City Council - Regular Meeting

started. I don't I don't want to pull it too hard.

Call the work session to order. Our topic tonight is for review and discussion of committee roles and uh Spencer is taking charge of this. Okay. Uh, mayor and councel, um, just so everyone's aware, I did send out the invitation to all of our committee members to either attend or to watch online or to watch it uh, uh, after the fact um, because I think um, this is uh, this will be beneficial to everyone. So if you if you in the audience are able to shift to this side a little bit and this might be the easiest to see but you should be able to see everything on each of the screens. So um I started my review of what some of the work the committees have done and it's been really good. uh but I think to get the most benefit out of it there's some refinement needed and so um what this training is for you as committee liaison is to take back um to your committees but it makes the most sense to have everyone here and be able to participate. So I also invited our staff leaison to uh attend as well. Um so I recently uh after going through what has been submitted so far uh put out a series of questions and some guidance to help each of the committees uh refine um their their functions what they do uh to really get down to I think uh something that will be meaningful. So I'll kind of walk through what we're talking about here. So let's first I think it would be good to start with why we have [clears throat] committees because um I think some of these committees have been so long that some of this may be lost. So we believe uh cities providing expertise

for example we have an airport committee and um no one on our council is an expert on airports and so um that's something we need some help of ex experts on. By the way, I'm going to use the word committee, and that refers to boards and commissions as well. It's just easier not to say all those each time. So, committees also provide some stakeholder perspective um outside of something that just comes to the council from staff. They can do more detailed work review. So, you don't have the time to do some in-depth study and analysis on any particular topic. you can have a committee do that, do some of that groundwork for you and then come back with recommendations. And when you combine that with some subject matter expertise, you're going to get better recommendations. Uh they they can help increase transparency and trust having another set of public eyes reviewing things and in some cases uh they satisfy program requirements. So as an example uh in order to have a certified library, we need to have a library board. in order to be a a Tree City USA, we need to have a tree board, things like that. Um, so the key question and uh that put my email and on this on the chart is what does a committee do that the council cannot or should not do? And so there are plenty of things the council can do. Um, but should they be doing it? um and should they be doing other things? And and this really isn't meant to say um if the council can't can do it, then you shouldn't be doing it. I think it's just really to help pose the right questions that you're asking yourself to refine what you're submitting. So, it's really uh will be the most useful thing for both the

committee and the council. So, a couple of points on what a strong committee is. One, they need to have a clearly defined scope. They need to have specific responsibilities. They need to understand the difference between advisory and delegated authority. So advisory would be we want this committee to make recommendations to the council on X, Y, or Z. Delegated authority is is an authority that rests with the city council, but you choose to delegate that to um another entity. And you can imagine the city the size of Portland, they're not going to have every little question come to the city council. They either delegate some to staff or some to some to committees.

We haven't done very much of that, but I think there's been some confusion on what what roles are. Uh generally speaking, most of ours are recommending. Um but I think in practice, there have been times when there is delegated authority. The um tour tourism advisory committee has has for all intents and purposes been delegated the authority to award the grants for tourism and uh the library board has been delegated some authority on the review any reconsiderations for books. Um, but those could probably be tightened up and uh a little bit and um and others that you may want to consider or or get the feedback from the count from the committee members. And another thing is uh committees do not supervise staff. It doesn't work well for staff to have two bosses if they think they're reporting to a city to a city committee, but then also to me as a city manager who and I report to all of you. And so we want to have clear lines of responsibility. Okay. So, why ineffective uh committees hurt the community? So, one of the things since coming to Seaside I've I've really been impressed with is the strong commitment to volunteerism. We have pl we have many people who want to volunteer and want to provide meaningful work. Um their time is valuable and unclear roles reduce their motivation and impact. So, you can see someone getting frustrated if they're not sure what they should be doing or how they should be doing something and I think you can see their motivation or their excitement for it decline if if they don't feel like they're actually doing some good. If you're if you're volunteering, I think ultimately you're hoping you're providing some good to your community.

Uh, in addition, staff support is a significant um it's it's a significant amount of support that needs to come from city resources and we want to make sure that they're aligned for something that's that's really helping the community. And so that structure must uh match the the purpose of the organization. So if a if a committee is not clearly needed, those resources could be redirected to projects that directly serve the community. So this isn't about um not having committees and whatnot. Um but um could the resources be better used on a different committee or something else besides a committee? And so um those are things we want to look at. Oh, I jumped ahead. So the goal is not to reduce involvement. It's to make sure our volunteer energy and staff support are focused on where they matter most. I think that's uh been kind of a theme of quite a few things that we've been talking about as a council, not just with committees, but with other work that we're doing. Sorry, I'm in your way, mayor. Um, okay. A few uh thoughts on governance structure. So, the council sets the policy. um city manager I supervise the staff staff manager operations and the committees uh their role is to advise the council unless there is some authority that's delegated and I think what we want to hear from the committees is here's where we think we could have delegated authority and here's why we think this would be beneficial to the community for the council to delegate that um so goals versus functions. So I think a lot of the the a lot of the uh what's been submitted so far from the committees could be classified more as goals than functions. Uh which describe good outcomes. Um but

so a lot of the um wording you'll see uh as I was looking through has words like ensure quality or promote engagement. And that's really tough to like what does that mean? If I'm coming to a committee meeting and I'm going to try to ensure quality, what what am I going to be doing? What am I voting on? What am I discussing? And so I think that's where we want to uh refine a little bit. So the functions describe actual action. So, a review of something specific, um, working on a recommendation to take back to the city council, um, or a decision in the case of the delegated authority. Um, so vague language just creates confusion. So, the example here is ensure the city provides safe, highquality recreational opportunities for all residents. That's a great goal, but if you're a committee member on a recreation committee, what does that mean you're planning to do this year or at this meeting? Um, it doesn't really uh get down to the to to that level of detail that you really need to know what you're supposed to be doing. So I created this worksheet and part of this that I want to walk through is to to kind of understand how how it can be used and really at a higher level it's it's less about the specific questions. It's more these questions are geared to help refinement but what exactly does this committee do? Why is it appropriate for a committee to do this? um what expertise do you add or time commitment in the case of something that will take a lot of extra research and what would happen if this function did not exist. Um and by the way I see a lot of people taking notes which is great.

[cough] We will send out a copy of this presentation to all of you to um to be able to use as well especially for those who aren't able to make it. Um, and again, if if we have a question, what would happen if this function didn't exist? If if if you each of each of these committees has many different functions they've listed. Um, and if one of these you can't come up with a good answer, that's probably a good indication that well, maybe it's that function isn't needed. Um, so I want to go through uh that's I have the quick overview. What I really wanted to do is spend some time going through some examples because I think practically seeing it I think helps a little bit more and and hopefully we can have some good discussion. Um I didn't want to put my thumb on the scale of what the committees are doing. So I invented fictional committees for us to discuss. And I'm not saying we need to create these committees. I just thought I didn't want to like put someone's up, hey look at the library board's recommendation. Isn't this silly? we can do better or something like that. So, I'm picking on Jen because she's here.

The nerd. Um, [laughter] and then say, "Oh, and here's the tourism. Aren't they great?" So, um, okay. So, as an example here, if the city had a senior advisory committee, um, there may be, um, a function says ensure seniors are supported, which is a great goal. And I will say as I've reviewed the enabling ordinances for a lot of our committees, um, some are more specific than others, but a lot of them are really general like this. When I've looked at the like especially I think the transportation and the community center, it's like look out for the needs of the community,

right? What does that mean? Um so refined uh annual review of senior service gaps and make recommendations to the to the city council. So that would be a great purpose where you can take a little if we had this committee, they could take a little more time to review the level of service, what is getting done, what isn't getting done, spend some time really uh in in that and come back to the council with a recommendation for a decision that they need to make whether it's different programming or or something else. Uh, arts and cultural committee original. Work with staff to improve programming. Not sure what that means. So, refined uh review art program proposals and make a recommendation to the city council. And that could be another one where the if we had such a committee uh that they council may think this is a good opportunity to delegate our authority so that we're not making uh individual decisions on art pieces or something like that. I know we have a an arrangement with the chamber for the uh trash can artwork and that was one of the things it's not a committee but it's one of those um things that in that arrangement with the chamber we to you guys make the final decisions within this criteria um uh that that was a proper thing for the chamber to do. Uh historic preservation committee original approve demolitions. Okay. Uh approve request for demolition in historic district under defined criteria appealable to the city council. So in this case, if we had such a district, the city council would create the criteria and then um things would

