City Council - Special Meeting

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. Thank you. Will the city recorder please call roll? Mayor Jala, present. President Steinhel, here. Councelor Ki here. Councelor Angelford here. Councelor Salvage here. Councelor Mlan here. Councelor Workman here.

Thank you. Uh we'll move on to consent calendar. Following items are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will not be separate discussions on these items unless a counselor so to request. In that case, the item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately. We only have one thing on there tonight. It's the agenda. Lebanon City Council agenda March 25th, 2026. Is there a motion? Move for approval. Second. Motion has been made to approve the consent calendar. It's been second. All in favor? I. All opposed?

Motion passes. Uh, no presentations. We'll move on to public comments. Citizens may address the council by filling out a testimony card prior to speaking and handed to the city recorder. Each citizen will be provided up to five minutes to provide comment to the council. The council may take an additional two minutes for at to ask clarifying questions. City recorder will accept and distribute written comments at speaker's request. We have a couple tonight. First up, if we could get the fivem minute clock, please. First up is Dr. Elaine Wilder. Okay, if I stand

as long as we can hear hear your voice and it's recorded. I'm pretty loud. So,

good evening counselors. I'm Dr. Elaine Wilder. Uh, I've been in Lebanon almost six years now and I came from St. Lucian, Missouri, Missouri to join the faculty of the department of physical therapy education. Um, so tonight though, I'm representing the aquatics the district and just to give you an update on what's going on. About about a year and a half ago, I was in a meeting and heard that the pool might be closing because there weren't funds for needed repairs. And that really piqu my interest because I came from a small town where the pool was really important to the community in North Carolina. And uh and so anyway, for the last year, I was first on the budget committee and now I'm a director and we have been working very hard to secure funds in cooperation with the school district. So the school district was giving 500,000, we were giving 250,000 and we paired it down so that the cost would be 1.2 million with a shortfall of 400,000 where we've been seeking funds and we were just about ready to go. And then last Monday night after the pool meeting, we were told that the uh the school had decided to pull their 500,000 because of loss of teacher pay. So at any rate though, this is uh a real blow to us who have worked so hard. I mean, if you think about the pool, there's a swim club, there's a swim team there. We we give swim lessons to all third graders there. If you go at 5:30 in the morning, you're going to see a group of very dedicated women doing their their swim time and people doing laps. We have all kinds of lessons. We're almost full now as far as swim lessons. So, I just wanted to bring it to your attention because right now we're trying to think about ways that how to proceed uh probably in the shortfall and we're working with Will Will Lewis and he was also pretty heartbroken at the decision and I understand that. But knowing what it means to the community to have a pool, um, I just wanted to bring it to your attention. We're looking for

options now and a a group from from a group uh a private group called Boston Hub had just gifted us a fully new uh website. I said the other night in a meeting that I think our website was the same age as the pool, you know, which is 67. So, you know, that that was a great gift. And we've also been working with Peak Internet. So, we've been working really hard for the funds. So, right now, we're trying to decide what to do next. And probably in the in the short term, we'll be looking at trying to still secure some funds and to do repairs on the drain. What I I'm not a Debbie Downer, but just so you know, you know, uh I've been a physical therapist for most of my life and I've worked with many children and adults. I'm an educator, university educator. But one thing I do know is it would just take one slight thing like a small earthquake or a flooding to crack that foundation on the pool. And if that happens, I'm not sure that we'll have an option. So, I just wanted to bring it to your attention and in case you might have some ideas about how we might approach this this issue of not having the funding to do the needed pool repairs, but I I thank you for giving me the time to speak to you tonight.

Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody on the council have any questions or comments? Um, one quick question. I know, um, weren't you eligible or going for a grant or some sort of appropriations bill, too?

Yeah, we we've been looking at all kinds of grants and funding, but we came to the point we were at 1.8 was what we were thinking it was going to take to do the repairs. So, we paired it down to the 1.2. And so, it was going to be the 500,000 plus the 250. We're always looking for extra funding. And we've got people like for example the the steps that go into the warm pool fractured about a month ago and we had to replace those at a cost of $5,000. Two swimmers gave one $1,100. But in spite of the fact that we're constantly looking for grants. I mean this is a time when everybody's looking for money. I mean I'm on some of you I know because I'm on groups with you and we're looking for money. But, uh, we're doing the best we can. And I'm not saying we're stopping because that's why I wanted to bring it to your attention tonight just to let you know what was happening and the fact that I mean I I mean I've been here for almost six years and I love Oregon and I love Lebanon. You know, my daughter's trying to get me to come back and I'm like no to Missouri. So, I'm staying here. But um but I just wanted to bring it to your attention in case any of you have any thoughts, any any ideas about how we might look for for the funds that we need to provide a really important part of the Lebanon community.

All righty. Thank you so much. Next up tonight, uh Jason Williams, please come forward. Not this guy again. Um he this guy filled out a a public testimony card and he said, "Can we sing Ron Happy Birthday and uh I you know you're you're going to have to lead this. No problem with that." Okay. So So have a kazoo or something or harmonica. Can we confirm can we confirm it's Ron's birthday?

I think pitch is going to be the problem. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I say thank you. Uh speech speech. Jason, you might as well sit down because you're the first up. So, um, we'll move into regular session of the, uh, congratulations and happy birthday. Um, 39 again. We'll move on to regular session. First, uh, on the agenda tonight is a Kennedy Jensen water wastewater treatment plant design contract approval.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. Members, council, uh, please protect me when Ron comes after my job tomorrow morning. 39 square.

