City Council - Regular Meeting

and working through complex issues to develop policies that are both practical and fair. Your willingness to listen and act upon quickly demonstrates strong leadership and a genuine commitment to serving our community. By adopting this ordinance, it helps protect residents' quality of life while providing clear expectations and consistent standards for everyone. The time and effort you have invested in this update will benefit our community for years to come. Thank you for your service, your thoughtful deliberation, and your continued dedication to making our city a great place to live, work, and visits. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Stephanie. Penny?

My name is Penny DiTello, and I live in Staten. I want to thank the mayor and the council members for working on the motorcycle noise problem. I'm here about the same thing Larry and Stephanie were here for. I heard that a letter is going to be sent out to our Mr. Noyes neighbor, and I just wanted to ask you that you please reconsider sending the letter because he will retaliate against us. And not only will it make for a miserable month, but I have a dog sitter staying at my house, and she will be working there. working, sitting my dogs, but also doing her day job. And I really don't want to subject her to the misery that I have to live in. And so if sending him a letter is mandatory, I ask that you choose your words carefully as not to escalate this situation. And just know his noise has been driving us from our homes and our rights are being violated. And, you know, Paul listed out a whole list of laws that have been broken at the last meeting and maybe those could be followed. But hopefully this change in the ordinance will take care of our problem. Because don't forget, our neighborhood is being held hostage by Mr. Noise. That goes on for hours. I mean, I've got a log. If anyone questions how long it goes on. But Larry told you an example of last weekend. So I'm here to thank you for what the time you've spent on this and hopefully we'll get a resolution. So, all right, that's all.

Okay. Thanks, Penny. And there is no requirement for a letter, so. Noreen, I saw her sitting over there.

My name is Noreen Chamberlain, and I've lived in state a long time. I'm happy to be here, and I appreciate the city council, the mayor, and all of the pool patrons that came. I'm here for the pool, and I just wanted to say we appreciate your support to all of you to keep our pool open, and thank you for believing in us. and giving us the chance to try to keep our community livable. Special thanks to the mayor, very supportive. We look forward to a plan for a long-term solution. We care and we want to be involved. Thank you.

Thank you.

And I brought peanut butter cookies over there for the mayor.

I didn't know we were having an impromptu bake sale, but thank you. All right, I'm not sure what this is, but it's a blue sheet, so Mark, come on up.

I'll put it on green next time. Are we live on the video? Because some people are telling me they're not able to get in. Apparently, okay. Hi, Mark Cronquist, state in Oregon, live on Water Street. Public comments, thank you, council and Mr. Mayor and staff. Regarding the state and memorial pool funding, I'm glad that things are moving ahead. As I understand it, the shortfall on goal are roughly $375,000. I'm looking at numbers in the council packet for tonight and the numbers in Our Town Magazine, Civics 101, page 6. The article quotes from Howard and says pool fund grows to $138,000. That's awesome. Packet numbers are more optimistic. Regarding these packet numbers, are sponsors formalized or, hey, I'll just give X? Because it talks about $30,000 in sponsorships. There are $11,000 club members signed up. Is that a one-time club or is that $1,000 a year? BASED ON THE 375,000 GOAL, WITH THE ARCH HOUTEN FIGURE OF 138,000 RAISED, WE'RE STILL $237,000 SHORT. BASED ON THE 375,000 GOAL AND THE NUMBERS PRESENTED IN THE COUNCIL PACKET OF $300,028 AND $27, WE'RE STILL SHORT $46,973. And not to be a wet blanket, but many of you know I was involved in a campaign recently, and roughly a third to a half of we'll get you a check didn't come through. The second thing is, how does this help us going forward? Are we going to have long-term sustainable funding for the pool and parks, or are we just kicking the can down the road? Um, and the people who are very involved with the pool say that the band-aids and thank you for the band-aids can keep the door open until maybe November 1st. But after that, what then? And what about parks? Thank you all.

Okay. Thanks, Mark. Um, since council, I don't think has a copy of this testimony. They do. Oh, So I don't necessarily have to read this, but because we're talking about the pool I'm going to. So this is from Diana. It says, I am unsure as to where the decision-making process is at the time with regard to the state memorial pool being able to remain open to the area. As you know, it is the only pool in our area given that none of the schools have a pool. Several weeks ago, I contacted Ferris Lumber to ask about the possibility of pool support. I was referred to the Oregon Community Foundation, where a Ferris family member has created a fund committed to the area served by the pool, so I thought it's worth inquiring. Given that the WIPR fund only supports children, I was advised to pull out the percentage of usage by children from the total usage. I met with Howard and sent him my questions. He supplied me with the information last Thursday, which I summarized in the attachment below to show pool usage in an area by in-area and out-of-area. While there is a consideration for raising membership costs for out of area folks, I think that given the amount of out of area usage, this warrants careful consideration. I live out of the area and I'm in favor of raising prices to help, but just want to be realistic so we do not lose patrons for the lack of payment ability. And that's from Diane. So that concludes the public comment for tonight. And we're going to move on to consent agenda. And that's on page five, right? So it's the consent agenda from June 15th, city council regular session minutes, and then resolution number 26-018, which is accepting the abstract of election results from the May 19th, 2026 primary election. What would council like to do?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Sims.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Seconded. Councilor Petty.

Okay. There's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as submitted. Any further discussion? Okay. Alyssa, can you call the council?

Sure.

Councilor Hayes?

Yes.

Councilor Ortt?

Yes.

Mayor Quigley?

Yes.

Councilor Patty?

Yes.

Councilor Sims?

Yes.

Motion passes 5-0.

Thank you. I have two proclamations tonight, and one of them I'm going to apologize in advance for missing before July 4th, but that's because we didn't have a meeting prior to that time that I caught early enough. So, here's a proclamation by the City of Staten honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, whereas on July 4th, 1776, The Declaration of Independence established the founding principles of liberty, equality, and self-governance, affirming the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And whereas the year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, known as the semi-quincidental, providing an opportunity to reflect upon our nation's history, honor the sacrifices of those who have come before us and celebrate the enduring ideals upon which our country was built. And whereas throughout its history, the United States has grown and evolved through the contributions of people from all backgrounds and walks of life, whose efforts have strengthened our communities and advanced the promise of democracy. And whereas the city of Staten is enriched by its diverse and multicultural community, whose residents contribute unique traditions, experiences, and perspectives that strengthen the fabric of our city and reflect the continuing story of America. And whereas civic engagement, volunteerism, and public service are essential to preserving democratic values and building strong communities, and residents of Staten demonstrate those ideals through their commitment to one another and to the future of our city. And whereas the city of Staten recognizes This historic milestone is an opportunity to celebrate our nation's heritage, acknowledge the resilience and contributions of its residents, and inspire future generations to participate actively in civic life. Now, therefore, I, Brian Quigley, Mayor of the City of Staten, Oregon, on behalf of the State and City Council do hereby proclaim the year 2026 as America's 250th Commendative Year, and encourage all residents to join in observations observances, celebrations, service projects, and moments of reflection that honors our nation's history. Celebrate our presence and inspire our future.

That's one.

And the next one is in regards to National 9-0. So, 43rd annual National Night Out, whereas the National Association of Town Watch sponsors a national community building campaign on Tuesday, August 4th, 2026, entitled National Night Out, and whereas the National Night Out campaign provides an opportunity for neighbors in Staten, Oregon, to join over 38 million neighbors across 17,000 communities from all 50 states, U.S. territories and military bases worldwide. And whereas National Night Out is an annual community building campaign that promotes strong police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer or cutting places to live and work. And whereas neighbors in State and Oregon assist the State and Police Department through joint community building efforts and support National Night Out 2026. And whereas it is essential that all neighbors of State and Oregon come together with police and work together to build a safer Our caring community and now, therefore, I, Brian Quigley, do hereby call upon the citizens of Staten to join the Staten Police Department and the National Association of Town Watch in supporting the 43rd annual National Night Out on Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. First, let it be resolved that I, Mayor Brian Quigley, do hereby proclaim Tuesday, August 4th, 2026 in the city of Staten as the 43rd National Night Out. Thank you. All right. Two long ones, but we got it done. All right. Is there any presentations tonight? No. Any public hearing?

