Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

to look at the the minutes. Motion. Second. You have a motion in a second. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Um, now we want to open it up for public comment on proposed budgets for the city road district state revenue share. Any public comments? Nancy, do you want to make a comment? Always. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Hearing none, we'll close the public comment. Page 109. Oh, 138 is the road district. 138. Were we going there? Oh, I just lumped them all together. Do I need to do them singularly? Okay, great. So, now we can get back to discussion and deliberation for the fiscal year 2627 budget. Do you have a plan?

Uh I think we are we have some options that to for this group to consider. So um you'll note on the agenda we put all the approvals that will eventually be needed on there. Um we didn't when we put the agenda together we didn't think we would be ready for that and today we're telling you we are not ready for that but we want to keep all options open. If for some reason today you guys never want to meet again this year, you have motions that you can consider, but we're not recommending that. Um, so I thought maybe to start with, well, back to the stage. There was a lot requested last week that when we started piecing it all together, what we want to talk about, I think that's where there's a few things we're going to wait till the next meeting. So, there are several things we're ready to discuss and so I thought maybe um Zach and I were going through those today. we can lay those before you and see if there's an order that makes sense to you and um and then we can proceed that way. So uh one of the things that we have is kind of the discussion of identifying which we've done in years past kind of new requests whether it's from staff uh the council budget committee members uh other committees at the city and things like that whether we how to consider those along with any new ongoing revenue or um or uh using current one-time money that we've saved up. So, we have that option to do. I've prepared more information uh on uh and what I really do want to get this committee's uh direction on street projects and a prioritization of those

uh versus some parks projects or a parks project. Um and so uh we've we've put some placeholders in the budget, but we can fine-tune that. We would like to fine-tune that based on your your direction. Um, and some of that goes to how uh how we want to use possible new transient logic tax. Um, what were the other items off the top of your head uh that we were ready to discuss today? I think many of you had submitted questions, so we're ready to discuss. I think answers to most of those questions. Is there another kind of bigger topic? Um,

oh, capital. There is a agenda and a and a meeting minutes printed out for everyone. Um, there's one item about uh the philosophy we have for contingency planning or contingency plans uh versus not um or just leaving it in the ending funding fund balance. So I didn't want to touch on Yeah, I would say those are those are some of the questions that have come in that we can answer. Are there any other bigger subjects we have a discussion? It kind of ties into the new request and things like that. Was there I think

I think we've decided we want to wait till the next meeting to talk water and sewer uh rates and and cap on that. So with that in mind, uh I would suggest we either start with a discussion of kind of new requests uh what new additional funding we might have uh or capital or uh street maintenance and street projects. So this turn it back to you to as a committee to say where would you like to start today? I also want to make sure we come back around to the nonprofits and finalize that. I think it should be a very short conversation.

We have that um uh so we have a dollar amount we set aside budget the same amount was budgeted last year and based on the preliminary discussions you've had uh you prioritize some and it's more than that amount. So I think that we were including that as part of the discussion of new funding and how you want to spend it and stuff like that. So but it's yes, it's definitely on the table to be discussed today. I'm fine with whatever you want to do. Yeah, we've got to do them all eventually. Right.

I'm interested to do street maintenance only because that's what I've been working on today and I'm ready to go. But I don't want to force that on anyone. But it's a it's uh more interesting to me. So does anything. All right. Uh John, can you pass me the clicker?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wait one second. Do we know if Seth is joined? He's on.

Okay. Hi, Seth. All right. You may click off of that. I think you need to Okay. So, we're talk a little about street funding strategy and pavement preservation plan.

All right. Are we able to hide that top bar? If not, that's okay. So, I uh sent out the pavement preservation plan. Uh I know Bill had asked about that with a little bit of context for it. Uh but to bring everyone up to speed, um we had an assessment done of our streets. It's called a PCI. And what they do, they go out and look at every street. They put it into I think there's four different categories. uh they assign a kind of a score for each street and then there's a whole bunch of formulas and equations that gives us an overall number for the city. And um so we are overall the city is in fair condition which means we have lots of streets that are in fair or good and lots of streets are in poor or failing. Uh so the system is stable but it's trending towards decline without increased investment and that's really what we're here to talk about. Uh the deferred maintenance project uh is projected to grow significantly over time. So the key issue takeaway I think we all understand this hopefully without action more streets will fall into costly repair. So the earlier the intervention the um the more economical the cheaper it is. Try click it once for me. Okay. Cost of waiting. Why this matters? Uh deferred maintenance continues to grow over time. Streets deteriorate once they drop below fair. Uh the costs uh increase significantly. Streets move from poor and very poor. So we want to stop the goal is to stop streets from getting into the poor category. uh the simple reality, early

maintenance, lower cost, delayed maintenance, much higher cost. And I think you'll get into this in a sec, but along with that is you could spend all your money on very poor streets and have all of your good or fair streets move into the poor. And so, um, that would be the most expensive way to do your street maintenance, which is sometimes counterintuitive. Go fix the worst streets. And so that's what we're going to talk about. Uh so recommended strategy, this came from the consultant who put the study together. So the lowest cost crack ceiling, then we do a thin or medium overlay on the fair streets, thick overlay on the poorest streets, and a reconstruction only when necessary. So again, focus on preserving streets before they fail, not just fixing the worst streets. two key decisions. Uh um how much one-time funding should go to streets? Uh and should we increase ongoing funding? And so um we have uh Zach, can you walk us through the source the various sources of street funding? just tell us like um so the current the the places that we get street funding funding from are the road district um anytime we set aside capital we have capital uh the capital construction

in the general fund for street construction specifically and then we get money from the state um road district is about4 to $500,000 and um the uh money from the state is typically $500 to $600,000. So somewhere in the realm of $900,000 to a million a year. And then one other possible source um is uh through the urban renewal agency. So street projects located within um that district.

And you said that some money comes from capital that comes from uh property tax. Generally, it's come through the the other road dedicated amounts, right, from the state or the road district. Well, money stays in the road district, but um we I don't think we've been setting aside funds from property taxes for roads. That being said, it's in the general fund. All the property tax comes in the general fund. So, you can't point to it pays for this or that. But um where our property taxes don't even cover the cost of public safety. I would say that we're saving money from property taxes for streets.

Road dollars are annual and then state dollars are annual as well. Correct. Yes.

So So from those two sources, we have about the 6.24 million already saved up that we can use for street. So there have been some projects and so we can get ready to go on those. Then we have um a pos the possibility for up to another 13.5 million. And so um where that comes into we discussed a little bit about the changes with the transient lodging tax. Part of that law change is that 50% of what you have saved up and have in the bank from previous collections can be used for non tourism purposes. And that amount is the fif wait is that right? 13.6 million

if we used all of it for streets. All of the 50%. Yes. In in addition to the 6.24.

Okay. Sorry, I was reading that as additional 13.6. I'm like, that math doesn't work. That's correct. So, it's if we use all of the half of the transit lodging tax is what about another six or seven million. That gives the gap. So, we used all of that. We now have about 13.5 million that we could put towards streets today. So, that's savings. So then we have a current funding of about $960,000 a year from the road district and the state's uh road funds. Uh new revenue next year of 560,000 could be available and it's what I'm recommending if we want to prioritize streets. And so that would be about $180,000 of new transient lodging tax ongoing revenue and about $380,000 of business license revenue. So we've talked about keeping the business license revenue in the general fund and instead of transferring it to the visitors bureau and then funding the visitor bureau 100% out of transient lodging taxes. that produces $560,000 per year that could be available. And I think the last week what I talked about is if I didn't I've been talking to several people about it and that is this is kind of a a one-time thing we get with new transient logic tax and and changing how we do business licenses or where that money goes. And so it's not every year we have an extra bit of money to spend. And so it could be um split out between a whole bunch of random budget requests. The question I kind of have is 10 years from now, what will we have to show for it? Uh so in my

mind it's we want to be very strategic about how we use it and not just you know dedicate 100,000 of it this year to a certain thing and next year it's another 100,000 or something because uh let's let's take the bigger approach and what are the top priorities and um this is getting to my conclusion but um my priority would be um streets and parks um and maybe until we get to a a PCI rating where we are more in a maintenance mode than a recovery mode and then we can consider whether we can back off some of the ongoing street funding in a maintenance mode rather than trying to make up lost ground if that makes sense. So, how close are is your strategy to the strategy that they laid out in the report? Because they kind of laid it out as well, if you want to bring them up.

We'll get there. Yeah. And obviously, it's all based on what we actually pricing we get and bidding out and stuff like that. Yeah. Kathy, can you explain again why it's a one-time thing and not an annual thing? If the ongoing budgets for the visitors center will be funded by transient lodging taxes and that would free up other income for other uses, why would that only be a one-time thing? What I mean is that we have a one-time increase to the budget. That money would stay and be ongoing, but we're not going to have an extra 180,000 next year and an extra on top of what we're doing this year.

Okay? So, it's a one-time bump in the overall budget that we shouldn't expect every year, but it should be continuing at that level. Yes. So, I think what I'm saying is let's be strategic and deliberate about how we use it. Um, so, you know, we can say this, we had this extra money, this is what we used it for, rather than, well, we kind of use it on lots of different things. And so, so we have up to$ 13.5 million today. and then an total possible of $1.5 million moving forward.

So, can I ask a question? Um, this isn't so much about the funding, but what we also know is that um the sewer lines run under the streets and we've had to do street work due to the deterioration or the caving in of sewer lines. And how does how are we figuring that in to the strategy for what we replace? And a lot of times we don't know what sewer line's going to cave in and that kind of thing.

