City Council - Regular Meeting

That's usually me that does stuff like that to get people's attention. Hey, by the way, it's time to start. So, let's get started. Mr. Smith. All right. Well, um, we want to update update you on a number of different issues that are coming up in the public works realm. So, we're going to hit a number of different topics and I'll just let Mark take it over from here.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Um, I believe uh we're going to start off with a little discussion on our industrial pre-treatment program. We have Triton Moore uh with Anderson Perry joining us on Zoom if he's Hey, there he is. Look at that. Wow. Okay, so this should work out well. So, um I'll just kind of te it up for you a little bit, Drayton. and gave him maybe 10 minutes or so to just kind of talk about what some of these changes are. Uh but so we're uh embarking on a process to add an industrial pre-treatment requirement to our city code. Uh generally speaking, I think you can kind of think about that as uh you know, the state DEEQ, they have permitting programs that say, you know, here's things that you're allowed to discharge and those types of things. This would be a similar type of a setup just with our own system. So we would essentially become like a permitting agency for industrial users in the community and say here's what you're generally allowed to discharge to us because ultimately we're the ones that answer to DEEQ in terms of what we end up discharging out the other end of our sewer system. So uh so I brought Drton in to to talk about it a little bit because here in a few weeks at an upcoming council meeting we'll be bringing these uh changes to you for actual adoption. So, I think the changes uh come across looking like they're like 60 pages long of city code changes, but that's just because our sewer code is really, really long. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Titan and he can talk to you a little bit more about industrial pre-treatment programs.

Yeah. So, hey, can everyone hear me okay over there? Yeah, sounds good.

Yeah. So, Mark summarized it pretty well there. And um yeah, what what we've kind of pulled together there there are just some really specific requirements um per federal regulations that that need to be included in your municipal code as you embark on on developing your own pre-treatment program. Um Oregon DEEQ is generally in charge of reviewing and m and and um reviewing those programs and those potential code changes. we've already gone through and verified that these changes are compliant with with their requirements and and yeah, really it's just the the intent there is to verify that you have proper authority. So, um, for things like right of entry in case you have an industrial user and and they're not being compliant and you need to go do a site inspection or by you I mean you know your your public works staff or um or you have the the correct structure in place to be able to set um u permit application fees and and then the associated fines and that sort of things as it pertains to um industrial pre-treatment. Um, and this is just one of the steps in the process for developing the program is is first just verifying and proving it out to DEEQ that you have that the authority to do that established in code. And then I guess also to Mark's point, you know, obviously already had a very a rather robust um sewer ordinance and and the the changes we've made are really to to to or at least that we're proposing be made are really to integrate that into the rest of your sewer ordinance. And so it's um there's there are a few new sections and then just some some

modifications to just make it read nicely as as a as a ordinance as a whole. Great. Thank you.

Hey Trayton, could you maybe talk a little bit again? I think we've we've had some presentations with um our uh public infrastructure committee. U but with the entire council here maybe just a little bit more too uh talking about what first off like what is pre-treatment because a lot of people don't even know what that necessarily means like what is pre-treatment and then also um maybe just some examples of uh some of the the businesses that you know may end up having to sort of comply with this type of a thing and um what that actual like programming and permitting process looks like.

Certainly. So, yeah, Mark mentioned it a little bit earlier, but yeah, the intent behind that pre-treatment is really to protect your system. Um, so the industrial pre-treatment program kind of formalizes a process where when a new commercial user comes into town, um, they'll, you know, they'll fill out their sewer application. And with that sewer application, we we're working on developing a pipeline where they'll um they'll fill out a form that will help public works staff to identify if that user might have the potential to discharge wastewater that could harm either your sewer system or your wastewater treatment plant. Um and industrial users in this case or as it pertains to the pre-treatment program, those who will be regulated are anyone who through this process is identified as having potential to cause harm and just needing some additional oversight. Um, usually that would involve either individuals who discharge high volumes of water um or or rather of waste water or people who discharge weird pollutants, you know, heavy metals or or strange things or or salts, different things that could damage um the treatment facility itself or just things that you're not equipped to at your in a standard municipal wastewater treatment plant to to treat that would just pass on through and then cause pollution downstream of you. And because you have a permit with Oregon DEEQ, you know, any sort of pass through like that, if you don't have an industrial pre-treatment program, ultimately um the city's liable or or would be liable for those types of pollution events. But with with the implementation of the pre-treatment program, you have you have more of a system in place to

protect yourselves from some of that liability to better identify where some of those types of maybe odd pollutants may be coming from, but then also just in in the case of a pollutant event, but more importantly just to overall protect yourselves from as best you can from any of that happening in the first place. Um, so specific examples of types of businesses that you would be seeing as regulated by an industrial pre-treatment program might be things like breweries, um, tanneries, things that um, other types of things that um, might discharge a high strength wastewater, winery wastewater, things like that. Um, or high volume. I mentioned things like data centers or other similar types of of um businesses that just have high high volume of water um things like that. I don't know Mark if you want me to get into specific details businesses but those are at least some examples of of types of businesses that may may require regulation. Ultimately, they'll fill out um a survey and we have surveyed many of the mun many of the commercial users in town to better identify and weed out who would require regulation and who wouldn't.

Great. And I think maybe just um and again Traden can sort of uh redirect me or correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a helpful way that I like to think of in terms of the pre-treatment process is, you know, it's not saying that certain businesses are not allowed to send their water to us. It just may be that they have to treat their water before they send it to us. So, you know, a good example would be um the CBD processing facility. They were sending us water that had a lot of BOD in it. And so, we went around and around with them for quite a while. And ultimately they put in essentially what amounts to some pre-treatment, meaning they put in some uh like a pond with some blowers in it to knock the BOD down. And so we sample when they send it to us. So now we know that they're treating it a little bit to before they send it to us. So there are other methods of treating other types of things um depending on what the pollutant is. And so this would just put a process in place where now we can hold that business to a standard and say, "Okay, in order to be able to send us your your water, you have to treat it before you send it to us. And yeah, that's exactly right. And on that note, really the intent, you know, your municipal system there is really set up to treat domestic waste, you know, municipal strength wastewater. So the idea behind the pre-treatment is anyone who sends something who would nor without pre-treatment send you something that isn't municipal strength they are required to treat it in a way that gets it closer to that municipal strength so that it's just more in line with with what what your systems equipped to handle.

Great. Mr. Mayor, you have a question? Yeah. um closer what I mean how you know at what where do we is that is that line going to be delineated

so and Dritton can maybe uh talk a little bit about this but like with our um uh the CBD plant so with them we actually install we don't usually sample uh people's discharge water uh but we installed a meter uh that has the ability to sample the water and so we have established limits that say we will accept water as long as the constituents or whatever it is that we're testing for are within this range. And so that's where if they were to discharge something to us and it came back and it was out of that range, then we can either, you know, charge them appropriately for us or potentially find them depending on what the pollutant is. But so there we we would establish essentially limits where they're allowed to discharge within. Okay.

Yeah, that's 100% correct. And and then another comment just on the high flow side of things, there's just a federal trigger where any individual discharger who sends you more than 25,000 gallons per day on average um would be also required to be regulated just because at the higher flows there's a there's a higher risk there for them to upset your treatment plant. Yes, Councilman. I just wanted to make sure that with the changes, do they have to go through DEEQ first before we can approve them? Then you bring them back to us and then we have vote on it.

Yeah. So, um Anderson Perry's already put together all of the recommended code changes and that's actually what's taken gosh almost a year was we sent all of that up to DEEQ and they've done that um prevetting already. So, so what we'll be bringing to you has already been through DEEQ and gotten their acceptance that this is good code language. Any additions to that, Drayton? No, that's that's exactly correct. And on that note, I'll just indicate it is a lengthy process because there are several DEQ checkpoints and you know, they're not always the most responsive, but we're working on keeping on them.

Great. Any other questions on this? Yeah. Just to clarify, this only will apply to businesses. Is that correct? Correct. And that's, you know, again, maybe um Triton, uh, one of my questions, just to kind of clarify a little bit more, was talking a little bit about some of the other ones. Uh, I kind of wanted to make sure that you were aware that there's some businesses that you may not otherwise think of as being industrial. So, the one that always sticks with me when Triton mentions it is things like dentists, you know, so they do have he, you know, metals and some of those types of things. And so, um, so it doesn't seem like they're industrial, um, but they do have some things that we'll just have to make sure that we monitor for.

Yeah, I think the the Dennis is a good example. And and on that note, there is also some flexibility and we're working as we're developing the program to bake in that flexibility. So depending on the amount of risk involved with the business, there may need to be more oversight. dentists, for example, there's there's a requirement that they have amalgam separators and and that's standard practice for them. So, this would just from from a dentist point of view, it just kind of formalize. We just need to check up and make sure that they're maintaining those, they're financially, you know, incentivized to maintain those just because of the capture of that amalgam. But that is a good example. or like say in the future you have a a brewery comes into town or wants to come into town and and set up uh you'll have the the structure in place to be able to um easily accept them. The CBD oil company's another good example. They just they have really high organic strength and and uh have really high potential to upset your treatment plan if if they screw up their pre-treatment and so as a result they require a little more oversight. So, Triton, are you saying that I'll get to start sending like postcards to all the dentists in town and tell them it's time for their checkup?

Yeah, you you'll be able to just flip flip. That's exciting. Yeah, we're gonna have to work on that. Can Can we find him? Oh, okay. All right. So, any other questions on the industrial pre-treatment? Yeah. Sorry. Other other than the CBD plant, have we had a lot of other businesses that have been sort of discharging things that are nasty into our system?

Well, so maybe Triton can talk a little bit more on the detail of so we did a like a systemwide outreach and survey. So it went through all of our existing users and tried to identify the commercial users first off and then from there the ones that potentially may um be um required to go through this process. So, Traden, could you maybe talk a little bit about, you know, roughly how many uh we think might get involved with this?

Uh, some some of that will will, I guess, depend. As of right now, the the main concern DEEQ has is the CBD oil folks. Um, they're they're one of your main triggers, if you will, for being required by DEEQ to to implement the program. Um, other than that, it would be if if you needed a data center, if if a data center wanted to to hook up and discharge some of their non-cont cooling water. While that water is frankly probably, depending on where the source is, probably cleaner than what you're seeing anyways, they're still required just because of the high volumes associated with that. So, that would have to be that would be regulated as well underneath this program. they would have to, you know, submit a permit application and and meet those permit limits. In their case, your bigger concern would be with like heavy metals and things like that.

Great. Is it is this something that's um common among municipalities our size? Dr. You want to talk a little bit about maybe some other municipalities our size that have this?

Um I know the city of Prineville um is probably a good example. They've just recently gone through this process. Um I think they're a little bit smaller than y'all, but they're r, you know, roughly they're similar enough. I think they're about 12 or 13,000 folks. Um much smaller than that, I haven't seen it. Um and and but that said, it really just depends on the industry. I've seen um there's been some talk with some oh golly I'm struggling with the name of them all of a sudden some meat packers in like for example in like the Hines area if they were to try and connect to the sewer that would trigger a requirement to have a pre-treatment program. Um I'd say much smaller than than Prineville or Y'all though. um it's it starts to make sense to tell those folks they just need to treat it all the way on their own. Um but because of the size of your system and the capacity that you have, you have that flexibility and that capability to be able to accept it. And I think

just on that just as an example, the city I came from in Iowa, we were about 10,000 and we had a paint manufacturer and they we had an ordinance like this because of that plant. And so it I think like he's saying, it just kind of depends on what's there.

I think also along those lines too, um you know, prior to this, we didn't really have any actual industrial industrial users that were on our sewer system. um you know even Hermiston Foods you know they would just uh largely discharge out to their agricultural fields and so a lot of the food processing facilities you know their flows are so large that they would overwhelm you know certainly smaller smaller communities and we really didn't want them on ours and so so I think it's a it's a higher level of service for us with a a city of our size to be able to accommodate industry in this manner but

thank you mayor And uh my question is since we're talking about water safety, water cleanliness, I think it's it's abundantly clear that in the background we we've had these data centers that have come into town. And we later today have uh a discussion about joining in on a lawsuit uh with PAS. And so I guess just to be direct on this, will this also help or address some of the PAS that we see in the system?

