorite point. Um, which is that based on these figures up above the table here, it does cost approximately 1 cent per gallon to deliver clean drinking water to a business or to a residence. Um, and approximately 2 cents to treat one gallon of waste water.

Is there a national average on this? I I I know it's a lot cheaper than buying your water at Safeway. That's his favorite phrase. Thank you. I I don't know what the national average would be for broken down to a unit cost.

Moving kind of into a comparison, right? This is kind of the question that everybody always says, you know, we always hear the our rates are the most expensive or um you know, where do we fall along with the rest of of the state? This is a snapshot of uh multiple jurisdictions, cities within the state of Oregon. The middle section there is the average of all of these. And you can see on the left hand side of that graph, fourth from the top. Um or however many from the bottom. Maybe that's the better way to describe that. But there's Lebanon with its new proposed rates. Um so we'd like to give you this comparison so that you can see it. The green sections represent the water portion of those bills. The brown is the sewer and that dark brown is for storm water. You know, when I first got elected, we went through all this and I I did got a comparison like comparable cities in Lebanon. And one thing I found is some of these cities say, unless they, you know, I'm not tracking Corvalis, you know, 24/7, but Corvalis is about to kick off a huge project.

Yeah. And I tell citizens that I go, keep in mind that some of these cities like Corvalis and uh let me see who else on here. I think Sweet Home. Yes. Um, uh, I don't know about Albany, but I know I want to say Tiger or Cami, one of the two. They're about to start these huge projects and their rates aren't going to stay right there. We're actually doing pretty well in comparison to these uh, especially like Corvalis that you already shows, oh, they're they don't pay anything. Yeah, they're about to pull the trigger on what 180 million.

Yeah, something major. It's a it's a big project for them. And certainly the the size of our, you know, our population size impacts these figures, right? You have more people in Corvalis and Albany that are paying these rates, but even with the additional folks in Albany, you know, the extra 30,000ish people,

there is still relatively comparable to ours. Um, so it's, you know, we're not necessarily outside of of the realm of quote unquote normal for folks in the state of Oregon. And Jason's mentioned it before, right? A lot of this is regulatory. Um, and we don't have a lot of control in in that piece without some action from Salem or or lawmakers. So, um, we're doing the best that we can with with the money that we have and trying to spread this out as far as possible. I

think one other thing to note with the the drier facility that we're building, uh, coffin but is the question mark of the day. It doesn't look like it's going to move forward. Um there's pro there's some talk about not being able to haul bioolids to them anymore which would mean our cost would triple quadruple in what we're paying to get rid of bioolids. So, uh, that's the other reason we're trying to we're looking out there a long ways out in the future as well. Um, and having a mechanism for the community to get rid of the solids and and this is probably one of the best ways to do so. It lessens our footprint substantially and what we have and it's also usable material. Uh, so that's one of the things that has drove us to this point. Yeah, it could be placed anywhere. There's no restriction on it when it comes out of this dryer. We could use it in parks for fertilizer, for nitrogen additive. Uh it could be given to the community members. It also I think the most important part for me is right now we're we're hauling our bioolids in about a 6 to 8% solid um status when we haul it to the dump. So, we're hauling 90% 92% water to them. Just that's the technology we have to make solids. Now, with the drier, we would we would be able to to have a 96% 97% dried product. So, you're hauling 4% water. Our volume is going to be substantially substantially less.

How many how many other cities in this region have dryers? Uh the closest one would be Stton. Statton has a drier. Uh I think a lot of people are looking at that now. The the our region was so lucrative just for bioolid land application with class B bioolids because our our field inventory is so so vast. That's seems to be going away. You know, we got a call from the city of Eugene. They're facing the same thing. They've lost a lot of fields, so they're scrambling right now to figure out what their next steps are going to be. So, you're losing the fields.

Uh many cases that some aren't getting permitted. Farmers are not allowing the application for fear of POS and microlastic contamination to their property. And that's the that's what's happening down south in Eugene is the fear of of future regulation. And there's just so so much unknown for that. Just so conference one time and they were talking about uh application of uh municipal uh bioolids for timber production and there were some studies done showing the increase in the uh increase in the yield. Have has that been considered at all?

Uh we haven't looked at a forestry application for it. Um, I'm not sure exactly how how extensive that permitting process would be with DEQ or if they'd even um let us get started down that road yet. There I don't know.

Do we have any other questions on the waste or on the utility side? Because if not, we'll hop over to city services. City service fee. I I just I just have a quick question. We're talking about a dryer now. We're talking about taking raw sewage and just drying it so you have you less volume that you have to haul away. In the drying process, is there any pollutants or emissions from that that go into the atmosphere or

No. So part of the process we have to have a air scrubbers on that equipment. It's got to have odor control on the building that that's done in. So those those concerns have been met just regulatory before we got there. So that's the good I don't live too far from there. So

no, it would actually be a lot less. And I I so when we get to a bioolids state in our our sewage treatment process chain, we're actually it's gone through uh clarification. We've we've thick we've gone over a gravity belt and thickened it to about 3%. And then it would end up going into digestion to to stabilize before we dry it. So it's it's like the the final step of the treatment process. And the drier what is that operated with natural gas or Yes. That's the seems to be the best way to fuel it. So just one big huge pizza oven

kind of. It It's really kind of pizza. You had You had to connect the two, didn't you, Mr. Dominoes? Incremental, so it can be added on to uh really really easily. So you could expand your ability to take in other re other cities product. Um that's kind of what makes it attractive to us is we're kind of looking at this from a regional perspective. So, are you thinking that there would be a substantial income source for processing this for other cities?

Yeah, I mean, I hate to say that's going to work out perfectly for us is there's a lot of moving parts to be considered, but that is a thought that we have for sure, but there is a a huge savings in not having to dispose of it and pay for it even today's rate, which could triple or quadruple. Yes. and we could lose. We know for a fact that we've coughing bee's got a 10 to 15 year window on it even with the expansion. So that's known information. It's as long as that will be taking garbage. So no matter what, we're we're figuring out something different after that. But and that's taking into consideration today's DEEQ standards.

Yes. Not 10 15 years from now DEEQ standards. and looking into that murky DQ crystal ball the best that we can.

Yeah, you whether regulation ch I mean regulation is going to change. Um but this is looking at it from this is I think this sets us up with a with a with a drier facility. This sets us up in probably the best position in terms of what regulations we either a know are coming or could be coming or have been talked about. This this sets us up in a in a much better position because even if we had to take the class A for some reason if POS becomes this great big thing which we still is big unknown that footprint that we would have to take compared to what a class B is is substantially less. So even if we had to tip the class A because that's the only thing that we could do with it um it it would be substantially less. I

I like the idea of not kicking the can down the road. Yeah, just take care of it now. Yeah, I we we spend so much right now on tipping fees for Republic Services for bioolids that we've never had to spend before the last two years. I mean, our our bioolids were all land applied. Are you making a pitch for a bigger budget this year? Uh no, just uh just this project budget. I'm just teasing you. Oh, thank you. I Yeah,

this is a little bit of an in the weeds question, but uh all of the technology that would be used for the dryer. It's all not nothing is like blackbox technology, a little PTSD from the previous wastewater project years and before me and years before anyone on here. Yeah, there's this is not cutting edge. Okay, this is like we know with how this works. Yeah, fantastic. Just had to ask. Very proven technology. Thank you. Yeah. Can please continue. Okay. Thanks. I'm definitely leaving for the service.

All right. Um the general fund. So, as you are also aware, uh the city has a city services fee that helps support general fund operations, our property tax revenue that we generate. So, I'll kind of make this a little bit bigger here. Um, this column right next to the left of the blue is what we anticipate for 2026. We generate about $6.9 million in property tax revenue. But if you kind of pop down here to this $9 million number, that's our personnel that comes out of the general fund. So, our general fund unfortunately does not generate enough money from property taxes to cover our overall expenditures. Um, that being said, the city service fee was implemented uh in kind of halfway through the 2025 fiscal year uh where we ended 2025 was was uh with a surplus in the general fund of 883,000 or $884,000. Um but the the city service fee last year generated words are difficult apparently generated a million dollars. So without that city service fee, we'd be upside down the other way, about a quarter of a million dollars, 20 $200,000. Um the the current forecast has us finishing this year at just about a half a million dollars. Um the budget as it's built right now would show us kind of dipping into the fund balance a little bit to handle some things for the for the year. Um but as we look kind of further out this forecast uh we get to a point where we are we're sitting on $4 million in available monies. So a total general fund balance of 6.2 million you are required to set aside per policy 17% of your total annual operating expenditures. So that's this 2 almost 2.3 million which leaves you with 4

million in onetime reserves. um we are attempting in this forecast to kind of spend that down a little bit. So what this forecast has built into it is a 1% increase annually on that city service fee. Um for visual purpose, right? Here's what that kind of looks like. You can see so before when we've talked about this over the last several years, this graph looked very different, right? It was it was headed south and headed south in a hurry. Um this is kind of stabilized. You can see that, you know, over the since 2022, this has kind of made a straight line if you were to draw kind of an average line across it. Um, and does kind of start to tip over as you get into the outlying fiscal years. Um, but as we have established previously and and as you all know, we're not in this to hoard a bunch of cash in the general fund, right? That's not our that's not our purpose. That's not our desire. Um, so we are trying to be very prudent with with what we ask for, what we what we're proposing, and uh kind of where the future takes us. So with that being said, the 1% increase that we have proposed is 20 cents on that current $18 fee. Um, and this table kind of outlines what that would look like for all of the related um, accounts.

