City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to Newburgh City Council, June 1st, 2026. I call this meeting to order. Would everybody please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Welcome. Well, it's time for our city manager narrative report.

Mr. Mayor, I don't think we did the roll call yet.

We probably should do that. That's what Mike was coughing about.

I was going to, but I can't.

Rachel, they tell me you haven't done a roll call yet.

I know. You were going to take away my speaking part. That must make me sad. Counselor McBride?

Here.

Counselor Wheatley? Here. Counselor Yarno-Halleman? Here. Councillor Kilburg?

Here.

Mayor Rossacker?

Here.

Councillor Tergesen? Here. And let me see if Councillor Carman is online.

Yes, he is. Let me promote him just a second.

Yes, Councillor Carman is online and should be joining us momentarily. Let's see.

Yes, I'm here. And sorry, I'm not there in person. I'm still under the weather and don't want to get anyone else sick.

Thank you.

Much appreciated.

I don't know if you heard, but everybody said thank you for that. Next is public comments. Do we have anybody signed for public comments today?

We do not.

I will close public comments. And it's time for the presentation from our wonderful fire department. I guess I'm just losing it tonight. Yeah.

Sorry about that, folks, but here we go. So I will press on. These are the events for May. Public works. Here are some of the recent work orders that were completed. Lots of mains flushed. Lots of water meters replaced. Videoed 14,980 linear feet of sewer mains. That is a boatload. Storm crew rebuilt the road down to a water quality pond and worked on some asbestos pipe that had to be removed with the due safety and care that is required when dealing with such things. And on May 4th, we replaced two large water main valves on Edward Street, an 18 and a 12. The two valves hadn't been functioning properly and were being hard to close, which could have been a direct threat to water pressure, which could have been a problem if there had been a fire. Therefore, we replaced these valves as efficiently as possible. It happened at night, so as not to disturb people. And by five o'clock in the morning, as was written into the five paragraph plan that the guy wrote, it went off like clockwork. And here is some pictures from that evening. Here is the new valve. Here is cutting out the old valve. And then in the wee hours, there is the road being resurfaced. Smashing. And here's a picture of the old valve being pulled out. And one of the two valves in question, I believe the year was 1947. And as they say, they don't make them like that anymore. We also did a show and tell event at CS Lewis, letting the kids climb on some of the equipment and having a look at what we do, and that was fun. And we completed a demonstration of an amazing new piece of equipment called the Asphalt Zipper. A device that has tungsten teeth that can rip up the surface of the road, grind it up, and actually use the old asphalt to become part of the mixture of the new roadbed instead of using as much aggregate. So this was just a trial. We wouldn't be looking to buy one of these things until next biennium, but we wanted to see if we thought it could be used easily by our staff and it had a remote controller that they used and they found it fairly easy to use. So we're looking at this piece of equipment and we're evaluating this with the concept of potentially moving road resurfacing in-house instead of using vendors. So more to come. The crack seal team, at the time of writing this, which is a little bit out of date, had already done 9,200 linear feet of crack ways sealed already, and they're sealing more cracks all the time. Community Development and Senate Bill 1537, the one-time UGB expansion solicitation opened June 1st. The Hive land use approval issued May 13th. Opportunity Zone application submitted to Business Oregon. The CD director denied CPRD's request to remove pickleball noise mitigation from the Jaquith Park item. So we're saying that we have to have that noise mitigation, otherwise we can't go ahead with that pickleball. And that's because of the percussive noise, a high decibelage. Doesn't mean the pickleball won't still be flourishing in Newburgh. It just means that there'll be some sound control that goes with that. NDPD Memorial Day ceremony was Monday, May 25th, and it went off very, very well. Great sound, quality, excellent event as usual, as we remember those who have fallen to protect our freedoms and to guarantee our way of life. There, over 900 fifth grade students have gone through the program in three years, and S. R. O. Stearns has accepted the role of state training coordinator for the state of Oregon. And his job will be to help other agencies start up the program and connect with youth, which, as you know, has a myriad of good outcomes. And here is a little bit of graphics from Memorial Day. But also, Officer Paul Cooley retired on May 31st, having served the department for over 27 years of service. We want to thank him for his service, and I hope he's having an absolutely smashing time. I'm not sure he'll be tuning in to watch this video tonight, but if he is, we wish him the very best. City recorder latest events. We published all the required information about upcoming council election, hosted a wildfire readiness event with PGE, issued the RFP for updates to historic resource inventory, dug into a work plan for new emergency manager, set up an ad hoc committee and continued work on ADA updates and many, many more things. Engineering, the water basin covers are complete. The two large fans and humidistat controls were installed in the fabric-covered steel buildings late in April. This was the last significant construction item on the project. Substantial completion was approved Thursday, May 7. Punch list items were completed in May, and the Main Street water line replacement ODOT permit approval was received on May 7th. And it will go out to bid soon. And that is a very good thing because we're seeing a lot of competition right now for pipe projects. And we're hoping to get a really good price for this particular project. So we shall see. Finance did the following things. They held the midpoint biannual budget committee meeting, prepared public notice for supplemental budget public hearing, met with CDD to discuss short-term rentals and TLT tax, attended Government Accounting Standards Board 103 training for upcoming financial statement changes, and assisted with the Public Works Business Manager interview panel, which is now in its final stages of recruitment. It was a very busy time in HR with the usual recruitments and claims processing. No fewer than six new employees were onboarded. HR continues to focus on recruitment and onboarding and finishing off a few active recruitments. And at the time of writing, it looks like there are going to be six or seven finalists for the new HR manager recruitment. And I can now tell you that that is six finalists.

And those interviews occur tomorrow.

And the questions are going to be very searching and very technical. And Alison is on the panel. Library highlights, the library friends is providing funding for a much needed new shelving refresh in the furniture around the teen area. The rearrangement of the Carnegie room is complete. Thanks to the friends, we now have additional wooden shelving to match the original Carnegie shelves. The library has a historic display of items related to Oregon settler Ewan Young. And I don't care what anyone says. I don't believe that Ewan Young was really a rustler. And I don't believe there was really a warrant for his arrest issued from the authorities further south. I believe he just came up here for fun and just decided to settle around here. That's what I believe and I'm sticking to it. And here is the Ewan Young display. There we go. What a guy. More library events. The library board has started work on its strategic plan for 27 through 32. Surveys and listening sessions are planned for public input. Summer reading programme for all ages kicks off Saturday, June 6. And this year's summer reading mascot is Percival P. Potato. Look for him soon downtown as he wanders businesses and at the library. And here is a picture of that spud. If you see this downtown, you know you're looking at the library mascot. And unlike the fine potatoes of Idaho, he has two distinct eyes. That's how you can tell he's the library mascot. But I would say, what noise does a potato make? Which of us can know? So that is it for the May... Well, here's the noise a potato makes. You just have to imagine it. That is the end of the events for me. It was an excellent month. Are there any questions about stuffs?

I do have a question about the future of Officer Stearns. Are we losing him or sharing him or what's going on?

The training is only a share type thing, not a huge number of hours as I understand it. It will not impact his other duties. It's more like an example, a mentor, not a huge dilution of his FTE power.

Thank you, Will.

All right.

It is time now, right, Mike? It is time for Tualatin Valley presentation. Thank you.

Okay. Where is your computer? I think they got a call, yeah.

They didn't want to listen to this, so they're out of here. They've heard it many, probably many different renditions.

Lower.

Okay, thank you. Well, thank you so much for having me. My name is Patrick Fail. I'm Deputy Chief for Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue, and I'm a very proud long-term resident of this fine city of Newburgh. Tonight, I'm going to go over some of the things that have been happening this past year. Let's see if I could do this. No? No? There we go. We're going to cover the incident snapshot. You guys see that every year, and it's a retrospective look of what our crews have been doing over the last 12 months, what we've been doing to prepare for wildland season. The EMS landscape is changing, and so is our response. So I'm going to cover that. Our bond and capital projects, specifically here in Newburgh, that we are active in and looking forward to starting as well. And then a program that's been incredibly impactful to us, and that's called Struggle Well, and I'll cover that a little bit.

Oops, wrong way. There we go.

