City Council - workshop

I'll call to order the work session of the Wilsonville City Council of September 10th, 2026 at 5 p.m. I'll start by asking council members for review of the agenda and items on consent. Are there any comments? Are there any councilor concerns? Okay, I just have one item. I want to briefly bring an issue to the council's attention for future consideration. I received an email from Oregon City Mayor Denise McGriff asking whether Wilsonville would consider joining an effort supporting a Clackamas County ban on the retail sale of flavored tobacco and flavored synthetic nicotine products. Washington County has already adopted such an ordinance. And earlier this year, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld that county's authority to enact it. As we all know, a part of Wilsonville is in Washington County. I've provided counsel with the email, the proposed letter to Clackamas County, and a recent Oregonian article discussing this issue. I personally support this effort. For me, this is fundamentally about protecting our children and reducing their access to products that can be particularly attractive to young people but I also value the perspectives of each member of this council. And I'm not asking us to make a decision today. I wanted to provide everyone with the information and time to consider it. And the only time I could do it without violating serial meeting laws is now. So I would like to bring this back at a future city council meeting for discussion and a formal council decision consistent with what the city manager and the city attorney may have at a later date, but I wanted to get this to you to spend some time thinking about it maybe, and then we can revisit it later, if that's okay with everybody. Okay, sure. With that, I'm turning now to our pre-council work session. Public safety project update, updating Wilsonville's code enforcement provisions. Our city attorney, Amanda Gale-Hinman, you're up.

Thank you, Mayor. All right, thank you, Mayor and Council. Again, Amanda Geil, Hinman City Attorney. So for tonight's work session is the continuing discussion on the Code Enforcement Update Project, looking at potentially for the majority of our code, it's switching to an administrative civil penalty process rather than through the issuance of citations running through our municipal court. So for tonight, I've bifurcated what was going to be over one work session into two work sessions. So tonight what we're going to do is review the draft code language for Chapter 1. That is where the administrative process is intended to be housed. And then at your work session on September 21st, is when you will get all the other code provisions in the other chapters that we seek to modify to then conform to these updates that we're talking about. So tonight is really focused on chapter one, but I'm also happy to answer questions you may have about the other code provisions. So we'll go over just very quickly the background of this project. I know council's well aware of it. We'll go over what the current code enforcement process is and then the recommended updates. I know code language can be a little bit tedious. We are going to go section by section just to make sure you all understand it. And I'm happy of course to take any feedback that you have. So the question for council tonight is whether you have any feedback on the draft updates to chapter one. So by way of background, as Council knows, one of your 2025-27 Council goals is on public safety. Outcome number one is to streamline responses to code enforcement challenges, and the strategy 2.2 under that is specifically looking at updates to the Wilsonville Code Chapter 1. The vast majority of Chapter 1 has not been updated since 1984, and unsurprisingly, as I was working through the other provisions in the code that relate to these provisions, they also, in many cases, have not been updated since the 80s, 90s, maybe even early 2000s. So we have a city team that's been working on this for the last year and a half, going through recommendations for what should and should not be updated as part of this process. So our current code enforcement process in chapter one basically divides the potential enforcement into two different categories, violations and misdemeanors. As this council is aware, our municipal court does not handle misdemeanors, so we don't utilize that provision. We do find people through a violation, through a citation that is issued either by our police or our code enforcement. That is at a $500 per violation per day. That citation goes into our municipal court where it is prosecuted. As we covered at the last council meeting, the recommended updates really look at making a standardized administrative process modeled off of a few different cities that we examined. And there's several steps to this that each of the code provisions that we're going to go over reflect back to. Looking at the observation of a complaint being made or observation of an issue, investigating it, providing a notice of the potential of the violation, potentially corrective action being taken, the civil penalty, and then the appeals process. So getting right into it, the first proposed updates are, and most of this is adding new, brand new code language throughout. So proposed Wilsonville Code 1.007 is the purpose and applicability section, setting out this new administrative civil code enforcement process. It also outlines the exemptions to this process, and we've talked a little bit about this before, but generally speaking, those categories are traffic and parking regulations. Those are required under statute to be handled by citation. Our erosion and sediment control permits for storm water management. Our industrial wastewater programs that have to be run or have to be certified by DEQ and so they have their own separate process. Our building code which is also run through the state buildings division. Our criminal code provisions obviously also need to be either by citation or by arrest. Our civil exclusions and then our transit rider rules. In our Wilsonville Code 1.010, we've added a few definitions. One for city manager, you'll see that it's encompassing of both city manager and designee, so there are opportunities for the city manager to designate another person to handle those responsibilities that fall to the city manager. compliance officer and then responsible party and I want to take a moment here to focus on the responsible party right now so much of our code focuses on when we do code enforcement so much focus of it focuses on who is the property owner a lot of times when we have a code enforcement issue it's not the property owner who's engaging in it it might be a contractor or somebody who's been hired to do work on the property and our only mechanism is to go after the property owner and who may be innocent in it all. And so by adding this definition of responsible party, it allows us to make sure that we are enforcing against the actual person or entity who is engaging in the violation. Proposed Wilsonfield Code 1.011 covers both identification and investigation of the code violation. What this makes clear is that while generally speaking we are complaint driven when we handle code enforcement, we also do allow for proactive observance by city employees or our compliance officers of potential code violations occurring. And then this provision also outlines how we go onto private property to investigate truly whether a violation is occurring. Generally, it follows constitutional law, so either we need permission to go on the site, we now have an administrative warrant process to allow us to go on the site, or if there's emergency circumstances where there's an immediate health safety risk. The proposed updates to Wilsonville Code 1.012 is how the notice of code violation gets handled. So it has to be both posted and mailed, so posted on the site and then mailed by certified mail. And the notice will include a description of the property, the violation, whether it has this immediate threat. We have set a standard 30-day compliance window, though it can be shorter. At the city's discretion, it can be a shorter duration if necessary and appropriate given the violation. A statement of the potential penalty if there's a failure to comply. The process to undergo a compliance plan, which we'll get to in just a minute, and then protest procedures for protesting the notice of the violation. And then we also have a provision certificate of compliance with posting and mailing procedures. So basically whoever posts and mails out the notice of code violation is required then to do a certificate stating that they have complied with those requirements. Then we get into the corrective action provisions. These are proposed Wilsonville Code 1.013, .014, and .015. So of course we hope that the corrective action is undertaken by the party, by the responsible party. So that can either be done through the timeframe that is identified in the notice of code violation, so if it's a 30 day window to come into compliance, either doing that within the 30 days or submitting a voluntary compliance plan. So this is generally, we already do this sort of ad hoc where we allow people when a particular code violation just cannot be done within 30 days that they can enter into an agreement with the city of how the steps are going to take to come into compliance. So that's essentially codifying what we already do. So they submit, a responsible party can submit a voluntary compliance plan that gets reviewed by the city manager or designee, and the city manager or designee may approve, modify, or reject that plan. And then the responsible party then can decide, especially if it's been modified or rejected, whether they want to continue on through the compliance process or it'll default back to you're in your notice of violation period. If there is a compliance plan and the responsible party fails to comply, that is an additional violation on top of the underlying violation. If there's a circumstance where the responsible party is not complying, and it's of a particular nature where the city needs to get on site and rectify the situation. So let's say somebody has engaged in some sort of erosion. They've graded their property, and there's a stormwater concern that it could affect the adjacent properties. Maybe we need to get on site to do some mitigation to protect adjacent properties. This provision outlines how the city then is able to go on site. Again, that's either going to be by consent or by obtaining an administrative warrant through this new warrant process that we have. If there is an immediate threat to health and safety, we could get on site. Our administrative warrant process actually accounts for that by being able to retroactively go back and seek the authorization of the court. And then the final provision covers the collection of corrective action costs. We've actually discussed this as part of this project. One of the issues that the city currently has under our current model is that When we work to get to a responsible party to compliance, those costs that the city incurs generally, we don't recoup those costs unless we get to an agreement for that. So this outlines, this codifies that that responsible party must reimburse the city for the costs to go undertake the corrective actions. Next are Wilsonville Code 1.016 and 1.017. These are generally the enforcement mechanisms, the civil penalty and additional actions we can take. So the civil penalty starts at no less than $25 and no more than $5,000 per violation per day. That $5,000 figure comes from our erosion and sediment control permit violations. What we found in particular when we were doing an update to that provision is we had certain entities that a $500 per day fine was not sufficient to get them to change their actions and come into compliance with city code. And so the $5,000 maximum per violation per day is really for those very egregious violations by responsible parties who are in the business know better and are continuing to repetitively have these issues. So while that may feel like a very high fine, it's not one that even under our erosion and sediment control permit that we've ever issued, but it is there as a tool to make sure that we're getting to compliance. Factors that we consider as part of the civil penalty, and again, this comes from our erosion and sediment control permit section, is the history of the responsible party taking steps to correct the violation. So are they making an effort to try and correct the violation? Have there been prior violations on the property or by the same person or party? The gravity and magnitude of the violation, so how significant is the violation, whether it's repetitive or continuous, or whether it's a one-time kind of violation. Sort of getting at the mental state of the person committing the violation, whether it was unavoidable, negligent, or an intentional act. Their relative cooperativeness with the city in trying to get to compliance, and then whether there's any other relevant rules of the Wilsonville Code. So those are factors that would be considered in assessing that civil penalty. And we would have the compliance officer would make findings as to those criteria. One of the things that we found though throughout doing code enforcement is that sometimes a fine just isn't enough and we need other levers available to us. And so there's additional enforcement actions that we would recommend putting into the code, namely stop work orders. So particularly if we have a contractor on site doing work that we can issue a stop work order for any work that's occurring on the site. The penalty being assessed on the utility bill, so that way we can recoup that cost. Recording a lien against the property. I will note that a city lien is not, we can't foreclose on that except at the time of a sale, so it kind of sits there until a sale occurs, generally speaking. then finally revoking or withholding any permits certificates of occupancy cloud approvals or other city approvals again as sort of a mechanism to get people into compliance we've actually had this issue where a person who was actively going through a compliance a code violation and compliance issue with the city saw a permit for the adjacent site and we didn't have any mechanism to tell them you can't come get this permit while you are actively engaged in a violation on the adjacent property so Thought that was important to include in there. Finally is the notice of civil penalty. It's very similar to the notice of code violation, but basically lays out what the civil penalty is. It has to be done both by, it has to be mailed and posted. There's a certificate that goes along with that to make sure that it was properly noticed. Proposed Wilsonville Code 1.019 covers all the protests and appeal processes. So the first level of protest for any of the notices, the notice of code violation, corrective action costs, or the notice of civil penalty, those all go to the city manager. It must be submitted within 14 days of the particular notice that's being challenged. And then the city manager issues a final order, either denying the protest, affirming the protest, or potentially modifying whatever the notice is. And the responsible party must comply within 30 days of that final order, or a shorter duration if the particular violation warrants it. If that responsible party is still objecting to whatever particular notice, they then can appeal to the city council. That must also be then submitted within 14 days of the final order from the city manager, and then the city council will decide whether to uphold, amend, or dismiss the city manager's final order. After that city council decision, the final review step would be through the writ of review process that's allowed under ORS Chapter 34.