Nope.

All right. It was on a general business. And this is what most people are waiting for, the parks and pool funding options following the levy failure. Julia?

Yes. Thank you. In your packet is a memo where I am providing an update on both the pool and the park. And we'll start with the pool. Essentially, when the levy did not pass, we had a shortfall from the revenue that we would have received from the tax levy. Since that time, we've received a combination of donations, pledges, additional revenue, assumed additional revenue from some fee increases that we're hoping council adopts later on this evening, as well as assumed increases from swim team contributions, which I have had initial conversations with the swim team coaches and they are understanding of that need. We also anticipate additional revenue from the insurance program. As we have been mentioning all along, the revenue assumed for the insurance programs was much lower than we're actually seeing in part because of some billing issues and an audit. And so we're seeing much, much more revenue than we had budgeted for the insurance program. And then we anticipate renegotiating those contracts as well. And then sponsorships, Mr. Cronquist had asked about this. This is an assumed sponsorship, potentially a low end. I'm envisioning opening it up to say like four slide room sponsors for $5,000 each and uh swim lane sponsors for one thousand dollars each for a total of ten um that's a minimum we we might see if we can do some more but i i believe that's attainable so we anticipate between what we um have received as of the writing of this memo which our pledges are just a little bit more than that since then um a total of 292 675 dollars in revenue that we did not assume in the budget And then we also identified some cost savings. We had a larger fund balance than we had budgeted. We had some salary savings when the former pool manager left, as well as some assumed savings through the next year because of where they were at on the steps, as well as some materials and service savings for a total savings of about $74,000. leaves the shortfall was $375,601. So that leaves a gap of $8,962. So with the contingency of $34,262, at this point in time, we do not have a shortfall with the pool. And so I do not need to ask Council for direction on alternate spending and I unless there is an opposition or a concern I would like to begin this week even tomorrow potentially offering swim lessons seeking the pledges to come in basically reaching out to the people that pledged asking them to fulfill their pledges so we can move forward and plan on the pool being open for the fiscal year, which will end June 30th, 2026. 2027, sorry. We will continue to monitor revenues very, very closely, and if we are looking or concerned that revenues are not coming in, pledges are not coming in as we anticipated, we will need to have additional conversations, but that is the plan right now for the pool. Any questions or comments on that?

Mr. Mayor. Councilor Sims, go ahead. Julie, I've got several questions. So the sponsorship potential of $30,000, there's no commitments yet? Is that what you said?

That's correct. We're planning on going out and seeking sponsors for that.

And the other question I have, the salary savings, you have a $27,000 and a $30,000. Where is that coming from?

So that is, there's some salary savings with just people, if we didn't have as many people as we anticipated. But the big one is with the pool manager, she was higher steps, she'd been here a long time, she had insurance, she had retirement, and so it's the savings associated with that position leaving, and we have a new person in there, but they are not at the same step and the same level as that person was.

So that's $57,000 right there?

That is what James has told me, yes.

Okay, all right. And the last thing I want to say is, I mean, we're going to be fighting this. I mean, we've got to come up with a long-term plan because this is – This is going to be this is not going to be successful. Absolutely recipe for keeping the pool open. So, I mean, we have some kind of have some deep discussions on. Absolutely.

And at the end of my memo, I list next steps. And that is absolutely the next step is that we we need to get the pledges fulfilled. We need to get swim lessons going so we can get the great, you know, part of this is that we we anticipated some grant funding as well. All of that needs to happen. People need to know that the pool's going to be open, so they want to renew their memberships. And very, very shortly, we need to be convening conversations about what those next steps are and what the long-term funding model is for the pool because, yeah, this isn't anything any of us want to do on an annual basis.

Thanks, Julie. And, Julie, I have some questions. So there's a lot of assumptions in these opportunities. I guess for me I'd like to start with what's the methodology to grant the scholarships to offset the cost for families that can't afford it?

So that's the $10,000. Salem Health has indicated that they would give that to us. I understand.

What I'm asking is how is it first come, first serve? How are you determining who gets that offset?

We have not outlined that as of yet.

And that's also based on the same number of lessons taking place, correct?

Correct.

We don't have it. Hold on a second. So I want to stand the footnotes for a minute here. There's a footnote says if we are unable to negotiate a sufficient amount, this is insurance. We will look at terminating insurance program. However, this requires 120 days notice in accordance with the contracts. That's an assumption again, correct? As far as the insurance funding on the footnote?

We have had preliminary conversations, and we are pretty confident that we will be able to negotiate those. And actually, Melanie just gave me some numbers today where we're comfortable that even without the increases, we're looking at about $35,000 in insurance revenues with the increases. It will be significantly more than that um we're we're looking at at least not quite doubling but um what they're currently paying so yes there are assumptions i guess i would say there's assumptions anytime you prepare a budget and you're then you go to monitoring and making sure that the budget assumptions um are realistic um We put a lot of thought into these. We don't just make them up. You know, there's a lot of detail behind the scenes that goes into that. But yes, there are assumptions.

Okay. The last council meeting, it's interesting that you all have this in here, but there's a reference to decrease the admin transfer by $28,000, and that is due, this is for the parks, I think, correct?

Yeah, in the parks.

All right, so I'll come back to that when we get there. Yeah, I'll hold it off for a second. Okay. Anybody else? Council Hort, is your thing working?

I think so.

There you go.

Okay. First of all, I'd like to thank the community for the support with the pledges, donations, and coming out to the event that we had. It was really inspiring to see people show up and essentially put their money where their mouth is. So thank you for doing that. We really appreciate it. Julia, I I'm curious to know what the methodology is as well for, like, if Salem Health has, I don't know the word I'm looking for, but if they have, like, their own stipulations on how the money, like, gets divvied out and whatnot for scholarships and how we're going to do that for, this is specifically for swim lessons.

Yeah, the application indicated that we would provide scholarships up to ten thousand dollars if I guess if requested or how we went how we ultimately decide what that process is I spoke with the person who's in charge of that and she basically said that there you know I need to let her know after this meeting whether or not we want to take them up on that and that we would pretty much

have the money there would be some reporting and some photos that we would need to do so we'll need to let them know how we spent the money but there's no really no stipulations as far as I understand okay and then just start clarifying for the insurance programs this the 30,000 additional revenues this is if we is this because we are we've affixed like accounting errors or because we're raising?

It's accommodation of, I wouldn't say accounting errors, processing where we are billing more accurately, we're ensuring we're getting paid more consistently, and that the people that are doing their check-ins are actually eligible to do the program, so we're getting reimbursed for them, and we're doing it according to processes and procedures, as well as some assumed increases.

Okay. That was going to be my question, if we are looking at negotiating.

Yeah, we already have been having those conversations of increasing those rates. then do and i guess i'll say based on the information that i um i got before this meeting um i honestly believe that thirty thousand dollars is probably a low number um so that we might be bringing in more revenue but i don't want to um i don't want to over assume and so that's you know that that's what we had that's based on the information i had when i prepared the memo okay

Just one more question. I know that you were talking about potential scholarships. Do we have, are we like in talks with anyone? Are we waiting to see if the pool is going to stay open? Where are we at with that?

Yeah, I didn't initiate any conversations because until I know that the pool is going to stay open, I didn't have those conversations. We didn't have those conversations. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Mayor? I had one other question about the insurance. So we're renegotiating the amount. I saw a letter recently from, I think it was Mrs. Chamberlain, on is that a viable option to have? So if the insurance pays, say, $250, can we do a surcharge and raise for the full amount?

My understanding is no. And it's more complicated than that. And we'll certainly explore that. But my understanding is no. But there are three different insurance programs that we have. And there might be some opportunities with the AARP one to do a little bit more. But with the other insurance programs, I don't believe so. And I don't believe that we can... say the insurance programs are only for state and residents versus everybody. And that's something ultimately we could have another conversation about. If we just say we just don't want to do insurance programs, we'll potentially make a lot more money. We'll also potentially lose patrons. That's a separate conversation.

