City Council - Regular Meeting

Right. Alright. I'll North Clinton City Council meeting to order. May 4, that meeting on. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to The United States Of America. Please follow-up.

Thank you. Mayor Dunbarrow? Present. Council president Hagedorn? Present. Councilor Dufourge? Present. Councilor Yukarke? Present. Councilor Redding? Here. Councilor Warrington? Present. And councilor Weber? Present.

Thank you.

Thank you. And before we move on to the agenda, I just wanna point out that it is Sorry. I didn't clean my glasses. It is public service recognition week. So we just, like, take a moment and think that.

We didn't we were seeing more people live in the morning. Your time's coming. Okay. At this time, I will I will entertain a motion on the consent agenda and approval of previous council meetings. Councilor Weber, so moved. Councilor Weber moves to approve. Do I have a second?

Councilor Ugarita, second.

So Ugaritay, second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Couple things I'll call out real quick before we move on. There was libraries working with the proclamation here. But you're right in person before you prove it. So if I need to read this now, Lauren.

That is your choice.

Yes. I will read this now. Okay? Bear with me. This from my desk.

City of North Plains proclamation, whereas the North Plains Public Library has served communities since its establishment in 2006, provided access to knowledge, resources, and lifelong learning opportunities, and whereas the library has been becoming a cornerstone of the community, fostering literacy education and the welcoming space for residents of all ages. And whereas the North Plains Public Library offers programs, services, and resources that enrich the lives of patrons and strengthen cultural and strengthen the cultural and educational fabric of the city and whereas library staff, volunteers, and community members that contributed their time and energy and dedication to ensure its continued success over the past twenty years, and whereas the city of North Plains recognizes the vital role that the library plays in promoting community connection, discovery, engagement, and whereas the twentieth anniversary of the North Place Public Library is an opportunity to celebrate its history and achievement and ongoing impact on the community, and whereas the residents and visitors are encouraged to join in recognizing and celebrating this important milestone. Now, therefore, the mayor and city council of North Plains, Oregon, do hereby proclaim April of the twenty twenty birthday of Northglennes Public Library and encourage all citizens to celebrate this special occasion.

And, also, just for everyone's edification, there's also a letter and a proclamation from I'm sorry. There's a letter from

senator I'm sorry. Representative.

Sorry. No problem. Would want to consult her, but I'm more sensitive. And now I get to have the fun one. Proclamation of the fifty seventh annual professional clerk's week. Whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk, a time honored and vital part of local government just throughout the world, And whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk is among

the

oldest is the oldest among public servants. And whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk provides the professional link between citizens and local governing bodies and agencies of government at other levels. And whereas professional municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality rendering equal service to all, Whereas professional municipal clerk serve as the information center on functions of local government and community. Whereas professional municipal clerks continually strive to improve the administration of the affairs of the office of professional municipal clerk through the participation, education program seminars, workshops, and the annual meetings of their state, provincial, county, and international professional organizations. Whereas whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishments of the office of the professional municipal clerk.

Now, therefore, I, Aaron, Brown, mayor of the City Of New Claims to recognize this week, May 3, to remain on as a professional clerk's week and further extend our profession our appreciation to our professional municipal clerk, Corey Lesmester, and to all professional municipal clerks for the vital service they perform and their exemplary dedication to the communities they represent. So thank you, Lord. And thank you for your love. And Robin, our librarian. Sorry.

Should've called you out. You can't sit in the back and expect me to okay. So next, we have public comment. So as a reminder, just come up to the podium, state your name, and if you're a city resident, a rural resident, or nonresident, and you will have three minutes. So first, I have Russ Sheldon. Come on.

Mayor Dunbarrow and member councilors, tonight, I'm here to express my support for city manager, Bill Reed. In my view, Bill served in the most turbulent and unprecedented periods in North Plains' recent history. Over the past sixteen months, the city has experienced significant turnover and disruption. During Bill's first year alone, he has worked with eight different counselors by my account due to the election turnover and subsequent resignations. That level of change would challenge any organization.

Bill has had to onboard and support multiple new counselors with many without any prior governance experience while maintaining continuity and city operations. He has navigated these transitions while adapting to shifting expectations, typically guiding effective local governance. Despite these challenges, Bill has demonstrated resilience and commitment. He has managed these adaptations without the benefit of a senior adviser through the Oregon City County Manager's Association whose advisory program has been paused. From my perspective, the city is functioning well.

There are no significant operational or financial concerns. Bill ensured the adopted on the budget identified cost savings from the prior biennium and has continued delivering services at or below budget. He has also navigated staffing transitions and key and delays in audits, and these are issues that have affected many small agencies in the wake of COVID. It's also worth noting that Bill's one year evaluation should have probably taken place in late twenty twenty five. At that time, council included members whose experience could have contributed valuable feedback.

Delays in that process have limited that opportunity. As you consider his perform the virtue of weighty importance of stability and continuity in city especially during periods of significant change, Bill has provided both under challenging circumstances, and that contribution deserves careful consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is Susan Brown.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Susan Brown, and I'm an an urban not urban, a rural resident, I guess, what we're called, just outside the city limits. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I live outside the North Plains city limits, and I'm fully comfortable with the fact that I don't have a vote in city elections. I'm here because I care about this community and appreciate the chance to share my perspective.

Recently, at a chamber of commerce meeting, I heard Bill give an update on city matters. When asked about grant funding from new businesses, he offered a clear, thorough explanation of where those funds come from and how they are allocated. Only afterward did I learn that he previously taught government at Portland State University, something that made perfect sense. His ability to communicate complex issues with ease is a tremendous asset, and we are fortunate to have someone with his expert serving this city. I've worked with Bill on several projects, been prepared, professional, and generous with his time.

He treated each topic and me with respect. Any resident would be proud to have him representing the city's interests. Small towns rarely have the benefit of someone with his qualifications, and North Plains is lucky to have him. That's why I'm concerned about the shift in tone from this body beginning early twenty twenty five. Since then, I have watched staff, bill included, be publicly criticized, dismissed, or spoken to in ways that undermine trust and morale.

Disagreement is inevitable, but how disagreement is handled matters. Residents expect their elected officials to model professionalism, respect, and good governance. They also expect decisions to be guided by the interests of city residents, not by outside pressure or personal factions. I'd ask you to reflect on the example you are setting and the impact it has on public confidence. Please recognize the value of experience, loyalty, and hard work your staff brings to the city, and I appreciate the recognition of Laurie today.

She does, in my view, an outstanding job, and and I appreciate the interactions that I've had with her as well. Thank you, Laurie. Darth Plains is fortunate to have talent like Bill Reid working on its behalf. I hope that continues. Thank you. Thank you. Next

is Laura Dexheimer.

Lori has a handout for you. On April 6, the city presented a plan to put in a safe and cost effective loading zone on Commercial Street, which you seem to have had voted for. Since then, locator locates have been on our site painted parallel along the planting strip next to our sidewalk on Commercial Street. What are these for? We don't see these fit for the plan that you voted on.

If there's a new plan or changes to that plan then you approved, it requires another public hearing. This time, we request that you follow the suggestions of the mayor and have a certified experts there to explain exactly how this safe loading zone is to be achieved, that would be a traffic engine Our own experts have contend have cautioned us that a safe loading zone can only be achieved by significant reconstruction of the street at the cost the city would likely not be able to afford. Example, if you regrade down the sidewalk to the sidewalk level, that requires removal of the power pole put and putting it somewhere else. Estimated cost if VGE is allowed is about $20,000. If you re break down the sidewalk level, you will need to remove the storm drains at 314 and reposition those to make sure that the building does not flood.

Estimated cost, $50,000. If you're going to add a retaining wall instead of regrading, you will not only have the cost of the wall, but you also have the cost of the redesign of the road to accommodate a 12 foot wide loading zone, then a bike lane, two traffic lanes, then another bike lane on the north side, and another parking strike. What will the distance of the restriking just between 313th And 314th for the entire road of Glencoe to Gordon? What is the business on the north side of the street requires a loading zone, and you have to restripe again to accommodate a required 12 foot width? Are you going to have commercial street where the traffic has to wave in and out of the different loading zones?

And if you do all of that, do you realize that you reduce the traffic lines lanes to 11 feet? Not only not safe, but not allowed. Our truck is 12 feet wide. Imagine two or excuse me, 10 feet wide. Imagine two ten foot wide trucks.

Thank you, Lord. That's fine. Next up is Lisa Fry.

Hello. My name is Lisa Fry, and I am a resident of the city. Given the agenda tonight, I just wanted to come and voice my appreciation and my thanks to city staff for on the mostly from my perspective on the EDC, particular, our city manager, Bill Reed. I he has been there almost the entire journey of the EDC from the days when we were a committee to now a commission, first as a finance manager and then as the city manager, all through the forming of the committee and through the pandemic. And today, like I as as a commission, I really have to say how much he has influenced the shaping of that committee and our work in terms of even keeping us going, especially during those rough tough days of the

pandemic when there wasn't a lot

we could do. Keeping us educated, suggesting excellent speakers, bringing in topics, examples from other cities. He has a wealth of experience. And as Susan said, educating us on complex matters, for example, URA. As you all know, it's very complicated.

