City Council - Regular Meeting

That's a lot. I wanted you guys to be ready. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Hello. Yeah. That's that. One second. One second. Well, I think as far as I can see, nobody says anything about it. Okay.

Okay.

I'm gonna start with that when we get to the slides, whatever.

Okay.

I will now call this meeting to order at 6.32. Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councilor Irvin.

Here.

Councilor Heintz. Here. Councilor Lammerman.

Here.

Councilor Maraday. Here. Councilor Settlemyer.

Here.

Councilor Wilson.

Here.

Mayor Solsby.

Here. I'll rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the public, we stand one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Items to be added to the agenda. There are none. Special presentations. Item A, Cleveland property update. Public works director, Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council. So this presentation is to just update the city council on the status of city properties that are sold or either up for sale. I'll start with the Cleveland Street property. On September 21st, 2023, the city purchased the Cleveland property from Dina McCoy for $2.9 million. And in the first year, four acres of that property was sold to Hemlock Springs for $560,000. We currently have a signed purchase and sale agreement with Hayden Homes for 1,292,000. And this offer is a four-phase offer. The first phase, which is projected to be 26 lots, Their first payment will be $320,000. And we expect that to be in October of 2026. Once they are able to record their plat, final plat, then they'll be obligated to make the payment. And we're currently in review of that plat. So things are moving along fairly well and we expect to meet that timeline. And then a year later, no more than a year later, they're expected to pay for phase two, which is essentially another $320,000. And then a year later, phase three would roll in 36 lots of the 320,000. And the final phase four is estimated at 35 lots. And the final payment would be around $332,500. for that grand total of $1.292 million. We also currently have approximately five acres of property that hasn't been divided into a formal lot yet. We're in the last stages of doing a lot line adjustment, which will finalize Hayden's phase four and create this additional approximately five acre lot. And at this time, the city council has dedicated that five acres to be dedicated to low income or affordable housing. So once that lot is completed, we'll come back to city council to get your guidance on direction for seeking proposals for that parcel. And that consists of the 35 acres that's on the east side of the Coastal Park. On the west side of the Coastal Park River, there's 26 acres that is zone industrial land. And we have been currently working with legal counsel on a purchase-sell agreement with a developer that at the present time looks like all goes well. We're bringing that purchase-sell agreement to city council, the first meeting on July 13th. And that purchase sale agreement is right now being drafted for 3,442,000. And so once we get that in place and we get all the parcels sold, we should experience some resources above. The current debt on the Cleveland property is $2,559,554. So the sooner we can get these lots sold, the sooner we get the cash in, the less interest we'll be paying on those payments. Any questions on the Cleveland property and the status of those lots?

Any questions? Councillor Urban.

Thank you. There's the initial purchase amount. Can you quantify the additional investment or what we expect to have as all in costs from the city? not counting that five acres.

Mayor, Councilor, I'd have to get back to you. This is part of that. We received $3 million for infrastructure installation into that. I'd have to get the number of what the city has actually physically paid for the upgrading of the street because street upgrades were not allowable for through the state funds and we used SDC street funds to pay for that. I can bring that number back to you. I don't want to tell you when a number is off the top of my head. That's all right.

Anyone else?

Yeah. So next I listed the Cottage Grove Industrial Park properties. This is the industrial park south of town along Highway 99. Currently, there are two lots that are for sale. We have lot 1400 at 6.45 acres, and it's currently listed with Campbell Commercial for $940,000. And then lot 16 is a 3.5 acres, which is approximately 2.36 acres are developable, and it's listed for sale for 359,806. We did have lot 600 listed for sale. That's the tier dropped 1.17 acres that I shared with city council at the last meeting. I'm building a self-serve RV dump and portable fill station. And we expect that parcel to be bought by the utility funds, which will reduce the amount of debt currently owed. And so presently in the industrial park, The debt owed on those parcels is 718,101. It's broke down even further, 562,238 is the larger parcels, the 3.5 and the 6.5 acre parcels. And the... remainder is a $155,863 USDA loan that was for the original construction of that industrial park. And that is the resources that we will apply from the utility reserves to pay for, to purchase that final parcel. Any questions on the industrial park? thank you mayor um were the industrial park loans ones that could not be paid off early were they the so there's yeah so so it's my understanding is the um actual the the property portion that's workman i believe that that could be paid off sooner if we had the cash, but the $155,000 portion of the loan that is through the USDA is set payments and we can't pay that one early. So the resources that we would sell from parcel 600 would go into a fund that would service that debt until it was paid for.

Anyone else?

And then we have the former shelter site at 2205 Highway 99. This is a 0.6 acre site zone residential commercial. It is currently listed with Campbell Commercial for $350,000. And the proceeds of that, there is no debt owed on that parcel and the proceeds from that would go back into the general fund. And the final piece of property that's been discussed is the Douglas Avenue property. This is a parcel that is adjacent to the Public Works property and currently has been used by Public Works for storage or is currently being used for storage. for public works items. The BMD committee has a storage unit on it, and then it's also acted as the impound yard whenever the police department has to impound an RV. That's where we store them until they're released for demolition through the DMV. Presently, there's no Staff is not recommending selling this parcel as is being used right now for city purposes.

Questions?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Item B, third quarter budget update. Interim Finance Director, Eric Kytola.

do the third quarter update starting with uh the revenue and the enterprise funds first we'll look at the water fund which is um basically right on track with 75 percent of the revenue being collected uh 75 percent of the way through the year so that's right on track wastewater um Let's see, wastewater. One of my sheets says 70%, but overall, the wastewater fund has received 74% of all of the revenue. 70%, I guess, being just the wastewater user charges. Things to note in here, the golf course is in the wastewater fund. And we've already exceeded the budgeted amount for club and cart rental. So all of quarter four is going to be more than what we had in the budget. Also, the course fees are at 87% and deli sales are at 91% of revenue being collected at the end of quarter three. So golf course bringing in a lot more than we budgeted for. Um, the storm drain utility fund is, uh, doing better than expected with 81% of the revenue being collected at the end of quarter three. You go to the next slide. Uh, any questions about the revenue portion?

I do. I was at a business after hours meeting the other day and Mr. Stewart, Director Stewart, did a little presentation on middle field. And I would, I know you don't want to jinx yourself, but could you state what we are in line to receive from the golf course and revenue?

Thank you, Mayor. I actually looked at that this evening and Our gross revenues to date through light speed show 975,000. So fingers crossed, if we don't get too much rain in the next week, we should be really close to grossing a million dollars in the golf course.

Thank you.

All right. So now we're going to look at the expenditures just in the general fund. Big picture wise, 75% of the year has gone past and we've only spent about 60% of the expenditure so far. We have this little bar chart showing all of the departments in the general fund with only two of them going over 75%. Community promotions is at 76%, so it's on track. And then broadband services is way over already at 137%. I'm not exactly clear on the details of why the broadband services are more, but I know from the supplemental budget, it says... There was some migration to some applications that took longer than expected. So I don't have the details on that, but that's what I know about the expenditures there.

Mr. Sauerlein. Well, good evening, Your Honor and members of the City Council. Essentially what happened was in the previous fiscal year, we had budgeted for a transition from using Google to using Microsoft Office. And we did not complete that transition by the beginning of this fiscal year. So some of those expenses got brought over into this fiscal year. Any of you that have ever been through a major software transition know that it usually takes longer than what you think it's going to. So over the course of two years with our broadband budget, we're where we would expect to be having completed that migration to Microsoft Office this year. Also, as we discussed during the budget process, we are essentially ending our broadband fund because we're no longer offering broadband services and we've changed it to calling it IT. And the main change that we've tried to make is to bring all of the IT expenses from all general fund departments under one roof so that we can track them. So whether it's a software issue in the police department or community development, we want to be able to get a handle on how many PCs we're buying and where they're going. And so we're trying to track all of that through now our IT budget.

Thank you.

Any other, any questions on the general fund expenditure?

Councillor Merida.

Thank you, Mayor, Finance Director. So with the 60%, is this kind of a result of departments being more aware of spending and making certain that they're restricting whatever expenses they can due to the budget?

Yes, absolutely. This is all coming from the gap review that we caught early HAB-Jacques Juilland, The the issue with the beginning fund balance in the general fund, it was all communicated clearly and since we caught it early gave people time to. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Change their spending for their departments so.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Good and then, are there any. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Big expenses toward the end of the fiscal year that we anticipate my. HAB-Jacques Juilland, eat into that savings.

I just started doing like the in-depth review today and I've identified a few things, but I haven't got to research them. So I have things I need to do some research to see if they're going to come or not. So I don't want to like bring them up right now, but I'll, I'll know it in the next few days, but I got feeling. No, there's no surprises out there. Great. Thank you. Yeah.

Anyone else?

Is that what's next? Oh, let's do it. So yeah, we're going to talk about the gap. I want to go to the first slide. This is the gap that was, you know, happened with the budget. We're looking at operating resources and operating expenditures just in the general fund. So on the operating resources part, things that I left out were the beginning fund balance number. So the operating resources are just the revenues we expect to come in through the year. The operating expenditures, it's the same idea. We're not counting the contingency or the ending fund balance. So I'm not doing all those calculations right here because they were all in a previous presentation, but that's what it is. So the gap after the budget was $1.7 million, which means the general fund was bringing in 1.7 million or spending $1.7 million more than it was bringing in, in operations. So if you'll scroll to the next one. So then when we had the beginning fund balance issue and I went, I. copied the general funds budget. I updated the beginning fund balance numbers. I worked with the city manager and directors, and we started figuring out how to deal with the situation. And we estimated then, which was in December, that we were going to be able to close $900,000 of the gap. So the gap would have been $828,000 basically. So today... June 22nd, I ran the actual data out of the accounting software. Will you go to the next one? And today, right now, we've received $8,681,000 in resources revenue, and we've spent $9.2 million. So right now the gap is $588,000. Today we've closed $1.1 million of the $1.7 million gap. There's still things that are going to happen by the end of the year. There are revenue streams that may come in after July 1st that we have to push back. And there's also two payrolls to go. So there's going to be some more resources and expenditures. I don't know how that will all wash out, but this is where we're at today, which is pretty awesome.

Mr. Sauerwein.

Your honor, members of the council. Just to remind you, when we first worked with the budget committee on this, our goal for this year was to reduce that gap by $500,000. We wanted to reduce it $500,000 a year over three years to essentially catch up. We've managed to get two-thirds of the way through rather than just one-third in this first year. So I want to give a huge thank you to Eric and to all of our department directors. They took this very seriously this year, and I think we've made some real strides. So thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Councillor Sotomayor.

Isn't this good news for our beginning fund balance for the next year?

I would think so, but I haven't done the evaluation to transfer all of this spending data into... the evaluation that I do to set up the 27 budget. Today, I just did the general funds work. And I was working on the enterprise funds just before I came into this meeting. So I've got to get through all of the funds. Plus, we have this supplemental budget. So there's a lot of elements that are going to flow into those beginning fund balance numbers. But this is an important thing that I'll be working on to come up with where we're at with that as soon as I can.