And that's where the sewer master plan that's being worked on will will come in. So I would say we wouldn't um I wouldn't recommend funding sewer lines say with general fund money. At the same time, I wouldn't uh I wouldn't put a strategy together that we're trying to use our sewer rates to pay for the for the roads. So, I think if we have major sewer construction, we would time that with the road work that needs to happen. But the lighter road work is something that we should probably be doing every year. Something like crack sealing. So, if we're coming through and do that every year, then it doesn't matter if a road is is dug up portions of it to uh replace a sewer line. But we would want to do that before we do a major overlay or a major reconstruction or time it with the construction,

right? That is assuming we have the funds. But I think where we have an opportunity, if we were, okay, let's say we're re we're reconstructing spruce drive. If that sewer line needs to be replaced, for sure, we would want to do it all at one time. And if we didn't have the money in sewer, that would be an occasion of of it would cost us way more to do it later or deteriorate street. So, we would probably look at loaning ourselves money from a different fund to get it done now and then pay it back with the the super fun. We don't want to have to tear up a repaired street because of the

the other thing I will say talking with Paul our public works director um that he has already been implementing when we have other utility companies coming in and needing to repairs in our roads. I think traditionally they've dug a trench, worked in it, and patched that trench. And he's been telling them, "Now, no, you're going to go back this number of feet and this number of feet, and you're going to do curb to curb on both sides. So, it's not this this little patch that's not going to hold up. You've done the section of the road." And they've grumbled, but they've been willing to do it. And so, I think that will be the new approach, which I think will preserve those. But, you know, one of the things we can consider that some cities do is once you rebuild a road, you put a moratorum on on cuts in there. And so, if there is a development that wants to come in, wants to put water lines or sewer lines is like, "Yep, you can do it. You can wait nine more years or you can bore under the road and do it, but we're not going to let you cut into it." And so, we could put we could consider some of those policies. We'd probably want to impose those on ourselves if we're going to do that, but um um there are things we can do with newer roads like like on holiday and stuff like that.

Um so summarizing a different way, we have $6 million in dedicated street funds, about 7.4 million in flexible that's if all of the money were used for streets for a potential 13.6 six and then our current ongoing annual road and a potential for an additional influx of 560,000. So, um, some some initial work here would say looking at the condition of the streets from the report, um, it would cost us about $250,000 to do citywide crack sealing, four and a half to$5.5 million to do the the thin overlays on the fair streets, the thick overlays, 2 and a half million, and reconstruction. You can see that's up a lot of money. Um so obviously preservation reaches more streets per dollar and reconstruction consumes a large amount of funding really quickly. So um

good question there. Yeah. Is it even possible to crack seal every street in the season? Yeah. Uh all all of this is going to be contracted out and so uh seaside's not um so big that a company wouldn't be able to come through and do it in a matter of like couple weeks or something like that. That's something we haven't been out so I don't know for sure. Um but it's certainly do it's doable. Are there enough operators out there able to? That's TBD during the time of year when you can do it.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's that's that's everywhere is is unless you're in Southern California or something. It's there's a there's a a summer window,

probably a narrower window for us than most places, too. Usually for like I guess it's not concave work, but usually with pave work, you want 50 degrees and rising, which for a steady number of days, which is maybe asking a lot of our weather. Um, John, can you just move that for a second? Remind me what my my last column says. Oh, plain English outcome. Okay, you can cover up plain English and just call it outcome. Okay, so I want to walk through a couple of scenarios. Is this point your work?

Yeah, sometimes. Okay, let's take the top row, row A. Um, so this would be our current uh this this would be kind of the base minimum. We spend the 6.24 million that can really only be spent four roads and we keep our our current funding level of just under a million dollars over five years. That's about $1 million and we would estimate that we would go from a 61 PCI to a 71 to a 74. So, that's a strong catchup, but long-term funding still modest. Next option um is uh so we have a a B a B and a half and a B+ just to keep the some consistency there. Um so would be all of the onetime funding they can only use for streets plus uh 1.52 million annual funding. So, we take the new business license transient lodging tax dedicated to annual funding. That's 13.84 million over 5 years. That should get us to somewhere between a 73 and a 77. So, balanced option, good catchup, plus better sustainability. All right. B and a half. This would be taking 50% of the um of the new of the TLT balance. So, we're already dealing with half of the TLT balance. Now, I'm saying take half of that and dedicated it to um streets and take half of the new money we're getting from business licenses and transit lodging tax. Um, so you can see those amounts for 16

million, which would get us to a 75 to a 79 uh, uh, PCI, moderate catchup, and moderate long-term commitment. Um, the reason I put that in there is this is this is kind of what the budget currently anticipates. So, what I have recommended, but should be discussed by this comm by this committee and by the council. I think there are two highest uh capital needs. One is streets and one is construction of the north 40 park. And so um we don't know today what that cost will be. And so um what Zach has done is he has budgeted 50% of the now flexible TLT balance that was in that fund. is budgeted that to go to the general fund and correct me if I'm wrong. Then half of that to then be transferred within the general fund, half going to parks and half going to street construction.

I think it's closer to 2/3 one third but which but yes that's that's the idea.

But uh but doing it that way preserves some flexibility on how we spend it. Um my idea for a long time has been um build the north 40 and use any remaining balance to boost up what we're doing in streets. Um this is conceptual. what we don't have are solid numbers and so um we wouldn't delay the we would still have funding to do the maintenance projects we need to do but not maybe the major overlays and reconstructions that we may want to wait and see where the park estimate comes back from our consultant if we narrow that down. Um but that is one direction. Uh another direction would be do all streets. Another direction would be let the streets all fall apart and uh build a fivetory city hall building that's a made of gold. I don't know. So uh you have all the options in the world. Um uh but in my mind those are the two highest. North 40 Park and our streets. Um so uh the next option is um taking half of the new transient or the transient lodging savings giving to the one-time funding um and putting all of the ongoing money uh into streets. And so that that's probably closer to what I'm recommending, which is 17.5 million over five years gets us to a 76 or an 80. Strong catchup while preserving flexibility. Uh let's see.

Next option, you can't see. We're going through all the different variants. all of the onetime money and then only the current money but not new money each year going towards it. That gets us again to a 7781. You can see B, B+ and C are um pretty close to each other. And then lastly, putting everything into streets. 13 and a half million of the one time uh increasing our ongoing commitment to one and a half and um a 5year total of 21 million gets us to an 80s and A3 and um 21 or 22 million is kind of what the uh the plan said it was needed to get us to where we need need to be. Um, so near full recovery. Now it's two years old and so we're probably not a 61 anymore and um, but this this gets us almost all the way there. And so one of the ways to look at this might be to do that and then is the annual funding still need to be one and a half million or can we preserve a low 80 score at something less than that? Um, maybe I'd rather get there and then decide if it needs to be reduced. But in the near future, C and D I guess um give us no money for parks for park building 40.

Right. Now we do have some money set aside for park construction that can only be used what is it about one and a half million.

It is 1.15. Um so we have that and then uh an approach if we're talking about the north 40 specifically uh I guess I would say there a couple things to consider. One is uh a phased approach where we have the consultants say okay we like this plan we can't do it all at once. What's the order? We start to do smaller projects. Do the parking lot first. Then we move the baseball field field. Then we add a walking route around the area. We look for grant opportunities. Things like that. The other opportunity is to do some more work in um identifying uh possibilities of using transient lodging taxes uh and uh for the park construction. I think we it would be difficult uh at least talking to some other city and county managers, it's a little more difficult to have the the ongoing maintenance for that coming from transit lodging taxes, but probably doable. we'd want to carefully look at that and consider that and and work with our attorneys on that. So, that is another option is to do that uh to fully fund the streets and then use some of the other balance. That being said, um that will create another discussion is what is the right amount amount of fund balance we need to have for the convention center? What are we putting into that long-term for its capital needs for future expansions and things like that? That's one asset that we absolutely can't let deteriorate. Um uh because uh it is purely optional for people to come here based on the service they're getting. So if it starts to get run down or something like that, they're going to people will go elsewhere. And so um uh it's the reason I think it's it's uh operating so well and such a

good convention center is it's had the dedicated funding is needed to be there. Question point. So did the consultant go through and make analysis of cost increases versus revenue increases? So are the costs going to increase faster than our revenues? Uh I can guarantee costs always the expenses always go up faster than the revenue. But I think what's our revenue growth in these areas? It's not significant. It's the 3% would be would be exceptional.

I mean, part of this is and there's broader discussions on long-term funding for roads because um much of it is based on gas tax. And so as we move to more electric vehicles, we have the same or increasing traffic on the roads and decreasing revenue to pay for it. And so the state's been looking at other options. I don't know, Mary, you've I know you've been more involved with LLC and some of the legislative. Are there any other discussions happening about street funding? I mean, part of the ODOT package a year ago was funding for cities specifically for streets.

