City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome. This is May 18, Newburgh City Council meeting. I call this meeting to order. Could we have a a roll call, please?

Certainly. Councilor McBride? Here. Councilor Wheatley? Here. Councilor Yarnell Holloman? Here. Councilor Kilburg? Here. Mayor Rosacker?

Here.

And councilor Turgeson and councilor Carmen are currently absent. Is running in, I think.

Alright. Would everybody please stand and join in the pledge of allegiance? 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.

Hi, Jerry. Welcome. Well, honorable city manager, last meeting, you challenged me when I said that this was one of our most favorite parts of the meeting. So I talked to a couple of my friends, and I asked them, what is their favorite part of the meeting? And they said, any place where I shut up and that these Scottish guy talks. So here's our chance for the city manager's statistical report. Thank you, honorable mayor and councilors. I'm I'm sure that your friend obviously didn't really say that, but we'll just we'll roll with it. Here can't be your friend.

Here are the statistics to the March 2026. And statistics are always delicious and fresh and sometimes even crunchy. So planning, combined planning decisions of all sorts, there were six. And recently, we're at the cleaner open house and ribbon cutting, so we can see there's some housing coming in there right now. We have permits for housing units at that for that month was at three units.

And other types of permits was at 55, and that could be anything from a deck inspection to, well, anything at all, really. Building inspections, a 176, and we had submissions through the website. 25 things came in through the website and then were answered. With extreme dispatch. We had social media engagement 19491, one of our things that has just continued to grow year on year.

Public records requests, five, a fair bit, but far away from the heady days of 2025 when Rachel's head nearly exploded when we had like, look at that, eighteen one month. Freaky. And then finance 2,870,000 of payments to accounts payable and 1.24 in payroll expenses, and we had some really big checks. We had payments for Forest Glen Repair LLC, and that was actually, I don't know what that was for. Do you remember, Katie, what that one was for?

Okay. Well, she's looking that up. We had concrete solutions, $131,002.00 9 and that was for a basket of different jobs, including the invoicing that came through for the library ramp work. And Cedar Mill Construction Company, a really big $1,313,000 and and that was part of the payments for covering the water basins, which are now 100% complete. And by speaking with these pauses in this form of diction, we've created sufficient gap for Katie to have identified what the forest glen was.

It was a wheeled loader.

It was a wheeled loader. A machine like a Tonka truck. And the kids will be really enjoying that at public works day. They'll be climbing on it, honking the horn, and this all just goes to show you that you can yes.

How much was it?

It was $118,005.76 and no cents. Okay. Kushunk. HR had recruitments advertised seven, hires one, separations four, and claims of all sorts was seven. Notably amongst that basket of activity, we've been looking for dispatchers.

Sadly, we've been looking for IT staff, and you may recall what happened there from the last time when that young bloke passed away. So we've been looking for IT staff. And we have also been seeking an HR manager and we're now down to I believe a final batch of six or seven candidates. IT resolved 349 service tickets for the city. And in addition, they were woken up in the middle of the night twice and had to rush in and fix something.

Library activity was a stonking, I don't believe I've said stonking before, that's a new one. It was a stonking 8657 on the door and 35,546 checkout events. Can you believe a number like that? People say that libraries are going by the by. Clearly, they've not been following these statistics year over year.

Public safety, 2358 calls for service to make this community the fifth safest in the state. And the chief really had the police out there doing good job stopping 935 naughty people who were speeding, driving erratically or in other ways deserving of being stopped. And as a result of those sorts of activities, 699 naughty people got citations or warnings for said naughty behavior. And unfortunately, eight were drunks. So there we go.

Don't drink and drive. And dispatch had six hundred and ten nine one one calls, calls of a more serious nature, and two thousand six fifty eight of nonemergency calls. And folks drank 49,800,000 gallons of delicious, fresh, potable water, Arguably the finest potable water available in the state of Oregon.

Or

perhaps the lawns did. But if the lawns enjoyed it, then the rich nutrients of that water fueled all of the vegetables that people then could enjoy afterwards and we got rid of 160,000,000 gallons of the other stuff. And 1,330 work orders were completed, and each work order could be any kind of activity from a hydrant check to a pipe repair. And that is the total events of a smashing March 2026. Any questions, folks?

Alright. I wanna go back to the to the equipment repair. That's an equipment repair company. Did we have to spend that much to fix that wheel loader we did bought?

So I'm I misspoke. Katie corrected me. It was actually the purchase of a loader. It was not a repair. Yes.

Thank you, Will. Next is public comment on our agenda. Becky, would you like to speak now or wait till we introduce that item? Okay. Alright. So, I'm gonna close public comments. Those of you who are here, we will, you will have your opportunity when we introduce that item for discussion. Our first presentation is gonna be from waste management. Welcome. Again, seems like we do this every year.

Okay. Good evening, mayor Rosacker, city council members. My name is Dave Huber. I am Waste Management's senior public sector manager for our, area here in Oregon. So thanks for having us this evening. Tonight, I have my colleagues, and I'll let

them introduce themselves. I'm Jason Willey, district manager of Newburgh operations.

And I'm Meg Gallagher, pricing analyst for the Pacific Northwest.

Okay. So we are here to give our annual report this evening. And if we could move to the next slide.

Oh. That's me.

I get

Nope. I'm just kidding.

Oh, damn.

I did that last year too. I'm pretty sure.

No. There

we go. Thank you, Meg. So tonight, we're gonna review our collection services, what we do here in the city of Newburgh. We'll talk about, some site improvements that were taking place at the, transfer station facility. We will go over our, annual rate review report for 2025 and what that looks like here as we move forward into 2020 We also provided some rate comparisons for you to to compare what our rates are here in the city of Newburgh with other cities and jurisdictions.

We'll touch on our benefits and our partnerships that we have here with you in the city, and then we'll open it up to any questions that you may have. Next slide. Okay. So we've been a community partner here since 2010, March 2010. Waste Management started offering services here in the city of Newburgh.

We have listened to the city. You I think it was here this past year or two years where it would be very beneficial to have a customer service representative at our site. And since then, we have done that. We have somebody there located at the site and available to take walk in customers, answer questions, take care of customers' bills, and, that is available Monday through Friday, 12:12 to 5PM. We offer, comprehensive recycling, yard debris, and garbage service.

And I'm gonna try to say this with as much conviction as will where they we have 6,731 awesome customers here in the city of Newburgh. I don't think I did it as well as he did, but I'm trying. Weekly trash service, biweekly recycling, and yard debris service. We also offer subscription glass service. That is an extra.

So if you want that, you can you can subscribe to it. And right now, we currently have 50% participation rate here in the city of Newburgh, which is for a participant for a subscription service, that's very high. We have 555 commercial customers that are on weekly trash and recycling, and we also offer industrial Dropbox services to the city. And that ranges anything from wet waste, MSW, construction, demolition, recycling. And then, of course, during the fall, we have the grape skins and grape stems that we pick up for the wineries.

This past year, Waste Management acquired Stericycle, which was acquired by Waste Management. So we are now offering medical waste services to the city of Newburgh as well. Okay. Next slide. Thank you, Meg. So Jason's gonna speak to some exciting site improvements that we have coming at the transfer station.

Good eve good evening. Currently, we have two inbound lanes of the transfer station, which gets quite congested. We are currently on the permitting process and the bidding process to add four lanes coming into the transfer station as we own the piece of property between where we sit now and Cal Portland. So it's about a I think it's 62 feet across there for an entranceway, which goes into a seven acre lot behind it. So we're gonna add four inbound lanes and an outbound lane, which will get traffic off of Wynusky and, hopefully, keep traffic flowing a little better, which will also make it safer for our employees as we won't have the public driving through our truck yard any longer.

We'll have a dedicated outbound lane, which is currently an inbound lane now. We will be extending our summer hours starting Memorial Day from 7AM to 5PM to help get some of the contractors to do that a little bit quicker and out of the line of the general general public.

That's it. Yeah.

Thanks, Jason. That's really gonna help, the the facility and the site with the traffic pattern down there. And that's something that we've been working on for quite a while, but it's just taken taken some time with the permitting. So so with that, I'm gonna let Meg dive into the, annual report review and, go over the, projected cost for 2026.

