City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the city council meeting for July 14th, otherwise known as Bastille Day. So unfortunately the French didn't celebrate it very well because they lost. So what we'll do is call to order and if you could establish a quorum.

Councillor Evelyn. Here. Mayor Fitch.

Here.

Councillor Nielsen. Here. Councillor Osborne. Here. Councillor Patrick. Here. Councillor Wedding. Here. Councillor Zwicker. Here.

Please stand for the blessing by Father Sagey Thomas from St. Thomas Catholic Church, and then we'll have the pledge.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege of gathering this evening to seek wisdom and guidance for the leaders of our community. We ask that you grant the members of our City Council discernment, integrity, and spirit of cooperation as they make decisions that affect our neighbors and shape the future of Redmond. Please inspire them to approach every challenge with fairness and genuine desire to serve the common good, fostering a community where everyone can thrive. Strengthen them in their commitment to listen to the diverse perspectives and to work together towards solutions that benefit all who call this place home. We place their efforts in your hands, trusting in your wisdom to guide them. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thank you, Father. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, So we have a couple of things kind of off agenda today on city announcements. And first, we're just going to do a recap of the July 3rd, July 4th celebration here in Redmond. I think we have a little bit of a slideshow. So while the slideshow is going, I just want to issue some thanks and invite the council to also make any comments they want to. But this was a great event put on by a lot of people with a lot of hard work. Here in City Hall, Heather, Jason, James, Mona, Trish, Josh Wedding, Corey Murray, Megan Penninger, Megan Gassner, all really did a lot of great work. I also want to... Thank the Historic Landmarks Commission for all their work and the players from Ridgeview who were fantastic on July 3rd. And we have our own Ken Burns for Redmond history and the nature of Barry Branagh. We did a great job recapping a lot of history in Redmond. RCAP, our Redmond Commission for Art in Public Places, did a great job of getting the new art in Centennial Park displayed. Um, we had fantastic help from both, uh, public works, transportation and parks, but the star of the show was, uh, Chuck Arnold, um, who is a natural born MC. Uh, and I really want to thank the city council for all the great work you guys did in the pie contest, the, uh, dog costume contests and Jay, great job with the landmarks commission. So it was a really great event, and the parade was, I think, the biggest Redmond ever had. So it was a great way to honor the 250th anniversary of our country. And we're really appreciative of all the people that came and had a great time. And if anyone on the council wants to comment on that, now would be a good time.

I'm just going to say I had a great time. I enjoyed the dogs. I ate too much pie. I need the recipe for the nectarine pie. Hello. I hope we do it again. It was a lot of fun. I think a lot of hard work with a lot of great teamwork. I love the kid actors doing the historic. The art was really pretty. Thank you, Shannon, for helping with that.

So now that we got the sunshine of the July 3rd, July 4th event out of the way, we can look at the dark side.

So that's why we asked Devin and Tom Mooney to come up.

Good evening, gentlemen. I really didn't mean it that way, but I guess I did.

Well, that was a heck of an introduction. I don't know why you would talk about Tom like that. That's not very nice. Yeah, hello. Devlin Lewis, Chief of Police at Redmond Police Department. And with me is Fire Marshal Tom Mooney. We're just going to give you an update on the July 4th weekend and kind of go through everything that happened. So for the calls for service that weekend, we had 298 total calls for service. Throughout the weekend, we made 11 physical arrests that weekend. When we come down to talking about actual firework calls for service, we had 27 total firework calls for service, ones that actually came in through 911 dispatch. And then we have the email where people can email us about fireworks complaints, and we received 42 total email complaints on fireworks. During that time, while we were responding, we gave out 12 warnings, zero citations, and seized one box of fireworks. So to recap, 4th of July is always our busiest day and night of the year. You know, every year we see that. We try to staff up for it. This year was no different. One of the reasons, you may ask, how come 12 warnings and no citations? Probably the biggest reason was our officers would maybe see an aerial firework or they would get called to an area. By the time they could get into that area, of course, the people they would contact were just lighting off fireworks that were technically legal on July 4th. And so nobody would really talk about who lit the mortar or the aerial one, and so they were just left with groups of people So they would kind of give out a warning and be like, hey, if we have to come back here, and then they're off to the next one. I'll let Tom kind of speak real briefly to what the Redmond Fire Department kind of encountered over that weekend, and then we'll continue on the presentation.

Sure, thanks, Devin. So as you can see, we did respond to a total of 11 fires. We unfortunately did have three structure fires that we responded to. We know for sure one of those was caused by illegal fireworks. The other one was an undetermined fire at this time. We did experience a very significant brush fire on the northwest side of town. Currently, that is most likely caused by the use of illegal fireworks in the area. And then we did have other smaller fires caused by most likely the disposal of fireworks, people gathering up their trash like they're supposed to, but throwing it away a little too sooner than they should have.

Perfect. So these next few slides are just going to be little clips of some of our Revenue Police officers' body-worn camera videos on them responding to different fires that we encountered throughout the July 4th weekend. This first one is going to be one of our officers responding to the fire that broke out at the fairgrounds. Same thing. This is also going to be at the fairgrounds, just coming in. One of our officers coming in from a different side.

Oh, there's a tree.

Yep.

I caught it. Okay. Well, okay. Maybe I'll run over this. I just make sure there's nobody south of it.

So as you kind of see there, the fire at the fairgrounds, you know, it was started during the fireworks show. And we'll talk about this more as we get further into the presentation. One of the issues with that was when the fireworks show was going off at the fairground, we didn't have any fire apparatus on site at the fairgrounds for a fire. And it makes sense because they were all out at the corner fire, you know, trying to control that large wildfire that was threatening homes and causing major evacuations. The next one is our house, one of the house fires we responded to on 27th Street.

Is this one evacuated? Is this evacuated? Okay. Back evacuated.

Okay.

Dispatch for all 20. We're saying both involved houses are evacuated. Two structures engulfed. Okay.

On the side of this house.

Okay. The blue house.

Okay. So we have these three. These three are out.

These three are out? Do we know about the back door?

No. Do you want me to go over there? No.

Okay.

And so we'll talk about this again more. Those fires, like Fire Marshal Mooney said, undetermined cause. We don't believe they were caused by fireworks. We'll talk about it more. Again, the reason why we're highlighting that is during that time, that takes several of Redmond fires apparatus and other mutual aid apparatuses to that call. So then it leaves the city with no fire apparatus. We do have another fire that breaks out later on, which did happen. And as well, you may have noticed one of our officers on that video, Officer Rutledge, and you might remember him. He's one of the ones who kicked in the door and rescued the family two years ago on the 4th of July from a fire that was caused from fireworks. And then this is early on July 5th, and this is just east of 17th Street.

I called 911. I'm the first one that seen it.

Perfect. Whose camp is this?

Charlie and Marina's old place.

Charlie and Marina's old place?

Yeah. Oh, are you okay?

Yeah, I'm good. And dispatch 147. There's also nearby vehicles, and there's...

Sorry, I might get burnt.

No, yeah.

All right, and I'm going to turn this back over to Tom. You can talk about more. This is going to be about all the kind of fire calls that they handle throughout the weekend and goes into the amount of, you know, fire resources that these calls take and why, you know, when some of these fires broke out, we didn't have any fire resources available.

sure so in front of you is basically all the data of all the fires that we had from starting from july 3rd until july 5th so on this data you can see some of all the units and then the kind of the number in parentheses are the personnel assigned to those apparatus and so basically for us to effectively uh fight a structural fire it takes at least 15 firefighters And so on duty, on shift, we have at least 16 personnel on shift at all times. That's our minimum staffing number. Anytime we have a confirmed working structure fire, that eats up all of our resources. That's the downtown station, the Terrebonne station, and the Kleinfall station. So all those stations are responding in to effectively mitigate the fire that's happening. And so if any other incident occurs within our fire district at that time, whether it's a cardiac event, a motor vehicle accident, another structure fire, our resources are already tapped and we're gonna be starting to pull in from outside resources, whether that's Ben Cloverdale, IT COULD BE ANY OTHER AGENCY. SAVING GRACES, WE HAVE WHAT WE CALL MUTUAL AGREEMENTS WITH THOSE AGENCIES. SO WE CAN JUST CONTACT DISPATCH AND REQUEST THOSE AGENCIES TO RESPOND IN. BUT THE BAD THING IS WE'RE PULLING RESOURCES OUT OF THEIR AREA ALSO. SO WE COULD BE LEAVING THEM SHORTHANDED AT THE SAME TIME ALSO. So we want to make sure that they have adequate resources also. So we want to make sure that we are doing the best job that we can with the resources we have and not constrain another agency at the same time. um with the corner fire um like devin mentioned uh so the five before the fireworks show started that started probably about half this fire started probably a half an hour before the fireworks show actually started all of our resources were dedicated that not only with u.s forest service blm but we also had sheriff's office redmond pd was there i think we had osp we also had black butte we have UNITS FROM LA PINE, SUN RIVER, SO WE ALREADY HAD OUTSIDE RESOURCES ALREADY COMING IN TO HELP US, AND THEN WE HAD TO HAVE OUTSIDE RESOURCES COVERING OUR STATION IN CASE THERE WAS ANOTHER INCIDENT HAPPENING SO THAT WE COULD COVER THAT CALL IF IT WERE TO COME UP. So just to kind of give you an idea, I did put on there, if I thought it was fireworks related, you can see we did have some things occur. So the issue we had at the fairgrounds with that fire was normally we would have a brush rig staff there when the fireworks show is underway. Unfortunately, that corner fire did come in and that hit up all of our resources and everything was there and we couldn't be there for the fireworks display like we normally would be. When I spoke to the pyrotechnician to figure out what happened with that display, it sounds like one of the grand finale cakes when they initially lit the primary fuse, half of the cake ignited and then it kind of fizzled out and then they have a backup fuse they ignited. And when the backup fuse was ignited, THAT OTHER HALF OF THE CAKE WENT UP ABOUT 50 FEET IN THE AIR AND IT STARTED TO COME DOWN AND EXPLODED ON THE GROUND. SO UNFORTUNATELY IT WASN'T ANYTHING THROUGH THE OPERATOR'S FAULT AND IT SOUNDS LIKE IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE WAY THE GRAND FINALE CAKE WAS MANUFACTURED AND PUT TOGETHER.

IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAD THE COINER FIRE AROUND 8 SOMETHING AND THEN FAIRGROUNDS LEFT OR 10 AND THEN YOU HAD THESE DUMPSTER FIRES. DID YOU HAVE ANY RESOURCES TO GO THERE AT MIDNIGHT OR SO?

Yeah, so we had other agencies covering us. We even had Cloverdale in the city responding on calls for us.

Any questions so far? John?

I did have just one question. We had a very limited visibility into the structure of fire between the two houses. I remember, uh, several months ago we did some kind of education for the council and community involvement around defensible space and ladder fuels and things like that. And from the video that we saw, it looked like what may have been the primary cause of the fire spreading from one home to the other was that the defense that joined the two properties. Am I misreading that or is it too soon to tell or is that was a contributing factor?

You know, it's hard to say that, you know, wooden fences obviously are a contributing factor to fire spread. That's why we always recommend a five foot buffer away from the structure. I couldn't tell you if that was a main contributing factor to the fire spreading, but it is a significant fuel load between the two houses.

All right, move on to the next slide. So the next slide is just a little bit of a comparison to other surrounding cities in Central Oregon. These cities have full and complete firework bans, meaning no using or selling of any sort of fireworks. The first one is the city of Bend. They're quite a bit larger than us, right? Probably almost three times our size. They've had a ban in place now for three years. So over the same time period this weekend, they had two fire incidents. One of those fire incidents was the one on top of Pilot Butte caused from their annual 4th of July fireworks show, which I think happens about every year. In Sisters, they also have the same complete fireworks ban and they had zero fire incidents. Sun River, same sort of ban, zero fire incidents. And then there's us, the city of Redmond. We had a partial ban. We allowed fireworks on the 4th of July and also selling of fireworks was allowed for weeks up until the 4th. And we managed to have 10 fire incidents. So I just wanted to call that out and just kind of highlight the difference when you're looking at the data between us and our surrounding cities in Central Oregon. And then on the last slide, this is a question slide, but I also picked these two pictures for a reason. These pictures were taken just a few minutes apart. One is a view of the Fairgrounds Fire from East Antler, the other one is a view from the Corner Fire on Northwest Way. And as you already heard Tom speak to it earlier, When that fairgrounds fire broke out, all the resources, rightfully so, that we had pretty much all in Central Oregon were on that corner fire. And so I think we could be, again, another year we made it through, not because we're necessarily skillful, but because we're lucky. The wind was blowing the correct direction, and luckily the wind was blowing it away from the fairgrounds and all the structures at the fairgrounds. So just wanted to kind of leave that there. But obviously it's time for questions.

Any questions?

In the corner fire, do you know how many homes were under an evacuation order or under kind of the get-ready order? Do you have those numbers offhand?

I don't off the top of my head. I can get them for you, though.

Okay.

Do you have a ballpark figure, more than a dozen, less than 100? I don't.

Yeah, I'd have to get it for you. I can tell you it's more than a dozen.

It's difficult to speculate, but it does seem like... Good timing. community members may have felt more comfortable integrating illegal fireworks into legal fireworks displays. But that aside, would it have been easier to write citations if you didn't have to differentiate between what was legal and what was not legal?

Yes. From a law enforcement standpoint, we believe it would be much easier to do enforcement and citations if we just had a complete ban. Because like I mentioned earlier, talking with the officers that were working that night, they would either be responding to a fireworks call or they would, you know, an illegal one or they would see an aerial. By the time they got into that area, there would be several people letting off, quote unquote, fireworks that were illegal on the 4th of July. So if we had a complete ban if we saw an aerial and we came around the corner And there's people just lighting off your normal, you know Let's say a normal fireworks you buy at the fireworks stand then yeah, we would be able to issue citations It wouldn't really matter if we missed who let off the aerial or the mortar So we believe it would make it much easier for enforcement.

I think just be a simpler message all the way around to people Chief I just want to say

I think that we don't want to be just lucky anymore. I think it's very important that we're just not lucky because, like you said, any way the wind blows will make the difference. So with your expertise and the fire chief's expertise, I think that you guys really want to say what we think you want to say. So why don't you just say it?

I mean, if you're asking me for an opinion, I think my job is, as a police chief, is to keep the community safe, right, at all times. And so my job tonight is to bring you all this data. Ultimately, you guys are the decision makers. I'm not the decision maker. But after three years in a row of this, I think that what's going to help the police department and me keep the community safe would be, yes, to make a fireworks ban.

Mr. Mooney?

You know, I will support any decision that you make, obviously. So our job, like Devin said, is to keep this community safe. Unfortunately, the way our wildfire season keeps going is we don't have a season anymore. It seems to be all year round. And the fuels are just constantly dry all the time. So, you know, that's why we're in the process of looking at creating Hului codes so that we can continue to make our community safe and the fire district even more safe. So... Hopefully the data that we can give you will be able to help you make an informed decision of what is the right thing to do. Thank you.

So I think we discussed this earlier last week, and I think a summary is that there was fairly good compliance with fireworks up to July 4th. As you know, the ban was effective. July 4th was a cluster. So one question is, was it a cluster because it's the two 50th or just a cluster because it's July 4th? Um, I think, um, the secondary issue is, is that the fairgrounds, there was concern raised by Jeff that there was a clear and present danger to the fairgrounds, uh, with that fire. And so that the future scenario at the fairgrounds has to be different than it was this year. So those are kind of the two takeaways. I think it is a strong recommendation to have a complete ban. Obviously, the data somewhat supports that. But as you also know, there's a big split in the community about this tradition, American tradition, of having at least legal fireworks on July 4. So my recommendation would be is that we have a public hearing on it sooner than later. and get input. We have the recommendation from, I think police and I'm kind of sensing fire would probably support that as well. So that's a path that I think would make sense. But Kat, Jay, go ahead.

So one of the things that I noticed, and I'll go back to the house fire unknown cause, you were probably lucky and blessed that they weren't some of our new housing that's five and eight feet apart or two and a half feet to the fence line, because that wouldn't have given you any time to do anything. So I'm tired of being lucky and blessed when it comes to the community. Just to let you know, I like fireworks and celebrations as much as the next person, but we lost three houses and three families are having to recreate their entire worlds over a very volatile season. And I don't know that that's a price I'm willing to continue to pay at this point for the community, for some of us to enjoy what we enjoy. Because again, I think keeping the community safe and keeping it someplace where we want to live is the priority. And as we build more densely and more tightly in our Building code allows wood fences because they're cheap and easy. Well, they're not cheap, but they're easy. And so I think that that's the problem, is that we have to balance how we're going to live with the fun that we're going to have. So yes, a public fireworks display, maybe with a brush truck, where nothing else is going on. But I agree.

Jay? First of all, I'd like to express my thanks to the first responders. I want to say thank you to... and them forgiving of themselves on the fourth and the whole weekend. As a matter of fact, not getting a lot of sleep as they protected our community, kept it safe. My wife and I truly want to say thank you. Now, the night of the fourth, I'll agree, was a real mess. For the first time in several years, I stayed awake that night and watched all the fireworks. Normally I'm in bed. But we went out to the RV park and watched the fireworks show. It was fantastic. I thought, obviously the best one I've seen in a long time because I've been asleep for most of them. But it was a great show. Unfortunately, there was no water tank out there or water truck. And so at the end of the show, we obviously know what happened. And so I don't know how we could have done that without a fire engine. Maybe we have lots of of contractors with water trucks and that type of thing. Anyway, those are things that we've learned from the report tonight. And I agree with the mayor that we ought to visit this and pick through all the what's happened. I would like the details of... that were in this report so I can play with them in my own head and try and figure it out. But there are questions that I think we could all have and maybe be able to digest it and come up with some other ideas rather than a straight back. And so I would appreciate that if we can get there and I can get the information. Thank you. And thank you very much. Catherine?

I think John was ahead of me, but go ahead. Okay. I have a couple questions and a statement, and we're going to mix those all up. First, was there a water tender available, and then it left the fairgrounds to go help fight the Coiner Fire?

No, it was never at the fairgrounds. The plan was it would have been at the fairgrounds before the show started, but the Coiner Fire started.

So it was unable to arrive because it was already dedicated to a wildfire? Correct. Okay. Okay. Then I guess my next statement is my heart is heavy in saying this because I love watching children play with fireworks, sparklers, things like that. But we also heard the stories of them throwing them in dry fields. And it is our job to protect the families and to make policy decisions that are difficult and effective. It was very difficult to be on the phone at 10 o'clock at night helping those Redmond families find places to evacuate to. We were part of that, multiple of us. And I don't know if a sparkler is worth watching children run from a burning house. So with that said, my question is, thinking about those kids, y'all. My question is, is it required to have another public hearing? Can a motion be made to have an ordinance read? We've had these discussions. We've heard the data. We know how painful this is gonna be for our community, for the kids who use this, for fundraisers, for people who use it to show their patriotism. But I think we have a responsibility to keep people alive.

As far as the legal requirement, no. It would be just a regular ordinance to modify the city code. If it's not unanimous, it would take two council meetings, at which time you could have public comment at either or both, or you could, like the mayor suggested, do a public hearing ahead of that, so you have a lot of options ahead of you. Right currently, because of the way the code's written, fireworks would not be allowed again until next year at this time, so... I wouldn't suggest waiting a long time, but as of this moment, they are banned.

John? So I'm going to kind of echo what Catherine said, though. I probably won't cry. So my... I guess the call to say we should have more public hearings, I don't know... what more we can do. We've had them kind of year after year, and it's always the same. It's pretty close. It tends to lean in favor of, yeah, we don't want fireworks. Those numbers are getting, that spread of banning the fireworks is getting bigger and bigger as more and more folks are kind of realizing not only the fire danger that we have, but the quality of life issues. My father-in-law is a Vietnam combat veteran. He suffers from PTSD. And so having that stuff go off at his house, even he said this is his first year in Redmond since he moved in with us. And even he made the comment that, yeah, it was like being back in Vietnam. I had debris from illegal fireworks landing in my yard because they were being set off at the north end of town. So taking everything into consideration, I think we could have another public hearing if we wanted to kick the can down the road, if we didn't want to demonstrate leadership. But I don't see the data changing. And I don't expect that we would get a unanimous vote. So we would have to have two hearings, two readings. But I would absolutely support at this stage having a full ban and try to find another way to celebrate the 4th of July, to celebrate our nation that does not involve throwing flaming chunks into dry grass every single year. There's got to be a smarter way to do that.

