City Council - Regular Meeting

City Council meeting to order at 07:03. Please write for the pledge of allegiance. Mayor

Dunbar?

Present.

Councilor Hagerwand? Present. Councilor Papen?

Present.

Councilor Redding? Here. Councilor Weber?

Present.

Councilor DeForch?

Present. All counted.

Thank you. I just wanna take a moment before we start, and I'd like to acknowledge the passing of former city councilor. We were informed that Herb Hurst has has passed away yesterday. Herb was a great member of the community and a fellow veteran. Cindy did confirm that it's okay for us to share.

The arrangements will be forthcoming, but if we could just all to remember Cindy and the party in a small town is, you know, when when one of us loses somebody, we always lose somebody. So let's just keep keep sending our thoughts and prayers. And when the time is right, we will invite her to come and share a little bit about her. So just wanted to share that with everyone, and we're just grateful for his his service to our city and our country. We're gonna we're going to skip this approval consent agenda and or I'm sorry, of the meeting minutes because there's an error that we need to correct, and Laurie is out on vacation.

So we'll come back to those next meeting. So with that, we'll move on to public comment. And as a reminder, accounts will not respond to public comments. They may respond if they would like during council reports. And your the public comments are limited to three minutes. And you please state whether you're a resident, nonresident, or rural resident. And with that, I would like to invite Larry Gonzalez to the podium to speak city council can on city council candidate.

Hello, Hello, Larry. You don't remember me, but it's Larry Gonzalez. I live in North Plains. And since

We don't.

Nice. Can you hear me now?

Now we've got you.

Alright. Thank you. And thanks for having me here. I appreciate the time. I did wanna talk about continuity and and community values and, especially for people who have lived in the area for a long time.

They share a special love for the for North Plains and creating North Plains that some of us, including myself, who've only been here fifteen years. We don't have the history and the the memory of what North Plains was, you know, a couple of years before I got here and before. And so it's nice to be able to be in support of, Tara Van Dyke, whose family has

been here for a long time. And she has she's grown up here,

And I can't think of a better compliment to the current city council than somebody with the history, at North Plains, and, we'd really like to see her, face up here, for the next. Thank you.

Thank you, Larry. And next up, Russell, then council appointment.

Hi, folks. I I think you all know me. Been around a while.

Okay. Is that better? Maybe the matter is Color. Let me check. I got it.

Spotty.

Okay. I'll be brief. But, I'm here tonight in support of Tara Van Dyke for the council appointment. And the reason is because I've known Tara for nearly thirty years, worked together with Tara back in when my kids were young and her kids were young. Our kids went to school together in the scout organization that was in the PAC PAC one seven five and also through the volunteering through the schools that a lot of us basically gave to the schools back at that time.

And Tara's a lifelong resident. She knows the history of North Plains. She has a pragmatic approach. She will be a good addition and a good voice to the council. She will lend the council credence from her knowledge of the city, and that's why I'm in support of Tara Van Dyke tonight. So when you consider that experience, she has a wealth of qualifications and experience that are related to the position. There are no qualifications to be a mayor or to be an applicant for council. There's none. You have to be a resident. Basically, that's it.

Well, that's not very much and that might need to be fixed, but, the consideration of the qualifications and the fact that she has a long history here in North Plains, in my mind, basically is deserving of her appointment to this council. Thank you.

Thank you, Ross. That's all for in person. Correct?

Correct.

You. Next, we have on behalf of Strong Towns, Linda Gellis Merton. You can unmute yourself, state your name, and resident, nonresident, rural resident, and you have three minutes.

Thank you very much. Good evening, mayor and council. As you know, my name is Linda Gallas Merton, and representing Strong Towns North Plains nine seven one three three for all of us. We are here tonight as a requirement of Oregon law. Recently, Strong Towns made a public records request for the performance review of the city manager when we noticed it had not been completed by council as required by ORS 192Dot314.

That request was denied. The city attorney cited several exemptions internal advisory, personal nature, submittal in confidence, and executive session materials. We disagree with the reasons given for denial. Our petition is based on the requirements found in ORS one nine two dot six ten through six ninety and ORS one nine two dot six six zero, which can be summarized as follows. The final decision, there's a final decision requirement and while deliberation may happen in private, any final action or decision regarding the manager's performance or compensation must be made in an open public meeting.

The next is summary disclosure. Following a performance review, excuse me, Oregon law requires the city council to return to an open public meeting to provide a summary of the performance review including as it pertains to compensation. The city in its denial told us we could take this issue either to state attorney general or the county district attorney. However, the law requires us to appeal to this body first. If the council commits tonight to disclosing the summary of the city manager's performance review in a public meeting, we will not pursue further appeals.

If no response is provided during this session, we will wait thirty days for the council to comply with the legal requirements, and then we will file the appeal. So we appreciate your efforts in guiding the city and ensuring transparency in its governance. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Emily Waldron. Emily, are you online?

No signs.

No signs? Okay. We'll come back to her if she joins before we close public comment. Next up is Laura

Hi. My name is Laura Dexheimer. I don't live in North Plains. I live in Banks, and I run the food bank for in North Plains. I had received an his name, Dustin, with the public works, came by the food bank on February 6 letting me know that Bill had changed where we were gonna put our loading zone.

So on the meeting on December 22, it was agreed that it would go on to 330 fourth, which is much safer, obviously, because there's not cars going 25 miles an hour. And so when he stopped by to let me know that, I was rather shocked. I immediately filed a complaint, which all of you guys were cc'd in on that complaint today. And then I received an email from Bill couple days later saying that he had received it and that once they knew what was gonna happen, then he was gonna get back to me. I have not heard anything from Bill.

So that date was February 9. And it says, we shall process and handle on our end, and then we will we'll be in touch. K. That was on the ninth. Today, I received an email from Dustin letting me know, in the meantime, my crew will install the new signs and complete the restriping as staff staffing and the weather allows.

Okay. I have volunteers. And every so often, usually on Thursdays, we have to be up on commercial. It is extremely dangerous. I need your help with stopping Bill and stopping Dustin with putting that commercial, putting the loading zone onto commercial.

You are putting all of us at risk by getting hit by a car. I have already there was a car coming down commercial, and it almost hit the door of the trailer. I'm sure it scared that person to death because it did us. I mean, I just don't understand how we again, this is another example of us jumping through all of Bill's hoops and the city hoops, and then he just decides that he's gonna do it his way regardless of what we had already talked about. This is extremely dangerous to have the loading zone on commercial. It needs to

be 300. Can you wrap up quickly, please?

Fine. So I need your help. Thank you.

Thank you. And that concludes public comment for tonight. As a reminder, if any councilors wanna bring anything up, the perfect time to do so is during council reports. So now we're going to move on to our presentation, from. Is she on or do you want me to I can go to start staff reports.

It's weird. Okay.

We don't they'll do just wanna start staff reports, then we can kinda pause and

I think that would be Mary, that would be a good idea. Okay. Savannah hasn't logged quite yet. Okay.

That's fine. So let's go ahead and start staff reports, and then we'll come back. So, Ramad, if you'd like to do it.

Good evening, council. Today is the first day of Lunar New Year, so happy Lunar New Year. The

only thing I

have to add to my report is that this morning, bright and early, WCCLS, Washington County Cooperative Library Service, IT staff came out and installed brand new Wi Fi equipment broadband equipment in

the library.

So the new Wi Fi doodads. I don't know. And then a new server in the server room. So we were the first library member library to get the new equipment, and that was this morning.

Alright. Council, any questions? I also just like to recognize that we Robin got to be there to accept a very large check with the city in front of the library, which is pretty fun, and posted the representative on each.

Yep.

Yep. She her staff requested a library tour, and we are happy to do that. Mhmm.

As you should. Well, thank you. Mhmm. Alright. Let's go ahead and move on to public safety.

Good evening, mayor and city councilors. I don't have anything to add to my report, although I just wanna take the opportunity to introduce sergeant Eamon O'Reilly, who's agreed to step in and fill the role of interim police chief, police chief on my temporary hiatus, working back in the county as a patrol lieutenant, which takes effect February 22. So with that, just wanna give, sergeant O'Reilly a chance to introduce himself, side of council, and then we'll take any questions you may have.

Good evening, council. My

name is David O'Reilly. I've worked for the sheriff's

office since 2004. I got hired at corrections originally.

I worked in corrections for

just under four years before going to, the patrol division in 2008.

Since being in

the patrol division, I've done a number of tasks, but, currently, I've been on the SWAT team since 2012. Still currently a member of the SWAT team. I'm an assistant team lead on a SWAT leader of the SWAT team. I was a member of the k nine team, for a little over ten years. Still, at this time, I supervise, the k nine team. And I've been a sergeant for, about eleven years, and, currently, as of this moment, a sergeant, and I appreciate the opportunity. I'm excited to explore this opportunity and, to build relationships with a welcoming community like. Thanks for having me. Excellent. Council?

Well, I'll just say welcome. Got big shoes to fill. No. We we do appreciate chief Jones, but we're looking forward to working with you. And I'm sure that it's gonna be a great relationship. So and we're looking forward to having you at some events in public so people can get to meet you. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Goodbye.

Updates is works.

Good

evening, counsel. Public works director. I don't have much to add to the report I gave to you except for an update on one thing. We did sell our first vehicle on GovDeals. The the bid shot up at the last minute, and we sold one of our trucks for $4,200.

And so we have more vehicles and equipment to sell, and so that's a good way to, you know, recoup some of the the money and get rid of some junk that we have around in our our our yards. So another couple of points that I wanted to just kind of remind council of. One would be just a reminder that we have have a ADA ramp improvement project that was approved by this the the council budget session for this budget cycle at the corner of 313th And Commercial. And so there is going to be a ramp improvements, and that's also going to realign some parking that's going to be there. And that's been something that's been in the works for a a couple a of years now.

Also, another point, it's not just for council, but for general, for the public that if you're going to be doing work in the right of way, our code does say that you must have and obtain a right of way permit before doing work in the right of way. And, as far as that, the reason for that being is to make sure that there's no conflicts with, utilities or infrastructure that is in the ground. And also, importantly, there may be future, infrastructure projects that are going on. I'm gonna make sure that there's no, conflict with future, infrastructure projects as well. So that's important for people in general.

Do not do any work in the right way unless you obtain a permit first. Other than that, I don't have any other, I mean, any other comments at this time.

Councilor? Councilor Redding?

I just wanted to extend a congratulations to Cody for passing the specialist training.

Well deserved too. It's great.

I just wanna say the GUA brush plan looks great. Are is your team taken out of the houses, or is that gonna be separate?

That is going to be part of the

oh, it is.