I'd say this isn't related to PAS and and I don't really have any concerns with PAS specific to data centers. But yeah, so this is a topic that's been going on for quite a while and really it was mainly driven by the uh CBD processing option. Thank you for clarifying that. Any others? Okay. All right. You're free trading. We'll move on. All right. Thank you all. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Okay. Now, we'll pull up some of our other slides and, uh, I appreciate councelor Baron teeing us up on the next topic, which is PAS. So, uh, let's see. Uh, just kind of a couple more things that we want to talk about this evening. We already talked industrial pre-treatment. I just want to talk a little bit about PAS. Um, I want to talk real briefly about our public works space needs. Uh then I want to talk a little bit about uh our water uh supply approach with our aquifer storage and recovery program. Then if we still have time because we still got some things to squeeze in there. Uh we can talk a little bit about some public works staffing and then some project updates. So first off uh talking about PAS. So what is PAS? Um it's you know generally a lot of folks refer to it as forever chemicals. really PAS is just a class of chemicals where those chemicals are specifically designed to be hard to break down in the environment. So, uh, you know, think about if you're, you know, making scrambled eggs in the morning on your, you know, Teflon frying pan and a chunk of your Teflon comes off into your eggs, you're eating a big dose of PAS. I mean, that's what, um, what Teflon is. It's specifically designed to be really heat resistant so that it doesn't break down when you're cooking it over a flame. Uh, that type of thing. you know, there's a lot of other chemicals in that realm as well. Things like, you know, your Gortex jackets, um, all those types of things. So, PAS not a new issue. Uh, but I'd say it's newly regulated or or newishly regulated. Uh, so then another question, where is it? Uh, generally PAS is everywhere. Um, it's all over the place. I I would defy you to to look and try to find a water source that doesn't at least have some amount of PAS um in it somewhere. So, um it's everywhere. Um it's in the city of Hermiston system. Um it's in every other municipal system in the region. It's in every um private well that surrounds us. Um so it's it's a abundant chemical uh

that you're going to find uh pretty much everywhere. Uh now this is uh just get on folks radar. uh the costs associated with dealing with PAS uh because of regulation over the last couple of years uh which now puts some of our water sources uh slightly over the limit for what they are regulating for PAS. Um it's going to be expensive. So last year we asked Anderson Perry to put together uh some analysis on how to get some of those water sources under the limit on uh the PAS thresholds. And so their general solution across all of them was generally just filtration. Um so just putting filter filtering systems on several of our water sources. Um upfront cost uh for doing that would be in the range of around $23 million. You know, if we financed that over 30 years, it's going to come out to a little over a million a year. Uh but in addition to the upfront capital costs, filtration, you know, inherently implies the existence of filters themselves. And those filters need to be replaced uh on a regular basis. They need to be maintained. Uh it takes staff to do that and a lot of materials. Uh so in addition to the $23 million upfront capital cost, uh the estimate came back that it would increase operational costs by about a million per year. So between those two, uh the capital, you know, debt service and the ongoing operational costs, uh we'd be looking at an additional cost of somewhere in the range of around $2 million a year. Uh now just for a sense of scale uh it's important to understand uh total annual revenues in the water system are just a shade under $6 million a year. So uh this would be increasing the the total cost on the system uh somewhere in the range of around 40%. So uh when we saw those numbers it was significant. And so

I think what uh the opportunity that this presents is we have our water system master plan. Our water system master plan has a lot of different options and alternatives for water source, water delivery, water storage, all those types of things. And there's a lot of them, particularly on the water source side of things. Uh that the further you get down on the list, the less and less um viable they ever were in our minds because of the cost associated with implementing those options. And so, uh, when we're looking at otherwise, looking at a $23 million upfront cost with a million a year in ongoing operational costs, uh, that's where I asked Anderson Perry to go back, um, and really provide us some much more in-depth analysis of some of these other solutions, not just filtration, because I don't think there's any, um, way around uh, some type of significant cost. Uh but I think uh if we're going to be coming and asking for some significant um uh cost increases and expenses, uh I'd like to make sure that we've turned over every rock and looked under every opportunity that I think also might be able to um benefit the community a lot more. So there's a number of these alternatives and and Anderson Perry is starting on that process now to just look at all those other alternatives. Just one example of of one of those types of alternatives would be things like um transitioning a number of our uh large um water users who just simply use water for irrigation, transitioning them to just purely irrigation. Uh because right now we supply potable drinking water to a lot of folks that just water their grass with it. And so I think there's some lowhanging fruit there that we can um attack and be able to supply, you know, things like non-pottable drinking water for or non-pottable water for irrigation systems that ultimately bring down some of these costs. So So with that, you know, uh this is just a slide to to get the cost in front of you. Make sure that you're aware that PAS is there. Uh there's no getting away from it. There's no getting around it. It's going to be

expensive. Uh but we're going to do a lot of work here over the coming year uh to try and bring as many options to you for future consideration. So that's a question. Thank you for your presentation on this. I think it's really important for us to see the financials and to really understand kind of the full impact of this. I just started thinking about other communities that are in our area. Like if this is $22 million, I don't understand how it's going to be very difficult for our neighboring communities to be able to even do something like this, especially if it's an an unfunded mandate.

Uh, and so I I think this puts a really good perspective on on what's going on. And I I don't even know how feasible this is. I I also think, and correct me if I'm wrong, does Pendleton have a data center? No, they No. But yet they they also had PAS. So, I think going back to your point that it's not necessarily tied to data centers. It's it's it's everywhere. And so, um I I appreciate you guys bringing this forward and and giving us things to consider. Yeah. M.

Okay. I understand that is a chemicals, but chemicals had to come from some somewhere if it's in a large amount. So, I'm wondering where did all these chemicals come from and how did it get into our water?

I don't know. I mean, that's the shortest answer. It it's ubiquitous in the environment. You know, there's PAS in, you know, water wells in Hermiston. There's PAS and water wells in Wyoming. There's P I mean, it's it's everywhere. And so, um I don't believe that there's any one like point source in Hermiston specifically. Um, so to councelor Baron's point, um, I think probably the the single largest source of PAS in in their system is firefighting foam associated with their airport. Um, but so there's a number of different, you know, sources. It can be from anything, but but I don't think there's any one single point source in Hermiston. I think it's just a general um, ubiquitous contamination.

Okay. Thank you. Others council, does this what does this uh filtering get us? Does this get us just to below the safe level as mandated by the EPA or does this get us to near zero PAS or what does this get us?

I believe that would get us to near zero. Um but so as you can imagine anytime there's some new regulation there's also many new um profiteers out there with a solution to to come along and so so we're certainly getting a lot of sales calls you know every water system is and so so I certainly understand where you're going with that in that it's like look we don't need to filter it to zero if the threshold is 10 why don't we take it to nine and so I think there's there's alternatives to potentially get to there but I think with filtration um the way that it that it works, you can't necessarily just say we'll only take it to nine. It's like if you're putting it in, it's going to take you to zero no matter what. So um but also then to to counselor Bron's point. Um this is something with filtration that it does scale slightly. So this would be applying filtration to I want to say four um water sources. So like let's say you're Stanfield and you only have one well, you know, you wouldn't have to do that on four sources. However, you're still going to have the the fixed cost of having to have a staff person who knows what they're doing and you know, so so it's going to scale down somewhat, but yeah, it's going to be expensive for everybody others. So, I I'll throw this one out there. Where is it working or where where do we where do we know about that's that's doing this now? And and is successful

in terms well filtration is just a all we're talking about is just different class of chemicals so there's lots of places for decades who've been doing filtration of all sorts of different things it's really just focusing specifically on on PAS so there's no you know inherently new um filtration process and I think that's part of the reason why I was like well here's you know a tried and tested you know method but I think there's other alternatives out there so what would what would be I mean what is the are we talking the you know the the gold standard like reverse osmosis that's one option yeah I mean I know that's more expensive yeah

yeah I know that I I mean you know I watched the the data center out there by uh by two rivers they put one of those in when they first started pulling water and so I know those exist in the area but um I also know that they're you know just in the household one is exceed exceedingly expensive.

Yeah. Well, and I I guess maybe kind of and I didn't want to get too much into the the alternatives. We do have some other things, but just kind of one example is again I think only looking at the filtration option, it's like, well, if we're going to be spending a significant amount anyway, um let's look at what some other options may be. So, in terms of like putting in reverse osmosis or some other type of filtration and treatment plant, um, if we're going to be doing that anyway, then why don't we just put one in and start utilizing our regional water system allocation that much more if we're going to have to filter it anyway so we can end up with more water than we had, you know, in the beginning. So, so there's a lot of different alternatives that that I asked him to look into. So, I'll be bringing many more back to you in the future.

Look forward to exhilarating conversations on that. Yes. Yes. All right, what's next?

Nope. Okay, we already talked. Um, uh, let's see. Just real quick, um, our public works space needs, just wanted to get this on your your radar. Um, something that we're going to be talking about over the coming years, but, um, our existing public works spaces for staff, you know, haven't really changed much in the last 45ish years. Um, so the current, you know, uh, public works facility has been there since at least pre-1980s. Um, and when I say public works, that's the streets and water, uh, and parks and recreation facility. Also, the recycled water treatment plant's been in its same location since the 80s. At that time, our population was about half of what it is now. Since that time, we've added a lot of other components to our systems like sewer lift stations and water booster pumps and storage tanks and those types of things. and we've added staff, but we really haven't ha added um any uh capacity for staff in terms of the physical uh locations. And so, let's see, go to the next slide. This is just an aerial image of the city from 1994. You can see that little tiny yellow pin on there. That is where the the public works yard is currently. Um and so since that time, uh we've added, you know, a lot of community around it. So, so, uh, that red outline is our current footprint. That's our current property out at public works. Um, and so I think there's some considerations that I think the the public infrastructure committee is going to be chewing over in the coming years. Um, you know, is that really the best location for a facility even? So, there's a lot of traffic concerns, uh, being right there. Uh, vehicles coming out onto Elm. A lot of times we're pulling trailers. uh vehicles are coming in, you know, at high rate speed. Um, additionally, we're kind of we're getting more and more surrounded by residential uses and we're, you know, kind of an industrial

type of a use. And then finally, one of the other components to consider is, you know, back in the 70s that was the edge of town. You know, that was the the low rent district. There was it was just cheap land out there because it was on the edge of town. Um, but now we're fronting on a state highway. We're surrounded by the rest of the community. it may behoove the city to simply look at those buildings and say, "Well, they're kind of fully depreciated as it is. It may be better for us to just simply sell the real estate and, you know, move somewhere else." So, those are all things that I think just wanted to get on your radar that I think we're going to be looking at here um over the coming years. So, now um this is going to take about 22 minutes. So, I wanted to make sure to leave myself um time. I know exactly how long it's going to take because it's it's me talking, but it's not just me talking right now. This is actually going to be a video of me talking to the the governor's data center advisory committee two weeks ago I think. Um so the governors pulled together this data center advisory committee uh with experts from around the state and so I was there presenting on uh water issues and specifically they asked about ASR and so I felt like um a lot of the questions and content that we were going to cover there I think would be helpful for the council to to fully see. So we'll just let that roll now. Um I think uh you know we're invited to come talk about innovative ways that water is used in but I think it's probably

water is used in Hermiston but I think it's probably important for us to to start off just by you know kind of understanding how is water used in Hermiston in the first place. You know, I was just listening to OPV just the other day and they had a gal on there talking about backyard gardening and how she was talking about, you know, she was in Portland and she just lets her raspberries do their own thing and they just, you know, thrive. But her friend in Madress, if they don't irrigate them, they die. I mean, that's just that is a fundamental reality that I think everybody needs to understand. There's a big difference in how water is used. You know, Nikki from Hillsboro mentioned how they use water in Hillsboro. Very different customer makeup and and how the customers use water in Herbston versus Hillsboro. So, important to understand that. So, um this graph or that I put together that chart up there, I think it's important to kind of quantify some of the different types of uses. Um and kind of the best way that I came up with is to quantify those uses in terms of acres um that they're used. And so, I think I put this into a memo. I sent it into the group. I know it's been distributed, but um so looking at Hermiston's actual water consumption just by a handful of different uses, I think is really telling. And and what you find out of this is that really the driver of water consumption in Hermiston is all irrigation. Um whether that's, you know, purposefully irrigating for crop production or just simply irrigating turf. Um so when we look at this, you know, Hermston has six K12 or six elementary schools on our municipal water system. uh when we look at the typical uh elementary school in Herston, it's using over a million and a half million and a half gallons of water per acre per year. And so this is gross water consumption over the course of an entire year. Additionally, you can see food processing uses over a million gallons per acre. U large medical complex in Herston uses over a million gallons of water per acre. Uh but also one that might surprise folks is single family residential. uh we get about five housing units per acre uh in Hermiston

when we see new residential development. And so a new single family uh subdivision is going to be using water a little over 800,000 gallons per acre um for single family residential. And that actually tracks really closely with commercial agriculture. Um you know, I think our our homeowners are are poor irrigators. They actually use more watering their lawns than, you know, commercial a they've gotten really good with how they use water over over time. And so, but you can see how closely correlated those are. And then, you know, on the far right hand side, you see the hyperscale data center campuses that we have on our city of Firmston uh municipal system. You know, acacre, they're using, you know, about a fifth as much water as your most single family residential development does. So, we go to the next slide.