This is our incident snapshot. Starting at the top, we ran about 3,800 calls for service between two fire stations. Moving from left to right on the upper rows, you can see the different sequencing that we did for the data types. You'll notice that it says dispatched as in situation found. That's because not everybody can fully describe what they need or what is occurring or maybe they don't have good access and the information is coming to them third hand and then moving to the dispatch center. So then we track what we actually found and what our crews actually did. Approximately 70% of everything that we do is EMS related. All of our response crews are advanced life support capable. And you'll notice too that as you move down on the left hand side, we had eight working structure fires and that might strike you as a pretty small number. But we deploy for high acuity, high risk, low frequency. So part of the advantages that you have down here in Newburgh is you're somewhat isolated from the rest of the fire district, meaning that our crews have to come out of Sherwood, King City, Tualatin, or Wilsonville to make access down into here. So what that has created is one of the most densely operationally sound systems that we have here in Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue, and that's Newburgh. So the concentrations of resources here are not seen anywhere else, even in our larger cities. Moving down, and I'll talk about that just a little bit more here in a minute, but moving down, you can see time of day. This bell curve, hour a day, that is common across the fire district. That's not unusual, but as people go to bed at night, calls kind of drop off. As they get up in the morning, calls start to increase through about midday, and then they drop off again. Day of the week, it's pretty consistent, about 13 to 14, 15%, depending on the day of the week. No real difference in stuff happening on different days. You'll see a slight rise in call volume as we move to the right year over year. That's normal, just as population increase, but we're not seeing anything that's concerning where we would need to add additional units. Station 20 looks to be running about 57% of the calls within Newburgh, so they have bragging rights. 21, Station 21 is 38%. And then you'll see 35s and 33s. 33s is Sherwood. 35s is King City. So when you have a surge of calls that are happening down in here, we call it a move up. They move up into this area to continue to protect the city. That's one of the advantages of working with a larger fire district. So just back on what you have as far as resources here in Newburgh. Um, station 21 houses truck 21 that has four people on it. At least one of them is a paramedic. As I mentioned before, all of our units are advanced life safety or advanced life support capable. You also have medic 21, uh, out of that house, which has two paramedics on it and one of the transportable units. And you have one battalion chief, Tim Noakes, battalion chief Tim Noakes is in the back here. He's the command officer, um, for this region in here. So if we have higher level incident, first alarm, second alarm, Tim's in command and he has full accountability and autonomy over that incident. At Station 20, you have Engine 20. They're also the Water Rescue Team Consortium. Half of the other team is in West Linn. And they partner with Yamhill County, Washington County, and Clackamas for water rescue services. Again, four person engine out of there. One of them was at least a paramedic. And then you have two medic units, two paramedics on each unit out of station 20 as well. And then a car, which has one paramedic on it. And that's for low acuity, basic life support response to keep those heavy assets in service rather than going on low acuity call. So. That concentration of units, you will not see anywhere else in TBF in our service areas, but it's just because there's a delay of getting other units there. We have an effective firefighting force of immediately on scene within four minutes, 15 personnel. And so that staffing meets that. And then we have advanced life support criteria that at least six trained personnel are on scene within four minutes of any cardiac arrest. So that's how we choose that staffing. Well, we had a mild winter. In 2024, we had a record fire season within the state of Oregon of more deployments than any time in Oregon's history. 2025 was a little calmer. However, we lost more structures than we ever have of any other wildfire season in the state of Oregon. Most of that wasn't due to lack of aggression of crews, Oregon crews. That's mostly due to just active weather and significant wind on the fires that we did have yesterday. Crews just couldn't get in front of that in a sustainable way. Our crews prepare every year, this time of year, for the upcoming wildland season, and they've done that through a large multi-company operational drill. We also have invested heavily in our wildland team, which deploys across the state and across the West. 2025 and in many other years, they're down in California often. Sometimes they're even fighting fire in California during Christmas. The evolving landscape of EMS. So in my almost 30 years, I've seen the way people use 911 change. And it seems to correlate with the lack of health care throughout our system. But it used to be when I first started that we were really only going on high acuity calls, major traumas, cardiac arrests, strokes, heart attacks, things like that. But over time, people are using 911 more as a continuation of their health care. So we are responding to that. One, we're getting ready to start an education campaign for all of our citizens on the proper use of 911. And then secondarily, we've put other programs in place like our advanced practice community paramedic program, which on high acuity calls responds and provides an even higher level of critical care than what our paramedics provide. But what they also do in that downtime when they're not responding on those high acuity calls. They're working with the high 911 utilizers. We know where they are, we know who they are. And oftentimes they just don't have the resources to adequately navigate the healthcare system. So our people go in there, they get them hooked up with the right people in the right lane. Oftentimes 911 and a trip to the hospital is detrimental for them. It opens them up to infection and other disease processes that they wouldn't normally be open up to. and plus it's a strain on our system. When our heavy assets and our ALS assets are on those low acuity calls, they're not available for the stroke, the cardiac arrest, the STEMI, the structure fire, or the entrapment in a vehicle. They're dedicated. And Oregon has an abandonment law, meaning higher acuity calls comes in, they still have to stay with that patient. So it's critical that we have these other resources in play. We've also partnered with our dispatch center, WACA, on a program called Nurse Navigation. So when somebody calls 911 and it's deemed a low acuity call, it goes to a nurse. Nurse then walks them through, could this go to urgent care? Could this be worked on through the primary care? Or can I just give some instructions and the person remedy it themselves? Right now that equates to about 14% of our BLS calls that aren't being dispatched with heavy assets. This is an example of high acuity calls, whether it's an extrication, rope rescue, or it looks like somebody's having a cardiac event in their home. Oops, wrong way. Oops, I'm going the wrong way. Sorry about that. Could do it. There we go. Our Bond and Capital project. Up on the screen, you have Station 35 and Station 20. The reason Station 35 is up there is that's one of the units, that's one of the stations that often is down into Newburgh as call volume goes up. That station is a full teardown. Right now they're in their temporary quarters and they're getting ready to start the foundation of the new station. Station 20 on the right-hand side, I think we're in our final phases of permitting. Crews should be moving into their temporary quarters soon, and then you'll start to see work in earnest, working to tear that really proud building down. programming that we're working into our stations is really about the health and wellness of our crews and the long-term sustainability of those crews but we're prioritizing seismic security and equity needs and these are all sponsored by our board of directors station must be able to fit into any size apparatus made able to fit any size apparatus from a heavy rescue to a squad to a medic unit to an engine to a truck company so um In years past, we used to try to fit just what we thought we would need in that station, but it turns out that, you know, responses change and we have to stay more flexible than our previous administration deemed necessary. So that's what we're going to build into the future. Must be able to accommodate future growth. Like Station 20 will be able to accommodate multiple large heavy assets into the future. For example, downtown Beaverton runs an engine with four people, a ladder truck with four people, and a battalion chief along with a medic unit. That could easily happen here in Newburgh in the future where we're running multiple companies out of one house as call volume increases. All of the stations will be built with a decontamination space. Our firefighters have a significant increased risk of contamination. of cancer. And so what we've learned over time through a lot of research is that when you break that station up into hot, warm, and cold zones, cold zone being the living area, warm zone being transition from the bays and their turnouts, hot zone being the turnouts and around the apparatus, that you tend not to drag in a lot of that stuff into the station, which is proven over time to be detrimental to their health. One of the board priorities for our fire stations was to place an emphasis on trauma-informed design. This is an interesting statistic. The average citizen will encounter three to five traumatic events in their lifetime. First responders, firefighters, police officers are exposed to approximately 500 traumatic events over the course of their career. So creating spaces for wellness and downtime is certainly a priority of us. We believe that we have a moral obligation to put every system in place to ensure that our people retire healthy and well as much as we can. So that's going to be in the programming as well. And on that vein... Several years ago, I was introduced to a program called Struggle Well. I made a commitment when I was introduced to that program to go through the whole thing. The main program is called Warrior Path, and that's a week long. You go away for a week and you're with other first responders or combat veterans. And I'll just tell you that program changed my life. in so many ways. I was stuck in a response mode for doing this for almost 30 years, a reactionary mode, and they really brought me back into a response mode. So when I got home from that, we talked to the fire chief. He said, what are we going to do now? We've led this effort throughout Oregon. Struggle Well is now throughout most apartments within the state of Oregon, and we've had tremendous results. In 2024, there was 34 presumptive PTSD cancers in the state of Oregon. Excuse me, 36 presumptive PTSD cancer or PTSD presumptive cancers in the state of Oregon. Each one of those cases represents a liability of a million dollars. 33 of those people went through Warrior Path, which is a portion of Struggle Well. 33 are back to work. Why is that impactful? Once you receive a PTSD diagnosis, your likelihood of substance abuse goes up by 83%, and your life expectancy is reduced by 15 years, and that's the national average for first responders and combat veterans. So first and foremost, I talked about our moral obligation as leaders to put systems in place to protect our people so that they can continue to serve. This program has absolutely done that. Approximately 40% of all of our employees have been through it at this point, and we're going to continue to everybody. I don't really see us stopping this, even when we get people through it. I think we'll just continue the program. You need those reminders. But essentially what the modality is, is this. Get up. It's how we were trained. at no point were you allowed to just take a break or say, this is too hard. I can't do it. We have a mantra in our academy. You can't say two things. You can't say I can't, and you can't say I quit. So this program, basically what it does is it flips the perspective of the responder from being a victim to being a servant and flips that perspective. Yeah. You've seen and done hard things, but those difficult things have created wisdom and that wisdom you have an obligation to give back. It's been, It sounds crazy, but it's been tremendously successful. And we wanted to share that with you today. Let's see here. So our last slide, this is just a QR code. We won't take up any more of your time, but this does capture all of the major incidents from the last year and really quite a few all-hazard incidents which have brought in the HAZMAT team, technical rescue team, or our water team, and then major events and happenings throughout the district. So if you feel so inclined, you can click on that QR code and take a look, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

So the zones that you talked about, can you give me a little more explanation of what that meant? Hot zone, I mean, that's where the trucks are. What are you going to do there? And what's the cool zone all about? Was there a medium zone?

Yeah, there's a warm and then there's a cold. So those are hazardous materials terms. We use them all the time. Hot zone is where you have an active release happening. So what we've learned through a lot of research is that even when that rig comes back, carcinogens are coming off of the rig, they're coming off the exhaust, and they're coming off the people that are coming out of the rig. So when the crews get done with the fire, they get a gross decon, meaning they get washed down, and they have to overpack those turnouts and their SCBA, their breathing apparatus, into bags and isolate that from the cab of the rig. They all have second set of turnouts. and then they have to go through a series of how to wash that equipment. That happens back at the station in the hot zone. And so you wouldn't take that equipment from there to the warm zone. It has positive pressure ventilation in the stations to make sure that it's moving those carcinogens out of that hot zone area and then further positive pressure ventilation in the warm zone, and then it moves to negative ventilation in their living areas so that they're not pulling any of that stuff in. So that's kind of the modality about it. And then most of it's just procedure. You will not take this into there. You will not pass here with that type of thing. So there's showers out there so that they don't even strip down and then then walk through the station like that. They will shower now in the bays. It's very private. Policy-wise, they'll have extra equipment and extra clothing down in there. So as soon as they're done, then they're response capable.

Thanks.

First of all, that Struggle Well program is just marvelous.

It's been awesome.

Yeah, I had no idea. It was that the stats you quoted were so extreme. When you were talking about, I think, the new building and the design, you mentioned seismic considerations and you also said equity. What did you mean by that, by equity?

Well, before our crews would sleep, regardless of gender, would sleep in the same areas. Now they have their own private spaces. So that's designed into... the programming of the station, meaning you have your own area to sleep, you have your own locker space that's private, you have your own bathroom space that's private. And then equity goes beyond that, like it's accommodating to the community, it's easy access for all citizens for that area that we serve. It's welcoming, you know, not darked out windows, those type of things. It still invites people in an equitable way to that. That's their community firehouse and they're welcome there. Oh, yeah.

