City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it is Thursday, August 13th, 2026, and I'm calling this session of the Ridgefield City Council to order. Would you please rise and join me for the flag salute led by Councilor Hamilton?

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

Thank you. You can be seated. Miss Julie, would you please call the roll?

Here. And Council, I'd accept a motion to excuse Councilor Burkle from tonight's meeting.

I motion to approve Councilor Buerkle from tonight's meeting. I'll second.

Moved by Fevella, seconded by Chipman. Any questions? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, thank you. Councilor Buerkle is excused. Okay, any late changes to the agenda, Ms. Nottingeris? All right, we're gonna keep going then. We're gonna go into public comment this evening. Anyone wishing to address City Council regarding items not subject to a specific public hearing, which we have a couple tonight, may come forward at this time to use the podium or use the raise hand feature located in the toolbar at the bottom of your Zoom screen. For controls over the phone, press star nin

Could you start with your name, please, ma'am?

Could you start with your name, ma'am? I'm sorry, yeah.

Is there anybody else wishing to give public comment this evening? Come on up, sir.

Is there anybody else in the room who would like to give a public comment this evening?

Thank you. Anybody else in the room before we go to online comments? Okay, Miss Julie, is there anybody online? I thought I saw a couple.

Thank you. Is there anybody else wishing to speak online, Ms. Julie?

Okay. Okay. Thank you, everybody who came tonight, who provided public comment in a very important process. We're going to close public comment for the evening and move on with our meeting. And our next item is going to be the consent agenda. And, Council, with that, I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Motion to approve consent agenda as presented.

Moved by Davis, seconded by Wells. Any discussion on it? Seeing none. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you. Motion carries. And we will move on. We have a couple of presentations this evening. The first presentation we're going to go through tonight is the second quarter of 2026 budget to actual economic update. This will be presented by our finance director, Mr. Kirk Johnson. Mr. Johnson, over to you, sir.

Real quick, Mr. Johnson, a question from Councillor Davis.

Yeah, thank you. I'm curious, the Woodland statistics, is that just the Clark County portion of Woodland or is that Woodland all?

Council, any questions at this point? We're good.

Real quick on that, Mr. Johnson. So it sounds like, according to this, looking ahead to the next budget cycle, we will not be dipping into our policy reserves in the next year, but we won't be able to replenish them up to that 4.1 or whatever that will be at this time next year, right?

Yeah, that's great. So the surplus that you're forecasting at the end of this year, Is it your intention that that would be funneled back in to replenish the policy reserve, and it wouldn't go not to new spending, but to replenish that reserve?

Okay. A little piece of good news. Thank you. Any other questions at this point? Just making sure. Okay. Oh, real quick, Councilor Vivaldo.

I'm sorry, Mr. John. If you already said this and I was not hearing it, when we talk about being up for revenue at 12.8%, what part of that is a reoccurring versus a one-time?

Yeah, we're down 1.5 on the year-over-two-year expenses, and then revenue is up 12.8%.

Actually, real quick, just so I'm clear, too. That's not TBD funds. That's just street fund, right?

Real quick on that one too, just out of curiosity. So like as that slows, right, we see like REIT, it looks like it's going down as well. Is that a macroeconomic factor or is that just due to kind of capacity and what we have for like existing inventory inside the city?

So that is more of a macroeconomic pressure that they're facing versus what is happening inside the city. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I've got a quick question. So when we talk about the lag, like especially with sales tax revenue, from a reporting standpoint, does that update back to when the spending occurred?

What is the anticipated timeline in which those would be applied to various projects, parks, trails?

Yeah, so it's not one of those things where we're looking at a $5.7 million essentially credit balance that is gonna be applied to new parks anytime soon, it's just gonna be over the next 10 years?