Uh so then this is taken from do you have that without the per acre bit? Um, I can get to it. It's actually in that memo that we have and I can get that to Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean when I see some of those numbers that were thrown out earlier like a hypers or just a data center uses two billion gallons of water, you know, that's like makes me choke. I mean that's so what ours uses I mean it's like 1% of that. I mean it's so I think what is a data center is you know would be all over the board. And so for our hypers scale data centers way less water consumption than what some of these numbers are that we've been seeing. So, and you'll see some of that as it goes out here. So, next slide. So, this just from our uh city municipal SCADA system. So, that's looking over the course of an entire 12 months. That's total water consumption, you know, in gallons over the course of a year. And so, you can see this nice curve there that you know would generally follow something like a a temperature curve in her. So, that shows you know where a lot of it is being used. It you know follows the temperature gradient in Hermistude. So, if we go to the next slide. So that's just kind of all uses. So this is showing, you know, on the city of Hermiston's water system, that's actual data center cloud industry demand in Hermist. So you can see um in the wintertime, you know, kudos to our hyperscalers in our community. Uh they don't use any water in the winter like at all. I mean, you can see I mean that's like the actual numbers that we're looking at there. Um you know, November through February, they're not using anything. Um but it, you know, goes up, you know, during the cooling months. So, uh, next slide. Uh, this is a a snapshot from what I would refer to as a typical fivep person household in Herston. I know because that's actually my house's. So, I told you we're bad irrigators, but kids like their nice green lawn. So, so that's my house's water consumption over the course of the year.

Next slide. Oh, is it for really? That's literally my house. There you go. You can look it up. Yeah, that's transparency. I give you my address for so this that is a curve of demand. The very first one that you showed how is water or when is it used I think also had a um quantity. Yeah. Yep. And do you so do you have the quantities on the I do but I took those off on purpose for this but we can get those we can get those please.

So yeah that's the residential. So this is just the medical center. So you know you can notice here you know uh January, February, November, December you know medical centers they don't really have any you know in intrinsic reason why they would be using water differently in the summertime for medical purposes but they have huge you know 20 plus acres of turf that they're irrigating and so you can see that medical center. Next slide. And then this is the K12 demand, which is interesting. You may notice this is these bars are green. The last ones were blue. That's just a function of our uh SCADA system. That's because it's showing the green one. That's what we refer to as their high flow meter. So they specifically have a meter that is high flow that is just for um tracking their irrigation uh demands and and providing irrigation demands to larger meter. You can actually see there is on there a very small sliver of blue included in there. That's actually their um drinking water usage. So, um it's it's interesting that for an elementary school, the two months that they use the most water is when there's no kids there because they're just keeping all the grass alive.

Yeah. All right.

So, that just kind of charts those different types, you know, over the course of a year. So, next slide. So, when we look at, you know, when is water in Hermiston used, you know, that's the entire city of Hermiston. you know, we're looking at in July we're putting out 250 million gallons of water, but in January, February, we're putting out 40 million gallons of water. So, so we see about a 6 and a half time peak factor just to meet that peak um demand in the summertime. We got to keep everybody's grass green. So, next slide. Another way of looking at that would just be, you know, you could consider that to be that there's really just wasted infrastructure capacity that's sitting there for 9 plus months out of the year just waiting for us to be able to hit that peak demand when in, you know, late June 2021 when it was 118 degrees and 9% humidity in Herston with the Pacific Northwest heat dome. That's what we're planning for. We're sitting on all infrastructure the rest of the year.

Yeah. Forgive me for the elementary question. I'm more of a energy power guy. Um does water have like an equivalent of like generation, transmission, distribution and if so where does most of that fixed infrastructure what does that represent? What is that infrastructure that is? Yeah. So I I have another slide to show you. Yeah. I'll probably answer that a little better. So next slide. So we're kind of solving for that peak and enter aquifer storage and recovery. So that's I think why I got invited to come talk today. So next slide. I think that's why you got

Yeah. So, um, Aquarian recovery, I mean, we could go into it, you know, a lot. Um, but it's really pretty simple, just really dumbing it down. We're just taking treated drinking water. That's probably most important for folks to understand. You know, it's it's the treated potable drinking water that would otherwise go out in our system. We drill a well and we pour the water down the well and we store it in the aquifer underground and then when we need it, we pull it right back out just like a normal well otherwise. So, that is aqua storage recovery in a nutshell. So, next slide. Uh, important to keep in mind, you know, I don't want anybody to to leave thinking that, wow, Marxist like cutting edge, you know, futurist, you know, this is brand new stuff. ASR has been around for a long time. Um, and we're not the first ones, you know, doing this. In fact, Hermiston ourselves, we looked at ASR technology extensively with a couple of our wells back in the mid 90s, you know, 30 years ago. And so, um, it's just one of those technologies that it's, you know, expensive to do these kinds of things. And so given our portfolio of other source options previously, it just made sense for us to pursue those developing those other options first. But you know, there's a lot of other communities in the Northwest that are using ASR, this is not an exhaustive list, but you know, city of Kenick, a city of 70,000 people just 25 miles north of us. They've been using it for a long time. Pen Pendleton about 25 miles east of us. They've been using it for a couple of decades now. Also the Dallas and Primeville also using ASR. And are you just reingjecting this water in those months when you're not at peak use?

So I'll get to what our plan is because we can do a lot of ways, but I'll show you what what our plan is to do. So next slide. So this may get to the the question earlier that kind of talks about the the infrastructure that is necessary. So this is a highly conceptual schematic, but generally speaking, uh you know, we're pulling water from the Columbia River. Uh the city of Hermiston operates our regional water system pump station down on the river. So, we pull water out of the Columbia River uh and then use a heck of a lot of electricity to power these really major pumps and motors to shove that water south. It says 42 inch pipeline. That's diameter, not the length. It's a 9 mile long pipeline. 42 inch diameter.

Yeah, that would be nice. But so, we shove it 9 miles and vertically several hundred feet uh to our regional water plant. And that's where we again have a lot of expensive uh infrastructure where we treat it to a potable drinking water standard and then deliver it out through our system. Uh what we've just done here in the last couple of years is we've drilled a new ASR injection well so that we will then begin uh starting on Monday uh to begin pouring water down that new ASR well and to recharge the aquifer so that in future years we'll be able to pull that water out when we need it uh to supply and meet that peak. Did you say starting Monday? Like is it we just today at 11 o'clock got our limited license approved. So I just got that. Congratulations.

The timely. Yeah. Right. If we hadn't maybe I wouldn't be making this presentation.

Next slide. So this kind of gets to that question of so what's our plan? And and again I think it's important to keep in mind this is Hermiston's plan. This is not a data center specific plan. So, um, if you click again, this kind of speaks to what our our plan for injection is. So, uh, the blue line that's showing what our citywide Hermiston, you know, demand curve looks like. And so, what our intention is, even though we could inject, you know, during the summer months. Right now, our plan is to only uh be injecting about 60 million gallons of water every month from October through March, roughly. So really just targeting those times of the year outside of our peak already. So next slide. So our plan, you know, so reason I say this is Hermiston's plan, not a data center plan. So our plan is to store 360 million gallons a year when it's not needed by the 3Fs, the fish, farmers, and families. Um so that 360 million gallons, that's Hermiston's water. Um, we plan on supplying some data centers using some of that water. Uh, but that's not all, you know, that's not all going to data centers. Okay. So, we've been able to leverage the investment from our data center partners um to then piggyback off the back of that. And we're planning to maximize that as much as we can for the community and store as much water as we can for our future use. So, so don't take that 360 million gallons and think that's all for data centers. That's mostly actually for the community.

Yeah. Are there any losses associated with this? I'm thinking of this as a battery. Typically there's some conversion loss. Does that Yeah. So we plan about 5% is going to stay in the aquifer. Yeah. So right 5% is going to stay in the aquifer. No. So 5% is what we will have to leave in the aquifer. And I'll get a little bit in the future in how much we plan. And there's also energy production pumps and all. So I guess there's there's some water use there. Water use there. Have you done that as well? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna get into that, but there is I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. And the new well that you're just starting next week,

does that have capacity for the 360 million gallon? Do you need to draw a little? Yeah. So, the well's done. Uh, so the well's done. What we're doing next week is we're starting to pour water down the well. So, we've been working with the OWRD and DEQ for about two years now, getting it all um making sure they're happy with everything. And so, um, so yeah, next week is when we're just going to start pouring the water down. Well, and so we've done a lot of the hydraulic analysis. And so that's part of what we're doing is we're going to be, um, pouring water down, leave it there, watch the aquifer, then pour more water down, watch the aquifer, pull more water down, watch the aquifer. So our geologists feel very confident with how much that will be able to support that. Do you have an estimated capacity of that that off?

Not off the top of my head, but I guess maybe more to what the question was is that that 360 million gallon figure that's more driven off of what our um treatment capacity does to be able to pour water down more so than what the aquifer has to.

Yeah. And also just it's it's driven by we could produce 60 million gallons of water per month and put it down the hole. We could probably, you know, do that during the summertime. But so, uh, next slide. So, really, so that was our plan. Uh, really our strategy with as it pertains to data centers, um, is that we really intend on all future data centers in Hermiston and we plan on supplying them with only water that we pulled from ASR that we stored in the winter. So the summertime, we plan on not supplying any future data centers with any water that got pulled out of the Columbia River in the summer. So we plan on only supplying with water that we pulled out, put it in the ground all winter long, and then we pull it back out of the ground in the summertime. So that leaves the water in the in the Columbia River in the summer for the fish, farmers, and families. And that's picture of my 5-year-old using some of our local Columbia River water resources right downream of the discharge.

That's awesome. Uh yeah. Um the name is D Judy. Um the water that's in the ground must get cold. Does that water when it comes back out have the opportunity to improve the coldness of water resources in the places?

Yeah. So it's interesting um and this I think one of the reasons why OD really liked our ASR um is ours actually has a component of what they're calling aquafer conditioning. So So this specific aquifer and this getting really down in the weeds that we're in um is really warm. So it's like 85 degrees and really sulfury and so the water that we're putting into the ground is actually having a water cooling conditioning aspect to it. So we're building this big bubble of cold water and then we'll be sucking water out of there and that's one of the reasons we'll be able to tell if we ever get into native we'll be able to tell the temperature difference.

Can you say that there'll be no summer withdrawals for data centers or for the whole community? Um, so our intention is that any new data centers we're not going to be able we're not going to be pulling any water in the summertime because it'll come from the Yeah, we'll pull it in October through fe through through February inject it and yeah,

so that's the plan. Next slide. Um, and so this getting a little bit off topic, but so this kind of gets maybe to some of your questions too about, you know, electricity because I know a lot of you folks have more of a power background, but you know, one of the benefits of um, ASR also is data centers are paying the freight for some of this water that's now available for other uses after it's been used in the data center industry. So you on the right hand side, that's the schematic showing how it gets there. But on the left hand side, that's just showing the topographical uh change where we're pulling it from the Columbia River, shoving it 9 miles south and 350 ft vertically. Um and so, you know, farmers in our area, they only have the ability to pay, you know, for water that hasn't been pushed that far. The data industry, they have a lot higher tolerance for the price of water. And so, after they use it and they discharge out, that water becomes available for use by by agriculture. So, I kind of view that as data centers paying the freight to move a lot of this water 9 miles south and 300 vertically that can be beneficially reused after we've made it made it to be able to be reused. Next slide.

Great.

And then uh this will be kind of my last point. Um data centers plus ASR really does equal you know water positive. So um I missed a U there but Hermiston is located in the lower Umatillaa Basin groundwater management area. And so you've seen a lot of those maps thrown on the slide earlier, so I won't get too much into that. But generally speaking, in our area, we have declining aquifers, but a lot of that has its history going back to the 1970s with, you know, relatively affordable power and people being able to now start mining the the groundwater by pulling that water up out of out of the aquifer. And so that image that you see there, that is in Hermiston and you can see um not improved with agriculture. So if you go to the next slide, that's the exact same area from this year. That last image was from 1970. That image is from 2025. And so you know when we talk about some of this land, you know, farmland being converted for data centers, um you know, I would almost say your your time scale is too narrow, you know, because that land was not farmland in the 60s. The only thing that made it viable to become farmland uh was the fact that we were able to now start accessing groundwater and mining the aquifer and pulling that water out because before the 1970s it was you know shrubstep habitat and so um so it wasn't farmland prior to this. So so Mark we heard from others though that after the data center uses it sometimes sometimes the water has higher concentrations of some salts and other things. So, does that work for agriculture?

