City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you for joining and participating in tonight's meeting. Please be advised that this meeting is broadcast live and replayed during familyfriendly hours. As such, we ask that you refrain from the use of profanity during this meeting. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration for our younger participants.

Calling to order. Thank you, sir. this meeting of the Urban Renewal Agency for Monday, March 9th, 2026. Will the recorder please call the role? Board member Tyen. He's here. Board member Nishioa here. Board member Matthews here. Board member Gwen here. Board member Brown present. Board member Bang here. Board member Nordike here. Board member Vney here. Chair Julie Hoy here. Uh please stand and let's uh say the pledge of

allegiance of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, Councelor Nishioa or uh board member Nishioa, do we have any additions or deletions tonight? Uh not for the Urban Renewal Agency. Thank you. And do we have anyone signed up for public comment? We do.

Okay. Uh Mark Wig, please come forward to the podium. You know how this works. You'll have three minutes to speak. Please announce your ward or your address for the record. Be sure to press that button so we can hear you. Thank you.

Try that again. Okay. Mark Wig, board two. And I do want to talk about some opportunities that we have with urban renewal areas. Um I sent this email out late. You may not have seen it, but uh start with uh Mil Creek urban renewal area, which um you can't get to all those jobs south of the highway. If you live north of the highway, whether you're walking or on a bike, it's unsafe. Cordon Road, no sidewalk, no bike lanes. Uh Lancaster interchange, disaster for pedestrians. But there's money there. And um there's the Bill Regal Park on the south side and there's Miller Elementary on the north side. There's also Hulk Middle School on the north side of Highway 22. And so the idea of allowing kids to actually walk to school and bike to school safely, that's a nice thing, but it would also give, you know, uh Mil Creek was set up for transportation. You know, that's one of the things that it's supposed to be doing. Well, here's an opportunity to do a transportation thing that helps a lot of people. Uh the next one that I have is uh downtown urban renewal area riverfront downtown and also south waterfront. The city now owns all the land west of the railroad south of Pringle Creek and um but it's inaccessible. Uh but if we extend the Pringle Creek Trail that ODOT paid $6 million to have that built um and then do another bridge from the Globe across when you're on the west side of the railroad across to the land that the city now owns. It's basically an expansion of Riverfront Park and there's a pathway that goes all the way down to Mento uh Brown Island Park entrance and it's already there.

It's already being used but illegally because you can't cross the railroad at grade. But if you have a bridge across Pringle Creek, then we'll have a safe route down there and um that will probably help. Right now, we've had a couple of fires at the trestles and um uh maybe with more people, we'd have fewer fires. And then the last one I wanted to talk about was the opportunity to use the urban the land that the city owns next to the Center Street Bridge. Um they have a lot of acres there. They chased uh ODOT chased out the homeless from under the Center Street Bridge. But where do they go? Well, they go back the next day. They were back underneath the Center Street Bridge. But if we had a managed campground, an urban renewal area right now owned by the city would be a perfect spot for a managed campground. And uh I'll help you with that. But you got there's opportunities here and uh

thank you for your testimony. Thanks for coming in. Thank you. Okay, we are moving on now to uh the consent calendar. Uh board member Nishioa. Uh yes, thank you. I move for approval of the consent calendar. Second motion and a second by Gwyn. Councelor.

Thank you. Um, uh, the consent calendar consists of 3.1A, which are the February 23rd, 2026 draft urban renewal agency minutes, and there are no resolutions, action items. Uh, so that completes the consent calendar. Thank you. We are then moving on. We have no resolutions, no action, excuse me, take a vote. Yeah. Sorry about that. Will the recorder please call the role? Thank you. Board member Nishoka. I. Board member Matthews. I. Board member Gwen. I. Board member Brown. I. Board member Ving. I. Board member Nordike. I. Board member Vney. I.

Board member Tyen. I. Chair Julie Hoy. I. All right. Um, board member Nishio, I understand you had some questions for this evening's urban renewal meeting. I do. Um, I I'm not Who was going to come answer? Dana. All right. I understand that Dana is going to be coming to answer some questions that I had. Um, and I thank her for being here. Hello.

Great. Hi. Thank you. So, my questions, as you know, because I believe you received them, um, are centered around something that I heard Portland is doing to support small businesses. Um, and they're using in in that they're using a combination of um some general funds and past ARPA funds, but also urban renewal funds. And so I was um the questions that I had are, you know, which um URAS here in Salem are actively supporting economic development within their boundaries. Uh so if you want to answer that and then I'll move on to some of the other questions I had.

Yeah. Dana Decline, assistant director of urban development. Um, this is great conversation for me to have because I worked at in Prosper Portland, the city of Portland for 31 years. So, I should know the answers to this stuff. Um, so, um, yes. Um, just to give you that little brief response about Prosper Portland. um they actively use their economic development um their renewal area funds for economic development, but they also have general funds and they created funds through their ARPA during COVID to help with business retention and stabilization. Um so they have some creative things that we can't use TIFF for. So you can't use tiff for maintenance and repair um like vandalism, but you can use it for development of permanent um improvements. So um there's this very fine line that happens with what we can use tiff for. We used TIFF in River District um uh sorry, Riverfront um downtown West Salem um and North Gateway all have grant programs as well as Fairview um has funds that is our grant program. So, we do have um $300,000 grants up to $300,000 grants for capital improvement grants. Very similar to um how Prosper Portland they have just multiple more they have several different programs, but it's all for the in the same way. They just kind of prioritize um differently. Um, but our programs work the same in um, Riverfront, West Salem, and Gateway. All of our grant programs are up to

300,000. There's slightly different match requirements based on how staff have been directed by the advisory committees around prioritization in in the area. So, um, very they're more consistent than than not. You might explain what TIFF funds are so that we're all Sorry. Sorry. Tax increment financing is the funding that is used in urban renewal areas. Thank you.

Good call. Um I know that uh um just last month the West Salem um urban renewal was adjusted to um have that opportunity of smaller grants than they had before. Um and that's keeping in tune with the other URAs in the grant opportunities for economic development as I understand.

Yeah. And and opening up for businesses. Um that's a that's kind of new within the last year for both Riverfront and West Salem. So it was primarily focused on um property development development, you know, property owners as opposed to businesses and now we've expanded that. Great. Thank you. Um, so I think what I'm again trying to get at is, and again I'm very glad that you're familiar with what Portland's doing, is I'm just trying to find ways for small businesses that may be um slightly struggling

to have opportunities whether it is vandalized windows or um maybe and I even saw that what they're doing is supporting if there's uh uh digital upgrades or other things that are not maybe brick and mortar as we yeah generally know it but still might be in their quote infrastructure if we can do that I'm just wondering is there any opportunities for us to look at or maybe if we can adapt some of the policies within the URAS to be a little bit more supportive

so I do don't want to forget that we have our strate strategic grant program which is security um funds. So for defenses and security um specifically lighting and really trying to help with reducing vandalism. So that's a special program we have a separate program we have. So we're really focusing on that. Um but no um the um the the internet website development that they have that's that comes from general fund because it has to be permanent. So we can't fund it with tiff. If we developed another funding source we could certainly create a program like that. Um they have a pretty robust technical assistance program um in pro at Prosper Portland that really supports citywide. That's another issue about our renewal area is it's based on the boundary. So anybody any business that's right outside the boundary we can't assist at this time. So those are the kinds of things that we are you know currently you know kind of hamstrung with. So what I'm hearing is if we were wanting to find mechanisms to help businesses, we would need to find it from other sources or general fund basically.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have questions? Councelor Nordk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you, Councelor Nishioa, for bringing this up. I know that our URA funding is a tremendous opportunity to help our business community and I still remember director Rutherford telling us how many millions and millions of dollars have been invested in downtown just within the last 10 years. You look at the Holman Hotel, Rivenwood Apartments, and there's a lot more happening and uh staff have already issued a $300,000 URRA grant for uh El Torito, the grocery store that is coming downtown. So, I really commend you and your entire team. We're really excited to have a downtown ger back. This is great news and this to me feels like a perfect use of the URA funding that is uniquely available for business. I don't think a lot of people appreciate we have pots of money that are exclusively available for our business community and um one and this is a pop quiz because it didn't occur to me to ask until uh councelor Nishioa started bringing up first of all I love the idea of having as much flexibility as we can within the tiff rules to help businesses get to yes I think that's a great idea and I want to make sure that this is available whether you're a large retailer coming to downtown Salem or, you know, a coffee shop with, you know, 500 square feet in your lease agreement, right? Um, so I would, that's more of a just a general comment that I'd like to make. I'm also curious, um, you know, what is the rejection rate for businesses who apply for URRA funding? And if you don't know the answer to that off the top of your head, completely understandable. But I'm just kind of curious to me that could be one of many imperfect admittedly ways of us to

understand a do businesses know it's a thing. Do they know how to apply? Are they do they feel that they're getting the information they need to successfully apply? And what are the outcomes? Uh so I think that might be something for us to reflect on and maybe talk at another time when I'm not springing on you on the moment because I know you work extremely hard and the entire team does. So, those are my thoughts for now.

Thank you. I I will say that the um focusing on business is something fairly new. Um we really did just roll that out in downtown within I don't know maybe the last six months. It came in front of you all. So, um we do have a staff person that has been very active in making sure that businesses he he actually walks the street and connects with businesses. So, I'm pretty confident that the downtown businesses know West Salem. It's brand new. So making sure that they're communicated with is really important. Absolutely. Um and I don't know the rejection rate. I think the thing about rejection rate, it's simply about are they doing something that's eligible. So um or is there funding available because you know if the property owner is taking all the money then there may not be any more available for a particular property. But um if it's eligible then it's absolutely like you can have a sign but it has to be permanently affixed to your building cannot be a a-frame sign. So those kinds of nuances our program staff would walk um business owners through that to help them get to Yes.

Madam Mayor I have a followup of course. So you mentioned the last six months but correct me if I'm wrong. There's a number of downtown businesses who have received your funding prior to 6 months though, right? Develop um if they are property owners. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I think and I think that is perhaps a a point of confusion. So for example, I mean, have any of the downtown restaurants received URA funding to advance and uh to invest in improvements in their buildings? Well, if if it it before we opened it up to businesses, it was for the property owners. So, it's possible the prop property owner did for a new tenant. That was one of the things we were trying to solve for is

it can you know if you're only opening it up for new businesses then what about the businesses that are around. So, that's what we that's what we solved that issue. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Matthews. I'm glad you showed up. Dana, me too. Well, that kind of sparked another question for me, which was just, so you mentioned it's open in our downtown area that businesses that aren't property owners are able to apply for these funds. Is is there a reason we didn't open it up to a greater amount of our uras or is there an intention to do that or Oh, so Gateway already had that was already an option and uh West Salem we just did. Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. So Mil Creek is one of the only ones, but it's clear

and Mil Creek is is infrastructure. So that I will say that's the one clarification depending on the URA and what the plan is is what what the prioritization of how the funds need can be used. So it's it's permanent improvements could be affordable housing could be economic development, business support and oftentimes it's also infrastructure. So councelor Nishoka thank you. Okay. So that opens up another question. Then if um if we find another area that we create a URA in. Yeah.

What I'm hearing is that we could have the rules or the uh um procedures within that URRA to maybe incorporate u a little more flexibility than some of the others have already. might there be that possibility

as long as it's permanently improvement permanent improvement. So I think that's the that's the issue, right? So um I don't think that there are any um restrictions in downtown that would that you'd want us to be able that we couldn't do currently with the OS for the state regulations for urban renewal areas. So that's just we can only get as far as the state allows. All right. Well, thank you. Any other questions? Dana, thank you very much. Thank you.

All right, then. Uh, we have no resolutions, no action items, no public hearings, no special orders of business, no informations. We are on to adjourned. And I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Salem City Council for Monday, March 9th, 2026. Will the recorder please call the role? Councelor Tyen, present. Councelor Nishioa, here. Councelor Matthews here. Councelor Gwyn, here. Councelor Brown, present. Councelor Bain here. Councelor Nordike here. Councelor Vney here. Mayor Julie Hoy

here. Um, councelor Nishio, do we have approval of additions and deletions to the agenda? I move for approval of additions to the agenda. Second motion and a second by Gwen counselor to the motion. Uh, yes, we have um a revised uh a revised updated presentation for 4 A and an added presentation for 4 C. Great. Thank you. Any questions on that? Will the recorder please call the role? Councelor Vain.

Yes. Councelor Nordike. I. Councelor Barney. I. Councelor Tyen. I. Councelor Nishoka. I. Councelor Matthews. I. Councelor Gwen. I. Councelor Brown. I. Mayor Julie Hoy. I All right, then we are moving on to council and city manager comment. Does anyone have anything they'd like to share? Councelor Tigan, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I prepared just a little bit of a statement about the changes that we made to the West Salem urban renewal area rules last week. So, or last month. So, I'll read through that. Maybe a little bit more detail based on the conversation we just had. Thank you, councelor Nishio. So, at our last meeting, the city council in its role as the urban renewal agency approved updates to the West Salem Urban Renewal Area Grant Program, the first changes for this um program since 2019. And I just want to take a second to highlight why these amendments matter for economic development in West Salem. Uh the West Salem Urban Renewal Program has had a strong track record. Uh the agency has uh issued 18 grants totaling $2.3 million um since its inception and that's leveraged over $26 million in private investment in West Salem and created more than 260 jobs. But grant activity has slowed in recent years and the changes we approved at our last meeting um are designed to broaden participation in the program. So, the key update for people to understand is that we have a new scaled match structure. And so, now smaller projects can qualify for a 50% match on costs as low as $10,000. This makes the urban renewal program accessible to a wider range of applicants who may not have had the capacity for larger capital projects, but instead might be tenants in a building that have something in mind other than expanding the size of the building or its footprint. And this kind of grant is designed uh precisely to help our West Salem small businesses. And uh I think there's a lot of talk of course in West Salem about what the impact of our impending bridge repair is going to be. And some people see that as a problem, but there could be some folks in West Salem who see that as an

opportunity to start a business in West Salem or expand their business in West Salem and perhaps keep people on the West Salem side of the bridge. So we expanded the definition of public benefit to explicitly include business retention, business expansion and business relocation that adds jobs. This will give our agency staff clearer criteria to evaluate a broader set of projects uh not just uh repairing or addressing blight but business expansion as well. We also reduced the required maintenance period from 10 to 5 years. We removed the appraisal requirement, both of which reduced the burden on our applicants for the program. This is how it has been done on the downtown side of the river as we heard from uh Dana and the West and of course West Salem deserves the same treatment. So I want to thank the agency staff and the members of our West Salem urban renewal development advisory board who put these changes together and forwarded them to um the agency last month. These are practical changes that lower the bar to entry while keeping the program's core purpose intact, spurring private investment, small business growth, and job creation in West Salem. Thanks, Madame Mayor.

Thank you, Councelor Tyen. Yes, Councelor Nishoka. Thank you for adding that and explaining it so well. Thank you. Anyone else? Councelor Nordic.

Sure, I'll echo that. Thank you, councelor Tyen. Um, also I want to share a couple of updates. Um, last week I attended the WMAT Health Council's 4th annual summit on youth, children, and families. Was really extraordinary. This is a free conference that they put on at Sam Convention Center. And I would love to say kudos to all the convention center staff. They're hardworking. and they always do an outstanding job keeping that place looking spotless, serving great food, uh handling all kinds of people who come from all parts of the state and beyond to that convention center which has been a huge success, a city project, I might add, from many many moons ago. And at the summit, I can share with you that there is a great deal of anxiety within our children and families in the community about the economic climate, about the national climate, about the impacts of immigration activity in the area. And so to see that reflected in other spaces unsolicited where youth are telling us that this is these are the things that are impacting them, it always weighs on me as a counselor. But the summit also gave me hope. The summit's theme was all about building resilience. And that's something that a lot of nonprofits and service providers have to understand right now because we've seen so many cuts to programs who serve the most vulnerable among us. We've seen cuts at Church of the Park. We've seen cuts to all kinds of agencies who are doing work of serving our low-income seniors, serving people who are struggling with mental illness, uh, serving, uh, children and all kinds of other folks who are in need. So, it felt really great to walk amongst so many other people who are all wanting to ore in the same direction and overcome every challenge that gets thrown at us. So that was great and I really want to

commend once again while I'm at health council for doing that and I was able to give a shameless plug and shout out for our reach team which was great. Um a lot of folks are interested in mobile crisis outreach and any person who has worked with our unsheltered community will tell you there is a huge need for outreach services. Outreach is how you start the journey for healing. When a team member encounters you on the street, that is the opportunity to start connecting them with services. It is the first time where people have an opportunity to really walk through that door and make changes from within. And so I'm so glad that on tonight's agenda, we'll be hearing an update from the first amazing month of our reach team. I'm so proud of our reach team members at Salem Fire Department and Marian County. This could not be done without our partners at Marian County. So, I want to give credit where credit is due. So, that was one of the things I did last week. And then right after that, I went to Bridgeway. As you may have seen, there was a great write up in the Statesman Journal. The Statesman Journal pointed out that according to the Oregon Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission, more than 74% of Oregonians with a substance use disorder are not receiving treatment. Where do you think those folks end up? And who do you think gets called for service? This is the impact that we see every day. The city of Salem doesn't run drug treatment beds. But we are doing our part. All of our officers, all of our firefighters, they've seen addiction firsthand. They're trained on how to uh advance the impacts or reverse fentinol by using Narcan or sub sublloxxone. Unfortunately, these are necessary

trainings for what we see in the streets. But the reason the statesman journal had an article wasn't about that specifically. It was highlighting the fact that Bridgeway is opening a new 34 bed medical detox and recovery center. and that's going to be on their front street campus in north downtown and I was able to tour that building with some members of my staff and that too gave me hope. Uh this will be a center for healing for mental health therapy for medical care uh for problem problem gambling treatment as well and it's really extraordinary. So I want to give a shout out to Bridgeway. Thank you for helping to serve some of our most vulnerable residents. some of whom may be unsheltered, but many are not. It's not as if addiction is unique to folks who live on our streets or many folks who struggle with addiction or substance abuse at some time in their lives. So, meeting folks where they are, treating them with compassion, and giving them treatment is how we work our way through this together. Thank you.

Anyone else? Well, I have something to share. I was privileged to attend the ILE conference at the Boys and Girls Club this Saturday, put on by the city of Salem and Marian County uh behavioral health, health and human services rather. and uh over 130 youth I think showed up to high school age youth to meet to network to get to know each other to learn about um the direction they're taking and in their leadership roles and it was just quite something to see a great group of young people who started out maybe a little bit separated at the beginning of the day and ended up line dancing and having a rock paper scissors competition at the end. So, um, a lot of good happening and a lot of inspiration coming from our youth, for me, um, and for the the city. Not only the city, but the, um, young people in attendance were also from Woodburn, Jervis, Albany, uh, Turner. I believe it was they were well represented. And West Salem had a big contingency, West Salem High. So, it was a wonderful day. Um, I also wanted to share just a little bit. I feel it appropriate to mention uh an article in the Statesman journal which noted that Everett Counz, one of the original and most prolific carvers in Salem's riverfront carousel, died at the age of 86. He joined the team of carvers after the carousel dream was conceived in 1996. He and his wife D, who preceded him in death in 2004, sponsored one of the original 42 carousel horses. Woodland's Crusader is a night themed horse inspired by child's suggestion during one of Kun's carving demonstrations at the Salem Art Fair. Kun logged more than

17,000 hours of carving on the carousel and was the lead carver on several animals, most recently Emerald the Dragon and Dakota Darling the Herford Heer. The last figure he worked on was Sally Brown the hummingbird which is still in the carving room where Coons typically spent two to three days a week. He said I think for our carving oh sorry for I think for our carving he said he was the rock said Marie Bradford Blevens executive director of the carousel. So what a legacy to leave here in Salem. something to be treasured by all of us and hopefully for generations to come. So, thank you. Anyone else have comments today? All right, then we are moving on to proclamations. Councelor Gwyn has a proclamation to give. Please come forward. A what?

