City Council - Regular Meeting

So good evening, everybody. I now call this meeting of the Newburgh City Council, June 15, 2026, to order. Could we have roll call, please?

Councilor McBride?

Here.

Councilor Wheatley?

Here.

Councilor Yarnell-Holman? Here. Councilor Kilburg? Here. Mayor Rosacker?

Here.

Councilor Tergesen? Here. Councilor Carman?

Here. Welcome, everybody. Would everybody please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance? All right, our first order of business is the city manager's special report.

Thank you, Honourable Mayor and Council. First of all, I would like to say that I owe a few words of gratitude to somebody who's in the audience this evening. And so I invited Alison to come to Council especially this evening because she is actually, just in the next week, stepping down from her role as our HR Manager. I can tell you that it may seem an unlikely marriage to form between a Scotsman and an English lady, and people have remarked upon that. But when you have somebody of such incredible and sterling values as Alison Siler, who had already retired, and a person who came out of retirement to help this city in its darkest moment, When things were in chaos, when our filing was shattered, we had no recruitment processes, and we were out of compliance in so many ways, for her to come out of her retirement to help us was remarkable. And so I just want to say publicly and on the record, thank you, Alison, for all you've done for us over all these years and for the huge changes that you've made to this city and how it works.

Thank you.

Now, in a slight deviation from the normal city manager report, I know you guys have been waiting with bated breath to see the new video, and the video is finally ready for you to see. And yes, some parts of the acting may be a little bit amateurish, but it was done without any consultants whatsoever, and that's cool, and it was very inexpensive. So this is the culmination of years of work on changing how every part of the city's financial system operates. And if people have been following along, even if it's from a distance, they may have noticed that there have been a lot of changes here. And this video highlights how the budget system operates. Hit it, Melissa.

City of Newburgh, this is Katie.

Hey Katie, your 3 o'clock appointment is here.

Great, can you show them the way to my office?

No problem.

Thank you. Hi Mr. Resident. Come on in and have a seat. How can I help you today?

I need to know why my water bill is so high. You need to fix this. You guys are wasting my hard-earned money.

No problem. Let me take a look and see if I can help you out with this. Let me see if I can explain how it works with our city budget.

Budget? I've got my own budget for my car and groceries. The city has a budget?

Of course. In fact, our budget isn't month-to-month like an individual family's budget. It spans over two years. We can go through the whole process, but it might just be easier if I showed you.

The City's budget cycle is complex and involves a lot of decision-making over the course of two years. Let's start in January of an even year. In January and February of an even year, the City calls together the Rate Review Committee to, you guessed it, review the rate's residence pay. That committee hears staff proposals on rate updates, including increases or justification for not increasing a rate. The public is able to comment on the proposed rates package. Then the committee passes their recommended rates to the city council, who votes to pass the package or reviews them and passes them back to the committee for changes. The city council ultimately makes the final vote on the rates. In February and March, the city's finance and administrative team work together to examine our system development charges and adjust them according to inflation. Beginning in April, the finance team develops a new master fee schedule, which outlines all of the different fees people might pay to the city, from building permits to public record request fees and more. You can find the latest version adopted by city council over on our website. Over the summer, June through September, city leadership meets to review our plan for capital improvement projects. This plan extends over the next four years. We'll update finished projects, look at what's in progress, and consider anything new that we need to plan for within the next four years. Next up, department leadership will take the last few months of the year to look at their individual budgets and see where they might need to adjust funding with a budget change request. We won't get into those in detail here, but in short, they allow us to keep track of where money is flowing and why, so every department has the funding they need and every dollar is accounted for. Now we pass over to the odd-numbered year, a budget publishing year. Budget change requests are due in January, and the finance team works hard to balance the budget. This process takes a long time, from January to June, The budget is reviewed in April, May, and June by the Budget Committee. This committee, made up of residents and City Council, suggests changes to the budget and then votes to approve it before the beginning of the next fiscal year. July marks the start of a new biennial, or two-year, budget cycle. At the beginning of this new fiscal cycle, we'll start the process over again, prepping for the rate review committee and reviewing our system development charge tables to update them at the beginning of the next year.

Okay, so that voice in the sky made the city budget cycle pretty clear. I think I get it now.

Great, I'm glad, but it seems like you still have some more questions.

Yeah, I mean, I pay all this money to the city every month, but where does it all go?

Great question. Well, do you want to take this one, narrator?

Sure thing, Katie. Here's the deal. The city of Newburgh provides services and infrastructure to Newburgh residents, like water, stormwater, sewer, roads, a library, public safety, all kinds of stuff. In return, residents pay fees and taxes. The thing is, the city can only use certain sources of income for specific things. For example, we can use the transportation utility fee funds to fix roads, but we can't use that same fund to fix our water treatment facility. That's the law. In order to provide all of the city's services, we rely on income from rate payments, property taxes, and more. They fix our roads, keep clean water flowing, fund our infrastructure projects, provide library services to our families, and make sure our city can run for years to come.

Thanks for taking the time to explain all of this to me. You know, it's enough to do my own personal finances. It's kind of hard to understand how complicated the whole city's budget can be.

We get it, and our staff is always happy to discuss the details with you. That's why they pay us.

So... The Budget Committee. If I had some time next summer, how would I do it?

That's a great question. Everything you need to know about our committees are on our website at newburghoregon.gov. We also keep all of our latest financial documents, such as the budget, which we just went over, and the annual comprehensive financial report. Anybody can access them.

Great. I'll go home and get started.

Thank you, Mr. Resident. Let me walk you out.

So for people looking at this at home, they might not realize that this took, this whole system, it took four years for us to fine tune it and build it the way it is now. It didn't just happen overnight. All the parts on that, many of them are bespoke and they're entirely unique to this city. And Katie has done such an amazing, brilliant job guiding us through all these changes. And we think the way we do the budget right now is not only incredibly efficient, but it's a thing of beauty. Any questions for Katie or I about this? And I think this does this answer the mail on helping residents understand? Thank you.

And I'm sure Hollywood will be happy to know that their jobs are not in jeopardy. Next is public comments. We had three. The first is Andre Meyer. No? Well, the second is Kathy Meyer. All right, we have one public comment. And that is Herman Singleton. Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Sure. Just press the button and the red light will come on and you're live.

All right. Now, my public comment relates to issues regarding questionable morality and ethics. Of course... I'm a citizen, you know, I live in nearby Sherwood and I was a candidate for a position here with the city. I was presented with an offer On a Friday afternoon, and it was rescinded Friday morning, I mean Monday morning, offering no time to consider, no time to evaluate, no time to assess life-changing decisions in comparison to how things are going to affect me and my family. I took seriously the actual values of strive that you guys have posted on your website and that the city manager speaks so wonderfully about. But I do feel in that particular time that everything that I ran into or everyone that I came in contact with was great. I felt that there was a moment of intimidation when I was reaching out to the HR manager and the HR manager didn't contact me. And I got a call from the city manager at the time. So I just kind of let me know. that things weren't necessarily being followed to the letter of the true values and the principles of what the city intends to uphold. So that's pretty much my comments to just, you know, hopefully impact that. And hopefully that you all really truly take it seriously because I do as a citizen, I do as a person of color, I do as a person, as an employee, potential employee, my work, consists of working for another jurisdiction another city another county uh in the morning that i got the the panic from the city of newberg i was on a uh ocean inspection walk leading an inspection walk through the justice center and just didn't have time to give them what they wanted and i was told that you know newberg does things differently and i'm like That's fine and well. And just leave it at that. That's it. Thank you.

Any questions? Thank you. All right. So the next item on our agenda is a presentation from the Osago City Exchange program with the Haven Valley Middle School. And I'm guessing that's all these people in the front row. Come on up.

Any more chairs for all guys?

Yeah, I told them they could bring up their chairs once I'm finished and present together. Good evening, Mayor Rosacker, city council members, and community members. My name is Donna Golden, and since 2019, I've been running the exchange program at Cheyenne Valley Middle School and also acting as liaison for Newburgh-Osago City-Sister City Relations. This May, thank you, by the way, for giving us a few moments tonight to share our experiences with our sister school and sister city in Japan. As we have for decades, this May we departed for Asago City, Hyogo, Japan. On Monday, May 11th, we were welcomed by the mayor of Osago City, as well as the superintendent of Osago Board of Education. Many other officials were present, including the president of the Association for International Cultural Exchange. Local media were present for this meeting, where we exchanged gifts with the mayor and superintendent. The mood was celebratory, and they made us feel welcome. We spent the next week visiting our sister school, Guadayama Junior High, as well as another junior high school and elementary school. We also visited local heritage sites and natural wonders. On one of our days there, we made a trip to Hiroshima to visit the Atomic Bombsite Museum and Peace Memorials. All of these rich experiences were quite impactful in different ways. At the end of the trip, we came together once again with the mayor, school officials, host families and students to celebrate our continued friendship. A wonderful time was had by everyone present. I look forward to seeing to our exchange partners coming in August to Newburgh. I hope that you all may be experience our side of this important exchange in some way. We will keep you informed of the activities this week by sharing our itinerary with Rachel Thomas. Now, some of the students would like to share their experiences with you. Thank you. One of you can take the medals and just come over here. You'll have to gather around the microphone, so.

