City Council - workshop

One minute. Really? It's OK.

Thank you for joining us this evening for Albany City Council Work Session, August 24th at 4 p.m. I'll now call the meeting to order. Can we have a roll call, please?

Councillor Thompson. Councillor Van Drommelen. Here. Councillor Smith.

Here.

Councillor McGee.

Present.

Councillor Newton.

Here.

Mayor Johnson.

Here. Next on tonight's agenda is public comment. Public comment is the time for Albany residents to speak and for councils to listen. The council won't discuss topics or respond to questions or make decisions during the public comment time. But we'll take comments and requests under advisement. All persons in the audience, excuse me, in attendance at the public meeting should avoid conduct which is unreasonably loud, destructive or profane, rude or slanderous, or threatening remarks will not be permitted. Whistling and yelling, foot stomping, and any other demonstrations and displaying of signs, speaking out of order are also not permitted. Speakers are limited to three minutes and must follow council's rules and observe the same standards of decorum. If you're unable to do so, you'll be asked to step down and take to your seat or be removed from the meeting. When you get to the microphone, please state whether or not, give your name and state whether or not you live in the city of Albany.

First on tonight's agenda is Mark Stewart.

THANK YOU. MY NAME IS MARK STEWART. I LIVE HERE IN ALBANY. LET'S HAVE AT IT. THE LAST TIME WE WERE HERE, I TRIED TO SPEAK UP DURING COUNCIL BUSINESS, SPECIFICALLY AT A POINT WHERE A REPORT THAT I MADE WAS BEING DISCUSSED DURING COUNCILMAN VAN DRUMMOND'S MOTION. I WAS SHUT DOWN BEFORE I COULD EVEN MAKE THAT COMMENT AND I WAS TOLD THAT THIS IS NOT THE TIME. I've had weeks to think about this and frankly, how dare you? I sat right in that chair back in the spring and I watched APD and a flock representative interject in council business. It was the time then. If you folks don't want the public involved, close the doors. Ironically, it's unfortunate that you guys voted down that measure because prior to council business, you guys listened to a report on road maintenance. And this has been a topic that has come up in the council again and again and again, and it's been very important to you guys. And what do you folks think one of the main ingredients in asphalt is and slurry? It's oil. That whole report that you paid a staff member to produce might be meaningless as soon as the cost of oil goes up high enough that the cost per square foot of asphalt doubles or triples or more. And I think that's going to be extra tragic because I'm personally on board with the idea of paying a fee for road maintenance. But how tragic would that be if you succeeded in accomplishing that? You did something. You tried. to help get the city improved, improved our roads, and then we pay into the fee, and then none of the work gets done because the cost to do it shut up just out of nowhere. And it's going to be up there for a while, folks. This oil problem, and to anyone within the sound of my voice, we are in trouble right now, today. Our oil inventories are at a point right now, the total crude inventory is at a point where it has not been since 1984. I wasn't even born yet. Our current strategic reserve is at a point that it hasn't been since it was filled up the first time. And our overall levels keep going down and down and down and down. And for all of our emergency planning that we've got, none of that takes into account the idea that the federal government might actually be causing the problem and exacerbating it. So I'm telling you, we need to be addressing this. You guys went through all of that just for the roads, and not a one of you mentioned the price of oil or how that might affect the cost to get the road maintenance done. So I'm going to leave it at that.

