City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to call the meeting to order and if everybody could please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Justin Rock here. Marian Mner is absent. Excused. Karine Dudo here. David Wade here. Ricky Joe Hickeyi here. Molly King here. Denise Wheeler

here. Is there any changes to the agenda this evening? Yes, Mr. Mayor. There is a change on the agenda approval. Um, we are removing their executive session that is on number seven and eight. So you guys can put just a check mark on that. So we're not going to go to executive session there. We'll just go straight from unfinished business to new business. Perfect. Thank you. Consent agenda. Is there anything that needs to be changed on the consent agenda? Do we have a motion? I move we approve the uh consent agenda as amended. That one will be just as presented. Okay. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I. Anybody opposed? No.

All right. We're moving quickly. This part of the meeting will be for public comments. If anybody would like to get up to the podium and speak about a non-aggenda item, this is the time. You do have a threem minute time limit. So, I'm uh Tori Gandandy and I'm the co-president for the Grand Main Street downtown and we have a new executive director that I wanted to introduce to the city council as your member of ourou and this is Allison Harvey. She moved here from Indiana and started in mid January and we're excited to have her on our team. Welcome. Welcome.

Yes. Um I just quickly want to say moving 1900 miles away is definitely nerve-wracking, but the people in this city have made it so welcoming and it has just a magical feeling and I'm excited to cultivate that and help it grow. So, thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome and good luck to you. Would anybody else like to make comments? If not, Mr. Sue.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. I have an introduction as well. Um, tonight I'm pleased to introduce introduce you to Anna, our new urban forester. Come stand up here next to me. Um, Anna Linquist brings over a decade of experience in natural resources, community outreach, and conservation program leadership. She was originally hired under the grant for our urban forestry outreach coordinator and recently made the transition replacing longtime urban forester Theresa Augustus, the greatest urban forester in all of the Pacific Northwest. Um recognized by the International Society of Argiculture. Um locally, Anna worked with the Union County Soil and Water Conservation District supporting wildfire resilience, habitat restoration, and land stewardship across Union County. Her background includes national level plant conservation work with the BLM, five years as a horiculturalist at the Idaho Botanical Garden and other landscaping informal experience. Uh Anna holds a masters of natural resources from the University of Idaho. Go Vandals. Yeah. Um with an emphasis in environmental education and science communication and has been recognized for her leadership and commitment to s sustainability. Her experience reflects a strong dedication to connecting communities and landscapes to sustain them and we look forward to bringing that her bringing that experience to us as the city's new urban forester and a linquist. Welcome,

welcome, man. Welcome, welcome. Thank you. Um, just want to say I'm so happy to be part of the city team. When I started, I kept saying to my partner, it's really weird. Everyone seems so happy to work for the city. I don't know if they're just being nice because I'm new, but it it really is true. It's been amazing to come to work every day and work alongside these other dedicated public servants. And I look forward to continuing on the good work of caring for our city's trees and speaking with you all more uh in April for Oregon Arbor Month. Um we do have a new tree brochure that I can hand out to you now so you can get your tree fix if that's okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. and welcome. Thank you. Perfect. All right. Our next would be public hearings. We have none. Unfinish. Unfinished business. We do not have any new business. Our first one will reallocate funds for previous created positions in public works and departments. With that, uh, that was fast.

Uh, what you have before you, this council action form is actually to correct an oversight. If you remember, it was back in April, we did uh reallocated funds from the assistant public works director to create the collections wastewater collection superintendent. Um that that action was approved. We went ahead and filled the position, but what we the oversight was we were in the middle of our budgeting process and that position was not actually included in the new budget document. So for this budget year, that position is an unfunded position. So this council action is requesting that we reallocate the funds that are in the budget to cover that new position which is required by city policy. So So where are the funds coming from to fill that?

