City Council - Regular Meeting

Tonight we have a public hearing on the 26-27 approved urban renewal agency budget. Sorry, we're having microphone issues. We will now begin the public hearing process of the agenda. Please state your first and last name and city you reside in for the record. Each person testifying will be allotted three minutes for their testimony. Does any counselor need to declare a potential or actual conflict of interest or recuse themselves regarding this public hearing? Okay, so I'd like to call on Katie Henry, Finance Director, to present information on the 26-27 Urban Renewal Agency hearing.

We actually have no changes at all from the budget as it was presented to the budget committee. And as it was approved by the budget committee, we have no administrative changes and we've had no additional requests. So I have nothing to present unless I'm available for questions. If anyone has any. Okay.

Anybody have any questions right now? Okay. So we'll start to hear a public testimony. Do we have anybody signed up? Nobody on zoom phone, none of the above. We have people on zoom, but no one has signed up. Okay. Is there anybody in civic hall that wants to say anything? Politely. Okay. All right. So any other questions? This is your last opportunity before I close the public hearing. Okay, so that concludes our public testimony for this evening. Does the staff have anything else that they want to add? Anything else? Okay, so I'd like to close the public hearing. 602. Okay, so now we have to consider resolution number 2026-04, a resolution adopting the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, making appropriations and declaring the tax increment. Katie Henry, I'm calling on you again, anything?

Thank you very much. So with this, we are looking to adopt the budget for the URA. Again, there are no changes since the budget that was unanimously approved at the budget committee meeting. I just encourage you, Mayor, if you present the motion to read it exactly as there is some verbiage that is specific for the taxes and the... and the budget itself. But since there aren't any questions, I am not going to spend time going over the total budget unless anyone does have any questions.

I don't see any questions. So I'm going to ask for a motion to adopt the fiscal year 2026-27 budget to make appropriations and declare the tax increment for the McMillan over renewal plan area. Do I have a motion?

So moved. Second.

So I have a motion from counselor Gary and a second from counselor to call scheme and to adopt the resolution number 2026-04 adopting the 2627 budget in the amount of 3,872,000. $872,810 for the fiscal year, beginning July 1, 2026 to make the appropriations in the amount of $3,758,158. And to certify to the County assessor request for the McMinnville urban renewal plan area for the maximum amount of revenue that may be raised by dividing the taxes under section one C article nine, of the Oregon Constitution and the ORS Chapter 457. Any further council discussion?

Claudia? Mr. Geary? Aye. Councillor Tucholsky?

Aye.

Councillor Benner?

Aye.

And Council President Peralta?

Yes.

Resolution 2026-04 passes unanimously by a vote of four to zero.

Great. Okay. So now I will need on the next item. I need to recuse myself from the next agenda item and step down from the dais. Council Peralta will be leading the remainder of the agenda and the meeting. I'm stepping down due to owning property that is directly across the street from the property being discussed. Thank you.

I'd like to refer council to pages seven and eight of the packet. We'll now consider resolution number 2026-05, a resolution of the McMinnville Urban Renewal Board, authorizing the McMinnville city manager or a designee to enter into and manage a disposition and development agreement with the Guardian Real Estate Services LLC for the redevelopment of the property at 904 Northeast 10th Avenue and 835 Northeast Alpine Avenue. Tax slots number R4421BA03800 and R4421BA03850. I'll now call on City Manager Adam Garvin to present.

Thank you, Council President. What you guys have before you tonight via the staff report and the, 80 page DDA that was sent out earlier this morning is a culmination of a negotiation effort that we've had with guardian and their end user housing authority in Hill County for workforce housing on the Northwest rubber site. That was once an industrial site that we purchased as a city back in July of 24, and then sent out a request for proposals. Uh, we got back 10 of those and narrowed that down to three proposals in March 21st of 25. We moved forward with negotiations with palindrome. Those ended in November of 25 and then in February, uh, In the middle of February, we got a concept design from Guardian and the negotiation team consisting of Councilor Peralta, Council President Peralta, Councilor Chenoweth, initially Kelly McDonald before he had to step away, Peter Kircher from Golden Valley Brewery, Walt Gow is a citizen at large on MIRAC, and Director Richards and myself, And then when we got done with the term sheets through those negotiations, we then went to the DDA and we spent the last six weeks negotiating that. And what you see before you tonight is, is the culmination of that effort. So to break that down and get those 80 pages into six pages. Uh, this agreement will result in a $4.7 million cash closing, which will effectively cover the purchase price and about 20 months of carrying costs. It won't cover all of our carrying costs. Uh, as far as earnest money goes, there's 125,000 that's nonrefundable, uh, June 30th of 27. Uh, and then there's another, 125 option that's not refundable a year later. There is an additional two options for two different funding cycles at 250,000 a piece from Guardian that wouldn't be credited towards the purchase price where the two 125 options would be. That basically offsets our carrying costs of waiting another two years for this project to develop. given the uncertainty around the two public funding models of workforce and affordable housing, it's important that the developer has the flexibility to apply multiple times until they're successful. And so this was a compromise that we arrived at through the negotiation process. As far as STCs go, So with that closing window, it could extend out to June 30th of 2031 at the very latest. The earliest we would close, if we're successful in this initial funding cycle that they're preparing an application for right now, we'd be closing November, December of 27. So somewhere between November, December of 27 and June 30th of 2031 is where your closing window is. SDCs are transportation exempt, wastewater exempt. Parks are paid up to the amount of the permit fee waiver, which I'll get to in a second, with the remainder being paid by the city. Permit fees will be a 50. So planning, building and engineering, 50% reduction. The reduced amount will be to pay toward parks SDCs. And then the remainder of the parks SDCs will be paid by the city. Those could be funded out of construction excise tax. They could be funded out of URA funds or they could be funded out of the general fund. So we wanted to leave some flexibility there to make sure we have the ability to use the most appropriate dollars at the time. There's also a payment in lieu of taxes that will be negotiated later. Basically, that's if the rate of return exceeds X, Guardian would pay Y. That'll be negotiated in a separate agreement, but prior to closing. Right now we're undertaking some additional environmental due diligence. That cost is being split 50, 50 among the city and guardian. We started that about a month ago with a cost of 93,000 for boring. And we're covering half of that at 46, five environmental cleanup. Guardian will be responsible for the first 500,000. guardian and the city will share the next two 50 from 500 to seven 50. And then the city pays the cost between seven 50 and a million. And then guardians responsible for anything over a million in an environmental remediation. So the maximum, the city's on the hook for in that instance would be 375,000. Uh, development timeline so construction needs to start within six months after closing construction completion will be within 30 months after the environmental remediation is deemed completed. He could be you know some additional time there, depending on. What environment was discovered as a embark on their construction. Um, as far as land use approvals, guardian needs to attain all land use approvals prior to closing. There's four in there. Um, the Northeast gateway design review, the landscape plan review, the multi-unit design review, and then the traffic impact analysis. All four of those are administrative in nature. Um, proportional share of 10th Avenue street improvements to the Northeast gateway district, uh, built to local street standards. And then the tax lot 3,805 that was initially, uh, proposed as commercial is, um, going to be used as a open space and we'll have a public access open space easement over that to meet the open space requirements and overall build a, a better overall project for the community down there. Um, And with that, I would entertain any questions or a motion to approve the DDA as presented.

Council, do we have any questions? I'll start on that end. Okay. The only question I have, and this information is in the packet, I just want to make sure it gets out in the public. How many units again are they anticipating and what's the income range for people in those units?

So it's 150 to 171 units is what's been proposed and it's 50 to 60% AMI and that's the Portland Metro AMI, which is the region that we're in. And so for a one bedroom, At 50%, the income limit would be about 43,500 for income. And at 60%, it'd be a little over 52,000. If you get up to three or four person household, you're in the 62 to 75,000 range.

Great. Thank you. With that, I would ask for a motion to consider URA resolution number 2026-05.