Thank you very much. I see a name here that was crossed out. Okay, thank you. Next on tonight's agenda, 2027-2028 Legislative Priorities and State and Federal Legislative Advocacy Plan. Peter Charlton, pages two through 71 of your packet.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. Unfortunately, Kayla is out ill for a couple of days. She's put a lot of work into this presentation, along with the department directors, and this evening you're stuck listening to me, and I'll try to do it justice. And Eric, can you give me slide two there? Okay, so this evening what we're, the four things we'll try to do is review the proposed 2027 to 28 legislative priorities and why they matter to Albany. You've been asked to rank the League of Oregon City's priorities, and we also have a few Albany-specific city priorities. Then discuss a strategy, a more coordinated state and federal advocacy strategy. And then finally to provide direction for finalizing that 2027 and 28 legislative agenda. Next slide, Eric. Historically, our advocacy efforts have been modest. Past councils have weighed in on the League's legislative priorities every time they've been presented. The League maintains a team of lobbyists who specialize in various subject matters. But as you can imagine, it's not easy to represent 241 cities. Each member city of the LOC has different perspectives and different priorities. Albany has its own issues, and representation at the state level has been minimal and consisted largely of staff responding as subject matter experts or advocating for specific financial support. There has been no participation at the federal level. Now this council has recently expressed their desire to be more engaged and active in advocacy. There are opportunities at both the state and federal levels. Staff identified issues where sustained legislative engagement could have a significant financial or operational impact upon the city, including transportation funding, infrastructure investment, regulatory mandates, housing and economic development, and public safety. The ability to have an advocacy capability at the federal level would be helpful. It's timely because federal transportation and infrastructure programs represent a significant potential source of funding for projects that are difficult to address through local revenues alone. We have substantial transportation needs, including the preservation and improvement of arterials and collectors and improvements to the city's interstate interchanges, I-5 interchanges. Federal grant programs can provide significant outside investment in these projects. If Council supports retaining legislative advocates, staff would develop an appropriate scope of work and a procurement process to secure those services before the start of the legislative session. Next slide, Eric. There is a score sheet in your packet or you can call it a ballot if you like. Remember, there's an LOC presentation on September 3rd that Councilor Smith brought up that you can watch, which will provide additional information. We would ask that on that ballot, You complete both sections, select five League of Oregon Cities priorities in the first section, then select and rank five city priorities in the second section. The city priority list includes every LOC priority plus two city-specific priorities. When you go through the staff input, note that the staff ratings are advisory. They do not establish the city's final legislative priorities. The voting exercise identifies areas of council consensus. It won't prevent the city from responding to emerging legislative opportunities or threats. Answers from all councilors will be consolidated with the top five scoring in each category being recommended forward for council adoption. Responses are not anonymous. For public transparency, please include your name on that vote sheet or score sheet. All of those sheets will be placed in the packet for the official council vote on September 23rd. And if you would return your completed sheet no later than September 9th, we would appreciate it. And again, I'll remind you that there is that LOC presentation on September 3rd that may be helpful to you in advancing your understanding of the issues. Next slide, Eric. I briefly mentioned how we've been advocating in recent history Maryland could probably give some history going a little further back, but we're recommending a change with this next session. We would continue to work with the League of Oregon Cities and other advocacy organizations and state agencies, but we'll take a more active role, reflective, I think, of Council's intent. This could involve professional lobbying. Next slide, Derek. As you see here, professional representation is not the exclusive prerogative reserved for big cities. And in fact, most cities over 40,000 do use dedicated lobbyists. 25 Oregon cities, in fact, have established relationships with lobbyists. Next slide. Professional advocacy would provide the benefits and advantages you see here. Continuous monitoring of the environment for threats and opportunities. Direct relationships with the network of legislators, agency staff, and other lobbyists and interested parties. Strategic expertise. In other words, when and how to advocate, and perhaps when not to advocate, step back. And of course, the coordination of our message. Next slide. Why federal advocacy? We've been moderately successful in obtaining congressionally directed spending, formerly known as earmarks. But this takes us several steps beyond. Federal transportation and infrastructure programs can support projects on a larger scale, including multi-million dollar opportunities. It gives us a chance to position our projects earlier, before grant notices open, and to build congressional and agency support. Surface transportation reauthorization this year will shape formula funding. It'll shape direct to city grants. It'll shape safety programs, arterials and collectors and interchange investment. And this is the process of renewing federal funding and policy directives for transportation programs, including highways, transit and rail systems. The current authorization established under the, you may remember the IIJA, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is set to expire on September 30th of this year, next month. And Congress is working on new legislation to ensure continued investment in these critical infrastructure areas. Next slide, Eric. So why both state and federal, you ask? I partially answered that on the last slide, but a coordinated strategy allows Albany to pursue the funding or policy solution at the level where it can be most appropriately, effectively addressed. Next slide, Eric. Turning back to the legislative briefings in your packet, there are 30 briefings which translate policy proposals into specific impacts on Albany. They summarize the issue, its implications, and they provide a recommended advocacy position. Staff ratings reflect staff assessments of relative financial, operational, and strategic impacts to Albany. Each briefing had the benefit of and were developed by and through cross-departmental review. Next slide. It'll come as no surprise that staff see the greatest potential for impact in these areas that you see on the screen in front of you. The council is grappling with infrastructure and transportation right now, and growth and development are closely related. However, cybersecurity issues are everywhere, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence has emerged as an issue area with broad ramifications. Next slide. Among the Albany specific priorities at the state level, GEMT or ground emergency medical transport helps us offset rising costs of ambulance transport and is a very important part of our general fund budget. Addressing the regulatory mandates imposed by the Department of Environmental Quality is essential to being able to comply and properly and responsibly manage our water utility. At the federal level, we should be positioned to advocate for direct to city grant opportunities for streets, arterials, bridges, and interchanges. Next slide. These five bullets outline our developing state advocacy strategy. Use the council's ranked priorities, as we will here in the next month, to focus Albany's legislative agenda Coordinating with the League of Oregon Cities when statewide priorities align with Albany's interests. And lead with the specific examples, costs, and implementation impacts on Albany, on our city. And then of course, building sustained relationships with our legislators or maintaining them with our state agencies and with regional partners. And then provided council directs us to do so, to use professional representation to monitor bills and engage when language can still change. Next slide, Eric. At the federal level, the strategy would focus on direct federal funding opportunities. It would help us position our projects before those grants solicitations are released, and it would help us build our existing relationships with our congressional delegation and establish relationships with relevant federal agencies. It would also help us to coordinate our requests with our capital plans and with our state advocacy, and to use that representation to track reauthorization, appropriations, and discretionary funding. Next slide. So armed with the information you have here and from the upcoming September 3rd session, we'll need you to identify your top five League of Oregon Cities priorities and top five Albany priority issues. On September 23rd, we'd ask that you be prepared to submit our vote to the League of Oregon Cities and to adopt our own Albany legislative priorities. And I want to point out here, stress that I know that the legislative session has not yet started, but this approach is designed to be flexible so that we can change as those opportunities and threats come out in the form of different bills. Tonight, you can move to accept pursuit of federal transportation dollars through the Federal Transportation Reauthorization Bill as our one federal legislative priority, if you see fit to do so. And then what we'll look for is your direction to staff to pursue and procure professional state and federal legislative representation for the 2027 and 28 legislative cycles. If council supports this approach, staff would develop an appropriate scope of work and a procurement process to secure those services before the start of the legislative session. The scope would establish expectations for advocacy, funding identification, legislative monitoring, relationship development, coordination with city staff, and regular reporting to the council and to the city manager. And that, Mr. Mayor and Council, is the presentation. Any questions that you might have?