It's wrong. Sorry. See, send it. I think this is . Yeah.

Oh, I will. Cultural immersion experience authentic Japanese traditions through tea ceremonies, traditional castle visits, and local festivities, festivals. Students will engage with daily life in Japan and gain deep appreciation for its rich heritage. Educational experiences attend classes at our partner school. We participated in collaborative projects and explored Japanese learning methods. Students gain valuable academic perspectives and cross-cultural skills. We also form lasting friendships, building meaningful connections with Japanese students through shared activities, host family stays, and group excursions. These bonds often continue long after the exchange ends.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Danilo Cherry-Lopez. I'm one of the delegates, and I'm going to talk about the after-school clubs that we attended. The first after-school club I attended while in Japan was Track and Field. Yeah. During track and field, we did warmups. Like the one you see in the photo on the right, I forgot what that was called, but yeah. Oh. Oh, yeah, I was about to. Then the second school we went, the first school we went to was Wadiyama Junior High. Then the second school was Osago Junior High. During that club, I did volleyball. We also did warm ups and it was just a really good time and everyone was very kind.

Hello, City Council. My name is Manny Sandoz, and I am another one of the delegates that we had on our exchange program. And I will talk to you a little bit about Hiroshima and the experiences we had while going there. So going to Hiroshima was a life-changing experience, and I think one of the great things about this trip is that I will never forget what I got. Like, it's never going to change what... made me go and I'm really excited that I was able to bring back that information and that we're able to share a little bit with our host students. So if there's one thing that's really important to me that I brought back from going to Hiroshima is that it was like I was like kind of really heavily unprepared for the history behind like all of Hiroshima and the bombings and stuff. The trip to the blasted away Hiroshima City Hall and the museum right after was really sentimental and kind of really emotional for me because I think I wasn't really prepared for it. I'm really sad for myself and other classmates of mine. and the generations that were before me that I didn't really get taught what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think we should teach about it more because I think it's a really important thing because it was just really catastrophic for a lot of people living there. And it just, while I was there, it kind of felt like wrong that I didn't know a lot about it. So... And it was just kind of really emotional for a lot of us because it was really destructive. And I think that, yeah, for all of us, we all feel the same, that it was really an emotional thing and that it was really good that we got to learn about it. It was really expressive for us because we didn't really get to feel those thoughts and feelings before. So I thank you for helping us go on this trip. Thank you. Any questions? Cool. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Riker Bracha. From May 8th to May 18th, I got to go on the exchange trip, and it was an experience I'll never forget. I got to stay with a host family and explore a ton of new places and learn a lot about their culture. The trip showed me that some of the best learning happens outside of classrooms and schools, and one of my favorite parts of the trip was the food and the culture. I got to make pakeyaki with my host family. and it was a lot of fun and I got to bond with them. Neither of us really knew how to make it very well and there was definitely a language barrier, but we got through it and it was a lot of fun. I also got to try some other traditional foods like okonomiyaki, beef bowls, and sushi, and it really helped me step outside my comfort zone and experience different culture in a real way. Trips like this are an experience that all students should get to experience because it teaches so much more than just a classroom and a textbook. And understanding a different part of people's culture is really important for a lot of schools. Overall, my trip to Japan taught me that travel can connect people, create friendships, and teach lessons that last a lifetime. I think educational opportunities like this are important for future generations because they help students grow, try new things, and see the world in a different way.

Hello, my name is Ezra Shockley and a couple of weeks ago I got to go on the exchange trip. So during the exchange, every student gets paired with a host family and a host student from that family. Those are definitely my favorite aspect of the trip and the exchange as a whole. Yeah, so you get to build a really deep, special relationship with your host family that will last you the rest of your life. There's some parts of the trip that you spend exclusively with them, and they get to take you places and do stuff with you, and it's... a really great time and you bond with them a lot. At a certain point they really do start to feel like family, and even now I'm still keeping in contact with them. yeah this is the best part of the trip and i didn't going into it i didn't think that it was going to affect me as much as it did but yeah i loved it so yeah uh thank you for listening okay

Okay. Day trips. Some of my fondest memories were small moments where I just got to get closer to my delegates, the teachers, my host family, and others that I met on the trip. We would take small day trips to Ikino, Himeji, Takeda, and Hiroshima. On these trips, we took trains, buses, cars. One of my favorite memories is learning Japanese traditional games on a Japanese bullet train. That was really fun. We also learned a lot on these trips about culture. I loved walking around Himeji City and seeing the local shops and just the residents in like just being like out and about just the casual differences in our cultures. I really enjoyed shopping with my fellow delegates. For part of the trip we got to just go out in pairs of like three and go explore the city and shop and that was really great. We also learned a lot about money on these trips, about how much to spend, what the differences were between different economies and different countries, how much exchange rates were. I think it benefited me a lot to learn about how money works in different societies and how the economy affected different things like schools and cities and stuff like that. It was a really great time and I learned so much and I really hope future students will get to go on this trip too because it really is like life changing.

Just one more moment. Thank you again for your continued support. This tradition has been ongoing for 36 years as sister schools and 26 years as sister cities, and it's going strong, I'm happy to say, and I would like to see that continue. Before we go, we'd like to share a record of our exchange that was provided to me last week by one of my friends in Osago City. So I'm not sure where I could leave these, but anyone that would like a copy of the record, here it is. Thank you. I was quite impressed. They are much better at record keeping than I am. So I'm making use of that. And finally, I would also like to present a gift from Mayor Rosacker to Mayor Rosacker from Mayor Isumo Fujioka in Asago City. And it includes some of the very best sake from the region, as well as a silver tumbler made from materials from the Ikuno silver mine.

This is very similar to the gift that they gave last year. Just for the record, I don't get to drink the sake and the silver what I want to call Tumblr. Thank you. Belongs to the city and it will be displayed in the city hall in the front right alongside the other one. So thank you very much.

Are there any questions?

I would like each of you or maybe a couple of you to tell us what you think the major benefit to having an exchange program with a saga city or any place else is.

Okay, hey again. I think the biggest benefit that me and some of my fellow classmates received was the differences. I think it's not... When you go to someplace similar, it doesn't really push your boundaries as much. And I think going to these exchanges and having the Japanese kids come here is really horizon opening for us. And I think that... It just really helps our borders expand for knowledge and culture and all of the other things involved in this exchange program. And I just want to say that I think for me, that's the most important part. And one of my favorite parts is because I get to learn something completely new.

Maybe some of the other counselors have questions for you.

Yes.

So I have a couple of questions. Has this experience opened up an interest in maybe doing a future exchange program, either like in high school or maybe college or even just traveling in general? And if so, where? And then when your host family peer comes here, are there things you want to make sure you take them to experience here locally?

Okay, so yes, I just want to say not only does the culture and like just place of Japan make me want to go back, but I miss my host family so much. I really want to do something like the JET program where I get to teach English in Japan because they need a lot of teachers for that because they implement English into their studies from like middle school to high school. So I think it would be really fun if I was able to do that and then maybe get somewhere near so I could stay with my host family or something like that so I can continue with them. And I yeah, so that's something I think would really like I'd want to do in the future because of this program. Remind me of your second question.

Things that you want to show your host family peer here locally.

Okay.

So a few things that I like around here. Well, like I said, a lot of things are different. So they have a lot of, like, industrial things just kind of scattered everywhere. And it's a lot different because they also have, like, rice fields right next to, like... like a convenience store. And I think that's really different from us because we have bigger cities and towns where we have like all of this congregated areas of shops here and then different like areas for our like power plants and other stuff like that in different places and like farmland on the hills and everything. So I think I want to show them just like the broader general area of this and take them around town and stuff like that.

I'd like to partially answer that question as well as the person running the program. I will share the itinerary with all of you, or through Rachel or Melissa. It's Melissa, right? The itinerary for August. They arrive July 31st, which is butting up to a weekend, so they'll spend time with their host families. And then on Monday, August 3rd, we will be visiting City Hall as well as exploring all around Newburgh, letting them experience the shops, letting them choose a place to eat, taking tours through the library and the cultural center, as well as St. Kuzera, a Japanese-owned business here in town, which they did last year and they really enjoyed. So they've requested to do that again. On one of the days, we'll take them to the coast, to Newport and to the aquarium, another day to the Oregon Zoo, as well as a trip through the gorge and Mount Hood, the Froot Loop, if you will, And so we have a really packed schedule. And at the end, we'll be doing a sayonara party on August 6th from 4 to 6.30 p.m. here in Newburgh. And I will extend an invitation to each of you who would like to attend that. A more formal one will be coming very soon, as soon as we've nailed down a location. So thank you.