Thank you.

Yeah. Yep.

You're done. Yeah. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Appearance of interested citizens. This is the time for citizen comment. The council will first take comments addressing items not listed on the agenda for a maximum of 30 minutes. The council will then take comments addressing action items on the agenda for a maximum of 30 minutes. Individual speakers must be recognized by the presiding officer, provide their name, identify whether they are a city resident, and if so, their ward. Please limit comments to three minutes or less with council approval. Comments regarding any matter scheduled for a public hearing may be provided only during that hearing. The council will not make any decisions based on public comment. However, staff and council may choose to ask questions or comment following the conclusion of citizen comments.

Audrey Milan.

Hi, you guys. Again, Audrey Malin, resident ward three, speaking in support of adequate funding for our public library. And I received word today that the head librarian has resigned, effective the end of this fiscal year, June 30th. And while we're sorry to see her go and appreciate the good work she did for us, including building the children's library, getting up through COVID and doing a fabulous history on our library. This seems to be that it will enable possibly the library to keep three of the remaining trained staff and ensure two staff members are in the library during operational hours. As the library transitions to the severe over 50% budget cut, additional funding for a part-time volunteer coordinator to help establish a vigorous volunteer program, which currently the library does not have, will strengthen library services and help position the library in a stronger fiscal place by this time next year. The Council has been shown the strong public support for the library by the many public comments during the over 10 Council and Budget Committee meetings, enthusiastic support of over 300 people during the Town Hall, stacks of comments sent to individual council members, many local news reports, and now almost 1200 signatures on our petition to support adequate funding for our library. The citizens of Cottage Grove are paying attention to the decisions you make tonight. Whether you personally use the library or not, you are the stewards of this public institution, one that our community worked long and hard and we're so proud to achieve. Let's not go backward. Let's not be the beautiful engaged in together on how to write our fiscal ship. Thank you.

Joe Magner.

FX bike group out here, you know, all these other people get benefits, but you never seem to want to help the seniors. Our senior citizens are hurting. People are losing their homes in this town. And you're going to raise our water bills now. I mean, think about this just a little bit. These people worked all their lives and they're on fixed incomes. Many of us are disabled. Start thinking about the people that really need help that built this town. Don't throw them in the gutter. I'm asking you, please think about the seniors a little bit. Please, thank you.

Thank you. A email that I've been asked to read into public record. Dear Budget Committee, thank you for your consideration of South Lane Wheels' request for funds to purchase a vehicle will increase our capacity to connect community members of all ages and abilities to places that increase their quality of life. A meeting conflict prevented me from stating this in person tonight. I can guarantee that your investment with South Lane Wheels will provide critical transportation services that complement what makes Cottage Grove a thriving, livable, rural community because residents want to continue to live, work, raise families, and age in a place taking a trip with our homegrown transportation agency. We need your help to continue to serve Cottage Grove residents and businesses. Respectfully, Ruth Linos. Deirdre Simpson Rhodes. Not here. Jennifer Henke or Henke. Lokiko Hall.

Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My comment applies to the $50,000 that I heard was in play regarding the CG public library. I believe I owe my life to the Cottage Grove Public Library. See, in late 2024 and 2025, I got really ill. And one of the main things that got me through that was books from the Cottage Grove Public Library. I needed about one book every day or two to keep me out of my own head and distracted so I could work out what was wrong with me and how to get healthy again. I have loved libraries since I knew what they were. But the other thing is is that libraries serve the community from the bottom up. People who don't have and can't afford computers or internet can and do get help looking for jobs and places to live. at the library. And there are a lot of areas around Cottage Grove that still do not have full internet access. And that would be if one could afford the $108.75 I pay every month to Douglas FastNet. I know that many of Matt's students at Kennedy don't have internet access or computer access. Plus a knowledgeable librarian told me about ProtonMail, which is an email service that you can get without having a phone number. So even if a person does not have a phone, they could come and use the library computers to stay connected and look for job possibilities and hear back. Where else will anybody be able to go to do that? The library and all the libraries of the United States are precious gems that should never be discounted or considered expendable. As we come up to the 250th birthday of the nation, I will tell you now that tax supported public libraries in this country will not celebrate their 200th anniversary until 2033. Before that, people like you and you and you and you and you and me and everyone who was not established already with generational wealth had no way to educate or better ourselves. And then free public libraries came into being and spread across America. It must have seemed like a godsend. So if I had to vote, I would definitely vote to pay, to put up the $50,000 to keep this library as fully staffed and fully funded as possible.

Thank you.

Andrew Elliott.

Mayor Salisbury and Councilors, City Manager Mike Sauerwein and the City staff and Chief Corey Chase. Thank you for the work you do to serve your fellow citizens, especially during these last few months and the difficult budget decisions you're making. Having attended all the budgetary discussions this year, there is one point which seems to me to have unanimous support, and that is for the library to begin to have volunteers. So if we want this, how do we create it? It will take some dedicated work to do this. The 2026-27 library staff may be overwhelmed just trying to maintain basic library functions. I propose that tonight you allocate as a one time expense a minimum of $25,000 to hire a city of cottage grove volunteer coordinator. While a dedicated volunteer coordinator would be employed to direct the recruitment, training and integration of volunteers at the library, he or she would simultaneously be creating a template that could be used by any department that city staff would like to augment with volunteers. The volunteer coordinator would thereby be serving the whole city government. Think of this as a one year seed money to invite and integrate greater citizen engagement at a time when we need it most. I believe that establishing such a position would strengthen us as we navigate through this crisis. I would add to this proposal an encouragement that the Friends of the Library assist the volunteer coordinator in any way they are able. And I would include an agreement by the volunteer coordinator to regularly report to the city council regarding its progress. So all in favor, say aye. Oh, I'm sorry. That's your job. Thank you.

Thank you. Bruce Kelsch.

Bruce Gauch, I live outside the city limits. Good thing I'm following Andrew cause I'm along the same theme here. This is about additional pilot funding to support volunteer programs for the library and the city. It's clear to those who've been following the budget committee and the council and the development of the budget, but having a volunteer program is an integral part of the proposed budget for the library. The Council will hear from people who believe the proposed library budget is dependent on volunteers and will not be successful without adequate procedures in place and accountable supervision. I'm one of those who advocate additional funding towards volunteer coordination. Directing additional funds towards the library will allow the city an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of a volunteer coordination and development model. Although the city manager has encouraged the looking forward rather than backward approach, so they can be very helpful to review the city's past commitment to volunteer programs. Cottage Grove was designated an all-American city twice. You've got the plaque right there, 1968 and 2004, in part by its high level of volunteerism. I spoke with a friend who was the city's volunteer coordinator back in the 90s, who then later held a position of volunteer coordinator funded half and half by the city and South Lane School District. She shared her experience and how much time was needed to have a successful volunteer program. To have a well-run program that meets necessary legal standards to protect the city and volunteers needs careful development. The coming fiscal year can be an important one in transitioning to new models of services in many departments. the financial errors of the past and inflation will continue to make balancing the budget a challenging task. So I ask, please consider adding additional funding towards volunteer coordination for the library and use this coming year as a pilot program for creating more volunteer programs. Thank you.

Thank you. Daniel LaBerthsen.

I don't want to repeat everything that previous speakers in favor of the library have already said, but I would certainly favor some funds for volunteer coordination, since given the situation with the drastic reduction in staff by more than 50%, Someone is going to have to train people to do the job that was formerly paid, but now will not be. I think many people have said over and over again, the number of signatures on petitions, the vocal support for the library and all of its functions behooves us to try to make the most we can of the library in this rather bad situation financially. I was heartened to hear that the situation seems to be improving. So there may be hope to restore some of the paid positions, some of the functions that we're unfortunately losing this year. That's basically all I want to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Katrina Purdy.

Hi. Hello, my name is Katrina Purdy. I am in Ward 3. I am currently running the Heart Safe South Lane program. I spent years as a volunteer for South Lane CERT. with South Lane Fire. I'm a proud sponsor of the professional version of Pulse Point, which helps responders get to emergencies faster in all of Lane County. I believe that building a strong community is important. In a time when so many programs are being cut and school fundings are being cut and prices are rising, now is the time we need to support our community and our library. A library can be A library can now survive. A library cannot survive with a 55% cut when it was only 58% of the overall budget. It will eventually close. It isn't sustainable. and will ultimately lead to closure, which can cause property values to go down, job seekers can no longer find jobs, businesses will go out of business, children will read less, which corresponds with lower literacy rates in overall years and decades. I did some research and found a real world example of a closure that happened in 2005 in California. And it caused ripple effects, quickly realizing it was a big mistake because basically you cut off your nose to spite your face. The library is where people go that need help. And people know what is important in keeping the library open and investing in our community is what I want my tax dollars to go to. By saving the library, you save the town. I also want to say that I have been helping with the over 1,100 signatures and I can testify that over 70% of those signatures are in wards. We want our library to stay open. Thank you.

Thank you. Miranda Gerke.

Hello, I'm Miranda Gerke and I live in Ward 4. I know you are tired of hearing from us at every city council meeting. I can't speak for everyone here, but frankly, I know I'm tired of us having to ask you to care about our library. Nobody wants to spend months attending meetings, writing letters, speaking during public comment, gathering nearly 1200 signatures, contacting the media and pleading for a public resource that our community has already made clear it values. But here we are because the library still needs your support. We are not asking you to undo the entire budget. we are asking you to move just a little more funding so our library can continue providing the services we depend on, such as support to our youth, to our seniors, to our job seekers, to our families, to our residents who may have nowhere else to turn. and to our most cherished programs, such as the Summer Reading Program. For thousands of children, the Summer Reading Program has been more than a library activity. It has become a tradition, a place where children discover books, build confidence, stay engaged during the summer, and form positive connections with their community. We should not allow that tradition to be put at risk because we are unwilling to find a relatively small amount of additional funding. Tonight, before you approve this final budget, I'm asking you to make one little change. Find the additional funding needed to keep our library functioning at a level our community deserves. We do not want to keep returning to this room to ask you to make an amendment to the budget when it can still be fixed tonight. Just know the people of Cottage Grove are paying attention to your decision at this meeting. We will remember whether our voices were heard, whether our library was treated as a priority, and whether our elected officials chose to act when there was still time. Please do the right thing for our community. Find the funding. Save our library. Thank you. That's all.

Ryan Thomas.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Ryan Thomas. I'm president of downtown Cottage Grove. I am not a resident of Cottage Grove. And on behalf of the board, I just wanted to come tonight and let you know that we appreciate your considering funding with the decisions that you have to make on so many organizations needing and asking for the money. I believe that a good, strong Main Street organization in Cottage Grove is needed with our 501c3 status and access to Main Street grants and Main Street programs and education. We have the ability as a healthy organization that needs to be supported. We have the ability to help open doors, help take care of some of the buildings downtown and help turn around the economy of downtown in a niche and in a way that only the Main Street program is demonstrated able to do. So just ask that you continue to consider that. And again, appreciate the difficult decisions that you have and appreciate you even considering it in the first place. Thank you.