I'll propose a motion to adopt the attached resolution approving and authorizing the city manager to sign the DDA with Guardian Real Estate Services for the redevelopment of the Northwest Rubber Site at 904 Northeast 10th Avenue and 835 Northeast Alpine Avenue.

Second. It's been moved by Councilor Tokolsky and seconded by Councilor Geary. Council, do we have any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, Claudia, will you please pull the council?

Councillor Geary?

Aye.

Councillor Tucholsky?

Aye.

Councillor Benner?

Aye.

And Council President Peralta? Yes. Resolution number 2026-05 passed unanimously by a vote of four to zero.

There being no further business for the McMinnville Urban Renewal Board, I will now adjourn the meeting at 6.15.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Bye.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Silence.

Amen. Thank you.

Recording in progress. Oh, shoot.

What am I doing up here?

Good evening. It's seven o'clock and we're going to start our city council meeting. I'd like to have Claudia do roll call. Counselor Geary.

Good evening.

Counselor Tickles.

Present.

Counselor Benner. Uh, counselors Cunningham and Chenoweth are absent this evening. Mayor Morris here.

Great. Now, if you can stand, please stand with me as we do the pledge. Now we're gonna go to public comments. Any interested audience members are invited to provide comments and any comment provided that requires some type of followup will be assigned to a staff member. Anyone may speak on any topic other than a matter in litigation, a land use decision, or that that is going to be in front of the city council at a later date or a matter scheduled for public hearing at some future date. Comments will be limited to four minutes per person for a total of 32 minutes. If you are on Zoom and wish to speak, please use the raise your hand feature or chat feature. and send a chat to the city recorder team. You will need to provide your contact information prior to being promoted to speak. Once your turn is up, we will announce your name and unmute your mic. Please announce your name and the city you live in. For the record, Claudia, do we have anybody signed up? Yes, first we'll start with Mandy Tatum. Okay.

Good evening, council members and Mayor Morris. My name is Mandy Tatum. I'm a McMinnville resident and the president of the Baker Creek North Homeowners Association. This past Saturday, sometime in the 4 o'clock hour, a woman in an apparent mental health crisis was present at the intersection of Baker Creek Road and Shadden at the entrance to our neighborhood. She was dressed in a bathrobe, barefoot, and visibly distressed. Multiple neighbors observed both McMinnville Police and Yamaha County Sheriff's Department on scene at that location for a traffic incident. Whether or not the woman was connected to that incident is unclear, but when law enforcement concluded their response and departed, she was left behind laying on the boulevard. I personally spoke with her at 5.15 p.m. She was clearly not okay. As my neighbor and I headed down Baker Creek, We noticed a Yamhill County Sheriff's vehicle traveling in her direction and assumed assistance was on the way. It was not. Over the course of that afternoon and evening, multiple residents contacted the non-emergency line seeking assistance for her. She was still there at 8 45 PM. I called myself and the dispatcher's response was, is this about the woman? That single question confirmed that law enforcement had been aware of her situation for hours and they did not appear to have acted. At that point, I contacted a friend who works for the county and asked them to reach out to the crisis response team directly, which they did. She remained on that Boulevard unassisted for nearly four hours. Our neighborhood has no water fountains, no public restrooms and no enclosed shelter that day. We had high winds, rain and temperatures that evening were forecast to fall into the forties. I'm not here because this happened near my home. This is not a, not in my backyard complaint. I'm here because a vulnerable adult needed help and did not receive it. And that matters regardless of where it happens in this city. I'm here on behalf of my community asking whether McMinnville is doing right by its most vulnerable citizens. This is not a criticism of individual officers. This is a systemic concern. A vulnerable person present at an active law enforcement scene subsequently reported by multiple citizens was left behind and not meaningfully followed up on for the better part of an evening. McMinnville is not a large city and that is precisely why we cannot afford to lose track of the most vulnerable people in our community. I'm asking Chief Wood and this council to review what happened on Saturday examine why this woman was left without assistance when law enforcement departed the scene and identify what protocols or resources need to change. So this does not happen again. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Chief would, can you follow up on that for me?

Thank you.

Next we have Amanda Pawanka. Hey Amanda.

Hello. Thank you for doing your duty. My name's Amanda Pawanka. I live in McMinnville and I just wanted to reiterate what Maggie Smith said at last council meeting and just be like, no data centers in Yamhill County or in McMinnville preemptively saying no to that. And then number two, this is something I've been thinking about for a long time and I'm just like, I'm probably not going to be at a council meeting for a long time because my Tuesdays are going to be filled up anyway. Third Street. Okay, so we're doing this whole Third Street project, spending a lot of time and money and energy making it awesome, which I am super on board with. But what I noticed was we took away the Dine Out because of the lack of parking. I talked with Emily at the Downtown Association. I really wanted to know what was going on, why we were removing Dine Out and only doing it once a month. And it was because the retail people were losing due to not parking. That's what she said. And so they had to just do it once a month. That is kind of a big red flag because I know that the third street improvement project is taking away parking. So I'm not in any committee. This is just me as a citizen of McMinnville bringing it up. Maybe this is something to talk about or create a solution for, I know we have a massive lack of parking in downtown McMinnville, but if we're going to be removing even more and the businesses are actually suffering in real time from lack of parking, this is definitely something we should be talking about. And then number three, I just want to address the grad night. I wish people who, I wish we could like just take all of that fear and trepidation over drag queens and point it at human trafficking and like leave drag queens alone. That's all I have to say. Like, can we just like take all of that and like try to end human trafficking instead of bothering drag queens? Okay. That's it.

That's all I had.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next we have Tamsen Kramer.

Hi. My name is Samson Cranmer. I used to live in McMinnville. I live in Sheridan now. So, but I, I wrote, I wrote this down. It's time. It says, hello, my name is Samson. And some of you already know who I am and what I want to talk about. I'm here tonight because I need this council to understand something plainly. When you keep using trespass enforcement and camping tickets against people who are homeless, and when you're in programs like safe parking, you're not solving homelessness. You're simply making survival more dangerous, more unstable, and more expensive for the people who are already struggling. People do not stop being human beings because they do not have housing. They do not stop needing sleep, bathroom, safety, dignity, or a place to put their things. They do not stop being parents, workers, neighbors, or community members just because they are outside. Homeless people are people too. And if the city policy starts with the idea that they are a nuisance to be removed instead of people to be helped, then the city is choosing the wrong direction. I also want to speak directly to the ending of the safe parking program. Now I know it didn't actually end And the family that was there has a place to be now. But what about the day that it does decide to end? Where are they supposed to go? They have a baby. And people that are using the safe parking, they usually are families. It's just difficult for families when they have to be moved constantly over and over and over throughout the night because they don't have a place to be. And so I wanted to ask the obvious question, what are they supposed to do if that happens? Where exactly does that family go when the one safe option is gone? How is that child supposed to get adequate rest if the cops routinely run them around town until they take their van for one reason or another? And that question is not just about one family. It's about every person the city pushes from place to place then expects them to magically stabilize. You cannot keep pulling the floor out from under people and then blame them for not building your life fast enough. You cannot remove every safe option then act surprised when people end up back in crisis. If the city wants housing outcomes, then it needs policies that help people survive long enough to reach housing. I want you to think about the long-term damage caused by the trespass enforcement, the camping tickets. In Oregon, landlords can screen for criminal history and a trespass charge or conviction can become part of that screening process. That means a citation or charge tied to simply trying to survive can turn into another housing barrier later. So when the city keeps issuing trespass actions to people with nowhere else to go, it may be creating records that follow them into the rental market, making housing even harder. That is the part that feels so deeply unfair. People are being told to get housed while being given fewer places to stay safe, fewer stable options, and more records that can work against them later. And that is before we even talk about the trauma, the disability, mental health, addiction, poverty, and exhaustion that many people are already carrying. Expecting people to climb out of that while the city keeps putting new obstacles in front of them is not a strategy. It's a failure of compassion and planning. I want to be clear about that. I know there are real frustrations in the community. I know people are tired of seeing encampments, trash and suffering, but pretending people do not exist does not make the problem disappear. It just hides the human beings carrying it. If you want a safer, cleaner, healthier city, and give people someplace safe to go, somewhere with bathrooms, somewhere that lets them begin to recover instead of constantly defending themselves against enforcement. I've not been up here speaking for a while, but that does not mean I stopped caring. I'm settled now and I'm working on a project on the change station. It's being built around radical acceptance, trauma-informed care, and the belief that progress matters more than perfection. I'm not going to unload the whole plan tonight because I'm still building it. but I want this council to know that I am working on a real solution. One that does not treat people like the problems to be moved away, but as the people who need a place to stabilize, breathe and move forward. So our message tonight is simple. Stop making survival a crime.

