City Council - Regular Meeting

resource planning system change, and I'm gonna immediately turn it over to Finance Director Nish.

Thank you. Okay. So up on your screens, we have a PowerPoint presentation for your viewing pleasure. But this has been a long process. We're going to walk you through some of the steps we've taken, some of what we're looking at. Our plan tonight is kind of informational for you. You're certainly welcome to ask questions as we go through this. But before we bring this back because the contract is going to require council approval, we wanted to give you kind of a chance to actually review this without having to then make a quick split-second decision. So that's what we're after here. So first up, why are we looking for new software? So right now we are using a system called Springbrook. We've been using that system since 2012. That has existed in the cloud in its current form since that period. Prior to this, we did use Springbrook, similar system, similar setup, but it was on-prem. So it was here on within Lebanon city grounds over in our data center or data center, because I don't know that the justice center was around at that point. Part of the issue that we're running up against with Springbrook is that the system, you struggle to get necessary information out of it. So it takes a lot of work for us to run normal reports. There are often times where we have to take Excel files, multiple Excel files from reports spit out of the system. and combine them on our own manually to get the data that we are looking for. It's not very customizable as far as how those reports are built. So it's not like somebody can just say, hey, I want this information specifically. They have made some strides, but it is not keeping up with what we are looking for and what kind of the modern systems look like these days. And we also have integration issues, right? So we've got multiple segregated systems. For example, our budget system is housed over in ClearGov. Currently, that system requires a manual data import from Springbrook in order to update year-to-date actuals, any budgeted information, any salary information, and so on and so forth. And then subsequently to get back out of ClearGov, the actual budget figures and into Springbrook, again, another manual export and import into Springbrook. So there's, we're missing a lot of, there's a lot of time spent on kind of those data updates and we would benefit from additional integrations of a new software. We've also had some concerns with the fact that private equity now owns Springbrook. And what I mean by that is Springbrook back in the day used to kind of be the number one system for ERPs, at least in that list. At a certain point, they sold to a company called Acela. And during that time, Acela really did them no favors. They, the system was, they were trying to phase it out, I think, and kind of push folks towards what they have offered as far as an ERP system. And so they weren't doing any, you know, standard program updates, ERP, enterprise resource platform. or planning, it depends on who you ask. But basically a system where we contain, for us, an ERP is all of our financial data. In a normal world, you'd have your human resource information and your payroll and stuff out of that. It houses everything that you do for the most part. So anyways, after Acela, it was sold to a private equity group and they've struggled to kind of keep going and I think they're finally finding their footing, but we are missing out on, they've been trying to implement a new system or a new look and feel that is web-based for now at least the last five years. Updates are slow, the system and their integrations is lacking. Customer support has been an issue for us as well. It has gone downhill over time.

How many people use this?