So that's a lot about code.

So I'll just talk quick next steps and then we can circle back on any questions council members may have. But like I mentioned, I bifurcated the code provisions. So at your next work session, we'll talk about the other code provisions that will be updated to conform to chapter one. We have a planning commission work schedule Session scheduled at the end of September to review the chapter 4 code updates because under our city code Planning Commission makes recommendations on any updates to chapter 4 so those code updates They will be reviewing at their September meeting and then we will have a Planning Commission hearing on the chapter 4 updates in October and Then a council hearing on all the code updates in November is how it's currently planned with the updates effective January 1 2027 We are also planning a Boone's Ferry Messenger information item on this in the October Boone's Ferry Messenger, I believe, and updating our project page on the Let's Talk Wilsonville website. So with that, we've covered a lot about code. So I'm happy to take feedback or answer any questions that council may have.

Councilor Scholl.

I think you've answered several of my questions already, but I'll just clarify them. In 1.01, oh, I'm sorry, 1.016, in possession of the civil penalty, could we go back to that slide, please?

Okay.

Uh, prior, prior violations on property or by responsible parties. So that's kind of the, uh, the repeat offender clause and how would they gauge that? Is it, would they just look at the record and kind of take that into consideration?

Yep, exactly. So we have a system where we monitor all code violations. And I have to double check with IT about this. But generally speaking, if there is something going on with the property, like a stop work order or something like that, as I understand it in our permitting system, it has an alert that comes up if they if that person comes in to try to do something, like pull a permit on that particular site. So what we would be looking at doing is making sure that we can flag it for that person or other sites that they're associated with. So that way other people, other city staff know if they're coming in that there's a violation, there's a compliance issue that's going on.

Okay. Second question comes to, in a corrective action situation, where we have to do the work and we have to charge the violator for that work. Will that typically be subcontracted or are we gonna do it with city resources and how would we calculate the cost?

Yeah, so in the situation where this has happened, we did subcontract the work, but we also still had staff time that we tracked. And so we assigned both the, basically we took the invoices from the contractors that we used, the consultants that we used, and then also staff tracked their time through a system we call Replicon here. So they tracked their time, and then so we were able to get a bill for staff time and our contractors' time to come up with a total that we charged the person.

And then that's applied in addition to the fine.

Yep.

And then just a general, I'm not up on the law with this. With a lien, a property lien, is it pretty much a standard in Oregon that if you apply a lien, you cannot force a sale on a property, you have to let it wait until the property is sold?