So, we have a project that we're working on with um DEEQ right now to accept discharge water from our hyperscalers and put it back into um irrigation canals. So, we've been working with them for quite a while. It's not ready yet, but we certainly see a path forward to be able to that's what that's one of the the questions that we're working toward. But I think that's what they'd like to see is we treat it so that it can be beneficial.

Yeah. If I'm understanding this correctly, it was not farmland. Irrigation made it farmland. But then I'm looking thinking back to that water intensity chart that um the water use per acre by a data center is significantly lower than water use per acre by commercial agriculture. So is effectively the net result that the water impact of a data center on say that parcel is lower now than it was when it looked like that and maybe just a little bit higher than the slide the image before. I'm glad you asked and I have a slide so

you can see that great question honest with you.

So that's actually this slide. So, um, so if we were just looking at say 100 acres of commercial agriculture, you know, if they're using 815,000 gallons per acre per year, then taking that field that that one in that picture was mining the the aquifer, if we take that field, if we took 100 acres off of the aquifer, now you're leaving 82 million gallons a year in the aquifer. Then if we take that same 100 acres and supply it with water from our ASR system where we're not going to be pulling water for that data center in the summertime, we're just supplying it with water that we've injected into the aquafer all winter long. Then we pulled it back out in the summertime. Then so we're not seeing any extraction from the aquafer for that data center. But on top of that, one of the things we're really proud of working with our data center partners on is that in our water supply agreements, Nikki mentioned, you know, that we have water supply agreements. Um, that as part of the ASR project, they're committed to every year, uh, putting 100 million gallons of water into the aquifer, more than what they actually pulled out. So that we're going to be injecting water enough to be able to meet their needs, plus 100 million gallons every single year. So that's their commitment. Um, and so then to that other point about some of that discharge water, if say we only got 10 million gallons of uh per year out of the back end of that, you're looking at about 110 million gallons of water. So the the last slide there, you know, just kind of the balance sheet would be if you were to take that 100 acres the next slide. So you're looking at that the net impact of taking 100 acres of commercial a turning it into a data center that the benefit to the aquifer would be in the range of 190 million gallons a year. So

so this is actual recharge. Yeah I think so I mean that's really it's benefiting recharge on on a per acre analysis. It's not I mean it's not a perman wide analysis. All right we can on 400 say we we can pause it there. There just a couple more questions, but um yeah, so um I didn't have too much uh else this evening. We're bumping up against 7:00. So um any additional questions about our ASR stuff? I just thought it was a a good presentation and rather than reive the exact same one, we'd just show you the video. Council bro, okay,

I I just wanted to say, you know, a couple weeks ago, I got to see city manager Smith uh up in DC. And I also want to thank you right now, Mr. Morgan. You you guys represented us really well. I mean, just even watching that clip, you're at a state convent or at a state board meeting and you're presenting about the good things that Hermison's doing, the ideas, the creativity that we have and, uh, you guys did a very good job making our city look good. So, um, we're doing great things and, uh, I I love that we're sharing that with our community. Great. Any others? All right. Looks like you're off the hook, sir. All right. We're going to go ahead and pause the or close the uh work session and we will readjourn in 3 minutes.

ready here? Ready to go? All right. Uh going to call the regular meeting of the Hermiston City Council, Monday, April 13th edition to order. We have a quorum. Uh councelor Meyer is excused. We wish her well. Uh would everybody please join me in the flag salute? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Any changes to the agenda? No changes, sir.

All right. Um, as a reminder, seeing as how we have a a full gallery, uh, please, um, hats off and also, uh, if you have phones on you, please put them on silent. Thank you very much. Okay, with that, uh, at this point in time, the first opportunity, anybody wishing to bring anything before the account, uh, the council that is not on the agenda is asked to please do the following. Limit your comments to not more than five minutes. State your name, place of residence for the record, and direct your comments to me at this time. Anybody figured as much?

Turn it on. There we go. Greetings.

Greetings. Karen Primmer, 1085 West Madrona. Um I'm here tonight um speaking to you all about the um National Public Safety Telecommunications Week. Sorry, can't read. Um the outside time devoted to education by our dispatchers and to speak about a couple of members of our team that have accomplished a very significant achievement. Um overview, the National Public Safety to Telecommunications Week was originated in 1981. And I think I've talked to um you before about that. Um the chief and everybody thought it would be great to turn all the 911 phones over to the dispatchers while they all went on lunch and um that was not a good plan. Um so they worked together and co uh cohesively have come up with um one week a year usually the first week in April um for telecommunications recognition. Um, I wanted to kind of give you a look at um, our local center and I have um, telecommunicator uh, Cindy Lemon with us. She was also acting sergeant. She is in the running for one of the positions that we have open for that. So, we're congratulate her. We're hopeful. Um, and then we have um, Sergeant Cherry uh, Hutchinson's with us, too. So, I kind of wanted to give you a brief overview of what we have going on. We have um 24 slated positions. We're sitting right at 21. Um the good news is this week we are hiring a full and a part-time on call. So that'll bring our numbers up. The downside is in May we lose one full-time to on call. Um so it's two forward, three back. Um we dispatch for 18 different entities, police, fire, and EMS across the county. In addition, we have partners to include entities such as tribal mat or I'm sorry, Union Pacific Railroad, the United States

Marshall Service, and we also work very closely with the UN Forest Service. Um, last year we handled a whopping 143,061 calls of which uh 29,434 of them were emergency calls. The rest were all non-emergency. And I say non-emergency, but we do have um alarm companies that call our 10 digits, so that could be a emergency. And we also handled over a hundred um 101, I believe it was, text to 911 calls. And I don't know if you guys know that, but you can text 911 in Umatillaa County. Um this does not include all of the radio transmissions, as my partners will attest to. Um that explodes, especially when we have a big event. Um, I kind of wanted to also talk about our dispatchers. You'll see the little colorful bags that you guys have. Um, they participate in a number of community events including parades. Um, different uh ba u faith and blue. Um, we've also done um the pendleton roundup parade. Um, that's a lot of water we hand out. Um, I forget how many cases last year we went through and it's constant running for sure. Um, we also have partnered partnered with Umatillaa County Fire District 1. Um, they have got a uh public safety trailer that's going to be showcased out this year. What they have is uh gotten a grant for a mobile tele um telephone and basically the kids will be able to dial 911 on a cell phone because they're not old like me and use the dial ones. Um, so they'll actually be able to communicate and ask certain questions from the dispatcher who will be on the other end. So, we're pretty excited about that. Um, now on to the milestone that I was speaking about. Um, I am admittedly biased as I think every member of my team is a shining star and amazing beyond belief and we

have achieved a standard in Oregon that exceeds um quite a bit of a understatement for sure. Um these dedicated dispatchers have achieved the status as excellence in dispatch also known as EID from NINA which is the National Emergency Numbers Corporation um I'm sorry numbering association. Um what's interesting is in the entire state of Oregon there's only three um dispatchers who hold this um certification. Two of them from our own county and our third is on track. So that's pretty pretty pretty cool. Um, it's a nationally recognized cert certification and that doesn't stop there either. Um, so, uh, Cindy Lemon got hers first. Um, our, uh, other person isn't able to be here tonight. It's Rachel Hower, but she also, um, worked a lot of hours. Um, both of these ladies did. Um, and they're very passionate about wellness and critical incident intervention. um they hold additional um certifications for that. So I would like to talk a little bit about Rachel real brief. Um she started in 2019 with our agency. She got quarter uh dispatcher of the quarter for the last quarter of last year and as I said she's very um passionate about mental health and especially dispatcher wellness. So we promote that a lot. Um she has over hund I'm sorry 719 hours of documented training with the state of Oregon. Um she's um between her and Cindy they've also been working on creating a wellness team in house which has been very impactful for our dispatchers. I appreciate that. Uh Cindy just hit her five years recently which was amazing for us. Um she is uh I'm gonna get this wrong. sism uh certified

in crit critical incident mana stress management. Um she's also a member of our regional peer support team which is very beneficial not just for dispatchers but across the county for all law enforcement fashions. Um she also has the Nenina EID. Um she holds a basic telecommunications and emergency medical dispatch and is currently working on her pro her portfolio to get her intermediate. Um, Sergeant Cherry Hutchinson has been with us just over seven years. I'm very proud of that. She got promoted to sergeant in January of 2025. She also has uh amassed, and I do mean amassed, 766 hours of documented DPSSST training. Um, she also was another first for us. She was the first one in the state of Oregon to be awarded the APCO Nenina um prestigious Hearts of 911 award in August of 2023 for her work with our um community partners, Umatillaa County um sheriff's office, but when we adopt um families in need. Um but also she works very closely with Jasmine Strong. Um she sorts a lot of toys and wraps each one, I kid you not, with care and with name tags. She makes sure every child has what they have on the list. She involves a bunch of the um jailers, corrections, you name it, she pulls us all in and it's great. So, we really appreciate that. Um she's been very dely vested in her community. Um not just here, but along in throughout her life as long as well as her husband Marshall. um they have mentored and um fostered over 50 kids in their lifetime which has been really beneficial. It's very amazing. Um so what does this mean for you guys? The takeaway, the advanced capabilities of these professionals

translate directly to safer communities and more effective emergency situations and operations for you. The intense crisis intervention and deescalation training mastered by dispatcher Rachel Hower ensures that volatile situations can often be stabilized by phone reducing risk for responding field units. The strategic source management developed through Nenina EID program held by both by um dispatcher Hower and dispatcher Lemon means that fire, medical and police assets are deployed with maximum precision. The comprehensive wellness and team building leadership provided by Cindy and Cherry combats the severe stress of the profession, ensuring Umatillaa County retains a resilient, resilient, and highly trained and comprehensive 911 workforce. So, I would just like um to acknowledge these incredible men and women of the Umatillaa County Dispatch Center. I appreciate everything that they do daily. So, please join me in saying thank you to these true first first responders. Thank you. Thank you, Captain Primmer. You look vaguely familiar. No. Uh, as as uh most folks know, I may have come across some of these folks in the past. Um, all I can say when it comes to dispatch folks is, wow, what a job they do. Um, the stuff that uh that Captain Pimemer highlighted is just a small portion of the work that they do on a daily basis. And I, you know, this this week being telecommunicators week

is something that is amazing. It's their, you know, the work that they do is so hard, so stressful. I know that the the uh uh career expectancy of of a dispatcher is not very long because of that stress. And so, thank you, ma'am, and thank all your your folks from uh the Hermiston City Council. Anybody else wish to bring anything before the council? Seeing none, moving along. Uh consent agenda. We have consent agenda items A through N. Is there anyone wishing to remove any of those from the uh uh for later? Yes, ma'am.

Uh I would like to remove in Okay. Moving into later. Any others? Okay. So, can I get a Oh, can I Is there any council questions on A through M? Public comment on A through M. Seeing none, uh, council public, we have a public

everything except N. Okay, then please. My name is Karen Jones. I live at 1010 West Highland Avenue in Hermanston. And I'm here this evening to ask you to support joining the litigation um with the PFAS. Is that correct? Yes. That's on a later agenda item, ma'am. Oh, so it's not on this. This is not A3. Okay. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Yep. Any others? Yes, sir.

Yes, it is. That's not part of this one. That's the next that's that'll be the next thing we talk about. All right. Uh any other count uh public comment on A through M. Seeing none, uh council comments on A throughM. Seeing none, we've removed that. Uh motion to approve consent agenda items A through M. So moved. Second. Been moved by councelor McCarthy, seconded by councelor Hayward. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Okay. A through M is approved unanimously. Consent agenda item N East Airport Road renaming establishment of hearing date. Councelor Linton, you wish to have it removed. Uh yes, I did. Um the reason I believe that when we discussed this, we had said about uh both streets. We were going to discuss both streets uh airport uh road and then the other airport way. And I believe that's what at this Ma'am Holof,

go ahead. Okay. Uh, and so I I'm wondering was I mistaken on that when we when we discussed it before we had both streets and we were going to discuss which one we would uh change, but this year came out to where it's only just the one. No. From a staff standpoint, my understanding was we only discussed the renaming of Airport Road. There was some public discussion maybe on social media about both but not uh that wasn't what the direction staff felt we got was anything to do with airport way. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So in regards to uh East Airport Road establishment of hearing date any council questions? Councelor Brown, just to make it clear, this my question is this line item is to establish a hearing date. We're not making any changes or anything today. Is that right? That's that's correct. The proposed item is just to establish a date for discussion, make sure everybody is aware of that date and then a decision would be made whether any change would be made at that point. Okay.