Nope. Oh, there we go. It is.

Now it's on. Um, this is kind of awkward, but the person who was supposed to accept the proclamation, Justin Larson from Oregon and Southwest Washington chapter of the National MS Society could not be with us tonight. But I'm gonna go ahead and read this. My um so the mayor often reaches out if she knows or believes that someone would be a good person to give a proclamation. And I actually reached out to her on this one because my brother um I'm the oldest of three siblings and my brother who's 11 months younger to me than me um whose birthday is today um has MS. So I'm going to read this proclamation. Whereas multiple sclerosis is an unpredict predictable often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communication between the brain and the body affecting nearly 1 million people in the United States. And whereas people living with MS experience a wide range of symptoms including fatigue, mobility challenges, vision impairment, numbness, cognitive changes, and chronic pain. Each case unique make MS a complex condition that impacts individuals physically, emotionally, and socially. And whereas the National Multiple Scorosis Society leads the global MS movement in funding research, advancing treatment, supporting individuals and families, and advocating for policies that improve access to care and quality of life. And whereas significant progress has been made in MS treatment with more than 20 disease modifying therapies now available, offering hope and improved outcomes for many individuals. Yet there remains an urgent need for

continued research to find a cure and to ensure people diagnosed with MS can live their best lives. And whereas MS awareness week observed from March 8th through the 14th, 2026 is an opportunity for communities to join together in a raising awareness amplifying the voices of those living with MS and recognizing the resilience and strength of individuals affected by the disease. And whereas during MS awareness week, the National MS Society and local community partners will host educational opportunities, advocac advocacy activities, fundraising events, and awareness campaigns aimed at increasing understanding of MS and inspiring action toward ending this disease forever. And therefore, on behalf of Julie Hoy, the mayor of city of of the city of Salem, do hereby proclaim the week of March 8th through 14th as multiple scerosclerosis awareness week. I further encourage all Salem residents to learn about MS as well as educate themselves as to what they can do to support individuals with MS and their families. Disin day of March, 2026. Thank you for Thanks for letting me do that.

Thank you, councelor. Councelor Gwyn, I think you and I should have a picture together for your brother for his birthday. Would someone be willing, some staff be willing to take a picture? Jackie, would you mind? Okay. Oh, here comes Courtney. Good idea.

Thank you. All right. Now, moving on. We have no presentations. We do have a few folks signed up for public comment. I'll read two names at once. Please come forward to the podium. Make sure that the button is pressed so we can hear you. And you'll have three minutes to speak. Please announce your award or your address for the record. Lenel Wilcox and Lorie Walker. Hi, sorry. Hi, my name is Lenel Wilcox and I live in Ward One. Um, with homelessness, it's easy to make correlations of chaos, crimes, and trash. Yet, there's also community connections, stories, and familyliness. And I hope we see that, too. However we perceive it, there's a lot of common ground. Everyone wants safety, less crime, more livability, and places for people to be. Meanwhile, people wonder how we've invested so much time and money and still have more people living outside, and they often correlate more crime as well. The growing numbers do not reflect the things we're doing don't work. The many housing and shelter programs have reduced livability crimes and have housed or sheltered thousands of people. Without those programs and services, there would be thousands more people outside. Each agency is accountable. They share impact reports that reflect progress and accomplishments. But all of those options can't keep up with the years it took to get here. And those things can't keep up with our broken economy. Meanwhile, we're implementing more sweeps. Like a balloon, when we squeeze one end, another end will stretch out. That's an evidence-based data-driven result of sweeps. People can't evaporate

into thin air or cease to exist. Sweeps create more livability crimes and make it harder for people to connect to services, the very thing we want them to do. Safe Sleep is receiving about 15 calls a day for beds from HST teams, outreach teams, and our New Reach team and from other partners and people who've been swept. We can't keep up. Um, even when people are connected to resources, there are more people than apartments or beds. As we sweep Wallace and other areas, where can people go and how do we fund it? so we don't have to keep turning people away. Without plans for those details, any promises to reduce livability crimes and visible homelessness are just words and optimism that don't reflect the reality, challenges, and lack of money. Um, about crimes and accountability, I want to emphasize that no one is proposing that homelessness is an exemption from accountability. homelessness or sheltered. Some people belong in jail or prison for the safety of others. Yet, there's a difference between violent crimes and livability crimes, like not having anywhere to poop, pee, or exist. The recent city survey about livability didn't include any outreach to people experiencing homelessness. What if our end of accountability is proactive work to include their perspectives? I'm sad that we have to keep asking for their inclusion. And what if our end of accountability is shared humanity and continued work to help fellow human beings to have basic human needs met and more places for people to be? Doing that costs less than the circles we're doing. It reflects humanity. It reduces livability crimes and it reflects the values our city is supposedly prioritizing of safety and livability for all. Thanks.

Thank you for your testimony, Lori Walker and Patrick Carney. Good evening, mayor, city council. I'm Lori Walker, resident of W 2. I am here to talk about the REACH program. I am a advocate and legal guardian for unsheltered mentally ill. I am speaking to 5B. I always refer to Oregon's broken mental health system. I don't think we could get any worse than we are now, but then shouldn't say that. Uh, as a retiree from the Oregon State Hospital, I know the issues. I have supported a cahoots response program in Salem for many years. I very much support the reach response that has been begun in Salem. I believe with time more people will become aware of the program and trusting relationships will develop. I am hopeful this program is successful in saving time, money, and clientele. I am thankful each time I see the reach team around Salem and if I have time I stop and take a look. I am hopeful that Salem Health Psych Unit, Marian County Mental Health and Crisis uh the crisis center in the Salem area are in the loop working with the reach team of what if any emergency bed space may be available for any psych people or people who need immediate care that they uh don't have the options for. So, thank you Thank you for your testimony, Patrick Carney.

It was already on there.

Hi, Patrick Carney. I'm with Salem Center Mall and other downtown businesses. Uh I'm speaking in huge support of the REACH program. It gives me hope, gives us hope downtown. uh as as we currently understand it. I I'm looking for some clarity on exactly the the process. Uh at first I think it was 988 that was recommended calling and that's the suicide prevention hotline. I've uh I've called them all and gotten through eventually. They uh we've had good response times. Um, we we've called in the same person more than once, and I'm I'm curious with with the whack-a-mole type of uh approach that we have to take downtown. Um, if we're constantly calling in the same person, when when do they get to a the resources that can alleviate the chaos that's being caused downtown? Um, it it I applaud the effort of the REACH program and I'm optimistic. Uh, I've circulated uh information about the REACH program to many businesses downtown. Other people have called. I think it's well timed and we're hopeful that it can be either added to or uh held around permanently. So, I appreciate it and thank you for all your efforts.

Thank you for your testimony.

All right, Jackie Rocher. Hello, Jackie Rocher. Ward 4. Uh, you cannot see this, but this is a picture that a friend sent me of a gentle or somebody passed out on a sidewalk. This is over by State Street in 17thish area and they have an alcoholic beverage and the beverage is knocked over and it is dripping on the sidewalk down to the street and the person who shared this with me could not be here. So, I said I'd come up here and say a couple things. I am really excited about the reach program the I'm looking forward to hearing the presentation tonight. I said I want to say thank you for all of your efforts in getting this going. It's a long time overdue, I believe. And with that, it's things like this that break my heart to see someone in such a state of addiction. And I'm hoping that we can figure out a way that we are able to actually get through to the people who don't want help. I don't know how that works, but I think that accountability term can mean so many different things to so many different people and we need to figure out how to define that and what the actual accountability there should be on all sides of this issue. Along with that, I just want to say thank you publicly to some gals back there. Um, hot topics can be contentious and I've engaged in conversations about this kind of stuff on social media and I just want to thank you guys for being civil with each other when we're when we're in disagreement. You guys have a really great example that you set in front of all of us on how to talk without name calling. And I had a wonderful experience just exchanging ideas publicly with some of the people in this

room. and I want to say thank you to them and I think that we need to encourage that and try to keep name calling to a minimum when we are on social media because we need that face to face. So I just want to say thank you for setting the example and just continue to do so. So thank you. Thank you for your testimony. All right. Uh that does it for public comment. We're on to the consent calendar. Councelor Nishioa. Uh yes. I move for approval of the consent calendar. Second. We have a motion and a second by councelor Gwyn. Councelor to the motion.

Thank you. Uh the consent calendar consists of 3.1A which is the February 23rd, 2026 draft city council minutes. 3.2A acquisition of easements for the 16th Street Southeast cover um replacement project. And that concludes um the consent calendar. Thank you. Any discussion on that? Will the recorder please call the role? Councelor Nordike. I. Councelor Vney. I. Councelor Tyen. I. Councelor Nishioa. I. Councelor Matthews. I. Councelor Gwyn. I. Councelor Brown. I. Councelor Vang.

I. Mayor Julie Hoy.

I. Okay. Okay, we have no action items. We're moving on to public hearings. The Salem City Council will now conduct a public hearing to receive testimony regarding a proposed code modifications to the tourism promotion area relating to short-term and accessory short-term rentals. The hearing will begin with the staff presentation first, followed by testimony from interested persons. Testimony is limited to three minutes per person. Thank you. Thank you for being here, Kelly. You're welcome. Let's see. I am not the tech person in my department, and that's very well known. So, this is going to be a treat. Here we go. And let's see. Looks to me like you're doing great so far.

There we go. Okay. All right. Thank you for holding on with me. Hello, everyone. My name is Kelly Bleach. I'm going to put on my glasses as well. My name is Kelly Bllemmet and I'm a management analyst in the budget office and I'm here this evening to uh conduct the public hearing on the tourism promotion area. So, a little bit of context just about the tourism promotion area and what exactly it is. So, in 2019, the Salem Area Lodging Association Travel Salem approached the city and Salem City Council to establish an economic improvement district or an EID. uh in November 2019. At that time, the Salem City Council approved that and it was effective starting January 1, 2020. What that EID did was establish a 2% fee on overnight stays in Salem, short-term stays in Salem. And this is on top of the 9% city transit occupancy tax that was already in place. It is is and was remitted monthly by operators to the city. A key difference is 95% of the revenue that comes in for the tourism promotion area actually gets filtered back to the city's destination marketing organization, which is Travel Salem. The city can retain up to 5% for administrative costs, so banking investment fees, staff time to administer the program, mailings that have to go out, that sort of thing. Um, in 2024, the Salem City Council approved the TPA to be continued for another five for another five years, excuse me, and also did an action to amend the Salem Revised Code to remove short-term rentals and accessory short-term rentals from the TPA at the request of the tourism community. At the time, there was a concern that there was an abundance of unregistered short-term rentals operating. And so the idea was, hey, let's pull them out of the TPA to

allow staff and planning and compliance to bring these entities into compliance. There we go. In late 2025, so in past December, um, ordinance bill 425 came to you guys and was approved. And what that did is it also amended the Salem Revised Code. So that way way there'd be a proportionate amount of objections if the TPA was to be dissolved. So essentially what that did is it counted votes as a rentable unit to be or uh an operator's votes to be dependent on the amount of uh rentable units they had. So, think for example, a lodging facility with 50 rentable units, maybe a hotel, would have 50 votes, whereas perhaps a short-term rental with one rentable unit would have one vote. So, this is key in that as an economic improvement district, it takes 33% of objections in order to for the uh EID to be dissolved. So, that's the last change that happened. So, why we're here before you today in 2026, Travel Salem requested, "Hey, it's been a year. We've done some compliance outreach. Let's go ahead and bring the short-term rentals and accessory short-term rentals back into the tourism promotion area. Staff recognizes that that's going to be an operational change and potentially a big one for those who operate spec specifically, excuse me, short-term rentals. So there was um a big notice of outreach done. So staff sent over 300 letters to potentially impacted parties in early February that included unregistered t uh short-term rentals, registered short-term rentals, those who were pending registration as well as long-term rentals in case they

were also operating short-term rentals in addition to their long-term and hotels and motel. A notice of this public hearing was posted on the city website as well as the Salem reporter. And finally, there was a social media push in late February, early March in order to uh garner more outreach. So, as of today, as of uh before this meeting, staff has received remmonstrance or objection from over two dozen individuals representing 150 units or about 6.99% of units in objection to the TPA. as a reminder, it would take 33% in order to dissolve. So again, recognizing that there's going to potentially be if ordinance bill um 426 proceeds, there's going to be staff support needed potentially. So, a couple of things that staff has done in advance of this is performing outreach to major short-term rental platforms regarding this potential code change. So, um Airbnb and VBO to let them know that, hey, there's a potential code change that might be coming, um and requesting them to collect and remit on their operator's behalf. Um we have heard from some of them and others we're still trying to reach out to. Um, additionally, we've planned training opportunities between the finance department and the planning division because often there's confusion between the two between um for operators regarding various code processes. And so there's uh four plan trainings this spring. And then finally, the effective date of the ordinance, assuming it passes, would be the start of a month. It would be May 1, 2026. So that way operators aren't trying to remember what stays were under the TPA potentially and what ones weren't. They would all be for stays effective May 1.

So next steps, we're in the public hearing process and there will be a comment period. After those public comments, there will be questions of staff and then city council deliberation. At that point, um the public hearing would close in theory and then um depending on city council move ordinance for 26 to second reading. Thank you, Kelly. This concludes my presentation and after comment I'm available for questions.

Thanks so much. All right, we have our first person uh who has signed up online, Angie Villery of Travel Salem. Please state your Please state your name or your ward for the record and you'll have three minutes. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council. I actually had some slides prepared to answer some questions that you shared with me ahead of time. So, I was hoping to be able to do that. I don't know if I can do it in three minutes, however. But, um, Angie, could you pause for just a moment, please?

Pause for just a moment, Angie. We'll we'll start your time again. We're having trouble hearing her. Can that volume come up? We are experiencing some difficulties uh with the audio this evening. So, if Angie could speak up as loudly as possible that may help somewhat. I don't know what our capacity is to increase her volume. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Angie, go right ahead. Close captioning. Is that possible? Okay, go right ahead, Angie. Okay, thank you. Can you hear me? Okay, nice and loud would be great. Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, so um I'm responding some to some very specific questions I received from council and I wanted to provide you some additional information as you um consider this this evening. I was asked about the return on investment and the co impacts on the STPA and any measurable outcomes between 2020 and 2025. Overnight stays in Salem specifically were 2.3 million um which was 85% of Salem in the Mubmit Valley. Hotel occupancy averaged about 67% over that period of time and visitor spending attributed directly to the STPA marketing was about $1 billion in visitor spending. tourism strategy um in other cities. So AB adaptations by competitive markets since COVID and how are we sort of stacked up against that. So the focus has been on regional visitors. Um cities shifted marketing toward drive markets um you know rather than international travel emphasizing outdoor experiences. So marketing um highlighting parks and trails and outdoor experiences visitors really prefer still show a preference for open spaces events and f and festivals um which are bringing in uh visitors and increasing overnight stays. Responsible tourism messaging. So this is really around destination stewardship and marketing of that no leave no trace for instance um to protect our environment for future generations. and then regional collaborations. Travel sale and marketing strategy. This was another question about how we are focused on attracting visitors to the destination as a whole. Um so we market the destination first. We provide trip planning tools including visitor guides and website listings um that list the hotels, the campgrounds, vacation rentals and so forth so they can have a choice. um event promotion um everything

from festivals, sports tournaments and conferences. Um thematic campaigns through our marketing division um focused on historic and cultural attractions, outdoor recreation, family travel. And then the legislature, for instance, we provide lodging information to incoming legislators um and staff um who do stay in our market and they use our hotels and they also request vacation rental information. Salem overnight lodging demand, traditional hotels versus short-term vacation rentals. So, nationwide visitors use about 75% hotels versus 25% short-term vacation rental. Here in Salem, according to our visitor profile study that was done in 2324, 58% of our visitors use our hotels, 28% stay with friends and relatives. Uh 7% stay in short-term vacation rentals and 7% use um that shouldn't say campaign, that should say camping and RV, excuse me. Average length of stay is about 3.4 days. Uh drivers of overnight stays. This was another question and this is again um information from our visitor.

Angie, I'm sorry your time expired. One moment please. Okay. Do any counselors have questions or need further information? Yeah, Councelor Tyan, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, thank you, Angie, for your testimony. I'm wondering if you can tell us uh on an annual basis how much the STPA raises.

It's roughly $1 million, counselor. Um, and that has increased. Originally, it was around 800,000, but as we've increased occupancy and the room rates have grown, we've driven that number up over a million. And if we added the short-term and accessory short-term rental to the STPA, how much would you expect it to raise?

Uh, really not able to answer that question. I don't have good projections on that. that's still sort of a black hole for us in terms of having good data on um what the the room nights that they would drive, the rates that they're charging. Their rates are typically higher than our hotel years. Um so there's too many variables there that I can't really project that um with any accuracy. Okay, thank you. Anyone else have questions? Yeah, go ahead, Councelor Nishoka.

Uh thank you. Uh thank you uh again, Angie. Um uh many of those questions were mine that uh you've already proceeded to answer. So I appreciate that. Um this may actually be a question more directed to the city staff. Um I'm wondering if you have any idea how the city will be able to ensure registered um uh short-term rental operators um are contributing to the TPA. Is that going to be city staff? how registered short-term rentals are going to comply. Um, we'll need to send out a notice to let them know that there's been a code change and let them know that they're now responsible as part of the TPA. Um, it'll take some education. So I think the idea assuming you know everything goes according to plan. If um the ordinance is approved for an effective date of May 1, those withholdings and remittance and reports are actually due the last business day of the next month. So June 30th is when the city receives both their TA information as well as the any TPA information for the previous month. So within that time we'll be providing education as well as those trainings I briefly mentioned. So that would be the process.

Thank you. Go ahead. So followup question. Um do you have plans for unregistered short-term rentals? So, as with any of our unregistered short-term rentals, it's going to be a big effort between the finance department and planning and compliance in order to bring those people and those entities first into that compliance and then offer that education. Um, so that kind of is the process. I know in the last year there's been a huge effort by compliance in order to bring those unregistered entities into um education and the code. So, um, that would be kind of the process.

Kelly, thank you so much. Um, we're going to come back to you after we're finished. Does anyone have any further questions for Angie Villery? Yeah, Councelor Vney. Councelor Vney, go ahead. Thank you. Uh, and thank you, Angie, for for presenting the information. My question is for you. Um I'm trying to understand uh the purpose for bringing the short-term rentals into the TPA. What is the reasoning for it? Number one, and what is the benefit that they receive from it?