Thank you. So, last time we were here before the city, we, did receive an 8.6% rate adjustment, which was effective 07/01/2025. So we do have six months of that rate increase reflected in our results for the prior year. You can see that we, brought in about just under $5,900,000 of revenue. But along with that, we also saw some increased costs in our direct costs, which were slightly offset by some savings in our indirect costs, especially in our corporate overhead line item.

We were able to get some savings there and in some other areas. For 2026, we're obviously going to have the second half of last year's rate adjustment hitting our, numbers for January through June. But we're also projecting some, higher operating costs looking forward. Disposal costs always going up, so that's always gonna be an impact. We have switched our, operations to be hauling out to our landfill in Arlington at Columbia Ridge.

Previously, they were going down to Coffin Butte. Coffin Butte raised their disposal rates pretty significantly. So it's now more economical for us to go out to our own facility even though it's a little bit farther away or a lot farther away. The we're also projecting increases in our fuel costs, which I'm sure surprises nobody given the state of the world right now. In 2025, we did have some increased spending in our labor after we did a competitive analysis and realized that in order to keep our employees happy and keep them with WM, which we do value our long term employees, we needed to get them up to a comparable rate to our competitors, so we saw some increased labor expenditure.

We are projecting some labor savings for 2026 as a result of some decreases in the roll off line of business due to downturn in the grape industry as well as construction. And then we're also always working to improve our efficiencies. And then, of course, CPI is going up, and it is affecting pretty much everything. But, based on the increases that we are projecting, based on last year's results and the increases we're projecting for 2026, it's looking like we would have a 6.64% return on revenue. So in order to get up to that 10% rate of return, reasonable rate of return, we are asking for a 3.74 increase.

Next slide.

Next slide is mine also. So

this is what that would look like. You can see the current rates that Newburgh residents are paying right now and the 3.74% rate increase. The most common service in this area, it's actually almost a dead even tie between the 35 gallon and the 65 gallon size. And it's just about, you know, right around a dollar, a little less, a little more, monthly increase on that service. And then for comparison purposes, we have the proposed rates for some other communities in this area, for the city of Dundee and for Yamhill County.

And then, we also wanted to show you what it looks like up in the metro area and give you a comparison up in that area. So you can see, even with this increase, the city of Newburgh still is still would be receiving, quite com competitive rates and a lot of value for the the service. Dave?

Thank you, Meg. So I will finish it off here with our community partnerships. So, you know, we here at Waste Management, our new operations, we, value our employees. We have a a commitments putting our our people first. And Jason's done a great job of maintaining and keeping, our our drivers and, employees there at the site, which is really helpful for all of us because the less turnover we have, the better.

So there's been a very high retention way rate with our employees, which is great, and we offer great living wages and benefits. Safety wise, we've had a great, you know, year this past year, but a special shout out for the last fourteen months. We've been injury free, which is always nice to see to keep our employees safe. We value the environment. If you haven't heard, we have a new recycling facility in Portland, and that facility takes the mixed recycling that we collect here in Newburgh at the curb, and we haul it up to our, Portland recycling facility.

And that, facility is is new. It's, just opened up last July. And the nice thing about that facility is that, it has a very high recovery rate, and, and it's very highly efficient with state of the art equipment. So it's been very beneficial, to to feed that facility from, all of our jurisdictions here, in the region. Community wise, we always value and want to stay involved here in the local community.

Jason is involved in the rotary club here. We also are doing kind services for the old fashion festival. We're Chehalem Valley members, and then we always like to do the public works day, which is coming up soon and where the little kids can get in our truck. And it's kinda like a Tonka truck, like, I would say, and get to test all the buttons on our truck. So, anyway, we like to be a part of that.

As you can see, the mayor and I in front of one of our trucks, I think that was two years ago. So alright. Next slide. And to finish off on behalf of all of the WM employees that service the Newber community, we we wanna thank you for your partnership, and, we would like to see that continue as we move forward. So with that, I will open it up to any questions that you may have, on our services or, our rates. As

they say,

rate minds think alike. So

That's pretty good. Who has questions? Alright. Go ahead, Robin.

Yeah. I know we just talked a week or so ago, and you mentioned you were in the process of getting a permit for the proper okay. Could you tell us a little bit about when that's gonna be or what the timeline was again? Because I think that's kind of a concern for people.

Yeah. You bet. Jason can speak

to that. So there's multiple permitting stages. One stage is we have to get approval from DEQ due to the fact that we are changing the inbound and outbound of our transfer station. DEQ has up to six months to approve or deny that request. We sent that request to DEQ almost nine weeks ago.

We're still waiting to hear back from them. The next part we're in right now is the land use permit with the Yamhill County, and we've we had to get signatures from our current landlord along with our signature from our, property guy in, from corporate for the piece of property that we own. So we're in the process now of waiting for the land use permit to be approved, and then we'll start and we're also starting to apply for the construction permits as well. So timeline, hopefully, the last I heard is they're hoping to break ground somewhere around the August and be completed by fall.

Thanks for all you do. I one piece of feedback, I'm thank you so much for the local customer service support Monday through Friday. I do still get that similar feedback, and I am tentative to even share it because I know that it's hard once you that feedback starts, it's hard to overcome that narrative. So I definitely understand and get that, but just keep going. Continue working on it.

And then I do I have curiosity just around you said that Coffin Butte or, I guess, Republic was has increased prices, and so that was the shift to Arlington. I'm curious when that happened and if that was if it is in relation to their denial or their reversal or if it was pre that land use hearing that happened.

Sure. It was it was all pre of their denial for their expansion down there. It happened the first part of q four of last year is when they we're gonna hike our rates up to, I think, $95 a ton or something like that going out, which is almost double what it was previously. So last the November, we decided to start going to Columbia Ridge, our facility, because it was price neutral, basically, between the two facilities with transportation and disposal rates.

Follow on question. In the case that that does get reversed and they are able to ex and I guess it's not even an expansion. It's completion of their landfill. But are would would there be any circumstance that you that you guys would consider reconsider transferring to Coffin Butte if the prices dropped?

Yeah. If if price dropped, yes.

Okay.

Thanks.

We'll be back on the table to talk about it.

And if I could add, I know there was a pretty large disruption in in our industry last year with Covanta closing down in Brooks, Oregon. So all of that waste had to go somewhere, which is part of the reason why you've seen an influx. Jason's seen an influx in traffic here at the Newburgh facility too. But then it's also put more pressure on it at Coffin Butte. And and, of course, I I think a lot of people know they're going through they're trying to go in for expansion right now, but that's going through a long process. So a lot's happening right there. Yep.

Is there anything that you can't accept at Arlington that they accept at Coffin Butte? Mike, specifically medical waste and, like, when there's a wildfire, the sludge.

I'll let you speak to the medical waste.

Medical waste that doesn't okay. Currently, medical waste is being shipped up to Monroe, Washington, being autoclaved in Monroe, and I believe it is being disposed at Columbia Ridge. So, actually, Columbia Ridge will actually accept more stuff than what Coffin Butte will We also have the, Kenway's facility up there as well. So it's a larger facility and accepts more materials.

Anybody else have questions? Well, thank you. I guess it's we have an item on the agenda.

Would anybody like to yes, Mike? I just had one question. When when does this contract actually come up for renewal? Is it July 1?

The, current franchise agreement expires, excuse me, 09/30/2028.

September 30?

Yes. I'm sorry. You asking about the the the franchise agreement or the the rate?

I mean, the we will have some type of agreement from the 8.6 that was applied last year. Is is when does that agreement run out? It runs out July 1 and then so or is the actual what's the agreement in 2028? Is that our franchise agreement to work with you guys? Correct. It is? Okay.

Yeah. Okay. In that rate increase that you mentioned, councilor McBride, is that was last year's. So that would just continue until if if this proposed until this proposed rate increase was was

approved, which, yeah, we're we're aiming for a July 1 implement implementation on the rates. So so, basically, I mean, we're looking at over 10% rate increase then at this 3% or 3.6 is is on top of the 8.6 from last year, well, that's that's, like, over 10% increase in one year.

Two years.

Two years. But we but we've made it effective last year.

Yeah. So that's And it four months and months.

