City Council - Regular Meeting

Everybody ready? Yeah. Okay. Are you ready? All right. With that, we'll bring the meeting of January 8th to. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Councelor Reynolds here. Mayor Briski here. Councelor Chris here. Councelor Ner here.

Thank you. don't have any announcements other than what's on here. Go on for the ethics law. No. All right. First, we change the government ethics law updates to conflict of interest provisions.

Every year brings new stuff. And this is from the ethics commission. Um, we've been sent this uh flyer that was in your packets about identifying conflicts of interest. Um, we, if I remember right, the OTC requires all elected and appointed officials such as myself and certain um, department heads to file conflict of interest disclosures. We do that online sometime in February. So, we're not going to make you do anything except for council member Chris. They may have you do it earlier because you're be appointed and as part of your onboarding, you have to do this. But they have changed the definition of conflict of interest.

And what they've changed is

the potential for conflict of interest. So, it's not just declaring whether you have an actual conflict, it's whether you have a potential conflict. And we've given you the sheet so you can know the difference and what to do when it comes there. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on this. Just know that as you are filling out your form for the OGC in February, they will ask you to put potential conflicts on. And of course, it behooves all of us to to be as open and transparent in those as we can be because if anybody ever claims, we can say we declare it and and there it is. So it's again for all of our safety and we all have to do this. So just thought I'd bring you up to date on the law changes or or the commission changes on this so that you would know well if anybody have any questions. All right with that we will move to public comment section. Any person may address the council after being recognized via. However, topics which are under appeal or legal in nature cannot be addressed. Please state your name and address for the record. Time is limited to three minutes per person. Anybody? Yeah. Just come on up to here and state your name for us.

I am Kel Rener. I am the owner of Recurrent at 205 street and I'm here to talk about parking. I know it's been discussed a lot with uh Justin at the chamber and Terry I believe and I'm here to represent um myself as a small business owner and I know many other small business owners who I've talked to are are feeling very similar ways about this um if to be blunt if I had known that the city would not be enforcing parking I would not have opened my business because the number one complaint I get particularly levels is that air isn't working. The first few years they weren't right. There was the perception of no barking, but in the last year or two years they are actually correct. Now I have the same cars parking up those entire two blocks days and like more than half the week. And this is my first year where um where I've actually had a decrease in transactions for the year rather than an increase which has been every other year before. And sorry I'm so nervous. Um anyway, LA Beach parking spot is generally assumed to uh to create $2,000 $20,000 of economic activity in a year. So when you're seeing an entire two lots parked up and not being used for economic activity, we are talking several annual salaries every year and it has had an extremely uh it's had a huge impact on my business as well as many others. So I am just here to advocate for increased parking enforcement. Um, on that note, I am using uh PUB's

reporting system. The first time I did it, they came out that day. Ever since then, they are waiting until the next day to respond, which doesn't help anybody. Um, so is this the pardon me for interrupting? Go ahead. Is this the the reported crime via our text messaging service? Uh, you know, it's the website where it has like code enforcement and you put in the vehicle information and all of that. Okay. Yeah. And they do work at officers, but the next day he doesn't. So, and which two block? You're right there on Pacific. Yes. On secondary. So, you that block

and and the block in front of both of those blocks. And I mean, there used to always be parking in the front of the primary museum. I mean it just hardly stop. So all right. So all right. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate anybody else.

Hey. I'm glad I came in here cuz really that's what I wanted to remind everybody of this week when I came in was back in August we did talk about parking being a problem and we talked about the fact that we were going to take it up in October and October's kind of went and I don't know that we've started taking it up but spring's just around the corner and I unfortunately I always use Kelly as my example so she's here now and I talk about how much we struggle downtown as local business owners to make money and we've got a short period of time that we do really well and that's in summertime. And so we've got to get this rectified by summer and she's not long. If if we walked around till together tomorrow between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., I can guarantee 50% of the parking spaces are taken by employee and employers and building owners. She's got John Janick and his group argan over there in front of her. There's nowhere to park over there and and she's an impulse stop in my opinion. The Dutch mill, eh, probably not. they'll go around the block for me. So, it I don't feel like it affects me a lot, but it affects her. It affects Lucky Bear. It affects all of these small businesses. And now I've got to worry about them because they're my renters. And I want her to succeed. I want Kevin Hancock to succeed. And they're not going to succeed if we don't help them. All of Main Street's plugged up all day long with the Pacific restaurant with with the Janic crew. Go down Second Street. There's not a parking spot on Lucky Bears. Salty Ravens got it plugged. I mean, everybody, we don't enforce it. We don't

even try. I've got a car by my house that parks across the sidewalk all day and we just drive past them. I mean, we've become a society and a community that reacts to complaints. Maybe or not. We can't. We've got to be proactive. Would that new texting app work for that as well? It's not up to her. No, no, I mean, if you saw the same vehicle twice as long as Yeah.