Right. Is that something we can investigate, or would we talk to Ross about that? It's not a Ross question.

That's with the insurance companies, really, and I don't know. Melanie was the one that was doing a lot of the conversations with the insurance companies. It's not a... It's not a legal question. It's a contract with the insurance company question, but we can certainly explore that. I know questions have been raised of how do some programs like court something, they're able to charge a surcharge. And I think if there's certain programs where there's like a base level and then there's an extra level. And so I think that if you are part of the insurance program, but you want to do that extra, you might be able to charge for the extra level but I don't believe our swimming pool currently is. Another thing we could have a conversation about in the future is maybe we operate slightly differently where we charge some things for programs and state and residents are free and then that would be able to potentially give us the ability to to charge that difference, but we need to explore that a little bit more.

Yeah, I would like to have that investigated because I just, I don't feel $250,000 from insurance providers is not success in the long term.

Yeah, and that is not what we are assuming going forward.

Thanks. Anybody else?

Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Hayes.

Okay, so the $50,000 That's only for emergency or backup.

Yeah. And when I I've met with several of you guys last week and literally every time I met with somebody, the numbers got better and it was so initially I was thinking that I was going to ask that I was going to need to ask for a subsidy of up to that much. It's beginning to look more positive that we we probably won't need that. But I put that in there because I kind of had that in there. So I'm not, at this point, I'm not even asking for council's nod on that, because I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the numbers that we have for the pool.

And how, I know pledges mean you do not have the money in hand. Yep. And the thing that is, it's whoever's pledged, you know, the general confidence in the pledges. How do you feel?

I guess, honestly, I've never done a pledge program, so I don't have the same experience that Mr. Cronquist has. But these pledges came in for this purpose. We have their contact information. We have their information. And I would assume that they're going to come in as they promised. If they don't, We might have to have some conversations and or we might get additional grants. We might get additional revenues. So at this point, I don't have information to say we need a different amount of money.

Thank you.

Councilor Patte. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, I just want to say thank you to the community for putting this together. Like others, I think I can speak for everyone. I've been really surprised with what everybody's put together for donations and pledges. So just thank you to all who were involved with that. I also want to say a special thank you to staff for putting this together. It could not have been easy and it must have been daunting dealing with the different dynamics and staff dynamics at the pool as we go through this transitional time. The other thing I just want to kind of make clear is as we move forward, you know, we've sort of made comments towards this, but I really hope that we're all in agreement there needs to be a long-term sustainable goal of transferring this over to some sort of different financial mechanism to fund this. Because I truly don't believe that this pool is fully funded at what it needs for the funding level. I also think that the deferred maintenance is a huge liability to the city. Overall, I'm uncomfortable pursuing this, but I don't have a better idea and I think this is the best idea. so here we are and i also want to say i don't have a lot of questions tonight because julia has done a lot of work meeting with us to kind of answer a lot of the things that i was really concerned about already um i'm sorry you all couldn't have heard some of the dialogue that went back and forth but just suffice to say some of the things that you're a lot of the public is already highlighting here having concerns of ours i assume in mine And a lot of it's been addressed already. So I just want to say thank you, everyone, for coming tonight and also addressing it and having engagement here tonight. I really appreciate that.

Thanks. Julie, I might be missing it, but I don't see any reference to increased drop-in fees or increased fees from, is that in the next discussion?

So, those were already increased just per CPI when you updated the fee schedule. So, we're not proposing to increase those more. And when they were increased per CPI, they also were increased to 40 percent. So, they had historically been 35 percent and they're in the 40 percent. You can't, it's not perfectly 40 percent. I did do some, was checking that this afternoon. It's so that there's even numbers, and so sometimes it's 40, sometimes it's a little bit more than 40. But we're not proposing to increase those. It's really the swim lessons and the swim fee renegotiation as well as the insurance program.

Okay, so what you're saying is that that's already built into the pool budget if there is one.

It's built into the assumptions.

I think we should explore that because we had everybody at that meeting, all the multiple meetings that I attended, they were absolutely in favor of raising the rates.

And they're already at 40% of what the city's rates are.

I guess for me, again, some of these guesses, guesstimates, essentially, they're swags, I think.

I wouldn't say they're swags. I mean, they are educated estimates. They're based on a lot of detail and data that goes into them.

Okay, so let me give you an example. How do you come up with $30,000 for slide sponsor, lane sponsor, spit, and active sponsors?

Based on what I think that we could get. sponsorships for based on other things that we've gotten sponsorships for and what the community has gotten sponsorships for. And how many patrons utilize the pool, how many patrons from around the area utilize the pool. I think there's a very strong case for somebody investing $5,000 to get 20,000 sites in a year.

Okay. And who in the city has the capacity to oversee that? Are you going to do that or the pool manager? Who's going to do that?

It would be a collaboration of staff, me, other admin staff, as well as potentially pool staff, but probably me and my staff.

Okay. Should we, before council takes action on this, should we hear the next one on parks?

So just to be clear, there is an action that needs to be taken. I mean, unless you guys have a strong objection.

Well, you're asking for direction, right?

I'm asking if there's major concerns or opposition, but we can go through the parks. There's not an ask that I'm asking you to vote on. For the parks fund... That's a little bit trickier because we don't have thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars in pledges. That has a shortfall of $420,027. We identified how we can potentially fill that gap with a significant amount of cuts to the park expenditures that are outlined in the packet, and that's $328,027, covering a variety of areas, but we didn't feel like we could cut all of the funds out of that because we needed to have funds to continue operating the parks, albeit less than desired. The general fund subsidy we identified, we could cut $64,000 from the general fund through strategic cuts in police administration and planning, as well as some unbudgeted revenues through cost savings because of the streetlight project. I think I mentioned when we did the streetlight conversion project, we budgeted the expenditure, but we didn't budget the savings. So we're seeing additional or less costs every year or every month because we're not spending that amount on the streetlights. And then also decreasing the public works admin transfer by $28,000, and that would be through cost savings through a variety of positions as well as support services. So that's basically the proposal there. And that would require council action, not tonight necessarily. Not tonight. I don't have anything for you to take action on. But ultimately, there would need to be a budget amendment to authorize additional general fund subsidy from the general fund to the parks budget. So that will require council action. And the next steps with that is similar to the pool. But a separate conversation is really digging in and looking, you know, very closely at the park costs, whether or not there's other revenue sources, working with the Parks Board on sponsorship opportunities such as the, you know, are there disc golf sponsors? Are there facility sponsors in the parks? there fundraising opportunities things like that so we'll have to have conversations um going forward about parks park budget and what ultimately the long-term sustaining sustainable funding options there are for parks as well because this is not this is just a one-time cut given the shortfall okay um the last meeting i asked specifically about that city engineer vacant position

And I think at the time, Mr. Brand's position was he advocated to not take that money. What changed?

Conversations. And it's not all from that position. About $18,000 of that amount of the city engineer's salary is attributable to parks. And so that's why we kind of looked at what portions that are attributed to parks within the public works admin budget could potentially come out.

Okay. I just want to say I think this is a really challenging topic. The vast majority of the community benefits more from the parks than they do from the pool, in my opinion.

which is why we made it, you, council, made it very clear that you did not support any general fund subsidy going, any additional general fund subsidy going towards the pool, and that's what's in front of you is no general fund subsidy other than what's already been budgeted going to the pool, but we did feel like there needed to be some additional general fund subsidy for the parks to at least keep it operable given the shortfall that we have because of the levy failings.

Okay. What would council like to do here? I guess the last thing for me is I'm not in favor of prolonging this for 12 more months that we're going to face the same situation we did with the levy just a couple months ago. And I researched and there's a lot of ideas that have come up. And I went and researched the Park and Recreation District and I found what to do to get it going, but I can't commit to being the person that leads this. I think I can give this to Jack, maybe, and Jack can take a stab at it or something. He's backed in the back. But it's quite a process. It's spelled out in statute. It's right here, and it's going to take us a couple years to get it off the ground, if we can do it.

