City Council - Regular Meeting

He wants more sun with his clothes. We got work to do. Got business cards.

Yeah, yeah.

Woo-hoo.

Ready? Call the work session of the Newport City Council to order on Monday, August 17th. It is 4.01 p.m. Roll call, please.

Councilor Emond.

Here.

Councilor Rumigou. Here. Councilor Hickman.

Here.

Mayor Kaplan.

Here.

Councilor Hall. Here. Councilor Apedisio-Reyes.

Here.

Councilor Jacoby. Here.

Okay, Nina.

Okay, our first discussion item is 2A, Upcoming Work Sessions.

Can I make a potential proposal for a work session topic? Earlier we spoke about this one-on-one. One-on-one? 101. That part between Walmart and the Aquinnah Head's turn and that I mentioned orphan highways and whatnot, and that this is an ODOT issue that they're saying. And can we bring that to a work session to discuss a strategy for how we approach ODOT to let us look at that in terms of like, well, I mean, we're talking about traffic calming and all that stuff in a different context today. But looking at that stretch of 101 and what we can do to be better responsive to all the residents who have to come onto 101 from there?

Yes, I'll talk with Derek and City Engineering a bit about it, and we'll figure out whether it's a work session or what the right format is.

OK. Anything else on upcoming work sessions? Sandy.

I don't know whether this is for a work session or not, but we used to have a Coast Guard committee and we don't anymore. And I was wondering, since this is Coast Guard, to revisit that and whether we wanted that Coast Guard committee again.

That committee do. I think that's before my time.

But we met like every month. at the Coast Guard station and just talked about what their concerns were. It was just a good way to make sure we were in communication. And they seemed to enjoy it. I mean, I think they kind of missed us. If they needed something, and then we tried to do one thing to honor them. We had a crab feed one time.

Oh, crab feed. I thought you said a crap game.

And that's when it's really nice to know Katie, because she got the crab for us.

Let me ask Nina, would you give some thought to perhaps maybe, I think one of the challenges that we went through in the last couple of years was that we had so many committees. And they all required, particularly with the way the public meetings laws are, they all required a huge amount of staff time for meeting notices and minutes and all of that. And they had to be recorded. But I think the notion of having, developing more of a relationship with the Coast Guard, if there's a way for us to do that, that's a, Cynthia.

Maybe we could have a council liaison attend the meetings rather than another committee that might think that would cover it.

Well, I don't think they met. But who I broke into helping was Mark Miranda because he's an ex-Coast Guard person, and he loved doing that. So he might be a good person to kind of set that up, help.

I can give that some thought of what the right format is before we we will revisit all the committees the assignments the liaison assignments in January because we typically do kind of a rotation of reassigning so if we want to add that to the list of things that we think about before we hit the new year I could definitely put that on the list if you have other thoughts regarding committees or liaison assignments I can add those to the list as well and that that's a really good solution is that we don't everything doesn't have to be a committee

of the city council, but that really, I think what you're describing, Sandy, is that there was a liaison relationship. All they'd have to do is have coffee once a month.

And eat crab, apparently.

Okay, anything else on work sessions? Okay, so we're up to the League of Oregon City's lobbying priorities.

So we did circulate this through the staff to see what priorities they think that we should consider. Hold on, I'm going to turn my mic on. So I'm just going to go through those briefly. I'm going to go in order of their appearance.

Okay, yes, question before I start. Sorry, can I ask about process, like just to maybe save us time? Did people have a chance to go through them and like personally rank them? Like in terms of a five, would that be easier? I just want to save time because there are a lot of them.

Oh, I'm definitely not going through all of them. I was just going to go through their six. Yes, I was going to do the categories, and there are six in particular that we highlighted as staff. I believe Mary also has a list from a recent meeting. So I'm certainly not going to go through the whole document, unless we want to talk about this for the next four hours. Can you talk about that? Okay, so I'm just going to go in the order in which they appear in the document. The first one is under the category of Broadband, Cybersecurity, AI, and Telecommunications Committee. And this one's titled Maintain Local Control of a Safe, Modern Right-of-Way. And what the recommendation is from the league on this item is that it will oppose any legislation seeking to preempt local control of municipal rights-of-way. So similar to some other items that you see on this list, this is really about maintaining the control that we have over our right-of-way.

And you're saying that that's a staff priority, Nina? I just want to clarify. That's correct. Okay. One of six.

I have a quick question on that one. They know that the federal government is trying to preempt that too, right? So it's just not the state. Yes. I wasn't clear. They wouldn't be lobbying the federal. This is only for lobbying the state, correct? Or is the League of Oregon and the city going to tackle both?

It doesn't specifically say that in their document, so I don't want to speak for them. I think they primarily spend time on the state. They do work through the... Sorry, go ahead.

We're a member of this national organization.

Yes, and yeah, the League of Oregon Cities is a member of the National League of Cities, so... They do work through the national organization to lobby for things as well. So there could certainly be, you know, if there's several members of the NLC who believe that this is a priority, it could end up also being something that's discussed at the federal level. But primarily, the League of Oregon Cities works on lobbying at the state level.

Okay. And then my follow-up, is there a big push at the state level to try to ensure our rights? I hadn't heard about it. I knew the federal one, but...