So a big chunk of that would again be the assistant public works director. It was budgeted for the full year this year. Uh there was also a little bit of extra that was gained back from some of the movements we did with our uh staffing when we created that new division. So, we're covered. We're covered. Happy to answer any questions. Anybody have any questions for Thank you, sir. At this time, I would like to invite public comments on this matter.

None. Council discussion. Motion. I move that funds budgeted for the sewer collections division salaries and benefits within the city of Lrand 2025 2026 budget be reallocated to fund the sewer collection superintendent. I'll second. We have first and second. Any additional council discussion? All in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Nope. Perfect. All right. Our next one will consider authorization authorizing the mayor to sign a letter for audit finding corrective plan. And with that, Heather,

good evening, mayor and council. Um, tonight earlier prior to the council meeting, um, Mayor Rock and Councelor Dudo did attend, um, a meeting with our auditor to go over the audit findings and over the audit in general. He skimmed over some of our financial statements. Um, we were, um, there was a significant significant deficiency found this year. It is always my goal each year to eventually one day not have any, but we're getting there. Um, we they did find one this year. Um, Gazby, which is Gazsby, which is the governmental accounting standards board, issued a new statement, Gazsby 101, which is um, compensated absences. And they have changed a big change in how we report compensated absences. Prior it was just reporting vacation and comp time which we do pay out if an employee were to leave. Um they now wanted us to include sick leave which may or may not be more than likely not be with our case paid out when an employee leaves. So there was some extensive work that we had to do on our end. We had to go back three years um evaluate each employee how they use their sick leave and figure out and restate our beginning balance and come up with a new ending balance including some payroll rollup cost with that. So um it was a big heavy lift for us very new um for everybody actually. A lot of us finance directors weren't super excited about it. Um but it did take a little extra time for us to finally work out all the kinks with it. We do have a good template for next year moving forward. So, um, yeah, that was our only finding. Um, so for a corrective plan, we do have a new template. We worked out all the kinks, um, and develop some good procedures and policies to follow for next year to have that implemented on a timely manner. So, any questions?

And the deficiency was just because of the timeliness of getting all of that information. Yes. And there did have to be some adjusting entries because I generally when you do those and the worksheet the big worksheet or workbook that I had to do it helps us develop the adjusting entries at the end of the year which I hadn't completed because we hadn't finished the workbook and so anytime that they have make an adjusting entry after we actually the end of the audit that is accounted against us. So yeah. So yeah, essentially the timing was difficult. And was this kind of relatively pretty new that this was completely new this year? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Any other questions?

Bless you. Everything else was perfect though. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

This time we will invite public comments. None council discussion. Like I said, everything else was pretty clean and they've um Heather's come up with a plan for future had the template set up. So, I feel like we we did a good job. She did she put a lot of extra time in to adjust those the one area with the new information. So, it's not like they let you know in advance. So, she did a great job. Thank you. Uh motion. I move that we authorize the mayor to sign the letter prepared to the state of Oregon audit division. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? All in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Perfect. All right. Our next one will be considering adopting retreat summary and city and district manager priority framework for fiscal year 2026 and 2027. And with that, John, could you give us a staff report, please?

Mayor and counselors, good evening. Um, as you, as you know, earlier or near the end of last month, we all got together. We had day one and day day 1.5. Um, in regard to the municipal budget, um, we covered multiple different topics including, um, making sure we had a firm understanding of, um, what not what where our fiscal reality was, um, where we see it for the future, as well as, um, determining the best way for us to approach solving some of the, uh, general fund strain that we are understanding and seeing um, affecting us. With that being said, we discussed and I believe came to an agreement um pending this uh this hearing or this council meeting on the top five priorities being long-term financial sustainability and infrastructure readiness. Number two, community health, safety, and well-being. Number three, housing and workforce stability internal and external. organizational capacity and leadership continuity is number four and number five public trust transparency and institutional resilience attached uh with the documents that we provided to you are some additional details more granular details in regards to what we covered there. Um, ultimately what I'm asking is is that or my recommendation is that the city council adopts the council retreat summary and city manager priority framework and direct the staff to advance the fiscal transformation initiative within the the five-year strategic plan and the fiscal year 2627 budget development process pending your questions or further discussion.