come before that committee to see if they met the criteria or didn't meet the criteria, things like that. Some ways this is a little similar to what the planning commission does. Okay. Main Street Committee original provide regular business updates. Uh so better questions uh what are we trying to accomplish here by having business updates is a committee the best method to provide this service so one of the things I kept thinking about is uh if you're a hammer everything looks like nail a nail if you're a committee everything looks like

committee work [snorts] so is this the best method to provide this service or is there a better way to meet the need. So even taking it one step further from what this committee should be doing is what what is the purpose? What are we trying to accomplish here? And even is this committee the the right thing? And that's not to say this committee shouldn't exist, but it could be that function that we're trying to address maybe doesn't need to be met that way. So in this case for this main street committee uh an alternative may be to convene an annual stakeholder meeting with reports u from the city to the downtown main street businesses and then provide an opportunity for community feedback if that's the real purpose that may be more valuable to the main streets businesses than a committee of individuals. Maybe, maybe not. But um that's an example. Any any questions so far? Okay, we're going to do one more where we're going to uh one more kind of example and uh walk through uh a senior advisory committee. So in this uh scenario um if we had a senior committee and they and they submitted our function or one of our functions should be ensure seniors are supported in the community. We talked about how that needs to be refined a little bit and so um on the the attachments that were sent out to each of the committee members, there's two charts at the end. Um the first is for the functions and the second is for the delegated authority. They're they're pretty similar. We're going to walk through the functions one. And so this first example would be your first column. So in your first column, I've tried to populate it with the work the committee's already done, taking what

you've submitted into separate functions and listing them in there. And that's probably where you want to start with some refinement of those because if those aren't specific, it's going to be really hard to answer the rest of the questions as you work your way through the chart. Um, so proposed function. Uh, so state specifically what the committee would do. So in this case, what exactly does ensure mean? What action does the committee take? What is the deliverable? Does it review something? Does it recommend something? Does it produce something? And so, uh, a more detailed one would be conduct an annual review of senior services and identify service gaps as we talked about earlier. So, that would be refining the function that's in the first column of the table. So, the next, if you're working your way left to right, there's a series of questions. So why is this appropriate for committee review rather than the council handling handling it alone? So a couple of questions that you can ask. Why can't the council do this itself? What would the council be missing? Does this require detailed review? And there's lots of other questions. These are just kind to get the ideas flowing. So a possible response in this case the council doesn't have the time to gather senior specific feedback or the committee can focus on this throughout the year. So what this means the committee provides indepth and focus that the council cannot. If you're not, if you can't come up with a good answer, then that's important to know and that should inform whether that's an appropriate function or the

the function needs to change or just does need to be included. Um, if you're not sure how to answer that, any thoughts or anything as we're going along? Going through this a lot faster than I thought. So

I I don't want to derail where you're going, but um what you had at the very beginning um which I think is really important is the step before what would the functions be etc. is the question why do you need this? Why does this need to exist? And answering that question I think then leads into kind of what those functions would be. Absolutely. Well, it could also be the other way around because if you can't find any reasons here, that kind of informs the fact that maybe you don't need it. You got if you can't come up with anything.

I think people can always come up with functions and and things to do, but it's do you why do you need to do it? Sometimes I refer to this um chicken as um a solution in search of a problem. Exactly.

And uh I can remember one city I worked for um one counselor had the great idea we need a finance committee kind of similar to what we have with a budget committee here but but so they created it and then the committee was in charge of okay what are we trying to accomplish here that it was kind of the reverse order. Someone had the great solution we had to identify the problem that that solution needed to solve. Um, and so again, we want to be asking the right questions so we're so we're getting to the right level where at the end of the day, there's some clear work for our committees to do that's valuable to the community, to the city council. So, uh, moving to the next column, what expertise, experience, or stakeholder perspective does the committee add beyond what staff can provide? Again, for a lot of these areas, maybe not for the airport, but for a lot of the other areas, we do have staff that have some expertise. So, um, do we need to replicate that or do we need to add something that's complimementaryary to that? So, a couple of questions that could be asked here. What do commi committee members know that staff may not know? Um, do they represent in this case, um, do they represent senior residents? So a senior's committee may be have a better pulse on the senior community than a staff uh may. Now we don't have that committee. So that's this all theoretical. Uh do they have lived experience that is different? Do they have uh community networks that staff may not have? So possible responses in this case is members are seniors themselves. Uh they have direct experience with local programs. uh they can gather informal fear back uh feedback from peers and

these are things that um uh the staff may not be able to do and um despite the what historically the average age for council's been we may not always have uh senior experience on the council. Um so uh what this means this is where the committee um justifies its existence. That sounds like really harsh. [laughter] But if the answer is staff already track this or staff already survey residents, then the committee may not add any kind of unique value. So the there are some specific things that we've talked about like expertise. And I use the example of the airport. [clears throat] Um but not all of our committees require that level of expertise. There are some where the value lies in community input, community representation, confidence from our residents that [clears throat] um the their needs are being represented through different perspectives. Um so on just about everything, every decision that council's going to make, staff makes a recommendation to them first. Now, they don't have to do it, but we want to make sure that you're making the most informed decision you can make. Well, there are times when uh someone from the community will have a different perspective. And that's a good example of um where for purposes of running the organization as a city, one one rec one route to go makes a lot of sense. But from a different perspective um from a resident perspective it's it's a different answer. Now to some extent that's why we have a city council is um you are residents that are that are representing u the community and we'll make those ultimate decisions. But

having a a committee of your peers, if you will, is a great way to um build more trust and and ultimately hopefully get better information so you can make better decisions because there will be decisions that are say more work for staff, but maybe it's a for a better end result and so uh the work of these committees um can get us there. Let's see. Okay. When and how often would this occur? So, I know I noticed that some of the what the committees had submitted um instead of instead of focusing on the functions, it was focusing on some of the things like well this is how often we meet or this how many members we should have or um this is what the chair's duties are and stuff like that. And my thought is most of that can get worked out later once we identify what the what the purpose is, what the goal is, what what the committee is trying to accomplish. And this kind of overlaps there, but [clears throat] it's a little bit different than just how often do we meet. Um, but it gets right back to the specific purpose of the committee. So again, I think that we default to monthly meetings that may or may not be um needed. In fact, later on our council agenda tonight, we'll be discussing a committee that will be functioned very differently. Uh a one-off uh type of uh purpose for a limited amount of time that's different from how we've traditionally used committees. So in this case, uh, if we had a senior committee, do they need to meet monthly? Do they need to meet annually? Or is it before the budget season so they can make recommendations to the city council to consider certain

um, programming or um, uh, facility improvements in the budget? Or is it after reports issued, the state comes out with a report on seniors something something? And um uh we're going to have this uh committee look into this and see hey what from the state report what can be applied here in seaside or what would they recommend? Um so yeah possible answer uh we want to meet annually prior to the city's budget development process. [cough] [clears throat] So what does this mean? Now it is structured and predictable. Um without timing the function is just an open-ended discussion. How many of our your committee members have meetings have been just a discussion of the same things you talked about the last meeting and you've been talking about it for several months maybe several years you know I don't know. Um I think that's if if that's happening that's a good indication of some refinement that's needed. What ongoing focus or time commitment does the committee provide? So does the some questions ask does the committee hold listening sessions? Does it review program data? Does it conduct surveys and [clears throat and cough] this one? Uh the senior committee is going to host one listening session per year or they're going to review participation and funding information. Uh so that starts to clarify the actual work of the committee. What would happen if this function did not exist? Uh would the council lose meaningful senior inputs? Would service gaps go unidentified? Um or or would nothing

change? Again, if nothing changes, um, if this function doesn't happen, that's a good indication of either the function needs to be refined or maybe it's not a function that needs to happen at all. Again, the goal isn't eliminating these, it's making sure that they are purposeful. So, possible answer for our senior committee. Um, so a strong would be council would lose direct input from senior residents. There's not an avenue for that. A weak one would be staff already provide this information. Uh so if nothing changes uh that tells us something. Are there other practical ways this could be accomplished without a committee? Uh could staff conduct a survey? Could the council host an annual forum? Could an ad hoc committee handle this? So ad hoc being it's created for a specific purpose with a um the committee is dissolved at the end of whatever that specific purpose is. So in this case another alternative would be annual senior community listening session hosted by staff. Um what this means sometimes the goal survives but the committee does not. It's not a failure, it's structural clarity. And I think ultimately it should be that if if changes are made, it's because we think it'll result in a in a better benefit to the community.

So Spencer, in that particular example, you are okay with proposing staff. I mean, I know I recognize it's a proposal, but it's a little bit maybe out of the box or thinking differently like we take this and put this on somebody else's plate.