It's specific for these types of, for city liens, on the city lien docket, that it's specific to the type of lien that this is.

All right. I ask that because, just for personal also, because in an HOA situation, we're up against the same situation. All right, thank you.

Councilor Shevlin.

Thank you. I have a comment and then a couple of questions. Good work. I know you and your team have been working on this now for a year and it's a lot of work. And I look forward to chapter two or the second.

Two, three, four, five.

Iteration, but good work on that. Simple question, and I just don't have the information for this. How many, typically in a year's time, how many code violations do you deal with?

I would say where we actually get to the point of at least doing some type of notice, we probably issue maybe a half dozen notices. Actual citations, maybe one or two a year. Getting to the actual point where we have to cite somebody is relatively rare. And as would be expected, they're the most egregious situations.

And then my last question has to do with the fact that just about a year ago, Council President Berry and I had the opportunity to attend at a League of Oregon Cities conference about the use of AI when writing code or rewriting code and how much simpler it can be to be able to apply AI principles to your work. Your example of checking with IT to see if there's anyone that is currently an offender and that hasn't come into compliance with their violation and yet is applying for something else or hoping to do something else is a simple but good example. To the extent possible, are you able to use AI at all to help search chapters and words and use it to make your work a little bit easier or have you considered that yet?

Oh.

That's a Pandora's box.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't use AI. But no judgment on anybody who does. There's specifically for attorneys, I'm sure the mayor is well aware, there is a lot out there about the use of AI. So I personally don't use it. I haven't used it in this project, but I understand that it's a tool that a lot of people use.

Yeah, and Citi is the workshop that Council President Berry and I went to last year. It was a small city and they didn't have a lot of human resources and so they used AI to help write their code and found that it was really simple. So maybe in your application it wouldn't be as helpful, but I was just curious. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council President Berry.

Yeah, thank you for your presentation and thank you for all the work that the staff has been putting forward on this. You've mentioned that there's not a whole lot of violations every year that we're able to. I really like the approach that the city takes of trying to walk through and talk through a problem before we get to a big problem. So this code would affect sign code, right? Mm-hmm. And so what of the violations that you've seen in the last two or three years, what are the predominant ones where it gets to the point where the city's law staff is getting involved?

Generally speaking, if it's rising to the level of a citation being issued or the legal team getting involved, it's typically going to be something around, stormwater is very common. Some type of stormwater regulation is pretty common. Cutting down, illegal cutting of trees is pretty common. And then doing things like, which is also tied to stormwater, things like grading of a site, Yeah, basically when people start to do development on their property without coming into the city to get the permits, the necessary permits that they need for it. So the vast majority of the time it is land use related. Yeah.

Well, I really appreciate going through an entire code like that. It's so much work. But it's going to help staff and the Planning Commission and all the committees and the council in the future. So thank you, everybody.

Councillor Cunningham.

Thank you for all your work on this. I know it's been a lot over the last year and a half, and there's still more to come, but... It's good that it sounds like it's been 30 plus years since we've touched a lot of this stuff and it's probably well overdue for a little spring cleaning on it. The one question as we're going through also 1016 in parent three, subsection E, that's where it goes into the unavoidable negligent or intentional act, being a part of that. How does something like You know, somebody with mental illness or a physical disability or something like that who's, you know, I think a salient example would be like somebody with a hoarding disorder who might be causing a health and safety issue for their neighbors. How does that play into this section? Is that kind of understood in there or...

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great example of like kind of on one end of the spectrum or like also on the one end of the spectrum where somebody is really concerned about their tree, like that their tree might fall. And so they cut it down or they have it cut down without going through the proper steps of having it evaluated and coming and getting a city permit. Where it's like you can understand why somebody took the action they took even if it wasn't the appropriate steps they took. So that is part of the calculus that goes into determining what the violation should be and also what type of compliance plan we may be willing to undertake. On the other end where you have a highly sophisticated developer who is very active in a particular type of development and they know that they're supposed to come get a permit, they do the work anyway because they think that the city's gonna tell them no, and so it's ask for forgiveness rather than permission, that's a very different scenario than somebody who is maybe suffering from some type of mental illness or health condition or simply just doesn't know that there's a requirement out there.

Right, and I know that our current approach and philosophy to that is very much that more compassionate approach where we understand that people are dealing with things and that their mental illness may preclude them from doing or not doing certain things. And I just want to make sure that our current philosophy is great and that we understand that the code going forward that in 20 years from now that we continue that philosophy of compassion with people that don't have the ability or means.

Yeah, I agree. And I also think that one of the things that's hard about our current code is it kind of has this, it feels very black and white. It's like a $500 per violation per day or nothing. And so it feels like there's more of a spectrum in this approach now, which is how we've been doing it. It's just the code doesn't really match that approach.

Thank you.

My turn, I guess. I think you've done an exceptional job, you and your team, on this. I concur with all of counsel. AI and lawyers don't mix. Someday maybe they'll change, but right now it's an ethical issue for lawyers. I respect the fact that you wouldn't utilize that. I'll be interested to know if they ever change some of those rules. Costs. RECOVERY OF COSTS, I KNOW AS YOU MENTIONED, STAFF TIME. DOES THAT ROLL INTO CITY ATTORNEY TIME? BECAUSE THAT TO ME IN MY JOG IS ATTORNEY FEES. SO HOW DOES THAT PLAY? AND I COULD SEE THAT IF YOU HAVE A VERY BIG ACTOR THAT HAS A POTENTIAL ongoing way of doing business versus someone like a counselor at Cunningham, which I totally agree that we should be compassionate about and try to resolve issues, especially with mental health, that attorney fees or at least capturing the costs to the legal department would be helpful. So I think of those as fees versus costs. That's just how lawyers think. And so just wonder how that works in here.

Yeah, so generally speaking, and I think the council is aware of this, the legal department doesn't bill our time, so we don't track our time and bill it to different departments. The only time that we would ever track our time is generally if we're in litigation where attorney's fees may be an element, then we'll track our time for that particular litigation. Because of this code update, what I would say is any staff person, whether it's the legal department, planning, whoever, you know, our code compliance officer, that we're all tracking time as we're going through a code issue. So that way, even if ultimately a determination is made because of the circumstances that we're not going to seek collection of those costs, that we do have a record of those costs so we can collect if we need to.

Okay, so... I know I'm retired, but may I offer some thoughts on that? At the Oregon Department of Justice, as a lawyer, we build for our time. Yes. And I think that there's two mechanisms, given your comments, that I'm a little worried about. I think we would want to provide notice to the responsible party that, there is exposure to a potential attorney fees as opposed to general costs and to give them that heads up and also making sure that there is a segregation between what is attorney fees versus what are considered costs like from an expert or in this case staff which to me are two different things which if you had to go in front of a judge to enforce this lien or something like that, that we can easily as a city distinguish the two. Um, and I just would think that's one comment I offer for this to consider.

Yeah, that's fair. And I will say, so I have some experience with administrative process like this. I've, I did this in McMinnville when I was there and what I found in that administrative process is, um, because of how it was structured, instead of being citations that went to municipal court, the times that generally legal counsel was ever consultant was when it got to a protest. or an appeal to the council rather than kind of at the initial stages. So it may be something where we talk about depending on where, we're only looking at legal fees at the time of. The next level. The next level, yeah. Understood, thank you.

Thank you for all your work on this, appreciate it.

Anything else? Oh, Councillor Scull? Just one question.

One more question before we go, let this go or move on. In a compassionate circumstance, if you have someone, as Councilor Cunningham was referring to, that's a hoarder or has mental disabilities and all that, and they get into this situation, are there, Are there services that can help them move through the process?

Yeah, I think that that would all be part, particularly if we're looking at a compliance plan, those would all be things that we'd be looking at. So I'll use an example not from Wilsonville, but when I was at McMinnville, we had an issue with a woman who, was taking in stray cats and it was causing a nuisance then though for her surrounding neighbors because they were procreating. And so we worked with her and the county and an animal service provider to help rehome the cats, get some of the cats that were truly her cats fixed. So we went through a process where we worked with her to So she's not just like having all of her cats removed, but helping to manage the problem better.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay. The city council will now meet an executive session pursuant to Oregon revised statute section one nine two six six zero subsection two paragraph E. Real property transactions to conduct deliberations with persons designated by the city to negotiate real property transactions. In paragraph H, legal counsel, litigation to consult with counsel concerning the legal rights and duties of a public body with regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed. Members of the public outside of representatives of the news media, please exit counsel chambers. will be adjourned for five minutes, resuming at 5.40.

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I'll call to order the meeting of the Wilson City Council for September 10th, 2026 at 7 p.m. Will the city recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Shadlin? Here. Councillor President Mary? Here. Councillor Cunningham?

Here.

Councillor Scholl?

Here.

Mayor O'Neill?

Here. Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. City Council president Barry, can I have a motion to approve the following order of agenda?

I move to approve the following order of the agenda.

Is there a second second? The motion to approve the following order of agenda has been made and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Good evening, everyone. I hope you had the opportunity to enjoy Labor Day weekend. I want to thank the working people of Wilsonville and throughout Oregon who work so hard every day in both the private and public sectors, supporting our economy, serving our communities, and most importantly, working to support your families. You are our rock stars, and I want you to know that your hard work matters and is appreciated by this council and the community. Thank you. As we return from a weekend that recognizes the contributions of working people across our country, we also approach another important date on our national calendar, one that for many of us carries memories that remain just as vivid today as they were 25 years ago. Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. For those of us of my generation, we grew up hearing our parents' generation talk about Pearl Harbor and the Second World War. For so many of them, December 7th, 1941 was a day they would never forget. They remembered where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt when they learned that our country had been attacked. My father was among those of the generation who went on to serve our country in World War II. For many of us, September 11th became that day. We remember where we were. We remember who we were with. We remember the disbelief as we watched what was happening and slowly began to understand the enormity of it. I remember that day in such vivid detail that even 25 years later, I do not watch movies or video footage of the attacks. I don't need to. Those images have never really left me. At the time, perhaps my one grace was that I had not yet started raising a family. I did not have to look into the eyes of my own child and try to explain what had happened or what it might mean for the world he would inherit. Many parents did. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day in New York City, at the Pentagon, and near Shankville, Pennsylvania. They were parents and children, husbands and wives, friends and coworkers, people who began an ordinary September morning never knowing what was coming. And the loss did not end on September 11th. In the years since, many more first responders, recovery workers, survivors, and others exposed that day have lost their lives to 9-11 related illnesses. Many thousands more are still with us today, living with the lasting physical and mental health effects of what they experienced that day and in the days, months, and years that followed. We also remember the extraordinary courage we witnessed the passengers and crew of Flight 93, the firefighters, police officers, and first responders who ran toward danger, and the countless people who helped complete strangers simply because they needed help. But there's something else from those days that I very much want to remember. We came together as a country In the midst of unimaginable death and tragedy, the divisions that had seemed so important before suddenly seemed almost trivial. We were Americans first. We checked on our neighbors. We stood together. We grieved together. We helped one another. And while we did not always agree about what should come next, I believe there was little doubt that most Americans wanted what was best for our country and for one another. This remembrance also comes during the 250th anniversary year of the signing of our Declaration of Independence, 250 years after our nation declared its independence and 25 years after a day that tested us in ways we could never have imagined. I believe there is value in reflecting on what has sustained this country through its most difficult moments, our willingness to come together as Americans. Today, at a time when our nation can feel deeply divided, I hope and I pray that this anniversary reminds us not only of what we lost on September 11th, but of what we found in one another afterward. We cannot undo the tragedy of that day, but we can carry forward the unity that followed it. We can recognize that disagreement does not have to make us enemies, that our common humanity is greater than our differences, and that we are capable of coming together as one nation and one community. That is what I choose to also remember tomorrow. And now, as we honor all those who lost their lives on September 11th, those we have lost in the years since, and the families who continue to carry that loss, I ask that you please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. I will conclude my remarks here. The balance of my mayor's business report will be submitted to the city recorder at the conclusion of tonight's meeting and included in my mayor's working agenda. Our next city council meeting will be on Monday, September 21st starting at 7 PM turning to communications. Library Director Shasta Sasser will provide a report on the progress of the library's strategic plan and how this beloved institution provides an array of services to Wilsonville residents while adapting to changing demands and interests. Shasta, take it away. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council. Thanks for having me here tonight. Um, the library has just wrapped up its strategic plan. And so I wanted to give a little report about it today. Um, included in your packet was the much larger, um, thorough report. I'm just going to be giving some highlights tonight. So most strategies were either finished or we made substantial progress. There were 29 strategies altogether, six goals. There were a couple that we didn't quite fully complete and those required some more resources. I think every good strategic plan should have a couple aspirational goals and these were some of them. But tonight I'm gonna highlight nine of the 29 strategies that we accomplished. So the first one, working within our means for teens, expand programs, resources, and activities for teens and tweens. We've really worked hard to create a good teen advisory board. Those are all teens on this board. And they suggest the programs that we have at the library, so we know they're of teen interest. A maker craft cart has been added to the teen room, which has been a big draw. And then our after hours programs draw over 80 teens. It's super popular to have an event after the library closes. It's always a big hit. And then also a big hit, our teen after school programs, the kids show up even when we don't have them scheduled. So we just roll with it, put stuff out for them. Another strategy I wanted to touch on was expanding Spanish and other languages at the library. We applied for and were awarded a grant to increase our world language collection from three to eight languages. Those are listed there. We also moved our world language collection from the far reaches of the library back to a more central location where those could be accessed. Another strategy that we've worked on was expanding the scope of adult programming, specifically for younger adults. From murder mysteries to Bridgerton tea parties, we've tried to really expand what we have to offer. We do a tiny art show every year. We have a sit and stitch program where you just come and knit or crochet or do whatever you would like. Mushroom hunting, tabletop games has been a popular one. trivia nights, repair fairs, our job fair had over 100 people come to it. This picture on the slide is from our celebration of India, and then cowboy poetry. So we've tried to have something for just about everybody. The next one, establish the library as a place to access technology not available at home. This is something that we heard from the community of what they would like to see at the library. And so we've expanded our library of things to include some technology, including mobile hotspots that can check out. We have a 3D printing pen, a FLIR camera, projectors, automotive code reader, all sorts of things. We also, with funding from the Library Foundation, were able to get a geochron, which is the big world clock in our lobby there. If you haven't seen it, it's really cool. It shows all sorts of weather events and airplanes and all sorts of things on there, the International Space Station. And then one of our newest technologies at the library was a donation of an electric book magnifier. So for folks who maybe have low vision, it magnifies in color anything that you put under it, as you can see in the picture. The next one, create a plan to incorporate technology for meeting rooms. A big thank you to the city's IT department for this one. We worked with them to get all new technology in both of our large meeting rooms, including projectors, cameras and microphones for hybrid and virtual meetings, quick share devices, and dedicated computers in those rooms. And these rooms we use a lot for library programming, but they're also available for the public to use and reserve. So those technologies are available to them as well. So this is one that we really prioritized in the strategic plan, and that was working with the local schools. So some highlights from the school. We make regular visits to the high school and middle school. And we've recently started having two librarians alternate going to the lunches. And they're very different librarians. And so different kids are you know, gravitate towards the different librarians. And so we've been able to get different kids coming to our team events by having that. Kindergarten Carnival welcomes new students who are about to start. They get an elephant and piggy book and go through a bunch of fun games. We also do a lot of collaboration with Westland Public Library since we share a school district, and that includes a school newsletter. We offer educator cards so teachers and homeschool teachers also can get a library card with higher checkouts and longer borrows for teaching purposes. And then we do weekly pick up and drop off of books at the schools. We get a lot of school books and they get a lot of library books. We do family night open houses for all of the elementary schools and then this picture is actually from our summer reading skit. Our whole youth services team in June goes to the schools and does the skit to every single elementary school. Just trying to get kids excited about summer reading program. It usually ends with either some sort of water or like something launched and this one you can see the swerve guns. Okay, this one was evaluating and explore changing and adding hours when programs are offered. So we really took a look at what we could do in the evenings and on the weekends and we were able to arrange staff schedules so that we had more staff available to do programs, particularly on the weekends. The Friends of the Library support ongoing weekend programs now. And we've started a new program called Series Saturday for kids in elementary school. That's what this picture is from. Super popular and grows every time. So we were able to offer a lot more on the weekends. improved signage and wayfinding tools for patrons so in 2024 we worked with felt had a local portland company to do all new signage inside the library and the portals that go from one section to another have as pictured here have english and spanish and then the last one i just wanted to highlight was working with the foundation and friends to grow supports Both of these groups support the library tremendously, and they've really been working hard at growing that support. The foundation does outreach, science and STEAM programs, the geochron I mentioned, our new children's mural, which everybody loves, cellular signal boosters, and then they applied for a grant to Wilsonville Community, or Metro Wilsonville Community Enhancement Grant for study pods. The Friends have ongoing support in Library of Things, cultural passes. They purchased the book bike for us, summer reading program and movie licenses. These are just a few of the things that they support. We're really lucky to have them supporting virtually all of our programming. So those are the ones I wanted to highlight for you. I'm happy to answer any questions. There's a lot more information in the big report, but I just wanted to hit a few things for you tonight.

Thank you. Any comments? Councillor Shevin.

Thank you for your report, and it was wonderful reading the report in the packet. It really warms my heart. You don't become an award-winning library without realizing and doing the work that you and your team have done to reach out, because the library, as we all know, is a lot more than just bricks and mortar, and you and the Wilsonville Library are the perfect example of understanding the role that libraries can play in a community, and in my opinion, you reach and exceed all of those through the efforts of your team. And it's just heartwarming to me to be able to recognize our library as such an important. It's a lot more than just loaning out books and making sure you get them back. There's so much more. The library of things is fascinating. The teen hub reaching out to underserved communities is just, it's excellent. And I know that our library is seen as such a vital part of our community. And I congratulate you. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Scull. I just want to reiterate what Councillor Sheldon said. Thank you very much. The library is a great place, a great place to hang out. I've used it quite a bit. The library of things I find very distinctive and a great program. And if there's needs to extend on that and build that, please let us know what we can get into the program and all that. And then also the library, it's a network system too within the county also, right?

Yes, we do partner. That was another goal of ours in our strategic plan was to expand partnerships, and we partner with WIC, DHS, Goodwill, Heart of the City, lots of different groups to provide services at the library conveniently.

Excellent service, great library, and keep up the great work. Thank you.

Thank you. Council President Berry?

Thank you for your report. I love the library, and I wanted to say congratulations. I didn't think the library could get any better, but then the recent citywide survey showed an even higher rating than in the past years. I mean, that's just amazing. So you and your team's doing an outstanding job. When I first joined the library board, I was thinking it's just about books, and then I learned that it's really programs and services, and the little free libraries that extend out to the libraries and the staff going into the schools and the great relationships that you have. You're doing an amazing job, so thank you so much. I see the library as the heart of the city, and maybe someday we'll really get a really nice town center, but to me, the library is where it's all about, so thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Cunningham.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. You mentioned a couple of things that we didn't quite get to. I'd love to hear just kind of a quick brief thing on that, just so it kind of puts it on the radar for us up here. And if we can think about that and put it in the back of our minds on how we might be able to help with those things, I think that could be useful.

The pieces we didn't quite get to?

Yeah, the couple you said that were kind of the more aspirational ones, but...

Sure, so more teen, we did improve our teen programming quite a bit, but having a teen librarian is one of our long term goals. And improvements to the teen space, we have a lovely teen space. It's just right next to the computer area, so there's a bit of a noise issue, so. And closing the teen space is on our long-term wish list as well. And then marketing, we share marketing. We're good at doing what we can with what we have, and marketing is one of those things that we spread out through different staff members, and sometimes we utilize Bill and Mackenzie too. But that is another area we'd like to look at.

Great, thank you.

I can't add any more other than, you know, I watched my son grow up in that library and to counselor, I appreciate counselor Cunningham singling out some of these aspirational things. You know, originally there was really no teen programming. I mean, it was a struggle and I understand why, and it is developed into something amazing. And I'm all about additional teen programming. That is that age group that so often kind of falls in the black hole. You know, I think all of us that have raised kids here, there's always events and things for that certain age group. But then when, once they hit that teenage, it's hard to find things at least. And I think the library offers a great, space for them, a refuge, if you will, in lieu of out on the city not having anything to do. So I totally endorse expanding that. I totally appreciate probably enclosing it to control some of the noise. Maybe they can come into our house and help control some of that noise too. But I understand that. But you guys do a stellar job. It's probably the most easiest thing. I love being able to brag when I can about our library. So thank you for everything.