I'd just like to say that if you guys would like a short PowerPoint explaining how local government works in Oregon, I could do that for the visiting family as well. I'd be very glad to. And the PowerPoint's already written for our Poisedorf delegates, so it's in the can.

Fantastic. Yes, they like to know those details. Oliver, would you like to come up and talk a little bit about what you personally want to have your student experience?

I think this program, first of all, I'll answer the mayor's question. I think this program is amazing because we get to see the differences in our culture, but also the similarities. And you end up really seeing that people across the world aren't very different from us and that we're all human and we're all very similar to each other. Um, I'd really like to show my host students, um, I think the zoo here is amazing. I love the zoo. Um, I think also I would like to, um, show them just like nature, um, the huge forests we have here, the pine trees, um, like hiking is a very Oregon thing to do. So probably take them hiking. Like show them the really pretty mountain ranges we have and just show them around Oregon. Does anyone have any questions?

Was there something you saw there or experienced there that you think was better than the United States or in Oregon? Something that you think we could benefit from?

Yes. The food, the system for getting food for schools was just much, much better. They had pre-portioned out meals for every student. They also had a nutritionist in the building. They have like a nurse, which keeps track of like allergies and stuff. And they have... The meals are very like, there's very little garbage that comes out of the meals. The only thing that you will throw away is your milk carton and they will flatten it down and put it very like compactly into a trash can. It's very, it's also very like nutritionally healthy. A lot of rice, vegetables, some sort of fish. Usually we had curry one of the days that was really good too.

To piggyback on her question, did you see, was there a noticeable difference in the amount of respect between the two cultures, their culture and our culture?

Yeah, I think at the schools, kids were definitely more respectful to like their teachers. But I also saw a lot of similarities when they were away from their teachers to our kids here. So there's definitely a universal like. Yeah, universal experience there. Yeah, especially with the younger children in the elementary schools. They knew 6-7. They knew a surprising amount of American memes and culture. So that was pretty funny. They really... Like everyone was super nice. Generally there were, it's not like everyone was just so over the top, like really polite, really nice. Um, other culture is a lot about respect and like, um, being respectful, being kind to others, stuff like that.

So I'm curious, how did you deal with the language barrier? Were they able to speak English? I'm going to guess you guys don't speak Japanese. So how did you deal with that?

And before we went, we learned a little bit of Japanese. We knew a little bit. And then there, usually the older exchange student that's exchanging with us knew some English, like pretty good English. They went to English classes, stuff like that. So their English was pretty good, but no one else in the family generally had very good English. So we used a lot of Google Translate, a lot of just like trying to communicate with expressions or in very simple words. Overall, I think the language barrier kind of helped in some ways to like kind of connect more because you weren't like It's not like you were trying to be super polite in your words and stuff. It was more like honest because you're trying to be more clear, you know?

Thank you very much. We're glad you enjoyed the trip and looking forward to meeting them when they get here in August.

Thank you.

So at this point, we're going to take a step back. I'm going to guess that you're the Myers. In fact, I know you are because I was told that. I held open the public comments just in case you guys come back in. So either one or I've got Andre. Is that all right? That'd be fine. Thank you very much. Welcome.

OK. OK.

So mayor and members of the Newburgh City Council, we, Andre Meyer and Kathleen Meyer, are the owners of Newburgh Industrial Park. Otherwise, a lot of you may know it as the home to PPM Technologies building. It's located at 500 East Illinois Street and we respectfully request that City Council immediately reopen East Illinois Street, North Main Street and Oregon 240 intersection because the decision to implement the trail closure appears to have been based on insufficient evidence. and a process that lacked a level of transparency, stakeholder outreach, and direct notification ordinarily associated with a significant modification to a critical transport corridor. The trial closure has materially affected our ability to market and reposition our approximately 100,000 square foot industrial building and has imposed a disproportionate and unnecessary burden on our properties whose longstanding value and utility have depended upon efficient transportation access, freight mobility, and connectivity. The loss of what is the only direct major collector connection between Oregon 219 and 240 has significantly affected one of the property's most important transportation assets relative to comparable industrial properties offering superior access and mobility. Major transportation decisions should be supported by meaningful public participation, adequate stakeholder notifications, and objective analysis consistent with the transport systems plan and comprehensive plan. and coordination with ODOT, particularly where the State Highway is involved. As owners of Newburgh Industrial Park, located immediately adjacent to the closure, we received no direct notice prior to the implementation, and we were deprived the opportunity to provide meaningful input regarding the decision affecting one of the property's most important assets, its transportation connectivity. A survey population of approximately 20 respondents, of which only 12 supported the trial closure, represents anecdotal rather than statistical reliable information and does not adequately capture community-wide impacts. Sorry, we edited this part of it. The most, let's see, surprisingly, the engineering study was canceled, leaving Newburgh's most consequential transportation modifications without the benefit of any analysis. A critical transportation corridor should not be severed first and studied later, nor should a temporary measure become permanent through adaptation and inertia. Time is of essence. As owner of Newburgh Industrial Park, which has recently been told by PPM Technology that they'd be moving and they'll be leaving Newburgh in January of 2027. So it's imperative that we find a new tenant and we do have interested tenants and they're lining up to come and see the building. And in fact, on Wednesday, I have people, a team and a CEO flying in from Newburgh from the Midwest, from Indiana, who's interested in occupying the building. PPM Technologies employed up to 120 individuals, and those jobs are gone. And we have to have the ability to market the property, and we have to have the ability to reliably say the... the transportation connectivity is there, is solid, is reliable, and... a critical transportation corridor shouldn't be severed first without studies later. Time is of essence. We're experiencing firsthand how the closure is becoming a serious hindrance to our ability to market and reposition this industrial property. Over the years, I've told you that it's provided well-paying jobs for generations in Newburgh, and every day the trial closure remains in place. It places a risk that Perspective tenants and purchasers will look elsewhere that further jobs, investments, and economic opportunities will be lost. The burden should rest upon demonstrating through objective evidence and sound engineering that the closure is necessary. And not upon the community businesses and property owners to adapt to a condition whose necessity has never been established, meaning we've closed the road and now we have to establish why we closed it. We were told that it's of low safety risk, that in 2021, one individual died in 2022. I'm sorry, crash. 2021 had one crash. 2022 had one crash. And 2023 had two crashes. We had our study canceled. So we have no evidence, traffic studies going on in the transportation industry. the objectives of the enterprise zone are totally negated by the closure. The connectivity between east and west sides and residential neighborhoods is severely impacted. And what we do see already on North Street and Washington is a... is a spontaneous use of that little, tiny, narrow residential road as a connector. And it's acting as a major connector because people are going from 240 on north and then going to Washington Street to connect back into north to East Illinois. So we are seeing really negative impacts. And I would just ask that this trial, which has been called a trial closure and a permanent trial closure, be be stopped and that we immediately reopen um east illinois thank you okay um i don't need to know i just need a yes or no did uh pbm are they leaving because of that closure no ppm's leaving not because of the closure

Thank you. We typically don't start a conversation this way. I know you have contacted the city manager. That is a proper way to go. And, you know, you're going to, well, he will tell you what the way to get this done, to work on this. So thank you for your comment. We appreciate it. And I'm sure the city manager will be waiting to hear from you.

Thank you.

All right, the next item on the agenda is a waste management rate increase.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Rose Hacker and city councilors. My name is Dave Huber with WM and with me tonight.

Hello again, Meg Gallagher, pricing analyst with WM.

Jason Willey, Newberg Operations.

So, you know, this evening we're We are here just to really seek the rate proposed that we reviewed at last month's city council meeting on May 18th. Certainly open to any questions that you may have, but wanted to at least let you know that's our request and see if you have any questions related to that.

It appears there are no, well, Mike, go ahead. So I was just curious, do we have any information that tells us how many new subscribers you've had since the last time that we talked about this, talked about an increase? How many people have hooked up that has brought in additional revenue?

Yes, thank you, Counselor. If on the rate review report that we submitted, it does show that number. And it's, so for example, for residential, the residential customer base, in 2025, we had 6,712 customers. And then in 2026, we We have currently 6,731 customers. So there is a little bit of an increase. And I know sometimes that might feel less than what the city is growing, but that really, because there is quite a bit of growth in the city. However, that just tells you how many customers have requested to have service with us or canceled throughout that 12-month period.