I haven't heard either. Really, this is kind of a preventative measure, I think. The league might know more about whether there's rumblings of something happening at the state level, but I'm not aware of anything in particular. The next one is under general government committee. public meetings law clarity. I probably don't need to explain this to you all, but for the sake of our listeners here, the League will advocate for a comprehensive statutory reset of the Oregon public meetings law to restore operational functionality and practicality for local governments while protecting public transparency. Okay, the next one is housing, land use, and community development committee. And there is two items in particular under this category. The first is funding and coordination for shelter and homeless response. So the LOC opposes cuts to the state shelter program funding and supports continued investment in a comprehensive homeless response system to fund eviction prevention, shelter, and rehousing. So you probably know the funding that comes to Lincoln County to address homelessness is state funding. So this is something that certainly could be at risk. And the next one in that category is titled land use, or sorry, land availability and land use streamlining. The LOC supports updates and streamlining statutes to better support good land use planning and land availability for all needs. And if you have questions, I'm sure Derek would love to talk more about this one. Yeah. Okay, and the next one is in the category titled Transportation Committee, and it is the 2027 Transportation Package. I think you all are very aware of this, but the LOC supports a robust transportation package. As you probably know, the city receives a funding of... state highway tax dollars. And so it's incredibly important that whatever solution is devised, that we continue to receive a portion of the state highway tax dollars. We want to make sure that we don't lose out in whatever transportation package is put together. So it's not really just about supporting ODOT and whatever plan they come up with. It's also about making sure that we continue to receive dollars as part of the solution. And then last but not least, under Water and Wastewater Committee, it's titled Infrastructure Funding. The LOC will advocate for increased and sustained investments in drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, and water reuse infrastructure needed to support housing production, economic development, public health, and environmental protection. The more funds we have available for water, wastewater, and link, the better to us. So we want to continue to advocate for that. So those are the six priorities that we were able to identify that relate directly to either issues we're experiencing or we have experienced, whether it's with the state or just due to lack of funding. So I'm going to turn it back over to you.

Okay. So what I think I'd like to do, because I think it's important, but we don't want to spend 12 hours on this. Are there any that Nina just mentioned? Are there any that Nina did not mention that... folks had as priority items. Robert?

I had the Administrative Procedures Act reform as a, I thought that might be a priority because as a state user, you know, a person, a lot of the regulations are very hard to get through, and I think that would be helpful. But if the city's not running that as an issue, you know, it might not be necessarily a city priority, more of an individual priority. AND THEN RATHER THAN THE LAND USE FOR HOUSING, I WAS FULL FUNDING AND STREAMLINING FOR HOUSING PRODUCTION. I THOUGHT MAKING MORE GRANTS AVAILABLE FOR US, SORT OF TAILORING THAT TO ME FELT LIKE MORE EFFECTIVE USE OF LOBBYING TO GET A MORE QUICKER, MORE BENEFICIAL TO THE CITY OUTCOME. then land use doesn't seem to be as pressing an issue to me personally.

Which one are you? Middle one.

Yeah, the middle one. I mean, they were all good. I mean, if we had more, pretty much everything on that list is important, but you've got to pick your top ones.

I need to say that these 27 items have all been identified by the league as items that are priorities and that the league has a stance on. So they're really asking to identify the top five so they know where to focus their most effort, but it doesn't mean they won't work on other things. Right.

And then I agreed with all the other ones they had, too. And the infrastructure one would have been my sixth one if I'd picked one. Yes.

I will just add those two that you just highlighted were also ones that we considered as some priorities, but we tried to cap ourselves at six. So those were close behind.

CMs?

Okay. I agreed with the water infrastructure funding, the 2027 transportation package, yes, and that land availability under housing and public meeting law. And I also picked six. But the other two that I picked were under energy and environment. around, hold on, I'm looking at my notes and going back and forth, the investing community energy resilience and disaster planning. And then if I could have a sixth, right? Under finance, taxation, economic development, I clicked strengthening economic and workforce development. Those were the other two that I had had.

Okay.

I had one that caught my eye. And let's see, that was on page 19, the rate payer assistance. Water bills are going to be going up. I think there's no way around that. And that certainly does stress low income families. I there's there's already programs in place to help them with this So I think maybe adding funds to that would make a big difference to some families And it might not I mean it won't cost more to administer. I think they just need more funds Okay and

Pretty good with most of what we're, I don't have any serious objection. The only place that I really had a problem with is the way that the energy and environment priorities were set up. I would have considered that as a package to be one of my top five. And it happened to be that that particular committee broke their recommendations in this six that were pretty much interrelated. Basically, we're trying to assure that communities were ready, had access to alternate forms of energy, had support to do that. So that may be more of a comment I'd like to attach in submitting our five, but to say, And that may be just me, but it sounds like you all had the same kind of feeling, that any one of those individually, I wouldn't make in my top five. But together, if I look at the whole package, I'd say, well, this is about resilience. So that was. And nobody else. One of my five was water workforce development. Because that affects us a great deal. But that seemed to have come through the last session. There is, October is going to be. Oh, that's one of yours. Okay. In the last legislative session, they didn't really do anything other than they said, we need to focus on that. And so we raised a high, and I believe it was October was designated as Water Workforce Month, or I forget what they called it, but. What it was elevating it is to say something we have to pay attention, because Oregon doesn't have the kind of reciprocal licensing with other states that makes it very challenging. If somebody has a license in Idaho, they can't come to work here. If somebody has a license in Oregon, they go to work in Idaho. I don't know how high that needs to be, but it is important, as all these are. So, Nina, are you scoring these?