Yep. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the last time when we made this ordinance and changed it to just be on the fourth, we were at that time pretty stringent and this is something, if you can abide by this, then this can work every year. But if we continue to have these incidents of illegal fireworks, this too will go away. I'm that parent. I don't want to have to give you a third and fourth chance to burn my town down. So I'm going to agree with you, John.

Okay.

My mother-in-law spent 10 to 2 a.m. in her car with her dog because big fireworks were going off right behind her house. So I know the importance of what we're talking about. I also know that, or been told, that one of the tents that's for Little League made $22,000 in cash, not counting what they made for Little League in credit card. Huge fundraisers. I would just really encourage the council that we not make an emotional move or motion, but rather we have months to think about. It doesn't have to be made tonight. And I would just... Let some time, water roll under the bridge, and we come to a decision in September, whatever, or August. But right now, it seems like emotional, maybe an emotional man, and I certainly don't believe an emotional decision is a good one.

Shannon?

Well, Kat was on before me. Just a quick question, Chief. Sorry. Do we know the cost of damage to the homes?

I don't, no.

Is it over $22,000? That's exactly right.

Over $22,000? Most likely, yes.

Thank you.

No, Kat stole my thunder.

I would like to comment, because I take a little bit of exception to saying that it's an emotional decision, implying that it's somehow rash, because we've had this exact same conversation for the last several years. and inevitably we decide, oh, we'll push this off, we'll hold a public hearing, we'll get public input, and then the argument shifts to, well, we don't have time, we've already placed contracts, and so now we're not giving adequate time for that little league team to find a different fundraising source. And so I think if we're gonna make a decision that's based on data, that's based on facts, that's based on the public good, and limiting the dangers and the collateral effects of fireworks, legal and illegal, we owe it to that Little League team to make sure that they've got time to find an alternative fundraising source. Popcorn is incredibly popular in town, and I have spent many hundreds of dollars on popcorn for Boy Scouts, having raised three Eagle Scouts and two Cub Scouts. There are other options that are out there, and I think that we should make a decision, will people still have time to adjust and adapt? And whatever that decision is, we owe it to them to give them a long enough runway.

So from my perspective, you're going to get public comment no matter what. I'd rather have it structured than just emails after emails after public comment after public comment late at night. Um, so I do think we should have a public hearing. That's my perspective on it. I think we should draft the ordinance, um, and schedule the public hearing in August and let people say what they want to say. We have the data. We can make a reasoned decision at that time. Um, but I don't think we should ignore the public input either. That's my view.

So just point of clarification, your, Your recommendation, then, Mayor, would be that we have the, if we're going to have a public hearing, that we do it forthwith.

Yeah, we do it in the first meeting in August. Hopefully, I'll be gone, but I do have a vacation. But no, the first meeting of August, I'm sure I'll be here. But have the public comment with the ordinance so it's structured and it's done, and move on.

That's how I look at it.

Otherwise, you're going to have the ordinance for a first reading. It's not going to be unanimous. You're going to have another two weeks, and you're going to have public comment at both meetings. I'd just rather have it structured.

I would be okay with that. I think that's as long as, as long as we're giving everybody enough time to kind of make adjustments and we're not, we're not just kicking the can down the road. I would have support that.

Is everyone okay with that process? Okay. All right. So we're moving right along next. We have the consent agenda, the minutes of April 20th, the minutes of April 28th, May 5th, May 12th. Redmond Wetlands Complex project change order number seven with Taylor Northwest for $55,184.09. The Central Oregon Canyon project change order number three with Keaton King for $93,194.83. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to approve the consent agenda.

I second. Wooden second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All right, next we have a public hearing. It's on resolution 2026-14. a resolution of the city of Redmond, Oregon, updating the wastewater system development charge methodology and updating the city's fee schedule. We'll open the public hearing. We'll first hear from Lindsay and Jason, and then we'll see if there's any public comment.

Okay, thank you, Mayor, Council. Lindsay Cromside, I'm the Assistant City Engineer in the Public Works Department. I'm in the Engineering Division, and with me is Jason Neff, our CFO, and we're here tonight to speak about the Sewer System Development Charge Update. Okay, for more background, as you recall, in summer of 2025, we updated the collection system master plan and council adopted that in July. And in order to keep that document relevant with the SDC, we like to update the SDC immediately after that master plan gets updated. So we contracted with FCS group and by March of 2026, we prepared the draft SDC methodology that correlated back to that approved master plan. And in March, we also completed the 90 day state required notice of SDC consideration. And that was sent out to over 500 permit holders within the city, as well as a few stakeholder groups such as COBA and ready. Speaking of outreach and communication, we completed several stakeholder meetings from May to June of 2026. Again, we met with Coba and Ready. We received some feedback. I know that you also received a letter from Coba, and maybe they are here to speak tonight. And that was specifically regarding the phasing, which we will talk about on a future slide. And then to get us here today, we're at the final meeting, the public hearing. As a reminder, we had two previous meetings. We had a council informal and a council workshop in May and June. So this is the formal meeting to request action on the update. And if approved, it could go into effect as soon as 30 days from today or as selected by the council if you choose a different phasing option. As a reminder to council and anyone in the audience who aren't familiar with SDCs, they are a one-time fee charged at time of impact to our system. They are not rates such as a water bill or sewer bill. It's a fee that usually gets tacked onto a building permit for development. We have different types of SDCs, including water, wastewater, transportation, and parks in Redmond. We do not have a stormwater SDC. SDCs can only be used for capital only, and they really are meant to pay for growth. And they do include, a portion of the fee does fund existing capacity on projects, as well as future planned capacity on projects, and I'll talk about that as well moving forward. So again, the fee is a pretty simple calculation. It's made up of a reimbursement fee and an improvement fee. The reimbursement fee speaks to existing capacity in existing infrastructure, the cost of that divided by the growth in the system. The improvement fee is the same except for we're talking about planned projects, so the cost of planned projects over the growth in the system. And when you add those together, you get the total charge. And for sewer, our growth in the system is defined by meter capacity equivalence. And what that really means is that for sewer, we have to calculate that based on the amount of water that is being used, because the amount of water that you use equals the amount of water that might go down the pipe that we then have to treat. So one meter capacity equivalent for sewer is equal to a five eighths water meter for a single family home. So I know that's kind of getting into the weeds, but we just wanted to explain what that denominator meant. Our SDC growth scenarios, we do have two different scenarios because of the collection system and how it's HOW IT'S DEFINED. WE HAVE THE COLLECTION SYSTEM ITSELF WHICH IS THE PIPES UNDER THE GROUND ALL THROUGHOUT THE CITY AND THEN WE HAVE OUR TREATMENT FACILITY WHICH IS OF COURSE WE HAVE A MECHANICAL TREATMENT NOW HERE IN THE DRY CANYON BUT WE ARE MOVING TO THE LAGOON BASED SYSTEM IN THE NORTHWEST PART OF TOWN AND SO WE'RE LOOKING AT TWO DIFFERENT GROWTH HORIZONS FOR HOW WE DEFINE THE DENOMINATOR OF THESE EQUATIONS. THE TREATMENT IMPROVEMENTS, WE LOOK AT GROWTH TO 2045 BECAUSE THAT IS 20 YEARS FROM NOW AND THAT'S WHAT WE LOOK AT WITH OUR MASTER PLAN AND WHAT WE'RE REQUIRED TO BY STATE LAW. AND THE COLLECTION SYSTEMS ACTUALLY LAST LONGER SO WE LOOKED AT GROWTH TO BUILD OUT WHICH IS A FURTHER BEYOND HORIZON THAN THAT 20 YEARS. THAT'S BECAUSE WE CAN USE THOSE PIPES LONGER TYPICALLY THAN THE TREATMENT IMPROVEMENTS IN THAT HORIZON. So when you add it all together, you add the treatment collection improvements, both for existing capacity and future capacity, the total SDC for a single family home comes to that value in the very bottom right of the table, which is 8,085. That is the maximum defensible fee from the methodology that we prepared. For reference today, a single family home is $5,362. So we are increasing it by almost $3,000. Again, council has the option to select any rate up to that $8,085, but we cannot go beyond that. This is a slide of the proposed maximum sewer SDCs that we could adopt broken down by the different meter sizes for the water that then correlates back to that sewer fee. So you can see that it ranges from 8,000 to 404,000. But just for councils and the audience's reference, about 93% of our water laterals and meters are the 5 1⁄8 inch. So really that last 7% are one inch or higher. And we very rarely have anything higher than three inch. This slide presents a history of where we're at with the wastewater SDC from 2008 to now. The last time we updated the sewer COLLECTION SYSTEM MASTER PLAN WAS IN 2008 AND THAT WAS THE LAST TIME WE BROUGHT A NEW METHODOLOGY TO COUNCIL TO BE APPROVED. AND WHAT'S SHOWN ON THIS SLIDE IN THE RED LINE ON THE TOP OF THE GRAPH IS WHAT WAS PROPOSED IN 2008 TO BE ADOPTED AND HOW IT WOULD BE ESCALATED. from that point. So you can see in 2008, at the time, the methodology said we should adopt a $3,005 fee and then increase it the next year to $3,800 and the next year to about $4,000. And then from there, it would be increased by the construction cost index. And if that were to happen, if that did happen, we would have been at a $7,448 SDC today. HOWEVER, THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN BECAUSE OF THE ECONOMY IN THE 2008 TIME PERIOD. SO WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WAS THE LIGHT GRAY LINE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GRAPH, AND YOU CAN SEE THAT THERE WAS A SMALL ADJUSTMENT IN 2009 AND 2010, BUT THEN IT LARGELY REMAINED UNCHANGED UNTIL 2018 WHEN WE STARTED TO APPLY THE CONSTRUCTION COST INDEX INCREASE ANNUALLY. SO WHAT THE FEE WE'RE ACTUALLY AT TODAY IS 5,362. And again, we are asking for a maximum of 8,085. And so you can see the difference between the 7,400 and the 8,085 isn't too far off if we had adopted what was recommended back in 2008. And just as another point of reference, if we had followed the guidance from 2008, we would have accrued about $7.5 million more in SDC revenue for the wastewater SDC. This slide is intended to just show a comparison to other similar jurisdictions. Redmond is shown in the orange color. Other high growth cities with populations greater than 10,000 are shown in the light blue color and you can see that most of those are on the left side of the graph with a higher SDC. And then other comparable sized cities are shown in the darker blue and they're kind of all over the board but mostly towards the right side of the graph. And again, what that means or what it could lend is to say, that other cities experiencing the same growth that Redmond is are also increasing their SDCs because they are reacting to that high amount of growth. So you can see again where we're at today is that 5,362 and that's kind of at the lower third of the graph and we'd like to increase it to that 8,085 which is the upper third of the graph. You can see that Bend is kind of right in the middle and Sisters is just a little bit below that too for regional reference. Another point to consider is what are the total SDCs for a single family dwelling? As you know that those are comprised of sewer, water, transportation and parks. And so our current total is about 28,000. And if the sewer fee were to be increased to the maximum, our proposed total would be about 31,000. And just as again, as a point of reference regionally, Ben's current total SDCs for a single family is about 33,000. tonight we're bringing council for consideration some phasing options for the sdc option one would be to adopt the maximum fee immediately meaning that it could be effective in 30 days on august 14th and that's what you can see in the top line there and then it would not be increased again until july 1st 2027 when we would adjust it for the construction cost index Option two is to phase it in over a period of about six months. So we would adjust it on October 1st to about the midpoint between the current and the maximum, which is $6,700. And then we'd adjust it to the maximum on January 1st and then add the construction cost index on July 1st. Option three is the phase in over a year. So we wouldn't adjust it to the midpoint until January 1st and then adjust it to the maximum July 1st with the construction cost index. With that, just as a reminder, this is the final formal action that staff is asking and requesting of council. So I'll take any questions or ask if you need to do the public hearing at this point.

And Jason, have we done an analysis of how much the revenue differential would be on these three options?

Yeah, I think option one, like immediately, would add about $700,000 to our budget. So our revenue would go from $1.4 to $2.1 million.

Is that, I mean, I think in the fiscal year for July? Yeah, the fiscal year. Okay.

Yep. And so obviously if we delay it, I think the last option was about $200,000 or something like that. Okay. So. And then in the phase two, or the option two is kind of in the middle.

So the rationale on the staging is that people are in the hopper in terms of getting their financing, developing, and trying not to pull the rug out in midstream on people who are in that stage. So questions from the council? Kat?

So I'm looking at your numbers, and we're talking about this $8,000 But really all we're doing is looking at 2,723 being added to the existing 5,362, which is about somewhere between 5 and 6 one-hundredths of a percent of the median price of a house, give or take.

Correct.

Okay. I'm just doing my math. Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Thank you. Is there any public comment at this time?

Yes.

Oh, OK. Garrett?

Good evening, Mayor Fitch, members of council. My name is Garrett Mosher, here today on behalf of the Central Oregon Builders Association. COBA represents over 800 members in the development community and related professions. Thank you for the opportunity here to speak and provide feedback on the proposed wastewater SDC increase. First, I wanna thank you and your staff for your work that you've put into this. I specifically really appreciate the comments from council last meeting on this topic about giving developers lead time or phasing this in just so the dynamic that the mayor just spoke to doesn't happen where we pull the rug out on a project that's already being underway. And additionally, I really wanna thank Lindsay and the rest of your staff for presenting this information to COBA, giving us a lot of good history and context on this SDC specifically in the process moving forward. I wanted to join you today to emphasize my comments in written testimony about our preference for option three in the phase in period here. As mentioned, we strongly encourage you to go with that route. We all know here that projects take years to come to life in Central Oregon. It's not Redmond specific. It's a difficult area to build. It's inherently expensive. Most projects that come online between now and the end of the year are already underwritten. They already have financing secured, and it's at the current SDC rate, not planning for adjustments. The proposed rate is significant. Staff has done a really good job in educating why in the necessary freezes that occurred around 2008, kind of that delta that was created there. We understand that you're balancing playing catch up and securing funding for much needed capacity. You're also trying to not price people out of the products we're trying to develop. So thank you for having a thoughtful approach here. We think option three is the best path forward there. to kind of strike that balance of allowing stuff that's in the hopper currently to come to life, not add additional cost or jeopardize the viability of the project. Meanwhile, also still catching the rate up from where it should have been post-2008. Thank you again for your time to speak here tonight. I've submitted written comments. Happy to answer any questions as well.

Thanks, Garrett. Any questions for Garrett?

I do have one. You kind of talked about the... the more rapid implementation of the SDCs could affect viability of a project. Is there a particular project that you can point to or an example that you could give us where that implementation within the 30 days would impact the viability

In terms of a specific development, I could go back and find it. When we had our standing meeting with Lindsay a few weeks ago now, there were several developers online that said, hey, I've either got something in the queue now or something coming online in the summer, et cetera. I've heard that sentiment from several of our members. I can provide specifics and follow up if you like.

So I get that they had things that were in the hopper. And they said that if this goes into effect within 30 days, we can't move forward.

It would definitely jeopardize their pro forma as currently established with the previous rate. It would add cost and complexity, and yeah, projects die all the time from minimal changes like that. Okay.

Okay. Any other questions for Garrett?

I don't have any for Garrett, but thank you very much, Garrett, for your time taking that in. I have one for Jason. Option three wasn't something the council brought up. We had stopped, I believe, at option two. What does it look like to our funding if we entertained option three? What could we afford to do or not afford to do?

So it's going to take us more time to finance the East Spruce Interceptor. So basically, the current rate structure allows us to pay for the wetlands. This really allows us to get collection lines in the future. So the way I look at this is $700,000 a year is going to give us, in three or four years, a good down payment on that project, about 20% of the project. That's typically how we do things in Redmond. We don't debt fund everything. Similar to you buy a house, we put 20% down. If we do it now, we're going to get it. The further you delay it, we're either going to have to push the project off or take on more debt.

And if we take on more debt, who helps us pay that debt?

Well, first it's going to be the flow of SDC revenue, but if it's not, it'll be rate payers.

Thank you.

So actually, I brought up the third option at the last meeting. Keith brought up the second one. And I just didn't want to argue with him at that time. But at any rate, actually, I'm thinking of a fourth option. And that is increasing on January 1 to more than the 6,700 to more like 7,000. I'm really concerned about people in the hopper right now With the pro formas, financing is challenging, and I just think that six-month window is important. So I don't mind raising it higher on January 1st, but I do think the six-month, for a lot of reasons, is better than the three months. That's just my perspective of it.

I would be in favor of raising it to the full rate on January 1st.

Okay. Normally I'm not in favor of raising any rate, any time, anywhere.

We know that by the history of this thing.

This is for new houses. And even though it will blow out of the water the phrase affordable housing, or tend to help blow that out of the water, it may not even be there right now, but it'll raise the cost of everything we do with houses for some reason. I'd suggest taking... more in line with option one or whatever the council can agree on and just take the hit. It's finally we have a time when we can look at four or five years before we have to do another SDC. What swayed me in my thought is I'm sitting down for a hamburger and this builder walks in. And so I went over and asked him what he thought of SDCs. And he said, I don't like them. He said he paid 900 bucks back in 1990 when he built his first house. But he says, I understand their need. And he says, I would ask that the staff or somebody help builders understand where the SDCs are going so that they just know. And in my mind, we need maybe not only interceptors, but we need streets and places for people to move out of these places that are being built in and out. And in some locations were a little bit lax on having those streets. So for that reason, I would be for moving sooner than later.

Okay, before doing more discussion, is there anyone else here with public comment? Yes. Do you have to stay here through the whole thing for your dad?

She, she wanted to come. She wants to talk about. Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you for that, for that help.

All right.

We'll close the public hearing. Um, what's the pleasure of the council? I'm I'm, I like Kat's idea, but what's your pleasure?

I don't, I don't think I've ever said this before, but I kind of agree with Jay.

Well, there you go.

I'm not sure how to feel about that.

This would not be the first thing I agreed with Councillor Patrick on, but I'm on board there. But I also like somewhere in the middle of Kat and Jay or where Kat's landing. I don't want to wait too long. I don't want it to end up on the rate player. I don't want to slow down any of our projects. I don't know what that looks like, but it's somewhere between one and two for me.

I agree with Jay. I do. I mean, I'm kind of on the same fence where do we prolong it to January 1st or do we just move forward? I think total amount or the full amount is the right way to go. Either way, the implementation is going to occur.

So can I ask a question of the council just so that I'm clear in my understanding? So the discussion right now is between either moving forward with option one as presented or waiting until January 1st but going with a slightly higher fee than originally.

The full amount.

Okay. So it's either the full amount immediately or the full amount January 1st. Right. Okay. Then I would rather move forward. Okay. Clifford?

I'll go forward. Get it out the way right away. Jay, you got one this time, buddy.

All right, so it looks like we have a clear majority for option number one. And so do we have an ordinance in front of us or a resolution?

I can read it.

So there is a resolution in the suggested resolutions. I can read it.

I move to adopt resolution 2026-14 including the preferred phasing option one.