Thank you. This evening, there is a public hearing for city proposed supplemental budget. These proceedings. Oh, I'm sorry. Counselor Mary Day.

No, that was the end of the comments. I just want to address the council and to say, check your city email. There is a document came to me through the genealogy department city brochure. It was undated, but judging from the city logo, I would put it in the seventies and it was all about volunteering in cottage growth. It's an interesting read to see what our four predecessors had addressed the same issue. Much of the language that we've heard from speakers and from advocates is contained in this document. As one of the speakers noted, a big part of our All-America City Award was the recognition of the role of volunteers, the role of our library, the role of our water treatment plants, our parks, and other assets that have been developed in our community in a partnership through volunteers and the city. So check your emails.

I did get it. Thank you. Councillor Lammerman.

CoB, Jay Sugnetta, man America Council, I just wanted to touch on a couple things that was commented on. CoB, Jay Sugnetta, Did we receive a full copy of the petition that was signed for the library does anybody know. CoB, Jay Sugnetta, I don't recall us receiving one.

Ms. Roberts.

Thank you, Mayor. Councillor Lammerman, we received one of the early versions that I don't remember the exact quantity, maybe somewhere around 300 signatures. And then at one particular meeting, the signatures were circulated around for each person to take a look at, but actual physical copies were not provided.

Okay. And then the other thing was... There's a statement in regards to getting involved and coming down to the meetings and doing all that. I just, to me, it's sad when it takes something possibly getting closed for people to finally get involved. Sorry, it irritates me a little bit, but.

Anyone else? This evening, there is a public hearing for city proposed supplemental budget. These proceedings are being recorded. I will now open this public hearing at 718 p.m. This public hearing will be held for the purpose of taking comments on a city proposed supplemental budget. We will now have the staff report from the interim finance director, Eric Kytola.

Okay, so I have to admit a mistake I made here part of the budget process after the budget adoption when you do a supplemental budget if you change the expenditures by more than 10% you have to do a public hearing. allow people to say something. Someone prepped this document for me, and I did not give them all four of the funds that are over the 10% change. So we see on this memo here that it says Armory Special Trust, but all four funds are actually the Special Trust Fund, the Armory Special Trust Fund, The EDA grant and the storm drain reserve so all of those are appearing in the full supplemental budget, but the over 10% list is an accurate on this document so. that's where we're at um let's see. If we want to go to the the supplemental budget document itself, you want to. yeah can you pull it up. CoB, Jay Sugnetter- Okay i'll just start going through it, so the special trust fund materials and services was at 7250 we're increasing it by 15,350 for a total of 22,600 sorry if you have this document it's page for. CoB, Jay Sugnetter- Sorry. So the special trust fund is where funds go in and are held until they can be used for a specific purpose. In the special trust fund, one of those accounts is for the Eugene Symphony. And I went through and reviewed it, and funds had not been transferred from the special trust fund to the general fund for the Eugene Symphony since fiscal year 22, 2022. So I looked at all the expenditures for the Eugene Symphony and transferred the entire balance, or I would like to transfer the entire balance to the general fund. It's basically paying... paying the general fund back for the amounts that it's put out for the Eugene Symphony. The next one is the Armory Special Trust Fund. And this is totally related to the Wall Dogs project. So we got a bunch of revenue for the Wall Dogs. Therefore, increasing materials and services by the $28,700 that came in for wall dogs and also showing that the revenue is going up by the same dollar amount. The third fund is the Economic Development Admin Grant. This is funded. Yes, sir.

Councilor Irvin.

Can you slow walk us through using the special trust fund, what we're seeing here? Because if you're saying money had been accumulated in the special trust fund or donations presumably had come in using the symphony, for example, And we had budgeted more donations coming in. I see an increase to that. So that's an expected higher donation amount going into or for this past year. In the note, it says $18,293.37 was moved to the general fund. Yes.

So since fiscal year 2022, donations or however the money was coming in was coming into the city and it was being set aside in the special trust fund. $18,293 has accumulated since 2022 for the Eugene Symphony. There has been far more expenditures than $18,000 for the symphony that the general fund has put out. So I want to transfer all of the money that's held in the special trust fund to pay the general fund back for the symphony to the general fund, leaving $0 for the symphony in there. And just to reiterate, those are all dollars that have already been captured by the city, but never paid back to the general fund. And it's only going up by the 15-year balance to the general fund. It's basically paying... paying the general fund back for the amounts that it's put out for the Eugene Symphony. The next one is the Armory Special Trust Fund. And this is totally related to the Wall Dogs project. So we got a bunch of revenue for the Wall Dogs. therefore increasing materials and services by the $28,700 that came in for wall dogs and also showing that the revenue is going up by the same dollar amount. The third fund is the Economic Development Admin Grant. This is funded... Yes, sir?

Can you...

slow walk us through using the special trust fund, what we're seeing here. Because if you're saying money had been accumulated in the special trust fund or donations presumably had come in using the symphony, for example, and we had budgeted more donations coming in, I see an increase to that. So that's an expected higher amount Donation amount going into or for this past year where in the note, it says eighteen thousand to ninety three thirty seven was moved to the general fund. Yes.

So since fiscal year twenty twenty two donations or however the money was coming in was coming into the city and it was being set aside in the special trust fund. $18,293 has accumulated since 2022 for the Eugene Symphony. There has been far more expenditures than $18,000 for the symphony that the general fund has put out. So I want to transfer all of the money that's held in the special trust fund to pay the general fund back for the symphony to the general fund. leaving $0 for the symphony in there. And just to reiterate, those are all dollars that have already been captured by the city, but never paid back to the general fund. And it's only going up by the 15. When the council adopts the budget, there's this, the resolution that you adopt the budget by is for spending only. And in the special trust fund, it's just a materials and services line. So We had budgeted only $7,250 being spent this year, and there's been less than that spent. it's kind of a net effect of the 18,000 wanting to get transferred out versus what has already been spent. It's not just a line for a line on the Eugene Symphony number. I have to build this document off of what the resolution says when the budget is adopted. So I couldn't put like Eugene Symphony in here showing $18,293 and then transferring it out.

Okay, I think that makes sense. Some had been spent. Now we're reconciling what was transferred out, and that's what we're seeing here. Yes. And that answers a question we've had for years, which is about how much have we been spending on average, $19,000 a year out of the general fund for Symphony. Yep. All right, thank you.

Okay, so on to page five, the Economic Development Admin Grant. These dollars are all grant dollars. How do I explain this? The city was expecting the remaining grant dollars from the federal government to come in. to cover the expenditures that have been spent in the EDA grant fund. But the $470,000 that we're expecting to come in, whatever it is, is not gonna come in by June 30th. So if we don't get money in the EDA grant fund, it will show a negative fund balance. We'll get an audit comment. We don't wanna do that. So what we want to do is transfer, do a short-term loan from the storm drain reserve fund of 500,000 to the EDA grant fund to cover the expenditures. Then when the grant reimbursement comes in next year, maybe in the next three months or something, we would just pay the short-term loan back to the storm drain reserve fund. So that's page five. And then you see the corresponding transfer out on page six. You'll see the storm drain reserve fund and an increase for the transaction to the EDA grant line of 500,000. So it's just the short-term loan until the reimbursement comes back from the federal government. So that's what we have the public hearing on are those four funds.

Any questions?

That's it.

Councilor Urban.

Thank you, Mayor. On the building inspection program fund, This is not anything relating to the SDC repayment, right? That's totally so, okay.

Mr. Sauerwein. Good evening, Your Honor, Managers of the Council. What we are recognizing here is that we had positions within the Community Development Department that were being funded by the Building Fund. And one of those positions was transferred over into community development in mid-year. Our consultant who we're working on audits with told us that we need to recognize that that position, half of its year was in one fund, half its year was in another fund. Otherwise, we're going to get an audit comment. It's a paper shuffle. But we need to recognize where the funds, where the money for that position was coming from. I said, you know, just to have a clean audit in the future.

Council, I need to just like butt in here a little bit. We're looking at this whole supplemental budget document, but we're only talking about the four funds specifically that go over the 10%. And I'm going to go through all of this when we get to the supplemental budget passing part.

We will now take public testimony. For all persons testifying, please state your name and address for the record. Do we have anyone here that would like to testify? I see none. Are there any questions from the council? I now will close the public hearing at 7.28 p.m., Consent agenda. Councillor Irvin.

Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of the consent agenda. Second.

We have a motion with a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Councillor Mary Day.

Thank you, Mayor.

As we move into the next portion and discussing budget items, I would like to maybe before we enter each item, have a general discussion about how we are going to approach the budget. We've heard many requests for support of the library. And I would certainly like to propose that we do offer some support. for the library. Up until now, we've given some token amounts that we've cobbled from other funds. We've kind of cannibalized the materials and services, but we haven't really clarified that there's enough there to support a functioning staff to operate the library going forward. It kind of feels like the cake was baked before we got there and nothing has caused the needle to move. i'm thinking that if we just could get 50 000 to the library to provide that seed money cushion and give the city manager the tools to operate and when it's time to restructure the department uh They not the funds don't have to be spent, but having them there is a cushion that would allow more flexibility. So I'm hoping that we can discuss this before we rush to approve the budget as printed. So.

Anyone else? Councilor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, Council, I'd like to have the City Manager let us know what he was able to come up with with the adjustments from the Budget Committee, what that looks like FTE-wise in regards to the library before we look at allocating even more revenue to it. Let's give the City Manager a chance to see what he came up with.

City Manager Sauerwein?

Well, good evening, Your Honor and members of the council. First and foremost, we do not discuss personnel issues in public, and I will endeavor to avoid doing that. What I will say is that we currently have about $200,000 in the personnel budget for the library. That would fund two full-time positions and 1.7 positions.

So it'd be at 2.7 FTE total for the library line item now?

I want to be clear. I'm not discussing personnel issues. I am saying that's what $200,000 would potentially fund. Okay.

Councillor Sattelmeyer.

So is this the time that we're taking to discuss the library potential funds?

Not yet. We'll get to that. Okay.

Thank you.

Item A, resolutions concerning state shared revenues. City Manager, Mr. Sauerwein.

Well, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. I think as we've previously discussed, state law requires us to adopt a separate budget for a state shared revenue as opposed to gas taxes, fees we receive from alcohol taxes or marijuana taxes or cigarette taxes. And so this is the resolution to do that. It's about $135,000.

Mayor Mrakas, Now serving.

Mayor Mrakas, Thank you mayor, and this needs to be in a two two part motion is that correct to several notions okay. Mayor Mrakas, So I move to that the Council adopt resolution number 2179 declaring the city of cottage groves election to receive state shared revenues.

Mayor Mrakas, We have a motion, do we have a second.

I second.

We have a motion with a second. Any discussion? I see none. Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Heinck?

Aye.

Councillor Lammerman?

Aye.

Councillor Settlemyer?

Aye.

Councillor Irvin?

Aye.

Councillor Merida?

Aye.

Councillor Wilson? Aye. Mayor Sosby?

Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to also make the motion that the council adopt resolution number 2180, certifying the City of Cottage Grove's eligibility to receive state-shared revenues.