Council Smith has a question.

I have two, thank you. The Federal Transportation Reauthorization Bill Forgive my skepticism, but I wonder about anything with a dollar sign attached to it making its way from Washington to the West Coast. Do we have any, other than Senator Merkley and Senator Wyden and Representative Bynum, is anybody working back there?

No, not on, I mean, the National League of Cities helps us represent.

No, I mean people in Congress. Are they working?

Oh, is anybody working? Yes. Okay. I'm assuming there are people working.

I've been told that that's happening, but I'm skeptical. I'm... What I read through this whole packet last week, of course, and the number one thing that was hanging on every page was a dollar sign. This is all about money and where money comes from. We don't have enough money here. The state doesn't have enough money. The federal government, who knows? So I... I'm looking at this from a money thing and trying to think, what's realistic? What should we ask for? How will we look? Foolish or hopeful? And I didn't mean to wear my black hat, but this is a lot to take in. I really like the notion of paying a lot more attention to legislation, state and federal, because we haven't for a long time for a variety of reasons. But I like taking advantage of the expertise that we already have, that we pay for through the League of Oregon Cities, but I can see the sense of focusing someone or another effort on our specific needs that don't neatly fit in with anybody at the state level. We have unique problems and yeah, challenges, that's the right word. So I get that, which leads to question number two, also with a dollar sign attached. where would we get the money for? What would we redirect money from to hire a professional lobbyist?

Right. So going back to your first question, I share your concern and your skepticism. It wasn't that long ago that we were worried about our transit system and how we were going to operate it with the absence of all federal monies. So it is true that that remains... a big question mark, a dollar sign and a question mark. However, the sense is that we need to be positioned as best we can for the outcome, whichever way it goes. As far as where we would identify the funding for that, it's a bit premature now to identify that. We would, We have professional service budgets that we can turn to. I couldn't tell you at this point what if any, we don't even really have a good grasp yet of what it would cost. I'm gonna tell you it's probably around the $50,000 range. But where that would come from yet, I can't tell you.

Or like an annual amount? Right. Okay.

And you can scope that out. You could scale it back and say, hey, what can you give me for X amount of dollars?

Yeah. Yeah. Councilor Newton, Councilor McGee's first.

Just a quick question along the same lines as Councilor Smith. Is there a reason why we haven't had a lobbyist in the past? It looks like every other city has had one on our side. So I was just curious now why we haven't had one kind of just traditionally or historically. And if we did, what happened?

You know, I can't go further back than nine or ten years ago when I got here, but in the time that we've been here, or that I've been here, that wasn't viewed as a priority.

I actually brought it up when I was a counselor.

Now when you start talking about trying to find resources to aid you in things that are as significant as rebuilding interchanges, that just can't be done with local levels of resources. Councilor Newton.

I have a few questions. Okay. First, I want to just confirm the contract will come back for the cost will come back to Council for approval before we're committed. Okay, cool. I also was curious about the high, medium, low, how everything was ranked. I was just curious about how that was determined. I know it's based on the anticipated impact to Albany. But some of the judgments I kind of think are a little up to debate because I was looking at the disaster planning, community energy resilience, that's rated low. It looked like it was because it wasn't currently identified in our long-term plans. But we also acknowledge that flooding, wildfires, seismic events, regional service disruptions, like giving Cascadia, and we are heavily dependent on water and wastewater facilities. I'm really reticent to call resilience low impact, personally, just because we haven't prioritized it previously. And I saw that the support increased energy transmission capacity that's ranked as high and Yes, largely because of future housing and industrial growth totally cool What I do want to understand is what actually what actual Albany projects like they're currently or in the pipeline are being constrained by transmission capacity I just want to know that before I immediately put it before above infrastructure or affordability needs. And then also, do we have someone from Public Works here? Because I had a quick question for them. Or Peter, maybe you know as well. But I was curious about number 24 on the LEEDS packet, the DEQ Regulatory Mandates and Water Quality Compliance. You know, we're... In the report, we're facing significant new compliance obligations and costs related to stormwater, PFAS requirements, and thermal TMDL, right? I'm just curious if Public Works could maybe give us a rough dollar amount range for a potential exposure here over the next five or 10 years. Because if the answer is tens of millions of dollars, shoots up my list. like $10,000 in, you know, like, I just would love a rough, rough dollar amount there. I think that'd be helpful. Also, I'm curious about the federal, federal priority, just making it only transportation, I would like to instead substitute that with like, pursuing competitive, congressionally directed funding, supporting Um city capital properties, or sorry, sorry, see capital priorities. Um, because then it doesn't just box us into only transportation. Just because if we do have a lobbyist, I don't want them to like, I'm not bugging them unless it's transportation related. But if we tweak our wording on that priority for federal. I think that maybe would bring back a little bit more for us.