I I I think Brandon kind of alluded to it. We're carrying a a pretty good balance in the general fund and what our proposal would be would be to bring down some of that so that you're not having to, you know, while keeping in mind the structural deficit, right? That's that's what this 1% is all about. But basically bringing that down so that those percentage increases are much smaller and you're kind of using that but also keeping in mind that at some point that structural deficits going def deficit is going to catch back up with you. So uh what that does is just keeps you on pace uh while while bringing some of that down with some of the cash reserve that we have on hand. What we're kind of aiming for in that in that general fund balance is uh kind of a $2 million target and that's 2 million of expendable dollars, right? So setting aside the reserve, um then you have an additional 2 million that you have for one-time needs, things that pop up during a fiscal year that that the council really sees as an important thing to pursue or opportunities that that may pop up in the future, right? that $2 million in available expendable fund balance gives you kind of that flexibility to make sure that we can operate the way that that you intend for us to operate and that the community hopes that we will operate as well. So, man, I guess I'm the dumb math guy question today, but I don't care. The the I think your financial report said we got $168 million revenue out of that last last month out of the is that isn't that what I read

in which one from the fee? Uh 168,000. Yeah. And isn't 168 times 12 like over $2 million? We only generated half of last year because it started in January. But now it's Yeah, it's about $2 million a year. It should generate at least $2 million. Is that right? Yep. Okay. Um and because see if I can come up with any other

Okay. Well, happy to answer them if you do. Uh and because you know, we know you like to see the comparisons. This one's a little bit better than the utility graph. Um, so you know, Jason alluded to the or not not Jason, who was it? Oh, the mayor alluded to the fact that, you know, Corvalis has projects coming and their utility bill was one of the lower ones in that graph. Well, their city service fees on the other hand are way up here at the top um because they have a city service fee for what appears to be almost everything. Um, so uh in this in this depiction, right, the average of all of these that we put together is about $18.28. 28. Our $18.20 would fall just below that average. So, that's certainly where we'd like to be. Um, there are 45 from an analysis that the Oregon City County Managers Association put together, there are about 45 cities that we're aware of out of 241, so that's about 18%. Um, that have some sort of city service fee. Um, so we're we're certainly certainly not alone in this in this endeavor. Does

that say $64? Is that a month? That's a month. That's a month. Yes. Valley. $64 and a penny. They They have it for what? Law enforcement. Streets, streets, law, police, fire, transit, sidewalks. The list is endless. Parks. I think there's a parks one. Wow. Outlier. Okay. With that, we'll certainly entertain questions if you have questions for us. I usually look at Dave on this, but I'm gonna look at the other Dave. Do you have any questions?

I don't have any mathematical questions this time. I I I don't like the timing of increasing this and adding on the utility increase at the same time. I don't know if it generates enough to be worth the push back, but that's just my opinion. It's not math. I think that that's a fair assessment and I think you basically we're going to show you what we think it's going to be to to save off that structural deficit. I think from a cash standpoint, it's it's not necessary this year. And I think Brandon Brand and I have had this conversation, but what I think we're trying to avoid is okay, we won't do it this year, we won't do it this year, we won't do it this year, and then all of a sudden it needs to be six to 8%.

I get it. We don't want to keep the can down the road, but we don't want to buy another can if we don't have Yeah, absolutely. So, those are those are definitely options that that you guys can look at and and Brandon and I both feel comfortable with with what we have in cash reserves this year that that's not going to be a a detrimental blow as long as we're keeping that at the front of our our conversation that at some point, you know, you start to run into that that structural deficit again. And we don't want to be in that boat. Um it's much easier to do very small percentage increases than it would be to jump in at, you know, wastewater six. That's that's that's a big number. Um and we would prefer not to be in that boat. So I understand.

Yep. Any other questions or comments?

I'll make a comment. It just I don't know. We're looking at an increase on the increase. That's the way I see it. Well, you know, 20 cents isn't much, but I I think it's the principle of it. It's an increase on the increase. Uh I wasn't part of the $18 service fee originally, and Dominic wasn't either. We were just elected after right after that. And uh myself, I didn't I didn't think that uh we should have done the $18 service fee. I surely wouldn't uh wouldn't want to increase on the increase. And that's personally how I feel about it. I would would however favor a uh a built-in uh increase uh annually on on the utility fees and rates uh pick a percent 3% or whatever that would account for uh inflation and and uh uh added cost every year. And and as we all know, u our DEQ mandates and state mandates keep increasing on us every year. And I don't know if the a 3% increase would keep up with it, but I would favor something like that. Instead of coming back here every year and arguing and debating about this issue, I would just like to see it uh set at 3% a year.

All righty. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Does that conclude your uh brief? All righty. Okay. Well, there's no questions or comments. That concludes the brief. This meeting is journed at 5:50.

Do it. You're going to make me start late. I got 30 seconds. It's over. I'll just mouth it. Okay, we'll call the meeting to order. Please rise for the flag salute. 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. All right. Thank you. Will uh the city recorder please call roll.

Mayor Jakola present. Council president Steinheel here. Councelor Ki here. Angel Ford here. Councelor Salvage here. Councelor Mlan here. Councelor Workman here. Uh, real quick, uh, Councelor Savage, if, uh, if you have something, please speak up because whenever people are online, they're easy to look over. All righty. Definitely, I will. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks. Uh, we'll move on to consent calendar. The following items will be considered routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will not be separate discussions on the items unless a council so request. In that case, the item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately. Uh, agenda, Lebanon City Council Agenda, March 11th, 2026. Board meeting, Lebanon Advisory Committee, December 9, 2025. Parks, Trees, Trails Advisory Committee, September 17th, 2025. Planning Commission, October 15, 2025. Council meetings, council meetings, February 11th, 2026. Council City Council meetings and work session February 25th, 2026. And the easement for Mangetti, is that is that how you say that? Mcgrita

Mcgrita Mcgrita okay easement is there a motion move for approval second motion's been made to approve the consent counters and it's been seconded all in favor I all oppose motion passes uh first up tonight this is the this is the time that I like to do these things so um we're going to do a uh recognition of somebody would uh Rod Please come forward. Come on. Don't look around. It's not whose line is it anyway. We all know who you are. Come on up. Yeah, exactly.

Tonight, we have the honor of recognizing someone whose dedicated to the city of Lebanon spans more than two decades and whose impact will be felt for many years to come. Rod Cell devoted over 24 years of service to his community through work through his work in the public works department through the public works department. In various roles, he has helped build, maintain, and care for infrastructure that keeps our city running every day. Often behind the scenes, but always essential. That time was from 1986 to 2010. What makes Rod's story especially mean meaningful is that his service did not end when his appointment with the city concluded. Instead, he chose to continue giving back, volunteering his time, knowledge, and passion on the committees that provide oversight and guidance for our parks, trees, and trails. Those spaces that are where our families gather, our children play, and our community connects. and Rod has helped ensure they are cared for with thoughtfulness and pride from 2010 to 2026. Rod's commitment reflects the very best of public service, showing up, doing the work, and continuing to invest in a place we all call home. On behalf of the city of Lebanon, the city council, and the residents we serve, we extend our sincere gratitude for your years of dedication, your volunteer spirit, and the lasting mark you have made on our community. Rod, it is our privilege to recognize you tonight and say thank you for your service.

Thank you, Rod. Thanks everybody.

Thank you sir. And one last round of applause. Next up, legislative update for 2026. Sean Tate. Y'all, you weren't ready. I'm ready.