Second.

We have a motion with a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, recorder, please call the roll.

Councilor Sotomayor?

Aye. Aye.

Councillor Merida. Aye. Councillor Wilson.

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby.

Aye.

Councillor Lammerman. Aye. Councillor Irvin.

Aye.

Councillor Hink.

Aye.

Item B, resolution adopting the 2026-27 budget making appropriations and imposing and categorizing ad valorem taxes. City Manager, Mr. Sarlan. Aye.

Good evening, Your Honor and members of the council. This is really a two-part issue. Included in your packet is the resolution adopting the budget. But prior to that, we need to have a discussion about the community promotions budget, which was approved by the budget committee in a total dollar amount. but they did not identify the specific items that it would be spent on. I would note that approximately 50%, $48,000 of what's included in the community promotions budget does go to the chamber of commerce and to the visitor center. That is to follow state law of what we can do with our transient lodging taxes. But I think it would be best for us to entertain some ideas and discussion of how we would spend the remainder of the community promotions budget.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, I just want to recognize that we've been through an important long process as a council and when we're meeting as the budget committee. I want to assure the public that we have heard the comments that The things I've taken away are an adequately staffed maintaining services that have been, you know, the community has come to rely on and to enjoy, you know, not reducing those services and maintaining a safe environment for people to enjoy. To that end, And looking to the future of the next few years, I believe that the funding level that we've provided at least the contribution from the city through its general fund is is meeting those metrics a lot of this is riding on. the reliance on a very competent, knowledgeable, and one city manager and staff who've been listening and implementing what has been heard. So I feel confident that those things will be satisfied in this budget to the best of our predictive ability right now. The forecast for the future does not change in terms of its negative impacts in our general trajectory of revenues and expenditures, short of some sales going through, things moving more quickly maybe than we otherwise would have hoped or anticipated on some other fronts. But we're kind of in a long game. And I feel most comfortable exercising what I think is my best judgment to leave the funding levels as they are, to have some, it's going to be minor, fallback potential if we do have some sort of a crisis going into next year, to maintain those levels, to maintain the service. I think it's adequate for standing up a volunteer base. That's to be seen. I'm comfortable at this level. I also know that we can... know move knobs and dials uh going into uh this coming year with additional supplemental budgets if we have to uh it is something we're gonna pay we'll be paying close attention to um and and there's a lot to be seen with what what needs to happen also on the pool side um a lot of efforts are going to have to be underway uh there I haven't written down for concerns of council, but I'll note that I am strongly going to support and advocate for and hopefully garner the consent of council to have standing ballot measures, at least on November ballots, to keep the question before the residents and broader even community that enjoys these services of, of a measure for supporting the library in a library district. Same thing with the rec district, including Poole. public safety, all the things, road measures, all the things that we've talked about that we want, but we cannot sustain with a narrow scope, basically, of our city budget. I would like to see that, even if they fail, put them back up just so that question stays ready. And I think that, you know, I've heard loud and clear, let us vote on it. Let us vote on it on some of these big measures. So All of that factor together, I'm standing by what was already a compromise through the budget committee to this level. And I think we've had good fortune to be in this position that we are today, that it's on the right track. As for the promotions, community promotions budget, I don't have a lot of strong feelings of if somebody else has the, I'm not quite sure what to do with the Main Street request, that allocation of everything else ratably from what it was last year for those that showed up, I was in favor of that. But with that, I'll step back and listen to other ideas. Thanks.

Councillor Sotomayor.

City Manager Sauerwein, you let me know that you wouldn't mind talking about the perhaps issue or how we can move forward to get volunteers, what that might mean to us. That might be of importance as we look at these issues, please.

Well, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. As we've previously discussed, city staff has heard loud and clear from the council and from the public that you really want to create a culture of volunteerism, which I wholeheartedly address and wholeheartedly support. I think that's really a good direction for the city to go. We're starting with the library, but we'd also like to expand it throughout the community. We have another meeting coming up in July to talk about community-wide cleanup. That's really going to be a great volunteer opportunity for people throughout the community to participate in community-wide cleanup activities. So going forward, as I said, we've definitely heard the direction and we'll be really acceding volunteerism and creating volunteer opportunities as we move into this next fiscal year.

Councillor Meredith.

Thank you, Mayor. I did a little fiddling with the community promotion figures. I had gone back to the idea of percentages that were granted in the past and worked them out for 90, 2000, 25, 26 year. It was a little bit complicated because South Lane Wheels wasn't part of that group. And when you went back to the previous year when they were, They only requested 5,000. So the percentage idea didn't really work out very well. I did just simply add them up and the total request is... $46,000 requested, excluding the downtown Cottage Grove. The secret is you have to look at the Eugene Symphony. The contribution for the city would be 5,000 and the additional 20,000 would be raised through a challenge grant by the Woodards and donations. So if you take the 5,000 and the other requests, that comes to 46,000. Leaving with the chamber, that comes to a grand total of 94,000. And if we have 90, 8,000 available that could, that leaves 4,000 available that could go to downtown Cottage Grove. If you wish to eliminate a group that did not show up, you could make that 5,000. It goes to Cottage Grove downtown. So that's one idea.

Councilor Lamberman.

Madam Mayor, Council. my idea was simply give pretty much everyone what they're asking for minus downtown cottage grove family relief nursery south valley's farmers market and spring creek educational center and then move the five thousand dollars from the community promotions portion of the eugene symphony to make that in their fundraise section so that would take that from ten thousand to fifteen thousand that would allow everyone else to get what they were asking for with the remaining 7,000 that could be given to one of the other programs or downtown Cottage Grove, however the scene fit. The reason I say no to a couple of those is Family Relief Nursery said they didn't need the money. South Valley Farmers Market, in my opinion, is a for-profit organization. And how long can we keep giving them money? And then Spring Creek, that's some sort of out-of-town program coming in. I don't know if we need to give them the $1,000.

I'll serve and just add some of my, I agree on the logic here on Singing Creek, we know moved their kind of operations up to Pascoe. I've been doing this for a little while and I remember the initial requests coming in from the South Valley Farmers Market being very clear that we just need seed money. This is just to get us up and going. This is nothing to no comment on how wonderful this is for our community, but I do think that it was not intended to be basically a line item. And given the circumstances we're in, I'm inclined to either eliminate that or materially reduce it significantly. And then I do recall that on the family relief nursery. So if we I don't know, maybe those who are dealing with the Eugene Symphony can speak to the fundraising 15. I think part of the city playing into that goes might be baked into the grant. But I do like kind of the remaining of what we come up with going to the downtown coach group.

City Manager Sauerwein.

Well, good evening, Your Honor and members of the council. Just to speak to the Eugene Symphony. In the past, the city has budgeted $25,000 for the project. This year, we budgeted originally 5,000. And the reason for that was that We received a challenge grant from the Woodard Foundation that they would put up $10,000 if the city were to also fundraise $10,000. I've been talking with the Chamber of Commerce folks. I think we're well on our way to fundraising that $10,000. But that's how the math was originally worked, was the $10,000 number for fundraising was tied to what the challenge grant was.

Councillor Wilson.

Yeah, just looking at the different programs and the various needs that have been expressed. I had $10,000 to the Spirit of Bohemia Mining Days, $3,000 to community sharing, which is what they asked for, $10,000 to South Lane Wheels.

Mm-hmm.

10 to the rural tourism, and five to the symphony, and 12 to downtown, which comes up with the 50.

Councilor Heink?

I'm pretty much on the same page, funding everything except for family relief, South Valley Farmers, I like the South Lane wheels. I like that last year they said they didn't need the money, so they didn't ask us for it. I respect that. And I think that really goes far to supporting the community and promoting safety as well. So and everything else going to downtown Cottage Grove.

Cal Samaritan.

Thank you, Mayor. I do just want to point out that some of the organizations, such as Family Relief Nursery, while they don't consider the $2,000 a very large portion of their grant, I mean, of their operating budget, they do use the city's support to leverage to increase grant writing, and I think that's primarily the reason they ask. So even if you give them a token amount, that doesn't help with their... their fundraising. So that's I know their rationale for asking for money.

I'll serve and I could favor transferring 10 or 1000 from South Lane wheels over to family relief or something of the like or one of the other ones. I don't know what a token requirement minimum threshold token requirement is but Council Wilson

being familiar with how much buses cost to operate. They need that 10,000. Actually, they need more than that, but they're being generous and only asking for 10. I could see my original request of 12 to downtown to go to 10 and get family relief there too. If they're using it for grant writing, You know, it's a small request. It's not a huge request at 2,000. So to go to 10 at the downtown and go back to two, it leaves South Lane Wheels alone at the 10,000.

Councillor Sotomayor.

I think it's really nice how competent and what a wonderful resource we have as a chamber of commerce. And we agreed to spend a huge chunk of our entire general fund budget to create an urban renewal agency, which is going to its first job as I understand it, is to hire someone who is going to try and funnel funds and make our downtown thriving and not just downtown. I realize we do have some other portions involved with that. Is it fair to ask staff if they could weigh in on what their understanding is, because I don't understand what downtown Cottage Grove is going to be able to do that those two efforts aren't really doing a great job on. And when we're trying to look at something that will promote Cottage Grove, I'd like to put the library in here and have us kind of weigh You know, what promotes Cottage Grove? What is going to be a positive for more of the citizens of Cottage Grove? Another effort to help downtown? So I'll just be quiet and ask if staff could weigh in. Am I missing something about a missing key here that they see downtown Cottage Grove helping us with?

It's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that this is TLT money that needs to be spent promoting tourism. And there are metrics for tourism. And so I do not believe the library would qualify for these funds.

Good evening, Your Honor and members of the council. The transit lodging taxes, what we're allowed to spend them on is definitely defined in state law. As far as how these funds are distributed to these groups, this is really a policy decision to be made by elected officials. And as far as weighing in on the Downtown Association, I'm really not the best person to speak to that. You had a representative here earlier this evening. I don't know whether he's still here or not. It doesn't appear that he is. But as I said, those are the folks really to speak to what the group does and what their goals and priorities are.

Councilor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, Council. I can kind of speak to a little bit of it. Madam Mayor, Council. I can kind of speak to a little bit of it. Granted, I'm not there all the time. I am the advisor between City Council and downtown Cottage Grove. The main difference between downtown Cottage Grove and the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber focuses... business specific downtown cottage grove looks at the entire zone in a whole and how it can benefit every one don't get me wrong chamber does kind of the same thing but it is kind of a weird thing with the urban renewal district and downtown cottage grove how that's going to kind of work out i'm waiting to see how that's all going to work um But downtown Cottage Grove also does things like the Opal Whitley Park, Oktoberfest. They do the hanging baskets. There's a lot of things they do do. I really wish Ryan would have hung out a little bit longer, but for the most part, that's the main things I've seen so far that they're doing. But they are looking at getting more grants to help with storefronts, and improving the cosmetics of everything and trying to get people into buildings and figure out why they're sitting empty for so long. There's a lot of things they are actively trying to do.