All right, if I can get you to hold up for a minute, this is an administrative hearing, so I've got some things, some procedures that I have to follow. So this is an administrative hearing. The hearing is to consider rate review or rate increase for waste management. I will open the public hearing at this time. Citizen will be able to testify in this issue by first submitting a public comment registration at the back table should they wish to speak. There are no public comments so I'm going to close public comment at this point. So at this point Council. We need to declare conflicts of interest or absentations is anybody have any information that they need to share. All right, great. So now we're back to the presentation. Thank you very much. And is this the staff report, or is a staff member going to speak?

Well, there was not really any additional staff report other than we did put on one of our resolution sheets some data showing what the rates would be again, and really it's a matter for Council to deliberate.

So... I have closed the public testimony. Recommendation from staff is to determine whether or not we want to raise the rates for the ingredient. So do you have any more information to share with Council?

No, not at this time. I think, again, you know, we appreciated the time last month to give our annual report out and appreciate that opportunity to, you know, give the comparison of rates to other municipalities. And we're proud of our services here in the city of Newburgh. And we want to continue that partnership with the city as we move forward. So that's it.

All right. Thank you. At this point, I'm going to open the floor for council deliberation. Elise?

I'm going to support the rate increase tonight. I love working with your team. But since the last meeting, it has been reiterated to me from a number of residents of what I brought up of service. And I'm going to say it again. I understand large-scale corporate organizations and the realities that come with them. There are pros and cons. We are seeing the pros in our rates, frankly, if you look at the region. That said, the service is not great. It's when we call the number, you wait on hold for a long time. I've heard examples of many voicemails left at the local office with no return. I listened to the Dundee City Council meeting as well. They are sharing the exact same concerns and I'm very concerned for waste management that this is the creep for your organization. And if it's not fixed, I think that that is an opportunity when we get back to negotiations. If it's not fixed, I will strongly encourage consideration to open a bid. for ecology. So I really want to see change. So I speak for myself. I don't speak for the council, but I'm frustrated. I think there needs to be some attention put behind this.

So I think I echo your sentiments about the service. I had a family member sit down there this morning for two and a half hours before she had a chance to go in and just do a simple dump with things that she had in her van. So I understand how business works. You know, I think last time I voted against it because it was considerably higher. But I understand that, you know, you can't just keep things I mean, I get that. So I'll be supporting this, but I really want to see something change with the service down there. We've got to get that taken care of.

Could we get an update on where you are with Yamhill County and your permit to expand to your lot next door, how that's going?

You bet, Councillor. I'll let Jason take it.

We should hear back. anytime from Yamhill County is DEQ right now is our holdup. Every day I get a new email asking for more information for them to approve our waste permit for the expansion. And DEQ has another four months to approve or deny it.

I have a question based on that. My understanding was that is just to get people off the road. That's not going to increase capacity. Am I incorrect?

Yes, you're correct. We're currently also looking at putting in a compactor, which would help process the material on the floor quicker. So we go from top loading trailers to compacting, which would speed up the time it would take to get the floor clear, which therefore would put more people up on the floor to dump at one time. without running as much heavy equipment up there.

So two things. Is there any possibility that the council could write a letter to DEQ? I mean, I'm sure that will go into an ether of nowhere, but could we attempt it and try to CC in Representative Sharpe or... Senator Starr or someone to get some traction behind it. And then secondly, what is our contract up for negotiations?

I don't recall the precise month, but it's 2028. Okay.

So, I mean, the urgency to express to your corporate leadership of the compactor is essential for the upcoming contract negotiation. Because to Councillor Wheatley's point... That really does us nothing to get that land approved by DEQ and the county if it's not going to decrease wait times. So.

So if the is this compact are going to happen? Can you give us a timeframe? If you want to

We're currently getting bids for it, so I don't have an exact time frame because I don't know how long it takes to retrofit what we have. And I don't know what the lead time is to get a compactor built and sent to us. I do have a meeting next week, though, with a contractor for a compaction company to come in, take a look at our facility and see what it will take to make it happen and to get pricing for it.

My colleague has refreshed my foggy noggin. It's September, 2028.

So I think Councillor Nelisse has a really good point. Is there a specific person that if we were to get a letter together and we could have James help us on that, Maybe we ought to find out who a specific person is that we could send that letter to. Whatever we can do to help you guys is exactly what I think we ought to be doing to get this resolved.

Because I was curious about this, I actually did call Yamhill County to see where you guys were on this process. And I apparently... Our council will have to decide on your land use. So it will be coming to council first, I think, regardless of what DEQ says. So our council will get to, because it's an urban reserve, it's an urban reserve area. So it will be coming to our council. So that's what I heard. So it's not necessarily all DEQ.

So I have been mayor, this is my fourth year being mayor. So each year that you guys have come here, we've had the conversation. It started out with the traffic on the road. And you guys had a solution three years ago that you were going to implement. Well, that hasn't happened yet. So, I mean, I think the councillors are right. If you think that that is valuable, then Mike, would you like to work with Jason and see if there's some way that we can help him speed that process along? Is that acceptable to you guys? I mean, yeah.

But also, if it's going to be the council talking about it, then it's got to also go to the planning commission. Do we have any idea when that's even going to happen? Should we be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit and trying to get... some of the processing out of the way. Seems like we've got a couple things to do. I'm willing to help in any way I can.

If... I mean, we'd like to see something done, so I think it would be beneficial for you to work with Jason a little bit and see if there's some way that we can assist them in moving the process along.

We would appreciate any help, support that we could receive from the city of Newburgh. I think it's also important to, and I apologize if we didn't speak to this last month, but there's been a lot of changes in the solid waste industry over the past year and a half. So Covanta, the incinerator down in Brooks, shut down. And because of that, that's caused a disruption and an influx of volumes that have been coming up here. So, yeah, I know we've been talking about this for the last four years or dealing with high volumes at the transfer station, but they have increased substantially over the past year, year and a half because of that. And the Woodburn transfer station will not accept tip beds, tip bed trailers. And so when I turned the corner out of Winooski today to come to the office, all I see are ODOT dump beds and tip bed trailers. And so that happened. has impacted our business this last year and a half which it's a good problem to have but it has caused that that issue even even more so so i just wanted to you know express that that it hasn't gone on uh deaf ears you know we've we've certainly Uh, Jason's, uh, done improvements to, you know, it's a facility in terms of staffing, getting, trying to get customers in and out as quickly as we can. But we have seen a lot more traffic and volume, uh, this past year. So far this year, we're up a thousand tons a month, uh, year over year. So it's not significant. Yeah.

Isn't it true, though, a lot of your customers are... They should not be coming down to this transfer station. They should be staying... A lot of them are coming to Newburgh because... Pardon me? So... In talking with other people, we're not part of Metro, but I have been told that if you are in a Metro area, you are supposed to dump in a Metro area, not come down to Yamhill County. So I've heard that a lot of your customers are coming here illegally.

Want me to speak to it? Yeah, I'll let you speak to that. Thanks, Liz.

If you're from inside metro boundary, you wait in the line, we're going to let you dump one time free. Not free of charge, but just free. And then we explain to them that, hey, You can't dump here. You have to take it to a Metro facility. So then we record the license plate and make a model of that vehicle. We turn that into Metro. Metro calls those customers individually and educates them on the process. Now, if it's a contractor and you have your business name on the side of your vehicle, and you have something that may contain asbestos, you have to fill out a waste acceptance form. And if I... look and see that that is from inside metro boundary. I turned that paperwork into metro as well. Now, with that being said, it's less than 1% of our customer basis is coming in from metro. All the paperwork that I've looked at in the last two and a half, three months, it's less than 1%. Now, the cars that are coming in with a load of fencing, pick up with a load of fencing that we don't ask for any paperwork or notice anything on, it might be a little higher, but it's roughly in that 1% range.

I do think, though, that, I mean, Councilor Wheatley is bringing up an important piece of what the letter needs to include. And so the letter, I think, does need to include the closure that they're discussing because that's from south of here. And then also the impacts of not approving the cup for Coffin Butte. I mean, there's a number of factors that have happened. And I think some feedback for you is be more clear and share the dire state that you are in because... I love how positive you are, but solid waste is a major problem in Oregon right now. And I don't see it changing with the current makeup of the legislature. And it's going to be very curious where the heck all this is going to go. And so there are no alternatives. And we have to push as unified as a council, as commissioners everywhere regionally, if we don't want to see astronomical cost increase. So this is like extremely important. And I do... The compactor, I really would like someone to follow back up with us when you get an answer on that. Because I remember in your presentation, you said that even if you get a quote on it, then you still have to have approval, correct? That's not approved by Waste Management Corporate Office yet. That still would have to go through that process. So if we can also supply a letter to your corporate office, just explaining the dire need in our region for this, I think... We could hopefully discuss that as a council, but it is a regional crisis.