I'm attempting. I think what I'm hearing, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is there's three that you sound like you probably agree on, public meetings law, 2027 transportation package, and infrastructure funding.

Okay. And homeless. And the homeless continuation of the funds, I thought we, did anyone not agree?

I thought there were two in the, well, actually, we were split. There were, we were, we picked all the different ones under that one.

Oh, yeah.

I think we have three that, there's three that seem to be consensus for sure.

Say the three again.

A public meetings law, 2027 transportation package, and infrastructure funding.

Where's the water? So then the other ones that we have divergence on are ratepayer assistance, strengthening economic and workforce development, energy resilience and disaster planning, and all of the ones under housing, where we didn't have consensus. How do we want to get there?

I was on the land use committee. And the funding and stuff is really critical. But I think one of the things that came out very strongly in that committee was that every session, they spent a huge amount of time creating new rules and changing. And by the time Derek and his kind of people who do what Derek does, by the time they catch up, it's the next session and they change them again. And it makes it really hard to just pursue, you know, to get things done. And so I think that was the reason that the league was sort of seeing that as a likely one, because that's been a real barrier to just being able, if somebody walks into Derek's office and says, well, what are the rules? He says, I don't know. I mean, they'll change them next week. And I know that that's one of your issues has been being able to be consistent with the public, being able to make that clear. But I couldn't argue with anybody who said we need funding for that.

I think the issue with those three is they're all super high priorities. So if... Maybe we just say we take all three of those, but then that's so much into housing. I mean, I feel like there's other priorities that we should pick too. But so I would throw my two cents in for the funding and coordination of the shelter. When I was on LC HAB, that was a big issue is, you know, they're looking at cuts and pulling out money for having our day shelters and we want to expand, not contract. So that's why I would, if I had to pick one of those three, I would have picked, would pick that one for sure. And I also picked two, but I did go the full funding and streaming is very useful too, so. They're hard. It's really hard.

I like the maintain local control of a safe modern right away. That is one that I... That was the city priority. Yeah.

Yeah. And I would support it. I'm not like, no, we can't support that one. So...

I know you've been part of the... I don't know how frequently that homeless advisory group has been meeting.

We've had one meeting. The first one got canceled, and then the second one, they sent a notice like a couple days before.

Oh, okay. So, yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, that's one of the biggest things that was talked about is that the funding is just decreasing year after year after year. I mean, that's... That's huge. I mean, if you walk out, you see that it is a problem that keeps growing and growing and growing. I mean, these economic times, people are losing their houses. People are just, they can't work. And so, I mean, it gets worse. So I do think that should be a priority that we look at as well.

So it seems like There's some consensus that we should have one of those, at least one of those three. I think for sure, at least one of those three.

Go with shelter.

And I'm comfortable with that because, again, the others don't drop out of the world. But in terms of what we need here. Derek, any opinion on that? Put you on the spot.

I think that's fair, and I think your point's well taken. You know, things are pretty dire on the shelter side of it in terms of funding. And as you pointed out, we don't want to be going backwards. It took a pretty big lift just to get to where we're at right now. So that is a pretty critical component. The housing piece is going to be there.

It's gonna be ever-present this session as it has been and so we'll we'll work through it and one that I think maybe a future work session before this legislative session to really know where we stand as it as a council because one of our one of our representatives as Senator Anderson has been That's one of his priorities is housing and there have been times when we have not always been in the same place around that knowing knowing what our position is would be helpful. We don't have to do that tonight, but I think that that's part of where that issue around don't change it every year. Because people keep having better ideas, but then you never know what worked or didn't. So I think we're solid on that.

That's four, and we just need one more. We've agreed on wastewater infrastructure, or water infrastructure, 2027 transportation package, and the shelter and homeless response funding, and the public meeting law clarity. So the other ones are local control of the right-of-way, Oh, I just lost the page. I don't know what happened there. Sorry. I hit a button. Now I have to go all the way back.

So I ended up with two Zooms today.

Oh, OK. And then the ratepayer assistance, I think, was one of the other ones. Did I miss one?

I feel like the energy resilience and strengthening economic development and workforce development. That's right.

Those four.

And I would suggest on the energy stuff that we send in our five. And if folks were comfortable with this, that we send in our five with a note that says, these as a group should be prioritized as number six. There's nothing to point that out, because each of these policy committees sort of works things differently.

If the form lets me do it, I can try to do it.

But I can't guarantee that the form will let me.

You're on the... No, I'm not on the committee this year. I'm on the board. You're on the board.

That's where ultimately these things get approved. You bet.