Could I have Georgia Haskell, CEO of the chamber, speak to this?

Downtown Cottage Grove is different than the chamber.

We all know that, right?

Downtown Cottage Grove is our main street organization, and they give us access to grants we otherwise would not get. They're vitally important to the economic development and how we thrive as a community. So without them, we wouldn't have the Diamond in the Rough grants. We wouldn't have all these things that we take advantage of, right? the hanging baskets, beautification of downtown. So, and they're asking for this money for an employee. Is that what I'm?

Of course you had to ask, I want a drink. It's a third of the budget they're needing for an employee. So yeah, but they're basing it off of what other communities are doing with their main street programs.

Yeah, so communities benefit the most when their chambers and Main Street programs collaborate and work together.

Thank you, Mayor. To clarify, the Main Street program is a federally established program, correct?

It is, yeah.

So we have an urban renewal district, which is a state, it's, you know, it's... defined. It's allowed. It's allowed to be created under state law. Main Street is a federal program, and so they access different funds, but they do work in coordination. I remember hearing a number of reports on the Lane Economic Committee in the Cascades West Economic Development District, where the Main Street programs were vital channels to bring in that kind of another approach to the upspin of economic development in an area.

Yeah, absolutely. So the Chamber does tourism, economic development, and membership management, and everything we do plays into that. And downtown Cottage Grove or our Main Street organization focuses on the downtown, which is important. And so, you know, we have all the vacant buildings and we did the retail market study three years ago. And the number one thing they said was that a gap here was our vacant buildings. So it would be great if we had somebody either in economic development at the city that worked with downtown Cottage Grove or that could help us with that. And so I think that's what this is about.

Thank you, Georgia, for that clarification. Councilor Lamberman.

And I just want to mention that the downtown Cottage Grove did just recently get acknowledged by the federal Main Street program. So they are together with them now.

Councillor Irvin.

I'll make a motion. You can always amend it, but I'll start it here. My motion is that the city council update the community promotions budget as follows. Spirit of Bohemia Mining Days, $10,000. Community Sharing, $3,000. Family Relief Nursery, $2,000. south lane wheels ten thousand dollars rural tourism projects ten thousand dollars eugene symphony uh the community promotions portion five thousand dollars uh so that retains uh what was in this budget and downtown cottage grove ten thousand dollars a second wait

I shall. So what I heard you say, Councillor Irvin, was Spirit of Bohemia Mining Days, $10,000. Community Sharing, $3,000. Family Relief Nursery, $2,000. South Lane Wheels, $10,000. The Rural Tourism Projects, $10,000. Community Promotions under the Eugene Symphony, $5,000. And $10,000 to Downtown Cottage Grove. Correct.

comes to 50. And we've got multiple numbers. I know Councilor Sotomayor wanted clarity on this, and now I desire to. I heard a starting of 98. There's 103 in the budget. There's 55 under here. Do we have a remaining $5,000, or is it a different number?

As we've previously discussed, this is an estimated revenue, not a specific number. But to answer your question directly, yes, I think there would be $5,000 left if our estimate is accurate.

Councilor Sotomayor, did you have something to say?

Yes. And I believe... The point has been made that the library cannot receive this extra $5,000. That's sitting here kind of a little undecided. Can I... I was told also that it is kind of up to us. If we didn't spend this, I know that we had the ability to put some of it back in the general fund and then that it would move to the library would be a potential. Can we please get some staff to weigh in if that's legal, if we decided to do it or not?

Well, I think I understand what your question is. At the end of the fiscal year, all money in the general fund washes back into the general fund as cash carryover for the following year. So if there was money that was not spent in community promotions at following year, it would wash back into the cash carry over for the following year. The issue that was made earlier is within state law, there are limits on what we can spend transient lodging taxes on. And the way that's often described is heads in beds. is the idea that you're supposed to spend the money to prime the pump and create additional transient lodging tax dollars. And you do that through supporting your chamber of commerce, supporting downtown association, supporting your visitor convention bureau, supporting events that occur in the community that make it attractive for people to come and visit. I'm hoping I'm answering your question.

Councilor Lammerman.

So we had a motion. Was it officially seconded or did we cancel that for the reading?

No, we have a motion with a second.

But I am. I was. That's why I was asking. I was making sure that it was acknowledged. Okay.

I would be actually inclined to say to either keep the motion the same or move that unallocated 5,000 to downtown Cottage Grove.

Councillor Lamberman.

I would take an amendment in adding the additional 5,000 to downtown Cottage Grove.

So I'd like to amend my motion on the line item for downtown Cottage Grove from 10,000 to 15,000. I second that amendment.

We have a motion with a second. Any other discussion? Well, Councillor Sotomayor, do you still have your hand up or?

Yes, please. I guess I would like the... The idea, does that mean that we as a council are going to, in the future, try to continue to keep these same kinds of supports for downtown Cottage Grove? Is that kind of how this organization works?

Well, I don't think anything is guaranteed that these are not line items, and so they will change yearly. Does that answer your question? Counselor. Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, the recorder, please call the roll.

Counselor. Hi. Hi. Counselor Lammerman.

Just to confirm real quick. We are only voting on the community promotions. Hi.

That was a vote in the affirmative.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Counselor Merida.

Hi.

Councilor Irvin.

Aye.

Councilor Wilson.

Aye.

Councilor Settlemyer.

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby. Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.

Councilor Irvin. That was a portion, the two-part portion of the housekeeping to knock out what we could have otherwise done as the budget committee, but deferred to tonight. And so I'm prepared to make the motion on the budget, but certainly want to give time. We can have all the discussion. So I see someone else might want to say something before I do that. So I'm afraid to make that at the right time here, but I'll defer.

Councilor Maraday.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to move that we move an additional $50,000 from the Housing Assistance Fund to the library budget to ensure that the city manager has adequate resources to structure and operate the library system in this time of change. Part of that funding could be used for a dedicated portion of employees' time to develop, recruit, vet, and train a group of volunteers and to assist in operating the library and then move into other aspects of our city.

I second it.

We have a motion with a second. Ms. Roberts.

Thank you. Mayor, Councillor Merida, I just want to clarify because that kind of went into a super long motion. Was the motion simply to move $50,000 from the Housing Assistance Fund to the Library Fund?

Yes.

And that's what the second is acknowledging as well, Councillor Sotomayor? Thank you.

We have a motion with a second. Any discussion?

Just clarifying that there was still 50,000 there to move. I've lost track to exactly what you left there.

Your Honor, for the record, the Housing Cost Assistance Fund has $83,000 in it included in the resolution.

Councillor Irvin.

So this gets to the really trying to think about next year and the year after. I cannot support this motion because of that. There are too many unknowns for me sitting here today to do that. And I know it's largely symbolic. It could be moved back. I just... to honor what we set up originally we do have option or opportunities to address the affordable housing side of things through homes for good sounds like there were some things in the works there depending on how many houses they really might need some access to that um and i do think that we are hitting the metrics that are being requested um and like like i mentioned before if if we get three two three months down the road and we're not i'm certainly always open to to rehash the conversation but as it as it stands right now i'll just refer back to what i mentioned earlier counselor saddlemeyer

I'd like to hit on the idea of what we agreed and what my vision was of what I signed on when we talked about council goals. I was gonna have a big long list. There are so many of these goals that have something to do with if the city comes and supports, if citizens come and make clear that they have priorities, we would do what we could to serve them. I've got four things beyond that. Number one, the library has much positive support that have encouraged sufficient funding. Number two, we don't want to spend money we might need next year. However, number three, if funds are not needed by our department, our staff has shown very good skill by not spending it. Number four, we can give a lot of citizens a very positive message if we move $50,000 and even just use the words, just in case, to the library fund. And why in the world would we not agree going forward that that might be as safe as leaving it anywhere else in this general fund moving forward.

Councillor Wilson.

Addressing citizens' comments and we did get a letter that's in front of all of us. I don't think Jim got a chance to see it, but from Andrew Elliott, requesting a minimum of 25,000 to possibly hire a volunteer coordinator. So my ask is if Councilor Maraday would be willing to potentially amend the motion to 25,000 to the 25,000, which is what one of the citizens that has been very vocal in support of the library and developing a volunteer coordinator, if that would be something that he would be willing to amend the motion to a 25 instead of 50,000.

As long as the city manager has free hand in staffing the library and managing the personnel allocations.

It's his job to do that. We don't direct him that way anyway. But it would give him additional funds to work with.

Councillor Lammerman.

So I'd have to kind of piggyback on Councillor Irvin's I'd have to say that I'm in favor of the budget as proposed. With also keeping in mind that we can also do an amendment a couple months down the road if we need to, but I'd hate to utilize a big majority of that housing assistance program if another program might need it. Because once it's gone, it's gone. It's not coming back. People need to realize that.

Councilor Rubin.

Yeah, I've been trying to follow this as far as what the requests have been in the letters. And the original budget proposal was one FTE. And adequate staffing was defined as... One person at one FTE and 2.7 people. What we have budget for is in excess of that right now. It's two, as described, it's two 1.0 FTE and a 0.7. So what I'm wrestling with here is, is this purely symbolic Or is it relating to what services are able to be provided and how many staffing for safe and adequate staffing in five days a week? Because we've met that. So I wonder where this is coming from. It seems like a moving target. We've met the requests. I'd like to know what's going on underneath.

Councilor Lammerman.

I'd have to agree because it seems like a big majority is more coming down to a symbolism thing because I'm not really hearing too much opposition to taking 25,000 out of the materials and services, which supports the library. So it, I agree. I'd like to know a little bit more what's going on underneath there, but.

Councillor Murray to.

The that we had funding to support to one full time positions and 1.7 I first heard today up until this point, I have not heard had any sort of guarantee that we could afford anything other than the budgeted one full time position and we cobbled together enough for 1.7 I'm learning today for the first time that we do have funding for two full-time positions and 1.7, is that in stone?

Oh, your honor, members of the council, let me be very clear. The question was in what has been budgeted, what could be afforded? And the answer is that for the amount that's currently in the budget, about $200,000 in the personnel line item could fund two full-time and 1.7 position.

That's first available today, right?

I you know I think we've discussed this in more general terms in the past, but those this is the first time I was asked a direct question and just give a direct answer okay.

Are we ready to vote on the motion and. Well we probably need to restate.

The June. Well, we did have a friendly amendment, I believe.

Are you still wanting your friendly amendment, I guess is the question.

I was just putting it out there as a possibility of if what the original counselor moved for $50,000, whether you would be interested in doing that. I'm actually more leaning towards... letting the city manager do what the city manager does with the budgeted amount. If any were to be moved, I would say maybe reinstating the 25,000 that we stripped from, the library budget as it was. If we were going to move money back into the library, move it back into the budgeted line items that were stripped of 25,000, that would be more along the lines of what I would like to see because it appears that we have adequate funding for staffing in the budget. Not that we can... give any direction specifically to the city manager in that regard, that's his job. And I trust him to do his job. He does it well. But we did in our budget proposal, strip 25,000 out of various line items within the library budget. Mr. Councilor Sotomayor did a good fine job of putting that proposal together. If that could be reinstated out of that, that would be a potential, but I would rather see the funds be left alone actually for potential use later if needed, you know, if the library needs it, Hey, we've got to have some funds there. Is there some funds available? Then we have some to amend later, but that's, that's my, my thoughts.