Right now, which we'll talk about a little bit later, but right now Springbrook is only used by the finance staff primarily and maybe occasionally Ron, at least in its full, you know, in its desired capacity. But we'll kind of cover that here in a little bit. So with their implementation of Cirrus, it's just taken a lot of time. They still don't have everything over there. So you are managing between two different systems, logging in and into two different systems in order to get the information that you need. So we started looking at other options. We needed something that would serve us better. We needed something, a company that was gonna be a little more responsive, that their customer service was gonna know what we were talking about when we call, or at least know how to get us to somebody. And so we started reviewing different options. We reviewed seven different software options. We did full demonstrations of those softwares, ranging anywhere from two hours to a day and a half for one of them. And then finance narrowed that list of applications to four. At that point, we assembled what is now called the ERP build team, but I'm going to call them power users for the moment, folks who would need to be involved in this and would benefit from having a software solution that provided them with the necessary things they needed, reporting, accounts payable, purchase orders, the like. So you can see the list on the screen as far as who is now involved in that ERP build team. It does include folks from across the organization. So we are not doing this in a silo or a vacuum. This had input from multiple stakeholders around the organization. Four options were vetted by that build team. They were Sage Intacct, OpenGov, Tyler Technologies, and Oracle's NetSuite for Government. As we started reviewing those options, one of the things that kind of came of that, this started out as a, we need something that will work for finance. And as we started reviewing the options and watching the demonstrations, the build team and I, we kind of moved into, well, there's a lot of things that we do across this organization that we would be better served if they were under one software umbrella. We have spent many years decoupling ourselves from Springbrook in various manners. So, of course, payroll split off to ADP about three and a half years ago or so. Asset management and work orders are done in a system called Asset Essentials right now. So that's your public works team out in the field. They're updating work orders, ticket notes, keeping track of the work that they do in the field. Uh, for our budgeting solution, we use a system called clear gov because Springbrook did not have the capacity to do what we were looking for to do. Um, so we moved that out to clear gov. Um, and I threw another one on here. Credit card procurements right now are done through a third party system managed by key bank. Um, so we've really spent a lot of time taking all of this stuff out of the system and just, we just have the finance core essentially that handles, um, small components of our systems and then our utility billing. The ERP build team, as we kind of went through this, selected two suitable systems that they thought would really bring, allow us to bring a lot of the things back into one company, one software solution. The director team was then invited to final demonstrations of both of those options and the consensus from the ERP build team and the directors that were able to participate. was to move forward with OpenGov as the selected vendor. You have a pamphlet in front of you that they put together kind of outlining what their solution looks like, some of the pros and cons to the system, and we'll cover some of that as we keep going. So one of the pages in there talks about supporting the city. So I just kind of wanted to highlight that page specifically. What this will provide us with is one platform, or what they say is one source of truth. So everything that we do from accepting an application for a permit to putting a meter out in the field at a residence, all of that would be uniform across the platform. You'd have one address instead of an address over here and a different address over here as far as how it was displayed, right? And you're touching less things, right? So the operational efficiency is supposed to be useful. It would provide some more self-service for the city council and department heads. This solution has some significant reporting options and dashboarding that we can use to provide better financial data, provide you with better reports on a more consistent regular basis or on a more real-time basis. It is cloud-based, it works on any device, and it is rather intuitive. There are built-in controls for us to handle, right? Internal controls, necessary things as we go through our business every day and provides some additional audit readiness, things that will help us move forward and produce some of these reports faster that we are required to report annually. And then the citizen portal has some significant improvements that we think the community will be able to benefit from as we move forward, which we'll cover also. From our standpoint, what are we gaining? We think that we're gonna have better financial visibility, improved efficiency, stronger financial controls, better service to the community, reduced technology risk, and a foundation for future growth. What does that mean? Well, from a financial visibility standpoint, we're expecting that we'll have real-time budget to actual reporting. Everything that goes into the system, if we have an invoice out there, that information's gonna be readily available to all the departments, to the public, to the council. Easier access to financial information for you all and the department directors. We have a system right now that I think over time kind of the attitude towards the system has gotten to a point where it's hard to say if folks are running necessary monthly budget reports to see kind of where they're at in their expenditures. And so this will help one, provide additional tools that will help with understanding for some, maybe more graphs and more pictures versus more just instead of just numbers. So this should allow for easier access to that information. And it will reduce our reliance on manual spreadsheets and custom reports. So create efficiencies, not just in finance, but across the organization as well. On the efficiency side is one integrated system replacing multiple disconnected platforms. So the addressing example I gave earlier, that's one of the things we've really been talking about. This system, includes permitting, utility billing, and it integrates with our existing GIS system. And the reason I bring up those three components is right now what happens is we have an address that is created by our development services department. It's then emailed to multiple different places, right? To the postal service, to the county, this is a manual process, to IT and to utility billing. So it's kind of like watching or listening to a game of telephone. So you hear one thing and then you pass it on to somebody else. The message changes a little bit. Well, we have found throughout the system that since you have three different people touching different aspects of different systems, sometimes the consistency and the addressing does not exist. So we're really excited about the potential that plan or building and planning or development services would kind of kick off that addressing. There's a automatic process through workflows within the new system that would then put that address into the necessary buckets, right? Send it over to utility buildings side. It would populate automatically. It would populate over in our GIS for IT to put together and would be consistent across all those platforms. This would allow for fewer manual data exports, imports, and reconciliations. I can tell you that my accountant is extremely excited about the improvements in our bank reconciliation option, which should help us get to a spot where we can do things like a regular month-end close. Right now it's kind of an open-ended process, and yes, we get to a spot where at year-end we know where we're at, but We can certainly get to more along the lines of, okay, at the end of a month, seven days later, five days later, whatever that looks like, we have reconciled all of our stuff. We know what hit the bank. We know what's outstanding. Boom, we have an accurate financial report for that month or that quarter. And then there would be some more opportunities for automated workflows and approvals within this system. Some stronger financial controls. We talked about the audit readiness, right? Being able to pull data out of the system that is updated in real time. Better data integrity and reconciliation. And then reduced risk of errors caused by duplicate data entry. For the community, we have a few new components with this software option that we think will be beneficial. First being an online permit and license tracking. So right now, which we'll cover here in just a little bit also, but right now there are only certain kinds of permits that can be input via a seller offered by the state of Oregon. Other permits are done through a manual process, through the development services office. This solution would allow them to do everything in one portal, would provide them with kind of a status update. They could see what the status is of their pending permits and be able to kind of keep track along the way, giving them more real-time information and better access to us. There are additional utility billing options that we think are going to be really beneficial. And then faster response times and, again, greater transparency for residents and community members. On the technology side, this is a modern cloud-based platform. They've spent a lot of time, a lot of resources building this system out. It provides automatic updates and security enhancements. We intend to integrate our Microsoft 365 logins for this. So there would be not only IT having kind of that Once a user has been generated, they'll have access potentially to the system, but also it allows for us to continue to use the dual factor authentication system that we have set up right now to make sure that people are who really they say they are as they're logging into our sensitive data. And then there's less dependence on aging legacy systems that can potentially open you up to cyber attacks and kind of more real time stuff. On the foundation for future growth piece, this is a scalable platform, which we'll cover here in a few minutes, that can expand as the city's needs evolve. There are additional modules available that we do not intend to sign onto right now, but those can be added onto the system later if it's necessary and it does not require replacing that core system. And then there are better integrations across departments, allowing for faster processing, less hands touching specific things. Again, just kind of solidifying our ability to kind of do things better and provide better service to our community. Don't have a heart attack for the next part yet. But this is the pricing. This is a seven year agreement is what we have initially discussed with OpenGov. The total price of that seven year time span would be almost $1.8 million. So that's about 220, 225,000-ish a year. And then there's implementation costs on top of that, which would cost us about 388,000 for the platforms that we have signed on to potentially. This piece is in your packets, but this is their solution as a whole. So the highlighted green sections, those will be the sections that we're signing on to initially. Financial management, budgeting and performance, utility billing, permitting and licensing, and enterprise asset management. As you can see, there are other things that they have as well that could be available to us down the road. They have a relatively well-known and robust procurement and contract management module that we could consider adding in the future. They do have payroll and HR, although with our recent conversion to ADP, that's not on the docket right now and we don't intend to pull that out of there. And then they do have capital budget and project management that we could look at in the future as well. So just their solution provides a multitude of options for us to review as business needs change, as we expand as an organization and continue to provide the services that we need to provide. So for the pricing that I listed up for financial management, that's the name of their system and budgeting and performance. Those two pieces right now are being handled by two separate systems. Those are ClearGov and Springbrook. OpenGov's pricing, the variance on that means we'd actually save $1,300 a year from what we're paying today. So woohoo, good news. However, on the other side of that, certainly, so the utility billing system that is being provided by Spring Break currently, that would cost us a little bit extra each year. So the $34,000 number we've listed there. Permitting and licensing is currently being provided by Acela through the state of Oregon. Moving that to OpenGov would cost us approximately an additional $36,000 a year. And asset management over in the public works area being provided by Asset Essentials. you'd see an increase of about $42,000 a year. For the additional money that you're going to be potentially paying for utility billing, we believe that the enhanced customer service portal, it provides better view and data availability to customers. So the system has been set up a lot nicer than what we currently have. There are more options for customers to handle things like auto pays. So right now customers can set up an auto pay if they'd like with a debit or credit card. There is no option to do any bank draft or anything like that. But also with our current system, they get one auto pay option a month and that is the 15th of each month or or the next business day, this system would allow the customer to decide what works best for them from an auto pay standpoint. So they could pick something that lines up better with paydays or functions going on in the household or the business and cash flow for cash flow reasons. So this system provides us with a lot more flexibility that we can pass on to the customers. For past due notifications and shut off notifications, currently our system only allows us to do notifications by phone call. That is a robo call and so often cell phone providers do end up tagging that as a potential robo call or it can get trapped up in, do not call lists. And so this system allows the customer to decide what solution or option works best for them. So they can either distribute those by phone, they could get a text message instead if that's their preferred method of communication, or they could get an email. It does not have carrier pigeons or smoke signals, but I think these will be enough options for them to choose from. And then on the auto pay piece, they will be able to include bank draft if they want to just have their auto pay taken out of their bank account each month instead of using a debit or credit card, something that our current system does not. We don't. We have the ability to do it with our current system, but that requires us to handle the customer's accounting information, stores those numbers in our system where they are susceptible and visible to either all of our employees. And we just, we don't like to take that risk on behalf of the customer. This solution allows them to enter their banking information, shields it from anybody who tries to come into the system or from our staff. So there's a lot more security for the customer in that regard. On the permitting side, they call it permitting and licensing. We don't have a business license program. So on the permitting side, I will say, some of the benefits that we believe we'll be able to obtain here are kind of a one-stop web portal for planning, engineering, and building divisions. Currently, the portal that we have now is only set up to handle building permits.

Right?

Yes? Yes. So this will allow us to add additional functionality to the office, eliminate some Excel spreadsheets that we tend to store the data on, provide better access for customers. They can see exactly what the status of their permits are in any given moment, and they can kind of track those through the system. Kind of skipped ahead, I guess. So the improved transparency for customers and contractors. And then as we discussed earlier, addressing starts with permitting and stays consistent throughout the system because you're only entering it once and you're not trying to play that game of telephone. On the asset management side, we believe that the GIS integration in the field really is the selling point for this. So currently the work order system that we have now for our public works crews, they pull that up on their tablet. It has all the information as far as, okay, this is the address, this is what needs to be done. here's where you can enter your data and information. It does not provide them with any sort of mapping. So they have to jump out to a different system, move from that tablet screen to another, find what they're looking for on the GIS map, hop back, right? All of this would be contained within the new system readily available to them. If they open that ticket, it'll have all the ticket information, the GIS map right there. They can zoom in and find where maybe they're looking for a meter that they have to replace. And it's not necessarily just right out in front of the property line, visible and easy to find. It's off in a bush somewhere. This would provide them with greater tools and greater access that would enhance their ability to complete work tasks. There's additional tracking solutions and options that we intend to utilize, kind of spread out from more than just, right now we use the work order system for like our water crew and I think our wastewater treatment plant is using it. We intend to expand that to include all of the additional divisions of public works and really get to a spot where we have better information, better resources, better work products that we can hand to community members. And then also allows for things like proactive maintenance scheduling, right? So we can put all of our assets in here, whether that's a generator or a turbine out at the wastewater treatment plant or a membrane at the water treatment plant. And this system will, based on manufacturer recommendations, be able to help you schedule some of those maintenance needs, allow us to better not consolidate, but have a better plan on where we're going and what staff time is necessary and the things that we need to tackle and allow us to be proactive instead of reactive, right? So if we can do some of the normal maintenance things that are required, if we don't defer some of that maintenance, then it can really help elongate the life of some of our resources, right? So we're planning on putting that to good use. There were two of us that did complete reference checks on this system just to make sure that what they were selling us is kind of what the real world application looked like. What we found was that all of the references said that their customer support team was very strong. You always got somebody who knew what they were talking about or they could immediately get you to somebody that could help with if the system was down or if a specific function was not working the way you anticipated. They always had somebody there to support you. They did highlight the implementation is key. So making sure that you get the system set up the way that you need it to, but also understanding that it is a new system. And so new systems, there are maybe better ways to do things and working through those processes and making sure you understand and that everybody's on the same page. There were operational efficiencies that were gained from the implementations of these solutions. One township over on the East Coast that we talked to, they indicated that between their finance and their HR team, they were able to kind of consolidate and ultimately save three FTE because of the efficiencies that they gained out of this system. They all indicated that OpenGov is committed to continuous improvement and they have seen that. They also really take feedback from their users to determine what kinds of things need to be added to the system, where can enhancements be made. It is a modern and integrated platform, real-time data available to us on a regular basis and with tools that we can use to distribute that information easier. And then it provided some significant cybersecurity and risk reduction to all of them. We talked to four different organizations. All of them recommended OpenGov, said that they thoroughly enjoyed the system, that it works very well, they're very happy with it, and they'd do it again if they had the opportunity. So I talked a lot. I talked really fast. Now's the time for questions, if you have them, or if I need to clarify anything. I got a couple questions.