Thank you.

Thanks.

That's everyone we have tonight. Okay.

There's no video online. Okay. Okay. So those were all of our public comments for tonight. So now we're going to move on to our program, which is summer fun presentation by Katie Noy, community center manager. And it looks like we have Courtney from the library. Okay. Thank you.

Hello. Thank you, mayor and council for having us here today. My name is Katie Noid and I'm with parks and recreation. And with me is I'm Courtney from the library. The summer fun activity program started in the summer of 2020 with just four activities as a way to safely host programs outdoors and serve our community. This year's schedule for summer fun includes 99 events hosted in our parks, city facilities and apartment complexes. We prioritize reaching those furthest from opportunity by bringing programs closer to them with the understanding that not all community members have the availability, transportation, or means to use our parks and recreation or library services. This year for the month of July, the theme for the National Parks and Recreation Month is the power of parks and recreation, and we will be highlighting the power of play, community, connection, and belonging all July. The library summer reading theme is plant a seed, read. When we are planning for summer fun, our goal is to build on our sense of community through free, inclusive, mobile, and family friendly activities for the McMinnville community. As you all know, the Summer Fun Program makes our community a better place, increases quality of life, makes long-lasting connections between our staff, our community members, and our partners. So many city departments work together to make Summer Fun happen. We extend our gratitude to all the staff from the Public Library, Parks and Recreation, as well as police, parks maintenance, and communications and engagement.

We would like to say thank you to all of you for your support, as well as a big thank you to our partners that help us put on these programs in our communities. And some of our partners include the Library Foundation, the Friends of the Library, the State Library of Oregon, the Friends of the McMinnville Senior Center, the McMinnville School District, the Yamhill Community Care Organization, the Fostering Hope Initiative. I should take a break to breathe. Nerds of McMinnville, the City of Lafayette, and more than that. Again, this year we will be having our summer concert series on Tuesdays in July in City Park, as well as story times, park play dates, entertaining performances, soccer, dodgeball, the bookmobile will be going out to various locations, teen programs, movies in the park, and much more. The calendars, which you have, are available now at the Aquatic Center, the Community Center, Library, and Senior Center. And of course, all this information is available on the city website under Summer Fun, or at bit.ly, no, bit.ly slash MacSummerFun. Thank you.

So energetic. Thank you. Anybody have any questions for Katie or Courtney while they're here?

And if you looked, sorry that the font is kind of weird and things got a little bit skewed on there, but it's fine. You have your calendar and that's all that matters.

Thank you for that. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have a presentation.

Oops. Is that okay?

Okay, all right. We have a presentation from Dan Gibson of Visit McMinnville. Did you ask him if he was gonna be as fun?

No, not possible. I did get a solid yes from my daughter about seeing Zootopia. So things are looking up already. My summer just got a little bit more fun. Council, Mayor, staff, people behind me, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the work that Visit McMinnville is doing. Slide. So let's start at the beginning about why any of this matters. What is the economic impact of tourism? The latest data had $51.6 million spent by visitors. It says where it's spent twice. We could use a proofreader in McMinnville. That's about $15.4 million in food and beverage. That's pretty consistent within Willamette Valley and the Portland area where food and beverage actually outperforms the hotel market. In other parts of the state, it's inverted. $14.6 million in accommodations that can be hotels or short-term rentals, about $6 million spent on arts, entertainment, and recreation, and about $5.88 million in retail sales. So, I mean, that is largely the argument is why have this organization, why do this work? It's to have that number sustain and increase. Slide. Slide. statewide hotel performance it's been a it's been a strange year for everyone probably but tourism is having a peculiar moment with economic uncertainty and gas prices and So hotel occupancy in Oregon is down 1.3% in 2026. The average daily rate for a hotel is down 1.4%. The bulk of that, the majority of the rooms in the state are in Portland. It's, you know, the major economic hub in that way. And thus, you know, the challenges that Portland have trickled down to us because by and large, someone who's coming into this area is going to come through Portland. And their occupancy is down 2.8%. The downtown hotels are shouldering a lot of that. And the average daily rate is down 1.6%. Next. In the Willamette Valley, occupancy actually is slightly up 0.4%, and the average daily rate is down 1.3%. You're having this challenge because to keep occupancy up and keep people in the rooms, people are using rate as a partial there. A lot of that, Willamette Valley numbers would be better if it wasn't for the business travel that happens in places like Wilsonville and in the Tualatin Valley, they're actually having the hardest time of any part in the state because places like Intel and Nike and other organizations are cutting business travel first. So those areas are really getting hit hard. McMinnville, our numbers don't represent all hotel rooms because of the nature of how the surveying is done here. We use a company called STR, which is part of a larger company called CoStar. And they only track... They have an interesting business model. They... charge people to submit the information, and then they charge them again to get the information back. So if you've ever thought about running a really great scam, hotel tracking would be the way to go. So that tracks the more chain properties, the Best Westerns, the Comfort Inns, the Red Lions. It does not track tributary, Atticus, some of those properties as well. For those properties, hotel occupancy is up 3.9%, but the daily rate is down 9.4%. The catch with that is that revenue from short-term rentals across the market is up 10.1%. So we are seeing some balance there of we're losing money on some of the rate in the hotel space, but we're getting it back somewhat in short-term rentals.

Next.

