City Council - Regular Meeting

To call the meeting of the Newport City Council to order is Tuesday, September 8th, approximately 6.02. Roll call, please.

If you would all join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay, we have some folks who have signed up for public comment and I'll call you to the mic. Kenny Mays. And just as a reminder, we allow up to three minutes. Don't feel obligated.

Thank you. Good evening, council. Your name, please. I'm Kenny Mays. I own a house in South Beach. And I'm here to offer comments about the bacterial contamination at the Night Creek outflow at Night Beach. My understanding is that this bacterial contamination issue has been going on for quite a long time. And the city has not adequately addressed this. or sufficiently communicated to the public about the issue and the dangers involved. I don't understand why the city has failed to address the issue for so long. My best guess is that it's perceived as very expensive and difficult, amid many other competing priorities and projects, and that maybe you don't feel a lot of public pressure to solve the problem. My main message this evening is that residents of Newport and visitors here do care a lot about this problem. And I'm talking with a growing number of people about putting more pressure on the city to solve it. I'm always recreating in the ocean, primarily as a surfer. I grew up in a place with high levels of bacteria. I used to get sinus infections regularly. I love that that doesn't happen to me here in Newport. But in large part, that's because I know to stay away from Nye Beach. I often think about the risks of surfing at Agate Beach since it's so close to Nye. I'm signed up to participate in this weekend's Agate Beach Classic, which I've done for several years because it raises money for youth to participate in Newport Rec Center activities. But I do wonder if I should withdraw because of the contamination issue. I wonder if I should tell others who are participating to beware and ask them what they think about getting our city to do the right thing and solve this. A friend and fellow surfer told me that the city holding the Agate Surf Classic with knowledge of the contamination at Nye is like inviting your friends over for a big house party when you know you've got COVID. I also do my part to help keep the waters clean here and our environment. I'm the Highway 101 cleanup coordinator for Newport Chapter of Surfrider Foundation. Each year, I organize dozens of volunteers, pick up hundreds of pounds of trash off the highway around Mulac Beach. My kids help with this work. I'm raising them to care about the environment, our responsibilities as citizens, and the responsibility of the city as a government. I'm also an educator, a university professor, and one topic I teach my students about is environmental justice. This year, I'm developing a coastal service learning course, and I'd love for it to involve a case study on cleaning up the water that flows into Nye Beach as an example of city and community organizations collaborating to do what's right and common sense and mandated by law. So I really don't want it to be an example of a city that neglects its responsibilities despite public pressure and willingness to collaborate. Thank you. Those are my comments. Thank you very much.

I'm going to hold. I think, I believe, are there a number of folks who have signed up for comment on the same subject? Because I just would like to give you that opportunity before I respond. So we will respond. I just don't want to, we'll do that in one. In the meantime, is Dean Henzey, is it Henzey? I hope I'm pronouncing. One for one. One for one on pronunciations.

This is not for sympathy. This is meniscus surgery. All right. Yeah, same topic.

For the record, say your name. I'm sorry.

I'm Dean Henze. Yes. I am a Newport resident. I live in Night Beach, a couple of blocks away from the outflow. My words are not going to be as sophisticated as Kenny's, but I did want to show up here as an example of another community member who thinks about this. Yeah, I was concerned about this, but yeah, a little bit about my background. I've lived here for four years, but I've been coming to Newport much earlier than that. I was getting my PhD in atmospheric science at Oregon State University, and I was coming out here all the time to surf. And by the time I'd finished the graduate degree, I loved this place. I loved the community. I love the connection to the ocean. I moved out here. I was fortunate enough to convince my employer to give me remote work so that I could stay out here instead of having to move to California. You know, besides surfing, I am now a member of the Yacht Club. I've started fishing. I really like the ocean and the community around it is wonderful. you know, why I'm here. And I think, you know, why a lot of people are here. I've noticed since we live in Nye and we take our dog for a walk every day, the number of times that the beach smells either like sewage or like chlorine is concerning. And I wish I had kept a log this whole time, but I haven't. But I'd have to put it at at least 10%, if not more, of the days out of the year. And, you know, it's something I think about now when I go surfing. I'm hesitant to eat crab if I know it's been harvested from anywhere, you know, like near this area. And, you know, going forward, you know, currently I rent in Nye, but I'm at the stage in life where I'm thinking of buying a home and, you know, making Newport my, you know, my permanent home. And it is something I consider, like, if I want to, like, raise a family here, raise a kid, and we're going to be so oriented around the ocean. And, you know, I don't know if this, you know, this problem with the sewage is going to get worse, you know, and if I am very health conscious. And so that's something I take into consideration. I know others do as well. And so I'm here on behalf of them. And I guess the ask would just be to, it would be nice if... We were aware of solutions that were being considered and progress being made. So thank you for your time. That's all I have. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate you guys.

This is Mandy Watson. And for the record, just say your name.

Sure. Hi, I'm Mandy Watson. I live in California, but I came here for the Agate Beach Surf Classic, which I understand that the city hosts. So thanks to Park and Rec for hosting that. And I'm also here to voice my concerns about the serious water quality issues that's going on in Newport. As a surfer, I try to stay informed about pollution issues in the place where I go to travel to surf because of the health implications that could take place, which I've experienced, and it's not fun. I think Newport is a super special place. That's why I keep coming back to surf. But I don't think I will come back for next year's competition if nothing gets done about this. I drove over 12 hours for this competition because I love Newport that much, and it's super special to me. And I also like to recommend Newport as a surf trip destination to my friends back home. But I don't feel comfortable doing that with the water quality being at its status quo. So please invest in source tracking solutions and work with organizations that can help address this. Thank you.

Thank you and appreciate that. Kate McKeon.