The best job in the city and the best staff in the city. And we have a lot of fun serving this community. So thank you very much.

Well, thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate it. to the city attorney Am I allowed to do kind of a short circuit? Sure, okay. Yeah, is there anybody in the audience that? Anticipates wanting to give citizen comment tonight outside of the public hearing outside of the public hearing citizen input Seeing none, is there anybody online that wants to give citizen input right now that you see? Okay, council, do you have any objection to me bypassing the reading I need to give for that piece and jumping straight to councilor comments? You okay, staff? Okay, so I'm gonna turn to councilor comments, liaison reports and meeting announcements. Council President Berry.

I'll just keep my remarks brief, but along with Councillor Shevlin and the other Councillors here, the Mayor, Councillor Schell, we attended the Frog Pond Park opening. It was a really nice day, not too hot, not raining, not smoky. We had a really good turnout from the neighbors that surround the park, and they're all excited about the new playground for the children. So I just wanted to mention that. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Cunningham.

Thank you. I spent most of the time since the last council meeting in San Diego, so I don't have a whole lot of city stuff to report on, but good trip down there with the family. Today's my wife's birthday, so happy birthday, hon. And that's all I have for tonight. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Chavon.

Thank you. I did have a busy month, as I know we all have. On August 20th, I attended the Wilsonville Party in the Park, It was just wonderful to see so many of our residents come together and enjoy the music and the food and learn all about our different departments. The kids playing, having the duck races, and it was just a great time, and it was wonderful to, excuse me, we had a little table there, meet your mayor and council, and it's kind of fun to see the mayor's reaction when a young lady who's probably about 13 or 14 looked at him and said, are you the mayor? Oh my gosh, and extended her hand and So sometimes it's those little things that make all the difference. But the party in the park was a lot of fun. August 26th, I attended the Wilsonville Employee Summer Picnic. Also, I was just proud to look at and be a part of, and humbled to be part of, invited to the party in the park. Such a wonderful staff that we have for our city. And I love the process where they recommend one another for recognition for a job well done and a little booklet's produced and we get to see, and they recommend each other and nominate one another. And so it's really great to see what wonderful staff we have that's supporting our city. As was mentioned, I attended the Frog Pond Park opening on August 27th. And it's a beautiful park. Still more work to do as far as some plantings and the neighborhood. There was a wonderful turnout from the neighborhood. And I really enjoyed watching the process where some of the HOAs in the area and some representatives from the community really want to have a voice in what the park looks like as far as plantings, different flowers in different areas. And I appreciate our parks director, Megan Bigjohn, working with community members that live there in the Frog Pond area so that the park can really be their park. So I really appreciate the work done there. And then lastly, on September 3rd, I met I attended a meeting with the Wilsonville Metro Community Enhancement Committee along with Council President Berry. I think both of us have said in the past that it's truly one of our favorite committees. This is the committee that approved the study pods for the library that will be going in here shortly. We just made plans for our next series of grant applications for 2027. and look forward to the next year of being able to look at the grant applications and make our decisions about how we'll be able to support those applications. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Scull.

For me, since the last meeting was also pretty busy. Attended a lot of the same events as the others. The Wilsonville volunteer event was a great event and very well attended and it was nice to get out and see and meet a lot of different people within the community there. Attended the city staff barbecue, also a great event. Good food, I liked the pizza, the pizza bus. It was pretty good. And it was a good opportunity to meet a lot of the city staff that we don't meet. So I made a lot of new friends there that I didn't know. I attended the Frog Pond Park, and it was a good turnout. The kids loved the cake, and I think the staff did a great job in keeping everybody entertained. And I don't know, was there a frog or a turtle? I don't know who won the contest, but one of the animals there in the park was going to get named. And then also attended the emergency preparedness event on the 29th. And that was a great turnout. There were participants from the city, Red Cross, TVFNR, a couple county representatives there. They were talking about... how to deal with disasters across the board, animal first aid. It was well represented. And also radio communication. So it was well represented and a good event. And I think I crossed paths with the mayor there, but there was quite a good turnout for that event. So thank you to the staff in keeping us informed. And the events were just very good and very well attended. So thank you.

Thank you. The next item is our consent agenda. Will the City Attorney please read the items on consent?

Resolution number 3281, a resolution of the City of Wilsonville authorizing the City Manager to execute the Seventh Amendment of Design-Build-Operate Agreement for Wastewater Treatment Plan Improvements. Resolution number 3284, a resolution of the City of Wilsonville authorizing South Metro Area Regional Transit, SMART, to purchase two CNG compressed natural gas buses from Northwest Bus Sales, Inc., in minutes of the August 17, 2026 City Council meeting.

Thank you. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

I move to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. There's no new business or continuing business, so we're now going into a public hearing. Tonight we'll have a public hearing to consider on first reading ordinance number 906. This comes to us as a recommendation from the planning commission. I'll ask the city attorney to read the ordinance title.

This is the first reading of ordinance number 906, an ordinance of the city of Wilsonville amending Wilsonville code 4.132.06 concerning building heights in the town center zone.