So I guess what's the biggest bang for our buck amongst the remaining ones, so to speak? I actually, I hadn't really thought about Cynthia's idea of the rate payer, but I do, I've heard from a lot of people about that. So it feels like maybe that is a priority to keep that. Again, we don't want to go backwards. We've got a program that already helps. Let's keep helping and maybe expand it in these times. So I can definitely support that as one of our five priorities.

Yeah, I'm really pulling towards the economic development and workforce. Yeah, that's another good one, too. I just feel like we lost a big industry, and how do we continue to attract and retain the businesses that we do have in our community that are helping people have a living wage? That feels interesting to me, but I don't know. I think the biggest bang for our buck is a really good question. I think that's a really good question.

And one's more long term and one's more short term.

I would suggest that if the infrastructure funding for water is there, that helps to control the rates. What we don't get through infrastructure funding, because our water rates are the result of the net cost. If there's grant funds or more funds into that, that would have the effect of lowering rates.

Yeah, no, that makes sense, which would sort of bump up the workforce training to be the more meaningful or effective use of our vote.

I would agree there. They all accomplish, there are different ways to accomplish the same thing, which is to get be more efficient, more effective in funding our water, and then having somebody to actually operate it who knows what they're doing.

Where are enterprise zones around here? Like, they, you know, when you read about this, it talks about the long, it would really focus on incentive programs and enterprise zones, and do we have an enterprise zone in our area?

Yes, Derek, do you want to speak to that?

Yes, we do have an enterprise zone, and, you know, Rogue Brewery had been enrollee and unfortunately they you know over over time they were no longer able to keep up with the additional requirements of the program such as hiring additional staff growing the business that kind of thing and so they fell out of that program and I don't know that we have anybody else in there right now We also did seek, worked with Economic EDALC to see if we could get an Opportunity Zone designation. We do have folks that would be interested in securing that, and we just haven't heard where that stands right now.

That might not be the best bang for our buck if we pick that one. I don't know. Because if we don't have immediate businesses that would come to mind that would benefit, then it's not necessarily benefiting the residents like a ratepayer assist would.

Well, what happened to the land availability and land use streamlining? Wasn't that one that you had, Nina? Doesn't that kind of? You've got to have the land availability to get the folks here.

I think we netted down. It was one of those struggles that we're like, I think we would support them both. I think we ended up choosing the Funding and coordination for shelters above the land availability menus streamlining And I pick I picked the land availability and so did the city pick that one so that could be our fifth one It's a score yeah, okay, what can you please repeat?

What is our first one?

We're still in the decision phase of it, but that could be one, because that does complement what the city's priorities were, the city staff's priorities were.

Right, land availability and streamlining, and it helps housing, it helps industry, it helps a lot of different things.

So then we're saying that it would be water infrastructure, 2027 transportation, public meeting law clarity, shelter and homeless response, and land availability. Can we live with this? I can certainly live with it. Then we decide for the state of Oregon.

I will submit the ballot then. And it looks like I can put a comment in, so I will be putting in a comment regarding the energy and environment.

That would be worthwhile, because it was for us being like, and I know some... People on policy committees, you meet a few. It's good work. But you've got to come to a project, and you're not meeting forever to whittle it down. So I'll just kind of make it work. Good. So I think we're good on it. Thank you. I think that was a good discussion. And I would encourage folks to keep reading this stuff, because what happens during the session is these things come up very quickly. Suddenly, and that if we have taken a position, then any one of us can respond. Whereas if we have not taken a position, waiting to come back to council and try to, you know, you can't speak to council unless council has spoken. So I really want to push that this year and appreciate that. Okay, excellent. Whoa, we got, who's here? I know.

Our next item is 2C, Neighborhood Traffic Management Program Pilot Project Concept. I think Derek's going to get us kicked off.

Yes, thank you. Derek Tokos, Community Development. PowerPoint presentation was included in your packet. So I just wanted to have some lead comments. And then Marilyn, who's done most of the work here, is going to kind of walk you through the different components of this program. We have had an opportunity to work with the engineering department. And we've collaborated on coming up with this framework. And we've had an opportunity to vet it with the planning commission and kind of incorporate their feedback into this. So the reason we're pursuing this neighborhood traffic management program, you may recall that when we wrapped up the 2022 transportation system plan, this was a piece where we were able to identify what types of streets are appropriate for traffic calming measures. But we didn't go so far as to put in place a program for vetting requests and determining which ones are a priority for funding and how they would be funded. So we took it so far as to put in place a policy into our comprehensive plan that said, that's the next step. we need to put in place a framework for evaluating requests for traffic calming measures and for funding them. And so our objective here is to get a framework in place such that We could open the door for proposals, and we can organize ourselves so that we're ready to make a funding request for the next budget cycle, not the current one, which means we want to have this more or less fleshed out so that this fall... Going into the winter, we'd be able to open the door for folks to make requests for traffic calming in their neighborhood and would know how we were going to be addressing them. So as we go through this framework, we're really looking for your feedback. Is this kind of going the right direction? Are there things we should be considering that we're not currently considering? That kind of thing. And you'll have an opportunity to... At a future meeting to look at further details as we take this from a conceptual framework to something. That's real So that was where my lead comments and now I'm gonna be the one who pushes buttons and Maryland's good afternoon everyone

My name is Marilyn. I'm the planner for Community Development Department. So I'm just going to do kind of a high overview of what the program would look like. So I'm going to try to run through these pretty quickly. There is a procedures that I shared with you that goes into more detail about the program and what it's going to look like in its pilot stage, basically. All right, so here's just a general overview of what this presentation will be. It's why this program, the structure of it, how it works, and some considerations for council today. Yeah, so really we wanted to make sure that this program was in alignment with the comprehensive plan and the transportation system plan that was updated in 2022. So we pulled a couple of the goals from there and tried to make the program fit that structure. We can go on to the next one. I know I'm going through these really fast, but we can go into detail if you like. This is just very general.