Well, I'm sensing some action that needs to be taken on by staff here. You're picking up on this, right?

I'm picking up where you're putting down.

All right, let's... Let's get back to the business at hand, which is the rate increase for this year. Is there any further discussion from council? If not, it's time for somebody to make a motion. We do not have to read this by, we don't have to read it by title.

That's correct, Mr. Mayor. No need to read by title. Just moving on. Resolution number 2026-4033. And I defer to you, Mr. Mayor, as far as whether you want to take a roll call or a voice vote after that motion is presented.

I move we approve Resolution 2026-4033. I'll second it.

It has been moved and seconded to approve resolution 2026-4033. I'll now take a vote on a motion, a voice vote. All of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Oh. Robin, did you have further discussion? Or was that your vote? OK. All those opposed, please say nay. The motion does pass unanimously. Are we good? Thank you.

Thanks, guys. Thank you. And we appreciate the collaboration and working with us as we... Look at improvements there at the transfer station and look forward to working with you. And we'll reach out to on our end if there's anything we can that would help support those things that we talked about.

I think I can speak for council saying that we appreciate that as well. I mean, it is getting to the point where this looks bad on both of us, the city and waste management. So thank you. So the next item on our agenda is going to be the deannexation resolution, public hearing, and order. So I think this would be a real good time to take a short break. I'm sorry. Sorry, Scott. Let's take a short break and get right back in here. All right. The next item on our agenda is The de-annexation resolution. Take it away, Scott.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, City Councilor Scott Siegel, Community Development Director. And this evening, we have a series of decision points for the City Council to consider that are all a result of private property owners applying to have their lots withdrawn from the city limits. And this is a really very similar conversation Well, similar process to what you've seen before when properties come into the city, they annex into the city, and those come before the city council, and this is sort of a reverse engineering of that. Del Boca Vista LLC is the applicant on behalf of the property owners. I believe their representatives are here this evening. And they have applied for this change. So this is a property owner initiated change. And you did hear from their representatives, I think, at your meeting in April. So the council has some background on this. And so really there are three sort of milestones here this evening. And the process begins with the city council deciding whether you want to initiate the process to begin with. So Resolution 2026-4032 would do just that. It would initiate the process. And provided you decide to go forward with that, then there's a public hearing that allows for any member of the public to comment on the process, on the withdrawal of territory. And then should you decide that you want to proceed, there's an order that the council would adopt again after a public hearing. And we've broken those out into separate public hearings and discrete steps so that as you go through this, you may decide at any point not to proceed with that by making a decision. So this evening, I'll provide some background on the area itself, explain the process, and provide a little bit of background on the context and why this area was brought into the city in the first place and the planning that has been done over the years for the area. And then the reasons that we believe, staff believes, that their request has merit and it's something that the council should consider this evening. At the end of the process this evening, If the council were to adopt an order, which I think of it as a tentative approval of the withdrawal of territory, then we would return to you at a future meeting, likely in July, for a final public hearing in which you would, again, receive public testimony and have the opportunity to adopt an ordinance effectuating that change. So that's sort of the process in a nutshell. There is a separate but related decision point along the way relating to the Urban Renewal District because the lands that we're looking at this evening are also within the Urban Renewal District. But that is not before you this evening. And I'm happy to answer any questions about that should you have them as we go through. So with that, oh, wrong way. I always do that.

Scott, if you don't mind, I need to catch up with the procedures here. Okay. So this is a legislative hearing on resolution number 2026-4032. I now call the meeting to order. At this point, if any of council members have any conflicts of interest or absentations, including if any of you have discussed this matter with Del Boca Vista or the owner, then at this point you need to declare that you've had those conversations. All right, seeing none, we're back to Scott. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. And I'll try to be brief. The background on this, as I mentioned, the property owners have requested that the city remove the territory from the city limits. It comprises of approximately 28 and a half acres. The area was brought into the city in 2006 as part of a larger annexation that included 98 acres. And that area also included a large portion of which is now in the Riverfront District, as well as a portion of Ewing Young Park. The area was zoned at that time for R2 Riverfront District. It's shown here on both the north and south sides of the bypass. The areas that are outlined there in a sort of aquamarine or light blue are the two areas that we're looking at this evening. Sort of the key point here is that The areas, the lands are almost entirely within the special flood hazard area and the portions are also within the stream corridor overlay. So they're difficult to develop and that in a large part is the reason why the applicants are asking to have it removed from the city. The planning that was prepared for this area as part of the riverfront district master plan considered three different or a number of different scenarios. So it was considered just how this area might develop at some point. And in all of the scenarios that were considered, it was all very low density development. So the capacity in this area is for urban development is very low. And this just shows a little bit more detail on the areas that are zoned with R2 and are also shown here with the flood hazard overlay in the stream corridor. The closest nearby development is there along Waterfront Street. And you can see the subdivisions on the north and south side of the bypass. So really only one way in and out of this area. It's very difficult to serve. So the process this evening, and I did provide some background on that, you would first consider whether to adopt a resolution to initiate the withdrawal. And then if you decide to do so, you would conduct a public hearing on that, which is also scheduled for this evening, although you'd have up to 30 days after adopting a resolution to conduct that hearing. And then you may consider adopting or entering an order on the withdrawal also this evening. Then following that series of decisions, you conduct a final public hearing. And we've tentatively scheduled time on July 20th that you're meeting to do that, where you consider a resolution or ordinance declaring the territory detached from the city. And we're also showing a decision point in there for the NURA Board to decide whether to remove the area from the Urban Renewal District and the plan. There's some history and some background on the area when it was annexed. These properties, and I believe a number of others, had also been the subject of a Measure 37 claims. And so there was, at that point in time, some level of development that could have been approved or permitted through that vehicle, Measure 37. When the city adopted the Urban Renewal District Plan and created that district, part of that process involved annexing all of the territory that would be, or at least this portion of that territory, bringing it into the city. At that time, that was That was requested by the property owners and the council at the time agreed to do that. I believe the county also had some comments or some desire to see that happen rather than have land, additional land in the urban renewal district outside the city. That's my cursory knowledge of it. I wasn't here at the time, but the process this evening or the process up to this point, we have referred this application to the county. They've responded back that the sites would revert back to the previous county zoning prior to annexation should the area be removed from the city. We've, I think, checked this with finance and there's no outstanding debt for these lots within the city, but the withdrawn area would remain subject to any bonded or other indebtedness that existed at this time. As part of the process, we've discussed with the property owner or their representative that if the area is approved to be removed from the city, we would recommend and you would ask them to sign a non-remonstrance agreement or other contract regarding the removal of the land so that if you were to remove it from the urban growth boundary, there wouldn't be any, they wouldn't contest that. There would also perhaps be a Measure 49 waiver that we would recommend that they also sign so that there's no claims in that way with the city. And just by way of background, the assessed values for these four lots are shown here. And we've also discussed with this council the Senate Bill 1537, urban growth boundary process, and With respect to the de-annexation, the area that would be removed from the city would give the council an option, should you choose to do so, to bring land into the urban growth boundary that's equivalent to the area that you're removing under the Senate Bill 1537 procedure. You could choose that land swap option, or you could choose the other one-time urban growth boundary expansion option that PLANNER DINGWAL IS PRESENTED TO YOU PREVIOUSLY. SO BOTH OF THOSE OPTIONS WOULD BE AVAILABLE TO YOU. BY REMOVING LAND FROM THE CITY LIMITS AND LATER IF YOU WERE TO REMOVE THE TERRITORY FROM THE URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY AS WELL, EVEN IF YOU DID NOT CHOOSE TO EXERCISE THAT LAND SWAP, REMOVING THAT LAND FROM THE URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY WOULD a deficit, if you will, or possibly provide a basis for adding land elsewhere that could be used more efficiently that could actually be developed at urban densities. So we're keeping an eye on that as we're moving through this process because it does change the city's land inventory. And the staff recommendation is to adopt Resolution 2026-4032, declaring that it is your intent to change the boundaries of the city by means of withdrawing the territory. That concludes the staff report.

All right. At this point, we have to open public testimony. We've had nobody sign up. Is everybody in agreement with that?

Yeah.

We can answer questions if you have any. All right. So now I'm going to close public testimony. That is the recommendation from the staff which got this Davis is recommended that we as this resolution. So there's time for council deliberation that anybody have any question any comments on that. But Robin.

I am still a little confused on the land swap. So it's how many it's 28 acres. So if we de annex that supposedly we could annex 28 acres somewhere else. But then that would also count towards a Senate bill 1537. So that would cut into that land? Or is that completely separate?