Yeah. I don't think it would be, hey, I'm going to volunteer staff to take this on or something like that. But I think this is where relying on our committees as recommending body if the if the committee goes through this and says actually this would I would say not sorry that staff do this it would be better handled in this avenue and then the council can discuss what that best avenue is. if they have an idea then um they can propose that specifically um and it's okay if our committees make a recommendation that staff disagrees with. In fact, if that's not happening, then I worry are are we just duplicating the same service? So I mean I've told um I've told our my staff leaissons that um you know this needs these recommendations need to reflect the council the the committees themselves um and uh I know I've got a few count us staff leaison who are a little nervous about some of things discussing like well I want to have a little input on that before they just go and adopt it. Well, yeah, that's what what will happen. So, I imagine for each of our committees, they'll submit uh a refined list of um of functions that they do with with with those justifications in them. And to a certain degree, um staff may disagree with them and that's just fine. And so, you'd get say a list of recommendations and justifications from the committee, you get a staff report from the staff and they're kind of uh serving the same function. giving you advice on or recommendation on a course of action with their justification, then ultimately you get to make that decision. And one of the staff, one of the roles of staff will be is to identify the resources, whether it's manpower, whether it's equipment or

or time and things like that. You know, maybe what the committee is asking isn't realistic. And so that needs to be taken into consideration. But um having more information and information from a different perspective is always going to be a beneficial beneficial thing even if you choose to go one direction instead of the other or neither of those which can also happen. Um my goal is always that you've made a well-informed decision, not that you made the right decision or my decision. it's you're fully informed and you think you have all the information and you've had time to go through it and ultimately the council votes on whatever course of action it is. It seems to me that um historically our committees have all been attached to uh department heads and um that the role has been more for the department head to make reports to the committees about what has happened the previous month and also bring maybe new ideas or new initiatives and give the committees um an opportunity to give input and um ideas, but the committee for the most part hasn't had the final decision about this is the way that department head is going to go. And so the what you're talking about is a little bit different um in that lot different.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, changing the focus completely. Right. The the committee is in charge. You as council liaison have input from the council side. The city staff have input from the city side. But you want the committee itself to be making the decisions.

But at the same time, you're saying the committee does not direct the work of the staff. And that's a very fine line where if the committee is saying this is the way we recommend to you city council to go um the council still has to take into consideration a does the money is the money there is the staff there city manager can we do it department head can you do it so there's um th this is uh something that need to think about

that's where Having the the the purpose being a recommending body is helpful. It's not um maybe making a final decision with uh limited information. Maybe they don't understand what it would take on staff side or the budget implications because they're not, you know, too deep into into the budget. Um but they can identify the need. I think um a couple other thoughts on that. the way you've described a a one committee. I think all of our committees are completely different.

We we have some where it's a department head update. We have some where the committee is is the driver there and staff is there taking notes and listening. We have some where both the staff, the council leazison and the committee members all show up and aren't really sure what we're supposed to be doing. And so there's a little bit of everything. Um, so I don't I I wouldn't characterize it as we have any one way that we're doing things. And some of it's been um based on just how things were originally set up, personalities of the department heads, personalities of the committee members or the council liaison. There's all kinds of things that influence it. And I think that especially happens when there's um a void of, you know, direction. Something's going to fill the void. uh usually a stronger personality or something like that or someone you know that thinks really strongly about a particular issue. Um, and we want we want people that are really motivated to do things, but I think uh ultimately let's channel that energy into uh down a path that we for the council is is beneficial and ultimately serves the community's purposes, not any any one individual. There was another thing I was going to say and now I can't remember. I can only hold so much in my head at one time. Um, so that was that was the the bulk of of the of the presentation. Um, [clears throat] I'm sure there's more we can talk about, but uh, what other questions do I council have or any of our committee members here have or is there anything that's not sitting right or

timing? timing. I think I put uh in my email to the to the committees was um that's that's one of the things that that should be discussed is when you think you can have that ready and coordinate that with your council liaison. So I mean I can't I don't know how much work it's going to take for any one of these committees and so um I think that can be um council led by by the liaison. Um ultimately I don't think I think we'll get the meaningful work done once once this happens. So I do remember the other thing I was going to say um part of um so there's a draft ordinance um that will define kind of how committees are used and that's what a lot of this is based on and um one of the things contemplated in that draft that this council has talked about is having a regular report from the committee so and a kind of getting their marching orders or their goals. So, so, um, we would have each committee sometime during the year come report to the city council on the work that they've done and some of that discussion then is and what should we be doing over the next year? Now, there may be specific things that we want you to be doing each month or each meeting, but is there a bigger issue if we have our parks committee? Is there something related to parks that we really want the committee to be able to do this year? Um, and so coming up with um, not really the goals, but kind of the work that needs to get done. But I also think this is where um, the committee's expertise can help inform you what they could be doing because if you're just sitting up here as a council and trying to come up with what can the parks committee do, I

guarantee the members of the parks committee have a lot more ideas and then they can bring them to you and then as a council you can say um, a Ideas A and B are fantastic. That would be really beneficial thing to the city. Ideas C and D, let's let's put them off to another time or something like that. But I think having some um discussion with the council each year on what they could be doing and then a follow-up reporting on on how it went or how it's going, I think will help all of this to be help us to stay focused and make sure we're getting the accomplish the things we're trying to accomplish. So don't don't all can any does anybody need me to speak up or use a mic?

It's for the people watching online. Yeah. So all the committees have missions and visions, right? Um, and if they that that might be a little bit of a stretch because some of them really are just like uh oversee something or other like so, but this this is our opportunity to do a reset and focus in on, you know, this might have been created 30 years ago. What was the need then? Why was it created? Is that need is it still relevant today? If so, great. Let's let's refine it where it needs to be refined.

Well, I think if you have a mission or a vision or goal um a purpose, then the goals would support that. And then you could refine the goals to, you know,

it doesn't it seems almost like we're doing goals, but we don't have a vision yet. Well, I think I think the I think the process of going through this is to help identify um if some of that's lacking. So, um I don't know if we're if it's the wrong order. What I've tried to do is really and I think all the commission should be doing is is step back to the real basic question. Um you're on the uh convention center commission. Yeah, commission. Commission.

Commission. Make sure I got it right. Didn't want to offend the commission. Um, but okay. So, um, maybe it's helpful to say, hey, why was this originally created? Maybe that's not helpful and not relevant. But I think the real question is let's step back uh for the for that commission is uh let's identify how having this committee is beneficial to the city to the community to the downtown businesses and then that gets into um what what the individual functions are that show by doing this here's the benefit we're committing um I I don't want to again I want to make suggest questions because then I don't want people to run with that. But I think all the committees should be stepping back um and looking at the start with the big picture and then get down to the details. But if we're struggling at the big picture um we don't need to force anything either. Let's let's have that honest discussion of you know I don't see it happening. I don't see any of the committee saying um we don't see any purpose in what we're doing. Um maybe that happens but um but if that if that does happen let's have that honest discussion and maybe there is some ways to refine it or um modify it that that that can bring greater um purpose or benefit to the community.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to my timing. I didn't get my rebuttal in. I I guess I I can't dictate it because I don't know what the committee's I don't know what work is needed. Totally agree. But I think goals are good. I would love to at least have something we're driving towards and that the committees make this a priority

and if they aren't going to meet it to tell us they're not going to meet it for this and whatever reason, right? But I do think just arbitrarily saying here it is, work on it, it doesn't really provide uh the the priority that I think we need on this topic. I think I think the setting of this work session I think this is a great discussion to have right now amongst this this group is what do we think is yeah reasonable realistic take that back and if and if you have a committee that says no we that it can't happen for this or this reason then that that liaison can come back and and update the council.

Well I'll share what I think is reasonable. We're at the end of February. I think um most of our committees, commissions, etc. meet monthly. So, we've got um a meeting in March, we've got a meeting in April. I think that we could ask that the work be provided to um you by the first council meeting in May. And that would give everybody at least two and at least one of my committees. You mean June? June. June. First meeting in June.

No, March, April, April, May. May it first in May. Um and and one of my committees saw fit to do a special meeting. And with the work that the that all the committees have already done, it's not like they haven't been thinking about stuff like this. And I personally think that that we could ask for that. I'll remind the council that one of our goals this year is to get boards, committees, and commissions off our plate. That's right. Early in 2026, and I I take that to mean by end of June.

