City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the uh city council work session meeting to order. Um I'd like to call on Jeff Huncker, public works director, to present the topic. Good. All right. Thank you, Council President. So, tonight we're going to be having a work session on the wastewater master plan update. Um this is going to be the first of multiple meetings over the next year uh as we tighten up the policy decisions we want to make around our wastewater system and its growth. Um so I'm using today as more of a uh information baseline setting. Uh so unfortunately you gave an engineer a microphone so you're going to get to hear a whole lot about something that you do not find very interesting but that's just kind of the way it goes with uh sewer infrastructure. So why is these are these master plan updates important? Um the biggest reason is for regulatory compliance. So to be able to discharge into our into the South Hill River, our waste water after it's been treated, we have to have a national pollutant discharge elimination system or NPDES permit. Uh right now we are working uh handinhand with DEEQ to update that permit that should be happening uh this calendar year. Um and this is the first update we've had since about 2009. We've been administratively extending it for some time. Um also it's important just to be ready for growth. Um infrastructure kind of has to be in place before the growth happens. uh you can't build it after the fact or else you're going to run into issues. Um also the infrastructure we do have is obviously aging. That's just the nature of it and that's across the country. And we want to have good financial sustainability. We want to be

good stewards of the um sewer rates and the SDC's and all the other money that the residents are paying to for the city to be able to operate this system as efficiently as possible. So, our last update um was almost two decades ago now. It was last updated and adopted by the council in 2008. Since that time, we've had regulatory changes. Um the system has gotten quite a bit bigger and obviously it's 18 years older than it was. So, we have to take all that into account when we do a new update. Um, I will add that that's a very long time between master plan updates. Even though they're 20-year plans, usually best practice is to update them within a 5 to 10 year window. Uh, just because so much can change. U, you know, these are planning level and uh estimates. They're planning level decisions and a lot changes. Just, you know, five years ago, we were in the middle of pandemic. Stuff was looking quite a bit differently. 10 years ago was we were a preandemic world and so there's all these things that you want to take into account. So you want to be updating these plans probably more often than we have been. So what was in the plan that we had? So the scope for the work with our consultant um the biggest body of work is the hydraulic modeling and the analysis of the conveyance system. So that starts with we do flow monitoring throughout the entire system to see how it reacts during storms and we tighten up that model and then we extrapolate from there what will happen in different uh storm events. So that's a big body of work that's included. We also look at the treatment plant not just the capacity but from a regulatory review. Are we handling the chemicals that we need to be getting out of the uh the

wastewater? Are we handling the temperature correctly? all that. Uh, one thing we did add in the middle of the project was a SCADA system assessment. So, your SCADA system is essentially your telemetry system. It's how you're able to control and monitor the system uh via computer as it's uh as it's in operation. So, is that valve open or not? you can monitor that on a computer as opposed to going out and taking the time to see is the valve open or not. So those systems get older and so we added that assessment to this plan. And then the big one at the end of the plan is you'll end up with a 20-year CIP. And that 20-year CIP will be the recommended projects that the city um is going to move forward with. And then we'll base our rate structures and our SDC structures on that capital improvement plan as well as what we do with our day-to-day operations. I should have said if there's any questions as we go, feel free to stop me. I didn't build in uh time for or slides for questions this time around. So, since it's a 20-year plan, we need to have goalpost. What are we aiming at for? DEEQ actually sets the biggest goalpost for us. They say that we have to have a system that operates um during a 5-year design storm without overflowing into the river. So, a 5-year design storm is basically a storm that statistically would happen once every 5 years. That doesn't mean it always happens every 5 years. Sometimes you could get two in a year. Sometimes you might not get one for 10 years, but that's the size of the storm that we're designing for. So what that really translates to is we need to be planning for our peak wet

weather flow. So daytoday if it's not raining the sewer system is not at capacity. It's not near capacity. However, when it rains heavily the flow that goes through the system and into the plant um quadruples. So there's a lot of water that gets into the system during rain events. And so that's really what we're designing for in that 5-year storm is the amount of flow that we're going to be seeing in the system with all that additional water. So what that looks like at the plant, it's being able to handle that much, but within the conveyance system, one of the things we designed for is a pump station firm capacity. So that's assuming that one of the pumps is going to be out at the pump station. So we always build redundancy into them. So if it's a pump station with three pumps, we would assume the largest pump is out of service. We might be working on it. It might have failed, whatever it might be, but the pump station would still operate with the remaining two pump stations and not overflow. Then for the piping and manhole system, we look at when we plan for a minimum of 3T of headboard. So when the system is full of water, we would say it's at capacity if the water level in the manholes is getting within three foot of the rim. So that's basically leaving you that range that if something happens downstream that you have to fix, it's not going to start over topping and sewage start coming out of manholes in the city. So those are the two big uh assumptions that we make when we do our uh planning is that pump station firm capacity and that minimum freeboard. Then since it's a 20-year plan, we also look at the 20-year growth horizon. So how the system operates today and then we extrapolate how we think the system will operate in 20 years if we do nothing and then obviously if we do these improvements how would it operate?

We also have to do whatever permit compliance is required. So likely with our DEQ permit this time around they're going to add a temperature requirement for the summer months. uh right now that requirement we would not hit uh for any of the summer months. And so they don't start um they don't start dinging you right away. What they'll say is you need to have a five-year plan for how you're going to address this temperature issue 5 years from now and then we'll come back and check and make sure that you've done whatever upgrades are needed to deal with those that temperature that you're putting into the river in the summertime. That's probably our biggest one compliance-wise that's going to change this time around. And then also we try to anticipate regulatory changes just to have it in our plan. So one of the things that we monitor right now is the regulations around POS those forever chemical forever plastics forever chemicals. And so what would it take to have the plant be able to switch from a liquid bioolid to a cake bioolid that we dewater completely and we wouldn't we would no longer be putting on farmland but we'd be storing at um like a landfill. What would it take for us to have our plant do that? So we try to anticipate all that and include those in our analysis. I'm sorry, I had a question on that. That last example, is that something that they're encouraging us to do or is that just a case in point example?