Thank you sir. This time we would like to invite public comments on this matter. Council discussion. It accurately reflects our discussion. Yeah, totally. Motion. I move that the city council adopt the council retreat summary and the city manager priority framework for the fiscal year 2627 and direct staff to the advanced fiscal transformation initiative as a core element of the city's 5-year strategic plan and is guiding policy for development of the fiscal year 2627 city and urban renewal agency budgets. Second.

We have a motion and second. Any more discussion? Second. Sorry. You're good. Nope. Uh, all in favor? I. Does anybody oppose? Nope.

All right. Our next one will be considering adopting citizens to the air quality commission and the parking traffic safety and street maintenance advisory commission. Uh, the first one we'll be looking at will be for air quality. The city of Lrand established an air quality program in 1991 in response to Oregon Department of Environmental Quality finding that within the city urbal growth boundary, the airing exceeded the national amateur air quality standards, air sampling conducted in 1988 has determined that particular matter less than 10 microns concentrated exceeds the 24-hour NAQS and that the state implement plan described strategies to restore helpful air quality was necessary and that the air quality commission meets on as needed basis. Uh, with that, I move that Denise Caldenor be appointed to the Air Quality Commission for a remainder of three-year term, which will expire December 31st, 2028.

Council discussion. How long does this I need a second? I'm sorry. I'll second. Thank you. How often does this uh commission meet? That would be probably a question for Kyle. I don't think they've actually had a meeting since I've been with the city. So, oh, what prompts a a meeting? Yeah.

Um, I think Justin kind of read it when they'll meet on an as needed basis. So, if there was actually a quorum, which I think we're getting close to a quorum, so we could actually hold a meeting. Uh, if there was something to act upon. So, I think it was back in the mid 90s, Lrand was no longer a non-attainment area. We were we were moved to the higher level. So there is no actual uh raging air quality issue as there was when the the committee was stood up. So it was kind of mothballled for a while. So yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen anything from them. So no missing anything. No. But if we get a quorum, maybe we could get them together and do something. How many need for a quorum? More four besides

I think there was three before. This might be the fourth. As long as nobody else's term ran up. Uhhuh. Oh, okay. So, usually we just wait for one of the committee members to request a meeting and then we would pull one together. All right. Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? All in favor? I.

Anybody opposed? Nope. All right. Our next vacancy will be for the parking traffic safety and street maintenance advisory commission. Uh looks like this commission currently has three vacancies. All vacancies are a result of expiration of term. Two positions are for two years appointments ending December 31st, 2027. And one position is for a three-year term ending in December 31st, 2028. Unfortunately, we only have two applicants, so we will only be filling two of those spots. I've asked someone else to apply.

That would be good. I move that Miss Cauldron and Miss Herbst, hopefully I didn't mess those up too bad, uh, be appointed to the Parking and Traffic Safety and Street Maintenance Advisory Commission for the remainder of a three-year term, which will expire on December 31st, 2028. And you'll have to separate the names. Do I need to separate them? Yeah. So, you'll have to choose whether uh Denise or Marilyn will go in the first slot because they're two different terms. Okay. So, you have to choose one name in one spot. Yeah,

I will. I just read through and it showed that there was two positions open for the Yes. Sorry, I thought I heard both names beginning. So, you I'll go back and I'll start over. I move that Miss Calderin be appointed to the Parking and Traffic Safety and Street Maintenance Advisory Commission for the remainder of a three-year term which will expire on December 31st, 2028. And that Miss Hervest be appointed to the remainder of a two-year term which expires on December 31st, 2022. Do I have a second? Second. have a motion and a second. Any more discussion?