So on station 20, what's the time frame that I mean, are you taking a year? Is it going to be a year and a half to finish it out or how's that?

Most of our stations take a year. I'll say the complexity of this one. Um, you know, I'm just shooting from the hip. I'm not the technical expert on it, but I'd say probably a year and a half. Yeah. That's probably the safest bet.

Derek. Yes. Thank you. Um, I also wanted to thank you for sharing that information about struggle. Well, it sounds like a wonderful program. I'd like to learn a little more about it. Um, And just a quick question. How much cross training are you doing with our local law enforcement in regard to a response to multi casualty incidents?

I'm not sure. Are you talking about active threat?

I am, yes.

I'm not sure how recent we have, but certainly several years ago when I was still a battalion chief, we had ongoing active threat training with Newberg PD. We internally, after that training, have completely changed our protocol. So our responders are now, instead of waiting outside or waiting, creating casualty collection points and asking our officers to bring casualties there. We're actively engaged. All that we ask is for two officers for our protection, and our crews are going to go in and start immediately treating people as we come across them. So we'll be setting up strike teams. That's our protocol to work with law enforcement to get in there. We know that any delay of getting inside the building, we're going to lose lives, and we have about 10 minutes from the time that they have that penetrating trauma to stop the bleeding. So nationwide, that's what's saving lives. Chief, I don't know, have you guys done any training with our crews recently?

We are... We certainly do. As a matter of fact, I know that our training team has talked about doing something this summer with you guys. So we're overdue.

Yeah, we'll make it happen, counselor.

I also attended one recently myself. It was just a tabletop exercise. And this occurred in an outdoor setting, which we've seen more of those lately. And the response is much different. And, you know, it was just it was great to be able to communicate and understand, like, your communication, what the different colored hats mean, what you're expecting of us in as you're responding to one of these things in outdoor, which I think, depending on the scale of it, could be a little more complicated than just responding to a staging location at an indoor facility. If that makes sense. I don't know. There was value in it, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, there's comfort in boundaries. And when you don't have boundaries, it's hard to know where the lines begin and where they end. So well-received. I'll pass it on to our training division. And then we also provide the medics for the TNT team. And they run our active threat. So I'll also touch base with them.

Yeah, thank you.

You're welcome.

Not for tonight, but we are looking at, obviously, population growth, and we're thinking about the math that goes around our water reserve number. Who should I reach out to to get a more accurate estimate of what you guys would like us to have in our water reserve? We haven't done this for a few years.

Well, just reach out to me, and I'll put you in contact with our fire marshal who runs all those figures. Thank you. You're so welcome. I have to be remiss. I just glanced over at police chief and I want to share this. Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue has one of the highest cardiac arrest save rates in the nation. We're at 45% of witness cardiac arrest if it's witnessed. And we run a really strict criteria. They have to be neurologically intact and walk out of the hospital on their own. for us to count it as a true save. So that number is unbelievable. But there's three reasons why that number is the way it is. First and foremost, in 2015, we sponsored legislation that requires all seniors to learn hands-only CPR. I believe that has saved lives. Like, many people, when we arrive on scene, are doing CPR, and we need them to, or applying an AED. Secondarily, we partner with all of our law enforcement agencies. And I want to tell you, your officers here in Newburgh are awesome. And the amount of lives that they have saved along with our crews is just unbelievable. They are on scene. They are on that chest. They're applying the AED. They're shocking people. They're saving lives every day. And that's the commitment of this police chief and the commitment of many other police chiefs in our service area. And then the other reason is we have a very unique pit crew approach down to where the kit is placed, to where you stand, to what you say. It is run like a NASCAR pit crew, and that is by design so that any anomaly is taken out of the picture and they can just focus on the patient. So shout out to Newberg PD. They are phenomenal in that space. So thanks, Chief. Any other questions? Yeah, please do.

Okay. I think the last couple of years that you've been, you were having trouble hiring your fire and that's over.

Is that over?

Okay. Cause that was really a concern of mine. Why you couldn't. So could you describe how you got up to level or?

Yeah. Well, we, we really turned up the heat in our recruiting. And I think for many, many years, we were passive observers to our recruiting and we just, fell back on our name and our reputation. And frankly, I don't think we, we had stopped earning it. And this leadership team has said enough's enough. We're going to be the number one. We're going to attract the best and the brightest. And so we have a tremendous team of people that recruit all over. We hire firefighters from all over the nation. And yeah, we've, we've turned that around. So thank you for asking. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you very much. We appreciate the update. Thank you. We appreciate what you guys do in our city.

Of course. It's an awesome city. We're so grateful to be here. Thank you.

So next on our agenda is the consent agenda. Looking for somebody to make a motion.

I move we approve the consent agenda.

Second.