Hi, my name is Kate McKeon, and I've been a resident of Newport for a little over the last eight months. My partner and I relocated here because of a job opportunity, but also because we wanted to be on the coast. As someone who's immunocompromised, this issue of bacterial contamination is especially important to me. Exposure to contaminated water can have serious consequences for people with compromised immune systems, so I have to be extra careful about when and where I go to the beach. And as a member of the local Surfrider chapter, I know where to find the Blue Water Task Force data, as well as the data from the Oregon Beaches Monitoring Program. But the average person doesn't, and the average visitor shouldn't have to dig around online to find whether or not our beaches are safe to visit. More importantly, I want to live in a place where I can trust that the city is investigating this issue and communicating the steps towards a solution. We know the state monitoring program tests this site, but doesn't issue public health advisories for freshwater sources. So that means that even when the state monitoring program and our monitoring program show results exceeding the health limit, no advisories are issued. With this in mind, I think the city should be more proactive in advising the public about unhealthy water conditions. Signage is a good starting point, but it's not enough. Just the other day, I saw several people playing in the water from the outfall. without seeing the signs indicating that there was a potential risk. The city has worked with the Surfrider staff and our local chapter in the past, and we have a history of collaboration on water quality monitoring, source investigations, and solutions, but sadly, that collaboration has diminished. Despite ongoing requests over the last eight months, the city has been relatively unresponsive, particularly on source identification. We've even been told that city staff and council have been discouraged or prevented from communicating with our chapter on this issue. But we're still here, we're still speaking up, and we're still seeking collaboration. But collaboration is a two-way street. At this point, it's difficult not to feel that our concerns and the potential risks to public health aren't receiving the attention they deserve. When our offers to help and collaborate don't result in meaningful engagement, we come to this city council for help. We are here again to ask the council to act. We want to work with the city, not against it, but we also need to know that the health and safety of residents and visitors is a priority, and that credible information about potential contamination will be taken seriously and followed up on. I'm asking the city to follow up on high bacteria results in a timely manner, work quickly to identify the source of this contamination, and communicate openly with the public about investigation and any potential risks. Newport residents and visitors deserve clear information about the risks to our beaches and confidence that those risks are being taken seriously. I'm not here alone and I know that this is not the first time that these concerns have been brought before the city. I'm asking for urgency, transparency and continued action until we understand where this contamination is coming from and how to address it. We deserve to enjoy our beaches and we deserve to trust that the city is doing everything it can to keep us healthy, informed and safe.

Thank you. Thank you. Elizabeth Holmes.

Hi. My name is Elizabeth Holmes. I live in Newport, very close to Schooner Creek, a site which routinely exceeds water quality standards for bacteria. I'm here as a volunteer with Surfrider's Newport chapter. I'm on the local beaches and in the local water several times a week, all year round, and I have a vested interest in protecting water quality here. Nye Beach also persistently exceeds bacteria standards. Nye Beach's exceedances are not merely slightly over the water quality limits, but at about 80 times over the limits, they blow any ideation of compliance out of the water. Surfrider sampling results, which have been shared with the city, suggest that it's no longer a question about whether Nye Beach has ongoing discharges. The question really is more pointed. What components of the city's systems are causing or contributing to continuing bacteria problems at the outfall of the city's most popular beach? If the city's permits and plans and execution of those frameworks were working, we would not be having those problems. If it sounds like I'm familiar with some of the nuances of water pollution and permits, it is because I am. I'm here in my individual and personal capacity, but in my day job, I'm a public interest environmental litigator. By hazard of the trade, the problems Newport is experiencing are challenges I'm very familiar with. What I also know is that there are very clear and manageable pathways to fix these problems, and other cities in Oregon and elsewhere have implemented solutions. Just look at Cannon Beach, for example. Cannon Beach has a four-year schedule and a plan to assertively focus on identifying pollution sources, investigating, sampling, fixing problems, providing clear, transparent public information and signage along the way. This is also how the city of Newport can stop its discharges. We know that the city is in the midst of negotiating its NPDES water quality permit with DEQ. This is a perfect opportunity for the city to work with DEQ to commit to a meaningful and enforceable compliance schedule for source identification, investigation, and mitigation measures to stop the ongoing water quality and public health problems at Nye Beach and other locations. We appreciate you hearing our concerns and considering the proposed solutions. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'm going to give a kind of a brief response here. And one that you should know that the city is now actively investigating potential causes of the bacteria and testing regularly. And we're trying, again, to determine the source. So when somebody says sewage, it's probably not accurate, but I can't say that 100%. But we are... This council is committed, and our staff are committed, and there is communication going on with Surfrider. The appropriate communication at this point is between the Surfrider staff and our staff. And because of controversy that when we have a bunch of people saying different things to different people, it can get very confusing and it doesn't help. So we want to keep the lines of communication open and clear. And I ask you have some patience with us, but I understand the impatience. And that makes sense. I live here, too. And we live here, so we're doing, we've become aware of something and are actively working on the solutions. And if anybody else has something to say on that? Okay. And again, I appreciate you can come every week, you know, and it's fine. Keep the pressure on us. We're keeping the pressure on us, too. So thank you, and thank you for your deeply caring about things, and that's really, really helpful to this city.

I'll add, also, I live in Nye Beach, too, so obviously I am very concerned about this. We do also, in Nye Beach, since one of you lives there, there is the Nye Beach Neighborhood Association. Every first Thursday every month we meet. Feel free to come there and bring that up. I'll certainly bring that up at our next meeting in October. We have a history of beach cleanups, and we expanded the pollinator beds at Don Davis Park. We've helped sponsor the murals that are being painted on Don Davis Park. So we're a neighborhood association of just residents and people who live there and people who own businesses there. And we care about that, too. And we're always looking for more people. with their concerns and their energy to please come on out so we do i care i think and everyone here cares because we all live here so and as as the mayor said the city is working on it so please give us a little bit of time to try to work through this but as the mayor said if the communications seem to be drying up this is the appropriate place to let us know so we can know about it And I thank you all for your input and your willingness to come because we don't have enough civic engagement, in my opinion, and this is the kind of thing we need more of. So thank you.