Okay. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council, and team. Sean Tate with Tate Public Affairs here to give you a very brief overview of the short legislative session which just ended last Friday. Couple days short of the deadline, which was Sunday. Um, so a little bit less political wrangling towards the end than a lot of people expected. Still a pretty decent legislative session by all accounts for the city of Lebanon. Um, a little bit of some some fun facts, some numbers. First, there were 304 nonbudget pieces of legislation that were introduced this session. We ultimately tracked I think somewhere between 45 and 50. Some came off, some died early, some showed up late. Um, some of them fit nicely into our legislative categories that we worked hard to develop. You can't always count on the legislature to write bills that fall perfectly into those categories, but we did have um six economic development bills, 13 housing and quality of life, four infrastructure, four agency, four HR or admin, eight public safety, and seven tax bills that we looked at. um or that we kind of kept our eyes on. We had 11 priority one bills out of the 45 or so that we that we tracked. Um and we ultimately ended up engaging directly on eight or nine either through coalition participation or with written testimony and in some cases inerson testimony or video testimony. Um, my strategy, I think our overall strategy going into the short session was a little bit of a lower profile than we have uh than we have had in the last

uh couple of legislative days when we've had quite an army up in the building um in a lot of people's offices having some very important conversations. Um, we're letting the work that we've done to this point kind of lead the way. Um, we stayed to the best of our ability out of political arguments and stayed focused on policy and actionable issues and um, we tried to protect our appropriations ask. Um, just a few of the highlights from that. Obviously, I think everybody knows we did receive an appropriation of $2 million for our water and wastewater system upgrades. Um really this goes back this goes back to the beginning quite frankly when we started meeting with policy makers and ways and means folks and others and saying this is the city of Lebanon and we're real and we have real issues and real problems and we need your help. Um and that um I think that paid off for us this year. We have some really good relationships and some really good connections in there. We had some help from some potentially unlikely people to help get our ask across the um across the finish line. Senator Manning um was very helpful. Uh Senator Gerard also very helpful and Rep. Kate of course who was brought this forward for us. This is really the first time that this process um for doing these um allocations has been in place. Previous to this legislative session, it was as many requests as you could stack on the desk of one of the Ways and Means co-chairs. That was and you tried your level best to stay somewhere near the top of that stack and get attention. Was Rep. Gonberg, I believe, last year who suggested that we do things a little bit differently. Um, and that is that we have each representative and senator can submit two, right? So instead of potentially a thousand requests for capital construction money or lottery

bond funds, get about a hundred and it's a lot easier for the ways and means folks to sort through and prioritize. So um just a few of the other highlights that we um that we saw this session um we did have some early engagement on some House bills that resulted in um a couple of bills not making it through the system, which is good. We did not support them. One of them was House Bill 4055, which would have put some um new requirements on our IT department for reporting instances of um IT attacks or incursions into systems. Um Brent testified, did a fantastic job um created some conversation quite frankly that hadn't happened yet and as a result of that it was recognized that the bill wasn't ready and that it goes back to the table. So, it's a great example of what we can do when we engage early on a piece of legislation and we have subject matter expertise um on the issue. Um small business resiliency grants bill which was House Bill 4148 that passed that allows the transient lodging tax to now be used um in the in the um in the issue of uh resiliency for restaurants and um other organizations during economic downturns. the Oregon Imagination Library Program passed which um provides reading materials um to kids in towns across Oregon. That was a really good bill that we supported. Recreational liability, which has been a conversation for us for quite some time. That bill did did finally pass in a uh a version that the ski resorts and a few other people um could get behind. It was a tough political battle. there was a a lot of um influence exerted on Senator Pzansky and a few others from the trial lawyers and um um I think folks ended up at a at

a fairly good place on that um on that bill. Public meetings laws. Um that was a a bill that Julie and I talked about and me and some colleagues have talked about. This this is a bill that passed makes some changes to what a quorum can do behind closed doors. And quite frankly, I'm not sure at this point that it's going to get signed um by the governor. Her staff is coming out saying right now that she's not sure. And the the word that I'm hearing from my colleagues and even in the news is that the bill makes um transparency worse for um in public records laws. So, there's some conversation about um do they do it better next year? Do they take a run at it if it does get signed or or what? So, we'll have to stay tuned on that. Um couple of bills that we engaged on that that failed. Um payment of earned or acred paid time off. That was a a bill that we weighed in on early in the system that would have changed some of our um math and HR department. That bill did not make it out of committee. And then uh Senate Bill 1569, which would have changed the qualifications, loosened the qualifications I should say, for who could um um qualify as a police officer under PERS. And that would have changed some of our compensation and some of our math, too. Um, one bill in particular that I'm quite happy about was Senate Bill 1585. And you've probably heard me talk about it before, and that was the matching grants legislation that I ran last year with the small municipalities group. We got that bill over the finish line this session. It was the last policy bill to pass um before the budget bills, which I thought was fantastic. And that what that bill did was it changed the um the matching grant requirements dropped them down to u for the city of Lebanon 12%. Right where currently things sit at about 25% to 40% depending upon the grant that you apply

for. So in the case of a million dollar connect Oregon grant as an example would have cost the city of Lebanon $250,000 as at a 25% match. And now because of our population, we top out at a 12% match. So that $250,000 goes down to 120. That's our matching responsibility. And additionally, the bill allows for small cities to use those funds for anything that they need in the project. Okay? Whether it's um research or engineering or whatever it might be. So it was also a good bill for small cities. Um, and uh, by the way, I do have a um, spreadsheet that I will put together and send to Ron and others that has all of the bills that we've tracked and um, a much broader outline of what they do and how they would likely impact us and that can be shared with with council as well. So, um, all in all, I think a good session for the city of Lebanon. We have a a really good profile in the capital that I think we can build on for quite some time. It's been wonderful to have people uh engaged, the mayor and Brandon and Ron and everybody that's been up to the capitol with me and testifying and sitting in offices for the last couple of years. It's really starting to pay off for the city. So, I'm grateful for your uh support.

All righty. Thank you. We appreciate you. Yeah. You uh is there any questions or comment? Oh, go ahead. Appreciate it. Uh Sean Sean did a lot of great work this session in a short session. Uh, and the reason I know that is because we were texting at night a lot and on weekends a lot and emailing and so it was short, but uh, I appreciate I appreciate him a lot. Apologies for the interruption. I'm good. You know, you can text me anytime. I know. Okay, you all heard it. Anybody have any questions for me?

Any other comments or questions? I would just like to say thank you for your hard work on this and and giving us, you know, when we kind of put all this together, you helped give clarity and and some direction on on who we need to talk to and and uh I'll I'll say it this way, how the how the game's played a little bit and we we do deeply appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you all. Thanks. Next up, we have a guest tonight. Uh, I'm a I'm going to pin them in. Uh, presentations. Jack Tibbitz, please come forward. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. Um, honorable members of the council, I'm pleased to be here tonight. I just wanted to introduce myself to you because I'm a candidate for Senate District 6, which of course encompasses the city of Lebanon. Um, I'm excited to be a candidate. I didn't have any expectation a year ago today to be sitting here before you. But I'm a father of two boys. I'm a farmer and a business owner in this state. And I have concerns. I have concerns about my children's future. And I have concerns about the future of other children in Oregon. Some of you might know this, some of you might not, but when it comes to uh our economic position in this country, we're ranked 49th in the nation. when it comes to public education, we're ranked 47th. We had a net loss of 25,000 jobs last year in this state alone. So, as a father, somebody who's concerned about my children being able to continue their future here and live close to mom and dad, I worry about that sort of thing. Um, so not long ago, I decided to start talking to people and float my name out there for the state senate. I've had the opportunity to meet many amazing people throughout the district. I've spent a lot of time in Lynn County meeting with your citizens, some of your elected leaders, and all I can say is that I'm really impressed with uh the capabilities and the work that a lot of these small cities are doing. And I'm really fortunate that I was able to attend the work session here tonight because it it really speaks to um some of the common sense leadership that I wish we were seeing more of out of Salem. uh hearing tonight that you have received $95 million in unfunded mandates to me uh really begs the question of how can rural communities in this state keep up with that tab and I think it's increasingly difficult or it puts you in a difficult position of saying to your rateayers and folks in your community that well we're going to have that 3% increase this year and so

it makes me really wonder if those could be lessened to some degree what kind of economic relief could your rateayers experience in your community or more importantly, what else could you do? What other services and benefits in the city of Lebanon uh for your residents if you had more freedom within your budget and you weren't just trying to stay ahead of structural deficits? Um, if I'm elected, and who knows if I will be or not, it's going to be a long campaign. It's going to be uh an interesting campaign, but I just wanted to introduce myself to you because the one thing that I really am is a hard worker and I'm a fighter. And uh I want to be a resource for you if I'm fortunate enough to be elected. I would hope that you would lean in on me, ask me to represent you, advocate for you in Salem, and hopefully uh get some of those unfunded mandates knocked back so that you can spend some of your your uh your taxpayers money on things that they want need to the benefit of the city of Lebanon. Um, but that's that's me in a nutshell. Uh, I don't know if if there's an opportunity for questions, mayor. I'd be happy to answer them if there are, but I appreciate the time.