I ask for your support. I'm here before you tonight uh to approve to ask for approval of the engineering service contract with our consultant Kennedy Jensen. The contract is going to get us 30% design plans uh so we can better tune in exactly what we need for funding and cost estimating. Uh it'll also start critical paths to the project like the environmental some of the the other engineering and architectural transportation and the land surveying that needs to be done as part of that early pre-engineering work. So happy to ask any questions. The contract is $2,187,000 and change

change. All righty. questions, comments? I think we've heard this stuff before. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a reminder that that uh for for everybody that's out there on the internet that that these are issues that we dig into quite regularly and and uh by the time we get to this point, we we can regurgitate all the information. So, um is there a motion? I move to approve. Second. Motion been made to approve the uh contract. It's been seconded. All in favor? I all opposed. Motion passes. Thank you.

I I knew I get a laugh at her when I do that. Now, uh we'll move on to public defender contract renewal for the city of Lebanon, finance director.

Uh before you is a renewal or an extension of an existing contract for the public defender. Uh, we've had this public defender for I think this will now be the second renewal. Um, there was two three-year terms in advance of this. Um, I've I have checked in with with municipal court staff, with the municipal court judge, uh, with the city attorney. Everybody has said that the public defender has done a a very good job at at assisting those who are going through our court system and who need a public defender um and don't have the the means and methods to to get a an an attorney on their own. Um so we've we've put together this contract for you. It's it's I think it's like 20 23 months because the last contract I was trying to keep the same cycle with having it expire in fe at the end of February. Um uh we did add a 5% increase to the to the the amount that they that this that the public defender was getting um which was in line with CPI over the last three-year contract. And I can certainly answer any questions that you might have. No questions or comments. Okay. Is there a motion to to renew this contract?

I move to renew it. Second. Motion's been made to renew the contract. Has been seconded. All in favor? I. All opposed. Motion passes. Okay. Okay, we're moving on to consulting guidance for municipal jail levy process information only. I'm going to turn it over to city manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. Uh this week we got the results of the poll back uh to see what it would be uh moving forward with the municipal uh jail levy. Uh tonight online we have JL Wilson who is the pollster and Shawn Tate who is our consultant u lobbyist and they are here actually JL is probably here to walk you through the results of the poll. Uh feel free to ask him any questions. Um and I will turn it over to him and it's actually nice to meet you.

Pleased to meet you and thank you. Do you do you have the uh the the poll document in front of you? Um so if I moved along with it, you could follow along. Yes, they they have that document.

Okay. So, let me just go with uh some of the recital. Uh Betsy and Sean contacted me asking for a little guidance on how to determine voter attitudes about a proposed uh levy to reopen the municipal jail. And so we proceeded with uh the the uh uh construction of a of a survey instrument uh that's really designed to do a couple of things. Uh first just see uh prevailing attitudes about the police department and sense of priority about reopening the jail. uh we do ask the direct question in Q4 which is called the uh initial ballot question which is what we give people with uh we we give them just the ba basic context uh don't use any leading language or or anything meant to um uh cause bias in the response just a this is what you get this is what will cost yes or no it it is meant to be a an analog to what they might see on the actual ballot. Then we will go through a series of questions that I call the if you knew series. And the if you knew series is really designed to isolate one piece of information. And what it does is it helps your consultant figure out what to focus on. And I do think the value of this survey is that there are very clear things to focus on and everything else just needs to be put on the shelf. Uh we ask a few emotional response questions and I will get into those four because one of those questions I've actually found to be the most predictive of what the uh voter response will be. And then we ask what we call the informed ballot, which is we

lead people through sort of the car wash of questions and then we uh reask the question, okay, now that you've heard all this stuff, uh do do you support or oppose? So that's that's kind of the run of show. And uh we we tried to do that in the most coste effective uh minimalist approach that we could. Uh we we tried to get a 300 sample just you know the city of Lebanon just in in pure pollster speak uh we have about 8 8600 um files uh that for for contact they're typically just for your reference. I tend to like to we we usually get about 300 valid responses with with 10,000 uh files. So we had to work just a little extra uh to get to close to 300 valid responses. But I think we got enough to give you some uh informed uh informed uh decision points and and just an informed way to make a decision. So having said all that uh with with respect to the the sample size 296 valid responses uh when I say valid responses we go we do go through after the fact not every response is a valid response. people terminate. Some people are there there's clear indicators where it's it's it's not a uh serious exercise. Um and we weed those out. So we got 296 valid responses, a margin of error, error rate of about 5.7% which to me is very it's it's meaningful and good enough to make some decisions from. uh with respect to the demographics uh we we try to get what we think will be a voter profile uh for the election in question. So in this case although typically the male female ratio

breaks out to about 4753 in Lebanon uh there was just a slight uh um over sample on the female side of 54 for this survey. Uh, I would say there was a a slight lean toward the age 60 plus, which is who you're going to see predominantly in these in these money elections. I wanted to test it at about an R + 12 or R +13, which is the party composition of your town so that we so that we got the right cross-section. And then uh you'll see the the voter history because I'm going to put a little more emphasis on those that they'll they'll show up on your cross tabs. A three of four, four of four. They're your higher propensity voters that we know will show up every time. Uh whereas your one of four is, you know, sometimes they they they they vote, sometimes they don't. And some and often times they don't vote on the municipal questions. And then of course we we try to be uh break up as evenly uh distribute the sample among the the three wards that we as we can. And sometimes you know in a smaller community like Lebanon we just get what we get. But I I felt pretty satisfied that the the sample was representative. You have some information here that you can make a decision from. So, I'm going to go back to the Q1 and just talk a little bit about uh the operation and performance of the police department. And basically the approval rating came in at about 67% which is is pretty good. It's pretty standard. Um there's what I'm really looking for is is there a hole in the boat? Is there a trust issue that would have downstream effects? And there is not. So, that question I thought checked out and was well within the the range of what I typically see uh for police department, sheriff's offices, and the like. Um, how important is it to you to reopen the