Package would have doubled their gas tax. So waiting to fix the roads is just going to cost you more basically. Yeah. Two twofold. One is our dollars will won't go as far, right? And the they will deteriorate more and need more work done. So it's kind of a double whammy. So spending your money now is much better. The the other risk for for state funding specifically is, you know, what happens if the state starts to look at maybe commandeering some of the funding that they traditionally send to the cities, right? I mayor, you know better than I do on whether that's even an option. Had those discussions, but but yeah,

they they will not go that direction unless it's absolutely necessary because they know cities and counties won't stand for it. Anything else you'd add about about discussions happening at the legislature around transportation funding? Well, you're going to vote in next month whether you want to pay more gas tax. Overwhelming assumption is that it's going to go down by 70 or 80%. No. Um other than the gas tax, the vote

there there really is no answer. Nobody's come up with anything. One side says you need to increase taxes. The other says you need to make ODOT more responsive and you know less administratively heavy. And you know the answer is always going to be somewhere in the middle. But you can't get both sides to agree to that. And um we our hands are tied. I mean, this is a general fund expense and so um property taxes can be used for that, but we don't have the ability to just do a general increase. Now,

we could look at levies,

but that's not going to be popular. There are other there are uh STS can only be used on new roads, not to maintain the existing ones. Um there are cities that are imposing transportation utility fees and this is what happens. You get your you get handcuffed on what you do on property taxes. So then cities start using fees for things that traditionally haven't been used for fees. So, I know some cities have park fees that go on your utility bill, public safety fees, and uh that's just a workaround to property taxes, but it's the hand we've been dealt. But um uh a property tax versus a utility field fee affects different people and communities differently. And so as an example in our community where we do have a significant number of second homes um uh you know my preference would always be to get as much out of those second homeowners and Airbnb owners

um rather than those who are um getting the utility bill each month. But uh those are options that you could SDC's that you could charge for other types of development would free up other general funds to use for Yeah. Except for we're not spending those as much right now. But yes, uh meaning most of those projects are STC funded or have the utilities directed to them. But some of the money for parks is through STC's, right? Yeah. Correct. So,

and on the park side of it, um, the North 40 backs up to Pacifica, and Pacifica, if I remember correctly, is going to have some sort of a playground or somewhat a bit of a park. Is that going to be a closed area to only that development, or will it be considered a public park that anybody can use? No, I would call it more of a tot than a park. Okay. And it's it's it'll be private. Now, I'm not sure they're going to be kicking people out, but it I wouldn't call it significant enough for the park of the size we're contemplating like it would

Well, I understand that, but but if that's the playground, you can phase in North 40 because there's going to be a playground there, too. Yeah, probably. And I'm I'm just looking at the redundancy. Sure. Yeah. I think the the one there is, at least if I'm going off other projects I've seen and um what I've seen in their plans, it's going to be more for parents and small children that that live there and not have much capacity beyond that. Okay.

But but what will be nice is for them having a great big park right next door and whatever happens on the old high school property, the same thing. and for that matter everyone the north end of the city and everyone throughout the the city. The uh Pacifica is an they own the site. It's up to them. So it'll never be a city park at all. Uh but it is it's just a small playground for little kids.

They did focus on the fact that we would have a park next to it someday and that's a drawing point for them. Um, just as a a sideline, I won't take long, but I did a lot of lobbying and testifying on this TLT. And my focus, and Spencer and I have had many discussions about this, is that the money that we're getting out of TLT is going to go to something that's going to help our residents. And I focused on uh roads simply because the the tourists don't pay anything towards roads. We get money for sewer and water from hotels and things like that. So they are paying some of that and u whether you know we split I'm really pleased to see this because this really helps using only half of that money and obviously if you're using the other half for parks and that's still good for our people as well. But we need to continue to work towards making sure our folks aren't upset that we have tourism here and they need to see benefit for it. And this is should be a great way to do that. And then we don't have to go into the thing of charging all these other fees. Um when I talk to mayors across the state, city after city after city has to do start doing this. Uh, a lot of the smaller ones, well, they're bigger than us, but uh, you know, St. Helens, for instance, had to do it so they could fund their police.

I feel really bad about it. I've met some city managers of cities that have zero property tax because at the time the law went to a place that froze it and said you can't increase it. They had none. One, the only

they live on on TLT. The only positive side of it from one city manager was was when he had an upset resident in his office that said, "I pay your salary." He said, "Actually, no, you don't. You don't pay any property taxes." So, I don't know how far that got him. Uh, one one thing I would say is um uh there are always some back pocket things that we know are available but aren't ready to propose necessarily. You know, one thing is we have free downtown parking and that's that's a great benefit to our city in the long run if we want tourists to pay. Um that is one thing we can consider whether that's year round or or um just during certain months. Um the other thing I would say is um and this I think at some point we'll be coming to the council to talk about all the different transportation funding options. We are the only city in the county that doesn't charge our own gas tax on gas. So I think the only other communities that have gas stations are Warrington and um

and Historia and they both charge it. We do not. So we our gas is more expensive than theirs.

Don't get me started on how gas is. You can ask John who was just in Nebraska and and saw saw gas at half the price that we pay. There's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot that I can't explain that it feels like it's a a black box that they just uh make up amounts. But um uh but that's something I have thought a lot about. We have a couple of gas stations in our community. Um and so I think about this um I mean I I'll I'll admit maybe some of you in the same boat. I get most of my gas at Costco. Uh it's the cheapest and so raising the gas tax here wouldn't affect me very much. Um, probably some of our tourists do that and probably many of them before they head back to Portland fill up here. And so, uh, how much if we were to look at raising that, how much extra would that put towards streets? That's something we can look at. I don't think it's

it's not significant. I think it's like maybe $80,000 or something. It's something though. Atoria, when I looked a couple years ago, I think they pull in 175,000 to 200,000 something in that ballpark. And they're probably in a similar situation than we are where they're going to they're going to warrant and do. So So how much is the how much is the tax? How many cents? That I don't know. I just found it in their budget. It's two or three. Yeah. Two or because we're already at 60, right? The state one and it was a big thing when Atoria put that in. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's still pretty cheap.

Basically, it's like you said, it's in our back pocket. I mean, we could do all these things other people are doing, but I would rather not until it becomes necessary. Senator, I go ahead.

I just want to hit on what the mayor said. I I really agree that these streets are important to our residents and it's probably the number one thing we can do for them with this funding. And I think I feel like we've been very fortunate to have done the work. um a lot of people did the work to lobby and get us to this place and so we would be kind of a foregone opportunity if we didn't leverage some of this money to fix our streets right now. So I'm 100% in support of it. I actually like B+. Um I like the fact that it leaves some of the funding for the park

um but puts a good chunk in the streets. I'm thinking and and I like the 1.52 million because like in let's say five years it gets gets us to a 76 or 80 but nothing says that 1.52 million goes away in year six, right? So this is probably more than a fiveyear commitment. This is probably

keeps it keeps some flexibility. So let's say we're at a point where we have increasing demands on public safety and we need new additional police officers or firefighters. that is something that can be spent on that. That's a priority discussion at that point depending on needs and maybe that's a trigger to pull, you know, the lever on a different funding source to help pay for roads and and move that money over, but we have options. We're not committed to it. Um whereas the one-time money, you know, it's once it's spent, it's spent, but it's it's I see it and investment. Going back to what our residents would see, I I agree when I showed this before. in the streets do that. I will say I do know that um it's not like everyone's going to walk around and be like we're so grateful for these streets and stuff like that.

I think I think say why did it take so long? anyone driving and dropping off kids at the schools, if we can get screws done, will be um uh but I do think one of the reasons I am in favor of uh funding the North 40 and not just funding it, but um making it something special, really nice and special is and especially if there's a way we could acknowledge that that hey um this has been funded through money we've received from Transient Lodging taxes.

Let's tie a little bit of the um benefit we receive with tourism to show that okay, we put up with a lot of terrible traffic and things like that over the summer, but we wouldn't have a park like this otherwise. And so, kind of bringing those together a little bit. I'm not saying dedicated or thanks to our tourists or something like that, but something along those lines that uh can be a reminder to people. I mean, I think we take for granted that we have a lot of businesses, a lot of restaurants that a city of our size wouldn't normally have. And so, I think where we can show the city what we're able to do with it is helpful. But if we can also say, and we're doing your roads.

Exactly. And just to finish up on my thought real quick, the one concern I have is our ability to execute on this amount of money. So, you know, you mentioned it, we wouldn't public works wouldn't be doing the work. We'd be hiring a firm to do it, right? that that still requires oversight from city staff, right, to do that. So, seems like the crack ceiling is pretty

I'm sure there's some easy stuff, but I would want to make sure that when we make this commitment, we are making the right staffing commitment to public works and city staff to be able to oversee what they need to oversee to get this executed in this time frame. One of the things that I think on a big capital project we can also do is uh contract out the project management. Not to the company doing it,

but let's say we have a partnership with an engineering firm that's doing a lot of the design. They will have project managers that can come out and help direct those crews. Now, there is a downside that we don't have the some of the institutional knowledge of being in the ground with these projects and stuff like that, but it's probably uh more uh doable for a city of our size. Um but also, you know, what we can't do is staff up internally to do a whole bunch of projects and then staff back down. But we could also backfill. Correct. because we have a number of people that have extensive project management. No,

we have our our our public works director is about the only one. Okay. What about him? uh he he's come from the um residential kind of construction background and we were we want to train him into that but um no I wouldn't say like not street maintenance sewer lines water lines it was like you have this skill set we think that can be transitioned into this um but like our public works director that's what he's been doing for 30 years

and this is kind of the way we did the convention center as well the management was contracted out as well. So, um we that that takes part of the load, but I agree with Chris, we need to have we need to make sure that we've got everything in place to provide the support that we can execute. And um I know I did um some lobbying both uh testifying and letters and talking and and roads were the top thing that I talked about in terms of this is what what we need to uh to keep our our place a a a good place for tourists and for the people who live here. So I think doing giving most of the money to the streets we we have to do that. we we can't not do.

I maybe add to that that not doing it is a really expensive choice because if the streets get into the poor and very poor and undrivable, I don't know if that's a category, but if those are the conditions, we can't we can't we can't afford that. No. Kathy,

so um when you had the slide up that had which jobs were going to be done, you said that the focus was going to be on crack and ship ceiling. um how much of the actual failed streets which are in the poor streets is actually going to get done in the early phases because those are the things that people are actually going to notice. Crack ceiling and ship ceiling. People aren't even really going to they're not even going to they're going to notice the the impediment while it's going on, but then afterwards it's not the the payoff as far as the public perception isn't huge there. as well as have we looked into collaborating with the county on doing that because the county is doing it with Columbia County and saving them a significant amount of money.