We'll we'll keep it real short on questions. Is there any questions? I'm good. I I kind of followed along with him, so Okay. All righty. I think we're good. I appreciate you coming forward and and uh informing us. Yeah. Thank you very much.

Move on to public comment. Citizens 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 to ask clarifying questions. City recorder will accept and distribute written comments at speaker's request. So, oh sh Good job. First up is Jason Addison. I I hope I said that right. Close. He knew what you were talking about.

All right. Well, hello. Thank you for having me today. Uh hello, Mayor Jakola and members of the council. Uh my name is Jason Adamson. I live over on Grand Street by the train station. Um I work with the fire district where I'm the deputy fire marshal. I get the pleasure of going out helping out community members, switching out batteries and smoke detectors, giving school tours, a lot of fun. I'm also the vice president of the professional firefighters union, and finally a small local business owner where I teach people how to use uh life-saving skills. Uh first and foremost, I'd like to congratulate the city of Lebanon for receiving a uh the $2 million in state funding for the wastewater facility. Uh we've all been hearing in the news how Lebanon's aging infrastructure has been a challenge to the city and have been trying to address it for some time. Uh this will certainly help the city move in the right direction. Uh next, I would like to congratulate Council President Michelle Steinable for receiving woman of the year at the Gayla.

Thank you, Mr. Man of the Year.

No, thank thank you. Um um I'm happy that you were recognized for the hard work you do for our community and that T-Mobile contest thing was a blast, wasn't it? Uh Mayor Jakola, I wish you luck running for House District 11 representative. Uh thank you for the uh the service uh for your service for the city of Lebanon. Uh we look forward to ongoing support from the state level. And finally, I'd like to address the possibility of a levy for the Lebanon Police uh Lebanon Police Department. I keep trying to call it district because but for the department I 100% support the possibility of this levy levy. Uh thank you council for pursuing this. Uh council mlan you were absolutely right by saying and I quote you cannot put a price on your safety and security. When people start talking about well it's going to take much of much or these few dollars to accomplish this goal. I just come back to my original thinking. You can't just put a price on it. End quote. Uh, you're right, Councelor Mlan. We can't put a price on our public safety and security. Public services like police and the fire are like insurance policies. We don't know we need them until it's the worst day of our life. I work side by side with the Lebanon Fire Department and its officers. Um, and I firmly believe that we have the best police around. I depend on them in my private life and professional life for protection. a jail would help officers return available more efficiently and get them back on the road. Honestly, I was surprised to see the consideration for the Lebanon Police Department levy from this council considering three of the current members have donated funds to Candidate Identification and Support Committee or CISK. Um, this organization has opposed increases in public support uh stuff in the past. I'd like to remind everyone when Lebanon Fire District was asking for a levy in 2024, CISK was in heavy opposition. Don't get me wrong, I'm not

upset with the people that don't want a levy. I mean, I get it. They cost a lot of money and um everybody has limited income. They're they're just really expensive. However, I am upset that CISK mailed community incorrect and deceiving information about the fire, how the fire district operates, its call statistics, and the condition of its budget. The citizens of Lebanon should be well informed and not tricked into at the polls. Since the levy failed, five positions have been cut, leaving Lebanon and surrounding communities with one less ambulance. You can associate with whoever you want, but I hope CISK does not blast out false information about the police levy as they did the fire levy. So, Mayor Jakola, councelor Workman, and councelor Mlan, could you please ask them not to go against the police levy as they did the fire district? What is your plan to respond to CISK anti- police levy campaign? Would this be a conflict of interest? just tell them the police levy won't be won't affect most of their major donors. The um in the Oregon Secretary of State database showing who donates to political action committees, four of the top five CISK donors, ranging from $2,500 to $17,247 came from people who do not live within Lebanon city limits. The other top donor was councelor Mlan. I appreciate these three sick donors who did vote yes to move forward towards a possible police levy during the last month's council meeting. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. I like to respond really quick to that. I I' I'd hazard you to clump people how they responded to that levy just because what one outside organization said. That's all I can say. You don't you don't know how I voted on that issue. Uh, and what I vote on other than out here doesn't have a real outcome in that. And I'd be glad to talk to you about it sometime. Sure. I'll talk to Wyatt about it. So, okay. My pleasure. All righty. Please, Jason. I'd like to meet with you sometime, just sit down face to face and talk about that. Sure. Absolutely. We appreciate you being here, though. Okay. And deserve as you give us.

Thank you. All righty. Thank you. We'll move on to public hearing. There's no other public comments. So, we'll move on public hearing. First one is to allow the public comments on community development block grant and of program report. This public hearing is now open at 6:25 and I will turn it over to the community development director.

Good evening. Before you tonight is to close out a presentation for the 2025 community development block grant. The community development block grant provides funding to support housing rehabilitation assistance for low and moderate income households throughout Lynn County. Through this program, eligible homeowners receive assistance to make necessary repairs and improvements that help maintain safe, livable housing. For the 2025 funding cycle, the city of Lebanon served as the applicant in the fiscal agent and Lind for Lind County Housing Program and the city administers the grant and acts as a pass through agency at the time. Um at this same time, Dev Northwest has was contracted to administer and manage the program, overseeing the project and implementing the work. As part of the grant requirements, the city must hold a final public hearing at the conclusion of the funding cycle to present a summary of the program activities. And tonight, I uh representative from Dev Northwest, Russell is here to provide us with the final report. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Russell. I'm the home repair coordinator at Dev Northwest. uh community development block grant H23011 was sponsored by the city of Lebanon in 2023 and is now complete. I'm here to report on the success we had helping homeowners in Lynn County. We received $287,500 in funding and we were able to allocate $286,585. So almost just under $1,000 short of the total grant. Six homes were repaired across Lane County. Three in Lebanon, two in Sweet Home, one in Stton. These six homes housed 24 low and moderate income individuals. The repairs included four roofs, four siding jobs, plumbing, and electrical fixes like new panels, outlets, replacement of carpet with LVP. Three homes had lead remediation and three homes had asbestous remediation, one quite extensively. Um, this home up here, this was a sweet home home. It got a new roof, new sighting. We were able to partner with another nonprofit, Seeds for the Soul, to get the homeowner a high efficiency heat pump water heater. Um, the home had lead uh and asbestous. So, there was remediation of both on this home. Uh, this is a Lebanon home fairly close to here. It got new sighting, new windows. Um, and you can see the after here. The homeowner is the one doing the painting. That was not funded by us. That was fully homeowner

calico. Yeah, I'm hoping it's fully painted. I haven't seen it recently, but um and then I guess that's just in closing. We repaired six homes and for 24 individuals. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did Did you have anything else? Okay. Is does uh council have any questions? Comments. Appreciate your work. Uh I should mention this is the end temporarily of Dev Northwest home repair program. U just as funding is short. So I just it's a temporary hole. All righty. Thank you. so much. Thank you. Thank you.

I will now open the floor to public comments. Is there anybody who would like to speak in regards to this matter? Okay, this public hearing is now closed at 6:29 p.m. Uh move on to the next public hearing, resolution number three for 2026. Um, the public hearing is now open at 6:29. Will the finance director please present his staff report?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Before you is resolution number 2026-03. It is a resolution repealing 2024-05 and establishing uh new utility rates. During a work session uh that preceded this meeting, we discussed uh kind of the condition and status of our water, sewer, and storm drainage programs. Um we went through the financial status of of each of those funds, where that money goes. Um and then put out uh kind of our proposed increases related to utility rates. Um a small kind of review of that. Um, our water and storm drainage funds are in decent health. Uh, we did talk about the fact that the water fund is is kind of at a tipping point uh where it is going to start kind of spending more money than it brings in on an annual basis. Um, however, staff at this time did not propose uh an a rate increase on the water side of the utility bills. We did however propose a 6% increase on the sewer side of those utility bills. Uh the increase for an average home would be would be about $4.15 a month. Uh some of the the reasons behind that increase or the need for the increase uh was kind of the city's plan to move forward with enhancements at the wastewater treatment plant. Um, as our public works director, uh, Jason Williams highlighted during that work session, there is a 90 some odd million dollar master plan, $95 million master plan out there that that highlights, uh, various projects that need to occur at the wastewater treatment plant in order to con to comply with growth needs and uh, state regulations. Uh, that is a very sizable bill. Um but what we are planning with to move what we are planning to move forward with in the next fiscal year is

the installation of a dryer uh and to handle some some uh of our bioolids which right now we truck off to coffin but on a monthly or more than monthly basis. Um that project is is budgeted right now at just about $32 million. Um, the sewer fund has available cash uh that we have been able to set aside for this project, including $12 million from a settlement um several fiscal years ago. Um, and then a planned $8 million loan to fund this project is necessary, which is why we proposed the rate increase in order to provide us a a rate structure that would be able to pay that debt service back over the next 30 years. Um it is certainly not not our favorite to propose. We understand the the implications of doing so. Um but what we have looked at is that over the course over the entirety of a bill, this represents about a 3.3% change uh on that bottom line. Um certainly happy to answer any additional questions that you might have. Um yeah,

questions, comments for staff. I just say that you said the city decided this really our reality has decided this. This isn't something we cannot do. We may not have to increase this much right now, but we don't want to ignore this because it's coming whether we like it or not.