Okay, so we'll pause here for questions for staff. I'll look to council, anybody have any questions? Okay, just one more for me then, I guess. We've been talking for the last several years about this transition period between construction-related revenue versus the non-construction-related revenue. So has that non-construction revenue grown enough to cover what we're essentially losing in construction-related revenue? Has it replaced that over time? Or we still have some work there?

Pretty good. But does that dollar-for-dollar offset what we got from construction-related revenues?

Great, other questions at this point before we get into some of the other questions? economic issues. Okay, we can move on for this portion of the presentation.

Thank you for the presentation We'll look the council again for additional questions. I think counselor Wells has a question.

So we'll start with you The only question I have occurred it's all oh I turn it off. I'm sorry The only question I have hurt is the prime sales you said it goes by address so anybody that lives in the city of Ridgefield gets charged a nine percent and where if they live in corporate Clark County down the street, then they'd be the 7.9 or whatever it is for Clark County.

Other questions? All right, I asked all mine along the way, so... Yeah, I think we're good. Thank you for that presentation. Thanks. Yeah, this is a great way to kick off the budget cycle, like you said, and I know that starts next week, so it'll be helpful to have this information went into that. So thanks again. Yeah. Okay. My notes here. We have another presentation this evening. We're going to go, this is going to be a presentation on the Clark County Commission on Aging and a report. Ms. Lutz, we'll start with you and let you introduce our guests, and we'll go from there.

Thank you for your presentation. Counsel, any questions for the commission? Councilor Fevella.

Thank you so much. I'm wondering if your organization also works with, like, advocating for insurance companies, specifically, like, Medicare for elderly and the benefits that they are not able to receive.

Yeah, if it ever comes across your purview or you find an advocacy area, that would be one. There is a high need in Clark County for the Medicare population to receive mental health services. But in order to be contracted with Medicare, you have to be a licensed therapist. You can't be an associate and you can't be an intern. which significantly reduces the amount of providers that are eligible to provide services to this population. We've seen advocacy go in directions where other insurance companies are changing that, and I think it would be beneficial if attention was brought to this popula

No, absolutely, but the more people that you bring awareness to and the more people that are able to talk about this and bring that to light, the better those advocacy efforts go. Okay, thank you.

Council, other questions? Councillor Hamilton.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation. I'm learning a lot, so I'm curious. I was thinking about successfully aging in place and what that looks like. Is there something that, as a city, as we continue to develop, something that we should be keeping in mind through our development that we are looking for? And then also, do you guys have any measurable indicators that you can use to determine how age-friendly, tools that we can utilize to kind of gauge how friendly we are for people aging in place.

It was more just about, like, if you have a measurable indicator that cities can use to figure out how, like, age-friendly we are in that process.

Cool, and then I just wanted to say I think it's really cool that you paired up with the Youth Commission, too. I thought that was a really neat... You know, partnership. I think that's a really cool opportunity.

It was great. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you.

Other questions, Council? Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much.

Okay, we have... A couple of items of business this evening. The first item of business will be a motion to approve the Greeley Farms phase four final plat, and for that, we'll go to Ms. Lust.

Great, thanks, Ms. Lust. Council, any questions for staff on this final plat item? Counselor Davis.

Yeah more just curious You talked about the average lot size. It seems pretty big but there's one at least that's like 15 5 What would be maybe like the median? I don't expect you to do the math like right off the top of your head but is it like is the average being offset by a couple of just weird sized big lots and

Yeah, just a little precursor here. There was a lot of public comment when this development was being proposed, and Helen's View, which was next door, and they had large lots, so that's a reason. They had large lots adjoining them, and then they come down in size as they got away. So that's the reasoning behind it. Okay, I appreciate that.

Any other questions or comments at this point council? All right, it's pretty straightforward. So There's no other comments or no discussion we have I'd entertain a motion to approve the final plot Second Okay, it's been moved by Chipman and seconded by Hamilton. Any remaining discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you, council. Motion carries. Okay, our second item of business this evening will be the second reading of ordinance number 1484. This is our critical areas ordinance amendments, and for that, we'll go back to Ms. Lust.