Well, going to be part of an additional phase. Okay. The phases that we're looking at right now are the brush clearing, which is finishing up right now. Then there's going to be the tearing down of the houses, and then we're gonna be looking at, I think, the barn removal potentially. And one of the last phase is gonna be the ultimate mitigation of the the soil. Yep. And that's gonna be kind of a multiyear potentially phased project. Okay. Yeah. I just my wife mentioned

it when we're driving by, and it does it looks much better. Although, I did kinda get attached to it, but it's nice to see it clean. Well, good. Thank you. Great job. Kiko?

I have one Oh, no.

I'm so sorry. Sorry.

Council Peyton, I just wanted to, yes, congratulate and say thank you for the GOA project. It's it's starting to really come along. I had a couple quick questions. One, I just wanted to make sure I heard you correctly that the crosswalk improvements were three thirteenth in Commercial or three fourteenth in Commercial.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. You're you're absolutely right.

It's at three hundred fourteenth in Commercial. So three hundred and fourteenth. So right where the senior center is in that intersection? Correct. Okay. Perfect. Okay. That answers my question. Thank you.

Sorry about the confusion. Yes. It is 314th,

not 3 13th. Great. Thank you. Alright. Rolling for playing.

Thank you, mayor. I do not have much to add to my report. I would like to clarify quickly that there was communication between staff and the applicant for the North Plains Food Bank design review, both during the review process and during subsequent code enforcement processes about staff's intention to establish a public loading zone near their building. We had initially scoped that it would be appropriate to locate that on 314th Avenue upon further review of the safety conditions and the conditions of the parking, as well as the future ADA improvements to that intersection, it was determined that the safer option would be to locate that loading zone on Northwest Commercial Street and convert the existing angle parking to parallel parking. So that is something that was reevaluated to better serve public safety.

That's the only thing I'll add to my report this evening. Thank you.

Any questions?

Councilor Weber, the change, was that gone over and discussed with the food bank after that change was made?

We did. We notified the food bank via email prior to any changes, being put on the ground once that decision was made. They were notified, I believe, on January 22 that we will be locating the loading zone on Northwest Commercial Street.

But was there discussion about the idea of changing it from the street to the commercial?

It was a staff decision.

K. Any other go ahead.

Can I clarify?

Just state your name, please. Sorry.

Yep. Yeah. Councilor DeFord, for Laura to appeal this process, what process should she follow so that she can, execute a correct appeal?

I would have to defer to our legal counsel because there is not necessarily a land use decision being appealed in this case.

K. Anything else?

Councilor Councilor Peyton, I just wanted to ask if, again, just to make sure I'm understanding correctly that the change in the loading zone is now on Commercial Street, and it sounds like based on some public testimony that there's some concern for traffic. And I was curious if there's any sort of, you know, the correct word I'm looking for here, but some sort of traffic calming mitigation we can put into place just to make it safer if that is the only suitable loading zone, such as, you know, thinking through, like, on Pacific Street near the GOA. There's those posts that define a pedestrian path. Is there anything like that that's applicable in this scenario to to make it safer?

Yes. We are aware of the traffic safety concerns on Northwest Commercial. We hear that somewhat regularly from involved residents in our downtown improvement plan. It is scoped to significant significantly change the nature of Northwest Commercial Street in downtown. However, we don't have any adopted interim measures at this time. That is something between public works planning and public safety that could be explored in the future interim measures to increase pedestrian safety. Yes.

Okay. And if if the applicant wanted to propose something, is that is that possible? Or, you know, I I understand it's it's proposed and kind of in the works, but I'm just thinking in the short term, if there's any other options we could consider.

It would depend on department capacity and would be an interdepartmental project, so I would have to get back to you on

that. Okay.

Thank you.

So I think from what I'm hearing from council, if we could get a if you get back to us by maybe is next council meeting okay? Rowanville, is that is that

think that's reasonable.

Just just with a an item option options, let's say. Is that kind of where you're open to go?

Yeah. I think I think just trying to think through outside of the box approaches, because I I absolutely see both sides. And so just thinking through maybe a short term solution that that can accommodate now, and then, obviously, there's a bigger picture for the downtown opportunity area or improvement area. So, yes, if if you have any other best practices or ideas, I would love to hear those at the next meeting.

Of course.

Seems like a reasonable compromise. Thank you.

Next, anything from three j. Brian?

I don't think he's gonna be here tonight.

I don't think he's have any questions for three j? Since they're not here, you can ask questions. They just wanna answer them. Okay. Next up, I have is she on? Do we wanna skip to the Otter, do we wanna go back to finance? She's she's. Otter? I don't see.

She's she's apparently not on yet. Well, we'll move to finance. And I don't have an email in from her expressing distress of not being able to get in, so I think it's just

she's not quite there yet. Okay. So we'll move to finance.

Finance is fine. Yeah. That'd great. Thank you, mayor. Okay. So I I don't have anything to add, to the finance staff report. Before you, I would just kind of, repoint out that as it's described in the report that this does include, just kind of a snapshot of where we are on our capital funds and the kind of special funds that we have. Those other funds don't have the the cap our capital funds and our special funds don't have a ton of spending activity to date, unlike our operating funds, the general fund, the street fund, the water fund. We have five now. Just the main fund and the building's ground grounds and maintenance fund.

Those funds spend money every day, and so that's why they end up representing they're they're always in every staff report. Every every finance staff report every month because there's always things to to be following and tracking and and and reporting. The capital funds themselves, though, aren't as active, and so they haven't been showing up in the reports often. And unlike last year unlike even two years ago when we had a number of big capital projects going, we would report quarterly on those things, but those funds haven't been doing much of anything lately. They're kind of in holding pattern for some projects to start.

And so they kind of providing detailed information about them hasn't hasn't really been a focus so far. But here they are. And if you have any questions about them, you know, please do ask. One thing I did wanna do before I turn it over to questions, if you had any, is there seem to be some misunderstandings expressed or some false information expressed about a lack of existence of monthly finance reports, that the city produces going back years. And, I don't know where they're getting that idea if they're looking for a place on the website, and there isn't a specific website, and there isn't a single place where all of the monthly financial reports are stored.

But every month as as long as I've been here, and I think before that, when the consultant was sort of doing staff reports, there's been a monthly staff report for finance. And it is focused largely on how the different op like this, how different operating funds are spending their money compared to budget every month so that there's there's review every month to report to you about any issues. And then you all can hear that, and then city council also can kind of see the progress each month, on where we are on expenditures versus budget. And that's been the focus of the staff reports because, you know, how we spend versus budget going over, having to come back to you if there's need for a supplemental budget if we're having issues, having you authorize things to be done with contingency funds or whatever. If something special comes up, tracking and reporting and and being concerned about expenditures versus budget is kind of the focus of budget law in Oregon, and so that's why that's the focus for these.

So after visiting with Emily about the finance reports, the last thing I'll leave you with is, if you have any questions and after any questions, I it would be good to hear from you if the information in these monthly reports that you've been getting isn't quite what you want or you want something different or you want something more frequently, we can do that. This has just been, you know, this has kind of been what's asked for over the years and what the emphasis has been. But I but I just wanna let you know, you know, what you wanna see is what you wanna see. And, you know, we're we're happy

to do that,

really. It's but, anyway, there are financial I I think for the public, what what's missing or not easy to see is that these reports are in the agenda packet every month. So unless you look at the the city council agenda packet or you listen to the city council meeting or you happen to hear, you know, you happen to hear this, going and looking for this isn't necessarily, the easiest thing for a resident to find. But, we discuss it every month. You all review it every month.

And so they are there, and they have been there. And I hope the the public understands and and feels a little bit better about what have been going on. Maybe they're just not as easy to find as some other thing from the website. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Counsel, any questions? Okay. Thanks, Bill. Anything from the auditor?

No. She could speak up before everything. Not on yet, I'm afraid. Sorry about that.

Uh-uh. Let's just keep moving, and then if we have to, we will come back. Sure. At 08:00.

Oh, good question. I I coached her to show up no earlier than 07:20. I figured the public comment tonight might go might push it to 07:25. So when she wasn't on by 07:30, I'm like, it's my fault because I I I expected I thought public comment might go a little longer. But now that we're now that we're at 07:36, I'm feeling less at fault. So, anyway,

we can keep going if you're like, Mayor.

Okay. Yeah. That's fine. So I let's see. Sorry. Unfinished business. You do the pack meeting update and council representative discussion. So I believe the reason we put this on and and feel free to correct me if we're on council or staff is because we wanted to continue to make sure that we are giving direction to Mark, who's our representative to the PAC, e g v PAC, and also that he is giving us reports. I don't think he has reports since they haven't met unless he wants to share more of of the meeting.

I would like to share a little bit more.

Okay. Well, then he would like to share more.

Thank you, sir. Councilor Eforge. So what I would like is it was a quick recap is the last time we discussed, what I would say is we we created two buckets for TGM feedback. It's community impact and fiscal impact. The community impact, we thought about prime utility rates, traffic.

Under fiscal impact, we're thinking about how to make sure that whatever infrastructure we develop North Plains can pay for with our low tax rates, clarify assumptions on if things don't work out, who pays for what. And counselor Weber, has a passion for getting into very specifics around fiscal models of impact from future users. So I've captured all that. I'm gonna incorporate it into the next, PAC meeting that's coming up next month. I wanted to suggest three more buckets for your consideration.

So the first one is zoning. And, what I wanna suggest is that the council, get consensus to see if, when you expanded UGE and if you don't have your codes in order, you could run risk of your your new users are using land in a way that you don't want. So I was gonna suggest sequencing is gonna be an important concept, is that you get your codes organized before you implement UGB expansions. And I just wanted to pause right there and see if that was consistent with what you guys are thinking.

Alright. Councilor Bavin.

I'm open this Council Papen. I'm open to that idea. I think the risk that we run into is what does that timeline look like for us to get our codes in order? Is that under a year? Is that within three years? Like, I think that's the question I I have.

So I will add to this. All zoning goes through planning commission, course. The problem is and this is after many conversations with Rowan and planning commission. The way that our zoning is now leads to some undesired outcomes, let's say. Things that aren't zoned the way that planning commission intended or the council intended or the previous council's intended.

So I concur with council paper in this. It may take time, but I also think that that is something important. And we did do a work session with planning commission, so it would be good. I I think it's it's critical at least to get something done on on zoning because I think that's been a a problem after talking with chair king from planning commission and and Rowan from staff. My impression is that our zoning is incredibly outdated. And and it is not clear and objective, and everything should be clear and objective in my opinion.

Thank you, sir. That's my 2¢. Understood. Next bucket I wanted to propose for you, Guy

Hold on. I think you have another

Oh, I'm sorry, councilor Weber. Go ahead. Councilor Weber,

I was just gonna add from being at the first meeting, I think council asked to give a little more clarity of where we're at. You know, I was aware just being at the meeting when I shared some cautions about being ready to approve 550 acres. There's kind of some pushback that they thought we were much closer to being on board with that than than I'm not sure we are. So I I think it's very important that we get a better understanding, and that would take more time, obviously, than tonight is where are we as a group at? Because otherwise, it's very awkward when you're at that meeting and you don't have a clear sense.