Thank you, Councelor Vime. That's a great question. Happy to answer that. So, the purpose for bringing the short-term vacation rentals into the TPA is to actually create parody. um they benefit directly from all the marketing and promotions that are done. Um and uh currently the hotels are carrying that burden. However, visitors do choose to stay in short-term rentals. Uh they stay in campgrounds. They stay in RV locations, bed and breakfast and all of that. And so to create parody to um make sure that the the fees that are being collected are shared amongst all of the lodging proprietors in our community. um that we wanted to bring the short-term vacation rentals into that mix. That is standard practice. It's um we have the second TPA in the state. Uh Travel Portland has the first one and they as well as anybody else in Washington, California, across the country um collect their TPA on the short-term vacation rental segment. As I mentioned earlier, um we provide a host of marketing, um all types of different things that drive visitation into the market, whether it be leisure visitation. We bring travel writers in to drive um publicity and stories that are published about the destination that drive visitation. We work very hard on the the group business side, so conventions, um weddings, um reunions, uh sports tournaments, and all of those that drive a lot of visitation. And so all of that activity that we're driving with these funds is creating demand at the short-term vacation rentals. So they're directly benefiting from the marketing that's done. Um yet they have not paid into that that revenue stream that's providing that benefit to them. So this would create that parody and uh level the playing field so to speak.

Go ahead, councelor Barney. Okay. Thank you. Um, let's see. Uh, if they are brought into the SSTPA, um, will there be changes to your website to focus on them a little bit more? I'm just asking because when I was looking at the website, I noticed that there's hotel lodging and there's some private rentals and some other things and I was wondering is there uh are there plans to maybe help them in exchange for this?

So, there there are a couple of different ways. um as I have on the screen here that um if any of the short-term rental owners or hosts um would like to be listed on our website, they just need to contact us and we'll make sure they get on there. There's no cost to do that. Um as was mentioned earlier, it's been very difficult to identify the short the short-term rentals in our market. So, um we definitely want that relationship. we are ready to sit down and talk about the different strategies that we're using and how they can take part in those and engage in that in those marketing initiatives. Um and then we do plan we have a STPA committee that exists um solely to oversee how these monies are spent and they are rateayers. So they are the folks who are collecting these fees. So all the hotel years and such um we want to make sure that the short-term vacation rental um segment also has a voice on that committee. Um so we will be incorporating them into that um that sort of decision-making body as well. Um but we really want the relationship. I mean tourism is only successful as it is collaborative. Um and we're all doing this work together to to uh for a rising tide. So we want the relationship. if they're have any questions about what we're doing or how they can get involved. We have many many different ways for them to plug in. So would would enjoy them to reach out to us. Thank you for the question, counselor.

Thank you, Angie. Councelor Brown, go ahead. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Angie, thanks for the presentation. Uh my question is in regards to the short-term rentals. Is there a consequence if you're not able to engraft them in Um I well I probably would actually defer to the city to answer that question. Okay. Um hopefully somebody there can answer that. No, that that's totally fine because we're going to come back with staff later on. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, councelor Nishioa.

Thank you again, Mayor. Um Angie, I believe this one will be for you. If not, let us know. Um, how do other Oregon cities such as Bend, Eugene, Ashland, the Coast um, structure their tourism promotion as councelor Vney was basically asking you when the short-term rentals are included in the TPA?

Um, it's it's the same way. There's really no difference in how we market the destination. We're really marketing the destination as a whole and all of the other DMOs across the state and across the country do the same thing. So, we're trying to draw visitors into the destination, get them to stay stay longer. The longer they stay, uh, the more money they leave behind with our small businesses. Um, so that's the whole point of what we do is to convert them to maybe a day visitor into an overnight visitor. So, all of that marketing that we're doing um benefits and would benefit the short-term rentals. And it's the same with no matter who is um which DMO you're talking to. So we're marketing the destination as a whole to benefit all of those um stakeholders in the industry.

Thank you. Anyone else questions for Angie? Thank you Angie for hanging on and answering questions for us. I just I hope you had a chance to uh take a look at this slide that's on on the screen here. Um in the five years um our our primary goal is to drive rate and occupancy for the payers of the short um the STPA and in five years you can see the tremendous growth over the shoulder season which is the toughest season for us to market um November through March. So the STPA is very very effective um in driving that visitation. Thank you so much. Appreciate you.

Thank you Angie. Okay, moving on to uh Robert Gayar. Please announce your ward or your address for the record and you'll have three minutes to speak.

Council members, um my name is Robert Gainor. I live in uh the northeast part of Salem, Maple Avenue. I think it's Ward One, right? Um, this is very interesting to me because this is the first time I have ever heard of advertising support for what um I do as far as a short-term rental. And I'm speaking in opposition uh for this additional tax. Um I don't think it is it is necessary. um 7%. It's very interesting to hear what the city is going to have to do in order to uh make this work and they're going to have to increase their budget and their uh personnel to manage this. So, it's non really non-existent right now. Um so commercial hotels are separate entities than what I do. I do short-term rentals and I rent, interestingly enough to people who are passing through the area north to south California to Washington and they prefer to stay in a place that that I have rather than a hotel. they find it more sterile and they also have um people travel with their animals, their pets, so we are attractive to that group of people. Um Salem Salem has a a lot of um homebased businesses that are not taxed. And I think this is

a discriminatory tax. You can you can have a bakery, a daycare, you can have a print shop in your house. You can sell coffee out of your garage and you're not taxed. I think it would be better if you wanted to raise revenue to have a a business tax in Salem. I think it's um it's just a it seems like a a large lift to collect a small percentage at 7%. I just saw that. So, I'm just I'm just opposed to it. I don't think it's fair. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Does anyone have questions for Mr. Gayar? Councelor Brown.

Thanks, Madame Mayor. Thank you for being here tonight and sharing more about uh your concerns. You just mentioned that you believe this tax is uh a heavy lift. Uh you also reference that is discriminatory. Um can you tell us more of why you think that? I think what you're doing is creating another bureaucracy, more bureaucracy to track this. Um, these platforms are new in our time, but people always rented rooms, you know, from the beginning of our country, room to let in the back of a newspaper. Those people weren't taxed. you're this is a tax because it's it's an easy way because you have a platform now like Airbnb and VBO so you know so it's easy it's a it's easy to get their get money from them that money goes that so that increased tax increases my cost increases the cost to the customer hotels are different entities, you know, and it seems to me that Travel Salem, again, it's it's the first time I'm hearing that they cater to my business. And one final question, how many rentals did you say you own?

It's my house. Just your one. Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Anyone else? Thank you for your testimony. All right. Thanks. I call Wes Holt, followed by Jackie Rasher.

Hi, my name is Wes Hol. Um, and I'm from W 6. And I have more questions than probably statements. Um, my wife and I run a couple Airbnbs. Um, one of the things she mentioned on her uh, presentation was putting the short-term rentals on her website. I I don't see any benefit to that personally, unlike a huge hotel chain, the Grand or or Holiday Inn. Uh, my big concern is collection. I mean, we got the love notices a little more heavy-handed. Felt like dad was taking me to the woodshed, but that's all right. Um, I was I'm just curious about collection because we don't touch any money, zero dollars. And what you're asking us to do is I'm looking at you because I'm assuming you're part of the solution is to collect money from our people that stay the night. So, um, I think that's probably my biggest challenge is, uh, do I do I agree with Travel Salem? I've used actually them. there are certain benefits there. I agree. I don't think there's any benefit to our short-term rental. And then uh the big thing is I don't want to collect money. And so how do we solve that? Uh when I go to Airbnb or VBO, they collect everything, they take their fees out, I get the leftovers, it's bada bang, bada bang. I have no idea what happens. And um so anyway, that's probably my comment. So that's it. Uh based on what I hear, how many room anybody know how many hotel rooms are in Salem? Anybody know how many short-term rentals? If my math is right,

sir, we can try to address that when staff comes up. Super. Thank you. Does anyone have questions for Mr. Holt? Yeah, Councelor Bang. Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you for coming down to the public hearing and giving us your testimony. I just wanted to clarify. Um, is are you giving public comment in opposition to the proposal or in support? I just want to make sure I'm really neutral. I'm here to learn. Uh, I'm here to understand what you're trying to accomplish. Uh, I am in opposition of me trying to collect money if that's what you're going to ask. Okay. Very.

Uh, and and I and everything else remains to be seen. So, and we we operate long-term and a couple of short-term rentals. So we it's not the first door that we have. So thank you. Yeah. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you for your testimony. Jackie Rocher.

Hello Jackie Rochet. Ward four. Um I have a lot of broken thoughts on all of this. So when I read the agenda and I read what was presented um think I like hearing uh what was presented. So it gives me a little bit more of a better understanding my struggle overall and I don't have short-term rentals by the way. I have some family members who do. I have a lot of friends that do. I own a cleaning company and we've cleaned for short-term rentals. So I'm very familiar with the industry just because of that over the last uh 15 years doing that work. But specifically, here are my concerns. I I suppose if I had to make a statement right now, I'd probably be in opposition leaning towards neutral because I understand the reason for um the TPA and support of Travel Salem because they do a lot of great work. But the reason I'm in opposition is first for people who have a short-term rental, they are already paying the Toot or the lodging tax is my assumption is how I understand it. House Bill 4134 just passed and is expected to be signed by the governor which will increase the toot, the lodging tax by 1.25% for conservation of wildlife. And so that already they're going to get an expense on their stuff. So instead of 1.25, now it's 3.25 that they're going to have to pay. Um I was talking to a friend that owns an Airbnb. She said that Airbnb just reworked their uh scheduling their fees and so now instead of the 3% host fee and then the guest pays the 14 to 16% it is now a flat 15.5 fee to the host only. So, their expenses, according to what Airbnb says, their expenses have gone up 12.5% out of

their own pocket. And the experts recommend, according to their website, raising their new base price by 18.34% to cover that increased cost for Airbnb uh owners. So now, not 18.34, now with all of the other increased expenses, it's going they're going to need to raise it up to 21.59% to not lose money. A couple of weeks ago, Mayang brought up the whole um idea about looking at short-term looking at rentals and the price and what can we do to lower the cost of price of rentals. And I think that this goes hand inand when you tax something, it gets passed on to the consumer. Generally speaking, end of story. So, what's going to happen here? Everyone's going to raise their rates. My friend said with this whole new change, her Airbnb uh vacancies have gone h have been higher and she hasn't been able to get as much traction because the fees are higher and it's harder to attract people to it. So, adding yet again another fee I don't think is wise. And also people like my family members trying to create a different way of increasing their income because they can't work. This is going to rec

Thank you. Does anyone have questions for Jackie? I don't see any. Thank you for your testimony. Okay, Kelly, would you please come back? It's time for questions for staff. Who would like to go first? Councelor Brown. Thanks, Madame Mayor. Hi, Kelly. Great presentation. Hi, Dr. Brown. Um, so my question, I kind of threw it out there a little bit earlier, um, but what what is the consequence if if we can't get all of the STRs, the short-term rentals into this new program? Um, what's the consequence?

So, I think I alluded to this a little bit earlier. Um, it really is a partnership between the finance department and the planning compliance divisions. So, um, they're kind of two halves to a whole in that planning and compliance work to first do that initial outreach to educate, hey, you we think you're operating an unregistered short-term rental. Here's some information. Please come into compliance and register. And then there will be, you know, several notifications that go out. I'm looking at Lisa. She's nodding yes. So, I'm on the right track. And then once um fingers crossed that they come into compliance, then that's when the finance department that's when our piece comes in and we kind of teach them about hey the transit occupancy tax in theory if this passes the tourism promotion area. That's kind of how that process works. Um if you need to if you'd like to learn more about how we actually get short-term rentals into compliance, I'm going to have to request that Lisa come up. So

Okay. I got a followup. So, um, sure. I mean, obviously I think that's going to be a question that, you know, several of us may have or even business owners. So, if you have a hotel that roughly has, let's say, it has 50 rooms. I use your example and then you have um folks like Mr. Robert out there who has one room in his house. I I don't know how much he makes. I can guess as to how much the hotel would make with 50 rooms. Is their thought taken into consideration with you have two different business owners, two different styles of business owners, and they bring in two different ways of income. Is that on the table for discussion, too? Like if there's a 7% charge, correct?

I'm not sure what Airbnb or VBO charges for their administration. Are you or I can talk about our the city fee attorney? Go ahead. City attorney. I can maybe add something to that. So there's there's different tourism taxes involved here. One's is the state transit lodging tax which is uh was referenced earlier. The legislature just increased that by 1.25%.

There is the city's uh transient lodging lodging tax which we call the transient occupancy tax. And then there is this tax or fee called the tourism promotion area and that's 2%. So this fee isn't changing. So that they're uh if short-term rental operators are are brought into the TPA, they'll then be subject to this 2% fee. They're already subject to the transient lodges lodging tax.

Got it. So So thank you. Um I know you're happy about him stepping and answering that. Um so when we think about that particular tax, again, I'm going to go back to something you referenced earlier about how we're going to educate those in our community. Have we thought about how exactly we're going to do that? I know mailers are going to be fine, but obviously everybody may not check their mail. How are we going to get that particular feedback uh from folks that have one or two rooms in their home, such as an Airbnb?

Yeah. So, I think um this experience, we've reached out to both unregistered and registered short-term rental operators. Um so, we have a pretty good list going and we can get that updated as well. So that way whenever this is effective, we have the latest information. But I had alluded and mentioned to some training opportunities that finance and planning are going to do kind of jointly to help educate short-term rental operators both about the planning and compliance portion of code as well as any tourism promotion area fee or transit occupancy tax that would take place. And so we've tenatively have those scheduled for the end of March and then a couple spotted in April. So dependent on city council action, we would send out notification that, hey, here's some opportunities. We could also probably post on the city website about it, do another social media push, kind of the same things we did to let people know about this public hearing this evening.

Right. And and and lastly, and I know we'll come back to this another day to talk about it, but I do think there needs to be some consideration or thought u brought into this when we are trying to bring in unregistered folk uh because if unregistered folk are simp or if they're going to say, well, no, if the city's going to tax me, then let them come find me, right? Because I can see that argument because if you have neighbors in a certain community, um let's just say that that community, let's just pick on Ward one. we'll leave W five out of this. Let's just say they're in Ward one. And if they're in W one and you have some neighbors that do have some unregistered Airbnbs and there are some neighbors that really like their neighbors, they're not going to say anything. But if you have a neighbor that does not like you, they're going to call the city and be like, you know what, so and so over here, here's their address. This is how this is when they leave their house. So, so a a part of me says some thought has to be put into this because I can see unregistered folks simply saying, "Nope, come and find me."

Yeah, I I hear what you're saying. So, um and I feel like I'm just giving so many kudos to compliance and planning, but they really in the last year have done a ton of work to um really search for those unregistered short-term rentals. So, there was a software that was purchased and it's uh they do basically a crawler search on, you know, various short-term rental platform sites and they do a cross comparison. And so, they'll notice, hey, 123 Main Street, for example, shows that it's listed for short-term rental. Let's send a letter out to 123 Main Street to come into compliance. And so, that's kind of when that kicks off. So, um I think we're in a much the city as an organization is in a much better place to kind of um address those unregistered entities.

Councelor Tigan, since he chose your award, you go first.

No. Uh I think um unregistered STRs are an issue across the city. uh not just in in ward one but um I am uh curious to hear a little bit more on this collection question. So, it's my understanding right now that whether you're registered or not with the city, if someone is using a booking site like Airbnb or VBO, the tot the the taxes that are um city attorney walked through, those are being collected and uh on behalf of the owner and remitted to the city on a monthly basis. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. And it's also my understanding that those payments come in one lump sum from the booking site without any information about what location they were collected from or anything that the city could disagregate to understand how many nights were spent in Salem, how much was charged for the room, anything like that. Is that also the case?

Yes, the payment comes in in one lump sum. There is a little nuance, but yes. Okay. So I guess my question is and I don't know how this interaction happens. This is my unanswered question is that I don't know how much VBO or Airbnb how they figure out oh the city of Salem is now collecting 9 and 9% and I need to charge that amount and send it back to Salem. Do we have a relationship with them in order to set that amount?

Yeah. So um thank you for the question. So, we have reached out to those two entities to inform them about this potential code change. Um, we have heard back from BRBO and they said that yes, this is something that we're able to administer and do and remit. Um, we've not heard back yet from Airbnb. Uh, so we're continuing to reach out to them. Uh, we do have contacts there since they send us, you know, the uh transit occupancy tax. So, um, that is something that staff is working through because we do acknowledge that that would be a change for most operators who use those two platforms, which is the lion share. So, I guess that um I want to try and repeat what I'm hearing hopefully to maybe ease some folks thoughts. I've certainly we've seen email from folks being concerned about like, I don't want to handle money. I don't want to knock on the door at 1:00 in the morning when my guest shows up and says, "I need $3.74." Like that. I think we would all agree that's bad public policy and it shouldn't happen. So, what I'm hearing you say is that we're in the process of letting these sites know that eventually they're going to need to charge 9% plus 2% if we make this decision. And then that would be automatically rem remitted back to the city and there wouldn't be any uh persontoperson cash collection.

No, we would continue to work with those entities to in order to um bring them into that compliance and that education piece. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Matthews. The exception to that rule obviously being if you don't use a site that collects the payments, right? Just so that everyone is aware. Correct. And then outside of that, I had a couple other questions. So, specifically with the voting aspect, um, do you as a ST uh, as a short-term rental, do you only get a vote if you're registered with the city or do you get a vote either way?

No, thank you for asking this question. So, the city really did try to make an effort to make sure anyone who is potentially infect or infected, oh my gosh, I'm sorry you guys, it's been a long day impacted. Um clearly I don't do this a lot. Anyone who is impacted would be able to um object, right? So letters, like I said quickly, um letters went out to registered entities, pending registrations, those who we've gotten from that crawler website that were unregistered, even those who are operating long-term rentals just in case they also are operating short-term rentals without our knowledge. Um, so in terms of the voting, we we included all short-term rentals as well as the hotel motel.

Okay. And then um I guess one other question. So with Airbnb and VBO between 2019 and 2024, so short-term rentals were part of this process already. Is that right? That they were already supposed to be charging this fee. Is that am I wrong in that? Because they were originally part of it. sounded from your presentation until 2024 in December when we removed them from the SDPA. Correct. That that is correct. And I'm looking at Dan in case he has any additional context. I apologize. I was having a sidebar question. Requesting information about uh they the short-term rentals were a part of the TPA prior to 2024 and we and then the city council took them out.

Sure. So when the TPA was created in 2019, I worked with prior finance staff on putting the ordinance together, worked in conjunction with Travel Salem and the lodging association. And my belief was that short-term rentals were were included into the TPA in 2019. Apparently, my belief wasn't shared with um others who didn't think it was included. So long story short, from 2019 to 2024, we weren't applying or enforcing the ordinance against short-term rental operators. Um that's been a bone of contention with the the hotel years association as well as Travel Salem. Um and that led to the the the change and now to add them back in. Gotcha. Okay. And then last question because so much of this has kind of centered around getting people or getting these short-term rentals to register. What is the process and what is the cost for a short-term rental to get registered?

Now I really am going to punt it to Assistant Director Anderson Oglev. Good evening, mayor, city council. I'm Lisa Anderson, your planning administrator. Um, to clarify, there's two types of short-term rentals. So, one is an accessory short-term rental. That means you live in the house and you're either renting some rooms or you leave for the weekend, you rent the whole house, but it's your your primary residence. Um, or there's a short-term rental, so nobody lives there. It's full-time used as a vacation rental. There's no other people living in the house. So, um, and depending on what zone you are, there's different processes for operating those. Um, an accessory short-term rental only needs a license. And we have an annual license, but I brought the fees so I couldn't forget. Um, it's $300 for your initial license and then $181 for each annual renewal for accessory. Um, if you're doing a full short-term rental, the license is $800 for the initial one and $311 for the annual renewal. If you're in a single family zone and you want to again use the house for a full-time vacation rental, you need a conditional use permit, which is about $7,000 to go through that process. It's a one-time process. If you get it approved, it runs with the land forever.