Sounds good, okay. Thank you, Council. Any questions? We'll go to Councillor Davis.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. It was on the second page in the packet. There was one... and I think my guess is that maybe it was a typo, because it was a buffer increase, and the top two were bumping up to 150, and then the third one, which is the lowest impact, was going to 150, and it seemed like 50 might have been the more appropriate number. Is that accurate?

We were looking at it together. Oh, good. He just beat me to the punch. Perfect. All right.

Other questions or comments? All right. If there's none, then Mr. Lee, would you please read the ordinance into the record?

Great. Thank you. And with that, I would accept the motion.

Motion to approve Ordinance 1484 as presented.

Moved by Davis, seconded by Fevella. Any remaining comments? Seeing none. Oh, one from Councillor Wells.

The normal, okay. No, I would like to amend the motion.

And the normal delay time is 30 days on it. after it passes? I'd like to make a comment. The normal passing time is 30 days before it becomes official. And I'd like to delay the implementation. Got the word all twisted. Delay of having it take an effect until January 1st, 2027. That's the, when it takes effect. That's a word I, there's that word that I, I've got it wrote down, huh?

Implementation, yeah. I was twisting that one.

Okay, so there is... Councilor Wells is moving to amend the motion. To go from the Senate 30 days where it takes effect to the first of the year, 2027, correct?

Yeah. And the reason for that is so that we can turn around and really scrutinize some more of these... Okay, there's a there's a motion to amend do I have a second I'll ask one more time. Is there a second?

Okay. It's been moved to second to amend a motion to extend the implementation period to the first of the year in 2027. Discussion. Councilor Davis. Oh, Councilor Davis or Pavela?

Oh, well I was more a question for staff about if we were gonna pursue delaying implementation to January 1st, what would be the impact of that?

Gotcha. So just a point of clarification then. So are you saying that we would not be able to finalize our comprehensive plan until this went into effect?

Okay, I might have a couple of follow-up questions, but I want to give the floor to Councilor Fevella. It sounds like you had a question.

Hi, Jay. For Ms. Parker, if we were to approve this and delay, hypothetically, would we even be allowed to make changes in that interim if we've already approved it?

Other questions or comments as we consider this one before we vote on the amendment? I got to say that I'm a little less intent on this one. to delay this only because You know, I I personally have been on record about not wanting to delay the comp plan any further and I don't want to jeopardize that we you know, we get a lot of scrutiny over our efforts to further our D designation request to to that kind of push back the timeline a little bit. So I want to be sensitive to that. I also want to be cognizant of applying the proper scrutiny that Councilor Wells is talking about. So maybe you can

I would not want to jeopardize the comprehensive plan. That isn't the intent. The intent is maybe possibly, and I don't know how we can do it, but we could pass it, but not implement it until the first of the year. When is the comp plan going to be implemented? with the county and with the state. The state is involved in it for the final blessing and so I was trying to just buy a little bit of time.

Because just like the one glitch that I found today, there may be other ones in some of these other graphs, and we would have the opportunity to turn around and rectify it before it's put into law.

I want to recognize a couple staff members who messed on errors. Did you have something?

My comment is the last meeting, when we had the last meeting, I had questions of what the different buffers were or how they had changed. And that would be brought back to us, which it was brought back on a graph. I've got a paper where it comes from. I got today. And I did see one glitch. But I think as a council, we need to discuss them in a workshop, site-specific, of different things and see what it adds up, what it means, and then turn around and pass the ordinance. I'm not against it 100%. But I still think that we need to scrutinize it a little tighter and take a look at it.

Well, so it has been there's a second so it is a live amendment so unless you want to withdraw Is that what you know?

I think you can Can't you turn around and table it? even with with a motion on the floor I

I could rescind my amendment. I'll take that off. And then I'll move to table it to a work session. And I don't know time specific.

