City Council - Regular Meeting

sometimes doesn't smell nice. Call the work session to order. Our topic tonight is discussion of anticipated capital projects with our special guest Paul from public works.

Good evening, council mayor. Um, thanks for taking the time. I know you guys have been excited to hear uh my presentation uh for capital projects for 2027. Now, I see this as more of my to-do list. Uh I have no delusions that I'm going to have an adequate budget for all of this stuff, but let's see um what we've got here. So, I started I've got three departments under me. Wastewater, water, and streets. Uh basically wastewater is anything with the wastewater utilities or treatment water and streets is covers basically everything else under public works. Um and then within each of these I sub uh organized them by three types critical infrastructure improvements equipment procurement uh and consulting services. Those are the four groups that these fell into. and I only came up with 37 projects. The mayor has just helped me add a 38th project. So, uh we'll see if we can get it to 40. But, uh 13 were with wastewater, 15 were with water, and nine were in the streets department. So, the first one, and these are by priority, um you'll see a priority number below uh the photos and things kind of telling you. Now, this is something, you know, we've talked about pump stations for sewer. Um, these are what I call the Marlo stations. They're called Marlo because the pumps in them are Marlo pumps. And the pumps are what make these a priority one. These pumps are no longer manufactured or supported, and we can no longer get parts for them. Um, the impellers go on these things, and they have to be specially manufactured at a high cost in order to do this. We have three of these stations

still in operation around town. One um near First and Holiday. This one is on Holiday near G. I think that's G and Holiday. And then the other one is in uh the north neighborhood west of the Mechanica. Um these pumps are vacuum lift pumps. They're larger ones. um they are prone to problems and we have the equipment um already purchased for one of them um and I already have funding in this fiscal year to convert one of them. Uh we just haven't had the weather to do it yet. The other two remaining ones are what I'm asking for uh funding going forward with this one. So, um,

how much at the end of each department list, you'll I'll show you all of that stuff. So, it's in the it's in the presentation here.

Um, I just want to give you the backgrounds on each one of these. Um, but these are the ones that are going to fail and fail badly because we're going to have to mobilize a mobile pump station to cover these because they won't be able to be swapped out. There's nothing to swap out with these. Um, what I'd like to do with these is do them immediately in the first uh the like right after um the fiscal year starts. These are going to launch and we'll have these ready to launch um uh July 1st or probably the week after the holiday week there. Um but construction will start almost immediately. Um as part of this and uh the already funded uh Wana pump station that we are looking to get a mobile pump for, it will also be utilized for this as part of the utilization of that which will be a critical piece of equipment for all of these pump station projects. Um what you're seeing here is this is the pump station at convention center. It has been converted already. So what you've seen here there were pumps here. They were pulled out and check valves and isolation valves have been put in and then it goes out this way. So this is kind of showing you what this will look like inside. So this middle line going up, that's this big one. And these two that go in, they're these two lines. And that's how these are. They've removed the pumps and put in submersibles is what we will be replacing those with. They are far less maintenance intensive as the barwell vacuum pumps.

And all of these handle waste water generated by tourists. Yes. They're designed to slice open um strings, other fibrous materials, and things like that. which have been causing those problems. That's the major problem with our system stuff.

Exactly. Is that the materials that get pulled in into a vacuum system clog badly. It's it's not the type of pump systems you would see nowadays. You haven't seen them in a long time. Actually, we're still running them. And um you'll see further more uh discussion on this in this department. Um so going on to priority two uh slip lining replacing sewer lines in uh on just east of the Wana areas that we have. You can see in the upper area here

where you have uh shore terrace and WANA coming together. That's where we typically have an overflow. Um because what's happening is you've got flow coming down from Sunset Hills and dropping through this swamp here. That line is basically pumping out that swamp. So it's flooding that line which floods all the way down to the pump station here and that's what's causing that backup. So by lining that we can mitigate that huge ini issue and there are other ini issues in the sunset hills that cause this problem. Now

say what I ini is

INI is inflow and infiltration. So either surface inflow into the top of the manholes or inflow from the groundwater into the pipes that are buried and ini is always a major issue with most municipalities of our age um and type. Um, in fact, I would suspect during the winter months now, 70 to 90% of the the fluids we're processing are not generated by the public. They're we're basically dewatering the groundwater in this town. So, that's how much work is being done beyond what it needs to be done. So because this is technically our low season, it should be our low season for flow, but it's not because of uh we have huge eye issues here.

One other question. Um like on G for instance, there almost always a generator parked there. Yes. And I think over at the one below Providence Hospital, it seems like there's one there, too. Right. Are those if those go uh out, are we in big trouble? Yes. And that's why we have the generators parked there. Um because those are the generators are also some of our old ones that we got from the county. It's true. So if both go out, we're in big trouble. Yeah. Deep doodoo as they say. Yeah, that's another issue. Okay. So sooner the better.

Yes, definitely. All right. So the next one is and you two were just talking about generator priority three the backup generator at pump station 3 which is our big one um has had chronic problems with the motor end of it not the not the power generation side of it and you can see below it that it has had chronic oil leaks and things like that. It's very difficult to service in in its location there. I'd like to replace it and then rebuild that one because I think we can rebuild the motor part of it inhouse um fairly economically and utilize that at another location. Um but uh it's going to take a long time to do the rebuild on it. So in the interim I'd like uh have

which one's PS3? PS3 is our big one at Holiday Indor. Exactly. So this one is inside that little building. Right. Right. All right. And these are all electric generators, correct? So, this is a standard um automotive engine attached to a large uh think of it as your car's alternator and it's just generating power at whatever voltage and phase. And right here, we have high voltage 460 volt three-phase uh power because our pumps are 30 horsepower. I think we have three of those there. So, this is a substantial generator. Yeah. you when it's going full bore. It's a lot of power being used here.

I get a lot of complaints about the smell of that one as well. Yeah, that's another thing we have to address. Part of that is because of the state it's in right now. Um, a lot of the uh sewage falls into the collector and when it falls it airates and it accumulates more odor. So part of the fix there is to manage it so that it doesn't have that irration and that we won't have that alone should mitigate 80% of the odor issue. So it is a known issue um that we will address in the design portion that we're then a large portion of the city actually go through that station right there and then across the bridge

all of the city except one small pump station. There's one pump station at the wastewater treatment plant that collects the neighborhood around it. Everything but that neighborhood goes through that pump station. So that's what I'm saying. Pump station three is the big one. So So priority four, uh UV treatment, uh the existing system that we have there is aging and is no longer supported by the original company. Unfortunately, the story on this was that we bought it at a discount because it was discontinued.

So, um the problem with this is mainly the bulbs and the you can see the unit these pop up and they have a a banks of these UV bulbs that look kind of like the ones you put in your shop or something like that. Um they are in that building right there and there's a the channel coming out of the treatment out of the treatment system goes right underneath there and these bulbs lay in these blades that go down and it hits it and inactivates any of the microbial life that's still in the treatment system. This is a required uh polishing system that D2 requires us to to operate before discharge into the river. This is the very last part of the process. It's still operational. We can still get bulbs, but they're getting they're aftermarket. They're getting more and more expensive. Um

so is this after the dryer? Um this think of the drier um um it's a split and the drier is a treatment process dry side of this. This is the wet side. So the fluids that are dewatered out of the the sludge thickening and all the clarifier they all go through this system and the solids go through the dryer. So this is the end of the wet process. the drier is the end of the of the solace process. All right,

quick question while we're on that u I always get is are we still taking the dry product and putting it somewhere? What's happening with that? We have a farmer that takes it off our hands. He farms out in I believe the Vernonia area. Um we basically let him come because he comes picks it up and takes it off our hands. So we we house it and he picks it up. three, four times a year, maybe a little bit more often, but that's how we're going through disposal. It's great agricultural grade uh fertilizer. So, could be a revenue stream.

Take his word for it. So uh priority five and six uh include the priority five would be the design and six would be the retrofit of clamshell u uh pump stations. These we have the most of. You've probably seen these all around town. Um they're pretty small. They also use a smaller vacuum style pump just like the Marlo ones. Um our guys are constantly working on these things and it's a constant. It would be a simple and economical way of doing a base design for one of these and then modifying it for each one as we go forward. Um, which is something I could do. I used to design these things. Um, and getting those approved through DDQ as a universal and going through each year doing a retrofit. We could do a lot of this in-house. Um, the clam shells would basically go away. we you'd see a control panel and the pumps would be down in the hole as opposed to being in the uh the clamshell where they are now.

Does it make a difference that the pumps are above water level or below water level? Yes. Um the when they're submersed, they don't have to pull suck things up. And that's the the problem when you have the suck you if you have any kind of suction break either in the line or in the impeller your efficiency degrades down to almost nothing.

Whereas the submersibles are a lot easier to um maintain. They don't have to all they do is push. They just pump out and um they're controlled the same way. Um so we don't have much of a controls change here. probably more of an updating um and updating the sensors because they probably I doubt many of them have ultrasonics uh which are a non-cont. I know some of these have steing well ones where they have a a level sensor in there that gets fouled off which is not how you do this. Um, you'd use a stealing weld with an ultrasonic, which is a non-cont. And those are all near the the top, so you can just grab them, recalibrate them, and put them back in. Um, they also have floats in there, which will tell you whether it's a high or low shut off or a high high and warm. Um, so these should be economical to replace. Uh, because we're not doing really any heavy construction here. It's more about the pump equipment and some of the controls, which is honestly the cheap side of this. And we could probably do a lot of this in-house with maybe a little bit of help. Um, but this is the start of that program of retrofitting these things over.

How many of them do we have? I believe 15 out of the 25 or 26 are clamshells. that stuff.

Yeah. So, u doing three to five of them a year might be the way to do it. As we go forward with these, I think we can really get into a system and do it very economically because it's mostly going to be just equipment cost. Um, priority seven is the installation of bypass ports on our sewer pump stations. Um, now some of these will be retrofitted out, but in the interim, um, I was kind of shocked to know that we didn't have bypass ports on our pump stations, which is a way that we could drop a mobile pump into the collector vault and shut down the main one for for work or fixing pumps and basically bypass around the entire system. Um, this is a standard design feature that these you all get nowadays. Um I actually wrote the design standard for the city of Salem's pump stations

um a couple years ago and this was one of the features that was demanded and you can see this one let's see right here the guys cut this in and this is the one by first and Holiday this is the Marlor station that's funded already. So, this right here is a port we can attach to. Inside there are valves we can shut down and shut off and isolate this entire pump station and then pump around and into here and it'll just go exactly where it would normally.

So, this is something that we will be going forward going on all our retrofits or any new stations will have these things. It's a nice design feature that allows the operator to um manage it in emergency situations or during large maintenance cycles. Priority eight, uh, and I don't have a picture of it, but, um, the wastewater treatment plant kind of needs an area wide Wi-Fi to serve new security cameras because

there's huge areas out there that are not under cameras. And we have people cutting through the fence which is priority nine that the especially the north side of the fence has been mashed in a few places and cut in through and people have broken in because it's they can take the trail around the side of the thing and they can just get in. There's no cameras out there. Um so this is kind of what kind of mischief do they get into?

They steal things, they break things, they analyze things. Um when we do have vehicles, heavy equipment and materials out there um that get vandalized and damaged. So thankfully they haven't destroyed anything that was critical for operations yet, but people can get in there and monkey around. Um there have been stories that I've heard over the years of people who mess around in the equalization ponds. Don't ask me why they would get in there, but it's a place you can drown in. A dare probably. Yeah, don't ask me. Much more. It happens. Trust me.

Okay. And so those are those two priorities. Priority 10 is um the flow meter and that's a picture of one. Uh it's on a large dimer pipe that flows into one of our aeration basins. Uh aeration basin 2. Its flow meter has stopped working quite some time ago. So the guys have to estimate what's going in there. Um, it's really kind of a critical thing that allows them to understand what's going on in that basin as far as what how much inflow is going in there and what's going in there. Um, so they've they've kind of got a workar around now, but it's not really how you do things. Um, but I give the guys kudos um doing a great job with uh without all the instrumentation that they really need. So, um, um, a couple projects out here. Priorities 11 through 13. 11 is, uh, extending and enclosing an existing property that we have.