Thank you. Any other council questions? Okay. Uh, public comment. This is where Hello, I'm Gary Culp. I must have the shop on the corner 1200 East Airport Road. Um, so this meeting is just to have another meeting, correct? Basically. And so it's going to have it anyway. Going to have the meeting anyway. Yeah. Th this any comments we have are irrelevant right now? No.

Okay. So, the one question because I talked to Councilman Linton and and I talked to Jackie Meyers today and she's in Las Vegas, by the way. Did you know that? No. And I just wanted to make sure that they all had the letter that I had written. Did you guys all get them? Yes. Yes.

If not, I printed a bunch today. And I'm the one that got the uh petition of 35 signatures. And for the record, there's not one person that wants to change their address at all. And the one thing I want to say, this was litigated through the county um nine years ago and uh Byron Smith was up there and the question was that the two roads cuz you guys have had all kinds of different reasons to want to change it. Okay. And back then you had two roads close together, but one was a county road and then the county gave it to the city. Now you guys can change it if you want. The county didn't change it, but uh what I want to know is First Place and First Street are two similar named roads that are right next to each other for a mile. Why would you worry about Airport Road and Airport Way when you don't do anything about First Place and First Street?

I I don't have any. Anybody ever think of that?

It's again, this is this is this is your this is your time for comment. By the way, today I Googled and the address are first place in First Street, the bowling alley and other businesses along there. And I was just curious about that, why that was such a big worry up there when that's not. So anyway, when you guys have another meeting, I'll read all of the changes that a personal andor business unless you want me to read them now, but I don't think you want to hear them. So anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate your comment, sir. Hi, my name is Cruz Cray and I appreciate the work you guys do, but I think that uh this is what I take it is that somebody was getting their packages at the wrong address. That's what stirred this up. Um I'm at 1350 East Airport Road. I've been there since 1994. In the whole time that I've been there, you know, since then, I probably in one hand have probably received packages from somebody else at my business. Okay. And I believe that this could all be worked out without any name changes. I sent some pictures. I I had I guess I there's emails to everybody, but I sent some pictures to city councelor Allan Hayward a little bit ago and if he can share those pictures or whatever. I think the businesses that or maybe it's just one business on Airport Way that wants the change because he didn't get his packages. I don't know. Why are we deciding to or are you trying to decide to change the name? What

brought this on again? Sir, this is public comment. This isn't question and answer. Pardon me. This is public comment, not question and answer.

Okay. Anyway, uh as I drove out to out there, uh I I believe there's different uh entities, state, county, and city that maybe could do a little better job of pointing out which is which. Okay, you drive out on 395 and you got a little picture of the airport with an arrow pointing, but then you got a little bitty sign that isn't hardly seen from the road that says that's airport uh way. You drive down Airport way, there isn't any signs on airport way on on airport way that tells us what businesses are out there on Airport Way. I mean, I do deliveries. Okay, we run all over the US. Okay, so you're driving by and and I sent you close to the airport there to the buildings. Building number one, no, not even a number like 13 or 1,200 airport way. Second building, nothing on it. Third building, nothing. Fourth building, there's there's letters that you can't even read from the picture, you know. So, I think it's the responsibility not I'm I'm thinking it's a waste of time for everybody. You ought to go back to the people that wanted to change this and say, "Hey, why don't you guys just get better signage?" I saw bigger lettering on houses in town than what these businesses are putting on the side of their buildings. There's like eight buildings out there. None of them have

uh signs on them. That would alleviate that problem. that would alleviate the city having to pay more money, you know, wasting time to I'm sure you guys got better things to do than than this is, you know, like say I' I've been there since 1994 and there's only been like if if that's the issue, there's only been like say that I can recall and I was always good enough to say, "Hey, I've got your package." and I would take it to him. But, you know, I just think it's a big waste of time, you know, funds, time, and like with Gary, I I've got over I've got thousands and thousands of customers across the US. I got to report the federal, you know, the state, the county insurance companies where my trucks are gared. So if I get start making changes, it's not just like walking down to the mailbox and saying I want to change an address. It's going to take a lot for me to satisfy the federal government, the state government agencies all because I think it's should be the responsibility of the businesses to put up a big beautiful sign like we got for Hermiston. If they're proud of their business, let's put up a sign. Let them put up a sign. Let's not go changing streets. you know, it's been there. People are familiar with it. Okay. And I thank you for your time. Thanks, sir.

Good evening. My name is Jody Oswald. I live at 1600 East Airport Road. I've been there approximately about 30 years. Um, I'm going to save most my comments for our next meeting, but I do, it's interesting that if um Gary Culp hadn't reached out to me, I was not notified of any of this happening. So, that to me is kind of a little bit of a red flag that people on my street may not have even known this was happening and all of a sudden we would expect to figure out how to change. And I don't have a business as as big as these other two gentlemen, but I'm self-employed. I have my business in my house. So, not only would I have to change my personal, but I also would have to change my business. And we're talking veterans and social security. And I wouldn't even know where to start. But so I'll save most my other comments for the next meeting. But I just wanted to point out I was not notified that this was even going to be an issue. So maybe next time let the residents know. Thank you.

Uh Nick Moses, 2000 East Airport Road. Uh, I don't have a business on the road, but back in the late 50s, my grandparents went up to the woods. They cut the trees down. They took them to my grandma's uh brother's sawmill in Pendleton. They made all the rough cut lumber and they built the house that I live in now. Uh, my grandparents raised my dad, my uncle, my aunt Chris in that house and and now I'm raising my family in that house and I'd like to to be 2000 East Airport Road. So, I got Thank you. Thanks, sir. Any other public comment?

Karen Jones, 1010 West Highland Avenue, Hermiston, Oregon. I don't live on East Airport Road or have a business there, but I do sympathize with the people who live there and who operate businesses. This is going to be a huge unfair burden to put on those people to have to make all the changes that are involved. And I did read the staff report and the report from um Anderson Perry and the comment that someone spoke to a person at the post office who said, "Oh, you're not really going to have to worry about um filling out forwarding um forms because the mail people here know pretty much where everybody lives and where their businesses are. So, it's not going to be an issue." That's that is just ludicrous because it's going to be a huge issue for these people. It's going to be a financial burden for them and it's going to be a huge time burden for them. And I agree, there should be better signage. Um, and if you're going to change the names with those streets, then you need to look at the other streets in that are similar, just like First Street and First Place. um instead of singling these out. But there do need to be much better signs that are clear where the airport's at because I wrote I drove out and looked on both roads too for signs and it's very difficult. Uh the city of Herston sign is very nice but we really need a bigger sign just devoted to the airport that that's the airport road or airport way where the airport is located. Um, but I'm asking you to consider not even moving forward with the hearing to just table the issue like the county did. Thank you.

Hi. Um, I worked at the airport. My name is Lisa Sturgeon. And um the biggest problem is is that a number or there's a few businesses that get packages every day and it seems like the most valuable ones or whatever are getting delivered to the wrong street. Um I I personally when I was working out there um had a set of CDs that were irreplaceable. Um and they were delivered to the lady at 1600 airport road and for whatever reason we she couldn't get a hold of me. I couldn't find out where these CDs had been or anything else and she um finally um was able to get a hold of me at Gorge Aviation because um 1600 airport way is the main terminal of the airport. And um anyways, I want to thank her. I didn't get a thank chance to thank her for those CDs because um they were for um blueprints for a 19542 Taylor craft aircraft and the person that was loaning them to me personally copied them had to go to the Smithsonian and get special permission to copy them. So, um, we were able to get them back because, uh, he was starting to get pretty upset because he wasn't allowed to go in and make fresh copies of those or anything. Um, it's very confusing for the two roads being so close. And personally, I don't care if they change airport way to something else. It's um there there's a lot of in when uh the fair is going on and the rodeos all summer long

and everything. We get a number of trailers, horse trailers and stuff going down airport way and fortunately the the end of the road down there is still wide enough that they can turn around and stuff, but they get down there because they're missing the sign, the little sign for the Eotech. So there again, it's, you know, um having big enough signage to grab people's attention. And um personally, I don't think most of the people that deliver our mail can read here in town because um I live at 96 or 962 West Cody Avenue. Well, there's a house 962 West Joseph, which is um one block away. And for years we were getting each other's mail. Okay, there's a big difference between Joseph and Cody. So, a lot of it is delivery people don't read the entire address or whatever and um take pride in their jobs, I guess. So, um, if you're going to have a if everybody wants to make a change, there's only the Head Start school, Ross Electric and basically the airport. And there's um two two main companies operating besides the airport at the airport. So, that's a whole lot less people to change their address or something. Um either that or we put better signs up. But anyways, that's the problem is, you know, um we're having thousands of dollars worth of equipment and um parts and everything delivered to the airport and if they don't get there, um you know, we we have a hard time finding them. So, thanks.

Thank you. Any other public comment? All right, council comments. Councelor Guarthy. Thank you. I just thought it would be appropriate to bring it up in the agenda item because I know not everybody always um takes advantage of the packet online, but we are suggesting a May 11th hearing date for this to be considered. Just felt that should be important to be mentioned. Okay.

Any other council comments? Council Linton and so that is something that happens here in town as well. One time I had a postal inspector show up at my house. and I tell them there come to my house there and so I wonder if this is a time where I can make a motion that we do on

mic hope everyone heard what I said okay no I was just mentioning and how I uh half a block up from my house, I got the their neighbors their mail and they've gotten mine because our address is 111, one is BB, one is Beach, and I've had to go up to their house and they're mine to give mail. So, that's not just a problem out that way. And I was asking if um if it was this was the time to where I can make a motion to that we table this and go with the larger signs for airport way the signage for there. You can make a motion.

Okay. I I would like to make a motion that we table uh consent let me see consent agenda item N and that larger signs be put on airport way. Can I have some discussion on that motion before we proceed? Is that appropriate? Uh Mr. Tubby.

There it goes. Uh, I believe at this point we need a second and then you could go to discussion. Okay. Second. Okay then. Motion and seconded. Okay. Discussion. Um, so my understanding is that the hearing is really more to set a date um where we would discuss the actions in front of us which could include signs inside of that hearing. Is that correct? That is correct. So it doesn't seem to me that there would be a need to um table this so that we could discuss signs that could all be done in the hearing. I believe that would be

is that it doesn't seem it doesn't seem a necessity in order to to be for that to be considered. Correct. Right. I mean what the item is before you is to set a hearing. So if you vote to not set a hearing then then it stops at this point or you set a hearing and talk about it and any ideas could come forward related. That's what we need to say. Okay. Councelor I would like to put a motion to cancel this. We we have a motion on the floor. Okay. Sorry, Council Roberts.

I just want to make sure I got my head wrapped around this. The motion is to not move forward and add signs. So, a yes vote means we don't move forward. A no vote means we go back to item N and decide if we're going to continue from there. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? Do I have to go through the whole public comment and everything on this one or this? No, I don't think so. This is this is Yeah, this is a m Okay. All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Uh, yes, meaning basically we table. No, meaning we move forward.

Motion dies. Okay. Roll call. Yes. No. No. No. Yes. No. No. Okay. Motion fails. Uh, one to two to four. Three. Three. Four. One, two, three, four. Okay. Five. Five. Five. Okay. Yeah. Two to five. All right. I would like to make a motion. All right. That we um establish a hearing date of May 11th for the airport road consideration. So, we move back to the original motion. Correct. Okay.

Second. All right. Motion and second. Motion by councelor McCarthy, second by councelor Kelso. Call. Sorry, I just wanted to comment on this uh just because I think it was important. It came up earlier when we set this official hearing date. That's when property owners and people will be let know that we are going to have an official date on this topic for us to have. So, I just wanted to make that clear that by setting this date, uh, people that actually live on the on that address will will be notified of this. So, that's all. Okay. Any others? Last chance. Okay. Roll call.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. 61. All right. Next up, ordinances resolution 2418, Gearan Harper Realignment Contract Award. Mr. Smith. Yeah, Mr. Morgan, please.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, this evening, uh, we're bringing to you resolution 2418 to award a contract to construct some realignment work to the intersection of Gear and Harbor. Uh so that's just a sketch showing what the project will look like. Uh the gear and harper road realignment's been on the capital improvement plan since 2019. Uh two main components for the project. Uh one being safety through the addition of uh railroad crossing arms. Currently it's a fully uncontrolled uh inter uh crossing. There is a stop sign but no um crossing arms. And then uh predominantly this has always been about uh improving traffic flow through the area. Um, but specifically, I think it's important uh for folks to understand as we move forward with this project, there's going to be significant disruptions uh to traffic flow in that vicinity. And I think uh the disruptions that are going to occur only help to underscore the importance of that intersection and and getting it realigned. So, unfortunately, we're going to have to go through some uh challenges with traffic flow in that area for for a while. Uh timelinewise um we anticipate uh the contract uh before you this evening is just for the uh paving portions. It's not for installation of the uh railroad crossing arms. Um so the actual paving portion will go in the grand scheme of things relatively quickly. Uh so I anticipate the paving portion will be complete here uh this fall and then the actual crossing arms portion of the work uh may not be completed until next spring. Uh so the actual crossing uh is likely to be closed uh for upwards of a year. Uh but the actual traffic flow on either side of the railroad crossing uh should be restored uh by the end of the fall. So there will still be uh good traffic flow on either side of the railroad crossing uh prior to the actual crossing itself opening back up. So I just wanted to to make that portion or that uh point clear. Uh we opened bids on the the paving

portion of the project here last week. uh got good turnout from the construction industry and so the all of the bids came in underneath the engineers's estimate. The engineers estimate was about $1.4 million. So, Silver Creek contracting came in the lowest at just a shade over $1 million. Also important to understand the funding for this project is all coming uh from state gas tax earmark uh associated with House Bill 2017. Uh we were earmarked $4.5 million for improvements to North First Place. Um and so through uh several iterations of scope changes on that project, we had a little under $2 million remaining. And so the uh state ODOT was uh amendable to us amending the scope to uh use the remainder of those funds to go toward the intersection realignment there at Kieran Harper. Uh so uh the paving portion is about a million dollars. We still have about $2 million left over. Uh we're still awaiting uh the final costs on the actual railroad crossing arms, but we anticipate uh those crossing arms to to eat up pretty much all of the remainder of that uh those remaining funds. So with that, I'd stand for any questions.

Council questions. Councelor Ber just a question on the remaining funds. I know you said like 1.94 million. One of the things that I think was still pending from that project was a sidewalk on first place. Is that is that still kind of part of those funds as well? Uh, no. So, that's not going to be accomplished this year as part of that project. Okay. Any estimate on that? We're still waiting on the railroad unfortunately. It's very frustrating. Yeah. Thank you. Others? I just had one question. I would like to know for those arms that that are going to uh be at the railroad crossing, is the railroad paying for that or is the city paying for it?

The city's paying for it. Unfortunately, the railroad they would just assume nobody ever crosses their their tracks. I mean, truly, so they they don't make it easy. Thank you. Yeah. Others public comment. Seeing none, council comments. Seeing none. Okay. Can I get a motion to adopt resolution 2418 and lay upon the record? So moved. Second. Second. Been moved by councelor McCarthy, second by councelor Jeron. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Nice. All right. Uh, resolution 24/19 authorize pos uh participation in product liability litigation engagement of council. Mr. Smith.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we talked a little bit in the work session about PAS. I'm not even going to try to say the chemical name there in your uh uh packet, but these like was mentioned those these chemicals have been around for a long time and were used in all kinds of products, including firefighting foam, water resistant fabrics, all those kinds of things that um have left these chemicals uh to slowly degrade, but very slowly. And that's the challenge. and they're finding a lot of health potential health problems that are tied to that. So, it's become more and more of an issue. It's all around the country. Um there's been litigation started against some of the manufacturers of these uh chemicals and that so there's uh some litigation going on and what we're requesting tonight is to have the authority to join um one of those groups and um and be able to utilize their expertise and there's some chance of some funding that might come out of that that would help us in the costs of what we uh talked about in the in the work session as far as potentially uh building uh treatment facilities to to deal with that. So uh be happy to answer any questions as far as uh this item goes, but we're looking for authorization to join the class action litigation. Sir Brown.

Now, is this the class action uh suit that the city of Pendleton also joined in on? They did also join this same firm. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Seeing none, public comment,

Karen Jones. Um I do know that in Hermiston that the water tested at approximately double the um federal limit at this point and that it's a serious issue here and I'm really grateful to staff and Byron for bringing the litigation potential to our attention. Um I really appreciate you doing that. Um, for those of you who are not familiar with them, they're a class of approximately over 16,000 different chemicals. And the compounds have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease, and a really horrific much longer list of potential health impacts. And that's not even getting into the environmental impacts. Um, so I'm really encouraging you all to vote yes to support moving forward with this to protect the community and the residents in this area. Um, because unless we join on and things are changed in the future, Hermiston may be cut out of the process because if you don't start early, you're out. So, thank you so much.

Thank you, ma'am. Any other public comment? Seeing none council comments. Seeing none, can I get a motion to adopt resolution 24/19 and lay upon the record? Second. Let me get it out. Been moved by councelor Linton. Second by councelor Duron. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Just a reminder folks, patience isn't just for doctors anymore. All right. Motion passes unanimously. Go get them, Tiger. Okay. Uh 10. Council stipen discussion and possible action. City manager Smith.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, at your March 9th meeting, uh there was a motion, a second to have this item brought to the council for discussion. Um just as a brief history this your current level con uh compensation was established on April 13th exactly 28 years from today uh in 1998 and we did some look at this about seven years ago but there was no action taken and any other in uh increase also needs to be would not take effect until elections take place. Um but also um just to be the most safe, we would request that all of you declare a potential conflict of because you are voting potentially on your own uh compensation and so that's benefiting you. So to be the most safe, we would request that you do that before you um move forward with any discussion on this topic. Does anybody have any potential conflicts or any conflict of interest to declare? Start just

Yes. Yes. I have a potential conflict of interest. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. As do I. Okay. Even though I can't vote now, Mr. Chubby feels a lot better. Well, I was gonna ask that question actually. All right. And the the current levels you can see are in your staff report. 250 a month for the mayor, 100 a month for counselors. And so I'd be happy to answer any questions or we're we're looking for direction. Um uh but before we did any more staff work on this

questions. So, I just want to make sure I understand what's being considered tonight is not to necessarily this is the amount, but to direct staff to come up with something to present to council for approval if that's the motion that's considered. We're not saying it's going to be $1,000 a month and we're good to go tonight. That's not there was no dollar amount that I was aware of to bring forward. So, this was just a discussion about it and we're we're looking for any direction. So potentially you could they could make a decision to either a vote tonight to

come up with amount to say no to it to I mean any anything can happen at this point in time. We would like because of the way that was done the last time it was a motion and you know we'd like to have it be either a resolution or an ordinance so it's a little easier to find and and it's a little more clear. So, if there was a if there was a consensus to move forward with making a change to increase, we'd like to come back at at the next meeting with either a resolution or an ordinance that would implement whatever uh was discussed and talked about tonight.

Followup question. Um I would just like to point out then among the list of potential actions suggested in the packet and just in case people haven't taken a recent look at it is one of the options is to direct staff to return with current comparables for further discussion and possible action. So that is also an appropriate direction we could go tonight. That's what I want to say or no. So that was a so that so that where was where was the question in that? Um I guess that was more a comment. My bad. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, other questions. I'm trying to think of how to phrase this question. Well, because you're going to have time for comments, too. Okay, I'll save it for comments.

There we go. Okay. Any other questions for staff on this? Public comment. All right. He's not. Um, my name is Christa Vanvine. I'm at 764 West Alder Avenue. I appreciate the time and service. One second. Yes. As she is a POS as a candidate, does she have a potential conflict of interest on this or not? That's a question. No, she's not. She's not a she's not an elected official. She can have a

Right. Just want to make sure we And I'm a candidate. I that's why that's why I that's why because it was brought up and and so just just to be that's clear. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah.

Um I do appreciate the time and service that the full city council and city employees give and as a candidate I've also been attending some of the meetings. I I definitely understand there's a lot of work that goes into it. Um, I also support having a stipend because I think it makes public service more accessible and allows more residents to consider running for office. But I do not support a proposed increase unless it is um referred to the voters for input. I don't support people voting for their own uh basically salary increase. Um, so I believe any substantial increase should be put before the voters to ensure transparency and to maintain public trust. Um, so thank you for listening.

Thank you, ma'am. Any other public comment? Think we should just get you a chair. She took my spot. Do it Oprah style.

I'm making up for the meetings that I don't say anything at. Um, first of all, I understand um the need for the stipen. I think it's actually a really good thing. Um, and as a voter and resident here, I don't see I personally don't have a problem with it going up to maybe $200 a month, maybe 250 a month. Um, I know that there was a big rumor on Facebook that there was a proposal or a potential proposal to go to $1,000 a month, and I really don't know of anybody who would support something like that, including the city council members. So, I'm going to suggest that um maybe adopt and have staff give the council some direction and look at other communities in Oregon to see what kind of a stipen they have for comparable communities and see what theirs is so you can get an idea of what's realistic and and what's actually happening here because right now we don't really know what it is in the area and um and then revisit that when staff has um done the report and you have the information so you can make a good um judgment call. So, thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Any other public comment?

All right, seeing none council comments. Linton, I know you were there. Yes, I raised my hand several times. Um, uh, thank you all for your comments and, uh, I did check into this, but I asked some counselors what they were making in other cities that were even smaller than us, and I felt that it was too much. But I didn't want to say that because that's not my business. There people did that. When I brought this up, I was going to ask that we raise it from $100 to $300 a month for counselors, and that would be an extra $200 uh to go towards the mayor. Uh this is um not a salary because nobody in here can live off of $300 a month, okay? or $550 a month. It's a a stipen that has like has not been done in 28 years. And all of us and the previous counselors have worked I feel very hard. We've had a lot of information that we read. we've dedicated a lot of time and purpose and also um I feel that we care about this community otherwise we wouldn't be up here. At least that's my opinion. I I I shouldn't maybe I shouldn't say that. I speak for myself. I won't speak for I apologize for speaking for everybody else. Apologize right now. But I think that we um so that is the reason I I I brought it up that uh after looking at others that uh and I don't know who who came up with a thousand. Nobody ever mentioned anything about a thousand. To me that's ridiculous. I don't think we should get paid that much myself.

Um so right with that I'll stop with the comments.

Council drone. So, I kind of voted to have this discussion, not necessarily because I wanted um you know, city councilors to get an upgrade on on the stipent, but more importantly, just so that I so that we could have a conversation um about it. And honestly, uh, I have served as a school board member, um, now as a city council woman, but I believe that when I wanted to run for a city counselor, it was not because I look forward to getting something monetarily in return. I felt like my service being able to serve the community that I live in as a way to show my gratitude towards the people that have made decisions that um have benefited me, my children, my family, and other families. I felt like that was privileged enough for me to feel good about serving on city council. Um, and when I heard after I was selected that bonus came with a $100 stipen a month, I was like, "What?" I couldn't believe it. Um, so I don't necessarily feel like I need to be rewarded in any other fashion. I feel like those that have uh run for the seat do it out of the kindness of their heart. they just want to volunteer. They're looking for ways to contribute back to their community. So, I personally don't believe that we even need to have this discussion. Also, this comes at an awkward time um because we had a um goal session setting where we could bring these things up and yes, we are

able to bring other you know topics as the year progresses. Um but some may also consider well this is the perfect time too as before going into discussing um what our budget will look like in the next fiscal year. So with that I'm just going to say that I do not support uh a stipen increase. Okay. Thank you. Councelor Kelsa.

