City Council - Regular Meeting

Therefore, you haven't already please take a few moments before you get up to speak and plan and time your comments to make sure you fall within the three minute limit. Thank you for your consideration. Yes. Okay. We're going to get started. Welcome everybody to the June 8th, 2026 city council meeting. Well, I asked the city clerk to please call the roll.

Present. Item three is the pledge of allegiance. Would everybody please stand and join me in the pledge?

Thank you. Item four is approval of the agenda. There's only one, I know there's one small change. Our executive session will have nothing to do with labor negotiations, but we will be going to executive session for the other item that's mentioned on here, which is an evaluation of employment performance. Okay, is there any other discussion on the agenda? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say aye.

I know. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

It's been moved by Councilor Ring 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 not going to happen tonight. We couldn't get everybody together. So we're hoping that we'll get the recognition of the Dallas robotics team, which did so great at the national conference or the national competition, I should say. They really did another great job. But we're not able to get all the kids together and the coaches. So we're going to put that off until hopefully the next council meeting.

Want to introduce yourself and who you're with and all that, or were you going to do that?

You are well under the three minutes. That's why I'm hesitating to make sure you're done.

Great. Excellent presentation. I'm now going to go ahead and read the proclamation. This is once again a city of the Dallas Proclamation proclaiming July 4th, 2026 as a celebration of America's 250th anniversary. Whereas on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence established the United States of America as a free and independent nation founded upon the principles of liberty, equality, self-government, and the pursuit of individual rights. And whereas the year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, a historic milestone recognizing two and a half centuries

Thank you, sir. Always nice to get positive comments about special events, especially those that volunteers have a big hand in. So thank you again. Next up is Debbie Ferrer.

Thank you very much. We appreciate the work that you guys do on the beautification and tree committee. And I think we're, yes. To make comment as soon as I'm done making nine yeah I just wanted to congratulate and thank the committee and also point out that we now have seven members full committee for the first time in a while so counselor McLaughlin just to add to that your efforts by the way are noted we see them around town and appreciated good work I think that close to 200 trees wow city council for helping

Thank you. Who did you say you contacted about the Columbia and Clint Drive? You contacted ODOT and who else?

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Item seven, the city manager's report, Mr. Cleaves.

Any questions for the city manager? I had one. Occasionally, well, frequently, I should say, travel through the alley to check on the first street project and I I have yet to see anybody any archaeologists maybe I just go back by this at the wrong times it's a little concerning to me that I never see anybody there yeah and recently much of the work frankly I think has been on compiling the information and report writing that the

OK. Mayor Mrakas, Any other questions console ring.

Okay, anybody else? Okay, we'll move on to city council reports. We'll start with council Runyon.

Yeah, we have our condolences on that. Councilor McLaughlin? Thank you, Mayor Mayes.

Thank you. As far as I'm concerned, I made presentations on what's going on with the city to the Rotary Club the last couple of weeks, the Community Affairs Committee, which is a chamber organization. And I also attended the community outreach team meeting a couple of weeks ago. I also attended a Kiwanis meeting. I did not speak, but our retired director of public works, Dave Anderson, gave a presentation on the city's water system to the Kiwanis Club. The city manager and I met with Katie Linkhouse, who's an aide to Senator Jeff Merkley. And I also attended a little celebration, celebrating t

Moved by Councilor Randall and seconded by Councilor McLaughlin to approve the consent agenda. Is there any questions or discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Item 10A is consideration of a resolution establishing the service continuity reserve fund. And our finance director Brita Meyer is here to explain.

Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Meyer? Any discussion? Of course, we did discuss this. As our finance director has pointed out, we did discuss this at the budget committee meeting at length, if I remember correctly. So good. If there's no other discussion or questions, I'm looking for a motion.

It's been moved by Councilor Ring and seconded by Councilor McLaughlin to approve the resolution establishing the community, or excuse me, the service continuity reserve fund. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 11a is a resolution declaring the city of the Dells election to receive state revenues for this fiscal year coming up. I have a script I have to read. Now's the time scheduled for the city council's public hearing under ORS 221.770 to receive written and oral testimony on the proposed use of state revenue sharing funds for the city's 2026-27 fiscal year in relation to the entire city budget, including possible offset against property taxes. The public hearing is now open. First, I'll ask the finance director to summarize the proposed use of state revenue shari

Thank you. Does the city council have any questions for the finance director? Okay, seeing none. I am now opening the public testimony portion of the hearing. Does anybody wish to provide oral testimony? Or has anyone submitted written testimony on the proposed use of state revenue sharing funds for fiscal year 26 and 27? Anybody? Seeing no testimony, the public testimony portion of this hearing is closed. Is there any council discussion before a motion? Okay, seeing no questions or discussion, is there a motion?