So it comes up to this July? Yes. And then we and then we add another one on this July to go forward. So you I mean okay. Still within twelve months or thirteen months, we're looking at quite a bit of an increase for everybody. I mean, I see that the when you break it down per household, it's it's not that much. But I know it's it's tough. It's tough with gas prices and stuff. I understand that.

Yep. Since the franchise agreement was brought up, are we we looking at any expansion of services between now and when that franchise agreement it I mean, we got two years. Are we looking at expanding the operations at all? I'm sorry?

Yeah. Yeah. The I mean, improvements at the at the transfer station facility, we're looking at that, of course, to, you know, make it more efficient, get get the customers off off the road. Aside from that, we're not looking at any anything to to change in terms of our service collection services, here in the city, at this time.

So we're I mean, it seems that we, you know, we are definitely busier every year, and we're still looking at the same facility. You know? I know we don't wanna beat you guys up. I was personally in the line for an hour and a half the other day. It took me to get dumped, and that was forty five minutes on Wanuski and forty five minutes on your facility once I got off the the road. But I thought we were talking about adding some capacity so that we can I mean, yes, you're getting people off the road by adding four lanes, but if you're not increasing capacity, you're not solving the other problems? So are there any no plans to do that? Speak to us.

We're we're exploring the option of putting a compactor in to compact all the trash, which should theoretically improve how much material is up there to get people through the line quicker. The biggest bottleneck for getting people through the line quicker is just simply the public trying to dump themselves. You know, you get somewhat you get a senior citizen up there who's gotta pick up a load of shingles and they're pulling them out one at a time. That takes time. So it's we're looking at we're exploring other options to cycle people through quicker.

I think by having the compactor there, it should be able to we should be to push the trash and cycle it and get keep the tipping floor cleaner to hopefully get more vehicles parked in there. But, that's pretty much it. I mean, I can add, you know, if we were we could we've potentially, we could explore, expand the building. But first, we gotta get the land use permit that we're applying for, which should also allow us to expand to the West on that building. So we're pretty much as far as we can go to the East and to the to the North on it, so we'd have to go to the West. So once we have the land use permit, then we can explore expanding, make another bay there.

I I think it's I also think it's important to clarify too that and I think this is there's some misconceptions too. Our Newburgh transfer station is in Yamhill County, and so we have a separate agreement with Yamhill County for the transfer station itself. That's a separate agreement. And we have a ten year agreement with with the county on that transfer station. So that that's I know sometimes it's easy to kinda put those two together, like, the collection of our business is, you know, because we're colocated, but they are separate agreements. And the county does have oversight over that franchise agreement with our our transfer station facility.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, we have a public hearing.

And, Bill, this is your ornaments.

Yep. Got it. Thank you. That would be the legislative strip?

Yep. K.

I'm sorry. Does that mean that we vote on this con on the rate increase next next council meeting since he's hoping for a

July 1? Going to be looking at that?

I would assume that in line with our usual precedence, having heard the information information one session, then you would bring it to the vote next session. Then there may be other follow-up questions that council would like to ask.

Alright. Next is a public hearing. So this hearing is to consider the right changes to the Newberg right of way and street closure amendments. At this time, I will open the public hearing. Citizen will be able to testify on this issue by first nobody has signed up to testify. So at this time, do any members of counsel need to declare a conflict of interest, absentation, or ex parte contact. Thank you. Now we'll hear a report from our staff.

Thank you, mayor. My name is Jeremiah Crombie, associate planner with Citi, and you may recall this from your last meeting on the street closure updates as part of the work session. And so just a quick recap of that as part of the Wednesday night market, just some code changes in the person that makes the decision being the police department going forward and just some other cleanup language regarding encroachments on the right of way, including dumpsters and storage containers. So just a kinda reminder to walk you through it. So we're we added the order designee to the chief of police and city engineer as that was already occurring, added additional time for parades and street closure permits, the exceptions for the chief of police to waive that time if it's a small, like, small block party, just one street.

And then we added criteria for the street closures, including not being on major collectors or arterial streets unless otherwise waived by the police chief, added time limits for those dumpsters. And then we also made an update to comply with house bill twenty six fifty eight, which limits the remodel permit to a 150,000 make footage improve frontage improvements. Excuse me. And then just some other cleanup language. And so staff recommends adopting ordinance twenty twenty six twenty nine forty four. And there is really no changes since your work session.

Thank you. So at this point, there are nobody so there there is nobody signed up for public comments. So I'm gonna close public comment. And do any of you have questions for Jeremiah? So could we plea we already gave you a recommendation, but could you go ahead and hear me again, please?

Yep. Staff recommends adopting ordinance twenty twenty six twenty nine forty four.

So, Peggy?

I move we adopt ordinance am I jumping the gun? Nope. Okay. I move we adopt ordinance twenty twenty six dash two nine four four by title only and waive second reading.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded that we approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash twenty nine forty four and waive the second reading. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, could we have a voice vote, please?

Councilor McBride?

Yes.

Councilor Wheatley? Yes. Councilor Yaron L. Hallman? Oh, reading it. Oh my goodness. I've gotta read the title of the ordinance really quickly, and then we'll go back and redo that. My apologies. This is an ordinance twenty twenty six twenty nine forty four, an ordinance amending Newburgh Municipal Code title two administration and personnel, Title 10, vehicles and traffic, and Title 12, streets and sidewalks, to amend street closures, encroachments, and right of way regulations. Now are we ready for roll call vote by apologies. Jump the gun. Alright. Councilor McBride, are you still yes? Yes. Alright. And councilor Wheatley? Yes. Alright. Councilor Yarnell Hallman? Yes. Councilor Kilburg? Yes. Mayor Rosacker?

Yes.

And councilor Ferguson? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. So the next item on our agenda is the elections announcement. Thank you, Jeremiah.

And as this is a very short amounts announcement, do you mind if I make it from my seat here? This is to announce that, there is going to be pull my notes up here. The general elections for the city of Newburgh, will be held in accordance with the general elections for the state. I lost my page here. On November 3 to 2026, The in Newburgh, the mayor and three councilors will be elected to Newburgh City Council.

The current terms of office for Bill Rosacker, mayor, and councilor Kilberg from District 2, councilor Wheatley, District 4, and councilor Carmen in District 6 will end on 12/31/2026. Filing for office opens 06/03/2026. And the deadlines, this is the key detail, for incumbent candidates is August 18, and the deadline for non incumbent candidates is August 25. Please make an appointment with me to file for cancel. Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel. Now his new business is master fee schedule. Who's presenting on that? Well oh, here we go. Welcome.

Hi. Good evening, mayor of city council. My name is Dan Coiler. I'm the accounting manager. I'll start by with a quick apology. I told my first great daughter I'd give her a wave. She's convinced this counts as being on TV, but the things we do for our kids. Isabella.

Hi, Isabella. Sorry your dad can't be home tonight. We got him busy here.

I might I might show her the presentation to put her to sleep. Anyhow, I'm here for the first reading of resolution twenty twenty six dash four zero two two, resolution to update the master fee schedule, including the removal of the communication officer public safety fees as well as updates to wastewater and transportation SDC fees along with other annual updates. You've most of you have seen me here each year. I've presented I present the annual updates, many of which are automated and some of which the department heads elect to change as time goes on to meet the the changing needs of the city. So the master fee schedule was established in 2016 and last updated in March 2025.

This will be our first July 1 update that was changed this this previous year to get our fees more in line because we had some fees that updated in July and then the rest that were in April. So we are moving it more in alignment. So you'll see a little bit less variance in when fees change for the ease of the users. The master c master fee schedule note does not include franchise fees, city taxes, or pass through fees collected for other entities such as the STC fee I think they're called STC fees or CET for the there's one for the school district, one for the parks district that those are not included on here as they're not our fees, but we do charge for some of those in which we pass the money back to them for the permitting. Various fees are tied to the consumer price index measurements.

The fee in lieu of parking program fee, which we've, to date, haven't used, but it's there if we need it, That's tied to the engineering news record construction cost index for Seattle for December of each year, which the previous 2025 December 2025 was 4.1%, and all other rates subject to the CPI increases are attached to the CPI U, which this year was 2.7, which is a little bit lower than we've seen in recent years, which is good. And those are attributed just to general inflationary calculations. The highlights, the city recorder has no fee changes. Finance Within the finance section, we have the public safety fee and the communication officer public safety fees. The communication officer one has is being removed starting July 1, but the and then the regular public safety fee officer fee is is still gonna remain.