Do we want to take a vote on the original motion? Councillor Lamberman.

Can we have the original motion read back?

Thank you, Mayor. It was moved by Councillor Merida and seconded by Councillor Sotomayor to move $50,000 from the Housing Assistance Fund to the library.

Will the recorder please call the roll? Councillor Heinck?

No. No. Councillor Lammerman?

No.

Councillor Marady?

Aye.

Councillor Settlemyer?

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby? Nay. Councillor Irvin?

Could you repeat your vote, please? Nay. Thank you.

And Councillor Wilson.

Nay.

Okay, motion passed. Okay.

Councillor Sotomayor. Councillor Sotomayor.

Thank you. I did have my hand raised to talk before you started taking questions. I guess I should have broken in. If the worst case scenario would have been that this was just to show that we listened to do that then i don't understand why we're so quick to say no to this i know we just did it but i'm gonna say it now um the idea that it isn't worth us moving money around to show that we support so many people. And at the same time, we don't know how much money it would take moving forward for the library. We cut half of the last year's budget. I imagine maybe it will smart somehow.

Councilor Irvin.

I'm hoping that the results of the service delivery of the library are what speak to whether we've heard the community or not. And if it's not sufficient, we will hear that as well and make adjustments. So, and as I mentioned before, I am strongly going to seek your support in getting a ballot measure so that no signatures have to be gathered. So it's not any effort beyond what has already been output, but that we heard that the Eugene Library measure Among all others that didn't pass, passed. And so that will be, I think, the right size mechanism and means to address. We know that a $4 utility fee was largely supported at the town hall. that would have only been imposed on city residents. So a library district that represents those that have broad use support seems to be the more fair allocation of the shared burden. So that's where I'm putting my... my efforts there. And with that, I move to adopt resolution number 2181, adopting the 2026-2027 budget, making appropriations and imposing and categorizing ad valorem taxes. I second.

We have a motion with a second. Any discussion? Councilor Sotomayor.

On the little sheet where it says all of the numbers that we're appropriating and everything, I'm going to be picky again. Promotion says $98,000 there. Can we just decide once and for all? Or does it not matter when we accept this that that's $5,000 off?

Mr. Sauerwein.

Good evening, Your Honor and members of the council. As I've said before, this is a number that is based on an estimate. And as I said, if the number comes out at the full amount that we've budgeted for, great. If it comes in higher, great. But as I said, I'm not really sure I know how exactly to answer your question.

Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councilor Lammerman?

Aye.

Councilor Marady?

Nay.

Councilor Settlemyer?

Nay.

Councilor Wilson?

Aye.

Councilor Ervin?

Aye.

Councilor Heink?

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby. Aye.

Motion carries. Item C, resolution amending the comprehensive fee schedule. Public works director, Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mayor. So this resolution is proposing the council to amend three sections of our comprehensive fee schedule. The first section is section three, which is utilities. Okay, so the section three is utility fees and the proposed utility fee increases reflected 2026-27 utility fees that were approved by the budget committee. The proposed miscellaneous utility fees include changes reflect an application fee, including adding actual costs to the zone of benefit and the zone of benefit assessment fees. So the proposal is the fees that were recommended by the budget committee are approved. And the second item in utility fees, the very end of the page is amending the So on a benefit application fee to reflect a $250 application fee plus the actual costs to process that to go before city council. And if it's approved by the city council, the second fee is the benefit assessment fee, which would be paid at $200 fee plus the actual costs. So the assessment fee is if there's a lot of parcels that are impacted in the zone of benefit, each parcel has to have records recorded at Lane County and those fees would be appropriate so that there's no cost to the city. The second section is section eight, which is broadband services. As was said earlier this evening by the city manager, that broadband services no longer is utilized and there's no broadband services offered to the city. So the action reflected in the resolution is to eliminate broadband services altogether. And finally, the section nine is the Middlefield Golf Course. In this was added a fee to lease or rent the covered outdoor event space. At the golf course, we're finding that there is a desire to have retirements, potential weddings, wedding receptions, items that are not reflected or utilized at the golf course in conjunction. There would be no fee if you had a golf tournament out there and you use that site for the golf tournament, there would be no additional fee. But if it's not a golf-related activity, then there would be a fee that would be charged, and that's what's being proposed, a minimum fee per hour, and then also a fee added for chairs and table rentals. So if there are no questions, it's staff recommendation that the City Council adopt the resolution of effect amending the comprehensive fee schedule.

Councilor Lammerman.

Madam Mayor, Council, Mr. Stewart, in regards to the utility fees, have we done any estimates or done any metrics to see what the new Pine Springs Apartments coming online is going to add to revenue coming in to the water department or extra costs or anything?

Mayor, Councilor Lamberman. No, the only thing that we did in calculating the fee that is going to be generated for this next year is a 1% growth in actual sales and accounts. I think it's very possible that there'll be more than 1% if those units get fully rented and brought online. But at the present time, I don't know if they've actually rented an apartment yet. So I'm not sure how that'll transition in. We'll have a better idea at the end of next year, knowing how many is rented and what the revenue is that's bringing in.

Councilor Rubin.

So this... This resolution represents something that's going to be felt by residents of Cottage Grove. I don't think I can overstate. We just passed the budget based on what's about to drop right now. And it's in that light that most of the conversation that we just had kind of is bathed this is a cost allocation of city staff that hasn't been done i don't know if it's ever been done in our budgeting process where it is following budget policy which is that the utilities the the services being um provided take responsibility for the costs, right? That the rates are set based on what it actually costs to run these utilities and deliver the services. So it's an attempt to do that correctly, but it's without data to support it. So really, I mean, there's gut, there's general expectation, but it's not based on hours allocation of what is actually done and worked It is just in my brief kind of research across this Oregon, other budgets and cost allocations, the 40% is kind of on the high end, which means if we do this study and that's correct, we might actually see that we need to reduce the amount that's allocated to the utilities in the future and put it back as a burden on the general fund. which will mean there's less money in the general fund to do the things that the general fund funds next year and the year after. So. This is gonna be painful. I don't think many people really know about this. The logic is that we are trying to recover the cost of what it cost to deliver the services. But this is, and I agree in principle with that, which is why I'm gonna make the motion and support it with a Hawkeye on if we're doing this, it needs to be done accurately and being able to bear out that the data supports that percentage of allocation that we go into next year. So with that, is there a resolution number for this?

Excuse me, Mayor. I apologize that I had to step out. I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to allow public comment on the.

Yes, we need to allow public comment right now. Anyone would like to comment on this?

Thank you, Ms. Roberts.

I note to remind me public comment and still skipped it. All right, I see none.

I move to adopt resolution number 2182. Amending the comprehensive fee schedule section three utilities and section four middle field golf course and eliminating. Sorry, that's nine, right? Sorry, VNX. Section nine middle field golf course and eliminating section eight broadband services.

Second. We have a motion with a second. Any discussion? Council Member Day.

One of our speakers today spoke about the impact of cost of living on our seniors. That's something I've often considered as well. If we raise the rates a bit more but created a fund that would offset people in need, I wonder if that's something the council would have interest to pursue, adding an additional $0.11 per account or something. It could generate a fund that could be used for people under financial hardship to offset sharp increases, maybe not pay their whole bill, but cover the cost of the the fee increase that would would endanger their ability to pay. So I was wondering if there's any appetite for pursuing something like that. A surcharge or something that would create a fund to help that could be applied for for financially stressed seniors.

On serving

So under concerns of council, I have a donation mechanism via utility bill question mark. As long as I've been on council eight years now, I have sat here with a philosophy that has been at odds with, it seems like the thrust, which is it is not generous to give other people's money away without their option of saying yes or no it is not compassionate it is not self-sacrifice um i want to promote the opportunities for people to be generous the mechanisms to do so but when you take away that option it is something entirely different. And I think it is actually harmful to our, largely harmful to our community and the sentiment that is born. We want to promote volunteerism. We want to promote love thy neighbor, take, you know, self-sacrifice, see the need, address it. But I cannot support it being involuntary.

Councillor Wilson.

I agree with that approach, maybe as something within the utility bill donate for relief fund as an addition that you can voluntarily add to your payment to help create a fund that would help offset As a fixed income senior myself, I totally agree with the need to support that. But to reach into people's pockets when they don't have the ability, they may be on the edge themselves and say, we need to create this fund and you're going to help pay for it whether you like it or not. I don't like that approach either.

Councilor Lammerman.

Ms. Roberts, did you have something? Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to put on my past utility billing clerk hat. So the city of Cottage Grove... has two programs that can currently help people in need one is the roundup your water bill it's called the h2o program so people can donate um simply by rounding up their bill to a nearest amount whatever amount they want or they can put a recurring charge on their on their water bill that goes into a fund that is then given to community sharing that helps people who either water has been disconnected or they have received a disconnect notice The other opportunity for helping those who may be in need is the assisted rates plan. And those are two plans that are currently in place at the city of Cottage Grove for the utility bills.

Thank you, Ms. Roberts.

I'll just throw a little essay out there. I didn't know this. We should know this a long time ago. Pacific Power, if you're on Pacific Power, has a 20% reduction of rates for qualifying incomes. I think probably a lot of people in our community would qualify and could see a real reduction in their rates by just going onto the website and applying for that. It takes like three or four days to respond.

Councilor Lammerman?

I have to say I'm not in favor of the rate increase. And a big part of that is due to our seniors, disabled, low income. There's a lot of complaints online, in person about the rates that we have. They're relatively high compared to some areas. There's a lot of people who are struggling to pay them. There's a lot of people who gripe about having to pay for their storm water improvement and all that. Like me, I live on a hill. I don't have a storm drain, but somebody down the road does. So I understand why I'm paying for it because all the water goes down to that one. But I can understand why some people would have a grievance with it. I do understand that it does take money to treat water for you to drink, then to deal with it on the other end. Um, but I also have a issue with the fact that there's some individuals on this council who will say, what about the seniors? And then the same breath on another topic, say it's only 34 cents. Um, And then to go on and basically say socialism is the way to go in regards to forced taxation for lower income or seniors, that's definitely a no-go.

All right. Let's stay on target here.

All right.

So do we have a motion with a second?

I do not know. All right.

So, Willard Carter, please call the roll.

Do you like me to repeat the motion? Please. Okay. It's moved by Councillor Irvin and seconded by Councillor Hink to adopt resolution number 2182, amending the comprehensive fee schedule section three utilities and section nine Middlefield Golf Course and eliminating section eight broadband services. All right. Councillor Lammerman.

No.

Councillor Merida. Aye.

Aye.

Councillor Settlemyer?

Aye.

You might have said it, but we didn't catch it.

Councillor Settlemyer, it looks like your mic is still muted.

Aye. Hello?