The standards and the requirements and getting us up to speed on such a complicated matter is that it has been incredibly valued to us as a commission. So I wanna recognize Bill for that. And even including, I get the opportunity to be on the budget committee and especially this last this past year, 2025, Bill did an excellent job of presenting a very complex budget, walking through each of the line items, answering a lot of questions as you all know because you were there, and helping us to understand and come to an agreement collaboration on that budget for the biennium. So I just wanna express that from the perspective of someone who has served on committees and commission where Bill has played a huge role. And I, of course, have to recognize Lori, and she has been there the whole way as well.

And she is an amazing patient presence in all of our meetings and keeping us organized and getting our agendas and keeping on top of things. So my appreciation goes out

to the city staff, and I

just wanted to share that with the the counselors and maybe at Bay Ridge tonight.

Thank you. Next up is.

Good evening, Aaron City Council. My name is Kai Miller. I'm a city resident and also a member of the planning commission. And I wanted to take a few moments tonight to express my my thanks and support for Bill Reed as city manager. I've had the pleasure of working with Bill over a number of years and have found three characteristics that I think are important in a role of city manager.

One is capability. The second one is integrity, and the last one is no personal agenda. And from a capability perspective, you've already heard many people tonight talk about his many capabilities and how he has conducted a a balanced budget and kept North Plains, on on a great trajectory from a from a financial perspective, and there are many cities that can't sleep there. And that's a very that's attributed to his work. From an integrity perspective, you don't have to look very far for organizations, municipalities, governments, clean water services, whatever, to see scandals and financial misappropriation, and there's none of that in North Points.

And that's a testament to how Bill runs things and the cross checks and all the things he does to ensure those things can't occur. And then last, no personal agenda. I think like all of us, I'm sure Bill has, perspective on things and certain things that he would like to see done, but I never see him bring that to the table. He works for the good of the of the city, and he is diligent about bringing forward everyone's request. And I've asked him many times for for information and different analysis, and he does it with, com complete, trustworthiness and nothing that brings a personal agenda to him.

So if you want someone that brings a personal agenda, doesn't have integrity, and maybe not great capability, don't hire Bill. But if you if you want those three characteristics, you don't need to look any

further than Bill Reid. Thanks. Thank you.

Next up is mister Kendall.

Did I write did I write mister on here? Sure.

Oh, you're over mister Lee, sir.

Alright. Hi. I'm Butch Kendall. I'm a resident of North Plains for fifty two years. So thank you for letting me speak. I concur with everything that has been said tonight with with mister Reid. So I have a very short thing here to read. I support that the city council tonight consider those upcoming new final contract. Bill's relationship with the city staff and the public is invaluable maintaining integrity and commitment for the city and for its residents. Bill is a calm, caring, wonderful person.

I also said in the last seventeen months, stuff that's been said about Bill, and he's having to deal with all this stuff. Takes a special kind of person to weathers such humiliation. Thank you, Bill, for your courage. K? Also, think those should stay on so he can complete that UGB expansion project by November 2026 and the GOA project on Glencoe Road and with all the other things that he has to do. The former city council saw great potential in Bill's performance, so please let Bill continue by renewing his contract. And thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. And the last public comment I have is let me go to Martin online. You can come off mute and.

Good evening, mayor and councilors. It's your BFF. My name is Linda Kalis Merton, and I'm speaking on behalf of Strong Towns North Plains. We have members throughout 97133. We're here tonight to address housekeeping matters, issues that require further attention and resolution.

First, audits. During council's review of the city's financials with Uncle Valley Financial, the acting finance director instructed that any questions for auditors be submitted in advance of meetings. We urge council to ask as many questions directly to UVF as you see fit. We also urge the council to direct the acting finance director to ensure that a representative from UVF be present at council meetings until the city is caught up with its audits. Based on our understanding, Savannah from UVF has expressed that they would be happy to participate at no additional cost.

The acting finance director should welcome UVF's willingness to answer all questions as their involvement is crucial to restoring trust in our financial reporting and management. Further this issue extends to the loss of revenue caused by the inability to apply for certain grants due to this deficiency. Second, we come to the financials themselves. We strongly support counselor Warrington suggestion to color code the monthly financial statements. Marina could easily implement this feature into their system and once completed no further work would be required.

Most members of the public are not trained in municipal accounting and do not have the time to learn its complexities. A color coded system would enable tax taxpayers to quickly understand where targets are being met, where risks exist, and where failures are occurring. We suggest adding one more color to signal any accounts or payments that Marina believes need additional scrutiny. For example, this could flag a payment from the URA to cover city staff time. The city frequently informs taxpayers that there are insufficient funds for routine maintenance, a parks director, trees, revitalization, accounting software, and other needs.

The city cannot expect taxpayers to approve tax increases unless there is transparency in the monthly financial disclosures. The public expects its council members to be able to ask any questions they wish at any time without limitations imposed by staff. Thank you very much.

K. That concludes public comment for this evening. Next, we'd like to invite up the TV for the state and district.

Mayor Dunbrog, members of the council and city staff, thank you, Brandon. My name is Alex David. I'm deputy chief of operations with Bald Valley Fire and Rescue, and I'm excited to give you our state of the district for this year. But first,

I'd like to recognize

some staff that came with me. Got the AYO, And engine seventeen with captain Al Penningtail now. Would you mind introducing your crew? Hello. Captain Al.

Kurt Harvey. Steve for driver. Good. Happy to be here.

Thank you all for being here today. I'd to take care of every opportunity I can to recognize staff. They do such a good job of servicing their communities, and we could not be prouder of the work that they do. So looks like we've got the presentation with the blasts out.

Yeah. Well, we do the court. Yeah.

And we'll go to the

next slide. So for tonight's topics,

as

you can read up there, we'll talk about the incident snapshot for the city of North Plains. We'll talk about wildfire season. We're out with EMS and then our current bond capital projects specifically in Washington County, North Washington County, and then program that we have struggle with. Next slide. So, maybe a little bit challenging to read, so I'll try to walk through it, kinda, going around the horn.

But as you can see, 318 incidents were in the city of North Plains in 2025. And as we walk through from the school closer, we'll go. So as we walk through that, start at the top, we categorized our call types, EMS, fire. We've got hazard, public service, good intent call, false alarms, and then natural condition, and then other. And you see we got dispatched as.

So those are the call types that we typically that we receive from dispatch based on the caller information as they work through their triage process. They are able to dispatch us to a call. Then as you walk down into the situation found, that's what our cruise analysis when they showed up. So, you know, on the left hand side, EMS of the of all calls is about set between 7080% of the calls that we go on. And, you know, when we get there, we we might be dispatched on a sick person and then show up, and it's a chest pain.

So that allows us to accurately account for the data just so that we know the types of calls that we go on. In Northland, specifically, as you as you walk down to the consent subcategories, you see that we had, of the seven fires that we found, three of those were structured fires, two residential and one commercial. We had a vehicle fire, few vegetation fires within the city. And then as you walk through the subcategories, had 74 critical patients. So we oftentimes look at our call types.

We'll talk about that a

little bit more in detail when we talk about EMS. But our critical those are critical medical calls. Then MVC with injury and then MVC and unknown. Of note, I think when you look at good intent call, oftentimes that people have questions about that. So we'll go on the reported structure fire, and when we show up and it was barbecue in the backyard, that gets coded in in our system as a good in time call.

So somebody that get attention reporting what they thought was the house on fire turned out to be just a barbecue. So we're a data informed organization. You know, we we look at the data throughout the year to try to understand what the hazards are in particular areas of the fire district, make sure that we've got the right resources in the right area. And to the bottom part of your slides where it talks about hours a day and days of the week, it's pretty consistent across the fire district. So 07:00, the call started to increase throughout the day.

Around eleven or twelve in the evening, calls start to decrease for the early morning hours. And North Plains is pretty consistent with the rest of our fire district. The day of the week is consistent across the board. We don't find that one particular day of the week is higher than the other. And then as you work over to the right, it looks to find your trending for North Plains in the last two to three years.

There's been a slight increase in calls for service in North Windsor. That's also consistent with other areas of the fire district. And then in the bottom right, it's in of those 318 calls in the city of North Plains, the units that we have in our system that have responded to those. So station seventeen, for instance, responded 92% of those incidents. Some

of

the other units that are station sixty four, 68, 34, and 51, a lot of times you send increase the training, or if they have back to back calls where they're busy, we were allowed we're able to bring other units in. Then of note, North Plains is a mandatory move up station for us. So when we have an incident or they're dedicated to something that is gonna take them out of service for any length of time, we're we're moving resources into North Plains. So I wanna make sure that there's coverage. Then the upper right hand corner is the concentration map.

Just shows where the calls are at more frequently. You look at the red, those are areas of higher demand. These are oftentimes centered around care facilities, nursing homes where we where we tend to have a higher frequency of calls. Next slide. So if you've heard the term all hazard, TBF and R is an all hazard organization. Traditionally, a fire center, they'll sit with fire and rescue. So we would go out and structure fire. We would put it out. We were obligated to investigate it. We had resources that could go and rescue somebody that was in a dangerous situation, and that would that's been a long standing tradition in the fire service.