The library has no changes this year. The permit center, which all usually has has the mow you know, takes up the most of the fee schedule. We have the various fees that are attached to the indexes all increased. Some various fee descriptions were added to assist customers in determining permit type and fee amount, including signed swimming pool, manufactured building, commercial air conditioner, and mini split. Essentially, those aren't new fees, but they've kind of added you know, they were combined in other sections.

But to to sort of be more clear, those are those essentially have been desegregated from a less detailed pile, so to speak. The grading permit fees were removed as they're no longer required due to Oregon Structural Specialty Code. The mural sign review fee was added to ensure more fair pricing as mural projects are often large scale and can result in disproportionately high cost under standard sign review pricing. The vacation rental review line item was is not new, but it was it was one of those fees that was added to the because a lot we've we've got a handful of vacation rentals, and we wanted because we're getting seeing more of those users, we wanted to be more clear which which of the type two fees they're gonna pay. So it's it's it's not nothing's changing.

It's just being more it's we just changed it to be more clear. Trees in the public right of way of removal. Permit line item has been added. That was one that planning department had noted was an oversight. We had that fee, but they they didn't realize that it wasn't already on my schedule.

So that's been added. The bike rack cost sharing program was removed due to inactivity. It was something that they came up with in 2012. We do have a few of those bike racks out there, I believe, but we haven't seen we haven't nobody's used that fee in many years, so they decided to remove it. This system development charge updates are probably the the main highlight.

The wastewater STC fee is changing. It's they're decreasing by 7% as the work that the city of Newburgh has completed on the wastewater facility is allowing the city to move infrastructure concentration to higher prioritized needs for the city. That's what I was told. I can't elaborate too much on that, but Will might have some more insight for you. The transportation SDC fee is increasing by six point o 6%, and then the storm water and water SDCs are not were determined to not need a change for the Spianium.

The police fees, got we had an increase for the public records request specific to the police department is changing from $15 to $20. The police department had gone through an analysis after using after not having increased the fee for a long time to see where what everyone else is doing and determine that a $5 increase would sufficiently keep up with the rising increase in the time it take the time and resource it takes to just produce those. And it still leaves us right in the middle range of what the typical police pub police public record fees land. So I think their their report said usually between 15 to $25 is what they were seeing, so we've we've landed right in the middle of $20. And then there were no changes to public works fees.

The fees are necessary to help the city provide services and recover resources used. Most of them are designed to essentially cover the cost of the employees that need to do those that work. And the staff recommendation is to is going to be, as this is just the first reading. I'll be back next week for the official public hearing for this, but this going to be to adopt resolution twenty twenty six four zero twenty two to update our city fees accordingly.

Alright. Does anybody have a question? Will, you have a comment to make?

Yes. My comment is that we rock as cities across the state are adding new fees and hiking up rates. We promise the residents led by this exceptional council two years ago that we would get that debt paid off early and remove the communication fee. We also promised we would try to not take the 3% property tax increase that we can this year. And by building a new system development charge model, sometimes if we complete projects, the percentage goes down instead of up.

And there is no other city in this great state of Oregon that operates this way to my knowledge.

Okay. I have a question about the mural sign review fee. Is that pertaining to that that one that came to counsel? I think Scott looked over it.

Street art? Art?

Yeah. The street art. Yeah. Is that the one that we're talking about, how it first started? And it we just kinda it was like a pilot program, I think

is what you called it. Is that what this is?

Mr. Mayor, I'd be happy to respond.

Scott's ready for one. Yeah.

Yeah. Councilor Wheatley, this is not pertaining to the street art, which you you saw. And we haven't had any other requests to do that since that project. But if we see more interest in that, we'll bring it back to council. The murals are so for murals, you see them around town. Edwards Elementary and others have participated in this program is for public art murals on buildings. And they're typically painted on. And the planning fee for that, if you think of it as design review, there's actually a community participation component to that. And it's more than just a sign permit. So there's a nominal fee that's charged for that.

And the proposal is to cap the fee that would otherwise be escalating based on the square footage, because those murals can be very large. I should note that we have seen other murals that are structural. They're not painted on, but they're on a medium. It might be a plywood panel or other material that's attached to a building. And when that happens, that also requires a building permit. But we're not proposing to change the permit fees for building here.

Thank you. That makes sense. I was confused between the mural and the street art. So thank you.

So I have a question about the tree permit in the public right of way. This is an item that we talked about earlier in the year, and I don't think that we settled where we're going to be on this. Thought I we were gonna have some further discussions about whether or not a citizen is required to replant a tree in a right of way. Is that what's your understanding, Scott?

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. My understanding on the street tree replacement policy is that we've been directed to not require replanting of trees in those instances where the street does not have an approved landscape plan, or that the development was originally required to plant trees. In other instances where it's part of a planned development or a subdivision that has street or in the downtown, for example, where we have trees that are part of a plan that replanting is required. The fee for the the fee that's referenced here is for tree removal.

And those fees are consistent, and we're we're not proposing to change them. We're just, I think, codifying them in the resolution, if that makes sense.

Well, I mean, we're adding them, then what are they're coming from somewhere. If they were currently not there, they'd be zero. But what are what are we looking at charging for, the right to remove a tree from the right of way?

It's the same charge. And I'd I'd have to ask Dan if you if you can I don't have it brought up here? 10 yeah. Thank you, Jeremiah. It's $10 and change currently, and it's really just for administration of that permit process.

Are there any more questions? Yes, Peggy.

Just for clarification, Scott, I think I heard you say we've been the city's been charging it. It just hasn't been in the code yet. Is that right?

That's right. And I I believe it might be in in the code, but not in the master fee resolution, which is where it really belongs. Yep.

Alright. At this time, we do have a public comment from Rebecca Wallace. Can you do you mind giving up your chair for a minute and let her have the podium? Thanks.

I appreciate your time.

We'll Thank we'll launch you right back for your final recommendation. Hi, Becky. Welcome.

Good evening, mayor and councils. The transition from the old website to the new website, the web drawer is still really awful to use and difficult for research purposes. So that kind of leads into how, what I'm going to speak about is, even more difficult. I want to express concern regarding the city of Newburgh's proposed public records fee schedules, specifically the provision allowing city attorney research fees to be charged at $4.00 $4 per hour. Public records law exists to promote transparency and public trust, not to create financial barriers that discourage residents, journalists, and taxpayers from seeking information about their government.

Charging over $400 an hour for legal review sends the wrong message to the community. Whether intentional or not, fees at this level create the appearance that the city is pricing the public out of oversight. For many residents, small news organizations, community watchdogs, a potential legal bill of hundreds or thousands of dollars effectively makes records inaccessible. When you can't do the research to find the records specifically that you're looking for, it's even more difficult. I understand that some requests require staff time and legal review and reasonable cost recovery is appropriate, but this fee structure goes far beyond reasonable public access.

At a time when trust in government institutions is already strained, adopting excessive records fees does not contribute to goodwill, openness, or confidence in city leadership. The public should not feel intimidated for asking questions or requesting records. Government works best when transparency is treated as a priority and not as a burden. I encourage the council to reconsider the legal fee structure and even the high, public record fee for the, research fee. It's like 60 some dollars.

It's not that way in other, government agencies. So I encourage the council to reconsider the legal fee structure and the other fees associated with public records, establish clear limitations on when attorney review is truly necessary, and look for ways to reduce barriers to public access rather than increase them. And that web drawer is a massive barrier because, like, if you've if you've never used it, I encourage all of you to go on to the city's web drawer, and I want you to think of something that happened in a city council meeting, you know, just sometime before we switched over in '25. So look at something in '24, type that that word in, and then pull up, Word document for that. It's gonna give you a list of documents that contain that, but the documents that are listed, they don't have a date reference to them.

They don't have a reference to what kind of document that is. So you're looking through you would have to click through 50 documents to try and find the one that you remember seeing at a council meeting in that web drawer. It's very unfriendly, and it's not transparent at all for the government. I it's terrible. I wish we never did that. The new website's fantastic. It would have been amazing if we could have had everything that was on the old website transfer over to the new one, because it's very user friendly. But not being able to access history is very difficult, especially when someone wants to research things that have happened prior with gravel roads and transportation fees and all of that. So transparency builds trust, and excessive fees erode it. Thank you.