Lebanon Municipal Jail? You had 63.7 give a positive response. Uh, that to me says, you know, most people are willing to give this the benefit of the doubt because all things being equal, they would like to see it reopened. uh I'd be concerned if this number was less than 60, but it was not. And so, um I think that uh in terms of is there community sentiment that supports generally uh the reopening of the jail, I think you could say yes. Um and that is not a a a hole in the boat for us on the initial ballot question. I mean, I'm just I am just going to be honest and just the facts here. When you give people the information, the background information, uh, what what we're purporting to do and what the cost, the number, the the support number comes in at 48 1/2, 48.6. That's not a winning number. Obviously, um I typically like to see numbers come in 60 plus in order to feel like it has a a a reasonable chance for success. Now, I'm going to bookmark that comment because the other parallel thing that is not mentioned in the initial ballot, and we would not ask this in the initial ballot because a voter is not going to see it on their on their on their uh ballot, which is that it will be offset by the cost of a bond that is coming off the rolls. and that there will be an offset effect that basically uh makes this a zero sum or perhaps a tax cut. If we frame it as a tax cut, it's just too hard to explain and people but when you frame it as we're going to reopen the jail and with no increase in your tax rate, that's a completely different questions and we do ask that later on.

But let me focus on the initial ballot question at 48.6. Um just I I just I I would never advise somebody to move forward if I saw that number come in at 48.6 uh because I know that uh there are uh uh campaigns and and whisper campaigns and things like that that develop in communities that really oppose tax increases. And so 48.6 u it literally cannot pass on its own. And I do expect that those numbers to come down. So the 48.6 um in my professional opinion is not a winning number, but we know that there's more to the story. So we we get into the if you knew questions. Um, the if you knew questions are really designed to isolate one piece of information and ask the respondent if they knew this piece of information was true, would it change your feeling about the measure? And what I'm what I'm really looking to do in in in our in our case is to measure the support against the 48.6% 6% baseline. And so I'm looking to see which which data points move the dial the most for us. And then we're going to focus on those data points if we decide that we want to um ask the question of voters. There are a litany of things that work in your favor uh with respect to the measure, but I I would say it's kind of around the edges. Uh question four, uh that it would allow you to hire seven new corrections officers. Obviously, that that ratchets up support about 5.8 points from the baseline. That's good,

but it's not great. You're not going to you're not going to end up making this argument. Uh, question five. If you knew that the jail operating levy would replace an expiring levy and that taxpayers would not see an increase in their property tax rates, would you support or oppose the levy? Now you're at 66.3. So, what that tells me is that if you decide to move forward with it, this has to be your top message. Um, every everything you send out has to hammer home the point that this is not going to result in a change in your your property tax rates and that in fact uh a a bond coming off the rolls will allow people to be able to vote yes on this and not see a change. You can further on explain that they'll actually see a cut. I'm more focused on, you know, a simp a simpler question which is will people see a change or not and they will not. you'll see that this moves the dial a great deal. And um and so when I when I go back to the Q4 and we initially come in at 48.6, now I see if people know that it's not going to result in an increase in their property tax rates. Now people have a different view of it at 66.3. And so, um, that to me is one of those things that I kind of have to bake into my thinking now is like, do we have a chance to pass the message if our or pass the measure if our top message is in fact you will not see an increase in your property tax rates. And I would conclude that yes, you do have a chance to be successful if that is message 1A. And so I'm just going to hold that there as one of the the the silver lining pieces for you that that would I I think should be baked into your thinking. Um we asked a question about sort of the

cost effectiveness of the current system where where you're transporting uh offenders to Lin County Jail. Um, obviously that that moved people, but in the scope of a campaign when you're just not going to have the ability to make five different arguments and you're really going to have to focus on two or three, um, I probably would not focus on that one. Um, if you knew, going to question seven, if you knew that the jail's clo since the jail's closure in 2023, offenders committing misdemeanor crimes are now arrested and released back into the community, would you support or oppose? um that was that was a decent mover uh at about 10.1 points off the baseline. I probably would be making that argument as argument 1B. Um and so no increase in tax rates uh that uh uh currently now because of the jail's closure uh the these folks are arrested and move back in the community. Uh, question eight. If you knew that reopening the Lebanon municipal jail would reduce repeat offendances and increase community safety, would you support or oppose? 66% support. I'm sorry, it's Q8 is the one that I would be making alongside the no increase in my tax rates if I had to make two arguments. So those two arguments uh really embodied in Q8 and in Q5 are the the main two arguments in tandem that I think at least give you the chance to be successful with this measure if you want to move forward because you have two that really move the dial with all subgroups. Uh Q9 if you knew the the operating levy would cost property taxpayers $1 per thousand. We asked this question. It's sort of the fly in the ointment question because we just need to give them the cost because that's what they're going to see on the ballot question. And even then, the support went down to about 46, which uh

is not great, but it's not a huge drop in support from the baseline. Uh and so it tells me that there's probably a floor of support for you somewhere around 45 46% that uh you you can build from with with those two messages of not increasing the property tax rate and uh stopping sort of the cycle of repeat offenses. I asked the agree disagree series um typically just to elicit an emotional response. On these we do introduce a little bit of bias into the questions. Some people say well it's you know this is a push pull. It's not it's not the technique is to get sort of an emotional response to the question. And so Q11 again is a validation of Q5 which is if the city is asking local taxpayers for an operating measure to reopen the municipal jail without increasing property tax rates. I would support the measure. You had 70% agreement with that statement, which tells me that if you want to move forward, that has to be your primary message. People have to understand that there's really that's just not a negotiable. Conversely, Q1 is the question that I referenced where I have found this question to be more predictive than basically any other question we ask. And the reason why is most times people vote no on something, they're not voting no because they oppose the police department or don't want the jail open. It's really because their personal economics are um they're in a tough spot economically and they just don't feel they can personally absorb the cost. And so it is not what so what we try to do is we try to shift the focus on the economy and really get into people's personal economics and