I seriously 1505 verse three has a car. His garage is butted up against the sidewalk. So, he still feels like it's his driveway. He's parked across the sidewalk and out into the street all day. My kids have to walk around it and we just drive by that kind of stuff. I drive by it six or eight times a day. If I was cop, you'd have gotten a ticket already the party. That's why I'm here. So, you got to get this problem. And I think your number, if I remember correctly, that 20ome thousand was from a long time ago. That was a study now.

That was something that came in like over 10 years ago. So, it's probably a lot more. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Sky uh business owner at Lucky Bear Soap and building owner and I didn't plan on talking, but I'm just I'm just uh kind of fill in what I feel like they didn't hit. Um so I've lived here for 50 years and unfortunately in our town everything is complaint driven which sucks. Um, but it's time to smack some hands or whatever you want to call it and hand out a few tickets to remind everybody, oh, there are some rules. You know, there's some ethics that need to be followed downtown and all the build all the business owners know. They've told their employees. They've been reminded. It's not um it's nothing new. And I just like to see the city cops stop by. And I my whole storefront is windows. I can see out every day. And the only time I see city cops downtown, it's when they're eating snacks next door Sarasota. Nobody's nobody's patrolling. I had uh I can't think of his name right now, but I think he's like a retired cop who walked around the fair. um he stopped in and said, "Hey, I'm trying to put together a salary for myself. We just need each business owner to to pitch in 150 bucks each and then I can patrol and check the downtown businesses." And I said, "Well, isn't that the job of our city cops?" Um, and he's like, "Well, you know, this would be just for city business owners." And then I explained to him how hard it was to collect $15 for me to business to create this hire that was made to pro promote our businesses and that that wouldn't fly. And then I suggested and I so I'm on Second Street right across from LA Herald and I pointed to the intersection and I said but at least 200 times a day people fly through that

intersection and don't stop at the stop sign. So there's a revenue that would generate your salary. again, people flying through stop signs and and uh and fast and it's I'm just wondering what where where are the city cops uh during the day, you know, and it's I know we're supposed to be talking about bargaining, but this blatant drug activity on Second Street, literally on the sidewalk, and we just uh we need we need some people to show up. I've talked to Megan several times and and it sounded like there was a parking enforcement person in the works and then I talked to Justin a couple days ago and he said that there actually is someone with that position. Well, where are they? Cuz we're not we're not seeing that happen. And and I'm not and I'm not saying somebody needs to, you know, be a crazy Nazi and go around and be tickling people every single day, but it should just take once to be for, you know, businesses to be reminded there's there's a business downtown that in the summertime, eight employees that park all day long and fill up the entire street. And they know that they're not supposed to, but what's the consequence? There's no consequence. So, I'd like to see uh see that happen because pretty pretty soon, you know, if there aren't any local businesses to support and there's not going to be much of a downtown.

Thank you. Thank you.

That was Michael Rosa. Oh, okay. Anybody else? Did we have anybody online? Okay. Well, okay. Perfect. Next would be presentations. If enterprise zone Cooper, I'm the director of the economic development council of Toma County. And uh I guess a little bit of a review. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the enterprise zone. So the enterprise zone is a statewide program um that we opted into in 1999. So it's been around for a while. It is a property tax exemption for either new businesses that move here and build something or existing businesses that expand and add something to their current business. So, it's kind of an automatic thing for the first week. If they meet the criteria, they have a meeting with myself and Eva Fletcher from the county and we send their paperwork into to the state and they get approved. There is a possibility that I get an extra two-year exemption that it requires approval and it also requires that they pay salaries and I think I don't know if I put the salary schedule there and and it changes every year so it's not something that you would get to see but for this year um it's about $52,000 that they have to pay. So, it's that two-year exemption has not been has only been used to my knowledge one time zone and that was back in 2013. So, it's a good program in that it

allows people or business owners to add something either equipment or build a new building or anything like that. It can never take anything off the tax roles that's already on the tax rolls. It's only for new equipment or new buildings, stuff like that. So what we're asking is we have a local business that's wanting to do an expansion and they are not growing in the enterprise zone. So we are ask them to add their property to the enterprise zone and they are located in Dchards. So they don't really impact the city of Tom because the city of Tank is a sponsor of the enterprise zone they have to approve it.