It has been, we have, wow, I can't speak tonight. It has been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda. Is there any more discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? The motion passes unanimously. We have a spate of public hearings today. And who is presenting further? I guess it would be Katie, wouldn't it? Hi, Katie.

Good evening. So I think the first one is the supplemental budget. And that's the public hearing.

So this is a legislative hearing. I now will open the public hearing. This hearing is to approve the supplemental budget number one for 2527 biennium. At this point, if any members that have conflicts of interest or absentations, this is the time to announce. All right. So next is our staff report.

Awesome. So most of you have heard majority of these updates from the budget meeting, so I will just breeze right through this. So for the summary, the total adjustments are just over $4 million, bringing our total biennial budget to $228,974,496. For the general fund, we had a beginning fund balance increase of $515,000. This was mostly from position vacancies in both planning and police that we had that carried over. Sorry, I feel like I'm really loud here. I'm not deafening everybody here. Other resources we received, we had grants that were for the police foundation for the purchase of the two drone vehicles. We also received a CLG grant. And then we also had some extra revenue from the sale of our vehicles. The municipal court appropriation increased by 65,000. That's just because we decided to split the finance clerical assistant partially into court because of her Spanish speaking skills that she also assists heavily on court days and does several days with court as well. So we decided to split her partially with finance and utility billing and court as well. So that's why you see that increase there. For the police appropriation, that increase is directly related to the grant that we received for the purchase of the two drone trucks. It was reimbursing us. And then we also had a small increase from a forensic equipment sale. And then the planning increase, that was for some maintenance agreements that we had that was previously covered from the business licenses that were in Fund 14. So we needed to figure out where those needed to have a home since they're not in Fund 14 anymore. And so we decided that those were going to land in planning. So since that revenue moved over, we just moved those expenses into that category. Okay. Communications increased by 200,000. As I mentioned in the budget committee, that was from the one additional FTE we added for the communication officers during the fiscal year. And then the transfers, we increased that by 50,000 just to make sure we covered our debt payoff related to the communication tower. So that was transferred to the debt service fund, which you'll see later on in this. And then contingency was the offset to all of this. Okay. For the Administrative Services Fund, beginning fund balance increased by $603,000. Again, this was primarily due to vacancies for positions related to IT and facilities that we had that carried over. Other resources that increased, that was $340,000. That was the receipt of our FEMA grant money from the City Hall flood event. The city manager's office had a net increase of 21,000. Some of this was adjusted from Will's new contract. There was also the addition of the fireworks show. And then we also had the changing of the grant writer position that moved into the assistant for the city manager position. So that just had a small net increase in total. The public works increased by $370,000. Again, this was related to the receipt of the FEMA grant for the roof and window replacement. And then contingency was the offset. For the street fund, we had a beginning fund balance increase of around $103,000. Again, this was just from careful spending to help preserve some fund balance in the street fund. The public works appropriation increased by 1.4 million. A lot of this had to do with the staffing reorganization. Some of this had to do with the Crestview settlement as well. That's included in that. And then the contingency was the offset to that. So as we talked about at the budget meeting, because we're now having dedicated teams for each utility, there was a staffing readjustment we had to do throughout the funds. The civil forfeiture fund, this was a very small increase on the beginning fund balance for $334. And again, we just offset the police appropriation for that. For proprietary capital project fund, we increased the resources by 225,000. This is related to a new CIP project we're hoping to get started related to the Springbrook sewer line extension. So we tried to budget in some extra money for design work that we're hoping to start this biennium. For the wastewater fund, we had an increase in the beginning fund balance of $1.7 million. This just had to do with some carryover related to Hess Creek and inflow I&I projects that were either completed or we completed under budget. And some of the I&I money, I think we did less I&I last year, and that's why we had a large carryover.

Well, that was just being under budget for Hess Creek.

Yeah.

Huge.