There's there's a very clear momentum from, the relook I was part of and this current group that 550 acre expansion is the way to go, and there's a lot of energy towards doing that. If in fact, council is much more cautious about doing that and in fact is has some other things like we set the codes and things. Anyway, I I just think it might be good for us to have a little better sense where we're at, and I think that would perhaps lead to less tensions in some of these discussions. Again, that would have to happen in some other form. Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Fair enough.

Oh, councilor Peyton.

This is councilor Peyton. I just wanted to clarify councilor Weber's comments. Are you looking for a consensus of of council's approach towards expansion and next steps? Was that so that you can relay that to the public, or what what is it exactly that you're looking for?

Councilor Weber, just a little more clarity of where we're at. You know, the vast majority of those presenting at these neighborhood meetings and everywhere I attend are saying, we're here to convince you that growth is good. Specifically, they direct towards the 550. We think it's a good idea. So there's a very clear tenor of the purpose of that is to bring the city on board with the 550 acres.

If we are not as enthusiastic as that presentation is, I think we need to be a little more forward and honest about where are we in that because I think I hear more caution among amongst some of the members, and we just need, I think, in the spirit of honesty and transparency to kind of unload that a little.

Can I just make a comment? Thank you. It's my opinion, and you can take it to what it's worth, that counsel should be open and should you know, you we're all gonna have our opinion, but we should be open to the con to the discussion because we can't vote on anything until planning commission brings it to us. So my perspective is until I see something from planning commission, I've already told them I want the codes updated as have all the other counselors at the time. So I'm not sure that any of us should be forming a any type of significant opinion.

That's, again, it's my perspective, but we should be open minded and directing planning commission to do their piece and directing staff and UGB to do their piece and present us with options. Because until we know what we're voting on, we can't say what we're for or against it. It's kinda like saying I can't use that term. I was gonna say I was for before I was against it, but that probably get me in trouble. You know, I would just caution the count.

I guess my my suggestion is I would caution the council against having preconceived notions. Our job is to adjudicate what comes before us, not to try to politic, I guess. That this that's my suggestion.

Counselor councilor, think that was really the direction I was I was also leaning towards is, like, I my assumption and my expectation as members of the council representing us at the PATH meetings is that you're remaining neutral and that we are are just sponges. We are absorbing community feedback and relaying information in a neutral manner. And so I just wanted to clarify that that is the intent and that we are remaining neutral and not saying we're we're leaning one way or the other, but really just absorbing information and repeating it back verbatim, both ends of this doctrine.

Yeah. Thank you, counselor Pickman. I would say, yeah, exactly. That's what I'm trying to do, and I'm open to feedback if I'm not doing it. But I try and get your guys' feedback and make sure that it's represented at the PAC whether it's my personal opinion or not, I'll I'll advocate for your right to hear options.

And just to circle back to counselor Weber, looking at the website, so we are going to have a PAC meeting on March and April. We will have, alternative concept development and analysis in the March and April time frame, draft concept plans in the April through May time frame, and final concept plan is in the June time frame. So that's kind of where we are now. I think we're in a good position in that we're we're thinking about this early, and we have lots of opportunity to weigh in and shape it. I did want to move on to the next thing, and I'll I'll try and wrap this up quickly, mayor, is let's see here.

The diplomatic way to put this is not this project, but you could have situations where you're presented, with options. And the options are horrible, not so horrible, and the least bad. And then you're given the choice you have to choose the least bad because that that is the choice you're given. And so what I wanted to make sure that you guys have an opportunity to say is, are there parameters to the options that you would like to see? And just to just to spitball ideas here, you could ask for a fiscally conservative option.

You could ask for a slower growth option. You could ask for a farmland retention option. I'm trying to give you ideas that maybe those are things that you could request that I look for out of the pack so that when things come to you, those options are consistent with what you wanted.

Councilor.

Mhmm. Councilor Higidorn here. If we wanted to, think about this and let it sit for a while, when would we need to give you our opinion on this? And how should we be giving you counselor to forge our opinion on this?

So I'll say the way you should be doing it is in council. So that way, there's no no risk of any deliberation accidentally happening over email. And by house soon, I believe that we have to cancel before, but I would say probably what I was gonna suggest is maybe that's something that we since this is an ongoing unfinished business item, could be discussed at the next

Yeah. I would recommend that, in general, the way the project works is the more that you shape it at the beginning, the more options you have. We will have another council meeting March 2, which I think is enough time before the next PAC meeting. So I think you guys have plenty of time to ponder these thoughts and can get back to me with with feedback. And the last

Hold on a sec. Council Peyton. Oh, sorry. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. The last concept I'd like to leave you guys with, I'm hoping for consensus, is just a simple statement that the council is the decider. You guys have the right to make the choice. No one else does.

I would say that, yes, that is the, under the law. That's, unless Emily corrects me, I believe that is the processes that's been explained to me, and we can follow-up on that. But, yes, I believe under Oregon land use, it goes from PAT to staff to planning commission to council. Correct? Okay. Good. It's a flowchart.

Thank you, sir. I think that concludes what I had planned.

Perfect. Thank you. Alright. Any other questions for council report or comments or insults. Okay. Do we have the honor? We have the honor. Alright. So we are going to go back to item number seven, Kupua Valley Financial City audit presentation.

Savannah, I believe you're on mute.

Can you hear me now? Yes. Perfect. Well, I wanna start by saying, thank you guys for having me on. I do know that, you guys have had some questions when it comes to, audit related, you know, explanations, details, how audits work, where the city is standing with theirs.

And I can't I did provide this PowerPoint. If you want to give me permission, I can kinda go through and walk through mine. If you guys wanna keep yours up, that's fine too. But, really, I just created this, today to kinda show you not in a huge amount of detail, that makes it a little bit hard to to to read and pay attention to, but leave enough detail but summarize really what the work and the scope of the audit is. So if you go to that second slide there, we have the scope of financial statement audit.

So, really, this will explain to you, again, not in so much detail, more summarized, but giving enough detail, our our job as auditors, what we look for in the audit, why we audit. So, again, this is just for you to kind of read and see, all that we do in it, and that's all this PowerPoint is as well. So when we did submit our proposal to the city when they sent out their RFP, to hopefully gain auditors for, their prior audits to try to get caught up, we sent this proposal in, which also had a scope of work listed out, for you guys and administration, whoever was the sole, approver of the proposal. We listed that information so that you guys can know, you know, what we're doing, how we're doing it, when we're doing it, what we're required to do from state, and so on. So you guys were, to my knowledge, given, a PDF copy of this PowerPoint as well as I do know that two council members that I know of had some questions that Bill sent my way.

I did send the responses to him, so hoping that you guys have that as well to kinda clarify some of those questions. So we'll get into that a little bit after. And then if you go to the next slide, this is just a continued, explanation of certain areas that we work on, requirements from the state. A lot of these requirements and articles are listed on the Oregon Secretary of State website. So if there is anything that you wanna go more in-depth on, if there's any, you know, research, there's a big rabbit hole you can go down.

So if that ever is something that you guys would like to do, I can send you some links. It's pretty easy to navigate their website, so, they make it very easily accessible to gain even more detail about audits. But as far as the city goes, as you guys know, the city is quite a few years behind in their audits. So, we we, in our proposal, propose fees, prices, which I listed in our responses to those certain questions, from those two council members, which was also in the proposal so that that had to be accepted by, council and administration and, you know, whoever you guys deem to approve that. The proposal did state only two years.

But after, you know, talking with administration and kinding out getting our feet set in the sand, we decided to send out contracts and engagement letters, for two years following that as well to kind of, be there and helping you guys, get current as current as possible as fast as we can. So, again, this is just kind of explaining, you know, where we issue reports, what reports we issue, how we assist. So, typically, with our audit clients, we help them prepare the financial statements. So this means that we do we do a lot of the work. Obviously, you know, school districts, cities, special districts, they will do their own books, but we put the financial statements together.

So this is everything that makes up the audit report that we we submit to secretary of state. For North Plains, We had a recent conversation with Matt, who is your guys', you know, sort of registered agent, who the city contracts through to help you with your books. We've had the pleasure of meeting with him and Bill and a couple other gals on the team to kind of, you know, keep the ball rolling, get updates going. So this was explained in a meeting we had a couple weeks ago that the city is doing their own financial statements. So this means, basically, what happens to kinda summarize it is instead of you guys giving us these reports, you know, year end, balances for each fund, We wrap everything together.

The city does that themselves. So they send us this big financial statements with all their notes. We review it and match it to the documentation that we have, and then align it with our reports, send any questions we have, and then take that and finalize it. So, while that seems like the city is doing, most of the work, which the city is doing more work than typically any other city, there is still a lot of background work for us to do. Every single number, every single note in there, every single fund balance, we have to go through and get backup documentation in order to know where the city is getting their numbers from.

What debts? What assets do they have? We have to gain all this backup documentation, create numerous amount of work papers to file with the state. So it is still still quite a bit of work that we have to do just to make that clear so it's not like, you know, Citi is saying, here's the report. Look at it and file it.

That way if you guys have questions like, oh, well, why are we paying you so much then? But like I said, Matt has been helping with that. And to my knowledge, he has been helping for quite a while now. And so it's it's nice to have, you know, him and Bill working together, who know the city, who've worked with the city for as long as they have, and to hopefully try to help us get you guys caught up to date. So, if you wanna go to that next slide.

So I'm not sure if any of you have, heard of this, researched it, know about it, but, there are quite a few, especially after COVID, entities who require a single audit. So as it says here, single audit is required when an entity spends more than $750,000 in federal, awards. So, in the city's case, after reviewing the information we've received, we have found that they will be a single audit, at least for the first fiscal year that we're auditing. What this means is it is an extremely significant amount of information that we have to do on top of, finalizing the financial statements with the city. This requires, more work on the city side, which once we go through the financial statements that were sent to us, I believe, on the twelfth of this month, we will go through that, and then we dive into the single audit.

So what comes with this is a lot of inquiries, a lot of requests on grants, where they came from, backup documentation, where was this spent, how was this spent, prove prove that you spent it, kind of stuff. And then at the end, just to summarize it, we submit that single audit with the audit report to secretary of state, and then the single audit gets sent directly to Federal Audit Clearing House. So this will keep you guys in action to receive more grants. The longer you go without an audit, without reporting your funds and everything going on the city, that is when the grantors will not lend you money. So this is why we are trying to get the city up and going.

We do know that there were some struggles. I don't know necessarily with staff or just, you know, some things that domino effect effected the city, that led them to be, as far behind as they are. But like I said, it is our goal to get you guys going. First, you're contracted with clients. Obviously, it takes a little bit longer just because you're knowing how they work.