So the first decision point is if you were to de-annex it. And then the next decision point would be if you were to remove that area from the urban growth boundary. So let's just say that the council decides to remove it from the urban growth boundary. Then you could... use the Senate Bill 1537 process to bring in an equal area into the urban growth boundary, as long as it's zoned at a density that's equal to or greater than what this area was zoned for. So it does provide that option for, is that your question, Councilor Wheely?

Well, I think so. We already have an application in to participate in this Senate bill, correct? I guess I'm, is that going to affect that or is it part of it?

Yeah, thank you. That's a good question. So the solicitation that's out currently for the one-time urban growth boundary expansion is not for a land swap, but it is for adding land to the urban growth boundary. You see what I'm saying? So it's separate. Now, if you did not receive any qualified proposals to do that, you could still decide to do a land swap if you had land to exchange it with, and this potentially could provide that land exchange. If, on the other hand, you receive qualified proposals under that expansion RFP, you could still decide, you could look at those proposals and you could say, well, we're not going to accept any of those. Instead, we're going to take this other pathway and do a land exchange. So all of those options remain open until you choose one. And once you've chosen one and you decide to move forward with that, whether it's the one-time expansion or the land exchange, then the other option is off the table under the legislation.

We need to kind of wait on this to see about that.

You may decide to move forward with the de-annexation. It's a separate decision, and it doesn't obligate the city to remove the land from the urban growth boundary, but you may decide to do so at a later point.

All right. If there's no more deliberation, would somebody like to make a, yes.

I move that we adopt resolution 2026-4032. Second.

All right. It has been moved and seconded that we adopt resolution number 2026-4032. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. All opposed, nay. The motion passes unanimously. So that moves us to the de-annexation item 7.1 on our agenda. I'm sorry, am I? I got it. May 4th. Sorry. I got it. I see what I did wrong. I don't know what else was in there. All right. Next is a public hearing on the de-annexation. Yeah, de-annexation public hearing. And, yeah. We're here. 8.1 first. That was 7.2. That's confusing. There's three different items here. So is that correct, Scott? We're looking at 8.1 and 8.2, which is de-annexation public hearing presentation.

Yes, that's correct, Mayor.

Is this a legislative? It must be. Oh, that's just a resolution. Okay. So the difference in this in the last measure, if I'm understanding correctly, is, I don't know, what is the difference?

That's a good question. So there are two steps in the hearing process. There's a public hearing. just a general opportunity for anyone to comment or testify. And then you would accept that testimony if there is any this evening, close the hearing, and then we would bring the order for your consideration. And the order, because it's an administrative hearing, is that correct, or a legislative hearing?

It's a legislative hearing.

It is a legislative hearing, so you would accept public testimony on that as well. It's just two different steps.

Please, I'm confused now. This is a legislative hearing or 8.2 is the legislative hearing?

8.2, okay. Yes, Mr. Mayor, 8.2 is a legislative hearing, so we'll run through our typical legislative steps and appreciate the council. I know we don't do these de-annexations very often and the statute is... complicated as far as the multiple hearings that have to occur. So you've already passed the resolution to initiate the hearing. That was 7.2. 8.1 is a hearing that had to be conducted that's actually separate under the statute. Mayor, you've opened and closed that hearing. Now we're to the order, which is 8.2. It's called an order, but it is a legislative hearing where you're proceeding with that de-annexation process. Yep.

All right, and now that I'm in the right place on James's handy script, I'll go by this. So this hearing, I now call this legislative hearing to order. This hearing is to consider whether the Newburgh City Council still favors the withdrawal of the territory pursuant to resolution number 2026-4032 and fixing a time and place for a final hearing on the withdrawal. At this time, I will open the public hearing. Citizens will be able to testify on the issues and should submit a public comment registration at the back table. Do any of the members of this council need to declare a conflict of interest or a temptation. Already been there. So I yeah. Well now here report which we is this different and go ahead Scott.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for bearing with us. So the council has adopted Resolution 2026-2043, declaring that it is your intent to change the boundaries of the city by means of withdrawing territory. And you did provide an opportunity. You opened a public hearing. There was no testimony from the residents at large in order to be heard on the question of withdrawing territory. Excuse me. So ORS 222.460 subsection 5 requires that after receiving testimony or providing the opportunity for testimony at a public hearing, the legislative body of the city may alter the boundaries described in the resolution to either include or exclude territory. If the legislative body still favors the withdrawal of territory pursuant to the resolution as approved or modified, it shall enter in order doing so. The order shall set forth the boundaries of the area to be withdrawn and also fix a place and time for a public hearing on an ordinance finalizing the de-annexation not less than 20 days or more than 50 days after the date of the order. ORS 222.460 subsection 5 also notes that the order shall declare that if written requests for an election are not filed pursuant to the statute, the legislative body of the city will adopt a resolution or an ordinance detaching the territory from the city at the time of the final hearing. So this evening, staff is proposing on July 20th, 2026, that council will conduct a final hearing on the withdrawal of territory. And we would also propose recommend based on input from city attorney's office that we also bring an amendment to the NURA board to consider removing the territory from the urban renewal plan. So those are future actions, but this evening you have taken the necessary steps by conducting a public hearing and adopting a resolution initiating this process that this evening we do recommend that you adopt order number 2026-0047 declaring that the Newburgh City Council still favors the withdrawal of territory pursuant to the resolution and fix the time and place for a final public hearing on the withdrawal.

So at this point, I'm going to open the public testimony. There is none, so I will also close the opportunity for public testimony. All citizens will have an opportunity at the July 20th meeting to make any final comments they have. All right. So now we're open the floor to counsel deliberation would anybody like to speak on this matter. What are you so you want to make them okay. We have no comments, yes, we need a motion to approve order 2026 0047.

I move that we adopt order number 20260047. Second.

Yeah.

It has been moved and seconded that we adopt order number 20260047. Could we have the voice vote, please?

Absolutely. Councillor McBride.

Yes.

Councilor Wheatley?

Yes.

Councilor Arnel Holloman? Yes. Councilor Kilburg?

Yes.

Mayor Rosacker?

Yes.

Councilor Tergesen? Yes. Councilor Carman?

Yes.

The vote passes unanimously.

Thank you, Scott. Thanks for helping me get through that. And thanks, James, for the script. Next time I'll try to use it. All right. So now we're down to new business, our library internet policy. Thanks, guys. Good to see you. We haven't seen you up here for a while. Good to see you.

Thank you. Good to be here. Good evening, Mayor and City Councilors. I'm here tonight just for information to talk about the library internet policy that has been updated, and then I'll be back next meeting for a vote. You've seen the new library internet policy. There's not a... ton of updates but we wanted to make things maybe just a little stronger in case we had any kind of problems which we are currently not experiencing at the library just to be clear about that too we're not having problems regarding the public computers we just want to make sure that we've looked at our policy and that it's updated like it needed to be so do you have any questions for me tonight about our internet policy

What was the major thing you changed?

So we updated the language, first of all, because we had words like World Wide Web and, you know, this kind of time. I'm not sure if it did, but there were a few places where we thought, oh, this needs to just... just a little refresh, right? And then we also have updated our library courtesy policy in the meantime. So we talked about that. We also have a tech help form that people can use if they're coming to the library and they need more than about 15 minutes worth of help, then they can make an appointment with a staff and we'll look at what they're requesting and pair them with a staff who, you know, most of the time it's, Not very difficult questions for us to answer so there's a wide range of staff who can help people with their questions so yeah so just updated those things.

How many folks come and use the public workstations on average.

That is a great question. So last year it was, let's see, about 5,000 for the entire year. So we have a little more than that that come in and use just the Wi-Fi, connect to the Wi-Fi system. So public computers are not being used nearly as much as they once were, but we still are helping quite a few people on the computers. And we do a lot of troubleshooting with people. We have people who are using the computers. There's a lot of people applying for jobs on the computers. And then we'll have people who come in with fairly low computer skills as well. And so they need us to help them get onto their email. I'll tell you this, two-factor authentication is like, I am not a fan with the public computers because people do not remember their passwords. So that has been, that's been a little tricky. So we're navigating that, but yeah. Yeah.

So I'm assuming your recommendation is to pass this resolution.

Yes, but I think that tonight I'm just asking, I'm just giving you the information and then you're voting on it the next, at the next city council meeting.

Does anybody have any more questions? Thank you very much.

Right. Thank you.

We'll see you next meeting. So the next item on our agenda is the air park easement and surplus city property.