Thank you. The order of procedure for tonight's hearing is set out in detail in our city code. In brief, we will start with the staff report. Next, the public will be asked to provide testimony. I'll ask everyone who has signed up in advance to testify first in the order in which they signed up. Then I'll ask if anyone present in council chambers would like to testify. And then I'll ask anyone who is on the Zoom meeting who has not testified but would like to testify to do so. After each person testifies, counselors may pose questions to me to be addressed by the person who testified or to staff to clarify any information that was conveyed in the testimony. Once the city council has heard from everyone and the city council is satisfied it has all the information it needs to render a decision, the public hearing will be closed, council deliberates, and I'll announce the result. We wish to hear from everyone who wants to testify. However, we request that you refrain from repeating testimony already given by someone else. If you agree with what someone before you has said, but you want to ensure you have legal standing in the public record, please provide your testimony indicating that you can concur with that which has been previously said. Public testimony will be limited to three minutes. We will time the testimony and provide you with a visual warning when there is one minute remaining. Since this is a legal process for considering a land use decision, we need you to state your name and address for the public record. The public hearing is now open at 7.33 p.m. I'll ask Amanda Gal Hinman, city attorney, to provide the staff presentation.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Again, Amanda Geil, Hinman City Attorney. So for tonight, the Council is having a public hearing on Ordinance Number 906 concerning building heights in Town Center. This is part of the Town Center Building Height Waiver Project. So the agenda for tonight's presentation is first, we'll give some background on how we got here. The current code provisions that are recommended for revision, the review of the prior input from the building height waiver task force, the planning commission and city council that led to the proposed revisions for council's considerations, consideration tonight, and then discussion. So by way of background, the town center plan originated out of, from many years ago, a lot of discussion around redevelopment and revitalization of the town center, which led to a council goal in 2015-2017 to look at updating and redoing the town center plan. In 2016, grant work was undertaken to support and facilitate that project, and so then from 2017 through 2019 is when the town center plan project work was undertaken. In May of 2019 is when the town center plan and related development code provisions were adopted. Fast forwarding to 2025, this council established a goal for communication and education on Town Center. And as part of that council goal, the council and staff undertook a Let's Talk Wilsonville questionnaire and focus groups in the fall of 2025 to better understand the community's understanding and excitement or concerns regarding the Town Center. One of the key factors that came out of the questionnaire and the focus groups was that people do want to see a vital town center in Wilsonville, but there were concerns particularly around building height and massing and the overall feel of what town center may be as part of the redevelopment. In light of that feedback, in March of 2026, the council adopted resolution number 3244, which instructed staff to undertake a project for considering modifications to regulations in the Wilsonville code governing building heights in the town center, particularly the waiver provision that is in the town center code. To help orient everybody because it is relevant for the code provisions that we're looking at tonight is this is a map of the town center zone. So our TC zone and the development code regulations that implement the town center zone are found in 4.132. So while all of this is the Town Center Zone, there are an overlay of sub-districts within the Town Center Zone. So the sub-district closest to I-5 is called Commercial Mixed Use or CMU. So that's the westernmost area. The MSD is the Main Street District. That kind of goes down the spine of Town Center. Surrounding the Main Street District is MU or Mixed Use. And then NMU is for neighborhood mixed use. It's the area closest to the residential area to the east and has the lowest density or lowest building heights and density. So under our current code provisions when it comes to building heights, There's essentially a scaled approach where CMU has the highest allowed building heights at five stories, MU and MSD have the highest allowed building height at four stories, and the neighborhood mixed use, the highest building height is at three stories. So getting into the waiver, like I mentioned, for both, and it's relevant for this particular waiver provision, in MU and CMU, CMU allows building heights up to five stories and MU allows for building heights up to four stories. The building height waiver provision found in 4.13206D allows for the development review board to approve a waiver as to the size of the ground floor of a building floor plate and or the number of stories of buildings within the MU and CMU sub-districts. As you can see from the language, it's a little bit imprecise about what it means when it says and or the building heights. It could mean and has been applied to mean it can go up or go down. So this project really looked at refining that language to better reflect both what the intent was in getting to this waiver and also addressing some of the current community concerns. The second current code provision that is, um, recommended for, um, for revision is what we're calling the bonus floor for affordable housing. So again, within the main street district mixed use and commercial mixed use sub districts. So those are the ones that can go from, for main street district and mixed use up to four stories and commercial mixed use up to five stories. There's an allowance for an additional floor. If a certain amount of affordable housing is being provided. So when we were looking at potentially updating these code provisions, while resolution number 3244 didn't necessarily address the bonus floor provision in Wilsonville Code 4.132.06 , because it does relate to potentially increased building height, it got incorporated into this project along with the waiver. So what we were looking at was potentially revising the waiver language and the bonus floor language. What staff did was present a series of options to the Building Height Waiver Task Force, the Planning Commission, and the City Council to further refine potential modifications to the waiver language. Then what staff did is we provided those options, got feedback, further refined them, and then asked each of those entities, the Task Force Planning Commission and City Council, to see if there was a coalescing around a particular alternative of those options that were presented. And then if there was a preferred alternative, comparing that to the option of eliminating the ability to increase building height altogether. So kind of weighing out an option, a modified option to the waiver language, or eliminating the increase to building height. So the task force of the options that were considered, the task force had a preferred alternative of option five, though there was an open question about limiting heights in the mixed use sub-district that is closest to the residential area. So essentially, potentially allowing for an increase of building height closer to the freeway, but not allowing it closer to the residential area. When the task force was asked to evaluate that alternative, that option five versus eliminating the waiver to increase altogether, the task force voted six to two for the preferred alternative option five. That was taken to the planning commission. The same exercise was taken to the planning commission. And they were generally split when it came to the options between option five and option six. And again, there was still this kind of open question about the height limitation as you get closer to the residential area to the east. However, when they evaluated that option versus eliminating the waiver to increase altogether, three to two, it was in favor of eliminating the waiver to increase altogether. Of the two people who were in the minority in that vote, one wanted to honor and reflect upon the feedback from the task force. The other also talked about, the other person who was in the minority also talked about the flexibility of the waiver and still having that as an option. This feedback from both the task force and the planning commission was brought to the city council. We went through a similar exercise and the consensus from the city council was to eliminate the waiver to increase and really the discussion was around providing some certainty around what our code does or does not allow when it comes to building heights maximum building heights in Town Center. So that leads to the proposed revisions that are before Council tonight, as recommended by the Planning Commission. So the proposed revision to Wilsonville Code 4.132.06d, again, that is the waiver, is to remove the waiver to increase, but retain the waiver to decrease the building height. and also to further clarify that the expanded floor plate that is allowed, that may be sought through that waiver, must be coupled with the waiver to decrease. So that way somebody, a developer can't both increase the floor plate and also still build just as tall as what would otherwise be allowed. We also made sure to clarify that Wilsonville Code 4.119, which is our general waiver provision, which does allow for seeking waivers to building heights, is not available for height waivers for Town Center. One of the other things that this does is it gets at really the original intent of the Planning Commission back in 2018 and 2019 when they were discussing this waiver when it first came up. It really was a discussion around the potential need for anchor retail tenants to be a catalyst for development in Town Center and that they might need single story retail that is larger than the 30,000 square foot floor plate that is currently allowed under our Town Center code. So by still allowing for the increased floor plate with a decrease of building height, we're retaining that original intent that the Planning Commission had when they were discussing this back in 2018 and 2019. The next proposed revision is to delete Note 4, which allows for that bonus floor for affordable housing. Now this does not prevent an affordable housing project from taking place, but basically what it means is that a bonus floor, an additional floor cannot be sought on a project, it's still capped at that either four stories or five stories depending on what sub-district the development is in. I DO WANT TO ADDRESS BECAUSE I DO KNOW THAT THE CITY HAS RECEIVED SOME COMMENTS ON THIS PROPOSAL. AND IN YOUR COUNCIL PACKET AND AS PART OF THIS ORDINANCE IS SUPPLEMENT NUMBER ONE TO THE FINDINGS REPORT. SO WE RECEIVED SOME PUBLIC COMMENT ABOUT CONCERNS ABOUT MEETING GOAL 10 WHICH IS STATEWIDE LAND USE PLANNING GOAL 10 ON HOUSING, ON PROVIDING HOUSING. And what the supplement reflects and just to make clear is that table 3.1 in the town center plan which lays out the projected or estimated development that will occur in town center over a 20 year cycle and then over the full 40 year cycle. It estimates 880 residential units, projected residential units to be built over the first 20 years after adoption of the town center plan. That estimation existed in drafts of the town center plan before the waiver was considered and that number was not altered as a result of the waiver being added. So in other words, the waiver was not a consideration in that figure for residential units in that table 3.1. And it was not altered. That table number was not altered. The city, in its housing needs and capacity analysis, which was adopted in 2025, relied on the town center plan's projection of the 880 units in town center to determine whether there was sufficient capacity for housing in the 20 years horizon that we are required by state law to evaluate. The housing needs and capacity analysis determined that there was sufficient capacity for the city's projected housing need over the next 20 years and thus is not affected by the proposed revisions in 4.132 that are being discussed tonight. So I'm happy to answer any further clarifying questions that council may have about that, but this is an additional supplement to our findings report in response to that public comment. So, um, with that, um, the discussion for tonight is council's consideration to adopt ordinance number nine zero six. And I'm happy to answer any questions council may have.