The fee structure seemed pretty reasonable to me. The conditional use one seemed a little high, but maybe that's just traditional across all communities. Is that pretty standard as far as pricing goes across all communities?

Um, can it's the standard fee for all conditional use permits, which could be for all kinds of different things depending the zone that you're in. It could be for um operating, you know, manufacturing use in an industrial zone. It could be for uh marijuana production. It could be for auto repair depending on your zone. Um the process is you go through a public hearing and the um purpose behind a conditional use is that the use is generally okay in that zone, but it might have a negative impact on the neighborhood. So you're going through the process to determine if conditions can be placed on the decision to minimize whatever those negative impacts might be. Um the city charges $7,000. Most cities charge between 2 and $12,000. It's kind of a wide range um depending on what their fee structure is for conditional use. Not all cities require conditional use for full-time vacation rental in the single family zone. That's what we've done since we adopted the ordinance in 2017.

Go ahead.

This is more of a procedural question, I guess, but is there are there different types of So, you mentioned the conditional use. Is there different types of conditional use as far as STP or STPs could go through a a less stringent one in the future if we were to design something like that or is it kind of thousands? It's a policy decision. We could do a code amendment. We could not have a conditional use. We could have a an administrative land use, you know, process. We could have no land use process and just the license. It's really um up to the council and how we want to if if changes should be made. We do plan to come back um in April or May this year with a full report on um the code and what we've been seeing through enforcement and you know how many people are doing short-term or accessory short term and then any kind of issues we've identified in the zoning code that we might want to amend.

Okay. I mean I I'll just speak to just from that piece right there. I think I think I'd be interested in looking at that in the future. I think if there was one thing that came out of this as a bigger issue to me, it would be that is that we have such a high conditional use cost for for operating a short-term rental. And even I mean, if I were operating one, it wouldn't be a real advantage for me to come forward and say, "Yeah, I'm operating one. Let me pay you $7,000." It wouldn't be a super friendly conversation. And so, um, so I think especially as we're trying to get people in compliance, having a bigger conversation about that piece would be good. Thank you, Councelor Brown. Thanks, Madame Mayor. Hello, Madam Director. Hello.

So, my question, similar to where I was a few moments ago, um, and I'll just say I'm in my ward rather than being in W one, uh, but I love W one. So, when I think about the business owner who may not see themselves as a business owner, but it is a business because they're making money out of it. Yes. versus that person that has a one room rental versus a hotel. Is is there room or discussion for that type of business owner to be exempt from the tax? You mean that would be a question for Kelly? This is going to be far.

Um and it might be a question for Dan. I think it would require a change to the code. Um uh I currently they're not included so maybe it there wouldn't have to be a change. Uh

and Mr. City attorney before you answer let me let me throw something else in there real quick. So when we think about exempting and again I'm I amum it sound like I'm advocating for that that business owner who has one or two rooms that they rent and I really am. So, when it comes to exempting, I'm okay with that person paying, but can they be exempted for a short period of time, like a year or two before they have to pay? Council, hypothetically, yes, we could you could fashion the ordinance to delay the effective date for certain types of um operators. I would just say that regardless of how many units someone rents on on a short-term basis, it's a percentage of the the rental rate. So, you know, for a hotel with 100 rooms, they're paying that 2% based on the revenue on 100 rooms, the person with a single rental, the single unit is paying 2% on the revenue in that single unit. So, proportionally, it's the same.

That's good. That's very helpful. Thank you, Councelor Nishio.

Yes. Thank you. Um, I think this is going to be a Kelly question, so wonderful. Thank you. Right person stepped up. Um so historically uh Travel Salem has received 9 um 5% of this and 5% has gone for administrative fees. Do you think that that percentage might need to be changed with the work that I see might be happening? Um that is an interesting question. I uh certain years take more work than others right. So like this year there's more staff time going into it because have to write the letters, have to do the mailers, all that thing. Some years it's pretty benign. So um I think it depends on the year. Uh we did a little look back and every year we've come under that 5%. In the current fiscal year we are over that 5% but the idea would be you know by the time June 30th rolls around depending on how much more effort would go into this process we would be back to that you know five or less than percent. So I don't think that there would currently need to be an adjustment but I would not want to tie the hands of a future finance representative andor city council. Thank you, councelor Tyan.

Yeah, just to follow up on that question directly. So concern that if we begin to administer this um 2% TPA to the short-term and accessory short-term um rentals, is is that a new program? Does it require new people or are the folks in the finance department who are administering the TPA already and the tot?

Yes, with the exception of things such as doing those um training things I mentioned like those few in the spring to help bring people education and compliance kind of outside the norm. So, um, as you guys know, I work in the budget office. Typically, I do not work on the TPA. Um, but that would be something that I would probably help out with, right? So, it' be that would be a little different, but, um, dayto-day operations for just administering the program, I don't think it would be much of a difference. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, please. Councelor Vney, go ahead.

Thank you. Uh, it's for Kelly. Sorry. No, this is just a clarification about the voting part. It was a question I had early in your in the presentation. Uh it said that uh a lodging facility with 50 rooms would have 50 votes. And then it says whereas a lodging facility with one unit for a short-term rental would be would have one vote. So why do they why is it not by rooms rather than unit for shortterm rentals? I was just curious. I'm going to um go to the city attorney.

Um we we're trying to figure out a good uh definition for what a a room is or a unit is essentially meets the same thing, but you can have in a short-term rental operation, you can rent out separate rooms within a house. And so if you had a house where you rented out three rooms, you would have three votes versus a single vote for that house. Okay, that makes sense because it's a separate business transaction for each room. That's what you're saying, right? Similar to a hotel that might have 50 rooms, you might have a house where you rent out three different rooms. Thank you. And how many people can you fit into a hotel room? Sorry, let's not go there. Um, can I just add a couple?

Yes, go ahead, sir. So, I just I wanted to address a couple comments uh during public testimony. the the revenue from the TPA as well as uh from TOT well- specifically for the TPA the revenue for the TPA goes directly back uh to travel Salem who is our destination marketing organization it's used specifically it's restricted to travel promotion to increase overnight overnight stays um in the Salem area. So there was a comment that this is a revenue generator for the Salem and you know for Salem and we're we're doing this to you know affect our general fund or our bottom line. It doesn't go to that. It goes directly into tourism promotion.

Thank you. Yes, councelor Bang.

Uh thank you mayor. Um city attorney. I appreciate that clarification because I'm trying I'm sitting here listening to all of the questions being asked, the public comment being given, and the presentation. And what I have troubles trying to come to terms with is that we heard from Travel Salem that um it's to create this ordinance is to create clarity and benefits u the short-term rentals and accessory short-term rentals directly from the marketing that they do for um the hotelers and the lodgers here in Salem, which is great, which is what I want. uh we want to attract as many people to come visit our beautiful city as much as possible. But um at the same time though, we also heard com public comment tonight from these short-term rental owners saying this is the first time they're hearing that Travel Salem does marketing for them. Like they weren't even aware of it. And uh I'm hearing public comment from other short-term rental property owners about this is new to them. they don't know what why this is coming about and it's a learning curve for them. And so like to me um just like a couple weeks ago when we had a different ordinance come in front of us um or different policy come in front of us. I want to make sure that when we create policy and we create ordinances that affect people and their ability to um make income for themselves that we do it in a thoughtful way. And I from what I'm hearing I just I am hesitant to um move forward with this ordinance as it is and as as it's being presented to me. Um and and really particularly I think

something that was raised earlier was that we're not able to really give a clear projection of how much would be collected through the TPA from short-term rentals if we were to bring them in with this ordinance. And so like all of these questions just make me hesitant to move forward with this ordinance and um I just wanted to share what I am thinking as I'm sitting up here with the rest of uh my council members. Thank you. Councelor Gwyn. So, Lisa, my question's for you, and I think you you and I have had many conversations about short-term rentals, so my question is not going to come as a surprise to you, I'm sure. Um, I have followed the hearings on all of the short-term rental applications for um conditional use. And it's my opinion that probably 95% of those hearings off officers decisions come back with the same six conditions. So to me I guess that's my question and I'll save the rest of what I have to say for deliber del deliberations but is that not the case? Um yeah, the majority have the same conditions which limit how many rooms can be rented, how many people overall um you know prohibitions on parties and and that kind of thing. Um and then we'll have some where they have lots of conditions or we have lots of testimony about you know parties or how the person's operating, where they're parking, etc. So um we've had the last three we've had I think that will come to council soon as decisions. you'll see maybe different conditions on those based on testimony. But I would

agree that the majority of them I mean we haven't done that many there's still many people out there that are not in in compliance. So they haven't gone through a conditional use process even though they need to. Um but I would have probably done 20 or 25 and the majority of them there's not a lot of testimony and the hearings officer provides the same restrictions. Yes, councelor Brim. Thanks Madame Mayor. Madam director, you just um compliance about how many like right now are not in compliance?

Um any given day when when you look on the um website for the third party um vendor that we're using, they there's two to 300 short-term rentals listed, accessory or or regular. And we've licensed I updated the numbers this afternoon. We have 25 current valid licenses for short-term rentals. Um, and four more in for review. And then we have 30 accessory short-term rental licenses that have been approved and eight more that are currently under review. So, nowhere near 200. Make sure I heard that clearly. Two to 300 that are not in compliance. Correct.

Correct. And and just because you're using the platform, you don't necessarily need a license from us. So, you can use the platform and and um be uh advertising for a long-term rental, you know, monthtomonth, and that's fine. So, we have to weed through those folks as well. Um but what we see is people say, "Oh, actually, I'm going to do longterm." And then they switch their ad, and then we turn around and they've switched it back to short-term. Um or we see people um advertising in units that they're not allowed to rent out, apartment units where they don't have the owner's permission, accessory dwelling units where they're prohibited, things like that. So then at that point it's just you need to stop operating and that's harder than you need to come get a license. Right. So

and and did Kelly did you say earlier that we're trying to get this done by May or am I making that up? You are the decision makers. So um currently the ordinance is effective for May 1st. So the idea with that would be uh for stays beginning May 1st, those um the the tourism promotion area would need to be assessed that that fee would need to be assessed and then that information remitted along with um those funds to the city by June 30th. So um but as the city attorney alluded to, changes could be done to the effective date.

Got it. And one final thing, this is probably from Madame Mayor or Mr. City attorney. Are we expecting just to have a conversation about this tonight? Are we expecting to vote on it, too?

You're expected to uh make a decision tonight. If council's not ready to make a decision, then you can continue deliberations to a future meeting. Got it. Thank you, sir. Councelor Nishoka. Thank you. Um, so let's go back to those numbers that were just given. Uh, this may be a joint question actually. So if we're going to be having you speak to um Airbnb and Verbbo and explaining that if this gets passed that there's an additional 2%. For those that are operating without a permit, they would also be included in that 2%. Am I correct then?

Yes. If Airbnb or or VBO is already collecting the tax for them and they collect this new tax, then we will be getting that money from them just in the the kind of, you know, compliance situation of trying to get them licensed is handled separately. So, there's a little bit of separation here in the sense that there's one that we're going to be hearing about in April or May with short-term rentals and then this is any though that are operating through those services would see this increase if this is passed. Correct. Yes. Kelly has more to say.

Yes. And if you are not using those two platforms, you are also would be required if assuming this passes to um remmit that 2% fee. So those are just the two big ones that most people use. But yes, thank you. And I will just add that once somebody comes in to get a license, we require them to register with the finance department for TOT tax. Um, and they can either say yes, I'm going to re remit it myself because I don't use those platforms or oh, I use those platforms and you're already getting it. And we don't issue the license until they've done that. So, this new tax if it passes would be part of that process to make sure that they are aware of that and and signed up for that as well.

Thank you. May I ask a question? How long have you all staff been at this process for on this topic on enforcement of licenses or of the tax or both? Both.

Okay. Um the city adopted our short-term rental ordinance in 2017. Um we hadn't done really any active enforcement until last year when we were able to get the third party vendor. Um because just going to look at an ad online, you can't tell the address. And so it's been really hard without a different company doing that to know who's out there advertising. So we only responded to complaints before that. Um but we've been working on it pretty hard for the last year to try to get people into compliance. The reason I asked that question is um I came on to council in 22 and was on the Travel Salem board and I know we were talking about it that long ago that it was an issue and that we do have a a high number of folks who are not registering and it's you know to put it simply an issue of fairness you know equality across the board for what you're offering in terms of a service. The other piece um just to and you can add if you if you like, but I think maybe these folks um wouldn't have heard about it because they weren't involved. So, they didn't receive correspondence from the DMO um as to what it was doing for them or not doing for them or how they were being um advertised for. So, just to put it simply, I think when they weren't a part of it, they didn't know. So, this education piece that you all have been working on for the last year or so is has been an effort to do that.

Is that right?

Um, absolutely. For compliance, and I guess I'll let Kelly speak to outreach. Yeah, we um so this originally was supposed to come to the city council late last year, I think, and it was pulled um because there were some conflicting items on the agenda. So, we started our outreach to short-term rentals in the fall, like I want to say October maybe. We sent out the original notice um for when the original public hearing was supposed to take place. So we've been for for that portion we've been trying to do a fair bit of outreach since. Yeah. It's just my point being it's just not a new it's not a new topic. We've been out at this for a while. It's been a um a council has been aware of this for a while now. So yeah. Councelor Brown, did you have something?

One one more. So, again, going back to those um short-term rental owners who are out of compliance and let's just say they've been out of compliance, let's just say for 5 years, do they have to disclose that to you? A, that they've been a business owner for 5 years. And second, if they do have to disclose that to you, do we now have to retro and go back and find them for those 5 years or it just goes forward for the finance piece? I don't believe we would. I can't speak for compliance or planning.

No, we're more interested in getting folks license moving forward, getting them into the system, getting their inspections. We're not going backwards and we're not we haven't currently find anybody. We're doing we spent the last year on education and outreach with letters and emails and all the things about this is the system and you need to come in and get your license and here's how to get your license.

Well, one one of the things that I that I'm sensing is that um and I'm all about trying to make sure that you know people abide by whatever rules there are, right? Um, but at the same time, if if we have two to 300 that are not in compliance and we've had two to 300 for as long as we've been discussing this, my next thing is like we can be talking about this next year and you still have two to 300 that are not in compliance. Would that be a fair assessment?

Well, I hope not. Um, you know, we have we do have code compliance staff that are working on it. And like I said, we haven't been issuing any fines or anything, but um, you know, come about July, we'll be it'll be a year that we've been using the third party vendor and sending rounds and rounds of letter and correspondence. So, um, we'll probably shift more into active enforcement at that point when we're not getting responses from from anybody. You know, if somebody's not responding. Well, I want to repeat back what I just just heard you say. Sooner or later, you'll have to come back to us or not when it's time for you to start in enforcing when it comes to fines. Sooner or later.

Yeah, sooner or later. And like I said, we do plan to come and give a more um formal update on the the process and what we've been working on and some proposed maybe code amendments that would make it easier for some of the issues we've been running into when we plan to come later this spring. So that would be an opportunity for the council to give us policy direction on if we want to maybe change some of the processes maybe or or if that's you know what's getting in the way of people getting licensed.

Right. And the other final thing I would say and I this is maybe something Mr. city tourniquet can can add to is that you know we have business owners like this that are trying to you know make additional money, right? And so and there eventually there's going to be a fine for them. We were here what last month or month and a half ago discussing business owners downtown that had also not been paying taxes if I'm not mistaken. Sorry, get confused on when the rhetorical question stops and the real question begins. You should correct it. You should be in my head.

So, so, so, so yes. So, there are some business owners downtown that have not been paying taxes for their business and we have not found out a way to get the money that they owe from them. And now on this side, we have some other business owners that are renting rooms, and we're about to start looking for money from them eventually. The reason I'm putting this rhetorical question out there is that sooner or later, somebody's going to call us on what we're doing, and they're going to say, "Why are you expecting these folks to pay, but you don't expect these folks to pay?" And look at Ward One. War was like,

Dr. Brown, I just go ahead council. Yeah, I just asked for clarity on your statement. Well, I just wanted to kind of uh make a quick statement and and I'm assuming that you're talking about the uh parking tax, right? Uh what we this council agreed to reimburse all the business owners uh starting from July 1st, right? So, so nobody paid back, right? So, it's not that we collected from some and we didn't collect from others is what I'm trying to say.

Thank you for that clarification which goes back to the compliance piece. And this is not this is not a question. It's just looking at those particular business owners who do have short-term rentals and finding out how we can yes get them to compliance, but also we want to educate them say, "Hey, there's a better way." and at the same time understanding that they may not be at the place where they can afford to pay additional taxes. That's the piece that we have not said tonight is that there may be some that can't afford the additional tax and the push back on that someone's going to say well they can't afford to pay the tax and they shouldn't be a business owner and I'll let it stay at that. Thank you

councelor Gwyn. My only question um in sort of in response to what councelor Brown was just saying was this goes back to 2017 or 2018. Lisa, I can't remember what you said, but some of these folks that are were in that are non-compliant didn't even know that there was such a an ordinance and that they needed to be um registered or what the rules were. So, I I do think that we need to allow some grace for that. So, and I know that's not a question, but what did we do as a city to make sure that that people knew that?

Um, well, in 2017, it was in the paper a lot. I can say that because there was a lot of um kind of angst about the fact that we didn't have an ordinance and then if we were going to allow it, what kind of impact was it going to have on our neighborhoods and our housing stock? Um, again, we didn't have, you know, contact information for folks that were running them and we haven't had that until very recently. So, we didn't we weren't able to to send mailers or anything like that. I do know if you register through Airbnb or VBO, it does alert you to the fact that your city may have ordinances that you need to comply with and that you should check with them. And we do have planners that work a public information desk, you know, Monday through Friday. Um 8 to 5, no appointment needed. Um and an email and a phones. Um and so people do call and ask and have over the years, but they don't necessarily follow up on it. and some have. So I, you know, every year we even without us doing this, we've had 15 or 20 folks that would get their their license. So there are some that were complying because they would reach out and and ask us what they needed,

but they were not the short-term rentals. They were the hosted ones. Um, we've done a few a few conditional use permits for short-term rentals over the years. Um, you know, maybe like five or something before we started doing enforcement. It was it was very rare. And then also some zones you don't need that conditional use permit. So if you're in a commercial zone or something like that, you can do the full short short-term rental without that more expensive conditional use permit. But but it's uh yes, it is true. Most of the people that were getting their licenses were doing the accessory short-term rentals. Yes. Councelor Matthews, did you have something? If I did, it was a while ago and I've forgotten it at this point. So

Okay. Thank you. Just didn't want to leave you out. Councelor Vney, I'm sorry. I'm I'm thinking of the fairness thing and this might be a question for Kelly, but it's about the third party. Um, are they checking other places that these are marketed besides Airbnb and and vacation rentals?