The Vine Street was an example. Yeah. Vine Street was an example.

Just to give us a little bit more flexibility. And sometimes money's allocated in funny ways at the federal level, and it can benefit us in other ways. So a few cents I have. I'm sure I'll have a few more thoughts, but that's where we're at right now.

Councilor Thompson, Councilor Vandremoli?

Yeah, it was difficult. The list of choices, it's hard to deny any number of the choices. But on the discussion of a lobbyist, there was a cost estimated in the packet of $70,000 to $80,000. So it's good to hear maybe 50,000 we can get by.

I would go with a packet.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, fine. But, you know, I just feel like this falls on the nice-to-have thing versus the have-to-have. We are told over and over again. Small amounts here, small amounts there. We don't have the money for lots of activities. And the potential here, it's a risk-reward, and the potential reward is large. There are large potential payoffs. But to get to Maryland's kind of overall point, that's all potential, and... It's tough, it's a risk management kind of thing. And I just think the risk right now is too great at a time when we are constrained in every single way. We can't do anything more at parks. I'd like to see the library open more often. I'd like to see, and I know that's way more than 80,000, but well, you found a way to set aside 80,000 for, cleanup of camps in the last budget, in the last two-year budget, and that's all been expended. And I would like to continue the cleaning up of camps, and I know we will in other ways, but that's a good example where 80,000 went, and... I just am not buying. You could not say straightforward that if we did this, we are going to get X. You just can't say that. And that's the problem I have.

I assume you're not. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I'm done. I'm finished. I didn't mean to interject.

Councilman Benjamin.

Yeah, I mean, Councillor Thompson, I think that that's a fair statement that I mean, nothing's guaranteed. However, I think that this goes along with, to my mind, the way that we have been targeting some investments in new ways of doing things at the city. And I'm actually inclined to support the idea of at least further exploring professionalizing lobbying for the city. I mean, looking at some of the comparators that were listed on the slide, I don't want to accidentally seem like I'm speaking disparagingly of anybody, but looking at that and looking at that list and going like, well, if they can do it... we, we certainly like we could, we could certainly do this. Like Albany is not a small town anymore and hasn't been for actually quite a long time. And yeah, there's, there's absolutely a risk reward calculus, but I'm more on the side of like, well, I think, I think it would be worth it to try. And if it doesn't work, I mean, we can always revisit that in a, in a future like legislative or budgetary cycle and be like, well, this, this isn't paying off. Like there's, we're not actually getting the ROI, but when we're talking about potentially being able to net millions of dollars in particularly infrastructure funding, because y'all know infrastructure is always top of my mind. Um, like I think that it actually makes sense, um, to start professionalizing that rather than continuing to rely on more limited staff resources and hearing that we basically have no presence at the federal level. I don't,

We win.

Other than our elected representatives, obviously.

Well, occasionally the staff of those elected representatives will send out an email saying, hey, the next cycle for CDS, the Senate and the House have different terms for it. It's coming up. And if you're interested, please submit your request. And we have done that. But that's at our level. There's nobody keeping an eye on it and kind of shepherding it through and speaking on our behalf. When those committees get together in Washington, D.C., I think being present and being able to advocate does quite a bit for you. I haven't minded going up to Salem and representing occasionally. But we have not been able to get out to D.C. and we haven't been able to have a sustained presence in Salem.

No, and it's not my perception that any member of the city staff or the council or the mayor minds going and speaking on behalf of the city, but... our capacity to do that on a consistent basis is limited by our other responsibilities, right? And I'd say are very broadly there. I think that I like the idea. And am I reading this correctly?

I have support. I think we should have done it a long time ago.

Yeah, but both Albany and Corvallis don't currently engage lobbyists, correct? Correct. We're kind of anomalies, both anomalies among cities of our size. And I'm wondering if there's, I know Albany and Corvallis are different communities, but we're also, we share some close ties, and might there be opportunities to economize by working together? Yeah.

So what he just said, what Councilman Drummond just said is important because we are regional partners, so to speak. I mean, there's ducks and beavers walking around this whole city every day. But I think that we have some common interests with technology development, special metals, and those kinds of things. A lot of that emanates from Corrales, and the businesses are here. I think a professional lobbyist that is focused on our issues, keeps that, we can go up and support that person, but that person will have boots on the ground and in those meetings, in those rooms. When I went back to NLC and I lobbied for small cities infrastructure funds, It was nice that I was speaking on behalf of Albany, but my mission was to speak on behalf of small cities. And a lot of those small cities received funds from the work that I had done back there. I spoke at two different times to both of our senators, our congresswomen, and they supported those small cities. We didn't get a lot of money, but they did. They got some money out of that. So I think our presence at NLC with our lobbyists or legal-ordered cities in our legislative halls, I think it'd be great to have our own representation that moves with our vision, moves with our priorities, and then brings that back to us and gives us updates on what progress is being made.