Don't leave just for that's okay. Do you, do you guys understand what she's talking about with the search engine? I mean, I can't find anything on it, but I'm not a computer guy, and I don't blame that on the website. Is there an issue with our website?

I think my preference would be to let Rachel respond to that.

I have a lot of thoughts on this because I 100% agree with Becky on ORMS, the web drawer system that we use, is a state run system that we are using, and the public facing side of it is a nightmare to navigate. And I am so sorry about that. If I could change it, I would. What I am working on is creating a catalog layer so you could actually find the document you're looking for. That's going to take time and energy and staff time next year, but it is on my work plan to create that.

In the meantime, we do respond to those very quickly. If if anyone's having trouble, we encourage them to reach out to them. Because on the staff side, it's a lot easier to find things, which is really irritating to me that we can't give the staff side to people, but we can't. So it is a state system, and I 100% agree it's a nightmare to navigate. Now I will also say that the web drawer is actually expanding access from what we had.

The one thing that's not on there, so all the agendas and minutes that were on our previous website, we transferred about a year's worth to the new website, but we didn't go back further than that because that would be a lot of staff time and effort. They are available in the web drawer, and we can help people access them anytime. But everything else that's in the web drawer is new that wasn't readily available for research before. So this is building permits. This is plans. This is all sorts of different records from different boards and committees that are in there. Now it is, like I said, very difficult to navigate. And I agree. It's terrible. I do not like it, and Will hears this from me all the time.

As an archivist, drives me nuts. So we're we're working on finding solutions to make this work better. The purpose of that system is digital preservation. The purpose of that system is make sure the record doesn't disappear, and it does do that job. But it does not make it easy to find it on the on the public side. So I'm hoping to make some major improvements on that. And do you want me to comment on fees or not? K. Fees. The only reason that the $404 is charged for legal is that is actually a little less than our actual cost if we have to send something out for legal review.

In the last year, I think we have only had one, maybe two things that have been sent for legal review. 90% or 95% of our public records requests do not incur any fees at all. It is a very small portion that do incur fees. Now when a fee comes up, I try and work with someone right away to figure out if there's a way we can specify their requests more so that we don't have to charge a fee. We I do everything I can not to charge a fee. But when it is going to take staff time, we charge $60 once we hit an hour. So if it's anything under an hour, I'm not gonna charge. Once we've hit an hour of staff time involved in that fee, then we do charge. This is one thing that is improving with the web drawer. We are able to find records much faster, almost everything for buildings and permits now.

I can have that back to someone same day, and it takes five, ten minutes of staff time. It's great. So yep.

What's going on? I was like Okay.

And so one thing that Rachel does, just want to highlight, this is extremely efficient. When a record request comes in, she will pull all the departments for a time estimate immediately. And I mean I mean, within five minutes of her getting one, and they'll all respond back to her. No. I think this will take twenty minutes to find or it'll take an hour, and then she builds the cost structure based upon that immediate response.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. I guess a couple of thoughts since I appreciate what was raised with respect to fees. There are a couple of points on that. One, Rachel's already made, which is the practical component of of the engagement of my office for for fees.

Your city manager runs a very tight operation. Basically, you have an excellent city recorder that handles almost all of the records requests that have come in. So so my phone, quite frankly, hasn't been ringing very much with respect to records request, and so it's just not something that has actually happened from a practical standpoint. But then also from a from a legal standpoint, the statute public record statute does lay the landscape on, at least in part, on what fees can be charged to the requester in connection with legal fees. So there are certain there are certain work or services that the city, just as the result of being the city, has to has to take on when looking at records request.

If it reaches the point where it becomes a legal matter, then deciding whether a record actually is subject to an exemption or something like that is something that the city takes the cost on of that service. And it's not something that can be passed through by statute, but there are certain tasks that can be passed on by statute redaction and things like that that are needed to protect the city. And in that instance, you know, those those fees are in line with the fees that I've seen out for other season. Mark's actually a little bit lower. And so it's a very rare occurrence, but as far as the rate schedule is concerned, you've already got some statutory and practical framework in place to to address that that piece.

I am really curious. So this is the second time that Ms. Wallace has come and given comment about public records and the concern around transparency and fees and being out of market. And I do agree with her. And I'm curious since this has come up again, and I fully trust what Rachel is saying.

I mean, I I know that we've made leaps and bounds of progress with our efficiency and and all of the things. That being said, and, yes, I agree that the drawer is a disaster, is it possible to do because we are from my experience, we are more expensive than neighboring cities or CPRD or the county, for example. Yamhill County is a lot less than the city of Newark. So I am curious if there could be an analysis of a year, which I understand this would take staff time, But I do think it would be a demonstration of transparency. And I think it is important.

I do I think that public information should be public information, and there shouldn't be a fee if the city can do that. I also know that in Oregon, ironically, Oregon is one of the bottom it's in the bottom 10 or something for open source documents in the country. And so I don't have a ton of faith in the state system and would love if there's the ability to ex if it's I don't know if it's outside of statute or not, but to explore some sort of skin or whatever that we could tap into to support that system that is terrible. But I would be really interested if the council would support some sort of an analysis of the last year of all of the public records that have taken place, what the amount of time was, what the total revenue we gained from public records request was, and what the what the real deficit would be if we carried the cost of public records request. If we really are only having one, two of you know, that require legal review, my opinion would be one or two.

I don't think we should have a fee for that. I think that we could absorb that cost. I don't know how many take longer than an hour to hit that $60 threshold. But I would be interested to know, is it $200,000 we're talking about, or is it $5,000 we're talking about? Because, really, I would love to be able to demonstrate to this to the community that this is open documents.

So there are there are a couple of other components to this. First of all, Rachel is committed to trying to find a way to add an extra layer to the ORMS system we can have proper metadata to make search better. But the ability to charge the run rate for staff time to work, to do work, Some months we've had 15 to 18 public records requests. Many of them are an hour or less, but many of them are a lot more than that. That is a large chunk of an FTE dedicated to doing this work.

That's one thing we have to bear in mind. Another thing we have to bear in mind is the fact that there are data aggregator companies. Now this is the part that maybe you guys might not know, who come in and they ask us, and I'll give you an example. We want every contract you've ever done for construction for three years. And they want to get all of that data from us, which they then sell commercially.

We get those every few months. And so our response to that is, well, that's a massive amount of time. And to package you even, it's finance time, it's say recorder time, it's multi department. And so if we can't charge the aggregators the run rate, then we would be in a really bad place. Sometimes we get commercial ones where they want other people's documents and we have to ask the attorney for should this is this leave us in jeopardy if we don't do redaction on a on a commercial bid?

With that said, doing an analysis of what ratio fall into the free versus the cost, we can definitely do that. I'm also pledging because Rachel already wants it to work on this is to add this extra layer. But it's important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Thank

you. I always love data, so I would love to know that information. One of the things that I was curious about because I similarly recall miss Wallace bringing this up at a prior meeting. So I saw that $404 fee. I was like, oh, that potentially could be a big barrier.

So I looked at a couple of our neighboring cities, and I don't know if this would be possible. But one of our neighboring city has an option where an individual could request a fee waiver or a reduction if the information is thought to be in general interest or service to the public, which might allow there would be some subjectivity, but could allow that space of, this is a commercial aggregator who just wants all of our information that all of it needs to go by our amazing attorney versus this is an individual in our community who is trying to serve the larger community from a public interest standpoint for meaningful distribution of information. And so would there be clearly, there's gonna be some subjectivity there, but maybe another way to consider a possibility for our local individuals?

So that is actually covered under public records law, and it is something that we offer. It is on the person requesting to prove that it's in the public interest to release these documents, and they they would need to have a realistic reason. Now if it's a smaller amount, we generally do not waive that fee. If it was in the thousands but obviously public interest, we need to get this out there, then we would consider that. But it is on this on the requester to prove that it's actually public interest and why and how they're going to they actually have to there's something in the statute saying they have to have a way of actually getting it out to the public too. So do you have more on that, James?

Yeah.