Yeah, they're they check like 12 of the most popular sites. They check all kinds of sites and then they use the the um listings that they get and they compare it to any publicly available information. So comparing the front of the house to street view or checking who's the owner, you know, on on the assessors and checking Facebook posts and all these different things. Um, and then when they they do tell us, you know, we found this person, this is who we think it is. Here's their ad. You can see that how their their ad is listed. Oh, they're listed for short-term. And then we can look at our records and see if they have the license or not. And they do that daily. They run it every day. So it's constantly updated.

Okay. Thank you. Sounds like they're pretty thorough and I guess more fair. Thank you, Councelor Matthews. Did you remember? Just kidding. Sorry about that. Anybody else? Wow. Thank you so much. Great presentation. Great questions. Close the hearing. We're going to close that hearing. Councelor Nishio, your motion. Thank you. I move to continue the Salem Tourism Promotion Area and proceed to second reading of ordinance bill number 4-26.

I'm going to second for the sake of of conversation. Great. Okay, counselor to the to the motion. Anything further? Um, I think I will let others deliberate. I think we've heard a great deal. I don't have much to add. Okay. anyone? Councelor Tyen.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. I really appreciate the conversation and the um questions asked by council and the responses by staff. Um I think as I've thought about this, it's really there's two things going on here, right? One is that we have a a real compliance issue with short-term rentals in our community and accessory short-term rentals. We know it's a it's out there. Um, I think the staff has done a lot in the last year to change the story um of compliance. We know since 2017 that these have been out there, but just in the last years when we've done that, I think it's hard to separate that from the question on the table tonight, which is whether the people who operate those short short-term rentals should be pitching in to help for the promotion of the Salem area as a place that people want to come and visit. Um, when I think about that, um, the logic is really clear. I know people who run short-term rentals, um, just like some people, you know, stay at a hotel room when they have a a water leak in their house or something like that, people stay in a short-term rental when they have a water leak. But also, people come to Salem for when I talk to people who run them, they're like, "I didn't even know we had a, you know, a hoola dance competition or whatever, a belly dance competition, but every year the belly dancer comes and stays in the short-term rental." Um, so I I think when people come to Salem, it's really a customer preference whether they go to hotels or whether they go to short-term rentals. Um I think the other thing that uh may be a bit unstated as well is that the funding mechanisms for our um tourism promotion organizations are changing. Um right now

there's a bill on the governor's desk that could potentially um give cities the ability to take more of the TAT fund than they've been had to in the past or been able to in the past. Um, and I think that's likely to be a question that comes before our city council at some point if we uh decide to do that. The bill numbers um 4148 which would allow up to 50% of lodging taxes taxes collected by cities to be spent by local governments whereas used to be only 30%. It's going to leave our organization that promotes Salem as a place to visit in a much worse position. Um, and so I think um, the reason we don't know how much money this is going to generate is because we have a system that doesn't encourage people to register. Um, and so I think it's a logical answer not to know what it's going to register or how much it's going to raise, but um, I'm personally supportive of expanding this to include this task uh, this tax on um, folks who are using short-term uh, rentals. I do think we have a much bigger issue when it comes to compliance that we'll like to tackle in a few months.

Anyone else? Councelor Quinn,

I personally would prefer to um postpone this decision tonight because I do think that there's a much broader conversation to be had. For for one thing, I think I personally think that short-term rentals when people apply for that conditional use that it could be streamlined because as I've watched those hearings, um the conditions have been the same. Um, and I I I just think it needs to be a conversation that we have in totality and not break it up. So, for that reason, I'm not going to be able to support this tonight.

Councelor Tigan,

I I guess I would just respond to that. Um, councelor Gwyn with the my observation that regardless or not whether someone registers their STR right now or their ASTR, they're going to pay this. Um, and so that part of it doesn't seem to have any material difference on tonight's decision. Um because there's some people who don't want to go through the conditional use permit, haven't told the city that they're running something, renting it out of VBO, and if we pass this, they're going to they're going to pay this 2%. Um if we cut the conditional use permit in half, they apply for the conditional use permit, they get approved, they come into the system, they're still going to have to pay 2%. So the question tonight is should they pay 2% not is the conditional use you know too high or something.

Councelor Nishio.

Uh thank you mayor. Um uh thank you councelor Tyen and councelor Gwyn for both of your comments. Um it was about three years ago February of 2023 that I brought forward the motion about short-term rentals. And that's when um our planning department began uh reviewing how we could determine um who was out there and and what we might do. So, I've been waiting patiently and I'm looking forward to when this comes to us. Um I know that there are a lot of varying opinions on short-term rentals and so I think we'll have the opportunity to discuss that at that time. I agree with councelor Tyigan that this is even though it's tied to short-term rentals, it really is a separate entity. Um I think more than anything I'm just concerned that our staff are working more than maybe that 5% is is there and if um we have the opportunity of maybe readressing that uh percentage uh to make sure that our staff are not one overworked or we're not getting reimbursed. I would like to see that. But as this is being brought forward with all of the questions I think that have been well answered, um I'm I am in favor of this motion.

Yes, Councelor Tigan.

Madame Mayor, thank you. And sorry to dominate the microphone at the start here. Um, I guess I would just say though we're not talking about the the changes that need to happen to encourage more um compliance with the with the short-term rental policy, I just want to say to my fellow counselors, I'm very interested in changes to the STR and ASR program that will increase um compliance. And not from a city moneymaking perspective. Um, I think a most of it is just cost recovery to begin with, but um I really feel like there's an important public policy reason why we license these um ASRs and short-term rentals is because anytime someone lays down their head and goes to bed um they're completely defenseless, right? and we inspect these uh STRs. We inspect hotel rooms. We inspect multif family units. Anytime anyone goes to sleep in this town other than a single family home, the city has some role in inspecting that unit in order to make sure it's safe. That's the public policy reason behind this um this system. And to me, that's really important. when we have potentially, you know, 300 or 400 units that aren't being inspected, it means there could be 300 or 400 units without carbon monoxide detectors. And it's those basic inspection functions that is what we're trying to protect people when they come to our city. And so, I think we should do everything we can to make sure people are registering and having their sites inspected. Um, again, I don't think we're getting there right now. And I think we need to change the system to encourage that and I'll be very open to those conversations later.

Thank you, Councelor Tyen. Councelor Brown. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Did you want to go, Councelor Matthews?

No, I I do want to highlight something councelor Gwyn said. You know, something does have to be said about this conversation. A, and then B, about how we're going to do better when it comes to educating those folks who have short-term rentals. And I'm going to commend the staff. You've done a great job for the past several years in doing this. I just don't think we're there yet. When we look at what is happening, not only within our city, but just across this state, and we're still at that place of people having a married amount of definitions when it comes to affordable housing. When I think about this family or this person that's trying to make additional money, should they have um um a system in their home that detects for carbon monoxide? Yes, they should. But at the same time, I'm not a fan of of taxing someone at this particular moment. I'm just not a fan of it. Period. End of story. Um you have the floor.

Councelor Matthews. Uh, I tend to lean similar to councelor Tigan on this in the fact that this is I think that there's benefit that maybe some of the short-term rentals don't quite understand that they receive right now. The travel Salem, their whole premise is around bringing travel or bring passengers here, bring travelers here. They do that through sports tourism. They do that through various other events. But when that traveler ends up booking here, they don't say, "Well, I got my information from Travel Salem or I got it from their ad, so I'm only going to book through a a hotel that pays this 2% tax that they receive a benefit back." They book with whatever's most convenient for them. And as we heard tonight, short-term rentals is obviously a popular uh avenue for that. I mean, I think we've probably all stayed in our own version of a short-term rental in different places. And so, so to me, I think that one piece is about fairness. we have the hotels already paying it uh because they see a benefit in it. And secondarily, the same benefit is for anyone that owns a short-term short-term rental. They're receiving the same benefit. Um secondarily, this is not a tax that cannot be overridden. That's the other thing is if there is a feeling amongst the the short-term rentals and the hotelers that this is not of value, it takes a 33% vote amongst that that group to be able to say we don't want this tax anymore. And so that is completely within their power to do that. And this tax originally came not as a city tax. It came as a tax from the hotel years getting together and saying we think that we see the value here. And so to me, I see this as an equity problem of right now you have one entity, the hotel years that are paying this and receiving the benefit and then you have a whole another group, the short-term rental renters rental units that are not paying this uh but still receiving the same benefit. Uh as far as to councelor Tigan's point about the issues of uh why

it's unpopular to get licensed, I completely echo that. I if I owned a short-term rental, it would not be very appealing to me to come forward to the city and pay a $7,000 conditional use permit. It just wouldn't. So, as an opportunity comes to relook at that, I think that's where probably there's a lot of opportunity to be able to help the short-term rentals um in making that an actual practical decision to be made. Thank you for saying that. Uh, councelor Matthews, I was going to bring up the same point about the 33% and I think as of tonight they were at 6.9%. Is that right?

6.6%. Um, the other question I had, is it okay to ask a question of staff? Thank you. Um, this is a fee to benefit the payers, right? Paid by the consumer. So, correct. the the the folks who actually, you know, pay the the fee or the folks who stay in the the transient lodging. The lodger pays it and then the the operator, the hotel or the short-term rental would remit it to the city. Okay. And it's and it's in place because the payers choose it. It's their choice. Correct. As to where they the operators. Yes.

The operators. Okay. Thank you for that, Councelor Nishio. Yes. And I just want to say again, and I thank uh Angie for bringing it up, that the short-term rental um there'll be a collective and someone will be on the committee that will be representing. So, they will have representation and that we want to make sure that everyone understands that they're not out there alone and it's only the hotelers that will be in the committee that makes decisions on that uh marketing. So, um, I appreciate that they will bring short-term rental members in. Councelor Matthews, I

I should have asked this to staff when they were up here and so I'll ask it now and hopefully someone will have an answer, but what does, because I just mentioned the voting process for the 33%. What does that process look like? I know it happens again in approximately another what fourish years, fiveish years. Um, what does that process actually look like for them to be able to vote? So, as as Kelly kind of outlined in our staff report, we provide uh written notice to everyone we know is operating um you know, we provided uh you know, social media through the city social media channels. Um is is basically as more folks that operate that get registered, whether they're hotels or not, uh if they're registered with the city and licensed with the city, we're going we're going to have good contact information for them. Um, I assume we'll still be using the the software that the planning division is using now to locate unregistered folks and as we did this time we would send out notice to them as well.

So when that opportunity to to basically repeal this back comes to them again, they would get another notice saying that this is an opportunity again. Is that right? That's correct. Okay,

councelor Nordic. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, first of all, I I want to say I really agreed with comments you made about fairness and parody. I echo that. And also, I want to bring uh I also want to give kudos to councelor Matthews for pointing out the fact that this is something that they get to vote on and that the operators get to vote on. And per our staff report, as of February 23rd of this year, the city received objections for the continuation of this tourism promotion area from six people representing six units or 0.28%. That's a strong vote saying that vast majority are just fine with it. So, I I think that's um I think that's worth mentioning. I I would also like to point out that there's a time there are times of the year when every Airbnb in town is probably fully booked and Iron Man is one of those times. Travel Salem worked extremely hard on getting Iron Man to come to town. So, I recognize that not all of our operators may know of the work that Travel Salem does, but there's a reason why Iron Man came to town, and Travel Salem was one of the stakeholders who made that happen. And there's a lot of other things that they do. I've met with Angie many times over the years. She's always working to bring more trade shows and conferences to town. And so unless the operator asks a person, why are you in town? Because I've I've done Airbnb, they don't ask me why I'm coming to town. They're just glad I'm coming. They're just glad to take my money. So, um I I just want to point out that Travel Salem has worked extremely hard to support our community to get more

tourism to this area. It may not always be readily apparent, but I'm sure if any of the short-term operators are here tonight or if they're are listening online, you know, please reach out to Travel Salem and ask for information, learn about what that process looks like. Please get involved. I think that would be a great way to proceed. Thank you,

Councelor Barney. Thank you. Uh I really don't have anything to add. This has been a really good discussion and I do look forward to a future discussion on the conditional use permits, licensing, you know, overall. But for for tonight, we're just we're looking at this uh TPA fee. Um we do get a lot of benefits from Travel Salem and these rentals, all of them, whether they're licensed, whether they're not. You know, as you said, we have a lot of people that are coming to events that are advertised by Travel Salem, and I appreciate the fact that there will be a position on the TPA board or there is or there will be. I think that's really, really important. And just getting the word out as to how um Travel Salem can help the individual businesses, I mean, you know, and what they do. So, I'm I'm supportive of this, especially in the fairness term that all of them all of the short-term rental businesses are benefiting from this whether they're paying, you know, or not. And so, I think it's fair for them to all be paying for Travel Salem. Anyway, thanks,

Councelor Quinn. Um, so I just want to say that I am still going to be a no vote, but it's not because I don't think that Travel Salem isn't doing great things. I do. My concern is if the short-term rental operators didn't even know that they needed to be registered, how did they know they had a voice? How did they know they had a vote? So, my vote isn't nec it's not against the TPA. I just want to make sure that we have all voices at the table and that there has been adequate conversation with our short-term um rental operators. And I also did want to point out, I just did a quick search of what um the taxes are in different cities throughout Oregon. for for the city tax. Portland is 6%. Salem is nine, Albany is nine, um Eugene is 4.5, Happy Valley is eight, Port Orford is seven, Madress is six. Um so I mean we're already at nine 9% in Salem and now we want another 2% on the TPA. And I again um it's not that I don't think that Travel Salem isn't doing a great job. It's not that I don't want I I just want to make sure that folks have an opportunity to be heard because I'm not sure that they were. Anything else? Okay, I think we're ready for a vote. Councelor Vney

I. Councelor Tyen I. Councelor Nishoka I. Councelor Matthews, I. Councelor Gwen, nay. Councelor Brown, nay. Councelor Bang, nay. Councelor Nordike, I. Mayor Julie Hoy, I. All right, we'll close that public hearing. And before we start 4B, we're going to take a five minute break, maybe three minutes. Okay.

Councelor Gwyn, you'd like to join us, it'd be great. Come on down. We have Okay, we're going to come back to order and see now this is when you should find us. We're moving on to item 4B. Just Yep. Moving on to item 4B.

The Salem City Council will now conduct a public hearing to receive testimony regarding a substantial amendment to the city's 2025 annual action plan with housing and urban development that would move 516,500 from housing preservation to public facilities. The hearing will begin with the staff presentation followed by testimony from interested persons. Public testimony is limited to three minutes per person. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Welcome.

Thank you, Madame Mayor, Council Michael Brown, community planning and development manager for housing production programs and also supervising the federal uh the HUD grants. And I just want uh want you all to know I'm very committed to getting you home to your families as quickly as possible. Thank you. So, annual action plans are things that we do every year. um that's what hence the name annual uh to tell HUD how we intend to spend money and the way we do that is by putting them in big buckets and we combine the home and the CDBG money and in uh both prior years unspent and the upcoming years anticipated grant into those buckets and the citizen our citizen participation plan says that if we're going to move money between buckets in the amount of $50,000 or more we hold a public hearing pursuant to public notice so that uh citizens have a chance to comment on that on that uh amendment. So tonight's amendment is to move $516,500 from the housing preservation bucket to public facilities bucket and specifically to support Marryiam Pulk food shares warehouse acquisition last July. Can I operate this from here? Oh, yes I can. Uh, last July we had in the uh housing bucket a little over $4 million and in the public facilities and infrastructure bucket we had about $1.4 million, excuse me. And what we're proposing to do is take that half million dollars, 516,000, and move it down into public facilities. And that's what it would look like after the amendment, assuming the amendment is passed.

The reason for the amendment is that twofold. Number one is um I've got good news for you. Last I was here two weeks ago and said that we had not gotten our line of credit open for PY25. It's open. So that is a great thing. Uh that happened Friday last. And um however, every silver lining comes with a dark cloud. I think is a thing. And so that means of course we have a timeliness test on May 2nd as always and now we have $1.4 million that we really need to get out the door. So um this amendment will help us do that. Council last July had had allocated $600,000 to Marian Pulk Food Share for their warehouse acquisition. It seems like a lifetime ago, but last July uh they had already started to experience a huge uh increase in demand for the things that they do. And so this is going to be a big help to them to to close on this warehouse. Sorry, I'm horse. this uh I wanted to just share with council very briefly kind of how this how how it we try to manage this um both in buckets and in the activities or the projects that are associated to those buckets and all what I did here is I I separated out the CDBG funding from the buckets so that you could just kind of see that in separate it doesn't include the home which is why the numbers over on the totals don't equal the ones in the slides that I just showed you But essentially, um, you see your buckets, your big buckets there in the dark blue, I guess that's blue. And then, uh, in the lighter blue, uh, is by activity or by project. And so down there under public facilities, we're in we're saying, uh, we're recommending to increase that by 1 million. I'm sorry,

increase it by 516,500, raising Marian Pulk food shares up to $1.1 million. Where did we get that money? Uh, we originally had money scheduled for Salem Housing Authority to use in Englewood West and South View Terrace. However, they're not advancing yet. And so, we can safely take that from this current program year and from prior years, spend it faster, and we can backfill in the PY26 grant. Um, I've already talked about the increase from 600,000 to 1.1 million for the warehouse. And, uh, the warehouse, I think most of you already know, is the old, uh, Don Pon Don Poncho production facility. As I said, I was very committed to get you getting you home to your families. I'll entertain any questions if there are any. We have no one signed up for public comment, so we are moving on to questions. Any questions from councel?

Councelor Brown. Just just for the good of the order, Mr. Brown. So, you remember when you were when you were here a couple of weeks ago and you shared about, you know, we didn't have that that line of credit, but now that we do have it. And my question just for clarification. So on that last slide on uh slide five here. Oh I can read it to you. It says funds will now be used for marry and pole food share project to acquire large food storage and distribution warehouse. So when we transfer these particular funds from go to one place to to the next place and we can do this at will. Yes. Correct. At will with the public hearing. Yes sir.

With a public hearing. Yes. So do you foresee I mean obviously you know we have inflation is rising in a variety of areas. Do you foresee this changing like will this become more difficult down the road to actually acquire funds. the the line of credit or the acquisition of funds of course is um is an act of Congress that becomes a bill and then we get an as an entitlement community we get by formula we get a some amount of that money in a perfect world in an ideal world Congress would have their fiscal year appropriations done before October 1st of the year that it starts right

we would be notified within 60 days which is what HUD's guidelines are of what our our piece of that would be. So that would put put us in December, let's say. We would then have substantial time to work on an annual action plan, you know, do the community outreach and those kinds of things and then council would adopt the annual action plan in time for the program year start on the 1 of July. That's that's an ideal world and we're not there.

It doesn't work ever work that way. So I just got word from HUD uh on Friday, I think. No, Thursday. I apologize that they're going to announce the next fiscal year's entitlements very soon. So, it's already it's March. So, um you will see us again in Mayish, right? Uh for the next year's annual action plan. I don't know what that amount's going to be. What I've what I've read in open sources is that it's supposed to be level with what it was this year. Oh, so it could be the same. So it could be the same. And yes, and one final thought, you had said that now we have a short runway to get the funds out,

correct? Does that impact you and your staff as far as like how long it's going to take you? Like do you need more time? We've been planning for this for a while. So that you know, we've got we have actual activities, projects in the pipeline that I absolutely intend to conclude before the timeliness test that will put us into timeliness. Oh, that's good. I just want to say I appreciate you and your your team working on this and it's definitely good to see you, you know, two weeks later with some with good news. Great news. We love it. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Thank you, Councelor Matthews.

