City Council - Regular Meeting

Where is everybody? And then online and dance night, I believe. There's a potential for being a short meeting tonight. Putting the pressure on you, Tim. No.

OK, we're ready to go here. October 26, 2026. This is our regular city council meeting. Welcome, everyone. And at this point, I'd like to ask the city clerk to please call the roll.

Present. Serious Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me and stand if you can and join me in the pledge. Bear with me here.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Item four is approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

Rod, I will make a motion to approve the agenda.

It's been moved by Councilor Runyon and seconded by Councilor Randall to approve the agenda. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 5A is a presentation from the Mid-Columbia Community Action Council. And with us tonight is the Executive Director, Leslie Naramore. Welcome, Leslie.

Thanks for being here. Good information. As a former chair of the Columbia Community Action Council, during my time with the county, I was chair probably most of my eight years. I was also, when it was called CAP, Community Action Program, about five decades ago. I was on there at that time. My question goes back to almost your first slide with the annex, okay? And there were a lot of rules to be allowed to be in the annex and the rules where you would not be allowed to stay in the annex. Now that you're going to have 21 units basically listed as permanent, but are there rules there to protect

Okay. And are we talking, could it be couples? Is it just individuals with children?

Dog or cat. OK, but that can have issues as well.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get the questions out that are going to end up in the newspaper for you. Okay, so that's great. Thank you very much. That's a good deal. The Hamilton is going to be an issue. It was an issue back when I was on a board, and I'm the one that got it to have a couple of units at the east end for veterans. There were two units, and then it all became veterans, and that's been great. But the building is probably about ready to hit the bulldozer. It's been there many, many decades.

There will be a major community project to help you with that. Thank you.

And on another kind of topic, you contacted me about a sound system and whatnot. Was that you or somebody else from your group? Yeah. No. Okay. I thought it was, I thought it was macaque. All right. Thank you. That's all I got.

Yeah. Thank you, Leslie. I just wanted to say, I think you're probably the most underappreciated resource we have in the community. So I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work.

I have two questions. Um, You mentioned you're making the rounds to other counties and cities. How many county commission meetings and city council meetings have you been to or do you plan to attend?

Okay, that's all right. The Bread and Blessings, have the number of meals that they serve gone down when they had to change locations?

Yeah, but the number of meals they serve, it's...

Okay, great. Anybody else? Thank you very much.

Next on the agenda is a presentation by Janet Amata. regarding the Next Door program. And her, your sidekick, Janet's a Chicago White Sox fan, and her sidekick is not a Sox fan, she said. Why don't you introduce yourself?

Questions? The aid clients. Are they? I trust they're in your jurisdiction.

Good to know. Okay. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you. Oh, did you want to? Yeah.

Client number three that you mentioned, you said that they have not heard from Did that happen right at the beginning, back in January?

Yeah, I heard about one, but that one was more recent.

It's great Okay, thank you all very much. Thank you Item 5c is a presentation about the sustainable city year program Community local or excuse me community local news and information project. Mr. Andrew the vehicle and

Council Runyon. Did you say you're just starting the survey or has it been going on for a little while here locally?

How are you doing for replies? Is it light, moderate what you expect or heavy?

On a similar sojourn to Harmerston, you said you were there, you did the surveys there and whatnot. Did you get 100 responses, 10 responses, 1,000? Do you have any idea?

Oh, well, that's good. All right. Good start.

Thank you. Anybody else? I appreciate the acknowledgement that I happen to be there on Friday. And as well as Amy and Matthew, we also had David Mills there who's here tonight, our assistant director of public works, Josh Chandler, our director of community development, and Jake Anderson, our economic development officer. And I want to also add that When you asked me to say a few words, I did mention your group specifically. I didn't really mention your group. I mentioned the topic and found myself surrounded by seven of your students who were asking me a lot of questions about what I had said

Okay. Anybody else? Last call? Okay. Thank you.

Item six is audience participation. We have anybody signed up? No, nobody has signed up. Okay. Item seven is city manager report. Mr. Cleaves.

Questions for Mr. Cleaves. The new web page we're going to have is that going to, we'll be able to tell how many hits we get on it, right? Good. And the survey that we just heard about from the sustainable cities, would that be available on our website for people to take the survey? Is there a link?