Go ahead, Councillor Smith, she was waiting.

I could offer, the last time I'm aware that we had a federal lobbyist working on our behalf was when we were putting together Talking Water Gardens. And we had a lobbyist who was affiliated with CH2M Hill. who was regularly in touch with folks on the hill, that hill, was very helpful in helping us get federal money for that project. In the late 1990s, the city council had a number of subcommittees. We've discussed this before, why we have work sessions now and we don't have subcommittees. One of them was was a legislative subcommittee and they had regular reports from and contact with our our representatives in Salem and a regular process of testifying at one needed and Eventually that was abandoned around 2000 or so and we got through the next few several many legislative sessions with whoever was handy in Albany and available to come testify at the last minute would go up there and do whatever but there was not interest on the among the counselors for anything really aggressive and paying close, close attention to two issues going on at the state. And I'll just circle back to where I started with being terribly pessimistic and sad. reading through all of this and looking at the potential for getting more state money than we do, getting more state federal money than we have, I'm seeing gaps close potentially close with things that we want to do, need to do, have to do, can't do because we don't have enough money here and nobody wants to give us more. And it may not be fair to expect people in Albany to pay for everything that they use. I don't know if their money's going to the federal government, it's going to the state government, if we can get some of that back. I'm all over that.

So, I understand, Councillor Thompson, sounds like you're not a gambling man. That's fine.

Actually, most definitely.

Okay.

And part of that is risk and reward.

Okay. So, I think everyone could agree. I'm going to throw this out there. If we're going to do this, I think that we should make sure to be able to process to measure how it works. Like what funding did Albany compete for? What legislation do we influence? What mandates do we prevent? Or I would like to not have unfunded mandate. No unfunded mandates this next legislative session. That is my goal. What do we prevent or improve? Or what relationships do we build so we can show that we're actually invested in, this money is being invested in bringing home resources. Yes. Yes, exactly. Show the communities. I'm not sure if that might be part of a contract that we'd put together or something we'd put together beforehand, but I think that we need to have measurable, smart goals. Yes, absolutely. I think that might assuage maybe some reticence from the counselor from Ward 1B.

Well, that's what I was going to say, too, that I think if we're going to go through with this, we've got to make sure that people feel invested because what we don't want is for folks in our community to say now they're spending money on something that's you know, we really don't want it to, we need it to come back home. So I agree with Councilor Newton and the rest of my wonderful folks up here that we got to have some checks and balances because we really, we're really going to have to sell it to our community that we need this. And in order for us to do that, we have to have some type of results or else we're going to get the whole thing. Now they're spending money on this instead of the roads.

Right.

Councilor Thompson's next and then go ahead and respond to her and I'll go to Councilor Thompson.

Yeah, no, I would say they're not spending money. I don't know if you've, I've heard from tons of people that the weeds are growing in public areas, are responsible areas. And we're just, I know we're going to get to them, but we don't have, we're not up on it to people's satisfaction. That's what they're going to say, and the roads. But in general, I'm comfortable with the idea. You know, I worked at the city of Vancouver closely. They had a full-time on-staff director of government relations who lobbied both in Olympia and both in D.C. I'm very comfortable with that. It's also a city, it's the fourth biggest city in the state of Washington. You know, but I saw what came back, and really in the federal area, you know, the federal transportation reauthorization, the potential is huge, because that's a huge bill with lots of money. But where it really benefited was very niche, very specific things, the historic area for Vancouver and that whole area, Pearson Air Park. It really mattered to have the ear of the federal area. So I understand that. I can see how this can go. I just don't see. I guess the bigger question is if we've been AWOL this time, what have we missed out on? Or not? Or not? I mean, my other message, I hope Representative Bynum's office hears this and hears we're looking out. As you said, their staff members pay attention to this kind of thing as we're kind of the boots on the ground. within our district, but it's a risk reward. And I just, at this time when everything we asked for is kind of said, no, we can't do that because we don't have the money, then yeah, not really interested in lobbyists and not really interested in more. The lobbyist is another type of consultant. We're paying for another consultant. And that's just how I see it.

Thank you. One other thing that comes to mind is we have been the beneficiaries of substantial amount of money for the Cox Creek Interceptor Project. Correct. That's probably the best example of where we've brought some money back across the country and put it under the ground.

Correct.

Do you have a top-of-the-head figure for how much that was altogether?

Oh, my gosh. I think Gina just left the room, but I think it's on the order of $4 million.

That's what I was thinking. There was some before that, too, wasn't there?

Yeah, I think that they were in two tranches of $2, $2.5 million.