So, we own

this property right here outside the rideway. We also have a piece up here, but all of this is inside the wastewater treatment plant. If we redid our fencing here, we could move all of the volleyball equipment and a lot of other things. So, technically the outside, they would have an outside gate so they wouldn't come into order plant to get this stuff. So, they would have their own access. Um, you know, technically they're not really supposed to be in there. Um, DEEQ gets pretty uptight about some of the security issues around race facilities. Um,

so since this is for the storage of volleyball equipment for the biggest beach volleyball tournament in the world, um, why can't TLT money be used? I I have no problem using TLT money. Um, I would think that that would be a good use of it. It's and it's really just moving this stuff around and moving the fence around.

Um, right here. So, it might require um and that was another thing was uh the wastewater treatment plant main gate needs upgrades. It's it's in disrepair also. So, this project married with that one um because they kind of impact each other depending upon how we orient this. And I wanted to make sure that there was enough space there so that you could still get a large flatbed truck to turn right there and they could get larger trucks in and out of there too so that it didn't confine access into the plant or into there. So that's why it's kind of laid out the way it is. But as you can see the blue box and the yellow box are fairly close in area and I think that there's adequate space there um to do that. This project also impacts a couple other ones. They're all kind of dovetailed together because of the space. This space up here, I'd like to recover this space because this right here is really the only proper um paved drainage pad that we have in the city municipality for uh sanitation uses. And I'll I'll talk about that later uh this evening. Uh priority three is the current SCADA program which is stands for supervisory control and data acquisition. It's basically what runs the plant the computer system. Um it's starting to age and needs some upgrades along with some telemetry upgrades with it. That's that is the lowest priority for the wastewater department right now. But those are the 13. And here is the overall list. and you uh we can send this to you in a PDF format. Um the actual PowerPoint presentation I think is 100 megabytes, so it's pretty big. Um but you're looking at a total of

almost $2 million for all of these. Now granted, um the higher up the priority list, the more expensive most of these things are. The SCADA system is 100 grand. Uh but I don't think we need to do that immediately. Um and is the SCADA system It's a digital. It's electronic system. Yes. So, so would the current system be at danger for cyber cyber security breaches. Um, almost any system is depending upon how connected it is to the internet. I know a lot of uh facilities don't connect to the internet just for that reason. They're all local control. So,

and I'll have to double check on this, but I don't think that we have internet access to that. Um, and the state mandates some of these things just for that reason alone is that they don't like online connection, right?

Um, like at the water plant, we do have some of that. Um but like the the only open um connection is with our auto dialer which is fully segregated from the ska system up there. So there's a lot of firewall protection at the water plant but and trust me we had to have the guys come out and fix it because there were certain settings that weren't exactly right in order for that to work. But this is the overall list uh showing the Marlo stations at the top and the SCADA system at the bottom and then our estimated quantities per budgets um on these.

And when you look at cost, are you computing uh labor etc at prevailing wage, right? Um that's a good question. We don't always have prevailing wage requirements on these things. So depending upon how it's funded, um you you can or you must or may not require prevailing wage. And do we know if there are grants out there that um could be used for these for some of this?

Yes. And uh I actually had a discussion with uh the city manager about that today that we have some opportunities to go after some of our large ticket items because um we have a probability of getting some money. We don't want to waste it on any of the smaller things. So you can kind of see that there is a whole range 5,000 to 650,000 on these. Now, this 650,000 is just a swag. That is not what will fix that entire area,

but I think it will get our worst offenders up there. Um, it may be possible at some point to do that in-house by procuring the equipment because we have a limited number of sizes and it's really not rocket science. I mean there is a form to it. Not to put down the guys who do this professionally because I have seen it done. Um and there's a right way to do it and there are wrong ways to do it. Um but it's definitely within the ability for us to do those kinds of things. Um but there is equipment that needs to be done. I don't know if some of this is proprietary and franchised out. So that may be an issue also. So, um, but, uh, it's not cheap, but it is a nice way of doing this because the new line basically you have a fiberglass or resin pipe inside, you know, the old pipe. So, the old pipe becomes the protection for the new one. Um, and the new stuff can depending upon the the diameter of I mean the thickness of it can be it's really strong and it's designed to last like decades and decades. You know, the only thing that it really is either someone digging it up or sizing seismic event.

So, so that is wastewater. So, now to our water projects. Priority one is the rehabilitation of our main water line, our only water line from uh the waste uh water the water treatment plant to the south end of town which I call it just past the helicopters um is before we start starts branching out um down there. Um it is a a type of steel pipe that is that hasn't been made in a long time. It's hard getting replacement parts for it. Um the guys do a great job trying to patch it, but every time they get in here and they see how it was back filled. Um they just put large crush rocks right up against this thing and it's I'm amazed that we don't have more problems with this.

Um but it has it's at the end of its life expectancy. Um, I'd like to line this pipe such that the steel becomes the protection for uh the new pipe inside. And if it and that way there's not any trenching or there's very little trenching being done, it can be done quickly, probably a lot faster than having to dig in a new line. Um, you can see in the picture on the on the right, he's actually standing on the old abandoned line. Oh, wow.

Um, yeah. And uh uh once they've got the fix in place, this was this was a tricky fix. They were able to get it stopped, but it wasn't 100% fixed. So, they had to come back and and straighten it out. But the guys did a great job on this. This this was last I want to say August or September. So, it hasn't been that long ago. But um this line probably has a problem at least once a year. This is not the first time they've worked on this in the last few years. So So priorities two and three, the design and construction of a new pipe bridge over the Mechanica River. This is just down from the water inlet. Um this bridge is life expectancy. The foundations for the abutments on both ends are seriously undermined. Um, this one doesn't show. Oh, that's okay.

Crazy. Look at the technology. Anyway, you can see the uh the foundations on the opposite side of the river there. That's the good side, and it's not in good shape. Now, you see the red circle in the right picture, you're looking down at the river through that hole. That's the pipe. There's nothing holding it up right there. It's seriously undermined. Now, there, if you can see in the left picture, there's kind of a box thing in the middle of the bridge. That's our air vent that you have to climb out there to fix

when it when it gets stopped up or has a serious leak. our very uh brave water department uh lead Kevin Nagel has done that work for us uh in the in the near past. Um but this is definitely you can uh having an issue. You can see the trees that are down around it. We brought those down last year um because they were a serious hazard of falling and crushing that that bridge. So we've done some of that. There are still a few trees that still need to come down around this, but this pipe um needs to get a replaced and the bridge replaced. So, part of the bridge project would be to replace this section of that line with something new. Priority four, Avenue Uline. We have a line that crosses uh well, it's actually under the river at Avenue Bridge. Um,

and it's no longer in service because it has had uh failures. Um, it is isolated from the system, which means that all the water that goes to the Cove has to go up to Avenue G and then back down,

which means if we had a major fire event down at the Cove, it could be problematic. They could be seriously under pressured there. So, um I'd like to get that line uh rebuilt and put back into service. Um and I've had discussions with people and it's apparently this has been on the dockets on and off for the past 10 years. So, it's been out of service for quite some time and I know the fire department is very antsy about this. Priority five, and this is one of my favorites, um the Tie Head booster station, which is up on Sunset Boulevard just above uh Greenway Drive. Um this boosts water pressure up to those last 30 or 40 residential units up there. Um because they the they don't have enough head pressure from the south tank um to provide it be of less than 20 PSI by the time it got up to Wherers's Cove. Um, this station is in that underground and I don't know why they put it underground. It runs 10 horsepower pumps constantly in order to maintain loop pressure for those 30 to 40 homes. Um, that costs us about nine grand a year in electrical costs. Now, we have a station that does a similar thing at Royal View and for about a dozen homes. It only uses $200 of electricity a year. So, we could we could put in a small jockey pump to horsepower, which could probably pressurize that system 80 to 90% of the time based upon usage and save us about $7,500 a year. This one would pay for itself in a relatively short period of time. So, this one I think is is a great

showcase project um which is a win-win um because of its uh short payback period. This is probably dumb because I know you've already thought of this, but why can't that pump be used for more of the code?

Um it could. Um this pump is only used to pressurize water. Um the houses that are downhill from this technically are within an acceptable um uh yeah they don't the piping has been set up in a big loop here. So it basically just keeps pumping water in a big loop at a certain pressure so that when people turn on their fixtures it comes out at that pressure all the time. Now, in modern pump stations, you'll have they have two huge fire pumps in there for fire flow. They have two 10 horsepower pumps, which are their small pumps in there, which really aren't. Um, they're missing their two horsepower jockey pump, which is what should be running 247. And when it when pressure on that line drops, that's when those 10 horsepower should come online. uh when the 10 horsepower powers can't provide pressure because they have fireflow demand. That's when the big ones come to mind. So that's what has to happen here. Uh it was designed for a certain purpose and the plumbing was laid out in a certain way. It's just I when I found out how much power this thing was, I went in there like, "Are you kidding? These things run all the time?" They're like, "Yes." Okay. So, um it's a it'll be a little bit of a trick putting it in there, but I think we can do it. Um I just hate paying uh PP&L 10 grand a year

uh when it's, you know, overutilized. Yes. It's just to me it's wasted money. Uh priority six, the Peterson Point valve station.

Oh, yeah. So, this is right off the highway, and the picture you're seeing on the far left is a very nice picture of what it actually looks like. Um, some of the valves aren't in that, uh, enclosure, uh, which is a confined space entry, uh, which makes it problematic. Those valves have been in there a long time, and some of them take two guys to turn. Um, so when we had that uh mainline rupture, it took two guys. A, they had to find the valve that wasn't in there. It was actually outside in the grass. They had to like cut around for it. And then two of them had to turn it by hand. Um, it's a pain. And this one is it's in a bad spot and it hasn't had any love in a long time. So, um, this needs some attention soon. um especially if we go forward with uh priority one project. So priority seven uh SCADA upgrades. So as you can see our uh our control panel or vault as you say the two main boxes one of them they've already ripped out a bunch of stuff in there. This thing has been modified multiple times. It is out of UL which is uh underwriters laboratories is certification for for electronic equipment and things like that. Um the panel that they would replace this with would be probably 1/8 the size of what you're seeing now. Yeah, it it's gotten much smaller. The reason these are so large are because everything was mechanical relays. So there's a whole bank of mechanical relays in there. These are now being done uh digitally. Uh and you can do that a lot more effectively and you can do a lot of things changes with software. Um I've designed a lot of control panels over my

career and I've seen municipalities that had these and we literally they said, "Well, we want to keep the box." And it's like, "Okay, but you realize you're going to go from this down to this and uh you're you don't need all this space." But sometimes you've got so many power cords and things going into there that it's just a pain to do that. Um, but it is, you know, with the openings right there, it's not technically to code uh because you do have uh things going on in there that that are dangerous. Um, is that somebody's desk and chair sitting right there, too? Yeah, that's Well, that's that's in the operator's office,

right? So, um, this the controls are technically on a computer that are right off to the extreme left of that picture. Um, so Ron Wer, he uh manages the SKA system from the computer uh right there, which is connected to that system. Um, but it it is old and it is it needs an update soon along with some of its telemetry and things like that. Fortunately, we can save a lot of consulting costs because I've done a lot of this design work myself and we can basically just design it and have it fabricated or at least reviewed um by a third party before fabrication since I've done a lot of this kind of work in my career.