Cherry Kit on this. So for Till County, the enterprise zone is a was originally set up was a collaboration of several cities and the county. So the the way the resolution was done as I understand it is the entirety of Tenum City, the entirety of Bay City, the entirety of Gabaldi, right? Um the school districts have to be involved. So both school districts and the county for uninorporated areas such as NARS, right? The reason this comes before us even though it doesn't affect us and we could have businesses that could expand or could relocate and use these tax benefits. Um but the reason we are involved even though the active application isn't for Tilic City is because this conglomeration for the for the EDC everybody has to sign off or it can't happen right so we have to give our blessing in order for this to happen. Um, and again, it doesn't really hurt us, doesn't help us, we're kind of neutral about it, but if if providing this this okay so that this business outs um can expand a little bit and and stay in needs then you know rising tide lifts all boats type of mentality. You know, the more business they get, the more business there may be for others coming out there that have to pass through until get their

right. So and and the exemption is not for all types of businesses. It's mostly for trended sector type businesses, industrial, no factory and that type of thing. So it doesn't cover retail or restaurants or stuff like that. So it's it's and it's really to encourage new jobs is why the uh the program started in the beginning. So they have to agree that hire at least one new person when they get the exemption. So, um, like you said, we're we're asking for this to be added for this just one I think you have the map. It's one tiny little piece of property in the charts. It's two acres. Um, so, um, it's Jacobs and Salt. I think you're all familiar with that company. So, it's a it's a it's a good growing strong business in county. We sure want to, uh, help any way we can, I think. But, um, I don't know if you have any questions.

Yeah. you um you mentioned something about tax taxes. What which tax? How does that work? What does it do? So, it's property tax exemption. So, all property how long? For 3 years automatically if they meet the criteria with the possibility of adding a fourth and fifth year as long as they meet the uh it has to go through approval process again to get that that extra cheese plus uh they have to meet those salary requirements. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank you very much.

So, this is the presentation you've got later in the agenda for potential resolution. If you if you Thank you very much. All right. Next, we have recognition of officer Lynn Laughman, 20 years of service. You can come this way. Dragon, you can stay there.

Yeah. So, Lynn, I'm uh super excited to be able to recognize you uh tonight and through this plaque, which I'll read uh 20 years of service, recognition, and honor officer Lynn Laughman for his faithful and dedicated service to the city of Telmunk, the Telmunk Police Department, and the community since December 2nd, 2005. The city of Telmunk and its members of the Toma Police Department extend our sincere gratitude to Officer Laughman and his family. With respect and appreciation, we thank you for your 20 years of commitment, professionalism, and service dated this fifth day of January 2026. Thank you. Um I I think it's really important that we recognize our staff at the city who have spent and dedicated so much time of their life uh doing really difficult work at times. Uh Lyn and I have been through 20 years. I worked with Lynn for 20 years and uh Lynn has always been a a solid person that I can go to and Lynn is one of very few that actually come to me and ask how I'm doing. Um which I really appreciate it because uh he he sees um and he calls me out in times when I know that I need help. So I appreciate that and thank you. Thank you.

All right. Picture time. Picture over one through the window over there just a second ago. Well, you all council. You all want all of us? Sure. Yeah.

Let's go this way. We got a camera back

here.

Temporarily 2005. Yeah. Something squeezing. Who's got the camera? I'll be in your way. That'll be good. Jamie, you should get in on this, too. No, you've been here since the day. I have been here too long.

Adam's here.

Is he even 20 yet? You are supposed Okay. Next is new business request to adopt resolution renaming string of pearls enterprise z and amending it boundaries. We're just changing a lot of that. One of our managers, one of the other ones said that is not on the screen. So we decided to change just

before it was kind of what I want city it was all kind of in that but now it's not so great question is there a reason that we man

so the um the reason I don't know the reason this all happened prior to me being here. But uh my guess is the reason is they don't have a lot of industrial type manufacturing businesses and uh or land available such things and the the state limits the amount of acreage you can out of your county that you can put into the enterprise zone. So it's not like we can say oh let's just cover the whole county. It doesn't work that way. I move that we uh adopt resolution R010526, a re resolution renaming the Street of Pearls Enterprise Zone and amending boundaries.

Second. All right, we have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? Question. Questions called. All those in favor signify by saying I. I passes by the council seed. Thank you. All right. Now is our annual appointment of council president appointed.

Yes. Who was the second question? All those in favor? All right. opposed. All right. I'm not going to have to accept the nomination. He already accepted it. It's a teacher thing. I love that. Thank you, Brian. Thank you.