Yeah. Yeah, $1.8 million for EV infrastructure.

I can get that info for you.

How do we possibly without a lobbyist? How did we possibly get that without a lobbyist?

Well, you know, this latest one, there's no guarantee that we are going to get it. And there wasn't a guarantee before. And, you know, you're absolutely right when you say there's a risk versus gain calculus. But it's also an investment calculus, too. If you were to, you know, invest in a lobbyist and then get the, you mentioned the homeless cleanup funds. If you were to get twice as much due to the efforts of a lobbyist, it would be already worth it.

But you're going to bring it back, right? Let us know.

Well, the question for you is, are you in principle or in concept supportive of this? Because then what we would do is, based upon your direction, is put some more work into this, develop, I think what you were, what Councillor Newton was talking about was a scope of work.

Yeah.

And that scope of work would talk about expectations for advocacy, identify a funding source. It would talk about monitoring the legislature and what we would expect from that.

Reporting mechanism.

It would talk about relationship development, coordination with staff, and then reporting mechanisms back to the council and to the staff.

So shifting away from if we should or should not engage with the lobbyist, I want to get back to some of our priorities. Transportation, curious. What exactly are we asking for? Are we wanting to look more broadly at the statewide transportation package that failed? Or is Albany planning on going into the session with maybe some specific projects or funding amounts, noting that the legislative deadline for submitting anything is September 11th that's coming up? Are there any statutory changes we're wanting to ask the legislature to deliver on? Or are we just saying transportation?

You're talking about that 2027 package?

Accurate, yes. The 25 package is being rebuilt from the ground up. for 27.

So that's what we're going in for is just the transportation package. That's just what we're advocating for.

That's one of the things on the list.

This is one of the League of Oregon City's priorities. And there's overlap between what the LOC would prioritize and what the City of Albany would prioritize. And I think this would be one of those areas of overlap. where it is a priority for the league. I hope it's in their top five. I hope it's in our top five as well.

That's not really a legislative strategy of like support a transportation package. That's not a legislative strategy.

Well, again, this is very preliminary. This is the league's attempt to poll their 241 members, be responsive to each of the 241, and come up with a combined top five.

But I think we should determine, like discuss and figure out what does Albany actually need out of the transportation package? Like how much outside transportation funding could actually realistically reduce the amount of money that Albany residents are ultimately going to have to pay locally for street maintenance and improvements. You know, I think that it shouldn't just be support the transportation package. I think, because things will get, things will change. Yes. So we'll have the transportation package. If we do engage with the lobbyists or heck, if one of us wants to go out there and say, hey, this is what, how money should be allocated to, you know, cities of this size or cities off of I-5 or cities, something to direct additional specific, you know, either have like additions or changes to the bill. But I just don't think that's a legislative strategy to say just support it.

This is not a strategy. This is prioritizing those initiatives that the league has. That's part of it, though. If that's in your top five, if that's what the city agrees that they want to focus on, then we'd have to develop a strategy to support that.

I guess what it sounds like to me what Councilor Newton is saying is it's not specific enough. It seems very broad. And so because it's so broad, we don't really know what we're supporting in a sense. And I guess we'd like to know maybe specifically what that support looks and feels like for us as a council, as a community. And we don't really know that we're going to send transportation package. Am I understanding? Is that correct?

Thank you for so eloquently describing because I feel like...

I agree with you. So my question is, is that has there been a draft of that policy released? It's still working. It's released in 9-11.

Those work groups are just getting started.

So we won't know until that's revealed to us whether or not parts of that will be a legislative priority for us.

But we'll already have turned in our priorities. So it kind of feels cart before horse. Councillor Thompson?

Yeah, I understand the details, but a perennial debate within any statewide transportation package is the 50, 30, 20, if I got the numbers right, split. And that's what we're fighting for because that's millions of dollars for us.

I'd like 22.

So we'll be joining with other cities. So in general, yeah, we're going to fight for that percentage that's always fought over.

Because in the last package, I think they wanted to change that. Yeah, they did.

Page 33 in your packet gives a very good explanation of all of that. And it's almost a strategy, but it doesn't contain the next steps. But it sure outlines all of the things that the cities are, and especially us, or including us, are concerned about.

You know, when I could get that information from Public Works, though, on the projected cost. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because that will make that one jump up if it's like, again, 10 million versus.

Now, this transportation package doesn't address our local streets, though.

It does in the 50-30-20 split.

But the 20 is, because of Measure 5 and Measure 50, we are just over a barrel. Like we have hardly, you know what our road situation's like and what our funding is. That 20% is bupkis.

Well, I think, and Councilor Smith can back me up or correct me if I'm wrong, but they're also starting to talk about street usage fee and whether or not that would be split 50-30-20 as well, I don't know.

Yeah. Well, that's not good. The first meeting of the Road User Fee Task Force is September 24th. So as a reminder, I'm a member of that group.

Thank you, Counselor, for doing that and bringing that information.

I'm happy to be included.

The Road User Fee Committee?

Yeah, it's a task force, yeah. It's part of one of the work groups that's working on the next package. These are things that we would recommend that it's.