just say listen this is not an indictment of the police department but in this economy uh uh you know would you agree or disagree that that it's uh not a good idea to add a $ 1.7 million operating levy uh and I would vote no on the levy and let the current bond expire to have a property tax cut. you did have close to 50% agreement with that and that's concerning to me. Um, not as concerning un as if the number would have come back in the 50s, but it's still a little concerning to me because I I call that number sort of a what we call a critical resistance, which is the headwind that you have. It just tells me that your your job because people are automatically predisposed to giving the the jail the in the levy the the benefit of the doubt, your job then becomes to convince them that they will not see an increase in their property tax rate as a result of their yes vote. So that's that's why Q11 is important because it really shifts the focus on not to the project but to people's personal economics and sort of gives them an off-ramp to say hey I can't afford it. Um Q12 I just want to get a sense of uh whether people think it's important for one of the arguments we want to make about community safety and preventing catch and release. Um, I don't think it's as ineffective of an argument as we see in Q8 when we talk about reducing repeat offenders and uh repeat offenses and increasing community safety, but it still tells you that a majority of your community is on board with that sentiment. Um, and so some version of that argument is worth making. Uh and then finally, I just wanted to get a sense of whether the jail was a priority or not in this in the scheme of things. Uh and so we have question 13, and it really produced a response that um I I don't feel like I

got great information from it where it was sort of a 50/50 split. Um uh and you had about 18% of your respondents that just simply didn't know. But we asked the question, I don't believe that a $ 1.7 million levy to reopen the the jail is a priority at this time. I would vote no. 4141. I just didn't feel like it gave me great information. And so it's good to know uh that that there's um I I didn't feel like there was overwhelming resistance, but I didn't feel like there was, you know, overwhelming, you know, support. And so then we ask the informed ballot question and we have led people through these series of questions. I call it the car wash. And then you come out the other end and then you ask people and what what happened was interesting because what I think people heard and wanted to believe is that wait a second I didn't think my property tax was going to uh go up a dollar per thousand when the but what but restating the question in in Q14 we do restate that it's a dollar per thousand. So where I think most people uh ended up parking their vote or more people ended up parking their vote in the unsure. So you had the support come down a little bit. You had the opposition also come down and some people park their vote in the unsure. So you know what to make of that. It's the same exact conundrum that your your consultants are going to have to figure out how to overcome, which is officially you're going to have to tell people it's a dollar per thousand. But your messaging is going to need to drive home the point that in fact it will not increase their property tax rates because you're going to have a bond expire and it will be coming off the books. And so that's that's the push and pull of this measure. When people understand that uh uh a levy's coming off the books and this won't increase their property tax rates, they're very

inclined to be supportive. And so that's going to be your challenge. But just to summarize because I don't like to leave people in with with any doubt. The measure as it stands I don't believe will pass unless you can absolutely persuade people and your campaign is focused on the message point that it will not increase their property tax rates. So I I hope that was useful to you. probably not an unexpected outcome, but I think it's good for you to see that in black and white and there's an exact game plan laid out on on what has to be done.

And that that that's it for me. Go ahead and ask questions. All righty. Thank you so much. Uh Sean, did you have anything?

No. Uh, at this point I appreciate JL's presentation and his insight on this. Um, it's not a surprise, frankly. I do think that if we want the measured to pass, we have information here that can help us do that. But we need to be very strategic. We need to be very thoughtful. We need to have a plan. Um, and uh, there's a lot of there's a lot of work to be done at this point that I think we're capable of doing. All righty. Thank you.

And let me add some I just want to add some color commentary because I I've personally been involved and and consulted on the the city of Salem infrastructure levy uh, in 2022 in which our polling was just like this. It said it was not going to pass except if people learned that it would would replace an existing levy and the polling came back upside down like this. But the the point was made and it was passed. Uh similar uh we just did the CHCA community college bond. Same thing. It was a $1.40. However, it replaced an existing bond. People did not like the measure because the measure as it officially read uh people it in fact it failed the first time. It we had to go out a second time for it because we did not adequately drive home the point the first time that it was uh that it would be replacing an expiring bond. It passed the second time. So, I just I I just want to highlight I, you know, I personally have some experience with these types of results uh that that require you to to really drive home a certain point in order to make it work, although the initial polling did not look great.

All righty. Thank you. Uh is there council, is there any questions or comments at this time with the information you just heard? Yes. Could could I get your name again? the the first speaker JL Wilson. JL Wilson. Correct. Oh, okay. And I did have one quick question on the back on the back of this uh where it lists the demographic totals. Yes.

And it and it's and it breaks down by party, Democrat, Republican, independent. Are these numbers um do they reflect what percentage of Democrats, Republicans, and independents are in Lebanon? It re you get that.

Yes. It it it reflects a breakdown of who shows up. And so just just um uh 30 seconds on that. And I said at the outset, I I wanted to test as a basically what I would call it an R + 12 or an R +13. And I think that we were in that ballpark. There are on on the voter roles there is there are certainly more independents and non-affiliateds. However, they do not show up at the same rate as Republicans and Democrats on a general election. And that's how come uh their proportion of the electorate then shrinks up very significantly for what we call a likely voter sample. And so, um, I think the actual number is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 33% Republican, 23% Democrat, and probably I what what whatever the remainder is for non-affffiliated, probably 40%. That non-affiliated number comes down significantly when we do a likely voter sample because they show up uh with less less frequency in elections. So what you have in front of you is what I would say a a good approximate for what the electorate would look like from a party standpoint.

Any other questions? Yeah, I have a question along those same lines. um the voter history, the one of four verse two or three or four of four is that also that's also an accurate representation of um what what we get here in Lebanon.