One of the things I want to do, again, pretty immediately, is start having these conversations, but with the pool, but also the parks, potentially having a summit, a speaker type thing where we're bringing people in from different funding areas. So bringing the CEO from the YMCA in, how do they do it, what are their solutions, bringing somebody in from an aquatic district that has formed within the past 10, 15 years. How did they do it? How's it working? Maybe bringing in other cities that have found some creative way of doing something to maybe throw more ideas on the table with the goal of, in my mind, we really need to have a very clear idea of how we're moving forward within six months, because then we need to be building our budget for the next the next cycle. So we need to know what we're doing. Certainly not, we can't wait a year, it's going to have to be in the next, you know, now to six months for us to really come up with a solution that can actually be, like the mayor said carried, like just having the idea doesn't get us there. It's that we actually have something that have to have something that can be done.

Mr. Mayor, That's for Sims. I do have a couple questions. So the maintenance budget, so we're having seasonal employees. Do we have two seasonal employees or one seasonal employee?

We have one seasonal employee.

One seasonal?

Yeah.

And we're not contracting out the mowing this year, are we?

That is correct.

Okay, so we're doing everything ourself since we have the seasonal employees. Okay, that's some cost savings I would imagine there. Okay, thanks.

Mr. Mayor, go ahead. I'd like to make something very clear, especially when it came to the levy that failed twice. Many residents, and Julia here had also mentioned it to me and such like that, and also talking with many is, again, not everybody wanting the extra taxes but another thing that you know comes up is how many people within the city who if they said yes are paying all the taxes towards the pool when you have so many people outside of staten who don't pay the taxes towards the pool and how do you get that this is where I don't see a levy ever working again because I believe they're all going to just say no again for the same reason. So the idea that there's got to be more outside funding some way somehow from the people who do live outside of state really needs to come in. And we need to see it as something being very solid.

Julie, I got another question. Yes. Reduce maintenance budget $70,000. This assumed Wilderness Park opened.

Yes.

I struggle with this because we didn't spend any money for Wilderness Park. I don't understand how we budget money that we don't have.

Because when we built the budget, we assumed that the levy was going to pass. And so we assumed expenditures based on that. And I think Councilor Ortt brought this up at the work session or one of the prior conferences. That's an easy one because it was money we didn't get and money we didn't spend, but it's still part of that shortfall that we have. So I could have taken all of those things out of the shortfall, but it's still part of that shortfall that we didn't, that was, you know, we budgeted that need. We didn't get the money. We don't have, for though that we don't have the need as well as the $6,000 for land and rent is related in the same way.

I guess I have a different opinion on that. It's a budget adjustment. It's not necessarily... If I decided to buy a Powerball ticket, and I'm going to have all these visions of grandeur and go spend the money on something, I don't get the money. I don't get the money, so I don't get this stuff. Is that really cut?

It's a... It's... we built a budget based on a certain amount of money. We built revenues or expenditures based on a certain amount of money. I've got a shortfall. That's part of the shortfall. If that wasn't ever counted in the revenue and it wasn't counted in the expenditure, we're at the same spot. So it's not a it doesn't need to be a cut because or it doesn't we don't need to cut more than that because we have that because we assume that revenue was needed.

And so we assume that that was in the first levy, right? The Wilderness Park was in the first levy.

Yes.

But the voters voted the second time. That was not in the second levy.

That's correct.

Okay.

But it's still a budget shortfall.

It was from the budget that we had made, right? Right.

right council so we do need to make a so i i don't need any motion i guess i um it is likely i guess and i there the the nice thing about this too is we don't have like a i don't have to do this for the next meeting but um we will be bringing if there is no objection um at some point in the near future a budget amendment to council to increase the general fund subsidy by 64 000 for the parks budget and we will proceed with the pool, getting swim lessons going, getting pledges called in, and doing all that we can to increase this even more. It'd be wonderful if we, you know, this is a fund, so if there's extra revenue, it rolls over into the next year, and that would be great if we're not having to have as deep a conversation as we're preparing our budgets. That would be wonderful. um and we will begin having conversations for both the parks and the pool um about next steps all right i have a question so julia if none of this or a percentage of this doesn't materialize in a month what's the timeline if it doesn't materialize then i will be having conversations with council about what we do next but i i do not believe that It's going to happen. I mean, I hope that the people that provided pledges and donations will come through. And if they don't, then we'll have to have tough conversations.

Mr. Mayor, how are we coasting now? What's that? How are we coasting now?

Well, we have money. We have general fund. We have revenues that come in. So it's not like the bank is dry. So I don't know, James, if you want to add anything to that.

It's just everything was supposed to end at the end of last month, and here we are now coasting.

Yeah, but that was half of the budget, not all of the budget. We don't need all the money at the same time. Exactly. Exactly. James, can you chime in on that?

Yeah, we're still getting the property tax income from the levy that does end. It did end in June 30. We'll continue to get property tax income actually for late payers, but yeah, that'll dwindle. That's the only revenue piece that has ended. The fees are increasing, so those fees will be higher than they were in the past, more than the original budget. We have pledges and donations that were not in the budget, so there are additional revenues as well.

The pledges, the donations, so we've gotten $17,000 in donations, a little bit more than $17,000. So even that, that's money in hand. And then the pledges, this is as of I think today, $151,685 in pledges.

But I think your question is fair. If the money isn't coming in as we plan, we may, you know, we may have a couple months short or a month short from our goal of keeping it open for a year. We'll know more as the year goes on and we'll continue to call on those pledges and may get more. But there's a lot of things at play, yeah.

Not yet. Hold on a second. You'll have an opportunity in just a minute. I guess to Counselor Patty's point, what if there's a capital issue from a maintenance standpoint? Then what happens? How do we fund that?

So there is the endowment that is... Yeah, the endowment has hardly anything.

I'm talking about a huge issue, pump or heater or whatever.

Okay. Well, how would we deal with it if we had the, I mean, we'll have to address that issue if it comes up. We only have whatever budget we have, and that wouldn't have changed if we had the tax levy or not. Depending on what the issue is, it might be paid for by insurance, you know, depending on what is going on. Okay.

All right. This is an opportunity for a public comment on this topic, so come on up.

Phyllis Bond, and I am an outside resident. I'm in the McClay area. And about the pledges, it's an interesting comment because I'm hearing it from both sides. The people who are making the pledges were willing to give the money if you keep the pool open. And then you say, well, you know, we need the pledges in order to keep the pool open. The other thing about a lot of the pledges that in my case, I have required minimum distributions from my retirement. And it has to go to a nonprofit, which we worked out to give to you guys. But if you... close the pool and you say, you know, we'll refund your pledges, then that becomes income for me and it creates a problem for me. So I don't want to give a pledge. I don't want to pay my pledge until you say you will open the pool. It's kind of like we're both talking about the same thing. You say, I'll open the pool, but you guys have to pay your pledges. And we're saying, well, I'll pay my pledges if you open the pool. So I really feel a lot of these pledges are true pledges. These are not haphazard decisions on our part. But if you keep the pool open, we definitely will pay our pledges. I think you can put that in the bank, at least in all the people I've been talking to. All right. Thank you.

Anybody else? Jack? Hold on, Jim. Jack, come on up.

Hi, council.

My name is Jack Burnett. I am the president of Friends of the Pool, also the president of the swim team. I want to thank all of you. This has been a lot, and I know it's a lot of decision-making and things like that. And I want to thank Julia. I know she has worked really hard to come up with a plan. I believe we can get behind this. I want to talk a little bit about next steps. We have a group of people that are willing to work on what you had in your hand there. I think if a legitimate plan for a levy for a short term might even be something to discuss. and the voters can look at if they also see that we're working on a longer term plan that takes it outside of the voters and doesn't put it just on the city people, but on the whole community that uses the pool. This is not an easy path. It's something we need to get going on, though, if we're going to have a pool. So I think there is a path here. It's going to take a little work. Thank you.

Thanks, Jack. Larry?