You got about 10 minutes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll start pushing it up here. uh

pri priority eight for the water department our a replace the access bridge. Now this is another one of my favorites because um we have connected with ODOT who is doing a mitigation uh project that requires them to encroach into the mechanical river at Peterson Point due to that sinkhole that's on 101. They're looking to fix that. It's a culvert that's collapsed apparently. I think our old water line is cutting through it. I got a photo from them today about this. they need to mitigate that encroachment by giving up um area. This bridge can can do this because it actually encroaches into the river and we have already designed the replacement which opens the channel more and gives them that mitigation area. So we talked to ODOT about this and they're like yeah this would be great. So, we've had meetings out there. Um, which means they would pay for the demolition and the channel widening which is already part of this project. Um, so basically the demolition and removal part would be on them and then we would only be part of the installation work and that doesn't exactly have to follow immediately following the demolition. So, you know, if we don't have to do it in 20 in fiscal year 27, we can do it in fiscal year 28. But, um, this bridge is no longer passable. You can actually see trees growing out of it.

Um, the last person to cross this bridge was our fearless city manager. I fearless. I was shocked. That was all for us. Three points of contact. Uh, the courage is far greater than mine. Um, but this I think is a great uh project to partner with ODOT on uh that we could get some real benefit out of. Did Paul did you point out maybe I missed it on the left those trees that you see above the bridge are growing they're growing out of the bridge they are not behind the bridge they are on top of the bridge taller every year yeah those trees are at least 10 12 feet tall now

so but you can you can see how this bridge is in very poor shape all right a couple equip equipment purchases an electric pallet jack um up for the weight water treatment plant. We get a lot of our chemicals in totes that are bigger than what you're seeing right there. They're poly totes about 300 gallons. Um the truck drops them off outside and they have to bring them in and there's a bit of a there's a little bit of a slope right there on the pavement.

So, uh they're using a manual run right now and it sometimes takes two guys to drag it up there. So uh an electric pallet jack and these are about three to five grand would mitigate that and allow one person to do that safely. U priority 10 is a small boring equipment for boring under uh roadways and driveways and things like that. Small pavement areas. This would mitigate our need to um to trench and patch pavement. We can actually bore um our lateral lines under that where it works for us. Some places will have utility conflicts. We can't really do that because you don't want to blindly bore uh through power lines or uh natural gas and things like that, but they're pretty good about uh clearing these. Um those are pretty economical. I think it would pay for itself in less than two years. Uh the north tank uh upgrades that uh ladder is in bad shape. It is seriously rusted. We've had people come and take a look at it and they've given us some estimates on this. Um the vent on the top also needs to be remedied. Uh priority 12, um the water plant roof, it's a metal roof. It's not in bad shape right now, but doing some maintenance on the seals and rust issues will extend its life uh significantly if we do that sooner than later. Uh the same thing with Peterson Point. It's a concrete roof, but it houses critical uh pumps. That's our secondary source of water uh when our primary one pretty much dries up in the summer. Uh priority 14, scrubber room door. We had an air scrubber room that we no longer use because it's unnecessary. It's a space inside the building that we could utilize for storage of equipment that is now outside. We'd need to cut in a uh rollup door on the north side of that and that's what this would pay for.

Uh, priority 15, which is the last one, is our chlorine room fan. Uh, it needs to get replaced in the near future. Uh, any equipment, mechanical equipment in that room is attacked. It's a harsh environment.

Think of it as just like any equipment living at a public swimming pool, indoor swimming pool. It just gets attacked by chlorine. So, you're looking at a $4.1 million budget for all of this. Granted, a lot of that is the waterline rehab. Um the pipe bridge, that's $2 million right there. Uh the US water line, that's another 3/4 of a million. So you're already at 2.75 um in the first four priorities.

The bridge replacement at 750. That might be a little on the heavy side, but that's also something we could defer. Um it's on because is an important access for us but it's something we couldn't but I'd like to still partner with ODOT on that project to get moving 750s just to rebuild uh streets department uh priority one um I want to put in a conx enclosure this is a very economical way of building a covered structure and additional lockable storage you can get these uh varying sizes and And you can also move these in the future.

We have a space on the northern end of the lot um where I'd like to do this and put some of our heavy equipment um out under the out being under cover. Um priority three and eight. Um I want to make a dumpster uh location here. This is technically our best location for a for a garbage dumpster for the city because it's on a draining pad tray that drains and gets pumped back into the wastewater treatment plant. So, and there's there's a couple other projects that marry with us. See the the volleyball equipment here

and the kennel is priority eight. Getting rid of this structure because and as I said this, the dogs weren't traumatized before they went here. Um, they are now. Um, it's, you know, I know Officer Knock does a great job, but this is a terrible structure for these guys. Um, they put it in here so they could just hose it out. Um, I'd like to replace it with a ConX office that we could put on the edge of this thing and free up space for um, a dumpster. The dumpster will require a ramp so that we can get enough elevation to drop into it because we don't have a hole for it. But this, you know, if we got audited big time about our our dumpster uses, we're not catching uh leech shade from it um like we would here. We'd be able to be fully compliant. Plus, this gives us a secondary spot to drop during events. Um so, we'd have improved garbage collection and be faster during large events like Fourth of July. Um uh priority two is equipment add-ons. Um, here's a picture of one that we put on mini excavators, a flail. Um, we used one of these these pieces of equipment to do that in the swamp. Um, because it had tracks, it was able to do that. Our wheeled equipment that we use now would not be able to do that. So, this would allow us to buy implements for our existing equipment to give it greater versatility, which is also part of uh, priority four, which is an additional box or utility um bed for the new swap loader which is should be coming any day now. Um we converted our old sweeper truck. Uh priority five would be um uh funds to upgrade some of the existing fleet trucks to give them more uh capabilities like u lumber racks, pipe

racks, um power uh off the back and things like that. Okay. Priority six, remodeling the public works office. Yes, it's been forever. Oh, yeah.

We're getting rid of our um our file cabinets because we're digitizing all the paper stuff and uh we could move a lot of people that are out in the bays into the office here by reorganizing it. It's not a huge priority, but at some point in the next couple years, I think it's something we need to do. Uh priority 7 is basically an airport budget. um that was increased to provide us with some money to do an airport debris bur where we had proof of concept with the low fence. Uh it also provides us additional funding to buy more runway lights, wind socks, and things like that. I do have to say that we just fixed the wind socks

out there. Um Matt Long in our office came up, yes, he came up with an ingenious design where we have now tilt down wind socks that we can get at and fix a lot easier. We don't need a bucket truck for it. So, kudos to Matt for that. Um, and uh, but we do need some money for runways because they are not cheap. They're expensive. Okay. Uh, priority nine, and I think this is the last one, is a we do have a fuel trailer, but it's not ours, and an emergency could go away. It'd be nice to have one of these and have one up at the wastewater treatment plant. Um, because they have heavy equipment up there, and they have to come all the way down. the main yard to fuel our motor which you know burns a ton of fuel just doing that. So having a gas and diesel tanks on a dual uh trailer would be bad but that's not by fire rate streets we're looking at just under half a million for streets improvements cost you see the conics we're about at 125,000 for a kit and we could do a lot of the work ourselves on that we can permit it within our department does.

So, um it would be I think an economical way of giving us some good cover. Um so, I just kind of threw together some metrics on this, the number of projects that fell into which category, where they were in the priorities, um the cost of the group. You can see critical infrastructure sucks up, you know, a large volume of of the money here. uh improve. Yeah, that's how that's where a lot of my focus was was critical infrastructure because we've got to take care of our worst issues first, I think.

But this will all be available as PDF for you guys so you can kind of go through this. But that is uh the presentation. It's a great ad list. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Are we going to have this as part of the budget cycle this come through that or what's next step?

Next step will be um well I had planned on after the wastewater master plan being was going to be completed that we would go out and have a study done to say okay now how do we pay for all the this infrastructure with the work Paul's done we can pull the trigger on that now. So, we need to have the experts come in and say, "Okay, what what amount how do we what amount of this needs to be rates versus debt versus grants versus um legislative um you know, earmarks and things like that. There will be a combination of all of that." And um there are people out there that can help us do that. So, that's um I've already begun compiling a list of the firms out there that do that work. And so we'll probably pretty soon be reaching out to get quotes from them and start engaging them.

Call the Call the city council meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Kind of feel like I need binoculars to see all you sitting way in the back. Boy, are we loud tonight. Kim, please call the role. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Wright, here. Councelor McVey, here. Councelor Monttero, present. Councelor Ansboro here. Councelor Hoffman here. Councelor Baker here. Council President Morrisy here. Thank you. All present. I have a motion for approval of the agenda. So moved. Second. I

I would like to make a motion to add something to the agenda.

I'd like to move that we add a discussion regarding um uh the process and for granting authority for the city and the council to be represented. um by our by the mayor uh in signing letters and uh having the city logo be on um on information sheets in support of different items, what the process is. I would rather have a discussion at the beginning of our counselor comments about that and then we can decide if there's enough interest in pursuing that. Um I hesitate to add major things like that to our agenda without public notice. So we have a motion from Council President Morsey and Councelor McVey. All those in favor say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Public comment. U do have any registered public comments. I'll read it anyway. Members of the public may use this time to provide general comments on matters not scheduled elsewhere on the agenda for public hearing and public comment. Individuals wishing to speak should complete a public comment registration card. They're over on that table. And submit city recorder for being called. This time's intended for the council to listen to public comments rather than engage in discussion. Council may consider whether issues raised during this time should be scheduled for discussion or action in a future meeting. Each speaker's allotted three minutes. So if nobody has decided then uh we'll move on. Any counselor wish to declare a potential conflict of interest? Hearing none, we'll ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved. Second. Council President Morris and Councelor Baker. All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Main part of our uh agenda tonight is reports and presentations. And this is always a nice one. Introduction of seaside police officers. Chief anors. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for having us. We have uh two officers to introduce you at one is going to be a familiar face. Uh Andrew Balcom has been with us for a little while now, got hired and then immediately left for the police academy and he's finished some training now and so we realized that we still owed him a introduction to everybody. And then when we got Scott Beaver hired on here this last week, we figured we'd do them both tonight as a little introduction. So, Officer Balcom and Beaver, if you'd come up here, please for me. Spouses, if you want to get some photographs, I'll have them facing this way. So, come over here and get some photos. But this is Andrew Balcom to my left. And again, he's been with us as a reserve officer for a couple of years now, and then we finally talked him into going full-time, and he's been kicking us ever since. But, uh, uh, back from the academy. What when did you graduate there?

Uh, 10:17. Yeah. So, October 17th and then he's finished up his training and has uh uh been working really good for us. I've been getting a couple of compliments with his workout on the road. So, we're happy to have him and he's doing a good job for us so far. And then Scott Beaver just started last Monday, I believe. And then uh has been getting through a little bit of paperwork here and there and trying to get uh introduced around and then uh he's leaving for the academy March March 2nd.

March 2nd he's starting. So, he's not going to be here very much longer before we're not going to see him for a few months. So, anyway, if you guys will sit here or stand there and face over here towards your wives so they can take your pictures and I'll do the swearing in. Face me. So, they get your back, right? I know what I'm doing. So, if you both raise your right hand for me and say, um, I state your name. I do solemnly swear domly swear that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States the state of Oregon the state of Oregon and the laws of the city of Seaside and the laws of the city of Seaside and that I will and that I will to the best of my ability

the best of my ability faithfully and honestly faithfully and honestly perform the duties of police officer perform the duties of police officer of the city of Seaside Oregon of the city of Seaside Oregon during my term of employment of employment. So help me God. So help me God.

Welcome aboard. Good job. And then I'm going to break my phone out and see if I can get a couple of pictures, but I'm going to have their wives uh pin their badges on them. So um I think I'm working this right. So we'll do uh Balcom first. All right. trying to get out of there.

And that's all I've got. Have you got anything for them or if you, you know, have at it? But otherwise, if you don't need me anymore, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for uh joining us. Welcome aboard. Next up, um, we are going to get an update on Stepping Stones from Clatsup Community Action. Come have a seat up here. Please introduce yourselves for everybody. Thanks.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, thanks for having us tonight. Um, things are going um, I would say rather well over at Stepping Stones. Um, currently we have 32 people. Um, one of those 32 is currently incarcerated on a probation violation. He'll be out Friday and back at the camp and or the community. And, uh, we have eight dogs and two cats as well. And that uh as far as numbers, we're looking we had uh 21 people in January and we're looking at 32 today. Um we are using the overflow right now even for one one person. and that uh the public works department has done some grading over there um to alleviate the pooling of water issue. That's been a little bit of a problem. Um it's working well, but they did. And um we are providing showers over off of Avenue U on Tuesday still. There's more and more people starting to use that now. And uh um things things are rather calm. They're all the community members are getting used to us. We're used to we're getting used to them. We're we're really used to each other now. And we get along well. Um and uh there's been very little problem recently there. So things are looking pretty good. Any questions?