And, Robert, you mentioned the Neighborhood Association. I don't know if you said when and where and at what time.

Oh, yes. It's at the Performing Arts Center, 530. We have dinner provided, and it is the first Thursday of the month.

Thank you. Okay, moving on to proclamations. Give me a second. This is a proclamation that I get to read yearly and it's It's one that means a great deal to me personally, and I know to other members of the council. So this is the 2026 Pride Proclamation, and I know lots of folks are here for it. Whereas Newport is celebrating pride at a time of profound vulnerability and challenge, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit communities across the nation face an alarming surge in discrimination. anti-trans legislation, targeted violence, and coordinated efforts to roll back hard-won civil rights, making it ever more vital to affirm the city of Newport's unwavering commitment to safety, dignity, and justice for all LGBTQ2SIA plus people. And whereas the city of Newport is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and mutual respect as fundamental aspects of a healthy and thriving community. And whereas the presence and visibility of the LGBTQ2SIA plus community is vital to the quality of life for all Newport residents and visitors alike. And whereas it is vital to be neither silent nor avert our eyes. and ears from oppression that our LGBTQ2SIA plus family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and community are facing and to find ways to be a safe home for all queer and trans people. And whereas we recognize the vital contributions that LGBTQ2SI plus folks make in our community and that they are an integral part of the vibrant culture and climate of our city, And whereas Newport will celebrate its fifth annual Pride Festival from September 18th, 2026 through September 20th, 2026, with several events to which all residents and visitors are invited to attend. Now, therefore, I, Jan Kaplan, Mayor of the friendliest city of Newport, Oregon, do hereby recognize our Newport community's annual Pride celebration. Thank you for doing what you do and being who you are. I have one of my colleagues ask to make some comments here, CM Hall, and take it, CM.

Thank you, Mayor. For those of you who may not know, my name is CM Hall, and I'm a proud member of the Newport City Council and a proud Newport resident. In 2015, I had made the brave and bold move to Newport, and it was my dream, and I knew that. But I wasn't sure how being a 40-something queer woman would really turn out here. I knew there were trade-offs. And early in my time here, I remember being told by an elder in the LGBTQ community that I was uninvited to a gay ladies gathering because I was dating a trans guy. That hurt. And then I was told by another elder in the LGBTQ community here that my organizing and activism and being visible as a queer person was too big for Newport. And that people wanted to be left alone and be private. Was I to take from that that I was supposed to be quiet? Have you met me?

I was undeterred.

I knew that I was seeing LGBTQ plus people and questioning folks in our community. When I was shopping, when I was dining, I believed we could be more and do more. And celebrate more. And in 2019, started convening folks to plan our first pride. We were thwarted by a global pandemic for a couple of years. But then in 2022, we had our first pride. And this community showed up. Allies showed up to say, this is our opportunity to celebrate you and affirm you. Parents and families showed up to say, we have kiddos that we want to know how to support and love, and this is a great way to be here. And LGBTQ plus residents and neighbors from area communities and people from elsewhere came. I mean, we became a destination pride. We sparked Wilsonville's pride. I dreamed that we could be more. And seeing you all in the room today affirms that we are more, that we will continue to believe and hope that we can live in a small rural coastal community and be your neighbor and pay taxes and vote. and love on our families and friends and, you know, raise a glass and celebrate that five years of Newport Pride has happened and many more to come. I just want to extend gratitude to the Destination Newport community that really helped fund our first Pride. The volunteers, many of you in the room, you should raise your hand now, who helped make Newport Pride events happen.

Volunteers, put your hands up.

We have come a long way. Thank you.

So we may be small, but we are mighty.

And I just want to say happy Pride. We celebrate it in September as a shoulder season event so that we can draw the tourists. There's intention to this. And so we will raise a flag and we will celebrate lots of events. And you can go to look at more of them at NewportOregonPride.com. I want to say thank you to everyone who came and showed up tonight to hear the proclamation. We're going to talk about the flag in a minute, but I know you have another event to get to.

Thank you. We're going to move on. And again, I want to echo, we appreciate what this means to this community. And we're with you. We're up with you. Nina, next item, please.

Yes, we have a presentation this evening from our delegation of students who went to our sister city, Mount Betts. I'm going to welcome them and the chair of our sister city committee, Katie Jacobson.

Thank you for having us. First of all, thank you for all that all of you do. I'm a resident of Newport, and I know it can often be a thankless job, so thank you for everything you handle for us.

Katie, as you start, would you introduce?

I'm getting there, yeah.

Okay, okay.

I know you know this stuff. CM's not the only one that can talk a lot. Okay. So I'm Katie Jacobson. I'm the chair of the Newport Sister City Committee, and I'll let my two youth delegates introduce themselves.

My name is Nick Cruz. I have been involved in the Newport community for all of my remembered life. I am currently at OSU, and I am a two-time member of the Japanese delegation.

My name is Rana Galicia. This is my first time being involved in this type of city work, and it was amazing, by the way. And I am currently a senior at Newport High School.

So I had the privilege of chaperoning seven youth delegates back in July. We were gone the 18th to the 27th of July. There was seven students ranging in age from 12 to 20, plus myself and one other adult that had the opportunity to take that delegation to our sister city, Mombatsu. to celebrate our 60th year of friendship. And so I just have a couple of slides about some of the activities and things we did while we were there. And then I'm going to turn it over to our two youth delegates to kind of talk about what was most impactful to them.