It's been moved by Councilor McLaughlin and seconded by Councilor Randall to adopt the resolution of declaring the city of the Dalles election under state statute to receive state revenues for fiscal year 2026 and seven. Is there any discussion? Any more? Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. That concludes agenda item 11A. We'll now move to item... 11B once again we have a public hearing this one is on the approved fiscal year budget for 2026 and 7 fiscal year this is resolution 26-022 now is the time schedule for the city council's public hearing under Oregon local budget law to receive written and oral testimony on the budget committee approved fiscal year 2026-27 budget and to consider resolution number 26-022, adopting the budget, making appropriations, authorizing expenditures, levying taxes, and authorizing the city manager to take action necessa

Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Is there any questions for the finance director again as it was pointed out this was a subject of two nights wasn't a budget budget committee on may 11th and 12th so okay If there's no other questions, I'm opening the public testimony portion of this hearing. Does anyone wish to provide oral testimony or has anyone submitted written testimony with questions or comments on the approved fiscal year 2026-27 budget? Anybody would like to come forward and speak? You're not limited to three minutes either. Okay. Let the record show that no one is coming forward. Since there is

It's been moved by Councillor Ring and seconded by Councillor Randall to adopt the resolution adopting the city's budget for 2026-27. Is there any more discussion or questions? All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. City Council of the City of the Dells will not meet an executive session in accordance with ORS 192.660, which allows the Council to meet an executive session to review and evaluate the employment-related performance of the city manager, city attorney, and municipal judge. Representatives of the news media and designated staff shall be allowed to attend the executive session. All other members of the audience are asked to leave the room. We will be meeting in the conference room, however, so you're welcome to stay here. But representatives of t

I guess I'll check the score of the basketball game later. So we're entertaining ideas on salary increases for Jonathan and Matthew. We also need to consider the judge. So we can either award the judge the same as Matthew and Jonathan, which we've always done, or we can leave that for me and Ben to work out with him. As we know, we're never in a position where we can effectively evaluate the judge, but we do have employees that have commented and Brenda has, actually Brenda has done some work on that. So we can leave it to her to finish up. Is that okay? Yes. Regarding the judge I as usual I r

I got a motion. Yeah, but we have to fill in the blank percentage blank.

Well, that's up to us. We can give a zero merit or we can give anything for a merit. We can give a step increase, which is 3%. If we want to give a step increase by virtue of the fact that neither one of them had been with the city. Then the appropriate number of years where they get to the top step and then are not eligible for a step increase anymore right I'm interested in your recommendation well I was going to suggest that they get a 2.7 percent COLA increase cost of living which we just found out okay a three percent step increase because they would be eligible for that if they were not

Well, I don't know about percentage, but I don't care. Well, I have that here. The COLA increase last... The step increase would have been the same. The merit, I think, was...

According to my notes last year, they got a 3.3% COLA, a 3% step and a two and a half percent merit.

Sorry. 3.3% COLA. Okay. 3% step and a two and a half percent merit. And the coral this year is how much? 2.7.

Yeah, so my suggestion was 2.7 COLA, 3% step, 2.5% merit. And I think we did not do a salary survey this year, but past years, Jonathan's very hard to compare with other city attorneys because you're not comparing apples to apples. Right. Most, a lot of cities, especially ones our size, contract out the attorney, their legal Matthews, of course, there are a lot of city managers in Oregon, and the key there is to compare the Dalles with similar size cities like Pendleton, Hermiston, for example. Hood River is not our size, but they're right next door.

John Potter, You want me to. John Potter, expand on that a little bit.

John Potter, All all cities and employees, with the exception of Matthew and Jonathan are part of the city's pay plan, which includes a starting salary. John Potter, of X and a maximum salary. All city positions, except for those two, have a minimum and a maximum. Is there seven steps? Okay, let's assume there's seven steps between the minimum and the max, and all seven steps have a 3% in between each step. So when you're here seven years, you're not eligible, theoretically, you're not eligible for a step increase anymore because you're at the top of the range. About half of our employees are

Just writing them down, give them your written... Well, if somebody wants to make the motion, I've got it right here. He's going to do it. Scott is?

Okay. I think you should, I think we need to amend that to just say the city attorney and the city manager.

It's been moved by Councilor Randall and seconded by Councilor Ring to award an 8.2% salary increase inclusive of cost of living and merit to the city manager and the city attorney effective on the respective anniversary dates. Is there any discussion? Any more discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I didn't know Dan Richardson would agree with that because he texted me before, so... All right. Anything else to come before the council?