Sure. I always have questions. I know. So, uh I'm always interested in um when I worked in hospitals, we called it the length of stay. What's the average time that people stay at stepping stones? Um and um do you have any success stories for us of people leaving and getting jobs or getting permanent housing?

Yes, we do. Uh just recently we had a total of uh three people um exit um two went to the Columbia Inn and one went to treatment and then last month or the month before we had another gentleman move into an actual apartment up in Atoria and that um so there there are success stories there And I'm sorry, what was the other part of the question? Um, what would you say is the average length of time that um most people spend as residents of Stepping Stones?

That that you're talking their length of stay pretty much. Yeah, it's going to be Well, we've had some there since we opened and uh we've had a couple that were there when we opened, then they exited, and now they're coming back again. So, we're starting to work through a second time through with them. And that's um it it varies really. Um and the the people that have been there since we've opened it, they're they're planning on staying um for the indefinite future.

Okay. And um the increase from 21 to 32 people in the in the in stepping stones um what would you attribute that increase to? Are they people that are have been uh camping elsewhere in the county and coming in? Are they people coming from outside the area? Um what what kind of sense do you get about that?

I believe the majority of them are from the area. either Atoria or Seaside and that um and I I think that a lot of them are are coming back to camp now because there's more strict enforcement in that and so um Paul Knock has um been directing people over to the camp more as he finds he's finding more I believe. Okay. Anyone else? Tina stole my questions.

Are there u folks you think might be able to be helped um by the new class of behavioral uh center when it opens? There'll be residents there too, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Um there's been one or two from the community that um will be going up to housing as I recall. Yeah. Good. The one you said um went in and was it permanent supportive housing? Was it over at Hawkai or was it somewhere else? Uh the one that went into permanent housing was he came

or it was just permanent housing. It wasn't anything to do with Yeah. Yeah. It It was an apartment. He came to Australia. Good. Good. So, I'm curious for people who get into permanent housing, does CCA keep a relationship with them? Um or do when they move, they're just sort of out of the supportive system. How does that work? We do maintain contact with them, make sure they're still doing well because in a lot of um ways and times they are still getting assistance from CCA, right?

That we we don't abandon them once they go to housing. As I do have a question as far as the long-term campers that have been at the camp for a while. Is as far as them transitioning into more permanent housing either at Esparonza Village or anywhere in the county, is it because there isn't things available or they just haven't made the decision yet to take that step?

They haven't decided to make that step yet. um they're they're offered a way to go through the coordinated entry through CCA and they just haven't followed through with doing that. Um they're they're not ready to be sheltered yet. So they know that there's a path if they choose to take it. Yes. Okay. Is that a conversation you guys have with them on a weekly or monthly basis or how does that work? Daily. Daily. Yeah. Mhm. That was part of your last report to us that you basically reach everybody every day that you can.

We do. Yes. Um you know it it's not instantaneous for them to um get into housing or want housing. It's, you know, different for everybody. Um some want it right away. Um, we have one person um that we that we talked to um they don't have any desire to go into shelter at all. They like living outdoors and that they've done it so long that it feels uncomfortable living indoors.

Are there campers that will not communicate with you that that aren't participating? um occasionally but those are very very few and far far between. You guys have contact with almost everybody. Yes, I think so. Yes, we do. So you said that you have daily contact with um regarding what they can do, what they pathways they can take. So that leads me to ask then how many hours do we have CCA staff working at our stepping stones?

CCA staff is allotted. Five hours a day. I Yeah, I know what you're allotted but I'm asking how much are you actually working in there? Um it has been a little more than that. As far as actual hours, I am not sure. But um it has been a little bit more because some sometimes it makes it difficult to I get out of there right on time because you there's people that need this or that or so. Yeah. H

have y'all begun implementing classes over there to teach people the skills that are going to better enable them to move into more permanent housing? Relearning things like how to pay rent, how to keep their utilities on, how to go through the things that in in regular life the rest of us kind of take for granted that we just know that while you're out there, the longer you're out there, those skills get lost. Um we have a case manager um she will help guide people through the process on how to do those things and then also we have offered I have personally offered um people um you know um the use of a computer and help with filling out job applications as well. Okay. Is there any other support from the city that would help make your guys' job easier?

Personally, I think the support from the city is good. It's great, actually. Um, our our needs are are being met and I can't think of anything right off. Um, you know, I mean, we we could always spend more time there. Yeah.

Um, you know, one one one thing that the um community members would like maybe is a a covered gazebo type um structure like we have over at Espironza. um somewhere covered where they can uh cook um out of the elements um because they're not supposed to have open flames or or be cooking in their tents really. Okay.

So, this is a little bit further than that. Um can you tell us anything about the point in time count um that was conducted in uh at the end of January? Um, do we have numbers yet as to what we think are um, those who are unhoused in the county? I I know it was a very successful event. Yes. Thank CCA for always doing this. Thank you. It it was a very successful event and I know as of today um, Merryill um, was still compiling the final numbers. Okay, great.

We talked about that this morning. She was working on the last few. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Thank you.

Joshua, come tell us all about the tourism department. Get a free trial of Adobe first. This song.

Oh, okay. Happy birthday, Mayor. Okay. Um, as strange as it may seem, we're going to look back at the year 2025 through a lens of uh some of the stuff we accomplished at the visitors bureau this year. And maybe am I doing that? Are you doing that? Uh, and first and foremost is our new website. So we built a website in 2024 or 2025, but the process start started in 2024. We put out an RFP. We got 53 bids on this from all over the world. So of course, they all had to be, you know, vetted, scored, and ranked according to the rules in the RFP. So it was quite a big process. But we ended up in uh inviting seven of them to interview and which we did right here in this room. And u the committee ended up extending the contract to Moxy Soo which is an interactive branding firm out of Boulder and they did an excellent excellent job. You don't have to take my word for it. They actually won two awards for it. So back in October, I think they got a bronze award at the One Club Awards in Denver. And then I just heard last week that they took home a gold bar from the 50 ad club as well. So great for them. Some of the great like award-winning work they did on our site was plugging directly into Google Places API. So what this means is uh visitors under a variety of categories can get real time directions from wherever they are to a hotel or restaurant in town. Real time updated hours, uh website contact information, all this kind of stuff that you're always playing catchup with when you're trying to maintain a database. This pulls it out directly from the businesses themselves. And from a strategy standpoint, this allows us to just remind visitors or sorry to visitor-f facing businesses to just update their Google listings because when they do that, not only does it update it on our website, but anyone who doesn't even enter our ecosystem benefits from it. So, it's good for them as well. Another thing we updated was a tide

tables. Now, this used to be a image file from our printed visitor guide. You need like a magnifying glass to look at it. Some people really loved it, but we uh put the actual data into the website which now um you can sort by year and month and week and it shows easily um viewable on your phone even the high and low tide, the values, the time and if it goes negative, it flags it for you with a color which is really helpful. And in fact, the whole website is super colorful and and everything is linked thematically. It feels very alive and moves. For instance, if you're reading an article about winter visitation, like re nine reasons to visit in winter, you can easily click and see all the articles about winter. If there's a food mention, you can click that and see all the articles about food. If we happen to post an event in our calendar that's tagged for winter, it will show up in those winter categories. So, what that does is it rewards a lot of repeat visitation because there's always kind of something new to find. And, uh, the website traffic has supported that. It's been a really, um, good development. The other big category for us I think last year was public relations and and uh the first is uh accessibility which we've continued to push. So Oregon became the first accessibility verified state in the nation last year. Um that work began on the Oregon coast and seaside was a big part of all that work. So this continues to be a big um major boon for us and it's just a a joy to work on. But then the kind of surprising development in my in my mind is uh we've been working with our PR firm Little Bird Media and especially Julie there who's a superstar. We've been pitching our partners to morning TV shows and we've had tons of success. We've had the aquarium on several times. We had Jazz and Blues on. We had the Ghost Conference on. And these guys brought this little doohickey that paranormal researchers use to like investigate stuff. and it started going off while

they were in the in the studio. So, it made for quite a segment. They had a lot of fun with it.

Uh we had the fire department on um kind of pro preemptively talking about beach safety for summer. They got to do a call for lifeguards. That was great. Uh we had the doc the doxies on with their fun Seaside branded t-shirts and Sandfest and we had Beachbooks on twice, two consecutive days, two different shows talking about their 20 years in Seaside. So, this has been really great. And we've been pairing the uh earned media with prime time ads, so commercials and things running um in prime time and also a beach weekend weather forecast, which this was three months. In the spring of 2025, we did this. And so, this included a whole bunch of commercials um on coin. And then in the fall, we ran a huge schedule of commercials on KGW in Portland, but also Cairo and King in SE in Seattle. And these are running during NFL games, NBA games, um the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, high viewership programs like Survivor and things like that. And pretty soon here, we're going to be retargeting this same segment with uh over-the-top streaming and YouTube ads. And then, of course, the weather cams kind of give us a nice aura on weather and news. coin is our first and main one, but we also now have Fox 12, which offers a similar kind of iconic view of Seaside, but to a little bit higher viewer uh viewership. And then we just added a KGW cam as well. We didn't get it live in 2025, but we got the contract in place, and they went live a little bit early before our contract started to show off the northern lights. This is a still shot from a from a time lapse. So, the actual time lapse is a lot more impressive than this, but the the KGW cam is on in the cove looking north. So, it's a little different view and it's it's a really nice. They've been showing up in a lot of news segments. From a advertising standpoint, we've continued our strategy of targeting regional travelers about 150 miles or more from Seaside. And the reason we do

that is because we've learned from kind of cross-referencing some of our digital spend where we can see um how effective it is, which is not often in marketing. You can't see how effective things are, but with some digital spend, you can see that. What we noticed is that even though Portland is our number one uh travel segment, we noticed that our money was better spent further out because we were the people who were exposed to our advertising further away were more likely to visit. And what that's what that's actually saying, it's kind of counterintuitive, is that people in Portland are just as likely to come. They come here anyway.