So this is their giant crab claw, by the way, that's in their city.

And I think they gave you one when they were here in March as like a statue. Okay, there we go. So this is the first day we arrived in Mabetsu. This is actually at their little municipal airport. This is all of the delegation, plus many of their sister city committee members and city employees. It was pretty crazy. Welcome. There's people standing up on the roof of the airport with signs welcoming us, and also their little seal mascot, Manta, is that how you say it, Nick? Manta, yeah, was also there to greet us. This was just some of our sort of day one activities. We were able to go to their science center. I would equate it to like the Hatfield Marine Science Center of the 90s, kind of remind me of that a little bit. Saw their visitor center. We also got to participate. They were celebrating their, I think, 50th year anniversary or something like that of that science center being there. So there is Colin, whenever Youth Guild gets putting up what he appreciates about Our sister city on a big board there. Bottom picture that got cut off a little bit is us actually meeting with the mayor. We had a formal meeting with the mayor the first day we were there and several of city staff and city council members. They also had a more formal welcome dinner for us that night. We received a formal gift, which is that picture of the crab claw, which I did not have her in my suitcase for. So they brought it to us a couple of weeks ago when they were visiting us. And I believe you received that. Also that day, our first day, we met all of our host families. And while I have slides of other activities we've done, I think the most impactful part of the program is the host family connection. All of us stayed in host families, including our chaperones, including myself with my son, Noble. Here's pictures of all of our youth delegates with their prospective host families. I think this is the part that really teaches connection, that really makes that lasting friendship. Just speaking for myself, I know that I have already emailed my host family back and forth several times since I've been here. And that's the part I think that builds that lasting relationship and really has you understand that even though we're many, many miles away from each other and in different cultures, we're really not all that different when it boils down to it. Day two, we visited Seal Land, which is there on the left, where they rehabilitate seals. They have lots of seals in their community. We also visited a school that's on the bottom right picture with many of the students that hosted us. Our students had an opportunity to go to a physics lab, a computer lab. We also saw their machine shop and their welding program within their school. And then on the top is one of the many museums and art centers that we visited that day. Next day was kind of a cultural day, and so we had three main kind of cultural activities. We did Japanese calligraphy. There's Kai on the left with his kanji he drew. I don't remember which one that is. We started with small paper, and then there's a picture of one of the kids, I forget who, or maybe it's the instructor in the middle. Eventually moved to super large paper to draw kanjis. We also had a kendo fighting lesson. There's my son Noble on the bottom in kendo gear. And we also, though we don't have photos of it, we also did a traditional Japanese tea ceremony that day. Kind of final full day was their Port Festival. That's all of us on stage at their Port Festival being formally introduced to the community and giving a little speech about friendship and our 60th year together. We also all had the opportunity to wear traditional Japanese clothing. There's all of us dressed up in that. And then we finished the evening going on their research vessel, the Gorinko, and seeing fireworks for the celebration of their port festival. And then the next day was the day we left. And I just really thought this photo of Kai, one of our youth delegates, hugging one of the kids that lived in his host family was really impactful. There was lots of tears on our goodbye photo. Lots of friendship, lots of sharing Instagram links and that kind of stuff as we were leaving. So really impactful, I think, for all of us. Very different than any type of travel I've ever done. And at this point, I just want to turn it over to our two youth delegates, Nick and Rhianna, to share kind of their favorite parts or what was most impactful to them.

All right. Like I said, this is my second time that I've been on this trip. I was, I think, 16 at the time. I'm 20 now. And not only did my understanding of the culture grow, which is very important, but the acceptance and indulgence in which I grew. kind of went through also grew a lot. My 16 year old self was a little less socially adept than I am now. And so seeing that evolution firsthand was really important. I do also believe that The diplomatic training that I guess this puts us through is super important for not only our generation, but every generation. And since we are now maturing and becoming more capable in the world, trips and events like this are super important for us to learn how to form friendships.

So my experience overall, this was my first time in Japan, much less being in Mombetsu for the first time. Overall, I found it to be very amazing, honestly. Everyone was so welcoming, so kind, and the hospitality there is on another level, honestly. It's insane. I'm forever grateful to have met my host family. They were nothing but welcoming towards us. and really it was just amazing while we were there it was just so much for us to do so much sightseeing so much history and culture for us to take in while we were there and it was just a lot it was really great and I honestly really enjoyed it and to this day I'm still communicating with my host family I know that I can say the same for I can say the same for everyone that we have all forever been impacted by the people we met there and I can safely say that the friendship and the bridge we built between Newport and Mombetsu will be strong. And I hope that the future youth delegations that do manage to go to Mombetsu are able to keep that connection strong too.

Thank you. It's just lovely to hear about your experience and what it meant. And, you know, it means a great deal to us. We hosted an adult delegation and also a youth delegation. And it's quite an experience. And one that I'm very proud that our city and that Mombetso, you know, 60 years. What a thing. I was your age when that started. So it's celebrating 60 years. And Katie, I know that you've put innumerable hours and work and dedication into making this all work. And thank you so much. Thank you so much. Anyone else?

Can I just ask a question about the communication? So there's essentially like one spoken language interpreter, right, between Japanese and English. Is that kind of the idea? Like when you're communicating with your host family, are they speaking English? Do you also know some Japanese? How are you, are you using a phone app kind of situation?

Well, personally for me, my host family already spoke some English prior, so that didn't make communication hard. I know, obviously, at some points we did have to use a lot of hand gestures to get to the point. And when we did want to have deep, more meaningful conversations, we did have to bring out the translate. But overall, I would say communication wasn't that much of an issue. I mean, we were really straightforward with what we wanted to say, and honestly, I didn't have an issue with it at all. And in fact, I kind of forced myself to practice Japanese as much as I could. I said any greetings whenever I could, and they very much appreciated, no matter how bad it sounded.