So that being said, the budget that we came into at the beginning of the year was $1.28 million, and the TLT income, $1.286 million. We exceeded the budget by $5,284 of income coming in. That is not the triumphant thing that I would like. I would like some more commas there would be awesome. But in this market, I hate to say it, up, slightly up is, well, flat is the new up, and slightly up is the spectacular. That's not just SPIN, however. Our data person, Steve, who does tracking for all over the state, says that in every meeting, if only just to make me feel better. But I'm happy that in a year that we projected to be possibly down, if not flat, we did make a little bit of extra money than we thought. The really great news, I think, and the thing I talk about in every single board meeting we have, is that we've used a different strategy with the checks that come in. As you may or may not know, We have four checks that come in from the city. Quarterly, they vary in amounts because they reflect the quarter backwards of tax money that came in. So by putting that money in investment funds, we've actually been able to generate a little bit more money this year, about $9,849. Actually, that does not include this month's money that came in, which puts us over $10,000 for the year. So just in a... Just in a way of using the money as we have it to generate more money so that we can do better work is sort of that larger plan. Next. I went through, I spent a crisp two days going through every line item of our budget and everything we spent money on to figure out how much of the money up to April 2026, the May numbers just came in, how much of the overall money we spent this year was spent in McMinnville. And 60% of our entire budget was spent in the city of McMinnville. That's staff, that's rent, it's paying for hotels for meeting planners and for journalists, it's restaurants, it's local vendors for merchandise, it's using local services as much as possible. So we really have, we've never tracked this number before, but I thought I just wanted to see how much of that money we're keeping in the community itself. I'd like to see that number go up. Not all of it can. because we could go to a conference in Cleveland, which I did this year. It is impossible to pay for a hotel room in Cleveland in McMinnville, but I tried. But 78% of the money overall is spent within Oregon itself. Next. So these were our organizational goals for the year. I will try to be relatively brief and get through them. But next, first thing we wanted to do was develop an economic model to say, how much, what are we taking the budget that we have and how much money are we turning it into? It's a relatively imprecise science, but there are standards that this industry uses. I worked with the people at Destinations International, which is the trade group for our industry to try to come up with an economic calculator. That includes the tax generated for the city, visitor spending overall, the value of our PR work, the value of the website as a marketing tool, social media newsletter, group sales, and impact of events. We didn't have a group sales model this year. It is something that we've been working on. So that wasn't included. And impact of events, we used a pretty simple model for the events that we created, not the ones that had a day added or something like that. But using that model, every dollar in Visit McMinnville's budget generates $19 of economic impact for the city of McMinnville. That's largely within the standard of this industry. Somewhat predictably, as places have larger budgets and they have more money to spend on marketing and some of those tools and group sales, that number can be higher. But for a city of our size, it's actually pretty remarkable. Next. Speaking of group sales, we worked on starting a group sales initiative. This is going to be vastly more important as the AC Marriott comes online next year because we will have a hotel that's large enough to have these larger events. That is not... to say we don't love all our properties. They are special and beautiful, every single one of them, but having 100 plus hotel rooms in one place and an event space right next to it is an opportunity to bring in the groups and things that we just aren't able to do so now because we have to scatter them across multiple properties. So we have developed a marketing plan for that, gathered the relevant information, designed a brochure. We'll launch that closer to when the AC Marriott at Evergreen starts taking reservations because it'll allow us to start that work. Next. Oh, there we go. Great. Love this. Okay. We're also launching a new website that has been the sort of white whale of this year. Lima Collins, who did incredible work for our organization, left full-time work with us at McMillan in January. We are currently bringing on a new person for that marketing role. Now we had Leon for a contract in the meantime. So that should be online by the end of June. It has a new listings module. It has a new community calendar. The great thing about that community calendar, is that the way we purchased it, it builds one calendar for all of the events in the area by using AI to look through Facebook, Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, all the places where events generally are, and allow public input. So the one price we paid for that service, about $3,000 a year, we were able to add additional users for $500. So we added the chamber is using the same calendar. We'll have, it'll show in different ways on different systems. Ours will be more focused on tourism events. The chambers can be more focused on business events. The downtown association is using it as well. So it's something where we could solve multiple problems for multiple organizations at one time with one investment. I think the arts alliance as well as using the same calendar. So if the city needs a calendar app for your website, We can take care of that for you. It's just a crisp 500 bucks.

So next.

We really wanted to make sure that December is a really challenging year for tourism in McMinnville because, you know, we were sort of out of the wine season and people don't travel in the same ways that they do the rest of the year. The upside was that overall hotel and short-term rental income was up. The downside was that because of the rates dropping, the revenue per available room, which is the main way we track things in this business, was down. But part of that was is that the number of short-term rentals on the market had dramatically increased in December and has months since which means that there were more quote-unquote rooms available um and so some of that income the overall income was up but it was spread across more like properties um so it was sort of it's been sort of interesting that a hundred hundred-ish new properties have been online uh We've been working with Heather in planning a little bit about to make sure that those are happening within the rules, which is tracking that as a little bit of a challenge. We want to make sure that short-term rentals are obeying the laws of McMinnville.

Next, please.

We wanted to generate $10 million in media value. We've been working with Field AOPR, who's an incredible partner for us. As of when I made this slide, we actually had four more articles go up, but 55 articles this fiscal year, which generated a media value of over $14 million. Stories about McMinnville appeared in publications like Travel and Leisure, Bon Appetit, Wine Enthusiast, Afar, Food and Wine, National Geographic, The Oregonian. The list kind of, I mean, it really does go on and on because there were 55 articles. But that emphasis is trying to get McMinnville not on a regional basis in publications, but also on a national basis of saying, this is an incredible place to come. And it deserves a vastly more attention than it's getting in the national marketplace. And so we've been working on that. I think that number is just going to continue to go up. We've actually built a fair amount of momentum. I would say that in the last three months or so, we've been getting vastly more proactive people reaching out to us to come to the city instead of it being as so much us like trying to convince people to come, which is a nice turn of events. So it's much easier when you can pick the right people and tell some people no than to be out there just, you know, working that hard on it. Next, please. Wanted to create five additional event days. Turns out we did 15. So beat that by three times. So that was a solid plan. Events that we helped enhance or bring to McMinnville AAPI Food and Wine was at Stillwater, two days of events that had previously been at Stoller. Wonderland Beer Fest we created from scratch with Becky from Bitter Monk, three days of beer events in December and downtown McMinnville. Organically Grown Wine Festival had not been in McMinnville but brought its events into McMinnville. Wild Bunch Traditional Reimagined as well. Really, we want to give people a reason to come here. I mean, there's reasons to come here all the time, but the thing with tourism is sort of why this, why now? Like, why do I want to come to McMinnville this weekend? To some extent, we are competing with people's chores, you know, with Netflix, right? If something great is on TV, it's not as great as McMinnville. There's nothing that good on TV, but... You have to build people a reason to say, oh, you know what? Wonderland Beer Fest, that sounds like fun. We should go. So it has been effective. You can see that when those events happen, hotel rates and occupancy both increase. So it's an effective strategy that doesn't have really truly significant costs. Next, please. This was just me bragging, but Lois Cho of the AAPI Food and Wine Festival went on and on about how great McMinnville is on her LinkedIn and people listen to Lois because she's smart. So I got tagged in it even. All right, moving on. Next slide, please. Social media engagement Ashley on our team has done a truly spectacular job and giving her the tools that she needs And the resources to do that work has been incredibly successful Our overall Facebook and Instagram engagement is up fifty eight point six percent year-over-year the overall Facebook and Instagram views are up a hundred and three percent I just wanted to compare how many people are engaging with each of our posts as compared to other places that are in our comp set. Bend is not particularly in a way because they have three people doing social media and we have one, but they have about 466 engagements per post on those platforms. We outranked Paso Robles, Walla Walla, Tualatin Valley, Taste Newburgh, and Hood River, some of which have multiple people doing those roles by double. So the content that we're getting out there, people are reacting to. It's not super surprising when people react to posts, the algorithm shows it to more people. We get more exposure for McMinnville.

Next, please.