Thanks. Okay. City Council reports. We'll start with Councillor McLaughlin.

Attended LOC conference and found it very enlightening and enjoyed new information related to cities. And I'll once again say that when comparing to other cities, our city doesn't have it that bad.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also attended the the two and a half day conference and that's all.

Council Runyon. Well, 15th and 16th of October, I attended the League of Oregon Cities and was very pleased to watch one of the panelists on data centers, and that was our mayor, who did a very good job of explaining reality versus some of the things that are out there in the outer limits of reality. Then the following week, it was conference time once again. with the Oregon Connections Telecommunication Conference in Hood River representing QLife. And there were, I think, one, two, three board members there on the afternoon and the next day that I was there. But really entertaining. And it's

Thank you. As far as my report goes, I also, as everybody has alluded to, attended the LOC conference. And I did an interview with Al Wynn on Coffee Break, KODL radio on the 20th. And I've been asked to serve on a committee by Mr. Nate Stice, who's the regional solutions representative through the governor's office. to serve on a committee that evaluates economic development projects throughout Nate's region, which includes obviously the Dalles and a lot of coastal communities. So I had a meeting on the 13th to evaluate those projects. And that's all I have. Number nine is the consent agenda.

Does it stand to reason that we could expect us on the... Next agenda.

Yeah, is there any problem with holding it over yet again, to what would that be November?

Well, before you read it, I guess I would like to know, is he asking that it be held over, or is he just stating that he objects to it, or is he just expressing some reservations and allowing the council to go ahead and vote on it?

It just seems almost appropriate or inappropriate to be going through that list unless we withdraw it from the consent calendar and have that discussion. And I'm all for honoring Councilor Ring's request. And then we could go through those kinds of things and have that discussion.

Yeah. It would be good to have him here. I'm not sure what happened because he was online.

I'm not sure how we can discuss his concerns without him here.

Well, apparently there is some material that has just gone through.

Oh, okay. I was looking at that other side. Why don't you go ahead and read it? Anybody have a problem with that?

I agree. I'd make a motion to, is this appropriate time or not, Mr. Mayor?

But it would need to come off the consent agenda to have a discussion, would it? Yes. Yes, that's right.

Well I think we all want to hear what you what he has to say do we want to hear it now or do we want to pull it and then hear it later under item I guess it'd be 10B or 11a under either way we'd have to take it off the consent agenda to have a discussion about the possibility of holding it over or going ahead and voting on it after we pulled it off and heard the discussion

That's just basic rules. Well, I'm suggesting, does he read the memo from Ben now, or does he wait until we get to that item later on?

Consent agenda, I'll say again, is a non-discussion item. You yay or nay it. If you take it off, then you can have that discussion.

Okay. Anybody want to make a motion to...

I'll make a motion to honor Councilor Ring's request to withdraw it from the consent agenda.

and make it item 11A under discussion items. Right, Amy?

It's been moved by Councilor Runyon and seconded by Councilor McLaughlin to take item 2B and move it off of the consent agenda and move it to what would now be 11A, item 11A under discussion items. Mayor, that's 10A.

All right. 10B then. Okay. Okay. Is there any more discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Is there now a motion to approve items 9A and 9C on the consent agenda?

Mr. Mayor, I'll move to approve the consent agenda as amended.

It's been moved by Councilor Randall and seconded by Councilor McLaughlin to approve the consent agenda as amended. Is there any more discussion on that? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, moving on to item 10A. It's an ordinance amending the Dallas Municipal Code Chapter 5 related to recreational property.

Thank you. Questions for the city attorney? Council Runyon?

So once the items are solidified, approved, et cetera, as far as what would constitute a fee and what wouldn't and all that, would we do some... I would hope we would do some kind of appropriate but simple signage at Lucid Clark Park saying, you know, some things do require a fee. Please call City Hall, what have you, whatever number. I mean, we would need to... One of the things we keep hearing on the street is, you know, we didn't know. We didn't know there was a rule. Who do we contact? So we would have to come up with some sort of simplified sign that puts it on, you know, with a phone num

Thank you. I just wanted to get that verbally into the record. Yeah, you bet.