Yes. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I am in agreement with um councelor Don. In fact, when I got elected, I was like, "What? What do you mean you're going to pay me money? I don't want money. I ran for city council because I love this city and I want to serve the city." And I feel as though receiving any stipend in any amount um somehow taints that service because people can say, "Well, he's getting paid." That but I I don't I don't want your money. I don't want the city's money. I don't want the taxpayers's money. And if it were up to me, we'd have a zero dollar stipend. All of us. And I don't think there's one of us sitting up here. I'm not going to speak for everybody, but I don't think one of us sitting here would leave or resign our position if the stipen went to zero dollars. And I think at this point, there's no reason for the taxpayers to take $12,600 out of their pocket every year and give it to us. So, if it were up to me, we'd have a $0 stipen. Thank you,

Baron. Thank you, Marin. I just wanted to maybe even start off by giving a historical context there that we have it in the summary, but it doesn't really say everything that's happened. Seven years ago, we did have a study and it was with comparable cities. Uh seven years ago, if you guys remember, was 2019. So for those people that were still on the council, uh we were discussing rebuilding the new city hall and we were also discussing potential funding for the HWAC or Hawk as we call it today. Uh and at that time the council decided not to move forward because we knew we had these huge projects on the horizon and so um we just decided to pause and really didn't move forward on it and then of course co forced our hand. Uh and not only that but to Mr. Kelso's point uh the entire council gave up their salary during the co years. Uh I think it was one year right? Yeah. And so um and nobody left the council. Uh obviously I think everybody that's up here uh is wanting to serve, wanting to do what's right, wanting to um serve the people. Um so I don't really think of a a stipen as a reward, but more of compensation for the work that uh that the people are doing. Um, even looking at when the council established its compensation back 28 years ago, if you just even want to adjust for inflation, it should be somewhere around the ballpark of $200. Now, uh, I know what it means to serve or have a job or I guess or a position that you're you're not going to that position to get rich. I'm not a counselor to get rich. I'm certainly not an educator to get rich. Um, and so it's it's a choice that, you know, one makes, but at the same time, uh, just because you're making a selfless choice or a choice that you're wanting to make to help others or help the community, that doesn't mean that the value of your work

goes down. Uh, I believe that adequate compensation uh, isn't something that's too far-fetched. Um that being said, I also wouldn't agree for anything of over a thousand, something reasonable. Uh and so um we can look at comparative cities. um we can even just make the the adjustment for inflation and and honestly like if if there are people uh in the council or the future councils that feel that um for whatever reason, right? Maybe it's you don't people don't want to accept the the money or maybe they're financially comfortable already or maybe they're retired. Whatever the reason may be, I I would then say go ahead and donate it. Go donate it back to the city. Donate it to a charity in this area. uh the money stays here. Uh and so if people are so inclined to to not want uh to be compensated, then I' I'd say we can give that compensation back. But at the same time, uh even as one of the candidates mentioned, uh it's um I just lost my train of thought on that. But um I'll I'll go ahead and uh I don't think I'll I'll go for because I'm not I'm not remembering exactly the comments, so I'm not really wanting to tie it back in right now. But uh at any rate um I think it's important just to have something a study and it doesn't mean that we're making a decision but I think it should be something that should be thought about and oh more accessible to people um is and even like councelor Linton said no one's going to be rich off $300 $200. It's adequate compensation for a service that's being provided. And so um those are my those are my thoughts. Um, I agree with everybody that no one's here to make money. I mean, but, uh, people's time is valuable and so if people want to donate it, then I feel

like they can donate their stipen. Uh, and if not, then I mean, it's it's the value of the position itself. So, those are my comments. Okay.

Other council comments? Council Roberts? I hear both sides of this and that's one of the reasons I supported having uh the discussion. Um I think it was an important discussion to have to kind of gauge where we're all at and and hear you know each other's reasons. Um, the stipend does compensate time and that is valuable and I get that. Um, from just me personally and I'm only going to speak because I think each one of us has our own view on this and so um I personally have a hard time right now increasing because we've just increased rates and we've increased fees and we're taking more and more from our constituents. it feels like um to them. I I hear it from them and while I understand that our time is valuable and I I can even in a in in a certain scenario scenario support an increase at some point just right now with with what we've been having to do um to keep the city going and the city running. Um, I have to consider the fact that even though it it's it's small amount in the grand scheme of the budget, that money does have to come from something and somewhere. So, we either have to increase what we take from the constituents or we have to cut some kind of uh line item somewhere to make it. And and so, you know, that's that's kind of where my mind is going is is not that it wasn't a a notable noble thing to to have a discussion about or that we we even consider, but just personally, the timing right now is is not um where where I'd like it to be.

Okay. Any other council comments? Councelor McCarthy,

I'm just taking stock of a lot of what's been said today. And I think it wouldn't be difficult to observe um but again, this is just my opinion. Um that not everybody has the same idea of whether or not we should or shouldn't increase the amount we should or shouldn't increase to. Um and where there is or potentially isn't value um in in an increase. Um, I think everybody that comes to council, uh, comes to an elected position comes to it for their own reasons or because maybe they were suggested to and and circumstances change in life and circumstances change in our expenses. Um but I do think it's important I just want to kind of echo um what some other counselors have said is we had the opportunity to present this multiple times um where for example in goal setting we've had the opportunity with some of um everybody that's been on council has been on council for more than a year now um has had more than one goal setting session has had more than one um or at least for some of them it'll be more than one um budget when it comes around to this time of year. So, it it seems inappropriate. It's the wrong wrong word, but it's the only one I can think of uh to petition for an increase inside this meeting. So, I suppose to summarize We've we've made an agreement that I think any one of us if we just kept going forward the way things were wouldn't have any problem continuing. And that's kind of just where I stand. I don't know if I really made a point there. I just felt like I needed to say

something. You talked a lot.

Councelor Hayward, you're the only one yet. Um, as I got into this position, I was told it was a non-paid position. I was I'm been I'm grateful for what I get. I think like the elected person that's running that the citizens should vote on this. I think just by serving is the benefit that I have. Serving my community, that's enough pay for me. Not even taking a pay would be the best. um by benefit. I'm grateful for what I get from the city for it. It wasn't my decision. It was before my time, but I'm grateful. But I also think if I'm going to increase my wage, I think citizens should be the ones that vote on that and be on a ballot for them to vote that instead of me making that decision if I should get a pay raise or not. Okay. Any others? Well, that's everybody. So my turn, I guess. Uh, sure.

Except also I think that by putting it on the ballot, that would be an added cost to the city. Correct. Because you would have to put it on uh if we were to put it on the November probably wouldn't be any additional cost because there will be other things other city items on the ballot. So we're going to pay for that. that if it is an additional cost it would be very small.

Okay. Another thing uh just worth mentioning when we did seven years ago review those comparables one of the things that if I remember correctly and correct me if I'm wrong mayor because I remember you were part of those conversations is that when we discussed compensation one of the things that the council or maybe it was a city staff or council decided is that the fact that council uh in our council budget maybe not necessarily our stipen but we had uh funds there to be able to at least make sure that every counselor was able to go to a training whether that was LOC, NLC, that kind of thing. And I mean honestly, it's it's really clear like when I was here at the very first couple years, everybody could go and this last time only three of us were able to go, right? And so I think even if it's not evaluating stipens, I think that was the one of the one of the things that we talked about seven years ago is the value at least of the funds for being able to send counselors, especially new counselors to trainings uh to become more knowledgeable and better counselors. And so maybe it's not necessarily a stipen, maybe it could be just the council budget to make sure that counselors could go if they choose to want to go. Okay, my turn. So, uh, so just in the in the for, you know, over as a as a, uh, overall thing, I know that in the past, I know multiple counselors over the years have done exactly what it was one person had had brought up is the fact that they donated their entire stipen every year. They didn't take the money, they donated it. And so, you know, that is that is an option for for anybody that that sets up here to to do just that. And that's, you know, it's commendable by every way of looking at it. So, you know, that part

of it. Um, and in in in comment to the deal when we when we dropped our stipened, that was during the budget crisis that we had here a couple years ago and we voted to stop uh receiving the compensation and we stopped going to the trainings and and everything during that time frame because the mon the monetary end of things. Um and as as it has been as been brought up that uh you know we do allow uh counselors and and it has become even limited to the amount that can go to some of these things but we do have counselors that are able to go to uh different functions and you know even you know such as myself was able to go to Washington DC for the first time in all the time that I've been on council for the National League of Cities meeting. But um as part of that um I know that um I'm part of the um Oregon Mayor's Association and during one of the discussions that we had on that there was a poll put out by those folks on who was getting compensated and how much they were getting compensated. And honestly we get more than most cities even bigger cities than us. So, and and some of their some of the only compensation they get is being able to go to instate trainings and conferences. So, you know, we are I you know, I think I think that what we're doing and what we've been doing is is fair to be blunt, I guess. Um, you know, I don't, you know, I mean, I know what I get and, you know, I I was a counselor for for 12 years and, you know, the $100 was just, you know, that's that's what I used for for the different functions

that I get, you know, to pay for the gas to go to this or that. That's that's in my in my mind that's what that was for. That was kind of a my budget line line budget was for for things like that. And so, um, for me, that's that's how that goes. Do I think we need a raise? No. Me personally, no, I don't. Um, you know, I'm not I'm not I don't do this for the money. I'm pretty sure everybody up here doesn't do it for the money. We're you know, we all care about our city. Um, would I would I still be doing this if I if we decided to stop paying? Absolutely. I'm not, you know, the money the money is not is not a thing. I think as councelor Baron pointed out, you know, us being able to attend some of the trainings to bring better ideas and better ways of looking at things, that's that's money well spent because as we are able to make better and more informed decisions, us being able to do that is should be should be first and foremost because we have we have a responsibility to the to the folks that to put that check mark next to our name because they trusted in what we were going to do. And I think we owe that to them to be good stewards of their money. And you know, we're not here again, we're not here for the money. We're here for the we're here to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason. Therefore, that's what I say. So, um, yes, councelor Council

like to make a motion that we eliminate the stipen for the city council and the mayor. Second. Okay. Motion is that uh are we okay? Um uh discussion.

Councelor Broom. I appreciate what the counselors are bringing forth, but just as we mentioned previously, if counselors want to donate their their stipen, they're absolutely free to a charity of their choosing or back to the city. Um, but absolutely the work that we do should get compensated. And so I'm saying that even going into a re-election year and even having can even having opponents the last re-election. So, I know I know four of us are up for re-election and and trust me when I tell you that even if I were to win or lose, the future person should get compensated adequately for the work that they do. Again, I go back to the point that everyone's made, which everyone's 100% true. It's 100% right. Everyone's here because they want to serve the community. Uh that doesn't mean that that your time should just be completely free unless you want to donate it and by all means.

Councelor Kel.

Yes. Thank you. Um councelor Baron mentioned the concept that we should be compensated adequately for our time. Well, if I was being comp adequately compensated for my time, the hours I put into my city council work, I'd be making $1,000 a month off of this job. And I'm not. And I love that because I'm trying to be I I'm here because again I love the city and I'm a civil servant and I want to serve the people of this community out of the love that I have for it. I have no interest in being compensated financially for my time. Um my reward is again serving the city. I have time on my hands. I have no kids at home. Um and putting the time into the city is what I chose to do when I ran for office. In fact, I I told you I had no idea that there was a stipen involved with this job. Um, so yeah, an individual counselor can donate the stipen back, but what is the benefit to the other counselors who keep the money and then is there a differentiation between the two? Like, can I campaign on the fact that my opponent takes the money and I wouldn't? I mean, maybe maybe I could. Um, I don't know. I just think I think we're all here out of the the goodness of our hearts. we're all here uh in the interest of serving the people of this community and I don't think $100 a month or frankly anything below what I feel I'm worth by the hour um is is worth messing with. So again, that's why I made this motion and I'm glad that it was seconded and that's my comments. Thank you,

Councelor Drum. I would second that, Mr. Kelso. Um I believe that we get a lot of great benefits from being able to attend. I know that this year we haven't been all been able to attend a lot of the conferences because our budget is tight. I think if we're able to save the budget and so that we are be able to go to trainings and get better that way. Um I would like to see that happen or however you know it all plays out. I I wouldn't mind if the stipen was taken away. Okay. Councelor Linton,

I just I just want to say that I'm in a 100% agreement with the counselor of Aron. Uh and that's all I have to say on that. Okay, councelor Roberts,

I don't need the money and uh like councelor Kelso, I I don't think I was aware of it until after I started. And um if it went away, it's not going to going to affect me at all. But at the same time, it's already budgeted. It's already in there. And if it's important for other counselors to have it, I have no uh issue with, you know, status quo. We've talked about an increase. I think um you know, you guys know where I stand on that, but as far as uh eliminating it alto together. Um I've heard enough people on both sides to think in my mind sometimes no change is is is the right way to go. And since we're here, I'm comfortable just leaving it as is. Um, and then again, like we talked about, if at goal setting or down the road, we want to have a a longer discussion about whether or not we should keep it. I think that's that's uh, you know, an adequate thing to do. But right here in this moment, sometimes, you know, just pumping the brakes is is kind of a good thing in my mind. And so not making any change I think gives us a chance to really vet this out. Um and that's kind of where I stand.

Okay. Other comments? I'd like to e Well, sorry. Yeah. I'd like to echo what councelor Roberts has said. Um I'm in I'm in favor of um really taking the time inside really more of a goal setting session to make change whether that be increase or decrease. Um, I was I was prepared to move into a no action uh suggestion had councelor Kel not made the motion that he currently has.

Okay. Um, hold on. We got to wait. Everybody else, do you have anything? Okay. I understand where you guys are coming from, but I think the benefit to the citizens of the city would be greater in being able to send one or two more counselors to trainings to become better counselors than putting $100 a month into each of our pockets. Um, I think we could send perhaps with that 12,000. No, it's the total that's spent on all of our stipens is $12,600 per year. We could send probably two more counselors to to trainings uh than we currently do per year. And I think that would have a greater net benefit to the city and to the citizens of this um this city. Um then it it does again putting $100 into each of our pockets every every month. I don't see what the benefit is of that to the citizens of this this town whose money whose pockets that money comes out of.