audience growth rate, the industry, tourism industry as a whole, has seen people leaving these platforms at about a rate of 6%. Our followers went up 14%. The industry has an engagement rate of about 1% per post. Ours is 7.95. This one post that Ashley did that compared McMinnville to Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls had nearly 8,000 engagements. So people were clicking on it. They were sharing it. They were commenting on it. It was remarkable. And that was Ashley was like, I put that up. I was like, did you, where did that come from? What like, did you come get that from somewhere else? She's like, no, I just thought it'd be cool. And I did it. And there you go. So Ashley's great. So that's, that's really the point of that part. Next, please. Community engagement, you know, this work doesn't work if we're not making the place around us better as well. We funded a downtown cleanup position in cooperation with MV Advancements and the MDA. We contributed funding to the lighting of the holiday tree, the evergreen skating event, the community of service, and as you know from previous meetings, the bicycles for the downtown police presence. We provide meeting space. Several is actually... kind of an underestimate. I counted the other day, it's 13 nonprofits that meet in our boardroom. And we also provide space for Zero Waste McMinnville and our staff, mostly Lisa. Lisa's on a thousand boards, I think. So we try to be active in these places as well. Next, please. So I think I probably buried the lead a bit here, but let's talk about the TLT split, huh? Let's get into that. HB 4148, which was signed, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, allows for a 50-50 split between the city and the DMO starting, you know, now-ish. The good news, more hotel rooms are coming online in 2027. 118 rooms at the AC, 17 rooms at the Paquette, and I think four or five rooms at Hoff's Homestead. The catch is we have these rooms. We don't want to have those rooms pull away from our existing occupancy and drop the rate. We have to do work to make that happen. Occupancy level is good, but it can be better. We should be working on that all the time. Next slide, please. We've had really great conversations with City Manager Garvin, who's been nothing but spectacular to working with us. Big fan. Not just because he's over there, but he's been a really great partner for our organization for a long time, especially now. We believe the most balanced approach would be to stagger that change in percentage by calendar year. Our proposal today is that the remainder of 2026, the calendar year, not the fiscal year, would continue to be a 70-30 split. We have programs that are in process. We really do need to work hard to make sure that the AC and the paquette are filled. The real danger is when you add 130 plus rooms is that the properties that we already have, the Atticus tributary, ones that are more in that comp set of the air short-term rentals as well will suffer in that process. In 2027 in the calendar year, we're proposing a 60-40 split. The occupancy of those hotels and the additional revenue should begin to keep the rate to income thing, I'm not good at math, balanced out. And then in 2028, going forward, a 50-50 split with a flat projected tax revenue, assuming that it is, I wish I were better at projections. It is almost impossible to say what's going to happen in tourism in the next month, year, but projecting a flat tax per revenue in the next fiscal year, approximately $70,587 would go back to the city budget over what would be projected with 70-30 split And then the 27, 28 fiscal year, that would be $300,000. I don't want to even, I'm just hoping to be around in 28, 29. So we'll get to that later. Next slide, please. How does this affect the Visit McMinnville budget? Glad you asked. Our committed budget, payroll, rent, insurance, bookkeeping, that largely stays the same, about $660,000. We haven't added any staffers. When I came here last year, we'd made some cuts, getting us down to four. We're staying at four. That's a system that works for us right now. Reductions would be a little bit to development, a little bit to event sponsorship. We can be tighter and make... It turns out we've built a fair amount of momentum on the event sponsorship side, so that will need less attention, I think, in the long term, and a little bit in community engagement. We're not talking about really massive changes here. That's hopefully also offset by the investment income, but I don't want to be predictive about the investment income because things change. I don't know how any of that's going to work. The assumption is that additional revenue in the 27-28 fiscal year will functionally even out that budget. Next slide, please. Oh, yeah.

Okay.

There you go. That's it. I want to thank you for the time, my email address and phone number up there. Lisa Macy Baker has been nice enough to join us and a number of members of our board. Ashley could not be here today, but we are really thankful for our partnership with the city. I believe I have become... This is my... coming up on my two-year anniversary, about a year and three quarters, I am more convinced than ever that this city is on the precipice of really some incredible action in the tourism and hospitality space. I see it happening. I see it happening in real time. And we're getting better at the work we do. We're getting our staff in line. We're getting in front of the right people. We're working on the state level to work better with Travel Oregon and our regional partners. I think we're going to see... even against the challenges that the state is having as a whole, we're going to see pretty significant success in the years coming forward. And the opportunities that are coming up with great properties like the Paquette and the AC are really just an opportunity, something that we don't want to miss out on. We want to make sure that we fill those rooms. And yeah, it's a great opportunity. I'm more excited than ever to be in this role. Any questions? Is that not my job to say sorry, Mayor Morris?

You're doing great. Okay, I just didn't know.

You say the questions part, sorry.

So just to check for just one second. Anybody have any questions for Dan? Councilor Tuchel.

Chris isn't here, so I had to do that. Did you say there was 100 new STRs in the last?

That's the number that have been coming up in the records. Total or new? So the number kind of moves up and down because it's the number that are on the market at any given time. We're not really tracking the licenses because there's no method for us to do that. but our partner AirDNA looks at the ones that are on the market at any given time. Somebody could be in that room for, they could rent out their house for three months or something, or put it up or down. So it's tracking the number of days that are up, but there's been, yeah, there had been additional 100 listings up in December. Where am I asked, are they listed? That's either Airbnb or Vrbo. There are some smaller partners as well, but it's mostly Airbnb and Vrbo. There is a challenge there about licensure that could be my job. I don't think it is, but I want to stay on top of it. The upside is that of all the things that Airbnb and Vrbo are, they are really good at collecting that money. So they do not have the mechanism. It's not the same as the hotel property is actually a little bit harder because they self-report. and do all that work. Airbnb or Vrbo, it just comes right off the top right away and goes directly into the city.

Yeah, thank you for the clarification. Of course. Planning Commission came up with some clear guidelines and some permitting processes so that the homes within McMinnville would be for residents of McMinnville.

Yeah. That's a bit concerning. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. When I brought that up with Heather and she was like, we need to look into that more. So yeah, it's in the process. The last thing you want, I think there are a variety of opinions about short-term rentals. There certainly are. They are really great for a type of group that's coming in with families, with multiple groups of people that things hotels just don't service well. I will say the thing you absolutely do not want, there was a time period in Sedona, Arizona, where you could look at a map and the ones, it was short-term rental, short-term rental, short-term rental house, short-term rental, short-term rental. short from a house that destroys a community, right? Like you need people to live here, to be in the jobs, to do the things. So yeah, a balance of that. And I know there are existing rules on the books, but I'm happy to be a part of any of those conversations. Thank you. I love our hotels. I mean, you know, they're, they're doing great. So we just want to get them in those.

Any other questions?

Just to comment. Thank you. Counselor Tikulski for calling that out. I agree with you that that's a problem.

Good, good job.

It's been great having a councilman Gary on our, in our room. Yeah. That's our liaison. He's been, he asks great questions and is a great, creates a great dialogue between us and the city. I think we endeavor to be in those rooms as much as possible in those conversations, but to have a councilman Gary in that room and, and often Adam is the city manager Garvin in the room as well as is really valuable to us.

I just want to say thank you to you. And I enjoy in a lot of meetings with you. Enjoy your positivity and also just your thought process on how to get those 15 extra things happening for McMinnville and just the transition that has been happening at visit McMinnville over the last few years. So. Thank you for that. And I also appreciate, I know Adam and I have talked multiple times about the TLT. So you and I have as well. And I liked the fact that we're working together to get to that, not just taking it away. Like some cities are able to do or choose to do.

Right. I appreciate that as well. We're all in this together. I think with that legislative pass, it would be irresponsible not to make a change, right? It would be unconscionable to be like, well, guess what? We got it and we're holding it. I mean, it's not really an option anywhere. I'm not in a power of much negotiation there. But nonetheless... It's an interesting time with those new rooms coming on board. We do want to fill them. They're in the city. It's in our best interest across the board for us to generate more revenue, but also generate more taxes. That's the point of all of it in the end of the day is to serve this community.

We thank you for that. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Yeah, just on the, as we look at that TLT crossover adjustment and the potential 70,000 and the potential 300,000 as the road goes, given that, to me, given that it's still paid by the TLT funds, I think that money should still, in essence, go. work towards that end goal of making a more better experience for those people when they come and sort of reinvesting in that cycle. And we'd really like to see those monies be directed to things like parks maintenance or parks development after first knocking out a downtown bathroom project. But I think putting money in dedicated into those things would be really good way that the city can help sustainably operate and do it in a way that still benefits and recognizes where that money is coming from. So it still could be mutually beneficial.

I think the best of these partnerships, there are things that are easier for us to take on with our staff and to some extent with our, the way we're able to pay for things, those partnerships should continue, right? I mean, an ADA, truly ADA accessible bathroom in our downtown area is, necessary isn't even the word, right? It's distinctly important for us to get that work done. And it benefits both the tourism economy and locals as well, right? So, I mean, I think projects like that, projects like having the police have an extra opportunity for security during events, these are positive things, right? And they benefit everyone. So there are organizations, it's funny because I go to a lot of conferences and they're like, you know, listen, I don't go to a lot of conferences. I went to two. But at those conferences, they're always like, we've got to, you know, you guys got to get with your chamber and your downtown association, your city. We got to, you know, it's the era of like a tourism organization going on its own is over. And I'm like, when did that start? Like it's impossible to not do this work in community. And if you're not doing it that way to find outcomes that work for everyone, I don't, I'm not sure the point, right? Like it doesn't exist in a vacuum. And so that's, having those conversations with, with people on the day is here and people in the staff, you know, today we were talking about how we can improve the wifi for the vendors at the farmer's market, right? It's like, this is something that we can figure out a solution to together that works for everyone. So that's the best part of the job, to be honest.