It's more of an example. Um, and they're not encouraging us right now. Uh the EPA is doing a lot of work around what is going on with Forever Chemicals, the POS, the POA, and one of the things they're really looking at is what happens if you do put it on um farmland. So what we do at the city is we take our bioolids and we use it for fertilizer and we give it to free give it for free to farmers and they use it for fertilization in the in the valley. about half of the country's bioolids are used as fertilizer on farmland. So EPA is really watching it. What is the actual issue there? Because if they came down with that regulation, that's a massive change across the country where you're no longer able to um put your bioolids down as fertilizer. You would be having to take them to landfills. And for our community that means we'd have to be driving it all the way to coffin but every single time. So the dewatering when we anticipate the regulatory changes we say well what would that take to do? Um how would we dewater that to make that cake that's easier to transport and lessen the amount of times we're driving to coffen but so we need to make sure we have what that cost will be if it comes up. How much land we would need at the wastewater treatment plant to build a facility for that. what would it look like to truck at all that thing? We try to anticipate all that and it's comes in as in the form of recommendations from the consultant, but then it's the council's job to give staff direction how we'd like to prioritize that. Is that a risk that we're willing to run? Do we want to have a policy that we're ahead of this and we're that's what we want to do? Are we going to just meet the regulations as they come? whatever that might be. And then we would give you what that's going to cost and what that would mean for

your rates and everything. So that's a policy decision. That's the kind of stuff we'll be talking about over the next year. Any other questions or did that answer your question, council president? Okay. So we're still working on the master plan. The consultant's still working kind of where we're at today. That flow monitoring is complete and that modeling is complete. So we now have a working model that tells us as best we can what would happen in different storm events. If we add additional flows in different parts of town, how would would the pipes react? That's information that's very important, especially at our uh development review level. The city engineer can use that information to evaluate if any improvements need to be accelerated in the system potentially because of a development that's going to have a large impact on the system, things like that. They've also completed their alternatives analysis uh especially at the plant where they're looking at the different options for how we would look deal with uh temperature or dewatering or whatever it might be. Right now the technical review by staff is ongoing. We have multiple members of our wastewater team and our engineering team reviewing every chapter as it comes in to um validate make sure that the information is correct. Um, we find things here and there like, u, oh, that piping is actually newer than that. We replaced that a while ago. We need to update the numbers in there because that gets taken into account in the valuation. They have the first draft of the CIP completed. The consultant does. That's what we're really reviewing right now. It's a big number. It's uh, in the 300 million plus range. I'm not saying that's the amount that it's going to be at the end of it. I'm just saying we asked somebody to come into our house, look at everything, tell us all the improvements that we could be making and what it would cost and they gave us a pretty large number and then we're going

to have to then do policy decisions around what does that actually look like for us? What can we have uh for rate increases? How do we want to build out a program? So, that's ongoing and that's going to be a lot of our next steps moving forward. And then finally, um, we've got our financial consultant, uh, to she's going to start working on our financial models. That's, uh, Deb Galardi. She's done a lot of work with the city in the past. So, she takes these recommendations and where we're at financially today and then builds some models of what it would take to be able to afford those different options. And that's information that we'll be bringing to the council uh next time in our next work session to to start really digging into the work. Um like I said, today is more of that information baseline so we can get right into the work because I know it's hard to get you guys for an hour here and there.

Yeah. Um obviously a very large number. Yes. Um, and can you remind me kind of how long we've gone neglect not doing some of this work? So, I wouldn't use the word neglect because we've actually completed all but one of the projects that list is listed in the old master plan.

The problem is we weren't updating it every 5 years. So parts of the system were kind of deteriorating and we weren't keeping up with how much. It's hard to you can't visually see the pipes most of the time. We we sent a video down them every once in a while, but it's hard to evaluate the entire system except for these large um uh projects that take a lot of staff time and dollars to complete. So, so if if under normal circumstances you would update every 5 years, then if it's 20-year program and we didn't update after the first 5 years, then it's basically gone 15 years without when you would normally update.

Correct. And I would say if there's areas that we probably should have been focusing on that we haven't been because we didn't have enough information, it was probably the conveyance system, just the aging system. how much of the additional uh flow is going into it. We probably should have been focusing on some more of those projects in the last 10 years, but you know, hindsight 2020 and there's also a lot of things that happened in the last 10 years with the pandemic and things like that that impact the ability for us to get work done. Is there um just because I feel like we'll have to explain to the community why we're looking at a number quite like that

when the financial modeling is done. Would it be prudent to actually show like what this cost would have been if we had done the first chunk of it like in 2020 or before? Um that's information that we could provide. Um, looking back, I prefer to look forward. So, we could also do more of an analysis of what would it look like if we put this off for 5 years? How much more are you going to be spending five years from now? All right.

I would recommend an analysis like that. Um, because that's more something that you all can control. Obviously, looking back, we can't go back and build more five years ago. It's just not going to work. So, but we can provide something like that and have our financial consultant speak to that when she comes in for the next work session. Okay. Thank you. Can you remind me along these lines how much money is currently sitting in our wastewater fund? I have a slide a little later that specific Okay, we can wait for that. So, I I don't want to say it wrong before I get there. I will be speaking to that. I just think it's good context. Yes. To this particular question. is being asked. Yep. Thanks.

Okay.

So, this is a quick background on the state of the system. I kind of just wanted to cover it. What what we found um the conveyance system. When I say the conveyance system, I'm speaking about the pipelines, the pump stations, and then the force mains coming out of the pump stations. So, obviously, they're aging. Uh that's just the nature of it. um we have a significant amount of inflow and infiltration. So inflow and infiltration I have a slide explaining that a little bit more but that's what it means when we're having that higher flow rate in the winter uh winter time specifically around a rain events. Um we are seeing structural deficiencies in select areas. That's not a holistic thing, but there are parts of town where the pipes are experiencing either uh deflections or protruding taps or other things that make them difficult to maintain. And then lots of our pump stations, we have a lot of pump stations in town. Um it we're in the actually James, do you know how many pump stations we have? I can't remember off the top of my head. It's even it's about a dozen. So we have a lot of them. They're all a lot of them are older. They're around that 30-year time frame. So, they're getting to the point where they are either reaching the end of their design life or they need to have capacity improvement, additional pumps, larger force mains, things like that. So this map is from our model and when I spoke earlier about the firm capacity and the minimum three-foot headboard, we have these areas that are circled in town that show that we hit our capacity based on those metrics. So we have multiple areas in town that would be considered at capacity right now again during that design storm, that fiveyear storm. for reference, a five-year storm. We experienced one this year back in December when the river was really full for those few days. It was around