So I would say, I'm gonna read directly from this sheet that public works staff identify the transportation package as potentially the most consequential state action for Albany's transportation system in the coming decade. The city relies on the State Highway Fund and other state transportation programs to support street maintenance, paving, sidewalks, ADA improvements, and transportation safety projects. When state funding is insufficient or grant programs are redirected to address state-level funding gaps, the resulting pressure is shifted to local governments.

Councilor Newton, anybody over here? Councilor Newton?

Okay, so I had an idea, sorry. Especially just thinking about the potential impact on wastewater, PFAS stuff, right? It's something we always kind of catch about, right? Is the unfunded mandates. So like several of these priorities are kind of around the same problem. The legislature tells cities to do something, restricts how they can pay it, imposes requirements without funding the administrative and capital costs. And I don't know, So we don't have this as a priority at all listed. But maybe rather than fighting those battles individually, maybe we can add something to our legislative priorities as like keep local control, oppose unfunded mandates, or impose significant financial administrative burdens on local governments without corresponding resources. I don't know. We always complain about unfunded mandates. And then we have to pay for them. So I don't know if that's something we want to push for.

I think there's a one on local control in here, in this document.

I just don't want everything to be.

There's a lot about that in there. Local control, home rule, that's the founding, that's the cornerstone of, that's the purpose of the League of Oregon Cities is to protect home rule.

No matter the size of the city?

or where it's located.

But that isn't really, yes, that's their purpose, but it's not explicitly stated. You know? I think you want more aggressive language in that.

More aggressive language, just a little bit more specific, but I think that what Councilor Smith is saying is already, it's the undercurrent, but I get where you're coming from. It just needs to be a little bit more aggressive in the language. Yeah.

No one likes unfunded mandates.

I would just hold up a red card every single time they try to. Nope. I don't know. I've lost track of where I was taking notes now because we've been chatting too much.

Just got to get the ballast in to you. By the 9th?

I think that's the date that we asked for. Yes, the 9th. I will tell you that unfunded mandates are in here. I was just reading this this morning, and there are quite a few pages to read through, but each page follows the same format. There's an issue overview, then there's a fiscal impact on Albany, and then there's recommended legislative positions. So unfunded mandates, I was looking at the Administrative Procedures Act reform,

Page 26 of the packet.

Page 26.

I read through all this. The fiscal impact Albany section.

Page 26?

Yeah, 26. Maintaining local right-of-way authority helps protect existing franchise permit right-of-way revenues and reduces the risk of unfunded costs associated with utility installation restoration. It talks about unfunded mandates there.

Our page 26?

Yes, at the bottom. And the impact. And also in the support equitable access to technology section is another avoid unfunded mandates on page 28, two pages down.

Okay, then I stand corrected. I swear I read through everything. There's so much. There's so much. There's so much.

These things are buried everywhere. I mean, your support responsible use of municipal technology, unfunded mandates is mentioned there as well. It's all over the place.

So also getting these in by the 9th, question about the process. Are we trying to identify five things that are most important to Albany generally or the five things we think where legislative advocacy could actually produce meaningful results in the next biennium?

So you have two ballots.

Well, yeah. Okay, one is. Ours and theirs. The joint one and then ours. So, but, that's not what I'm asking. Like, are we trying to say here are the five things that are most important to Albany? Or, Are these the five things we think can be actually accomplished in this next biennium?

Like where we can actually move the needle?

Yeah. So that's what I want to kind of figure out. Is it going to be just a popularity contest between 24 different policy issues?

If that's what you think is an important discriminator, whether it can be accomplished in the next biennium, then you should by all means think about it, talk about it, and vote that way. But that hasn't been laid out here. This exercise, similar to the last four or five of them, takes the League of Oregon City's priorities, legislative priorities, and asks you which of the five do you think are most important. And using your combined input will create an Albany position on the League of Oregon City's priorities. Now, based upon your recent desires, we're going a step beyond that and acknowledging that those may not be Albany's priorities. Those are the League's priorities. So an unfiltered look at what Albany's priorities are, that's the second ballot. What is it that we really, you know, even if, for instance, if land availability and land use streamlining doesn't appear on the league's top five, that could be one of our top five.

Okay. Could our final adopted agenda have, like, differentiate between, like, League of Oregon City's priorities, like, actively lead on, support League of Oregon City partners on, or, like, monitor? Because I know that we aren't going to... The rankings aren't going to prevent the city from responding to any emerging issues. I just think that maybe formalizing those tiers would maybe make our strategy a little stronger when it comes to like what the League of Oregon City is working on. I'm not sure I follow you. So if like League of Oregon City says, you know, we like roads, we're going to say, heck yeah, actively lead on. or if they have something else, we could say, we support, we'll support them. If they ask us for a letter, we'll do it. Or if there's other things that we're like, eh, we'll monitor it, but we're still, maybe we wouldn't expend additional resources, but we're still gonna keep tabs. I'm just wondering if their five aren't congruent with our five.

There might be some overlap that we could get behind.