I'll second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Nay. Okay, so we have the special event street closure request for August 15, 2028 for the Wild Ride Classic Car Show. Chuck, welcome, and we'll open the public hearing on that.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Chuck Arnold, Urban Renewal Program Manager. With me here tonight is Megan Gassner, our Program Analyst for Urban Renewal, and Shane Mayfield, who's the producer of the Wild Ride Car Show. This event is requesting a special event closure of 5th Street and some associated streets as included in the map for August 15th. It's really key that we have special events in downtowns. They're set up to create habits and really get different groups of people to come enjoy and appreciate our downtown. So a balance of those is something that council really needs to strike and has done a very good job in is But closing the streets too often can often be a challenge. And so when we do propose to close Fifth or Sixth Street, it requires an approval for council. Public assembly permits that do initiate these closures are reviewed for city code compliance, public safety, transportation, and a number of other elements, and make sure that the city's fee schedule does recover city costs for supporting the event. That all said, This event's been going on for about a decade and we've been partnering with the company. It's happened twice a year. We've had some challenges and had challenges in April with the ending of the event where there were some behavior and some choices of some participants that caused some public safety issues. Staff worked very closely with the sponsor, Wild Ride, and with the event producer and convened a meeting with the chief of police and the city manager's office to determine What would we need to go forward in order to make this event safe and create that habit for downtown that's gonna be beneficial for everybody? And so we went through a series of discussions and came up with a very productive ending where we determined that it was important for Redmond PD to have an officer stationed during the latter half of the event. So that will happen from about noon to about four o'clock under this proposal. And the event company will reimburse the Redmond PD's police department for that patrol officer on site so that we'll capture that cost recovery. Other elements included in this agreement is that a statement in the registration material from the organizers to the show participants that they will be issued a citation if there is behavior that is outside the bounds of safety or decorum of what's expected in the show. and they can be subject to fines and traffic violations. The affected businesses will also be notified before the permit is heard in consideration in front of council. Staff received that notification from the event producer just yesterday and got all the notification from the businesses that are affected in the area of the closure. And we also determined that it was important for a list of banned vehicles of participants that have just demonstrated poor behavior before and poor choices, that they wouldn't be banned from registering for the show going forward. And we have had one participant that will not be returning to this August show. Two other elements of these new criteria is that large signs will be posted around the event. reminding everybody that this will not be tolerated, behavior of burnouts and public use of vehicles in the right of way that will cause public safety issues. And then furthermore, the event promoter did a really good job kind of identifying an issue that we weren't aware of as staff is that they came forward with a plan to work on kind of securing the perimeter much like you would in any other event to actually prevent non-registered vehicles from showing up to the event and then thereby putting the whole event in jeopardy if they did some bad behavior or created a public safety issue and they could just drive away and they're not with the event. So trying to be proactive on that. So there's been a lot of good faith. There was some hesitation of staff to move forward with this because of the risks that occurred in April. But we feel comfortable at this time to recommend that we go forward with these criteria, and I want to open up the floor for Shane Mayfield to add anything in particular. Thank you.

I don't have too much to add. You know, we've talked about this, like you said, for a decade, and it's a great event for Redmond. We have ran into some hiccups. We worked with PD and with the city and came up with a great solution. I really feel, and I still do, that when the RPD car is there in place, that this will not happen. I mean, you wouldn't do that with a cop there, you know. That sort of thing. And then the other protocols that we put in place, we have eight huge signs that absolutely say no burnouts or you will be banned that we're going to place there at the event. We announced it last time, but that didn't seem to be enough. So not only will we announce it, it will be on every registration placard at the car show. It will be on every registration form. It's on our website. We've done everything we can to make it as safe as possible. That's my top priority.

Good. Shannon?

So after the road closure is over, and I know I've asked you this question every six months when this comes forward, after the road closure is done and a participant has not moved their vehicle, they're parked on Fifth Street, is that considered bad behavior?

Well, the road is technically closed until 5 p.m., but the traffic control consultant's company has been pulling the barriers earlier. And so we tell the participants that they need to park their cars either normally or move from the event. And so it's just been a mix-up between traffic control consultants and what's happening. And so we've made that clear with them, too, that we need to have those in place until 5 p.m.

Okay, excellent. Thank you.

So last year, last time, I'm not sure which one, we did have an officer respond when called to assist with some issues and was basically treated to mob rule. obviously bad behavior. So while I'm very excited that you're going to have an officer there more present for more time, what does that look like? Because obviously there was someone that was called us this last year and it had no impact.

Yeah, absolutely. So that officer actually was parked in the Fitch and Nary parking lot and there was about 30 to 50 people in front of him. So as the cars were pulling up, they didn't even notice that there was a cop there. Hence the burnouts right so this time we're going to stage and right in the middle of black bear and so that way they know coming into that there's a police officer right there which will prevent that from happening there's that's the only exit route they can take and so he will be right there fully president that's why we did decided to pay them to be there to make sure that that that that happens.

That would be a block you can 6 right now to 6 correct.

Did you hire the big policeman? I would hire the biggest one I could find. I just want to say my wife and I enjoy the car show every time it's there. And I think a lot of people do. So I really hope you can encourage your entries to pay attention. to not act ridiculous.

Absolutely. It's like the old saying goes, a few bad apples spoil it for everybody.

Yes, exactly.

Thank you. All right. Is there any public comment on the street closure?

I believe you have to open it. What? You didn't open the public hearing?

I thought I did before Chuck came in, but I'll open it now anyway. Okay. Anyone here on public comment on the street closure? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. What's the pleasure of the council?

I'm fine. I'm going to move to approve the public assembly permit and the fee schedule of the Wild Ride Classic Car Show on August 15, 2026. Second.

Who didn't second any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Ordinance 2026, an ordinance approving the Redmond East Gateway Development Agreement, Master Plan Development Plan, and Zoning Map Amended Compliance with the 2040 Greater Edmond Area Comprehensive Plan. It's an interesting way of saying that. I'm going to open the public hearing now so I don't forget. And go ahead, gentlemen.

Do you have your hearings?

Oh, yeah, shoot. Thank you, Kyle. This is a public hearing for the Redmond East Gateway number 711-26-00038-PLNG to MA 7126-00039-PLNG-MD for a proposed zoning map amendment master plan and associate development agreement at 901 East Highway 126, tax locks 1513-15-0000101. and 1513150000102 in Redmond, Oregon. The hearing procedure. The Redmond City Council will hear and consider the testimony and evidence submitted this evening along with the record established by staff. Entire records available for public review, testimony and evidence at this hearing must be directed toward the criteria set forth in the notice of this hearing. Listen to Redmond development code and to other applicable criteria in the comprehensive plan or other land use regulations. which the witness believe applies, if the witness can explain satisfactorily how it applies. Persons who wish to testify at this hearing must sign in before presenting testimony. Failure on the part of any person to raise an issue with sufficient specificity to afford the City Council in part is proceeding an opportunity to respond to the issue may preclude that person from making an appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals on that issue. Failure of the applicant to raise constitutional or other issues relating to proposed conditions are approved with sufficient specificity to allow the City of Redmond to respond to the issue may preclude an action for damages in the circuit court. You order a presentation. The hearing will be conducted as follows. Staff will give a staff report. The applicant will then make a presentation. The city council will then hear testimony from the public. The applicant may make a rebuttal presentation. At my discretion, opponents may be allowed to make a rebuttal presentation. At the end of this hearing, staff will have an opportunity to make closing comments. The city council may limit the time allowed for presentation by any party and may continue the hearing to another date. If the hearing is continued, the city council may allow additional testimony or evidence to be submitted into the record. Questions to and from the City Council may be entertained at any time at my discretion. Cross-examination of witnesses is not allowed. However, if any person wishes a question to be asked of a witness during the witness's presentation, please direct the questions to me. After being recognized, I am free to decide whether or not to ask questions of any witness. Do any members of the City Council have any pre-hearing contacts, ex parte observations, or conflicts of interest which they need to disclose? Oh, your mic's on, Jake. Huh? Your mic's on. So I thought you were going to disclose something. Interesting.

Okay.

Any person in the audience has a right during the hearing process to rebut the substance of any communication or observation that has been placed in the record by a member of the city council. Part of the commandments of the hearing, any party may challenge the qualifications of any city council member based on bias, prejudgment, or personal interest. This challenge must be documented with specific reasons supported by evidence. Should any member be challenged, the member may disqualify himself or herself, withdraw from the hearing, or make a statement on the record of his or her capacity to hear these land use requests. Are there any such challenges? Seeing none, we'll open it. Well, I did open the hearing, so go ahead, Kyle.