My name is Larry Chamberlain. I've lived in Staten for inside the city limits for 40 years. First of all, I'd like to thank the mayor and the staff especially who have shouldered a lot of the effort. I think the response of the community caused a real sea change in attitude of everybody and it became believable and now it's a reality that this summer we're going to have a pull. We all know that success or failure is around the corner depending upon how we all continue to push forward. But in reference to what Jack said, I'd just like to make the comment that it might seem premature to be talking about the next step, but all this is for naught if we don't pull off the next step. And I would just like to suggest to staff that there be some community involvement in figuring out what the next steps are. As Jack alluded, we may need an interim levy just so we can pull off the long-term aquatic whatever, I guess, zone or community involvement, that may take a couple of years. We're going to really need to think, you know, shift from short-term into long-term on this. And I think the advantage, and I saw it work with the public schools here when the high school was really having problems. The more people you involve in planning what direction you're going to go, the more of those people who live inside the city and talk to voters will talk to other voters about it. It's like you're having a whole group of ambassadors. So it's more unwieldy to deal with in the planning stage, but it's really effective in a small town. So thank you for your efforts. I think one of the major selling points to getting the if there is an interim levy to getting that passed, is for the voters to know that we have begun at least to effectively charge people outside the taxing district a little bit more. And I'm not saying it should be outrageous, but it needs to be notable enough that people talk about it. And I think that's going to be an advantage if there is a a levy next November, say, to get us through another year and a half, or a year, whatever, so that we can create this pool district out of the users of the pool. So anyway, congratulations. I think you guys are doing great. I think the supporters have done amazing. And I share Phyllis's opinion that those pledges are pretty solid. Thank you. Thanks, Larry.

Come on up, Jason.

I'm really confused because I went to all the meetings talking about what we can do to save the pool before the levy. I didn't hear any of these options. I didn't hear any of these financial things. I never heard any of that. What was put out to the public for the levy was, we have no money. And that's what we voted down. Council needs to think about What the next step is, if you do another levy there, everybody's going to use their brain and say, well, you figured out how to keep it open for a year. Why can't you continue that? It's a bad look. And I am pro pool, but it's a bad look.

Thanks. Anybody else before we move on to council discussion? Okay. I guess Julia doesn't need anything or just acceptance of what she proposed, I guess. So go ahead, Councilor.

I guess we're done with questions, aren't we?

Go ahead.

Okay, for the swim teams, this gets a little bit into the weeds, but I was talking to you guys about, like, charging a maintenance fee, like a yearly maintenance fee to the swim teams that can help with our maintenance issues. Is that something that's being considered with our negotiations?

No. Not specifically. We were really looking at what the annual or the monthly cost was going to be, and it was going to be for some of them a pretty significant increase. But can you elaborate a little bit more on what

you're thinking?

I mean, which kind of that fee goes into all of the budget, right? So it's not specifically for maintenance, but can you speak a little bit more about what you're... Sure.

So similar to, you know, my daughter does gymnastics at Athletic Edge, or I have a pool, or excuse me, a gym membership, and I pay my monthly, but then every year we have a maintenance fee, a membership fee, some sort of, it's a yearly fee on top of what you pay for classes, what you pay to...

I think we need to think a little bit more, and I think we need to talk more about that conceptually. Maybe that's something that is swim teams, swim lessons. I mean, I think we need to think about that as a little bit more holistically for all of the programs that we offer, but I think that's a... It's not being talked about specifically with the swim teams, but... it could be on the table for future. Okay.

Okay. Anybody else? Okay. So I have a consideration that I'd like to have counsel hear me out on for a long-term solution. James, what is the total general fund budget for the biennium?

I think you might have that number quicker than I do. I sent it to you earlier today.

I know, but I want the audience to know what it is. It's fine if you don't have it.

Sorry, I don't have it memorized.

What is the total police department budget for the biennium?

Again, I could look it up. The police department is about 50% of the general fund?

Correct. And that was, I believe, for the biennium, $6 million?

Approximately.

I want to make sure I'm clear here. This is in no shape or form a criticism of the police department, not in the least bit. This is an evaluation of our financial situation in our community. This is about quality of life in our community. This is about the pressure that's coming to our community. This is about the future residents coming to Staton. So I want to be crystal clear about that. We have to look at the general fund in a different manner. We have to look at where we could best utilize that money. I was always on the council, for the last time being on the council, and I'd always ask, what portion of the general fund goes to the PD? And I was always amazed by it. Again, I want to be crystal clear about this. I'm not targeting the police, but I want to have the option to look and see if there's a better way to do things for the structure of our community. And to me, that would be, we get lots of requests from outside to see if our PD could provide service to other communities surrounding us. I want to have us at least entertain the idea to have the county come tell us whether they could give us enhanced service or not. And that way, maybe they come to us and say, hey, here's what we would do. Here's what it would cost us to do that provides services to you. And if that's considerably less than what our budget is for the PD, why wouldn't we look at it? Why wouldn't we take those cost savings and apply it somewhere else we could use it? So I'm just floating that out there. Again, I want to be crystal clear that I'm not being an adversary to the police department because it's not me at all. I think we can do a collective approach to this. So I'm floating that for counsel. I'm asking counsel to at least consider that. There's no harm in asking the sheriff to come over here and see if he can even do it. And that way we could use that other general fund dollars for something else, i.e. the pool, the parks, the streets. And that's what I have to say.

Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. Yeah, I'll go first. I'd be all in favor of looking at the police department budget and seeing where there's any waste or cost savings, but losing local control of our police department is not something I will ever be in favor of. Thank you.

That's fine. I appreciate that. I will tell you that the struggles that we have currently from a structure standpoint Our recruitment is a revolving door and the chief will tell you that she spends most of her time recruiting officers only to have those officers turn around and go to Marion County or Linn County. And then again, it's a structured thing. Why do they do that? There's various reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is because they don't see opportunity within the department to move to specialties, canine, drug detection, detectives, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How do we, we've had that discussion. Chief and I sat with Julie and I asked, how do we change this? She asked me, how do we change this? And it's all making sense to me. With the added pressures coming, we're not going to be able to support the level of growth in this community. And I'll leave it at that. So what would council like to do with the rest of this? That was my idea for the future. I threw something out there. I want to have a long-term solution to this. And that's one way we can do there. At least review it. And if council says no, council says no. I respect that. But why would we not consider the options?

Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. We have our budget committee is meeting on August 10th. And I think that would be a great opportunity for us to... Obviously, this isn't us, you know, making our budget, but this is one of the reasons that I'm going to bring this up. Again, that we need to have, we need to put into our ordinance that we have to have a specific date every year that we're meeting for our budget committee for situations exactly like this. Because what we have stated here is that this is a Band-Aid, and we need to... be looking at our long-term solutions. And if the meeting is short and sweet and not needed, that's one thing, but having it every year is essential and very important, again, for this very reason. And I think that would be a great opportunity to hear from members of the public as well, to see what their thoughts are on different options and giving the gravity of the situation we're in, if they have suggestions on directions we should be taking now that we know where we stand with the pool and the park and moving forward.

And I'll also add that funding is hard. All cities are having challenges. All cities have issues with the general fund. And this is a conversation that needs to happen, needs to happen regularly. So I think having the conversation as we continue these conversations with the parks and pool funding, with the budget, with council goal setting, those are all things that we need to have the conversations about the philosophy of what's funded by the general fund, what's funded by other sources, and there's many cities that have different funding structures. I would say I'm not aware of any city that doesn't have some other funding structure beyond the general fund to fund those things that historically were funded by the general fund. Maybe it's a park fee, maybe it's a park levy, a public safety fee, a public safety levy. There's all sorts of things, but I'm not aware of cities that don't have some sort of funding, funding shortfall in some way or another.

Mr. Mayor? Go ahead. Yeah, as long as we're kind of talking about the police budget for now, I wanted to also highlight another option, short-term, that we've used in the past, and I believe you were on council, was when we were having the issues funding the PERS liability, we had to freeze one of the positions for a couple years. So I'm not advocating doing that. I'm just saying that is another option as far as short-term solutions, and that should probably be on the table if that's something that you're going to be raising.

Okay. All right. So does council want to do anything else other than let what was presented to us take effect? Is that what you're asking?