Good evening, honorable counsel and mayor. I have a short presentation on this topic. And it really ties into, literally, the Springbrook sewer. Did you get that pun? That was good, right? It ties into the Springbrook sewer line. I know, stand up is not my gig. The problem, the Springbrook sewer line is fed from two sources. And I've got pictures in a minute showing this. There's an older line running to the north and there's a new forced main coming in from new development running west. Infiltration gets into the older pipe in the northern section. So there is I&I water coming in that area. When that sewage meets the forced main run in the winter time, then it surcharges the pipe, which means it backs up to the nearest manhole. And this shows you what I'm talking about. And then we get our sewer spills that have occurred recently, last few years. The area with the older pipe is showing here in green. And the location where the spills have been happening is the lower arrow. And the... Does the laser actually work on this? I don't think this has ever worked. Nope. Okay, so the brown line that runs left to right across the bottom, that is the force main. So that's pumping sewage. Thank you. That's pumping sewage to the left as you look at it, and it's joining the Springbrook line running north-south. Yep, so that's basically a confluence of two sewer lines. The north-south one being the one that is getting overloaded only when we have one of these intense rain events. Okay, that's the background. So this is us now zooming in on that location, which is where the manhole cover pops. So contaminated water is ending up coming out here and it's spilling across and it's getting into this contaminated regional stormwater detention pond ultimately. And it's turned out recently to be quite a lot of sewage for the most recent event. And the thing is that as we continue to have more territory, more properties coming in, should I say, coming into the city that are feeding the forced main, we're adding more volume to the forced main. While at the same time, we're still having the same sewage coming from north-south. So we're adding more burden to this pipe each time we add more Crestview development, et cetera. And that's the nexus of the problem. Now the issue is getting worse and ideally I really want to start to act when we get funds again next biennium. I'm going to detail a concept in the next few slides that may enable us to move very quickly and it would go through Sportsman's Airpark. To carry out that approach we're going to need an easement and the land is extra territorial to Newburgh in Yamhill County. This is needed so as to move on to design and survey work ahead of the next biennium. In other words, I would like to have some design and survey work done so we can do construction as soon as possible in the new budget cycle. I've added a very theoretical image of a possible new line route. Now I want to give credit where credit is due. This idea is not mine. This was Russ Thomas's idea. And he just came up with this idea and I think it's very interesting. So if you have a look, here is a zoom in on part of this, and this is somewhere in that green area, there would be this new sewer line. And the sewer line would connect and go up north and replace some of the existing pipe that takes us up further north from 219. But the cool thing is that you're going through what is, in effect, a greenfield site. That means you can move quickly, you can control your gradient depth, and it's more of a straight shot. And that matters because you get higher sewage velocity. And for the same size of pipe, you can get more capacity. And that future proofs us for a long time from this extra development that's coming in off to our right-hand side up past Springbrook. Now, here is some more information. First and foremost, the proposed alternative to the existing sewer main on Springbrook and Highway 219 would involve a massive disruption to the businesses. So in other words, if we don't do it this way and we're zigzagging down through the industrial estate, it's gonna be tremendous delays. We're gonna have to have long closures on Highway 219. That means we have to have ODOT permits to do long closures, at least one lane at a time. That's hard. Secondly, creating a new line with a more direct route would enable us to have higher capacity to avoid the zigzag. Okay, so here's the zigzag. This is even more clarifying. If you look at this, you can see that the red line is the theoretical new sewer line that runs through a mostly greenfield site and it doesn't have a lot of sharp angles in it. It's a straight shot. I already know it's 11 to 20 feet below grade for the total course. Now, that's not a surveyed number, so don't hold me to that. But that's what we think it would be. And it would deposit the sewage out at the bottom, joining one of our really big pipes that goes into the wastewater treatment plant. So that is the concept. Far less challenging, less disruptive, less roads dug up, no impact on the state highway, because we can bore under the state highway, less permitting required from ODOT, and faster. Thank you, Russ. And I've already said that, I think. OK, so yes, less permitting. less coordination and design, avoiding lots of night work and the chance of having to pay night work and adding redundancy. Now let me explain redundancy and I can do this very simply with my hands. The existing sewer line is gonna be at a slightly lower elevation than the connecting higher one. It's like a gate. So if we get too much sewage that's going through the other path through the industrial estate, it will rise up to this hole here. And this hole is on a higher elevation than the existing sewer line. So when this is filling up, it will then go down the new line. So the old line will still exist, and the old line will still service the businesses that are all the way down through that industrial estate. Cost estimation. The cost estimation, this is extremely preliminary, but I've discovered that Keller are very accurate in preliminary. They think it's going to be about $4 to $5 million. Time is of the essence since new pipe projects have been coming in economically lately. Whether that will be true in the new biennium, I can't say for sure, but I'd still like to get started as soon as possible. Another positive aspect to this is the fact that if DEQ are aware that we're doing what we can do to try to remediate the problem, then we're less likely to face any kind of fine as a practical matter if we're working on it and we're doing survey work or then going into design work. Following two rounds of talks with Sportsman's Airpark Management, I found out that they did have interest in allowing this to occur. We negotiated on what would be a reasonable fee for this consideration. I also got some advice from Keller Engineering on approaches to solving the issue, and I was able to find out what Northwest Natural paid them, the airpark, for a similar easement about a decade ago. Now, that easement was $100,000 at that time, and it follows a very similar path to the one that we want to do. So actually, Keller's advice is that we would put this sewer line a few feet off of that pipe and on a slightly different gradient, which works anyway because we want to go a little deeper, and that we would follow the same path. It would go down along the side of the runway. basically. And there's already another line that's there, which they've got an easement agreement for. So this isn't a surprise to them and it wasn't a shock. They have graciously agreed to working towards an easement agreement on the following basis. First of all, after some discussions, they seem it would be reasonable for it to be $90,000 to cover access and maintenance needs in perpetuity and And secondly, they've asked about two small parts of land that are owned by the city and they're just south of the runway. And that gives you the data and the county tax numbers for those bits of land. Now, due to the complexity of the adjacent airfield overlay and the lack of any city purpose for this land, using this to keep the easement price rational seems to make sense to me. And you cannot build things in this location because it is in the flight path of landing aircraft. So their purpose, I believe, for wanting this is that they would make sure that nobody ever built anything there because it would badly impact their business. As the city attorney has taught me through a previous process, in order to execute this sort of agreement for the reasons listed, we would have to first declare the land surplus and form an easement agreement with Sportsman's Airpark, two separate steps. This is very positive as they're considering this proposal to bring the issue to a close, perhaps within just a few more sewage spills. which is how I'm thinking about it. And that shows you where those scraps of land are. Now, when I did my land inventory of all city-owned land back in 2023, this was one which I identified as being of no value. And ideally, we would like to get rid of this land. Doesn't have a use to us, but we are holding the liability if something ever happened there. So not an advantage to us. At this point, before I do some work, obviously with Miller Nash, I'm looking for council approval in the form of a motion to be able to know that this meets your intent and go ahead and start working on the legal steps. Any questions, folks?

Well, I like this idea and I think we ought to move on it as soon as possible. The only... I guess the only question I have is, is that land? I mean, they're probably going to accept it just for the heck of it, but they're really looking at the 90,000 because you can't, you can't build anything. It's in the flight path. So that land really isn't a value to anybody. Why would they even want to take it? Do we have to as some part of a legal way in order for us to give them, That $90,000, is that part of why we're doing this?

It's not legally entangled with the cash part of the deal. It's just something that they want to tidy up their adjacent land holdings. And I think probably it's more on the side of putting their mind at ease that nobody will try and do something silly with it in the future, which could impact their business.

Uh, yeah. One other about those two little pieces of property. The only way to access those are the road that you might've seen on the map that goes in from behind where the buses are held over there off of the ninth street. Uh, And what's deceptive here is the amount of elevation change. That road that leads down there probably drops, what, 50 feet? In a very short period of time. So it's not even a good road. The only thing we use it for is to access our pump station down there. So I assume your recommendation is to allow you to move forward with this process.

Yes, sir. I'm seeking a move to authorize staff to initiate negotiations and other legal actions required to obtain an easement for a new sewer line to include a land surplus action.

Is there any further discussion? Go ahead.

My motion that we authorize the city manager to move forward with continued negotiations with Sportsman's Air Park regarding the two parcels of land adjacent to the airstrip.

Second.