Rachel, you you laid it out quite well. So there is a balancing test that can be applied. It's actually been there's a fair amount of authority from not only decisions from DAs, but also circuit courts about how what that balancing test consists of and how it looks, and it's certainly something that's at play here as far as the the the statutory landscape. My my recommendation to counsel would be to allow statute to do that balancing and not necessarily try to draft a test that's distinct from it here with respect to the fees. But, obviously, that's that's council's decision.

But there is there is a balancing test that's established by statute. I think the other piece is that the city does have the ability to waive fees as you've pointed out. And I know from past records request, there have been instances where I've shared, hey. There's some grounds to not waive here. And, you know, staff has said, no. We'll we'll release it. We're okay with that in this instance. So it's it's it's something where there's a threshold there, but the the city has been, in the interest of transparency, willing to not hide behind that. So

Well, I I think I'm okay with the way we have it, quite frankly. It might be okay to to because I think information is always useful. So it might be okay to see what some of our other neighbors are are doing just to make sure that not we're not way out of line. But before I was ever on council, I there was times I I asked for some documents, and and, you know, you had to pay for them. And I I agree.

If somebody's gonna be pulled off their primary job, then we should be compensated for that. And so I I don't necessarily look at it as a transparency issue. I look at it as a time commitment for what we're having our our staff do. And I think that's the most important thing. And because our staff has a lot of important things to do, and so if they've gotta be pulled off to go chasing down something, we should be compensated for that. So I'm I don't have a a big issue with this, and I'm kinda okay if we have it the way we've we've got it now.

Gotcha. The

one thing that I just keep coming back to just with fees in general, so take it what you may, but it does feel different to me with public records requests because all of us have said, you know, it takes staff time. It takes them off of their duty. Well, I think that the public could and has, to my knowledge, made the argument, right. We pay with our tax dollars for those staff. It's our job to fund staff at the level that we feel is appropriate for what the community is asking for, and it's Will's job to divide the duties of the staff to reflect that.

So theoretically, public records request is part of someone's job description. I understand that they're pulled in 20 different directions and that we run a really lean staff, which we're all really proud of. And also, it may be something for us to consider. Do we want to support a partial FTE as this is part of their duties? And isn't a fee with that. We do all pay taxes for the government to function. So it does sometimes feel like a double tax, you know, when we when we place a fee on something that people feel like should be their information that they are entitled to is what I'm getting at.

So your recommendation from staff?

Well, as a reminder of this being the first reading, and I'll be back in two weeks where I'll probably owe my other kid a a hello. But the recommendation is well, next year or sorry. Next meeting will be to approve the resolution to update the master fee schedule, which includes the removal of the communication officer, public safety fees, as well as updates to the wastewater and transparent and transportation STC fees.

I'm sorry. I forgot this was the first meeting. You could've left a while while a while ago. Yeah. I'll see you again. Sorry, Isabella. Thank

you.

Yes, Will. If it if it's okay, though, mister mayor, I still would like to provide counsel with that analysis showing how many we we don't charge anything for, how many we've referred for legal advice, and so on.

Go ahead.

My apologies if I missed it. It was very late when I was reading the packet last night. Is that option to request an exemption listed on our website somewhere that's easy for folks, or do they have to know the law? And would that maybe be helpful that on that public records request page that there could be a blurb that says you can request if there's a hardship or if it's in the public interest?

Yeah. And we I mean, the request the exemption is the waiver is in the event of public interest. We don't really look at the hardship issue. It is public interest because we wanna stick to the statute. It is in our public records policy, which is available on the web page, but is not right on the page where they're requesting. Something we can consider. Yeah. But I will definitely be doing that analysis for you. I already have the data. Oh,

We can have that.

Yeah. I have a follow-up question to that. So is that information on the form they have to fill out to make the when they're making a request for public record that they that the if it's in

the public interest, the fee could be waived? It's in the public records policy, which

is linked at the bottom of that page. And there's a link to it from the form that they fill out on the web page. But it's not stated in the boxes they fill out on the page. But we can do that.

I would pause it, though, that we may find out that every requester will claim that their information they are requesting is in the public interest.

And to the to the other issue, could you update us in, say, four or five or six months and let us know where we are on the search engine that's not working so well?

I'll I'll prepare a presentation on this information and a little bit about the web drawer and my plan for making it better. Thank

you.

Can I ask a quick point of clarification? Oh, am I are we do I need to add a line of subtext within the master fee schedule? Is that what what's being asked? Okay.

Alright. It's, it's almost twenty minutes after seven. I need to take a very short break. So let's, let's take this three or four or five minutes. Thank you.

So the last item on our agenda and the one that I believe you're all here to talk about is what we call the gas tax referral. And since I got I got the honor of being mentioned in the executive summary, I'd like to be the one to tee this one up. This discussion has been taking place in several forms for, well, the entire time that I've been on council the last four years, and it comes in different forms. I posted on the website on my website once that we were which streets we were repairing, and a kind citizen of Newburgh sent me a copy of a document from 1948 that said the city was going to begin to pave or, yeah, pave some gravel streets. And she opined that don't you think sixty or eighty years, whatever it is, has been enough time to find that money?

And instead, I think it's a good indication that the city, like ours, city of Newburgh, is never going to find the money to just pave those streets on on the city budget. So if they're going to be done, we're going to have to use several tools that we're not currently using. Now I'm not advocating for this. We just thought there was another discussion going on between Robin and and the city manager, and we just thought that this would be a good time to tee it up. For those of you in the audience, we, the counselors, cannot talk about this stuff in private.

We don't come here with preordained ideas on these subjects. The only way that we can discuss this as a group is to do it right here in front of the citizens. And that's why you get interested. And, you know, if you if you came here because you're thinking we're doing something nefarious, I apologize. It probably it could have been worded a little bit different and and not raised the level the temperature level quite as much as it does. What we want to have is a discussion about what it would take to do those streets and to give staff some direction as to how we move forward with this in the future. So that being said, city manager, you're up.

So this this item really was introduced, as the honorable mayor said, to further the discussion. We have a situation where while we have sufficient revenue to keep up with our road repair program, which we're doing every year, and the tough money, we do not have sufficient revenue to build entirely new streets in the gravel section of town, which council has discussed before. We've all discussed this before. And apparently, long before I was ever here, this was also discussed. The revenue that we get from other sources such as state pass through revenue is utilized to pay for public work staff and other operating costs, but it does not rise to the level of fixing the new streets, fixing new streets in the gravel area.

And when you take account of the fact of inflation increases we've seen, the state pass through money has not kept up with the inflationary effect of just of general costs. So the concept was that we should have a discussion about is there an appetite to generate a new income source that would potentially help ameliorate these streets. And so staff are not advocating for this position. It's in fact nobody is. We're just wanting to discuss it.

We have a cluster of streets. It's a couple of miles that could use being built, but that might be eight to ten million dollars. Just so you know. Couple of miles of streets. Yep.

That is the cost. And so we obviously from time to time have applied for grants from, for example, the Federal Department of Transportation. However, Federal Department of Transportation grants are often predicated on have there been fatalities. And if you have a city that's doing well on traffic safety, that actually counts against you when you're seeking funding of this sort. We've tried to think about other forms of funding that we can think of.

This has been a council goal for a couple of years. I haven't thought of anything else. I've thought of lots of things that we're not allowed to do. We're not allowed to build a casino. We're not allowed to do a lot of things. Right? We don't want to go into enterprises that compete directly with private sector businesses because that would be unfair. We've talked about food pod carts to raise money for streets. That would be competing directly with people who that's their livelihood. So the things that we've done so far that we've raised money very successfully, and which has enabled us to clear off a couple of bits of debt early and improve the billing statement.

But that's what we've used the money for was to get to retire those bits of debt early. Well, we've done that. I do not at this time have other ideas, and we've thought about this. And if I've thought about it every week, can believe that Katie Strode has thought about it five times every week of ways to create new revenue for this and other purposes. So that's that's really it, folks. We have a list of streets. We know where they are. We'd like to upgrade them. There's not a lot of mechanisms by which we could do that. And maybe this is not the the time to consider more taxes. I don't know. Thank you.

Well, I

I think the timing is way off on this. I I I wouldn't be I wouldn't wanna do something like this. I think maybe couple years from now, if if everything's a little bit better, cheaper, you know, with prices and oil and gas and all that kind of stuff, then I don't have a problem with putting it out before the voter and let the voter tell us what what they wanna do. But I think this is not a good time, and I would rather have us and I know, Will, you and the staff are are doing that, but I wanna just encourage you. Let's continue to try and find some grants or something somewhere.