Is there any opposition to what I have presented to you?

Does council have any other?

Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Sims, go ahead.

Although it's not a perfect plan, it's not good for the long term. I mean, I think it's the best solution for right now. I think we can keep things open until we can figure some better choices out. So I'm definitely for moving ahead.

Okay. Looks like you have consensus, Julia. Is that all you were looking for?

Yes, thank you.

Okay. We're done with that. Let's move on to the next item, which is Second Reading of Ordinance Number 2604. I do want to say thank you all for coming.

you for the energy and the time you put into it it was a community effort so i really appreciate it and just for council's um information as well as the public um in anticipation of this we do have a press release prepared that will be going out tomorrow to say that so um you'll you'll be seeing this um that the that the pool will remain open through at least um june of 2027.

All right. That goes to the second reading of ordinance number 26-004, annexation zone change for property at 11641 Schaap Road. Jennifer?

Yes. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Jennifer Siciliano, the community and economic development director here in state and for the record. This is the, as you may recall, the public hearing was closed for May 18th and the council subsequently reconsidered their action at the June 15 meeting. Following that reconsideration, the council approved the annexation with high density residential. It wasn't unanimous and because of that it requires a second reading tonight. So no new testimony or evidence may be considered unless the record is Reopened and staff recommends approval of the Ordinance as written. Thank you.

Okay, I Only have one question is it appropriate for me to vote on this and say wasn't a voting member last time I

We do have Ross here virtually, and perhaps you can chime in on that.

Good evening. Mayor, absolutely you can vote. You were in attendance for all of the meetings, and we're here for all the testimony, so you are very qualified to vote. Okay. And this can be your first vote.

There you go. Okay. Thank you, Ross. All right. Council, what would you like to do here?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Sims.

I move to approve ordinance 26-004, approving the application of Kevin and Paige Butler for annexation. Land use file number 10-08-25 is presented by staff.

Okay. I'll second that, actually. Which means there's been a motion and a second to approve of the application and enact ordinance number 26-004 as presented. Any further discussions? Alyssa, can you call the council, please?

Sure. Councillor Sims?

Yes.

Councillor Paddy?

Yes.

Mayor Quigley?

Yes.

Councillor Ortt? No. Councillor Hayes?

No.

Motion passes 3-2. Okay.

Ordinance number 26-006, amending Chapter 8.04 of the State and Municipal Code to regulate off-road vehicle noise. Chief?

I'll have Chief Johns come up. It's listed as both of us, so I wasn't sure if you were planning on doing a presentation or I... I'll start, basically. As you know, at the last council meeting, you received a lot of testimony as well as even this evening you received testimony from residents concerned about off off-road vehicle noise staff WENT BACK AND FORTH A LITTLE BIT ON WHERE THE BEST PLACEMENT IN THE CODE WOULD BE AFTER CONSULTING WITH LEGAL COUNSEL. IT WAS DECIDED THAT THE NOISE ORDINANCE WAS THE BEST PLACE. AND I WILL POINT OUT, SORRY, CHIEF, I'M FEELING ALL YOUR THUNDER. just because Mr. Larimer had a question about it. The noise ordinance is really written so that it's all of the above or any one of these things. If they're not met, then it's a violation. So he was concerned about the three hours between the hours of 7 and 10. That wouldn't apply in his instance because the The property is within 100 feet of any other property line. So having that ability within the city, if there is a place within the city that meets the other criteria, they could potentially operate for a limited number of hours. So I just wanted to highlight that. Chief, did you have anything else that you wanted to add?

Yeah, I was just going to acknowledge Mr. Larimer's concern, much like you did. It hinges on the word or. So all the clauses are kind of independent of each other. So it would fit your scenario and what you're trying to accomplish. But we do have some bigger parcels in town, for example, a 32-acre parcel. Would it be reasonable to restrict someone in that scenario? And so that's why we have the three-hour clause and some other clauses in there to better address all of that. And I did want to thank Stephanie Hartman, who brought up the fact that yes, this does take a lot of time. We had our supervisory staff looking at it and as Julia mentioned, kind of looking at which ordinance it would best be addressed and then dealing with city hall staff as well as our attorneys because This is an ordinance that we've had for years and years and years, and when we change it, I assume we'll have it for a number of years. We know that city administrators, police administrators previous to us looked at it about 12 years ago and didn't make any changes because sometimes you get some unintended consequences. So we are trying to look at it from a lot of different avenues. How is the guy dragging the baseball field to prep it for the game? First responders responding to emergency situations. We've got the fire department. And so we think that we came up with a good conclusion to amend it that fits what we're looking for and looked at some different things so we don't have unintended consequences and that this would be held to the test of time.

Councilman, any questions? Does that clarification work for everybody?

So I just had a question. The 100 feet, so the size of the property we're talking about, so they ride from even within that three hours, they're going to be within 100 feet of another property line?

Yeah, so it says within 100 feet of any property line. Right, so it's... for this scenario that we're talking about, as opposed to the 32-acre property, right, that we're restricting that distance.

Does anybody remember the size of this property? Is it an acre and a half? Is that what I remember?

I can say that I've done the measurements, and I do not believe that it would be possible to be anywhere on the property that's 100 feet from a property line and do much writing at all.

Okay, that's my concern. I mean, three hours, you can terrorize people with all the noise. So. Okay, thanks.

Hold on. There's one comment. Any questions? Go ahead, David.

Yeah, it's not specific to the code. I'm just more concerned about public engagement with this. Has anyone reached out to this fellow to let him know that we're looking at the code and changing it literally because of some of these issues that they've presented to his neighbors? I mean, just maybe I'm thinking from a weird vantage point here, but if this was me, I'd probably rethink my actions if this is what was in hand for me.

You know what I mean? I'm just curious. He was issued a citation for his behavior.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about us changing the code tonight. That's what I'm talking about.

It's on agenda. That's my take. Are you asking, do we contact him directly, say we have a public hearing and all that? Yeah.

Did we contact him? I did not.

Okay. Anything else before I let public comment? Yes. Go ahead, Councilor.

Is the 100 feet, because I know that Marion County has something similar? Correct. Is that in line with what they have?

I believe it is exactly what they have. I think that we modeled pretty closely.

We've been looking at this an awful lot in addition to some other code amendments we're doing, but I believe it's in line with that and then it fits our current situation.

So that ordinance that they have doesn't apply to within city limits, within any other city limits?

No. So our jurisdiction is city of state and police department. So they would not come into the city and enforce their code. They would have to cite it into the circuit court. And so their jurisdiction is county that is not covered by a municipal city. So, for example, county doesn't go into Almsville and enforce county rules. Almsville is in charge of that. So county covers jurisdiction that's not covered by another municipality, if that makes sense. Yes.

Thank you.

first and foremost i did a very i did a lot of research on this big time i went google maps i wanted to find the property that is incredibly unique where that is but it's still dead in the middle of a residential area the noise ordinance basically is So nobody's mowing their lawn at two in the morning. There's allowed their sleep time, things like that. But where I was getting really upset about this is how many times in my younger days playing in a rock band and we needed the garage and how many times the cops got called on us. We claimed the ordinance and they go, no, this is excessive and it's disturbing the peace. And it's not applying to them. Because it is in your ordinance, amplified noise. So my question to you is, if I'm in my garage and I take my 120 watt PV amp and crank that sucker up, do I throw the ordinance at you? Because you let these people over there on FIDA get away with it. Because they didn't get sighted properly. That's my big issue with this.

No, it's not that they didn't get cited properly. They got cited and the ordinance doesn't fit the scenario that they were cited under according to the judge's review. And some of the language is what is causing it to not be in violation. So we have to look at the code word for word. And initial responses to the resident, it was explained by the officers that it didn't fit code. It was revisited after the number of complaints that we had, and there was a belief that it might fit. It was pushed forward. The judge reviewed it, and it didn't fit in the judge's ruling. So there's a problem with the code to address this issue. We've been asked by counsel to address that and amend the code and that's what we're doing.