Can I ask a question? Should we hold comments till the end?

Say yes. Yes. Great. So really, we wanted to create something that was accessible both for the public and for our staff. We just wanted it to be very straightforward for people to understand what the program would look like. So that's where we started. We wanted to make sure that there was data driven. A lot of the times, these programs are funded through different strategies. And so we just wanted to make sure to have a more comprehensive kind of data collecting format and then we wanted to test the feasibility of such a program that's where this pilot came into play and then lastly build that foundation so that we can monitor how it's going and where we want it to go And yeah, that's kind of the direction we wanted. So in creating the structure of this program, I wanted it to be as simple as possible through different jurisdictions. multi-step process. One of the more extensive ones was up to 12 steps, so I wanted to keep it as short as possible. So step one would be the request and eligibility screening that we'd start with. Step two would be the engineering evaluation and scoring matrix. That would then give us some direction about prioritization later on, the community engagement piece, and the planning, installation, and monitoring, which would come at the end.

And I would just add, as Marilyn shared it with me, one of the key pieces here is that straightforward process component. She'd reached out to some communities that have processes that look wonderful on paper, very comprehensive, but so daunting nobody's willing to do. So it's a great process on paper, but nothing's come of it. And so we wanted to be sensitive to that. And just, again, emphasize, too, we're talking about one to two projects per fiscal year under this kind of framework. And under the pilot project, this would be fully public funded. So we're thinking around $100,000 a fiscal year in terms of the ask, which would come out of the street improvement funding project.

Yeah, thanks, Eric. So here's just an overview of what we're thinking the schedule would look like. We'll have a deadline for when requests will be accepted for the upcoming year. But we will continue to receive requests throughout the year and then look into them for the following fiscal year. Yeah. And so we'll start in the fall and hopefully implementation can happen in the summer. The community meeting will happen in the winter. That's what our community engagement will look like for now. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a couple slides. But yeah, generally it'd be a fall to summer type schedule. We'll receive requests on a rolling basis and then review them for the upcoming year and evaluate them for, prioritization, whether it be that year, the following, or the following. Yeah. So to start off with step one, the request and eligibility screening, we have two ways we've thought about. One of them is using the GIS layers that we already have from the transportation system plan so people can see right away if their street qualifies for a traffic calming device. And we also have a paper fillable version where people can put in their requests and then one of our staff can reach out to them and let them know why they won't be going through or if we will evaluate it at a later time. Yeah, so that's after it passes. The kind of initial screening that we have, the evaluation piece will be at a later step. Yeah. So the engineering and evaluation and scoring matrix, as I mentioned earlier, are really more geared toward prioritization and kind of figuring out which streets that qualify can then go into the actual implementation piece of it. The engineering evaluation is pretty straightforward across jurisdictions, and so that's something that I conceptually put together, but really once we start getting the requests, I think we can start looking into specifics about what the weighting looks like in terms of what scores can be prioritized, like Yeah, it gets a little complicated there, but this is just a very conceptual just starting point. And then the next step, so that's step two after the request has been screened and it's good to go. It's gone through the evaluation. Oh, did you want to? Oh, okay. And in that evaluation piece, we'll also figure out which traffic calming device will go on that street. So not all traffic calming devices can go on every street. So we're trying to be mindful about that. And so once it's been selected, we then have a conversation with the affected community members. There is an interdepartmental kind of approval process that we'll go through as well, just to make sure that there's some coordination there. So the community engagement piece is where we'll host a meeting with the affected community members and kind of talk through traffic calming device selection. We'll talk through what the implementation will look like. And then up to this point, I didn't go into depth about it, but there is a petition that we can require from people before they submit a request to ensure there is community support. This piece was one that I saw across jurisdictions as the beginning piece of it. So you have to have that threshold met of 51% to 76% before you could even submit the request. We talked a little bit about it during our planning commission work session. But showing that there is support right off From the beginning, I think, is what we're hoping to get there. So if the request comes in and the petition's been done, I think we can then move to step four, but this is where we'll gauge what that community support looks like, I think.

Yeah, there was one point that the Planning Commission really emphasized after they heard all this was they felt very strongly that there needed to be some form of petition up front. that an individual property owner, for example, who just really likes traffic calming measures and might be throwing requests all the time and they did not want to see a lot of city resources invested if it's just one person who wants this and not the broader community. Affected community and so no no no specific recommendations from the Commission in terms of what that percentage Should be other than they also recognize that it shouldn't be so high as to be deterrent So coming up with something that's a reasonable figure and both in terms of the percentage But what's your area that you're talking about or things that we will does my question was how would you define the neighborhood for a particular project and Right. That may vary depending upon the nature of the ask, you know, too. But we need to put some more thought to that. We haven't really quite gotten there yet.