You're going into this information that you've never seen before on that entity. And then, obviously, with the city being so far behind, there are a lot of additional questions that we have as far as, you know, maybe us not getting the right information for something and then having to, you know, help Bill or Matt locate it or go into detail on me about exactly what we're talking about and just keeping that communication open for you guys. Counsel also if you guys have questions. You know, Bill can give you my information. We can meet.

I can jump on another meeting. We can email. Whatever it needs to be. That way you guys feel like you are kept in the loop throughout this process. And if you wanna go to that next slide so once you guys do receive, which I understand there are, new council members from when the last audit was filed, which was not we were not the auditors for.

So this is just for you to really hang on to, to when we do get that first report out. Of course, we will present it to the council. We typically do that for all the clients that request for us to do that. But this kinda summarizes, you know, what you're looking at, why you're looking at it, why it's in there. That way you're not completely lost.

So this is a good thing to look at before before our presentations. And then you guys will also get a copy of the audit reports, prior to the, presentations and council meeting. That way you guys can gather any questions that you have beforehand, and you weren't put on the spot when looking at this. As far as the status of the city's audits right now, As you know, we have not completed any. Again, this is, to my knowledge, with being, you know, first communications, main communication with between the city and my staff, There were quite a few, hurdles and issues that, you know, caused the city to be behind, which we're trying to, this is why we do our walk throughs.

This is why we ask, you know, related party and fraud inquiries. This is why we ask, you know, the council eventually will send inquiries and say, hey. Did any of this happen within the city? Just to kinda gain a better understanding of the way the city has worked and, for lack of better words, what went wrong. Not that anything not that anybody was doing anything, significantly bad, but, just to kinda get a whole grasp on, you know, what's going on, how can what can we do to help.

Let's get these out the door. So with that first year, we are we are close to done. I did have a meeting with, Jean Larson. She works for our office. She is our one of our senior managers or senior accountants.

She works closely with grants and single audits. So she was actually going through, for about four or five hours today, just kinda diving into what we have, for you guys, you know, confirming that you will be a single audit. And there will be quite a few follow-up, questions regarding the stuff that we've received. We did receive quite a few things recently as far as debt payroll grants go. There are, you know, quite a few things that we're still needing, but we just haven't gotten to that point yet.

And now that the city is, you know, getting the ball rolling, they are you know, have their feet in the sand, and they know, okay. Now it's time to go. We have the right staff. Everybody is you know, knows what they're doing. Matt's helping, which is going to ultimately speed up the process for them and for us.

Like I said, for that first year let me see if I can for 2122, we just got the financial statements for us to begin, reviewing, on the February 12. Again, this is this is not to throw anyone under the bus as far as, you know, Bill and Matt go. This is just, you know, one of the one of the parts to say, okay. This is where we're gonna start. Once we have this, we can, you know, put all the other puzzle pieces together, it'll and be a lot easier come 2223.

So we do have the team working on that. They were notified as soon as we received the information. And then, of course, as we go through audits, if, you know, any auditor, as you're going through an audit, you know, something will pop up, and you'll have to request this additional information. As you're reviewing this, a question will arise. So, we just like to, you know, make it a point that, hey.

Just because we keep asking questions or we keep asking for information, it's not necessarily because we are, behind or we are, you know, putting you on the back burner or we're just not paying attention. It's simply just as we review this portion, these things are now coming up, and we know we need them. We know we need to ask questions. And I I believe that I'm pretty good with keeping, up with communications. Obviously, Bill and Matt can speak to how they feel about that, but, it's been a good working relationship so far.

They're easy to work with, easy to talk to, very respectful, know what they're doing. So, and they've notified me, you know, when they say, hey. It's gonna take a minute for us to get this stuff or, hey. Thanks for being patient. We're working on it. So, it's been really nice to have that. Do you guys have I guess we can kind of go down the line of, any questions that you guys have for me.

So councilor

Yeah. Thank you. Councilor DeForge here, just to clarify, the URA, is that in scope for these audits?

Yep. Yep. It is. So in our proposal that we submitted, we also did the two years for the URA and then signed those engagement letters and contracts for the two following years after that as well as the city.

K. I'll have more questions, but I'll give everyone.

Alright. Counselor Redding.

Counselor Redding here. Were there any major findings, repeat issues, or unresolved findings so far?

I can't speak to, the finals. We do, we aren't done with the audit, and we haven't completed the single audit. So the single audit portion is typically where we see the most findings if there are any. When I did speak to Jean today, she did see she did want me to relay that she does believe there will be findings. As to how many, most likely more than three.

For single audit, those are significant findings, but it's nothing that you can't correct. So when we do find, you know, findings, material statements, something like that, We will address it to, you know, administration that we're talking to. We will always let you guys know. That way you don't, you know, get this put in front of your face. You're like, well, no one told me that we had these issues going on. So during a presentation, we talk about that, and then we do what's called a corrective action plan. So we list out, okay. These were the findings. This is how they need to be corrected. And, you know, this person, so Bill would most likely sign.

You know? And if not, someone else of administration or board or, you know, council chair or whatever. But, they sign it and say, okay. Yep. I've read this. We agree to have these corrected in this way, and then that gets submitted to the state, and to Federal Audit Clearing House, you know, so they can recognize that you guys are going to, you know, from here on out, put those in place and get the city, you know, back to, perfect working grounds.

Thank you. Were there any internal controls weaknesses?

There are some weaknesses in internal controls, as to the details. These were talked about during our field work that took place on-site. Again, this does fold with the ending of the audit. So this is the internal, control weaknesses that will be part of the findings. And this will be relayed to people prior to us submitting, prior to, you know, us putting you on on the spot.

I do know that one of the internal control weaknesses that will be noted, is just the the lack of organization, that we, you know, have have expressed or talked about. And this is, you know, in the fact of, okay. These people left. Now we have to find where all this stuff is, and not having, you know, said this person does this, this person does this, this. It's kind of with just one person.

And so that's when it gets kinda messy. As for any other internal control, weaknesses, there could be some. Yes. But like I said, until we get to that final, you know, single audit phase, we won't have all every single finding until that report is finalized and given to administration.

Understood. Thank you. Mhmm. I have more, but do we wanna, like, give everybody a turn?

Sure. Councilor Weber.

A timeline question, for you. In preparation for this, I was just kinda going back over because you had mentioned the the contract submission in three of twenty three. What I found kinda going through the old, minutes was it stated that at 11/23, it was stated, that the city had hired as our auditor. We anticipated that would begin audit number, 2022 in January '24, and then 2023 would take place shortly after that. And then I just kinda went through every month.

We have finance reports, and each one would restate with the help of Umpqua and Marina throughout the year 2024. We hope to get two done. We're aiming for three. That narrative went on throughout 2024, and then it was announced we actually weren't able to get any. Then in '25, it was announced with Umpah and Marina's help. We would do two for sure in '25. And the months again went by. There was delays. People were busy. So and then when I hear you talk tonight, it sounds like you're almost talking like a new company that just started with the city.

So I'm I just want clarity. Like, what was your role in 2024 and 2025 with that contract that was referred to. I I'm just trying to get some clarity.

Yeah. Understood. So, you know, one of the reasons being when we first contracted, this is, you know, one of those internal control weaknesses is, you know, it was almost as, you know, new client. We we're we're gathering how you guys work also. But finding, you know, Bill, finding those people to help him or, you know, Matt trying to get this information together that he is also working with the city.

They're giving him information. So as they give him information, he works on the financial statements, then we get items from him. Of course, that's not to say that Citi doesn't provide things also, but, it did take, quite a long time for us to, get all of the information that we needed for that first year. And, again, that's not even all the information yet. It's we have the single audit, and we can't do anything without financial statements.

And those, again, were just given to us on the twelfth of this month for the 2122. So now that we have those, we can, you know, go through. We've received bank statements. We've received debt documents. We've received grant documents, lease documents, all that stuff.

But unless we have the financial statements, we cannot complete a report. So while we're doing all the background work on all of our work papers, that's not something we can submit to the state. It's not an audit report. And so it's, again, it's gathering those financial statements from the client, that will help us progress forward in filing, and we didn't receive those until this month.

Councilor Hageron? Ask. Councilor Peyton.

Councilor

Peyton, I I know it's hard to have a crystal ball, but could you give a general time frame of when the single audit would be complete?

So a single audit typically is complete. So just to put this in perspective, obviously, this isn't what's going on with the city. The audits are usually just the regular audit is complete by 12:31, and then the single audit has a due date of March 31. That's how much longer the single audit takes to be completed. So, you know, this is depending on how many findings there are.

If documentation still can't be found by the city, if, you know, we see any imbalances in the financial statements. But, you know, like you said, I don't have a crystal ball, but I do know that we do want to get twenty one, twenty two out as soon as possible. And now that we do have those financial statements, it takes typically thirty to forty five days, barring any complications, findings, stuff like that, to pull an audit report together. But since we don't do the financial statements, it could take less time. And then at that point, we say, okay.

This audit report is ready for you to review. You can review it. We can file it, and then we can continue working on that single audit. And once that's done, we resubmit with the state, federal audit clearinghouse, and you're good to go. But single audits, there is a reason why the state, or, you know, anywhere else extends those to March 31 after the 12/31 deadline. So, again, now that we've received the financial statements, we've been working on things. We've had multiple items come up that we've requested, that have been, you know, coming in. So there's going to be much more detail to request, but it's gonna go a lot faster now.

Okay. Council report.

Council report here. First, I wanna say just thank you for helping out the city. We're really looking forward to getting back on track and appreciate your help. Let me ask you. Do you think that you we have the right resources as a city to deliver the audits to support your work? Do you think we need to hire additional resources, or do we have what we need?

At the beginning of contracting with the city, I would have said yes up and down that you would need more researches resources just because, you know, we weren't and, again, this is not, you know, throwing a bill under the bus isn't saying anything, you know, bad towards the city. We just weren't getting the information. We weren't getting we were getting communication, but we just weren't getting information. You know, it was a one, two man ballgame and, you know, city, things come up. Certain things during council meetings come up that need to be addressed as soon as possible.

So when that happens, audits get pushed to the side, and they don't get done, which, again, falls into a loss of organization. You know, you you forget after the years go by what things are, where they got put. After a recent conversation, me and my CPA met with, Matt and Bill, and two other people, which was new, that are helping gather that information. So it has gone it's it's gotten significantly better since contracting, and that was a meeting that we had, you know, within the last couple weeks. So I do think I can't confidently say that you guys don't need more resources because, more resource resources is never a bad thing.

But until we I've already seen improvement. But until I, you know, get response like this when we ask questions and when we need information, I can't speak too much to that. But during the beginning of our contracting up until, you know, a couple weeks ago, I would have said yes. Definitely, the city needs more resources.

Thank you. You know, just hearing what I've heard from the mayor and other councilor members, we're willing to devote resources to solving this problem. So I think whatever it takes for the team to be successful, the council would like to support that. Let me

ask you one Yeah.