Or I have a connectivity issue. All right, I'm going to come back to you or maybe you could throw your vote in the chat. Oh, there you are. You're voting in the affirmative. Thank you. Councillor Wilson.

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby.

Nay.

Councillor Heinck. Karen Hollweg, name counselor urban. Karen Hollweg, 43.

Karen Hollweg, All right.

Item D, resolution adopting a supplemental budget for fiscal year 2025-26. Interim finance director, Eric Kytola.

Hello. We're looking at the supplemental budget page two. The first one we're looking at is the general fund. We have an increase in broadband as the city manager talked about earlier. Uh, community development has, uh, an increase. Um, this is due to the fact that one of the staff members that was, um, 100% in building inspection halfway through the year was moved 50% into the general fund for, uh, community development to reflect, um, the work they're doing. And then we have an increase in debt service, which is due to me making a mistake. When I filled out the debt service schedule last year, the formula had excluded the police department's lease payments to their cars. So adding that back in meant it went up. The next fund is the storm drain utility fund. Reviewing this one, the line item for fuel and lubricants in the budget was $5,000. But at the time I put this together, it was very close to 11,000. So just an increase in the cost of fuel and lubricants due to the increased gas prices. Page 3, we have the Street Systems Development Fund. uh again i made an error in this one and this one's going to be kind of harder to explain so the budget was adopted with the correct admin fee in it like the multi-page document but the two or three page document that council had when they adopted the budget had the wrong number on it so What was adopted in the three ring binder was correct, but the numbers I put onto the two or three page document was wrong. So we need to hopefully increase that. It's just being offset with a decrease in capital outlay and there hasn't been capital spent in there. So it's not an increase in the budget. It's just moving the money from capital to MNS materials and services. The next one is the park systems development fund we didn't put any money into the or let's see. No funds were allocated to building and improvements during the budget process, but then, as the year went on, we decide it became apparent that we needed to do some. park improvements. So that's just an increase in park improvements, decreasing MNS because there's room there to do that. The police communication fund needs to go up by 3000 because the PRS UAL debt payment ended up being more than was budgeted for. The narcotics forfeiture fund, you pass some supplemental budget for the forfeiture fund the last time it came up. Doing that meant that there wasn't enough money to make the debt service payment. So the debt service payment is being moved to the police department in the general fund. Also just I had to remind you that the narcotics fund has no budget for 27. So it's all zeros. Then we go to the debt service fund and this is showing the extra funding from the general fund that needs to move over to the debt service fund. We talked about the special trust fund. Again, what it is, is using the Eugene Symphony funds in the special trust fund, transferring them for a reimbursement to the general fund for years FY23, 24, 25, and 26. The Armory Special Trust Fund we talked about, but again, it's just the increase in M&S and revenue for the wall dog donation. Page five, we have the Wastewater Fund. Again, I made a mistake when I put the personnel costs. Let's see where to go. I think I might have the wrong note in here. I'm really sorry. We already dealt with this personnel issue in the middle field golf, the last supplemental. There, do you remember what that is?

If I might, Madam Mayor. What we experienced in the wastewater treatment plant throughout this year was the increase in chemical costs and the increase in biosolids. We not only had the amount of biosolids, but we also had an increase in price for biosolids. So the materials and services in the wastewater treatment plant were lower than what was projected. And there was also as Eric has been sharing personnel, but that was dealt with in the previous supplemental. So this is needed to balance our materials and services.

And this is not increasing the budget. We're doing a decrease in wastewater collection, the transfer to debt service and reducing contingency to make up the difference, the increase in the wastewater treatment plant. Next, we have the Economic Development Grant, which we talked about. The funds from the federal government aren't gonna make it here by June 30th. So we're gonna do a short-term loan from the Storm Drain Reserve. So onto the last page, page six, we have the Storm Drain Reserve Fund making the short-term loan to the EDA Grant Fund to make sure we're compliant. And then the Building Inspection Program We're decreasing personnel services because of that staff person being moved into the general fund in community development. So no change in the budget there, just lowering personnel services and increasing the contingency amount.

Any questions? Councillor Urban.

I move that the council adopt resolution number 2-1-8-3 adopting the supplemental budget for fiscal year 2025-26 and making appropriations. I second.

We have a motion with a second. Any more discussion? Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Meredith?

Aye.

Councillor Sotomayor? Thank you for the visual. Councillor Heinke. Aye. Councillor Lammerman.

Aye.

Councillor Wilson.

Aye.

Councillor Irvin.

Aye.

Mayor Soulsby.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you.

Item E, ordinance amending ordinance number 2483 and repealing ordinance number 2600, Cottage Grove Garbage Service Franchise Agreement. City Manager, Mr. Sarawak.

Well, good evening, Your Honor and members of the Council. This is a follow-up to our previous discussion, recognizing the fact that a Carbondrove Garbage Service has announced a transition to commingled recycling system and that they'll no longer be including glass recycling. And this ordinance essentially removes glass recycling from the franchise agreement.

Mr. Lammerman.

I move to adopt ordinance number 3208, amending ordinance number 2483, and repealing ordinance number 2600. Second.

We have a motion with a second. Any discussion? Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Irvin?

Aye.

Councillor Heinck? Aye. Councillor Lammerman?

Aye.

Councillor Meredith?

Aye.

Councillor Settlemyer? Aye. Coming back for a thumbs up. Thank you, Councilor Wilson.

Aye.

And Mayor Sosny.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Business from the City Council. Award of Cottage Grove Lincoln Middle School Path Face. And I have to recuse myself. I have an actual conflict of interest in this. Our son is one of the owners in Pacific Excavation.

Dr. Stewart, can you give us the report? Yes. Thank you, Council President. So on Friday, May 22nd, 2026, city staff posted an invitation to bid for the construction of the Lincoln School Path Phase 1. The project involves the construction of a fire apparatus access turnaround and a new shared use path along the Coast Fork-Willamette River connecting Lincoln Middle School to East Hayes Avenue, and then to the Northwest to the city's Fillmore storm water bioswale. The work involves excavation, trenching, compacting, paving, extension of the storm drain pipes, and removal of trees and site restoration. I'll show you just on the, I handed out a... aerial showing everybody. The orange is what the pathways are being prepared and with the approval. The red T is the end of Hayes where that turnaround will be created. There's no parking designed at the end of Hayes, but we know that folks will drive to the end of Hayes and to make it safe for people to turn around and get back out. We wanted to include a turnaround. So with that, sale bids were due by 2 p.m. on June 11th at Branch Engineering. The intent to bid was advertised on May 22nd in the Daily Journal of Commerce. Five bids were received and opened on June 11th. And they were as follows, Pacific Excavation Inc. for $437,647. BAP Construction Company for $474,474. Wildish Construction Company for $541,969. Brown Contracting for $689,763. H&J Construction for $734,235.25. The bid packages have been reviewed and found all to be responsible and responsive. Branch Engineering's recommendation is to award the contract to Pacific Excavation as the low responsive bidder. If there's no questions, staff's recommendation is to award the Lincoln Middle School Path Phase 1 contract to Pacific Excavation Inc. Do we have any discussion?

Council Laramie.

I move that the city council award the Cottage Grove Lincoln middle school path contract for phase one to Pacific excavation Inc for $434,647 and zero cents and direct the city manager to sign the contract and all associated documents.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any follow-up discussion?

Councilor Wilson. The amount. is 434,000 and it's 437,647.

Council, Council Ervin and Council Lamberman, that is an error in my transposing numbers. It should be, the bid is $437,647. Thank you.

I'll amend my motion to $437,647. Thank you. All right, we have a motion and a second. I would just note that

This was a long time in coming. Really appreciate staff's work on this and this ability to move about the city off of main streets from walking and biking and the eventual connection to Bohemia Park is a real enhancement to the community and appreciate ODOT picking up 80% of the cost of that. So with that, will all in favor signify by saying aye? Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Saw a thumbs up from Sol Suttermeyer. All right, I will go get the mirror.

Can we cool it off in here? I'm sweating my ass. Oh, shit.

Thank you.

All right. Item B, draft letter to Governor's Prosperity Council. Council President Greg Urban.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, time check.

Time check. Do we have a consensus to continue?

Yep.

Yes.

All right. I'll try to be brief here. Essentially, the governor convened a prosperity council seeking to understand why Oregon is... has the metrics that it has in relation to education, business friendliness, among a lot of other issues that affect general livability. And so I thought, How helpful could it possibly be if Cottage Grove, with the voice of its council, just advocated for our community and just highlighted here are the issues that we see just baseline, you know, top of mind that affect us. negatively that you as a governor have within your purview to direct policy on. So this is a letter that I've written. My hope is that you've had a chance to read it. And if an amend, add, tweak, whatever, so that you can support it so so that with one voice as a council, we can we can advocate for our community to the governor's office.

Councillor Sotomayor.

Can you hear me?

Ms. Roberts is trying to get your sound on. Play technician.

How about now?

Try it again, Councillor Sotomayor. Perfect.

Does this work better? Hello, hello.

We can hear you just fine.

Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Lam or no Councillor Irvine for some really good information here in this letter I before I could support it. There's a couple of of edits that I would need. And that is one first is under forestry management where I'm Let's see. I believe it's the third sentence where it says excess restrictions on responsible to timber harvesting and processing reduce our ability to fund public safety, infrastructure and education. I cannot support that sentence. You got me to go and look at what Oregon Forestry Practices Act essentially requires. And kind of maybe at the root of that is at the end where The last sentence, I would need to kind of drop the end of it. When you say we need a path forward that allows us to sustainably maximize the use of timber resources while being responsible stewards of our environment, that's wonderful, gold to me. But at the last part where you say as it relates to wildlife and fire risk, When I look that the only thing that I can see that you're omitting from the act is to ignore water quality steps that the act suggests and soil productivity that the act suggests. encourages. So if you can agree to those amendments, I definitely agree that we should do something about making it, you know, increase our productivity while we're being good stewards. Should I go on to another one or should I pause there?

If I could see clarity, would it be to essentially not list the various things where the restrictions lie and just leave it at this balance of maximizing utilization while responsible stewardship?

Yes.

What's the qualm with the third sentence that starts with excessive restrictions?

Because I don't see that it's excessive restrictions alone that is being, I mean, just, I couldn't see where it was excessive restrictions. It's... So I guess it's when I read that act, I mean, I went through the chapters. It says take care of the riparian zone, steep forests. I mean, it costs more because we're requiring the roads to be built in appropriate ways to access the timber. I don't see where the word excessive belongs. I wonder if there's red tape somewhere that I really am not sure what it would take, but the idea of let's get our capacity up or our use up closer to our capacity, but remain a sound steward.

Yeah, I think I support the principle of that. I couldn't point to any one thing and say, this is the thing that decision makers are leaning on to interpret approvals or not. The sentiment here is we're underutilizing the resource. There are lands that were designated to be utilized. There have been issues that have come up in the past with interpretation that, you know, someone in the governor's position could give guidance and change if there was a will to do so. So that's really what I'm trying to hit at here.

I mean, I agree. Interpretation is so crazy, but I don't see in print where there's excessive restrictions.