About thirty, forty years ago, EMS became a predominant thing for the for the fire service just because of where our stations are at and where our people are able to get them to people that had critical need in emergency medicine very quickly. So that became a predominant part of what we do over the last thirty years. And then in the last decade, this conversation about wildland and urban interface is is surfaced. Of note with that, you know, Wildman urban interface in it's a complete got a completely different subset of skills and preparation than you would historically think about fire in the urban setting. So with the fire threat that we're seeing, you know, we're we're continually preparing that.

We'll talk about that here in a few slides. Well, actually, the next one, which is preparing for the wildlife scene. So last year, you may recall that, you know, I've had the privilege of coming out here last year. We talked about the 2024 wildfire season being a record and historic year for the state of Oregon, and acreage is burned. Last year, 2025, fortunately, was more of a moderate year, but the impacts of the fires, even though we had less fires, the impact of the fires in communities and the structures that were burned were still pretty significant.

So we're seeing an increase in fire behavior. They're closer to populated areas. And just know that we continue to prepare every year. So, you know, we've we're having conversations about what this little snowpack is gonna look like, not potentially a hotter, drier summer. We work really hard not to make predictions, but to be prepared for what's to come, and that's what we're working through right now.

So there's a lot of things that are factored into, you know, fire starting and then growing beyond our capabilities. But all of our firefighters are trained in wild land. We continue to focus on it. We just went through what we call a training block in the months of March and April to prepare firefighters for the upcoming season, make sure that they've, you know, got the tactics, the tools, that they're familiar with it, and then we work through that collectively with all of our resources. So, you know, we're working together, of course, putting fires out.

And our, you know, priority is to respond effectively to fires, keep them small, and keep them away from your homes. Mother nature, obviously, will dictate how that's gonna go for us, but we definitely want to give it a fighting chance when we show up. Next slide. I know there's been a lot of conversation about this evolving EMS landscape. Well, the way our communities use the 901 system has changed significantly over the past three decades.

But when somebody calls 901 for a life threatening medical need within our service area, you can rest assured that they have one of the strongest advanced life support responses in TBN and R in the country. And as noted by our our incredible cardiac survivor, rates, which are in the high forties, if not close to 50. The natural average is around mid thirties, thirty percentile. So it's pretty significant. And, again, it goes back to the good work of our crews and just our preparedness to be ready and respond to those types of incidents.

But a great number of calls still require our skilled, medics and advanced life support capabilities. But, however, the growing number of our medical calls are now requiring more of a basic life support, so we call low lower acuity calls. Often, these patients have non emergent medical and social service needs. And we're seeing more more people utilize 901 to for their access point in the health care system and calling the fire department and or and or in service to provide that for them. And so the shifts in utilization impact our response reliability to get to critical emergencies, and we recognize that.

We continue to look for innovative ways to both engage within our communities of highest priorities, ensuring that our citizens get the care that they need, but also to ensure that we're available to respond to those higher acuity, more severe calls. So a lot of work needs to be done still in that space, but we're working toward them. Next slide. And then so a few of the programs we'll talk about quickly. We have an advanced practice community paramedicine program.

So we've got paramedics. We get paramedics, but it takes those paramedics, gives them additional training and equipment to assist crews on critical call types so they're available to respond to augment what's already being done on an incident, and we're seeing very high success with with that program. But those advanced practice community paramedics are also trained to engage with our high utilizer group with the lower acuity of calls within the 901

system to ensure that

these patients can successfully navigate the health care system and get get them connected with resources that they within the communities. So it's taken a little bit of the burden off of our fire engines and fire trucks, and ensuring that they get the attention and care that they need. And then we have our EMS and community risk reduction staff have also launched a care facility outreach program to work with 70 licensed care facilities in our service area for about 14% of our incidents. And that is just educating them on how to utilize nine eleven, what their capabilities are, So, it reduces the frequency in which we're, either sending the ambulance or a fire engine to that incident. We also have nurse navigation, which is in our dispatch center, and think of that as telemedicine.

So it's we introduced that last year, and the dispatch was working through a call. They now have an additional resource besides an annual certified agent that they could send patients to or potential patients to so that they can get access to a a nurse. And then they work them through what resources they need, what their issues are, and and try to get them through there. They can also call Ubers to get them to, you know, a care facility if they need to. And then then there's some redundancy built in that that if the call is actually a little bit more critical or they continue to worsen, hopefully, kick back into that one system.

But as the health care system continues to experience stressors, know the traditional response models are not sustainable from a fiscal and a resource management standpoint. We continue to evolve our approach, and we have sought collaborative partnerships with cities, counties, state, and even at the federal level level to ensure that our communities get what they need.

Next slide.

Bond capital projects. So we touched on this last year. Several of our station rebuilds and remodel projects, are were kicked off from the November 2021 board approved general obligation bond. At the direction of our board, I'll take just a quick minute to talk about the priorities that came from our board, which is to prior through the this bond, which is to prioritize seismic security and equity needs. Our stations must be able to fit any size apparatus.

Stations must be able to accommodate future growth. So thinking about dual companies, a lot of our stations have one engine in them, but it's, you know, we're talking thirty to fifty years that, you know, as our communities continue to grow, we want the ability to be able to house the needs without making good adjustments to the stations. A decontamination space with an emphasis on the hot, warm, and cold zones, that's in an effort to reduce, the exposure of our first responders to the stuff that they carry with them in their gear. And then all of our stations be able to include a battalion chief bump. So it just allows for us to move our battalion chief around based off of the within the Fire District.

Currently happening in Station 62 in Aloha, it's being relocated from its current site, the Hundred 85th In Pheasant. Site preparation and grading is underway, and, hopefully, we'll begin construction on that building within the next few months. Station 67, which is Downtown Beaverton, that's our busiest station. The design build team has been selected, and design is underway for a remodel. And at this point, we're pleased to say that we're able to keep both the engine and the truck and the time chief in the temporary course at that location.

On Station 17 And 19, there are concurrent projects. We selected P and C Construction, and they will be working through a progressive design build. And they will be working with Scott Edwards, architect on what the design looks like, and we're hoping that that will kick off, in the spring for both of those stations. Several of our board priorities for the stations placed in emphasis on what's referred to as a trauma informed design, which will be made to the next slide here in a second. And while the average community member in their lifespan will see three to five traumatic events, our first responders see approximately 500.

The design build of our new fire stations is, to provide space for them so that they can either get the time that they need to recover, relax in between calls if if that's what they need. But the data suggests and the research suggests that just a little bit of time in between calls to allow them to reset themselves helps them get them towards the end of their career to successfully and, hopefully, minimize the exposure from what they see throughout the thirty year career. Next slide, please. And then that's Struggle So this is an initiative that TBF and R has, been working towards since 2022. We partnered with Bouldercrest Foundation that provide to provide Struggle Well, which is multi day workshops and training for all of our people.

The framework of Struggle Well program was initially developed for military personnel and veterans and proved impactful for those dealing with post traumatic stress. It then expanded across the country to law enforcement and the fire service. Struggle World is a paradigm shift moving beyond the PTSD to a what we call post traumatic growth. It's a proven model to dramatically improve the health and wellness of first responders. And at the core of the program is the understanding that wildlife will have the struggle.

Each struggle can cultivate profound strength and help us achieve the life we want to live while anyone experiences struggle excuse me. While everyone experiences struggle, we can all learn to struggle well. So today, about forty percent of our staff have attended struggle training. Our goal is 60 because we know, historically, we did the 60%. That helps impart that in the culture.

Have internal trainers that are providing that training, and it it's been a huge success. I've gone through it. You know, it's why I went through a four day opportunity to sit through it, and it it did it does allow you to look at your internal struggle a little bit differently and process that. We continue to engage at the state legislature in the short session in the spring. He gave for our state investment to provide a onetime financial support to continue the district's internal program and expansion in the Washington County's first response agencies.

And while budget constraints at the state level did not result the desired outcome, this session may continue moving forward with our commitment to ensure that all agency personnel complete at the minimum of two day struggle well training. And last slide. There's a lot more that our great staff do, you know, throughout the year. There's a QR code. It gives, two thousand twenty five year review if you wanna watch that. It expands a little bit more on what we've done through this last year. And that completes the state of the district. I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions?

Council member, thank you. I mean, it's wonderful to have you all here getting present.

Thank you, councilor Yugarte. I just wanted to clarify. I know you had mentioned Station 17. It was going through some of that design process. Yeah. Are you looking to to start the renovation in 2026 or 2027? 2027. Okay. Perfect. And just thank you again for your presentation. I highly encourage all of my peers. I know mayor Dunbar recently attended the TBF and R community academy. Corinne, I have very fond memories of it, and I really encourage everyone on this on the status to attend and and really, you know, walk a mile in a firefighter shoes because those boots are much heavier than you'd anticipate.

Oh, I concur. Yeah. Thank thank you for coming, and, you know, just a special thank you to, you know, SACE seventeen. I think we tend to take a lot of things for granted in our daily life, and and and counselor said, seeing maybe from somebody else's perspective really helps you. And if you go for for the counselors, if you do go through the program, and I strongly encourage you to, just show up and ask a lot of dumb questions because they like to answer questions, at least they pretend like they did.