Typically your your typical four of four is going to be somewhere between 45 and 50% of your electorate. Um and then your your your next I think your next biggest is going to be your actually your two of four. But um yes, that is roughly um that is roughly what you see in most communities sort of in descending order. Your biggest bucket of voters are your your your voters that show up every time and then it's sort of descending order. Your three of four is typically someone who has missed a primary election. Your two of four is generally somebody who sits out the primaries and just votes the general. And then your one of four is typically going to be reflected in your independent non-affiliated uh the people who who are usually motivated by a presidential election but typically don't vote down ballot uh or or and don't tend to participate in in in anything other than the high level. So I look at that one of four. You have to include them in your sample, but it's going to be a relatively um uh small chunk. And it's it's typically going to be assigned to just frankly it's going to be assigned to independent non-affiliated males is typically who that's going to represent.

Okay. Thank you. I'm going to miss the math there. How how many people did were attempted to contact to come up with this 296? Was that in there someplace?

No. And we would typically not share that information. Um, I could say we had we pulled the voter file for the city of Lebanon and it was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 8,500 files. Um, in in rough terms it was about 6,500 mobiles and 2,000 landline. Uh, and so that that's um uh you know that makes getting a 300 sample a little tough. It's it's doable, but it's a little tough. Uh, you have to work a little more for it. uh which you'll see because we were in the field longer than I would have liked um over the course of uh probably four or five days. Typically, we like to get our sample over the course of two nights, but in smaller communities, it's a little tougher.

I get I'm just curious if I mean I'm just going with today. If you called me, I wouldn't answer. I just want trying to figure out how many people just said, "Yeah, I'm not listening." because they they never heard the the message in the first place. 296 people. I get it a sample size and you did a great job of breaking it down, but I'm not sure how well that really affects the people like me who wouldn't answered the phone call in the first place. No offense. I just wouldn't Oh, I don't I hear it all the time. Uh all I can say is it's a it's a scientific representative sample that you that I think you'll find to be remarkably accurate within the within the error rate of 5.7%. There you go.

Okay. I have a question from the initial ballot obvious the quest initial ballot question to the informed ballot obviously we saw that decrease um and it doesn't look like one particular question really brought it what would you attribute to that decrease that decrease to do you have any tea leaves you can share with us

yeah it's the confusion it's the confu it's the confusion of having heard that their taxes wouldn't be increased and then getting the ballot question that that that says it's a dollar per thousand. And people are like, "Wait, wait a second. I thought you just I I thought I just heard that my taxes wouldn't increase and now you're telling me it's a dollar per thousand." You have to do it that way because that's exactly how they're going to see it on the ballot. Um, and so this is the purest, you know, faximile of what they're actually going to see. So what what I what I think happened is pe you saw saw more people park their vote in the unsure because they thought they were sure of something which is that it wouldn't increase their tax but the question was asked it would incre it would cost a dollar per thousand. So that's that's my in my experience that's what happened.

Thank you. Any other questions? I I've got a question on this. So, um what what was the time frame that the uh uh questions were being asked and you're getting your responses? Um and the and the reason I'm asking is gas prices have gone up dramatically this month. And um I would imagine that as the price at the pump was increasing um there there there may have been a change in response um to people surveyed financially. I think that's a great observation. Um I I don't I I I don't I can't account for every outside variable uh with respect

and I understand that

but I don't disagree with you at all uh that it it may have created some downward pressure on the on the uh uh approval response. the the the takeaway that I have from the results that you've given us and I I think you you you did a very good job queuing up the questions to uh uh get a a a good sample result from the people you're you're talking to. But but the the takeaway I have is people want to support the jail, but they're not sure that they can afford it. That's exactly.

And and um I I I I think given kind of uh well the direct price of gas on on people's income and um uh global uncertainty and all the rest of that. Um I I don't know how supportive people would be um to to to vote for this thing, especially with some of the cumbersome language that you're talking about. You you got to make sure that people understand what what what it means when they're reading it in the text on the ballot. So um uh does does that ring true with you? I think you're I think you're exactly right and I think I think you're basically restating my my conclusion which is on balance and you you identified an external pressure that was happening during the time that the survey was administered on balance people don't think that they can afford it uh and when they are when they are given the piece of information that actually doesn't increase their taxes then they say okay I can do that your job is to make is to make that argument You're going to have a lot of options available to you to make the argument all the way from your signage to your voters's pamphlet statements uh to whatever collateral material to whatever you're going to be in the business of repeating two or three key arguments. What I'm suggesting is your first argument has to be will not increase your property tax rate. And that uh if people don't absorb that piece of information, you won't be successful. But you do have the opportunity to successfully do that.

I said not none of this information really surprises me as it's put out. I knew this was a sell and it wasn't going to be an easy one, but it's one that's worth the fight to me. I think that doesn't surprise anybody that sits on this council.

I actually agree. As someone who works in communications and in messaging, I feel like sticking to the message of having people understand that this is not increasing their taxes that this is at a time when the bond falls off and the levy could go on like and then also seeing um it was the question about repeat offenders number eight. Seeing how that pulled that seems to be a critical piece of the messaging too. Obviously not the the primary but a secondary. I mean, if we do the work, I I feel like this could pass, but I understand the data that's in front of us as well and understand the amount of work that it would take for for it to pass. Any other questions, comments? All righty. This will be coming back. Thank you. Thank you, uh, JL and, uh, Sean. appreciate your your time and your information on the on this polling. So,

you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, of course, this is information only for tonight. It's coming back on the April 8th uh agenda for the council to make a decision. So, uh, we're wasn't really debating it tonight or anything like this. Take this information, absorb it. I I do have um probably for Ron or Brandon. Will this be will we be in competition with any other tax um changes in November? Uh tax changes, levies or bonds, other districts?