All right. And now declare board six vacancy following the resignation of councelor Shriber. We're very sad to see councelor Shrivever choose to leave the council. We feel like she was an effective uh leader and effective member of our council. Uh but due to reason she's chosen to resign and the mayor accepted that resignation. So as we've done with few other seats this year, we're going to declare this vacant and advertise for people to to join us. Does that need to be by motion again? I can't remember. for by vote or is it just yeah has been voted yes I thought

I move that we declare award six vacant sir right move and second any other discussion all those in favor signify by saying I oppos before we move on yes uh Chelsea do we know where she was at in her term we're filling I think it's more two years. She was just this up it it will be up just because she resigned. So it will be end of December was it's the second half for Trump. She was just reelected. Okay. But

so um just so that everybody's aware um this election season will have huge consequences on our city council. Um, by my count, there are at least five seats between city council and the mayor's seat that'll be up for election this fall. So, um, and two of those, so we have our normal complimented council seats. They're up their fouryear term, but two of those will be filling the unexpired terms for being seat and and um, board six. What was that?

Am I the only one up? Not only two, four, six, and then a year. Yeah. But deans will be on the ballot because of the because of the finishing the term, not expired term. Yeah. So, just throwing that out there mostly for Jane's benefit and the newspaper that we could see some dramatic changes to our city council the next year. Have we had anybody forward two? Nope.

No. All right. Well, next we will move to request to make councelor leaison appointments to urban renewal agency and planning commission. Anybody want to do everybody on that side? I'm fine staying those turn. So Garrett's going to stay on turn and then I'll stay on the planning one for now till we get a full vote. If someone wants it, we can do that. Was John the other? John was the other chair. Did you by chance are we going

up right now? I know. I just thought we were supposed to have them. We have to, but do we have to have Is it a That's We couldn't I don't know. I was just thinking about Yeah. I think that's right. And I don't want to, but I will say a lot of counselors to start. That's true.

Okay. All right. All right. Well, I guess we don't need to look it up because we have two willing. All right. Just in case somebody wants a get out of jail free card for winter time around. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll move to reports. Uh I have nothing this time. That's the city manager comments. Um, shout out to the city staff that held in together while I was away, uh, traveling for the last couple weeks and especially Chelsea who provided my notes for tonight because my brain just wasn't working enough to do it. So, um, couple of things that we want to go through. Um, tomorrow I am attending uh, emergency management meetings um, at the port. This is part of our um incident command uh stuff that we have to have. We have to have at least one certified person. Usually it's the administrator official. We're working on getting elected official later. Um so I'll be doing that. Um want to make sure that you guys know um our survey for RCAC is going out a week from today. And this is the the income survey that we need everybody to respond to. We need to have 90% response rate of the 300 residents, 300 plus residents that will receive the actual survey. Everybody will receive a letter talking about the survey, but only about 300 will receive the actual survey. And we need those people to respond. We don't care what the

responses are. If you send the envelope back, we have the response. Is it okay to interrupt that? clarify again because when you and I met the three of us met you help me understand that better and it makes really good sense for those of us that are newcomers or considering that most of our the public won't understand why is this so important so this is important because under certain guidelines and I'm I'm going to speak very carefully here because I don't want to disparage anything or we can't influence things one way or the other right

there are certain financial products such as grants and loans and stuff that require demographic studies be done. Most of those rely on the Census Bureau uh demographics that are that come out every 10 years. We do not feel that the Census Bureau um demographics for the city are completely accurate. Um and so the only way to um go about challenging that in any way is to do our own study. we received a grant to do this study um that involves demographics and income, right? And the idea is that we this will provide a more specific um tale of what our demographics and income levels are than what we get out of the Census Bureau and what we've gotten out of the Census Bureau with the hopes that with the results of this study, we will then be eligible because we'll have this more detailed analysis, we will be eligible for more grants than we are now to provide things like infrastructure for sewer and water. Um, for example, um, our water line and sewer line upgrades that that we just received that um, $7.2 million loan. We received several million dollars in federal subsidies on this and then we've gotten this this business loan for $7 million to make up the difference. there. One of the reasons we had to get that loan is because we didn't qualify for further grants through business Oregon to make up that financing. So, uh the hope is that by providing this data analysis that is more specific and more detailed for Till that with what we know about our demographics that we will appear more attractive for the need based grants.

Great. Thanks. Does that answer Oh yeah. Thought that get that out there so people understand more. Yeah. And and this is super important.