And amplified noise is different than what this is. So if you have an amplifier and you're amplifying the sound, that is against the noise ordinance. Of course it is because it's in it. Right, but this is not amplified.

Okay. So my problem is this is very – I can't believe we have to get this technical and petty about it. Seriously.

Okay.

But okay, let's do it.

We're doing what we're directed by a council. You're good.

You're good. Okay. Mr. Muir. Councilor Huert.

So this addresses a specific issue. And I completely understand that we asked you guys to address this specific issue. Are there concerns, like going back and looking at this and the ability to be able to cite I mean, really nuisance noise, but a lot of this is specific things, but what happens when one person talked about retaliation from neighbors? Is there any recourse that anyone has in regards to noise if there's believed retaliation because of And not even this specifically, but...

I'm not understanding your question.

So if someone is...

Right now, it is not against... It's not a violation, what he's doing. If the code is passed and it's a violation, then we can enforce the code. I'm not understanding your question.

And if they do it... to retaliate, it's still a violation of the code. And if they are doing it consistently, then I guess it would ramp up in terms of enforcement. Okay.

I have an example. So K on page 48 says, the making of noise by crying, calling, or shouting. or by means of whistle, rattle, bell, gong, clapping, horn, hammer, drum, musical instrument, or other device for the purpose of advertising goods, wares, merchandise, and attracting attention or inviting patronage of a person to a business. But if you're doing all those things, but you're not trying to get someone to your business in like an excessive way, is that not something

So when we're called to a situation, we're going to address that situation and how it applies to our code. So it's very difficult to get into what ifs of if this does that. So if we get called and it fits the code and it's a violation, then we can address it.

And it's possible that it could be something that's not a noise violation if there's a harassment. I mean, there's other things in the code besides noise that if some, you know, and they'll look at any, every situation based on its unique circumstances and determine whether or not there's a violation. So, if there's disturbing the peace, harassment, threatening, there's all sorts of things that could apply depending on the circumstances.

Okay. Are we done with the staff issue? I'm going to have public comment if we do. Stephanie, you got something to say?

So our neighbor is very retaliatory, as I'm sure you guys know, in our several calls to the dispatch. He told me he did not care. He yelled at me from across the fence and said, I do not care. I do not care what you think. I don't care who you call. I am doing this for my daughter. I put her on my motorcycle and I ride her around because it makes her happy. So I have a video of him riding his daughter around on his property. She has no helmet, whatever. And the more we call and the more that the police department visited, the more often it became. He was out there more. He would rev it up more. Now he's up to three. He's got two buddies that come there all the time. So just I do appreciate all the work that you guys have done. I just know this, even if you guys respond and write him a citation, he does not care. So what I'm asking is what do we do at that point?

Right, so I'm sure he doesn't care because he knows he's not violating the code and he can't be financially or court-consequenced. It may change when he can be because I believe after he was issued the initial citation, he stopped until he went to court. Right. So, we just kind of played out. We're going to address it through the code as requested, and if he violates the code, we will address that. I mean, you're saying retaliatory, and I understand the nuisance. I understand the disruption to your life. But he's playing within the rules right now, right? Right. And once those rules are changed, he's going to have to decide if he's playing within those rules or he's challenging those rules and if he wants to deal with the consequence.

And we were also told by an officer the officer had to see it or he had to witness it or hear it. to be able to write a citation?

So within certain violations, that's true. That's not going to work. And that's fine. And there's ways that we can address this and we can work through it. But first, we have to have the code to deal with that. So there are other options. And as we get calls to those, there have been calls where the officer has witnessed it. And if we had a code to support it, we could deal with it. It's hard to what if the whole situation, right? If he's writing as frequently as you say, we get the call, we go respond, and we take care of it. And it may be an education piece. Him knowing that he's now violating and he doesn't want to get a ticket and he doesn't want to appear before the judge. that may end it right there.

So when Mr. Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry, just a point of order. This is public comment. And so I'm going to make sure that you have the discretion that generally public comment is directed to council and then staff speaks if council directs rather than having the conversation.

I got it.

So anyways, I just want to thank you for all your time that you put in.

Okay, thank you. All right. Looks like Sergeant Butler.

Dean Butler, State and Police Department. Councilor, to answer your question about where the ordinance came, so Marion County has an ordinance for ATVs that is enforceable within urban development zones. So like our urban development, City of Staten's property, that's where that's enforceable. It's not enforceable county-wide, just in urban development areas.

Okay. Council, a discussion further? You have a comment? Okay, one real quick.

I'd like council to ask the police if this ordinance passed, is it still up to their discretion to enforce it? Because I had a situation at my neighborhood where it was up to the police's discretion to cite or not. multiple times in one night after curfew, after hours, and nothing happened. So to me, it's up to the officer's discretion. Is that going to happen again?

Thanks. I think it's always up to the officer's discretion, at least from my training, but there you go. Larry, got one more question or statement? Go ahead.

This is getting too technical. my hearing is not good but are you saying that our neighbor can run his motorcycle three hours a day okay what go ahead clarify that for me so um just yeah to clarify in the code it is um there are one two three four

Five things that are a violation of the noise ordinance as it relates to off-road vehicles. One of them is if you exceed three hours. Another one is if you are less than 100 feet from the property. So it doesn't have to be any one of those five could be a violation of the noise ordinance as we are proposing to amend it.

How do you plan on policing this? Are you going to take his word? I've only been out here two hours, and he's actually been out there four hours.

I guess you're not, I guess, let me clarify it for you, Larry. Since your property line is with 100 feet of his property line, he's in violation of the ordinance.

Even with the three, if he's out there, he's in violation.

There's four different criteria for the statute. Am I saying it right, Chief?

Correct. Right. If it's amended.

Yep, so this is covering all the options, essentially.

So if he's out there tomorrow running his motorcycle.

Not tomorrow.

I mean, well, that's another thing. We'd, of course, like to have it enacted soon. But to me, it just seems like we've wasted a lot of people's time with this type of thing. If you're going to let him get away with it, you're going to, he's going to get away with it.

So we need to change the code.

You need to take that line out with the three, just take that one.

So the three hours doesn't apply to him. The three hours doesn't apply to him because he's less than a hundred feet from a property line. So he will violate if he runs his motorcycle within a hundred feet of the property line, regardless of how long he's running it for. So the three hours is for somebody else, somewhere else on town, across town that's 500 feet from the property line and he has the ability to run it. In this particular instance, your concern will be a violation because he's less than 100 feet from the property line. Yes.

Larry, I think what they're trying to do, they try to encompass all the options within the code. And since your line of property is right on his line, that's less than 100 feet, it takes care of that.

Okay.

That makes sense.

I just was thinking there's going to be a loophole here, and we're going to be right back where we were. So we're counting on you. Just raise your hands if you'd like this in your backyard. Yeah. Nobody. Thank you. All right.

Thanks, Larry. All right, Council. I'm going to move on. So what do you all want to do here? Council discussion anymore?

Basically, everybody whose backyard is facing that property, this needs to go through. and get that 100 feet taken care of. So that way, when they just start it up and go, they're in violation. It's done. They're in, like I said, it's a unique property, but it's still a residential area. It's not like they have a big field behind their house.

Okay, let's move on with this. Let's move on with the decision here.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Sims.

I move to adopt ordinance number 26-006, amending chapter 8.04 of the state and municipal code to regulate noise caused by the use of off-road vehicles.

Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Let me get to it. Mr. Mayor. Go ahead, Councilor. There's a motion and a second. Do you want to talk about it under discussion?

Yes. Okay. One, I feel rushed with this. No, and I'm just talking about, like, talking about it. Like, because people agree with it, you're rushing it, whereas we have been able to have conversations. To Counselor Patti's point, Can I just say, like, I don't necessarily disagree with this, but if it's right, it's right. We have been upset previously because people that issues that we're talking about have not been invited to the room when it's specifically talking to them. And again, this isn't like, I agree with this. I really do. But also we didn't invite the people to the room. I would be upset, too, if this was my neighbor. I would absolutely be upset. I completely understand that. But we have gotten upset when there have been conversations and the people have come to us and said, we didn't know about this. You were speaking directly about our organization, about our issue, about our property, and we didn't tell them. And I...