I'm going to ask, I started talking first. This time. I'm gonna assume this wasn't the cheapest of the options.

No, probably not. I wouldn't say it was the most expensive.

I'm just saying, what are the pluses that we decided this one other than the other ones? You said it was unanimous. What are some of those features

Yeah, we weighed multiple things. I think one of the things that we heard about other solutions is the implementation was not easy to put it lightly. And so what we found with OpenGov is you have a cheaper implementation, you have a group that is dedicated to listening to your needs, to teaching you about the new system, and really being able to kind of put some additional resources into what that implementation looks like. As far as kind of that long-term agreement piece, I can tell you that this started out significantly higher as far as the options were concerned. And we have worked very diligently to make sure that this kind of came more in line with what other software providers were offering as well. Can I say it was the cheapest? No. But we think the operational efficiencies and the value to be gained out of bringing a lot of our functionality back into one solution is going to essentially outweigh the cost that we're going to end up paying.

I absolutely get that it's worth it to do it. I'm not trying to pick apart the cost. I just want to see what the difference is between them. And if there's... You said, I'm going to assume, we're not going to save three FTEs off this, but is there math that is used, because I'm not an algebra guy, that justifies the cost of this? Because it is a big bite, let's face it. I know that this software is probably end of life. It's probably time to move on from it.

Our existing software, yes, we believe that.

And in some places, I hope it was considered how long this is going to last versus other solutions.

Yeah, we believe that this system will be, you know, we've had Springbrook since prior to 2012. So it has been a long-term solution for us. We believe that OpenGov is uniquely qualified to provide that similar setup for us. It's also why we agreed to potentially looking at a seven-year contract versus, you know, a three-year or a five-year. We've had discussions with staff across the organization to weigh whether this was the appropriate path or not. And are we really going to embrace what the software has for us so that we get that complete value?

The buy-in's a big piece of it.

It is. And we received... a unanimous vote of confidence in that regard, right? They are ready to dive in. I'll be honest, because this started out as a finance piece, I think it caught me a little off guard that we suddenly moved from just a finance piece to something that holistically touches multiple aspects of this organization.

It's an operating system. It is.

It is. But the team is excited. We're excited. And we think it's going to provide a much better value to the organization for many, many years to come.

Okay. Thank you. I'll get out of the way now, Dave. Go ahead. Or anybody else.

I'm ready.

I'm just going to keep firing them off. I'll just keep going. All right. Where are they based out of?

California, the San Francisco area.

And how long have they been in business?

They have had an ERP since the early 2010s.

So it sounds like it's an all-in-one thing, including payroll. So why aren't you including payroll in this?

we're not ready to make that transition at this time i would say for some that weren't here previously our move to adp came with some significant challenges um we're not we're not looking to relive that right this second and what we want to do is get established in a system before then we consider upheaval of that kind right anytime you're messing with people's pay it can get really dicey. And we just want to make sure that we're doing the right things, that we're going about it the right manner this time, that we're having those conversations and involving everybody that needs to be involved. We think this is going to be a tall lift in and of itself initially. And we want to make sure that down the road, do I think that payroll and HR will make it into this? Probably. But I can't say exactly when. And we're just not wanting to kind of rehash some of the, reopen some of those wounds I think that we dealt with

Yeah, I've used ADP in the past, and I was satisfied with them. So who would have access to this system? I mean, what's the security like? Can it be hacked?

I mean, the can it be hacked question, I think anything has that potential. I think there's lots of people out there that get paid lots of money to make attempts on that. OpenGov seems to think that their system is fairly secure. They've got all the backups necessary to ensure that if something were to happen, they'd be able to restore things. I think they said within a, their initial goal is within a 24 hour period. Is that right, Brent? So, you know, I can't say for sure that it cannot be hacked, right? Because I think that's just the way of the world everybody's trying.

Who all would have access to it?

As far as... Directors and... Yeah, so as far as access, you can do varying levels of security, right? So there will be some global users who have access to... almost everything in the system. And then directors will have access to reporting and AP approvals, budget. So you can set up access based on what each employee needs to have to complete their jobs.

Would there be a, would the cost lessen without the payroll off of this 1.8 million?

Payroll's not included in that 1.8. So only the items that are in green on one of the pages within your guide there, and actually I can put this back up on screen too. So only the items highlighted in green are what we would initially take on, and that's the 1.8 million, that's the full seven-year price.

Now, would they send out an implementation team to get us started on that?

Yeah. So there would be onsite visits as well as remote option opportunities. You know, some of that stuff they're going to do from their offices in California. But they have said that they send folks out to do various parts of the implementation because they really need to get a feel for how we do things, what information we have to put into the system, how best to guide us if there's something that maybe operates a little bit differently in their solution.

I see that the enterprise asset management is listed in the green. Does that include some kind of inventory controls regarding equipment, power tools?

Yes. water fountains i mean everything yeah it would it will cover everything for us from a park inventory right down to park benches and picnic tables and all of our our equipment out at the the various treatment plants at the public works yard um we're planning to make sure we're planning to add fleet to that right so we can kind of have a better tracking of of our vehicles, the maintenance costs, the work that's done on them. So it's an all-encompassing system.

Now, with OregonGov, would citizens, utility customers, they would be able to access this system? Correct. As far as just what their utility bill is? Correct. And nothing else?

Correct. Can I jump in a question there because I forgot to ask it. Sorry. Just take me a second. I know I pay mine online, my water bill online, and I assume that at this point we're kind of eating the exchange fees since we only take debit cards. Is that true?

What's that?

Debit cards, because card- We take debit and credit cards, but yes, we eat all of the fees. And with this, would there be an option, hey, you want to set up ACH, it's free, but if you want to do a debit card, we're charging you $3.

Yeah, we could certainly go down that path if that was the wish of the council. I have to think there's a lot of money in there someplace. Yeah, certainly- There are lots of businesses that have moved towards, you know, you have to help us with the credit card fees. My philosophy and what I've seen is, you know, a lot of that's baked into our rate structure already, right? We're paying the fees, but it's because they're paying us for the utility service.

And so that's- But it's not unusual now, because I'm from the banking, we charge people.

There are a lot more that are doing it. And it's certainly something that if this council wanted to move down that path, we could certainly go that route. I just wanted to make sure we could make the choice. Sorry.

Are they listed on the stock exchange?

What's that? No, they are not a publicly owned company. And that was actually one really big draw for us because a big publicly owned company like that, and one of the options that we were looking at is a big publicly owned company. And what we heard in feedback was they don't tend to listen to their customers as well, right? Their job as shareholders is to make sure that the system functions, but they don't necessarily care about all the time what would make life easier or better. making adjustments to the system to help us out in the field.

So the owners will stay the owners?

As far as we're aware, yes.

All right, that's all I have.

You mentioned that ClearGov is one of the systems you're currently using. Are they related to OpenGov at all?

No, they're a competitor.

Okay.

Brandon, can you walk us through next steps?