Yeah. I just want to reiterate that what is it? $95 million um alto together is what it would take to get our wastewater plant back or to get it to meet state reg state and federal regulations. And that number is as our public works director pointed out, it's not something that we we want to do or that we are um aiming to do to make just be better citizens. I mean, we're doing it because we have to. And I just want I I really want people to understand that that the 6% is today so we don't have to have some giant one hopefully in the future. Thank you. Any other comments, questions?

Did you have it something else? Okay. Not for the public hearing. Okay. Um now open up the floor for public comments. Is there anybody who would like to speak in regards to this matter? The public hearing is hereby closed at 6:34. All further discussions will be limited to council staff at this time. Mr. Mayor, if I may any please.

Uh so a couple of things that we wanted to highlight uh on the resolution that is before you unfortunately and I'll apologize in advance. We did find a couple of typographical errors uh in that resolution. So uh what we do want to highlight the resolution currently states where is a 3.6% increase on the customer's total bill is recommended. That number is actually 330. And then in the exhibits uh we had to make a revision one on the it's page 23 of the packet or three of the resolution. Uh we did have to change the 3/4 inch low income water utility rate. Uh the number that was reflected there was still the 10% discount when the council last year changed that to a 30% discount. Um so we have made those uh amendments to the overall resolution. Was there another one? I can't remember. I think that was it.

So what you're telling me is this this copy we have is the updated one. The ones in front of you, yes, is the updated resolution, not in the packet. Correct. Okay. All righty. Any other questions or comments for staff from council? All righty. Will the city attorney please read the uh title of the resolution? Resolution number 2026-03, a resolution adopting the city of Lebanon's utility rates repealing resolution 2024-05. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Second. Motion's been made to approve the resolution and it's been seconded. All in favor?

I I All opposed.

Did you oppose? I did. Okay. Okay. Motion passes. We'll move on to public hearing resolution number four at for 2026. Public hearing is now open at 6:36. Finance director, please give your report.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, uh kind of continuing from the work session that we had that preceded this meeting. Uh before you is another resolution dealing with the city service fee. Uh as kind of a historical reminder, the city service fee was implemented uh passed by the council in November 2024 uh and began on on customer bills in January of 2025. The premise of the city service fee was to stabilize the city's general fund. Uh at that time, the the fund was was spending more than it was bringing in. Uh we generate just under $7 million annually in property taxes each year. Uh but we have expenditures that um exceed that close to total expenditures of about $1 million a year in that fund. Um so the idea here was to provide for services that the community is looking for and as such the council decided that an $18 service fee was necessary to ensure that those services could continue. Uh what is before you is a recommended 1% increase uh for the single family home. That is a 20 cent increase per month. Uh $2.40 per year increase on the city service fee. Um as a reminder in the financial statements that were presented during the work session, the we generated so we we brought in about $890,000 more than we spent last year. However, since the city service fee kicked in that year, we generated about a million dollars in city service fee money. So, without that, we would have continued kind of that downhill trend that we were already moving towards. Um, this service fee generates about $2 million a year. Um, the the 5-year forecast that we gave you, the 1% increase kind of stable continues that stabilization, ensures

that your fund balance uh remains at a at a decent level. Um as we discussed we have positioned this to spend down uh some of the fund balance uh so as not to hold such a large uh cash balance in that fund. Uh but we think we believe that this is the right approach to ensure that you know small incremental increases are made rather than um kind of looking at this down the road and potentially having to go for bigger increases. So that is what is before you and happy to answer any questions if you have them. Any questions?

No questions. Same same comment I had before. I don't think it's the right time. I think we're nimble enough and aware enough that we can react to this as it happens. And uh it's not a good timing and I I don't support it. Any questions, comments? I I'll comment if you guys can hear me. Okay. Yes, we can. Looking good.

I I didn't. Yeah. Thanks. Um I'm I'm with uh Dave and some of the other counselors. We just we just started this city service fee and it's a pretty massive increase just looking at your overall the bill you receive every month from the city. And even though it's a small change, 20 cents is not going to make a difference. It's uh to me it just doesn't seem like the right timing, it's um optics is a lot and I I think it's a bad look.

All righty. Thank you. Any other counselors? All righty. We'll move on. I open the floor for public comment. Is there anybody would like to speak regarding this matter? Okay. Uh the public hearing is hereby closed at 6:40. All further discussion will be limited to council and staff at this time. Um it sounds like we already had the the the discussion, so Okay. I believe so. Okay. Will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

Resolution number 2026-04, resolution setting rates for a city of Lebanon service services fee repealing resolution 2024-27. Is there a motion? No motion is heard. The resolution dies right here. So, we'll move on to public hearing resolution number five for 2026. Public hearing is now open at 6:41. Uh, city manager, please present your report.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, this is a public hearing to discuss a potential resolution for no parking on North Second Street. Um on January 14th, several uh community members approached the city council and requested no parking uh on the section of Second Street between uh Tangent and Mullen's Drive. Um with that, uh we as in we staff looked at Second Street up there. Uh we visited multiple times. um determine that all the residents up there do have off- streetet parking so they're not dependent on on street parking. Uh the one thing when you're removing parking and I always I always like to say this because we hear just the opposite at the planning commission meetings where there's not enough parking there's not enough parking and then we usually come here and we we take parking is it it leaves very little room for visitors and or deliveries. Uh so we want to keep that in mind as we're doing this. Uh current roadway width is approximately 32 feet. Uh if you look at uh our city transportation system plan, uh it requires 36 ft for parking on both sides for a residential street. That said, there's a lot of streets in town that don't meet that that still have the parking. Um but that said, 28 ft for parking on one side uh for a residential street. We sent notices out to all the affected property owners. Uh we not did not hear any comments back. Uh we even put had somebody go up to the medical um facilities that are up there across from the college and go doortodoor and make sure that it wasn't their staff parking on the street. And again, we received no comments back on that piece. So what I've got in the packet, I put two resolutions together. uh one which is a

resolution that would eliminate parking on Second Street as depicted by the map that was brought in. Uh and then another that just removes the parking on the one side, does not remove the parking on the east side between um Mary Street and Mullen's Way. So, you'd leave that parking open. Uh it's council discretion if you want to take that off. uh we as staff look at the the master plans and um if it meets our master plan criteria, we really have no basis to tell you that that's that's a good thing. But we are in agreeance that you could take the parking along the west side. Uh basically from here to Tangent all the way up to Mary Street at Mary Street just a little bit north of that. It's already no parking on that side. So happy to answer any questions that you may have um and go from there. So, what you're saying is there's two choices.

There's two choices. You have choices. I'd like to just say if I can real quick that uh I appreciate staff's effort to look into this for people in my ward. That's that was a step above and beyond and I think you guys did a good job with that. Any other questions from staff? You're on. Okay, I'll open it up to the floor for public comment. Is there anybody like to speak in regards to this matter? Please come forward. You can come forward. There's two seats and then you just one of you speak and then the app when you're done, the next one speaks. So,

so Da Johnson, uh, thank you for doing all the work that you did for that. I really appreciate it as well. And I'm good with either one that you have put forward that I saw in the packet. However, I still would like to see you reconsider coming onto Second Street from Tangent on the east side, at least adding 20 more feet of yellow so that when firet trucks and buses when they turn there, they're not hitting an obstacle there. I I believe that would be part of the resolution. That is okay. I didn't see that marked on the little map.