Give public testimony. at this time.

Okay.

No one on zoom. I just want to make sure. All right. All right. Does staff have anything further to add unless council has any last minute questions? Seeing none. Okay.

Nothing further mayor.

All right. Hearing no further questions and everyone having testified or having given the opportunity to testify, I hereby declare this public hearing closed at 7.47 p.m. It's now time for council to consider on first reading ordinance number 906. Do I have a motion?

I move to adopt ordinance number 906 on first reading.

Is there a second?

Second.

Motion to adopt ordinance number 906 on first reading has been made by Council President Berry and seconded by Councilor Shevlin. Is there any discussion at all? Okay. Hearing no further discussion or commentary, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Next is City Manager's Business.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I have two items for you this evening. One, I'll start with maybe the more detailed one, and then I'll talk about something fun after this. So I wanted to give you all an update on the general fund assessment. As you may recall that during your budget committee meetings, I indicated in my opening remarks that the staff was going to be undertaking a general fund assessment. That is to do two things, that's to look at historical information and assumptions, both on the revenue and expenditure side, and also to set us up for the future and making sure that we're making appropriate decisions. The purpose of the assessment is to do a deep dive, and this has been a staff priority, so the staff team has been working really hard. We're gonna look at trends, as I mentioned, revenues and expenditures, so that we can continue supporting essential public services and capital needs as we address growth, changing costs, EMERGENCY OR EMERGING COMMUNITY NEEDS AS WE GO FORWARD. SO THAT'S PART OF WHAT THE ASSESSMENT IS DOING. AS YOU KNOW, THE GENERAL FUND IS THE PRIMARY OPERATING FUND FOR BOTH PUBLIC SAFETY, PARKS AND municipal operations, finance, facilities, human resources, a number of different services that the city provides are funded out of the general fund. Being proactive will allow management to identify risks early, to test assumptions and consider solutions before financial constraints require more immediate action on the city's part. We plan on coming back to the city council in the coming months to engage you in a conversation to talk about the data that staff will bring forward to you. Again, looking at our expenditures, our revenues, and really looking at our assumptions. We're taking a deeper dive into the general fund, looking at all aspects of it, and then looking to the future in terms of what our needs are. Expect to see staff coming back in the coming months to have a conversation with you. And then from there, we're looking for a dialogue from the council, and that will lead into your council goal setting. If there are changes or things that you want to take a look at as a council goal, that will roll right into your goal setting in early spring. With that, I'm open for any questions that you may have. Any questions of council?

Council President Barry.

When you say coming months, do you mean by the end of this year or are you talking about early next year?

That's a great question. We're going to come back to you in several different increments. So by the end of this year as well as probably early next year. So we're going to come to you in a number of different capacities. We'll talk about revenues. We'll talk about expenditures. And we're going to divide it up because there's a lot of information. that we're going to be presenting to you. So we wanna make sure that you've got time to digest that. But it will be over the next couple months this year and then heading into next year as well.

Can you give us a general preview?

No. No, and the reason I say that is we need to have this conversation with you in the totality. So there's a lot of information to present to you and it would be difficult for me to give that to you all in one evening. I want to make sure that we've got an opportunity for our staff to dive into it, and then there'll be certainly an opportunity for you all to ask questions and have a dialogue about it.

Councillor Shetland.

Thank you. Having worked in an industry where budget cuts were a requirement every single year, and they were always tough, I appreciate you working with staff, because staff can come up with wonderful ideas on increasing revenue, but also areas for savings. So I look forward to the ensuing months where we'll learn about it and how we can support the plans going forward. But I really commend you for involving staff and the various departments on coming up with, I'm sure, creative ideas for both revenue enhancement and savings as well. I look forward to it. Thank you.

Anybody else? I just would add that I appreciate the fact that you're presenting it in the way you are. I'm a little concerned. I mean, you want to roll it out with the information that's as accurate, as complete as possible because the community could take away a little part of it. I think it's important that we allow you that time to really have a full report for us and a full education for us. And I really commend you for suggesting that last year at the budget committee meeting, the initial one. I think that's helpful to know it makes sense. You were our new city manager. It's a, to me, a thing that a new city manager would do is to evaluate things as they take the helm and to see what measures we can do to protect our general fund and to look at things more creativity wise. So thank you for taking that effort. I appreciate that. I also like the fact that it's going to be a part of our our retreat exercise, so we can have a more in-depth conversation with staff, an informal setting, but that's always helpful too. So thank you, thank you for that. Anything else?

Yes. The other item, which is probably, well, it is a really fun item to talk about. Tomorrow night, the Mexican restaurant at Norte, which is in the Vuela building on the ground floor there, They are doing what they call a pop-up grand opening. So I say that because I'm used to the term grand opening, but it's a pop-up grand opening. So it's going to be tomorrow evening from 6 until 10. For those of you that are interested in going, We want to make sure people know to park in the park and ride lot. That building is right where our bus turnaround is. So we are really trying to ensure that people are not parking in the bus turnaround area and that we leave that for our transit vehicles. So if you or people you know that are going to this grand opening event, please tell them to park in the park and ride lot. And with that, that concludes my city manager's business.

I know I'm going to walk right into this, but what is a pop-up grand opening?

I asked the same question. From what I have heard, it's essentially a grand opening with a different term associated with it.

Okay.

That's all I can, yeah, it's essentially a grand opening. They're calling a pop-up grand opening. But for all intents and purposes, it's a grand opening. They've been in business. They've been operating for a few weeks now. So this is really kind of their first unveiling, I think, to the community. But they have been operating for a while.

Yeah, I heard a lot of great things. So it's like a great amenity that's part of that, especially for Voila. So thank you for that. Is that it for you?

Yeah, that's it.

All right. City Attorney, do you have anything you would like to discuss?

Nothing tonight, Mayor.

All right. With that, unless anybody has any objections, we're adjourned at 6.