December 16th through the 18th, I believe. That was a 5-year storm. So, it's a significant amount of water, but that's the goalpost that we're looking toward. So, for an example up here, one of the areas is the three mile lane area is circled as shown at capacity. So, that pump station's about 30 years old. It has three pumps in it. And during that five-year storm, the third pump kicked on multiple times. Now, the station was operating correctly. It pumped through. We didn't have any issue. But when we do our planning scenario, we assume one of those pumps isn't working. And in that scenario, we know that pump station would have been over capacity because it wouldn't have been able to handle that flow. It's a goalpost that we're going toward and it's really it's risk mitigation. So, we want to have belts and suspenders for systems like this. It's a little bit different than, okay, the water's gone out of my home. I can go stay in a hotel while I got the plumber working on it for a week. Um, there's no backup hotel for the city's uh wastewater system. And then we also have pipes in that system that are getting up in that higher uh minimum freeboard. We have some significant INI in that system upstream, but again, it's not shocking that system in that area is about 30 years old, and we're looking at a 20-year uh planning window. So, it's time for it to have some improvements. And those were identified, for example, in the McMendle landing project that we just went through. This is just a graphic that uh shows that inflow and infiltration a little bit better. We don't have a lot of inflow in this city. We do have a separate storm sewer system. So, um it handles a significant amount of the water that's on the surface and then um people's downspouts will go off their

roof gutters will go to the curb and go into the inlets in the city. So, we don't have a lot of illegal connections where storm water is directly going into the pipes, which is great. There are some areas that that's a significant problem. Uh downtown Portland is the one that's always the one in the paper. Downtown Portland has a combined sewer system. So they had to build that big pipe which is a massive pipe that runs along the Wamtt that just holds excess rainwater and waste water during those events. So that's not a much of a problem for us. But again, we do have a lot of that infiltration which is ground water seeping into the joints and the pipes. you know, they all have rubber gaskets, a 30, 50 year old rubber gasket. It doesn't seal the best. Um, manholes are similar. They're concrete rings stacked on each other. They have joints and um gaskets in between those. Those get old, water seeps in. So, that's one of our biggest issues for why we have so much additional flow during our rain events. on the treatment system. So, the plant and the raw sewage pump station. Uh it's actually continuing to perform pretty well. The biggest issue is at our raw sewage pump station, which is where the old plant used to be. That's our everything flows to that point and then gets pumped to the new plant location. And that's our main bottleneck in the city right now. The city's a giant funnel and that narrowing at the end of the funnel, that's the raw sewage pump station. So, back in December when we had that five-year storm, we did have an overflow at that location of about 600,000 gallons that uh flowed into the Yamhill without any full treatment. It was screened before it went out, but uh

so a lot of the big stuff got out, but it did not uh get go through our treatment system. We weren't the only ones that occurred to. We were actually probably one ones that was better off than a lot of communities. Um, but there was a lot of DEQ violations uh during that storm event. Um, but the plan itself is performing very well. We have a great plan staff um that keeps up on it, maintains the system on all that. Um, but because they're so good at their jobs there, we have a lot of equipment that's nearing the end of its life, too. That plant has been in operations, it was 30 years back in January. And so we have some pumps and things like that that are they're 30 years old and they're being used 247 all through the year. And we replace the parts of it that wear out as much as we can, but there's some equipment that we need to replace moving forward. Again, we talked about that changing regulatory requirements. It doesn't look to be like it's going to be a huge change for us this go round. mostly the temperature issue which there's multiple ways we can address that and then that future compliance planning like I talked about around things like POS and PIO um there is some work that could occur with growth in time. So this is a diagram of our plant. Uh the water flows from left to right on the screen as you can see. I find this amusing. They colorcoded it. So the brown water on the left and then it gets bluer as you go to the right. But um if we see the full amount of growth that is possible in the next 20 years, we would need to do an expansion of our secondary treatment which is that middle section with the aeration basin aeration basin and secondary clarifier. So in the last 20 years we did do an

expansion. So that third set of those um clarifiers and basins on the top of the screen there those were built in the last 20 years as expansion for plant capacity. Right now we're right on the ragged edge on the 20-year uh growth window of whether or not we would need a fourth treatment there. So that's probably going to be a policy discussion. Well, I know that's going to be a policy discussion we're going to be talking about in the uh coming months is are we planning for that full growth? Are we doing more of a wait and see and we're not going to include it for now? But we would direct staff that yes, you need to look at this again in five years so we make sure that that update we can see if we're going to need it. Are we on pace or not? Growth has slowed the last few years. So um and this process started a few a couple years ago. So growth is changing a little bit and we need to be able to adjust for that as we go. Then our SCADA system, our SKA system is old. Um we have a lot of legacy hardware and software, which is a nice way of saying we had a computer that was running on Windows 8 recently. So we got some old stuff. Um it's not big dollars, but it's important dollars. um these systems are getting more complicated as um as we develop new technologies and it's just a lot simpler to run it with a solid computer system than it used to be. Uh right now we have some limited redundancy. We're also losing institutional knowledge. Um Leland Kester, our wastewater services manager, is going to be retiring this year. He's actually working back for us right now as we transition, but he actually goes and reprograms some of these systems um himself. And so we're looking at a different model moving forward because you can't rely on Lee being able to show

up every time we need to reprogram a PLC. Uh there's also cyber security considerations. That's directions from Department of Homeland Security of things that we have to do to um make our systems resilient so nobody can come in and start messing with stuff. We obviously work very closely with is to do that. And then there's other modernization opportunities that come along. Um as an example, this is one of the typical PLC's, which is the programmable logic controllers at the plant. This is just one of them. Uh there's a lot of pieces to it and that's the kind of thing that we want to make sure that's modernized and um built with some more resiliency in it because obviously if something in there goes out it could take a while to figure out exactly what's going on. There's a lot going on there. Uh any questions on that?

I thank you. Um Council President, I actually have a question several slides back. Okay. Uh um you don't have to go to it. Okay. But just just know that this I'm I'm several slides back. You made a comment about um the three mile lane area. Um I've heard numbers and I they're not being they're not firm and fast numbers. They've just kicked around numbers of $20 million needed for infrastructure out of three lane. Is that including what's needed for wastewater or is not including what's needed for wastewater?

That was including what was needed for wastewater. So there was about 14 million in piping identified of improvements needed. Some of that's onsite for the landing that would be done as part of the development. Some of that is piping that we need to uh upsize. Okay. And that includes the pump station remodel. Pump station that wasn't included in those numbers because it's numbers that are already part of the plan. But there's an additional 4 million in pump station improvements that we just need to make anyway. Even if the landing wasn't moving forward right now, that pump station's at its capacity and it's getting older. So, we just need to do that upgrade. Okay. So, it does in 20 million includes this stuff.

Yeah, it includes the piping. I don't believe it included the 4 million for the pump station. Perfect. Thank you.