Yeah, it that uh it should have stayed on there. Let me see where the map is. Oh, turns out I don't have the map in here. Um, it was it was intended to stay all the way up through that first driving on the west on the east side. Yes. And Yes. But we appreciate you guys doing that. It's going to the safety piece is going to be really really well with us for the police department as well as a community. So that's all. All righty. Thank you. Sir,

when you come up, please just state your name so the recorder knows who you are. Name's Ron Mortg. I live at 90 West Mary Street. So I have a dog in the fight here. I live on the souththeast corner of Second and Mary. So, the discretion part of the parking would affect our parking. Uh, we've lived there since 99 and enjoy the neighborhood. Um, we now have two teenage boys and so we're going to have more cars, more parking that we would like to have available to us. Uh, the footprint of the neighborhood has not changed in over nine years. You have the inn, the Sam Ffit, the medical schools, the uh apartments there. Nothing's changed in 90 years. So why do we all of a sudden now need to look at changing traffic and and parking there? Um so I I understand the part you like on the west side where you have the the width and everything. Uh as far as um your what did I say there? the uh the plan system plan, but we would appreciate the discretion like you said, you have two choices. We would appreciate the discretion of the board, the council to not do the east side, which would affect us. Um, so yeah, appreciate your thoughts there.

Well, to answer your question, how's this come up in front of us is citizens from the community has come forward and said, "Hey, we have concerns here." So we do we do our due diligence and look at the issue and uh try to find solutions. So that that's the reason why like I said though nothing's really changed in 90 years. So I don't and I have I'm not out there watching all the time but I don't see where and talking with at least one police officer they don't see a problem there at that intersection. So, all righty. Thank you so much for your comments. I understand what you're saying is is that to Mary Street you're okay with, but all the way to the Mullins you're not. Is that the east side?

Yes. So, the east side from what I see on the map, the uh the section that you want to add between Mary and is Mullins where the the railroad the railroad is where the the school is in Sam Fit, what you're referring to, I believe. Okay. No, I'm I'm talking about the southside. Isn't there a proposal for uh south of Mary Street? Yes, there is. That that that would coincide with what uh doing doing the east side. So, every everything in the map that's yellow currently is already already no part. So, there we got they have fourway stop. Yes.

And there's a there's a probably a car length Yeah. or car in half south of the the four-way stop. That's that's painted yellow. Yes. And we're fine with that. But again, with having four drivers in the household, you know, that's going to severely, you know, impact us as far as parking. And so, if it's not necessary, which it doesn't sound like it is, uh, we'd appreciate your consideration on that. Okay. All righty. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Um, so let's let's make sure we have clarity on the two choices here. Yes, the two choices. Could I borrow your laptop again so that I can

Brandon pulling it up? Let let me do this first. Let's uh close this uh public hearing at 6:49. All further discussion will be with council and staff at this time. So now, can you give us some clarity on both?

Yeah. So, first of all, this is probably the most difficult resolution for parking that I've ever seen because it's so segmented up. So, I had written it out originally by segment and we'd have been here all night trying to read through the segments. So, we opted for the map. So, Brandon, do you have the map up? He says he does. So, if you look, this is the option that would remove parking from the east side as well. basically from I'll call it from Mary Street to the north where you see the yellow there. That's the discretionary piece for the city to council to consider, right? Uh staff's looked at that. We've said, "Hey, with parking removed on one side, it already meets city standards for our transportation system plan." So, that that is the that is the council discretion resolution right there that you would remove the parking on the east side. all the red except for the red down here at at Second Street. We'll call it Second Tangent. Um where we would extend that a little bit and we should have another map that's attached with this I believe if that did that get

that. Okay. So that that's the only map that got in put in the agenda. I should have looked at that. So the other the other one which would be for the other resolution would have been for um basically everything from up about Mary Street. The yellow stays, the red's gone. Um and that would have been the staff recommendation for that to match the transportation system plan. So that's what the two resolutions cover. It should have had two maps with it. I didn't see in the packet. I didn't I didn't pull it from the packet, but um two maps were sent with each of the resolutions. So, does that help explain that a little bit?

So, so the so the second option was for Mary Street North would just remain the same. Yeah, that you would take that off. So, the the yellow stays, right? Because that's already labeled no parking. That red section up there, right there where Brandon's doing a really fine job. He should be a drafter. We we should maybe talk a little about becoming a drafter for the engineering department. Um so that would be removed. So yeah. So the that and then that little section of red right there south of Mary Street. Yes. So the second one is from second up to Mary. There's changes um but no changes from Mary North to Mullen Drive. Okay. Correct.

All right. All right. Any other questions, discussion? I'm kind of leaning towards uh the second option, but that's just me. So, the deeper option, the one that goes all the way out. No, the one that just makes changes from second up to Mary, but not the northern part from Mary up. I just think that in the order of the the actual resolutions, the second one is the one that goes all the way up, but Okay. Well, I was just going off what

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to make sure you because as far as out I don't I don't have a preference. I'm only concerned about the neighbors and what they do have what's going on with them. So is there a motion from council? You want me to read the uh which Oh, I got to know which resolution I'm reading, I guess. Yeah, exactly. That's why we're kind of discussing it right now. You're way ahead of me. Mayor, can you put pop the resolutions up on the screen? Yes, please. That way we can look at these. And out of an extreme abundance of ethical caution, despite uh the okay from our city attorney, I do plan to abstain from this vote as I work for the school district.

Brandon's getting closer. We need somebody it here to help you out. Okay. So that so basically the one from tangent to Mullins is the one that removes it onto the east side. So that's the resolution that that takes all the east side parking. It's going to be the one tangent to Mary would be the one uh that would just eliminate the parking on the west side. So that's resolute. They're both going to be 202605. Trey, the only difference is going to be the tangent to Mary versus tangent to Mullins. But the language isn't the same. Uh, yeah. Other than say first one or second one. The first one.

Well, in order. It's the first one that says Mary. So, I don't know. Yeah. There you go. That'll work.

Okay. Is there a motion? Can I ask one more thing? Of course. We'd be disappointed if you Can I ask Da to come back up and and tell us what she thinks is the best resolution? Well, we can't do that because we already moved past public comments. This is only for council at this point. Reopen it? No.

So, is there I move to approve the resolution that stops at Mary Street. Was that the second one? First one in order. So in your list, parking shall be eliminated in North Second Street on the east and west side from tangent to Mary Street shown on exhibit A. Is that the one you're referring to? Correct. Okay. So is that your motion? Yes, sir. Motion's been made to uh adjust the parking from North Second Street on the east and west side to tangent street to Mary Street. Is there is it seconded? I'll second it.

Motion's been made or it hasn't been made. Sorry. Let me back up for a second. Let me back up. I got ahead of myself here. So, I think we have which one we want to read. So, will the city Sometimes this gets real confusing. So, will the city attorney please uh read the title of the resolution that that I think the council's agreeing on. Resolution number 2026-05, resolution eliminating parking on a portion of Second Street tangent to Mary within the city of Leard. I move to approve that resolution if it is now time. Yes, it is. Is there a motion? Motion's been made to approve. Has it been second? Second.

It's been seconded. All in favor? I I motion or resolution for or the motion to approve resolution 2026 05 has been approved. My apologies. I thought there was two maps but that was a that was a complex one and we wanted to make sure you had both options in front of you. Mayor, could I just have a clarification of the I votes? We can do a roll call or just hold their hands up. That's fine. I just needed to know that everybody voted. Okay, there was I abstained.

Yeah, she seen and then Jeremy, I heard him on, you know. So, okay, move on to public hearing ordinance bill number four for 2026. Uh public hearing is now open at 6:59. Uh so, the city attorney, please read the hearing procedures. Got it. Uh, today's hearing will be pursuant to the quasa judicial hearing procedures set forth in RS19797. At the start of the hearing, each council member will be asked to disclose any exarty communications conflicts of interest or bias. The applicable substantive criteria for this hearing will be addressed in the staff report to council and as has been provided to the public. Testimony may be an oral or written form, but must be directed towards the criteria outlined in the staff report, the comprehensive plan, or the city's land use regulations. Any issue raised must be accompanied by statements and evidence sufficient enough to allow the council and party members an opportunity to respond. Please note that failure to raise an issue, including constitutional issues, by the close of the hearing will prevent any appeal to the land use board of appeals. All

righty. Thank you. Do any counselors wish to declare exparte contact, conflict, or bias? Is there anybody in the audience that objects to the notice that was sent in this case or to the jurisdiction of this body to hear and consider the case?

Move on to comm uh development director, please present your report. Good evening again, mayor and council. Before you tonight is a request to annex 75 acres located at 20115 Stoaltill Road. The property is currently within the urban growth boundary and is continuous to existing city limits making it eligible for annexation. The comprehensive plan designates the property as residential mixed density. So upon annexation it will receive the corresponding zoning keeping it consistent with the comprehensive plan and the applicant accepts the zoning upon annexation. City services are available to serve the property consistent with the standard development requirements and there is no development proposal associated with this request. This application is to bring the property into city limits and apply the appropriate zoning destination. The planning commission held a public hearing on February 18th reviewing the application against the applicable criteria in the development code and unanimously recommended approval of the annexation. And based on this recommendation, staff is requesting that city council adopt the ordinance annexing the property and assign the residential mix density zoning designation. Um, this concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions or comments from council at this time? I'd ask the applicant for testimony. The applicant here. Uh since there's no applicant, there's no questions from council. Is there anybody who'd like to speak in favor of this ordinance? Anybody like to speak in opposition?

