City Council - workshop

THIS LUCIN CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION TO ORDER. THE TIME AND PLACE IS ADVERTISED. OUR FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS IS THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. SO IF YOU WOULD PLEASE STAND AND JOIN US IN RECITING OUR PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ALSO. COUNCILORS KLEIN AND FORESTMAN HAVE ASKED FOR AND RECEIVED AN EXCUSED ABSENCE AND THEY SHOULD BE JOINING US SOON. THANK YOU, COUNSELOR. NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS IS CITIZEN COMMENTS. THIS IS NOT BETWEEN YOU FOR COMMENTS TO VISIT WITH US ABOUT ITEMS THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO. WE DON'T HAVE ANY CITIZEN IN THE AUDIENCE TODAY, SO WE'RE GOING TO JUMP RIGHT OVER THAT. WE'RE GOING TO JUMP RIGHT INTO OUR DISCUSSION ITEMS. Ellie, can you hear us fine?

Yes, I can. How about you guys and me? Can you hear me?

You sound great.

Cool. I'll get going then.

One second, please. Councilor Forsman, can you hear us just fine?

Yes, I can. Thank you, Mayor.

We can hear you okay. Let me get to this item here. Introduce the item. I'm going to call you Senator. Discussion items. Please note that identifying an item... IT'S AN ACTION ITEM THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE THE CITY COUNCIL TO VOTE ON THAT ITEM. FIRST ITEM A, GENERAL STATE HOUSING ALLIANCE PRESENTATION BY THE GENERAL STATE HOUSING ALLIANCE REGARDING HOUSING POLICY ADDRESSING NIMBYISM AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSIDERING LONG-TERM IMPLICATIONS OF DECISION MAKING. THIS IS AN ACTION ITEM. OUR CITY PLANNER MR. JOEL PLASKON IS WITH US HERE TODAY. JOEL, WOULD YOU LIKE TO INTRODUCE THE SUBJECT AND INTRODUCE OUR GUEST TODAY, PLEASE? SURE.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. The nation's in a housing crisis, and it's particularly bad in the state of Idaho because of our strong population growth. The legislature responded by passing several related housing bills this year. We're in the process of updating our code to reflect the new state statutes right now. There's also a new housing organization in the state formed to promote housing construction. And that's Gem State Housing Alliance. And Senator Allie Robby is here to present to you.

Go ahead. All right. Well, thank you guys for having me and for all the work you do on city council or in the mayorship. I was privileged to serve in the Senate with your mayor there, and he was an excellent senator. And I just finished up my third and last term in the Senate and have taken on this new project to try to promote good housing policy across the state of Idaho. This group was formed with a grant from a national foundation, and we have essentially three folks working for us right now, and we're working mostly with cities and trying to support cities wherever we can through opportunities like this, other forms of technical assistance and but also forming a state policy agenda. We're also working on organizing local coalitions of pro-housing Idahoans across the state. And I can talk a little bit more about that, but in general, just trying to educate the public about what we're doing So we've been public as an organization since December, where we're still relatively new. But yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity to get in front of you all and just kind of introduce ourselves as an organization and kind of our perspectives on some of the main challenges in Idaho. For those of you that don't know me, I did serve, yeah, in the Senate for six years and not running for re-election this year. I have two young sons. I live in Garden City. I'm originally from rural Idaho, which used to be rural, Middleton, outside of Boise. And I've worked mostly on housing policy. Yeah, for most of my career, I'm an attorney. And so Yeah, I've really studied this issue over my years in the legislature and care deeply about it. So that's kind of my background and who we are as an organization. Someone else is directing my slide. So I'm just going to say slide. Okay, so our agenda today, I'll just go quickly over kind of some numbers that you're probably already aware of in terms of housing statistics and then just looper requirements. I think some of you have been involved with city government for quite some time, so this might be of no surprise to you, but we do find sometimes just a quick refresher is helpful. And then just what we know about public hearing challenges and solutions and the challenges that causes in creating more housing. And then just some advice that we have research tested with thousands of people on kind of messaging that works to talk about housing and growth. And I'll just go cover that really high level, but could go more in depth at a later date. Slide. So again, this is our kind of organization mission. We're trying to make it easier to build homes. We're especially focused on missing middle housing. How many of you are familiar with missing middle housing? What that means? If you could just raise your hands really quick. Really quick. Okay. Oh, did no one raise their hand? Okay. So it's a term coined by pro-housing advocates across the country. It's been used in states like Montana and Texas and looking at different policy solutions, but Essentially, across the country, most of our zoning codes have not been updated since the 1950s. In Idaho, most of our codes were written in the 1970s, and they mostly allow for larger lot, single family development that occurs mostly on the urban fringe. or, you know, multifamily. And there's a lot of other ways that housing could be built, but it's very challenging to do with most of our codes. Lewiston's doing better. You have an excellent planning staff than, you know, many cities, but some cities have a lot of updates that they could make to increase, especially that missing middle housing. Our position is we don't really have a stair-step system for housing in Idaho. We don't have a lot of ownership options that are two or $300,000, but developers tell us those would be possible to build, but for certain constraints. We're advocating to make it easier to build more homes, but especially that missing middle housing type that we think we need more of. And so our pillars in terms of programming as a nonprofit organization is that we are doing advocacy, trying to engage decision makers at every level of government to help shape good policy. We're trying to educate the public on why more housing can be good. And then again, like I talked about earlier, organizing individuals across Idaho around more pro-housing solutions and As I talk, you'll kind of I think you will understand why we need more of that organizing slide. And yeah, you guys are welcome to pull up our website as well. We have a really great board. I don't think we have anyone in Lewiston, but we do have a number of folks from North Idaho that have been involved in forming our organization in all corners of the state. When we got this funding, we, as an organization, did a listening tour and talked to hundreds of Idahoans and essentially asked them, why do you think housing is so expensive? And we did talk to a lot of city elected unfortunately I didn't catch all of you in the room, but we did catch a number of city elected across Idaho and kind of asked the question, why do you think housing is so expensive um. and kind of uncovered what I think you all already know. So some of this may come as no surprise, but in general, lack of supply is a main driver because our population has really grown as we all have directly experienced. I've experienced living here almost all my life and supply just hasn't been able to keep pace with that high demand. Meanwhile, we do have, understandably, and I definitely empathize with some people, a lot of Idahoans resist development, which has caused delays or certain projects to be shut down because the opposition is quite organized. So that's kind of the main drivers that I've heard from folks on our listening tour today. talking to hundreds of folks across the state in terms of why we have lack of supply, just those anti-growth mindsets that we have, and then just in general population growth struggling. Yeah, we're struggling to keep up with that demand. The other driver is regulation, red tape. Developers tell me that on their pro forma, about 25% of development costs is from, you know, dealing with different government agencies, you know, irrigation districts, sewer districts, highway districts, cities, and that can cause different delays, paperwork delays. issues and, you know, unanticipated costs that they're not really planning for. And in general, it does cause about 25% of the overall cost on their pro forma, some of which is, you know, warranted because we do want growth to pay for itself. But some there might be opportunities to kind of decrease that regulation red tape burden. Also, developers told me that they can't develop certain types of housing that they otherwise could, but for, you know, regulation. And then high costs as well. So rising land, labor, material costs are passed directly to consumers. So I don't think there's any surprise there. Just general inflation has caused housing costs to increase. So those are kind of the main buckets. We're seeing opportunity to try to decrease high housing costs. I think we all agree housing costs are high. We probably all know somebody who's experiencing that directly, whether it's your bank teller or your daughter or granddaughter, whoever it is struggling to afford to live here in Idaho. We think there's opportunity to get at supply, try to increase supply, but also reduce regulation red tape. We can't really control the cost of land labor and materials. Slide. And we do know that increasing supply does decrease housing costs. And there have been many studies over the years that have shown this. The most striking, there's many examples on your screen, but the most striking is from Pew Charitable Trust has done some great nonpartisan research on housing policy, and they found just over the last few months came out this study that showed that Austin, Texas saw a 19% decrease in housing costs when they made a big effort to revise their zoning code and get a lot of housing built. But we also know that property values do increase for homes near housing development. From Urban Institute, there's some good research from Pew on that as well, and that there's lower displacement risk. and decrease in rents kind of across the board when we get more housing built. Slide. And we know that Idahoans really care about this topic as well, though, as I will talk about, we don't really hear from those folks. So there have been a couple of great polls that have gone out and surveys to thousands of Idahoans just in the last six months or so. And I'm happy to send any more detail to any of you that would like it. But the first thing that they found in the Idaho Policy Institute survey is that the cost of housing is by and far Idahoans' number one concern, and they want to see that get addressed. The change research poll that was conducted in collaboration with the Mountain States Policy Center, they released this survey to the legislature in the winter. They found that 8 in 10 Idahoans say there are not enough homes to rent or buy in their area. So about 80%. And then 72% of Idahoans felt like their city or town wasn't doing a good job or enough to address affordability, which I know you are doing hard work, just saying those are kind of what the poll results were. I think in general, this highlights to me that most Idahoans, large majority, I mean, 80, 70%, these are high numbers, want to see action taken on the issue of housing supply and affordability. And we know that it's a challenge in your city. Though I would say Lewiston definitely is struggling less than other cities. I'm sure you have heard of affordability challenges and seen that high increase in cost over the last several years, just like everywhere else. With your 35,000 residents and growing, your median home costs are Um, quite high compared to wages. So a lot of folks are paying, um, a majority of their income or, you know, over 30%, their income towards our rent. So or to their or to their home price and we see a lot of people across Idaho getting locked into that rental market paying those high costs and then struggling to save up for a down payment so it's kind of this cycle that every city is dealing with just with the high cost of housing slide. And LUPA sets kind of a baseline for what you can do. And within that, there are definitely limits and challenges. So I'll just kind of remind you all, you know, high level what LUPA says, though I know many of you have been on council for years I already know this stuff, so I'll go quick. But kind of the main tenets that LUPA establishes is that every city has to have that comprehensive plan that sets the stage for zoning. The comprehensive plan is established through, as you know, more of a legislative process. So that's a process that involves a lot of the public. You get to engage and decide, do a lot of decision making. You're not basing what's in the comprehensive plan on anything other than public processes and what you want your city to look like. There's no state law that says your comprehensive plan has to say x y or z there are baseline um things that have to be addressed but you do get flexibility it's kind of my point um so you get to go through that um kind of more legislative process to establish your comprehensive help comprehensive plan um every city has that planning commission um that reviews and makes recommendations to council um i and uh holly my colleagues presenting to them um similar presentation on wednesday um Lupa does require based on your comprehensive plan, you have the zoning codes and ordinances and those zoning codes are required to be consistent with your comprehensive plan. And then obviously have to have any public notice or hearings before adopting any changes regarding your comprehensive plan or your codes. And importantly, with reviewing certain developments, kind of the difference between adopting a comprehensive plan or even a zoning code change is you have more in reviewing specific developments, a quasi-judicial role. And so technically, if something meets the code and aligns with, you know, comp plan, it meets the code, it's technically supposed to be approved according to LUPA. So it's kind of interesting. LUPA very clearly says We want you to engage the public and be a little more flexible in establishing kind of the baseline rules for what you set for your city. But once you establish that code, and you're looking at development applications, we need you to kind of have less flexibility and have more of a judicial role in dictating what you can require of developments. And I know in the legislative history and intent was to create predictability for developers just because the process is so long. Once they get to point Z, definitely our lupus is signaling we don't want councils to then send them back to point A if the development meets code requirements. So I'll, I could talk more on lupa, but I'll go to the next slide. Cause I think most of you probably know this stuff. Now, one thing that we hear a lot from our city elected is just the challenges with public hearings, which is required by LUPA. And there are a lot of them. And I know you all have sat through many of them, probably for hours. I don't know if you've had to until midnight, like some cities routinely do. But it is a real challenge to have to go through those processes, though also important because, you know, the public needs to be informed and engaged on these processes. But there's been a lot of national research as well as, you know, just local research showing that we don't always see a diversity of voices in terms of like, we know the people showing up to these hearings are going to be the people who oppose developments. And I could send over a really interesting study that was done that showed in general, in thousands of cities studied, about 65% of people that show up to hearings oppose developments, while about 10% of people that show up support developments and the rest are kind of more neutral, kind of there to just inform themselves. But looking at Idaho public hearings, we definitely see something similar. The challenge is that, you know, you've got these specific developments that are affecting specific neighborhoods. So the people who are affected are going to be the ones who are concerned about the character of their neighborhood, right? They're going to be concerned about traffic, etc. You hear all the things in the public hearings. Inherently, that's how these processes are designed, where you're going to capture those voices of people that care about this specific development that's affecting this specific neighborhood, as opposed to those more big picture perspectives or other people that might just be struggling to afford to buy a home or somebody living in another neighborhood that supports housing. You're not going to hear from those folks. Part of it is timing and looking at pulling of young people and people that are in the workforce or people that are working, you know, maybe a second job or door dashing in the evenings taking care of kids. A lot of folks don't want to show up to a hearing at 6pm on a Tuesday. And so you'll get more when we look at kind of the national research on who shows up. It's mostly retired folks with more flexible schedules who don't have young children who show up. They're more likely to be homeowners. They're more likely to be older and wealthier as well when we look at national research. And that makes sense. You know, those of us who are juggling families at home or People who have are working busy jobs or second jobs by 6pm on a Tuesday, they're tired, they don't want to show up, and they don't. And so those are not the voices that we hear from. I know your council does allow for good virtual participation, some cities in Idaho still don't so that's kind of a challenge, especially when it's only in person, but even participating virtually. folks are kind of uninformed about how that works or that that's even an option, and so we don't get as many people participating virtually as we do in person, even in cities that allow virtual. participation. And then just in general, anybody who opposes anything tends to be more organized versus people who support something. And so the opposition tends to have usually to a specific development. You've probably experienced this, but it's true in every city. Usually has one or two, maybe a handful of people who are very organized and are texting, emailing people to get them out to the hearings. Whereas again, the people who more generally support housing or want to see more housing get built, they're not really doing that in most or any of our cities that I know. Slide. So that's just kind of a challenge of our public hearing process, and it is required by LUPA for good reason. However, it kind of just puts things in perspective. We're trying to just remind a lot of our local electeds about those dynamics, though you're probably already aware. um in terms of what we tell cities to try to um overcome that challenge uh is kind of these four things i think the main thing is we recognize it's and as an elected official who's been in a committee hearing where everyone's opposing something that I might, you know, vote for, it is very uncomfortable and makes it a lot harder to do that. So just kind of trying to put things in perspective. Of course, cities can do work themselves to try to engage a wider sample of the public through, you know, tabling at events or reaching out to local, especially nonprofit organizations or business leaders. If you want to get them more engaged, having more supporters show up can definitely help counter those more negative voices and just set the room differently. Also, I do see a lot of elected officials just using public hearings to help teach the public. Because unfortunately, as a native Idahoan, I would love to stop growth as well, but I recognize that's not possible. It's not how civilizations develop. It's not good for our economy. It's not good for our locals. And so just kind of using those moments wherever you can in public hearings to help people understand that the question you're trying to wrestle with is how you grow as a city and do it in a way that serves them, right? Because we can't stop growth. So the question is, how do we grow, not whether we grow? And then, again, just celebrating where you can, public engagement efforts that have been made during a hearing to show, you know, that you have heard more generally from folks who do want more housing. Doing that public engagement kind of just more on a broader scale kind of gives you a backup to say, we have engaged these forms and people do want to see more housing get built. But again, you can always point back to the state and say, you know, if a development meets the code, you know, technically this meets our code. Looper requires that we are kind of have to approve this. If there's not kind of some technicality in the zoning code that you're going to hang up the development on, it should be approved if you're fulfilling that quasi-judicial role that I talked about. I always like to tell local electeds you can always point your finger at the state though you can for many of the challenges you're experiencing especially with infrastructure which is a whole other conversation um but um ultimately that's what lupa says and has said for a long time so that's um what you can kind of point back to again to use that moment in the public hearing as kind of like a teaching opportunity and slide So we have a lot of research as well from different groups. I mentioned Pew Charitable Trust has done a lot, Mercatus Center as well, in terms of how to respond or understand some of the common objections at public hearings. I'm sure you've heard all of these if you've been on council for a decent amount of time. This will change the character of our neighborhood. We don't have the infrastructure. Property values will drop. And neighbors should have more of a say around the types of development that gets built in their neighborhoods. So we know that to kind of counter these voices in terms of character, a lot of what we advocate for is those missing middle housing types. and smaller housing types that actually really do improve the character of the neighborhood. And these are the types of housing that Idaho built long before 1975. Smaller home types were actually the primary type of home that was built after World War II. And so if you walk around really historic neighborhoods in Idaho, you do see A lot of smaller housing, which I guess you could say is more dense. I like to say just smaller housing types or different types and sizes of housing because people balk at the word density. But Idaho's character, I would say their neighborhoods with the most character were built on smaller housing. In terms of infrastructure, so there's another study that I can share following up that Pew just did that finds infrastructure costs on our urban fringe are about 50% higher than projects closer to existing amenities. So there's always a good argument there in terms of lower taxes and costs to taxpayers when we're building on existing infrastructure within city limits, as opposed to on our fringe or in our area of impact. And then property values dropping. Actually, more studies show property values actually increase. And when we get more housing built, property taxes across the board over time decrease. Eventually, more homes cause more amenities to get built and kind of shares the property tax burden. So it actually saves taxpayers money over time. And then, finally, you know anybody's going to oppose something getting built in their neighborhood so just reminding people that our process is such that we have to base these decisions, based on our code, not just on individual projects and what neighbors have to say in that hearing. slide. We also have some high-level messaging that I'll share. But again, just a few more objections. But this is a one-size-fits-all solution, kind of is something that we hear. The new housing won't be affordable, or again, it won't fit the character of our neighborhood. Kind of just bringing it back to we need a variety of different housing options, more choices, not fewer. if we increase supply of housing it does decrease the overall cost of housing and got a lot of research to share on that as well um if you guys would like um i already kind of talked about character in the neighborhood so i'll skip that for now slide and then yeah top line messaging advice so this is based on research from the sightline institute which you might know they're in based in washington they've done work all across the Mountain West. But in terms of how you talk about housing during a hearing and kind of helping to use those moments as teaching moments for the general public. Again, we don't say increase density, never use the word density, but saying things like homes of all shapes and sizes for all types of people. can also frame things around property rights and freedom. You know, this is Idaho and we really do value our property rights, individual property rights. And so kind of legalizing this type of home or removing Bans or, you know, not getting in the way as a government of the free market can be something that works here in Idaho. We also say our developers tend to use a lot of jargon. So we're trying to train developers as well how to talk about their housing, but we don't say things like units, we say homes. Yeah, we don't say single family or definitely not multifamily or apartments. In Idaho, if we talk about apartments, people get really nervous. So really framing housing as workforce housing. In Idaho, especially housing that's smaller, smaller size. Those are gonna be less expensive units. So they are really for locals. and our workforce we need. I know you experienced this as a community that has a lot of people coming in who maybe don't live and work in your city. And then use visuals wherever possible. And I'll go to the next slide. Once people can see what certain designs look like or what different housing solutions can potentially be, they kind of barbs get reduced. So if you can go the next slide, I can show you just a few examples. Most of these are from Idaho. But these are examples of smaller housing types, some duplexes, ADOs, cottage courts, things like that. We encourage developers to use visuals as well during their hearings to show people what these designs look like first, if they can. It really helps kind of alleviate the concerns because everybody wants to be an architect and design their neighborhood. So everyone's going to have complaints about the brown trim or the whatever it is, but kind of showing them what it actually looks like first can help. Science? So that's kind of it for my main presentation in sum. Just wanted to make sure you all know kind of we're here as a resource. Our stance is that we need more housing options in Idaho, not less. Just kind of a different voice in the room compared to what our electeds typically hear. We got to get more of representative engagement or use public hearing opportunities as a teaching moment. and make sure we're using the right words as well to help folks understand this issue. And I'd be happy to talk to any of you more about that in depth. And finally, kind of how we can help. I've already chatted with Joel a little bit about your efforts to implement some of the state legislation. We can support that, and we're trying to get more and more legal guidance to help guide the city's on implementation of those. We could also just review your code. We've done this with our policy advisory board members who are architects and planners. Got about 15 folks on there. But yeah, we can look at your codes together as a team and kind of make some suggestions, though your planning team again is doing excellent work. We've also partnered with some cities looking at vacant land. and helping them look at workforce opportunities, workforce housing opportunities to leverage that land. We worked with Ketchum and currently working with Driggs right now. And then finally, just stakeholder engagement. We're doing some public events across the state in different cities to kind of help facilitate these very important conversations about growth and how Idaho grows and what housing options are. But we could help with that as well. That would be something that we're interested in. So that's kind of us as a resource and kind of what we can do. And I'll open it up to questions.

Thank you, Senator. First of all, I'd like to ask Joel Plaskon if he could come back up to the podium and just see if he could guide us just a little bit. Maybe you can update us, Joel, on your work with Ali and her team and anything else before we have questions from the council. Sure, please.

SO, YEAH, WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF DOING UPDATES TO OUR ZONING CODE TO REFLECT THE NEW LEGISLATION AFFECTING MANUFACTURED HOME PLACEMENT, WHAT'S A NEW TERM IN THE STATE, STARTER HOME SUBDIVISIONS. ALI'S REVIEWED SOME OF THE DRAFT THAT WE'VE GOT IN PLACE RIGHT NOW. And then there's another one on accessory apartments or accessory dwelling units that we're also doing. We've not been working very closely with Jump State Housing Alliance, but I've been attending their monthly meetings, their lunch and learns, and I was quite interested. And so I reached out to Allie and decided to have her come present and WE'VE GOT MORE COMING YOUR WAY WITH REGARD TO CODE AMENDMENTS THAT HOPEFULLY ONCE THEY'RE IN PLACE, DEVELOPERS WILL TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM AND WE'LL GET MORE HOUSING BUILT.

THANK YOU, JOE. COUNCIL, QUESTIONS?

Yeah, and I want to say to Joel, just thanks for the opportunity, as well as Mayor Johnson, who also invited me to come speak because we served in the legislature together, so we know each other. But yeah, we're excited to just let you guys kind of know that we're here as a resource and share our mission and our perspective. So I want to just thank you guys again for the opportunity and the time.

Questions before we say.

Goodbye, Senator Robby, Councilor Wright. Is there a, to have a vacant land scan, is there a cost to that or is that a free?

No, yeah, this is all free. We're actually partnering with U of I architecture students and some local architects across the state to do this for free. So if that's something you're interested in, we can talk to you. Joel more about it yeah and Ketchum actually is a cool story we created four designs with the students and the professors and they're actually interested in RFPing one of the designs so that's kind of interesting to see and yeah hopefully they'll get that that housing built so yeah but we'll we do this all free of cost because we have grant funding so yeah great thank you

Councilor Spickelmeyer. So are there, does the state have efforts in place to try to help the supply chain? That was one of the big issues that you had on one of the original slides.

Yeah, we have talked about that. There's not a lot of low-hanging fruit on that that's really within our control. One thing the state has done, which the home builders were really in support of, was the Idaho Launch Program to try to give more local young people scholarships to go on to the trades. Because labor shortage in Idaho has definitely been a challenge, especially in the Treasure Valley right now with development of micron. It's a big issue. There's a lot of factors that are out of the legislature's control, I'd say government control. It hasn't been the most interested thing, I guess, to address. The legislature is very interested at looking at LUPA and trying to find ways to streamline development. wherever possible and like, and, um, HAB-Juliette Boone, Make it easier to build housing so that that's been more of the conversation. I know there's been a lot of discussion about the building codes as well. And then, yeah, I've been HAB-Juliette Boone, Really trying to get them to think more about infrastructure needs to. I know our cities need a lot there so that one's a little harder. HAB-Juliette Boone, In our legislature right now. But those are kind of the, the more the areas of interest, I would say.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Thank you.

HAB-Juliette Boone, And I think possible solutions that we can control. Yeah.

Council questions.

Other questions or when I was talking, was there anything like where you were thinking? Oh, I actually really disagree with that.

I think you have an easy and receptive audience today. And, Senator, I'll continue to work with our city planner, Joel Plaskon. I know you've been in this for a long time, and I know you're very passionate about it, and I wanted to say thank you for your work. And, again, if we have some questions or needs, it sounds like we had a couple there. I'm interested on that parcel data stuff, too, but I'll follow up with Joel, and if we need to get back in contact with you, I'll work through Joel to get to you.

Sounds good. And I'm here as a resource. So, and we have staff. So if you guys have any questions anytime about housing or you think it'd be a good group for us to get in front of to help educate, we're all ears to those kinds of opportunities. So yeah, feel free to reach out anytime.

Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you guys.

Yep. Bye-bye. Okay. Council. Um, I'M GOING TO ASK JENNIFER IF SHE WOULD PLEASE, I LEFT OUT ONE INTRODUCTION, BUT I'M GOING TO ASK, WE HAVE A GUEST WITH US HERE TODAY, MORE THAN A GUEST. SHE'S GOING TO BE HELPING OUT IN THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS. SO JENNIFER, IF YOU WOULD INTRODUCE THE SPECIAL GUEST AND THEN IF SHE WOULD LIKE TO JUST SHARE A MINUTE OF HER BACKGROUND OR INTEREST, THAT WOULD BE GREAT FOR THE COUNCIL AND WHY YOU'RE HERE.

THANK YOU, MAYOR, COUNCILORS. JENNIFER TINGANO, CITY ATTORNEY. I HAVE EMILY TRAN HERE. SHE IS A RISING 2L LAW STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO COLLEGE OF LAW. AND SHE WILL BE WORKING WITH ME FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS COMPLETING HER PRO BONO HOURS, WHICH ARE REQUIRED FOR GRADUATION FOR HER.

HI, I'M EMILY. MET JENNIFER DURING ORIENTATION AND KEPT IN CONTACT. AND I'VE REALLY BEEN INTERESTED IN WHAT SHE TELLS ME ABOUT HER ROLE IN THE POSITION AND LEARNING ABOUT MUNICIPAL LAW. SO I'M REALLY EXCITED JUST TO SHOUT OUT TO HER FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS AND GET TO WORK AND SEE WHAT SHE DOES HERE.

YOU'LL PROBABLY SEE A MEMO FROM HER SOMETIME SOON ABOUT LULUPA, BECAUSE WE DO HAVE SOME APPLICATIONS COMING UP WITH REASON STATEMENTS. SO JUST SOME INFORMATION ABOUT REASON STATEMENTS AND WHAT'S EXPECTED OF THE CITY COUNCIL RELATED TO STATE LAW. THANK YOU.

WELL, I WANT TO SAY, I'M NOT GOING TO CORRECT SENATOR ROBBIE, BUT WHEN SENATOR ROBBIE SHE SAID, OH, WE HAVE STUDENTS. IT'S FREE. I WAS LIKE, AH. WE HAVE A STUDENT IN OUR PRESENCE. SO WE DON'T, I DON'T, ANYWAY, I'M SURE THE COUNCIL DOESN'T TAKE YOU FOR GRANTED YOUR EDUCATION, YOUR TRAINING, AND HELPING OUT HERE AT THE CITY WITH US. SO IT'S VERY IMPORTANT. SO THANK YOU FOR BEING WITH US TODAY. COUNCIL, NEXT UP WE HAVE ITEM B, INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCE 4967, INTRODUCTION OF ORDINANCE 4967, WHICH PROPOSES TO AMEND LOUIS AND CITY COACH CHAPTER 37. Landscaping this is an action item Our city planner Joe Plask on us here as well as our development director and a girl Who will present this item to you today Shannon welcome?

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, Shannon Grove, Community Development Director. Let me see if I can, oh good, I can control this. So, this is the introduction, reintroduction, I should say, to 4967. This has been before you. You may recall a few months back that there was some landscaping ordinance changes before you and it was a tie vote and so it just failed. AND SO CITY STAFF BROUGHT IT BACK UP AT WORK SESSION. IT WENT BACK TO P&Z. IT'S COMING BACK BEFORE YOU. BUT I THOUGHT I WOULD TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO NOT ONLY TALK ABOUT WHAT'S IN ORDINANCE 4967, BUT THE LANDSCAPING REQUIREMENTS IN GENERAL. BECAUSE AS YOU KNOW, WHEN WE, WHEN STAFF SENDS YOU A PACKET AND HAS A PROPOSED ORDINANCE, ONLY THE ELEMENTS THAT WERE CHANGING ARE IN THAT ORDINANCE. YOU'RE NOT SEEING THE FULL PICTURE. So I thought I would come before you today kind of the same that we did with frontage improvements and just say, this is what the code says, just to have a deeper understanding of that. And then if there are other changes you'd like us to make before we get to when you officially see 4967 again, we can talk about that at the end. So why are we here? Again, well, two years ago, the city embarked on a new comprehensive plan. It's called Envision Lewiston 2044. It was adopted by the council in July of 2024, so two years ago. This was a massive effort. The public engagement piece had, I believe, 6,200 comments on it. So These are really big efforts, a lot of public input on them, and they're every 20 years. Prior to this one, the last comp plan was done in 1999, so it was a long time coming. There was an ad hoc subcommittee, and that was to make recommendations on the implementation of the comp plan, and that was formed in August of 2024. And then the work plan was adopted by council in March of 2025. And part of that work plan was to evaluate and amend the landscaping code. And so that's why it has come before you. Just a couple of snippets from that work, that action plan. Expand the urban tree canopy. Promote and expand the urban tree canopy where possible. Incentivize or require tree planting in new developments, especially along streets and in and around parking lots. And then that little snippet at the bottom is taken from the public input summary, which was when asked, Lewiston's focus should be to maximize positive impacts over the next 10 to 20 years. 23.2% shows increased tree canopy, the number of trees, to help reduce temperatures and cooling costs while improving stormwater runoff, air quality, property values, and mental health. So those are all found in the action plan and within the comp plan. So landscaping requirements are in Lewiston City Code Chapter 37, 153 through 155. That is the sections that were sent to you as the entirety of that code. These are in Chapter 37, which is the zoning code, and found in the off-street parking and loading. So they're very much connected to parking lots. The majority of this code was written in 1994. There was some minor adjustments in 2005, and then again just this year you saw a couple of them. The new proposed language for the purpose is the intent is to create shade and reduce heat buildup, reduce the barren appearance of parking lots, create aesthetic environments, buffer adjoining land uses, slow stormwater runoff, and mitigate pollution while maintaining design flexibility. So like I said, landscaping requirements are tied to parking lots. In our case, that means any parking lot, it's a parking lot if it's six spaces or more, or 2,400 square feet. And there's basically two sections, right? You have the exterior and the interior. And so the exterior of a parking lot, what we require is landscape buffers between public rights-of-way and parking lots, shade trees and shrubs every 35 linear feet, linear feet, buffer between commercial and residential uses, and then in the interior, planting areas around parking areas, shade tree shrubs every 35 linear feet, percentage of total, the landscaping is based on the percentage of total vehicular surface area, irrigation systems are required, and shade trees, what is required of those is within 10 years, your shade trees will cover 50% of your parking lot. So that's kind of in a nutshell what the requirements are. So much like the frontage improvements, part of my job is to look at code and to attend development review committee and to hear from the kind of development community. And so landscaping is one of those things that does come up when we are looking at new businesses coming in or businesses that are looking to move into a spot that needs upgrades. And so when parking lots are done, that's when the landscaping comes into play. And that's where sometimes you'll see some conflict or surprise that these are required. And so what I decided to do was look at other communities to see how do we compare with those communities and maybe we are the same in some instances and then I'll show you where we very much differ in others. So it did take eight cities from Idaho, Moscow, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Post Falls, from Washington, Clarkson, Walla Walla, and Pullman, and then Asotin County as well, just to take a look at what that might look like. So the next few slides I'll go through, I'll kind of tell you what we require, and then what other cities are looking at for that. So as I said before, when landscaping is required, it's required. when you have more than five spaces. So six spaces, landscaping's required, and you can see right there, 2,400 square feet to 6,999 square feet, 3% of the interior, or the percentage of interior landscaping is 3%. And then it goes on the larger you get. Other cities, most of them require exterior landscape buffers like we do. But where we differ is that they typically don't start until 20 spaces. And so you can see here I put interior for comparable cities trigger at 10, 20, or 30 spaces. The reason I underlined 20 is because that was more the norm. But some of them do require 30. In fact, I believe it was Moscow that was at 30 spaces. And then some of them are kind of block you on the other side of things, saying you will not do more than 20% of your total site. So I believe that's in areas that are concerned about drought, and they just don't want as much landscaping required. When we talk about the exterior, we're talking about five foot minimum buffer strip between parking lots and public rights-of-way. AND RIGHT NOW THAT'S ONE TREE AND FIVE SHRUBS FOR EVERY 35 LINEAL FEET. OTHER CITIES HAVE SIMILAR. THERE IS ONE THAT DOES SAY ONE TREE FOR EVERY 35 FEET OF FRONTAGE. OTHERS WILL TRY TO DO A GREATER BUFFER DEPENDING ON THE STREET TYPE. AND SO I THINK IT WAS POCATELLA, IT COULD BE IDAHO FALLS, BUT THEY REQUIRED 30 FEET FROM THE BACK OF THE CURB ON ARTERIALS. And 50% of total landscaping must have but the street side. And so they're really trying to create that buffer on an arterial. In our case, that would be Brighton, 21st Street, Thane, but it would also be very difficult because we have a built-out environment already. And so my guess is that this would be easier if you were building, let's say, on Nez Perce Drive extension where you can require those types of bigger buffers. And, you know, they're trying to kind of protect the property from all of the noise and all of the things that come with arterials in a lot of lanes of cars. 15 to 20 feet deep of continuous street perimeter. That's another one, another example. And then street facing perimeters must maintain clear vision areas. We also have that in ours. We have clear vision requirements for that. You can't put bushes and shrubs on the corner. That's going to prevent folks from being able to see around the corner. For interior, currently we require six foot wide planting beds for interior landscape. Just so you know, the proposal is to reduce that to five feet. AND IT'S ALSO BASED ON THE PERCENTAGE OF VEHICULAR SURFACE AREA. SO THAT THIS LITTLE GRAPH HERE IS WHAT IT IS BASED ON. OTHER CITIES, SOME WILL REQUIRE, OKAY, YOU JUST DO 20%. AND WE, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE A SLIDING SCALE. IF YOU HAVE, IF YOU'RE REQUIRED TO PUT IN INTERIOR LANDSCAPING, IT'S GOING TO BE 20%. SOME ARE ALIGNED WITH LOUISTON WHERE THEY SAY THE SIX-FOOT WIDE PLANTING BEDS. OTHERS SAY EIGHT-FEET WIDE PLANTING BEDS. Another one said islands must provide one tree per 5,000 square feet and two shrubs per tree. So there are different ways to go about the interior. This one is where Lewiston, besides that kind of table that has the sliding scale, this is where Lewiston is quite the outlier, if you will. And it's where the requirement for THE SHADE CANOPY. SO WITHIN 10 YEARS, YOUR ASPHALT WILL BE SHADED, 50% OF YOUR ASPHALT WILL BE SHADED WITH THE TREES THAT YOU PLANT. AND SO IT'S REQUIRING YOU TO DO SOMEWHAT OF A CALCULATION TO DETERMINE THESE TREES WILL GROW ENOUGH TO COVER 50% OF THE PARKING LOT. OTHER CITIES REQUIRE INTERIOR ISLANDS, BUT JUST STANDARD TREE PLACEMENT, MEANING THEY'RE SAYING ONE OR TWO TREES PER X NUMBER OF FEET. THIS ONE SAYS ONE TREE REQUIRED FOR EVERY 200 SQUARE FEET OF GREEN SPACE. AND THEN AGAIN, THE ISLANDS MUST PROVIDE ONE TREE PER 5,000 SQUARE FEET AND TWO SHRUBS PER TREE. SO IN YOUR PACKET YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN A CLEAN VERSION OF 4967, BUT THEN A COMMENTED VERSION AFTER THAT. AND SO STARTING ON PAGE 27 OF YOUR PACKET IS WHERE THE PROPOSED LANGUAGE OF CHANGES ARE THERE. AND MOST OF THESE WILL HAVE A LITTLE COMMENT NEXT TO THEM KIND OF TELLING YOU WHAT THE THINKING WAS. BUT I'LL GO THROUGH THEM REALLY QUICKLY JUST TO KIND OF GIVE YOU AN IDEA ON WHAT THESE ARE. SO THE PURPOSE WAS CLARIFIED TO, IT WAS REVISED. AND I SHOULD MENTION THAT, AGAIN, THESE WERE, THESE RECOMMENDATIONS CAME FROM THE AD HOC COMMITTEE THAT WAS SET UP FOR THIS ONE SPECIFICALLY HAD SOME LANDSCAPING PROFESSIONALS ON IT TO TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE CHANGES THEY WOULD SUGGEST. ALSO THERE WAS A MEMBER OF THE URBAN FORESTRY COMMISSION ON IT AND THEN MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL AND PNZ. SO THESE COMMENTS CAME TO THEM. THEY WENT TO PLANNING AND ZONING. NOW THEY'RE BEFORE YOU. SO THE PURPOSE WAS AMENDED FOR SOME CLARITY. THE PARKING LOTS, BECAUSE WE HAD DONE THAT REDUCTION IN PARKING LOTS AND DEFINED THEM, THIS LANGUAGE IN 37135B WAS AMENDED TO MIRROR THAT. AND 37135B1, THE RECOMMENDATION IS TO GO FROM 35 FEET TO 30 FEET. THIS IS BECAUSE WHEN YOU HAVE TREES THAT ARE, YOU KNOW, just have a small trunk, you're not really getting that barrier, so making it into a smaller lineal feet would compress it a little bit and give a little bit more of a barrier. 37.153 and on page 28 are clarifying languages for mostly the health of the landscaping. 37-153-B-5, like I said before, is reducing the six foot interior bed, planting bed to five feet. And 37153C, that is on page 29 of your packet. And that is very much removing a big paragraph in there. But that is because there's language in every single use zone. So if you go to the commercial use zones, you will see language in there that requires a buffer between that zone and an abutting zone that's, let's say, commercial to residential. So this was duplicative language that should be just removed. And then in finally the 37153E3, that is just clarifying language as well. What's not included in here were any of the things that I showed you in this presentation. The tree canopy is not part of this. The number of spaces is not part of this. And so I'm bringing them to your attention just to say there are opportunities here too if That's what the council's desire would be I have had conversations with council members that have had some opinions about landscaping and so I'm bringing them to you to say this is your chance to Let's have a talk about it and staff can bring them back as revisions for you to consider When I say that what I mean is THIS, IT'S SIX SPACES, 2400 SQUARE FEET. THERE'S NO RECOMMENDATION TO CHANGE THAT. THERE'S NO RECOMMENDATION TO CHANGE THE AMOUNT OF INTERIOR LANDSCAPING. THERE IS NO RECOMMENDATION TO CHANGE THIS TREE CANOPY REQUIREMENT EITHER. SO WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR, SORRY, COUNCIL SPEAKER LEMAR.

I WAS JUST GOING TO POINT OUT ONE OF THEM, I NOTICED YOU HAD A TYPO IN ONE OF THEM. It was 153B2, the last sentence.

Okay.

It states One Shade Street.

Don't get that. Okay, so what I'm looking for from the council is a discussion and direction on are there any changes in the proposed language, and then would you like to see any additional amendments moving forward into the next step before you?

Councilor Spickelmeyer. So, and I have a question. It's more of, and I agree with the tree thing. I just... maybe for Joel or you, but if you look at it, if a new business is coming in, they're going to require six parking spaces. So they will be required to have the curb, the boulevard strip, a sidewalk, and a five foot vegetation area.

Depending on where it is, some places like on Fane would not have that first strip. It would just have sidewalk and then the buffer strip. Is that what you're asking?

Yes. So the, THE BOULEVARD STRIP COULDN'T ACCOUNT FOR THE FIVE VEGETATION PIECE? NO? NO? SO I GUESS MY POINT OF IT IS THAT IT EATS UP A LOT OF PROPERTY.

IT CAN.

ESPECIALLY IF THEY'RE ON THE CORNER WITH THEIR PARKING LOTS ON THE CORNER. IS THAT A CONSIDERATION OR THAT'S JUST Rule is a rule.

Well, the rule right now is the five feet along the rights-of-way. And so if that's why I'm bringing it to your attention is that that is the rule right now. In addition to that, and the five-foot-long parking lots is standard. when you look at benchmarking. In fact, some of them want 30 feet. So that would take up a lot of real estate. So the five foot is pretty standard right now, and that's for the exterior abutting rights of way. And so a lot of that is because folks will pull right up, their tire hits the little cement block thing, and then they overhang, right? We've all walked past places like that and have been kind of intruded upon by vehicles, hot vehicles, SITTING THERE SOMETIMES RUNNING. AND SO I THINK THE POINT OF THAT IS YOU'RE CREATING THE BUFFER BETWEEN PRIVATE, PARKING LOT, AND ASPHALT TO THE PUBLIC SPACES. NOW, LIKE I SAID BEFORE, OUR CODE DOES REQUIRE THAT WITH SIX. AND SO IF COUNCIL WANTED TO HAVE A DISCUSSION ON DO WE WANT TO KEEP IT AT 6? DO WE WANT TO CONSIDER DOING THAT WHEN IT GETS A LITTLE BIT BIGGER? LIKE I SAID BEFORE, THERE WAS ONE AREA THAT DID IT AT 10, A LOT OF AREAS THAT DID IT AT 20, AND THEN ONE THAT DID IT AT 30. AND SO I THINK AMONGST THE COUNCIL YOU WOULD HAVE A DISCUSSION ON, I THINK 6 IS A LITTLE BIT ONEROUS. MAYBE IT'S A BARRIER TO ENTRY. MAYBE WE LOOK AT DOING IT A LITTLE BIT WHEN THEY GET A LITTLE BIT BIGGER. DO YOU WANT TO KEEP THE INTERIOR LANDSCAPING? WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE? YOU KNOW, THOSE ARE THE TYPES OF THINGS THAT I THINK I'VE HEARD FROM THE DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY, I'VE HEARD FROM THIS COUNCIL, AND SO LIKE I SAID, I'M JUST LOOKING FOR A DIRECTION OR DISCUSSION ON WHERE YOU'D LIKE TO GO.

MAYOR.

COUNCILOR PORCHMAN.

My more question is, do we find that those that are reading this code and trying to get the development undergoing, do they understand it or is there often confusion? Have they gone with the way and then been told that wasn't how the code actually reads and so then they had to fix it? Because looking at other codes, they've really modernized codes to be less 1990s looking and more clear to developers. And so I'm kind of curious if we looked at rewarding things to be more layman's terms for people reading it.

So I don't do the development review, and I can have Joel or Katie speak to that. But typically what we'll see is that it's not so much that they're confused by it and we're requiring a lot of corrections, it's that they don't do it at all. And so we're like, where's your landscaping plan? And so we haven't had a lot of pushback that I'm aware of on the actual code, but what we have gotten not pushback or comments on is the amount required.

Okay, when they get the go through this process or follow up there. Do they have some kind of visual aids like a checklist or flowchart or something they can follow to know. You know what they need to have in order to meet the requirements to make it a more simple process for them. As an option, obviously, I understand sometimes they just don't do it at all, but that's an option.

NO, WE HAVEN'T. WE DON'T HAVE THAT. LIKE I SAID, MOST OF THIS DOES APPEAR TO BE PRETTY CLEAR TO FOLKS BECAUSE WE END UP GETTING SUBMITTALS WITH THE REQUIRED LANDSCAPING. WE DO GET COMMENTS ON THE REQUIRED LANDSCAPING.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

COUNCILOR WRIGHT. THANK YOU. HERE. THE FIRST ONE WAS GRAY AREAS OR GIVING OURSELVES SOME KIND OF A WAY TO NOT HAVE TO FULLY APPLY THE POLICY. AND WHAT I MEAN IS IN THE CASE OF THERE'S ALREADY A PARKING LOT THERE BUT THE PARKING LOT NEEDS REDONE, IT'S A VERY SMALL SPACE, KIND OF GETTING OUT WHAT COUNCILOR SPECKMEIER WAS GETTING OUT. AND IT WOULD JUST CAUSE SOME BURDEN TO THE PROPERTY OWNER TO TRY AND MEET THIS GUIDELINE. IT WOULD RUIN THEIR PARKING ESSENTIALLY. Do we need some kind of language in there so that there is an exemption in certain cases?

You could do that. I will say we have cut parking requirements in half already. And so it's unlikely that you would have, let's say, a building on Thane. Somebody comes in. It was built a long time ago. It has some landscaping. The number of spaces... now is not as much as what was required before. So what you're looking at is what is the existing landscaping and does it meet the intent? Is that what you're looking at? Well, almost a... Or we're going to make them rip it up and start over.

Well, if there's maybe some of those small corner lots on Bryden or somewhere in there where it's just some small little shop, and if they were going to redo the parking lot because it was just time to redo the parking lot, I assume that would trigger these rules of, okay, now these rules apply. But when they measure everything out, they're like, well, we can't fit any cars here if we do all these rules around the exterior, not even counting the interior.

Yeah.

So... having some way of still approving them to fix their parking lot without the landscaping in a case like that and so in your mind would that be done by staff or would that be done by council i don't know you okay yeah it maybe it is something that has to come to council to do some one-time approval but i i could also see it as you know potentially writing something into this code saying When it causes undue burden to the property owner.

Yes, there is something in there.

Oh, do we? Okay.

Okay, so these are renumbered, so it's a little bit harder. But on page 30 of your packet, you can see section... E, IT IS NOT THE INTENT OF THIS CHAPTER TO INHIBIT CREATIVE SOLUTIONS TO LAND USE PROBLEMS. AN ALTERNATIVE DESIGN OR MODIFICATIONS OF THESE REQUIREMENTS MAY BE ALLOWED WITH THE APPROVAL OF THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR OR DESIGNEE. THIS IS NOT A VARIANCE OR A WAIVER OF EXISTING STANDARDS. AND THE PROPOSED ALTERNATIVE MUST MEET OR EXCEED EXISTING REQUIREMENTS. REQUIREMENTS MUST BE MODIFIED WHEN, AND THEN IT GIVES THOSE THREE THINGS. AND SO WE COULD, UPON THE NEXT READING, MAKE amendments to that type of language. that would attend to what you're talking about.

And I just want to make sure you have the ability to not say, okay, well, we can't do anything then.

Yeah, I kind of do, but I think it's very specific here. So much like we were talking about fringe improvements and how Dustin really was hand-tied, I think is what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And so we could probably look at this in other codes and come up with something that loosens it up a little bit more for... staff to be able to say, yeah, here, here's, here's where you might have some ability to not have to put in something so onerous.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

Um, then just, uh, uh, all right.

So Joel's coming up. I think he might have more to say than that. You got already in there right here. Due to site conditions that are not within the properties that owners control. So the... Give you the discretion. So number three under that is what he's talking about. And the changes to that now say the required buffer yard is larger than can be provided due to the site conditions that are not within the property owner's control.

Okay.

And so that could be where we would say, yeah, that looks like your situation.

Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Okay. And then the other one was the tree growth. So how do we enforce something like that? Because it's written in there. So what do we do if your tree decides to only grow half as big as it was supposed to?

And it would be an argument for not having that requirement. Because typically what we do is we have our ability to enforce something like that is at the building permit and certificate of occupancy. We don't have a lot of leeway to be like, oh, your trees didn't come to 10%, nor do we track that type of thing. And so that is where it would make more sense to have number of trees, and we already have it. And so striking that would probably, it would just eliminate that requirement. And it does feel a little onerous on the developer, especially when you're talking about six spaces. TO HAVE TO HIRE SOMEBODY TO DO THAT CALCULATION. AND THEN ON STAFF AS WELL, TO MAKE THAT DETERMINATION ON WHETHER OR NOT IT'S WORTHWHILE.

YEAH. JUST SEEMS A SIMPLER APPROACH. YEAH.

YEAH. SO WHAT I'M HEARING IS PERHAPS COME BACK AND I GUESS COUNCIL, WHAT DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS 50% CANOPY? Councilor Forsman.

And I'm sorry if you had said this and maybe I missed it, but did you have mentioned that they were, their biggest complaint was just the how many or how the kind of the overall standard. Was there ideas of what they would prefer to see or what would feel less restrictive or is it more just we don't like it?

We don't like it. I mean, in general, landscaping. So here's the thing. If you polled a whole bunch of business owners, my guess is the majority of them are going to say, it's my property, I shouldn't have to put in landscaping, and I don't want that extra expense. I get it. But as the government, we also need to protect buffer zones between uses. We probably need to protect the public rights of way. And so that's the argument for the interior, whether or not you think interior is IS SOMETHING THAT YOU WANT TO, THAT YOU TRULY BELIEVE WE NEED TO PUT INTO A STANDARD. THAT'S SOMETHING THAT YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT. NOW, THE SUBCOMMITTEE AND THE COMP PLAN SAYS, YES, WE WANT TO INCREASE THE TREE CANOPY. AND SO IT'S THAT BALANCE, RIGHT? GOVERNMENT'S ALWAYS THAT BALANCE OF BEING PRO DEVELOPMENT, BUT ALSO PROTECTING WHAT IS. AND SO THAT'S IN OUR CHARGE.

Okay, thank you.

Would you like me to go through a couple of these and get some head nods? Okay, tree canopy, 50% canopy cover over the asphalt within 10 years. Do we want to go with number of trees?

Is that achievable?

It's achievable, but has it been achieved on every single parking lot? Probably not.

Well, I guess to me, it'd be looking at the courthouse in 10 years. I don't think it's going to achieve it.

It may not. Yeah. And then you have to think about, um, with that much shade also comes that much leaf drop that much in your stormwater systems, that much maintenance, you know, all of these things kind of come into play as well. I think it'd be nice, but I don't think you could achieve it. Okay. Well, sometimes if it's not enforceable and it's not achievable, then maybe it should be taken out.

I forgot the number of trees versus that canopy cover. Seems simpler language to me.

Okay. Councilor Forsman?

Yeah, sorry is there and I don't even know. Whether this is more cost of us cost effective or less. But I know there's a lot of cities that especially like hot cities where they're starting to come up with, um. like infrastructure covers over parking lots that, you know, are even like solar powered with lighting and then block the sun. Would that be something that would benefit a code? And then maybe that's less maintenance than a tree or that would probably be more restrictive.

I think it would be or an alternative maintenance than a tree. I think we would get pushback from the development community. We have allowed for developers to They have asked me for administrative variance to say I'm going to cover these Parking areas like carports type things that on apartments and would you reduce the number of trees for that and the answer is yes Because you're achieving the same thing

Okay, so we do have it in an instance where a parking lot, they say, we don't want to do the trees. We're going to do, like you said, not maybe not a carport, but just a overall coverage. And then that would, you would be able to work that in. So they didn't have to do as many trees. That's always a variance. We don't have to really write that in any more clear.

No, there are some exceptions in here. I would say if you got rid of the 50% tree canopy requirement, though, there would be no need to do that, although you could swap out trees for that.

Okay.

Okay. What about this? Landscaping required internally, and this is the percent of interior landscaping required. Okay, first of all, I'll ask the council, do you want to continue to require landscaping in the interior of a parking lot? So think about the parking lots we have today. We have some old ones that have not changed for a very long time, and part of the reason is this. typically if you see a very old parking lot and you're wondering why they have allowed it to be the way it is it's because it's expensive to redo it it's going to require landscaping and it's going to require stormwater now stormwater is not something that the city of Lewiston has the ability to just waive because of the MS4 permit landscaping is something that you do have control over and so you may want to think about some of those bigger parking lots and We if you got rid of the interior and there would be no interior it would be pretty much a heat island But you would still require the exterior Leave the interior and do you want to add six spaces or do you want to see something a little bit higher? And the reason I'm asking that is because of the barrier to entry if you're trying to do a new business in an existing area and you have those smaller needs, before you can get your certificate of occupancy, you're putting in all this landscaping. And so do you want that trigger to be higher?

20 spaces, is that what you said?

Start at 20 spaces and we can figure out a square footage for that.

I think that's fair. I mean, I prefer no interior, but I think 20 spaces make me more than happy. Okay.

So this will also, based on some of these changes that we're making, you know, like I said, this is going to go to you for first reading. We may, because we are making other changes, have a public hearing, and that will give people the ability to give some feedback if they have them. SO THE STRIP THAT WE ARE PROPOSING, OH, I'M SORRY, THAT'S ON THE INTERIOR. SO THAT'S THE SIX FOOT WIDE INSTEAD OF THE FIVE FOOT WIDE. AND SO I'M ASSUMING YOU'RE OKAY WITH THAT BECAUSE THAT'S REDUCTION. BUT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE ARE SUGGESTING IS THAT ON THE INTERIOR WHERE YOU HAVE TWO FEET NOW, WE ARE SUGGESTING TO GO TO THREE FEET. THAT IS ON PAGE 27, SECTION 153B1. IS THAT RIGHT? WHERE WE'RE GOING DOWN FROM THREE TO, I MEAN, I'M SORRY, WE'RE GOING FROM TWO TO THREE.

I'M SORRY, THAT'S B2.

And the reason for that is because it allows for the trees to have a better chance of growth and not buckle the concrete and asphalt. So that one, although on its surface seems to be more onerous, it's actually been recommended because of the life of the tree and the health of the tree. I'm assuming that's okay unless you say otherwise. Was there anything else in this that... COUNCIL WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS.

COUNCILOR? SO WHAT DO WE DO IF THERE IS A PARKING LOT HERE IN TOWN THAT'S A BIG PARKING LOT AND IT'S STARTING TO FALL APART AND THE OWNERS DON'T WANT TO REDO IT IF THEY HAVE TO DO LANDSCAPING ON THE INTERIOR? Don't redo it and we have a busted up parking lot Yeah, and we do have some of those boy, so what is that conversation like is there I Mean I guess from your perspective are Would you be looking for some kind of an exception to the rule in certain cases or what? Or do we just let it crumble I mean what yeah, I

I mean, I think it can be looked at from a case-by-case basis. Again, as the government, you know, you can't really write code that will fit every single situation. Some might say, well, that's how it was built in the 50s. We shouldn't make them come up to requirements of today. But then you go back to all of the public input that we got from the comprehensive plan. And as Ali was talking about, when you're looking at planning, formulating these big plans like the comp plan is when you get the public input. And the public input for us was we'd like to see trees. We'd like to see the tree canopy. Now, then the balance of government is to say, do we regulate that on people's private property when they want to redo a parking lot?

So on these, other than looking nice, what do the shrubs add?

They would add a buffer as well. So like I was talking about, I asked the same thing, actually. I was like, what do these shrubs do for anybody? But again, when you're bordering the parking lot to a street, it is creating that buffer for pedestrians, mostly pedestrians, walking along private parking lots and WHERE THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE CARS, SOMETIMES THEY HAVE THEM RUNNING, AND IT'S THAT BUFFER THAT CREATES THAT FROM THAT BEHOOT OF THAT CAR TO SOMEBODY WALKING.

THIS ONE SHOWS IT FOR THE INTERIOR.

THAT ALSO HAS IT ON THE INTERIOR AS WELL. YEAH. AND THAT'S JUST A, THAT'S ONE OF THOSE, LIKE I SAID, STANDARDS. SO IF YOU WANTED TO DO INTERIOR, BUMP IT UP TO 20 SPACES AND SAY, YEAH, WE WANT TO DO A TREE, SEE, LIKE SOME OF THESE REQUIRE ONE TREE PER EVERY 5,000 SQUARE FEET. TWO SHRUBS PER TREE. SO THAT ONE'S SAYING EVERY 5,000 SQUARE FEET, YOU GOT TO PUT A TREE, AND THEN YOU HAVE TO HAVE TWO SHRUBS.

MAYOR.

MR. DEPARTMENT.

I was also because I was trying to understand also the reasoning behind the shrubs and and I don't know if this is true or not so feel free to correct me but doing some kind of slow research just says that it does help with cooling the ground. And kind of blocking the sunlight and then actually protects the trees roots. with wind and heat compensation and then reducing irrigation demands as well as prevents erosion and dust. Is that kind of a factor in that? Or is that way off base?

No, I mean, I think all of those things are true. Like I said, this code was written in 1994, so this is what you'll typically see on these types of requirements The other thing we can do council is we can do a few of these changes Put it into practice see what kind of comments we get revisit we've changed code a lot of times and so We're trying to implement the comp plan and look at things and so, you know increasing on those islands and KIND OF GETTING TO ABOUT THE SAME PLACE AS OTHER AGENCIES, GOING TO THE 20 SPACES, THE TREE CANOPY, WE CAN MAKE SOME CONCESSIONS FOR IN OTHER WAYS. I THINK IT'S A GOOD DIRECTION. OKAY.

THEN WE WILL BE BRINGING IT BACK TO YOU IN THE NEXT MONTH OR TWO.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL. NEXT, COUNCIL WILL MOVE TO ITEM C, 4C, SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY DISCUSSION. NEW SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY TO ESTABLISH GUIDELINES FOR THE CITY SOCIAL MEDIA COUNCIL IN ANTICIPATION OF ENABLING PUBLIC COMMENTS ON THOSE ACCOUNTS. THIS IS AN ACTION ITEM AND OUR PUBLIC OUTREACH COORDINATOR CAROL MAUER IS GOING TO JOIN US TODAY OR SHE'S NOT, BUT OUR CITY ATTORNEY IS HERE. IN HER ABSENCE, JENNIFER TINGONO. WELCOME, JENNIFER.

THANK YOU, MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS. CAROL HAD A MEETING ELSEWHERE TO ATTEND TO, SO SHE WASN'T ABLE TO MAKE IT TO THIS AFTERNOON'S WORK SESSION. BUT I AM HERE TO COMMENT AND PROVIDE SOME INFORMATION ABOUT RE-ENABLING PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE CITY'S SOCIAL MEDIA. WE HAVE WORKED ON A NEW SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY FOR THE CITY. A BIG COMPONENT OF THAT WAS RE-EVALUATING HOW THE CITY USES SOCIAL MEDIA AND ENSURING THAT IT'S BEING USED IN A THOUGHTFUL AND CONDUCIVE WAY. THE PRIMARY CONCERN WITH SOME OF THE CITY DEPARTMENTS IS PEOPLE USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN A MANNER THAT THEIR POSTS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR. WE DO HAVE A CITY FACEBOOK PAGE, FOR EXAMPLE. WE HAVE A POLICE DEPARTMENT, A FIRE DEPARTMENT, A LIBRARY, AND A PARKS AND RUCK FACEBOOK PAGE AS WELL, AS WELL AS OTHER TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS. AND WHEN THE CITY USES THESE PAGES TO PUBLICIZE DIFFERENT EVENTS OR SPREAD INFORMATION. THERE ARE MANY INSTANCES WHERE IT'S MISUSED FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. AND THE CITY WANTS TO MAKE SURE THAT THOSE POSTS ARE BEING USED APPROPRIATELY. SO THE CITY IS MAKING IT CLEAR THAT THESE POSTS AND ITS USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS INTENDED AS A LIMITED PUBLIC FORUM. It's a way for the city to share information with the public. It's not necessarily an open forum for people to discuss whatever they want, regardless of the topic or the subject of a post. Because sometimes what happens is, say, the city's police department makes a post about a missing child. the things that the city was encountering was people would be like, oh, well, the police department don't care anyways, or oh, that family sucks, or who cares about this child, what about my child, or why do we care about this or that? And so that kind of stuff inhibits the use of social media as an effective means of communication. Other types of posts that we were often encountering is if the city made a post about promoting a public employee. People would put comments like, oh, that employee obviously shops at Walmart. Oh, she's ugly. Who cares about this employee? What about this? And so that kind of environment is not condoned by the city. It's not the type of engagement the city is intending for when it uses social media. And so the hope of CHANGING OUR SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY IS TO RE-ENABLE COMMENTING IN A CONDUCIVE WAY. NOW, WE'RE NOT GOING TO ADDRESS POSTS BASED ON VIEWPOINT, BUT THERE ARE GOING TO BE CONTENT RESTRICTIONS. AND IN THIS PROPOSED POLICY, THERE IS A CODE OF CONDUCT FOR PUBLIC COMMENTING. AND A BIG FOCUS OF THAT COMMENT OR THAT CODE OF CONDUCT IS INTENDED FOR ANYONE WHO POSTS ON ANY SOCIAL MEDIA SITE CONTROLLED BY THE CITY. AND IT RESTRICTS COMMENTS UNRELATED TO THE PURPOSE AND THE TOPICAL SCOPE OF THE POST. SO A POST FROM PARKS AND REC. WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ABOUT WHATEVER EVENT THAT THEY'RE POSTING ABOUT, AND THEY'RE NOT INTENDING TO GET COMMENTS ABOUT HOW STREETS SUCK SO MUCH OR WHY THESE AREAS OF THE CITY NEED TO BE IMPROVED UNLESS IT'S RELATED TO PARKS AND RECREATION. LIKEWISE FOR THE OTHER AREAS OF THE CITY. THE CITY'S GENERAL SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES, THOSE ARE A LITTLE BIT BROADER, BUT WHEN WE HAVE SPECIFIC PAGES THAT ARE GEARED TOWARD OUR SPECIFIC DEPARTMENTS, WE ARE ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO COMMENT ABOUT THOSE DEPARTMENTS AND ACTIVITIES THAT THEY ARE HOSTING. DIFFERENT THINGS THAT WILL BE ALLOWED AND PERMITTED IS REALLY UP TO THE DISCRETION OF THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THAT PARTICULAR PAGE AND THE INDIVIDUALS POSTING FOR THE CITY RELATED TO THAT. WE DO HAVE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS THAT WANT TO BE ABLE TO ENGAGE THE PUBLIC IN DIFFERENT WAYS, AND WE HAVE OTHER DEPARTMENTS THAT ONLY WANT TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR INFORMATION SHARING, SUCH AS EMERGENCIES, OUTAGES, OR ANY OTHER KIND OF TIME-SENSITIVE MANNER IN WHICH PEOPLE HAVE INDICATED THEY WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE THIS INFORMATION THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA. But things that we do have a history of receiving, such as links to child pornography, links to business enterprises, links to third-party scam sites, links to malware, all that kind of stuff, we are going to prohibit. So a majority of our posts... WILL AUTOMATICALLY PROHIBIT OR THE POSTS WILL BE REMOVED DEPENDING ON THE CAPABILITY OF THE SITE. ANY POST THAT INCLUDES ANY KIND OF UNSOLICITED PICTURES, LINKS, GIFTS, GIFTS, ALL OF THE ABOVE. IT WILL ALSO RESTRICT CONDUCT OR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ANY CONDUCT THAT'S ILLEGAL, INAPPROPRIATE, SEXUAL IN NATURE OR ANYTHING of that nature, as well as anything that relates to the support for or in opposition of any political campaign, candidate, or ballot measures, because there are state laws that prohibit the city from using its resources in support or against ANY PARTICULAR BALLOT MEASURE. WE MAY HAVE POSTS THAT PROVIDE INFORMATION SIMILAR TO WHAT WE DID WITH OUR BOND. YOU KNOW, IT WAS NEITHER FOR NOR AGAINST, BUT WE CAN TELL YOU THE PROS AND CONS OF ANYTHING. WE CAN TELL YOU THE FACTS ABOUT A PARTICULAR MEASURE, BUT NOT ENDORSE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. WE'LL ALSO BE PROHIBITING ANY MATERIAL THAT IS SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT, TRADEMARK, SERVICE MARK RESTRICTION, OR OTHERWISE IS CONFIDENTIAL PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. AND ANYTHING THAT IS CONTAINING LINKS OR REPETITIVE COMMENTS, BECAUSE WE DO GET A LOT OF THAT AS WELL. WE'LL GET POSTS WITH LINKS TO SOMEONE ELSE'S WEBSITE OR SOMEONE ELSE'S BUSINESS AND THINGS OF THAT NATURE. SO WE'RE GOING TO BE LIMITING THOSE TYPES OF ACTIVITIES ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA. AND IN ALL THE VARIOUS FORMS BECAUSE SOMETIMES WHAT PEOPLE DO IS THEY PUT SPACES BETWEEN THE LETTERS OR THEY'LL SUBSTITUTE A NUMBER FOR A CHARACTER OR PUT, YOU KNOW, DIFFERENT SPECIAL CHARACTERS IN LIEU OF A LETTER TO SPELL OUT A WORD THAT IS OTHERWISE PROHIBITED IN MOST ENCENSES. AND SO WE'RE GOING TO MAKE SURE THAT THAT KIND OF ACTIVITY IS MONITORED BETTER. AND WE WILL HAVE THE ABILITY THAT IF THERE IS SOMEONE THAT POSTS THAT KIND OF CONTENT, EVERYTHING IS ARCHIVED, SO WE RETAIN A COPY PURSUANT TO OUR PUBLIC RECORDS POLICY OR, I'M SORRY, OUR RECORDS RETENTION POLICY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PUBLIC RECORDS LAW, BUT WE MAY ULTIMATELY DELETE OR HIDE THOSE COMMENTS. IF WE DO DELETE OR HIDE COMMENTS, AGAIN, WE STILL HAVE A COPY OF WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED. WE'RE JUST NOT CONDONING THAT ACTIVITY OR CONTINUING IN MAKING THAT INFORMATION PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. AS A PART OF DOING THIS, THOUGH, WE'RE HERE TO ASK FOR THE CITY COUNCIL TO SUPPORT THE CITY'S USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND TO SUPPORT OUR CODE OF CONDUCT IN RELATION TO THAT. WE ARE PUTTING GREATER RESPONSIBILITY ON OUR CITY STAFF AND THIRD PARTIES WHO ACT AS ADMINISTRATORS OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA SITES. THEY WILL BE REQUIRED TO GO THROUGH TRAINING AND ALL SOCIAL MEDIA WILL BE COORDINATED THROUGH THE PUBLIC OUTREACH OFFICE AND THROUGH CAROL MAUER. AND SHE WILL BE SUPERVISING OUR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS. SO SHE HAS DEVELOPED A MORE COMPREHENSIVE TRAINING AND ACCOUNTABILITY PROCESS FOR THAT. AND IN ASKING THAT YOU ENDORSE THIS AND INDICATE YOUR SUPPORT, WE'RE ASKING THAT YOU DO IT THROUGH A RESOLUTION. YOU DON'T HAVE TO NECESSARILY ADOPT, YOU KNOW, THE COUNCIL ISN'T NECESSARILY ADOPTING THE POLICY. THIS IS AN ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY THAT THE MAYOR APPROVES, BUT IN PUTTING THIS OUT THERE, WE WOULD LIKE COUNCIL SUPPORT BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, WE HAVE HEARD THAT THE OVERWHELMING PUBLIC WOULD LIKE THE ABILITY TO COMMENT, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, WE'RE TRYING TO TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT OUR COMMUNITY AND TO PROTECT OUR PUBLIC and even to protect ourselves from this, you know, unauthorized and somewhat abusive use of social media, both against members of the public and against our staff.

Counselors, questions, comments? Counselor Spickenmeyer.

So, you said a burden on our staff, so we have a staff member that could spend the time to read all those comments and decide if they're... DELINQUENT OR WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT?

SO WE'RE NOT REQUIRING ANYONE TO READ ALL THE COMMENTS. AND THE POLICY SAYS THAT WHEN IN DOUBT, THE MESSAGE MUST STAY. IF, YOU KNOW, AGAIN, WE'RE NOT EVALUATING THE MESSAGES BASED ON THE VIEWPOINT. THE QUESTION IS, DOES THIS CONTAIN A LINK OR DOES THIS, YOU KNOW, RELATE TO, YOU KNOW, IS THIS SEXUALLY EXPLICIT LANGUAGE? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED AGAINST OUR POLICY? And so filters work for that. We have programs that we have available to monitor that. But then we do have some obligation on our staff to monitor it. Most of it can be done fairly quickly from what Carol and her office has reported. IT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT ONE PERSON WILL BE SPENDING AN EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF TIME BECAUSE, AGAIN, THEY WILL BE MANAGING THE COMMENTS ON THEIR POSTS. AND SO IF A DEPARTMENT MAKES A POST, YOU KNOW, THEY CAN LIMIT COMMENTS. THEY CAN ALLOW THEM OPENLY. BUT, AGAIN, THERE ARE TOOLS ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES THEMSELVES THAT ALSO WILL CARRY A MAJORITY OF THAT WORK.

ON IT, I'VE NOTICED SOME SITES HAVE, THEY'LL COME UP AND IT WILL BE RELEVANT. THEN YOU CAN PICK ALL RELEVANT OR ONES THAT STAY WITHIN THE SUBJECT LINE. AND ALL THEIR, LIKE YOU SAID, THEIR WAY OFF CHARACTER OR WHATEVER. SO IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT? NO.

THAT'S A DIFFERENT TYPE OF FILTERING DONE BY THE WEBSITE AS FAR AS THE ARCHIVING. SO ANY POST THAT GETS MADE TO THE CITY'S SOCIAL MEDIA, WE HAVE A PROGRAM THAT KEEPS ALL THAT INFORMATION. SO EVEN IF THE CITY WERE TO DELETE A POST OR A COMMENT, THEN WE STILL HAVE A COPY OF THAT POST IN ITS ENTIRETY. AND THE COMMENT. SO WE HAVE HAD PEOPLE DO PUBLIC RECORD REQUESTS FOR COMMENTS THAT THEY HAVE MADE, AND IN MOST CASES WE CAN PRODUCE THEM. THERE'S TIMES WHEN IF THEY REMOVE THEMSELVES BEFORE WE CAN ARCHIVE IT OR CAPTURE THAT INFORMATION, THERE'S NOTHING THAT WE CAN DO TO PREVENT THAT KIND OF ACTIVITY. BUT BEFORE WE DO ANYTHING, WE MAKE SURE THAT WE ARCHIVE IT. AS FAR AS I KNOW, THE PROGRAM IS AUTOMATICALLY DOING THAT ON A REGULAR BASIS.

I'D SUPPORT IT.

THANK YOU. COUNCIL, I'M GOING TO ASK IF DIRECTOR GLENN WOULD COME UP FOR JUST A MINUTE AND I'LL TIME THEM. Director, could you just give me and the council one more good reason why this was a good idea to turn this on and how it impacts your department and what it's going to be able to do for you?

Absolutely. Justin Glenn, Parks and Recreation Director. Social media accounts for usually 66 to 80 percent of engagement and information sharing, especially when you're in a department like mine or the library where you're doing direct service providing. There's a lot of opportunities where we can get direct real-time feedback and also we can look at program specific if we have partners, agreements like we do for like driving movies and things like that. It's a good opportunity to highlight and tag that partner and get increased utilization and engagement there and that shares so we have more bandwidth and growth. there's a lot of other positive benefits. Obviously, there's negative benefits, too. But if we look at trends in the industry, that's where people go to. There's data points, cross-generational impact, where Gen Z, our youngest users, are using 80% of their information. That's where they're garnering their information. So if we want to increase utilization or get real-time information out to the public, that's just a valuable tool. And a lot of ways to do that is to have comments engaged. You can tag your spouse, your kid, or whatever that might be interested in. So we get a little bit more engagement right there, too. It also helps us see ourselves. So we can measure when we're looking at analytics against national standards for performance, or if we're trying to identify, hey, is this working or not working? If we're looking for historical photos for the reopening of Burt Lips, we can have a central location where we can get direct engagement from the community to do that. So those are some of the pros, sir. Did I answer your question?

I WOULD ADD ON TO THAT THAT THESE FEATURES THAT DIRECTOR GLENN IS TALKING ABOUT IS ONLY AVAILABLE WHEN COMMENTING IS ON. ANOTHER THING ADDRESSING THE STAFF TIME IS THE CITY CAN SCHEDULE POSTS IN ADVANCE. SO LIKE THIS MONTH IS NATIONAL PARKS AND REC MONTH. AND SO, YOU KNOW, IF WE HAVE OUR COMMENTING ON, WE CAN SCHEDULE DIFFERENT POSTS TO COME OUT. RIGHT NOW WITH THAT FUNCTION NOT BEING ON FOR OUR POST, WE CANNOT DO THAT. SO IT DOES TAKE MORE IN THE MOMENT TIME FOR STAFF TO, YOU KNOW, GET READY, PREPARE A POST, AND BE THERE TO POST IT SO THAT THEY CAN MAKE SURE THE COMMENTS ARE TURNED OFF. IF WE TURN THE COMMENTING BACK ON AS WE PLAN AND WE HAVE AN APPROPRIATE PUBLIC COMMENT POLICY AND CODE OF CONDUCT, WE CAN ALLOW THOSE POSTS TO GO. AND THEN AS THE STAFF MEMBER IS MONITORING IT AND RESPONDING POTENTIALLY TO MESSAGES AND CORRESPONDENTS, THEN THEY CAN ENGAGE IN A MORE THOUGHTFUL AND TIME CONSCIENCE BANNER.

there's a lot of data analytics on the back end of these social media platforms too, which proved beneficial to us. When to post, what time to post, what audiences we're trying to get. So having that, the more data points that we have is more helpful as far as getting good timely information out. We also want to make sure that when we are using social media, it's in a very strategic manner. So we're not just throwing stuff online all the time, which is not going to be the case. We want to have a strategic plan social media plan in place and this will help enable us to make sure we're hitting that. When mom or dad are picking up their little ones, they're in the pickup line, that's typically when a lot of people are scrolling real quick because they're in a stagnant moment. So we know that or we could know that and that's better opportunity for us to engage.

SO IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO PROVIDE A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT. I WILL PREPARE A GENERAL ONE IN TIME HOPEFULLY FOR THE JUNE 27TH, I'M SORRY, JULY 27TH MEETING. AND I WILL SEND A DRAFT VERSION TO YOU ALL TO VIEW AND COMMENT BEFOREHAND. BUT AGAIN, THE INTENT IS MORE TO ENDORSE THE POLICY AND TO SHOW YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT TOWARDS THE CODE OF CONDUCT. I BELIEVE YOU'VE ALREADY ALL SEEN OR BEEN PROVIDED A COPY OF THAT AS WELL, BUT WE'LL MAKE SURE THAT YOU GET ANOTHER COPY IN THE EVENT THAT YOU HAVE IT. THIS POLICY HAS NOT YET FORMALLY BEEN ADOPTED EITHER, AND IT'S NOT IN EFFECT UNTIL IT'S SIGNED BY THE MAYOR. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, DEB.

COUNCIL, NEXT UP, 4D, ADVISORY BOARD AND COMMISSION MEMBER MEMBERS AS REQUESTED BY COUNCILOR JOHN SPICELMEYER AT THE JUNE 1, 2026 TRACE COUNCIL WORK SESSION. COUNCILOR SPICELMEYER. THANK YOU.

I'M GOING TO THROW THE PARKS AND RAT COMMISSION, TALK ABOUT THEM MAINLY BECAUSE I'VE BEEN ON THERE A COUPLE YEARS. AND I GUESS THE BIGGEST THING FOR ME IS I'VE BEEN ON IT A LONG TIME AND I'VE TALKED TO DIRECTOR GLENN AND I'VE GOT TO THE POINT OR I DID, I WAS AT THE POINT WHERE THERE WAS NO REAL REASON FOR ME TO SHOW UP. Because all they were doing was they would read the minutes from the last meeting. They had one section in it that was supposed to have been the commission discussion, and we'd spend 90% of it. The director would do his monthly report, and we would close out. So the director and I started bringing up the powers and the duties of the commission, and there's a commission member in there that's been on it for 20 years, and he has never heard that before. that they were supposed to be bringing things to the meeting, and then the director and the liaison would bring them to the council for discussion, important things that the citizens wanted to talk about or were impacting them. And each one, we've kind of talked each meeting a little bit more about it, you know, brought it up on the screen and looked at the different things. The main one, that's why I had Tanya hand out these printouts. One of them was the board commission's duties and the other one I just put in there was the parks and recs things. But the main thing is there's a top one is the citizens direct involvement in their local government and positively impact the future of their community. And that's what the commission member's job is. So now they've started bringing in things. I'm talking more about fixing the locomotive, having a community, garden, things like that. But the biggest thing that got me was the person that had been on there forever had never heard that before. The liaison, the councilman would bring their issues to the council for concerns that they had about it. And I'm just wondering if other commissions are the same. Are we doing our commission members justice by not keeping them up to speed on WHAT THEIR ABILITIES ARE OR THEIR DUTIES OR RESPONSIBILITIES. BECAUSE I KNOW OUR GROUP WASN'T AND THEY ARE NOW. THEY'RE STARTING TO WORK MORE. I THINK THE DIRECTOR, I THINK THEY ARE. WE'RE GETTING BETTER AND BETTER EVERY MEETING, HAVING BETTER DISCUSSIONS.