Well, we thank you for all of that. I appreciate it. Good presentation.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Mayor, I do want to state for the record that Councillor Chenoweth has joined us online. Oh, great. Thank you.

And Mayor, before you move on, just wanted some direction if you guys are on board with the calendar year percentage changes that Dan lined out so I could bring a resolution back to you at the next meeting.

I absolutely am. Anybody else have any qualms over it?

Okay.

Oh, just a minute. Dan might. Okay.

Change my mind. No, the current contract, just as a note, does say it expires. It's void once the TLT changes by the legislature in any form. So we just will have to work out a new contract. And if we can codify that drop down in the contract itself, that would be beneficial. I love talking to you guys every year. I'm happy to do the reports. But having that plan worked in, I know the council can change and things can change. So having long-term planning is a benefit to us.

Absolutely. For us too. Yep, it sounds like. And I don't see any hand from council or general.

Thank you.

Yep. Okay, so now we're going to move on. We have a public hearing on our fiscal year 2026-27 proposed use of state revenue sharing. It's on page 40 to 42 of your packet. We will now begin the public hearing process of the agenda. Please state your first and last name and city you reside for the record. Each person testifying will be allotted three minutes for their testimony. Does any counselor need to declare a potential or actual conflict of interest or accuse themselves regarding this public hearing? Okay, I'd like to call on Katie Henry, Finance Director, to give a presentation on the topic.

Thank you very much, Mayor. This first public hearing that we are doing is on the proposed uses of state revenue sharing. So one question I was asked just a little bit earlier was, you know, which revenues are included in the state revenue sharing. So just so everyone is aware, these include the liquor revenues, so liquor taxes, marijuana taxes, there's state fuel taxes. And then there are also some just general income taxes that are split out across all of the various cities. So that's what's contained in these state shared revenues. So it's a portion that the state passes on to us. Um, and then for the uses for this year, what we have proposed is to use these taxes, these taxes, these state shared revenues towards the with Elena metric. Okay.

Hi.

Hmm. All right, good evening. Elena Mudrak, McMinnville resident. We need a budget that meets current needs and plans for the future. Our general fund should be a tool that supports social services. However, access to the general fund has whittled away. Many departments mentioned the critical support that outside funding provides. But relying on outside funding requires more time pursuing those funds, removes public input from spending, and is unpredictable. As Chief Wood said, if you don't control the money, you don't control the department. We are facing dire questions now for our future. What will we do when our revenues do not meet our expenses? The initial proposed budget suggested setting money aside for this looming discrepancy. Without any other plan for this shortfall, the committee reduced that cushion. Another question concerns the support that the opioid fund and the county provide the city. We know those services are essential and the funding is not eternal. We need to consider how to pick up this lack before we need to, not just spending money because it's there. I appreciate the work done to chip away at the deferred maintenance bill and support the library and aquatic center. After all early childhood engagement is directly related to lower rates of criminality. Overall though, I worry about the disbursement and trajectory of the general fund and hope the council considers broader departmental support in years to come. This year the city will begin the TSP update. We've been waiting for improvements to 99 since at least pedestrian improvements to 99 since at least the bike walk 99 survey in 2022. At council direction, this work was postponed. With gas prices above $5 a gallon and YCT service cuts, the city's progress has passed due. Forcing the CDD to outsource its funding denies our city resilience, increases costs, and cuts productivity. Planning, street tree funds, and GIS analyses address real current problems and need priority funding. By denying the unmet needs request for the CDD plus the lack of funds for the emergency management coordinator, we are building future quagmires. Violence is unacceptable. some more words from Chief Wood in the news register. Yet MPD budgeted for $31,000 in ammo, a 50% increase from last year. State data shows that the arrest rate for known crimes in MAC is 58%. Since arrest rates or other measures of efficacy weren't presented, the department should have faced more questions from the committee. The budget committee was too willing to send 38% of our general fund to the MPD. MPD budget shows a lot of spending without clear results. Over the past two budgets, MPD will have spent over $660,000 on new vehicles. Fuel is budgeted for $90,000. MPD has a bias for large SUVs. Could smaller, cheaper, fuel-efficient vehicles make more sense for a city that is financially stressed? Can the new mountain bikes offset any vehicular maintenance, washing, fuel, or purchasing costs? MPD will spend $20,000 on a drone program for the coming year. Another $20,000 on canine units. without clear results for either. In fact, there's no evidence that canine units keep people safer or reduce crime. There's also nearly $200,000 on services from a company called Axon. One of many other price tags without justification or scrutiny. Thank you.

That's everyone that's pre-signed up. All right. Is there any, nobody on the phone? Chris? Nobody else? Okay. Any additional questions for staff or does the council have anything before I close the public hearing? Okay, I will close the public hearing 755. Next is our consent agenda, which is on pages 50 to 73 of your packet. Does any counselor request to have anything removed from the consent agenda? Okay, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I saw a motion. Second.

So I have a motion from Councilor Tucholsky and a second from Councilor Geary. Any further discussion at this time? Nope. Claudia? Councilor Geary?

Aye.

Councilor Tucholsky?

Aye.

Councilor Chenoweth?

Aye.

Councilor Benner?

Abstain.

Council President Peralta.

Yes.

And the consent agenda has passed unanimously by a vote of four ayes and one abstention.

Perfect, thank you. Now we're gonna move on to another public hearing or a resolution, excuse me. And I need to recuse myself from the next agenda item is step down from the dais due to owning property across the street from the topic and president Peralta will be leading the agenda and I will be back.

Mayor a moment to leave the dais. Okay, we will now consider resolution 2026 dash 38, a resolution of the McMinnville City Council authorizing the McMinnville City Manager or a designee to enter into and manage a disposition and development agreement with Guardian Real Estate Services LLC for the redevelopment of the property at 904 Northeast 10th Avenue and 835 Northeast Alpine Avenue tax slots are 4421BA03800. and R4421BA03850. I'll refer Councilors to pages 74 and 75 in the packet and call on City Manager Adam Garvin to present.