Public hearing is hereby closed at 7:00. All further discussion be limited to council and staff at this time. Uh is there any uh discussion to be had? Unusually no. I was going to say it's quiet tonight. Okay. All righty. Um city attorney, please read the title of the ordinance. Ordinance bill number 2026-04, Ordinance number 3046. A bill for an ordinance annexing and zoning property following consent filed with the city council by landowner in set area pursuant to RS22.120 and RS22.170 file A26-01. Gary Clauser. All righty. Thank you. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second.

Motion's been made to approve the ordinance and second. All in favor? I I I All oppose. Motion passes. Okay. Move on to public hearing. Wastewater treatment plan or plant master plan adoption. This public hearing is now open at 7:01. Just have to be patient while he reads that entire book. He promised he would. Will the public works director please re uh present your report? Don't ask him to read it. That was a secret. I didn't say read the report. You almost did making an assumption. Made me nervous.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. We brought this before you for to review uh last council meeting. Um today we would like you to adopt this document and I have ample time to answer any questions that you may have. Got all nine.

Think we've used all your ample time. I I I want to I want to clarify something for for the the public. Um things like this that's a very big document. It's been out for a a bit and the council has seen it. It's not that this is the first time we're we're seeing the the document at all. So we uh some of these issues, it seems like we move fast on some of these issues and vote on things quickly. Um a lot of these issues have been talked about for months. um and documents have been received and reviewed um and in our off time. So anyhow, um is there any questions from staff comments?

I appreciate the executive summary. I'm just going to be honest. Our our consultant did a really good job. He's Yes, he did. Thank you. All right. If there's no other questions from council, then I will open the floor for public comments. Is there anybody who would like to speak regarding this matter? Public hearing is hereby closed at 7:03. All further discussion will be uh will be limited to council and staff at this time. Is there any discussion? Didn't seem like there was on on the first ask. I think we're all staying quiet tonight. So, is there a motion? Move to approve.

Second. Motion's been made to approve the master plan for wastewater treatment plant. It's been second. All in favor? I I I. All opposed. Motion passes. Okay. On this one, the next one on regular session for uh uh Sanm Travel Station properties. I'm going to recuse myself and pass it over to the president of the council to conduct this portion of the tonight's regular session. He gave me a hammer even. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I'm actually going to turn it right over to city manager Ron Whit to give the report.

Thank you, Council President and Counselors. Um, so on January 14th, we brought a document to you, uh, statutory warranty deed for the what I'm calling the 37 easterly feet of what is still Third Street, but not going to be Third Street anymore in conjunction with the sale of the Sanam Travel Station. Uh, at that time we were working on trying to get easement uh to give uh access easements to the two property owners that abut Third Street on the east side. um we were successful as of tonight um but didn't know that we were going to be successful as for tonight. So, what we did, and I worked with uh our city attorney on this, um basically he drafted a deed uh that encompasses all three uh lots. Basically, the 37, if you picture Third Street as a 60-oot rideway, you've got 37 ft that was actually um fe simple property, I guess, is the best way to put it. You had 23 feet which this council vacated which was actually dedicated as rideway and then you have the parcel that the Sanm travel station actually sits on. All three of those property descriptions are wrapped up into one deed and that's what's here before you tonight uh so that we can move forward with the sale of the Sanm Travel Station. One caveat to that is we would ask that the motion can or approval uh authorizing me. It says in the packet that it's the council president, me to sign the uh deed at the time of closing. Uh when we move forward with the closing of the actual sale of the property, I can answer any questions. I know that's confusing and we've been here, but our wonderful city attorney can also

Wonderful. That's that's a first.

Yeah. Uh yeah, this is actually there's I don't think there's going to be any problems. The issue right now is the uh the two parcels that were well the one that was vacated and the other one that the city uh owned fee title to fe simple to uh but the problem is is two. One the ctographer with Lynn County uh hasn't got to uh the uh uh uh basically the vacation resolution that was already submitted over to the county. And so what that means is they haven't updated the uh the legal description to encapsulate a single a single lot. Um, and uh, in talking with them, it probably would have taken them a long time to figure it out. I I actually uh, with the help of Brian Vendetta, we went over I went over and I just talked to the ctographer and the issue was, okay, if you vacate it, you have to give that property to one side or the other. You just don't you don't get it. And as we talked it through, it was obvious it was city of Lebanon now owns property on both sides. So, it was going to go to the city of Lebanon. And, and he understood that and he didn't didn't envision any problems, but he still has to do his due diligence. So, we don't see any problems with that. Uh, the other one um is the uh the uh is it 23 feet on the other side? Is that the one? And the 23 feet uh shouldn't be a problem either. The legal descriptions were provided. The other issue is at this point I doubt that title insurance would uh approve of the legal description without the Lynn counties blessing uh as a you know them actually setting it forth as a separate two separate tax lots. Uh so um that's why the timing may get uh may be uh kind of not at our discretion. The timing itself may be up to both uh the cgrapher and if and title company especially title company if they're going to wait on the cgrapher because they uh they certainly will uh the buyer will want to have title insurance on all three parcels. So we don't know the timing of it. I don't think there's much of a chance that the legal descriptions and the deed itself will actually change. Any other questions?

Yes. Are we going to have to since there's a change, do we have to make a motion with the amendment that you would make the motion that uh the motion would will need to be for the approval to authorize the city manager to sign it? Yes, please. I would say so moved right now. So moved. I mean, it's up to you, but Oh, hey, look. We have a motion. Do we have a second? I feel like a ventriloquist doll. It didn't work. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Second. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second to I thought we already passed it.

We have not to allow the city manager to uh authorize or to have the city manager sign the deed. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? I look to hit it. Motion passes. Thank you. She broke. Look at she broke it. I know. Wow. Brutal. Strong arming it.

All righty. We'll move on to department report. City manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh I've got as always, if you've got questions about any particular item on the uh reports, please feel free. Um couple of things to point out. uh questions for the uh levy poll. Uh I saw uh samples of those this morning. Uh basically a draft review. Um we're supposed to have the final final questions I any day now. Uh at which point we will email those to you um just so you have them. And I'm supposed to be getting an actual time on when the poll is going to go out. So um we will get that information to you as soon as we have it. but they are working diligently on that. Um I think we've all talked about it and you've seen we did get the $2 million in capital funding. Um that's a that's a big deal for the city of Lebanon. It's less rates that have to happen. So uh that's a big deal. Um there's a lot of people that put a lot of effort into that. Um and we will continue trying. We have two more appropriations requests out to both the the federal senate and federal house. Uh both in the in the $2 million range. Don't know where those are going to land or if we'll land anything there. So just uh I'll keep you posted as we know more there. Um you'll notice on our website there is an alert across the top about um call it spoofing fraud. Uh, we've had another incident where somebody's used our email and our uh, city logo and requesting funds. I don't remember exactly what it was for, Julie. Do you remember exactly what it was for?

Um, this customer had a liquor license application in and they received an email for additional funds to be paid through a wire. Yeah. So, we're just trying to draw attention to that. We're never going to ask you to wire us funds um to any offshore account or anything like that. Uh basically, usually it's gift cards, right? Yeah. Walmart gift cards. These gift cards, Amazon gift cards. So, now in in all seriousness, we are seeing more of a trend of that and and everybody around the state is seeing that too. So,

um let's see. Ah, I was looking for maybe the mayor could help me out with this. Uh we are getting ready to uh kick off our uh SDC update for both wastewater now that the master plan's approved and our drainage. Uh we need to update the methodology, the project list and the fees on those. Um we like to do that with a citizens advisory committee. Uh we also like to have a city counselor on the citizen citizens advisory committee, a planning commissioner and then some members of the community both on the building side, construction side. uh just so we get a broad base of uh people with different opinions, different ideas uh as we're moving that stuff forward. So if there if you want to ask him, is there anybody

is there anybody would be interested in being on an advisory committee? Any scheduling for that that's available? I we haven't I've got uh proposals out to different u uh consultants right now that I won't get back until the 25th of March. And then at that point, we'll start looking at timing. My guess it's going to be about five to seven citizens advisory committees. Um

I we'll we'll have to get together and kind of determine how we want that to go. Um we could set it up once a month. My preference would be that we go a little bit faster than that if we can. A lot of it's going to depend on the consultant and their timing. Um, so I I I can't answer that question. I'll volunteer, Michelle. I mean, it's not my first. If I would do it if nobody else will. I can do it. Okay. Okay. Well, we'd love to have you. It's good to have a a counselor on these committ.