Yeah. And then right now we have it as one community meeting, but we're definitely open to having more. If it goes case by case, if it presents itself for there to be a need for another meeting, then we'll definitely look into that.

But see, for this, that's where Chris and his folks would have already had an opportunity to look at viability. And so when we're walking out and engaging the community in this meeting, we're walking out with a concept, not just a blank piece of paper, but this is what we think we could do. You know, in that area, what do you guys think? And, you know, and we'll be in a position there, too, to explain why certain options weren't identified as priorities. It could be to do with the curvature of the road or development pattern in the area. There are a lot of things that factor in, you know, your posted speeds, all that stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Hey.

Yeah. And then the last step would be the design and construction, the monitoring, and the project log. So in this time is when people would know when that traffic calming device is coming into their neighborhood. The monitoring piece will go really based off staff capacity. That's really what we can do to help track some of that. Like if the traffic calming device is successful in a in an area we'd want to know and pick that up. And it helps for funding strategies in the future. The public project log is more for transparency for the public. I think we just want them to know when a device has been selected for a street and so that people can know that that's something they can look into if they need it. Yeah, so that's kind of where we landed as like the final step for the program at this time.

You know, for all the time and effort that was put into Ocean View? We haven't done the post-installation traffic counts yet, something that we were talking about, right, Chris?

Yeah, Chris Beatty, city engineer. We are going to put some counters up. It's just a matter of finding the correct location because obviously at like 15th Street, we've got speed humps on each side of that intersection, so obviously the speeds are going to be slower, you would think. So it's finding that place that they tested before, and we're working on finding that.

So as we move forward, and we're not asking you to answer all questions one, two, three, four, and five here, but we were putting out some policy considerations as we move this forward for where we really know we need your feedback. One, we're going to want to make sure you're comfortable with the funding level and that we're looking at a two-year pilot to start. That then can evolve into something else as appropriate. We're gonna need your help at least telling us where you think they're reasonable or not as we put together numeric eligibility thresholds For scoring and what what makes sense on that and on that scale Really could use your feedback will bring options to the table on on a petition and what that should Should be both in terms of the percentage and the parameters defining You know what your expectations are in terms of community engagement That's going to be helpful as we move forward. And what you see in terms of kind of a minimum level of monitoring that we should be doing after we do an installation, like Chris said, traffic counts or other things that we should be thinking about in terms of post-installation follow-up.

And that'll start when?

Well, our hope is to have this framed out such that we can begin to accept requests under this framework this fall going into the winter. So it could be, you know, maybe in October to December timeframe and something like that.

Cynthia. Cynthia.

Thanks for the presentation. That's very thoughtful. And I know Ocean View is kind of a test baby here, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I do have a couple questions. A couple meetings ago, we had talked about traffic studies and that there would be a charge for that. That's not in here anywhere, is it?

Not at this point. Being a pilot program, we would waive that charge at this point.

And I remember that when the bike ped committee was disassembled, that they were concerned about not having enough input from people who ride bikes when we might... do things like this to streets, to change streets. I would just want to make sure that the biking community were involved somehow. And I don't know how you would do that exactly, but they missed that opportunity. Let's see. Do you have any requests active at present to...

Most of the requests right now are on the gravel roads that we're going to be paving before they even know there's going to be a problem. But it's assumed that the speeds will go up with gravel roads being paved, so we do have active requests.

OK. And then I was just wondering about when the neighborhood would be asked to get this petition with a certain threshold. I think we need to think it out about how you would count homes, like second homes, people who don't live here, short-term rentals who aren't engaged that much with the community. I mean, some are, some aren't. I think that would be a factor also.

I agree with that. We did discuss that internally about houses like that and neighborhoods in general. Oceanview Drive, you know, it's kind of a community, but it also affects the whole city and even more than that, people traveling Oceanview Drive. So that'll be ironed out. We'll iron that out and get input from you. And hopefully we can make the right decision on inclusion.

Thank you for preparing this. It's a good thing to have on hand.

They're not done.

Thanks. I had a couple of questions and or concerns. You mentioned in their streets of 500 cars per day or whatever. What's an example of a street that has around that volume? Golf course drive. Okay.

Just under it. Remember when we were looking at the shared street concepts and we brought a bunch of examples of different streets in the community with their different ADT, that's the one that was probably closest to 500. Okay.

So that or higher would be one of the thresholds that they would have to meet.

And logically, I mean... When we put in place the shared streets, the concept was that if it was under 500 ADT, generally, the various studies have shown folks are comfortable sharing the street. There's not so much background traffic that they feel that they need a separated, like, ped facility, like sidewalks. They're okay walking their dog down the middle of the street or riding their bike down the street because there's just not a lot of traffic.