Um, so that was the state of the system as it is now. And then obviously we take that as our baseline and we then project out that 20 years and what is that system going to look like in 20 years. So obviously if we did nothing it would look the same as it is now just 20 years older. But so we want to take into account um that population and business growth that build out in the UGB and the three mile lane area all those additional flows. Uh we also look at increased wet weather intensity as we look at uh climate change. We see stronger storms um here and there. So what we assume is a fiveyear storm now after we get some more data in the next few years that might actually not be a fiveyear storm. That might have been a two-year storm. They might occur more often. Um so that's something everybody's planning around right now. That's a direction from uh the EPA to be looking at that. We assume regulatory tightening is going to occur. Um all this stems from the Clean Water Act from 1972 and the Clean Water Act does not has a no backsliding clause in it. So uh regulations can only tighten, they cannot loosen. Uh it would take a pretty sizable work by Congress to walk back the Clean Water Act and um that's for them to figure out if they want to do something like that. But that's a large body of work. So, we always assume that the regulatory uh environment is going to be tightening and then of course we're going to assume our assets are aging and they're going to reach life cycles that they're going to need to be replaced. So going back to that same map from before, if we assumed all that buildout of our system that's at capacity now during these design storms, we just see more red along in the same areas mostly some obviously uh areas on the west side of town that we plan for the growth of

the southwest area, the area around Fox Ridge, that's just going to be seeing a lot more flow in the future. So we know that there's upgrades needed on the system there. um the north side of town, we're kind of starting to get limited by the the river, but we're also seeing um that there'll be some growth in the industrial area. So, we want to be prepared for that. So, with all that information, what we get, like I said, from the consultant is a recommended capital improvements list. It's a large list. Like I said, it's the 300 million plus range. Again, that's not going to be the final list. that's what their professional opinion is on all these things. We ask them to take in consideration what would it cost to address all of them and then we do the harder work of what is exactly right for this community on size on rates and all that stuff. So the the projects that did come out of it uh the largest one is an offline storage. So, one way to address that fact that we had a overflow at the Rosage pump station is we could build a storage tank that could hold those additional flows during a 5-year storm. So, that's the single largest project that's been identified that is needed. It's a project that's needed in the near term and it's very large. So, that's one that is being really scrutinized and looked at by our engineering team right now. They're actually going to be talking to another firm to get um another opinion on it. So, we make sure we know the cost of that project. Uh there's also treatment plant upgrades needed mostly in equipment. Um you know, x amount of dollars a year to replace pumps, uh PLC's, things like that. This this master plan has a lot more work needed on the conveyance system,

that rehab and that upsizing. So again, pipes that are getting older might need to be upsized. So we can kill two birds with one stone, upsize it and replace it at the same time. The pump stations similar, they need to be replacing the pumps. We'll upsize the pumps and look at that at the same time. The SCADA modernization I talked about. then uh an INI reduction program. That's something we've been doing for years. It's um when it was originally considered as part of the last master plan, it hasn't resulted in as much reduction as we were hoping, but they are still good projects. And it's work that we want to do as we replace piping, especially in neighborhoods. The project we did at Chandler's last year is a good example where we're switching out old pipes with HDP pipe that doesn't have as many joints, things like that. And then like I spoke about a little bit about earlier that fourth train in the treatment plant for capacity. It's right on the edge when you look at the high growth numbers 20 years out. So are we considering planning for that now or are we looking at more of a wait and see and see how we do uh over the next few years with growth and if it's still going to be needed. So those are all the amount of recommended projects. So that's where you get that 300 million plus is all those put together. But what we end up with, I know isn't going to be that number. It's we're going to have to do some work and figure out what exactly works right for the city. Uh counselor, this is to speak to where we're at financially right now. So the system, the model or financial model that got adopted when the city built the uh the new wastewater treatment plant back in the 90s was a um no debt model. So pay as you go. So right now we have an unappropriate ending fund balance of about 33 million. That's money saved in the bank that's

not dedicated for anything. That's money that goes to f funding capital projects. So that's that pay as you go SIS model. We also have about 5 million in inner fund loan payback. So the wastewater fund was used to borrow money over the last few years. That money has to be paid back within a 5-year window when it's capital investments. So we also know that we have money coming back to us of about 5 million by fiscal year 29. So part of that pay as you go, we bring in about 11 million a year in sewer fees, but about six million of that goes to capital allocation. So we use about 5 million to operate our system dayto-day. And then we save about 6 million or spend about 6 million every year based on how the model works currently. And our SDC's bring in about 700,000 in additional revenue. So if you combined all those things, our potential spending power over the next five years would be about $70 million. So that's an important baseline of where we are at today, which is a very large number for uh a city. The city's uh model um is really nice. Most cities are looking at debt and bonding and things like that, and we'll have to look at it, too. But we're in a really good starting point and we can take the time to make some of these decisions because we have that additional money in the bank based on prior council policy. So, one of those things like I talked about, we'll be talking about these future funding options and we'll get into this a lot more um when we start having some numbers for you that we can talk about with our financial consultant at our next work session. We'll be obviously looking at that continued pay as you go model. you're going to be seeing likely rate increases. I don't know how much, but the rates do increase. Um, we've held them pretty the increases have been pretty low over the last five, six years. There was three

years during the pandemic where there was no increases to the rates and then the last couple years we've done a two and a half rate two and a half% rate increase and we'll likely be bringing a two and a half rate uh% rate increase again to the council for this year to consider as we work through this process. And then obviously the SDC's are going to be increasing because these projects that are designed for growth uh if we follow a growth pays for growth uh funding model we'll want to increase the SDC's to cover those projects that SDC owned. But we'll also want to look at potential accelerated programs since we're at capacity now. We'll also want to consider what it means to move forward at a rate where you're spending higher than that seven million right now or whatever it might be if you do some rate increases. If we discuss accelerator programs, we're going to be discussing things like revenue bonds. Revenue bonds are voted on by the city council who sets the rates because the bond market and whoever we bond from will ask that we raise our rates to make sure that their interest is getting paid back every year on that loan. So that's one thing that can can be considered for an accelerated program. Another thing that can be considered obviously is grants and appropriations. That's just good business to be looking for those in all the time. Um we have u a government relations program here at the city where we're talking with staff from different representatives that are um in seats where they can help us get money from the state, from the federal government, things like that. Then another thing to consider, you don't have to go to the bond market. There's also government loans, uh, state revolving fund loans are alone. They're low interest loans that come from the state. Um, and then there's also many of these projects would qualify for an EPA WIFIA loan, which is the Water Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Act loan. That's just an example. I've