How could we collaborate with the county and use their equipment and their people to help crack and ship seal our streets and save us money as well rather than just Columbia County. So, that's something I've encouraged our public works director to do and he's initiated, which is um uh with the some of our other coastal communities here in the county is putting a single bid package together each year. So, seeing if there's more competition and if that brings down lower prices, if they if they could do us and Atoria that same year, um what would that do for us? But put and along with the with the county and things like that. So what I'm saying is that the county has the equipment and the people and the facility to do chap crack and chip ceiling because they do it and they share the the ability to do that also with Columbia County which saves both of them money. They

I wasn't aware of that but we can look at that. what we've been looking at is right is putting out the bid package together but

yeah but if there is in fact I didn't know about the county I have suggested in the past I don't know if I've talked to our current public works director about it is like if if we could purchase the equipment and it would we could get a lot more done with it but we do it let's say we get together with Warrington and Gearheart and we each dedicate a number of crews to it and we send our crews to Warrington for a a month and they come to our city for a month and and we could get twice as much done for the money. Absolutely. We would do it. Um the tough thing with that is just all of our crews are very small for the cities that we that we have and so we may be able to get more done that way. It's what's the long list of other things that don't happen that summer, if you will. So the other part of my question though is so we're we're talking about spending a large portion of this on the crack ceiling because that's the biggest

not a big 250,000. So that is that's the investment per year or total.

That's the investment to do citywide crack sealing. Uh and so uh I'd go back and look at it. Um, uh, I I don't want to answer off the top of my head if that would be what we would do annually. Like if we reconstructed a street, do we crack seal the next year? I think there is a I think within the ratings in there, there is a the cost of crack sealing a poor street is a lot more expensive than a good or a fair street because a poor street is going to have a lot more cracks. So the as these number as our overall PCI improves the citywide crack ceiling decreases the cost of that. So a poor street is going to have let's say twice as many cracks in it as a fair street and so the cost of cracking will be twice as much.

Poor street you can't crack seal. You have to create you have well I'm just talking I'm just talk I'm just saying in general the better condition of your streets the overall you know price per square foot is going to be cheaper on your crack ceiling public works buys into this B+ I haven't talked about these scenarios uh but um yes Paul's very itching to get going on on contracts on this and we've been discussing that never contemplated that we you get into the high 70s. So, yeah. No, even 80. Yeah. Yeah. Um, let me go a few more. I think we've covered most of it.

Okay. We've talked about I think we're kind of on the same page. Reducing future costs, not just how much we're spending onetime versus ongoing funding. Okay. Okay. So, I think we pretty much covered it. So use the 6.5 million dedicated uh for the street program. Uh apply flexible funds as a balance between parks and streets. Commit to new ongoing revenue to streets. And then the last one I have on here is I think um there are there are quite a few streets that are in poor condition. Um, and so what I've always thought is we could eat up a big chunk of the maintenance that needs to happen on those streets. And so what I'm not ready to talk about is how or which streets or whatnot. I do think from all the feedback I've gotten, I don't know about you, that Spruce is probably the number one complaint.

It's a major road that goes to all the schools and it's one of the roads in the worst shape. There are other roads in just as bad shape, but they don't have as much traffic on them. um or don't have as many vocal people like my wife who drives it every day. Um or the parents of fourth graders. It was on many of the if I were mayor potholes. Fix spruce. Get rid of the potholes. Cars are being

So, so I think that's a high priority. But what I don't want to do, let's Okay, let's say it's a $2 million project. What I'm nervous about is spending $2 million on that that delays work elsewhere that cost us $6 million. And so that's the balance. And so the strategies I want to consider and that we can if we're kind of on the same page, we can come back at the next meeting talk about is is roads are absolutely a part of the urban renewal list of projects. What we've committed to the sewer lift station on Wahana for urban renewal. Um, should this be a discussion at our next improvement commission meeting as well as urban renewal agency budget committee meeting which has 28 people on um as kind of the next priority for the um urban renewal district. Um the nice thing about this with urban renewal since there is ongoing uh funding that's reliable for the money to come in is you can not just for this for all the projects we can contemplate um uh taking on debt basically borrowing the funds to do it and do things. Now the idea in general for an urban renewal fund would be um uh let's see take on um some debt to do a project but it overall enhances the neighborhood and that brings in additional property tax revenues as the values escalate. You're actually then um speeding up the process of what you're trying to do which actually gives you more money to do the same thing. And so I'm not sure streets projects necessarily do that specifically. I think it's part of the project. I don't know if it has the direct value back to the city. Um but we certainly for the

amounts we're talking about there may be ways for us even to um uh you know borrow from ourselves from other funds and pay it back over a shorter time span like three or three years or something like that rather than waiting three more years as an example to do it if the funding's not quite there. I would just say as a transportation planner, I think that there's a much larger conversation there than just paying to fix Spruce Street, Spruce Drive, because the school was granted a safe route to school grant that uh was a planning grant that focused on that area. Um fixing that street is going to cause other problems because then you're going to have increased speeds and incidents of accidents if you just fix it as it is. So, I think that there's a larger planning project there than just

that's what that's what the project is. It's it's when we talk about a reconstruction, it's not just fixing the problems there, but it's looking at the sidewalks, the crossings, looking at the bike, you know, everything in between. Um, you know, within scope of what we're speed is already a problem on that street. When I'm dropping off my kids in the morning, speed is not the problem. I can promise you that people who live the lack of speed is the problem. I can tell you I hear regularly about the speed. Well, we have purchased I think the new um traffic data counter. So, we'll see if the

uh it's a perception of speed or an actual speed. That's what we want to that's what we want to find. But I can guarantee that between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning there is not a speeding problem after school. Today you're on spruce. Yes, it does. It does. It does. Um would the all of this money and discussion um fix the Avenue S and the bridge problem?

Uh so that is another project that is contemplated in the urban renewal and I think that we can come back with more information on what projects could be done and maybe we start prioritizing within the urban renewal. here's the priority because right now I would say my recommendation would be spruce would be a higher recommendation than S but road projects in the urban renewal S would probably be next. So um where that all fits in that's a good discussion to have. It wasn't the discussion about Avenue S and the bridge was about a big grant that was being applied for and the money wasn't awarded to us.

Yeah. When I when I first got here the that project seeing if the money was there money for bridges there was a budget for that but there wasn't actually the money to back up the budget. So and I think it's I think the idea was waiting on funding for the bridge to do the road. I think at this point is we need to do the road and if the bridge happens, the bridge happens. But um where we don't see a likely imminent path, let's not wait on the road. It's a lot of traffic schools. Yes, but they weren't going to go that way. But that is when

every kid's going to walk, including mine. Um with that, we want to move on to another section. Sure. Can I turn Zach? Can I let my voice rest a little bit and turn it over to you and maybe let's Do we have to do we have to from this come to a consensus about maybe that's a good point. Thank you counselor. Um why don't uh I take a seat have a drink and you guys discuss I think this is more theoretical. How would you like to prioritize the street funding versus everything else in the budget and maybe along with the north 40 as I've presented it. So I can turn it over to you and hydrate.

Yeah. Does anybody else have comments about it? Can you take it back to those A B C whatever the chart? The chart. Thank you. I just think there's not a lot of difference between B and a half B+. These aren't hard things. I'm just trying to There is a top and a bottom and there's lots of So I would say no do that. We want to see we want to see an 80 when we get get the theory. Okay, I'm going to increase my um my I'm going to hedge you a little bit more on those scores. Um I would say

turn into a politician. What's what is the what is the kind of philosophy or theory or priorities? How would you do that? How would you recommend that as a budget committee and then we can go back and see what that translates specifically into the budget and make that recommendation at the next meeting. So why don't we go through and uh see what our consensus is who

how many of you would agree with uh option A? None. Option B, B and a half one B+ everybody else. Everybody else. Okay. Do uh any C twice. Okay, that's it. So B+.

So I think this is the approach I would probably take is um working with our public works director to begin the uh bidding process for the the um the lighter treatments that we know we can afford and for the major things. um

trying to time that with kind of when we get better estimates back on the north 40 and then we can just make some of those decisions. Is that kind of a general path where we're going? The nice thing about getting getting bids and proceeding with that is we're not holding to anything. Um the one the other thing that we may do, Zach, how much did we do we have any of these street funds? I can't remember budget in this year's budget. I kind of remember we might have budgeted all of it so we can do it. So, um we don't have to wait till July to do any of these projects because it's already we kind of since it only can be used on streets, we budgeted the full amount. So, when we're ready, we can we can do it.

There's still also that theory of the TLT money that you don't want to be using till after January. Correct. Okay. I think I think for things like the major road construction, that's not something we're going to be bidding out, you know, two weeks and have a project in June or July. But for some of the smaller things, absolutely we can. Roof takes you three months. So, in street construction this year, we've got 6.24 million budgeted for infrastructure. So, um, there will be a bit of a timing issue on 2 million of that, but it at least gets the the project started down the road.

That's great. Wonderful. Can I just throw something out? Making sure that we get somebody on the board that knows how to work in the coastal the contractor. Good point.

I I will say this that most of that has to do with the type of treatment we do, not necessarily how we do it. And unfortunately for us, there are some pavement uh maintenance uh techniques that most of the rest of the state gets to use, but we don't get consistently warm enough here. and it's it's in the in between the crack ceiling and the overlays is uh there's a whole bunch of options that just don't work here um according to our consultants and I've asked our public works director okay verify that from some of the other um cities their engineers public works directors and if that's consensus we don't want to try anything but there is a different um recommendation that has something in between that we could consider but that's an important thing. It goes from really cheap treatments to expensive treatments really quickly, whereas elsewhere there's a little bit more of a range where they have more consistent warmer weather. and knowing that we've got that pocket of money and where we seem to be going the direction um I think at some point we need to start talking about which uh which streets in which order and that kind of stuff that kind of

I think that will certainly come in especially where if it's phased over certain number of years and so some of this will be you know how far there there's some strategies to all of that but that will I think for this purposes we want to get the money budgeted and then we'd come back to the council for some of those discussions. Spencer, would you do me a favor? I don't know how to minimize that to pull up the Excel sheet behind it, but I've got uh You say escape.