ANYWAY, JUST SHORT AND SWEET. WELL, I CERTAINLY THINK ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I CAN DO IS I CAN SEND A REMINDER OUT. OUR STAFF LIAISONS, BECAUSE WE HAVE THOSE, TOO, AND WHAT THEIR ROLE IS IN THAT. SO THEY CAN HELP GUIDE THAT DISCUSSION OR PROVIDE, YOU KNOW, THE BACKGROUND TO IT OR SUPPORTED DOCUMENTATION, YOU KNOW, IN THAT EFFORT, TOO, BECAUSE THEY SHOULD BE PRETTY FAMILIAR WITH WHAT THIS IS. YOU KNOW, I CAN UNDERSTAND WHERE A COUNCIL MEMBER, MAYBE A MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC MAY NOT HAVE REACHED SOME OF THIS STUFF. THAT'S ACTUALLY COMMON. BUT CERTAINLY I THINK THE STAFF LIAISON CAN PLAY A PRETTY BIG ROLE IN HELPING TO GUIDE THE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE MEMBERS. SO I CAN CERTAINLY DO THAT.

WELL, ANOTHER ONE, A BIG ONE, WAS THIS ABSENTEEISM. And we typically I think that commission kind of fights to have a quorum, you know three They're supposed to be I think seven on it some I've never seen So I had asked their part to start doing a roster, you know roll call on it And so we could see you know, and we should be voting on whether or not they're Released it on I think our next meeting we're going to I our chair has been out and she's the one that initiates that but We'll start looking at and talk to the people. You know, if they're going to be on a board, they need to show up.

We have removed members in the past, and I'm willing to do that. And if that takes me coming back to the council and asking to remove that appointment, you know, I'm willing to do that.

And I think if the meetings get more important, they'll show up more often.

Counselors, other comments, observations?

There. I would just say, I agree. I think that sometimes the commissions I've been on. And I've been on a couple now, some are really active and they know exactly. What they're supposed to be doing and engaging with council and using me as a kind of a tool to. Go to the council and say what they're up to and what they hope to bring. But some are not as understanding of that. I don't know. And I don't know if they know that is their full purpose. So, I, I agree that having the staff remind them and give them. They're not their site what they're what they're supposed to be doing and how the commission really is supposed to be is. I think going to be extremely helpful for those that are there too. Like, uh, counselor said, I think sometimes they don't show up because maybe things. Aren't getting done and they find it maybe not worth their time. But I do know we have removed people for attendance issues. I've been on commissions. I have had that happen, but I think it's definitely something that we need to. Be a little stricter on probably so I just want to say, I agree with that.

Thank you, Councillor. I can also say that I think within the last year, we asked to have the councils basically do the commissions to do a review on whether or not we should keep that commission in place. Remember, we've done that a year or two ago. And so if the work's not getting done, I would agree with you, then just cancel the commission or the council, because everybody's got enough things to do. So that's always an option, and you could always recommend that, too, if we don't feel like it's worth having that. It's because it wastes your time, it wastes staff time, it wastes other people's time. If we're not going to attend the meetings, we're not going to. YOU KNOW, TRY TO DO THE WORK OF THE PEOPLE. THAT'S REALLY WHAT THESE COMMISSIONS ARE FOR. SO, YEAH.

COUNSEL WRIGHT. THANK YOU. ARE WE STILL LOOKING AT A POSSIBLE COMBINING OF THE CEMETERY AND URBAN FORESTRY AND THE PARTS AND RECS? I DON'T KNOW IF THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE. HE'S NOT. OKAY.

I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION, COUNSELOR. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THAT? Question to me?

Yeah. Councilor Wright's question. Oh, yeah. Is that still the plan? You seem to know more about it than me.

Well, the director has talked about it. I think he's going to bring a proposal, but I'm not really sure. Okay. There's certainly an option, I think, still on the table. It would make sense.

Yeah.

Very similar business that's going on. ALL RIGHT, COUNCIL. NEXT WE HAVE ITEM E, STATE MINIMUM REVENUE GUARANTEE GRANT BILL PRESENTATION FROM NESPERS COUNTY COMMISSIONER JOE GISH. I DON'T SEE COMMISSIONER GISH HERE ON THE PROPOSED STATE MRG GRANT BILL AS REQUESTED BY COUNCILOR WRIGHT ON JUNE 22.

right yeah I'll I'll reach back out to Joe and see if he wants to reschedule this but for the council there's I got all the information added to the packet so you did for me thank you so there's a lot of great info there that if you go through it you should be able to get a email or letter out to our representatives that that was my goal with this was giving you guys the information to BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH OUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES AND TRY TO GET SOME LOBBYING, SO TO SPEAK, SOME MOVEMENT ON GETTING THE STATE INVOLVED IN THE AIRPORT.

WELL, COUNSELOR, I CAN TELL YOU THAT I HAVE MET WITH COMMISSIONER GISH TO TALK ABOUT SOME I KNOW THAT WE HAVE DISCUSSED LOOKING AT OTHER COUNTIES IN THE AREA, YOU KNOW, THAT MIGHT WANT TO BE PARTICIPATING IN SOMETHING LIKE THIS. SURPRISINGLY, MAYBE NOT, A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE EMPLOYMENTS COME FROM COUNTIES OUTSIDE OF NESPERS. I MEAN IN IDAHO, TOO. SO I THINK THERE'S AN OPPORTUNITY TO TRY TO ENGAGE WITH THOSE OTHER COMMISSIONS AND POSSIBLY ASK THEM TO HELP IN THIS EFFORT AND PARTICIPATE DIRECTLY IN THE AIRPORT. SO THAT DISCUSSION IS HAPPENING. RIGHT. OKAY. COUNCIL WILL MOVE ON TO UNFINISH THE NEW BUSINESS. ROOM NUMBER 5, CITY COUNCILOR COMMENTS. COMMENTS SHALL NOT BE RELATED TO AN ITEM CURRENTLY FOR THE COUNCIL OR WHEN IT MAY BECOME FOR THE COUNCIL IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. SHALL BE LIMITED TO COMMENTS, NOT DISCUSSION. COUNCILORS?

Mayor.

Councillor Forsman.

I just wanted to speak a little bit on the Let's Talk Taxes open house. It was a good, as far as I know, it was a good turnout. I don't remember the exact number. I thought I heard around the last number I heard was like 380 in attendance. And that could be a little inflated. I think that was around the number. I heard it was really engaging. People were just really wanting to know what was going on. Some people, you know, maybe were a little more upset that the taxes are high, which we all understand. And then some are just really trying to understand the reasoning behind our taxes and how it works. And so I never, and there was a lot of stands there to participate, like the port and the county and everything. So it was a really good turnout. I think I want to thank Carol Mauer for that, because that was a lot of work for her to put that on and to make sure everybody who was engaged and had all their stands and I think that when we get a chance to do more of those is definitely a good opportunity for the public to be involved with their local government. So it was a good turnout.

Thank you, Counselor. Other Council comments? Council President Kleberg? I'll be out of town next week, so I probably won't be here for Monday's meeting. We will miss our Council President on Monday. We will take note of that. Thank you. ITEM B, CITY BOARDS, COMMISSIONS, LIAISON UPDATES. ANY UPDATES TO SHARE? NONE? OKAY. ANY COMMENTS? SO I HAVE A COUPLE OF THINGS TO THROW OUT HERE. OUR CITY CLERK SENT YOU AN E-MAIL EARLIER ABOUT THE VALIDATION ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BOARD MEETING ON THURSDAY, JULY 30TH. IF YOU'D LIKE TO ATTEND, THE CITY WILL HAVE A TABLE THERE, AND WE'LL HAVE A COUPLE OF OUR CITY STAFF JOINING US AT THAT TABLE. IF YOU CANNOT MAKE IT ON THAT EVENING, IF YOU'D PLEASE LET THE CITY CLERK KNOW, BECAUSE WE DO WANT TO FILL THAT TABLE UP AND THERE ARE OTHERS WHO ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING. SO PLEASE LET US KNOW. IT SHOULD BE A GOOD EVENING. HOUSE REP, U.S. CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL BOMGARTNER WILL BE THE SPEAKER THAT NIGHT. I WANT TO THROW SOMETHING OUT TO YOU, NO COMMENTS ON IT TODAY, BUT JUST AN IDEA THAT'S BEEN TALKED ABOUT BEFORE, ABOUT MOVING ALL OF OUR COUNCIL MEETINGS FROM MONDAYS TO TUESDAYS, IF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE TO YOU. IF YOU COULD PLEASE THINK ABOUT THAT, MAYBE SHARE THAT AT A FUTURE DISCUSSION, BUT IT'S ASKED ME ABOUT AND I SAID, WELL, I DON'T KNOW. AND I KNOW INTERNALLY WE DISCUSSED THIS AT OUR LEADERSHIP MEETINGS TO SEE HOW THAT CHANGE MIGHT IMPACT OUR WORKFLOW. IF THAT'S SOMETHING THAT YOU THINK MAY BE AN OPTION FOR US, WE OBVIOUSLY HAVE TO CHANGE OUR CITY ORDINANCE, BUT I'LL BRING THAT BACK AND SEE IF WE CAN TALK ABOUT THAT AND SEE IF THERE'S SOME BENEFIT TO THAT PEOPLE'S WORK SCHEDULES. AND THEN LASTLY, I JUST WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU THAT THE STATE OF OREGON I THINK MUST HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR BECAUSE ON THE WAY HOME YESTERDAY FROM Seaside, about, I don't know, a few miles past Crowdale, they're working on a bridge there. The interstate. And cars are backed up for miles in both lanes. And then when you finally get to the front, there's a sign there that says, please take turns. Like one car from here, one car from there. And it was just kind of... FUNNY TO LOOK AT THAT SIGN AND LOOK AT THE BEHAVIOR OF PEOPLE TRYING TO SQUEEZE THROUGH THERE. SO THANK YOU, OREGON, FOR THAT MOMENT OF BREVITY AFTER SITTING IN A LONG LINE FOR ABOUT AN HOUR AND A HALF. AGENDA TOPICS. COUNSELORS? NOTHING ON THIS ONE. OKAY. I WOULD ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO ADJOURN.

SO MOVED. saying aye. Aye.

Opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you, council.