Yeah, so next steps, we intend to hold a meeting on the 24th of June at noon so that you all can have a vote on the contract itself. It's a dollar amount that requires council approval. If you do approve the contract or approve Ron to sign the contract, then we'll move forward with implementation starting in July. OpenGov is fairly confident in their implementation and believe that we could implement in 12 months. We're a little weary on that just because we know there's a lot at stake here and we wanna make sure that it's right. And with our staffing capacity the way it is, we think that might get stretched a little bit, but they've committed to us to be there throughout the entire time and we will do what we can to make sure that we're providing or hitting the necessary targets.

Well, I do appreciate it coming to us through a work session. I know, obviously, it'll come back in later this month, but given the saga of ADP from about three years ago, it's just nice to have a heads up on any wholesale platform chains, especially if it could, in this case, affect public-facing pieces, which, of course, is the utility billing. So I truly appreciate that piece. Of course.

We do think, you know, I think we learned a lot of lessons. I think we're trying to do things the... we're trying to take those lessons that we learned and apply them here. It's why we have the ERP build team in place. They're going to continue as we go through the implementation, they're not gonna go away. We've even set up a little email box for them so we can share information and the departments will be involved through the necessary implementation pieces that involved them.

Brandon, who came up with the idea to make this change?

Well, initially, since this was a finance replacement, it came out of my office. And it was a conversation between Ron and I on, you know, we need to figure out something different. This isn't working.

Will it help Brent?

Yes. Brent and his team are very excited about the changes, especially the GIS components. This solution has a GIS read and write component, right? So we'll get GIS stuff from our existing GIS maps that we'll pull in and we can write back to our GIS maps. So we make sure everything stays up to date and stays current, which they're very excited about. Beyond that, the improvements to purchase orders and the ability to kind of do recording at a deeper level to better track some expenditures and things like that, I'd say they're very excited about.

Technology dictated doing this, right?

Yeah.

That's how it works.

If we have consensus, do we have consensus to move forward or do we need?

We really wanted to just present this to you so you had time to digest it. Again, we didn't want to just drop the $1.8 million bomb on your heads. So we don't need a consensus unless all of you right now are thinking, don't do it.

The only hesitation I have is the cost of it. Correct. And now compared to what we've been spending for all these different services, how much of an increase are we looking at? What's the dollar amount?

We're looking at about 70.

Roughly about 110, Brandon.

About 110,000 a year. Yeah.

Plus the implementation up front.

That we hope to gain back with efficiency.

Yes.

Well, and I think the efficiencies. Lack of breakdowns.

Right, so the efficiencies are gonna come out of basically the other departments, right? The financial software is a wash as far as dollars go. I think when we started this process, nobody knew that we were gonna go down that rabbit hole like Brandon said. And once we started seeing what the system could do, comparing it to what we're doing right now, it was like, Oh my gosh, there is light years of savings here. Um, we can cut out having to create three or four spreadsheets for one specific idea.

You know, so I went through the same thing. Everybody had spreadsheets. Yep.

Well, in a $90 million budget, $110,000 isn't a big chunk of money compared to that. And I know that from running my own organizations that when it comes to being organized or efficient, boy, that sure saves you a lot of money.

Yeah, I think from a staff perspective, you know, we are very cognizant of cost increases and, and trying to keep things as low as possible. But we think with with where we're headed and our staffing abilities, this is the best option to keep things as low as possible in the future. So

Okay, any other questions? I think at this point need to be emailed. We will go ahead and close this work session and we will begin our regular session at, we're gonna start late, 6.05. Okay, thanks everybody. Yep, five minute break.

I don't think so.

Okay, everybody let's get, I'd like to call this meeting to order. Please rise for the flag salute. Will the city recorder please take roll?

Sorry, Julie. Mayor Giacola. Council President Steinhebel. Here. Councilor Conte.

Here.

Councilor Angelford.

Here.

Councilor Salvage. Councilor McLean.

Here.

Councilor Workman.

Here.

thank you on to the consent calendar the following items are considered routine and will be enacted in one motion there will not there will not be separate discussion of these items unless a counselor so requests in this case the item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately today we have obviously the agenda for for our council meeting appointments planning commission darla blummer who i know is here tonight as an alternate and don robertson a reappointment Council minutes from our meeting on May 13th, our work session and our regular meeting, irrevocable petitions for 6971 and 73 Park Street, as well as 2645 Birch Street, liquor license for Con Development LLC, and a Lebanon Museum request for Project 150.

Is there a motion? Move to approve.

Second.

Do we have a second? Okay, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes, thank you. Next, we'll move on to public comments. Citizens may address the council by filling out a testimony comment card prior to speaking and hand it to our city recorder. It looks like we have a couple here. Each citizen will be provided up to five minutes to provide comments to the council. The council may take an additional two minutes to ask clarifying questions. The city recorder will accept and distribute any written comments at a speaker's request. First up, I have Melody Wallace, Ward 3. If you would like to come up, please. Thank you.

Welcome. So the reason I came in is I live across from the dog park, the Gilead, I guess. Is that how you say it? Gillott. Gillott. Because you're my council member, I believe. And there's a large dog side and a little dog side, small dog side. We're getting a lot of people who want to bring in big dogs to the little dog side, and what it's doing is making the people that are in there already have to pick up their dogs and leave, which I don't think is fair, because they have a whole side. But we're getting people that have, like, what do you call it? American Bully and the dog's like this wide and like super thick and it's a big old dog and the other dogs don't want it to be inside there so when the lady comes to go inside there and which it's not neutered so it's already got some issues I'm not saying it's aggressive or anything, but I'm just saying it should, there should be some differentials. And so the only thing I'm asking the council is if they could put a little sign underneath the small dog sign for 25 pounds or less, because that gives you still maybe a small Aussie, but above that, we don't want a big, where we have to get up and walk out because their dogs are coming in. It's not, I feel it's not fair.

so we are putting the sign up I don't know I thought they had already done it but it'll it'll be differentiate between that and the pounds so the sign has large and small yeah and I think they were gonna try and do something with the pounds too I'll have to ask our public works director

And I'd like to thank Mr. Rush for the wonderful job he did in trying to address the weed situation. There is a weed situation where it's real prickly on the small dog side, and it wasn't taken care of, but at least I recognize the fact that he tried super hard. And I just like to say how wonderful the park is. A lot of children playing there. Every three of those different sports areas are filled and it's a wonderful park. And thank you guys for letting us have it. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next up I have Jerry Freebie. Hopefully I said your name correctly. My apologies if I did not. Ward one.

I got a couple questions to ask you. I brought it to the city about containers. I wanted to put a container in our lot. We got two lots. But I wanted to put the containers in one lot. And the guy down here at the whatever it is. city told me that it i mean i don't know why he came like this but he came up and said it's a thousand bucks and i'm going wait a minute here and then he explained to me he goes it's called if we have a tornado or a windstorm Or what?

Earthquake.

Earthquake. Then that means they could pick it up and take it off.

Well, then you look at it this way.

How many houses around here can you, if we have an earthquake, will take a lot of these houses down? And I can't understand why he told me $1,000 for a container be put in there And then I have to take and put gravel and concrete down inside with a chain to chain it down. And I'm going, you really have to be kidding me. Because you ain't going to take a container and... have a tornado or something, come and pull that container out of there because you ain't. Now if you get a container with wheels and a landing, yes, because it's high up off the ground. A regular container is down on the ground. And they sell these things like this. Before they even bring it out to you, you gotta have this, this, and this. Okay. And the guy I went to see, he said, well, you gotta give me $1,000 and then you gotta take and chain it down and concrete the pad. And I think that is pure ridiculous. Because I went around to everything in this town. And I found containers that are example. The lady down here that owns that store across from Walmart.

Superthrift, but that is a business.

Superthrift. They got two containers on the side of their building, ain't even torqued down or nothing. And here this guy's telling me I got to do this and I got to do that. And I talked to the lady about it. And she goes, well, wait a minute here. I'm your boss. And I says, well, this guy's telling me I got to do this and do that because I'm in the city limits. Then he started on the fire trucks. Well, you can't get a fire truck behind your house. Excuse me? My brother owns a trucking business, and I can have him park the truck in the back of his semi in the back of my house. And we went around, me and Sherry, and looked at all these places. And this guy, I don't know what his problem is, but he says, no. He goes, all these houses you can't get a fire truck behind. So what do you do? Why would I pay $1,000 to have a container put in there, and it's costing me $350 for them to bring it down to me? I mean, do you understand where I'm coming from?