Let me ask you one more question. I think, maintaining this high performance that you've been talking about in the last couple weeks is really important. I'd like to get visibility into our performance. So I think I'd like to request a recurring agenda item where Savannah could come and participate until the audits are back up to current. And so you could share status and if there are any problems that need council support, what would my fellow counselors think of that?

Before you answer, Savannah, can you answer? Is that in the scope of the current contract, or would that be an additional cost?

Ideally, it's not something that we do. But given this where the city stands, we no extra cost for you.

Okay. So now I'll give it back to counsel. Sorry. I just like to note what I'm gonna say before I say it.

Yeah. Of course. Understood.

I I do enjoy spending your money. Sorry about that.

I know.

So I I thought I did hear that that's something you would be willing to support, and I really appreciate that help. And so if So

let's Yeah. Councilor Redding, yes? No? Councilor Weber? Yeah. Councilor Baker? That's true. Alright. I I'm gonna say yes to consensus. So, Bill, let's let's add her as regular unfinished business. Agenda, please. Thank you. No more questions. I saw it in the turn. Chancellor.

I think a lot of the the rest of my questions can follow-up.

Okay. So this will be back on.

So if there are no other questions, Savannah, thank you for coming. That's a lot of information. And as much as everyone loves a good audit, we're very grateful that people like you are proficient at this and can make the rest of us at least reasonably able to understand what you're doing. We appreciate it, and we will look forward to hearing from you on the next council meeting. And let us know if there's anything we can do to help unstick things, but it sounds like we are at the point of making some progress.

Yep. Perfect. Yeah. It was a pleasure talking with you guys, giving more insight on what we're doing and where we're at. And if you have any questions in the meantime before the next meeting, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. And like I said, we can email back and forth. We can hop on a call, whatever it takes to keep you guys in the loop.

Thank you. Okay. So we'll go ahead and wrap up that end of business. Next, we'll go back to, unfinished business. But before we do that, I'm gonna say we're gonna take a five minute recess because it's been a lot of sitting, and I don't want any of our potential new counselors to try to stand up and then have a dead leg without being horrible to have to interview.

So with that, we'll be adjourned for five minutes. Please be back in your seats at 08:27. Hey. Council meeting back in session. We're going to continue on.

And before we continue, I will just give a quick reminder to everyone of how this process will work. Ironically, we're rather familiar with it. So there should be no more questions. So we would call the candidates one at a time, which we have a v, a w, and a z as the last names. I don't know how this happened. It took me a couple of times to read them through to make sure I have this right. So we'll call them up alphabetically by last name. They'll come up. They introduce themselves, and then we will go down the line. So council payment, if you're okay, I'll just start with you and we'll go down.

Skip me. Very good. And you'll each of you will ask one of the questions on the agenda pack or not agenda packet. Application packet. Sorry. If you have another question you'd like to ask, please wait till the end, counselors, but, please keep those super limited. Let's try to stick to the script. And I would invite the candidates to answer in the way that they feel best reflects their qualifications or personality or whatever you would like to say. And we'll what did we say? We said two minutes per.

Right? Or was it Ten total. Ten total minutes. So we'll try to get each one to ten total minutes so we can all get home and get to bed before midnight. And at the end of it, I will just remind everyone, I am not a voting member for appointments. I only break ties. And with five, there's a tie. We're gonna recount because that's ridiculous. But I'd also like to, in advance, thank all the candidates. I understand this is a you know, only only three enter one one exits.

Is it okay to say stuff like that? But, you know, at the end of the day, we're we live in a small town. We're we should all be friends, and we should all like each other somewhat occasionally. But, also, just remember there there are elections coming up. So if you're really passionate about being on council, that's also another opportunity. And I think you actually need to apply in July if our call corrected. But we'll I'll make sure I get an announcement out about that on the mayor page as well as I'm sure the staff will put something out. So with that oh, and then voting. Voting will be done by paper ballot. Roan will count the ballots to the council. Council will vote for one. Sorry. Prior to that, we'll actually do a nomination process. I apologize. These councilors can either nominate or second.

Any and I will go down until we're out of nominations. Any one who received a nomination a second will be on the ballot. Anyone who does not will be asked to come back in September for the election. And with that, then we'll do the vote. So with that, let's go ahead and invite Tara Van Dyke, if you'd like to come up to the podium. And councilor Peyton will be asking the first question. But I'll ask Tara if she would please introduce herself to the council.

Tara Van Dyke, and I live within the city limits.

Hi, Tara. Would can you tell us why you would like to serve on

the city council? Yeah. So North Plains is at a critical point with growth and financial decisions, as you all are aware, that will shape our community for decades to come. After attending an urban growth boundary discussion, it became clear to me that thoughtful analysis, transparency, and long term vision are essential as we move forward. I was born and raised here, and I went to school here, and my children did as well.

Now as I think of my grandchildren enjoying the parks and schools, I find myself reflecting on how much the city means to me. My grandfather, Frank Wing, as many of you may know, served on the city council, and there's even a park named in his honor, a daily reminder of the legacy of service that runs in my family. I care deeply not only about where North Plains is headed, but also about honoring and respecting where we've come from. This is a community built on hard work, connection, and pride, and I want to help ensure it continues to grow responsibly and sustainably. Finally, I also want to recognize and commend the current city council for the recent $2,000,000 infrastructure award.

Great job. That's a tremendous accomplishment and reflects the kind of diligent, forward thinking work that I would be proud to help continue. What can you tell us

about the most important issues facing our claims?

So ensuring community growth is thoughtful, well planned, and supported by long term financial stability, aligning development with the city's capacity to fund infrastructure and essential services as you were all discussing this evening, maintaining timely audits as we all were discussing, accurate financial reporting, and strong grant management. One thing that I would suggest for to ask the auditors is what are they still missing for the 2122 audit? And as well as I work for a school district, and we complete our single audit at the same time that we complete our financial audit. Continuing to pursue funding opportunities that support strategic priorities and preserving public trust through transparency, accountability, and effective communication.

Thank you. Do you have any special interests or qualifications that you would bring to the council?

I do. I have over eighteen years of experience in public accounting and finance including budgeting, compliance, audits, and grants. I work for Northwest Regional ESD. Many of you are familiar with what that is. I have a strong background in financial reporting and process improvement with a focus on clear, accurate, and timely information.

I have a deep understanding of long term financial planning and strategic resource management, proven ability to communicate complex financial issues clearly and collaboratively at board meetings such as this. If appointed, I look forward to working closely with Mark, leveraging our shared financial backgrounds to strengthen the city's fiscal stewardship. Have you previously served on a board or committee for any city or organization? I have. I'm a current board member of the Association of School Business Officials International.

I serve on multiple committees for the Oregon Association of School Business Officials. I've experienced an executive level collaboration, governance, and oversight. And if appointed, I look forward to contributing my financial expertise, working collaboratively, and helping strengthen the city's foundation for the future.

K. Any other alibis? Last many questions? Okay. Thank you, Tara.

Thank you.

Next. Anna Warrington.

Hello, counselors.

If you'd like to introduce yourself, and then we'll start with counselor.

My name is Anne Warrington. I am a resident here of eighteen years.

I'll mic up just a little bit.

A little bit more? Thank you.

Alright. Anna, why would you like to serve on city council?

Many reasons, but first, I'd like to quickly introduce myself just a little bit more. I wanna let everybody know that I am a state of war resident here in North Plains. I've been here, like I said, eighteen years. I think that longevity is definitely an important thing for this position, so I wanted to just point that out. I'm a committed person. I worked at Nike for over twenty one years. I'll talk more about that in question three and four. And I have availability. I just retired. Yay.

So I have some time. I'm looking for volunteer opportunities for the last few months, and this seemed like a perfect fit for me because I love our city so much. So the reason why I sorry. Would like to serve is I really want to assist the city in making good decisions for North Plains using the characteristics that you guys have been using lately of transparency and efficiency.

Thanks, Robert.

What do you think are the most important issues now facing North Plains? There are

so many buzzwords going around right there. But what I wanna say is first, North Plains is a great city to work in or and live. I I love it here. It's a small town near Tennis Barn and the Hillsborough and wonderful places to visit, but I love the small town feel here. Some of the issues, the important issues, of course, is the UTB.

Everybody's talking about that. I think we have to be slow, steady, and well thought out around that. The data centers, the grocery store, all of that stuff needs to just be well thought out and slowly considered to make sure everybody is on board with what we're trying to do. Of course, the city audits. I didn't know it was gonna be part of the agenda today, so that worked out well.

Tobias Reid is kind of all over that. He's, of course, the Oregon secretary of state. He keeps sending out emails about how important it is to complete our audits, so it's it's a big deal. I really wanna see that complete. And then law enforcement after hours is kind of important to me and my community. There are some some issues that I have had, my neighbors have had. I'd just like to have some discussions around that and see where we can have some good communication.

Do

you have any special interests or qualifications that you would bring to the city council?

I hope so. My qualifications, I worked in the Nike project management field, which is on my application. I worked with multiple teams in the project management field based here in Beaverton. Well, not here, but here in Beaverton. Some people were in India.

Some people were in Canada. They were all over the place. So I had a very diverse group of people that I worked with in my teams. I had external partners that I worked with, the business team for the requirements, the engineering leads to make sure the requirements are well thought out and and coded correctly, Other PMs. So my point is that in my project management background, I worked with multiple people and teams to get jobs done, Facilitating meetings.

And I know this meeting is different than the ones I facilitated a lot, but I'm currently reading the Robert's rule of order just to make sure I know what you guys are how to do it right. Status reporting, problem solving, all that kind of stuff fits right in with, project management. My special interest, of course, is making North Plains the best it can be using my strengths.

Council report.

Thank you. Have you previously served on board or committee for any city or organization?

The organization that I, co chaired is the Nike's LGBT network. It was a no term volunteer position, so I didn't get any money hard. But it was similar to this where you volunteer your time, and my pillar, my area of expertise on that one was community outreach. There was other pillars, finance, legislation, Nike community, but mine was community outreach. And during that stretch of time, which was about five years or so, I did a youth forum where I brought in kids from all of Oregon and Southwest Washington to the Nike campus, working with their GSAs, is the Gay Straight Alliance groups within high schools to achieve their goals.

So I worked a lot with that. Also, I was a project finance budget review for all of the pillars. So they all had different projects that they worked on, and they all had their budgets. So I was lucky enough to look through their budgets, make sure they're on track. They were producing what they were supposed to produce, and then problem solve and regroup with the new project.

So one last thing. I just want people to know that, as a leader in my past working life, I was a calm servant leader. That's my approach.

Thank you. Counselors, any last minute questions? No. Okay. Thank you, Anna.

Thank you.

And congrats on reading Robert Rules. I read it. It is quite interesting.