So withdrawing a motion would still require a second, correct? And then a vote. So we'd have to go through that process if you want to draw it. If you want to table it, then you can make a motion to table it any time with a second.

I have to friendly approve. Since I was on the second day amendment, I have to take care of this. Yeah. And I, yeah, that's fine.

But you can table it any time. They put the other ones on the floor.

Right. There's currently a motion and an amendment on the floor. If there was a new motion with enough second and approved to table it, we can do that at this time. But you'd have to have a friendly, oh, to withdraw.

To withdraw. Yeah, I offered the friendly second for his withdrawal since I was the one that seconded the original.

And I'll take my amendment off. I'll withdraw that also. And I'll move that we table this till it's normally better to table it to a time specific rather than table it because then it's tabled and gone forever.

So till a work session can be set up to discuss it.

Okay, so the amendment has been withdrawn There's a new motion to table this item to a second to another do a later date. Do I hear a second? I Do not hear a second and so we will return to the original motion Which is to approve the ordinance as presented. I Council any remaining discussion Okay here in no remaining discussion, mr. Lee, would you please call the roll councillor Davis?

Yes. Thank you council the motion carries and I know ordinances opted Okay. Thank you. Council will spirit contribution to that. I Okay, we are going to move into a couple of public hearings this evening. Our first public hearing is the approval of resolution number 681 from 2026 and a resolution number 682 from 2027. This is our transportation improvement plans. And for that, we're going to go to our city engineer, Mr. Brian Kast, who I thought was online. Looks like, oh, there you are. Okay.

Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Council at this point, any questions from Mr. Cast on this presentation so far? Right. It looks like you are one from Mr. Davis.

Yeah, I'm just, I guess, curious. I'm just noticing all these projects are on the west side. Have we What's the difference, I guess, with, you know, because there's a lot of activity on the east side. And so I'm talking about like the reasonably funded stuff, CDBG. Is it just stuff that doesn't qualify or is that just kind of how it shook out?

Okay, thank you. On that note, wasn't there, I thought we talked about a project to improve South 5th over there. off of Union Ridge Parkway. That was being discussed at one point. Is that going to be part of a CFP or is it going to be part of this plan?

I got a comment. Go ahead. I got a comment on that project. It's on, okay. On that project, is there some feedback? Yeah, on that project over there, I think we dedicated a little over $200,000 for a consultant to do some testing on Union Ridge Parkway on what needed to be done for revitalizing that section of roadway here about two meetings ago. Anybody recollect that?

Because I know I had asked the question whether Lakeside themselves could do it and it's come back with that a consultant needed to do it. They did not perform those duties. Ryan may have something.

Okay, so I know we've got that project moving forward.

Okay. Any other questions at this point? From Council Vervello.

Yeah. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Cass. Um, when I look at the projects extended, I just want clarification. It says that Royal road to South 19th street to Hillhurst, like Hillhurst to Hayfield would be in construction, but how would we be in construction when we're not even ready to do the culvert replacement?

That makes much more sense. Thank you so much.

Make sure I captured everything. Okay, we're good.

Great. And as we go into discussion, can you go back to that project? There's a slide with the project list on there. That's all. Okay, great.

I've got a question. It's got the tentative cost for the Cardi Road improvement from 25 million to 75 million. What is that going to do to our TIF? Well, that I see is covered. That's covered.

Oh, that will be the next presentation. Okay, I do have another question for you, Brian. Our TIF fees are 253, 250 something? Per?

I've got something that says something contrary to that. Hang on here.