Or maybe, yeah, but even if they aren't, I'm just trying to think about formalizing a strategy for that. I don't know if we want like tears. We haven't done this before. So I'm just throwing a lot of messy stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks and what you guys think. And I'd also like to know how you guys are going to be ranking things. Is it going to be five most important things to Albany or is it going to be five things that we can actually accomplish and move the needle on? Because that's going to inform how I end up ranking mine.

I've always done it with what can we get done? That's how I've done mine.

Anyone else?

And that's just me. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I look at this as some things are just a guesstimate. I don't know, but some things, well, it's not a guesstimate because some things have been in a couple cycles of legislature and we're getting closer to getting over that mountain. And so, yes, I do use, you know, kind of a guess about what's possible in my rankings.

Some legislative accomplishments have taken years and years and years to accomplish, and you can't lose sight of the far distant 10-year, 15-year future because you just want to concentrate on what you can get next year.

Yeah, look out 10, 15 years.

Yes?

What might be important to Albany now may not be important to Albany five years from now. So, you know, I do like a crystal ball. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

I knew that about you.

I'm kidding.

That directly affect Albany that took multiple years to accomplish a recreational immunity, the adjustment of the lodging tax, and... Something else that I forgot.

Housing affordability.

Well, yeah, that's a perennial.

Yeah, that's perennial, but like the middle housing thing. Yeah. Unfunded mandates, but we're doing it better than most cities. I mean, so.

Well, and then this might be not too important to other people, but it certainly is to all of us who are elected officials. The hot dog bill. That was a big one. The hot dog bill was part of the public meetings law discussion. Yeah, yes. Yes, we can be fed during, in order to accomplish city business.

Yeah. It was kind of crazy, yeah.

So kind of circling back on like costs and stuff, so before we're able to rank these, could staff tell us like which five issues represent the greatest potential financial impact or maybe opportunity for Albany. Just want to know before we start to make these priorities as well.

I would also like to add to yours, savings as well.

Yes. Opportunity, like where we can, yeah.

Again, if you read through each one, they're pretty thorough about what the financial impact is.

Yeah, there's still some. I can get you a list of everything where I have some questions. I'll email it over to you. You can email it to the rest of council, just like with the one with stormwater and wastewater and maybe some things related to DEQ and their fun bag of hats. I don't think you're on.

Informed decision. Yeah. So are we good?

Thank you for putting that together. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Before we take off, before we move on, do we want him to bring back some information about the lobbyists?

Yeah.

That's what's happening. You guys good with that? Just bringing back the data? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Peter.

Actually, quick question. Do we know, can we ask any of our friends, if we have friends in other cities, what impacts their lobbyists have had?

I don't see why not.

That'd be cool to know. Like, hey, before we had a lobbyist, we got $12. After we got a lobbyist, we got 33. Obviously, this...

I spend it on tokens a month for kids. You what? I spend that much on tokens for kids. Oh, my gosh. Okay, next is business from the council. I will ask, who started last time first? I'll go Ward 1 this time.

I'll reserve my comments until Wednesday.

Okay. Councillor Thompson? I have nothing. Councillor Van Drimelen?

Nothing today.

Thank you, sir. Councillor Smith?

Not until Wednesday.

Councillor McGee?

Nothing today.

And same for me. It is hot outside. So I'll turn it over to the City Manager for his comments.

Thank you, Mayor. Three things. The Councilor Van Drimelen had asked about the citywide mixed-use commercial zoning, and you have all, I think, expressed an interest in updating mixed-use commercial zone citywide to perform as it does for properties east of I-5. Anne Catlin has already been working on that. And unfortunately, there's not one solution that will work citywide. So what staff are proposing is a joint work session with the Planning Commission and the City Council. We would have that joint session. Then there'd be a period of public engagement and outreach. which would include virtual and in-person open houses. We'd have to issue Measure 56 notices, and then probably in January or so, you'd have adoption hearings with the Planning Commission and the City Council. So the first order of business is to ask if we can do a joint meeting with the Planning Commission on October 12th. That's the next available work session.

Councilor, you okay with that? Good idea.

Okay.

October 12th. October 12th. If I'm still on that.

Then Councilor Van Dremelen had already asked, had also asked about an evacuation drill for the neighborhood in the Animal Kingdom. Chuck Reno's looking into the scale of that exercise, but yes, preliminarily that's possible, and he's looking at putting that together. If you have a recommendation for who within the HOAs there would be a good point of contact, we'd appreciate that. And then lastly, you'd asked about an emergency access road into the animal kingdom. Community development and planners are looking at what that would take in terms of cost, permits, environmental impact, and so forth. But they are looking into it. And lastly, Mayor, just for the public's clarification, council meetings are for the conduct of council business. They're not town hall meetings. So council's not under any obligation to engage anybody from the public when they're conducting their business. You have a period of public comment. which is extended as a courtesy and out of a desire to hear from people in the community. But again, that's not for a back and forth conversation.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

And that's per your protocol manual.

Yeah. So is that it, city manager? That's it. Thank you. And with that, I'll adjourn the meeting at 5.03 p.m. See you Wednesday night.