done a WIFIA program at a previous city that was about a $170 million program with WIFIA. So obviously if you're getting money from the federal government, it's going to come with additional rules on how you can spend the money. You're going to be doing a lot more u administrative work tracking all that. Um but there's also some nice things about those kind of loans. Uh sometimes they have much better interest rates than the bond market does, which can save you millions on the life of the loan. Uh, another thing that's specific to WIFFIA, but other loans have this is when you create your project of maybe 7 million in invest or seven years of investment would be considered a project. You wouldn't have to start paying back the loan until the end of that seven years. So that allows you time to increase your rates at a um a longer slope, I guess, or instead of doing a quick spike, doing a program like that, you could increase those rates more slowly over time. So that's another thing that we'd want to consider if we were looking at accelerator programs. And so this is all stuff that we be talking about once we have better idea of what these numbers mean for rates and SDC's. So, where we're at today is kind of just going over the system overview. Uh, we have our financial consultant working now and so we'll come back in the next quarter to discuss those preliminary rates and SDC's, what those numbers look like, the cost of those projects so we can start getting some feedback from the council on is that much too high is that oh, we think we could actually spend more accelerated. We want to draw it out, make it more even over time. is if it's a 200 million year $200 million program, are you spending exactly 10 million a year or over that 20 years or are you accelerating and doing 80 million in the first five to catch up and then going

slower after that? These are all policy discussions that we'll have to have. Um hopefully we'll be adopting the the plan in quarter three with those finalized rates and SDC's and then moving into whatever funding uh strategy implementation and what that will take uh from the council moving forward at the end of the uh the year. So like I said there'll be those policy considerations. What is our risk tolerance? Um, obviously when you design for a 5-year storm, there's still risk there. There's still the chance of a 10-year storm, of a 50-year storm occurring that you're not going to be designing for. We can't design for everything. Um, it would be an unreasonable amount of infrastructure and actually becomes more difficult to maintain over time if you oversize it so much because you're building things you don't need that aren't being used very often. And sewer pipes, they have slope in them for a reason. They're self cleaning. So if the pipes get too big, the water flows through too slow and so then they start to back up and it increases our maintenance. Uh we'll have to talk about prioritization of goals with housing, with um uh businesses, with employment centers, things like that. We'll have to talk about that pace of project delivery. Um, right now what's in the preliminary plan is, I'll be honest, much more aggressive than what we could actually pull off with the resources we have as staff. So, that's one thing we know right away is we couldn't jump up to staff everything right away. We'd have to decide how we're going to staff up or do a a program with a consultant to help us get through this stuff. So, that pace is very important. That cash flow is very important. It's probably a bigger decision moving forward is that cash flow than the overall numbers at the end. Um again that debt versus pay as you go philosoph uh philosophy. Are

we stabilizing that rate? Are we increasing it slowly? And then um probably adopting some kind of policy for staff to be looking at these plans more often than what we have been in the past. Um, that's something I'd like to look at so we have best practices and we're coming up with numbers uh for you all every five years to consider, not every 20. Uh, so that kind of summarizes everything and at the request of the council president when we were talking about this meeting could be an email, this meeting could also be a haiku. So using AI, I quickly threw this presentation in and the haiku that came up that the AI came up with was uh aging pipes below, storms rise, permits tighten fast, we plan 20 years.

Very good. So with that, I'll take any other questions that you all may have. Council, any questions? Chris, so I'm not really worried about the WIFIA administrative uh load because I know you have lots of time on your hand to take care of all that for us. Um, and I mean that tongue and cheek. um when it comes to uh the um SDC's

and the financial uh picture you're going to paint for us going forward, can I assume you're going to do this and if not, can we have this can we have a clear delineation of how much of this $300 million is part going to be covered by SDC um funds? Um so that that's really clear to us and then also how much SDC's have already been uh uh uh taken in that would apply to those specific projects that would be very helpful.

We will do that and it's actually a requirement to build your SDC methodology that you have to parse out what is growth related what's not or else you violation of the constitution and the takings clause if you're charging de development for work that they're not using. So, we have to do that. That's requirement. Very aware that you have to do that, but just can you My question more is aimed at providing me with spoonfed information that I can digest um that then I can also present to my constituents. I'll make sure to let Deb know. She's much better about explaining financial numbers than I am. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. Any other questions? Nope. All right. Uh, with that I will adjourn the meeting at 6:47 p.m. and we will start the city council meeting at the regular time 7 o'clock.

Recording stopped. Appreciate it.

That's a Kim thing. Yeah. Council mayor, please stand United States of America to theublic.

Thank you. Uh this is now the uh part in our meeting where we get comments from community members. Any interested audience members are invited to provide comments and any comment provided that requires some type of follow-up will be assigned to a staff member. Anyone may speak on any topic other than a matter in litigation, a land use decision that is or will be in front of the city council, or a matter scheduled for public hearing at some future date. Comments will be limited to four minutes per person for a total of 32 minutes. If you're on Zoom and wish to speak, please use the raise your hand feature or chat feature and send the chat to the city recorder team. Uh you'll need to provide your contact information prior to being promoted to speak. Once your turn is up, we will announce your name and unmute your mic. Please announce your name and the city you live in for the record. We will start with those who have pre-registered. Claudia, who signed up for public comment today?

Before we start public comment, I do want to state we received an written communication from Aaron O'Neal that was emailed to the full council and will be made part of the amended packet. First, we have Jonathan Puka. Jonathan, welcome.

Hello, council. My name is Jonathan Polifka. I live here in McMinnville. Last time the council met, my brother asked the mayor for a direct public affirmation as to whether or not public safety is still a priority of this administration. Regarding federal law enforcement, public safety is still at risk due to ongoing violations and dismissals of due process rights and the right to freedom from illegal search and seizure. He asked why the mayor and council were not exploring any and all maneuvers by which they might address this real threat to our public safety. He did not receive a public response. The mayor and two of the council members, councelor Chris Chennowith and councelor Dan Tachulski have expressed vague concerns but have not publicly condemned these civil rights violations being done by ICE. I know that it is not customary to respond to a community member during the public comment section of these meetings. Though, as I understand it, the pres presiding officer has the power to make an exception. That would be S, I believe, tonight. Therefore, I'm willing to yield my time and any to any and all council members to explicitly communicate your stance now if you so choose. 2 minutes 30 something seconds. Do you choose?

Yeah, we're we're not going to be doing that. All right. In that case, I have two pertaining quotes to leave you with. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual, in putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government, and one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among the people. possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights. To know that human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons, and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by police. Quote, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. Second quote, we are directed or sorry, were we directed from Washington to sew and win to reap. We should soon want bread. It is by the distribution of powers among local authorities and each acting within its fear that the general government may be preserved. Thomas Jefferson. Thank you.

Next, we have Karen Stabin. Aaron, welcome.