I was going to say that in my host family, really the 15-year-old boy in the home spoke quite a bit of English. So we became buddies. And he helped a lot with helping me translate to the other adults in the home. And I also helped him with his English homework several nights in a row while I was there. So it was a good trade-off.

Anyone else? Ken, thank you so much. And thank you for representing our city. And it's clear to me that you did an incredible job of doing that. And we value that. And just thanks so much.

Thank you.

Nina, next item. And now we're getting down to the mundane.

Well, don't call it mundane quite yet. We're in the city manager's report, item 6A, a resolution approving a progress pride flag be flown at City Hall from September 9th, 2026 to September 22nd, 2026.

We skipped the consent calendar.

I just decided, yeah. Sorry about that. I got ahead of myself. I was really excited about the city manager's report. Just kidding. Let's do consent calendar first, Sherry.

Thank you. On the consent calendar, we have to ratify the mayor's appointment of Holly Romero to the library advisory board for a term expiring December 31st, 2028. The approval of the August 17, 2026 city council meeting minutes and receipt of links to agendas and audio video for minutes to be approved.

No, it's Pride Month. You get the spotlight.

What else do I get? I move to approve the consent calendar.

Second. Motion by Councillor Hall, second by Councillor Eamon. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we're done with the mundane.

Now we can do this anyway.

Now you can.

Okay. First item, 6A, a resolution approving a pride flag be flown at City Hall from September 9, 2026 to September 22, 2026.

Would somebody like to make a motion?

Well, wait. Aren't you going to? Oh, are we just? Oh, I didn't know. Are we?

Will? Yes. Do you want to say a few words, Nina?

I think we need to actually know, do we have someone from the Newport, Oregon Pride Committee with an iron flag to bestow upon the city?

Well, how did you know that?

Yay, we're ready to go.

I think we've read the proclamation. We don't need to reread it. No. But so there's a motion, I guess. Now, therefore, the city of Newport resolves as follows. Anybody wish to make that motion?

Sure. Yeah, you bet. Thank you, Mayor. So the Newport City Council hereby approves a three by five progress pride flag to be displayed at City Hall from September 9th. through September 22nd, 2026. That is the motion, essentially, and directs the city manager to coordinate the display of the flag consistent with the city of Newport's flag policy adopted through Resolution 3964. Second.

Okay, motion by Councillor Hall, second by Councillor Rumigo. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. You guys should come here every week. We need an audience.

And that's Kit Fox, one of our administration members. Yeah, great. That'll be flying tomorrow.

Our next item, 6B, IGA with the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development for the Rental Housing Maintenance Code Toolkit Project. Derek has the staff report.

Thank you, Derek Tokos, Community Development. You may recall, as part of the housing production strategy we wrapped up in 2023, we did a fair amount of outreach with the community. And one of the things we heard loud and clear was interest from those that are renting principally in a market rate kind of environment. that they were having trouble at times getting their managers to engage in addressing maintenance issues within the unit. That could be leaking windows, roofs, heating systems that aren't operating properly, that kind of thing. One of the things that came out of that was a recommendation that the city explore the feasibility of standing up a rental housing maintenance code and then would become an active participant in trying to assist tenants and landlords through those types of issues. It is not a commitment to stand up a program, it's to research the feasibility of one. And so the approach we've taken, and we were successful in obtaining a grant from the state, is to have the state pay a consultant and work with technical advisory committee representing not just folks from our area but other small to medium-sized cities folks that are managing properties folks that are renting market rate units just a range of different stakeholders to come up with kind of a GUIDEBOOK FOR HOW SMALL OR MEDIUM SIZED CITIES THAT ARE LESS RESOURCED THAN, SAY, THE PORTLANDS OR EUGENES OF THE WORLD CAN STAND UP AND ACTUALLY IMPLEMENT THIS TYPE OF PROGRAM GIVEN THEIR AVAILABLE RESOURCES. AND SO WE WERE ABLE TO GET THE GRANT. WE ARE NOT INTERNALLY ADMINISTERING THIS ONE. SO WE DIDN'T GET FUNDS FROM THE STATE TO HIRE A CONSULTANT ON OUR BEHALF. since this is a guide that's going to assist a range of small to medium-sized cities, you guys can go ahead, which was one of the options, you guys can go ahead and hire the consultant to do this work, and they did. And so we, in fact, have been working on this project for a bit and have already had some of the initial work, like a legal framework memo prepared by the consultant. We've had our initial technical advisory committee meeting. We've got stakeholder engagement that's going to start later this month, extending into October, and they're going to start working on some case studies. So we've been moving this along in a reasonable way, and we just got our intergovernmental agreement, which effectively says we are committing to participate in this manner, being a collaborative partner, helping to coordinate meetings when they're needed, reviewing materials that are prepared, that kind of stuff, assisting with engagement in our area. We do have representatives from McMinnville, Hood River, You know, they're on the tack to help pull in folks from some of these other areas. So that's what you have before you. So this is kind of a little bit different intergovernmental agreement. I mean, typically, if we had received the grant and the funds were given to us for us to hire somebody, that intergovernmental agreement would be required before we would ever spend a dollar. But since this is one where the state's handling all of that, internal contracts with the consultant, all that stuff, they go by their own rules. And so the intergovernmental agreement's getting to us when we're like 25% into the project. So that's my summary.

Any questions, concerns, comments?

Oh, just a comment. Yay.

Well said.

And I get a motion. Sure. I'll move to approve and authorize the city manager to sign the attached intergovernmental agreement between the city of Newport and the state of Oregon, acting by and through its Department of Land Conservation and Development for the Rental Housing Maintenance Code Toolkit for Small to Midsize Communities Project.