All right. Thank you, Mayor, Council. My name is Landon, long-range planner for Redmond, and I'll be presenting the Redmond East Gateway project this evening at the slideshow. Proximity of Redmond East Gateway is on the eastern portion of town. It is north of Highway 126. Ninth Street is to the west. Antler is to the north. The requests at hand, these are the land use approval requests. It's 204 acres, it's comprised of two different tax lots. There is a request for a master development plan, a zoning map amendment, and then a development agreement. These are all referenced on the ordinance. The files are technically separate, but they're being processed as one as far as the staff report and review is concerned. This slide here is regarding the zoning changes. So there on the left side is the existing zoning of the area. The bluish area that occupies most of the property is light industrial zone. And the purple is a commercial zone at C4A. It's split up into two areas. The M1, again, shown in blue, that's the light industrial. That occupies around 162 acres. And the limited service commercial, if you add those two areas together, it totals approximately 42 acres. The figure on the right shows the proposed zoning. It includes limited service commercial to the far west, remaining in that purple color. Light industrial is situated near the middle of the property. It occupies approximately 85 acres. THE ZONE CHANGE INCLUDES THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW ZONE TO THE 204 ACRES AND THERE AGAIN SHOWN ON THE RIGHT HAND FIGURE. IT'S THE FURTHEST EAST SITUATED ZONE. IT'S THAT DARKER BLUE COLOR AND IT'S A HEAVY INDUSTRIAL ZONE AND THE INTRODUCTION IS OF ABOUT 68 ACRES. Regarding the master development plan, this is a land use process which will cover the entire property. There are review criteria in the Redmond Development Code that discuss master development plans and the criteria that they must meet. There they are listed one through four. And then there on the right, those would be the great neighborhood principles. All master development plans are required to comply with these review criteria. as listed in the Redmond Development Code. For this particular project, some of the Great Neighborhood principles apply maybe a little bit more than others. They've all been addressed and reviewed as such. Some of the following slides here will go over some of those Great Neighborhood principles which maybe the heavy hitter, so to speak, the first one being transportation. So with this master development plan, there is a transportation plan. It's a very, very large component of this plan. There are designs for future street networks, the extension of Southeast 17th Street. There's going to be Highway 126 frontage improvements, and then Southeast 9th Street will receive ADDITIONAL DEDICATION AND IMPROVEMENTS. ALL OF THESE TRANSPORTATION CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS WILL COME LATER DOWN THE ROAD WHEN ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT COMES TO THIS PROPERTY. THERE IS A DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT, YOU KNOW, ACTUALLY I'M GOING TO PRESS PAUSE ON THAT BECAUSE I HAVE A SLIDE ESPECIALLY FOR THAT SO I'M NOT GOING TO GET AHEAD OF MYSELF HERE. THE NEXT GREAT NEIGHBORHOOD PRINCIPLE THAT I WANTED TO COVER IS A DIVERSE MIX OF ACTIVITIES. THAT'S WHAT OUR CODE CALLS FOR. SO AS YOU CAN SEE HERE, THE PROPOSAL INCLUDES INCREASING THE ACREAGE OF THE COMMERCIAL ZONING AS WELL AS MOVING THE LOCATION OF IT. AND IT DOES MOVE IT CLOSER TO SORT OF SOME OTHER COMMERCIAL AND MIXED USE AREAS. It includes the introduction of heavy industrial or M2 zoning and it creates overall a more even spread of the commercial, the light industrial and the heavy industrial zoning. Regarding the zone change itself, that is a land use procedure that falls under the category of amendments. This would be a zoning map amendment. This also actually has kind of four broad review criteria, and I'll just read those here. In conformity with all applicable state statutes, in conformity with the statewide planning goals, whenever they are determined to be applicable. in conformity with the Redmond Comprehensive Plan, land use requirements and policies, and that there is a change of circumstances, further studies justifying the amendment or mistake in the original zoning. Let's see here. Let's jump to the next one here. So kind of the driving factor behind the support of this change in zoning would be derived from our economic opportunities analysis. That is a supplemental document to our comprehensive plan. I think it was done and adopted in August of 2020. It discusses essentially that Redmond has a slight surplus of industrial lands and a slight deficiency of commercial lands. This request, it does increase the amount of commercially zoned lands. It's not a huge increase, it's about eight or so acres, but it's still an increase and so therefore it would be supported by the findings of the of our eoa and so that's kind of the the uh the driving factor here um from the city's standpoint um go ahead and jump to the uh recommendation here so real quick um this uh tonight is the second of of the two required public hearings for this proposal This project was heard and considered at the May 20th Planning Commission meeting where the first public hearing took place. There was some discussion on it mostly revolving sort of projected timelines for total build out and those numbers were A little bit vague, quite honestly, at this point, and they were discussed. Ultimately, the Planning Commission voted six to zero to forward a positive recommendation. Regarding this public hearing, the project has been noticed in accordance with the Redmond Development Code, as well as all applicable state statutes. At this point, staff has not received comments from the public. Based on the staff findings and previous planning commission meeting, staff recommends that city council approve the Redmond East Gateway zoning map amendment and master development plan as well as the development agreement subject to the 10 conditions of approval outlined in the staff report. This next slide here As stated, there are 10 conditions of approval as of now. This slide outlines some of the ones I wanted to touch on. This is just three of the 10. The first one being road dedications. So as a part of this approval, there will be a condition that certain elements of roadways will be required to be dedicated to the city. And what this will achieve is defining a really illegal boundary between where the new zoning lines are. And so at this particular phase, there's not necessarily a requirement to build those roads. That requirement is built in place for later down the road. But as far as separating those new zoning lines, This is one of the conditions that's going to be put in place future subdivision This one's a little bit boilerplate, but it's always good to include it This request is not to subdivide. There's no subdivision or partition request here tonight before you one of the conditions of this ordinance in this request is that of course future subdivision or land partitioning will require the appropriate review whenever it's requested and And then the third one here, and this is the one I decided to revisit now, is the development agreement. Because there's no request to subdivide or partition at this time, the city's unable to go into those sections of our development code and apply standards to subdivisions to this request because they're not requesting a subdivision. We figured out as an avenue was to work with both the team for Redmond East Gateway as well as our city engineers. We went back and forth for what seemed like a few months on this and we're able to implement via this ordinance a development agreement This development agreement is binding to the property itself and it discusses elements in great detail such as the future infrastructure improvements, who's gonna be responsible for paying proportionate share and that sort of thing for these improvements. I mean it covers everything from roads to intersection improvements to water sewer availability. and everything like that. So if approved, this development agreement will be tied to the property. And again, it is built into the ordinance. And so that's the avenue that we took to just make sure that, you know, at the time of future development, that this agreement could be referenced for those improvements. Opportunity for questions from either myself, Kyle, Lindsay, if you have anything overly technical regarding those infrastructure improvements. And then the Remedies Gateway team is here and they will be presenting as well.

Thanks, Landon. Any questions for staff at this time? Kyle, anything you want to add? Lindsay? Okay. Tia, your team is up.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, counselors. My name is Greg Blackmore, Blackmore Planning and Development Services. And I'm here on behalf of the Redmond East Gateway team. Who else do we have here? We have Scott Knox from Watson Development. We have who? We got Adam over there of Knowledge Engineering. We got Joe Transite. Joe Bestman of Transite Engineering. He's a traffic engineer. Of course, Tia Lewis, attorney who's been involved. We'll go through a little bit next slide here. The goal and intent for me is just to provide a little bit more background on LONGER TERM PLANNING. OVERALL THIS PROJECT IS AND HAS BEEN IN THE MAKING FOR YEARS WITH THIS IMMEDIATE TEAM AND DECADES WITH THE CITY OVERALL. AND I'M GOING TO PROVIDE JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE BACKGROUND ABOUT THAT LONG RANGE PLANNING. I WOULD SAY IT'S BEEN AN OVERALL GREAT CITYWIDE LONG RANGE PLANNING EFFORT. Now there's a developer on board who has a plan to see it through. And it is a big project, 204 acres. I think what's important to know is that to develop 204 acres is a lot of land. And so the master plan is critical so that the developer knows what's going to be. So first off, so the city can analyze the entirety of the impacts. So the city knows what bigger impacts need to be accounted for so those can be almost monetized and planned for. And that's why we have this development agreement. So we have this big development plan. We have a master plan that's established. And we don't have a subdivision at this point because those will happen in the future as the project progresses, as parties become interested, as the local community wants to take on these projects. So anyway. A LITTLE BIT MORE PLANNING HISTORY. THIS PROJECT, LONG-RANGE PLANNING GOES BACK ALL THE WAY TILL 2008, FROM 2008. THE CITY, AND I BELIEVE IT WAS IN COORDINATION WITH THE COUNTY, THEY UNDERTOOK AN EAST SIDE FRAMEWORK PLAN. And that included properties that were both in the city and properties that were outside of the city, owned by the county. So there's this long-range vision that was established by the city of this is what we want to see in this area. It included lands for commercial uses. It included lands for industrial uses, primarily industrial. Some of this land was zoned open space and park area. So in order to achieve or accommodate a statewide interest and goal to provide more industrial lands in the state, the city undertook this state bill, 1544, and in order to implement both the framework plan and provide for industrial lands, changed this land. Our property is not the entirety of it, but a good chunk of this property was changed from open space to industrial and commercial. CURRENT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN YOU CAN SEE HERE WAS ADOPTED IN 2020 AND WAS ANOTHER MOVEMENT TO REFINE THINGS CHANGED BETWEEN 2008, 2013, 2020. 2020 THIS WAS THE IDEA AND THE VIEW FROM THE CITY OF HAVING PRIMARILY M1 INDUSTRIAL AND THEN THESE TWO AREAS OF C4A. WITH THE CURRENT PLAN YOU HAVE DEVELOPER ON BOARD WHO HAS LOOKED AT THIS MORE CLOSELY FROM UNDERSTANDING CURRENT MARKET DEMANDS, MARKET TRENDS, DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS THAT ARE HAPPENING AND A FURTHER REFINEMENT. WE HAVE COMMERCIAL PUSHED FARTHER TO THE WEST RIGHT ALONG THE NINTH STREET IMPROVEMENTS, RECENT IMPROVEMENTS. STILL A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF M1 INDUSTRIAL BUT ALSO BECAUSE THIS LAND IS GOING TO BE some of the more and most development-ready properties for the city, introducing an M2 zone also. And it's also industrial, continues to be industrial, but just provides more variety and more opportunities for different forms of industrial. So the really intent is to provide opportunities for development, flexibility for development, and the ability to accommodate... market demands, current market demands. Let's see. As we get into why, why are these located here? A lot of it, you look at, there's topography out there, changes in topography. One, putting commercial near to other commercial, residential, other city services is desirable, in recent improvements, is desirable. So the C4A zone can have commercial uses. It can also accommodate some residential uses within that area. So there's a swath there where providing it on the west makes sense. and is intentional. And then there's, and Adam might be able to, the engineer might be able to talk a little bit more about this, but you see that the distinction between the M1 and the M2, that's really designed because of topography. There's higher topography in one area, and so having that separation where streets will divide the topography, and also the zones will be split by that topography. And probably sewer also, there's some element of sewer. Adam's, he'll talk engineering. So that's kind of a bit more history of it's been a good long-range planning effort. It's great having long-range plans like that from a development community because you know what the community wants. They've been working at this for an extended amount of time. So you can come in and you can put together a plan to carry out those long-range goals. Um, working more, you know, the more recent past we've worked great with city staff has been, this has been years in the making, uh, lots of traffic studies and engineering studies and coordinating with staff and coordinating with Odette and everybody. It's, it's been, it's been a great, um, overall process. It's been, there's been a lot of work and a big effort. Um, but in the end, the, the, the change we have. 8.7 ACRES THAT ARE BEING CHANGED FROM INDUSTRIAL TO COMMERCIAL, NOT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF CHANGE FROM THE INDUSTRIAL TO THE COMMERCIAL FOR A PROJECT OF THIS SIZE AND SCALE. SO THAT'S PRIMARILY THE MAP AMENDMENT DETAIL. KIND OF GETTING INTO THE MASTER PLAN, WE LOOK AT MASTER PLANS Really, we go back to that, you know, what's desired and needed in a master plan. We go back to the framework plan. What was in that original framework plan the city identified as being wanted and needed. And that's where we started with. There was elements of open spaces. So with this project, there's a path along the southern edge of the property. An open space track and a path along the southern edge is also one that runs north-south. So we continue to provide those open space interests. There is, of course, a transportation system that accommodates all of the needs of the code in the community. We're planning for water, and we're planning for sewer. And all of those have been studied tremendously, water analysis, sewer analysis, traffic analysis, that prove out that there's capacity. If you've read the full, I mean, there's like 400, 500 pages in there, the majority of which are Joe and the traffic report. There's a lot of traffic analysis that, because a project is so big, it had the reach and it impacted a lot of different intersections, not tremendously in some and more tremendously, not tremendously, but impacted these other areas and all of those were studied. And so that's why we have this master plan is to study infrastructure, to plan for infrastructure so that when future development, i.e. subdivisions and actual site plan happens, everybody knows what's needed in order to ensure adequate public facilities. So as we look this out, if we had a subdivision, if somebody was ready to sign up and build all the infrastructure for 204 acres, we may have had a subdivision plan, but that's a huge undertaking. So what we have is just a phasing plan, and it identifies areas of development. So we have phase one starting in the north, continuing down to phase two, the orange area, three north, to the west, the blue, and then, excuse me, the yellow, the red, and the gray. And so that's the plan of how this will be tackled. We would anticipate, you know, phase one might be one subdivision, it might be multiple subdivisions. There's opportunities for all of that. This project overall with the master planning process has been great because we can analyze all of it. Water, sewer, transportation, we analyze all of it. We know where the pinch points are. We know where the impacts are. We've worked on this development agreement to identify how much all this stuff costs and what's our contribution to it. So that's what we've been able to do with the master plan process. This is the image from the master plan of the transportation facility of the master plan itself. This slide here is a slide of traffic. This is kind of the highlight of the intersections that were considered, analyzed by Joe and reviewed by city staff, reviewed also by ODOT, and ultimately, the improvements were identified and agreed upon and are captured in kind of the cost programs of the development agreement. And I'm I'm not going to try to answer any traffic questions Joe will be up here to answer your traffic question whoops And of course similar with water and sewer for the most part It's not as interesting as traffic at I'm sorry, but you know sewers. There's a colors over in the Northeast sewer goes north And there's proved capacity and the rest of it kind of continues to the to the west and so yeah I'm going to stop talking. We're here now, City Council. We're going to go through the map amendments, the master plan, this development agreement. The goal is to continue to work with the city, continue to work with Ready, work with community partners so that we can find interested developers and really work towards those next steps of development. applying for subdivisions, which then, I know that Landon had indicated that streets are not being built at this time. That's true, they're built with a subdivision, which is the typical city process. We're following the typical city process with just sort of a, this master plan laid on top of it, which helps everybody know what's going to be happening in the future. So streets will be built, infrastructure will be built with the subdivisions when those happen. So those are the next steps. Apply for subdivisions, construct public infrastructure, apply for site plans, develop sites. So anybody, did I miss anything? And does anybody have a question?