So, one of the things that if you want to go down that timeline is the council's got some work to do on the the bigger ordinance to start with. And if that were refined uh and could come together with a refinement of each of the committees um you know we could have all those coming together at the same time. the bigger ordinance is sort of the the nuts and bolts and the operations part of it if I'm understanding this and couldn't that work be done by the council concurrently to the committees that's so that it all can meet and be ready

it also means each of us needs to make sure we go through the most recent revision which you still need to do, right? And uh be prepared for whatever next work session we have. And not that we want to put more work on the committees, but if we're going to pass an ordinance on committees, let's get the feedback from the committees. Maybe some maybe some meetings worth is good. maybe putting some ownorous things on the committees uh isn't good and and uh maybe there's there's some insight that we're missing that that uh we would benefit from their their insight and their experience. Didn't we get all the operational feedback from the committees already?

What do you mean by operational feedback, the overarching policy? I I know um you know we talked about it with the council a year ago. Um I don't I don't recall us having any specific feedback but yeah yeah I think the committees have said have provided you feedback with um how many times to meet and that's the operational feedback and how does somebody get on a committee. Yeah I don't think uh yeah some of that has been provided. I don't think it's been fried necessarily as a here's a proposed ordinance we want to adopt um review it and

I don't think committees were charged with coming up with a proposed ordinance. I think they were charged with coming up with with those operational kind of details for us to all consider and meld and maybe you know have a sort of the standard and then there might be a variation here or there. I think I think what I was referring to is if the council's going to pass a an ordinance on committees that regulates the committees, let's give them an opportunity to that's what we just went through. I don't Well, I I don't think it was ever that formalized. Um

I know the airport committee and the convention center committee I rewrote the bylaws and sent you a new proposed draft of that. So that was what I understood and if that if that if that's what their feedback is that's great then we can run. I just want to make sure that you know what I haven't seen is like are there thoughts on the you know um annual reporting to the council and getting direction on the work plan. There's there's a lot in there on that it's there. Spencer, can I say something?

Um from my opinion it looked it looked a little bit like the email. Um the first round you asked from us was what would you like was like what would you like your committee's purpose to be your goals how often all those and the second email was more of a why do you want those to be your answers um and I would like to point out to council that it might not seem like it but it's a very specific skill set to take these kind of grand big picture ideas and funnel them into form data. So, like I'll happily write you an essay, short novel if you'd like, but if you're reading through responses and something's not sounding right or sitting quite right, it might just be because we're not used to using that skill set.

And um I tried to put it in a chart because it makes sense for me visually. By no means do I think in a little square you're going to be able to answer that question. And so what whatever format it comes back in, I think it's it's more about visually for me visually seeing here's all here's here's all the duties we have. It's almost like a job description. Here's all the things we do and here are some refining questions to make sure that that function is is really um fine-tuned. And if any of the committees want me or or anyone else to attend and and and help with that discussion, more than happy to. Again, the goal of this is um make all of the the work being done more meaningful and purposeful and ultimately delivering a better benefit to our community.

And with that, we need to reset for the council meeting. Thank you everyone. Thanks.

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

Thank you, Mayor. Council President Morsy is absent. Mayor Ring here. Councelor McVey is absent. Councelor Monttero present. Councelor Ansro here. Councelor Hoffman here. Councelor Baker here. All right. Thank you. I need to um amend tonight's agenda removing item 12 C. Can I have a second?

Second. All those in favor of approving the agenda as amended say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have a proclamation tonight. Um Sadi.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I request that you um make a proclamation declaring March Women's History Month for the city of Seaside. Okay. Thank you. I will do that.

Thank you. And I'm um pleased to read it myself tonight. Whereas women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of seaside in countless recorded and unrecorded ways. And whereas in shattering glass ceilings, overcoming discrimination, harassment, and hardship, women have been bold and fearless and thereby widening the circle of opportunities for women and girls in creating stronger, healthier communities. And whereas women have played and continue to play critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of life in Seaside. And whereas women have served as leaders in the forefront in every major progressive social change movement, not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the other movements that have created a more fair and just society for all. And whereas women have served our country courageously in the military and were particularly important in the establishment of early charitable, philanthropic, and cultural institutions. And whereas far too often women's heroic efforts and their stories have gone untold, especially those of the millions of black women, immigrant women, indigenous women, and others from diverse communities who have strengthened us across generations. And whereas in remembering the trailblazers of the past and the heroins of present day, we honor their legacies by carrying forward the valuable lessons learned from the powerful examples they set. And whereas women have long advocated for compassionate treatments and new directions public health and in women's mental and physical health, women have historically led the way in mending divisions, healing wounds, and finding peaceful solutions. And whereas we honor those in Seaside who in both public and private life provide healing

and promote hope for the betterment of all. Now therefore, I, Steve Ry, mayor of city of Seaside, proclaim March 1 through 31, 2026 as Women's History Month. And I call upon all people to observe this month and to celebrate with appropriate gratitude, programs, and activities. I also invite all to visit www.women'sismonth.gov to learn more about the vital contribution of women to our nation's history. And I've signed it. I um just an exercise uh that I think is important for everybody to recognize. Go through and check who the executive directors are of some of our business associations, our social service agencies, our school, um the museum, uh assistance league, all kinds of things are led by women. I think that's a really good thing for our community and makes us who we are. So, thank you for asking me to do that.

Time for public comments. Members of the public may use this time to provide general comments on matters not scheduled elsewhere on the agenda for a public hearing or public comment. Individuals wishing to speak should complete a public comment registration card found over on the table there and submit it to the city recorder before being called. This time's intended for the council to listen to public comments rather than engage in discussion. The council may consider whether issues raised during this time should be scheduled for discussion or action at a future meeting. Each speaker will be allotted three minutes. Do we have any? Don't have anybody signed up.

Okay. Any councelor wish to declare potential conflict of interest with anything on the agenda tonight? Hearing none. Seeing none, I have approval for the consent agenda. Note that it now includes our financial report as well as approval of the minutes.

Can I ask a question before we have approval or about the financials? Just I just want to get something. Is Zach here? Yeah. Can I ask a question? [clears throat] Zack, when you've got um and and I really like the reports we're getting. What I'm curious about is on the last column where it says percent received and then uh on expenses it says percent spent. Is that based on the percent of the year that we're expecting to receive or the percent of the year to date?

That's year to date. So um yeah, it's all based on the budget and I would have to go back and look. I think I pulled out everything that it all the transfers that inflate those the revenue numbers in particular. Um I believe that I've pulled those out of there for the for the total because they came out as a line. So excuse [clears throat] me. Um but it is based on if it's revenues what we've received yearto date uh divided by the budget or if it's an expense it's what we've spent year to date divided by that budget. So like right now we're at about 66% of the year, right?

It's it's through January, so it should be a little bit less than that, but yes. Is it you said 58? 58%. Yeah. Okay. So all right. And that and some particularly with the revenue numbers uh when you look at say property taxes.

Yeah. we'll receive 90% of those by um by December. And so some of the there's a there's a little bit of seasonality that has to be taken into account with some of this, but uh by and large, you know, 58% as of January is a good number to kind of gauge, especially routine expenses like personnel and things like that. Um it's a good thing to gauge against. And there are some other revenue line items where there's a a month or two lag whether it's being processed through the state or the county that comes to us. And so I think by asking these questions and starting to understand some of that a little more you'll start to see um some of those nuances or things on the expenditure side where we'll be heavier at different times of the year. So the the percent the percent spent or sp the percent received is just an indicator. We're not necessarily looking to be exactly um at a certain spot, but it just helps maybe to put it into context.

Well, yeah. And as I'm looking at it, I'm fine with the revenue. I'm just I'm looking at the expenses and some of them I just kind of go well. And we we've asked our department heads um uh we don't care we don't have a a cash flow issue. So we don't care if they spend it all up front or all at the end. It's their budget to manage the best way they see fit. And so um hopefully they're doing that and you may see some ahead, but they're they're planning on that and um and uh to manage that appropriately so they come in at budget. There are although there are a few nuances that we're still working out like um overtime in the fire department goes way up because of all the wildland work

and [clears throat] that kind of inflates the overtime number. So are there better ways that we can be tracking and representing that? Those are some conversations we're having now. So in other words, don't dwell too much on what the exact numbers are. The thing I noticed when I went through it is the income side were well above 58% most of the time. And particularly if you just pay attention to the the groupings of the funds, not the individual ones. And most of the expenses are well down compared to that, [clears throat] you know, well under 58%. So, right, that always seems like a good thing to me. It's a good problem. Bring in more money than you're spending out. Yeah. Again, with

I think there's some work that needs to get done. So, it's not [laughter] always Yeah, it won't always be right. Okay. You're welcome. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda. I'll second. Councelor Monto and Councelor Baker. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have um our Seaside Library director for our report tonight, our annual report.