I think we understand where you're coming from. But I also think that we do not know the code off of the top of our head. And I'm wondering if, at some point, we could get refreshed on the code that is applicable to Mr. Priebe's issue.

Sure. If you come down to City Hall, we can give you a copy of the code where that's required. So just because somebody doesn't have one tied down, and I don't know the code, to be honest with you. Well, there's several. Yeah, sure, several.

I got addresses. Well, we don't have addresses.

What we don't do is we don't typically go out and look for that, right? But if you come to the city hall counter and say, hey, I want to put a container in here, and we follow applicable building codes, then we're going to give you those applicable building codes and fire code. These are dictated by the state. This isn't anything Lebanon dreamed up. So those are the requirements. I don't know what they are off the top of my head.

No, well, I get the requirements.

That's what he's talking about.

Yeah, absolutely. They can show you in there what the requirements are and write out of the building code division book where that comes from. Absolutely. And what those fees associated with that are. Absolutely. I don't know the $1,000.

To me, it was kind of ridiculous.

Jerry, you need to stop and think about what you're saying. What the lady told him when he said that she was... not his boss. She was that gentleman's boss that Jerry was talking to. And he said, she said that I don't know where he came up with that money.

Okay. Well, we'll make sure that you're not charged any more than you're supposed to. And I don't know where he came up with the quote either. So I'd have to look at the numbers. So we'll definitely work with you. I mean, and I know sometimes people think building code and fire code, I get it. I understand where you're coming from. It seems like it should be really simple. But again, that's dictated to us by the state, not anything that we do.

Yeah, I guess the other question I have is, you know, I used to have a lot of horses and I had huge trailers and I kept them in my backyard all the time.

Sure.

You know, and it's not a whole lot different between a container and a trailer that they're pulling behind a semi truck.

Yeah.

So I don't understand that aspect of it.

Well, the, the, the whole container thing is new to me as well until the chamber, the Lebanon chamber put one in. Uh, and we had that same discussion cause I kind of maybe had some of the same thoughts you did. Why, why, why are we having to do this? But apparently it's in the building code. So let, let's dig through the code. We can show you where the code's at and what those applicable fees would be.

So I gotta go down to the city down here?

Yeah, if you come down to the city hall and you can talk to Shanna Olson down there, she can get you that stuff lined right up. Okay.

We appreciate that.

Absolutely.

And then on the staff end, can you share that with us so we're better informed for next time?

We will definitely do that.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Jerry, over here. Thanks for coming to the council meeting and bringing this up. It sounds like you care and you want to do the right thing and you want to follow the rules.

That's what we didn't want them to bring, this big container. them have to take it back home because it's something not being correct.

Right. There's something not correct.

And I do have one thing. I used to live on Sherman Street. And this people that were our neighbors had this travel trailer. The city came out and told them they could not have it hooked up to the front yard with electricity and water and set paper, however they do that. that had to be put in the back. To this day, and that's been seven years ago, it's still sitting in the front yard.

What's the address there? It sounds like maybe code enforcement.

So it would be code enforcement, and those are generally complaint driven, if I'm speaking correctly. So there probably hasn't been another complaint over the last seven years. But I think if you provide the address, that might be on our code enforcement's radar shortly.

Well, yeah, code enforcement went out there. He's been called out there two or three times. The cops were even called out there.

Well, and I guess what we're getting a little picky because of the fact that, you know, trying to save money nowadays is a big thing. And taking away storage units where, like, I'm paying $275 in Lyons for a storage unit, which is absolutely ridiculous, I realize. But you know what? It's my family's heirlooms that are in that storage unit, and I really don't want to give them away. And so if I could have a container to put that stuff in, it's waterproof. You can put stuff in to make it so it's not going to affect them. And so that's why we wanted to get to help save us money and be able to make our place look better.

Now, one more thing, Friday.

Okay.

You go down. Franklin Street, right? Well, he'd know. You go down Franklin Street, I don't care what it is, they put a sign out there by the canal down there, 25 miles an hour, and they still do.

Jerry, you and I talked about this. We're not getting in.

I'm not getting into that part. My apartment is the containers. Yes.

Okay. We'll take a look at that and you come down to City Hall and we'll see what we can get figured out there. I'm sure there is some code to that.

Right. We do have your phone number here, so staff will be in touch. Correct? Okay. Correct.

I thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you for coming. Okay, those are the two public comment cards I had for this evening, so we are going to move on.

Council President?

Yes.

We have one more that was submitted.

Oh, sorry. Can you please refresh my memory?

So I am willing to read it into the record if you'd like, or we could just acknowledge the receipt of it and the council can read the copy that's before them and we'll include it with the packet materials.

I think since we have public, can you go ahead and read it for the record?

Absolutely.

Thank you, Julie.

Attention, Lebanon City Council. It has come to my attention now after being notified at COE of my property that I am responsible for any unpaid City of Lebanon billing of my tenant. I am not the person who signed for your services at the time of their occupancy. We bought our house in 2013 and I do not recall signing any kind of document that pertains to the subject that in the event I ever decided to put a tenant in that I would be responsible for the city billing. That utility bill that was presented to me when I was at the title company at COE three months after my tenant moved out, it should be the responsibility of the city to collect their unpaid bills, whatever method you choose, whether it is to collect a deposit when the party signs up for utilities or some other means. It should not be the homeowner's responsibility to collect a bill that is owed to the city. and the city has let go into arrears and especially when the owner has not been notified as it states on the utility application. The council members who voted in 2014 to put this in place are no longer on the council. This matter should be discussed at a city council meeting. I would be very interested to learn the information on how often and how many bills have been charged to the homeowners since that council voted for this assessment to the homeowner. and that the owner has not been notified until COE. It was an embarrassing surprise. I pay my taxes and my insurance on the property that I'm responsible for, but it should not be my responsibility to pay bills that are owed to the city. And it's signed by H. Joy West.

Thank you, Julie, for reading that into the record. Okay, now we will move on to public hearings. First up, resolution number seven, resolution certifying its eligibility and declaring the city of Lebanon's election to receive state revenues. The public hearing is now open at 6.24 p.m. Will the finance director please present the staff report?

Good evening, City Council. This is one of many that I'll get to walk you through today, but actually should go pretty quickly. What we have before you is a resolution to certify that we provide specific services to ensure that we continue to receive state-shared revenues. ORS 221760 requires that we do this certification and that we certify that we provide services four or more of the following services, police services, fire protection, sanitary sewers, storm sewers, street construction, maintenance and lighting, planning, zoning, and subdivision control, and one or more utility services. At this time, we currently provide six of them, those being police services, water utility service, sanitary sewers, storm sewers, street construction, maintenance and lighting, and planning, zoning, and subdivision control. This review and public hearing is necessary, again, to ensure that we continue to receive the state shared revenues that we currently get. They are budgeted in our general fund at this time for kind of un- They're not designated to a specific expense type or classification. The total approved budget with those state share revenues, the amount of state share revenues anyways, was $330,589 projected for next year.

Thank you. Does council have any questions for Director Nish? Seeing none. Is there anyone to speak regarding this matter? Seeing none. The public hearing is closed at 626 p.m. All further discussion will be limited to council and staff at this time. Is there any council discussion?

I think we already went over this at the last meeting, didn't we?

We have, yes.

And I think we're all in favor of it.

I agree. OK, seeing no further discussion, will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

Resolution number seven for 2026, a resolution certifying its eligibility and declaring the city of Lebanon's election to receive state revenues. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second.

Okay, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously, thank you. Next up, resolution number eight, a resolution certifying the city complies with sections of ORS 47.5C related to marijuana sales inside the city limits. Public hearing is now opened at 6.26 p.m. Will the finance director please again present the staff report?