Hi, good evening, council. My name is Karen Stabin. I'm a homeowner, taxpayer, and voter here in McMinnville. Some of you might know, but I was a special education teacher in elementary for 20 years. I currently work for George Fox. I work with teachers throughout the Wamut Valley who are becoming special education teachers. I also teach the law compliance class. Ever so exciting. What I want to talk to you today is about decisions that you guys are making. Sometimes we make decisions on optics. Hopefully those are girded by our integrity. Optics alone are not necessarily bad. Uh one of your considerations is the DEI committee. Optics would say and has been said that there's a fear that if we have a DEI committee that the feds might not give us money. I would tell you that that optics decision is very harmful. one that has integrity where you support DEI says the city believes that we believes and supports diversity of culture, ethnicities and abilities that the city itself provides equitable services in a non-biased manner and that MAX supports access that allows full inclusion no matter the color of the skin or your abilities. You also have some decisions on optics. Sorry, optics and integrity. One of the optics decisions is whether or not you do a statement of support, not a declaration of emergency, whatever that is. To be honest with you, that's an optics decision. It's not going to do anything. However, the consequences of that optics decision is huge. It says to your community and to your businesses that you support them, that you recognize that we are in a time of crisis, a time of fear, and that this

city council is going to work to protect them. That's a decision of optics that is positive. We have some decisions, I think, that basically deal with integrity. And th that integrity is the same kind of standards that we hold our own police department to. I would request that you demand that ICE provide identity when they are asked for it. We do that with our own police officers. I would ask that you demand that ICE and Border Patrol not wear masks. Our own officers do that. I would ask that you direct specifically that our police step in when illegal activity happens. Warrantless arrests, warrantless searches, and seizures. I would ask that you demand that ICE and Border Patrol provide information. When our officers make a legal arrest, we know where that person is. They have access to counsel. That is not true for our our residents and our workers in McMinnville. They're taken and sometimes their families do not know where they are. So what I'm asking you to do is to it's not always that optics is bad. But when integrity guards your decisions that means you are saying to your city, we're here to protect you. We're here to support you. We're here to serve you. And the color of your skin or your disability doesn't matter. Thank you. Next we have Ames Beerley.

Ames, welcome.

Hey, thanks. My name is Ames Beerley. I'm a resident of McMinnville. I just have a short uh comment today. I want to thank you for convening the committee to explore an emergency statement regarding ICE activity here in McMinnville. I think that was a wonderful positive step. It's a good start to building a future where all residents of McMinnville feel safe and looked after by their local leaders. I wanted to share a couple other actions from cities in Oregon as an example of what we could eventually see in McMinnville if we continue this work. Uh the leaders of Woodburn have decided that local police can and should actually be present for ice activity with body cameras. This holds federal agents accountable for their actions, which is currently not happening in McMinnville. I hope that MAC PD can learn from their example. Hillsboro has set up an incredible array of links on their website that point people to partnering organizations and resources, clearly showing that the city is being proactive in caring for the residents. Um, many cities partner with local organizations such as Unidos here in McMinnville, which shows residents who they can turn to with questions and needs outside the realm of the city's capabilities. I look forward to hearing the um progress and the process that the subcommittee takes at future meetings. Thank you.

That is everyone that signed up. Thank you, Claudia. Uh we'll now move into the uh consent agenda. We have uh three items on the consent agenda. Would any member of the council like uh to move item from the consent agenda to the regular order time? Nope. Seeing none, I will take a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Claudia, can you please take the role? Councelor Kenham. I. Councelor Tokolski. I councelor Chinwith I council president Peralta

I uh the consent agenda passed unanimously. Uh we will now move to the uh business section of our meeting. We have one item on the agenda and that is the ward 3 vacancy announcement and discussion. I will now call on uh city attorney David Lightenberg to introduce the topic.

Thank you council president. Um you will see in your packets that there is a report on the details regarding what we are talking about here tonight. Um some very basic parameters of what we do in the situation where there's a vac vacancy on the council are laid out in the charter but the details of that process are not. And so we have brought some possibilities and some areas for your consideration to work our way through tonight. Um you'll note that the charter calls for two kinds of replacements. One is an appointed replacement and one is an elected replacement. The elected replacement occurs if there is following an appointed replacement at the time of a general election if there is time left on that seat. In the case of the seat at issue, there is not time left and therefore there will not be an elected replacement following the appointed replacement. The appointed replacement that we talk about here tonight will sit until a duly elected subsequent person for that seat is elected. Um, and so let's talk about how exactly you might like that to look. We've presented this in a hopefully very straightforward series of questions. Um, here we go. Question number one, how exactly would you like to look for possible people to fill this seat? The charter says that you must appoint somebody. And the options put forward on

both your report and on the screen in front of you are based on some options that were presented to council the last time this occurred. based on what seems like possible good sense, but ultimately the ability to point in the process will be up to you. Would you like to pursue one of these options to discuss these options? Go ahead. Um, I think before we discuss the options, I'd like to just read the two letters from uh councelor Giri and from Mayor Morris to give their perspectives if that's uh acceptable to the body. Um, so the first is from Mayor Morris. Um, I wanted to share my opinion on filling the vacated seat of councelor Payne. I think we should post the position as soon as possible and accept applications. Chosen application should be allowed to run for office in November. I would suggest a three-week or so posting. I would be cautious about interviews being the week of spring break. Some people may not be available that week. Uh I think applicants shouldn't be disclosed until the interview. That's Mayor Morris. Councelor Giri um says uh send a reminder that he's not going to be at the meeting and says one agenda item I'd like to provide my feedback on is ne uh is the vacancy appointment for W three. I think we should move to fill the spot soon, not leave it open. I do not think we should limit the applicants to only people who will or won't run in November. I think our application period should be open and we should interview potential candidates on the work session prior to March 10th meeting. we can deliberate and decide that night in a public meeting or schedule a follow-up for March 24th if needed. I'm also fine to hold it open for longer and we interview and decide on the 24th of March. I think we should appoint someone before March is over. Additionally, it isn't addressed in the staff report, but in case it comes up, I would not support any pre-screening of candidate

applicants beyond verifying their council eligibility requirements. So, with that, I'll I'll open it up to the uh conversation that uh city attorney asked for. Um, councelor Shadowwith looks like he's ready to speak. Yeah, clarification since I don't have any children currently in school. When is spring break? 23rd through the 27th. So, the the the concern of the 24th is what what was addressed by the mayor.

Okay. Um, I would say I I would lean to position A on question one. Just so you are aware, the attached resolution to the staff report contemplates um, choice A.