Okay. Councelor Brun, I've enjoyed this spirited conversation. Honestly, I um I I think and again I've lost my train of thought. This is the second time today, man. So, I'm I apologize. Yeah, actually I am. So, but um well, if I remember, guys, I'll I'll let you guys know. But, um we're about to take a vote, so All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Last chance. Okay. So, the motion on the floor is to uh dissolve the current uh council stipen. All council stipens. Okay. All right. Here we go. So, roll call. Yes. No. No. Yes. No. Yes. No.

Yeah. I don't have to vote. But it passed. Oh, that's right. Motion. It passed. I mean, it failed. Failed. Motion failed. Yeah. Motion failed. Three to four. Okay. So, can you get the vote for a second? No. Uhuh. No. Okay. So the motion fails and as such um do are we going to be moving this forward to uh question? Well, I have a I have a separate motion.

Okay, separate motion. Uh okay. I move that we take no action on this um on this discussion. Okay. A motion to they take no further dis action on this deduction. Sec motion by councelor um McCarthy to take no further action. Seconded by councelor uh Hayward discussion. None. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. No. Yes. Or I mean Okay. to stop to

we're not we're not we're not moving to do anything right now is what we're basically saying. So my no vote would be would mean you you want you want to keep talking. Oh, okay. Yes. All right. So we want to just go motion motion motion motion passes six to one on no further discussion. It's done. Okay. Done until next brings me. Okay. Wow. Okie dokie. It would have still passed either way, Mary. It's okay. Huh? It would have still passed either way, right?

But you counted my All right. Uh, city committees and liaison. Anybody have any committee reports at this point in time? Not mine. We haven't met. I was uh not present for the last council meeting, but we had our first meeting of the TRT uh funds committee. Um and those presentations should be coming around in the next couple months. Okay. Due by end of May. Okay. Any other council uh committee reports? No.

Seeing none, mayor's report. Wow, what a session. Uh first off, she's left, but I wanted to thank uh Captain Primmer for uh her presentation and uh what was brought forward on dispatch. I you know, I I said a bunch at that point in time, and I still say it again, boy, she must have a great husband, but Oh,

sorry. I couldn't. Anyway, no. Um, other than that, we got the candidates fair coming up here in a couple of days. Um, should be an interesting interesting uh turn of events, so to speak. I the forum I mean can forum fair. Sorry, I wrote it down wrong. Um, but uh I look forward to hearing and hearing how what everybody has to say. I think it's going to be a great deal. Well, I know that the ones that I participated in, I hated every minute of it, but um but you know, you get you you get to learn a lot about the folks that are wanting to have a seat up here. It's not it's not all the obvious you can see it's not all the fun and games that everybody thinks it is. And every seat's contested this year.

Yes. And every seat is contested this year. So, there's no there's no uh no un undone. Um, aside from that, I know I've forgotten. I didn't write everything down. What's that? Oh, yes. We have this the regional meeting coming up. Well, I'll let you tell that one because I don't have it written down on mine. So, when it comes your turn, then then you that'll give you time to get it ready. Um, I know we got we have the uh uh NL or LOC coming up here in a couple weeks uh in Pendleton. Um, if you haven't signed up for it, I think it might be a bit too late. So,

um, shame on you for not doing it. Anyway, council president report you. That's I was just going to talk about the candidates form. So, you got it. Good. Council comments. Council Bron. Well, uh, last time that we were here, I I mentioned to you guys that I wanted to, uh, speak a little bit about the NLC because I think the last time we were here was like 10 o'clock. We need to go home almost.

Um, but I mean, just kind of like we were talking about earlier, it's it's these trainings are really good experience. Uh, this was my second time going to DC and the first time that I went to DC for the National League of Cities was it was my first or second year. Uh, and so it was just a lot to know, a lot to take in. So this time uh when I went this like year eight like I felt much more much more experienced much more like I kind of knew more or less of what I was doing and so uh I was able to participate more of and involve myself more this time around than when I did the first time. The first time I was just kind of really taking things in really seeing how you know our leaders like we had Rod Harden, we had uh the mayor and uh Byron the last time and Jackie Myers the last time that we went like a couple years ago. So, it was really cool to see them do their thing and now being able to kind of jump in. So, uh we we did have a couple of meetings with um some congressmen and u representatives. So, we had a meeting with Representative Widen and in that meeting I was able to go uh with the mayor of Lake Ouiggo, the mayor of Westland, and uh the council president from Hillsboro. And so, we had a couple of discussions about things that the League of Oregon Cities uh had as a priority uh for all Oregon cities. And so we kind of we talked a little bit about it. Uh we talked about FEMA. We talked about uh these uh grants that are coming down the pipe. Uh and so it it was really good just to be there and be able to present in front of, you know, our legislators and and for them to actually see like the local leaders, the people that are are serving on on the on the local side of things. So they they really did like hearing from from local elected leaders. So I thought that was really cool. Um and so I I want to thank the mayor for uh nominating me to to be a part of that discussion. It was it was really a great great experience. Um there was a couple of different roundt discussions as I'm sure a lot of you guys know when you go to these

conferences there's so many different breakout sessions. Um I had the the privilege of going to a couple different ones. uh one of them that I really enjoyed. Um we talked a little bit about uh immigration uh and it was kind of a roundt discussion uh on just kind of things that we need to kind of be mindful of as a city and maybe what other cities are doing. And so there was a lot of good information there. Um, we had actually the the chief of police from uh, Minneapolis speak there. And so he was able to kind of detail a little bit more in time like what happened when a lot of the federal officials or federal officers kind of came down to to Minneapolis and and just kind of how that point of view was from his point of view. And so he said Minneapolis has about 500 cops in the city. And so this is one of the things that I I remembered, 500 officers. Um, and so when the federal government came in, they brought 3,000 federal officers. So if you can imagine like a town that normally has 500 than to be flooded with 3,000 officers, it was it was uh, in his words, it was more of a mess because of the so many different federal agencies that were all there with no chain of command. And so it it was interesting to really hear it from a law enforcement uh perspective because you see the things on the news, but to actually hear from people that were actually there um was um was really insightful. And so a lot of different things that um were coming down that were just discussed that I um really appreciated um just uh listening about. Uh other than that, uh we got to see a lot of uh uh the city of DC and just to kind of tie it to like what I was just kind of doing last week, we went down to the Redwoods for my spring break. Uh which was cool. I've never been down there before, but just to see different cities. It's like I when I go out into when I go out of town, see different cities like DC. I went to

Ashland, Oregon, Grants Pass, um all the way down 97. uh all those towns just to see what makes those cities like really unique and how they build around what makes them unique was really cool. Ashlin has a little stream that goes down uh their downtown and they have a lot of restaurants and things built around it. And so, uh, I I sent some of you guys on on council, uh, some pictures that I saw in DC about some things that maybe could spruce up downtown and I just wanted to share those things just cuz, yeah, I get like these thoughts and ideas when I'm down there and it uh, just introduce them at the right point when we come together as a council whether it's through goal setting or if we start talking in committees. Uh, so uh, just wanted to share that and uh, yeah, it was really great experience. Um, I I wish I really had my uh my flowchart here because we had a lot of different things that we talked about. Um, we talked to all of our Oregon representatives. We also um got to hear from uh a gentleman with the National Guard. Um, and I think Mayor Premer probably knows uh those gentlemen, but he uh discussed just getting in touch more with the National Guards in your area. a lot of communities here in Oregon, I was really surprised that don't really know where their National Guard armory is. And so it was um it was really great to hear that we at least in Herston have a really good connection. I know all of us counselors have received emails and invitations from uh our local National Guard here. And so I thought that was awesome. And it was just yeah, just a lot of different things that we just talked about. thought it was interesting to hear other cities and what what issues they're facing and what they're discussing. I remember uh talking to the mayor of Lake Costiggo and one of the things that are it's a really big thing down there I guess is um their their use of uh of leaf blowers, gas powered leaf blowers versus electrical leaf blowers. I guess that's an issue uh down there.

And so I was like, "Wow, that's a that's a Western Oregon issue, that's for sure." But uh it was uh it was just interesting. different cities have different things to work with and uh they're all trying to share as much information as they can and so um that was that was the the skinny of it. Um there was a lot of other great things that we talked about and a lot of uh good lobbying that we did on behalf of our community to hopefully bring some more services down here. So uh that's what I got guys. I'm sorry I feel like I'm a little fractured today. May I'm just really tired or dehydrated, but feel like I've lost my train of thought twice and so um uh that's just kind of what I wanted to let you guys know. I feel like there was more that I needed to share or wanted to share, but that's what I got right now. So, um thank you guys.

Perfect. Thanks, sir.

Just on that, I want to say thank you to the mayor and the city for letting me go to DC. I went with Bron and the mayor. Second, everything that Roy says, a lot of committees meeting people and stuff. We got to see the capital. That was a big thing for me. First time coming over there. So, like you said, when you're first there, you're just trying to take in all the information as much as you can. I learned a lot and stuff. Got to meet a lot of people. Uh I know F1 city coming over for I Love My City to actually bring some pastors over to see it and stuff. They're from just from that conference. They're going to be coming over taking a look at it and seeing I love my city maybe showing starting over there and stuff. So, that's going to be the one exciting thing that's coming up in May and everything. I just figured thank you to the city for sending me Linton.

Okay. I have a statement that I'm going to read and it has to do with something that was put on and it had to do with the conversation. We voluntarily voluntarily accept to serve our turn mic on. We voluntarily accept to serve our community as responsibility to our constituents. As a city council member, we take our responsibility very seriously. How is it it is a financial gain when for the last 28 years approximately it has been the same? Who came up with $1,000 a month? It wasn't me. Someone put my name down in the comment and said that uh I was asking that we have $1,000 a month. And so I know the election is coming up and so false things is going to come out. Um we do not work for a company that demands that we can can demands that we cannot vote or on certain issues. If we did, we would quit and not be a city council member. We believe Hermanson citizens come first at all times since we are responsible for our community and the statement that was made. No one corrected that statement. So I took it upon myself and corrected the statement. Um when I was out campaigning, not this time around, but last time, some people said to me, you know, I think that um if you come up with something that they're going to vote against it just because they don't like you. And I thought about that and I said to them, "No, I don't think that'll happen." I said, "Uh, we care about our city whether we agree or not." At least that's what I felt at that time.

Okay? I just want to make that clear. I'm a very honest person and uh if you ask me, if you don't want to know, don't ask me cuz I'm going to answer you truthfully. And so when they said that to me, I went to thinking about that. Would someone do that? Would anyone do that? Especially when you say you love this city, whether you were born here like I was or you came here and moved from somewhere else and became a part of this city. So that's all I have to say concerning that. Thank you. Okay, other council comments. Council Gelso.

Yeah, I had the privilege of attending a candidates forum on Saturday, April 4th at the Harkin Rider Center where we got to see candidates for governor of Oregon and um US representative and US senator and it was just um fairly well attended. we probably had 35 or 40 people there. And um it was great to hear from those people um at the higher levels of government just to hear their platforms and and what their opinions are um about Oregon and the direction that it's headed and where they would like to take it. So I just wanted to thank the group that put that on and say I had a great time and learned a lot. Excellent. Other council comments. Council draw.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend a candidate forum. Um, indoor registration begins tomorrow for us and the 14th and 16th are the nights that we will be working until 8:00 to help our families. However, I do want to um say thanks to those that are running, those that are putting their necks out and doing all the work to gain a seat here. Um I, you know, it takes a lot of work and I just appreciate the time, the effort that everyone is putting in and I wish everyone um the best.

Any other council comments? Seeing none, Mr. Smith.

Yes, just want to point out the placemats. Sarah and her group put this together um so you don't get food on the table up there. No, just kidding. Just to remind us of the goals and the different things that we've done uh working together. It's great to have that there while we're meeting. And that's all I have. Okay. Well, with one exception, I there is one more thing I do need to bring remind everybody. If you have not done your SEI filing, uh you better get it done. Uh that could cost you some of that money that uh you're keeping. So, uh yeah, make sure tomorrow is the deadline. Yeah, you have actually I think it's the 15th. Oh,

tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, today's the 13th. So, yeah, you have you have two days to get it done. Don't make Lily come looking for you. She's back tomorrow. Yeah, she may be sending you those with that. Any anything else? We're adjourned. Oh, we're not adjourned. Executive session

question. Oh, yeah. I need to read the statement. Hold on. I forgot to do that. Thank you. Uh, an executive session will convene pursuant to OS 192.66. 660 parenthesis 2 parenthesis G which allows the council to meet in executive session for the purpose of discussing preliminary negotiations involving matters of trade or commerce. Now we're going to adjourn for that but it's not before

just to cover uh this meeting will take uh approximately let me say 10 minutes Yeah, there was but I mean the 20 minutes 20 minutes approximately 20 minutes and then we'll come we'll reconvene and then adjourn. Thank you.

And does anybody else have anything to add to it? We're adjourned.