One thing I noticed with Marilyn Herbs is um she had checked the um the parks commission and I checked with Stacy and um she just wanted to be involved and was happy to I think the parks commission is full and was happy to join the parking traffic safety commission. So, I just wanted to make sure that that was where she was hoping to be. That is correct. Sty personally talked to her. She was very excited. She just wanted to

uh you know volunteer wherever she was could. So, we gave her the options of the vacancies that were to be filled and she jumped right on Pit Smack. So, she's been on the library commission and she's been involved. She's been very great. Cool. Any more discussion? All in favor?

I. Anybody opposed? No. Perfect. All right, we're moving on to our last item. Uh considering ratifying the city manager six months per performance evaluation. Uh so with this, the city manager John O'Brien began his employment with the city of Lrand on August 18th, 2025. Under his employment agreement, he is subject to a six months probation period uh concluding on February 21st, 2026. Uh into inordinance with the city council's direction and established practice, a performance evaluation was conducted uh to the city manager's performance during the probation period. staff completed individual evaluation forms and submitted them to the mayor who completed the results into an anonymous summary for the council's review. The council members received and complied summary along with their individual evaluation matters to complete and return to the mayor for the inclusion in the final consolidated report prior to the meeting. Uh the council will discuss the evaluation results in open session which will result in a overall average of 3.26 and score of a fully completed based on a scoring and will further review the city manager's employment related performance in an executive session pursuit to RS192.660. No final decision will be made in during the executive session. Uh with that um everything turned out pretty good. I think for the first time uh six months I

think you did good John. You know everybody needs approvement as a new position for John and so I think I think we got good feedback to give back to him. Uh with that I would like to open up to public comments on this matter. So, any citizens would like to make a statement? Now is that time. I'm John Lackey, 701 Penn Avenue in Lrand, Oregon. Um, have I've had a opportunity to meet with John a couple of times. I feel that he has the experience uh the education and uh is working hard on the specifics of our uh plans for the next couple of years. He uh uh in reviewing these items myself to run for a position on the council, I've come to appreciate that there is an awful lot of things to cover. It's going to take some time to resolve those items or improve on them, but I think he has a system that he's worked with in the past that has been very uh positive towards uh trying to s solve what we have already or or improve what we already have and um try other ideas uh without bringing uh additional taxes on our citizens. So, I think uh it's very hard to absorb all of this in one six-month period, and I would encourage uh renewing his contract uh on the basis of uh having the time to

really get in the depths of all issues he's dealing with. Thank you. Thank you, John. I have a question. Were you able to fill out the form on the top? Just a reminder for public comment whenever you go up there's a sheet up there if you can fill out your name um and the reason you're speaking tonight before you speak and then we'll start the three minutes timer. Thank you.

Thank you Stacy. Thank you, Mr. L. Good evening, Mayor Rock and counselors. I'm Dr. Ruth Davenport, professor emeritita from Eastern Oregon University, and I would like to speak on behalf of Mr. O'Brien. I've recently had the pleasure of meeting him and and working with him and I find him to be a good problem solver and uh we're working on uh some discussions about uh access in the city of Lrand um in terms of uh the ADA loss. So, I'm very happy to have met him and and looking forward to working with him. Very excited to continue those conversations uh with the business owners and he's he's very open to a lot of new ideas. He's a negotiator. He's a planner. He's a he's a dreamer and there is nothing on his mind but what is the best for Lrand and the people of Lrand. And so, I'll fill this out. Speaking of accessibility, looks like we need to look at some for the microphone access here.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm uh Brent Clap. Good evening, Brett.

Hey, thank you, man. Um, everybody's filling it out. I might fill it in a little bit. I've I've spent a lot of time with John and um both personally and then also professionally and trying to figure out how to package media and tell the story of the city of Lrand. And as you know, I know really well and um I I I totally I know each of you very well. I know each of the directors very well and I know John well and um I appreciate a great deal his vision to do something and I you know I've adopted a phrase a few you know a couple of year few years ago when we were dealing with different problems and so on and so forth and you know there are a lot of things that we we're not sure what to do, but the sure answer is we can't do nothing.