There's not a lot to this staff report. As the council president indicated, this resolution is necessary to, again, agree that we comply with state requirements and allow for marijuana sales within city limits. The city has a tax on any marijuana sales within city limits at 3%. in order to continue to receive that. That is guaranteed revenue to us. In order to receive some additional money from the state, from their collections, we have to certify that we currently allow for these services that are outlined in Resolution 2026-08, specifically that we allow a license to produce marijuana, allow a license for the wholesale sale of marijuana, and a license for the retail sale of marijuana. So, This is just our confirmation that, yes, we'd like to continue to receive those dollars, and, yes, we allow those services within city limits.

Just out of curiosity, Brandon, how many outlets do we have right now that sell marijuana?

That's a good question. I don't actually know how many stores we have in town. I want to say six, but I think that might be... It's close to six.

I feel like I'm counting seven, maybe.

Six or seven. We receive a pretty decent amount from the marijuana sales, too. It's easy to do the math on how much money we get in our budget for that. It's about $150,000, $160,000 a year, and at 3%, that's darn near $4 million in sales every year.

I don't think we have to worry about it until they start outnumbering churches. There we go.

It might be a while. Does the council have any more questions for Brandon? Anyone who would like to speak regarding this matter? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed at 628 p.m. We're moving along. All further discussion will be limited to council and staff at this time. Any further discussion amongst council? Seeing none, will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

resolution number eight for 2026 a resolution certifying the city complies with the section ors 475c related to marijuana sales inside city limits is there a motion motion to approve there's been a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed motion passes thank you

Next up, resolution number nine. We have a few more to go. Adopting the City of Lebanon's budget and making appropriations for the fiscal year, the public hearing is now open at 6.29 p.m.

Again, our favorite finance director with a staff report.

Hello, Bea again.

ORS 294 outlines the process in the state of Oregon for municipalities and other local governments to set their budgets and obtain funding for a fiscal year. Specifically, it requires the installation of a budget committee that is equal parts number of councilors and citizen or public members within city limits, that live within city limits. And then you have to present a budget to that budget committee as a proposed budget offered by the budget officer. The city's budget officer is the city manager per our charter. We did present that proposed budget and his budget message at a meeting in April, April 16th to be specific, and then subsequently held another hearing on the budget and the budget committee approved a total budget of $94,684,265 during a session on May 18th. That at this point meets all the requirements for RS-294. They did at that time recommend that council adopt the budget that has to be completed before June 30th. Otherwise, you have to cease all spending, send everybody home until you get to a budget. So we really want to avoid that. But this budget is presented before you. You have, of course, seen it as members of the budget committee. The resolution specifically, 2026-09, allocates a total of $94,654,962. It is a little bit more than what we have seen previously. For example, last year's budget, it was in the kind of $60-some-odd million range. The difference, primarily among other cost increases, is the wastewater treatment plant. So we have $30 million in capital construction monies budgeted in this year, for this coming fiscal year, for the wastewater treatment plant, which is what's driving up that figure.

uh i am certainly happy to answer any additional questions that you may have but that in concludes what i have available for you in the staff report thank you any questions for brandon that weren't answered in previous budget meetings okay uh anyone who would like to speak on this seeing none the public hearing is now closed at 6 32 p.m any council discussion seeing none thanks for your work on this thank you Uh, sorry, seeing none. Well, this is no, I was following where I was. My apologies. Will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

Resolution number nine for 2026, a resolution adopting the city of Lebanon's budget and making appropriations for fiscal year 2026-27.

Thank you. Is there a motion?

Move to approve. Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

No opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. How many more do we have? God, this is always the one he likes to miss. Okay, next up, Resolution 202610, a resolution levying taxes for the City of Lebanon's budget for fiscal year 2026-27. Public hearing is now open at 6.33. Turning it over to Brandon again.

This one's relatively easy compared to the last ones that you've had to go through. We already talked about the budget committee and their process. But during their budget approval meeting, they did approve a tax rate of $5.1364 per 1,000 of assessed value. That is our permanent property tax rate. We do not levy less because we need all of it to operate the way that folks would like us to operate. Included in this resolution is also the amount necessary for the general obligation bond debt. As a reminder to the council, next year is the last payment for the general obligation bond that built the Justice Center and the very building we are sitting in today. So that's very exciting. It's 20 years in the making, which also means these buildings are now 20 years old, if you can believe that. That's crazy, paid off our mortgage. Right. So that's certainly exciting news, but we do need to allocate, of course, the one additional year. And then we've got delinquent sewer charges and storm drainage charges. What we do with those is we send those to the county to recoup through property tax collection. So if folks are delinquent on their sewer bills, they go to the county and they handle that for us. It is our only collection method, right? Certainly with on the water side, the city code allows us to terminate water service if we're not receiving payment for those services. We don't have such a measure for sewer and storm drain. So the state or the ORS allows us to send it off to the county for collection. So those are included in this as well. That concludes my staff report.

Circle back type question. I wasn't here as a council member in 2014 when this lady entered this in. Isn't that just how it works? I mean, I have a rental property. I understand that if my tenants don't pay, then it's my responsibility. Did the council actually vote to do it that way, or is it the only collection method that's there?

I can certainly revisit that maybe in just a little bit. It is how they intended it to be and then they passed it as such. But as far, we have to kind of stick to the public hearing piece since it's a public hearing on the tax rates.

Let's bring it up in counselor questions at the end. I'd be happy to address it though. That's a good question. Okay. Anyone in any counselors have any questions regarding this?

Well, it's regarding the arrears of the utility bills. How much a month does that amount to?

The delinquent sewer charges? An average sewer bill, if it's a sewer only account, is usually in the ballpark of about $105, $106 a month. If they have what we call a metered well, then it can be potentially less depending on their actual usage. So we only bill for the sewer part, right? But they meter their own well so that we can kind of get a reading and a monthly average of what they use. So it can range anywhere between... $65 up to somewhere just south of 110. what i was asking was how much is the total for the city how much do you have oh it shows in here 48 300 am i looking at the right spot brandon yeah 48 300 for just the sewer side and 12 700 on the storm drain side and for the year yeah that's how much folks are behind in in payments boy

Remind me why water, we can't do water through the county, that's why?

Water, we have a specific ability to turn off the service and through the lean process.

Oh, I understand, yeah, we have a way to cut it off.

With a sewer only, you can't do a whole lot there.

Okay, any other questions for Brandon or staff? No, any questions from the public? Comments from the public? No, seeing none. Public hearing is closed at 637 PM. No more discussion from council I'm seeing. Will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

Resolution number 10 for 2026, a resolution levying taxes for the city of Lebanon's budget for fiscal year 2627. Is there a motion? Motion to approve.

Thank you. Second. With a second from Marcellus. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion passes. Next up, we adjourn as the City of Lebanon Budget Committee and convene as the Urban Renewal Agency Budget Committee. And to do this, we will now open a public hearing as the Urban Renewal Agency Budget Committee at 6.38 p.m. Will the Finance Director please present the staff report?

As the agency board is well aware, we have two budgets, one for the city and then one for the Lebanon Urban Renewal Agency. The Lebanon Urban Renewal Agency contains the budgets for each of the five urban renewal districts too many repetitive words um but under ors 294 the those districts are required to follow the same local budget rules that the city is required to abide by so with that being said uh the city manager or the agency manager is the budget officer uh they ron did propose the or present the proposed budget during a meeting on april 16th An opportunity to hear from the public was allowed at the May 18th meeting. And after consideration of needed expenses for the coming year, the agency budget committee approved a budget of $8,582,633, recommended taxes, and recommended the board adopt that budget. So that is what is before you now. That concludes my staff report.

Thank you. Anyone have questions for Brandon? Seeing none. Any questions from the audience? Seeing none, we will go ahead and close the public hearing at 639pm. All further discussion will be limited to the Urban Renewal Agency Committee and staff at this time. Seeing no further discussion, will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

Resolution number 11 for 2026, a resolution adopting the Lebanon Urban Renewal Agency's budget and making appropriations for fiscal year 26-27. Thank you.

Is there a motion?

Move to approve the resolution. Second.

Okay, there's been a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. One more public hearing. Next up, Resolution 2026, number 12, a resolution levying taxes for the Urban Renewal Agency budget for the fiscal year 26-27. Public hearing is now open at 6.40 p.m. Again, I will turn it over to Brandon for the staff report. It's the last time you hear from me.

Okay, so you already had the memo. You already know that the agency budget committee recommended adopting the budget and establishing the taxes. Taxes for urban renewal districts are a little bit different than the city. They are based on when the district is formed, the taxes in that district are frozen at that number and any increase then over time while the district is in effect is then given to the district. And the point of those tax collections is to pay for kind of the development and putting infrastructure and stuff out there to really help spur development in those areas to provide for additional property taxes and contribute to kind of the overall community property tax roll. That probably could have been explained a little better, but the premise is there. What you're looking at in this resolution is that allocation of taxes. So the first part is sections two, three, four, and five. We always request that we levy the maximum amount of revenue that can be applied to those districts as the property tax increases apply each year. On the Northwest Lebanon Urban Renewal District Plan area, we are requesting that taxes be levied at an increment property value of $30,781,035. That is significantly less than we have seen in the past, and that is due to us working on winding down that Northwest Urban Renewal District, finishing the last year, well, accelerating debt service payments that we, did half of this year and we'll finish next year and then dissolving that urban renewal district as it has met its need so those numbers are accurate but at this time we are respectfully requesting that you adopt those tax rates so we can pay the bills any questions for brandon

Anyone like to speak on this? Seeing none, public hearing is closed at 6.42 p.m. Last of the public hearings. All further discussion will be limited to the Urban Renewal Agency Committee and staff at this time. Seeing no discussion, will the city attorney please read the title of the resolution?

Resolution number 12 for 2026, a resolution levying taxes for the Lebanon Urban Renewal Agency's budget for fiscal year 26-27.

Thank you. Is there a motion?

Move to approve.

There's been a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

None opposed, motion passes. And we will now adjourn as the Urban Renewal Agency Budget Committee and reconvene as the City of Lebanon Budget Committee. No, City Council, there we go. Oh, I caught something in the script that was wrong. We're reconvening as the City of Lebanon City Council. Yes, I got one. All right, next up, we have the Municipal Jail Informational Flyer. City Recorder Fisher, will you please give the staff report?

Yep, thank you. Before you tonight is a request for Council approval of the proposed informational flyer and authorization to move forward with the development and review of the related content for the city's website. At the May 13th work session, Council reviewed two drafts of an informational flyer. Following discussion, Council directed staff to prepare a simplified one-page flyer with a QR code that would direct residents to the city's website for additional information. Staff revised the flyer and began developing the website content consistent with that direction. To help ensure that compliance with Oregon election laws regarding the use of public resources, staff submitted the proposed information flyer to the Oregon Secretary of State, ELECTIONS DIVISION FOR REVIEW. THE ELECTION DIVISION PROVIDED SUGGESTED REVISIONS AND STAFF INCORPORATED THOSE REVISIONS INTO THE VERSION BEFORE YOU TONIGHT. ALSO IN THE PACKET IS THE RED LINE WITH THE COMMENTS FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE SO YOU CAN SEE WHAT THOSE CHANGES WERE. Following the review, the Elections Division did grant the flyer what they call a safe harbor of approval under reference, and the reference number is there. With that safe harbor approval, if anybody was to contest the language in the flyer, the complaint would be dismissed because we already have that approval through the Secretary of State. The website content has not yet been submitted to the Secretary of State for the Safe Harbor review. We are still working on that. But it will be submitted to the Elections Division for review prior to publication. Staff is requesting Council approval of the flyer that's before you and for staff moving forward with the development of the website content. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Just to be sure, it's number 68.

68.

There's two of them.

One has the red lines. The red lines is the one that was submitted to the Secretary of State, and then the one without the red lines is the final version.

Clean version, yeah. Okay.

And then on the back of the red line are the comments from the Secretary of State of what they suggested.

I thought the comments were pretty interesting. I noticed in a lot of places where the word was levy, they were very clear that they wanted that to be rephrased to tax or property tax. Just found that. Interesting. Okay. I do appreciate that we went through the step of getting safe harbor like that's really important. And I'm glad that we're going to follow that through for the next step with a website. I just want to make sure we're doing as much of this by all of it by the book and less than any, any chance for litigation against the city at any time. would be one of the worst things to ever come from this so i appreciate the staff's work on this thank you anyone have questions for uh julie i see the dog they didn't say anything about the dog i think he's persuasive i agree i mean we could have made him a little bigger but no okay Any more questions for staff? Seeing none, is there a motion and preferably one that is maybe outlined in the packet?

I move to approve the informational flyer and related factual information content for publication on the city's website regarding the proposed municipal jail operations levy or tax as presented by staff.

It's been seconded by Councillor McLean. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. No opposed, motion passes. Thank you everybody. Okay, next up approval to award project at Grant and Sherman. I will pass this over to city manager Whitlatch.

Thank you, Council President and Councillors. What you have before you here tonight, we walked this memo in, we opened bids for the Grant Street, Fifth Park Street project, and also Sherman Street from Second to Main was included in that. We received, it looks like, nine bids yesterday. We had an engineer's estimate that was about $3.1 million. You can see where bids came in. substantially less this project will do a lot of reconstruction in the downtown for the streets and also sidewalk access ramps curb gutter drainage water line so it's a fairly extensive project scheduled to last until probably may or june of next year depending on the weather A couple of things to note on that is when we do the project, we've set it up into phases. So on Grant Street, they will only be able to close one block at a time between Main and or between 2nd and Park Streets. So that means the, well, the say for instance, the section of grant street between, uh, park and main street is closed. Then the section between main street and second street would be open and they have to finish those two sections, uh, before moving on. Uh, they can't do them simultaneously just for traffic flow. Same thing with Sherman, we're not gonna allow them to do Sherman Street at that same time too, otherwise it would disrupt the downtown more so than it's going to do anyway, because it will be disruptive, we know that. With that, we intend to award the, what we did was an additive alternate with Sherman Street. which means we didn't know going into it whether we would have enough funds to complete that portion of it. After bids were open, we do. And so what we're proposing is that you award the full street and utility reconstruction project, including the additive alternate to MVG construction of Philomath, Oregon in the amount of $2,836,147.06. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

I got it. Cause I live on that street question. It might, is it right to assume that that'll be repaved like from fifth all the way downtown new asphalt or is the road still going to stay the same patched up with repairs?

No, we're going to, we're actually going to dig most of the road base and repave the entire thing. I just want to make sure somebody asked.

Yep. And I was hoping so. Cause I ride my bike down there. It's really rough. We'll leave you one pothole. I'll find it.

About how long is this project going to take?

Well, we, we originally had, uh, looked at trying to wrap it up this year, but with weather conditions, um, the final thing you do is paving and concrete, and it's not real conducive down in December and January. So there's probably going to be a period of time where they're not going to be working on portions of it, uh, unless it's utility work where they can do on hard surface so that we can get out to where we can get good paving weather. So it'll probably end maybe June of next year.

Okay. Any other questions for staff? Ron? No? Okay. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. There's a motion and there's a second to approve for MVG construction. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay, you're up again, Ron. Staff report.

Thank you again. Just a couple things for tonight. We did find out from the Community Development Block Grant organization that there's going to be substantially less funds for this go around for what we want to call our library project. What does that mean? We don't know. It probably means that we wouldn't get awarded the whole project. So one of the things that we talked about as staff, Kendra and I talked about at the budget committee meeting, there was some discussion about what to do with the proceeds for the San Diem Travel Station. And it was talked about maybe that goes towards the library project. So what I'm kind of looking for is a council consensus at this point. We would have to do a motion or a resolution at some point to transfer that money out of, I believe it's in

The equipment reserve fund.

Thank you, sir. To be used when this project, when and if this project gets funded. So the estimated cost of the project is about $1.6 to $1.7 million. So what we could do is show a good, healthy match on the grant application and see if we could get completely funded. If we weren't completely funded, we'd have to look at that and say, well, is there another mechanism to do this? Or we may have to turn down the grant at that time. But it does give us a better chance if we have those funds as a match. Or we can apply and see how much funding we get Likely not going to be the whole thing. So looking for a council consensus if you want to take those funds and use them Before we indicate that we want to put them on a match for this grant. If not, we won't use those We'll just continue at the pace.

We are what was the amount again? Wasn't it three?

Five hundred and fourteen thousand. Yeah, I

I'm in favor of doing that. Anybody else?

So just to recap, so the library project is how much?

We're waiting for our final 90% cost estimate, but last one we did at 50 or 30% was roughly 1.6 to 1.7 million.

Okay, so 1.6-ish million altogether, and the block grant that we did get was how much?

We didn't get one.

We're applying for one. Oh, okay. So we didn't get anything?

No, we haven't applied yet. So what I'm asking you is do you want us to take that $514,000 and use that as, when we fill out the grant application, use that as match money?

Available matching money.

So available matching money.

That commits to doing it, though? That commits to doing it. And what are the, I don't have a lot of grant experience, what are the odds? I mean, are we less likely to get more because we don't have the money to match, or are they just going to say, hey, we're going to give you this much and not care how much we have to match? I'm going to say I don't know.

i don't know i don't i don't know what we kind of kicked some of those scenarios around today i don't know if it improves our chances i know that anytime you can show a match on a grant and you've got quite a bit of skin in the game then you you have you receive a better probably scoring on that now does that get us all the way there with the funds that they're going to award us i don't know the question of that so if it didn't I mean, we're going to get notification that we've been awarded. That doesn't mean we have to accept the award, right? So we could say, well, say we're $300,000 short or whatever that number is, and we don't really have a mechanism to cover that $300,000, we're not out anything other than the time that it's taken to do this. And we would apply for the next round and see where that went.

I'd like to think about that before I said that's the best way to do it. No, absolutely. We've thought about the same thing. Yeah.

I remember one of the things that Ken, I think, said at the last meeting, or maybe it was a previous meeting. I could be getting this incorrect. But as a reminder, we did take part of the library for our council meetings. We took this space. That, using the Santiam Travel Station and using the funds from that to enhance the space that we have now taken a chunk of, I thought would be a wise and good move based on how many kids really use the library.

I'm just trying to think outside the box. If we weren't using this space right here for the city council meetings, would the library be able to use it for what they want?

I think the library had previously used this for programming.

Yeah.

So if we weren't here, they wouldn't have to spend the $1.8 million to build that room if we weren't here. They would use this room.

There were pieces of that I remember that were like soundproof barriers because, and then, wasn't there like a...

This, this room was used for their larger events, but what they really want as a children's room and, and the children's room got bigger, um, as, as time went on, but I can't remember how far back when that initially started, but it was well before city council was in here. So I think the council, the planning commission trees and trails, the school district, uh, has limited the, the access to this room for them. Um, Originally this room was set up for a community meeting space.

So if we had a bigger City Hall We could give this back to them and use our own City Hall if we had a bigger City Hall I'm sure you could yeah, I mean that's that's always an option

we've got to have a bigger city.

I'm just thinking of all the different down the road scenarios as far as, uh, um, you know, we sold this piece of property. Now we're just going to spend it all in one place, you know?

Yeah. And you, you don't have to do all the match. You don't have to do any of the match. I just know that that was brought up during the budget committee and, and the likelihood of, of being completely funded with this next round of CDBG is probably slim to none.

Yeah, I can see it on the faces that some of us are hesitant about that.

Okay. So do we want to just apply for the grant as is, no match, or just the match that we've shown? I just want to make sure.

I'm making myself clear. I support the library getting this done. It just, this is a quick decision to me to, and I know you've got to place the grant by a certain time. You've got a deadline, I'm sure. Yeah, we've got to have it in by the end of the month. Yeah. Yeah, I just, maybe we could revisit this at the later meeting.

Yeah, I mean, we can put it on the June meeting for a motion. Definitely be responsible with the decision.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

I think that's fair then to talk about it at length.

I'm still kind of processing through, woohoo, we got this grant thing that we're going to apply for. Wait, never mind. So if you can kind of help explain that a little bit more, like... Well, at the previous meeting when we had all the kids here and said we were applying for this block grant, like this big chunk, did that just get reduced? No.

Yeah, it just got reduced. We found out, I think it was just yesterday, that they don't have the funding that they thought they had, which is pretty typical of federal funding. Right, so the funds are less, so the chances of us being fully funded like we were hoping have been reduced substantially. We're competing, they'll only do five what they call community facility projects on a round of funding, and there's already five there. So if you think, I think they've got about 2.8 million. So if I do some quick math and say everybody's gonna get a little bit, you know and i i don't know how they break it out i don't know if it's by scoring or anything that's about 600 000 that doesn't get you there and it may not even get you there if you have a substantial match and is it only good for building projects what what's that this block grant For what we're applying for, yeah. You can do it on infrastructure projects as well. We have chosen not to use it on infrastructure projects just because it doesn't allow for us to use a CMGC on it. So there's varying things there that we don't want to use it for that. So does that help clear that up? A little bit, yeah. Okay.

So June meeting, though.

Yeah, I'm more than happy to bring it back.

Everybody can get you on it a little bit more, and we can have a larger discussion. Is that going to – I know it compresses your timeline. I'm sorry, but I think you need it.

No, I mean, we can – we'll just put a memo out, and we can do it by motion. We don't need it. We're not asking to spend the money today. All I need to know is whether we want to add this match into the grant application itself. That's really the only question of the hour. If we were successful, then we have to have a resolution to transfer that over, should council want to do it.

And we could theoretically make a use part of it. You could. We'll give you $300,000 then. Yeah, whatever your choice. I'm not trying to split hairs. No, and... Yeah.

Go ahead and say it.

Yeah, let us bring it back in the second meeting in June, and we can have some more discussion on it.

Thank you.

Absolutely. where are we oh a couple more things um i am out of the office starting tomorrow and gone through next week brandon will be aic so uh if you need anything you can get a hold of brandon um and we have to get that approved with us yeah i did i said you know what i need a vacation

Yeah, this being retired is pretty hard on me too, Ron.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Are you going to have your phone on?

I can have my phone on, I can have my computer with me, but the great news is you can't reach me where I'm going to be. I'm going to be in the bottom of the John Day River Canyon, so you can try, but unless you send smoke signal.

I say that when I'm sitting in my house.

I will do my best. And then the other thing is just a reminder, June 24th council meeting at noon here, so. And that's it.

Items from council, and this is the time that we can address your questions without public comment. So floor is yours.

Yeah, I'm just curious, because like I said, I understand how the system works now. If my renters don't pay, I get a call. And I'm going to get leaned for it if I don't. So we do have the mechanism. We can decide not to do that. It was decided by council at one point that that water bill, the entire water bill, we couldn't take the wastewater part out, because that goes to the county. Am I tracking that right?

Yeah, I mean, if they have a water bill, we do everything through the water side of that, right, including the sewer and the storm. It's the ones that we can't turn off to collect that we either get through, you know, we get through the lean or through the county, one of the two.

I just wanted to clarify on that. I think it works the way it does, and I know people are kind of mad about it once in a while. I get it, but I just wanted to make sure I understood.

It's part of the municipal code, was changed on October 9th, 2013. Just says that any unpaid rates, fees, charges, or damages accrued will constitute a lien upon the real property for which the service was provided. Um, so that's, that's the component that, I mean, it certainly does, I think at times catch, uh, property owners, um, a little at surprise. Um, it is something that is used in other cities. Other cities just do collection efforts through, you know, a collection agency or through the department of revenue at the state. But Lebanon, back in 2013, decided this was the best way based on size and staffing capacity to ensure that the debts were collected.

We had to pay the whole water bill. So I get it. I just didn't want to misrepresent what I was thinking.

Any other items from council? Seeing none. We made it, guys. Okay, wait, one more, one more. Is there anyone that would like to address the council? We have a second time for public comments. Going once, going twice. Seeing none. Our next meeting is, as Ron mentioned, June 24th at noon, and then our regular session meeting is July 8th at 6 o'clock. Meeting is adjourned at 6 o'clock.