Welcome, Jennifer. That mic's on already. It is. It's It was It's green light. There is no green light. Okay, it's faded out entirely. Just talk.

All right, you can hear me. Okay, hopefully. Uh thank you. Good evening, Mayor Council. Uh thank you for the opportunity to uh share some of the highlights from our 2025 year at the library. And I want to show uh just want to point out the image that's uh on this first slide. So, uh, that front row, those are little mini bookcases that we printed with our 3D printer. And during one of the teen programs, uh, the kids then decorated their own little bookshelves with little mini books and little mini curios. So, so like diaramas, kind of like little bookshelf diaramas. Yeah.

So, and the books behind them give you the sense of scale of how tiny they are. So,

just a fun little thing we get to do in the library. All right. So, one of the um the big changes right at the beginning of the year, I think this is working um is the uh establishment of our Seaside Library Friends and Foundation. So, we joined the long-standing uh friends group with our foundation group uh into uh unified Seaside Library Friends and Foundation, Sliff for short. It's really catchy. Uh it's a 501c3 dedicated to supporting and enhancing the Seaside Public Library through fundraising, volunteer efforts, and advocacy. Uh their mission is to provide the resources that help foster a love of reading, learning, and community engagement. And I'm happy to report that in 2025, we received $5,690, which generously funded all of the programming that we were able to provide at the library throughout the year. And we invite you to become a member, shop at the bookstore, or donate your gently used books at the library. And um work that began in 2024 uh at an all library board strategic planning meeting. It was with Atoria, Warrington, Seaside, and Canon Beach. The Seaside Library Board developed a new mission statement. Uh, this one is much shorter uh and to the point and we felt it was one that we could easily memorize or put on the back of a business card. Um, I won't read it to you. You can read that on the slide, but we're excited to have that work completed. Uh, and this year, uh, the board will continue to work on developing the vision and values for the library. And as you know, the library is much more than just books. It's about events and programs that uh bring the community together. Uh featured on this slide is

uh Anita Ruth during our French story time last year. Over the years, we've had story times in uh French, Spanish, Chinese, German, and American Sign Language. And we rely on our amazing community uh members to assist with these. Uh and I will point out we held more programs in 2025 than in 2024. We had a total of 234 programs in 2024 and this year or this past year 260. Um and attendance was just about the same for for that increased number of programs. So we didn't bring in more people uh but they all attended the more programs overall. Uh and through our outreach efforts we connect with the community and uh meet the community where they are. So, I've listed some of the events where we uh showed up and tabled. There's an example of one of the tables we had at the Hispanic Heritage Celebration in Canon Beach. So, we we connected with over 2,000 community members uh through those 34 total outreach events. Um and you know, each of those are just an example of some of the places where we showed up during the year. That last one I'd like to highlight is the fourth grade library card signup event. So, for the past two years, our youth services librarian has gone up to the elementary school and met with all of the fourth grade classes, uh, talked to them about library services and resources available and ensured that they all had a free and clear, up-to-date library card. So, let's talk about summer because it's really cold and dreary out there right now. So, our summer reading program uh this past year in 2025 um was the the theme was level up at your library. So, each year the theme is slightly different. Uh this past year it

was sort of a game theme. Um and we hosted 59 programs in the summer. It's a hopping place in the summertime. uh more than 2,000 folks showed up and we gave away over 500 uh uh gift books and I will share let's see maybe yeah here's the breakdown we have the three different levels we have the zero to fifth grade we have the sixth to 12th grade and then uh newly in the last few years we've added the um adults can sign up for summer reading too because why not win prizes uh for reading so we had a total of 200 191 folks register for uh the summer reading program and they read uh 3,442 total hours for the summer reading program which is pretty exciting. I do want to point out last year we had 35 adults sign up for the program and this year we had 51. So I'm hoping to keep growing that number. Um so be on the lookout for for those registrations. And then we just have some fun uh images from the events. Uh you may have remembered if you drove by the library over the summer, we were painting the uh parking lot and it was a liveaction shoots and ladders game which was so much fun. We had beautiful weather and it held out for for quite some time and it is finally completely faded. Um but it was it was fun to have out there. Uh we also had a a STEM family day. Uh, and featured on this slide is one of our Clatip Works interns, Corbin. He was just so patient and kind with the families and the and the kids. We got really great feedback uh about him. He's definitely a natural teacher. So, I hope to see him continue some of that work. And we made slime because why not? It's

fun. All right, let's talk about some boring numbers. We've got circulation. Um we circulated over 50,000 physical items in the library last year and um also discovered that we circulated 12,000 uh items digitally. So that's through uh our Libby platform. Um we have uh ebooks and e audio books. And if you are interested in trying to figure out how to connect with that resource, you should come to the library between Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday between 3 and 5 because we have a Pacifica student uh Grayson who is offering tech dropin help and he would happily um get you set up with how to connect with Libby and have that accessed on your phone or tablet. Uh here's that cool um sort of heat map that I was able to to pull up last year. So this is our average daily foot traffic in 2025. Um I do want to note and I I believe this is true. I'm sure someone will tell me if it's not. Uh we are the only library in uh Clatip County that's open on Sunday. So you will see we have some pretty big numbers at that opening hour at 1:00 and continues pretty strong throughout the day. And uh that red box, the Thursday at 10:00 a.m. Uh that of course attributes uh is attributed to our regular Thursday uh story time which occurs at 10:30. So if you're ever driving by, we have people come in sometimes and they say, "What's going on? I can't find a parking spot." Um it's because of uh our story time. Here's some other exciting numbers too. Uh we have the two meeting room spaces. We have community room and the smaller

uh library boardroom. And they are they are often um occupied and booked for for the year between 10 and 12 um reservations throughout the week. And as I've shared before, we share a catalog with Atoria and Warrington. So, uh, if there's a book that's available at Atoria and we don't have it, uh, in Seaside, we can just shift it through the Courier. Uh, so you'll see that we sent out about 3,000 of our items to Atorian Warrington and we brought in a total of 2,000 items from Atorian Warrington over the year. So, it's a great opportunity to be able to share a collection without having to house all of those books. And then if there's something that um we're not able to get uh in in our local catalog here, uh as I've mentioned before, we use interl loan and we can reach out to libraries from around the count around the country. Um, and you'll see from these numbers, we brought in about 600 items for our patrons here in Seaside and sent out twice as much um to the rest of the rest of the country. So, we have a pretty desirable collection, which is interesting to see. All right, so let's um jump into some new things that uh have happened in 2025. I alluded to the to SLIFF and the new um the new mission statement. Um but here we go. For 2025, we had the uh the new full-time youth library assistant position was was uh went into effect in July. Um and with that, we've been able to add a tween book club. So that's that grades like three through three through fifth sixth grade. So we've added the book club. We added a monthly music

story time. And the really neat thing is we're now able to offer uh back-to-back programming on Saturday, which was a challenge before because of of scheduling. You know, we needed to have one person in one space and another person in another space, and we only had the one person to do it. So now we have two, which is great. Uh we also were able to hire three Clatsip Works interns. uh for the last summer we uh applied for a grant through the state library and we were awarded that teen intern grant. So that helped cover the cost of um paying our three interns for the summer. We also uh revamped our website. So check it out seaside library.org for all your up-to-date library information. Come to those morning meetings. You hear me say that all the time. Uh so yeah, you want to uh check it out, bookmark it, and uh it does include um all of our uh links to our digital resources, which is something else we added this um we enhanced our um access to uh digital resources this past year. We have in the county, we have access to uh the New York Times online. Uh you can get to that from our web page. Uh and also uh a database called NewsBank. It's a comprehensive online database that provides access to current and archived articles from national and local uh news sources. So like the Oregonian or um the Atorian. And as far as you know, you can read a local newspaper in uh Tennessee if you'd like. We held our inaugural one book one seaside, our community reading event. Uh and we uh we we read James by Perl Everett. We gave away close to 50 copies of that book which were generously um