Potential that we could be I I don't know. I know Lebanon fire u we saw an article today Brandon and I did that they're either May or November. So there's potential there, right? Yeah, there is potential there. I mean, that's that's uh another factor to consider is just if you see a bunch of bond measures or levies um on a ballot, sometimes just the default is just to say no. If you're in the mood to say no to one, it it'd be you might get more negative result. Um but I that's just a guess on my part.

I think that's human nature. Makes sense. the the one question that I have which I understand the the polling data that he had. We need to make sure that however we strategize this in in terms of it won't increase your property taxes. Well, property taxes increase every year 3%. So you we want to make sure that this is not an additional somehow. I was sitting here thinking about that that um the last thing you want is the jail levy to pass and all of a sudden you know people don't understand a 3% increase and and it looks like we've increased their taxes. Yeah. So because that does happen on a yearly basis. Y

uh so we need to find a way to to meshes that and I'm not sure what that what that looks like. Well, that would be if it was to pass and the general obligation bond fell off. Um, I know that the job general obligation uh service servicing of that debt is higher than what this levy would be. Correct. Correct. Brandon, finance director. Okay. Can you remind us what that per thousand is on the general obligation bond? It equates right now to about a $1.17 per thousand

is kind of where that's at. It es and flows because we just get we we apply a flat rate, right? We have a debt payment to make and so we say here's what we need to collect. Um and so as far as you know crunching that number, it amounts to about $1.17 per thousand. So 17 cents difference between the two. Have you already done the math? What does that equate to on an average property tax bill? 17 cents times the 333,000 or whatever our 300 I thought we had the average we used was 385 um $6545. Yep. About that.

I'm not even the math person. Just to clarify, the one that's expiring that's going to expire regardless as to whether or not this That's correct. Yeah. It's it's based solely on a debt service payment for the library and the justice center. Um it was a 20-year debt service and that 20 years ends uh this next November. Just acknowledging too that that built this for a dollar what is it buck 17? I'm sure dollar 17 now. And and that was certainly different 20 years ago. I know it just is just the point. Is uh is Sean still on with us? It looks like he fell off maybe. Oh

no. Okay, maybe a question maybe a question for Sean on this. Um, you you we want to when we make this decision, we kind of want to think not just short-term 5 years, but long term. Is it um historically more difficult to get a levy passed the first time than the second time and third time and fourth time? Or is this going to be a battle every five years? Because when you're talking about creating jobs, you also have the risk in five years of those jobs being lost. Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know the answer to. I mean, so I I I just don't have that crystal ball the same way you don't either. Um, you know, think about what's happened in the last six months that's changed things globally, which has changed things locally. Um, there's just a lot that's that's has there's a lot of potential out there that we can't account for. My

personal opinion, I'm sorry I didn't interrupt. Go ahead. I was only going to add a little bit the in and at least in this county, right? If you look at Lynn County's law enforcement levy, if you look at Sweet Home has had two long-term local option levies. Uh they've had one for the police department and one for uh the library. Both of those have been in in existence since the late 80 late 1980s even.

Um and it was different back then, right? you didn't necessarily have to renew, but it has been renewed every every five years after that point. So, it is I mean, at least here, right, looking at at at our surrounding communities, it seems likely that once it gets once it's passed and once it's on the docket and on the books, it's likely to stay, but that is not a people are more willing to support it when it's already because it's it's already baked into what they what they expect every every year on their property tax bill at that point,

right? Well, and realistically, everybody knows my opinion on this, but we're trying to do what's best for the city. If we put that in place, I'm convinced that it would pay for itself. The value would be there. The the police would be able to do a better job. We'd be using a facility that's sitting there empty. The recidivism and the revolving door that I've seen in the police states and in the courts would stop that. And that's part of the message we have to get to people that a dollar. If I say I got to pay a dollar, I'm going to instinctively say I don't want to pay a dollar. But you got to anyway we got this data to us, we have to sell it to them. And we have to be convinced. I'm convinced that it works, but I'm one person. I'm not we're deciding this as a body, right? And I think we all support it, but we're realistic.

Well, speaking on on your point about about messaging, so far, you know, I'm kind of trying to look at the big picture here. Our messaging is strictly on funds and reopening the jail right now, but we haven't been talking about this is a way to lower crime or maybe to enhance our technology like purchase a drone or something like that. I think our messaging should include a lot more than just you know money money for the jail jail.

It should it should include some other topics. I think the levy would be spec I mean would be specific to reopening the jail and then if that's the case we couldn't use it for things like purchasing drone drone unless it was used for the jail. Am I correct on this Trey?

Well yeah that was my understanding not exactly what the point I was going to respond to but yes I do believe you're correct. What I was going to point out is 100% right and I mean once once we get you know if there's a the go-ahad on this um I'm going to pull statistics out of our court system and I mean the the statistics and the uh and the information is going to be staggering to people um about the the rec you know how how often they're in and out in and out in and out you know and and literally you know laughing as they walk out the door because they know they're never going to pay the fine anyways and that's all we can do.

Absolutely. Um, and that that message is going to be strong and it'll just be the the fact that we need to get it out there. And there's also plenty of evidence. I was at a uh I did a citizens academy with uh with our district attorney uh Doug Martini and and some of the charts he had were were absolutely uh fascinating uh with the correlation between uh incarceration and crime. And you know, people that seem to think at at certain times that there's no correlation and and and the facts and the data just absolutely shows that's not true. Um, and I've already reached out to him to get some of those get some of those charts and and kind of show because, you know, they had that they had the big increase hard on on crime in the 80s, middle 80s or whatever, you know, and here we go, you know, crime goes down down down and then they hit that point where it's, yeah, that's we don't want to be that hard. And they the incarceration rates go back down and the crime goes back up. I mean, it's just it's it's it's irrefutable. Um and and given the fact that you know we don't have any place to incarcerate them uh because of the you know the sheriff's uh the Lin County jail being uh as full as it is and and we understand that they have to prioritize you know more serious crimes. Uh but the the ability of us to uh try to um actually uh influence people to stop doing what they're doing is almost nil at this point. And the fact is is that the statistical show that and I'll be very involved in whatever committees put together uh to make sure we get that message out.