So, did Mary and B food share, did they give us any indication? I don't know enough about their their challenges and their current facilities. So, I'm assuming because it says it's for a larger food and distribution warehouse, they have a a space constraint currently that's prohibiting them from serving more members of the community that they could. Is that what where the concerns come from? That's their long range plan. So, yes, we're we're contributing to their long range plan. They are in a smaller facility now and they run meals on wheels and they run a food food bank. So they're looking they're they're looking at the community's needs based upon the demand that they're seeing and they're saying we need to do something more and so okay this is this is what they're doing

and mess on wheels I may be wrong on this are they are they run out of center 50 plus right now is that correct uh I think that's true yes so they'll be vacating that space and moving to this space or perhaps running a running both at the some simultaneously okay and then uh did they give us any indic ation on how much this will will basically increase their numbers of production or their numbers of capacity to be able to help. No. Um I've but I did in fairness I didn't ask them. Okay.

You know they they came they came to they came to the city last about this time last year and uh council approved this the initial allocation last July and then u you you've got a copy of Mr. Guapo's memo I think um describing their increased need.

Okay. Okay. So uh did they last question here mayor did they increase did they ask for this increase or did we propose this increase to them because we weren't able to spend it in a different bucket that we had already prepared for. It was kind of a collaborative thing honestly counselor the um they needed more money and we needed to spend more money and uh something I try I try not to delve too deeply in the details but one of the things that happened um you know we had this plan in July as I keep referencing uh that you all adopted and then um towards the end of July one of our previous grantees repaid $530,000 to to the city for not uh fulfilling the 10-year uh no change of use obligation.

And of course, that counts. It is great that we get the 500,000 bucks back, but it counts against our timeliness. So, there's lots of things that move during the course of the year that uh I wish we could be a little more agile, frankly, but with a 30-day public comment period and have to go out and try to find a partner who can actually pull it off. And the environmental review piece, it it's uh yeah, it takes a little bit. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you very much. Okay, we'll close the public hearing and any further discussion. You going to read the motion? Thank you.

I move to approve the substantial amendment to the city's 2025 annual action plan with uh uh HUD moving 516,500 from housing preservation to public facilities. Second motion and a second by Gwen. Anything further? Okay. Oh, councelor Matthews.

Well, just from a discussion basis, is that what you mean? Yeah. Um, I'll be honest, I'm a little bit struggling with this. Not because of the concept of what it's for, but that we don't have any data on kind of what the projection increase is. I mean, to attribute an extra 400 and some thousand. I feel like we should sort of know like any other program, we would want to know what are we getting for that, right? What is the projected outcome? And so, on the flip side, it sounds like we're a little bit hamstrung because we also need to spend this money. So, it's as much a benefit to us as it is to them, I suppose. Um, so for that, I suppose because looking at it from a selfish perspective for the city and knowing that we need to spend these funds, I suppose I can support it. But, um, but I will say I feel like from a vetting process, we probably should have more vetting going into this before we really have made this this decision.

Councelor Tyen. Yeah. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And I I feel like I can channel um Miriam Poke Food Shares uh CEO Rayuapo to tell us just the amount of impact that they have on the community. But knowing that the facility, the Don Furlon or the um Don Poncho facility that they're um acquiring in W 5 um is uh $24 million in total is the the bottom line that they're trying to raise in order to complete the project. So, I'm excited to see us help out. Great. Anyone else? Okay, seeing nothing, will the recorder please call the role? Councelor Tyen,

I. Councelor Nishoka, I. Councelor Matthews, I. Councelor Gwyn, I. Councelor Brown, I. Councelor Vain, I. Councelor Nordike, I. Councelor Vney, I. Mayor Julie Hoy. I All right. Moving on. I'll open the hearing for item 4C.

Salem City Council will now conduct a public hearing to consider the petitioner initiated annexation of the territory located at 5524 Skyline Road South, which includes a minor comprehensive plan map amendment to multif family residential and zone change to RM1 multiple family residential. The applicable criteria to this decision is SRC 260.010G2 for the annexation, SRC 64.025E2 for the minor comprehensive plan map amendment and SRC 265.005E for the zone change. Testimony, arguments, and evidence must be directed toward the applicable criteria or other criteria which the person believes to apply to the decision. Failure to raise an issue prior to the close of the public hearing in person or in writing or failure to provide statements or evidence with sufficient specificity to provide the parties and the city council an opportunity to respond to the issue precludes appeal to the land use board of appeals on that issue. A similar failure to raise constitutional issues relating to proposed conditions of approval precludes an action for damages in circuit court. The hearing will begin with the staff presentation uh followed by testimony from the following. The applicant is limited to 10 minutes total or applicants representative. Applicable neighborhood associations are limited to 5 minutes per association. Other interested parties are limited to three minutes each and the applicant may have uh up to five minutes rebuttal testimony limited to issues raised during public testimony. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bishop. It's good to see you.

Good to see you, too. Thank you, Mayor Hoy. Members of the council, Bryce Bishop with the city of Salem Planning Department, and I'm here tonight to present the staff report uh for the annexation at 5524 Skyline Road South. And this annexation also includes a comprehensive plan amendment and a zone change. So, uh the subject property is located in South Salem. As you can see, it's the area shown as the u with the red uh star kind of in the southwest portion of the screen there or the lower left. It is an enclave property that's surrounded by the city limits on all side on all sides and it's just one property within the enclave and it is very close to the UGB which is the purple line that you can see to the left in the south and then the green line is a city limits line. So here's an aerial photo that shows uh the subject property. It's kind of in the it's the rectangular property shaded in in white there at 5424 Skyline Road. The red line is a city limits line. Uh the property abut Skyline Road to the northwest and then it is surrounded by uh residential development to the east, south and west including a multif family residential development in the RM1 zone uh to the west of the property and then single family residential uh to the east uh to the south and to the northeast. Uh in terms of the zoning uh that or the comp plan designation that currently applies to the property, it's developing residential and it is in the county of course. Uh to the west of the property is multif family designated land. Uh and to the east and to the north and to the south is uh single family. But as you look on the comprehensive plan map, there is a pattern of having multif family along Skyland Road because it's a minor arterial street which is a higher classification of street and it meets the uh the sighting requirements for multif family being on higher higher classifications of streets closer to services and facilities. So uh with this request they are looking to change the comp plan designation uh when it's

annexed to multif family residential and that would match the property to the west and uh allow for the development of that property. Uh with the the zoning it's currently Marian County urban transition 5 acres which is a minimum of 5 acres in size for any lot that's created. Uh then the zoning in the area reflects the comprehensive plan uh designations with single family and then multifamily RM1 to the west. And this request is to change the property's designation to RM1 upon annexation which is consistent with the property to the west and would allow for two multif family developments side by side along Skyline Road similar to where you see to the north there. the lighter or the darker orange RM2 as you go further uh north towards uh Kubler. Uh in terms of the site itself, it's 1.94 acres in size. It has existing uh existing home and accessory structures. Uh the topography of the site slopes to the southwest gently. Uh the archeries present on the site. There are no map wetlands or waterways. And uh any future development of the property will need to comply with our tree ordinance. Uh but this is purely for whether or not the property should be annexed. that there are no significant natural, you know, features on the property that would prevent its uh further development in in conformance with the zoning that's being proposed and the comp plan designation that's being requested. Uh so in terms of whether or not we can approve an annexation, it there's there's criteria that apply. Uh those include whether or not uh it needs to go to the voters, and this is a voter exempt annexation because uh it's contiguous to the city limits. uh all the representatives all the all the owners of the property have signed on to to the petition to agree to it annexation. It is subject to our the urban growth boundary that we have and also it'll be subject to the comprehensive plan when annexed. So those are the the qualifiers for whether or not it it can be voter exempt which it meets that it also results in an orderly boundary by eliminating an enclave. Right now it's just a pocket of uh non city non city land surrounded by

city land. So this will result in a more efficient delivery of services but not have having a checkerboard of properties that are within the city and outside of the city. Uh it's also within the Salem suburban rural fire protection district. So contemporaneously with the annexation when that's approved uh or if that's approved it would be withdrawn uh from the the Salem Suburban Rural Fire Protection District and City of Salem Fire Department services would uh serve the property rather than the the district. And it's also in the public interest to bring, you know, unincorporated land like this into the city so that it can be more efficiently uh, you know, serviced by, uh, facilities and increases the city's tax base. In terms of the approval criteria for the comp plan zone change, uh, it's also within the I'll note it's also within the Sunny Slope neighborhood association, although it is outside the city limits currently. uh as identified in the staff report. Uh the property is designated single family on the Sunny Slope neighborhood plan map. Uh so in order because our code requires the neighborhood plan maps and our comprehensive plan map to be consistent, this uh proposal to change the multif to change the existing comp plan designation to multif family. Also will change the neighborhood plan map to multif family as well. As identified in the findings in the staff report, the proposed multif family designation is equal or better suited for the property than the existing uh designated land. One, because of the the shape and configuration of the property. It's kind of a narrow uh long narrow lot. So, it could be hard to, you know, do sub, you know, single family lots if it were to stay in like a residential agriculture zoning if it were to not have a comp plan zone change associated with it. It also will provide for additional multif family land within the city to help uh further the city's multif family land supply and to provide additional multif family units in the city to help meet our housing needs. Uh the applicant submitted a transportation planning rule analysis with the comp plan zone change and based upon the analysis done by the traffic engineer the proposal will not

have a significant effect on the city's transportation system and it's in an area where their urban service is available and so readily and and easily extended to serve the property. So it meets the criteria for the annex uh for the comp plan zone change as well. uh through the public hearing process because there was a comp plan zone change with this. There was initial public an initial public hearing with the planning commission on November 4th just to recommend the whether or not the RM the RM1 zoning and the multif family comp plan designation were suitable for the property. That res that u that recommendation is included in the staff report and they did recommend approval of the the multif family uh zoning and comp plan designation. And during uh that public hearing process at the planning commission there were uh comments raised concerning uh the speed of traffic on Skyline Road. The comments were indicating that the 45 mph speed limit uh is is too high, you know, for the area, taking into consideration that the additional multif family development that is going on in the neighborhood and the just the increased development in the area. And they were looking at measures of traffic calming or ways to uh slow traffic on Skyline Road in order to mitigate that. Uh and then there was also a concern about building heights that could result from the property's RM1 zone designation and how that would relate to the properties uh to the east that are single family. In relation to uh the traffic speed on Skyline, uh Skyline is designated as a minor arterial street under the city's transportation system plan. And the 45 mi 45 mph speed limit is the design speed for that minor arterial because minor arterials are intended to to uh carry a higher volume of traffic than a local street or even a collector street. So uh and it's intended to kind of function efficiently to move traffic you know through the city in this case north to south of the city along skyline. Uh so when the property is annexed, you know, and it develops, they'll have to do boundary street improvements and part of those boundary street improvements will be put in sidewalks and all the the necessary boundary street improvements

that will help improve safety and uh if there is traffic, you know, speed issues on uh Skyline uh road still uh that uh the property owners could reach out to the neighborhood association, in this case Sunny Slope, and uh and have the neighborhood association vote on petitioning the city traffic engineer to submit a speed study to ODOT because it's the Oregon Department of Transportation that uh regulates uh speeds and so it would have to be approved by ODOT but that could be requested uh you know by the neighbors through the neighborhood association in the city to for that to be done and if it was it's determined through a traffic through a speed study that it's warranted then the speed limit could be reduced. We also received comments from the Salem Kaiser School District just indicating that uh the schools in the area do have sufficient capacity to to uh accommodate the potential increase in student enrollment with the multif family zoning on the property. And with that, staff recommends that the annexation be approved, the comp plan designation be changed to multif family upon annexation, it zoning be changed to RM1, and that the territory be withdrawn from the Salem suburban rural fire protection district and advance the uh the proposal to first reading of of the ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you. Um and you'll be back for questions after uh public testimony. We have a couple of uh folks signed up. Um,

we have the uh representation for the applicant, Britney Randall. Please come forward. You'll have 10 minutes to speak if you need. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, I'll cram a 10-minute speech into like two minutes. So, Bryce always leaves every rock turned over, so I don't have much to add. Thank you, Bryce. Uh I don't have much to add other than um I wanted to discuss the fact that this is an enclave. So uh my firm I'm sorry I didn't tell you I'm in W 2 for your record. Uh my firm um annexed the property adjacent to this one to the west. Um assigned the RM1 zoning designation. During that process, um, staff actually paused us so that they could reach out to the property owner at the time of the subject property before you tonight and asked them if they wanted to be part of that annexation because we'd be creating this enclave that we are talking about tonight. And at the time, I believe that this property was in, excuse me, it was either for sale by the owner or it was in foreclosure. the home on the site, the farmhouse was in pretty bad condition at the time. So, um it wasn't my my client, the current property owner, didn't um you know, snub staff on their offer, very generous offer to annex the property. It just they weren't the owner at the time. They didn't um control the property at the time. So, they were unable to take advantage of such a great offer from the city. So, um, following their acquisition of the property, they had spoken to their neighbor who said that they worked with my firm, uh, and reached out and asked us to start this annexation process. So,

we've been working with Bryce on this, um, for about a year maybe. Um, and, uh, we wanted to express that the property owner is very aware of the surrounding context. So to the west we have a multif family development that really fits the neighborhood. It's it's not a tall development. It's not a big apartment complex. It really suits the single family um characteristic of the neighborhood. And that is exactly what this um applicant property owner wants to do as well. So they're envisioning 17 units total on this property. And the new units would be um every two units would be attached by their common garage. So there'd be a small lane down the middle and and units on both sides. So it' really be a very kind of quaint neighborhood feel, no taller than two stories. So, I know that we do have um we do have some concern about how tall the property or the development could be. If if there was um a condition imposed that it be no taller than what's allowed in the RS zone um abuing to the east, we would be absolutely okay with that. I also wanted to share that if this did come in as um RS single family or RA single family residential and it was divided, we have minimum density standards in those zones as well. And the minimum would be uh 11 units on a property of this size. So, uh the RM1 is just a little bit higher and doesn't require us to divide the property, which it's long and skinny. you saw it. So it' be pretty impractical to divide it to to reach sort of the urban density that we need to see in this city. Um and so with that I will be prepared to answer your questions.

Anyone have questions for Miss Randall? Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Now, uh, Scott Nash, you'll have three minutes to speak. Please come forward and hit that button till the green light comes on. Announce your name, your address, or your ward for the record, please.

Well, I am in ward 7. I am at 2386 Mosswood. I am directly connected to the property that's in question here at the north end. Uh, so the complete north border is against my property of this property. Uh from there the fence line that I put in uh it goes uphill. So any buildings that are built there will be looking down into my property. It starts I'm at the bottom of it. So if they're doing two stories or anything like that um or more I'm my privacy that I have now is going to be completely obliterated. Uh, I would say that the way that the property is built, you're going to have they have one driveway for access there. Right next to that is the property that just got built. It kind of alluded to the fact that there's been multifamily living there before that was just completed and has the first people getting into it. So, this was a traditionally single family area that the first edition is just opened up. So, this is not multifamily historical housing area. So, when you have these, you're going to have two driveways with, you know, there's 16 units in the one they just built. Now, they're talking 17 units or something like that. They're going to have two driveways within basically 20 ft of each other coming out onto that that road. Uh that's both right next to my property. So, I'm going to have 20 to 30 more cars plus the 16 plus deliveries plus company, everybody else coming right in and out of the my the corner of my lot. Plus, they're probably going to be building the bio spill right up against my property since it's at the low point. Uh, so I do have some major concerns about this. If you were a person from W 7 and you've been down Skyline Road very much, you would

notice that the setback on the homes that have been built 30 years ago or before is not much. So you have a noise problem which is already increasingly bad. I don't know if the city has looked into all the traffic that comes from the Independence area through that arterial. It's been increasing tenfold since I've lived there. There is way more, in my opinion, way more traffic than that road was ever originally intended for. So, we have, you know, noise, you know, we have uh had construction across the street. We just had the construction that they did uh perfectly. We have times when our windows have vibrated and made noise from all of the work. And I just think that they should look at something that was a uh you know I you know I didn't hear about a development plan until just tonight. There's been no development plan sent through the neighborhood so that people could come and see what it what it you know what it was to get um more people from the neighborhood to come here. Uh when I talked to a gentleman that said he had purchased it that was in there an older gentleman and stuff he said they

Mr. Mr. Nash, I'm sorry to interrupt. The clock was not started um when you started. So, you are actually out of time. Thank you for your testimony. Does anyone have uh questions for Mr. Nash? Councelor Brown. Thanks, M. Is Nash? Nash. So, Mr. Nash, you just explained to us that your property, the backyard, when they build this, which is two Is it two floors? Is it two floors? the new building, but we don't know yet. At this point, it's just At this point, it's just a the just bringing the land into the city. We don't have a development proposal for the annexation.

Got it. And Mr. Nash, your concern is that your privacy will be gone from the backyard. Is that what you what you said? Yes, that would be, you know, one one of my major concerns. Plus the safety of all those vehicles coming in and out of a two driveways of multif family really close together right next to my house in my house. The setbacks when that was built. I you know I've got you know here to the the podium over here before I'm to the fence. So any collisions that happen from all this more traffic is going to be in my yard. And and you said tonight this is the first time you've heard about this.

I I got the notice that came into, you know, about the annexing in the city that that came in and I decided to come here. But last time when they did the other multif family building, we got development sheets uh you know for the neighborhood association to come and have be able to talk about it. And you know, I'm sorry. If you're going to annex something in the city, shouldn't there be a development plan already in place so that the residents know?

That's a great question. Definitely out of my lane. Probably somebody over there can answer that question. Um, but I do want to say I appreciate you sharing that because we don't know what we don't know. And for the fact that you're the only homeowner here that that has a concern, it it definitely raises concerns for me because if you have this concern, who else has it also? Um, so so thank you. Yes. And I would land I know they said they had everybody to the east all that single family but they have somebody to the north as well. Give the applicant an opportunity for Okay. Would you like to respond?

Okay. Britney Randall for your record. Um so the reason that uh Mr. Nash is so familiar with the development that's happening to the west is because after annexation we come back to the city for development approval which will be exactly what happens in this case as well. So um and then prior to this annexation coming before the city we went and visited the neighborhood association held what's called an openhouse in lie ofo holding our own openhouse because we find those have very little attendance. We go to the neighborhood association that has more regular attendance. Um and so we had a lively discussion about this project at that neighborhood association meeting. There were comments about the city's transportation system um being overwhelmed. There were comments about wanting the speed limit on Skyline to be reduced and discussions about, you know, the city starting the transportation system plan. Um, and and that neighborhood having a big voice in that because they have a lot of concerns. Um, but there wasn't a lot of resistance to what we're proposing here with the increased uh zoning and all of those things. Um, Mr. Mr. Nash is correct that we would likely place the the green storm water infrastructure at the north end of the property which would set those buildings back another approximately 60 ft from his property line. Um and of course that's a mechanical engineered um pond that would never overflow or cause damage to his property. That's illegal. Um and so that will be a nice buffer for him. And then I would also say that yes, the traffic will increase when the housing increases on the property that's given. But um this these two properties have existed with these driveways in very fixed locations because of how narrow their frontage is. Um and and there haven't

been any identified conflicts. We submitted with our package um a letter from a traffic engineer certifying that there were no known conflicts or um that traffic would again be looked at at the time of development. So if there are any concerns that we need to mitigate with offsites that would happen in the next phase when we apply for site plan review and design review which then Mr. Nash would get notice for that as well and he would see the actual development plans. Currently everything is conceptual. Um our client hasn't, you know, done a deep dive on the design because he's unsure about if the annexation will be approved or not.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. So, Miss Randall, are you allowed to tell us who the developer is? Yeah, of course. Um the developer is the property owner. They call themselves Greenlight. Green Light, that is their company name. Um I'm sorry, I got them confused. Green Lantern. No worries. Green, another very popular developer. Uh but Green Lantern, it's a it's a fatherson duo. Uh and they specialize in very small developments like this. Um and and their last name is Quandall. They are the applicant. So all their information is actually in your package in the record.