And and you know, we've I mean, with great respect to Robert, I know Robert very well. John is very different than Robert, as you all know. uh he wants to be known and he wants to tell the story of Lrand and he's passionate about it. Uh he loves us and he wants to be a part of us. He didn't approach this from an outsider. He seemed feels like he approached this from I'm in the pool now. I want to tell the story and I have a great amount of respect for that. Um the other thing is is that you all know we've had a longstanding sign issue and you know I mentioned that a couple of council meetings ago. Uh John immediately responded to me as a citizen and a business owner in downtown Lrand, coordinated almost immediately a meeting with Mike and himself and I and he cut through the red tape very quickly to find a solution. We haven't done anything yet because the ball's totally in my court. Uh but not only did we cut through the red tape, but he understood the burden that I've uh been going through and they wave the fees for me to submit that appeal. So I' I've seen both sides. I really support John and I really encourage you to support him also.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have to add to that. Mike Boowquest's creative thinking helped make that possible, too. I I can't take as much credit as he's willing to give me. All right. Any more comments? Counselor discussion. I would like to say a few things. Um,

as noted here on the on the paper, it talked about that his six months would be February 21st. I think I I know putting the evaluations and everything together takes time, but the staff kind of did theirs kind of in December. We did ours in January. You know, you're talking four, maybe five months, and you know, we're in the adolescence period. And I don't think doing it as quickly as we did was fair to John. That is kind of my personal opinion. Um because you always get growing pains when things change and and stuff like that. Um I think next time when we do evaluation I think we need to do it in the amount of time exactly like if we do it like a year exactly we should do the evaluation six months out.

Well usually after this period we only did this because of the uh six-month probation. Now for after this for now on we will go year by year and so full year of an evaluation but we still did it way early. We did. Yeah. And that that was kind of my concern about that and stuff like that. But it was done because his six months is not even over until the 21st of February. Right. But putting all that together takes time. Yeah. Well, I do know that. I do know that. But even if that report is after 6 months, it's still a six-month report. Correct.

So, I think we should have waited a little bit longer. But that's just my opinion. Enough information for some of the categories, but I think we definitely had a good feel on your performance. So, uh, and I think that if we would have waited too long, then that would delay giving feedback. And I think it's important early on to give feedback. So if we need to make a course correction, we can. So we had to kind of weigh that. Well, then we should have done a three-month, not a six-month, but we got to do what it's called is what I'm thinking.

Well, with evaluation all done in my personal opinion, um it's very refreshing having work out in the public and having people say, "Oh, I met him." And they know who the city manager is. And no fault on Robert by any means. um you have that aura about you that people are enjoying meeting you and getting to know you more and to me that just is very uplifting feeling to have. So welcome and I'm glad you're here and we're going to go over an executive session.

We are and I'm going to go over that in a minute. So I just want to get everybody's comments and I have a couple more statements to go over but I wanted to get the out here in the public. So any comments you want to make now?

Okay. I think it's important that we note, John, that as a council, I feel like we gave you a table full of things to tasks to accomplish and goals to reach. And in doing so, I feel like um it wasn't misleading so much as not leading enough. I don't feel like we led you well enough up to now as far as what we were hoping to find and see as a council. Um, and I feel bad because I never actually met with you personally like I said I would do and I still fully intend to do that. Um, but I think moving forward it's really important that as a council we're refining what we're asking of you. I don't feel like it was refined when we came into this and I still don't feel like having gone through the assessment that that's been very refined either. So, it feels like we're getting an array of responses for a valid reason. And that valid reason is that we just we gave you a lot and we didn't refine. And I um I don't necessarily think we need to apologize for that. I I think saying that I'm sorry that I didn't notice it sooner and owning that part for me is important to say to you, though. I don't want to speak on behalf of the council, but I want you to know that I have really appreciated watching you um speak out to the public and reach out to people, honoring community members in meetings. Um and there's there's a lot that has been said and uh on your behalf. Um, and I just appreciate that you have jumped in with both feet like you did. And I think that perhaps we could dial back on some initiatives and really hone in on what's really important. Now, I feel like we might as a council hopefully have a

better understanding of what that is at this point in time.