Second.

Motion by Councillor Emond, second by Councillor Jacoby. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Our next item is 6C, Sustainable Destination Management Plan, and Willow has the staff report.

Hello again. Willow Ryan, Beautification and Tourism Program Coordinator. Yeah, so last time we met, obviously there was a lot of feedback. And then after that, Steve Hickman and I had some conversation over email to try to flush out what exactly he was looking for. And so we took those recommendations. I sat with them. I actually spent a lot of time with them going through the document. And I passed over a three-page document essentially to our consultant asking for changes to be made. Changes were made. I know it's kind of a lengthy document, so I'm happy to kind of walk through them. A lot of them are around the language that was used. And so just real quick, I'm going to tell you what pages those are on. I'm not going to go through all of the language that changed, because we would be here for a while. But essentially, page 4, 5, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 33, and 38, there was language changes made. I also just want to highlight that page 44 has a new map, which we already talked about last time, but just wanting to reflect that. And then additionally, outside of just language changes, there was a strategy added. So you'll see both on, it's the same strategy, but it is woven into page 22 And then 25, 25 is where the actual strategy live. And that strategy is surrounding foster community understanding, participation, and trust in this destination stewardship approach.

Thank you.

I wanted to see if there was any questions or comments.

Councilor.

Thank you. And thank you for that, but also thank you for not only adjusting wording and maybe following some of the suggestions that I made, but to go further than that, which I appreciate that there was some actual additional points and projects and things like that that you took from what I was going for into action, so to speak. So I appreciate your Patience with me and my preoccupation with this and I feel like it's a solid I already thought it was a solid plan But it's even better now, and I appreciate your willingness to do it.

So thank you I just want to say back to you. Thank you for the feedback I think that Nina and I both knew there was there was something that was missing it was just I think we were all having a hard time putting it into word and And so, yeah, I think that email that you sent to me and then allowing me to sit with that and spend time with the document with that feedback that you provided was really helpful. And so I hope that all of you can see that reflected and that it is, I feel like it meets the standard of what we were trying to get at, but I hope that that's reflected to you guys as well.

That's good.

Other comment? I do appreciate it. It's more than changing words.

It's making commitments.

And I have just one comment regarding the plan. I love this. I think it's a really good plan. I think we need to be clear that we are speaking about some amount of budgeting that goes into the future. And then we need to all be cognizant that that's not an entitlement or a firm amount. Every year we will budget you know But in the same way in the same spirit that that that I think we're adopting this plan in a spirit of getting this going So any other comments Okay Somebody want to make a motion?

I will.

I will. Councillor Hickman. Phew, finally. I move that we adopt the sustainable destination management plan as presented. You're not on mic, I think. Are you on mic? Am I? Yeah, you are.

Second.

Motion by Councillor Hickman, second by Councillor Aparicio-Reyes. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you for your work on this.

Thank you all so much.

That's a good culture. You guys can come back any time.

Our next item is 6D, authorization to apply for a business organ regional infrastructure fund grant funding for the water treatment plant Clearwell Rehabilitation Project. And Todd, our assistant city engineer, has the staff report.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Todd Dredge, Assistant City Engineer, and this item is a request for Council's authorization to apply for Business Organ's Regional Infrastructure Fund for construction funding for the city's Clearwell Rehabilitation Project. This project you've seen a few times. It's essentially replacing the mastic on the inside of the tank that finishes the treatment process at the treatment plant. We currently have that designed and permitted, but we're looking for construction funding. Our grant manager identified the Regional Infrastructure Fund as a good potential fit for this project or vice versa, the project for the fund. And so we're requesting authorization to apply for the full estimated project cost of $739,306, which includes the construction funding, contingency for construction, engineering support during construction. So with that the recommended motion is the council moved to authorize the managers submit and sign business organ regional infrastructure fund grant application requesting funding for the project Okay questions or comments So if it says if the grant doesn't is less than the funding we would come up with the remaining mark Yeah, correct. There is only $10 million in this fund, and so one of the things that they mentioned is that you can opt to scale it in case they can't award the full thing. You can say we'll accept some and not none, and so essentially we've elected to go ahead and scale it, and they're trying to spread this out as much as possible, so we hope to get as much as we can, but we're willing to take...

Anything. Do we have any idea of how close this is to covering the entire cost? Do we think it's likely to do that?

We're asking for it. We don't know what we're awarded until the process is completed.

Sure.

But what we're asking for, we have that design through Jacobson Engineering, and this is their cost estimate. It's pretty tight. We've cleaned it up as much as we can, and so we hope to pay for the whole project if we're awarded the whole thing.

So whatever they give us, we don't have to pay for, so it seems like a pretty simple thing to do.

I would say so.

I'll move then.

Okay.

So I move to authorize the city manager to submit and sign the Business Oregon Regional Infrastructure Fund grant application requesting funding for the water treatment plant clear well rehabilitation project.

Second.

Thank you. We have a motion by Councilor Eamon, second by Councilor Rumagu. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Fingers crossed they give us all of it. Motion carries. Applause, please.

I think Derek kicked this off with the woo earlier, and now it's just the energy is unleashed. Keep it rolling.

Todd, thank you.

We're now going to move into local contract review board.

Oh, okay. This is to call the local contract review board to order.

We have our one item this evening, 7A, a word of authorization of contract for Newport City Hall HVAC repair. Todd has the staff report.