I was asking city manager about this and I it's probably here somewhere, but I just haven't found it yet. Um, and they are local. They live here in the city. The I believe that the the father has a home here and the son lives in Eugene. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. Yes, Councelor Matthews. From a conceptual standpoint, since we're not really talking about the development aspect because it's just conceptual, I I understand there would be approximately a 60 foot um kind of space between the property line and and where that the building might actually start. Is there any other type of buffering that can be done along that uh that property line to kind of help at least visually um for the the neighbor?

Yeah. So, because I believe that because we're increasing to RM1 and we're ab budding um RS zoning, it's built into the code, I think that we'll be triggering type C landscaping, which is one plant unit per 20 square ft plus uh fencing, which is already in place, a cedar fence. if additional fencing is required to meet that are my client will install that at the time of development and then 40% of those plant units have to derive of trees and some of them need to be of um evergreen variety. So all of those items are built into the code already in order to um sort of buffer like uses that belong together but some are more intense than others.

Councelor Brown. Thank you. Just for followup, Miss Randall. So when when issues like this arise like Mr. Nash in regards to his own privacy and I think you said that that would come up at the next phase if I'm not mistaken. Um do the owners of the developer do they ever discuss how to compensate owners like that who have certain inconveniences like privacy? Is that ever part of the conversation? Compensate financially.

Um I don't see that a lot. I do see concessions in how the property would be developed or maybe additional buffering um if necessary. We do see a lot of times our properties that we're developing have like no privacy screening, you know, chain link fences or something. And so the developer would assume the entire responsibility for putting up the site obscuring fence. So I've seen that. Uh but I have never I haven't really seen a lot of monetary compensation for

So so there is the possibility that going forward that the developer could put up something there where his fence is where that he could keep his privacy that could be a part of the conversation in the future. Absolutely. Yeah. So we could be talking about you know um landscaping screening. I know that there's already a fence in place. Mr. Nash alluded to the fact that it's his fence. Um, and so the screening is met. Of course, if he decided to remove his fence, he has no obligation to have one, but our client would be required to have one, so we would have to replace it. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Anyone else? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you all. And now questions for city staff. Councelor Tigan. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, thank you, Bryce. Just the one question I have is this property is kind of funky in that it it's just like a dog ear, just that little sliver comes on to Skyline.

And so what would you and I maybe this is for the development conversation, but just for um education's sake, what would you suspect would be the length of their requirement to improve the road to include a sidewalk? And like I had imagined it'd be okay where it intersects Skyline. The one of the the thing that makes me ask that is that if there were children at this in this apartment building or in this multif family structure, the only park is it's listed as POS, which I'm so sorry park that that's your acronym. That's parks and open space.

Parks and open space. Okay. Thank you for telling the crowd today. But um it you know people I just don't know what the improvement looks like between this location and Maplewood where you know people children maybe on their bicycles would like have to navigate to get to that um POS. Yeah. They they have would have to do the boundary street improvement along their frontage and that's a very it's just like that 40 it's not even 40t correct. Okay. Thank you. Councelor Nordic.

Thank you. So, I wanted to uh draw awareness to a section in the staff report that talked about speeding because that's certainly been a hot topic in the Sunny Slope Neighborhood Association meeting. And I think there is an opportunity for education here. So, um as and I'm just going to quote from the staff report for folks who may be following along at home. As no development is proposed at this time, no improvements to Skyland Road are required. However, when development occurs, the roadway will be improved to meet public works design standards for a minor arterial which will improve safety for all users. And it then goes on to talk about ODOT. And I think this is what a lot of folks don't think. They think that if it's a street in the city of Salem that we set the speed limit. And I just want to clarify here that as it says in the staff report, speed zones on all streets in Salem, all streets are established by ODOT. And these requests may be initiated by requests from community members or a neighborhood association. So in other words, you could request to lower the speed limit, but you're still at ODOT's mercy because then they conduct an investigation. they determine whether lowering the speed limit is appropriate, but ultimately it's still their call. Do I have all that right?

Correct. Okay. Well, I think that it would be if and when development does occur on this, um, you know, I would just encourage community members in the area, whether it's Mr. Nash or the neighborhood association to consider making that request because I think sometimes new development is an appropriate triggering event to get ODOT to re-examine traffic safety in this area for kids and everyone else who wants to walk along the road. Yeah. And the request would just come through the neighborhood association, you know, with a vote and then to the city traffic engineer and then that would be submitted to ODOT. Thank you for that, Councelor Nordike. Anyone else?

Thank you so much. Councelor Nordike, would you are you would you like to make the motion? Yes, I would. Madame Mayor, I move to approve the annexation of the territory located at 5524 Skyline Road and withdrawal of the territory from the Salem Suburban Ral Fire Protection District and advance to first reading. I'll second that. Second by Nishioa. Council, anything further to the motion?

Thank you. I want to thank Mr. Nash for being here tonight. The annexation is annexation, but the next phase will be development. There will be multiple opportunities for you to weigh in on what that looks like. Uh to me, what helped me make this decision tonight was that uh looking at who supported it, the city department identified no concerns. I think the neighborhood association, according to the staff report, no comments have been received from the neighborhood association. So, I think that is important as well. Um, my neighborhood association is normally very very vocal and if they have a concern, they tell us about it, don't they, Councelor Gwen? They um, so I I I I think that that's really and that's great. I want to hear that. I especially want to hear uh, when folks are concerned. So, I would just say that moving forward with this development, we should take a this is an opportunity to look at and potentially lower the speeding in that area. Uh, another thing that made me feel more comfortable with this decision is that you can't put a five-story building on this property. Uh per the staff report the maximum allowable height is 35 ft and that is the exact same as the maximum 35 foot building height allowed for single family dwellings on the abuing zoned properties. So they're not going to be taller because we have had uh properties reszoned where all of a sudden here comes this property that sticks out like a sore thumb. That's not what is permissible under these rules. So, I just wanted to reassure folks that you're not going to see a fourstory, threestory, or a five-story building popping up. Anyone else? Will the recorder please call the role?

Councelor Nishoka, I. Councelor Matthews, I. Councelor Gwen, I. Councelor Brown, I. Councelor Bain, I. Councelor Nordike, I. Councelor Barney I. Councelor Tyen. He had to. Oh, Mayor Julie Hoy.

I All right. Motion passes. We'll close that public hearing and we will move on. Thank you so much for being here, all of you, to item 5A, the Travel Salem fiscal year 202425 annual report. Welcome back, Angie. Be sure to speak up nice and loud for us. Absolutely. I hope you can hear me. Barely nice and loud. Get in close to your mic if you can.

Okay, I'll get as close as I can here. I I know I'm on the jumbotron up there, so

No, you look great. Don't worry about it. Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of council. I know you've had a very long evening, and so I appreciate you allowing me to just share some quick updates with you from our last fiscal year that sort of points to how things are going this fiscal year. So, I will um kind of go quickly through these and be happy to answer any questions um should you have them. So, this is for state of the industry ending 2425 and that was an incredible year. um $800 million in economic impact to Marian and Pulk counties. Um and that is the highest on record. Um incredible, incredible year. Uh almost 2.7 million visitors came through, 8,000 jobs, and $250 million in earnings from the tourism industry. Um when we look at specifically um Salem, Salem's portion of that is about $6474 million in economic impact from the tourism industry last year. So incredible year. Um seven out of the 12 months of last year were the best months on record. um toot was collected at $5.3 million and um it was a something for the record books for sure. So we'll talk a little bit more about what happened there. But when we look at also our leverage which are donated products and services that help leverage the cash that we get. So it's very important to how we do what we do. Um about 2.9 million and our goal was 2.3 million. So performed very well on working all those relationships and securing inind as it relates to our visitor guide, advertising, PR and so forth. On the advertising and awareness side, um last year we had almost 16 million digital impressions that we're able to track now with really great technology

that lets us see that our online ads, our Google ads, our Expedia blogs and social media actually generated 23,000 hotel room nights. Um so we can track that work directly to bookings in the market which is wonderful. So um great progress there. On the Expedia side, we do a promotion with Travel Oregon, which is a retargeted email campaign on Expedia. Um, you can see the the numbers here are astounding. Um, we had fewer digital impressions than the prior year. Um, that's because we were um targeting people at a different part of the funnel. So, in this year's campaign, Expedia controls this and they were targeting people in the booking phase. So when they were actually looking to book um but we have to feed that pipeline. So this year for instance we're um advertising is focusing on the um trip planning phase and so forth and inspiration but it drove a lot of room nights and um so that was a really successful campaign. Um our weather cam through KPTV generates about 1.1 million views. Um we are on that camera about 30 more 30 plus times a month. Um, our media coverage, we had a goal of about 129 million uh uh 129 million uh impressions, excuse me, and we had about 142 million impressions. And here are some examples of the types of coverage that we secure. If we had to purchase this coverage um here in um the VM magazine, we would have paid $30,000 for that. So, um great work to our PR consultant on that. on online visits to our website travelsound.com. Uh we blew our goal out of the water at 411,000 online visits to that content. Just a reminder, our website was translated um that that fiscal year into five different languages and we continue to

add languages into that that mechanism there. Um social media uh 10 million uh impressions on our social media. So, a little bit below our goal there, but we have a had a part-time contractor doing that work. So, um it was expected that we would be down a little bit, but really really great effective content created. Our blogs were incredibly effective um as well. And this is how we drive a lot of that return in um that ad spend. When we use our Google ads tied to our our blogs, it drives visitors to our website uh to actually make the booking. Um, we also did our work with the wine country region one which is Mary and Pulk and Yamhill counties. Um, we did uh TV campaigns in Seattle, Washington and Dallas, Texas which are major feeder markets for our wine country. And you can see the the results there. This is about awareness. This is about staying on the radar to get people to look, you know, to get interested to book a trip here to our destination on the conventions and meetings side. So last year we actually had about 18 million um in economic impact from the conventions that were on the ground representing about 29,000 room nights. We booked business last year for future years totaling about $56 million and almost 54,000 room nights coming down the pipeline. So we'll start to see those events hitting um in these future years. On the sports side, uh councelor Nordike mentioned this earlier, the importance of Iron Man. Um it's about over $11 million in one weekend that that event brings into our community. Um those dollars floating around in our small businesses and our restaurants and um just a really great event. It is voted the number one best overall run in the entire Iron Man portfolio and it's number two event in North America. So very very wellreceived and we're still

working hard on that to keep them here. Um we did a sports venue analysis and there was a lot of insight there that came in terms of opportunities that we need to explore um turf and lighting um different equipment that we need like scoreboards and nets at different facilities and um continuing to develop pickle ball which is the fastest growing sport in the country. Um, we did a lot of work in destination development with Resilient Headarters up in the canyon to try to actually develop trails um and systems that will keep visitors here longer. They stay on our hotels here in Salem, but um this is very important product and we we secured $130,000 grant to support this work. We also do a economic development tourism consortium as well um three or four times a year. We did a partnership with Travel Oregon and Wheel the World, which is all about accessible destinations. This was sort of a brand new thing. Um, we had 10 of our local partners participate in this program. It was worth about $10,000 that we didn't have to pay for, but these partners um are featured on this Wheel the World website, which is a booking engine for um accessible travel. And Oregon actually was the first state to achieve certification um in this fashion in the United States. So really excited to be part of that program. Um couple more things here. Uh the Wamtt Valley Salem Wamtt Valley Air Service as you're more than familiar with the status of that. We are still having conversations and trying to move the needle forward um to secure a carrier. Um I'm not going to go through these stats. They are in the report that you received. But this is a snapshot of our visitor and what they what they look like, what they do when they're here on the destination, how much they spend. lots of great information, top or uh countries of origin, top states of

origin, and so forth. We developed our 2025 2030 strategic plan um through a a year-long process with lots of input from stakeholders in the community and that is in in the works and underway. And then our Salem tourism promotion area that was discussed earlier today, these are some of the things that we accomplished with that work. Uh we purchased a basketball and volleyball flooring that is housed at the Oregon State Fair and Expo Center, the weather cam that we talked about, Expedia advertising, and our very own pickle ball tournament and many many more things that we do with that. And then lastly, our consumer engagement. Um we were looking at getting about almost 200 million engagements was our goal. Um but we achieved 175,000 million engagements. So, we beat what we did the year before, but um this is about how many times we have to interact with a consumer to get them to actually book in the market. So, they might visit our Facebook page, get a visitor guide, go to a visitor center, um visit one of our Facebook channel. Um all of those interactions are counted in this number to try to get folks to come to our market. So, thank you very much. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Angie. Does anyone have questions? Councelor Nishioa. No questions. Angie, thank you very much. I especially love the wheels, the certification for the accessibility. That is fantastic. Um, appreciate all the work that you do and um, thank you for bringing so many people to Salem. Anyone else? Yes, Councelor Matthews.

Angie, you may not have this uh the answer to this question, and that's okay. But I was just curious kind of that last part of your presentation, all the different interactions you guys have had to have in order to basically kind of convince someone that this is the right place to travel to. What is kind of the average number of times that a general consumer has to be, I don't know, impacted with a Travel Salem or some version of Salem advertising before they kind of usually commit to to this being the destination for them? Wow, I really wish I had the answer to that because that would solve a lot of questions that we have as we move through that space. I don't really know the answer to that. They might see an article in Sunset Magazine um eight months before they actually book or two years before they book or however it is. Um, so we're we're constantly trying to be in that inspiration phase, getting top of mind awareness so folks are are looking when they're considering where do we want to go for vacation this year or where do we want to take the kids or whatever um or where do we want to bring our convention we want to be at top of mind there. So we're working in that space in terms of the booking phase as well and then also afterwards and and trying to get them to share their experience here through their social channels and talk about how wonderful it was to come here. So, I really wish I could identify that number for you, but I I do know that it most likely takes a lot more than one exposure um to get them to decide to come here, but um we're not the only ones doing this work. I really want to call out that a lot of our stakeholders are also marketing and promoting their businesses and their experiences. So, together as a community, we do this work together. Thank you, counselor.

Yeah, thank you for that answer. That makes total sense. And I also want to highlight that you're right. We're not the only ones doing this work to bring people to Salem, but we're not the only city that we're competing. I mean, we are competing with every city out there and so every city is doing this type of work and we do it better than most. So, good job. Yeah, good job. Um, I do have a question. I think you said it, but I can't find it in the report. Is um what is our occupancy rate in our hotels right now?

Uh, so we're still in our shoulder season. Um, so our occup I don't know where we are to be honest at the moment because our data it lags quite a bit. Um, but typically we're in the 60s in this period of of the year. Um, we go up to 70s or higher in in the summertime and the fall time. Um, but it is seasonal. So, one of the comments that I made earlier when we were talking about the STPA is that we target all of our marketing for that program to the shoulder season, which is the hardest time to get folks to come to Salem. So, we look at at doing special offers. We work with partners that do a lot of different types of experiences that aren't maybe weather related or are required. And um but sorry, I can't answer your question 100%, but I think it's roughly in the 60s at this time of year. Oh, I think you did great. And I thought I heard 67 or something like that, but and I know there's a couple of new hotels coming in to Salem or one to Salem and one to Kaiser, I think. So, just I was curious about that. Thank you so much for all your hard work. Anybody else questions? Really appreciate your time, Angie. Thanks for hanging in there with us tonight. Okay, we are moving on to item 5B. looking forward to this. Oh my goodness. The update uh the one month reach update. Come on down, Chief Geroth. Well, good evening, Dave Gerboth, fire chief. Thank you for having me tonight. I'm going to take me one second here to get this presentation going.

Zoom is not coming up for me. All right. Thank you. All right. As I said, thank you for having me tonight. This is the uh one month update on the rapid engagement assessment and community health program. Uh I want to begin tonight just a few acknowledgements. I I want to thank the city council and city leadership um as well as board of commissioners and county leadership for supporting this program. And um although it's uh it's new and um this is a very short period of time, we've certainly seen some significant benefits and uh but this work can't be done without the people that are actually doing the work every single day. And so those that have committed to being uh permanent and full-time uh firefighter Scott Alt, EMT Chris Oakland, and then our Marian County behavioral health associate, um mental health associate Nate Okata um are doing an amazing job. It takes special people to do this work. And as we go through this presentation tonight, u we're going to talk about some data and um and we have these incredible professionals that work and do our data analysis and they are never really recognized. They work in the background but they have incredible skill and Sam Ruck, Emily Rodriguez and then from the county Alex Copelan that really helped put this together. So um I will get started. So, um, for background for everybody, this was an initiative that was approved on October 13th for the safe, clean, and healthy Salem initiative. Uh, part of that initiative was a six-month pilot program for the rapid assessment engagement, community health, the reach team. And then in November, the Marian County Board of Commissioners voted to help support the mental health associate as part of this program. So, uh, we launched on January 20th of

2026 as an integrated response unit. So, we have a Salem Fire Department paramedic, a Salem Fire Department emergency medical technician, and a Marian County Health and Human Services mental health associate. And we respond to medical calls, calls involving mental health, substance use, and complex social needs that we generally are unable to um to solve with the response that we have currently. So the metrics we're looking at and I'm going to take a little bit of time because we have so many we're looking at um and I'll go a little bit slow but um the number of patients simply that we encounter the number of transports by the reach team and transport to alternative destinations besides Salem Hospital Emergency Department. Um I will tell you when we got into this this was um one of those um aspirations. You know, we know not everybody needs to go to the emergency room and never before in our history have we ever transported anybody anybody and to anywhere except the emergency room. So that was certainly an aspiration as we start to see if we can make this happen. Uh number of calls where a fire company was relieved from a call, the number of calls where an ambulance was relieved or the number of times that um once they were at scene we can relieve them from a call. uh our commitment time, encounters where we've seen patients on more than one occasion, our high utilizes the 911 system often. Uh what calls require medical interventions and other critical interventions, and the encounters where we're encountering the unhoused, the number of contacts of the high utilizers of our 911 system, the number of patients we stabilize in place, and then organizations, community partners that uh we're referring to, which are increasing. So just as background, the two areas that uh the pilot is focusing

on is downtown and northeast. And so we started with downtown. And so this is um our current response map of the area that we're targeting. And when I say targeting, um we within this polygon are responding to 911 calls. We have a set um incident type that fit into this type of response. And so in this area, we're responding to 911 emergencies, often in place of what would normally be a fire company. So, uh, for the first month, it was really related to 911 response. And, and so, uh, we encountered 49 patients over the first month, first 30 days. And so, that was actually 18 days of service when you look at weekends and and, uh, holidays it included. So, so just put that in perspective. 18 days of service. And with 18 days 49 patients and when we look at the composition of the team uh with medical personnel and the med mental health associate who does much more than that but connects with services um you know roughly half were medical roughly half uh fit into that mental health substance use or um service need and only four and 4% crossed over into both of those sections. So when we look at that um I think the composition of our team just this far um is really lending itself to to address the calls that we have uh between medical and uh the mental health associate um it is very balanced. So uh relief of resources and and this is really critically important. So u since 2011 the call volume of the Salem Fire Department has gone up 118%. That's significant. In that same amount of time, our onduty staffing has gone down 4.6%. Our fire companies, our ambulances are incredibly critical

resources and uh we need to preserve them as much as possible. And so we're trying to respond in the most efficient effective way possible knowing that we have not kept up with the pace of growth and um and we are getting operationally saturated. So just in that 18day span, there were 27 times we saved an engine from being dispatched. And that what that means is that just on the 911 triage system that we have, we dispatch reach in place of a fire company. So they didn't even leave the station for that particular moment in time, but they went to other calls. So we didn't relieve them to sit around. Relieved them to go to other emergencies because we have so many. and um and sometimes we've relieved them to be able to go do essential training that can't get done because of so many calls. So 27 times we didn't even call a fire company. Um 46 times we dispatched an ambulance. 17 of those times we were able to relieve them after they got dispatched. Uh we were able to take care of the issue without needing the ambulance. And then an engine got dispatched seven times. Six six times we were able to relieve. So why that's important out of the 23 dispatches we had 14 so over 60% there was a call that happened immediately after that that those resources were sent to and so I just highlighted one here um all these calls were critical calls but I just highlighted the one that we freed up an ambulance and immediately they were dispatched to West Salem because they're the closest resource. This is a Marian County focused program. We're partnered with Marian County and we know there's needs on both sides of the river. This is a pilot program. We started with Marian County, but this is benefiting the entire city. It's benefiting West Salem by having resources that are available. So um it is not just relegated to Marian County.