May maybe just a couple of observations. the it was it was a polarized response. There were quite a few very low rankings and we had a lot of high rankings and it averaged out in the middle and that was what surprised me is I thought we'd see a little more grouping and it was not and especially among the staff comments I think you all would agree it's quite polarized and you know so to me it you know there's there's some improvement to be made clearly you know clearly some internal uh reflection within within the city um employees you know just to make sure that there's confidence idence and trust and and good management there. Um uh a lot of the council feedback was we just don't have enough information and and I would agree with your you know comment Denise. I mean it's it it it feels we needed to do something because for the city's protection you need to operate within that probationary period to some extent. Um is it ideal? Absolutely not. I think we would all agree on that and and it it does you know with you know Karine I agree it it gives us some way to say hey let's you know let's look at direction um but uh you know a lot of very positive notes and then a few things I just you know to me it says we we do need to look at the internal relationships within the city and just make sure that um you know we're keeping those healthy. The external relationships are wonderful as we've heard tonight. You know, so much positive feedback from the community on on what we've seen done. Um, you know, just a very different approach to community relations which has brought some tremendously positive momentum uh here. And I I think we all feel and sense that. But, um, I I don't think we can read through these comments and not have some level of concern for, you know, just um making sure that, you know, relationships shor up internally. Uh, so my thoughts.

Yeah. Any more comments? I don't know if it's an executive question or not, but when the comments were compiled and I saw that they're like bulleted item, they didn't read as if they're bulleted items from different people is my consensus. When I was reading it, it read like I wrote down exactly what they said. I did not change anything. I wanted it to come bulleted. I They're bulleted. They came to you that way. Bulleted like that. Yeah, I wrote down exactly like a documentary from one person and the comments I re I got out of it was

maybe one or two people had the consensus of those comments and they were um throughout the whole evaluation. It was like from one or two people. It wasn't from everyone. It was from everyone. It was from a separate person. Each every comment in there was from any person that made the comment. I did not change anything. Why not? I was trying to make sure that it was very I'm just saying the way it was written and then the way you read it, it's like just read and then there's bullets. What you're saying? Yeah. Each bullet was an individual comment. Is that correct? Yeah. So separate indiv separate people making those. Yeah.

Well, there was leading and then in my conclusion that was like a bottom below a two or three bullets below in conclusion. just like made it read like it was one person writing the whole document on Yeah. On the council one, I think that was just a summary of all of the comments, right? I don't think it was done. No, they're individual comments. Oh, gotcha. I see what you're saying. And the staff one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it was in the director one. It was in the other one in the staff. You guys could probably talk about that in there. That's why I said probably have a discussion in there.

Any more comments? All right. So, following an executive session, the council will reconvene in a regular sessions to consider action related to the probation period in accordance to the city manager's employment agreement and applicable law. Potential action including acknowledging successful completion of the probation period or deferring accepting pending review. So, basically, we're going to go into our executive session, come back and give our results. Uh, with that, I still have one more to go over. The city council will now meet in executive session pursuant to OS192-660 to review and evaluate the employment related performance of the city manager. Executive sessions are closed to the public. However, representatives of the news media shall be allowed to attend the session pursuit to OS192-6604. Member of the media are asked to not disclose the specific nature of the executive session. No final decision will be made in the executive session. The city council will reconvene in a regular session. We will be back shortly and we appreciate your patience.