provided by our Sliff Seaside Library Friends and Foundation. Uh and we held four book discussions in the month of April for our one book one seaside. For 2026, I'm happy to announce that we are partnering with uh West Coast libraries up and down the coast. Um, it's going to be called One Book, One Coast. Uh, and it, uh, the book that they chose is, uh, they Called Us Enemy by George Takai. Uh, this graphic novel published in 2019, uh, explores Tekkai's experience during the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. So, um books will be available for checkout at the library and also uh a small uh small amount available um through the generous donation of Sliff will be available to the community for free. You can also purchase them at Beachbooks. So, be on the lookout for um book discussions in April. And uh the exciting thing about this is um George Dai is not coming to Seaside for a book discussion which is unfortunate but you know a girl can dream. Um but there will be a livereamed author interview on May 31st that will be uh live streaming in the library's community room. Uh we also as I mentioned we added a monthly music story time. So, this is in partnership with the North Oregon Coast Symphony. Uh, and that's a a really fun time. We had tiny tiny little violins in the library this last time. It was just delightful. Um, we also had our first how-to clinic in December and that was wellreceived and we hope to expand our offerings for the May 9th program. So, mark your calendars for that. May 9th. We also held a puzzle pulooa. Uh this was very popular. So we can have uh up

to 10 teams with four people per team. Uh they have two hours to complete a 500piece puzzle. Uh the winning team uh at our at our first event, they finished the puzzle in 46 minutes. They were a machine. I don't know how they did it. We also had several teams that didn't even finish the puzzle [laughter] in the two hours, but they had a really good time. They had a good time. Exactly. And finally, I want to share that we did go fully fine free. So, in the past, uh, we were fine free for children's materials, which was a great, you know, removal of a barrier. Uh, so we just want the books back. We're not going to ding you 25 cents a day, uh, if they're if they're overdue. So if you have a stack of books that are a few days overdue, just get them back to us and and you won't have any fines on those, even if those are adult books. So we had a lot of other things in 2025, but in the interest of time, I will move on. And uh let's talk about looking ahead. I've mentioned some of these um we have some of them already um underway. We have um we're looking into getting the upholstery re uh redone, which is very exciting. Um and uh we have two programs that are that are starting up. One is actually happening right now. Um but our our sister library in uh Guatemala at Lake Gatidlan. Here's a uh this is from their web page. So we'll be offering a family story time on uh Saturday coming up in a few months here where uh they're reading the same book that we're reading here. And so we're we're hoping to to grow it to where maybe there we will have like some Zoom conversations. Um and they have a really robust uh teen book club uh with their with their school and library. So uh Laora Abia in uh is that it's in

Santiago on the shores of Lake Aidan in Guatemala. And then the thing that gets the most uh applause at any of the morning meetings lately uh we are partnering with the Neckenham watershed council and uh we have eggs were dropped off on Thursday. We had 250 steel head eggs dropped off at the library in a in a fish tank. Um we have a live stream of the eggs. It's terribly exciting. Uh right now they just sit on the bottom of the tank. Um but in about five weeks uh we're gonna have a launch party for for the uh for the fry when they eggs to fry. It's really the worst title ever, but [laughter] that was out of our out of our hands. So but the uh the um ODFW they provided all the tank and the uh all of the equipment for it. So it's a really fun partnership. So definitely check that out. uh that is live streaming uh on our YouTube channel and on our on that seaside library.org page. So again, I want to um thank you um again my incredible library team and all of our volunteers. Volunteers did over a thousand hours of of service in 2025, which was just amazing. Um so couldn't do it without all of those wonderful humans uh helping us out and on the team. So again, together we continue to build a space where knowledge, connection, and growth thrive in the seaside community. One book, one program, one patron at a time. Thanks.

Comments. As the council liaison to the library, I'm extremely impressed with Jennifer and we have a strong board and work well together and I'm looking forward to what comes next.

Yep. We have we have we have some work cut out for us I think. I love numbers and all of the numbers were very impressive but also having experience as a librarian I would say that the most impressive number has to be interl loan for a small community library to be asked for materials from the library that in double the number that we receive. from other libraries in the country is hugely hugely impressive and it says a lot about our collection. Definitely. Thank you.

And our reputation. Mhm. We have a gem here in the city and um yeah, it's really special and a lot of the things you just presented just make it so clear and so thank you to you and your staff and all the volunteers. Um, yeah, for really making it a special place here in Seaside. Thank you. Yeah, we we try to say yes to everything and then figure out how to make it happen. Yeah,

the library card was the first card I ever got as a kid and I still have it to this day. And uh it's it's the place where I always found coming from a family of eight, all the noise. It was the one place that I could find that was quiet and I could focus. And I uh I I love libraries, all sizes. And one of the slides that you had up there that uh I thought was kind of indicative of our time, it had pictures of books on the shelf. And the one was 1984. And uh it's so funny because it's one of the books that I I have a selection of books that I give to people who I think might appreciate them. And that's one of them. And um I was at uh a work last night and the person who was there was reading 1984. So

uh I loved seeing that on the screen and I I think actually there might be two copies on the shelf on the new shelf side. Um and I was asking about that. Uh the reason we have two copies is uh they were using it in the high school so the demand was high so we um we added a couple of extra copies for for that purpose. So thank you very much. We appreciate all the work you're doing there and we look forward to 2026.

Thank you very much. [applause] still have some vacancies on board's commissions and committees. One on airport, three on community center, one on planning, and one on transportation. Come on, counselors, get out there and beat the bushes. [laughter] Unfinished business. Ordinance 2026-01 establishing authority of the mayor along with the council to declare a local state of emergency. Spencer, any further comments. Of course, of course. I have a mic. I can I can speak. Uh but I can do that very briefly, too. Uh this is the fourth time this has come to the city council. Uh so tonight's here for a third reading hopefully for an adoption for those who haven't followed the process. Uh I've got two quick slides. So first the purpose of the ordinance. So the proposed ordinance codifies a formal process to declare a local state of emergency. Currently our city code does not have that. Establishes clear authority in succession for the declaration, requires the city council to ratify um any decision made and provide oversight. It defines the duration, extension and termination procedures. It identifies emergency powers that may be exercised and establishes uh public notification and post emergency reporting. And uh it aligns with our emergency operations plan. it already that plan already accounts for this assuming it's on the books and so since it's not that's why we brought it forward. So what this is hoping to accomplish filling that gap in

our code where we uh don't have that adopted by uh city ordinance um provides uh a clear legal framework for our emergency government governance what happens and and who's uh authorized to make what decisions. preserves and restates the council's um legislative oversight and then will help us support uh coordination with the county uh state and federal agencies and that is going to be crucial if we want to be eligible for any um reimbursement um opportunities that often come that way. There is a particular process you need to follow and so we want to adhere to those uh requirements as uh closely as possible. So the requested action tonight is a third reading and a motion to adopt.

Open the floor for any public comment. You don't have to have had registered for this ahead of time. Don't worry, it's not really given me any authority to go out and and go wild. Don't worry about it. We made sure and put clauses in there to uh make sure the council uh has really the authority council. If there are no other comments, I'll take a motion to read ordinance 202601 by title only. I move for a third reading of ordinance 2026-01 by title only.

I'll second. Councelor Baker, Councelor Hoffman. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Spencer. 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. I have a motion to adopt. I move to adopt ordinance 2026-01.

I'll second. Councelor Baker, Councelor Hoffman. All those in Oh, roll call vote, please. Kim.

Mayor Wright. Yes. Councelor Montero. Yes. Councelor Ansbro. Yes. Councelor Hoffman. Yes. Councelor Bindker. Yes. All right. Thank you. Motion to adopt passed unanimously. Thank you all. New business. Um liquor license application for Billy Max Broers. Do we have the applicant here? Come on forward. Introduce yourself. Mike. Into the microphone, please.

Michael Moski. And we would like to get a liquor license along with our restaurant we're opening up. And uh this is a change in not ownership but or it is well it's yeah the in your building but it's my building and my business and it's new from the Billy Max restaurant. Going to be roasted chicken. Billy Max Broers is what it's going to be called. Okay.

When is it opening? We're trying for March 6th. You know how that goes. We redid the floors and all new equipment and uh going to be doing chicken ribs and pork chops as specials and things like that. I live a block away and I can't wait. I can't wait too, trust me. Yeah, but a lot of my three of us are in the neighborhood. So, yeah. Uh basically, we're going to be an 11 to9 operation, not focusing on bar. We want to have the bar facilities, but it's we're concentrating on the restaurant. Okay. I think it's needed.

Anybody else? I note that uh there was nothing found uh by the police department. Any reason to deny this? May I have a motion?

I move to approve the Thank you. Go ahead. Liquor Lace application for Billy Max Brosters. I second it. Councelor Baker, Councelor Ansbro. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you.