We have more of an effect. it's a better use of our it's a better better fiscal responsibility in a way to spend our money out there. So I pulled the data from the last fiscal year spring and this fiscal year fall to just give you a 2025 look and what we saw is um people that we advertised through the subsection of the digital ads we can see. So obviously most of our marketing we can see but for the stuff we can see audiences were 4.3 times more likely to visit if they saw our ads than if they didn't see our ads. And what that means is we got about 3,600 extra trips, about 900,000 extra spend, and about 17 extra dollar return on investment for ads. Having done that instead of just spending that money in Portland with people who are going to come anyway, basically that doesn't mean we're not advertising in Portland. It just means certain section of our advertising is targeted outward. These are the markets that we're responding and are we're actually seeing in market. So the number one market is Yaka, Pasco, Richland, Kenowick, followed by Seattle, Tacoma pretty closely, and Spokane third, but they were in 2025 anywhere anyway, our highest spenders per visitor and also most likely to be seen in a hotel. Next up is Bend and third is Portland. You might say, well, you're not advertising to Portland. Why do they show up? But that's because this is ranking the DMA, which is a designated marketing area, which is much larger than just the Portland metro. So there certainly are parts of that that are 150 plus miles. And then lastly, Salt Lake City, which has been a surprising and growing segment for us, not only us seaside, but also our companion cities up and down the coast. This has been growing over the years. And it's interesting. So this is a heat map showing not only where people are seeing our ads, but where they're then being seen in market in seaside afterwards in 2025. And if we just take that data of what we

can see, we got our ads, our digital ads generated 4,700 trips to Seaside, and generated about 1.1 million in spending. Generated about 7,200 room nights at local hotels, 1.6 uh million in hotel revenue, and about 1,700 trips downtown, or about half a million in uh spending downtown. And again, this is just our digital ads. They're all super colorful. They're fun. They're animated. I can't really show that because this is just a PDF, but um you know, use your imagination. All the icons are bouncing around and the words are moving. Now, we already talked about broadcast TV, but we're also on the radio. Um so, iHeart Radio is our main partner this year. Um we're in Seattle pretty much September through June running sort of always on vacation inspiration kind of um spots. We also have a couple promotional contests up there that a lot of great leads from, but we also have like a more limited targeted um schedule in Portland on 106 the Eagle and Z 100. This is really supporting our fall and spring event partners. Basically making sure that people in Portland know that's going on and also making sure we stay top of mind with that market. On the print side of things, we've kind of shifted over the years from like doing a lot of print ads to doing less but doing them more visibly in in more high impact areas. So, a lot of back covers, a lot of first page table contents, and that strategy has continued to play out in 2025. And of course, our visitor guide is our number one print uh piece. We do 100,000 of them every year. We had a great year in 2025 um and mailed out a whole lot of them. So much that we actually ran out of polybait guides and staff had to stuff envelopes for quite a few months. And I also wanted to touch quickly on a cool little social campaign we did this uh fall. We basically did this campa campaign called Give Give the Gift to

Seaside. And what we're trying to do is compel people to give their kids, grandkids, loved ones, friends an experience of a trip to Seaside together rather than a physical gift. And so we put together four Facebook ad carousels themed to three different things. Give the gift to Seaside, holiday getaways, and winter visits. And we kind of pushed them all to a dedicated landing page of which this is just a tiny little piece of. And when you keep scrolling down, it gives you gets you to a visitor guide order form. And what we saw is over the course of about one month, a little over a month, we had 14,484 landing page clickthroughs. We reached 447,000 people on average uh 2.2 times each. And we saw 28% year-over-year lift in guide orders for that time. And as you can see by that graph, we had a really active website during that time, too. So, it was all in all a really fun uh campaign and we'll continue to try to do fun campaigns like that in the future. Let's wrap up with a few more uh metrics. Our annual website traffic was 461,000 uh in 2025, which as far as I know is a new record. Our monthly email subscribers hit about 45,000. We distributed 41,800 through two different tourism grant programs. one focused on events in the offseason and one focused on arts. And then uh staff interacted with 8,468 people at the welcome center and we launched a weekly industry news uh newsletter for the hospitality industry in seaside the Thursday turnaround which has turned into a pretty good resource I think. And that's just the highlights. If you want to learn a whole bunch more everyone is all always welcome to uh sit in on a tourism advisory committee meeting every third Wednesday. I want to thank everybody for serving on that committee, especially Marcy who I retired this year after like 17 years on it. So, um, thank you Marcy for all your help. Any questions? I would just say that Josh and his office team do a great job, but as he mentioned, he also has the support of a

really uh, knowledgeable and experienced board. So, I think you guys all work together very well and synergize. The most surprising thing you said though was that people come here from Salt Lake City. Do you know what the ratio is from driving and flying? Because I just have never really thought people flying into Yeah, it's a good question. That's a long drive.

I think you're seeing a lot of driving. Um but at the same time, we also are with Atori and Canon Beach together, marketing the region, and we are marketing to the airport there together. So, we don't do that for Seaside specifically, but as a region, we market to that market. So, some of it is probably flying, but it's something we've seen growing, not only here, but in, you know, Canon Beach, Lincoln City, Atoria. We're seeing that show up now. So, I don't know what's causing it. It's one of those weird cool shifts that we're going to lean into and make sure we, you know, stay um in front of those people. Yeah. And I seem to have met more people from Utah who have moved here from Utah. So, absolutely.

Salt Lake City is just part of Utah. No. I know. Oh, I think we're popular. Did you finish Seth? Yeah. Okay. So, um I'm curious. First of all, huge kudos. Um I know you get I know Seaside gets a lot of exposure that um you don't even work for. Um because every time I'm I think at least once a month I've sent you something that I've seen on the internet that that highlights Seaside as one of the best towns for this or whatever else. And so I I think it's um it's synergistic and generative.

People are starting to notice we have an ocean out there.

Well, that that helps. But you know um yeah the and I have to say the visitor handbook although this is 2025 that I just saw the 2026 visitor handbook and it felt a little thinner fewer pages I don't know but the photography is fabulous fabulous. And um you've changed up a little bit of the layout that I think makes it more interesting. So um I think it's really good. I'm wondering if you keep track at all of um how what's the return on investment for our tourism grants?

Well, we do ask all the grant applicants to give us information and and that runs the whole gamut from some events actually have hotel partnerships where they can provide solid data and we could tie numbers to that. But some of it is more like we had this many people come in, you know, and 25% of them were from, you know, out of town. We don't know if they spent the night or not, you know, so it becomes a little estimation, but that is part of the reporting structure for the grants. Thank you.

Anyone else? Do you have any information about the impact of international travelers over the last year? The impact from international travelers um especially Canadian travelers is way down everywhere. Yes. Uh in fact, I was just at a conference and I surprisingly learned that the number one international traveler segment now is from Mexico. So pretty big changes. Yeah. Mhm. Most of our travel comes from regional travel, but British Columbia makes up a huge segment and it is making up a less of a segment than it did if you had asked me this last year.

Okay. I know I spoke to a number of people over the last year who had come here specifically for seaside from places like Norway and uh parts of Eastern Europe. So yeah, how do you capture uh tourist reviews?

We listen to them. No, they they give us some Google, you know, it it's funny when you talk about tourist reviews, there are so many tourists, you know, so we have anecdotal evidence from people who come into town. We have a community liaison who goes out in the community and talks to our hospitality partners and learns from there. We go to the all the weekly meetings, the business uh SDA and the chamber meetings to learn, you know, what's going on. And uh you know, we're a welcome center, so people come in and talk to us every day. We get emails. Um but um you know, there are a lot of different ways to get that sort of information. And I think for a DMO like us, we really rely on our partners filtering that information to us, you know. Um, and usually it's just, you know, I've been coming here for 20 years and and uh, you know, when did you build the world type of stuff, you know, so it's it's usually really feel good, but sometimes it's about services that we need to work on and stuff like that and we make sure we route that properly. Sure. Thanks.

And is the foot traffic into the visitor center uh staying high? Where how is that working? It depends what your frame of reference is. So, it's actually it's about even with last year. It's up a little bit over last year, but if you looked at it over a 10 or 15 year time frame, it's certainly gone down while our digital reach has gone way up. Right. Right. Okay. I happen to watch channel 6 mostly mostly because they're such a supporter of seaside

and it is just really cool to see you know when you're watching the news and it's not good or whatever and they go to the weather and there's the uh you know tilmad and sunset and just kind of brings the level down.

Yeah. Um, you guys do a tremendous job of uh advertising our city and telling all the good things about it and bringing people here. And I keep pointing that out every time um I'm testifying at the state level for something particularly flexibility and lodging tax. But you know, anytime it's anything to do with seaside, everybody says, "Oh, your town is so cool." We see it on the news. we we see the advertising and all that and people wish they could live here and I tell them, "Yep, I'm glad I get to." So, thank you very much. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

Next up is our housing development report from uh Jeff, our community development director. Uh he presented this report at our county housing meeting last month and I asked if he would do it here because there are things that kind of fly under the radar because you hear about individual pieces, but Jeff's going to give us a a good idea of what's gone on since 2022.

Before he starts, can I ask that we get a copy of Josh's report? Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Uh, yeah, the regional housing task force that the the mayor and I sit on, and it's made up of staff and electeds from around the county, and we meet once a month um at the staff level, we meet more than that, but uh with the elected officials, we meet once a month. We just discuss housing and housing solutions, not only as a city or countywide, but other things that are going on at the state level as well. Um, a lot of times we look at different programs from other communities that are in similar tourist oriented uh, economies such as oursel. So, we'll look at some of the mountain towns. We'll look at other beach towns and see what they're doing to help promote housing. Um, the task force has been going since what I think 2022. Um, and uh, we've still maintain a pretty strong showing every month. uh and it's it's been good to have a place to sit down and talk about this. With that being said, the uh folks at the housing task force asked me to uh present on what all the construction is going on in Seaside. Uh for those of you that spend time walking and driving around our town, you see a lot of dirt being moved, a lot of big buildings starting to go up. Um and the question I get asked most often is, "Well, how many housing units do you have? How many housing units are in the pipeline? Where where are we at?" Um, and I I figured this would be an an easy way to sit down and say, "Okay, these are the projects. These are the units. This is the status." Uh, so this report, some of these projects you've seen before. Uh, this is the housing that's being built right now or has been built since 2022. Uh, we'll start with our transitional housing with Esparenza Village and Stepping Stones. Um, this this provides a place for our household population. um

along with CCA's great work in in and getting them into uh out of the camp into Esparanza or into other uh uh situations that are that are housed as opposed to being out camping in the elements in our in our wetlands and other areas. These these provide, you know, I'm going to run the gamut here of all different types of housing from this to uh up to market rate apartments that we have going on. Uh we do have two affordable housing developments in in town. Uh the the Hawkai, which was mentioned earlier, is 35% permanent supportive housing. Um that was approved by the planning commission. And the Pacifica uh which is rent restricted at 60% AMI. For those of you have not gone back uh by the Pacifica site recently, there's been a lot of work and a lot of movement on that already. Um, in fact, city staff was out there this week to reorient the uh baseball field because we got baseball uh coming up next month uh so that they can continue to play on the the little league field that's there. And again, this is a total of 105 units. Not all of those are affordable as 65% of them are market rate for the Hawkai development. um our market rate. We have several projects that are in the pipeline or um we're starting to see uh actual construction on them. Uh one that I'm particularly excited about was approved by the planning commission uh last Tuesday night and that is a uh renovation of the second floor of the Gilbert building uh into 21 studios in seven one-bedroom units. um long-term market rate housing uh with an elevator and uh the building facade minus some new windows and some paint is essentially going to stay the same and remain as uh the the nice cornerstone of

that uh that uh area of Broadway and and Holiday. Uh Cross Creek is next to the Hawkai. You've seen those buildings uh materialize in the last nine months to a year. Um I believe the back two buildings have occupancies and they are starting to lease up. So we're going to see uh people occupying those units. Um Gilbert I've talked about Avenue O is another 36 units. It's tied up in an appeal that might be resolving here before too long before it actually has to come to the council. Um it's next to Grocery Alley. There's a vacant piece of land right there. Yeah.

Um and the fifth and doubting is is brand new. It's just getting kind of off the ground and it's uh only eight units. Um but uh that could add an additional housing type to our our stock. And this doesn't discuss any of the ADUs, which we've had a few in the last few years go up um or single family uh dwelling developments and we've had several of those and I'll touch more on those um when uh when I do my annual report here in the next couple of months. When you say Fifth and Downing, are you talking about that block of land that's been empty forever and ever and ever? Yes. Oh, great.

We've been working with designers there for oh, six, eight months now on on a potential development there. And again, it's that's really in its infasy and we see these things fall apart at the last minute. I'll grab that in my next slide. You'll kind of see where we're at on each one of these uh each one of these. And how many uh units will be at Cross Creek? Uh Cross Creek. Go to my next slide right here. I'll show you. Just tell me.