Thank you, Council President. Knowing that Councilor Chenoweth was not online for the URA, I'm going to go back through some of the brief term sheet so he is updated and can ask any questions. So the what's in front of you this evening via the staff report and the 80 page, uh, DDA with exhibits that was sent out this morning was finalized late yesterday, uh, from a DDA perspective and the staff report was finalized this morning. Um, What's before you is a disposition and development agreement with Guardian Real Estate Services. They are the second developer that we've engaged in negotiations from when we initially acquired the purchase of the property in October of 23. After purchasing the site in July of 24, the city issued a request for proposals. A proposals were received and scored in March of 25 and the urban renewal board entered into an MOU with palindrome. That negotiation lasted until November of 25 when it was terminated. And then we entered into negotiations with Guardian after the first of the year and around their concept design of an affordable housing and workforce development project that'll bring approximately 150 to 171 affordable housing units at 50 to 60%. the AMI area median income related to the Portland Metro area, which is the area that we fall in here in McMinnville. The initial concept design had some commercial space in there tied to the small lot that borders Alpine, also known as Tax Lot 3805. That is now going to be open space to meet the open space requirements of the site. And then we'll have a public access and open space easement for the public to use that as well as the residents of this development. As far as the terms and purchase price, it'll be 4.7 million all cash closing except the paid earlier earnest money. The earnest money would be 125 initially. That's non-refundable after June 30th of 2027. if they haven't affected closing by 6 30 of 28 a second non-refundable deposit of 125 000 would extend the closing by a year both of those deposits are applicable to the purchase price and then there's two additional options at 250 000 each that aren't applicable to the purchase price so In summary, the soonest we would close on this property would be November or December of 27. And the latest we would close on this property via the DDA would be June 30th of 2031. But those two additional funding cycles, Guardian would pay the full carrying costs of the $250,000 to get those two extensions to run those two extra cycles. Not knowing, when the federal and state funding would come through the lift funds and the, the other funds that they have for public funding, they wanted to make sure that they had a runway there. And at the same time, we wanted to make sure that there was a stop gap and also that the urban renewal wasn't carrying all those costs through all those different funding cycles if they're needed. Landing on this DDA this evening will allow them to make application in this current funding cycle, which closes in July. SDCs, transportation, wastewater are both exempt. Parks will be paid up to the amount of the permit fee waiver with the remainder to be paid by the city. Permit fees of planning, building and engineering is a 50% reduction. The reduced amount to be paid towards the parks SDCs. It's construction excise tax exempt. There's also language in here for a payment in lieu of taxes, a pilot that'll be negotiated at a later date, but prior to closing. And that's basically the summary of if the rate of return on this project for guardian is X, then they would pay Y in taxes in a payment lieu of taxes. Environmental due diligence, we're currently underway on that. So we could meet this application deadline knowing the trajectory of the DDA. I executed that with Ben from Guardian. And so we started some additional environmental due diligence about a month ago. That's at a cost of 93,000 for some boring and the city's chair that is 50% at 46, five environmental cleanup. Once we get going on this project, guardian will be responsible for the first 500,000 guardian in the city where we'll share the next 250,000 50, 50. So from 500 to 750, we're gonna split that cost. And then anything between 750 and a million, the city will pay the full cost of. Anything over a million, Gardena will be responsible for at 100%. That brings our total environmental cleanup costs at a cap of 375,000 as proposed in the DDA. The development timeline construction will start within six months after closing. construction completion will be within 30 months after the environmental remediation is completed. Uh, we will get all of our cash, uh, as talked about at closing. We'd also have a personal guarantee from the president of guardian, uh, Thomas Brinicky to ensure that the construction is finished and we don't get an 80% project. And then it doesn't get finished for whatever reason. Um, Via NDA, our outside counsel, Carrie Conley, negotiation team member, Walt Gall, and myself reviewed financials and are very satisfied with what we saw around that personal guarantee. After the construction project is Completed that personal guarantee goes away the remainder of the ten-year agreement in the performance of it as an affordable housing project Our interests are protected by the state and federal funding and their fifty to six year covenants that those funds put on this project Land-use approvals the Northeast gateway design review, the landscape plan review, the multi-unit design review, the traffic impact analysis all need to be approved prior to closing. And all four of those are administrative in nature. offsite public improvements, their proportional share of 10th Avenue street improvements to the Northeast Gateway District local street standards. They'll be on the hook for those as well. There's a number of different exhibits in the 80 page DDA that you guys saw in short, this 4.7 million, We'll cover the 4.3 million purchase price in full, as well as cover about 20 months of carrying costs. The interest payments that aren't covered by this agreement, I would remind council and members of the community that this is a loan from our wastewater fund. And so that it is an interest payment from the urban renewal, but it's not going to a large corporation or a bank. It's offsetting some of our upcoming capital needs in our wastewater system. And with that, I'd entertain any questions.

Questions from the floor or from a council channel with online hearing, not all. Oh, did I miss? Oh, Chris just came up.

Yes, sorry, Sal. I'm sorry, Council President. Pardon my appearance. I am in my car, stepped out from a meeting to make sure I could be a part to this specific item on the agenda. Had a few comments I'd like to make, if I might. Don't have any questions. So the first comment I'd like to make is a big thank you to Walt Gow, Kelly McDonald, and peter kirchner for the work that they've done we could not have gotten to where we're at without them um and i am grateful for the yeoman's work that was done to get us to this point um so i just wanted to share that i also wanted to say you know there's no such thing as as you get everything you want in a deal i am really happy with where we're at with this deal um and I think the point that city manager Garvin just made, I think needs to be drilled home that all of the interest payments are money that's actually going to be reutilized by our city. So those interest payments are not lost money. It's revenue going to a different location that will be used to help infrastructure costs. We all know we're getting ready to face. I think it's also important to note that Guardian has worked very well with us. I'm very happy with all of what they have brought forward. They have understood and heard the concerns voiced and raised and have reacted in ways that a good partner would react. So I wanted to share that as well. I have, you know, there are there. I'm ecstatic that we're getting four point seven million price for this. And one of the things I wanted to see was let's get our money back. So. Well done. There are things I could pick it apart on because there always are things you can pick things apart. But on the whole, this is a great offer that's been made and a DDA that's been hammered out. And I'm glad to see us move forward. Thank you.

Okay. Appreciate that. Any other comments or questions from the dais? Okay. With that, I will ask for a motion to consider Resolution 2026-38. So moved. Second. Okay, it's been moved by Councilor Geary and seconded by Councilor Chenoweth. I will open it for any Council discussion. Other discussion seeing none, Claudia, will you pull the Council?

Councilor Geary.

Aye.

Councilor Ticholsky.

Aye.

Councilor Chenoweth.

Aye.

Councilor Benner.

Aye.

Council President Peralta.

Yes.

Resolution number 2026-38 passes unanimously by a vote of five to zero.

While the mayor's coming back up, I just wanted to publicly on the record thank the Guardian team, Ben, Levi, Michael, their legal counsel, Zoe, the outside legal counsel we brought in for this DDA, Carrie Conley from local government law group. and then our negotiation team of Kelly, Walt, Councilor Chenoweth and Council President Peralta and Director Richards for all their work on this. We as a city have been meeting every Friday and then every other Friday we met with Guardian For the last three weeks, it's pretty much been all hands on deck between Walt, Carrie, myself, Zoe, and Ben to get this done, clearing our schedules, moving meetings around. But it was important to not lose this funding cycle for lift funds and not extend this another year. So we all lean into the opportunity and we appreciate your guys' unanimous support this evening.

And thank you as well.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

You did a great job.

All right. So now we're going to go to advice and information items that reports from counselors and committees. And I am going to start with Jenny. Do you have anything from the library or still park and rec?

I think you heard it. Yeah. I think we did too. Come to our summer fun events.

Yes. Awesome. Thank you. Chief Wood.

I believe city manager Garvin mentioned earlier that the YCOM executive board met actually a few hours ago today. The budget was adopted for the coming fiscal year. The numbers were as director Henry reported back and what we discussed during the budget hearings this year. Um, the only other bit of news from the Y com meeting is that, uh, the sheriff and, uh, Patty Sowers, Y com director announced that they had begun having conversations with chief cosmic key and, uh, Newberg police department about a potential merger of those two dispatching centers. Um, so those talks are just beginning and there's no, you know, real direction on where that's headed yet, but those, those conversations have started. And that was the only committee meeting I've had since the last council session.

Councillor Peralta has a question for you.

Yes, sir.

Yeah. Thanks chief. I know that we had testimony during the budget committee process from you about the Y com cost increase. Was there any more discussion about the reason for the significant amount of the increase? And can you share some of that with the community?

So the increase, um, dealt with a lot of, um, primarily with the ad back of positions that had been lost by a Y com over the last couple of budget cycles. This budget included the addition of two dispatch positions that had been previously reduced from their staffing as well as one dispatch supervisor position. Thank you.

City recorder, Claudia Cisneros. Yes, I want to ask the council as summer is getting ready to start soon. If you guys can let Adam and I know if you're going to be on vacation and especially if you're not planning on attending a council meeting, that way we can ensure we have a quorum. That would be great. And then secondly, city offices will be closed on June 19th and observance of Juneteenth.

And it looks like Councilor Chenoweth is not on any longer. Okay, so I'm not gonna ask him for a report. Okay, all right, so I'm gonna go to Councilor Benner.

Landscape has not met. I think we did another meeting with long range facility at the high school where we toured buildings.

Okay, Councilor Peralta.