So um speaking of that waterline project, the bid opening is Thursday. Um and we've had um something in the range of 16 or 18 qualified biders for this project. We're actually really impressed at how many uh contractors qualified and and came. we had to pre they all had to pre-qualify um and meet certain metrics to be able to bid. We received those bids and we'll be opening them in one Thursday. So, that's an exciting thing. Um a reminder that the council retreats is on Saturday the 24th from 9 to 12 at the Forest Service building. We'll be talking about the council's goals for the next year um and kind of a work plan for staff and how we want to uh make sure that we're spending our time. And then your next city council meeting on the 20th at 6:00 will be a stakeholder meeting for our new camping orders. We are required to provide um this will be a work session, but it's a a way for us to invite targeted stakeholders. We have invited all of the people that have recently commented in city council meetings about the RVs and such for this uh revised uh camping ordinance that has been drafted. It's uh currently finalizing legal muster um to make sure that we've crosses and audit eyes to make sure we're we're compliant with Oregon laws and federal laws and all that. Um but we hope to have this stakeholder meeting um at your next council meeting and then we will bring the ordinance to you for possible adoption.

Will that be the work session beforehand?

That is the work session 6:00. Yeah. But and before the the regular council, I know that um our police department and the people we've been talking about in our committees about this issue are very very excited about this orans. that matches a lot of the input that we've got from folks in the community matching some other cities that have been done that have passed traditional muster um and and really makes gives us more um tools in our toolbox to be able to uh address the the needs of the community on that issue. So, that stakeholder meeting will be on the 20th at 6 PM. And then finally, I'm going to ask Justin to put up on our monitors um this uh piece of correspondence that we received um before I left for Christmas. She's not going to be able to come up this year.

Oh, I can just give you one second. You just keep talking. So, um, we got an email, um, the mayor and I did, um, from a, uh, public works director in have to remind me of the city in St. Helens whose, uh, young daughter um, sent this email, and I'm going to read this. A few weeks ago, my family and I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful cities of Siloka and Esquidin. Recently, I learned about the unfortunate flooding in the area, and my 8-year-old daughter, Selene, was deeply moved when she saw the news. Her compassion led her to create the attached drawing, which you can see on the screen here, hoping that we're okay, and she insisted I reach out to you. She wanted to send her support and let you know that she is thinking of the citizens of Siluk during this challenging time. her wish is to help in any way she can, even if it's just through these small tokers of encouragement. I'm passing this along on her behalf as she is very adamant that I connect with you directly. Thank you for your dedication and service to the community. We wish you all the best as you work through this difficult situation and we hope for brighter days ahead for everyone in Soma. And that's from Muhammad Zahar, our public works director in St. Helens. So, um, we received this and thought I and I responded to the email right away saying, "Thank you. We appreciate this." But one thing we did extra is we put together a little care package and we put some stickers and some pens stuff with orange and and the cow and everything and we sent that to Seline uh care her dad and we did get a response back again. Good morning. This was just last Friday. I wanted to express my sincere thanks to my family who said it for Seline last week. She was absolutely delighted by it and your thoughtful gesture truly made her day. uh wishing everyone in the city of New Year filled

with happiness, health, and safety. So, um just I mean it wasn't a big thing, just some struct the original drawing that we received um here at city hall. We'll hang out in the window for a while um through the rainy season at least. But just for the public record, wanted to thank Seline for her uh her thinking of us and glad that we could make her day and sending her some tele. That's the the feel good moment for us. So those are my comments. All right. Perfect.

We did have Thank you for doing this, getting on the council, putting your time in for this, and thank you from me for Sylvia for putting her time in. Like I've said before, it's a lot. There's a lot to it. So, thank you. It's uh it's tough finding people but yes she she did get ahead. My assistant manager has notified me that I forgot something on my comment. The uh chamber gala on the 24th um we needed the official head count by today. Um I think we said

you're I will you I think we've got seats. I think we decided we needed two tables. Two tables and we're good.

Okay. All right. Perfect. Yeah. Sorry. No worries. Council comments. Um, just reminded of the public that dark nights, wet nights, and lots of activities hanging around the schools. So, please be cautious and careful going through the schools on Zoom.

Just kudos to not only city but also county state and their response to the storms. Just great work all the way across. I've managed to uh go through Highway 6 twice uh just a minute actually back last few weeks ago and then right before last but incredible work here there everywhere. So pretty great.

All right. And if they have minutes for Monday, December 15th, work session and radio session. I'll move the minutes for Monday, December 15th, 202. Thank you for clarifying. All those in favor signify by saying I. I pass. Do we authorize bills? Second.

Can you please hold the council? Yes. Councelor Rouse. Hi. Councelor Sunduski. Hi. Councelor Chris. Hi. Councelor. Hi. Passes. And we will done.