So, these are our totals. Um, if you look at Cross Creek, there's 74 market rate units. Yellow uh in the coding means they are under construction right now. So, those those developments were approved. They have building permits. They're moving dirt and buildings are going vertical. Uh, green uh means that they have certificates of occupancy and they're starting to lease up. Uh, so we're seeing that with the Hawkside, Stepping Stones, Esparanza, half of Riverrun is is green and they're starting to lease up. And then the Wana Plexes is at the very north end of Wana. Those have been under construction for a few couple years now. And they've been leasing those buildings up as soon as they complete them. Then they start the next one. And I think they've got one more 12 unit building slated for that uh that development before it's complete. Um so with this slide you can see what we have for total units going in some pretty healthy sized uh apartment complex especially for seaside. We don't have that many very large apartment complexes. We've we've been able to these developers have been able to put together uh some pretty good housing units on the limited land we have. Um all that being said, we're looking at 418 total units uh since 2022 that we're getting off the ground. Um, and I'm setting myself up from failure because I don't know where we're going to go next year or the year after that. But, uh, we're going to have some serious discussions about infill and and potential other housing options that could help bring a higher density to some of our our highdensity housing areas to see if we can't keep building on this with more middle housing, duplexes, triplexes, quadplex types type units. I I think we've had this mindset for as long as I can remember that we need more housing. Do you feel that we are going to have a housing gallette with all these units coming online at one time or do you think these will be filled up?

What's your best guess there? Countywide, we're still very much in a housing crunch. So, I I think once we we do build these out, um I don't know if we'll see a housing glut or if we'll see a market adjustment in housing rate uh and and market rate for these units. And they they do they spread the gamut of $2,100 for a two-bedroom down to, I think, 1,600 for a two-bedroom. And those are

fairly comparable new uh buildings. So, it' be interesting to me to see if those housing rates at least stabilize um with the market rate units. Uh I don't think we're going to be able to really build oursel out of affordable housing because we don't have that much of it and uh that's definitely a need here. Uh but uh we'll see. the the market rate how these are developers that are investing serious money into these and if they didn't think they were going to get a return because there was a a too much housing I don't think we'd see a lot of these going up the way they are. Uh but I'm not an economist so I'll just leave it at that. Regarding the affordable housing, I know that with Pacifica, there are some constraints about um already being a seaside resident uh when you're in order to get into Pacifica. They have mentioned that. But um for the others, if we have a glut of of housing, um it could mean that there would be more traffic coming in because people who are working in other parts of of the um of the county might seek to live here. So, speaking about the parking and 74 new units at Cross Creek, I know there's already a traffic problem on that road. Um, Dutch Bros gets their their traffic gets out onto the highway, the people wanting to get in and get their coffee. So, if we've got 74 units and say um all of them have a car because I don't I think most people who are going to live there that's um you know that's two more trips in and out of on that

street and I'm wondering has there been any talk any consideration? Um obviously to build there ODOT had to approve some things. Um, but I'm just seeing that at least in that spot, um, I can't see the traffic getting anything but bad. So, what what what kind of things are going to happen in the future as we see things happen with the traffic?

Well, the the traffic study that was done for that development as a whole was approved with ODOT involved. Uh the success of the business there is a large reason why that there does tend to be traffic issues on busy mornings. Um if ODOT decides or can expand the highway or put in a stoplight, that's something that that that's up to them. We don't have a lot of control over what we can and can't do on the highway there. Um I know there was there was concerns from the planning commission. There was hope to put in an additional crossing there and that was not something ODOT was interested in at the time. Okay.

Can I ask Jeff a follow-up question? What is this what have you what are you hearing from the legislature when it comes to parking requirements for housing, whether we want parking or not? Exactly.

So, last year the legislature passed Senate Bill 1537. um the particulars of it. Uh DLCD put out a really good u uh kind of one sheet of what it is and what's required of cities. Um when it comes to parking, these developments here can build all of these apartments without providing a single parking space. And that's a mandated state law that cities have to follow. It's called a mandatory land use adjustment. and we'd have to grant an adjustment to build for to allow developers to build this without providing a single parking space uh because it qualifies as net new housing. The other adjustments that are uh provided in some of these developments use the adjustments. Some of them use the parking adjustment. Some of them used uh setback requirement adjustments, dwelling unit density adjustments. Um, these were all things that were spurred by the legislature to help promote the construction of new housing, net new housing, uh, which is desperately needed, not just in our city, our county, but the entire state. So, most of these developers have tried to build these out to park to the standard that we have set as a city. Um, some of them are short of that standard. Um, others, you know, they've they at least are parked one or 1.2 two spaces per unit

and like Pacifica. Yeah, like Pacifica,

right? Pacifica is is doing it um responsibly. Um but I can see that as there is more uh pressure being put on to do duplexes, triplexes, uh whatever units go on Fifth and Downing. Those are narrow streets. When you get into our neighborhoods, those are narrow streets. And um I'm not sure they can take much more on street parking. So, and I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I think these are things we have to be aware of as we we look at how this affects um the residents who are already living in our neighborhoods. Uh DLCD also put out a great study um I believe it's 2024 on parking management that I can certainly send out to the council if they would like to read.

I'd love to get that and and also a copy of this. Sure. Absolutely. There have been a a lot of things. you know, we did a housing study in uh 2019 after for the whole county and we followed up. Um it's been two years ago now, hasn't it? Um and one of the things said that um half of the workers in Seaside actually live somewhere else. Means also that half of the people that live here work somewhere else. And so, you know, we need to

we need to be able to allow people to live where they work and which will in general um use less cars that way and and it will encourage them to spend money locally as opposed to another city. Um the county has like Jeff mentioned this um we actually started a housing task force here in Seaside and then it morphed into the county one. Um, that's kind of been the whole thing is just look at every idea, see what's out there.

And I I really wanted to see this because looking back basically over three years and saying we've done more than 100 units a year is amazing. And u that's great, but except like Jeff said, that used up a whole lot of our land. We don't have a lot left. The last big piece of property that will maybe be as much as half of that number will be the high school, the old high school. And um beyond that, it's going to be just infill because that's all we have. And then uh with the FEMA thing, you know, cutting back some of the lands next to the uh the uh water, it's, you know, just cuts back anymore that we have options to do. But looking at just, you know, housing in general, um, Warrington is working on projects. It's 450 homes and that's going to help us in one way or another because again, people be able to live somewhere else and come here. But us getting ahead of the curve like this, I think is great because that lets people that want to live in Seaside, and we know there's a lot of us, right, um are going to have that opportunity. The other thing that um Spencer in particular will always bring up and Jeff really knows too, um there's some point where our infrastructure is not going to handle it. not just roads or parking, but water and sewer.

So, it's really important we we can handle what's being built right now, but uh we need to make sure the rest of our infrastructure is in good shape. So, uh we will remember those kind of things when it comes to budget time. Jeff got a round of applause for all his good work at the county housing task force. I'd like to give him a round of applause from us. Thank you, Jeff. Good job. Thanks, Jeff.

Okay, we still have some uh vacancies on boards, commissions, and committees. Oh, the title needs to have one thing removed, doesn't it? Airport advisory one opening. Um because we filled the city council position, the community center commission now has three openings. That only leaves two people there to uh make decisions. So we need to get that one filled and they can't make decisions because they do not have a quorum. So we really do need some people uh stepping up for the community center commission.

We have one for the planning commission and one for transportation advisory. The uh unfinished business portion of our meeting is ordinance 2026-01 uh ordinance establishing authority for the mayor to declare a local state of emergency and on Spencer.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh this is the uh third time uh this year that um we've had this uh on the agenda for discussion. as a little bit of background uh to some of those in our audience, this may be new. Um first question is is you know why are we uh proposing this ordinance? So the city code does not right now have a formal process to declare a local emergency. It can be done uh like many things through a resolution of the city council but it's not addressed anywhere. Um we do have an emergency operations plan that has uh tells us how we will operate during an emer emergency and includes um assumptions of uh a declaration um and that's what we're hoping to reconcile um through this ordinance and then Oregon law does require under uh certain circumstances. Um so uh if this uh ordinance is adopted it will will codify the authority oversight and duration and termination for all local emergencies. Uh tonight uh so the the ordinance was first reviewed at the January 12th meeting. We had a first reading uh at our last meeting January 26. tonight. Uh it's on the schedule for on the agenda for a second reading and you have the option of doing a a third reading and and to adopt it. Uh there are only two minor changes uh since the meeting two weeks ago. Uh the first one is the termination authority order. So section 7A was reordered. Now, under termination, um it states first, well, I shouldn't say all options are available, but listed first is that the termination can be done by the city council resolution.

Uh and then second is by the mayor's written order. Um uh no wording has changed. That was the direction from the council was just to shift the order of those bullet points. Um but the change hopefully clarifies that ultimately the city council uh has the authority and retains the authority to um to terminate the the emergency declaration. And the second change uh was just one word changed. Um we changed uh it was about convening the city council to ratify the decision if the mayor makes that decision. And so it's changed from as soon as practicable uh to as soon as possible. And those are the only changes. So if you're if you're ready tonight, we can do a second reading and uh for your consideration is a a third reading. I'll uh open the floor to the public. Anybody want to make a comment about this? Close public comment. Counselors, have we received any feedback on this item? Nothing else. May I have a motion to 20261 by title only?

I'll second. We need a motion. Sorry. I move for a second reading of ordinance 2026-01 by title only. Now I'll second. Councelor Baker, councelor Hoffman. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Spencer, would you read? Ordinance 2026-01, an ordinance of the city of Seaside, Oregon, establishing the authority of the mayor to declare a local state of emergency, providing for council ratification, emergency powers, and public notifications, and aligning with the city's emergency operations plan.

Any further action by the council? We'll have it on our next agenda. There is no new business. So, we are at comments from city staff. Anything back there? She's not city staff, but she's very important to us.

A bit more than normal. Um, first of all, the parking garage. Um, we've seen SPD increase the, um, drive-throughs and presence there, and it's really helped, we think. Um, Worldmark Maintenance Staff, I just want to mention, they often take care of the downstairs, the first two levels, which my understanding is that's not actually their area, too, but they will clean it up. They clean it, they um power wash it before they paint it. Um, so I just want to acknowledge that because it's not really their deal, but they keep on working on it. Um, I personally called in two issues that we had down there and police came in right away, and again, we want to thank them because I know it's a pain. Um, but then January 28th, the parking garage was tagged really, really badly. Um, and Seaside Police, I don't know if you guys heard, but apparently it was quite the chase around town and they caught the four kids um that were doing it and hopefully there will be some intervention that can kind of um I don't know, we'll see what happens, but um they've apparently been at it quite a bit um in the past. So, uh we really appreciate that. Um, and then again, someone went through, painted, and I don't know if it was the city or world mark, but it got tagged again. Not as bad. It looks like they were interrupted. Um, and it was a busy weekend, so I'm not really sure. I have I didn't go check it out today. I meant to and I forgot. So, I'm not sure what the state is right now. Um, but I want to say that uh we received a TAC grant for uh art and lighting in the two alleyways uh up to the parking garage. Um connecting that parking garage to Colombia as well as Broadway. Um this is the first year for the grant. Um I have never dealt with you know doing an RFP. So I've been learning that. I've been in contact with um I've kind of just talked to Robin Monttero and she's willing to help with everything and especially art. but um also Atoria visual arts and was just introduced to arts council at class county. Um so they're totally willing to help too as we try to navigate doing

something. So we're open to any input as well as help or ideas um just on making the the process as cost effective and what we would like in seaside. So just feel free to let us know. Um we've also been talking with Worldmark the GM. Um, I don't want to say this the wrong way because he said they're not willing to help with that project until it's under better control in a way. He said that, but he says that it is very much under control and really appreciates what the city is. So, they're willing to work forward. My understanding is the city's been working with them to uh come up with some solutions for the parking garage and they seem pretty happy with it. So, it looks like they're going to be for sure letting us connect to their walls and, you know, with the lighting and stuff like that. So, we're pretty um happy about that. Um I'm going to go a little out of order. On March 11th, please mark your calendar. We'll have It's a Bloom event at Dundy's Bar and Grill from 4 uh excuse me, from 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. that day. 50% of their sales goes to the downtown uh community flower basket program that runs from the Wednesday before Memorial Day through about midepptember. Um it's a really expensive project. It ends up being about $20,000 due to watering um every day. So, we need to raise a lot of money for that. Last year we raised 3,000 just from Dundy's. We also have um sponsorships, flower um flower basket sales going on as well as um opportunity drawings. You were there last year. Um so we just really appreciate anyone coming out and helping out. You can also get food to go and that helps too. Um but this Wednesday, I want to leave with this because um keep it on your minds. We'll be from 6:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Seaside Coffee House. They donate 50% of the proceeds of handcrafted beverages and coffee sales to Feed the Starfish fundraiser. Um, I guess I should make sure everyone knows the feed the Starfish fundraiser. We have 50 lighted starfish downtown as well as the lit swag that is partially out. It was

damaged in one of the many storms this uh year. Pacific Power went up and checked it out. Part of it's fried. So, we need to fix that as well. And so, it'll come down a little bit earlier this year than normal. Um but so again 6 am to 2 pm seaside coffee house and then we're going to move to sea star gelato. They open up that day and will give us 100% of the sales um from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. And you again you can take that to go as well. Um and then Beach Bum Laser has come in and donated 100 starfish magnets. They're the shape of our starfish downtown. They say seaside. Um and we're selling those for $10 each. So I don't know if anyone has any questions, but yes. Could you repeat the two dates?