Escape. Now you got to move that. You got to move the talking little box. There we are.

You just have to go down to the bottom. It's It's a The bottom to will pop up once you bring the Yeah. There you go. And I think there's a tab at the top with your spreadsheet open. There we go. Okay. How do I pull that cell? I suppose I could do it. Uh, yeah. You go to editing. You got to um Yeah, take care of those boxes first. It's because it's not signed in at the top right. I would say you can just

Oh, we can we can do it in this. Go in the top right. I think there's a full screen option for the browser and that might help you hit the three little dots in the top right.

Nothing like uh go down to the middle where it says zoom and then to the right of that there's that box up. There we are. All the way to the right. Hey, there we are. Okay.

Nothing like back seat computer navigation live streaming. that I'm going to put that away for a second. So that that's that's a little peak behind the curtain, but I don't want you guys to focus on that part first. Um, okay. So, I wanted to cover a couple things uh that have been asked since, sorry, stand over here. Um, that have been asked in the past week. So, uh, one of them is what's the philosophy on using contingency funding, um, kind of in relation to ending fund balance? So contingency funding, my my philosophy on it is if you've got a department out there that's spending is can is or can be really variable. So I think uh water sewer if something breaks we don't necessarily know that ahead of time right convention center thankfully we've traditionally budgeted contingency there uh because food costs have spiked. Now, those are all backed by revenue, but at the same time, the the laws of Oregon make it so that you have to budget expenses, they don't necessarily care whether that's backed by revenue. So, um the general fund, right, if we have some emergency across the city that we need funds for, we've always got the option to call the budget committee back into session for what they call a supplemental budget. But if we don't have to do that and we can go to city council to request funding for something then we try not to do that. Um so those are some of the opt some of the some of the the funds that we use contingency for. Um city council without bringing um the budget committee back into session can't move more than 15% of

a of a fund's expenditures in any given year. So, that's traditionally about what I what I put into contingency if it's available. Um, that's not to say that it would ever be used, but but that's that's the philosophy. So, to clarify, not a slush fund for anything. It requires council approval. Yep. But it can be used rather than having to convene the larger body.

That's correct. Yes. Um, in relation to ending fund balance, uh, there's not necessarily a correlation there, but if there's not a contingency line, uh, that is funded on some of these funds, a lot of them, I'd say probably 25% have a contingency line in the first place. uh if there's nothing funded there, then I'm fairly confident that we can cover it within the within either the uh funds expenditures or we'll have something left over somewhere else that we could transfer or it's or it's a a smaller fund that doesn't, you know, think the airport where the annual expenditures are a couple thousand dollars, right? Uh we can find that somewhere else and transfer in we if we got back into a corner and had to. Um, so that's that's a little bit about contingency and why it's in some funds and why it's not in some others. Um, now, sorry, I know you guys have already seen this. That's why I put this here. So, I got another question about um kind what what is what is our philosophy for um budget requests and ongoing costs and how how do we determine what that looks like? And I apologize that I'm sitting behind everyone, but it's the only place that I can control the computer and not have it freak out on me. So um so this operational tab is something that that really probably only Spencer and I generally see. But what we try to do here is we take all the funds in the city and we look at new money coming in and new money going out. Right? So uh this does not this this basically takes away the distortions that are created by transfers between funds. And so um you can see within our consolidated

general fund new money coming in is about 13.5 million. Now new money going out is 15 million. Right? So so there are some trade-offs when it comes across to to decisions made across the city. But in general, what I try what we try to do is look at the total new money go coming in versus new money going out. And that gives us a variance. So we've got about 87,000 after the items that we've recommended to be proposed within the within the new um budget requests. So um so when you ask about last year last year we I think this number was closer to 300,000 or so of new of um an excess a surplus of of new money in versus money going out. Um, and so what we did is we pulled up all of the budget requests and we said here's here's your menu of items that that have been requested by the departments. Um, you can do all of them or none of them or or what have you, right? What and we and we discussed that. And so, um, I suppose all of that is is to say, I wanted to give you guys a a peak behind the curtain to say when when we're asked what the base budget is, um, this this includes things like health insurance increases. That was about 200,000 of of that number. So, that number would be 200,000 higher without health insurance increases. if you're um general step increases from personnel. Uh materials and services we generally keep the same as last year unless

there's something that we know is coming. Um and then required capital is typically things like working capital for the for the construction funds. Um what else do I keep in there? Does it include all the things that had a one versus a zero on the spreadsheet?

Yep. So that's the next one. So So when we look in on this, so this is just general fund, there's two two items here. This has everything water, water, sewer, um visitors bureau. So this is all of the budget requests that came in last year. And over here in this first column,

it it basically works on a on an equation, right? So it looks at if this is a one right here, it's multiplying this one by this to give you a number here. So it allows us to d to to quickly say yes, we're interested in doing this. You put a one there, and then it automatically goes into the line that it's budgeted to. Now you guys I've I've cut this down so it's not it this sheet is more involved but that's how uh it works on my end

and I would say that we most of our focus on this is the general fund because the general fund uh is where kind of the competition is uh the water fund the sewer fund uh traditionally the transient lodging taxes and those things have dedicated revenue for themselves and so the department head has come and said here's high priorities, you know, with the funding available. It's really the general fund where we have a severe excess in requests, needs, demands, whatever you will be, and much more restrictions on the revenue that we have. And so that's typically where we focus much of the discussions and most much most much most much of the things that whether staff, counselor, budget committees or residents would like to see service level changes are going to be affected in the general fund. And so, you know, a funding request for the library uh is money that the fire department or public or police can't spend and vice versa. And same with the finance department or planning or or public works and things like that. And so that's where much of the focus of the discussion typically is.

So the 87,000 in it's after all these ones. That's correct. Those are all funded in the base. In my terminology, right now the the available expansion budget is 87,000. I would say I would call it this. Um the ones are a recommended budget. Recommended. So you could remove those ones and reallocate those funding as a committee. If the committee wanted to fund a new ambulance, we would have to find

we would have to take away one of those ones, find it within these requested items or andor use the 87,000 that is I mean there's a broader thing of or looking opening up the rest of the budget and you know we don't Yeah. But but yes, realistically. Yeah. So what what we've tried to do what I've tried to do and and Zach has tried to do is is come in with with if it's recommended we would say it's a higher priority over something that's not re that doesn't mean a zero is um priority not important or something like that but our money can only go so far

and one more Kathy so we I think we've talked about this before but the the general approach that we take is for one-time expenses. We're okay using fund balance, dipping into the fund balance if we if we decide collectively that that's a a good purchase for the city, right?

I would say it's a deliberate choice to use our savings knowing that we can't always do that or can't do that perpetually. And then what we as a group need to be cognizant of for ongoing expenses is when those those compound on each other year after year. So if we've been fortunate in years recently where we've got a a growing base of general fund dollars from which to be able to pull, but that may not always be true, right? Um, the other item that isn't on this sheet that this group should be aware of is that we're going into negotiations with the public safety union this year and and that doesn't reflect here. Right.

Any changes to their contract? Correct. if they ask for additional things that cost money that we're we're not already anticipating. Do you have that any amount for that in the contingency for public safety? I believe public safety contingency has to say 300,000. I'd also say um I would save any discussion about that for an executive session because we don't want to we've got a million dollars we're saving to spend on that contract. You know what I mean? And so just from so we want careful on that

is for a bunch of things. Correct. Yes. And the thing to be aware of, I mean, with contingency for public safety in particular, is traditionally some of that we've dipped into because of the expenses incurred for wildfires as well. So it's not that we can dedicate 100% of that amount to uh one thing or the other, but it's the collection of things that may happen that So with the um surplus remaining having gone down just numbered, let's just say $300,000 because you said it was 300 something. Um

is this a sustainable trend that we're the way that we're allocating and spending this money and and having it up there? If we've gone year-over-year, $300,000 less in that, how does what kind of tracking is that putting us on going forward?

That's a good question. Uh, so it's the we have been fortunate in that the revenues have increased also, right? So increasing it by by 300,000 has not necessarily always kept p the expenses haven't always kept pace with what the increase in the in the revenues are. So, um, so long as that trend continues, I think we're okay staying within that band. But if that starts to constrict at any point in the future, then that's probably something that we should be aware of.

I seem to remember last year that that surplus remaining, your comfort level was about $500,000 when we started the conversation and we moved some money around and decided to spend some money in places and and were okay with it. But now getting it down to less than 100,000 and I'm you know just from conversations not don't hold me to those exact numbers but I feel like when we started the conversation that surplus remaining that you had said you were comfortable with was much larger and by the time we were done with our budget conversation we had decided we really wanted to spend some money out of that and we moved it into there

and out of the savings. Now we're in the less than $100,000 in there. it seems like a trend. So that is right, you know, something I feel like needs to be said out loud.

Sure. That's that's a good point. Now, what I would say for the for the 87,000 in particular, those are those are monies that I would consider for ongoing costs, right? if it's that it's completely appropriate for this group to look at one-time capital expenses and say we think that we think just for example we think a new ambulance is completely worth it and so you put a one there and we fund that. Um now that's going to make that that surplus remaining go negative but in the grand scheme of things you haven't increased the ongoing cost necessarily. Does that make sense? You've increased a one-time cost. So to to spend out of out of savings but not necessarily the ongoing cost.