Yeah. Um I I am also in agreement with the staff report and and uh councelor Chenwith here. Um I guess the question that I would have is uh if it got this might be a Claudia question too. Uh if it got posted immediately tomorrow, looks like our city meeting on the 10th would be would be the end of the third week. Uh, is there is that even possible to no pull that together? Okay, that's what I was wondering. Um,

so if I may speak to that, our our next couple questions are going to deal with timelines in particular. You'll note both in the staff report and on those questions that we contemplate a start of these weak periods on March 9. Um, that would allow the city recorder time to get things in place for receiving applications as well as to advertise in the newspaper. Okay, I'll be quiet then. Yeah, thank you. I'd like to advertise for the position. Okay,

that was easy. Question number two, how long a recruitment period? Contemplate two weeks, 3 weeks, four weeks. That could take uh all of March or just the 9th through the 20th or something in between. Uh councils, you have a comment? Yeah. If we selected letter B and had the 3-w week, March 27 would be the end. Would it be possible to have the interviews the following week? That is the question from the next slide.

Okay. when interviews would follow this. It's good to have them together. Um those concepts are put together in the staff report as well, but at some point all these dates are flying around in my head. So, let's do our best to nail that down. Um, the staff report mentions the possibility in a 3-week recruitment of interviews at either a special council meeting the week of April 6th or during the April 14th work session time slot and then appointment which would be in our next question would be either the same night or a subsequent possibility. Yeah, I I would support letter B with a special meeting the week of the six.

Okay, gentlemen. Ditto. Yeah. B. All right. I hear a 3-week recruitment and following. Um, councelor Takowski mentioned April 6th. That was the soonest option under the 3-week recruitment. I see a nod from councelor Chennowith. Do we generally have consensus with regard to that timeline? This is going fast. Uh that April 6th would be the special session. Special session. Okay. Um is is that a actual holiday? It's Monday of Easter. No, not it's not a holiday for city staff.

I don't know why I've got it. It just says Easter Monday. Sorry. So that is Monday, April 6 would be a special called meeting for interviews. And we don't have to do Monday, April 6. I just said week of April 6. So I can send out a poll to figure out which day uh last works best for everyone. I'm I'm good with not Tuesday.

All right. We uh unless I am hearing otherwise right now. I'm hearing week of the 6th as a consensus here with Claudia to poll later. I would propose April 8th. That's Wednesday. Right. Do we want to pursue more specific or follow the poll? April 8th. Since we don't Excuse me. Since we don't have the full council here, I think we should probably just do a poll um online. Okay. This particular decision won't be made by um vote or resolution tonight. It's just color to add to what is adopted tonight. Thank you for the input.

Yeah. And I and I just would like to say just for the record, one of the reasons I really favor doing this as a special session rather than replacing a work session is I feel like this ought to be put as a special only to itself item. Nothing else should be there. We should be focused on just this. Okay. To follow up on that concept, the final question in this series of slides is would you hope to appoint at the meeting where you conduct interviews or at a subsequent meeting? C. We'll go this way this time. Council generous.

Um, yeah, I would like to do it the way we did it the previous time we ran into this, which we appointed it at the meeting. We we had the vote at the council meeting and voted until we had an answer. Okay. Cuttingham. That's fine by me. I'm I'm on board.

Excellent. Thank you for consensus. Um you have outlined the process as will either be uh followed or followed up on. Now, with regard to finalizing, we have a resolution attached to your staff report that uh announces the open announces the vacancy and authorizes the city recorder to receive applications for this process, which would be following the decision you made in your first question. If you have any questions or discussion, I'd be happy to entertain them. Otherwise, maybe somebody would like to move that resolution. Uh if we have any questions, bring them up or otherwise I'll take a motion.

I'll motion the uh resolution 2026-12 move forward declaring the vacancy on the city council and the advertisement period. So moved or second, sorry. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Um Claudia, can you please take role? Councelor Cunningham, I. Councelor Tolski, I. Councelor Chennowith, I. Council President Peralta. I thank you all.

Uh the uh resolution passes on a unanimous vote. We will now move into advice and consent items. Uh we'll start with reports uh from counselors and on committee and board assignments. We'll go ahead and start to my left. Yeah, I have nothing new to report from the airport commission.

Okay. Uh councelor Cunningham. Uh, I did not have any committee assignments, although I did join my fellow counselor here and the mayor at the EV V the economic vitality leadership council. Thank you. Uh, which was held at Evergreen. We did a lunch out there with a a really good turnout of local businesses, uh, business owners, uh, business managers. Um, and it was predominantly a listening session where we really got to listen to the needs of our local businesses. Um, and really, you know, they were all very vocal, uh, which was great and, uh, gave us a lot of input. Uh, I also joined um, chamber of commerce uh, greeters that we hosted as the city here on Friday and it literally filled this entire room. Um, so that was pretty amazing and and uh I didn't realize how many selfies everyone took. That's was new to me. Uh, and then that night uh with a another with councelor Chenith or not Chenith, sorry, uh, Takulski and the mayor. We also had the MDA annual dinner that night. Uh, and that was fantastic. Excellent. That's all we got.

Thank you, Councelor Chenet.

Yeah. Uh thank you councelor Cunningham for mentioning the EVLC um business forum. Um uh we put that on as an opportunity for businesses to kind of express to the city areas where the city's doing well and areas where the city could improve and I heard a lot of both. Um thank you very much for attending and making that a priority. Um, EVLC met. We are still in the process of putting together our um, priorities list for 2026, maybe 2027. Um, we have put together two subcommittees. Um, I will bring be bringing more of that to your attention. Um, and after the next meeting when I have my priorities or not my priorities, the the EVLC's priority list ready so I can bring that all to you in one sitting. Um, but I'm excited about what's happening at the EVLC and I hope that you will hear that and see that in what's coming forward. Um, uh, the MWAC, the McMinnville or not McMinnville, sorry, Midwell Lamant Area Commission on Transportation met. We are still going through SIP at at the state level. Um, this is a process whereby we're going to be listing um five to 10year project out projects that we would like to see done um by ODOT. Um it will go to the uh Oregon Transportation Commission and then hopefully find funding to get those projects done. Um we are just one step away from completing the list that we'll be turning in. It's going to have four, I think, priority projects and a total of 10 overall projects. Um there's still opportunity for um comments um for those who are interested uh maybe Heather um to have items put on this list as potential items that will be put into the four to 10 year horizon for ODOT.

Um and I think that's all that I have. Thank you.

Thank you councelor. Um, I attended the uh city's greeters event with the Chamber of Commerce last Friday. We had about 100 people here. Thank you, Councelor Cunningham, for attending that. Uh, we had a planning commission meeting last week that I was not able to attend. Uh, I met with the, uh, chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Casey Jama to discuss an advisory work group on local government policies related to immigration uh, following the current legislative session. And just as a reminder, the council of government's uh annual meeting is March 4th, which I'll be attending with uh city manager Garvin. Um with that, I will move to department head reports. We will start with director Katie Henry.