Maybe we, you know, talk more with our state and federal representatives and try and twist their arms a little bit, you know, to get something coming. But I I'm not interested in doing anything like this at this point in time.

I would agree that right now is not the right time to do this with gas prices so high. And we saw across the aisle 255,000 Oregonians sign a petition to get the increase that Salem had come up with to get it on the ballot, and it's on the ballot. I'm sure it'll go down. The other piece of this is with even if it's just on there to ask them if they're I don't know how the wording would be, but I guess we would ask if they want to approve a 3¢ gas tax. It's a it's a bad message in light of that.

If the voters vote down the Newburgh School Board districts, I can't remember if it's a levy or bond, then we know they have no appetite for more. And if they pass it, they probably won't have an appetite for any more either. So it just is a reading. I know we don't have a grant writer right now, correct? Yeah.

Now, this is just something I've known from maybe eight or ten years ago. I think it's technically Portland. It was on a little street called Pasadena. All the houses were older and it was a narrow gravel street. The homeowners had to share the cost of paving that street. So is that a city by city kind of decision, how those are handled?

Actually, I'm glad you're expanding the conversation because that's really what I was hoping we would discuss, is what methods of funding there are. What you're referring to is called a LID, Local Improvement District. And, Scott, could you give us a primer on how the LID work would work?

Oh, okay. Thank you, Mayor. So local improvement district, it's it's really the the focus is on local improvements improvements, public improvements that have a more of a benefit to that immediate area rather than a broader community benefit, and it's a financing tool. So it's Bancroft bonds that fund the infrastructure. They're typically at a lower rate than individual property owners would be able to obtain on their own.

The costs are spread out over a number of years. There can be a mix of public funds and and these and this financing that the property owners would be assessed. And make no mistake. It's on your property taxes and assessment. But it's a way to accomplish that at a lower rate over an extent you know, more extended period of time.

And, you know, the benefit is that well, for the property owners, it it should result in an improvement in their the neighborhood and and ultimately property values. It it you know, you can fund projects that make the neighborhood safer, more attractive, and just more livable for the people who are there. You know, what a downside perhaps is that that additional cost or assessment could increase their rent. If they're renting, it could, you know, obviously lead to higher taxes that may cause that community member to no longer be able to afford where they're living. So there's some real serious considerations there.

So there are other pros and cons, but that's essentially what it does.

Well, I know you had something. Were you gonna talk about the Safe Streets grant?

Yeah. So There's there's a couple of things. I mean, we we have applied for the safe streets grant. However, that's not in the same scale as what we're looking for. The other thing is that if we did use an LID mechanism, and I would assume that we wouldn't attempt to leverage all of those funds solely from the homeowners.

We'd only be a partial solution. And even then, it could have some really heavy impacts on the people. Then at the same time, it still doesn't answer the question of where does the other portion of the money come from. So, you know, we can't cut staff to raise money for transportation. We're we've we've got the same staff that we had five years ago. It is costs that have changed. It's it's not this I I would argue that this you guys know this. We're a very efficiently run city here with great leadership. What it's not the question of staffing. It's a question of revenue, and and and I don't know where that other component would come from. I just don't know.

Just one final comment. Maybe, you know, in a year or two, if gas prices are down to $3 a gallon or under 3, it might be a lot more palatable to our citizens. I guess we're all selfish at heart. We're asking the entire city, all people who gas up in Newburgh, to help finance these two miles of paving and they may never, you know, go on those streets. So it's benefiting a very small piece of the population and putting the burden on everybody. I don't know that we can avoid that, but I think people will look at it that way.

Could you?

I guess I'm really inclined to a degree. I think timing is hard, particularly with there's a gas tax on the on the current ballot and the levy. Waste management wants us to increase by 3%. There's all of these costs that are continuing to rise. And I don't know who all lives on these streets, but the thought of an 8 to 10,000,000 limited improvement district also feels really terrifying for the people who live on that street and how to not that we would give them all $10,000,000, but that is a huge amount of money for a very small number of people to try to absorb.

And particularly, if you have individuals who are on, like, limited income, COLA was, what, maybe 2% increase this last year for individuals on disability. Like, that's not a sustainable ask for most anybody right now with current costs, let alone to burden that population.

I know one thing Scott touched on that that is apparent to me. Unfortunately, somewhat blighted neighborhoods are what suffices as affordable housing in Oregon these days. Housing has gotten so expensive that there's a certain segment of the population that is looking for that home that is less expensive than the others. So there is some value to that. I would also like to explain to the audience and the the public that the reason this came up now is because if we are going to put a measure on a ballot, it has to be done in a primary year at a primary election.

So if we don't choose to do this for next November, it's gonna be another two years before we will have another opportunity. So that's any other time we put it on the ballot, we would have to spend money to put it on the ballot. Last time we checked, it was 60 to $80,000 possibly, and that's split up between whoever's in there. But, anyway, this is that would not be fiscally prudent to go to a ballot that we had to pay for, in my opinion. So any more comment?

I say this not at all knowing the rules, and I probably should know the rules. But the blighted neighborhood piece, given that these would be complete reconstruction, would there be a way to add these existing roads to a NEURA project as a future when we gain more money in NEURA potentially?

While I sometimes play an engineer on TV, I certainly never ever play a land use specialist on television. But I will say that I suspect that that is possible once tax increment financing has reached the right point. Scott, can you bail me out on this one, mate?

Yes. I think that area, just based on the lack of payment, would potentially meet that threshold apply. The procedure for amending the urban renewal district and incorporating that and and changing the formula and the list of projects, all of that is process that, you know, would have to be developed and and and implemented.

I know we've exhausted or potentially have exhausted current funds with our current project or proposed project, but maybe looking at something like that as a creative when we gain more funds next step could be a way to address these needs.

I've I'd really like the out of out of the box thinking. To put this on the urban renewal district would be a major change, so it would be a fairly big lift. But also, that account doesn't have extra money on it. So all the money that we're going to collect has already, in theory, been spent on the projects that are actually on the list. If we were to make changes to it, then something's not gonna get done that is on that list. So and that's gonna be a decision for a future council because we currently are on the project, you know, the the River Street project. So yes, Will.

This would seem like an excellent topic for future strategic planning for council. Is is it is there an appetite for a reshuffle prior to doing all of this legislative left to Noura to to seek to add these linear miles to Noura? And I think that that's something that's ripe for discussion when we next do our planning.

So, Will, if we at some point in time, we we do these roads. I'm assuming it it takes into consideration streets and curbs and all the stuff that you would do in a new subdivision if you're putting a road in. Correct?

Yes, sir. And so it would include where where where where their required storm water facilities, sidewalks, and all the other stuff just to make a normal street.

Is this something I wonder that because, yes, in the time of it on council, I can remember a number of public comments around gravel roads and the frustration with it. But is this something that we could potentially pull together a group of residents that are on the roads that we're even talking about right now and ask them their opinion of, you know, a referral to voters and improvement district. I agree with everything that's been said. I, at this point in time, don't feel comfortable with another tax at all. But I am just curious if we could like, just similar to the River Street ad hoc committee, just a small group of, you know, individuals that are interested in brainstorming different creative ideas to move that ball forward over the next few years.

And for everyone online, it was not my idea.

How do you go?

So just to be clear to the public, we're not gonna move forward with this at this time. There's no chance that we're going to be putting anything of this sort on the November ballot. Oh, there. Is there anybody got a final word on this subject?

Mister mayor. Go ahead. May I request that we don't spin up another ad hoc effort until after the current one wraps up? And then when we know where we're positioned with Revver because actually, that will be very significant with respect to newer funds as well. It's almost like a precursor to know where we stand. And then after that, I'll add it on the to do list, and we could start looking at some surveying there and then talking with our planning experts and try and think about that.

I hope you're prepared to give us a short summary on the ad hoc committee, River Street.

So we had our first ad hoc committee meeting this last week. We had a really good turnout, and I have some of our River Street folks in the audience here today. So I'm so grateful for the continued interest. We spent our first meeting doing some background level setting information giving for everyone around, like, historical transportation plans, the neuro planning, the the long standing work that has gone into where we are today, answered a lot of questions, and also spent some time starting conversations around what people are hoping to see for a complete street that is a collector. We've got some really great input.