The the other thing I'd say and strongly encourage um last I'll say last year I brought you the list of all the department requests the ones I recommended funding and I think the end of the day the budget committee recommended funding all of them. Um which you are free to do or not do. Um here's what I want to keep in mind. um don't be in a rush to spend every penny penny we possibly can um because um we know that there are other ongoing costs that we will see in the future and we're taking that decision away. So, uh, spending every penny of or budgeting every penny of new ongoing revenue means that if we see another significant increase in health care costs next year that can't be compensated with new revenue, we've now lessened our ability. Or another one I would say is um uh we have moved to a really great staffing model in our fire department to have two people on 247. Um ideally we would we would it would be great to be able to get to three people. There's a lot more they they can do and things like that. And so we know in a number of years that that that will be a desire or a need, but we're not there today. But let's say um you know we spend all 87,000 that's now 87. If it's two ongoing budget items that's now 87 that we can't spend on fire. And so what this leads to and what I would like to get to um there are several things we need to do uh to get there is you know a multi-year budget not not a formal budget but you know having a 5 to 10year budget that we

are doing an update to each year. So, if we know we need to add firefighters in in seven years, we can see what a cost of funding um you know, more ongoing money for uh nonprofit grants, how does that affect our ability to do increased firefighting later? So, every choice has um an opportunity cost. Um, and in this case it may just be savings, but it may also be a future expenditure that we can't make. And so I think that's just a strong consideration. Um, I would encourage you with I think there I think my philosophy since being here is is I think there's been an underinvestment in capital and I think we're trying to get to a point where we're better funded on the capital level. uh and on the capital level where it increases the capacity of our staff. So if adding a piece of machinery means they can get the work done in half the time, we don't need to add additional staff member. And so looking at opportunities like that, but I'll just say my perspective is being very very careful and very deliberate when it comes to um budgeting continuing ongoing expenses because um that just is going to take choices away from us later. That's all that I'll leave that alone.

I just noticed something on there. Um, you've got nonprofit requests at a one but with no dollars in it 150 in the ongoing costs but not in the not the one time. No, because we have traditionally done this. So I just put it in the in the ongoing cost. It would be a one time cost if this budget committee was recommending this is the last year we do it. And the 150 is what we budgeted last year, not what had been prioritized so far. So far, what's been prioritized is about 180,000.

Um, the only other point that I would make before I yield to the chair for discussion is, uh, our folks only have so much bandwidth as well to be able to get these projects done. So I I would um just ask the body to recognize that they you can we can in we can say put a one on all these things and in essence encumber the money into the future but that that means that these might not all necessarily get done next year right there's still a backlog of things from the last few years that we're still working on trying to get to. So, I just want folks to keep that in mind as we go through this process.

And I think to add to that, as Zach and I were talking about this earlier today, um, you know, we we in this capital plan, we have a lot of projects that aren't funded yet, but we recognize that they're needed. Um and we have other projects that haven't been started yet and there is a certain bandwidth of things that can get done but that doesn't mean we don't want to budget for them because we want to unlike our operating budgets which have to be adopted each year a capital you approve a street reconstruction project that may take two years. um we set aside those funds and um we roll over anything unused at the end of the first year to the second year, but basically that's an approved budget until the project gets closed out. And so capital is not doesn't always time with the fiscal year, especially if you have a construction season that's a summer and our fiscal year starts July 1st. It doesn't work that way. So they capital almost will very often span multiple years. And so, um, we may set it aside. It may not be right away that we get to it. That's where staff and working with the council will prioritize, you know, what what what can be done, but it's ready to be moved on as soon as we are able to and it's prioritized.

And that's the sheet we have that's previously approved capital projects with budget impact in fiscal year 27. Right. They we funded them last year in this process or even three years ago in some cases. Yeah. So that's still sitting out there um undone but previously funded. That sounds terrible to say it that way. But it's correct. It is. It is previously approved but not yet completed. Maybe we could add a column showing what fiscal year it was approved. That would be great. And then we'd know because I recognized a bunch of them from last year and that's why.

Okay. We will we will put a legend on there. You're going to have a a green banana, a yellow banana, and a brown banana to tell you how ripe it is. Since we're talking about capital, just a couple things. What is the streets capital? That is 3.5 million. Sorry. Actually, I'm right here. Streets capital. What line is that? Yeah. Um that is the that is the funding in street construction to actually So that is what you were talking about today. That's the actual expense going out for that out of the six million. Correct.

Um are these things I don't know the age but I think aging is a good would be a good thing. are these things in general like we've got 16 and a half plus million in approved budget and we're anticipating to spend 855,000 this year. So no um you know fingerpointing intended at all. I'm just trying to understand like why are we moving slowly on capital projects? it's easier to go one by one. And for those projects, we do have a tracking sheet that shows the status and where we are for each of them. So there may be funds unspent, but there's not one answer. There is an answer for each of them.

Okay. So, one might question the priority of something that was funded three years ago and still hasn't been started, right? So, Zach does that every day with our department heads. Don't get them started on the HVAC project at the convention center. He's been ready to defund that for years. So, obviously, you don't need it. U so good.

I know you guys are on top of it. I'm not saying you're not. In the last year, I think we've had better staff capabilities to do that and we made significant progress. We're starting to see the RFPs go out the door. The project started to get awarded. Like as an example, the ripest one on there, the HVAC, uh Paul was out there with Brian inspecting the roof and he's identified some components of the project that hadn't been identified before. And um so they have strengthened that that RFP that they expect well soon and that project will get underway. It's the one of the browner of the bananas out there. Um so I think that's what I what I can say is we've made more progress in the last year than we have in my the rest of my time here and hopefully that momentum continues. I I will commit to each of you that I I promise you when someone drops what they say is a fire in my lab and then I come and convey that to you and they don't move on it for a year, I get upset. So I promise you this is something that I pay attention to.

Thank you. Uh so will you in fact reissue this list um with some aging information? Yeah, I think that will be So with that, I will yield to the chair to for discussion. Anybody got any ideas of things that they want to fund? Any changes to that? Now, one of my questions when I reviewed things and I was remembering your budget message, are any of these able to be grant funded that we don't know about? Maybe a zero could potentially

Absolutely. And I think we look at those opportunities. In fact, I just um reached out today. Um uh so I think I mentioned last time working closely with Business Oregon. Um I was in contact with them today about two projects. One is we're moving forward with the kind of long-term utility rate study and long-term funding for water and sewer. Um the state has much more funding available for planning and things than necessary necessarily for projects. And so, uh, I've I've, uh, reached out to them specifically to say what funding is available for that, which I know a lot of cities have had those studies funded through these programs. And, uh, the other project is, which we we haven't even discussed because it just came up, in fact, during the meeting, Paul sent me the letters. We've just been notified by the state that our our water reservoir up by the treatment plant um so our water comes in from the um waterhed. It goes into a big reservoir. It looks like a lake. It goes from there through the treatment plant to the tank we have up there. Well, as you drive in, for those of you who have been there, it's the the southern half of that lake is a dam and a significant dam. and we've been notified that we need to do um some seismic analysis on it for a Cascadia type event. And um the analysis probably needs to be done in the next year. Paul's estimate if you were budgeting says about $50,000. And so um that was another project not on the list but I specifically reached out and said hey this hits sustainability this hits emergency preparedness this hits water co you know

drinking safety um there's got to be some funding help us kind of point us in the right direction. So we're always looking at that and I think before we undergo any of our big project especially in the water sewer or general fund we are reaching out and coordinating with them for any opportunities there first. Um and some of them lend themselves to it better than others. You know we wouldn't want to wait 5 years to see if we get a grant on something that's needed sooner than that but others um we do have the ability to be patient on. So,

Spencer, I um asked in the last meeting and I admittedly did not have a chance to go do it myself, but we talked about cross referencing the approved items with the council priorities list managing to and I still have this nagging feeling that there are things on there that we set as priorities that Okay, we'll we'll have a note on that to add that to the list. That was on the BV list and um didn't get to that one before this meeting. So, thanks for bringing it up again.

And then um one other comment that is running through my head and this is probably a next year conversation obviously at this point. We talked a little bit about it last year, but after my third year on the budget committee and watching the nonprofit request process, I am I think it needs a lot of love and care and feeding. And I think we have seen the same groups with the same request, with the same dollar amount, with the same justification um year after year. And I don't um also see um the outcomes, the benefit to the community. I feel like I don't have a good grasp. It almost feels like and this could be on me, but we approve the money and then we talk about it again when they come back the following year. And so I my comfort level when I think about um I'm disappointed about not funding a generator personally. Um, I think about funding that process that I don't feel very comfortable with versus a generator. It just makes me uncomfortable.

And I totally agree with you. Um, that's been a broken record on that and so have you, Becky. Um, and um, Spencer and I have had discussions about it. um we we don't have any um we don't set any expected outcomes when we give grants and I think there's another way to do this so that we are creating more of a relationship and we have expected outcomes so that we can so our taxpayers can see what they're getting for this. I 100% agree. That's what a grant is supposed to be like, right? And

and it's not at all that I know none of us feel like we don't want to help and do the good things. Then that's part of the special part of Seaside in my opinion. It's just I think it's time that we do it differently.

Yes, totally agree. I have to agree the same thing that you know if we're paying for equipment for other organizations that might have other means of getting it at the same time as sacrificing and not getting equipment for our own facilities that we should be maintaining as emergency response areas. That's where that accountability piece really starts to sting. Do we want to create some action around that?