Thank you, Mayor. Council of Governments did not meet. MCM 11 did meet. They reviewed the budget. I wanna congratulate MCM 11 on bringing in additional revenue this year. I think it was about 12,000, which for a small organization is pretty good. They made pretty significant cuts as well. And they're operating under a significant financial pressure just because of the gradual reduction in people using cable, which is the main source of their funding. But bringing on new board members this year and their service level is significantly expanded. I think they have 31 people regularly coming in to do video production right now.

So I attended a ribbon cutting for Empower for the completion of their new building, which includes office space, HR, and a little production area for their employees and a break room. They have over 500 employees and are gonna be building a warehouse, which will take them to over 700 employees. I had coffee with Nick Olheiser of Ecology. He just was updating me on their customer service software and how they've been working to improve their customer service and wait time. I was joined by city manager Garvin and counselor to call ski at the airport to watch the U S army golden Knights parachute team. We were able to actually get up in the plane to be able to watch them jump out of the plane. And then city manager Garvin and I went over and watched another team land. So that was a pretty cool day. I attended McMinnville High School Scholarship Night. I was grateful that a nonprofit that my family has established under my granddaughter's memory was able to award four scholarships each for $1,000 to four students pursuing careers in education, mental health and special education. Saturday night, I attended the first fundraising event for the Yamhill County Sheriff's Foundation. It serves to fill a gap, a funding gap for things like supporting of the canines, They actually had Deputy Baker there with a canine and also Deputy Walker with a new canine, which they were great dogs and hilarious. And they did a little demonstration. The department also has a comfort canine program now with a Labradoodle named Watson. I know. The program also supports spouses. So as we know, law enforcement officers have to do a lot of things that people shouldn't have to see or do, and they take care of those and they also have to go home to their families. The program helps spouses understand how to deal with law enforcement officers that have a lot of things on their shoulders. Yesterday, I had my monthly meeting with Commissioner Johnston. And lastly, I applied, last couple months I applied during that whole, it took a little bit, to fill the city representative spot on LIPSC, which is the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council. And I was approved, so I will now be serving on that committee and should be able to report probably in July. Councilor Gary.

MIRAC in lieu of a normal in the boardroom meeting had a tour of the Piquet Hotel that's under construction where the owner and the contractor reported many successes specifically in working with the city and the city building department and they are as such ahead of schedule. We did that because MURAC granted Piquet Hotel some money for the development along Alpine Avenue and having no other agenda, we're able to be able to be taken through that. So it was a very nice way to see in progress the MURAC Urban Renewal Funds at work. Parks, Steph, I'm helping out coaching our team and I won't give you guys an update on the scores and the performances every weekend, but I did want to say our team that I'm coaching, that my son's on, we were able to be there for the opening day ceremonies, the 9 30 AM game and the fields were looking amazing and everybody was ready and it was a beautiful, beautiful morning. And the American Legion riders rode their motorcycles down and had the flag And actually they said our flagpole string had broke this morning. So Zach's gonna be out there holding the American flag. And I looked around and I didn't realize I was gonna be part of the show. The other kid's name was Zach. So I didn't have to hold the flag, thankfully. The MHS Twilighters were there and sang the national anthem. And the first pitch was fired in there by long time multi-sport youth coach, and not multi-sport one time all year long. He coaches two baseball teams, two basketball teams at a time and a soccer team. And he's done that for a long time, Rudy Banha. And as Steve Ganser said in his announcements, the volunteers and the coaches are the backbone of our sports programs. And Rudy was really, really exemplifies it by taking on a huge load and helping out. And he threw out the first pitch But what didn't get any fanfare, and I'd like to bring occasion tonight to say Steve Ganser will be retiring soon. And he has served even Adam and I, when we played McMinnville youth sports, it was Steve Ganser doing the announcements on opening day. So that was his last one. Cheers to Steve Ganser. Thank you very much for all you've done for the city. And that's my report.

Thank you. Councilor Tucholsky.

Yeah, my report, the airport commission has not met since our last meeting. I did go up in the airplane with you. That was exciting. Just for clarity, people online were asking how much it costs the taxpayers of the city of McMinnville. That would be exactly zero. So we're not paid much up here. I did get a sandwich for free tonight. That was nice. The other thing is that the DEI advisory committee does have their Juneteenth celebration coming up. That will be held on 619, which is not this Friday, but next. And it's held at the east end of Third Street, down by the old Tommy's bike shop there. And at 5 p.m., there's children's activities. The bookmobile will be there at 6 p.m. There will be a program beginning with speakers and other things that I'm not quite sure about. I'll know a little bit more after I attend the meeting this Thursday. And at 6.30 p.m. there will be music by Rainy Views. There is no cost for admission and I'd encourage people to attend.

Thank you. City Manager Adam Garvin.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a pretty busy last couple weeks with DDA meetings with Guardian. Outside of that, I had a monthly meeting with John Dietz from Water and Light. We talked about everything from the Miller Street property to Fuel Farm to other property around Joe Dancer and the public worksite to some used vehicles that we're acquiring from them through next year's budget, which we've done historically. It gives us an ability to update our fleet without breaking the bank. So appreciate the partnership there. And I'll have a property meeting with them Thursday morning to continue the discussions around the Miller property and the public works site. I attended the LOC Oregon public contracting webinar as well. The city managers of Yamhill County and administrators welcomed Courtney, the newest administrator previous to me to Dundee. So we all go out to lunch and chat about challenges and wins and budgets was a topic of discussion this last meeting. And so the next lunch we have will be here in town. I had a CPR bond prep meeting with director Henry and bond council, uh, between now and our last council meeting also met with OPSIS and Pence around the CPR building design. We were able to shrink the footprint on that and make it more compact, which creates some economies and scale and building at the six 23 work session. We'll present that product. Uh, right now we're, uh, Targeting a CMU build on the wet side of the facility and a pre-engineered metal building on the dry side to keep costs down. Also looking at some mass timber options as well. But real excited about what that group has produced over the last four months. And I think you guys will be impressed with the product as well. Had a monthly meeting with fire chief Godfrey around the fire district and city collaboration, everything from emergency management to other things they can support us with. Also attended monthly lunch with the ET team. The first Thursday of the month, we like to grab lunch together. and talk about things non-city and just get to know each other. So that was nice. And then Monday had a monthly meeting with Linfield, which was Mark, the president, Joseph Hunter, the vice president, and then Mike. And we talked a lot about parks, SDCs and going to continue that conversation. And then probably the most exciting thing was our park and rec director interview process. I had my one-on-ones with the two finalists two Fridays ago, two Mondays ago, we extended an offer to the finalist and she accepted later that afternoon. Uh, so she's currently in backgrounds for that and we'll make a public announcement of who that finalist is at the 6 23 meeting pending. Everything goes well, which I fully expected to, uh, she wants to personally notify her team. And so we want to respect the confidentiality of that process. And then, uh, her first day is slated to be Monday, July 27th at this time. but very impressed with the 86 applicants, the 40 that Director Hedges pushed towards me, the 14 that we moved to virtual interviews, the three finalists that came for the panels, and then our two finalists, either one would have been a great fit for McMinnville. So it was a hard choice, but happy with where we're at. Thank you.

Finance Director Katie Henry, do you have anything else for tonight?

Just a quick update on where we're at as we approach the audit. So auditors will be here next week for the interim audit. And since this is their first time with us, our first time in many years since we've switched auditors, they will be doing more in-depth audits setting up of things and understanding the city. So they may have more questions for some of you than they have in the past. So they'll be asking questions about any concerns about fraud. They'll be asking questions about what do you look at in city council meetings, things like that. So I just want you to be aware that you may get contacted by the auditors at any point in time. It may go through Adam. It may come through me or it may come directly from them. Sometimes they, they set these up directly so that they so that it's independent so that they make sure they get your opinions on things. So just so you know, they will be here Wednesday and Thursday next week with us on site in finance for our first stab at the fiscal year 26 audit. Right.

Thank you. Okay, that's all we have for tonight. So I'm going to close the, let's see what time it is. 826, adjourned.

Thank you.