Okay. Great. I will keep you posted on where we go with that. Um, only other thing I've got, and I Brandon, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I believe our first budget hearing is April 16th. That's on my calendar. 15th. 15th. No, 16th. It's the 16th. April, Thursday. I have to check with the library because I think one of those days wasn't available and I can't remember which one off the It's April 16th at noon. Okay. It's April 16th at noon. Thank you. Thanks, Erin. Thanks, Erin. Are you going to send out a uh something? Yes for that so we can put it on the calendar. I believe they will be Okay. Thank you. We were we were waiting till the So there's a 30-day notification period and we

Okay. It seemed up to this point like no one knew what the date was. Yeah. Well, we that's why I threw it out there tonight because I'm like, I wonder if they know that we've got that coming up. So, um we do have that coming up. Point out in that that I did the chairman thing last time and our chairman elect is not no longer with us. So, somebody will have to be the chairman of that committee. Well, it's always the new one. So, we'll probably I wasn't trying to poke my fingers. I just Whoever's quickest to the to the punch on those. We'll we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Yeah. If I if I may real fast at you more

and maybe the council can help weigh in on what they would like to do. Um, so I was correct there. There is a conflict on the 16th. This room is booked for preschool story time day um on the 16th. on the 16th. That won't end until 1. We could have the room at 1:00 if we wanted to wait until 1:00 for the meeting or it would need to be Wednesday the 15th. I cannot be here on the 15th. I can tell you that. But everyone

and just to remind this is a kickoff just a kickoff meeting. It is does entail Ron um reading his his delightful budget message uh selecting a chair um which I guess if if somebody's not here that might make them the deacto chair. I'm kidding. Um, but anyways, that being said, whatever day the the council would like to do, we can we can try and finagle. I'm personally can do either of those days at those times if as long as I know which one it's going to be. One o'clock on the 16th would work better for me. Yep. Works for me. That's fine. There it is. One o'clock Thursday, April 16th. One o'clock Thursday, April 16th.

Uh, no, I'm just kidding. Don't do that to me. Um, that is all I have unless you have questions for me. I have a quick question that I kind of came up to going through the checks and was presented to me by somebody who's now left unfortunately because they didn't wait for me to ask. When it says reimbured, what's the criteria for that? There's a lot of lines that say reimbured and I don't know what that detail means. I I understand what reimbursing somebody means, but what is the what is the ex? It feels like there should be more of an explanation than just instead of reimbured. Is that is that all it said was just reimburseed.

Yeah, there's people reimbured. There's And I I I'm think you're not going to be surprised that I didn't read that real carefully, Brandon, because I'm not that guy. Okay. But I noticed it and then somebody one of my constituents noticed it, too. So, I thought I'd ask. Um, usually it does have more info. Do you know what? I just felt like there was one that was uh just a name and it was reimburse and I think it was like $40, $40, $40, $40 or and and I get that stuff gets reimbured. It just feels like for real. Somebody's looking at that really closely. There should be more than just reimbured. There should

generally generally we do strive for more description in that. Um I haven't found one, but if I first page uh Brandon Evelyn Yeah. reimbursement for deposit for SCR. That's senior center uh room reservation. Okay. So, usually it's going to have some sort of description, right? So, there's that uh we refunded somebody's deposit for the senior center. They were they they booked a room and then as long as they leave the room in uh get their money back. I get it. Good.

Yeah. They get their their deposit back. There is another one on page what is this? two of the report for re reimbursement for refundable deposit. Um, so we we generally try to to to make sure that there is a description in there. I will monitor that a little more closely just to make sure, but it's it's either a reimbursement for an expense that if there's a city staff member that they they use their personal card for some reason or um if the city's credit card did not work for whatever reason in that moment, sometimes they'll use their own. see what got turned down.

Uh and and there are limits, right, on each of those cards and so it it kind of depends on the circumstances, right? But um we we try we strive for better descriptions and certainly if there's some we missed, we apologize. Okay. Thank you. I had a quick question on the poll. It hasn't gone out. Are we still good for that March 25th meeting? Are we still looking okay for it? As long as the poll Sean, do you foresee any change in that? I don't. Okay. At this point, they were good shape there. Okay. just ask the question. Thank you. All righty. Um, any items from council, not me.

Okay. It's got to do public comments. Did you have something? No, he he he hit me. Okay. Okay. Would uh anybody from the public or press like to address council? Uh, Mr. Mayor, I do have a a public comment. Okay, please. Actually, I have some handouts as well. I Can I do it from here? Yes, you can. I guess I do think audience that wants to do public comment, too. Just saying. Do you want me to go second? It feels like you should go second. Somebody else. I didn't see anybody jump. Do we have someone from Oh, I didn't see his hand. Please come forward. Sorry, Trey.

Oh, no. My apologies. I uh looked and anyhow it is what it is. Not a problem. Please please state your name and and uh have a seat. Relax. Deep breath.

My name is Tanlu. I work for Western University of Health Sciences. I really appreciate Honorable Mayor Kendrick and this council. I really appreciate your decision to retain parking as a resource for us, the university between West Mary Street and Mullen's Drive. And in either situation, we of course we respect and comply with the decision made by this council. But I do want to say that we really appreciate working with Lebanon PD, of course, Lebanon Fire, and Da Johnson. Um, and that was about it. Just really appreciate the decision made and we're really grateful for all of you.

I I appreciate you coming, Sand. I'd just like to ask one of the concerns with that was brought to us was that there's a giant parking lot for your that's not being used. Try to get to your people to put it there. Just we didn't block that spot off because we I didn't think that was appropriate. But if you could get the message that hey use your parking lot, I think that'd be better for the for the neighborhood. Yes, of course. We'll send out a public message to utilize our parking before using that as overflow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ten. Was there anybody else? Okay. Thank you. City attorney, but acting as a public uh citizen, just a regular citizen.

Mr. Mayor John Kennedy,

I appreciate your time tonight. Uh no, actually I had a chance to uh I was kind of looking at uh some different uh charities and and organizations that that work with uh youth in Lynn County. Um and I after a little research, I decided to look into Jackson Street Youth Services. Uh they primarily uh uh their biggest services are provided right now in Corvalis in Albany. Uh but I went over to Albany and I I toured their uh facilities and uh kind of what they did. I had a great conversation with uh with a couple of their people uh for a couple hours. Um it's a good organization uh that uh really provides uh a lot of services for youth in the community that are struggling either with homelessness or certain life conditions u uh uh you know home conditions, different things that that essentially just need a safe place as well as sometimes a safe place to stay at night. Um they do have uh they just opened up a new facility there in Albany that you know provides beds and a kind of a community living kind of thing for these for these kids. um in in Lebanon and Sweet Home, they don't necessarily have those facilities, but they have they are active uh in helping and providing uh services to uh uh youth in both uh Lebanon and Sweet Home. I I did get some statistics. You know, overall they serve about 528 um uh youth in in Lynn County last year and 51 of them were from Lebanon. Um and the only reason I bring this up is is they're looking for a place to put one of their kind of drop in boxes. And what these are is it's a it's it's a essentially it's a secure kind of a locker kind of system where youth that have applied and qualify uh for some services. Sometimes it's certain pieces of clothing, sometimes it's uh hygiene stuff. Um you know, sometimes it's food. They basically let Jackson Youth Services know kind of what they need. And what Jackson Street Services then can do is they they they take and they put that in that in that lock lock locker lock box for those kids so they

can go there at their convenience and pick up the stuff they need. Um I I really was really impressed and and the only thing we're they're looking for is a place to put that uh lockbox uh uh and they they provide the shelter and that kind of stuff and the first page kind of describes uh their needs. I I've already offered uh you know our office part somewhere at by our office. I do think it would be better served uh uh either closer to the high school or in this area quite frankly around the library, the senior center and the uh and the police station if there was a location. I'm not asking for anything from the council. I just wanted to introduce that idea. Um and maybe I'll talk with uh with Ron and and some others and and maybe we can find a convenient lo location for this. So, and and mainly I just wanted to bring up the organization because I think it's a really good group and I'm I'm I'm hoping to work with them and bring a few more uh services to Lebanon.

Thanks, Trey. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. You're welcome. Is there uh any other public comments? All righty. Next scheduled council meeting will be March 25, 2026, special meeting at 6 p.m. Uh, and April 8th, 2026, regular meeting at 6 p.m. 6:00 p.m. Yeah, if I can get that out. And so with that being said, this meeting is adjourned.