I'm not referencing legislation necessarily here. I'm saying any form of restriction doesn't have to be legislated. It can be in the interpretive layer.

Okay. I can see that.

Just like we have across the board in Oregon, we have Oregon's land use laws. And if you do a grid comparison of each county's policies to interpret that, there are more and less restrictive. I'm trying to get it at this level, at the state level, we are being in my interpretation and I, you know, whatever language needs to be to be in consensus, but excessive in our restrictions of maybe it's interpretation of federal law.

Okay. No. Okay. I thank you for that perspective. I can go with that if we can get rid of the last two, four, six, eight words.

As it relates. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you. And then... Oh, go ahead. No, should I should I stop at that and see if anybody else has an issue with that one before I go to my second issue?

You can you can finish.

Okay.

Well, actually, Councillor Mary Day would like to jump in.

Oh, okay.

So I'm wondering if this, does this in any way reference back to when the counties received timber money? Because I don't know, even if we increase harvest and production, would that money necessarily go to back to the counties or would the corporate interests that are driving like warehouse or they're not particularly going to redirect any money towards us, I don't think might provide some employees, but you know that it's not going into a timber fund as if as of old yes or no.

I mean, this is certainly one of the issues with writing a letter like this. I'm not an expert in this field. What I'm seeking to do is represent a general sentiment that is a voice that could be heard, right? Someone more informed, hopefully a governor would be able to filter that just like we're required to do with our budget process and all this, like through what we know intimately. And they have done that on. If the ship has sailed on that, and it's just a foregone conclusion, then I would expect them to just dismiss the section as there's nothing that can be done. What I'm hoping is that it's a reminder. Maybe there's a new way to look at this. you know, if the conditions were, were different, even slightly, I think I heard some forget which representative it was. I think it was the federal level that kind of had this epiphany moment that said, you know, Hey, the endangered species act and forestry management is really not at odds with we can we can we can make them work well together better than than now there was this 30 years has gone by the advocates of maybe you know that march the charge on this have long gone you know come and gone new conditions have presented themselves people look around and go man we need to figure something out here and look at where the resource around us like maybe maybe we need with fresh eyes to look at this so this is this is my appeal you know we look outside and we see where we live and it's unique in the world and um can we can we do better you know that's that's what i'm trying to get at with that conveying counselor wilson and

The biggest problem that I see and I deal with a lot of people and I've related to a lot of people in the forest industry and in the firefighting industry when it comes to forest fires is the restrictions on building access roads to fight fires. And that's been a... It's a nationwide problem, and it is a federal issue more than it is a state issue on that from what I understand. I'm not directly related to it, but I'm related to several people that are involved in it. And that's their biggest complaint is we'd love to fight the fires, but we can't get to them because we're not allowed to build fire access roads. which can be used in recreation and tourism. And so all of that is something that kind of goes hand in hand. Forest access roads are often used by four-wheel drive clubs that, generally speaking, go in and remove litter and take care of the roads. That's one of the things that the four-wheel drive clubs do. Because when they go up, they take care of, they keep them open, and they keep them cleaned up. And so if we can advocate somewhere in there that... Forest management should include the clearing of underbrush and access roads in some way, shape, or form. That would be very helpful because that's the biggest fire danger that we have is the underbrush not being cleared out. And you can't get to it because it can't get roads. The roads are not being built.

Danny is a bit of an expert in this field. Counselor Settlemyer.

Okay for me to go on to another one?

Yes.

Thank you. In the homelessness and mental illness section. Once again, some good thoughts and nice writing. I could live with this if we could move trade the... this placement of the second and third sentence and move the word also from the we also believe it is important to the last sentence after the word also.

Are you talking about swapping the spots of sentence two and three?

Yes.

And basically because we haven't already addressed anything, get rid of also there.

And then.

Yeah. So it would, it would read, we believe the state's current legislative approach to homelessness has had the net effect of reducing the livability of cottage Grove and made Oregon less attractive to residents and businesses. We believe that, It is important to recognize that some individuals may be mentally incapable of living independently within the broader community. In our view, the state courts and law enforcement should change courses and place greater emphasis on enforcing quality of life standards. then where's the other also and then we must oh we must also hold a higher standard for individuals behaviors within society yeah you had the also right after the we but i don't care where if it goes after the we or the must okay i think i got that

Do we have a consensus?

Well, we didn't address the adding the brush fire in the road access. Should that be a separate section or nested in forestry management?

I'll let you go there.

And does everyone agree with how to exactly word that in? One, two, three, four. As a result of higher timber production, funds would be available for road access and maintaining road access to fight fires.

As a result of what?

As a result of increased timber production, funds would be available for maintenance of firefighting access roads.

And funding to keep fire access road, four sacks and fire access roads open would have a positive effect on wildfire management practices.

Cut off the funds to maintain the roads and then you can't fight the fires and therefore don't have any timber to harvest.

Do you need a motion? Or like it to be on letterhead?

Do you need a consensus or a motion?

I think, in this case, thank you mayor counselor when I think in this case consensus would work, do you anticipate bringing a final copy back or do you have enough direction from everyone with the changes.

I feel like it was pretty specific direction. Hopefully I can follow it. I'll finish up that. So if the council is in favor of me doing that, then we can.

Maybe that would be the consensus to seek then is if councils direct counselor Irvin to make those changes and then submit the letter.

We have a consensus to direct counselor Irvin to craft the letter as said, right? We do. Thank you, councilor.

Oh, you have a question. So will it be on city letterhead? Is there a council official letters? Good.

Thank you.

Yes, it would.

Thank you, council.

All right. Thank you. Business from city council. Oh, I'm sorry. Concerns of council. Anyone have anything to add in terms of council? Councilor Evans.

Thank you. So I guess this will be the third time I'm mentioning this tonight when I intended to only do it once. But I am seeking council's consensus to at least direct staff to give us feedback on this process of establishing recurring measures so that we can keep before the voters I know there's going to be some crafting work to be done ahead of time, but the idea being that ever present before the voters are ways to fund the things that we've heard them talking about above and beyond the general fund. So library, public safety, rec, which could include pool and roads are the ones that come to mind.

Thank you.

councilor lammerman i'm all in favor for looking at setting up like the library the library districts and and whatnot the only thing i would be a little hesitant about would be the reoccurring cost every cycle to have something just continually put on the ballot So I could be wrong on this.

My understanding was it doesn't cost the city besides staff time, which is not a significant thing. But the November general election ballots are not paid. There's no fee for adding a measure. Is that correct?

Mindy, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that is correct.

I'm sorry. I was clarifying an issue with the city attorney. Could you repeat the question?

If a city wants to put forward a ballot measure in a special election, there's a fee associated with it. I remember that we came up against that on the road, but my understanding was that on a general election, there is no fee.

I think that if we're able to make those deadlines, that that is the case. I'd have to look into it a little bit more. I've only went through just that one that we did outside of that, but I certainly could look into it and bring back more information.

Councillor Mary Day.

It's also the nature of the measure. If you're just asking for a funding, it's pretty simple and straightforward. If you're trying to establish a district, then you have to define the district, and there is a cost with the county to do that, and the cost goes up considerably, as does the organization of organizing the district, and you have to set up the... the structure and there's a lot of work to it so but just to simply ask for funding to support programs you believe in is pretty simple.

Councilor Sotomayor.

So is it okay to ask to wait for this vote until we get clarification from staff?

Yeah, I think I'm seeking consensus, at least right now, on having staff hear this discussion and help direct what the best course of action is from here, knowing this is a general desire.

Good evening, Your Honor, members of the Council. If there is a consensus on this, why don't you let Mindy and I do some research, and we'll bring back a report to you.

I think we have a consensus.

Thank you.

Well, if you haven't heard, the city of Cottage Grove got an amazing gift from the Portland artists that have worked with the Wall Dogs in the past on the Dalles. And they brought 30 artists together and painted us an amazing mural at no cost except for materials. as a gift to Cottage Grove to advertise for our event in 2027. We have it in storage. We will be putting it up on the Little Caesars backside building. And we are planning to do a unveiling of that ribbon cutting. And it was an amazing, amazing, beautiful gift that they did for us. They didn't have to, but they're very excited and really supportive of Cottage Grove. So wanted to share that. Right. Is there anyone else? No. All right. Report from the city manager.

Just one quick item. I have one of Mindy's famous yellow post-its. It's that time of year again, everyone, to get your total volunteer hours into Mindy. And early on in your tenure with this year, she gave you a sheet for you to fill out. for your hours here in city council meetings, but also in the hours that you spent working as a city council member, diligently working with other groups. You do not need to give her a detailed report. You need to give her a total number, which we're required to file with the state. Mendea.

You captured it perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. and if there's nothing from the city attorney or you went okay wonderful Ms. Conley, you are free to speak.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Oh, okay. All right, that wasn't immediate. So nothing really substantive to report. It has been a joy. Thank you for letting me participate distantly for tonight. You all tackled some very difficult decisions, and congratulations on passing that budget. So nothing substantive. I continue to work closely with staff on several projects. I did wanna follow up on that comment, Madam Mayor, that you just made about the Waldogs. I had a opportunity to work with the Dalles city attorney and he on his own just said, if you ever have a chance to work with the Waldogs, they're incredible, they were wonderful to work with. He was so effusive, he couldn't stop singing their praises.

So- Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah, I just thought the timing was incredible. That was literally like just before the weekend. And great catch on that dollar amount in the middle school path contract award motion. So thank you all for paying attention. That's all.

Thank you, Ms. Conley.

927. Oh, I'm signing out. I'm not going to stay for the URA meeting unless you would like me to.

No, go ahead. Sign out.

Okay. I mean, I'll wait until this meeting adjourns. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you.

All right. Well, the city council meeting is adjourned.

We all play a role in that part. Well, welcome everybody to the urban renewal agency meeting. I'm going to call this to order at 926 seven. Will the recorder please call the roll?

You are now officially Board of Directors of the Urban Renewal Agency. So we'll start with Board of Directors. Heinck? Here. Merida?

Here.

Wilson?

Here.

Soulsby? Here. Settlemyer?

Here.

Lammerman?

Here.

And Chair Urban?

Here. All right, we have a resolution before us, a resolution adopting the 2026-2027 Urban Renewal Agency budget. And we have a report from city manager, Mike Sauerwein.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. As we've previously discussed, this is the first year of our urban renewal district. We're only gonna be generating about $70,000. And it's our intention to dedicate that toward a portion of the cost of one of the folks in our community development department will be emphasizing work in urban renewal and also economic development. I wanna be clear, we are not hiring an additional staff person. We are transitioning an existing staff person to taking on this role.

Do we have any discussion? Councilor Lammerman or Director Lammerman.

I move to adopt resolution number URA 26-01, adopting the URA 2026-2027 budget. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll record a Robert's plea calls the roll.

All right. Director Wilson?

Aye.

Settlemyer?

Aye.

Merida?

Aye.

Lammerman?

Aye.

Heink? Aye. Soulsby? Aye. Chair Urban?

Aye. Thank you. That passes unanimously. With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.

Nope.

We'll just.