And I learned a ton, and I was very grateful all the time. But, also, one one other piece that I took away from the training was I was speaking with one of our local firefighters who's actually a state representative, and we are looking well, she and and the the legislature are looking into more rural fire, like, you know, how how do we deal with rural fire more effectively? And I think that's gonna be important. I know we're kind of on the verge of rural and and urban, but we're gonna be impacted by this a lot. So it's just something to think about as you hear these things come up and you have to think about what the state's funding.

It's something we need to think about a lot. And I don't know what the answer is, but I'm just saying something we need to talk about more.

Absolutely. Yeah. I know through we have a lot throughout the year, we have a lot of conversation and analysis of our data just to ensure that we've got the right resources in the right spot, you know, that, you know, we where the most where most of the calls happen, that's where the, you know, the crews tend to go. But our ability to be able to respond effectively, you know, even utilizing our mutual aid partners within county and within some of our joining counties help definitely helps with that. So

Yeah. And if you ever get a chance to look at the map of what our station covers, it's not small. Yeah. So Anything else? Thank you. Appreciate it. And Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry. Please.

That's okay. I was just gonna say councilor Morgan, I wanted to thank you guys for what you've done, what you're doing. I have two family members who have been in Toalton Valley Fire and Rescue for years. They're now retired. I understand what you guys do, you know, in my old way, so I appreciate you all. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. It's a pleasure. Appreciate it.

And with that, we move on to unfinished business. So next up is I don't believe we probably need to be in five meetings.

Yeah. You have a quick update.

Good. I got a note from Roman.

Oh, sorry. Can you just Sorry.

You. Councilor before she Great day.

It's been good.

I got a note from Roman. She said that next week, we are going to meet on the TTM pack to discuss two draft alternatives for future land use. And I was hoping we could get a quick update from Bill to share with the council about what is coming up about.

Sure. Councilor Ford. So I I mean, I don't have a ton to add to that. The ODOT and the consulting team basically just have prepared with the assistance of the technical advisory committee, kind of the utilities and the, transportation planning, the county, the state, have prepared basically three different maps regarding, what a what, what might go where in an UGB expansion, where roads might go, where uses can go, for the community to consider. And so, basically, that's just what's being perceptive on Tuesday night, the twelfth.

Yes. And it's for feedback and questions, and then to kind of get feedback from the community from the committee and then move forward with going out to the community and talking about, the information on those maps and what's what it's conveying and and the advantages of doing things one way in one map versus doing things a different way in a different map. So that's gonna kick off kind of a more intensive public outreach process, after the meeting on on next next Tuesday.

Thank you, Bill. Is do you have a sense about the acreage associated with these maps?

I believe, so I believe that the acreage, doesn't vary a ton between alternatives. It's really kind of a matter of given city adopted findings, what we heard from the relook committee, what we heard from the outreach meetings, the neighborhood meetings last late last fall or the winter. It's really kind of more where things can go so they don't conflict with each other, how transportation can be transportation facilities where they could be to do what they need to do, keep trips going certain ways versus going other ways, and what could be done to, you know, kind of limit negative limit prevent negative impacts from happening with different uses. Like, if you have a lot of employment uses and it's unavoidable that you need to have them near residential uses, do you do you plan a boulevard so that you kind of have some distance and view screen, or do you rely on berms and landscaping? Or how do

you how do you kind of make

things interface of where do you

put the where do you

put the facilities kind of help make that possible? So that's kind of more of the conversation to stay.

So just just to be clear, first, this is for you to update the council. I think those answers will come, counselor out of the meeting. So let's if you have an update, that's great. If not, let's, let's move on to the audio update, please.

Oh, let's, move on.

Thank you. Bill, on an

update? Yes. So f y twenty two is moving continues to move forward. At this point, the audit on f y '22 is really between Marina and UVF. I think what we learned this past week is there it was a misunderstanding by UVF regarding what Marina gave them, And I think there was a a weird delay in receiving what they thought they were supposed to get when they had gotten it already and so and so forth.

So there was some delay regarding that. So staff in the meantime city staff in the meantime, we wrapped up FY 23 journal entries so that whenever UVM is done with FY '22, financial statements can be ready FY '23 financial statements can be ready for for audit. So steps we kind of prefer to the f y '23 while the consultants are dealing with f

y 22 at this

point. Questions?

Bill?

Oh, sorry. Your question?

Just one question. Councilor Warren, when will the auditors actually attend the meeting and give an update themselves? Is that the meeting?

That is the the very last part. When the audit report is completely done, they will attend. And you will probably see somebody different from Savannah who appeared before counsel. She's part of the audit team, but she's not a CPA. The the project manager for it should be the one to attend and just kind of walk through whatever is important for them to report about if, you know, what their findings or recommendations that they have, that sort of thing. So you'll have an you'll have somebody attend probably remotely, but it'll it'll be something from the auditor

that that presents.

And so FY '22 then is, going to be completed in a month, in a week, in six months? Do you have a best guess? So

Yeah. No. I I know. Because it's it's kind of I mean, FY '22 is out of staffing at this point. So I I think at the last meeting, I think I said, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be before the next city council meeting. And I feel bad. I I I feel like I shouldn't have I show I feel like I should have answered slightly differently. I don't see why it won't be done in a two week time frame. It's just kind of UVF UVF has their schedule and their team working on certain things, not just ours. And I think there was just a misunderstanding and about what they had gotten and what they hadn't gotten.

And, you know, when Marina checks up with them, there's communication via email. But, I don't there's no reasonable unless something odd happens, like, weird communication. I don't see why it will take more than two more weeks.

So I'm assuming then that they'll be on the council meeting's agenda in your opinion?

So the answer would be councilor Warrington. So, no, it's okay. It's a great question. So it's up to you all. If you would like to have them appear whether or not it's done by then, you can. If it's done by then, absolutely, they will be here. So there's a little bit of I'm punting a little bit, I guess, is what I'm saying.

If if I could suggest, I think, having them here prematurely might not add value for trying to get through business. So maybe the hope is that it's done soon, the moment that it's done, I think council's desire to go so I should speak with Mike. Council's desire is to have them hear that satisfactory councilor Warren.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push real hard. I were just asking questions trying to clarify in my own mind what the time frame was going to be. So I think I understand when they appear, they appear pretty much. And, hopefully, to the next week, the next council session, but it might not be is what bottom line for this.

Counsel warranted. We, in our communication, work with them as soon as possible as always. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you.

Truly. Mhmm. Good. Everybody good? Yeah. K. Next agenda item is staff staff information gathering policy.

Thank you, mayor. So as a reminder, this comes from council Hagedorn's experience at a meeting with WACA, the 911 the 911 dispatch service county wide. And there was a elected official at a city somewhere that requested, sensitive data, 911 call data, and not on behalf of city council, for reasons that were apparently political. And so WCAG had asked member agencies to firm up, who it is that contacts reinforces firms up who contacts WCAG for any sensitive information. Last time we discussed this at the last council meeting, the discussion was, let's look into a policy.

Emily's here. What I will what I will say is after visiting with communicating with Emily about this, Emily's reaction was the whole policy isn't necessary, but perhaps an amendment to your rules to kind of clarify that. And, Lisa, was there anything you wanted to add to that? Or

I mean, I can I can, tell you why I propose just a brief addition to your council rules and then also tell you what I suggest? So the reason that I don't think an entire policy is necessary is what I just discussed in the URA board meeting, which is that when you're acting in your official capacity as a councilor, you don't have authority anyway to solicit or gather information from another government entity unless that authority is granted. So I suggest, like I said, a short rule in your council rules that says something like, in the council member conduct section, section g, something like a member of the city council may not solicit or gather information from external governmental agencies or organizations in an official capacity on behalf of the city unless, one, council as a body grants them that authority in a public meeting, or two, receiving information as part of their ex officio duties with the external entity. So I think that that, based on my understanding of the issue, would solve it. Thoughts?

I'm, like, devil's advocate here. It's my understanding that we should, as counselors, be engaged and asking questions. I think that there's a a line that we shouldn't cross. Like, for example, ask someone to do something on our behalf. Right? Like, enter into a contract. But I think I think I would like to set the tone that it's okay to ask questions. I just wanna make sure that is that aligned with everyone else, or and how would that would that conflict with that policy?

So I guess my perspective is that you, like, I guess, you know, you wanna be informed. Right? But in your I guess you can't do anything that I or any other member of the public wouldn't be able to do. Right? So, like, exploit your government contacts or and, I mean, I guess my preference where I was gonna start with is that you get information from SEP.

You run into issues of ex parte and other problems if you gather information externally. I know it's a hard line to draw, but that's what I would answer.

That's where you are.

I think the devil's advocate. If you're looking for data to put on a postcard for a campaign, that's a no no. If you're looking at for, data to support a community issue to drive decision making, that would be accepted. And then I think the general consensus is going through the protocol that Emily just described.

What else? So I think in most matters, city attorney keep us out of court. So I am personally in favor of what everybody's gonna do.

Can you read again exactly what you were saying in the draft?

A member of the city council may not solicit or gather information from external governmental agencies or organizations in an official capacity on behalf of the city unless, one, the council as a body grants them that authority in a public meeting, or two, receiving information as part of their ex officio duties with the external entity.