Again, Todd Dredge with the Engineering Department. The item before you is the award of construction contract for repairs to City Hall HVAC system. The current system has experienced reoccurring failures because there's multiple heat pumps, and if one heat pump goes down, my understanding is that the entire thing can go down. And so... The proposed project will replace the problematic heat pumps with simpler, more reliable gas furnaces while retaining existing ductwork to cut down on costs. It will also provide air conditioning to council chambers and the IT server room. The city received and evaluated three proposals, and Aero Heating and Sheet Metal submitted the most responsive proposal at $152,956. The current approved budget includes $150,000 approval, and so staff is requesting an additional $20,000 transfer of general fund to cover the small shortfall and provide construction contingency. And so with that, the motion is that council move to award construction contract for the Newport City Hall HVAC repair project to Arrow Heating and Sheet Metal LLC in the amount of $152,956 and authorize the city manager to execute the contract subject to final city attorney approval.

Okay. Questions? Cynthia? Yeah.

I'd be glad to move on this.

Thank you.

I recommend I move to award a construction contract for the Newport City Hall HVAC repair project to Arrow Heating and Sheet Metal LLC Arrow in the amount of $152,956 and authorize the city manager to execute the contract subject to final review by the city attorney. Second.

Motion by Councillor Jacoby, second by Councillor Hall. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Motion carries.

This is to close the Contract Review Board and come back. for mayor and council their reports. Councillor Emond.

So we had the public arts meeting last well yeah two Tuesdays ago excuse me and there was no quorum but there was a lot of information given out so the puppy love sculpture was completed and installed thanks to Cynthia's donation we've got several murals that were completed And, of course, they're also working on the murals, which is now complete, but wasn't complete at that time, down on Don Davis Park. Then the biggest thing they were talking about was an update for... getting the Rick Bartow statue. I don't know if everyone's aware of this, but Rick Bartow lived here. He was one of ours. And his foundation has a casting of his statues, which is common for statues. The cast is what's important, not the actual one. So this would be the third one ever cast and probably the last one ever cast. We want to have it brought back here and they're offering us basically to sell it to us for cost So they would cast it and it wouldn't cost us cost any more than the actual process. So the part of the South Beach urban renewal district placemaking is gonna fund that OCCA is gonna fund that they went out for some grants, but some of the grants weren't accepted so now they're going into sort of looking for donations. They were trying to raise $30,000 to get this done. So there's going to be a sort of a call for donations through the OCCA. And so we can spread the word. that we can donate. And anyone who donates $1,000 or more will have a little plaque on the statue saying so-and-so donated to help make this possible. So there is actually a reward for this. But more importantly, I think, is the pride that we can get as a city to recognize that we have a world-class artist from newport and a lot of what we've talked about here is how newport does more than its size and this is one of those examples the pride being really powerful you know everything we do we we are much stronger because we work together and so i hope that we can all raise this fund so if you're interested send me an email and i'll send you the flyer um or you hopefully it's going to come up on their website soon That was mostly, oh yeah, there's a mural down in the Bayfront that's actually a Weiland mural. I had no idea that was a Weiland. He's a famous whale artist, and it needs some repairs. So that's going to be the next project they're looking at besides the South Beach Urban Renewal. Most of next year is going to be taken up with trying to figure out how to develop that. They've got a lot of pieces of art they have to find. And we're also... Working out a way to receive art donations. We've had several coming in and they want a more formal process. So I wrote them a sample contract that will help them and they're going to pass it on to the appropriate legal, which may be Tiffany. I don't know who's seen that yet, but we're going to, you know, make a process for getting art donations. more streamlined and easier because, you know, this is a community of artists and we all want to donate things. And we want to make our community more beautiful. So public arts is really firing on all four cylinders right now. Wow. Good job.

Well, you took part of my thunder, Robert. I attended the Tuesday, August 25, Oregon Coast Council for the Arts board meeting. And in the subcommittee reports, you got kudos for the work you've been doing, the energy. And it's not going unnoticed. It was a very full meeting. They have had a meeting with the National Endowment for the Arts chairman. There is going to be two new board openings. Anyone interested in applying? Let's see. Their financial report, that is coming in. They're with all the nuts and bolts in the right place. And let's see. Oh, they are going for the Steyer's Theater plaque because a lot of our younger generation don't know who he is. And so we have to remind them. And let's see. All in all, they're getting ready for the jazz party, and it looks like they're going to have another sellout event. So that's kind of it. They're just always, always incredibly busy.

I sat in for Councillor Hall at the Parks and Rec committee meeting last week and had a riveting presentation from John on surveys. It actually was very helpful to the group. The group wants to survey folks about, well, it started out very general on Parks and Rec and really kind of honed in on parks and really to kind of check in to take the pulse of the of the community as to how well the Parks Master Plan aligns with how things are now compared to when it was created, I don't know, eight or ten years ago or something like that. So there was a lot of discussion about what would be asked and how to do that, and actually John's presentation helped to focus that conversation and to get a little clearer on the objectives. So that's a work in progress, but that will be coming soon. That was the bulk of the conversation in that meeting, so.