And I restate your motion. As a motion to proceed with contractual actions to obtain a sewer easement. His words. We need some of that. All right is there and so we currently have a motion and a second to proceed with contractual actions to obtain a sewer easement. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. I'm sorry, the only reason I wanted to restate is because I couldn't remember what you said. So let's see. Robin, did you have something you wanted to report on? OK. All right. So now we have the item 9.3, Street Seats Program Review.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening. Scott Siegel, Community Development Director. And I'll be brief because this program that has been in place since 2015 has seen very little activity. And that's before you this evening because the Street Seats Pilot Program, as it was titled back in 2015, was scheduled to sunset, and then it was extended three times since then because it was being used earlier on. Ruddick and Wood was the most recent applicant, and as you may recall, their street seat was removed not too long after the restaurant closed. And in discussions with the new tenant, now they haven't expressed any desire to use that or to reinstall a street seat. There was only one other application for one or one other proposal that was being considered, and that was the social goods property during the pandemic, I believe. So what are street seats? They're really a way to use on-street parking spaces for outdoor dining for the most part. And the areas where this is allowed are only in the downtown, the C3 zone, and not on Hancock or East First Street, not on any state highway, so really just the cross streets. And sort of the concept behind it is that it supports retail and restaurant vitality, activates the streetscape, invites people to engage in that in a way that they might not otherwise if you're limited to seating inside restaurants. a building space. The reality is it just hasn't been used all that much. We do have, you know, cafe seating that people will put out and take back in along the sidewalk that seems to be, you know, used here and there and in areas where there is clearance along the sidewalk, that seems to be a good option. I think the main sort of concerns or considerations that the council expressed during the last updates or renewals of this were whether we were encroaching into downtown parking in a way that was counterproductive. And so as part of the council report, I did include a copy of the downtown Newberg parking study and management plan that was prepared back in 2013. And, you know, that has some data. They did a parking utilization study. They looked at all different quadrants of the downtown and, you know, overall what they found at that time was, Although the study really focused on spring, I think it was April and May, so they looked at Camellia Festival and the Wednesday market. They found that overall parking was not close to the 85% capacity that was identified as a threshold for parking. rescinding this program. However, there are spot locations in the downtowns. I'm sure you're aware where on-street parking is really at a premium. At times, the public lot along 2nd Street is full. So it's not, you know, we do have, at least that study found, we do have adequate parking, but they didn't look at, you know, the peak summer activity. So, you know, there's some question about whether That is a concern, but I think the more salient question is really, without a lot of demand for this program, is it something that the council wishes to continue. I think, you know, you have three options at least. You could, one option would be just to allow it to expire in August and do nothing. You know, we do allow the cafe seating, as I mentioned. Another option would be to extend it for another two years. And, you know, the administrative piece of it is already complete. You know, we're able to operationalize it if someone walked in the door and wanted to apply. A third option would be to allow it to go dormant you know, allow the pilot program, so to speak, to sunset as an administrative permit. But if someone were to express interest and contact the city, say, you know, I'd really like to do that, well, then we would, you know, we would bring that request to council. It just, it wouldn't be an administrative policy or decision process. It would be a sort of an ad hoc request that would come to council. You know, the I guess the disadvantage of that is that it's slower because of the process of placing an item on the agenda and going through the adoption of a resolution every time you do something like this. I think the advantage in keeping it in place is just it's another tool in the toolbox. If the previous experience was not or if the previous experience was acceptable to you, you know, notwithstanding the follow-up and the follow-through that we needed to do to see that that structure was removed, which it ultimately was. If that was acceptable, then, you know, I'd recommend extending it for another two years. If we're concerned about parking and just the enforcement aspect of this, then you might choose to just allow it to end. Yeah. That concludes the update or the review. We're seeking direction. So if you wanted to make a motion, we'll take your direction on that. If you choose not to act on it, then the program will sunset in August.

Thank you. I love that you're so on top of it that you know it's coming to expire. But I was really vocal about this when it all went down. I haven't heard any concerns of not having the ability to have street seats. But in the spirit of inviting local business owners to participate in the conversation. I would be in favor if we haven't already done so to do some outreach to all the downtown businesses and see because there are quite a few new downtown businesses that may not know that this is a pilot program option. I can think of a couple off the top of my head. I'm not super passionate about it, but I do want to do anything we can to support businesses. And I think it's been a pretty active conversation how difficult it is to survive in Newburgh downtown as a restaurant. And I think we're seeing some of that in the fluidity of restaurants in Newburgh. I also want to bring up very cautiously I've noticed that a business downtown is blocking spots. And I don't think it's fair. I think that many... Yeah, for motorcycles. And I think it's ironic because it's the same building that there was a lot of pushback for street seats. And there have been complaints made. And maybe not... the response I would hope for. That said, there are business owners that know about it and have asked to have the same option for them. CVDA would be the one that is the most comes to mind. They have asked multiple times to be able to have the ability to, for dance parents to drop off their kids and go back right to their car. Um, so, and that's like a five minute turnaround on a parking spot. Um, so it's a little disappointing. Um, And it's not any one person's fault. I want to be very clear. I know our code enforcement team It's not like a department. So I understand that there's a lot going on, but I would like to see some conversation. And not that I think that that business should be hand-slapped. I actually think the opposite, that we should have more flexibility for downtown businesses to be able to survive. And so... I would actually propose that we have a conversation as a council in a work session type of conversation to review the parking study together and really do outreach to downtown businesses to understand if it would be helpful to their business to have dedicated parking, whether it's a pull-through parking where it's quick, it's under 10 minutes, whether it's motorcycle parking outside of specific businesses, I think it's awesome. I have no problem with it, but it needs to be fair. And there are a couple of business owners that have come before the city in my time, multiple times, and it's been a hard no. So the response from our team for this business quickly spread.

yeah I think we ought to just let it sunset and because I mean obviously if it was a big issue with businesses downtown they'd be utilizing it they'd be coming to us they'd be talking to us so I'm okay with just letting it sunset if it becomes an issue at another time well we can look at it then

I was of the same mind before the meeting started. But if there's not administrative work involved for your department, Scott, I would propose perhaps having another two-year extension. And maybe it is important that we let some of these newer restaurants know about it as a possible option. I think keeping it in that trial stage, if you will, will help us address parking situations later if we say, well, it's not going to work anymore. We really do need all the parking spots. This is kind of a halfway middle ground.

I just want to echo what Councilor Kilbrick said. I agree with her.

I guess I would echo if there's not any cost associated with keeping it and having something in place that is there if businesses become interested. And then I know it is probably forever away, but the magical day when there is more of a bypass and maybe less traffics and ODOT has money to do the road downtown, that might also impact interest in something like this, knowing that that might be a dream state at this point in time.

I am concerned about parking. Most of our shops are full downtown, and I've had to walk several blocks just to be able to get into a downtown store. So that is a concern. Also, a citizen brought it up that we're not charging a fee. We have a permit, but we're not charging its premium retail space, and we're not charging... the restaurant owners any fee. So if we do keep it, I would want to look at that. And we have discussed the fee thing, I think, before. So yeah, if we don't sunset it and we keep it on, I would want to look at a fee. But I also am concerned about parking. I mean, I could just sunset it. I I'm not that in favor of it, but anyway. If we did keep it, I think there should be a lease or something like that. Did we not, we discussed something like that, correct, Will?

May I, Mr. Mayor?

The concept was floated before and it was discussed, but at that time, I think there just wasn't a lot of certitude around what the right price would be or

Yeah, I believe that currently there's just an application fee. I think it's $150. That's what I've seen.

I was real glad to see the seating in front of Ruddick Wood go away when it finally did because it was an eyesore at that point. It was beginning to fall into disrepair. I don't like the idea of charging for a parking space no matter what to use, because then you're giving somebody a right to use public property for their exclusive use. And I just don't think that's a great idea. So I would be in favor of letting it sunset. And I've never heard of anybody blocking OK. I mean, that's a totally separate issue. I would like to talk more about that in the future. I think a work session item for that would be a very good idea. And that's all news to me. So thanks for bringing that up. So any further discussion on this? So it looks like we're divided. So we better have a vote as to decide what to do with this. So I guess I should say it doesn't look like we're all in agreement.

going to make a motion unless that's premature. I move we extend it for another two years.

What you didn't call it trial, but yeah, Councillor Kilburn, this would be directing staff to return with a resolution that would formally extended if that if that were your correct. Yeah.

I'll second it.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to recommend to staff that they, uh, consider. Renewing it for another 2 years. Is there any further discussion?

Robin, so mayor, your opinion is if. If we extend this and someone applies to put it and takes up, I don't know, 3 or 4 parking spots, you don't think they should have to pay. they should just pay the $150 permit fee. And then they have an extension of their business at no charge.

That would be the result if we extended it and didn't, you know, whether we charge or not, it's two separate issues for me. Um, I don't like the idea of letting people use exclusively public property, like streets and so forth. That's my opinion. So I'm going to vote that we let it sunset. So I will vote no on this. But yeah. Any further discussion? I don't think I have a yes.

I want to listen to what these people have to say.

So the motion that we have is to direct staff to go ahead and renew this project for another two years. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Nay. All right. We're going to need to vote by show of hands. All in favor of this motion, signify by raising a hand. One, two, three, four.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

All right. The motion passes four to three. I think that's the end of our meeting. It is. So this meeting's adjourned. All righty.