Thank you, Council President. I do not have much to report from finance besides budget, budget, budget. It's all budget right now. Thank you,

Director Richards. Yes. Thank you, uh, council president and counselors. Uh, wanted to remind you, uh, we've extended an invitation to you to tour Stratus Village before the remaining buildings before they open up. And, uh, there's two buildings there already occupied March 3rd at 1 p.m., if you could get back to me if you intend to tour, that be be great. So, I can let Vicki know that. Um, I would encourage you to take the tour. It's a fabulous facility. um the the design story is very very intentional and learning the uh backstory of the decisions that they've made on several of their elements is very interesting. So um I would take advantage of that. Uh also wanted to let you know on some permits we've issued recently. We uh issued the Valley Vista permits. That's a 96 unit um housing project that is also on Stratus Avenue that just got issued I believe yesterday. So, we should start seeing that move forward. Um, that developer worked hard with Northwest Log. I I think you're familiar that there was some um concerns there and they worked together to to work through some of those concerns. I'm hoping that that was amicable across the board at the end. Uh, we issued permits for the new U-Haul facility on 99 and then we are getting close to issuing permits this week for uh three buildings on the west side development. The west side development is the six acres by Baker Creek and Hill Road. That's a commercial development with multifamily um pro uh buildings as well. So excited to see all those move forward. Thank you for attending the annual dinner for the McMinnville Downtown Association. It was good to see the the city presence there. I also wanted to let you know uh the the mayor has been working hard at this state legislative level on the Alpine Avenue phase 2 request that we have the funding

request we have in for that uh so that we can move that project forward and then at the same time we've started working with Murrack on putting together um a scope of work to start the design process for that. So we have a design for the first four blocks. Now the question is do we mirror that? Do we refine it? So, we change it slightly and then also getting the survey underway so that we're ready to go um and uh move forward with 100% construction documents if we're able to get those funds from the state. So, that's starting as well. Um and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, director. Um city attorney Lightenberg.

Thank you, Council President. Nothing from the legal department tonight. Thank you, City Manager Garvin. Thank you, Council President. Uh, as you said, we're going to attend the COG dinner next week as well as with Councelor Cunningham is going to attend that with us as well.

Oh, nice. um met with communications manager Noel today and uh we're continuing to work on items two and three from the ICE policy considerations as far as uh postings and buildings and uh the information on the website about what to do if a detention's witnessed and how to report a hazardous vehicle left in the middle of the road. So, uh the goal is to have those live before your next council meeting in March. Um, I have a one-on-one tomorrow with John Deetsz, which is our monthly one-on-one through its council, and then we'll um be bringing that forward. So, more to come on that. Thank you.

Thank you, city manager. Uh, Chief Wood,

thank you. Uh, we're finishing the hiring process for the vacancy that we've had in our front office. Uh we have a candidate who's completed the background and completed that successfully. So we're hoping to have that position filled in the next couple of weeks. Uh I attended a meeting of the YCOM executive board. Uh we met and discussed revisions to the 190 membership agreement. Uh and the board has asked for additional work on the agreement by the uh user group subcommittee that was doing that. and we hope to have that back from them to uh work on some more at a work session that's scheduled for next month, I believe March 10th. Uh I attended the quarterly business leader forum with other members of city staff. Um and I think that's pretty much it.

Chief Director Huner. Uh yeah, just a quick update. I feel like I used my word quota all in the work session, but um we are evaluating uh FBO proposals for the airport fixed based operator. Um that's ongoing right now. We had three proposals. Um and we're going to be bringing some to the airport commissions soon hopefully and then the council to set that contract up which will begin when the current FBO contract uh sunsets in at the end of June.

Great. Thank you, Director Hedges. In addition to the EVLC addendum that I'm working on, uh I'm working on a lot of other small not exciting things. Uh so I'll give you an update on training. We launched our annual training earlier this month. We have 8% already completed all of the training and another 24% that have started their training. So good work. So far they have until June to complete the training. Great.

Director Burke heard till June. So we're good. Uh we're continuing to press forward with the RMS uh the police records software project doing a lot of integration with YCOM with Yhill County, a lot of custom report writing and uh training classes and still in anticipating our May launch coming up fast and uh doing some technology refreshes over at the aquatic center where uh things tend to corrode pretty quickly in the air out there. So when you can rewire things and slap them back together with lots of dilectric grease, it lasts for a few more years. So good times. Thank you, city reporter Cisneros.

Not much for me. Aside, you'll see a couple emails regarding events coming up. If you can just let me know if you'll be attending, that way I can notice a quorum if we have one. And then you'll see an email regarding um when we'll call our special meeting in April. Thank you, Council President. I have a few more things.

Okay. City wanted to call attention to the Yamh Hill County business survey that's live right now in partnership with the cityos and uh the chamber that's live till March 12th. It's available in English and Spanish and is also part of your ICE policy considerations from January. Um, additionally, the ADA transition plan uh project management team has been busy with their engagement work and launched a survey earlier this month that's also live. currently has 85 responses, but uh with a goal of getting that well over 100. Um and they're hosting a an event working alongside essential services uh Thursday from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. out at the bayou to get some uh insight from their client base. uh the Yamh Hill County Equity Work Group uh which is organized by Yam Hill County Public Health and meets monthly. Um they highlight different topics each month that span from transportation, emergency preparedness, housing and mental health. That work group's always looking for folks to join who can add value to the conversation, i.e. city counselors if anybody has extra time. Uh, and that group is chaired uh by our DEIAC chair, uh, Caitlyn and her professional capacity with the Mhill County Public Health. Um, and then city staff met last week around some initial conversations for public engagement around the TSP that's currently out. Um, so just want to let you know we're still working on that TSP and we'll have some of that back before you guys before too long. Thank you,

Grace. Thank you for that context. Uh, city manager councelor Shenowit. And I just want to add one thing that I just saw in my email just to give a heads up. Uh, early 2027 summer. So that's a year from now. Uh, this email is to inform me of an upcoming project we are developing in your area. Oregon 18 South McMminville interchange to East McMinnville interchange will be re uh it's fully funded and is in the final design plan um for reef uh surfacing that entire stretch. So early summer 2027 uh be prepared to take different routes.

Okay, thank you for that. Um, January 2026 cash uh reports are in the packet. Do any councilors have questions about the cash reports? Seeing none, uh, I will now adjourn the city council regular meeting at 7:36.