Awesome. Thank you. Perfect.

Okay. Final is Denise Zaman. Did I do that right? Got it. I was working on it. Alright. So if you'd like to introduce yourself to council, then we'll start council Robert. Good

evening, everyone. I'm Anise Zaman. I'm a current resident. I'm living in North Plains with my family, Victoria. Okay.

Question number one. Why would you like to serve on the city council? Thank you, councilor. I want to represent the interest of the residents, common residents, and also want to help the council to meet the ongoing challenges for the residents for their daily livelihood, for their daily living. I believe that most of the residents share same view like me that they want to see their expectation is to is to see North Plains as a city, a smaller city as a city that is able to efficiently provide all the amenities the residents need and not focusing only the current needs and the challenges, also looking forward in the future.

To mean that, I want to say that, like, most of this, you want to see that they have the what they need here. Have the pharmacy. They have the groceries. They have the childcare all right here in North Plains. Again, they want to see that the city grow economically in a sustainable way that relies on itself itself and can flourish further.

So I want to help the council with my public policy experience to make better policies so that we can really achieve those expectation of the residents. I know the time for this position is very short, but my approach will be to be a team member of the council to I know most of the amazing efforts are already taken, so I want to help the council to move forward with that one at the same time. I'll also make some noise to bring those discussion on the table that most of the student feel that they should have it in North Plains.

That's really good.

What do you think are the most important issues now facing North Plains?

There are many. I will mention three of them. One is the North Plains is facing a good problem in generating enough revenue to deliver the services that it want to deliver that it desire to deliver. Another challenge is to bring a common consensus among the among the residents and all the stakeholders to balance the tension between the maintaining the tradition as a small town with the challenge of, like, economically economic expansion of the city. And the third one is from the perspective of the residents.

So they want their things right here in our plans, daily thing, that grocery, pharmacy, health care, child care, all those things.

Council report.

Do you have any special interests or qualifications that you would bring to the city council?

Yes. My interest is to serve the community that I want to do with my knowledge in public policy. I'm a PhD candidate in Oakland State on public policy. So I I have learned the policy analysis, the practice analysis, and how to how to do the policy changes, how it happens. I also have the experience working with Oregon Health Authority for some time, and I also work with Sunrise Water Authority, which is located in Happy Valley City.

So and also I have the expense of being working with the committees. So I want to bring those expense to help the council. And presently, I'm the member I'm the board member in the Economic Development Commission. I just recently started my journey, so I'm I'm just learning. So I'll also bring those that short experience to work with the council.

Hi, Anis. Have you previously served on a board or committee for any city or organization?

Not in the city, but as a student, I was the chair culture culture resource center advisory committee in Portland State. I'm a current member of homeowners association, Metapri. And I'll another one I just mentioned that the economic development commission as a board

member. Alright. Any final questions? Okay. Thank you very much. If wanna take a seat Yeah.

Thank you.

And, again, I just wanna say again thank you to all the candidates for coming and being well prepared. Always appreciate that. So at this time and please give me a second when you nominate so I can write it down. I will open the floor to nominations.

Councilor Weber, I would make a motion to nominate

Anna Warrington. Hey. I have a councilor Weber nominates Anna Warrington. Do I have a second?

Councilor Reading, I'll second Anna Warrington.

One second. K. So I have Anna Warrington nominated by councilor Roberts. I get it by councilor Redding. Do I have any other nominations? Councilor Papen.

I nominate Tara Mendyke. Mhmm.

Second. K. Do I have a second? K. Any other nominations?

Let's go.

K. One last call. Any other combination? K. Ron, do you wanna pass on papers?

Rowan, can you call the votes?

I have councilor Weber for Anna Warrington. Another for Aaron Anna Warrington.

Sorry. I need the name for the record.

For Anna Warrington, councilor for Warrington, council Redding for Anna Warrington, and councilor DeFord for Anna Warrington.

Hey. Thank you. And, Bill, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe next council meeting is Swarrington. Correct?

Okay. That's quick. March 2.

March 2. So congratulations to Anna Warrington with you. I welcome we'll welcome you next council meeting for swearing in. Again, to Tara and Anise, thank you. And, again, I encourage you to to campaign, and I believe I would hopefully, the counselors are are willing to to give you a hand if you are interested in the process. I know I can find some time to squeeze in if you really want to go and knock on people's doors. It's not any fun at all, but it's well worth it because it will it's very humbling. But, again, congratulations and thank you all. So the next item on the agenda is s s p where would I go? S p 1586.

So I actually asked Bill if he would put this on after some conversations. And what I'm looking for for council is a support, do not support, or do not want you to say anything. And my intent here is to take the will of the council to our representative, Darcy Edwards, and our senator, Suzanne Weber. So I if you're unfamiliar with the bill, effectively, it is it will give tax credits for semiconductor research, and it will also add the rural reserves in Western Washington County to Metro, which will essentially be you you can look at map, but essentially brings the rural reserves in the Metro out to Jackson School Road that can be used for semiconductor or high-tech or whatever. But it says high-tech, so I guess we'll we'll we'll go with high-tech advanced manufacturing.

So you can go you can share whatever your deliberation is, but I'm what I'm looking for is a please ask them to support, please ask them not to support, or please don't say anything into that thing. That that was my three requests. So, I'd just like to go online real quick if we could, counselor.

I would suggest, please do not support. K.

Councilor Redding, I oppose.

Then do you want me to Do not support. Thank you. I just wanna make sure I'm getting your your opinion for it. Councilor Weber?

Councilor Weber, I'm a fan of the grand bargain that committed fifty years of preserving the land, so I would definitely oppose this bill, which would overruled grand bargain agreement. K.

Councilor Hagedorn, I do not support.

Councilor? Councilor, I would like to not take any stance on this bill.

K. That's all I needed. I just needed to know what the council wanted.

Easy now.

Yes. So thank you all. And, as I posted on Facebook and we'll be coming out on North Plains Living, I encourage everybody, whether you agree or disagree with it, this is our state. So please get involved and talk to your senators and reps. Whatever your opinion is, you don't have to agree with me or them or anybody else, but I would just encourage everyone to please get involved because I believe not just this issue, every issue. There are a lot of things going for the legislature, and they work for us. We should we should, politely and respectfully give them our input. You guys have council ready?

I'll appoint an order.

Oh, please.

Ten a boards and commission subcommittee discussion.

I'm sorry.

I don't know what it's about. So Quite interested.

So, yes, I skipped one and see if I'm trying to get started here. So what what we need is just for you, the three of you who are on the subcommittee to give us a where you're at, and then take any feedback from council before because before we can go to a external, we need to know kinda where you're at and then what your next steps are. So it doesn't mean any formal. Just give us a heads up on we are here and we need you to do this. That makes sense?

Yeah. I'm just not prepared because I wasn't given any information about what this was about.

So where are you guys at now?

I mean, I have a document that's been created. We had assignments. We dealt out meeting before last council meeting. Our schedules are not aligned to me again to go over what we've done, but they can they can everybody can edit the document as they work on it. It's become quite a large scope.

I know one member has some reserve about continuing because it is so large. I feel like when I started this, I really wanted to take it off of staff's backs and try and present this to council as neatly as I could following other city's documents. But it is it is it is a large chunk. It's taken up a lot of my personal time. So, I mean, that's kind of where we're at. Mandy?

Councilor Hafford here or yeah. Following up with what counselor, Redding said, we do have a draft that's in progress. We're working towards a tentative 03:16 deadline, which was discussed last meeting.

Great. So by 03:16, we'll have a draft, and I'll let the rest of council speak. But my suggestion would be to, limit scope to what you feel is most critical, kinda like we talked with chief, and with the planning commission on. But, yes, that works. Any other comments from council?

Councilor Weber, I was also there. I'm on that same way that, councilor said or mayor, you know, perhaps we have to bring the school back a little. I think it's a wonderful task, but maybe we have to have part a, part b, or something.

Maybe we get something something late. But, again, I would defer it with them three.

So, yeah, so it sounds like we're gonna bring it back on the sixteenth. So, Bill, let's add that as a unfinished business item on the sixteenth.

So is that something we send to council before the meeting? We send it and put it in the agenda packet?

Let's go ahead and send that to council. Just b c c or send it to Bill and let Bill send it. So that way we don't have to put them to serial meeting. Just say agenda, please reply. Yeah. Just send it to Bill, and then Bill will send it to council. That way, we don't accidentally

send When would you like that before the the sixteenth? I mean, it

council Redding, if it is I mean, if it's if it's strictly a package of information that you wanna discuss it at the city council meeting, I mean, I think Lori would probably be happy to get it the Wednesday prior. So at the latest just so that they make sure we get everything in formatted properly.

Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. Anything else? I'll try not to skip stuff in the future. Alright. Next is city manager report.

Okay. I don't wanna belabor too much, but let's just go over kind of schedule moving forward. And and I kind of want to get some information from you all or at least some input about it. So at the March 2 meeting, your very nice city council meeting, the work session is scheduled to be charter change. And, the most specific, idea for discussion has been as mayor, I think, has said on I know we talked about it at meetings I've had with him, but I think at least one city council meeting, you mentioned it.

And that is that the city of Sherwood, in January went through a popular vote to change their charter. And it does it does revolve around, the issue of local control, housing provision, annexations, that sort of thing. And I have Emily Masar slated to help us, kind of walk through that, kind of a work session about charter changes and that particular topic. I haven't heard anything else specifically that's in that that particular charter change. The Westside Economic Alliance meeting that had the mayor of, sure what they're kind of walking through with the city attorney, and Albert was not nearly enough for that topic.

Now you don't have a bunch of different people asking you questions. It's your work session to walk through, so it would be a little bit different. But is that really kind of the the the topic, for the work session? You know? Or is there anything else we need to be looking into for you? But that's kind of a, that's that's all that's kind of all I have in there right now.

Is there any other chart change?

I think, councilor here. I think also, if possible, nice to have a succession planning.

What we looked for for the summer. Yeah.

So If there's any

yes. Yeah. So reading your mind. Council, how are you doing? You're interested in, some kind of discussion as well about, you know, putting any mayor replacement up for popular vote rather than city council filling that vacancy like any other city council vacancy. Is is that correct?

Right. Is there a better way to do this? Okay.

Just different ideas how that might work when when that's a difficult thing. Okay.

Okay.

Any others? And, again, just to be clear, this is not making a decision. This is having a conversation with public like we're supposed to because this is something that's being talked about by a lot of mayors, and I feel it's appropriate for us to discuss these things in work sessions to make decisions. So I just wanna be clear with everyone and the public. I'm not advocating or not advocating. I'm saying this is the conversation the mayor are having and that city council should be having together, in public so that we can bring the right things to the voters to make the right decisions. Just wanna clarify.

This is for the March 2

Yes.

Work session. If we have an epiphany between now and then, are we allowed to expand scope, or do we

have to keep to what we're communicating to you tonight?