Thank you. For me, Nina and I made a presentation to the Rotary Club, educating them regarding the bond proposal. I thought that was very well received, and I think we teamed up well on that. I've mentioned this before, and I can send this out some. I've been talking about the notion of an environmental climate advisory work group of some sort, not a committee, as a means for us as a council to be able to ask questions, be able to develop a group that has, we have a lot of scientists in this community, a lot of technical people. to be able to convene groups that will be able to help answer questions for us and provide background for us when we're making policy decisions. And just a couple of examples of the kinds of things is that some months back we broke ranks with this water safety alliance, whatever the heck it was called. But we still need to be thinking about our water plan for the next years, not the dam. The dam state, that's a separate process. But upstream, you know, we can build a dam, but the water, we still got to get the water into it, and it better be good water. And so that's one of the kinds of things that we could ask a work group to help us with. Another, again, these are just two examples I've thought of. I'm sure most of you could come up with others that I think, you know, when we talk about emergency preparedness on the coast, the theme is be two weeks ready. But most of the stuff I hear is how we're three days ready. And that's not a slam at anybody, but I could use some suggestions. We could use some suggestions about how to improve that, particularly around if the electricity goes out, what do we do to get the lights on? And so having a group like that that wouldn't necessarily design a whole project, but would help us Move in a direction and and with with some confidence So I'll be I think Nina will you and I can probably work on on coming back with something a little more formal but nice I just want to get a sense from the council that that's Not a stupid idea Yeah Okay, so you know what we can keep working on trying to flesh this out and I And one other thing I would like to mention, I'm working kind of on an ad hoc project with Ethan Baer, who's the guy who does the contracts for performers at the PAC, and he's also a very good bass player. And we've been having some discussions about the fact that Particularly in the off-season, there's very little music that starts. The music dries up. Nightlife dries up on the coast or in Newport. And thinking about, is there something we can do to stimulate that? And so we formed like a very, we're having a first meeting with just a very small group to just explore that idea. A couple of venue owners, a hotel owner, some other folks to just explore whether that's, there are ideas that we could develop that would make it feasible. because I think part of what happens for some of the music venues in town or nightlife venues, comedians are welcome, is that to pay for entertainment in a venue during the winter is very risky for a business person. And is there a way we can work? so that we can get more nightlife. And that's going to hopefully also just make the area more vibrant for all of us and might be a draw for tourists as well. So just so you know, and I'll follow up with that, we're just really starting down that road.

Counselor? So what would you be doing exactly to promote this?

I don't know.

Oh, OK.

There's an idea that that's actually bringing some people together to say, who have some traction around this, and say, what are some things we could look at? What would help? Which is why we want to have the venue owners there.

Sure.

Okay. Great.

It's not a city committee, though. It's a... Yeah, you must be up to something.

Just another reminder that Newport Pride is a week from this coming weekend, the 18th through the 20th, and there are family-friendly events in the pool. There's trivia. There's a super queer fun fair on the Saturday and drag bingo and the concert at the Performing Arts Center with the early years of Elton John, I believe, and then a drag brunch and a fun run. And then we are going to have a State of the City event. In two Tuesdays right and that will be the Performing Arts Center. I believe 530 is that correct? Yeah, so just want to make sure people know that that's a come one come all and I Don't know if she would have volunteered it So I'm just gonna kind of spill the beans that there's an art exhibit at the visual arts center And I hope that counselor Jacoby will tell you a little bit more about that Oh

A couple of weeks ago, we had the Noche Latina that the city did on the Bayfront, and I was there, and it was very, very successful. There were so many people and so many tourists that came, and people that live right up the hill, they walked down, and they wanted to be a part of it, and a couple of them actually opened up their doors from the hill, and they just were looking down, so... They were dancing up there. I saw them on the balconies. So that was really nice. And I think just stuff like that during the summer would be great. I think especially on the Bayfront, it really, the Bayfront felt like it came alive. Like that parking lot there was perfect. So kudos to the people who planned all that.

Nice, yeah. Well, I had a couple of citizens call to my attention that they were quite upset that there were no flags along Highway 101 over the 4th of July. And you know, I'm just kind of used to seeing them. on national holidays. But I guess it depends on volunteer help from one man at the armory. And I guess there are people who would volunteer, but they don't know what to do. And I guess the flags are owned by the armory. I'm not real sure how this works, but maybe we could put our heads together and make sure that the flags get out somehow. I don't know if Park and Rec has any people power to do that. Probably not, but surely we can do something to get the flags out.

We can do some more outreach and try again. Haven't been successful the last few years, but we can certainly try again.

Might be worth reaching out to some of the service clubs or the

What was that?

If one of the service clubs would want to take this on as a mission.

Can the city approach some people? Yeah, so part of the challenge is we don't have the flags. They are at the armory, and so we would need both the flags and the people to do it. But I think it's worth trying one more time with the armory to see if we can make any progress with them since they already own the flags.

Or if he needs help, he could, like, ask for volunteers. You know, I mean, volunteer labor is always a little dicey, but...

Who owns the flagpole holder? Is it a city, or is it an ODOT, or who owns that part? Or is it a chamber? I don't know. I mean, the little balls in the ground. Definitely feels like a coordination opportunity. Yeah. Oh. It's a hole. Oh, right. That's right.

It's a hole in the street. It's a hole.

Yeah. Right. It is a hole.

Who owns the hole?

Yeah.

Who owns the hole?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and thank you, CM, for mentioning the art exhibit at the Visual Arts Center. I'm a part of it, so I'm happy to promote it, but I want to be selfless about it. Let us see more. We don't know anything about it at all. The exhibit is called The Year of the Fire Horse. I loved horses, and the name just kind of caught my attention. And I learned that the Chinese or the Asian astrological calendar, when it coincides with the lunar calendar, they're odd numbers. Every 60 years, it's the year of the fire horse. And I thought that sounded pretty cool. And then I heard about the curse of the fire horse, and I thought, what? What's that all about? And here's what it's about. There's a strong superstition, especially in Japan, that girls born in the year of the fire horse are destined to bring their family shame and downfall. They're hard to get along with. They're temperamental. They can cause the death of their husbands. But there's the yin and the yang. Women born in that year can also be very strong, really good leaders, very intellectual, powerful. And this is a year when those women start on a journey, which is a good journey. So I just got together four friends who did horse artwork, and we put this show together that incorporates the different elements from China. water, wind, fire, clay. So we think it's kind of interesting. So go visit, please. Let me know what you think.

I love that. You guys are hired. Anything further? Well, we come toward... Toward the end of our meeting, if there's an opportunity for public comment, if anybody has something they want to tell the council, this would be the time. Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned.