City Council - Regular Meeting

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. Okay. Thank you. Uh, will the city recorder please call roll? Mayor Jakola, present. Council President Steinhevil here. Councelor Ki present. Councelor Man. Councelor Salvage here. Councelor Mlan here. Councelor Workman. All righty. Thank you. We'll move into consent calendar. The following items are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will be not a separate discussion on these items unless the council so requests. In that case, the items will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately. Agenda Lebanon City Council agenda November 12, 2025. board meeting 2025 0825 library advisory board meeting and 2025618 senior center and links transit council meetings for 2025108 city council regular and executive session meeting and 20251029 city council executive session exe executive session meeting excuse me liquor license the landing at the Tolman brewery After Glow Arcade and Dark Bloom Coffee. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second. Uh motion's been made to approve. It's been second. All in favor? I. All oppose. Motion passes. As there are no presentations tonight, we'll move on to public comments. Do we have any public comments? Okay.

I'll still read this. Uh, citizens may address the council by filling out a testimony card. They're over there. Uh, prior to speaking and handing it to city recorder, each citizen is provided up to 5 minutes to provide comment to the council. The council may take additional two minutes to ask clarifying questions. City recorder will accept and distribute written comments at speaker's request. Since we don't have any, we'll move on. We move move into public hearings. On the first one, I'm going to recuse myself and hand it over to the president of the council to conduct this portion. Okay. Thank you. First up, we have a public hearing to consider the sale of city-owned surplus property, Sanm Travel Station at 750 South 3rd Street. The public hearing regarding the Sanm Travel Station is now open at 6:02 p.m. Will the city manager please present the staff report? Thank you, Madam President, and members of the council. As part of the process to consider the sale of surplus property, Oregon Revised Statutes requires that the city hold a public hearing uh after the property has been declared surplus. On September 10th, 2025 with a resolution number 202514, the city council declared the San Travel Station surplus property. Uh the property is zoned central business commercial. Uh it's located within the downtown district. It was originally acquired from Southern Pacific Railroad in July of 1996. One thing to note, the building is to remain in uh on the local historical registration list. In general, that means that the uh the building shall maintain its historical look and historical features. Uh council and commi committee meetings were relocated to the library. this building here uh in June of 2025 and that's what the facility was previously used for. The school district also uses this uh an

appraisal was performed by the Jackson Group in November of 2024 uh for $560,000. Lynn County real market value has it valued at $69,390. Lydia, the city has received a letter of intent from RB Acquisitions uh LLC to purchase the property uh which is part of Rick Franklin uh for $525,000. Uh some of the terms in it are shared closing cost uh buyers pay half the escrow recording fees, seller pays title insurance, and 3% brokerage uh half escrow fees applicable taxes. Public notice has been issued on October 30th. November November 4th. Reason I'm reading all this out is this is per statute things that we have to declare when we're uh selling surplus property. So, it's kind of benign, but we're going through that process. This process complies with RS221725 and LMC 3.16. Uh sale proceeds will follow city financial uh policies and legal requirements. Our recommendation is that you conduct a public hearing, consider testimony, and provide direction on the sale. Options for council include authorization to sale to RB Acquisitions LLC for 525,000. Uh direct staff to solicit additional offers or take alternative action as deemed appropriate. Couple other items to note. Uh we're working through the logistics of incorporating what is now Third Street into the sale, which was included in the appraisal. Um based on the research to date, we will need to vacate the western half of the property. Uh during a vacation, that property is then um reverted back to the property owner. In this case, it would go back to the building uh that the San the property that the San Travel Station

currently sits on. Research has also shown that the eastern portion of what is now Third Street was never dedicated as right away. Uh it was actually deed simple uh so that it would remain a deed uh in this place. So we would not have to revert that back as right away. Um we'll have to do couple of access easements will get recorded prior to uh the sale of the property so that the two property owners who have driveways currently off of Third Street will have access and we will also need a public utility easement for a storm pipe that runs along Third Street. With that, uh I can answer any questions you may have. Does any does council have any questions of Ron or other staff? Uh just one quick one. It's my understanding that this will property will be returned to the tax roles. Yes, it will. Okay. Yes. Fantastic. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Seeing none, uh is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak in favor of this issue? Seeing none, is there anyone who would like to speak in opposition? Okay. The public hearing is hereby closed at 6:07 p.m. All further discussion will be limited to council and staff at this time. Council, is there any further discussion on this matter? Again, seeing none, I would entertain a motion at this time. Motion to approve the sale. Do we need to read the or do we need to read I don't have anything in here to read the ordinance, but I feel like Yes. Sorry, there's no ordinance on this one. I don't need to read anything. Okay, thank you. Sorry. So Dave Dave's motion was to approve the sale as Ron presented it. Okay. And do I have a second? I second. Perfect. All those in favor signify

signify by saying I. I opposed. Okay. Motion passes. I will now turn this back over to Mayor Jackala. Thank you. We'll move on to the second public hearing for the evening. Ordinance bill number 2025-10. Public hearing regarding this amendment to the development code is now open at 68. Sorry, let me start over. Uh, we'll move on to public hearing. Ordinance bill number 2025-10. Public hearing regarding the amendment of the development code is now open at 6 08. And I'm You know what? I've never done this before. I like that. There you go. And uh we'll turn it over to the city attorney to give a staff report. Well, thank you. Uh, I I have to admit if this uh if this is a a really good uh uh staff report uh that was written, I'll take all the credit. Um but I have to admit it was done by Kelly Hart before she left and she did a fantastic job. Uh and with with uh obviously Ron's review and my review. So it's addressing two different issues. One uh code interpretations and uh we realized after getting the most recent code interpretation that we hadn't actually had a code interpretation. Ron, had you ever remembered a code interpretation or? No, I don't remember. You kind of been here the longest. So, yeah, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't one last year either. So, so anyways, it made us look at the whole court code interpretation uh uh ordinance. And what we did is we went out and uh after some brilliant legal uh research, we decided just to copy city of Salem's and uh we thought we'd looked at a bunch of different ones and and Kelly did um and we kind of put uh pulled out the stuff from the city of Salem that we thought made the most sense and it it does a lot as as it relates to interpretation with respect

to um making sure that we don't have ambiguous terms and and and all of that kind of stuff. It's not a huge difference from the previous one, but it's uh it's a little bit cleaner, gives a cleaner um method of of uh of appeal and is a little bit more comprehensive. So, um if you have any questions about the code interpretation uh uh amendments, uh please feel free to ask. The second step was to basically uh incorporate uh the code interpretation that we did with respect to recreational trails and make it more consistent and more uh uh user friendly as it relates to uh going forward with respect we actually got rid of the definition of recreational trails and use recreational areas which a trail would fall within the uh definition of recreational areas. Um, so that would be a change and it would be uh uh be used going forward, not only with um you know the Bill Lebanon Trail, Build Lebanon Trails uh stuff, but any other recreational trails that were public um that would go forward. And we also kind of delineated between private and public parks and which would include public or private trails. Um so we tried to clean everything up. Kelly, I think did a fantastic job. If you don't think so, I'll make sure and call her and tell her. Does that conclude your remarks? That concludes my remarks. Okay. Does the council have any questions of the staff or city attorney? No. Is there anybody like to speak in favor of this issue? No. Is there anyone who'd like to speak in opposition? No. Okay. Public hearing is hereby closed at 6:11. All further discussion will be limited to council and staff at this time.

Any discussion to be had? Well, I just wanted to thank you guys. Well, thank Kelly if she's watching, which she's probably not for working on this. And I'm glad I'm glad we got this cleaned up because it was a bit ambiguous. So, thank you. Any other discussion on this matter? Okay. Will the city attorney please read the title of the ordinance? My mic off. Ordinance bill number 2025-10, Ordinance number 3041, a bill for an ordinance amending the city of Lebanon Development Code regarding changes to code interpretation procedures in park and recreational trail and land use categorization and permitting. All righty. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second. Motion's been made to approve. It's been seconded. All in favor? I. All motion passes. We'll move on to the third public hearing for the evening. Ordinance bill 2025-11. Public hearing regarding this right vacation of rightway on Crowoot Road is now open at 6:13. Will the development service director present her report? Good evening, mayor and members of council. Happy to present my very first report to you all. This was a vacation of Croat rightway. We no longer need the large um what would be the parkway which would bypass Lebanon. So, we're going to vacate a portion of that rightway and dedicate a larger portion of the Half Street improvements along Crowoot there. This was dedicated back in 2011 as their annexation requirements. So, RTSP does not call for a parkway any longer in that area. So, we no longer need that large rideway width. And that is pretty much that in a nutshell, unless someone has any questions.

I don't have the map right in front of me because I'd have to zoom scroll through too many pages here to find it. Is it the um the let's see the south side of Crowoot Road. That's correct. So to where the new subdivision is going in that's the section that correct we are only going to vacate where the new subdivision is going at such time we get development proposals. We'll go through the vacation process for each development proposal at that time. Any other questions of staff? All righty. Thank you. Is there anybody that would like to speak in favor of this issue? Is there anybody that would like to speak in opposition? No. No. On both. Public hearing is hereby closed at 6:14 here. Good job. I love it. Now, all further discussion will be limited to council and staff at this time. Is there a discussion to be had? This This night's going quick. Will the city attorney please read the title of the ordinance? Ordinance bill number 2025-11, Ordinance number 3042, a bill for an ordinance vacating public right ofway on Crowoot Road. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second. Motion's been made to approve. It's been seconded. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. All right, move on to regular session resolution number 21 for 2025. Um, library director will be giving her briefing to the to the to the to the council. Good evening everyone. Okay.

So, yeah, it feels like I was just here doing this for you all, but um things have changed a little bit. So, uh you'll notice some new artwork there, some new 3D uh artwork from the architects. Um basically, we have expanded the ex expansion. Um, so we're presenting our enhanced vision for a transformative community space that will serve generations of young learners. Is this going to work? Oh, there we go. Um, so why are we expanding further? Um, we did a little needs assessment and it just revealed greater demand. Our initial project underestimated the true scope of community needs and growth. Feedback from families and staff highlighted the necessity for a more comprehensive approach. The expanded design accommodates our growing population and evolving needs, ensuring the space remains relevant and functional for decades to come. Back in 2017 when we started this um we our programming was essentially story times and we did five different story times. Um and it was it was always busy over there. It was really loud. It was really disruptive to the rest of the library. But now, eight years later, we're not doing only story times. We're doing few fewer story times, but we're doing programming for afterchool kids. We're doing lots of teen programming. Um, and the little room that we were looking at building just for story time, it just became very obvious that that little 500 ft space was not going to be enough for all the different types of programming that we do. And and nor did it um allow us for growth. Obviously, the town is growing, the library is growing. Um, and you'll notice that little quote at the bottom of the screen. We did ask for some um letters of um endorsement from people that attend various programs so

that we could use them in our um grant applications. And one person commented, "The town is growing and we need our library to grow with it." Thought that was a a good quote. Um, so when you look at the difference here, this is the new plan that you see on the screen, it's essentially the same. It's just bigger. So back in uh 2018, the square total square footage was 746. What we're looking at now is 165. That 746 um a little over like 220 of it was the little vestibule. The actual room itself was around 500. in this new plan of 1600 square feet. The multi-purpose room is about a thousand square feet, which is just going to give us a lot more um just opportunities for for use for a lot of different things. Obviously, with with this deis in here and all the programming that we've absorbed, all the meetings and stuff that were happening at the travel station, we don't have as much access to this room as we did. Um and we're really nervous about letting the kids in here around all this equipment to be honest. Um, so we just really want to get this other room built so that we can um do all the programming that we want to do. Um, so the cost per square foot back in 2018, the cost assessment that we had, it was 825 per square foot back then. That's gone up significantly. It's now $950 per square foot. Um, uh, the original plan adjusted for current costs would have been.7 million. The new plan that we want to build is 1.5 million. That is 115% more space with approximately 15% increase in cost per square foot. Um just an overview of the project. This scope is smaller than any other city initiatives and will not require um additional city funds. Our funding

strategy will be a combination of grants, community fundraising, local business partnerships if there are any to be had. Um, this project uh is um perfect for a CDBG grant. There's a lot of potential there. We'd like to partner with some expert consultants that will helps us secure up to 1.5, which is what we need. Um, in CDBG grant funding, there's a strategy to that. The CDBG application scoring, it's a point system. They look at things like community needs. They prioritize low to moderate income. Um last uh figure I saw Lebanon's LMI was 56% I believe. So we we meet that criteria. They also look at project effectiveness. A well-developed project that can start quickly. So to maximize points, what we'd like to do is complete all environmental and archaeological assessments internally and then use library trust funds to purchase final design and construction documents. This is where this come the the need to come to you all for this comes in. Um that expenditure was not budgeted for this year. So um I don't think that's the right uh I have a different page than what's up there. Mine has the ordinance. It doesn't matter. I can read it out loud. But just so you um so that expenditure was not budgeted for this year. An appropriation transfer from the general fund will allow the library to use its own funds from the library trust to move forward with the expenditure. And that's OS 294.4633. Sorry Julie, I don't know if I sent you the wrong one or what happened there. Um, so this is a low burden, high impact project that aligns with strategic goals. It could be delivered quickly while larger capital project efforts

continue. It strategic plan aligned. It advances city goals for youth, families, equitable access and community well-being. It scales library services to match population growth. Strengthens early learning and lifelong early access learning access. Low operational impact. It's a small scale project. We're going to use consultants um to both write and manage the grant and oversee the environmental cross cutters that need to happen. Um so um be asking for minimal support from existing staff as project management. It does not add significant capacity strain to already stretched teams. The funding approach leverages grants and funding from the library trust. So minimizing any city burden. Quick delivery. This is should be a fairly short construction window. Benefits realized rapidly once funded. Smaller scope than other city capital projects that are currently under discussion. And shovel ready sequencing positions us to move as soon as funds are secured. Next step, steps and call to action. Um, we'd like to finalize this in spring of 2026. We'll have complete architectural drawings and permit approvals in place. We'll um have our consultants apply for CDBG grant application in fall of 2026. If our project isn't chosen on the first round, we'll be well positioned to play again in the second round. Um, so we're I'm here tonight just uh asking that you endorse the expanded design and authorize the inter fund transfer for this community investment. With your support, we can provide a modern, welcoming space that meets the needs of our growing community. That's it. All righty. Thank you. Is there any questions? Sure. Kendra, of this 1.5 million, what have you got so far? About 50,000. We haven't really started fundraising yet. That is all money that our friends group have have raised. So once um we

get through this evening and you guys approve uh endorse everything um we'll start fundraising in earnest and we'll look at other grants too. But um that CDBG grant would be a really great one to get. That's that's one of the reasons we're here tonight is to get prepped and ready for that CDBG grant. So, if we have the design done, the environmental cross cutters done, um we stand a good chance of getting that 1.5 million or at least a a lion share of it. Um without having those steps done, we don't score as high on the granting. Uh so I think there's a really good chance to get CDBG money, whether it be this round or the second round. Uh so Kendra and I have been working with different consulting firms to manage that uh CDBG uh grant application as well as managing the grant itself should we get it. So that's kind of why we're here uh tonight in the the hurry I guess you would call it and rather than waiting till next budget cycle so that we can be in line and be ready to uh to attack that grant should it come available. So, Kendra, on the on the previous design that you had before, what was the total cost on that? Uh, 7 million700,000. So, pretty much just doubled it. You doubled size. More than doubled in size and doubled in cost. Yeah. Now, just to give me an idea, uh, you're looking at 1,500 square feet. Is that what you said? Um, it's over 1,600 in total. Yeah. What's the footage of this room? Um, this room is um I knew you was going to I think this room itself is about 1,500 square f feet. So, it'll be bigger than this one. No, the room. So, 1,600 total, but there's the vestibule. Um, uh, so the room itself, the multi-purpose room that we're going to build will be right at

1,000 square feet. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. The vestibial is is rather large, but the benefit of that is um when we need the room for just bodies, when we're having events where we don't need tables and chairs, we'll be able to move all the tables and chairs into the vestibule so we can have a big space. It'll also have big doors that open up into the patio so we can have um spill out into the patio if need be. I know there's a lot of strollers, too, that come Yes. for story time and whatnot. And that gives them a place to park. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You know, I'll admit 20 years ago, I thought libraries are on their way out. You know, with the with the advancement that we've had in technology in the last 20 years, I thought libraries can't survive just like they'd go on the wayside like Kmart did, right? Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, but this library is thriving. It's adding a lot to the community. Thank you. And, uh, and I'm I think so, too. And I I certainly haven't seen any any decrease, if anything. we're we're busier than ever. And like I mentioned today at the meetings, in in times of economic hardship, people people cut um extraneous things like cable and Wi-Fi if they have to and and they come to the library for that stuff. So I think libraries are needed. There's a lot more than just coming to a place to read a book for sure. You know, I walked in here one day and and Frank, you know, doing a story time out here with a bunch of little kids. That is so cool. Yeah. I mean, that's just one of the things that the that the library Yeah. for our community. Yeah. It's that and we do that every year. It's important that children learn not to fear police that that's that's a big part of why we do that. We also have the fire department come. We have dentists come in and teach the kids about how to take care of their teeth and we do a lot of fun stuff that's important for families. Yeah. For the community. Thank you. I'm a fan.

Good. Any other questions? I have one. Mine's more for the engineer, Ron. Oh, no. Um, so I I love this idea and I'm I'm in support of getting that built. Does a thousand Maybe I did my math wrong in my head. Does $1,000 a square foot doesn't that seem high for a slab foundation? No. No. I'll tell you why. Because it's it's the economy of scale, right? So, if you were going to build this whole entire library, it probably wouldn't be $950 a square foot. When you build something like that, you got to factor in bonds, insurance, mobilization, you know, it's just a smaller scale. So profit margins, they don't want to lose those profit margins. So that that's pretty typical of what we're seeing on new building construction. You can you can swing that down. I don't know where that crossover point on square footage is where you start to see a little more economy of scale on it, but that's what we see. Okay. There's no other questions. We're going to move to finance director. You had some comments on this this resolution. Yeah. So, the actual resolution itself uh is the budget authorization as as Kendra alluded to earlier. This one is a little weird because of how the state requires that we set this up. But like Kendra mentioned, we don't have existing budget authority, at least not to this extent, in what we call fund 830 or the library special revenue fund. In order to do that, we have to take expenditure authorization from another fund. In this case, the wastewater system development charge improvement fund. Uh where we have budgeted $4 million for capital projects that we aren't going to end up using this year because we're not moving forward yet with um plans for kind of a wastewater treatment plant um renovation and and

upfit. Um, so we're going to take that expenditure authority, move it out, transfer it out over to the library special revenue fund. This does not move any actual cash. So the library special revenue fund ended last year with about $400,000 in cash of their own. All this does is provide them with the expenditure authority to do it. But in order to make the books balance on both sides, we have to take it out of the capital line, put it in a transfer out, and then on the library side, we have to put it on a transfer in and budget the actual expenditure authority. So it looks like cash is changing hands, but that's not going to be the case. And there won't be any loan to pay back next year. So, and just to be clear, we're not using wastewater money to build the library. I promise. Well, if you wanted to, I'd be okay with that. I I don't want to. All we're doing here is saying the Wastewater Fund gets to spend $150,000 less of its own cash. The library gets to spend $150,000 more of its own cash to make this transition occur or this transaction occur. It's weird. Anybody wants to study local budget law, I welcome that conversation because it's a weird one. All righty. Is there any questions of Brandon? Yeah, that makes no sense. But okay, I agree. Like I got it. That was my You are the the the numbers guy and you say that this is okay and I'm going to go with that. Yeah, we also we did confirm it with auditors when they were here last night. Fantastic. We are good to go. I I will just say I'm totally supportive of this. Uh you come in, you see all those kids over there and they are and they are loud. They're very loud. But so this this will be a good addition. So um with that being said, will the city attorney please read the resolution?

Resolution number 2025-21, a resolution authorizing a transfer of appropriations for the city of Lebanon 202526 budget. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second. Motion's been made to approve. It's been second. All in favor? I. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you everyone. Thank you Kendra. All right, we'll move on to departmental report city manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, city council. I need to probably step back a little bit and formally introduce what you guys all met her today. Shana Olsen is our new development services director. Shana, thank you. So, just for everybody's uh knowledge, uh glad to have her in the position. Um uh couple of other things to go over with you. We've had some departmental changes um at city hall. Uh so with Shana stepping into this role, she's also going to keep the development side engineering uh and general engineering under her wing. We have moved Coulson Shanks who was in the capital side up to the development side as a project manager and he will be doing Shana's old job. Um Mike Triet who's been with the city forever and a day has agreed to step up and be the city engineer and that work group will then be moved in under Jason Williams as the director. So we're eliminating the engineering director position. Uh we'll have a city engineer. Uh we'll probably look at um maybe hiring an assistant city engineer because Mike's Mike's going to retire here in the next few years uh to get somebody lined up uh kind of part of our succession planning. Uh so those are the changes. I think they're good changes. Uh I think there's some cost savings in

it. Uh we've got the right people in the right spots. So, um it took a little while to get there and all the pieces lined up, but um I I I'm happy with the changes that we've made and, uh look forward to moving forward. Uh the only other thing I've got is the state of the city chamber lunch on December 5th. Uh the mayor and I will be giving the state of the city and uh with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I take it there's no questions. I don't know what the record is. I'm going to check with Julie later. How fast our fastest city council meeting was. 28 minutes. What's that? It was 28 minutes. You were I was gone, wasn't I? I'm not sure. I think I was. Okay. We'll move on to items from council. Does uh counselors have any items they'd like to bring forward? Well, since we didn't beat the record, I guess we can just keep talking. Um, I have a question for Brandon, uh, regarding the the funds from the sale of, uh, the the train station. Is it possible to use some of those funds towards the library uh, u expansion project if needed? Yeah, certainly those funds are going to be available for the city council to decide what to do with. um it didn't come from you know the an what we call an enterprise fund so the water fund or wastewater um or storm drainage. So it's kind of open season on what we can use that for whether that's putting it in the general fund for future projects whether that's putting it back into it was a park grant if I remember correctly or something out of OPRD. Yeah, it was um I think it was partially parks and and a lot of uh state grant. Yeah. So, we could certainly put it back towards that if you wanted to. There's

no legal requirement to do so, but that is another option. It it's really going to be up to the council to decide what you want to do with that with those proceeds. Thank you. Any other items? All righty. We'll move into Is there any public or press comments? Yes, please come forward. Just make sure you state your name for the record. Yeah. Sarah Brown, Lebanon local newspaper. Um, regarding the sale, um, real quick, it was 525 this sold for. Um, I know there's been a few meetings on this. Um, I can't remember if it's been said. Can you say who's buying it? I don't think I heard that. Yeah, it's R&B. uh, Acquisitions LLC, which is is part of Rick Franklin. Rick Franklin. Okay. Um, do you know, um, off the top of your head or in front of you, the cost to keep or maintain that building? So, I can tell you we spent about $10,000 a year in utility costs alone. Um, they've had a preliminary investigation done and there's probably 60 to $70,000 worth of improvements that need to be done right away. Um, so looking at that, you're probably, if you said you were going to set aside money, you're probably 25 $30,000 a year. And then were you bringing also bringing in a little bit of revenue, renting it out or something? Very small. Very small. Very small. Um, and that's all I had. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Details are in the packet, too, if you need to Oh, pull it out. You want me to work for it? Okay. Yeah. Just letting you know it's in there, too. All righty. Is there Is there any public comments? I think we only have one person from the public here. Everybody else is staff or press. So, okay. Okay. Well, we'll move uh next uh

scheduled council meeting is 2025 12-10 regular meeting. Um, if no one else has anything to say or contri