So So one of the things looking back at what JL said tonight is to stay on message, right? His message was really clear. There's those two there's those two places that you saw your numbers just extremely explode and that was that there's no cost to them, right? And what was the other one? What was the other question? number reduce repeat offenses.

And so those those probably would be the the two primary pieces of information. All that other information is great. I mean, I think it gives you more context of why you're opening the jail, but it looks like those two two items would be where you want to really message uh with with what with what the poll came back as.

You know, I'll talk to people about this subject. I've talked to a lot of people about this subject lately and what I what I tell them is is that we as a council have held off on this issue for three years because we want to be good stewards of the money. Okay, we're waiting for a general obligation bond to fall off and what that what that gives us the opportunity to do is increase services while keeping our tax tax obligations as low as possible. Right? And every single person I talk to that I say that messaging to goes, "Oh, cool. Yeah, they're for it." And and I and the two questions, I can't remember the one that Ron just referred to. Um that that is it's it that is the message. If you can get that out and get that implanted in voters heads, they will they will pass it. That's a lot of work. A ton of work. Well, I think we went into this with our eyes open for that.

What's that? I think we went into this with our eyes open. No, no, no. I'm just saying yes. I'm just reiterating that's a lot of work. So, that mechanism, whatever is going to promote this has to be welloiled machine and there going to be a lot of labor going into it to to get the message out. If we're not willing to do that, um I I'll say it. If we're not willing to do that, there's no point in pursuing it. Well, the person that is a 100% requirement. The

the person that you're going to have to convince is the voter that didn't really know that the jail was closed. They're they're they're too busy working to do what their house hasn't been broken into. Um they're paying more money at the gas pump, etc. They're they're hurting financially. That's why they're working as many hours as they are. And and and and to them, they're looking at this and saying, "You know what? um I can't afford that. I'll take my chances. It hasn't happened to me. I think I'll be okay. That's the person that you're going to have to make this personal to to say, "Hey, look, you know, this recidivism rate, the homelessness, uh with with criminality attached to it, um it is a problem for you and this is a solution that will impact you." Um that's that's the person that we got to convince.

And and I I don't disagree with that. My whole point of what I was saying is is the the dedication to and the work that it's going to take is going to be extremely high. Yeah. And people need to realize that as we go forward with this if the council on on the 8th of April decides to move forward on this. Um they need to move forward with a commitment of making it happen, not a oh well I'll see what I can do because that will be uh irresponsible on our part if we do that. So

that's also one, you know, why I wanted to make sure that we were all here for that vote where we decided to even spend this money on a on a pollster on a um consultant to walk us through this process. So we all are going through this with our eyes open. And I would hope, however, whatever happens on the ETH um again that we're we're we're working together as one because this can't I've said it before, but it cannot be on staff. has to be on this group and um us with our public official hats out there and it can't be Ron and it can't be Frank. So, and and certainly not Julie or Brandon. Um while they can provide us information, it really just has to be us. So, I just wanted to repeat that again.

Yeah. One one last comment or question I have on this. So, obviously things went wrong and the jail got closed. Nobody expected that. with this new funding package, how how confident do we feel that that is well protected against future economic things that could threaten that thing from uh closing again?

Well, we so the the re the reason that jail closed originally is we never had dedicated uh correction staff. It was done by patrol, right? So with the levy that that could potentially go out, you're looking at dedicated correction staff and a dedicated supervisor for that. So when we looked at the numbers for the levy, we looked at it throughout a 5-year period. What's it going to take? Insurance requirements, medical requirements, um food, you name it, and employee costs. And that's how we came to the number of the $1.7 million. So unless there's I mean I'm trying to think of a situation that would

Can you think of a situation that would would all of a sudden we're we couldn't collect up to that? I mean,

yeah. I mean, all of this is based on on on estimates, right? And so, you know, if we get in here and for some reason wages are significantly higher than than what we've projected, um, I don't think that'll be the case because we've done kind of the analysis to determine where are things right now and then we are using the same information and modeling that we use for the rest of our five-year forecasts. Um, I mean this is fairly wellthought out, but again, five years from now, something can change. I I couldn't tell you necessarily what it would be. It would just be, you know, the the five-year picture fell a little lower than what actual reality came in at.

If you if you had a a huge economic crash where people aren't paying their property taxes, got more problems than that in that. Yeah, absolutely. But that that that would be one scenario where I think you could see see that happen which which right we've probably got more problems than just that.

Well, as every guy Lebanon guy, my feeling this, you know, I'm committed to it. I I will be at any meeting any event we have for this. I'm committed to it. But for me, $385 and I said the same thing with something else. If $385, there's a lot of people who haven't been affected. There's a lot of people who have been affected. I' I've lost more than $385 worth of property. If I can tell the people, yes, you're getting some benefit for that. If it's less than my my homeowner's insurance deductible and somebody stole my bike three times, you know, that's where that's where the difference is. And the fact that we have to convince people that we're going to have the police out there serving you better. I went on a ride along. It was great. Thank for doing that. Was very informational. I loved it. those guys. I sat there and talked to to the the team leader about a guy that he he was telling me this guy's done this over and over and he's gonna over and over and I happened to explain to this that hey, we had a guy at the credit union who had a who put a filing cabinet in our tree. He said that's him. I guarantee you that's him. So this guy is out there. It's not once. It's not twice. He's cost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars without any penalty to our community for years for three years now. So I I'm passionate enough about it obviously that I want to be involved and I know we're not debating it now and I'll be just as passionate when we come back the 8th but that like I said the numbers don't surprise me. We are always going to have to sell this to people.