Council, any remaining questions for staff on this one? Seeing none, we're going to open the public hearing to receive testimony. The public hearing is now open. If you sign up with a city clerk before the meeting, your name will be called and you will receive permission to unmute your microphone or step up to the podium. If you did not sign up in advance but would like to speak, please use the raise hand feature on your toolbar. If you're joined by phone, press star nine for raise your hand and press star six to mute or unmute. The city clerk will grant you permission to speak. And when speak

Okay. Is there anybody in the room who would like to speak on this public hearing? I don't see anybody. We will go online. Is there anybody online who is wishing to speak at this public hearing? Okay. And just for good measure, we'll go back one more time to the room. There is nobody in the room. Going once, going twice, and this public hearing is closed. Thank you very much. All right, and with that, okay, I would accept a motion. So we have to do two separate motions for 681 and 682. Okay.

Motion to approve resolution number 681 as presented.

Go ahead. A motion by Davis. We'll go second by Wells. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you, council. Motion carries. I would accept a motion for 682.

Motion to approve resolution number 682 as presented.

OK. Motion moved by Davis, seconded by Hamilton. Any remaining discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you, council. 682 passes. All right. That will conclude that public hearing for the evening. Thank you, council. And with that, we're going to go to our second public hearing of the evening. This is public hearing and first reading of ordinance number 1485, amending the transportation impact fee project list. And for that, Mr. Cass, thanks for sticking around. We'll go back to you.

Okay, great. We're going to go to Council questions. First, we'll go to Mayor Pro Tem Chipman, and I'll run some other questions as well.

Councilor Wells. Oh my gosh, Councillor Davis, my bad.

Thank you. So I guess just to look ahead, I mean, we're updating the overall total cost to 75 million for 25 million. Obviously it's a big jump, but the TIF rate increase, Their share would be 30% of the overall project cost. Are we thinking the other 70%, which is roughly 50 million? Is that going to be city? Is that going to be grant? Is that going to be future development? If we're talking about, you know, as maybe properties annex in to the east, that goes into paying for all that. Is that the plan or what's the other 50 million look like?

So really, we're anticipating the city's share on that to really only be 10%.

Yeah. So I guess is it, is reaching all the way to the freeway, is that going to be a phased approach or... How's that going to work?

Yeah, I mean, I would imagine that the most expensive components of that improvement are going to be to the west. You know, when you look at the traffic circle and then that big bend where, you know, you can only go like 15 miles an hour around it or else you're not in a good spot. I would assume that's going to be the most expensive. So I guess I'm curious. to know about how that's gonna flow, if we're gonna require that sort of improvement. 75 million, I wouldn't be surprised if 50 of that was just the first half mile of it.

So are we gonna get delays on the development? i'm glad we're gonna we're gonna be assuming this approves that we're gonna be providing some predictability to the developers as they keep this going but in terms of actually realizing the infrastructure improvement if it's that expensive how are we going to bridge the difference between their share and what the total project cost is so currently all the developments that we have sort of

Other questions? I want to piggyback on that, but I want to get other questions in there. Go ahead and piggyback. Okay. When we talk about having those be grant funded, I would say that they'd be grant contingent, but as we go back to our previous presentation, we look at the traffic improvement plan and we identified a bunch of projects. A lot of those are still waiting funding. I think of the 10th Street overpass, for example, which we have been lobbying the federal government for for a number of years now. I think for the most of the time I've been on council, we still have not received the

Yeah, I've got two questions. Probably Kurt would probably answer this one. How many TIFs is it required per resident, residential parcel? Is it 10?

Okay. That was what I was using for my basis here. So if they have 10 TIF credits, so it'll be $10,730 per house. tacked onto the house as far as for TIF fees for that house, correct?

Yeah, and as a reminder, this is first reading only, so if there's any questions we have for staff to come back on this, I think that'd be helpful. I think my questions don't necessarily inhibit my support of passing this. I just, I kind of wonder how this pencil is for a developer, so. Yeah. Because it looks like it could be years out before they get anything they see as recovering their costs on that. Okay, with that, council, any remaining questions? All right. I will now open the public hearing to receive testimony. The public hearing is now open. If you sign up with city clerk before the

Okay. Nobody signed up. So is there anybody in the room who is wishing to speak on this one? I don't see any hands. Mr. Lee, anybody online? Okay. Just for due diligence, we'll go back to the room to make sure there's nobody who had an opportunity that was eager to speak and didn't get to. It does not look like that. So with that, this public hearing is now closed. Thank you, everybody else. All right. Where are my notes here? Miss Julie, would you please read the ordinance into the record?