Next item, approval of the North 40 Park Design Working Group. Kind of hinted at this earlier. Spencer. Thanks, mayor. Um, yeah, so we are uh making progress on the north 40 um park design. uh for some background the uh and someone probably knows the history better better than I do but um at one point the I don't I I don't know how many decades you have to go back to when it was either city or county owned but it was part of the high school property and um it uh reverted back to the city when the property was was sold. Um and so we have an opportunity to it it's been used for little league games and other um community purposes. Uh but now that comes back to our ownership, we have an opportunity to um build it into something uh that's um a priority for the community. So uh a little bit of background, the council's already approved the development of a sports complex. We um there were many different ideas on what the park could be and so we asked our parks committee to go solicit public feedback and overwhelmingly it was in support of a of a sports complex. Um the priorities the survey and the public feedback identified that the council confirmed was that uh would have a baseball, softball, mixeduse field component, walking path, uh playground or playgrounds and other supporting amenities like restrooms, parking. Um and so we have a landscape architect that was directed to um prepare some draft concepts. Okay. and where we are today.

[clears throat] They've provided three um concepts um which is what we had asked them to do. In fact, that's what we originally asked them to do on three different types of parks. And so we kind of wanted to follow the same format. Give us three different different ideas and then um let's take them back to the community to refine them. Um but we'll talk a little bit about that in a little bit. Um so they have given us three concepts. There are different variations for field orientation, parking layout, circulation, supporting amenities, and um each of the drafts have tradeoffs. Um you can't have double the parking and double the field space. Uh you trade one for the other. None of them are are final yet, nor are they ready for public feedback. We're we're in very early draft stages. Um new information, at least that was new information to some of us. Maybe this was this was already known um since the the last time we've discussed this, but the property does have a reversion clause on it that goes back to the county um if it's not used for youth sports. Um and so that I think helps narrow down the uses [clears throat] for the park. However, that's really the direction we were already going. So, um that reversion clause reinforces the direction you've already um committed to. And so both the legal framework and our community priorities align in this case. But I thought that was good information to have. So why add direct user input now? So um our youth sports organizations uh will be will be heavy users of this park. Um and they carry some practical experience that uh I know for sure at a staff level we can't replicate. Um other cities have recreation departments as you know we we

do not and so u we do not have that expertise. Um so we want to be able to strengthen the design before any anything's finalized and we think there's an opportunity to get some buy in from the the community along the way. So the particular groups that we're looking at um we hope will come with um better input on field layout and orientation needs especially particular to seaside um scheduling and tournament logistics, parking and drop off patterns, spectator flow and safety, equipment storage and maintenance realities. So we think that having some better refinement now will reduce costs later. We want to avoid the soon as the park's built realizing, oh, we forgot this and we need to add it on later. It's always better if it's designed right up front. Um, I think this is largely um I think we understand this will be the last large park that we can do in the city of Seaside. We just don't have spaces for another one. Um, and so we want something that will last a long time. And so engaging with these user groups will hopefully build some ownership from them um reduce any future criticism and strengthen our partnerships and hopefully at the end of the day have a more usable park. So um previously we had asked the the council at my recommendation had uh asked the landscape architect to come back with three uh options. as we've looked at that. Now, I kind of want to modify that a little bit. Um, as you can see here, if if there's if we get all these groups together and there's one clear best design, um, let's bring that back. If there are two really good designs and we could go either way, let's bring those back. What I don't want to do is commit to putting a whole bunch of work into

particular designs that we already know won't work. I think one of the things that um you'll see right off the bat is we've asked for a lot to be in this park because what you didn't see is in addition to everything there, that's kind of the base layer. And then we also said also if you can fit in pickleball courts and a dog park, we'd like to fit those in as well. So a little bit of everything. Um, and that's we're not going to be able to do everything. And so we want to get the highest priority, but even with the basics and some some layouts, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for a lot of options. And so what we don't want to do is is bring out something that we know won't work um for our our recreation and get feedback on. And so I I just think we want to bring whatever this committee identifies as as good alternatives whether that's one or two or whatever that number is and again here the goal is quality not necessarily the quantity. Um so um the purpose of this this group would be to advise the staff and the architect refine refine their draft concepts um and this this group would be temporary and project specific. That's what I was referring to in our committee discussion during the work session. Their role is advisory only that they wouldn't have any formal authority and they wouldn't even make a direct recommendation to the council. I'll tell you what that process is I think on the next slide. So, a proposed composition would be representatives from Seaside Kids, Lower Columbia Soccer, uh Sunset Empire Park and Recreation, uh a handful of general residents in the city who have uh uh youth and their families that participate in these sports. Hopefully, some residents from the north end of the community. Um, specifically, I think we want to reach out to representatives from the Hispanic and Latino community

to make sure um they're representative because they're not always representative uh um proportionally through these other organizations and then a couple of um staff members as well. Um and we want to keep this flexible. Uh so we wouldn't be uh asking a particular person but would be asking these organizations to send representatives. And so uh we're not and it's not a specific person. Um if if Sunset Empire can send one person one meeting and another to another one, they'll likely all be virtual meetings. uh we don't want to be held up by any one person's time commitment but also um again keeping it flexible. The alternative is to uh create a formal ad hoc committee. That was what I was originally intending and when I even put it on the agenda that's what I was had in mind when I was creating it. However, when I started to kind of build the staff report and review it against the draft committee ordinance to see how that would work, I realized this actually wasn't the best fit, but I wanted to present this as an alternative. What I saw is that um it would need to go through the formal process where we would open it up, advertisement, advertise the vacancies, um accept applications, then we do a nomination at one meeting for an interview at the next meeting and then a subsequent appointment to that. And I think that would add a couple of months delay. And I think it would also be less flexible because we would be appointing specific individuals rather than um representation from committees. So the way I see this happening is uh tonight the council would authorize a staffled working group. This group would refine the concept concepts with the architect directly. Um, and so we would narrow down to the strongest options that those would then

be uh presented to the parks committee and we would have them engage with public feedback to ultimately come back to the city council for a um final decision on a design. So if the council's um ready to do that, I have a um a potential motion about how long do you think the process would take? Uh, not not the ad hoc with your committee.

Um, I think um it depends on how ready the current plans are as I know Jeff and I have looked through them. Each one of them has some either missing components or some things that need refinement. And so if this group comes together and says, um, we're 90% there, it may just be, here's our initial feedback, and they come back with the design. So, uh, I really want to get their input first because they may come back and say we're we're way off base. And so, um, I don't look at this as like a monthly meeting or something like that. I think if we get the direction tonight, we'll start contacting these organizations this week. I've already had some informal discussions with them. Um, and it would be really as soon as we can schedule a virtual meeting with the architects. And so, um, I don't know what their turnaround time is, but I imagine, um, I would love to have something, uh, to the parks committee this spring.

Is there um, should I put this nicely? Any discussion about what the budget in the long run will be at this level? Question. Not yet. I think we want to understand what um

what is needed. Um part of the scope I think of for the architect will be giving us kind of uh some budget estimates and I think based upon that we can decide if we're in a position to build the park or if we need to phase it and and go after grants and whatnot. So, I am hoping and I have some ideas on how we can um build it all at once, which I think will lead to a better park than if we need to phase it. Um, but we'll I want to get through that process first and then we can uh uh do proposals. But I think there is a way to build a what I think should be a um a great um something for our community to be proud of. Um, and that will last our our uh our youth and our our community for a long time.

We have budget now set aside. I can't remember. We have the budget for the um for the landscape architect plant, but we haven't budgeted for the actual physical construction because we're waiting to see what that comes back at. and that's where their expertise will come in with what the current rates are or costs for different uh amenities and things like that. So, are you hoping to have that kind of information for the budgeting process for next year? I think uh we will have it as soon as possible. Um I don't think by the time we are I don't think that'll be ready for our budget discussions.

But as soon as it is ready, there's no reason why we can't um circle back and um amend the budget. The other thing we can do is if we look at the revenue sources that we might consider using for this, we could just budget that amount um like budget the the fund balance if you will and then wait for the city council to make a decision and once that happens the funds are already in the budget ready to be um ready to be spent after the council authorizes it without reconvening the budget committee. That's an option we could look at. Do we ever look at public private partnerships for something like this?

Um, there may be some. Most often there aren't um there aren't great uh parks like this don't make money, so there aren't too many private. Um, but for management and landscaping, that's often the case. I think um it is very likely that we would um you know work with an organization like Sun Sunset Empire Park and Recreation um uh and and looking at how it's managed, how it's operated because there's a lot of overlap between the city and and uh the services they provide. We don't do recreation programming. They do um and now they're working even more closely with Seaside Kids and handling that for them. So, I think I can see a partnership there, but all of that is to be determined and to be worked out.