I would recommend you have a report before you fund any the following year of what the results were from the grants. I've gotten that on most all of them or all of that's a requirement,

right? So, is that not satisfactory? No, there's no real criteria for what they need to tell us and there's no real criteria for what the money goes to. Um I mean the generic question has been do you do this for the citizens of Seaside and that's kind of answers. I I think one of the things I would say is and the we we convened the budget committee in the fall of I think 2024 to talk about this. Um I think the question I posed at the time is what is the goal of the grant program? And I think I'm not I'm not quite clear on that. I think that's what driving some of this. Um that may affect who does and doesn't get grants or whether we call them grants or something else. But I think um I I would I think that is a good discussion is um because I think that that will help lead this committee as to how you're making those decisions. Uh is it staying at 150,000? Is it increasing? Is it decreasing? Well, it's it uh without a goal of what you're trying to accomplish. And I think there are ways if you like everything that's being funded, there are ways to to create the criteria around it. But then you can gauge if we got double the people applying next year, how would we sort through that? Is it the same people? Is it new people and stuff like that? And so without weighing too much in on that and leading the session to you, I think just having having um identifying what the goal of the program is would be a good first step. I think another to me another thing is is a significant it's significant that we are budgeting it as an ongoing cost without me recommening a conversation that that was a given that we were

giving $150,000 in grants every year for nonprofits that it's there's an expectation that sets an expectation that the city's going to set aside $150,000 that they're going to give out to nonprofits every year. When it's a one-time cost, there's no expectation. It's that's what's available this year. That's what we're going to give. And it's a discussion each time. And that makes it more of an actual application that has to be justified and accounted for if you're going to come back for it again. You know, if you're going to apply once for a grant and it's a one-time opportunity that, you know, there's a one-time opportunity. Well, there might be that same opportunity again in another year, but there's no expectation that that's an ongoing thing that you are going to put in your application for $15,000 every year, change the parameters a little bit, come with the same explanation, and get your $15,000 every year. I mean,

there's a different expectation. Yeah. So, just out of curiosity, do you feel that the money is not being used properly? It's not being used. Um, I have no idea to be honest. I don't I guess I don't feel that way. Um, yeah, that hasn't come into my head. So, no, I don't feel that way. And I know Zach gets reports and I trust that, you know, he and Spencer are looking at them. I just don't see them. I don't have And shame on me, Bill, is maybe a good point here, too, right? I could ask for them and

but um yeah, I feel like it's a bit of a um you know, transparency issue. Do we need my voice is back gone. Do we need to have the budget committee go to these places and see what they do? Love it. I don't think that's in question. That'd be a good solution. Yeah.

I mean, maybe it could be that you break up the budget committee into groups and they take a certain number of those nonprofits and take a look and then report back to the groups who all of us show. That would be great. I think it becomes more basic than that. I'm going to go back to what what Kathy said that we're giving away money for somebody else to buy for their program and denying the city buying something that the city needs to serve the whole community. However, the point of any of as we talked about the reason we do this is because these are services that the city can't or doesn't do themselves as in collapse of community action, you know, Sunday supper. When it gets to what they're actually spending the money on, I think that gets a little iffy kind of. But helping hands,

those are all part of our some of the programs or priorities that the city council has had. I 100% and so tangentially, you know, it's actually benefiting the citizens. It's not that there's a um question of of that in my mind um that some of the benefit gets passed on to the residents, but it's how much is it the right thing? it, you know, do they need more than this? Do they need less? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, but you only have 150 184 to give. So, no, the budget says 150, not 184,

but our target was 140.

You have you have 30 to$50 million. I mean, that that's I mean, we have a lot of money. Uh, I think it's it's it's what's the what's what's what's trying to do there. And again, um, because I know there's varying opinions on here and I've shared this before, but you know, there are there are some really, I would say, legitimate things here, maybe all of them. Um, and I think going back to what what Kathleen said, um, yeah, there is if there is an expectation that the city provide a particular service, but there is a nonprofit doing that or willing to do that, then it makes more sense to almost um contract that out. So, as an example, I um if we ever want to have a um warming center every winter in our community or more shelter space or something like that rather than the city providing it, it would make more sense to partner with CCA or helping hands or something like that to do it. And so, um that is a I think no question a way a great way to do that. Um, but it also could be done as a as a an agreement between two organizations rather than the grant each year. I mean,

uh, I could see if we wanted to if CCA came with the proposal to, uh, have a they've identified a site and have a warming center each year, it would make more sense to maybe have a, you know, a three-year commitment or or a one-year commitment that can be extended or something like that and and handle it that way. I think it accomplishes the exact same thing we're doing. Um, but there are maybe just different ways to do it. And so, um, I can't just put it and there may be other ones that are more of one-time grant things. not say that can't happen, but certainly things that we would might be expected to do or provide um but we don't need to because there are nonprofits or because we think it's a high enough priority is certainly the prerogative of the of the city. you know, if we if we think that there should be a place for women seeking shelter within the greater community and we can partner with many of people to make that happen. That's that that's fantastic. I think um that just goes my perspective goes back to um there's lots of good things we can doing. What what is the goal of this particular program? I just don't know why this is always so hard.

I know. Isn't it goofy? To me, it's either we do it or we don't. Do we continue the program? The program has been going on for years, years. Who who knows how long we've been doing this. I don't think it's do we continue it or not continue it. I think it's do we continue it in its present fashion or change how we do it. because I don't think there's anybody that doesn't want to add value in the community. It's how we're doing it.

And you can't blame nonprofits for coming to a source of grant money their own. That's how that's how they get their grant money. So here also a commonality between cities up and down the coast. Absolutely. We I think probably more so than cities elsewhere

are very generous in supporting uh nonprofits in our communities and I would really hate to see us turn the wrong direction. Mayor, can I ask what what what what do you what just to so we understand that comment what what do you think the

money is well reducing what we're giving away or putting parameters where people don't can't apply anymore and whether we're giving money for an oven or we're giving money so that they could provide the service you know that was what their choice was and you know It's something that's pro that's being provided. You know, whether the church can do it or not, I don't know. But they've made, I think, really good strides in saying this is completely separate from the church, just happens to be in their building. I know it's been an issue for some on this committee. So maybe and uh just maybe to add to that um I think what I'm suggesting isn't isn't suggesting we can't do anything. We can continue to let's say give the Sunday supper a grant but there are opportunities to say we think Sunday supper is important to the community and we want to fund it at this level and so we will we will enter an agreement with them to provide them $5,000 each year uh to help continue to produce Sunday supper or something like that or um so I think it's just a different way of of looking at rather than a way to take away funding, but uh maybe tying it more to a uh relationship than a kind of grantee and granter if you will. But

and you know that what you present like that is if we want to support Sunday supper and we say okay we will allocate x number of dollars, Sunday supper can expect to get that every year. That means that they have a guaranteed funding stream that they can go out and use to get other grants because it's not variable every year. They know they're going to get that. There's a whole other there's other ways to be looking at that and that could provide more support in in how they do what they are doing

as a beneficiary sort of kind of in a roundabout way of these grant funds. That would make it life our so much easier for us if we knew July we would get $2500 that we could move forward with the children

because our everything is getting more expensive and seedside kids is got five baseball fields we're trying to keep green and safe and needle free and human feces free And it would be lovely to know that July one we would get funding and not have to come. I actually I love that idea too. So please I hope no one heard I don't want to fund or that I'm thinking we shouldn't do this. I Okay, good. Because we should

and I think it like I said it's one of the hallmarks of this community. I think we should just go through with emotions on a process that I don't think is even adding that much value. I guess so we we've I you know I think we I'm happy to go do some research. We could look at are there any better ways to do it. I think we could think about um is it a five-year commitment? We know that CASA's going to be around for the next five years. Is it a five-year commitment or is it and only new new appeal, you know, we have a new app uh application process? I don't know. There's lots of options, but

I just think um before next year, we should have the discussion again, try again. I like your idea. Remember, we had a bunch of committee meetings and we tried. It's a difficult thing to do. Yeah. But I do agree with starting to think outside of the box, changing the process, potentially doing a three to fiveyear plan. Makes sense. I'd like to make a motion that we fund this year the priority ones that we all agreed upon. 184,000. No,

it's actuallyundred. 56,000 but 14,000 of that comes out of tourism dollars. So it' be at 142,000. Yeah. Wait, I'm sorry. I didn't I didn't include the one with the priorities on it. So Okay. But but uh we can if that's a concept, we can bring it back for our next meeting to make it closer to ready to vote on You can copy my sheet because our priority ones were collaps. Hold on one second.

Gosh, keyboard that's not the same as the normal one you use or we're all watching. Pressure, Zach. No pressure. There we go. I have glasses on. I still can't see that. Okay, Kasa. Kasa is Okay. David's chair is one deliver light was three. Can I make a note about that one? I did reach out to her and she never got back to me. Um, the harbor did I set that out to everyone? Okay.

And because of HIPPA or privacy, they can't. Yeah. El Centro is a two. The Harbor was a two. Helping Hands is a one. North Coast Land Conservancy of three, Mechanicum Watershed Council of Three, Sunday Supper A1, Clatup Community Action A1, Restoration House A, South County Community Food Bank A1, and Sunset Park and Rec Foundation A1. And are those award levels what? Yes, we didn't change any of the award levels.

Now everyone knows what we're what we're talking about. Now, let's see. Can you do the can you do the formula? Because the question was or her motion was to fund all the level ones. Can we see it right in Excel formula in real time? If I can see it, I might be able to. Or just remove the threes and twos and it'll happen like that. Then you have a total just put zeros in the threes and twos. Yeah. And the David's chair is the one that would be coming out of TLT, right? So it comes out of it. So 156 and if you take the 14 out, it's 142 and our target was 1415.

So go up and remove the 14. And you made a motion. Yes. I'll second it. Okay. We have a motion in a second. You need somebody. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Done deal.