Well, I guess what I would say is this one's gonna this one's gonna have attorney time involved. Yeah. Because when you talk about charter change and what are the implications and how you do it and everything, because part of it is charter change one zero one. Just what are you looking at when you are considering a charter change? So, for instance, Sherwoods in January was technically an emergency city charter change by popular vote.

What constitutes an emergency versus a regular and all that. So there's there's some there's some city charter change one zero one involved. But the quick getting back to the answer, if you have any other suggestions or ideas, the sooner the better. Because I need to work with Emily on two might take up the bulk of the time, and let's have another meeting about other charter change ideas in the future. But starting with maybe these two, but I'll I'll work with her on that.

Thank you.

But if if word come up, please send them along. Thank you. Mhmm. Okay. The rest of it. March March 16. We're just talking work sessions. So March 16, we don't Originally, we had you know, it was just a suggestion that the subcommittee, regarding boards and commissions could have that time if that was wanted. It's have would is that what you'd like? Is the is the work session time to go through kind of your work and everything you've been doing, or did you want that as a regular city agenda item?

What works best for you? Because I because I we I still kind of I I still kind of have that locked out, not firmly scheduled. The the the work the sixth the March 16 work session.

Dealer's choice.

Well, it's your subcommittee's choice.

We can have a substantial document to you

to review and go over. And I think the work session

probably we we could easily just do a work session.

Okay. We could put up could we could yeah. I mean, if it if it if it sounds like it really kinda turned into rabbit hole after rabbit hole and you had to work through a lot, maybe the work session would be then, you know, just kind of knock it out before the regular meeting.

Yeah. Why not?

Okay. We can do that. That's no problem. So so need to sleep. Yeah. Well, I I I main thing is I know you were planning based on the discussion we just had prior. The March 16 was when you'd be ready for what you wanna talk about, It's just a matter of putting it in a work session rather than the regular agenda a city council agenda item, meeting agenda item. So we'll do that. April 6 is still the URA grant program to discussion. April 20, May 4, and May 18, we don't have anything scheduled yet.

I welcome ideas from you all. You don't have to decide that right now necessarily. You could send those into me. What I will say, though, is we are approaching and when we get into April and May, we have we're getting in the mid biennium, and so we'll need to reconvene the budget committee, and kind of give an update on where we are versus budget, and then, just kinda go over the the year to come sort of thing. So that'll happen. You might wanna say no work session the twentieth or May 4 because there'll be a budget committee meeting for Midvay Union. So just suggesting that.

And it'll start worst day.

So There you go, May 4. That's right. May 0 May 4 I

think councilor the board had a comment.

Can I point out that we're budget committee Yeah?

I was breaking that up too. Yes. That's actually a good point. We'll we'll have one due in April as well, so we'll have two positions we need to advertise.

Yes. That's correct. Thank you. So just put so moving forward, you have those work session times for the fourth and the eighteenth.

And and I'll just say, from my perspective, you guys can disagree. But my opinion is if we're at a point where we finally gotten you know, we feel like we've got our arms wrapped around things and and work's getting done, we don't need a work session for a while. I'm okay with that too. I just wanna make sure that we are doing the business that we're elected to do.

Very good. Thank you, Mayor. Next item. We you all have given the dates of March and the twenty second to be good off-site or kind of weekend, strategic planning dates. So what I wanna put forward is to ask you to give me April dates as well.

We are kind of also dealing with the buzzsaw of every other city who is not biannual doing annual budget goals, strategic planning. So so facilitation of that, it's not super easy to nail down dates. So if you could give me some in the first, couple weeks of April, that would be appreciated. And then March 2, you'll have a new counselor, and that and her schedule as well can be factored in. So just kind of putting that out there.

Dates that are Sundays? Sunday.

Sunday seem to work nicely. Yeah. If you don't mind. And then and then based on, councilor De Forge's request at the prior council meeting, regarding the USDA rural grant or money that we have allocated to us, the million dollars there, and kind of what next steps are. There's really not enough yet together to put together a memo, I would say, but I will kind of give a a cup where we are and then what we need to do.

Unlike the EPA, who as soon as we were basically, as soon as we were selected to receive the Brownfield grant, the EPA has a group kind of qualified consultants that they instantly assign to the grandee, the selected agency with us. A consultant to help us navigate through the process moving forward. That's not so with USDA. So we are now we are currently working with COLPAC, Columbia Pacific Economic Development District on on basically finding from in from from people that they know, consultants or individuals, if if not in house, to kind of help us navigate the this process, to go through the application process, and then kind of project planning. And then the second thing that we're beginning to do is what we have to do as a city is go through and revise the civics of our plan that dates back to 2020.

You know, all of you lived here. I think most of them all lived here that are on council. But the city went through the civic center public facility, city space needs study back in 2020, 2021. And there was never a final architectural design for the Civic Center, but rather kind of a community outreach driven these are the different services we wanna provide in a city hall Civic Center project. And that study that's it is a is a line, kind of identify space needs by department and and use.

That needs to be updated because of the Kendall Public Services building has rendered some of it fulfill some of those needs. So we don't need a police department with a civic center. We do need council chambers. We need meeting space. We still need additional library space, but we do have to, scope out with an architect what that looks like and then hire somebody to revise that space need so that we can move forward with a project.

So that's kind of where we are. It's just finding people to help us with those two things. Going through the USDA rural program process, and then we don't have the horsepower in house, and then somebody to revise the sleep incentive plan. So that's where we are. Councilor Torch, just for a rough ballpark, is that a six week, six months, a year? What does that look? Great question. So in terms of finance consultant, I I don't know. That's kind of a specialized thing. But within a month, we can have plan is to was just to reach out to FFA.

They are the firm that did the space that they need before and just ask them. If an update happened with cost new cost estimates, what does the study what does that look like? What's the scope of that study? And then based on what the cost is, then move forward with some kind of find somebody to do it. So four weeks.

Could Yeah. Could we say maybe put on the books for the March 16 to have an update from through the city manager report that maybe on, like, costs so we can start making, like, you know, gagging sounds if it's too much or celebrate if it's nothing. The answer

is yes. Absolutely. Yes. Mhmm.

Okay. Yeah. Anybody else question? No. No. K.

And then and then really quickly, sorry, we didn't really get to discuss it, but we can put it on the agenda for March 2 if you like or at least, talk about it more is if the monthly if the monthly financial reports don't have information that you would like to have in it, emphasize something too much, don't emphasize another thing, you as a counselor don't that report isn't a script that I've pulled from best practices department of revenue in Oregon. K? It it does look a lot like some of the other reports other cities do, but it's not identical. You all can ask for information you would rather see or or reformat it, that sort of thing. But that's a conversation that you all have to have and agree on and and then and then staff moves forward with it.

So just letting you know that's that's something you all get to think about and, you know, different direction if you want.

Yes. Of course.

Dear Dunbar, would you guys be interested in a subcommittee to make recommendations?

Subcommittee. You look subcommittees, to make recommendations as far as what the scope of reporting, I I don't know. That's what you think.

We just have off of it.

How long do you anticipate this conversation taking? Out of curiosity. I I'm sensing something here, so I'm trying to draw where you're going with this.

No. I was I was just going to, I was just thinking that, anyone who's interested could could get together and go into the weeds and come up with an idea and surface it to the group. But if you guys wanna I would discuss it together, that's

perfectly fine. I would not be opposed if if council wanted to have a subcommittee as long as it comes back before the next council meeting. But yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh. I I think I think what I'm getting from council is maybe we should just have this conversation. And everybody make notes. Do not send them to each other. Make notes on what you'd like to see if there's changes, and then what level of detail you're looking for, and then let's present that. We'll come to consensus. Does that work for everyone?

Can we include the URA and scope of this, or is this only That's a good question. No. All all funds.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, like like I said like I said earlier, to date, the focus has been on funds, operating funds simply because they spend money every single day. And so over the course of a month, it's worth always checking on those things. The URA, any of your funds, that would be you can treat them all equally if you would like. You could simply say no. Nothing. Not the capital funds every month because, you know, project activity isn't going, and it's not worth the time or whatever. It's all up to you. So

So I'll say there are six subcommittees of one person who cannot meet with any other subcommittee and bring back the recommendations and try to keep it brief because, we don't want next council meeting to run till midnight. Go ahead, councilor Weber.

I was just gonna say, councilor Weber, you know, I think you're being kinda humble in the fact that we do have a CPA. I would certainly defer to insights you might have about things we could add and just put them out there.

There's the subcommittee you want.

Okay. We're all in the.

Anything else, Bill? That's it, Victor, very much. Alright. Thank you. Alright. So we're gonna go through council reports. And because somebody does kindly put them in order, I'm just gonna go council report.

No council reports for me. I have a library board meeting tomorrow and then Metro.

Councilor Baker.

Sat in on behalf of Trista or councilor Papen for the February 12 community development policy Advisory Board. It's helpful. We did approve on, some funds, to disperse to the, of the Community Development Block Grant and Home Improvement partnerships for the year 2627, and the total amount, is approximately 2,000,000. There's also going to be some beneficiaries of our claims. I'll let counselor, disclose that good news.

I won't spill beans, but, they're also looking forward to, advocacy for the National Community Development, early April. So, there is that. My meeting with the director Wacha is moved to the twenty seventh. And then, of course, I have the honor of attending the sisters and stuff in opening on within partnership with counselor Weber who is representing the URA. They do have a lot of stuff. I highly recommend going down there and doing a treasure hunt, and you wanna get lost in there and and spend a lot

of time. So Sure. Sure. Oh,

the senior center? No. It's a it's a it's a ball. It I would prefer you to.

You're nice sitting here. So just kidding.

Okay. Counselor Peyton. Well, I was not in attendance for that CDBG meeting. However, I did attend the presentation for CDBG funding, there is a nonprofit group starting up in North Plains who's really looking for community outreach specifically with those in need of the senior citizen demographics specifically and really just being of assistance. And they did a great job, you know, explaining their their mission, so I don't wanna to to mince words.

But they came before, and they were selected for funding, part of the CEBG funding group. So really exciting to have someone from Northland's represent. And I would just share for my own council report. I have not had an ex officio meeting yet, but I did have the opportunity to start the first of many meetings as a as a resident representing for the Washington County Sheriff's Office Community Academy. So got a great tour of Washington County headquarters. I look forward to the next few weeks just learning about all the chief Jones and soon to be chief O'Reilly a day in their life. So I'll report back as I hear more each.

Was that during a hunt that. Awesome. Alright. Cool. I'm trying to get a copy of her because I just wanted to, like, talk about what she's doing, but I didn't know she got a grant to defend her. Okay. Council Redding.

Council Redding, the first official duties I had was with parts and rep. They focused primarily on finalizing revisions by to their bylaws. The main discussion centered on attendance. The board reached consensus that two consecutive unexcused absences will trigger a conversation between the member and the chair. And if unexcused absences continue, it may result in a recommendation to counsel for removal.