Yeah. Um, so this Wednesday, February 11th, we will be at Seaside Coffee House, um, or Coffee Roasters, depending on how you know it, from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. And then we'll go to Sea Star Gelato from 3 to 8:00. And then on Wednesday, March 11th, we'll be at Dundy's from 4 to 9.

Okay. Yeah. And um I know that Atoria was having problems with one of their alleys and you might contact ADHDA because they did some stuff and they've kind of made it into party place. It's great. I've um kind of I used to be more on the north side and I remember not being allowed to go in that alley. Um we did go take video and I submitted actually with our TAC grant to show what they did. Um the old owners of Reach Break actually reached out when they found out the project and gave testimony on what it was like before the alley uh work was done, the art that they put in. It's kind of a geometric artwork that if you know if you haven't seen it and then just string lights and it it's really simple and it works great. It's definitely decreased the amount of tagging as well as increased um foot traffic for those businesses around there. Right.

So yeah, thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Gary. Hello again. I just wanted to thank everybody including citizens of Seaside for coming Thursday night to Jason Gooding's remembrance there. It was a pretty impressive turnout here. So, thank you everybody for being able to make it. Are we at full staff now? We are not. We have one more and we just uh had testing this last week. So, we've got uh some numbers to crunch and pick out who's getting offered a job type of thing. So, yeah. Okay.

Start into the backgrounds here real soon. So, one more. Good. Chief Joy.

So, I just got a quick public safety announcement for us. We had someone take out a power pole on the highway a couple nights ago. U if you see something, say something. Uh our fire engine was headed to a call. The line was low. This is right across 101. And it tagged our engine and stuck our guys in it while they were trying to go to a call. So luckily nobody got hurt, but somebody could have got seriously injured, including our staff. And so if they see something, it's pole was completely wiped out. Was a hit and run. It was down for a little while. So someone that highway is well traveled. I did see some video from a one of the businesses there. Two or three cars hit it already before we ever hit it. and we're just lucky nothing major happened. Nobody got hurt. So if you see something, say some and let us know. Thank you.

Thanks. Okay, John.

Uh a couple quick things first since we have a new counselor. Councelor Hsbro, welcome. Um the just wanted to point out one piece of technology that now Seth I you see Kim and I have little earphones that we wear and we're not listening to something else but actually track it's a it's a plug for we have had some requests that it's challenging to hear sometimes certain microphones and so we actually have an app that works on I believe I know it works on iPhones uh but I believe it works on Android voice phones too and what that will allow you to do is tap into our Wi-Fi and hear uh the audio as it's happening. It's slightly delayed, like maybe, you know, a little bit of a hiccup. And so, if you can get past that, but it really does aid, especially when you have a quiet talker, uh maybe an online stream, something like that. Uh so, you can do that through your phone as one option. And then another option is we have six uh devices. Kim, if you'll hold up yours. Um, like that that we can we can also check out for either um visitors that are here for a meeting um or if any of y'all want to use that. That's not on a delay the way the Wi-Fi is. It's straight out. But anyway, so plug for that if anybody ever needs it. Um, even cooler, if if you happen to have a hearing aid device, it will Bluetooth into your hearing aid device, too. So we have some capabilities for those that need it and request it. And then um just uh chief mentioned uh one police officer to being fully staffed there. And then we only have one vacancy out in public right now and that's for emergency preparedness and administrative coordinator. So, you might recall Anne McBride uh retired uh middle of last year, but has has remained on to help us in a part-time capacity and and continues to do a great job. But this position will be a full-time position that works under the fire department. Um

so, under under Joey and it's been listed for two weeks, uh closes on the 23rd, so two more weeks and we have a little over 20 applications so far. So, that's it for me. Thank you. Yeah. Kim, so the spring conference uh League of Oregon say spring conference is still on hold. So I'm just waiting for them. They had some problems with their website. So I'm just waiting for them. It gives all of you who haven't answered me an opportunity to still go. So just remember if you want or to let you know that you're not going. So you're not wondering.

Yeah. Oh yeah, sure. That'd be great. The conference itself is still on. It's just the registration software is not working. Spencer, uh, a couple of things I'm sure some of you may uh highlight as well.

Um, it was uh interesting and enlightening listening to the testimony of the uh possible transient lodging tax legislation. during the testimony that happened uh wrapped up. Well, I think it was still going when our council meeting started, but I'll let the mayor talk about that maybe a little bit more. Uh a couple other items we did um we have an interim contract with Nature's Helper uh for the downtown maintenance district for the landscaping that's in place while we pursue a request for proposals. Um Jeff Lori and I were able to meet with um Seaside Kids this week at their board meeting. Um our public works staff has already uh done all the improvements to the field to reorient the field. All that had to happen is it just needed to shift 4 degrees. Um because uh under the previous layout, if you hit a if you hit a home run or a long ball to the very right hand corner, there's a few feet that we're going to go on to the that have always gone on to the other property. And so it's shifting it a little bit and that will do for now. And then um once we have uh permanent plans for the North 40 Park, um uh I don't think it'll be in the same location. So, this is really a temporary fix until we um till we do a permanent field, but we were able to have some discussions with them about that. Um and then last item, uh for those of you who are able to um to watch or listen, um just an update on the um the Luba uh land use appeal hearing that took place. Uh so as a reminder, this was an appeal of the council's uh decision to uphold the planning commission decision

and um and the the uh most of the discussion focused on whether the city followed state law and correctly applied our land use code and most of the arguments centered on uh discussion items were really application completeness, code interpretation and timing of required technical studies. Um, and they said that they expect to have the uh their decision by March 4th. So, we've got just under a month till we expect to hear from that. And once we do, we'll we'll keep you informed. That's all I have.

Thank you. Before we go to individual counselors, uh, councelor Monttero, tell us what you are thinking.

Okay. Um, let me just put this in here. So, um I think all of you received from the League of Oregon Cities today a um a request that uh we talk to our um our legislators about supporting the local act, local opportunities for community advancement and livability act, which is House Bill 4148 and Senate Bill 1562 and it's about the changes um uh that are being considered to how the uh transient lodging tax uh c can be allocated. Um I fully support that. Um, what I was uh I was just a little surprised when I turned over the flyer to see our seaside uh logo there along with the logos of many other cities. Uh having not had any conversation here about um uh lending our voice to this.

Council, can I interrupt you? Um, we discussed this at our last council meeting about this logo. We didn't discuss the logo, but we were supporting the full intent of the LOC to go after this again, and we did it last year as well. Yeah, just FYI.

I just Yeah, we also um had a uh a letter that came out of the governor's office that um was addressed to Christine Nome and Tom Hman. um about uh opposition to what's happening regarding ICE. This was sent by the governor's office uh re to many mayors in the state, not all, but many mayors in the state to sign on. And one sentence that is on here is um we write to you as elected leaders who represent Oregon communities. So, I am not opposed to either one of these documents. I think the documents are great. However, um I I just want to read my thoughts to you. It's not the what, it's the how. I personally support the TLT change being proposed in HB4148 and SB562. I want the city of Seaside to support it. I think a majority of the council supports it. However, the use of the city's logo on the LOC one pager indicates that the council has adopted an official position. I don't remember this coming to us via a resolution uh for council action blessing authorizing inclusion of the logo representing our city's official position. It's the same thing with the February 5th letter created by the governor's office. The first paragraph poses that the signers are speaking for their councils and cities in an official capacity. We write to you as elected leaders who represent Oregon communities. While I'm in favor of what the letter says. I advocated for our council to take this stand at our

December 8th, 2025 meeting which fell on deaf ears. Mayor Wright said during that meeting, I have to make sure that what the council presents is unified. We never took a stand as a council. I am concerned that the council was not consulted as our mayor officially included our city as a signer on the governor's letter. And I know that a lot of the mayors around the state who were presented with this said, "I have to go back to my council." Had this been brought to us to officially take this position, I would have voted a wholehearted and enthusiastic yes. So I don't disagree with the message. I hardily agree. But process is also a consideration. My concern regarding process is the precedent set that actions officially representing our city are taken without con council advice, consent, resolution, or adoption. While I can agree with the subjects and decisions thus far, what happens when I or any counselor don't agree and have not had the opportunity to discuss, dissent, agree, or vote as the council seeks to speak with one voice or when a mayor signs a letter as the city's representative that may not represent community sentiment and doesn't and does so without council vote. or when our city logo emlazens a position paper on something our council has not agreed upon as an official position. Official positions are reflected via resolutions passed by a council vote. That's why I'm bringing up this topic tonight. I am I do not intend this to be

faulting the mayor. I intend for this for us to figure out what is the process we want and it's not just for us today. This is for future. We we have reasonable people here. I trust the mayor. But if we create precedent for the future that we don't have resolutions, we don't have discussion, we don't uh adopt official positions and yet um a mayor can sign saying they represent the community or a logo can be uh uh sent to represent the community without us as a council having come to that agreement and done it through resolution or formally. I feel we're doing ourselves and our city a disservice especially for the future.

Well, I'll point out again that we discussed this two weeks ago at this meeting. The council was very much still in favor of adjusting uh the same work that we discussed under LOC priorities um a year ago. And I don't know, it's in the minutes. Um, we had no discussion about any of this being an issue. So, I had no problem sending the U logo to use again, particularly since it's a LOC uh priority, but I want to address the letter that was signed

and the letter itself. I uh looked at that pretty thoroughly and the way I read it was the letter says repres an an elected official um representing cities from across the state. I am the mayor. I represent this uh city and I do it in a lot of things. There was a big uh push to do this um and I got the uh request to consider it directly from the governor's office. Uh only 31 people signed on because there weren't many more than that were asked.

Actually, about 50 mayors were asked out of 241 mayors. Um, again, if you look back to the the um Well, I understand if you look back to the meeting on December 9th, you did not have agreement from this council. And that's why you did what I wanted, which hey, that's great. But you didn't have agreement from this council. And that's that's what

and that's why I was trying to make sure on what the letter said that as the elected official and we're all mayors that that's how I read it regardless of whether the whole council uh did it. And this is not saying um get ice out of everything. This is saying pause everything that's going on until uh in particular the two incidents in Minnesota are fully uh investigated and I'm not arguing that's what we're trying to do. I'm not arguing what it said.

What it amounts to is we have read the letter differently. Um and that's all from this. So basically what it boils down to council, do you want to discuss this further at like a work session or at a council meeting? Do you think there is enough there that um now I'll just tell you upfront that that means that a lot of things are not going to be done on a timely basis because a lot of these things come up before we ever get to a council meeting and and that means we need to uh take time out of the council meeting to discuss is this okay, is this not okay?

And I I'm not talking about this specific instance. I'm talking about what's the process. That's why I'm saying does the council want for this instance I discuss this

I'd be more than happy to put a motion on the floor for this instance to do retroactive approval but then I think we need to look at the future um because we're not always going to have you as the mayor. We're not always going to have all of us in agreement with things. We're not always the and by we I mean the city. I don't mean us personally and individually. the city's not always going to have that. And so, uh, seeing what we see around the country, I think we still need to be able to, uh, say for the future, this is how it how things get approved or an official position is taken.