Not too much. Right, not too much. But you don't want one car a day kind of thing either. So another one I had, we're talking about the petitions and stuff, and I noticed one of the comments is a lot of people have struggled. There's sort of the two sides of that coin. So I think that's going to be a very important concern, and as Cynthia was saying, with a lot of streets having tons of second vacation homes or rentals, that becomes even more of an issue. How do you get the petition done, and do the people respond even? And then my last comment was I'm not sure we should roll out a free program if in the long term we were thinking of doing a shared cost program because it might seem a little unfair to the people who got in at the beginning, didn't have to pay anything. So I might suggest that we think about whether we're going to just say we're going to commit $100,000 per year or if we're going to say people who come in with these proposals might be able to be asked to share the cost.

It's an excellent point. Our thinking on doing this as a pilot that's fully public funded is it gives us more time to think through the equity issues that are inherent to what you just brought up. Because there are a couple sides of the coin there. If it's in an area that's fluent enough that people feel that they can take on the additional assessment and they really want this, well, that's going to serve a certain segment of the community. And then what about those that aren't in that position? So I think that's going to take some careful thought in our thinking. SUGGESTION IS TRY THIS TYPE OF PILOT PROGRAM FIRST, SEE HOW IT GOES, AND WE CAN ALWAYS ROLL IN THE COST SHARING COMPONENT AND PROBABLY WILL NEED TO, TO REALLY DO THIS WELL MOVING FORWARD. BUT IT GIVES US MORE TIME.

WOULD IT BE AT THAT POINT MAYBE IF IT'S A PILOT AS PART OF THE PETITION OR THE FEEDBACK IS WHEN WE ASK THE PEOPLE IF THEY ARE IN FAVOR, WOULD THEY BE IN FAVOR IF THEY HAD A SHARE OF 20% OF THE COST? YOU KNOW, THAT KIND OF THING. THAT MIGHT BE A WAY TO SORT OF GET THAT DATA.

I think this was the last slide, wasn't it?

There's like a couple more, but it's not.

Oh, my bad.

No, it's okay. I think for the most part, we've talked about everything.

These were just the jurisdictions I looked into and how we got here.

Oh, yeah. No, this is... Sorry. This is the end of it. It's kind of just reiterating what we've talked about, except here I've mentioned the neighborhood traffic management programs I looked into from different jurisdictions and just kind of talking about what their structure kind of main points of their structures and how they're different. But part of the reason I picked these jurisdictions is because they have a longstanding neighborhood management traffic plans. And so a lot of them are 50, 60 years old. And so I wanted to look at them. And when I reached out, they had some information to share about how their programs are going or any assessments. Corvallis shared their most recent assessment of their neighborhood traffic management plan. And the equity issues that we've talked about are something they also brought up. So that's why this slide is here. But yeah, that's basically it. I think there's one more. And it's just that kind of, again, reiterating what the inequities are. I asked them about funding strategies and community engagement, and this is where we landed. But yes, that's it.

I'm going to go for it with some questions. I'll start actually with Councilor Eamon's question around the equity issue and funding. Because it would help also the question around like, well, just I think knowing what budgetarily it costs for the different traffic calming measures. Because it's really hard to say like these larger cities that were compared, they're like, well, we only have $100,000 and we get 75 to 100 requests. Or $150,000. It's like, how do you manage that? I have no idea what that would look like for Newport in terms of what money we would be setting aside. And then also, it would really be helpful if we had the data around where the crashes are, where we need to do more traffic calming, where it's 500 or more cars. Like, we don't have that information, right? So it feels kind of amorphous. Like, you mentioned GCD. I would never have thought... I mean, I forgot about that, right? Like, I wouldn't have thought that golf course drive would be, like, that high of a priority. And then it feels a little bit like... It's like, well, if I get enough people... And it was never clear, like... Is 51 to 75% the number of people who are impacted? Is that who would have to be? The 51 to 75 was not, I didn't understand what the, 51 to 75% of what?

Is the community support required for the petition to go through for a request?

So it is the people who would be impacted by the street?

Mm-hmm.

OK, that's what I was trying to get. It wasn't 100% clear on that. So if I drive down it every day, I'm impacted, right? So maybe I don't live in an impacted community, but if I drive down it every day to go to work or I'm just trying to figure out what is considered impacted. I do have a lot of questions, so I'm just going to try to scroll back and try to throw them all at you. Also, a response to every applicant. I love the accessibility piece of that. If I apply in year one or year two, is it carried on to year two if it's not? And then, again, going back to the cost sharing, I think it would really depend on what the traffic calming costs are, like the different ones. And I actually don't know what a traffic delineator is. I was like, I don't know what that one is. That just made me a little bit concerned about how do we get to that. Hold on a second. I'm trying to. Yeah, so the crash data piece would be really important to know that. And what is a speed trailer? Just like a little thing that says, OK, I wasn't sure. And then the matrix, I wasn't sure if setting the numeric eligibility is like if it's 35 miles per hour or over. And what's the scoring matrix? Like there were scoring matrixes mentioned from other cities. I think that'd also be really good to understand because, again, if we only get a certain amount that we can set aside for this, should we be thinking about the areas that are the most prone to accidents, the higher than 500 cars, like the most, most, most? Should there be a tiered thing? I'm not saying community involvement shouldn't be a part of it, but I feel like we should know what those streets are. And again, if you only have a limited amount of the budget, then you are a little bit constrained with what you can really do. Again, it really depends on the traffic calming. I think I have some other questions from one of the other documents, but those are my starter questions.