So, and then um could we just add another motion to that that the budget committee will meet later in the year to revamp the program. And maybe even a few of us that are interested could do some research about what are other cities on the coast doing, other counties on the coast, they do different processes and kind of come up with something and maybe do a quasi presentation. Yes, I think that would go a lot further than otherwise we're going to have part two of the same discussion in another time. And

if there are some if there are some recommendations to consider or compare what we're doing, that's a lot easier to talk around than something in abstract. Could you state your motion again that um I'll incorporate what you just said. So um that We uh name a a committee, a work group, right,

to investigate what how other cities handle this and um have a another meeting of the budget committee for consideration of the process um sometime in the fall and I'll second that. Do you want to I'm just kind of trying to get ahead of this. Do you want to identify those individuals now? Do you want to do it at the next meeting? I like if you're ready to go and there's people interested, maybe that's a better thing to think about, but and maybe come back to next week. But I would say be great to cut some people loose to to work on that. and you know trying to get people with maybe different perspectives on this little subcommittee but you know

work group just work group ad hoc committee I don't it just can't be a quorum of this group or a quorum of the council that's I don't know that the motion needs to name who's in the work group yeah if if there is a group that just wants to do that informally that's also welcome I just think coming with something to talk about is much easier than otherwise we're just going to be right where we were. So, we have a motion and a second. All of those in favor? I thought she pulled them said we didn't need a motion.

No, I said you don't need to name the people on the workg group in the motion. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed? Okay. Now, I will say this, the budget committee gets a recommended budget. Uh we'll be looking for the council for direction on where to prioritize this, when to do it, and and stuff like that. So, um but it's I think it's meaningful that we've taken that formal action.

So, what else do we have to talk about today? Well, I'm going to be my broken record self. And since this has come up already, um I do want us to uh consider putting the um emergency generator back in the budget uh or in the budget for the community center. Uh the community center serves a need for this community um in uh being a a a a place for weather events, a place that serves um many members of the community. During our last year, actually since January, um there have been three uh separate instances in which the the weather was such that the community center could not open, which meant that there were no meals on wheels that went to probably about 20 people. And every time it's meals on wheels, it goes for two days. No meals were served. nobody could come and seek refuge in a warm space. Um and um what we do know is that the library has a a generator. The community center does not. The community center also lost food in the refrigeration in the refrigerators because there um because there was no power, no emergency power. Um and uh if we uh need to defay some of that, the community center uh has money sitting in the Sunset Empire Park and

Recreation Foundation bank account. I do not know how much is there, but it's from the last three or four years of fundraising that the community center commission has done. And if we need to um move that money into the city uh funding and use that money for the generator, I would want us to consider that as well. And that might defra that would defay some of that 80 uh that anticipated $82,000. You don't know how much money?

I don't know how much money is there. The the money the community center commission started raising money some years ago for um infrastructure improvement. the they fixed up the um main room, added new lighting, new paint, etc. that um the the fundraising continued after that event like the the fascination tournament

tournament every year is used for fundraising and so that has continued and there are currently no plans by the community center commission to recommend how that money would be used. That's one of the things the commission is thinking about deciding or making recommendations. Um, and all that they've thought about really is paint, infrastructure, etc. Well, you know, a generator is part of the infrastructure. So, um, so that could possibly be, um, and, um, I don't know how much money is there. I don't I would be surprised if it's even $10,000, but

there is some money there. We'll say 80,000 for a generator for that facility is seems high. I thought so because really looking at the coolers that are in there and if you're talking about food, you know, preserving the foods, you're only talking about a couple. It's not a walk-in. Yes, there are. They are walkins. Yeah. So, I thought we had $40,000 generators in our budget last year. Am I wrong? For the community center. No, no, no. We bought a couple of generators last year.

The one we did last year was for the EOC. Um, we did have a quote uh that Ann was able to get and then uh um when she left, we had someone else do it and uh we we were able to reduce that quite a bit. there may have been a contractor taking advantage of

less experience on a generator and trying to upsell. So, what I would say is if you're budgeting an amount, uh the approach we take is not to go see how much of that money we can spend. The goal would be what does it need and um to get that and then any proceeds once that project is closed out would be just referred. uh would go back into our our reserves basically, right? I I would say you only need you have one press for the walk in. You've got a couple freezers in there. So really sustaining generator to sustain source too heat. Yeah. So sustain the operation, not to

Exactly. You're right. And I I was surprised when I saw the figure at 82. It seemed Yeah. high.

Part of that's on me. I have no idea what a generator is. I think I think I think actually what you did is you took the quote we had last year for the OC and said we know we did it for cheaper but this is also probably has a lot more load and would be more and so I think it's a placeholder and where it's coming out of savings I think it's it's a matter now one of the the directions we would want to get and maybe this is more of a council discussion is is this a to provide full services during a blackout or is this to maintain a minimum level like of critical infrastructure I think that that would have a bearing on what we get. But um but otherwise I think I think what we we would budget an amount that we know can cover that project and then only spend what's needed,

right? So we don't know anything. We haven't got a quote or anything. And so this was um the request came in and so that's like exactly I think he took the the budget from last year which um we know is higher than what we spent on the EOC uh probably not as high as as what's budgeted though and I would like for us to to ascertain how much money the city has in the SCPD Foundation uh bank account that belongs to the community center uh fund and um that can be applied to this.

Do we need to make a motion? What? How about that?

Well, I guess my next question would be are there any other zeros, non-funded projects or materials that anybody else feels passionate about? I know he's not here and I don't know if he's listening or not. Um the the one that Seth has raised before and raised last time is uh budgeting for parks for restroom uh renovations probably starting at the uh turnaround but also um other ones. And I don't disagree those are all needed. And so, um, it would be good to get some feedback on where that as a priority is for the budget committee and us to come back with some strategies.

But if you're looking at the the restrooms at the turnaround, that is purely TLT. Sure. Because that's who uses those bathrooms. And I think those were on our other list. I think that's other list. The prior other priorities list and we have the restrooms on the that list. Yeah. I don't think it was on the Was it on this list? The Microsoft forms list, the other council priorities, the uh I don't think so. The only parks projects it wasn't on there. The only parks projects on there and actually now that you're saying that I know there are some parks projects that are not on here because the parks projects we identified was the estuary boardwalk, uh Quat Park.

That's right. And South possibly cartright. Yeah. Yep. That's right. But isn't that 1 million one or whatever it is 150? I don't know.

I mean, yes, those could come from there. And again, we Let's Let me see if we can do some more investigation on exactly what the guidelines are or maybe I should say what the practice norms have been for cities in spending TLT for parks. I think some have, some haven't. Some have and have gotten threatening letters from certain organizations but not followed through. And so I think we want to have a good understanding of that before we go full charge spending those funds. I think some of that also depends on the location of the park. Sure. Quart is definitely tourism.

I thought there was something different going on with Quartet with the convention center. Well, there's the thought of the decking of merging it with the tour center. I think the purpose of that was so that the convention center can fund it, but if we identify that TLT can do it, it doesn't have to be tied to the convention center, but the end goal was the same. To answer your question too, I did have an item, the airport item, but I was going to hold on that till our next meeting just in the interest of time. If you want to keep bringing stuff up, I am fine to talk about that. Madam chair 513,

do we advertise uh did this advertise a meeting starting at 3 or did it advertise a meeting from 3:00 to 5? That is a wonderful question for Kim. What does the what does the agenda say? It just says three. Okay. Then you have some leeway. If it if it says 3 to 5, then I you have to close. Otherwise, it's it's up to you. You want to go till 10 o'clock? Uh, that's a committee call.

Two weeks. Two weeks. Yeah, next week. Folks are folks are out. Apologies for the confusion on that one. Get up and walk out. I get the sense that that that uh

there is a a a sizable number that would like to continue these discussions at the next meeting rather than continue this one longer. If that's the case then I would recommend again we encourage you if you have questions that we can address either to you individually or to the larger group send it out. I think as much as possible if it's something we can get out to the committee as long as you guys aren't deliberating on it, we can get that information out sooner than later. If it's a question, if there are items to discuss, including um I don't think we have necessarily settled on any new one time or ongoing. I think we've uh had some of the discussion. And I think we can finalize that at our next meeting as we contemplate a final recommended budget.

So in the meantime between now and the next meeting, could you a find out how much money the convention or the uh community center Yeah, I wrote that down. I was going to ask our council leazison to the community center if if that Sure. I can do it, but it's easier if you guys do it. Are we going to talk about parks projects? where the I I'm a little confused on how much money we have that we're spending on projects and what they are. We've got 1.1 million and 5.1 four 5.1 North 40 I think. Yeah. Parks construction the 5.1.

Yeah. So everything everything in that would have been dedicated toward the toward the north 40 with the exception of maybe I think there was 25 or $30,000 in that report. So what that budget represent is a placeholder of funding and that goes back to what I was talking about earlier prioritizing the north 41st and then other projects after that. Um and so um we can talk about other parks projects, but if the if we are short on the funding for the north 40, it's hard to say let's do these parks. You can't do half of the north 40. If we do, it's a strategic we're going to build this in phases. So

So I guess what we're saying then is that there restrooms aren't going to be worked on. Uh I think we that can come into some of the further discussion that we can be better prepared to have about how parks can be funded through transit and lodge taxes. U part of that I can also talk to our attorneys. There are some other TLT questions I've had for them and we've been emailing back and forth. So this may lend into that. But there is a legal opinion and then there is a uh a practice that cities have adopted and we want to look at both aspects. Okay. Anything else? Okay. We'll recess. Oops.

Sorry, Madam Chair. Would it be helpful if I sent this list out to the group and if there is something in particular that you want to talk about this either that we recommended to fund or not? Um, you can email me back and we can put it on the agenda so there's a structured way to talk about this stuff. Would that be helpful or is that I'll leave it to you. Just sent that out. those. He already sent it to us. Okay. Yeah. But you're going to als you're going to send us this other list with the aging on it, right? Yeah. Send it or have it available next time. But either way, you'll get it. Okay. Okay. So, we're recessed until two weeks.

Two weeks, which is April 29th 29th. And is the meeting scheduled after that one? No. Do we have a do we have an as needed placeholder, Zach? We don't. Yeah, if we can say we can. It would be the following Wednesday if that if that was the case. Your shirt probably