Great. Thank you. And again, this is first reading only. It'll come back to Council at a later date. Okay. That concludes all of the action items for this evening. We're going to go back into public comment. Anybody wishing to address the City Council regarding the items not subject to a specific public hearing may come forward at this time to the podium or to use the raise hand feature located at the toolbar at the bottom of your Zoom screen. For controls of the phone, press star nine to raise your hand and press star six to mute or unmute. Please state your name and limit your comments to th

Thank you very much. Anybody else wishing to give comment in the room? All right, is there anybody online, Ms. Julie? Okay, hearing none, we will close out public comment for the evening, and we're going to go to council and staff reports. Starting with council reports, is there anybody here who would like to go first who's really itching for an update? I'll just go down the line, Councilor Hamilton.

Great, thank you. Thank you for everyone coming again. We do appreciate your feedback, and it is an active conversation that we have on our end, just so you know. I made notes here. Okay, so I'll try to keep this brief since we've all been here a minute. I did a C-Tran tour with fellow elected officials and Councillor Davis, which was cool. And we learned a lot of things about C-Tran. I wanted to thank city staff too for the city days, the council booth and all the effort that goes into putting on things like that. I think one of the cool things I've learned working with the city is that there

Great. Councillor Wells, we'll go to you next, sir.

Okay. I attended last Thursday visioning Ridgefield in the future. Actually, a port meeting yesterday for part of the day. I didn't stay there for the whole thing because I wore out. I had to get back home to my wife. But this evening, I just have one comment. We had 5, 10, 15, 20, one people making a presentation in front of the council tonight. I kept the numbers down. Also, off the wall, Mr. Davis and I took a little tour this afternoon. And we were looking at potential road sites and things. Also, we went to Sanderling Park and The culvert that Kennedy's had for crossing across the creek,

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Davis, what are you next?

Yeah, so I guess on that note, I did enjoy, I guess, an informal tour with Councilor Wells and tried to pick up some of the vast institutional knowledge that he has about why certain decisions are made and things of that nature. And I got to leave with a bag of plums. which is awesome, and I ate probably four of them when I got home. Anyway, I thought the staff did a fantastic job with City Days. Kudos for another successful event. Our C-Tran tour, I thought, was fantastic. We came to the Ridgefield Park and Ride and talked about a lot of the growth in North County, which is of particular impo

thank you um i appreciate everybody showing up tonight i know we can't talk back and forth and i said that it's the last meeting but i read every single email i stop and talk to every single person on the side of the sidewalk who wants to talk um i'm here i'm available we're listening there is nothing in motion right now and as soon as something is actively in motion you will all be here to watch it unfold And you will all get to hear all of us use our voice, which we are really good at doing I also want to thank this city for city days. That was incredible I had a late flight in but made sure

Great. Okay. Thank you, counsel. From my end, I'll be very, very brief because I'm just returning from a week away on vacation, a much-needed vacation. So I flew in early this morning, got a couple hours of sleep, and I actually got to wake up to a message that was sent to me by Jesse Jimenez of Police Activities League. He's the executive director, and he let me know that Officer Kaelin Dibiak of RPD has just received an award. She has been awarded the law enforcement volunteer, law enforcement officer volunteer of the Corps for PAL. So pretty cool recognition. There's an article on her in th

Great, thank you. No questions for you, city attorney.

Any questions for Ms. Barker? Okay, great. Ms. Lust in community development.

Great. Thanks for being a good partner on that as well. I know it's been a sprint to get it done. Go to Lieutenant Marvitz.

All right. Any questions for RPD? All right. Seeing none, with that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everybody.