We do have, I guess, a conceptual scoring matrix. I just didn't include it.

I need you on the mic.

We have a scoring matrix that we talked about. I just didn't include it today because it's not finaled. And I think some of those other pieces were helpful to talk about. And a part of the considerations for today are thinking about what those weights will look like to then prioritize these projects. So constrictability was one of them, and equity was one of them. We went a little bit back and forth on equity due to possible federal funding, but what those markers would be specifically, I guess, is what I meant. And then those each carry different weights, which would then rank it on prioritization. That gets a little complicated, so I didn't show it today, but that is something we're working on.

We specifically considered the carryover. So if there was project proposals that came in, but they didn't rate out enough to be funded a current fiscal year, they would carry over and be reassessed with the pool of whatever we have in the next year. That was our thinking on that. We can provide costs. Chris, what was it you said the cost per speed hump is? I think you had a number at one point. That was about 25 to 30. So it's going to vary. You know, the delineators, those are those things that stick to the ground and go up. You know, to be like a white one with a little bit of a flasher on it. They're kind of tall and they kind of, you know, it'll direct you.

I'll Google it. I'll Google it. I should have done my homework on that. I didn't do my homework on that.

But the cost is going to vary, and it's a good point, based on the type of solution that's appropriate in a given area. You know, your signage and striping is going to be a little bit cheaper. If you're going in with speed humps, it's going to be more expensive. But our thinking was that a budget of about $100,000 per fiscal year should be sufficient for us to be able to implement one to two projects, depending on what their scope is.

Yeah, and the Ocean View Drive speed humps, that was the first go for the contractors, local contractors. And we had to get a form from Corvallis. We borrowed a form. We do have that. We got that template so we can make our own. And I expect as they do more of these, that cost will go down, or at least a status quo over time.

Do we have any idea what the demand for these would be driven by the residents versus by you guys saying, oh, we know there's a lot of accidents here where this road needs work as a comparison?

We don't really have that information based on the amount of inquiries we've gotten before, and I really don't look at speed humps or traffic calming measures to try to determine where they go. It's just when it's brought to my attention, we evaluate it and determine it that way.

So it's basically totally a resident-driven type program?

Yes.

Okay.

And to your point, I guess, Hall, the... The notice. We were thinking about, okay, if we're going to be doing notification for a community meeting, you know, there may be direct mail notification maybe to those properties that are immediately along the segment where the traffic coming would be deployed. But there would be a need to reach out to the broader community as well in some form. You know, be it, you know, reaching out through social media, getting out, you know, press releases. You know, we do want to be sensitive to, you know, Postcard drop for the entire city is kind of expensive, and is it really effective in this kind of context, so? What's the right mechanism for reaching out to the broader community?

We need we know we need to pin that down Yeah, I think a certain radius within the project a potential project or a grid of each each side of it to box it in To figure it out that way for starting.

I'm kind of curious if This was a question asked or answered It would seem to be something like this would be sort of natural fodder for most of the communities you're looking at have neighborhood associations. And that would be sort of the, oh, we'll go to the neighborhood association ought to be coming forward and as the voice of that neighborhood. So I wonder if this might be a side product of this might be people saying, you know, maybe we ought to have a neighborhood association so we could speak. And I'd be glad to see that because that helps bring neighborhoods. And then there's a way. You've got somebody to talk to. At least in Nye, you know that you can talk to that neighborhood with somebody who represents. So over time, I think that could be very beneficial. Any other?

I just have one last clarifying question. So it is based on like individual submissions or you are overlaying it? Like I'm reading the part about the interactive mapping tool. Like you are overlaying it with like crash data and like where there are like near misses and that kind of thing. Like it is pulling from our data on that?

Yeah, I think we're going to be working with GIS, our staff there, to put in this data as it comes available. The crash data is already available. It's just a matter of getting it into the system. And average daily traffic, as we do traffic counts, we'll enter that into the system as well. And some of the components that will go into the scoring matrix would be on there.

So you're looking, one, you want some sense of where the council's at. Just generally, do we have kind of thumbs up, thumbs down on this? Got two thumbs over there. I've got two as well. I think, yeah, go forth and do good. All right. And I think you have a sense of what the concerns, and they're not like don't do it kinds of concerns.

They're just how to do it better. Right. No, and we appreciate it. And we don't have it fully framed out yet. And this kind of feedback is going to help us kind of fill in the gaps, and we can bring a more complete product back to you before we roll it out. Great.

Good work. I was very excited to see this. And with that, oh, now do I need to read before we adjourn? Yes. OK, the council will close the open portion of the meeting and move into executive session pursuant to ORS 192.6602E to conduct deliberations with persons designated by the governing body to negotiate real property transactions. Under ORS 192.6604, members of the media may report that an executive session was held under the specific statutory authority stated. However, they may not disclose any specific information discussed during the executive session. No sessions will be made during the executive session. No decisions, I'm sorry. Council members and staff are reminded that all discussions during the executive session are confidential and must not be disclosed outside of this session. At this time, we respectfully request that members of the audience exit the room. Following the executive session, the meeting will be adjourned.