So counselor Warren here. So would that mean if I wanted to go to the courthouse in in Washington County and ask for how many houses sold in North Plains in whatever year that would be gathering information for me as counselor. Is that correct? Is that something I would

then not be able to do? So are you doing it for, like, for your role as counselor? Or for any personal

I mean, it's it's a totally random thing to say.

But let's say, yes. I was gonna collect some data from Washington County Courthouse. I think that this would prohibit that. I mean, if you wanted to do that in your personal capacity, this would not prohibit that. But if it was for the purposes of bringing something to counsel, then yes.

But to be clear, your personal and public stuff needs to be firewalled off, or you risk the city can't represent you if you go outside the balance. Correct? Correct. In other words, what you know outside of this room should not enter into this room unless it was brought to you from staff.

I mean, it's hard to Well say that, but but, yeah, it's

like you But

the fact we have your information from staff. Yeah. Yes.

Well, councilor.

Counselor, wanna say thank you, Emily, for putting this together. I am in support of adding this to council rules. I think it's good to have a clear defined boundary. And I think the I've seen some confusion confused faces. And I think part I just wanna clarify, correct me if I'm wrong, is there's a difference between going as a as a citizen and seeking information of, you know, let's just say, how many homes sold in Washington County or North Plains versus going out to the counter and saying, hey. I'm a North Plains City Councilor. Can you tell me how many homes sold in North Plains? Is that a good way to kinda rephrase it?

Yes. Okay.

So with that, I would just just share. I'm in full support of that of of moving forward as I believe had described for updating council goals.

Counselor warranty one more time. Sorry. So if I went and got the information as a person, would I be able to use that data as a counselor? So I

think that it's sort of a hard line to draw. I I would discourage you from, I guess, in your in your individual role as a counselor going out and seeking additional information. Right. Most of what you get should be in from your packet, from your staff here, most of the information that you should get. It's it's hard to draw a strong line because you're in the community and learning things every day, but I wouldn't I would say your purpose should not be to gather information for something that you're doing on the council because you don't have authority to do that.

Your authority is as a member of the spot. Yeah.

Council Weber. I think where it gets confusing is, you know, there's just a topic like, counselor Hager Hagerton was talking about tonight. Oh, I'm interested in charging stations, and I have somebody else that has their business somewhere else. I'm curious how other people do it. So I call and ask because I wanna understand, well, that'd be a neat thing. Maybe someday we could bring that to North Plains. So you're just kinda asking questions, conversing. I don't I guess what I don't understand is that a bad thing. You're just kinda gathering information on a potential issue. You're you're very clear.

Is not representing the city. But is it a bad thing then if they know you're on a committee or if you're on the council? Is it better you don't disclose that? I mean, to me, the gathering of information is not a terrible thing, and it seems like the whole freedom of speech, I totally get that you don't specifically request, like, nine one one information. But how far do we try to take this?

Yeah. I think maybe it would be better if I sort of synthesize some advice to you all in a follow-up email maybe. Because I I I don't think it's I don't think I'm explaining it well, and I wanna make sure that I address all of your concerns. So I think maybe we should I'll follow-up with that. This would only be from external government agencies.

So government entities is all that this rule applies to. So at that point excuse me. Council writing. At that point, we would ask staff. You know, as a whole, we would say, yes. That's a good idea. Staff, can you go to Washington County and tell us how many homes were sold? Then that information's fair and then shared amongst the council.

Yeah. That

is the best we're trying to that's the preferred

yes.

That point. If I might, I'll just to inject. The the part of the important point that's being, I think, isn't in the discussion is that you're all getting the information together. You're weighing it equally rather than one person having an advantage of any kind or it's that you're all deliberating the same information. I think that's the the goal.

You

know, I I I don't wanna give too much time. I think I was just gonna clarify, because I heard some some clarifying questions from councilor Weber. And, you know, I think the the analogy of councilor having a contact with someone that has ED expertise, you know, think 20 steps ahead to the future of what if and I'm just gonna speak in hypotheticals here, but what if counselor contacted her, contact for EVs. And then two years from now, this was a project that was going in, which resulted in a lot of controversy. There was quadratic quadraticial period.

And then you're having to disclose that there was ex parte contact versus Mhmm. Potentially, right, if if councilor Hagedorn said, hey. City manager Bill, I have this contact that you could consider reaching out to. Bill does the communication and then present it to us at the same time in a council report and then go from there. It's less messy, and I think the intent of this policy update is is really to stay out of the gray. Like, we just need to live in black or white, stay out of the gray because being over to an interpretation of the elected official is never a good good place. Right? You wanna live in black or white. So that's all I was gonna add just to maybe help give a different perspective.

Very good. Thank you. Counselor, how you work?

Well, Andy, to add to that, it's keeping me intense business oriented rather than personal oriented, which was the catalyst to the issue and how this started originally using your public your your public capacity to obtain information that was not for city business. So

So

I'm in full support of your recommendation, Emily.

Of of her coming back.

As is today. I have no I have no agreement since I think it's

So so there's two options. Let's report a question. There's two options. Either, we can adopt what Emily gave us, or we can ask her to come back with more clarifying questions. What do you wanna do?

I'm already done.

Got a little mic drop. What's that?

I'm blurred. That one was off. Okay.

That's what

I will be good with that. That's your warning.

Alright. Meaning adopted?

Yeah. Are you good with adopting it, or do you want more

I'm good with adopting it. That's what means.

Oh, you know, I'm just making sure. I just wanna clarify if there wasn't a question, then I question. Counselor, done. Go with it?

I don't wanna stop the the team. I I am not at the line with this project, but please proceed.

Counselor, you are gonna say yes. Counselor president said yes. Good.

I'm I'm gonna cancel your record. Yes. I'm good. I I think I just wanna give space for councilor DeForge. If there's still hesitation, just to make sure that we are aligned, but I defer to you. Great.

I think at this point, we have enough for consensus, and I think this is an important issue, but it's not something that we need to spend a lot more time on. So we can always come back to the nice part about our council rules. We can never be moved up once we want. So I think the direction of staff, based on what I'm hearing, is let's go to them adopted and then the council reports. Once we have further concerns, let's let's address those in the future, but let's at least have something to write in so that we can do the right thing. And I don't want to be in the grade because it's too risky. Right? So with that, let's move on to the social media policy update.

I'll introduce thank you, mayor, but this is mostly Emily Emily and her efforts. We've had a social media policy since 2020, and it's guided, it has guided social media posting, things on the website, that sort of thing. And questions, kinda councilor Reddick had questions about are we applying you know, what's our policy? Are we applying it equally to, certain things the city does and as well as some things that are done not by the city? You know, how how are we making decisions about what gets gets promoted on social media by the city and not?

And so Emily reviewed and said, it looks like those policies are need an update. So she's here, and she's giving you the red a big red lines version in the packet, and, she is here to discuss that with you. So thank you, everyone.

Yeah. I I don't actually have too much to say. I I guess I'll just sort of I think there were

a couple

themes that my changes or recommended changes follow. One is sort of coming up to date with what is actually done. For example, I understand that the comments have been turned off of almost all of the city's social media pages since for for years now, many years, and so there's no need for a comment moderation policy. That's a fine choice to make. So remove that comment moderation policy.

I also your personnel handbook handles how employees engage on social media when off of job. This is designed for, like, the city social media pages, and so I kind of removed that aspect. There's a lot more, I would say, First Amendment issues when employees are doing their own personal social media. So let's let the handbook do that heavy lifting and take it out of here. And then just some sort of best practice updates and cleaning up, I would say, is the other sort of general theme.

And that's all. I mean, I think of this as your item more than mine item. So I'm happy to answer questions or explain my recommended changes, but I don't have too much to say.

I'm still ready.

Mike drops more like this evening. Great.

Once they're ready. I I mean, I just saw saw an issue brought forward. We partnered with Emily, And if everybody likes the changes to the social media policy, we can move along.

Well, what does council think? Or does another council want to drop them?

Councilor Weber, you had some concerns when you brought it up. Are you comfortable they're all addressed with the changes that have been made? If so, I say, great. Are you you feel good?

Let me

I'm sure. Councilor Warren, any thoughts, comments?

I just wanna say thank you for putting in at the very bottom the next steps, the financial, all of that stuff that tells us clearly what this is and what you've stepped from us. So thank you.

Very good.

You're looking at me like, what what I know that

was fine. That was that was fair document.

But that was. Oh, well, thank you, counsel, everybody for doing that. I appreciate it.

It's very helpful. Good. Yeah. That's regarded good. That's where you're on good comments. But, counselor, running any of the well, I'll just say I like it. The thing I appreciate is we that Emily was able to take some things out, but maybe will keep us safe. And I like that it was more generalized for features. That way, the next council doesn't get stuck trying to have to do a bunch of updates. It should just be minor updates, hopefully. So that when city staffs on TikTok, we can.

I think councilor Redding here under my discussion topics was we've overviewed the current social media policy. Question was how staff evaluates and determines what content is shared. Is that covered in there? I don't have my computer done. So, yes, let me read that

section. So

I believe this addresses what you're asking. When the city's nonprofit partners request that city's social media accounts post or share information, the city may considering may consider posting items that are of general community benefit because they are educational, direct the community or resources, share community events, relate to city business, or otherwise provide a general benefit or service to the North Plains community. I tried to I I heard a need for objective criteria, which is what I tried to put in there, and I it's hard. No. That's perfect.

And I think it also goes right into factors considered in the decision making. For example, relevance, partnerships, operational considerations. Like, that covers that. And then how consistency is maintained across different types of organizations and requests. That so So I I that applies to nonprofit partners.

And then the only other, I believe, organization that's contemplated here is public other local public agency social media pages. Those are the two that are contemplated. You know? Okay. Bill, do you think the way it's written newly written is it wouldn't would have helped in a prior situation?

Yes. In the prior language, puts a subjective value call on staff in a manner that the easiest, safest thing to do is to not post anything that's not contracted by the city or, you know, or, you know, updates from other public agencies. But the the prior language had subjective language in it that gray it again. Don't be in the gray. Is some Third objective. Exactly. So The

the third objective. No.

Yes. This this does help. Yes. Yeah.

So I think you just need consensus for resolution. Yeah. So, right, we have consensus. I mean, everybody seems all over. We'll submit something. But and, again, the next part is if we see something we miss, we can always come back and fix it, but at least we have something that's more clear and objective. So with the council review, We're grateful. And with that, before we move on to new business, we're gonna take a five minute recess.

And what's the name of that?

Reset until '23 after. Alright. So under new business, we have the WCCLS, AGAs, won by Robin.

Thank you, mayor of Union Council. Robert Nudi, director of library administrative services. And I have just two quick slides for you, but now is the time when we choose to renew our membership in the Washington County Cooperative Library Services, WCCLS. We're governed under five year agreements, IGA intergovernmental agreements. It is not a coincidence that these coincide with the levy term.

So because this is the agreement that governs how those funds are used. And so this process is a multiyear process to review the funding and governance for the library cooperative. And I was the common thread for North Plains in there. It started out when Andy Barnard, city manager. Then I was in the meet work sessions with Rob Drake and then Bill Reed.

And now that process has come to a conclusion. And I think I'm very pleased with the outcome for North Plains and other smaller libraries because there was a substantial funding adjustment for us. It's nice to have Emily here. I can thank for reviewing the IGA. We also had our underwriters, the City County Insurance Services, CIS, review it.

I wish I had the final draft too included in the packet. That should be out any day now. But for North Plains, I think the only difference is gonna be well, the maps will be included, and then that insurance part was rewritten to comply with all the CIS members, the needs for the underwriter. So, you know, the goal of the of the project of reworking the funding and governance was just to support community needs by creating a library system with a physically sustainable future and improve the service consistency and equity across the county.

And go to the next slide.

So since the map wasn't included yet, I just this is the there should be no changes from this map. This shows our new service area at the green. The little red dot is the, like, the middle of the incorporated part of our service area.

You can see we have

a a large section of unincorporated Washington County. That's our service area. And this it used to not go below 26, and 26 is right on the red dot. But our College Ridge Elementary boundaries, basically, this map follows our elementary school boundaries, I will say. North Plains Elementary on the left well, on the upper left, and then Auqualee Ridge is kind of a crescent.

But we have relationships with those families that attend those schools. We visit the classrooms. And us and Banks agreed that the Banks School District should be in their service area, and the our elementary schools should be in our library service area. And then the other thing it was based on was where are people using the library the most. And so, you know, that this also reflects the actual usage of our library.

So it shifted a little bit to the West from where it was to the East. People were using the Hillsborough library, so added a little to the West and then we'll a little to the East, but our population numbers stayed about identical, at about 5,300 or 5,400. Excuse me. And then just the final part was the was the funding allocation. So this is a list of how with the new, thankfully, transparent and clear formula, because it had gotten a bit convoluted over time with the addition of available library and different things like that.

The formula just wasn't well clear to people anymore. And so with the new formula, we are at the minimum as in banks, and then one that's up to 7,500 in population. And so $512,000 a year. We're at two zero nine right now. It'll the intent is that it'll cover all of our base services, the operational part, and the city's responsible for the the capital, the building equipment, and that kind of thing.

So

I'll just go down the line if you're ready. Questions, comments, question I mean, thoughts.

Back on slide, I saw WCCLS. Was that a is that, like, the online portion? Oh, going up? Yeah. I I didn't go into kind of what WCCLS provides.

It it's outlined in agreement with what they provide, and that's their budget for that. So they provide the website, the all of the the website and online catalog, and then they pay for all the digital library items, the courier service that transports items between libraries. And then they also provide the free wireless Internet at every library location. So the city doesn't pay for the Internet connection at the library. That's provided by WCCLS centrally on their network.

I mean, those are the the big things they provide, and they have they do communications and marketing and and so forth also. But that's just quite a jump, so I was just thank you. Sure. Yeah. That's that's what it takes to, you know, support a cooperative of this size with those central services they provide.

Councilor Weber?

Councilor Weber, so to clarify, I mean, this is a very good bump in terms of the money coming in. Does that affect what you have to work with, or what it affects is more of the city's portion?

So we have an adopted budget that doesn't change with this. Our our adopted budget says what we can spend in the, and so that's what we'll spend. And so we did our best to estimate what our reallocation would be, and we estimated 440,000 because we just we're at a point in the process where we really were guessing, and it ended up at 512,000. So there so that those funds are available in the end restricted general fund for other uses as far as I'm concerned, but the budget committee will discuss that.

Yeah. Thank you, Robin. Yeah. No. Great question, council Weber. So at the budget committee meeting, I was gonna mention this in the the city manager report. But at the budget committee meeting, what we'll be doing is talking about then your question, actually. That'll be kind of the focus of one of the topics. So that is we have an adopted budget wherein f y twenty seven, four hundred x thousand dollars comes in from this agreement. And in f y twenty seven, because that money comes in, it means the city's general fund is spending less on the library because the county is injecting more money.

And with the budget committee, what we're going to talk about is the fact that while we we have a budget adopted that shows 400 something thousand dollars and and the shift in how the pie chart looks for different departments getting general fund money with this agreement. We'll talk with the budget committee about how the pie chart can potentially shift more because we have more county money coming in to fund the library than we expected when we did the budget. So, ultimately, what this means is that the county is going to be giving us more money to operate the library and the city's obligation to use general fund its own general fund money changes. And so that's going to be the conversation is how much it changes potentially and, what the what city council what the budget committee and city council might think about doing differently because of that. Because there's no norm about the standard is sixty forty, seventy thirty between cities and libraries that's determined by each city council.

So the only thing what is standardized about the new the new IGA is that, for for whatever your population size is, there's a standard basic level of service, and it's it's in tiers of population size. We and banks are the smallest. And so that's why we are getting the same amount of money. We have different population, but we're in the same tier of population in terms of what basic level of services for that category of population. So that's that is consistent.

That's a formula in this new agreement. But what is true is that however much more or what North Plains or banks or anybody else wants to do in addition to that as well as the capital facilities costs is up to the up to the city. So there's still there's still choices and things the city needs to fund, but the county is about to take on much more of the obligation of what it takes to to run what happens inside the library. We're getting we're getting more than double we're roughly double the amount of money that's coming in, to help pay for that.

Thank you.

Councilwoman. Quick question. Is there a question that you were asked that you have for the council regarding this, or is this a precursor to the budget upcoming budget meeting?

I request council support by consensus of the intergovernmental agreement as remaining a member member library in Washington County Cooperative Library Service for the next five years.

I'm I'm sorry.

I'm not sure what that means. Does anybody understand? So in order to be a member library and and have a library card that you can use at any Washington County library, we must sign this agreement. It's the same agreement for every member. If everyone's you know, Hillsborough has the same agreement as us, Beaverton, Tiger, Sherwood, Bates, Forest Grove, Cornelius, etcetera.

If we yes. So it's your I'm asking for your consensus on being a part of this cooperative, continuing to be a part of this cooperative, your support.

K. Any other

questions? No. I think I understand. Thank you. Sure. Council report.

Councilor directed.

No questions. I agree with those consensus.

That's where you're

I'm in support.

Alright. So under twelve three one, it says four four FTEs are required. And then in twelve three two, it says one exam. So is that five or four staff that are required?

Four is the four is the requirement for base level service.

So what is the twelve three? What is the FTE or sorry. Full time exempt form?

An exempt employee is someone who's exempt exempt from overtime, and so that's generally a a managerial or supervisory role. And so it was included in the base service that there would be someone who in that, who qualified as an exempt employee. So At each level.

Has to be exempt. Okay. That's what I was trying get concerned.

Yeah.

So I guess my comment is looking at the budget, if I take the amount, the personnel costs, and divide that by 5.7 FTE, which is what we budgeted for. Correct? Believe sorry. I should've caught you with this. But I believe that's what I looked at in the budget. That puts the cost at roughly 250,000 per bully, burden, employee, which is probably a little high, but that's what the budget says. I'm just gonna go with that now.

I'm I'm gonna say that our we have costs beyond our FTE, but they use FTE as a as the widget for the formula. But we have if you're looking at our current budget, we're buying all the books and stuff now and and that kind of thing. I'm not looking at me.

We're not coding that for personnel costs.

Oh, you're

talking about personnel costs? Hold on. Yeah. So this one were things that Bill said would be addressed in the budget. Future budget committee meetings as we prepare the next biennium budget, I believe.

Because, basically, what that means is we're and I'm just trying to call out some risk here because we're obligating the city

Oh.

To at least $500,000 a year based on that formula minimum in order to receive with effectively matching funds. So for five years and and this this is something that I just think everybody needs to be aware of before we make a decision is you're committing the city for five years to a minimum of 500,000 or current money levels, about a million dollars personnel costs. So this is something that needs to be considered. So my my suggestion again, number one, you guys all make the decision, is that I would I would think this would be something that because we're spending money, it should probably come go to the budget committee first before we provide consensus. But that's just my opinion.

So I will just throw that out there. I will ask council what would you like to do. It seemed like we have consensus, and I'm fine with that, but I'm also giving my input.

Oh, Bill. Sorry, Bill. Mayor.

Did I miss did I miss You're

at budget numbers for the final two year labor costs. So the labor costs you're thinking of divide that quarter.

Yeah. Divide it by two. So thank you. This is why we double checked things before, and I wanted to make sure because I was a little trying to figure out how we're spending that much money on personnel, but that makes more sense now. Okay. So hold on. Maybe we'll do math again. Okay.

So I take that math.

I was wrong. I'm very happy that I was wrong, so was very frustrated by why this didn't make sense to me, and that's why I'm gonna ask. This is why we ask questions. So okay. So what we're we're not obligating to this. So I take back everything I said. That makes more sense now. This this is why where I got stuck this today while I was reading through this. So what that means is this and correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, I think I understand this now, and my apologies.

I think what I hear is then the the the local option levy for the library will cover the mandatory staffing level if I read this correctly. And then currently, on top of that, we cover the two additional. So okay. So that makes more sense now.

That's that's

I'm very sorry. That was my fault. This is why I wanted to come ask. Yeah. Ask staff because I couldn't figure out why it didn't make sense.

The Miami influence people up all

the time.

Don't worry about it.

Sorry. Okay. Thank you, Bill.

That's

In library board, there's always a

question about that. It's okay.

Yeah. No. It's okay. I've I've when I heard you say that, mayor, I thought I need to work at the library.

Yeah. I That's what

I thought.

It was it really this is really been bothering me.

I thought you were talking about the whole budget.

Was I

was a freaked out. Okay. So okay. So now I'm I'm I'm in a better place. I was very uncomfortable with this, but now I'm not because because he just just give me my rationale. I just wanted to understand. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm just nervous when we obligate the city just to do things on top of tax territory paying the levy. So I'm just trying to make sure that we're not putting ourselves in a position without going through budget committee where it could cost us extra money. So Yeah. That being said, I'm okay with it now, and I'm really sorry, and I'm grateful to staff help me. So everybody, any more questions?

Just just one. Please. The budget you're talking about, everybody's talking about, does this impact it a lot, a little, or none? I mean, are we coming in at the same amount of money, or is this going to increase?

Oh, I can oh, sorry. Okay. So this it

so it's a two step process. At the end of the day, after a two year transition in in constant if you compare one year versus the other, our costs are actually gonna go down modestly. There's a feature of this IGA that we that Robin didn't bring up, because it gets in the weeds a little bit. But part of to answer the question from councilor Reading about the WCCLS allocation is that up until next year, the life of WCCLS system, each library has done its own collections. That means each library has had staff doing different, you know, collections, and and and that's their time spent and their cost.

Materials. Materials. Exactly. But with this agreement, in order to cut costs at all of the different libraries and for efficiency purposes, it's more efficient and less costly to do collections, system wide at the town. And so when all is said and done, actually, I'm gonna be comparing apples to apples year to year. There's a modest decrease in our costs.

And that's maintaining our high standards because we do require a master's degree for librarians at our library. And we do offer we do have premium early literacy services for the community that some other libraries don't have. We have a higher standard there, too. And those are things that we're paying for on top of the base service levels that because they're important. We've heard from the community that those are important. And

so Yeah. I guess I'll just summarize on that is what we're what the city is committing to for the next five years, the county is paying for

Yes. Is the bottom line. They are paying the all all of our operational base level services costs with this new allocation. Good.

Just just to be clear, the county is paying for the tax dollars. So just from it comes from the citizens. So just to clarify. But, yes, it is coming through the levy. So the levy has passed by the voters.

Yes.

So if there's no other question, I'm gonna ask for a roll call vote just because it's an IGA, and I want to make sure we are a 100% accurate. So please review just so we do it right.

Sure. Thank you. Counselor Hagedorn? Yay. Counselor Reddy? Yay.

Counselor

Warrington? Yay. Counselor DeForge? Yay. Councilor Yugarte? Yay. Councilor Weber? Yay. And mayor Dunbar.

Alright. And if you're gonna say yay, I feel like there

should be

be Jazz Anderson? Alright. And thank you for clarifying. And, again, my apologies. I misread it, and that's why I think I asked questions very confusing. So with that, think we're good on that topic. Thank you, Rami.

Thank you. Good evening.

And now Dustin. See the mustache here.

Looks good. Hello? From

the works director, the evening council mayor. And, this, staff report is basically asking for feedback more than anything. If there's any questions, I am all ears right now.

Council, questions or feedback? Or

Councilor Weber. So this was a person you tried to hire before, listed the job, but couldn't find somebody. And the feeling was that because we weren't paying enough, so this is that open spot that's still open, but we're gonna attract a person by paying more. Or is that explain a little background, please.

Long story short, that's the basic gist of it. And so, for example, the, the city of, I think it's Lake Oswego has a superintendent position open for roughly the same, price range. Not not price range, but the same pay scale. And superintendent manager, there are kind of titles that are interchangeable. It's kind of like, in the construction world, you'll have a project manager, estimator, and then you'll have a superintendent.

They work side by side. And then a lot of times, you'll have the same thing, a public works director, and then you have a operations manager or you have a superintendent or you'll have, like, an assistant director. So it it's kind of like an operations versus engineering and admin more than anything. But, yes, that's for lack of better description. Yes.

When this position was offered, one of the comments that was made was that it was below the current pace or the pace that that individual had as a senior worker. And the only person who actually had the water distribution to who applied for this position previously when it was listed as a supervisor ended up taking a position in Eastern Oregon as a public works director. So that's the kind of qualities that we are looking for, and the previous pay scale and previous job description was very significant. And in Washington County, it's really hard to attract someone with a water distribution too. And so, realistically, with this new position, I will probably be recruiting people who probably don't even have a water distribution too, but maybe a three or four lot of experience behind them, potentially.

And, also, this could be a longer improvement. I I hope it wouldn't be, but there are people with water distribution certifications that are in need statewide. So this is something that's gonna attract some good experienced talent.

I just have a question. How many water bureaus, whether departments do we have in in metro or or in the? I'll talk I mean, I'm just curious. I'm just thinking now because I didn't even think about that because I deal with PDs in Washington, but not here.

I do not have that answer right off the top of the house. But the big contenders that we have to deal with

is Joint Water Commission.

Oh, okay. Yeah. There's Joint Water Commission. There's, Valley Water District. There is, you know, West Lope. There's, you know, Fayetteville's Burrow, Beaverton. They're all

out of boat.

Around this is what I was getting at.

Yeah. It's it's it's all over Washington County, but some it's it kinda gets murky. Mhmm. And I think Cornelius and Forest Grove have their own, you know, departments as well. But it gets kind of murky in there, but they're all kind of vying for the same personnel.

Yeah. And we budgeted for the train.

I'm assuming? Mayor, that's correct. Yes. To get a little bit of the weeds on that, when the budget was put together and adopted by you all, we had an employee who had just gotten a certification. And then right after July 1 left for the city of Hillsborough. And so all of this could be because we just didn't have a position and pay for it. Okay. Makes sense. And so we're we're public works in particular with water and certifications, it's it's kind of the hardest or the most difficult department to try to operate at about a 10% discount for pay compared to other places. I mean, people get punched.

So, this whole time, we've had budget for this for the person who left in July, who is a higher end employee that that hasn't been spent. So they're we have the resources.

I mean, what does council wanna do? Or what do you think? Councilor Guerte?

Thank you, Councilor Guerte. I just had a a quick question for Dustin. I noticed it says required in time of hire having that level two certification. Correct. And I was just curious in your expertise if this is realistic or if you see a lot of people who are trying to get into the second position and then need their certification after the time of hire. Right

now, this is an operational need, but we need someone with a wider distribution to hire to become our direct responsible charge. Right now, because of that former employee who left, and TBWD pulling out of the agreement, I had to rush to make a contract with Northwest Natural Water Services, and so they are serving as our DRC. And so this is kind of one of those things that the idea is not for this manager to be the DRC because, ultimately, we have a water distribution lead that we are kind of grooming to be the the water expert. And so the person that we're looking for is going to have that water expertise to help guide and mentor on this water mission water institution lead position and serve as kind of like a fail safe or a backup because you never know our water news water institution lead could get poached by another company or another, organization. But if we have someone in place in a more exempt status and they're getting paid, you know, a a, you know, a good salary to be able to stay, long term, that's that's one thing one of the hopes, for this particular position.

Absolutely. That and that's that's actually kinda why I'm asking this question because I what I don't wanna have is we open up this position. And then, again, we don't have a qualified pool of applicants. And then we're coming back to council and and saying, hey. You know, we actually need to be willing to pay for their certification. And then I think about, you know, past past experiences. And so I'm just trying to think again really forward thinking, not to be a worst case scenario, but I just wanna be realistic, and this is your area of expertise. So I I I was just curious what your thoughts were about can we find someone with this now, or are we gonna have a hard time?

Well, yeah, counselor, you're gonna say it's probably gonna be a long recruitment is my guess. And kinda get some background information. I don't wanna get into the weeds too much in this, but, you know, my 25, you know, years of construction public works experience, I've got a lot of water experience behind me, but I do not have a water distribution too. But I my experience is on, like, the engineering side and the inspection side. And so there's a lot of different skill set when you're actually in the pump stations and you're maintaining, you know, the water levels in the chlorine, there's there's it's a completely different skill set that I could go there and I could get I can take the test right now and I can pass, but I still actually have to have that time in ops station in order, to be able to get that certification.

So I can take the test, but I don't need that time, you know, in you know, to be able to meet those, specific requirements because, the the state of Oregon is actually pretty stringent, which kinda goes into why this this why this particular certification isn't such high degree because it is a very highly skilled thing. And, of course, you know, public works director wearing many hats and having a, you know, a certification to be working in the penthouse on a day to day basis is not a good use of public works director time. So

Okay. Thank you. And I think just my last question is if you had a a crystal ball to anticipate, how how long until you can fill this vacancy? Is it ninety days, six months? If I open the

recruitment this week, the best case scenario is I get someone in July 1. The odds of that happening, I don't know because I have not offered this position at a competitive pay rate. And so that's one thing that I'm going to find out very quickly to see how many qualified personnel because I I'm I'm expecting to get a lot of individuals who automatically are going to get dropped from the list because they do not have water distribution too. And but that is going to be a definite requirement. And so this could lead into potentially next budget cycle if I do not recruit right.

Okay. Thank you.

So just to clarify, you're looking for a consensus to go to post?

Consensus and any feedback or just kind of information gathering and just kind of more transparency about, hey.

This is what we are doing and wanna do it again. Counsel,

what do you what do are they pretty good with this? Does anybody have concerns? Do you have feedback? Obviously, we need water. Yes. Counselors. Yes. Counselor. Counselor. Post it. Let's get recruiting and maybe I was.

I thank you, councilor mayor. Thank you. For coming.

Alright. And now we're on to the city manager report.

City mayor, I'll try to keep this brief. It is 08:56. And I know you're welcome. Things to do. So just a few highlights.

Pleasure committee, next a week from Thursday, the fourteenth. We'll be getting the deputy agenda packet, the information, and materials out for that a little bit later this week, but we're gonna focus on the Washington County Sheriff's Office FY '27 contract if there need to be any, new things done with that. We will dig a bit more into the library the corporate library system IGA and what the revenue allocation means. We'll talk about the roof for this building and what choices we have after Dustin got some quotes on different choices on on repairing it. Those are kind of some of the some of the big topics that are just looking ahead, you know, where our revenues and expenses going, that sort of thing.

So mid biennium on the fourteenth. Community garden, it, we will we're gonna have that cleaned up and sprayed and agreement in hand with the Robinsons this week. So by Wednesday, we'll be announcing tomorrow. It should be tomorrow. Apply for a garden plot.

And here's the new agreement, on the garden application. It's going to have a lot more of a code of conduct with teeth in it regarding how one conducts themselves, in the community garden. That the community garden is a wonderful thing. The Robin sets are wonderful partners on having it on their property every year, but, we have a new code of conduct because things end up getting expensive for the city in terms of staff going doing something this, that, and the other. And so this is a movement in the right direction of putting some accountability on the people who use the bed themselves.

And then finally, in the Friday, Friday five a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that OPB was looking at doing, some kind of feature on North Plains. So their local show, Think Out Loud, has scheduled a town hall, basically. They're gonna host a town hall at Auphilani Ridge Elementary School on June 11. And moving through and up to June 11, they are going to promote kind of just a general survey of the population around here just to kinda learn what's on people's minds, what are they concerned about, what they think are kind of the community's priorities. You know, it's kind of a general survey.

We've seen it. It hasn't really been gone gone out and, been heavily promoted. The city will promote the survey. It's going to be open to, the North Plains area. It's not city only. So it's going to anyway, so we'll be working with OPB staff to try to get as many people to to fill that out as possible. We have a lot of people in this community who do not show up at city council meetings and don't register, you know, kind of what's on the line. So our work with OPB will try to get people who are more complacent or quiet or whatever you wanna say. We wanna get them participating, Mark, you know, kind of different. So that's what we'll be working on with OPB.

And then on the eleventh at Amalani Ridge at 6PM, I believe, there will be kind of a a hosted show, think out loud, where people will be asked questions, and it'll be kind of a conversation recorded, and then it'll play on their daytime show. And then with that, I've that's kind of all I'll keep in the report at least for now unless you have any questions. Questions from Sue Ann?

I hear none. Move on to transfer reports. Thank you, Bill. That's good. So councilor Rudy, start with the councilor Robert.

I attended, another MAC meeting. They continue to be in executive session. We have another one next week, so nothing to report on that. I have joined a very unusual group that only meets in secret. So I don't

know what that says. That's where

we are. Just a practical thing. The pack that's getting going, if possible, maybe that's already planned. If we could just get copies of the maps and all that kind of stuff as that becomes available, that would be helpful. A a practical matter, you know, we had kind of a lively exchange on this whole right away.

It sounded like the city had a game plan for actually the loading zone, the food bank issue. If that's happening the way it was gonna happen, I disregard this. But if there are changes being made to that, loading zone and if there are perhaps costs associated with that, I would just ask that those get presented not to make a decision, but simply in the, spirit of transparency, what is the new plan, and are there any costs associated with it? Thank you.

K. Councilor Morancon.

I was able

to attend the North Planes Chamber of Finance board meeting on April 28 at 06:00 in the Senior Center. Some topics they covered were the North Plains travel guide at North Plains businesses, a broadcast text messaging system they're trying to get together. They sponsored the All Ford Power Show sponsorship. They went from all the city events to see if they are involved, how much they shouldn't be involved, some workshops, etcetera. Their next meeting is May 26, 06:00 in, the senior center, so I would encourage anybody to attend. It is an open meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Borch.

Councilor Borch here, attended the metro meeting, and one of my takeaways was they were concerned about extreme heat events, and they were planning for cooling centers. Again, I just wanted to confirm that we would have something available for the sake of your citizens in this

The library is our cooling center here

in

town, miss Robin. Right? No? Did it change?

Had we leave a library of the place to get cool? We don't qualify as a cooling center per se. It's just a terminology thing. But Oh. But you are correct that it is a place to get cold. Yes.

It's usually been posted on the website that they provide. We have they have water,

and it's air conditioning.

So the terminology Yeah. It's always it's called us. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. And I attended the Strong Towns community meeting, and they were they've been hearing that there's more expansion conversation coming from those from. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Councilor Yugarte.

Thank you, Councilor Yugarte. I'll keep mine brief. I have not had any ex officio duties. I do just wanna say thank you specifically to Laurie. This is your your week to celebrate and just echo just the the hard work we've heard today during public comment regarding city staff and all the work that you guys do behind the scenes. The last thing I just wanted to share is this Saturday is Northlake's cleanup day. So great time to get rid of some junk in your in your house. And with all the great weather we've had, Recology is also gonna accept for yard debris on May 9 as well. So good time to do some yard work as well. With that, I'll pass it over to counselor.

Yeah. Counselor here. I have nothing to report this session. Okay.

I have I attended the spring wellness event at peak. Apparently, they changed the dates, I'd recommend it. I wanna change that for me. And I also will have EDC on Wednesday, and this time, I will be there, and I won't miss this one.

Yep. And

that's all I believe. That's all I have.

I'll make some.

With that, just make sure you check the calendar that we're just attending the. And thank you, Laurie, for being able to see the report. And, this is an advisory. Take a look at the ODOT or the Highway 80 is gonna get some traffic improvements. So probably long overdue. And with that, we will by Jeremy, you read first. Sorry.

I read this before the agenda. Right?

Okay. So I'm gonna ask the lawyer to read, and then we'll turn into a.

The city council will now meet executive session under ORS one nine two dot six six zero parenthesis two parenthesis I to review and evaluate the employment related performance of the chief executive officer who does not request an open hearing. Only news media representatives and staff designated by the city council are permitted to attend the executive session. News media representatives, staff, and council members are respectively directed not to report on any of the discussions that occurred during this session except to state the general subject as previously announced. The council will return to regular session if there is a need for action on the executive session item. No final action or decision may be taken in executive session.

Any materials distributed will be collected by the city recorder at. Bill and I are going to step out. Oh, and I'll put the sign on the door and lock the door so that nobody can come in. So all that you guys will need to do is, Mare, if you could text me when you're done, and then I'll stop the meeting on Zoom and just close the laptop and turn off the lights, and everything else should be good to go. Cool. Thank you. Questions?

Thank you. Bye.