Thank you. Let me see if I can kind of summarize this. Back in June of 2025, which is 16 months ago, we passed an ordinance that basically allows our city properties, and you've mentioned where those are, and the staff report mentions where they are, and it allows only, quote, recreational purposes on those properties, and it provides a couple of exceptions to what we call recreational purposes, But this ordinance clarifies the one we passed 16 months ago. I don't want to use the word housekeeping. That might trivialize it too much. But it basically clarifies that ordinance. It doesn't really

Okay. There was no other questions. I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I'll move to adopt general ordinance number two, six dash one, four, three, three by title only as presented.

Okay. Any more discussion? Is there anyone that would like to have the ordinance written in its entirety? Oh, oh, with the city clerk, please read the ordinance by title only.

All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Okay, now we're back to item 10B, which is the

Well, I think those are very legitimate questions, and I would assume that you're not prepared to answer his questions tonight, especially as it relates to a dollar limit of the 20 percent or a set amount, a set dollar amount. You're not prepared to give a recommendation tonight.

Yes, we can hear you, but we can't see you. There you are. All right.

I'm just looking for clarity. Let me. So this proposal gives the manager flexibility to change or to allocate additional funds for change orders, correct? Yeah.

Got it. So that clarifies, but it's in order for timely changes so that you can increase or decrease the amount of downtime.

So the beneficiaries would be to save money and to speed up process. Would you agree with that?

If there were a delay, that would also add to it. All right. I understand.

Jonathan, your voice microphone is kind of cutting out a little bit, just so you know.

Summation there, you mentioned that the council had asked to bring it back on the consent calendar. I don't recall that. And I find that odd if you're making changes to something as big as this, that it would come back on the consent. It seemed like it would come back in open sessions. We could have had that discussion before.

We hadn't had a chance to see if that was correct or we liked it, et cetera, or whatever. So I just, I'm on the other side of that description. I still, at this point, think that I would benefit from Councilor Ring's input on this. And if there's really no urgency at this point, delaying to the next council meeting when hopefully he could be here, would not be a big problem. Am I correct? Or is there an urgency that we have to get something done?

Do you have a change order in hand right now?

Okay. Now, to the extent that we're concerned about a change order on 1st Street and the other project, the city manager still has the authority to approve change orders within a certain limit presently, right? Right. So the only way where we should be concerned is if the change order comes through that exceeds his authority.

Okay. And what is that amount now? What? What is the amount now that you have authority for?

Right. So the only risk of delaying it two weeks is if we get a change order that exceeds Matthew's $100,000? Yep. Okay. That's right. I would say without knowing the projects, like some people, the staff knows that the chances of that happening are not very likely, but I could be wrong. One other question too.

In the, in what, I mean, I. Yeah. He's jumping out.

If I may, I have one other question for the city manager. Yes, go ahead. It was the city manager that mentioned that if this was approved as it's currently rewritten, that at 15%, you still have to notify the council five days, but there's no action taken by the council. It's just sending us a letter saying this is happening, right? Right.

I'm still feeling that as the marriage is brought up there, if you have a hundred thousand right now available to you, I don't see the harm in waiting until we have a fuller council with the questions and especially counselor running to be here. And that's what I would suggest as we hold, hold it over until our next meeting. And I don't think it'll take long to take care of it at that point. But his input in these types of things, he's very knowledgeable from the business that he does across the country. And I appreciate his, not only his interest, but his knowledge on these sort of things. If

Well, the staff has obviously spent a lot of time on this over the last week. I appreciate that. Yeah, which we all appreciate, yeah. And perhaps to expedite this even more, to ensure that on November 9th this passes, perhaps the staff and Councilor Ring can get together so that by the time November 9th rolls around, that we get this thing taken care of once and for all. Let the record show that the city manager gave me a thumbs up. Do we need that in the minutes?

Or unless the staff and Mr. and counseling get together and everything is I would allow that as an option if they all get together and, and get those questions resolved to his satisfaction, then we're good on the consent agenda then.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other business to come before the city council? I'd like to thank citizen Dale Rollins for sitting through that city council meeting, the whole thing. I'm sure- Do you have something, Dale, you want to do?

Well, we appreciate your service to the veterans as we appreciate Council Runyon's service as well. The USS Oriskany.