Thank you, Greg. Any questions? I think we got it. I was really happy to see that that 2008 east side plan included the 1,200 acres adjacent to this property for development. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Couldn't resist that one.

I'm sure that Aiden Watson will be happy to help you develop that.

I'm here to answer questions that you might have.

No, I think we're good. Thank you. Okay, is there any public comment? If not, we will close the public hearing and what's the pleasure of the council?

I move to have a first and second reading of ordinance 2026-08 by title only. Second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye.

City of Redmond, ordinance number 2026-08, an ordinance approving Redmond East Gateway Development Agreement, Master Development Plan and Zoning Map Amendment, compliant with the 2040 Greater Redmond Area Comprehensive Plan, an ordinance approving Redmond East Gateway Development Agreement, Master Development Plan and Zoning Map Amendment, compliant with the 2040 Greater Redmond Area Comprehensive Plan.

Is there a motion to approve?

I move to approve ordinance number 2026-08. Second. Who didn't second?

We'll have a roll call.

Councillor Evelyn. Yes. Mayor Fitch.

Yes.

Councillor Nielsen. Yes. Councillor Osborne. Yes. Councillor Patrick. Yes. Councillor Wedding. Yes. Councillor Zwicker.

Yes. Thank you all. Great presentation. Okay. So, yeah. Next, we have a sale of some city-owned property, tax lot 151319CA00099, adjacent to 2511 Southwest 43rd Court. Lindsay.

Thank you again. Lindsay Cromsite, assistant city engineer, and I'm presenting the sale of a a portion of city-owned property adjacent to 2511 Southwest 43rd. To provide an overview, we are requesting, excuse me, the buyer is requesting a lot line adjustment at their property at 2511 Southwest 43rd Court. So again, a private property owner approached the city and asked for this sale to occur. THE PORTION OF THE PROPERTY THAT WE ARE SPEAKING TO IS LOCATED ADJACENT TO FORKED HORN BUTTE AND MAJESTIC AVENUE AND YOU CAN SEE THE PARCEL IS HIGHLIGHTED IN BLUE. IT'S ACTUALLY THE ROAD OF FORKED HORN BUTTE WHICH NORMALLY IS RIDEAWAY BUT THIS WAS AT SOME POINT SURVEYED AS PRIVATE PROPERTY WHICH IS UNIQUE AND THAT'S WHY IT'S A LOT LINE ADJUSTMENT RATHER THAN A RIDEAWAY DEDICATION OR SIMILAR OR VACATION. I am bringing tonight a hearing per ORS 221725, sale of real property by city, which is required. And this was posted in the newspaper with that required noticing.

Okay. We'll open the public hearing and go ahead, Lindsay. Okay.

So to zoom in further on that blue parcel, which is again owned by City of Redmond, you can see with the orange dot on the home to the right of it, 2511 Southwest 43rd, is the property owner that would like to acquire the area highlighted in red. It's about 2,040 square feet and it's valued at approximately $4,000. In exchange for adjusting this piece of property into their property, the city has worked out a deal to ask them to complete the sidewalk network adjacent to this property frontage highlighted in yellow on the slide here. So it would include sidewalk improvements and ADA ramp and a driveway approach where that yellow line is located on the lot. And that is estimated at about $5,000. So it is pretty close to a wash. And so again, staff is recommending approval of this purchase and sale agreement for construction of those improvements in lieu of cash sale for that property, for that lot line adjustment. And the applicant would be required to pay all surveying and recording costs and lot line adjustment land use costs. And with that, I will take any questions.

Any questions?

Just real quick, Lindsay, go back to your photo, please. And I'm sorry to bring this up tonight. So that narrow point of red goes behind two other properties and I can't tell size on this, but it's this person is buying that piece of property, which looks pretty much like you wouldn't even get a lawnmower through to it and it becomes a weed infested nightmare. Is it now his neighbor's problem?

IT WOULD BE THE BUYER'S PROBLEM. SO THE PROPERTY OWNER AT 2511 WILL OWN THE ENTIRETY OF THE AREA, HIGHLIGHTED IN RED, AND THAT'S A GREAT POINT. AT FIRST IT WAS ACTUALLY INITIALLY PROPOSED TO JUST INCLUDE THE AREA ADJACENT TO THEIR BACKYARD, AND WE REQUIRED IT TO INCLUDE THAT SHARP POINT OF THE TRIANGLE BECAUSE WE DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE A LANDLOCK PARCEL, WE CAN'T BY CODE, BUT WE ALSO DIDN'T WANT ANY SORT OF REMNANT PIECE TO BE OWNED BY THE CITY OF REDMOND, AND SO MAINTENANCE OF THIS AREA IS COMPLETELY BORN BY THE BUYER.

Thank you.

Okay. Is there any public comment on this proposal? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. And is there a motion?

I move to authorize the city manager to sign the sales agreement and execute all necessary subsequent actions to complete the conveyance of real property located at tax lot 151319CA00099. Second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Thanks, Lindsay. Next, we have a couple action items. The first is approval to amend contract 2025-33 with the Wallace Group for Airport Terminal Expansion Construction, Special Inspection Services, the amount of $413,800. Zach.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Zach Bass, Redmond Airport Director. The first item today is around a year ago before we kind of kicked off the terminal expansion building, we did bring on the services of Wallace Group to do our special inspections throughout this process. At the time, we did not understand fully how much they would be needed. So we really estimated at the time maybe 50 to 60 or so visits. We've already surpassed that halfway through this project and are expecting at least another 100 or so visits, i.e. inspections. So we are asking tonight that we increase this contract from the 225,000 original to $425,000 or so to ensure that we have coverage over the next year and a little over a year on this project. This is a third party, they represent us and say they are ensuring that the contractors and everybody involved are doing everything to the right specifications.

Any questions? Is there a motion?

I move to approve the amendment of contract 2025-33 with Wallace Group for airport terminal expansion construction, special inspection services to the amount of $413,800 and I'll advise the city manager to sign the amendment. Second.

Moved and seconded for discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. The second item we have is an authorization to enter into an up to seven year lease for the use by the City of Redmond for office space located at 325 Southwest 7th Street for $524,250.