This to me is one of the most um impressive statistics so far. As I mentioned, we've never before transported to an alternative destination or um anywhere other than an emergency room. And and we know not everybody needs it. Is there a better way than we get treatment? We're doing it almost 25% of the time in that in that first month that we have been able to take somebody to a different facility and the two facilities we started with were Marian County Behavioral Health Crisis Center and then uh Northwest Human Services Homeless Outreach and Advocacy Project. um we have now in um increased that capacity but but just here um to have 25% of our calls uh be able that normally these would these would have been emergency room transports u we would have been in inundating our emergency room and frankly their care um wouldn't have progressed here we've gotten connected with services and I'll go over some of the services that we connect with going forward these are average commitment times and so when we free up an engine we're freeing up an engine that would normally be um committed for 18 and 12 minutes. We're freeing up an ambulance that generally is committed 43 minutes. We're spending about a half an hour on each call right now. Um we'll see how that um goes um as we look forward. We're spending certainly more time um than we normally would just from an engine company, but we're doing it because of um the time that we're taking connecting those with resources. Um our unhoused contacts. So um this is certainly one of our most vulnerable communities that um that has a number of the complex issues that we are dealing with whether it is mental health um uh substance use um social need or health needs that aren't being addressed uh because of the situation and aren't seeing primary care. Almost 70% right now um just in that first month were unhoused in our community. But what's also important is the number of housed here. And many of these are fragile housed. They are on the verge of

becoming unhoused. And we were able to connect with services to remain um in a better situation. And that could have been complex health needs that aren't being treated, uh abusive situations, but getting the right resources so that we're not uh that we're preventing people to go into that unhoused category. um just organically through 911 response, 34% of our calls have been to the highest utilizers of our 911 system. So these are our um we've had people that call uh we had one lady that had called um uh since March over 300 times significant. We've had um I will just one antidote uh but we had one utilizer that system that was calling between 40 and 50 times a month and um during the first month uh prior to reach um he called 46 times 46 calls to 911 very complex health issues. So there is a medical need but there was also other needs there. Uh we engaged with that person proactively and uh the month after our engagement has got down to five times. So that's an 89% reduction in just one person. Uh you know 40 trips to the hospital, 40 trips from a fire engine, 40 trips from an ambulance that we were able to reduce just by one person um and making that contact. So uh certainly seeing success. Uh community resource referrals um you know when it says less than six um this is some county data. County has a uh data policy that they will not report less than six because they don't want somebody to be identifiable. If you only had one person that had a service, there could be identifiable. I will tell you it it's really not important because after next month we're going to be up above six in all these categories and then we'll start getting actual numbers. So um but just it is uh definitely getting connected with services for sure. Um and then dispositions. Um very few patients

are not engaging and and that is what is really exceptional. Um when we have that mental health associate and we have a special one is a special person that does it. But um they are coming out to the hardest cases of individuals that won't seek any care, won't seek treatment. and uh Nate who is doing it has gotten these people to open up to respond and to be able to open themselves up to care. We've been able to bring them in and um and get them um really the services they need. Um arrested is um so we haven't initiated any arrests. We don't do that. But um we've responded to somebody in custody. So that's why it says arrested. That was a disposition. They're already in custody and we went and uh did a medical evaluation. Um I will tell you one of the other metrics that we have not uh fully um uh got yet is are we able to or what have we relieved from police department and so I know we worked with uh Chief WAC on on how can we find this um you know this this metric I will tell you today um we had an engine company and ambulance respond downtown to what came over as a stroke and it's just triage system based on what we thought they got there with somebody in mental health crisis in a private business and um and so they called reach wasn't a medical issue. Um we got that person uh connected with service we took them to the behavior health center actually and got them connected with services. If we weren't there that would have been at least talking the business owner it would they know the person they would have been trespassed. We would have had to call police to to come out and do that. And so now we're like well how do we how do we really grasp um u the savings we're doing for the police department as well. So, that's certainly another metric um as we're starting to move forward. As I close, um I will say this has only been a month, but um I am very optimistic about the direction it's

going. Um we are definitely uh responding in a more thoughtful and coordinated way and getting people the right care at the right time. Um I want to say thank you for supporting the program um so far and the professionals that are doing it every day. Uh it is definitely I think a benefit and really our shared goal of a healthier and safer community and I'm helper to happy to answer any questions you may have. Chief, thank you so much. Before we move to questions, could we add uh maybe time to the clock till 10:30? Uh I move uh that we stay in session till 10:30. Second.

We have a motion and a second by Gwyn. All in favor? I. Any opposed? None opposed. Okay, Chief, thank you very much. I just want to say thank you. This is amazing. It's exactly what we've needed, and I know it's just getting started, which is super exciting to think about the progress we can make on all ends of this, whether it's the emergency department, not taking out a fire engine, or sending police to something that they can't be helpful with. So, thank you so much for all of that. Um, anyone have any comment or question for the chief? Counselor Nordike.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. Since 2019, I've been trying to make this happen. In one month, one month, you're changing lives. I knew it. Thank you. Anyone else? Can I add a quick?

Yes, please. Thank you, city manager. Thank you, Madame Mayor, Chief. Thank you. Thank you for the report. I I just want to take a minute to acknowledge that lot of behind thescenes work on this to come to where we are at. Um I want to thank the leadership team and for having that brainstorming session as we were looking into the safe, clean and healthy initiative. Um really good work in coming forward with that proposal. And then Chief Gerbat I do want to acknowledge that um your commitment in working with the county to get that additional help that we needed in order to kind of move forward with it with this. And I have uh acknowledged Chief Gerbath publicly before but this uh I know he had experience with uh San Diego in this model. I think one of the reasons why we are able to implement it so quickly so effectively because of his leadership and the experience that he brought to the city. Um so I just want to thank you for the work that you have done on this.

Thank you. Sorry I was just overwhelmed. Go right ahead, Councelor Matthews. Hey, Chief. Um, well, first let me kind of echo I mean the amount of patients you guys have seen, this is month one and so obviously the numbers will grow over time, but uh so some of these questions are going to be kind of out of our process and understanding that month one is hard to pull data on and and know you know full success or not. So, one question I had is prior to starting the program, one of the concerns was that there would PD support would be required often. Have you seen that at all? Have we had to have PD support on any of these calls?

I think the calls that we've seen actually has been uh we have a great relationship with the homeless support team. Um they I think I saw officer Bennett here earlier. There he is. uh awesome awesome partnership and I think the PD support to this far that I'm aware of has been PD calling us to to assist and um uh because it was the right resource. Um I have not yet encountered a time we had to call PD for um some issue that was um a threat. So, I think what that also lends itself, we have very experienced paramedic, EMT, and the mental health professional that um is able to really deescalate and u and talk to somebody that's in crisis.

Got it. That's perfect. I have like about four questions.

Oh, great. Um okay another this is a process question but so I noticed in there when I was when you presented the the transport data uh there was reach transports and then medical transport. So I'm assuming from that data that reach transports are only the transports reach only basically transport if it's not to the ED and ambulance transports if it is to the ED. Those are uh just it was just um interventions medical intervention versus what we called a reach intervention was um a mental health or uh substance use some kind of intervention. So um it wasn't necessarily transports. The transports themselves total I can go back but the total number of transports that were um by the team um was um I think 17 or something but that that was on both.

Yeah. I had one here that said reach transports 12, reach encounters 49. So I just assumed but then there was another one that talked about transports being 33 transports in total. So I'm assuming from the 12 to the 33 is the difference that those were transported by ambulance. Correct. Yes. Okay.

Um and then are we keeping any because one of the biggest I guess benefits to this program our ambulances are going to transport to ED whether it was the reach team that showed up or an ambulance showed up. So really the big win program or for the program in my mind are those 12 patients. It's not necessarily the 49. Uh it's the 12, right? And so of those 12, are we keeping any long-term data on them to know that this the transport wasn't just a transport to whatever the program was, but this was actually effective for them?

Yep. And that's where I mentioned having that one. So um I'll go back one second. So I mentioned uh the first month was really 911 response, right? And and that was certainly a goal for us to do. Uh the next iteration of the program is uh proactive engagement and that's where we've started now um with the high utilizer that I mentioned and called 46 times and then went down to five that was a result of proactive engagement of somebody that had called repeatedly. So when u they we found a a slice in time they weren't in a crisis that we engaged them and they were able to u get connected with services and and go into that system. So um uh we are tracking that absolutely um it's it's been a month

month. Yes, that is and the the uh that's one of the benefits I think of working with the county too is that um they have so many resources they have a different tracking system of when somebody enters into community resources um they have a very thorough tracking mechanism that goes forward. Well, and that might answer some of the next question, which is, you know, with an average, I guess approximate call time of about 30 minutes, 49 calls, 24 and a half hours, but 160 hours of labor for the last 30 days. I'm assuming that it's going to be outreach is what they'll be doing on non non-cont time will be doing outreach into camps or whatever other high volume users.

Yeah, we just actually just worked with HST last week, right? We were doing the camp ple it was uh was that that was under the bridge I believe or there were some large encampment cleanups. Um we were out there proactively uh on the days prior um and and meeting uh the individuals there and and providing resources. So there's yeah there's many hours of work that's not really captured on this alone. Um there's a proactive outreach, there's data collection, and really the first month um the first couple weeks is is getting our feet under us on okay, how are we responding? What's the data collection look like? And and I will tell you since that time u the number of contacts has gone up tremendously because it's it's really just um flowing well now.

That makes sense. Do you do you get your your contacts or do you get your calls off of 911 dispatch then? because I know a user earlier or a community member was talking about 988 and not knowing exactly how to reach. I think that was a public comment we got earlier today. So, what is the best way for them to reach? For us, it's 911. 911. And we do a triage system um at our dispatch center. Okay. If it's appropriate, who we feel is appropriate.

All right. I I'll ask this last question. And this is just a it's more of a comment of what I'll be looking at one of the things going forward, but do we have a target um and if we don't yet, I I think it'd be nice to have one in the future. Um about what kind of a cost per patient analysis we're looking for. So like right now we're hitting somewhere around if we look at the 12, it's about $16,000 per patient. If we look at the 49, it's about $4,000 per patient. Um but I want to kind of know like, you know, where is our goal for cost analysis of where this is makes sense.

Yep. And and what's the return on investment? I I would agree. Right. And so one is um I want to return on investment I think is um keeping our it's not fiscal maybe but it's keeping our units available. We're already our units are so busy and can we keep them available for more acute calls and serve the community in a better way. I feel that's a return on investment. Um as far as the cost per patient, you know, um we are working with Salem Health. We um uh we're looking at all the data they have, how we can use, which patients have been there previously, what's the history, um and then what would be a typical treatment cost. Um also when I mentioned we had somebody that we reduced 41 calls in a month, right? That's that's that's only one patient contact, but that's 41 contacts that we didn't have to do, right? Or you know, theoretically, right? But but definitely if we see our high utilized users um go down, which was we're seeing right now when we're contacting proactively um there's a return on investment there that we're not having to take them to the emergency room 40 times or um provide ambulance treatment or or whatever it is. Certainly.

I thought those are great answers. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you. I'd just like to add a little something about the data nerds that we were in that meeting, counselor Vney, when we met them, the young folks that came on board to do that job kind of a little bit building the plane as they fly and have just done a fabulous job of helping to track and design the spreadsheets that need to do all that business. So, I think they're the unsung heroes sometimes. So, here's to the data nerds. I I will tell you, you know, becoming a datainformed organization, I really feel that we are now and uh it's because of them and even how we deploy our ambulances and what times and um we're looking at all this data and and uh councelor Tigan, we are looking on uh climate data to see we're we're working on it. It's just it's not the top right now. I'm trying to get this stuff done, but but that is definitely something I've already brought to him about, you know, is is a reduction in call volume benefiting our our u uh climate tactical plan, right? So, um, so they are awesome. Um, and yeah, I can't say enough about it. It it is just some of those positions that are thankless and don't really get recognition, but critically important and skilled

and this is how we go about making good decisions with good information. So, thank you so much, Chief. Councelor Vney, thank you so much for the presentation and boy, this is so encouraging. Um, you mentioned West Salem and I just wanted to clarify. So, um, is the benefit to West Salem, the fact that they're just units made available and the reach team doesn't come over into West Salem? Is that that what you said?

Well, I think there's more than I that is what I said, but but I think there's more than that benefit. And the fact is um is that we have many people that are very vulnerable that are crossing that bridge every day. And so many people that we have treated in Marian County um you know later that night might have been in West Salem and and now they're off the street and not going back there. So I think there is a a trickle down crescendo effect that um that by providing this service anywhere in the city, we're seeing benefits throughout the city. Sure. Thank you.

Anyone else? Councelor Bang. Uh thank you, mayor. Uh chief, thank you for the presentation. Um this is great news heading in the right direction. Um and so this one month of data that you're presenting to us that is just focused on the reach team activity in downtown Salem, right? Is that correct? Yep. At what point is the reach team going to shift focus or expand their service area to northeast Salem?

Um it'll be a shift. It won't be an I don't have well we don't have a budget authority for an expansion at this time. Um but it will be a shift after three months. Uh we're looking at moving over to Northeast particular Lancaster corridor um and in that area where we have very similar challenges. Thank you. Councelor Brown. Did you have something? I do not. Thank you. Anyone else? Chief. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right, we are moving on to information reports. I'll just read through them. If you need to, just stop me, please. Item 6A, the Salem Police Department update, the annual Salem crime statistics and other departmental data. Item 6B, the 2025 climate action plan annual progress report. Item 6 C, the 2026 climate action plan work plan. And that does it for information reports. Moving on uh to ordinances. Item 7.1, first reading or ordinance bill number 426, an ordinance relating to tourism promotion amending SRC section 38.020.

I move to advance uh ordinance bill number 4-26 to second reading for passage. Do we have second? Second. Second from Barney. Any further discussion? Thank you. Will the recorder please call the role? Councelor Matthews, I. Councelor Gwen, nay. Councelor Brown, I. Councelor Vang, nay. Councelor Nordike, hi. Councelor Vney, I. Councelor Tyen, I.

Councelor Nishioa,

I. Mayor Julie Hoy I. Motion passes. Uh we're moving on. We have no second readings. We have one person signed up for public comment. Kathleen Trepa. You'll have three minutes to speak. Please come forward. Press the button. Please announce your name, your ward, or your address for the record. Thank you very much. Kathleen Trepo, Ward 7. I know it's late and everybody wants to go home. So, in my previous life, we used to call this the silly season as a staff member, right? We're officially into uh the campaign season uh for the city council. I moved here in the fall of um 2023 and I was surprised um for the 2024 campaign season to see so many campaign signs in the public rideway. Um the vast majority of those were Julie Hoys when you were running for uh mayor. And at the time I thought that uh the city just didn't regulate campaign signs that it was okay to put them all out there. But I learned last week that in fact um that's not okay. The city does regulate campaign signs and they are prohibited from the public right ofway on fences and in um empty lots and fields. So in the larger context of what is happening nationally and internationally now complaining about illegally placed political signs might sound a little stupid. Um but for me it's not. It's an indication of respect. It's respect for the agency you want to represent. um or already do. It's respect for staff who put the effort into developing those regulations um and respect for the colleagues that considered those uh regulations and voted those for those regulations. So, if you want to run for office or if you want to run again for public office and you don't have the integrity to respect the rules or to uphold them, then I respectfully suggest that you shouldn't run because this isn't picking. This isn't about picking or choosing what rules or laws you want to follow. Integrity and respect mean you follow and uphold those laws. You

take an oath of office saying you're going to up swearing that you're going to uphold the laws and then some candidates decide to violate that and they just put their signs out willy-nilly even though they know that they're not in appropriate locations. I was also told that public employees on personal time place many of those signs and I would really hope that our city employees on personal time are not doing that. Everybody obviously is entitled to their personal opinions. and their own political affiliations. However, it's a really bad look if our own employees are actually placing those signs out knowingly in uh inappropriate locations. Um so I really hope um that as signs get deployed throughout the community, all the candidates will abide by the sign regulations that are included and linked to the elections page. I looked that up today. The rules are very clear. They don't belong in the rightway uh or on the fences. I'm going to call in the illegal signs and I hope the city removes them. I've worked for several cities and every one of those cities remove those signs. So, you have a lot of employees out in the field, public works, parks, community services, they can pull those signs and throw them in the back of the trucks and then have the candidates go pick them up. So, I really hope um we don't see the proliferation of signs. Thank you.

All right. Uh city attorney Asherson. So, uh, just a point of order on, uh, 71A. Uh, Councelor Brown, uh, wanted to change his vote. Councelor Brown, can you speak to that? Yes. Go from yes to nay. Thank you, Madam Reporter. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. And and Amy, if you could just verify that the number of I votes that for the ordinance to make sure it passed. Yes, I can verify that. Okay. Thank you. Is she going to do that now? Yeah. City Manager Nonbury.

Sorry. I'm sorry that I'm a little too late on this, but I just don't want to miss this opportunity on 6A with the Salem Police Department update on the crime statistics. So, we are, you know, moving in the right direction. So, I just want to acknowledge the work uh Chief Wumach and his team have done on this. So, it's a good report to read. So, thank you. Thank you, councelor Bang.

Uh yes, uh joining uh city manager, I'm also late to item 6A. Um something that uh got me involved in local government, particularly our city, is because of traffic concerns in my neighborhood. And I'm glad to see that in the police report um to council, there is a big single page report about how we are actively addressing traffic concerns and traffic safety in the city of Salem and how we have been able to reduce the fatalities by half in one year. And I think that demonstrates how serious um our city and our community takes traffic uh safety seriously. and I look forward to continuing to see that number decline and actively working on solutions with that. Thank you.

Anyone else? We are turned.