Our own local Jim Taltz gave us a potential option five, which I think sparked some good dialogue. And our next meeting will be June. We're gonna talk more about trees specifically and what folks are hoping to see from a design standpoint. I'm just opening up those conversations.

What did you say the date is? Sorry.

June 25 at 6PM. Right here.

I attended the meeting, sat in the audience. It was quite interesting. They spent quite a bit of time going over things that well, one one there's an option four now, which is to do nothing, and they spent a a good deal of time on that. I wondered if this council has voted to move forward. We've not given anybody an indication that we do not wish to move forward. I wondered, would it be helpful to reiterate that position so that they cannot waste time on the fourth option of not doing anything with River Street? Or do you think that there's an opt do you think there's a chance this council is going to vote not to move forward?

I think that my hope is that we have a genuine process with the ad hoc committee that are able to speak to what they are hoping to see and their desires for River Street, which includes the folks that live on River Street in that community and the larger city to have really meaningful input. So far, I have not received the message that everyone on the ad hoc is in a do nothing position. And I think the ad hoc is very aware that our job as an ad hoc is to give meaningful information to the larger council. So I don't think we need to communicate that. I mean, that will then ultimately and I think that's partly what I need to communicate as part of this conversations is what are the pros and the cons and the facts of do nothing?

And one of them is that perhaps the council would not support that as being the overall position. And so how do we give the best information and guidance possible out of that ad hoc for what they are hoping to see?

Thank you. You're it's two months before your meeting again, May.

June.

June. Okay.

That's it.

We met in May, and then we're meeting June. So it's, like, smidge over one month.

Right. Awesome.

So May.

Alright. Well, gosh, we went off along today, but I'm oh, is is did Robert come back in? Thank you. Robert, I'm sorry. I almost forgot public comments. I remember just as I saw you walk out the door, and, there is one other commenter behind you.

Good evening. My name is Robert Subi, and I'm talking about the gas tax. But it sounds like you guys have, well, made a decision on it, so I'll be really brief. My two points about it were, number one, that as was mentioned, I'm not a fan of of using SDCs paid for by developers and taxes on the citizens in general to pay for a very limited group of properties. The tradition in Newburgh has been when a property gets developed or the the property the the road gets improved, the adjacent property owners pay for it. That's in a way baked into the value of your house. And to me, to give those folks the benefit is is really not fair. And you mentioned the LID process wasn't all that long ago. I believe it was West North Street, immediately west of Main Street. They did exactly that.

I could be wrong about North Street. It was one of those. They came to the city, said we want our road paved. City set up an LID. They paid for it. It's done. That's that's the tradition. I would say if if the tax are being proposed to support general maintenance throughout the city, I very likely would be in favor of it. The other thing I wanna mention that generally doesn't get considered is the decrease in gas sales that a gas tax will create. You know, it's been dismissed before when I brought it up that, oh, 1 or 2 or 3¢ won't make a difference.

I suggest you talk to anybody that understands economics, and they'll tell you that, yes, this is something people have choices to buy gas elsewhere, and even a slight increase will have some impact. So you also have to consider property or gas station owners losing revenue. Anyway, that sounds like you you covered that. I did wanna mention the word blight got brought up. And I think it's important for this council to know that from Sheridan Street and includes the cultural center heading south, most of this end of town has officially been declared blighted by the city council.

So just just think about that with the the other one I if if I may, I wanna go back to the to the hearing that was before this and make a couple comments about the city website. It's a very rare occurrence tonight that miss Wallace and I agree. She's absolutely right that the current site is very difficult to find information. Fortunately, a while and and staff has always been wonderful when I've asked for things. The problem is I can't always ask for a specific thing.

It's like, well, can you tell me the council meeting where such and such was I do not expect staff to go looking through council meetings to find when that was. But if I can browse through them, I'll find it. That's I should be the one spending that time. What has been useful to me is somewhere along the line, someone in staff gave me a link to the old site. I don't know if it's still up, but it was a little while ago. I think if it's still up, it should be maintained. I mean, as in left there, and there should be a link on the the the new site saying, hey. If you wanna go look at the old one, here it is. And I found a lot of information there that I have found more than difficult to get to from the new site. So I think that's a patch, but

it sure been handy for me. So, anyway, I think that was it. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. And, again, I apologize for forgetting. Next is Becky Wallace.

See if I can read my own handwriting. Good evening again. I understand the desire to improve infrastructure and pave roads that have remained gravel for decades Decades. Those are legitimate community goals, and I do not believe anyone opposes maintaining and improving our roads. But right now, simply not the right time to ask the people of Newburgh for yet another tax.

Across Oregon, voters from every political background are pushing back against increasing fuel taxes and transportation costs. There's growing frustration statewide over the financial pressure being placed on working families, commuters, seniors, and small businesses. In that climate, referring a new 3¢ local gas tax to the November ballot feels disconnected from what residents are actually experiencing financially. Whether the argument is that Highway 99 traffic will help pay part of it really misses the larger point. Local residents still bear the burden.

Newburgh families still pay more every week at the pump. Local businesses still absorb increased operational costs, and every additional tax, even one presented as a small tax, compounds with all the others that people are already struggling under. Municipal services bill, residents are facing rising grocery prices, utility bills. Northwest natural electricity went up several times. Housing costs, insurance costs, and property taxes and bills go up 3% every year.

At some point, government has to recognize that people are reaching their limit. This also becomes an issue of public trust and priorities. Before asking taxpayers for additional money, residents want to know that existing transportation dollars are being managed effectively, which our city does a fantastic job with managing their budget, and that every possible efficiency has been explored first, such as the possible grants available for paving. If they're out there, maybe there'll be something new in the next fiscal year. I believe the community would be far more receptive to conversations about long term infrastructure improvements during a stronger economic climate and after demonstrating careful stewardship of existing resources.

Paving roads may be a worthwhile goal. But right now, adding another tax at the pump sends the wrong message to a community already experiencing tax fatigue, fee fatigue. And I encourage all council and the mayor to simply choose not to discuss it today and to vote no. That was before I realized you do public comment after you discuss everything, which is kinda backwards to me. But thank you very much.

Thank you, Becky. And I believe that Ken and Katie Baldwin left an hour and a half ago. Is that correct? I think that I I I thought I saw them sign up. Alright. So last but not least, Britta Mansfield. Welcome, Britta.

Welcome. Good evening, mayor and council. Thanks for listening. Thanks for that discussion. I'm not gonna tell you anything new here. I appreciate your comments not deciding to move this to the voters right now. I think my biggest concerns here are with with timing and with transparency. Again, not anything new. Taxes are really tough right now. But this isn't I mean, I know you've all heard comments from constituents about this. I've heard that Will has fielded a lot of comments about this. But this is a pretty data driven city, and I love that. It'd be great to know more data besides just the word many comments. How many comments? How many people are concerned about these gravel roads?

What it like, what percentage of the population is going to be impacted and going to have to pay for this? I'd love more data behind this before a decision is made. This is also the first time I've publicly seen this discussed at a council meeting. And to me, it's unfortunate that the first time this is discussed is also with the suggestion of a new tax. This has proven to be a a fairly fee.

You this is this council is happy to reduce fees, and I appreciate that. And it's always concerning when a topic is brought up for the first time with the addition of a new fee. So that's just a a concern for me. I also lived on a gravel road for a number of years, and I still own property on a gravel road. And I can tell you time and time again, if I have to choose between a new tax and keeping my gravel road, I will keep my gravel road. I happen to find them charming. I am one voice. I know there are many other residents, but I would just love to encourage this council to do outreach. You've proven that you're great at doing outreach. You've done some really good outreach with the River Street project, and I'm excited to see that continue.

I think that same level of outreach can be done with the residents and homeowners of houses, duplexes, whatever they may be on these gravel roads. Because we have opinions, and we'd be happy to share them. So just would encourage you to do significant outreach before suggesting additional fees on the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Britta. Thank you, everybody, for being here tonight. Always good to see people in the audience. And I promise I didn't put that on there in that manner just to attract you here, but it worked out that way. So thank you, and the rest of your is adjourned.