The emphasis was on con communication and accountability while still recognizing that life circumstances happen. Also discussed quarterly reporting to council, and the board understands that council prefers a representative present when reports are delivered to answer questions. There was a request regarding youth baseball practice use at the Jesse Mayfield this spring. However, currently, all park facilities operate on a first come, first served basis as we do not have a reservation system for athletic fields. The board expressed interest in exploring a future reservation structure, particularly as park usage grows and, hopefully, as we get the new parks position filled.

The board briefly revisited pavilion rental fees. However, at this time, rental revenue already goes into the Jesse May operating fund, covers maintenance and repairs, so no changes were made. Staff provided an update on park development in the Bryn Hill phases. Work is expected to progress this spring, including restroom adjustments and continued coordination with the developer. The board continues to provide advisory input consistent with the park's master plan.

Overall, the meeting focused on governance, clarity, response responsible facilities, and preparing for future growth. My second meeting was with, planning commission on February 11. I was present for the regular portion of the planning commission meeting and watched the work session afterwards, so I'll separate those. During the regular meeting, the commission approved the January minutes with a clarification that a previous comment I made reflected my personal position and not the full council. Commissioners asked staff about several recent signage approvals, including Columbia Bank, a fitness center, and a school sign.

Staff confirmed those permits were properly issued and will follow-up on one additional location. No broader land use concerns were raised. Staff also identified a potential compliance issue related to goal one citizen involvement. Under our comprehensive plan, the planning commission is designated as the committee for citizen involvement that may require annual reporting or enhanced engagement measures to ensure we remain compliant. This is something that may come back to counsel for awareness or direction.

After I left, the commission held a work session on development code update options, which I watched later. Consultants outlined the three pathways, a minimal legislative compliance update, a moderate targeted update, or a comprehensive multiyear modernization. From the discussion, the commission appears to be leaning toward a phased comprehensive approach, particularly in preparation for future UGV expansion and in light of state housing law changes. No formal recommendations were made. Staff will return in March with a refined proposal outlining scope and cost options, and council should expect the conversation to include potential multiyear budget considerations. So those are my ex officio updates. Sorry. They're long. No. That's great.

Thank you.

And then I have questions, about audio visual equipment update. Adele? Sorry. I'm gonna be the thorn in your son.

It it's okay. We just with everything going on, I think they've got things too. We haven't had down a meeting date. So, I'll get back to them. So but, no, please be the thorn. That's okay.

And then I was gonna ask for clarity. As the local contract review board, could we begin reviewing a monthly report of all contracts executed under delegated authority, including vendor, amount, and procurement method? Is that something I asked the council?

Emily Medistar will address that issue on March 2.

And then

I was just wondering who Matt is. She kept referring to a Matt. And Oh. For the audit. And then others she said two others attended to help.

Yes. So the match we referred to is Matt Apkin, who is basically the project team lead, for for us, for financial consulting, as well as financial statements. And then the other people who attended, would be Bailey. Bailey Gaunt, our own senior accounting clerk. And then Jenny Poff, who is also with Marina, she helps with bank reconciliation bank reconciliations, kind of identifying and helping us with journal entries, and then when we need to modify some things, correct errors, that sort of thing.

And then, payroll, reporting to the system. So Can I clarify on that? So Marina is assisting with the audit? Yes. So Marina Marina, when when, when when Savannah mentioned the city was producing its own financial statements, What she meant was, Marina is doing that for us.

And then Great. And then and then what Marina has pulled together for financial statements is what she mentioned is was was submitted, to Encore Valley Financial, not that long ago. I think I don't know why, but there had been some misconception or misperception, by Encore Valley Financial, but they would be taking all of our information and doing our own doing our our financial states sent us for us, they would be doing. But I we've they we've been working with them since early two thousand or 2024. And so that that that conversation was a little bit surprising.

But the bottom line is Marina has done our financial statements, and they've been submitted for review to Club Valley Financial. So But Matt Matt is not Marina. Matt is Marina. He Matt Marina. Matt Abkin is is with Marina. Oh. Yes. He certainly is. There we go. Mhmm. Yep. He's the team leader for that. So on the Marine side. So we have a contract with Marina, or is that a that was a continuation of an old contract? We we have a, we have a contract scope that we haven't finalized for a new contract, and I believe in an email either today or very recently, Emily just kind of went over that to with you all.

But it's an ex it's an expanded scope that's reflective of not having a finance manager in house, but having consulting assistance with those things. So correct. Okay. And then one last question.

So I get the emails from the chamber, and, I was going through their minutes. And I know you attend. And I know I've kind of asked this before, but, like, do we have contracts with them? And then if we if we do, can we receive reports back so that if they need support from us in some way, especially with them supporting our business community?

With the chamber.

Yeah.

Okay. So well, the the relationship there is that the city is simply an annual member, and we pay we pay a membership fee like businesses do, and we're a member. And they just keep the city, a city report on their agenda for their regular member meeting every month. And so, a number of us just go, and listen, and then I tend to give Robin and I both actually tend to kinda give tag team a report about what's going on, very briefly. I focused last time I focused on the fact that we had a vacant seat. And so if anybody wanted to apply or they knew anybody who wanna apply, get the word out, just things like that. But other than that, not really. We're just a member of the chamber. The city is.

I know. But as counselors, we're not necessarily attending. Right. But we're members. So when you go, could you bring back and and maybe give us some, you know, a little brief overview? Or

Yeah. Sure. I mean, they they hand out an agenda agenda and all that, so we can we can share information from them.

The highlights. Just kinda, like,

Sure. Don't know. Call of

his counsel field about that idea.

That's okay, Ben. You know, I I see what your kind of the angle and then and appreciate just that transparency, I think. And this is the part I'm gonna ask Bill and put you on the spot. But are those count those chamber agendas and minutes, are those visible on their website? Is that something that we could go find on our own accord?

I have never tried to look to see.

I believe they are. I mean member It's a business.

It's yeah. It's just their general it's just their general member meeting. It's the they they have a separate kind of credit board meeting that isn't, but may or may be incorrect. I've never looked for that information on their website, so I can't say yes or no. Right?

Okay. And I and I just ask that because I think about the current climate that we're in and, you know, we as a council, I think a lot of our priorities are are really weighted in the audits, and I am hesitant to ask for one more thing that maybe isn't as big of a priority in my eyes, at least, in my opinion, if it's something that we can just find on our own accord on a website.

I if if might follow-up on that, I think the one thing that I would additionally add is, you know, they're they're a private member organization. And so that might be a conversation to have about what what that if if there was any kind of communication of what they're doing here, that that might you might you might wanna have a conversation with the chamber about what that would look like anyway.

Yeah. I think, I'm I would be the councilor on that. I think this it's one more thing one more report. I understand you're coming from, but I I think I would tend to concur, but I'll leave to rest of council. Anybody have any other thoughts? Or I think I think at this time, it seems like maybe something to table. So anything else, council? Councilor Weber?

I neglected the last time to mention that I'd been at the library meeting, so I apologize for that. Library was in a good mood because the levy passed. If people haven't had a chance, go see the annex next to the library. They're doing a great job with it. They're mostly ready for that to be fully rolling, so that was good.

I was able to attend two kickoff events, one for the food bank, one for the, two sisters. That was a lot of fun. My favorite part of the two sisters is a lady pulled me aside to tell me that many of the houses in North Plains are haunted, and she offered to tour me of the most haunted house. Oh, the toddler. And counselor Weber declined to go to that house.

I would ask for a little more clarification on the contract process that's come up before. That doesn't have to be done now. But just so we understand, my thing being on council is transparency. So if there's an easier way to make sure we've seen the contracts, that we're updated on the contract we have with Umpqua, the contracts that we have with Marina, I presume there was some sort of contract with, cleanup in the Glenbrook property. Again, that's what we need to always decide, but just

That's sort of an answer. Emily will address that on this.

That's all great. The other thing I realize it's important for us not to micromanage staff, but I'm in a unique position. I have helped unload at the food bank in the mornings. I would encourage before this decision is made, some of you go over there, help, hang out there. I was amazed.

It's extremely dangerous in that, food bank here working with a lot of volunteers that don't have the skill, and they're loading things on carts, and they move around without paying attention. And if it's at all possible in these decisions, again, I would just hate I don't think it's far fetched that if it's in front, somebody could eventually get sideswiped. And if at all possible, I would favor it on the side street. Again, not my decision, but I would say if you haven't yet, go over there while the unloading and unloading is happening. Talk to Laura just so you have a feel for what the issue is, and then, yeah. So be it.

Thank you. Mayor Dunbar, could I jump in for a brief moment? Very. It wasn't clear to me what authority the council has to either act or not act on Laura's complaint. So I would appreciate some clarity around.

I wanna I would suggest you send that to Emily because that's getting into a very gray area. I believe council's direction of staff was see if there's a, temporary solution for traffic calming, which I believe council had consensus on. So that's the direction we're gonna take looking forward. But if you have further questions on that, please send them to Emily. But at this point, that's pretty much all we have. Anything else? No. Alright. So, I will address, some Strong Town's comments on city manager review. That's already been sent to Emily, so we will make no more no further comments without advice of counsel.

So that's where that sits just so we're on the record on that. I attended the Washington County Coordinating Committee meeting. It's always a great time. Transportation is probably the most riveting subject you'll ever find out about. I just keep telling them that we don't want Metro trying to take over our plane.

So that's usually the soapbox that I stand on. And also trying to get more economic development funds out of some of these organizations. So amazing good relationships out of the committee, though, so that helps. Largely, it's just focused on the short session, short legislative session, and the gas tax and the various other bills that are beginning to legislature on at the moment and trying to figure out what the stance is. And I did not have any ex officio duties. There is an event for Peak Chiropractic coming up next week. It's gonna be a paint night. I would suggest if you're available. I will actually be out of town, unfortunately, but there is a paint night coming. We'll do this on Thursday.

Just reach out to Serena at Peak or just walk over there. And they would love to have you. There's another event, and it escapes me, but I'll try to send it out to everybody. And I can't even think of what it is. I apologize. It's late. But there was another event. So if if anybody has time at community events, it's a great way support our local businesses. Just showing up means a ton to them. So anything you can do to help support local businesses, I'm sure that they would appreciate it, and economic development in the chamber would appreciate it.

And thank you to councilor and Weber. Thank you. For sending the sisters and stuff ribbon cutting, I took some time with my wife, and we had a little time out of town. So that was nice. And with that, let's see. Do we need to go over March meetings? Anybody have questions? Hopefully, you can all read the calendar. And it's facilities, and we don't have any more council committee appointments, but we did them all. And with that, I will thank you all for your time, and we will adjourn at 09:32.

No. Who would you speak with a private time?