Okay, there's a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion?

For that reason, I'm going to be a no, not because I don't agree with this, but because I don't.

Okay. I. Gotcha. Mr. Mayor. Councilor Pat. I'd like to discuss further. Thank you. Yeah, to her point, I think that we should have engaged with this. I'm hearing what I'm hearing. I don't know the fellow. I don't even know his name, quite frankly, except Mr. Noyes. But just on a community engagement standpoint, I want everyone in this town treated fairly and equally, and I'd want this person contacted. I think that this code will serve our purpose, and I think that we need to get it moving to help these people. While he wasn't contacted, I'm disappointed. I'm still going to be a yes on this. I think these people need the help. I'm just concerned going forward that we're not reaching out to people. And like Councillor Ortt said, having everyone with a seat at the table.

Okay.

Appreciate that.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor.

I know we're in. Can I ask a clarifying question?

Go ahead.

If this doesn't pass unanimously, we have to bring it back. That is correct.

Okay.

All right. For the sake of needing this to pass, obviously, because this is an issue, I'm going to vote yes. But the next time something's brought forward... that we haven't, and it's specifically speaking about an issue which you had a problem with, Mr. Mayor, with previously, I will be voting no on it if we are not directly engaging with the people that this is affecting.

Okay. There's a motion and a second to adopt resolution number 26019 as presented. Any further discussion? Alyssa, will you pull the council?

Yes.

Councilor Hayes?

Yes.

Councilor Ortt? Yes. Mayor Quigley?

Yes.

Councilor Patty? Yes. Councilor Sims? Yes. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, thank you. That brings us to Ordinance No. 26-007, amending the State Municipal Code Title 1016, related to towing, storage, and impoundment of vehicles.

Mr. Mayor, the fee schedule is next.

Oh, sorry. Oh, okay. Backtrack ordinance. Never know. Scratch that. Resolution number 26-019, amending the 26-27 fee schedule.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. For the record, James Brand, City's Finance Director. This resolution is amending the fee schedule again. We just updated the fee schedule, as you probably remember, recently. Those fees went into effect July 1st. What we're doing here is amending three sets of fees. One is the SDCs. We're adding an inflationary factor. This is customary. We do every year, but we have to wait for that index to be published. So we have that. It's going to be an increase of 2.8% for all of five of the city's SDCs. Secondly, we are going forward with the swim lesson increase, as Julia's proposal indicated. This resolution does exactly what was in her plan. It basically doubles the rate from the previous year's swim lesson rates. And thirdly, Public Works Department pointed out that our fee schedule is missing the grading permit fees. These fees were enacted in a resolution in 2023. And they just never got into the template for the fee schedule. So they were inadvertently dropped. So we're adding those back. The details are in your packet. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any. OK.

Was there an opportunity for public comment? Okay. Council discussion?

Ms. Murray.

Council Ortt?

Someone I was talking to today, specifically regarding pool fees, they live outside of the city limits, and now that we don't have a levy that the city or patrons that live in the city are paying for, they wanted to know if the rates were going to change in either direction because now we don't have a subsidy from the... I'M NOT SAYING I AGREE WITH THIS. EITHER WAY, I'M JUST BRINGING IT UP BECAUSE IT WAS BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT NOW THAT WE DON'T HAVE A LEVY, THERE IS NO, YOU KNOW, FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM TAXPAYERS INSIDE THE CITY.

COUNSELOR ORR, ACTUALLY, JAMES BROUGHT THAT UP A WHILE AGO. I WOULD ARGUE THAT THERE STILL IS A SUBSIDY BECAUSE WE'RE providing a subsidy from the general fund so the taxpayers are still contributing through their general fund taxes thank you wait wait a minute can you repeat that counselor can you repeat what what that feedback was please

Okay. So the feedback was that this person lives outside city limits and they pay the non-residential fee, which is higher obviously than the resident fee. But the resident fee is because we have the levy. So while I see your point about the general fund dollars, the levy is the reason that we have a resident and a non-resident.

Okay. Just an observation. I'm not going to comment on that. All right. Council, anything else? There was no public comment, right? Okay. We are on, what would Council like to do on this? 26-019. Mr. Mayor. Council Ortt.

I just want to know if we, if raising these, if we're in line with other, um, like for the swim lesson fee, um, we're on the high end where I would say we're, we're in, we're in line, but on the high end, um, I think that with having the ability to provide, um, some scholarship opportunities that helps, but we're, um, we're not low at all. We were okay.

Okay, council decision. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Paddy. Ready for a motion? Oh, I need a motion. Yes, please.

All right. Motion to approve resolution number 26-019 as presented. Second. Okay.

Motion and a second to approve resolution 26-019, amending the 26-27 fee schedule. Alyssa, can you fill the council?

Sure. Councillor Sims? Yes. Councillor Patty?

Yes.

Mayor Quigley?

Yes.

Councillor Ortt? Yes. Councillor Hayes?

Yes.

Motion passes 5-0.

All right. That leads us to ordinance number 26-007, amending state and municipal code. Related to towing, storage, and impoundment of vehicles. Chief?

I think Sergeant Butler is going to be doing this. Oh, got it. Butler.

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you is Ordinance Number 26-007, Amending State and Municipal Code Title 16, related to towing and storage of vehicles. Whether or not to adopt the ordinance to amend State and Municipal Code 10.16. In the past, the city has charged an administrative fee, and we're allowed to charge an administrative fee under ORS 809.720. We stopped charging the fee after some state and federal court cases where courts ruled that it violated the Fourth Amendment, unlawful search and seizure of property. The courts ruled that a vehicle is property. While we can still impound for certain reasons, we needed to have a methodology for the administrative The administrative fee allows us to collect some of the cost officers have in impounding vehicles, conducting the inventory, standing by for the tow, entering the vehicle into leads as an impounded vehicle, and the removal.

The fiscal impact.

Let me back up. So on the tow fee, there's currently a $125 administrative fee that's already in our fee structure. Reviewing this, staff believes that that is an appropriate fee to charge for the time officers spend with the vehicle. The fiscal impact to the city is unknown, but there is the ability to cover officer costs. while they're conducting those certain operations under statute. Okay.

And I was just going to weigh in that we're revisiting this also because we've done a policy rewrite on the standards to tow and impound a vehicle. We understand the consequence of Towing someone's vehicle is very significant. We want to be reasonable and responsible in that, but also measure it against the consequence and significant impact on our community of suspended, uninsured, impaired drivers on our roadway and our community and the safety to our public.

Okay. Council, any questions?

Mr. Mayor?

Go ahead.

Maybe I missed it. Did you say what the fee was?

I didn't hear that. Is there a flat fee for this?

Yeah.

It's $125.

$125. Okay. I didn't hear it. Okay. Thanks. I missed the opportunity for public comment. Anybody have public comment?

Okay. So I've stayed on, not spending as much time with my grandbaby as I'd like. ...of area checks and traffic enforcement. So... Would I love to be at 17 like Silverton? That would allow us a SRO and a traffic and a detective. Amazing. We're at the staffing levels we're authorized.

Medium density instead of high density. If we can have that discussion.

You asking for to have one?

Well, yeah. I want to know if you guys are interested in having that. I'm not saying if you agree with it. I'm asking if you are open to having that discussion.

I could say that the Planning Commission is having some discussions about updating the codes. And I think they're talking about townhomes and cottage clusters. And so maybe that will happen through those conversations anyways. Lovely.

I talked about this before, but I would like to have a budget committee, like have an ordinance for a budget committee every year. I would love to see where we're at with that. And then I just want to reiterate, if we're talking about an issue that specifically involves certain people, organizations. Obviously, we have land use issues where we have obligations to reach out to property owners or certain people. And so I know that we do that because we have to. But again, we're here for the community. And so I think it's really important to have that. We talk about community engagement. I think it's important that if we have stakeholders that are involved, that we at least give them a heads up that something is happening.

Pastor Patty, anything?

Okay. Anything else, folks, for the good of the order? All right. Thank you.