And then the transfers, again, was the $225,000. This is related to that that's going into Fund 4, related to that Springbrook sewer line CIP project we're wanting to start. And then contingency was the offset. For the water fund, beginning fund balance increased by $15,000. This was just a small carryover related to HB 2001 projects. And for the public works appropriation, we increased by 360,000. Again, this was just due to the public works staffing restructure that we did with the contingency being the offset. For the building inspection fund, there was a decrease of 60,000 on beginning fund balance. Mostly this was because revenue came in slightly less than we had anticipated for building permits and the plumbing and mechanical permits. There's a slight increase on the building inspection appropriation by 3400. This was just because of some additional office supplies the department was wanting to purchase. And then contingency was the offset. Debt service fund, the other sources was an increase of 50,000. So this was the transfer in from the general fund. We just wanted to make sure we had all the money covered for the debt payment that we made. And so debt service was the increase. And this was related again to the communication tower debt that we paid off. The 911 emergency fund had a really minimal increase on beginning fund balance, $2,200. This was just to true up the fund balance, and so we increased the communications appropriation by that amount as well. Fund 14, economic development fund, the beginning fund balance increased by $74,000. This was mainly due to the interest calculation true-up that we do during the audit time. So part of that, so I'm going to skip down to the transfers piece. So the transfers, we increased by $37,000. So this was the very last of that economic development portion of the business licenses and the interest earned that needs to move to the general fund. So that is the, we thought we caught it all, but this was all from the audit that this was the very last piece that's going to the general fund. And then the rest of the interest calculation for the affordable housing piece and the CET piece is the special payments. And that increased by 36,000 and that was their interest calculation true up. The public safety fee that also had a small decrease by 15,000. We're just trying to use up all of the communication officer fee portion of the fund balance because we know that's going to go away at the end of this year. So we may have another true up of this on the next supplemental budget because we want that to zero out at the end of this budget cycle. The stormwater fund, the beginning fund balance had a small increase of 5,600. This was just carryover of the annual pipe replacement. And the street capital project fund, the beginning fund balance increased by 184,000. This was related mostly to the completion of North College Street and the Main Street, Illinois 240 intersection. Didn't have another name. It had like five names, but those, yeah, ODOT had a different name for also, but that completed and it completed under budget. So that's the primary reason for that carry over on that. TLT had a small increase that was $5,300. Again, that was due to the interest revenue true up, which we always end up dispersing to the entities towards the end of the fiscal year. The Library Gift and Memorial Fund. This one had a beginning fund balance increase of $34,000, and this was primarily due to the carryover of grants that they had planned to spend in the following fiscal year for projects. They also received other sources increased by 45,000. So this was additional grants and donations they received, including some from the library friends. And so this increased the library appropriation by 80,000. They had several new capital projects they were doing. They had new carpeting installed in the Austin room, new acrylic shelf and panels and some new countertops. So they did a lot of, replace capital projects there from these donations and grants that they received. And that's it. Anybody have any questions over these? Right? Yeah, that's right.

So we're looking for somebody to make a motion to approve 2026-4031, but I better look at my script here because I'm skipping something. Public testimony. I now close public testimony. Do I need to open it first?

Yes. All right.

So I now open public testimony, and I now close public testimony. All right. Recommendation from staff.

Adopt resolution 2026-4030, approval of the supplemental budget.

So we need a motion, and then we can discuss. Oh, there's Mike.

Yeah, I'll move that we do adopt resolution number 2026-4030 with approval of the supplemental budget for the 2025 to 2027 biennium.

Second.

It's been approved and seconded that we approve Resolution 2026-4030, is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we will have a roll call vote, won't we?

Councilor McBride?

Yes.

Councilor Wheatley? Yes. Councilor Yarnell-Halliman? Yes. Councilor Kilburg?

Yes.

Mayor Rossacker?

Yes.

Councilor Tergesen? Yes. Councilor Carman?

Yes.

Thank you.

And I think I'm up here for the next one.

I should have. It was. I'll let you do it. No, you do it. Thanks to Katie, who is the most brilliant finance director in our state, we have achieved another debt reduction milestone, and I'm sure that there will be more to come since we're going to be down to our last two bits of debt.

Always nice when one of our goals gets to be completed. Thank you for doing that, both of you. All right, next is another legislative hearing. This is for resolution number 2026-4031, a resolution imposing the tax and categorizing tax for fiscal year 2622nd, second half of our biennium. I call this meeting to order. At this point, if any council has a declaration of conflict of interest or abstentation, please say so now. Seeing none, we are ready for staff report.

Okay, I did not do a presentation on this because it should be fairly cut and dry. Again, you guys know the drill. Every year, because of the special election where the city broke off from Newburgh Fire and it became TVFNR, our tax rate was cut down, and then council is given the option every year to increase it by a maximum of 3% until we're back at our old maximum assessed rate of $4.3827 per 1,000. The staff recommendation this year is that we keep the same rate that we've been levying, which is $3.0748 per 1,000. You know, the city manager, Will, has made a promise, and so did I, that we would always look at this and only ask for it if we really needed it. You know, you heard at the budget committee meeting that the city feels that the fund balances are doing very well. We have new revenue streams. We paid off our debt. We feel that we could go a year without having the property tax increase. So that will be the staff recommendation.

And we will continue every year to look at trying to not take this increase if we at all can, realistically.

I know that council appreciates that. I know the citizens appreciate that. And Robert Soppe, I know you're listening. I hope you appreciate it as well.

Okay.

Okay. So now I am opening the meeting to public testimony and I assume we have none. So public testimony is now closed. Recommendation from staff.

To adopt resolution 2026-4031, imposing and categorizing the tax for fiscal year 2026-2027, and I need to read the rate into the record. For the permanent tax rate of $3, I don't know how to read this right, $3.0748 per 1,000. Yes, assessed value.

I would have read it as $3.0748 per dollar.

That could be right too. I just want to make sure I read into the record right. With all the zeros and seven. Yeah.

So, all right. We're looking for a motion and then council deliberation.

Okay, I move we adopt resolution 2026-4031, imposing and categorizing the tax for fiscal year 2026 through 2027, the second half of the biennium. I'll second that.

It has been moved and seconded that we approve resolution number 2026-4031. Could we have a roll call vote, please?

Councillor McBride?

Yes.

Councilor Wheatley. Yes. Councilor Yarnell-Halleman. Yes. Councilor Kilburg. Yes. Mayor Rossacker.