Good evening again. Yes, so first we'll kind of give you some background on why we're looking at this leased property for the city and the airport. The needs, the airport is currently over capacity with office space. We are utilizing actually in the top right hand corner there you can see a trailer that actually sits out on concrete or pavement behind the airport where we actually have four individuals that work. no direct access to restrooms, and they've been out there for almost two and a half years. They're out there. We're expecting another three new positions in this upcoming cycle. And so we're continuing to see this growth and we have nowhere to put them. So we looked at a bunch of different options. First, we kind of looked at more of these temp trailers. They're running us about 20, $2,000 a month, or if we added more, it would actually push that up, of course, as you can imagine, to $4,000 for two. We've looked at some larger things that might be possible in the future with the phase two terminal expansion. That's a large project that's not currently funded at $30 million. So even if that does take place in the future, it doesn't really work for our needs currently. And then some new buildings. There's other options in here, but they're all pretty high capital cost at this point. So what we did is a leasing opportunity came available at 325 Southwest 7th Street. This used to be the CPA building. It sits right behind the old police station, about 3,200 square feet. It has five offices, six plus cubicle spaces, ADA accessible parking. It's a great place, and it also puts us close to City Hall, so we have that interaction, of course, with that staff and City Hall staff. We started looking at what the comparable lease rates would be. Kind of grabbed a bunch of different things that are actually out there right now or just closed. Put us right under $21 a square foot. Under the direction from council, we looked at a five-year lease with two optional one-year leases. Right now, we've negotiated right around the $21 a square foot, which would put us at about $68,000 annually, $5,700 or so a month. If we did use all seven years, this contract could be $524,250 because of the 3% annual increase that's built in. The tenant is going to be giving us a $40,000 lump sum for tenant improvements, and they have or will waive the first month. We also have the option of a 365-day notice to get out of this lease. So let's say I have something

happens in four or five years right we don't want to be completely on the line here we do have the option to pull out okay any questions so zach just for clarification um for people that don't do commercial leasing that's 68 000 for the year that's the first year that doesn't include the incremental three percent increase for the next four years for that five year term

Correct, and that's why if you just added, multiplied that first year times six or seven, it wouldn't give you the 524. You do have to increase it by that 3% annually. Thank you. Good point.

Okay. Any other questions? And Zach, we talked about maybe looking at a right of first refusal on the building. Did that come to fruition at all?

Yeah, they were not open for that at this time.

Okay. Is there a motion?

I move to approve the up to seven year lease for space located at three 25 Southwest seventh street for a cost of up to $524,250 and authorize the city manager to sign the agreement.

Second.

We didn't second any further discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. So now we can have written a public comment. Where's your daughter? Trevor, come on up. You don't need to. Sorry, Caitlin.

I can if you want.

Yeah. Well, I'll just go ahead.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Trevor Johnson, resident of Redmond. Good evening, Mayor, members of council. I rise to urge the city of Redmond to take decisive action by pursuing a complete prohibition on the import, sale, and use of consumer fireworks within our city. The recent Koiner fire, along with the numerous fires that occurred over the 4th of July and in previous years, demonstrates that the risks associated with fireworks are simply too great to ignore. Every year, our firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical personnel are placed under enormous strain responding to preventable incidents. These are valuable resources that should remain available to protect our community when genuine emergencies arise. We must ask ourselves a difficult but necessary question. How many more homes must be threatened? How many more families must be displaced? And how many more lives must we put at risk before we decide that enough is enough? Patriotism should never come at the expense of public safety or the well-being of our community. There is a better alternative. Rather than continuing with professional fireworks display at the fairground, I would encourage council to explore replacing it with a professional drone or laser light show. These modern displays provide an exciting and memorable celebration, whilst significantly reducing the risk of wildfire, improving air quality, reducing noise for veterans, pets, and wildlife, and easing the burden on our emergency services. As our climate becomes hotter and drier, we must adapt our traditions to reflect the realities we face today. Public safety must always come before tradition. I respectfully ask the council and mayor to begin discussing on implementing a citywide prohibition on fireworks and work with community partners to transition to safer forms of celebration. Thank you.

And then we have the lovely Nielsen. Do you want to sit at the table? It might be easier than the podium.

Do you want to sit at the table or stand? Sure, I'll sit down then. I like sitting down. Hit the button that says speak.

I brought my phone specifically for my script. My name is Molly Nielsen, and I am a citizen of Redmond, Oregon. I wanted to come up here because I have two reasons why I'd support the firework ban. There was going to be three, but my dad stole one of them. I did not mean for that to be that funny. Okay. First of all, the fireworks could burn not just houses, but anything flammable that is in its path, even though that's pretty much common sense, I'm assuming. Please tell me that's common sense. Okay, sorry. First of all, the fire, I already read that line. When I was about five years old, I was taken to the firework show in the RV park. It was really fun at first, yes, but I saw a really big illegal firework, and it had suddenly gotten a little bit hot. I looked down and see that my favorite jacket had caught fire. Turns out the firework looked big because it was a little too close for comfort. I'm lucky enough that I wasn't hurt, but I was pretty devastated. At least the people that set it off had apologized, I guess. Sorry, my friend was just texting me for some reason. My second reason is that we love our adorable little pets, but we terrify them half to death with all those big bangs and booms. I had been forced to watch three episodes of the new Percy Jackson Disney series while keeping our two dogs apart this year because they genuinely go insane if we didn't distract them. Animals like dogs and cats despise loud noises, especially if they have really good hearing. Lesson of the day. Fireworks are beautiful, but they terrify some people and our pets and can make anything flammable, especially houses made of woods, explode from heat. Thank you for listening, everyone.

Thank you, Molly. Okay, is there any other public comments? Yes, the young Nielsen boy.

Wait, do I stay here or? No. No.

I think there should not be fireworks this year because I don't want any more houses burning down. That's all I have to say.

All right.

Any other public comment tonight? Thank you. Keith? So should I talk about fireworks?

I 100% support Devin for the record. So what we'll do with the fireworks, we'll have the hearing on August 11th. That's the first meeting in August. We'll send out media releases, press releases, so we can get the same folks back. And then there could be the two-step for a vote if it's not unanimous. So August 11th and then August 25th, just so everyone knows the dates. A couple quick things. This is kind of peak season for street projects and street maintenance, so with that comes detours and people not getting from A to B as quickly as they typically can because we need to use the summer months to get it done. We do have a big one happening July 21st to the 28th. We're putting in that traffic signal that's really needed at 19th and Maple, and they've got to drop a 12-inch sewer line in there, so there'll be a FULL CLOSURE FOR ABOUT A WEEK, WHICH IS JUST NECESSARY WITH THESE KINDS OF PROJECTS, AND SO WE'VE SENT OUT MEDIA RELEASES, ET CETERA, THOSE KINDS OF THINGS TO LET PEOPLE KNOW THE DETOUR ROUTES WILL BE IN PLACE. PEOPLE CAN ALSO GO TO REDMONDSTREETS.COM TO SEE THE ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS, IF THEY'RE NOT SPENDING THEIR TUESDAY NIGHT WATCHING THIS MEETING. Yeah, that's the main stuff.

Thank you. Jay?

I want to thank our public works and street people who put up all the really nice street signs with the QR code for RedmondStreets.com in all the neighborhoods where we're having street projects. I've actually had neighbors use them and compliment them, so thank you.

Thanks.

I want to talk about fireworks as well, so stand by. Each year, the Fourth of July brings families together to celebrate our nation's independence, but it also brings a predictable increase in fire dangers, injuries, and property damage. In Central Oregon, where dry conditions, high temperatures, and seasonal winds create an elevated wildfire risk, Even fireworks that are legal under Oregon law can ignite grass, brush, and structures. This year was no exception as multiple fire incidents once again reminded our community how quickly a celebration can become an emergency. The distinction between legal and illegal fireworks becomes less meaningful when the consequences are the same. Legal fireworks are capable of starting fires causing more serious burns, frightening pets and livestock, and placing tremendous demands on firefighters, law enforcement, and emergency medical personnel. Illegal fireworks only compound that risk. Every preventable fire diverts emergency services away from the critical needs and places first responders and residents in necessary danger. So Redmond has experienced significant growth in recent years with more homes, neighborhoods, businesses, and open spaces than ever before. As our community grows, so does our responsibility to protect lives and property. The potential costs of a single firework caused fire can far exceed the temporary enjoyment fireworks bring, or provide rather. In an era of increasing wildfire threats, our policy should reflect current realities rather than traditions established under very different conditions. For these reasons, I believe Redmond should seriously consider prohibiting use of all consumer fireworks, both legal and illegal, and instead encourage professionally managed public fireworks displays and other community celebrations. Such a policy We reduce Wi-Fi risk, protect homes, businesses, and lessen the burden of first responders and demonstrate that the safety of our residents is our high priority. Celebrating our nation's independence should never come at the expense of the lives, property, and natural resources that make our community such a special place to call home.

Thank you. Katherine? Katherine?

Leadership does not require being emotionless. Many of the qualities we seek in leaders are inherently so. Empathy, compassion, courage, inspiration, and the ability to understand how decisions affect real people in real lives. With that said, I want to thank everyone again who came together to make the 250th an amazing event for our community and share a moment that I found to be full of inspiration. I had the honor of leading the Pledge of Allegiance in Centennial Park, and standing with thousands of our neighbors, my fellow counselors, I stepped up to the mic and began the pledge. I then took a step back from the mic and continued to recite. Hearing all of the voices rise together, it was powerful. It was inspiring. And for that moment in time, the divisions that so often dominate our conversations seemed to fade away. What remained was the unmistakable sound of a community united And I want to thank you again, everyone who stepped up to make that event happen, because that is a memory that I will carry with me always. Thank you.

John? I just want to go on the record as saying that as filled with dread as I was, I am so proud of the two youth speakers we had tonight.

You did an amazing job, and I'm proud of both of you.

When it comes to... When it comes to the fireworks, it's not a decision that I take lightly. It's not something that I look forward to. The bottom line to me is that we do not have enough resources to adequately protect the areas that are threatened by the fireworks. And so I do support continuation of fireworks at the fairgrounds for as long as we can do that because I do believe that the tradition matters. but I also know the number of neighbors and citizens that have come up to me with just sense of dread for what the 4th of July brings because of the collateral damage, the noise, and the disruption to their lives. So it's not a decision that I take lightly and I look forward to getting the feedback, though I think it's gonna be very much in line with what we have received over the last few years. So, that's it, thank you.

All right. Yes, sir?

I just wanna say that at the Friday night deal that we were at, and started this whole 250 celebration. The Mr. and Mrs. Redmond did such a great job in presenting their move to Redmond and their life in Redmond. I thought it was cool.

The Historical Landmarks Commission did a great job and the players from Ridgeview were fantastic. Okay, we are adjourned from the city council meeting Convenient just a minute or two for the urban renewal.