Mr. Mayor, if I could say one more thing. Yes. Um and I think there's there's an opportunity that we can't count on but I think is fairly likely is that there will be other uh set off in cost in in other words um I've had previous conversations uh after having discussions with the chief uh with other communities as far as other communities also have issues as it relates to getting enough beds. Swedom has issues. Even Albany has issues sometimes with uh beds at at Lynn County in Brownsville and other other things. And and we also I think at one point uh when the jail was open were uh uh leasing uh some bed spaces uh to was it uh probation probation the probation department and Albany. So there are we we can't count on that that coming in. But it is you know if we if we open this we're going to try to make sure that you know if we have eight beds we want eight bids full first with with Lebanon um for sure but also you know if they're there hey and we need to enter into contracts with other communities to off you know and and they pay for it um to offset some of the cost. So in in my mind it's more likely that that there's going to be less cost than we anticipate. But I agree that we can't count on them at this point.

And I should add that, you know, what this $1.7 million we've we've calculated here is is a full assumption that we are the only ones operating, right? It is our people in there. We're not we're not getting revenue from other sources. And if we did start to take other revenue, right, we would we would have to you're when you when you set these levies in motion and when you have them on the books, you can levy up to the certain threshold, right? And so in reality, what we've done is the dollar per thousand is what you need by the time you get to the end of the five-year picture, but in the first year, we're not going to levy the full dollar because we won't need to in order to maintain what we need to to have to bring these folks on. If we got started getting revenue from other sources, we can further ratchet that back so that it's not on our it's not on our taxpayers and we're not just taking the revenue from, you know, that we get and sticking it over in the general fund and saying, "Look, it's free money, right? That's something we need to make clear is is we can we can make those revisions." Certainly, that's a council decision, right? So maybe you do decide you're going to use that for other sources, whether that's, you know, building upgrades in the jail or, you know, other things. But our recommendation certainly is going to be that money stays with the jail and then you levy appropriately to ensure that we're not necessarily overt taxing the community.

All righty. Thank you. Uh, as I said before, take all this information, go home, and I know I know councelor Mlan will go home and he'll write out a book ready to to debate this on the 8th. And I know uh councelor Workman will do the same. And we should and you should that you should do that. This is a serious subject. We need to have our our uh information concise and to the point and uh well organized so so we have a a good debate. So, well, I'm gonna commit Dave Workman to doing all this. I believe my mouth has committed me to it.

I have a question for Frank. When this if this levy passes, how soon after the vote will that gel reopen? ASAP is possible. It's just a matter of uh once once the uh starts going in that direction, it's a matter of recruitment and getting the proper people in there to work it. So, we don't have to wait for a tax cycle to go through for the money to be there. Nothing like that. It's just

that's more of a Brandon question than it is a Frank question. Once the once once this was out there and if the levy passed, then you've got from that November election until November the following year before we start seeing property taxes come in. The council has the decision at that point to start tapping one-time funds to start um accelerating, right? Start the hiring process, start all this. Um so you'd have to use available dollars to to kick that off or waiting until you get to that fiscal year. Um, so you there's either a, you know, an 8-month delay before we could start hiring. If you wait until the July and and when you start to see that stuff kind of kick onto the books, you could choose to start using one-time funds in advance of that to start the hiring and make sure that we get training and everything done. So, you are running uh forward as far as as soon as July 1 comes around. Uh, but we wouldn't actually start seeing property tax revenue until the November. So, if you go November 2026, we'll see property tax revenue in November 2027.

But speed to market on this, for lack of better terms, is going to be important. We could one-time fund and then pay it back with that tax money that Right. Yeah. I mean, that's effectively what you're saying.

Effectively, yes. I mean, you need it for the operation, right? So if we start hiring in advance of what we've done is assume you know a full fiscal year. So July 1 of 2027 to June 30 of 2028 will cost you X and that's like 1.4 essentially I think I'd have to go back to but in that 1.5 range. Um, and so if you start burning money early, you're not getting any money to pay it back, right? Cuz this assumes that the levy comes on board and and the property tax generation covers the one fiscal year. So if you start six or eight months before that, you're burning cash that you can't put back.

I don't completely understand that, but I'll I'll leave that to the accountant. It's why did why did you mention that we could use onetime funds then? Because you can use onetime funds. It just means that you but you can't put it back.

You you can't put it back because unless you're going to add to the levy cost, right? So if say the first year, the first 12-month cycle beginning in July, it costs with staff time, insurance, and everything else, it cost you 1.5 million. If you start in advance of that July, you're going to start hiring people on and bringing people on early, which means you're eating more than that 1.5 million. But the levy has been has been designed to only bring you in that 1.5 million. So it it really timing wise it depends on are you going to eat some of the general funds reserves which you know as we go through budget and everything else you can kind of look and see what what money might exist and and what we could potentially do with it. Um, but if you start early before the property tax proceeds start to come in and you design the levy for a certain amount, you're going to be stuck with either waiting or burning burning cash beforehand.

I got you. Well, we still have the money from the sale of the train station, right? I mean, the sale hasn't completed, so not yet. But you would you could potentially once once that was completed, your market for that. All righty, let's move on. Is there any other items from council? Go ahead.

I'm not council, but I have one item. Uh just kind of an update. We are applying uh for a Connect Oregon grant with uh Western U. Uh we're doing a joint application with them. Our portion of that is um it's kind of a weird setup, but it's uh three three years worth of an intern uh an engineering intern to help with the construction of their first phase. Uh no cost to the city, but just wanted to bring it up because I'm sure they will bring it up. Uh that goes out Friday, I think, uh for a connect organ grant. So, just letting you know.

All righty. Any other items from council? Okay. Uh, anybody from the public or press that would like to have comments? Next scheduled council meeting