And that's why I asked the council, what do you think, mayor? May think it's necessary.

Just a comment. I'm still thinking about whether this needs to be a topic. My gut is saying no. I don't want to slow things down. I think um you act in the best interest of everybody and that's you're the mayor and that's you know that that's is part of what you get with the title. What I will say on this partic particular topic and maybe why it's a little sensitive is um we did have discussion, we did have consensus and then the letter came out with your signature on it. What I would have appreciated would have been a heads up in advance of that letter and I think that would have prevented this discussion from happening

and I will take u full responsibility for not doing that. Like I said, it was kind of fast, so I figured, well, I'll just tell you about it Monday night. It is on my list of things to talk about. I get it.

I think when it comes to small issues where there's consensus, absolutely. I feel like that you should make whatever decision you feel is best. I really believe with what Tita said though the this feels like an overall direction to the council and I think if that's the case then I think we should have that discussion first and definitely have a um some kind of ordinance or something approved by the council that this is our position and so that I think that maybe we have a workshop on that or I don't know how exactly we go about that but definitely have a discussion on what the process is moving forward

because there regarding regarding the position on ICE, there was not consensus. There was it was a three to three and the request was that we as a council do something official and there was not consensus. There was not agreement and so that's why again that kind of thing needs to come back and and again I don't disagree with the position. It's not about the position for me. It's about the process. I think it's probably worth having the conversation so as to dictate how we'd go in the future regardless of this particular instance. What's done is done at this point on that.

That's right. But um in order to establish this is how we're going to deal with things, it would be good to have an an actual uh policy regarding that. And so I think the discussion is worthwhile. So, would that be a resolution or what would that be? It would be a resolution.

It' be a resolution that makes it a little tougher. Um, a policy is probably better. What do you think, Spencer? I think that's a good topic of discussion because um uh and I think there we can have some further discussion on it because I would say um there are circ certain circumstances where the mayor can sign as the mayor so long as he's not saying he's representing the city council. And so a lot of it comes down to the wording. Now, there's probably a judgment call for the mayor of should I or shouldn't I depending on on the topic and uh he gets to get the get the acclaim that comes with it or the harassment that comes with it depending on the issue. um not not to forget about the serial meeting idea for

uh but I will say you know for example on the logo uh we get requests for the to for the logo often and and uh we share that we don't come back for a resolution um to to to to use the logo um when we have direction from the council already but um I've put some thought into it. I think it would be good to review what the charter and what our rules of um the council guidelines say and what they don't say and where that what things are clear and maybe what areas are fuzzy or that we're having different interpretations on. I think at the end of the day that's where you'd start is what do our existing um rules within the charter and the council guidelines um what do they say and then do you want to change it or clarify it either you two paid to throw you into it right okay

all right we'll uh schedule probably a work session to uh discuss this in the uh future. Okay, Patrick, we have this time at the end of council meetings. Just u tell us what you've been doing. You've been sick. So, you haven't been doing much. Yeah, I I've been horizontal. So, any any thoughts on, you know, the things we've discussed any anything or nothing? I I think at this time I'm just going to remain silent and uh keep open ears and No, you're going to remind me. That's always That's always wise. Yeah. And and probably get a flu shot. Okay.

I'll add um we were scheduled to start his orientation last week until he decided to get sick. He decided. Yeah. So, we will be uh meeting uh starting that off tomorrow. Good. Good. Did you know that? I did not know that. But thanks for uh reminding me. Let's talk afterwards. Yeah. Thanks, Heidi.

I attended the library board meeting um last Tuesday and want everybody to know that the library is hosting a special documentary called Big Medicine York Outdoors. and it's about um the only black member of Louiswis and Clark's expedition. That's the That's the word. York.

Yeah. So, despite his significant contributions and perseverance during the grueling three-year journey, York's story has been overshadowed in history. As Captain William Clark's lifelong servant, he faced the unyielding reality of enslavement while other expedition members were celebrated and rewarded for their achievements. That's going to be February 28th from 2 to 3 at the library. Um, I also attended uh the Crafty Book Club after the board meeting and met a nice group of ladies there and we were doing crafts. And that also takes place the first Tuesday of every month directly following the uh library board meeting at 5:30. It was an honor to attend Sergeant Gooding's memorial ceremony. I thought it was very uh professionally done and it was great to see so many officers in attendance. Having come from an agency myself that lost four officers in one day, I know those feelings and they don't ever go away. And it was so nice to see uh this sergeant's wife and daughter and the new little baby. That was wonderful. I also attended the LOC region one meeting at the library on Friday and listened a lot and learned a lot. So that's it for me.

Thank you, Dana. Um, for three days of this week, I attend Oh, sorry. For three days of this week, I attended the Special Districts Association of Oregon meeting in my role as a commissioner with the Sunset Empire Transportation District and a director of the Union Health District. over 700 attendees uh from all over the state. Most of them elected um officials from districts that you don't special districts you don't even think about. Water and soil conservation. There was library. There was fire districts. There was hospital districts. Um and everybody of course loved Seaside. I interrupted one of those days so that I could attend the LOC region one small cities meeting. Um, and there's some really good work coming down the pike for all of the cities. Um, I did attend the Luba hearing or I watched the Luba hearing, Spencer. Um, thank you for telling us about it. I have to say that my impression as I listened to uh the Luba officials, I guess, was that we really are out of date with our code. Um and uh and they they kind of made some observations uh at least I saw them as observations. But my takeaway from that is as long as our codes are out ofdate and not up to the state currency, and I know that the state is in a has had a second iteration and is going into another iteration. Um, but as long as we're not current, I'm concerned that we are not serving our

residents adequately in um, uh, possibly protecting them from the pitfalls and the things that haven't been defined adequately or in these really old code uh, to uh, help the neighborhoods uh, when developers come their way. And as we know, we're going to get a lot more housing being built in this community. And I'm really concerned that as that housing uh proceeds and goes to our planning commission, gets reviewed by our planning department, that we are not uh using the best tools out there, the most current code um that we can be using. So, um I just want to let's keep going as fast as we can. We need to bring those codes up to date. Um and I know that there's also some things that our codes don't even define adequately. Um community center commission met earlier. They could not have a meeting because there was not a quorum, but we had a discussion and we went over um a lot of things. The reminder is February 25th, the Fascination Tournament at um the Fascination Parlor, I guess, is what I'd call it, um in the evening. And that's a fundraiser for the Chisum Center as we continue to refresh uh the interior of the Chisum Center. Um I do have a question. We mentioned earlier today tonight, a master plan. I would love to know how many and which master plans are in the lineup needing work and where we might stand with each one of those. And finally, my coffee with a counselor

is at 10:00 on Wednesday at the Ocean Cafe uh at the Best Western on 4th and Prom.

Sh. Uh most of my last couple weeks have been spent uh either writing or communicating with uh people around the country regarding a lot of the national level stuff that's going on. Uh, some people may not know I have family members just outside of Minneapolis. The events going on there are really hitting hard and unfortunately taking up quite a bit of my mental time. Um, that said, uh, some of the people I've been dealing with have been much closer to home. So, uh, haven't been losing out on this. Uh, I could go on about it at some length, but instead I will say I have coffee with the counselor tomorrow, 10:00 a.m. at controversial coffee. Please come find out more. Uh, look forward to seeing people.

Chris,

we had an airport committee meeting a couple of weeks ago. Um, we meet every other month. So it was uh uh the meeting first meeting of 26 um that weekend. I was trying to remember the date when we had just that beautiful weather a little while ago. But they had a ton of activity at the airport that weekend. So you can definitely tell that when the weather is nice, the planes fly. And um there's been great activity thanks to public works uh to clear trees and brush and um keep the runway free of debris and all that is really paramount to the safety at the airport and the ability for these planes to land and take off safely. So big thank you for that. Um the downside is we did apply for quite a few grants um from uh the FAA for some of the repairs and things that need to go on at the airport and we were not awarded any of those grants. So um moving on from there. Um and then the other thing is just thank you to Chief Ham and the department. Um I know you thanked us and the residents. Big thanks to everybody that came, but um it was a very memorable and meaningful uh ceremony and thank you for doing that.

Welcome to Councelor Ansro to your first full meeting. Welcome to the team. Uh the Sergeant Jason Gooding memorial, as others have mentioned, was uh very impactful. It was a great turnout and just a great way to continue to honor his legacy and keep his memory alive. Spencer mentioned the North 40 baseball field. I've been getting a lot of comments about concerns that it's not going to be playable, so it's good to hear that it will be ready to go. Uh I've also been getting comments about the restrooms and the renovation, and I didn't hear that in the public works uh presentation earlier. It's the one I mentioned about uh the mayor asked about.

Okay. So definitely a lot of concern just the state of a lot of our restrooms especially the turnaround but also Cartwright Park and hopefully there's a plan to start renovating these at some point. Coffee with a counselor Tuesday March 3rd Seaside Coffee House. I had a great turnout last uh Tuesday. Actually it wasn't last Tuesday few weeks ago but my last coffee with a counselor and uh hope to keep that going. So hope to see everyone there.

Yeah, most of them stayed around for me. Yeah. So, it's the most I've had in a long time. Uh, if you haven't seen it yet, on the website is my annual report of the state of the city or whatever you want to call it. Uh, I presented that to the uh SDDDA, a shortened version um last week. Last week. Yeah. Um when uh Chief Joy came up here, he reminded me of something I uh the three mayors were up at uh fourth grade uh Pacific Ridge with um the if I were a mayor contest and afterwards this little young gentleman came up and said, "My dad wanted to say that they need more firemen." Guess who that was? So you you've got you got a great son there. He he deserves something extra. Yeah. Um

no, that that was I mean that's why fourth grade kids are so much fun. Um we had a delightful time. Uh the 10th anniversary um of uh Sergeant Gooding. Like I said, that was tremendous. Thank you for allowing me to say a few words. Um that was just after I came here and it really showed me the character of the city of Seaside and uh so happy we were able to be here. Um I did sign on very short notice to this letter uh with the governor. Um, one thing that had come out just before that, um, I didn't realize it was quite that high. The, uh, Susan Penrod, the school superintendent said 30% of the Seaside High graduating class is Latinx. So, um, uh, you know, the normal numbers I hear are 15 to 20%, if 30%, it's grown tremendously recently. Um, LLC region one meeting was great. It was great that there was only one. I didn't have to go to two. Uh the evening's schedule got cancelled. Uh counselors, I hope um all of you, not just the ones who were there, uh take a look at the municipal policy. Um I didn't realize it was quite that old, but uh I think we need to have our say and input on that as well. I'm on two of the LLC committees that'll be reviewing uh finance and tax as well as economic and community development. So, I have those two areas, but we need lots of help. And uh LC is again very active on in the short session. There are a lot of bills. Today was the TLT bill. that came

up uh being scheduled on um I think it was late Friday for this afternoon. So, there's hardly any notice. So, I testified uh virtually today. Normally, I would try to go to Salem, but I had to be here for 5:00 work session. So, uh just keep in mind that for some of those things, it's a a really short notice. Uh future events tomorrow at 5:00 pm the uh there's a project uh I'm not even sure exactly what it all is but it's the Thompson Falls area with um the mechanical watershed council in North Coast Land Conservancy tomorrow at the uh Chisum at 5:00 p.m. will be the uh public side of that and uh you're all encouraged to attend if you can. This week I will be going to Salem on Thursday. Uh Cono Espanuel has asked me to come along and help advocate for state funds so they can purchase uh Kasa Mariposa their facility in Atoria. Um I'm doing it uh not you know it's in Atoria but I think it's something that it would be really helpful for the residents in Seaside and they they reach out to the entire Tri County area and across the river. So um I was uh it'll be a long day but um I was thankful they asked me. My quote today is honor president's day is next Monday. This is from George Washington. And uh you know, so this is 1792 or so. It sure sounds like today though. Be Americans. Let there be no sectionalism,

no north, south, east, or west. You are all dependent on one another and should be one in union. In one word, be a nation. Be Americans and be true to yourselves. We're adjourned.