Yes.

Councilor Tergesen. Yes. Councilor Carman.

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Can I ask one thing? Okay. Could we put together a graphic if Emily's listening?

I'll post it for

I just wanted to show what the savings per average household is from this decision. Just on one slide on Instagram and Facebook. Okay.

I will make sure that that gets posted tomorrow, but I'll raise you one. We were doing work today on putting the final bits of the video together, and it contains a complete explanation of how the entire process works, including live action scenes. Unfortunately, the gentlemen involved don't have moustaches. We worked hard to try and have that in the video, but we're going with a more bearded appearance. But it covers the whole deal.

And I believe we are working on putting something in the next water billing statement about the communication officer fee going away.

All right. The next item on our agenda is resolution 2026, that's 4022, updating the master fee schedule. And Dan, good to see you.

Thanks for having me. My name is Dan Coyler, Mayor and City Council, and I'm the Accounting Manager, and I'm here for the second reading, which, as a reminder, is an administrative public hearing for the resolution 2026 4022 resolution to update the master fee schedule which includes the removal of the communication officer public safety fees as well as updates to uh wastewater and transportation sdc sdc fees uh and i have to interrupt you i i was neglecting to realize this is also a legislative hearing so we have some formalities to go through here um i call this legislative hearing order

At this point, if any councils, any members of the council have declarations of conflicts of interest or abstentions, seeing none, you're back on. Time for your staff report. Thank you.

That's why I always like to start with that comment. But, yeah, so I'm presenting 2026.

That's what jogged my memory. I appreciate it.

2022 resolution to update the Master Fee Schedule. As a reminder, the Master Fee Schedule is established in 2016 and is last updated in March of 2025. This will be our first update for July 1st. What's Roman for? Effective date for July as we recently council recently changed this processed from April 1st to July 1st, which puts a lot more of our fees in line with 1 another because we previously had a handful of fees that updated in July on July 1st. And so this brings it to a little bit more. one-stop shop. So essentially the Master Fee Schedule does not include franchise fees, city taxes, or pass-through fees collected for other entities such as the school district CET fees and the Parks Department SDC fees, which we do collect on their behalf and then remit back to them. Various fees in here are tied to consumer price indexes. The fee in lieu of parking program fee is tied to the engineering news record construction cost index for Seattle of December of each year. which is 4.1 for this past December, which is a fee that we have not used yet, but it's there should we need it. All the other rates subject to CPI use the CPI-U, which for December 2025 was 2.7%, which is lower than it has been in the past handful of years. The highlighted fees, there's no changes within the city recorder fees. The finance, the municipal state services statement fees were updated to present their increases, which took place on January 1st. And then within that section, the communication officer public safety fee was removed per the debt reduction plan. There's no changes in the library fees this year. The permit center, which is the majority of this fee schedule, all of the building and planning fees subject to CPI adjustments were updated, and various fee descriptions were added to assist customers in determining permit type. including sign, swimming pool, manufactured building, commercial, air conditioner, and mini split. They're not new fees. We're just kind of adding them so that it's easier for people to find the fees that they need to use. Because there's a lot of different fees that kind of group into one category, and people were finding it difficult to determine which fee they needed to choose. The grading permit fees were removed. Is there no longer required due to changes in the Oregon code? The mural sign review fee was added to ensure fair pricing as mural projects are often larger scale, which is essentially it's the same as the sign fee but with a limit of $200, I believe. The type 2 vacation rental review fee was separated out for clarity and transparency, but it hasn't changed. It was just... segregated out so that people know what that fee falls under. Trees and public right-of-way removal lines have been added to correct an oversight. We've had those fees, but somebody realized that they had never been included in the schedule, so we're adding those in now. The bike rack cost-sharing program has been removed due to inactivity. The big ones, the system development charge updates, the wastewater SDC fees are decreasing by 7%. The transportation SDC fees are increasing by 6.06%. And then storm and water SDCs are not, there's no change. Police fees, the police reports fee is being increased from $15 to $20 based on comparative analysis with our peers that they did. And as that fee hasn't changed in many years and is theoretically designed to recover the cost of processing such reports. And then there's no changes in the public works section. The city or the staff recommendation is to approve resolution 2026-4022 to help the city manage and operate city government in an efficient and effective manner.

Thank you. I'll now open public testimony. We have nobody scheduled for public testimony, so I now close public testimony. You just gave the staff recommendation. That's awesome. So it's time for someone to make a motion. We can deliberate.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve Resolution 2026-4022 Master Fee Schedule.

Second.

All right. It has been moved and seconded that we approve Resolution 2026-4022. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll have a roll call vote.

Councillor McBride.

Yes.

Councillor Wheatley. Yes. Councillor Yarnell-Halliman. Yes. Councillor Kilburg.

Yes.

Mayor Rossacker.

Yes.

Councillor Tergesen. Yes. Councillor Carman.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. The motion passed unanimously.

Thank you. I appreciate your time.

That's it. We have no more business for today, so I declare this meeting adjourned.