Okay. I'm glad that you're thinking of um of having people from the neighborhood be part of the focus group or the the group considers. And you know, the neighborhood is Venice Park. It's Indian Way, and those are where people are living now. But we also have two neighbor neighborhoods that are in the planning and building phases. And um might there be any outreach to those people? That's tough to do because we don't know who those people are yet. And it might be a year before Well, you you know who the developer the developers are.

Yeah. I don't think we're looking to get the developer feedback. There'll be opportunities for that. I think for this specific group um we're looking at those who will be um most programming right now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I especially if if there's you're looking at pickle ball which I I like pickle ball but it's a noisy sport and so I think especially just just to say of the three drafts there is no pickle ball. Oh yeah. No. Okay. Like I said, uh we've crammed a lot. We've crammed a lot of stuff in there without the extras. So, okay, good deal. I would love to see it. I think it'd be very popular. Um it may be a discussion on if there are other locations, too.

Sure. And um we know that there will be to the immediate south and to be north of this park um some pretty high dense housing, right? And pickle ball is not very um conducive to happy neighbors. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. Easy. No. Yeah. Well, then can I uh have a motion? There's a requested motion in there.

I move right up there. to authorize the city manager to convene a staff-led North 40 user design working group to refine the draft north 40 design prior to formal review by the parks advisory committee and city council. I'll second. Councelor Bricker and Councelor Hoffman. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

There you go. Okay, city staff. Anybody back there? [laughter] You're all just hanging out, huh? And I don't see either the business associations. Okay. Oh, um, they are having the the film at the time. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And and the chamber is having a recruiting party for uh chamber ambassadors. So, they're both occupied.

I've been asked to play the role of Carrie Lambert this evening. Okay. Can I do that now? Sure.

Okay. Okay. So, the SDA would like to thank everyone who came out on February 11th for the Feed the Starfish fundraiser. We raised $4,500 with generosity of Seaside Coffee House, Sea Star Gelato, and all the businesses who donate to the opportunity drawings, as well as those that came out to eat and drink, as well as purchase tickets for the drawings. Our next fundraiser will be for the community flower basket program on Wednesday, March 11th from 4 to 9:00 at Dundy's Bar and Grill. 50% of the sales from that time period will go to the flower basket fund. This is a dine in and to go. This is for dine in and to go. And so thank you from Carrie.

All right. Less John.

Thank you. Um kudos to Jennifer for her report tonight. I get to I get to spend quite a bit of time talking to her about things. And the one the only thing that I didn't hear plug that I wanted to plug was last spring I was taking a government budgeting class for a slow roll through a graduate program I'm doing. And as part of that project I was researching everything that led up to the creation of the transit lodging tax in Seaside. And so I relied heavily on the microfilm at the Seaside Public Library. So if you're interested in the historical archives of the newspapers here in Seaside, that's a great place to do that, too. And it was it was a wealth of information. So just kudos for a good report. Thanks.

I agree completely. And uh you know, there are paper archives there too. You can actually go and read, you know, the papers from 1905 forward. Um so far I've only found one edition missing. June of 1921. 1920 I think it was. Um, and if anybody has some spare money, we would really like to get those digitized so they'd be much easier to search. Can't search the microfilm very well. Kim, you got us all registered. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Wanted to go. I did. That's right. [laughter]

Okay. Spencer, anything else? Maybe [clears throat] just a followup on um an email sent last week. Um if you had a chance to u watch the presentation at the uh county commission meeting, um the county manager and the sheriff um provided a uh first um discussion item of an opportunity for consolidated dispatch. Right now, city of CEAD operates a dispatch um uh service out of our police station and Atoria does the same. And then each of the other cities and the sheriff's office uh contract with one of us and there have been many conversations over the years about consolidation. They haven't gone anywhere. Um uh they are starting up again but maybe from a different approach. Um this is being led by the county manager who um oversaw consolidation in Washington County in a previous job. And um these kinds of discussions can get um bogged down into uh details really quick. um such as you know what what's the staff, where is it located and um the approach he's taking is a much more uh highlevel look at it which is if we were going to do it um what's the right form of organization form of government and because each of them has their pluses and minuses and then you know a bigger discussion of why it's important and so um there's some good information there. What I've always committed to our staff and then communicated with with the county is uh at seaside, we'll we'll we'll consider anything. You know, we are we're not shy to to look at different different ideas and different proposals, different ways of doing

things. However, ultimately, it it can't decrease the level of service to our community, nor do we want to pay more for the same level of service. So if those can be met under those kind of conditions, we're happy to look at anything. Um and so again, there aren't really specifics yet. Um but uh uh I think we'll probably have an upcoming work session where we can discuss that a little bit, but just to make you aware that those discussions are happening. No commitments have been made other than um we're happy to participate and um in those discussions and see um where they go. I have scheduled that uh topic as for our work session on our next meeting the 9th. And uh the reason for that uh kind of sticking in there quick is because the 12th is the meeting with the county all the county electeds. If you're not aware of that, um talk to me or talk to Spencer. We'll make sure you get that information.

It'll be I think five o'clock at the county fairgrounds. At the fairgrounds. Yeah. Okay. Councelor Ansboro. Yes, sir. [laughter] Any comments?

I do. I have some comments here. Um, February here in the United States is Black History Month. It's a time to internationally honor the achievements, resilience, culture, and contributions of African-Americans. stories that have too often been minimized and overlooked. It's not about looking back. It's about understanding how the past shapes our present and our future. Celebrating Black History Month helps ensure that the struggles for justice, equality, innovation, and artistic expression are remembered and respected. It invites conversation, reflection, and education across generations. One of my earliest heroes was Shirley Chisum. She was a trailblazing American politician, educator, and activist. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress representing the New York's 12th district. Just four years later in 1972, she made history again in the as the first black candidate and the first woman to seek the presidential nomination of a major political party happened to be the Democratic party at that time. Her campaign slogan was, and I love this, unbought and unbossed. reflecting her fearless independence and refusal to be controlled by political machines. Throughout her career, she advocated fiercely for civil rights, women's rights, education for reform, and economic justice. Her legacy continues to inspire generations to pursue leadership with courage and integrity. Here are three quotes that I love from her. The first quote, if they

don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. The second one, service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. And the third one, at present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else. I also have a uh I want to thank John and Kim uh for getting me on boarded with all the technology and the information that I need uh to help me become successful at doing this. And I had a wonderful meeting with Spencer. Thank you very much for that time. And we're scheduled for meetings moving out. I also found that he's the eldest of a large family, too. So, um, couple other things. One is a notice for our active military veterans and their families. I was interviewed on a podcast recently that drops today. Uh, this interview is focused on healing needs not only for the active military and the veterans, but their families as well. And um there the options that are out there and the services that are out there. Uh the podcast is called raiki lifestyle.com. You can find them on YouTube and Raiki is spelled R E I KI lifestyle is lifestyle. So raikylifestyle.com. And then the final thing that I have is that I am going to be doing a coffee with the counselor. I wanted to say Irish coffee with the counselor, but [laughter] uh you know, day drinking is probably not the best way to have a u a good

conversation. So, I know, right? Um but so, uh it starts um March 7th. So, it's going to be the first Saturday of every month. It's going to be at Gray's Comfort Q and Coffee. That's right on the corner of S and 101. Um, it's the address is 1803 Roosevelt Drive, Unit A. So, it's going to be from 9:15 to 10:15 a.m. First Saturday of the month, coffee with the counselor. Love to see you there. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Hoffman.

Um, thank you, Patrick, for bringing up Black History Month. Um, I was quite surprised going through the city's website looking for any record of the city ever doing a proclamation for Black History Month, and I couldn't find any. So, that I was quite stunned by that. Um, and what got me thinking about it is the library is going to have this documentary that I brought up before about York, who was an African-American on the uh, core of discovery, Louiswis and Clark's expedition. He was enslaved. He didn't volunteer to go on the discovery mission. He was owned by William Clark and his family. Um York received no pay. And when the other explorers got back from the journey, they were all rewarded money and about 350 acres of land. York got nothing. He wasn't even freed from his uh his bondage. Uh William Clark refused to free him and actually uh criticized him quite heavily for wanting to be freed and whipped him. So I think it's important I again applaud Jennifer for being on the cutting edge of these things and bringing these kinds of films uh to the public. Um, and I think representation is very important. If if we have a city of 7,000 and even if our uh African-American population is only 1%, that's 71 people. And those people deserve representation. Black History Month has been observed in this country for the last 50 years. It's the least we can do is to acknowledge that and acknowledge that black history is American history and

this country was built by people who were enslaved. So, um I want to thank the mayor for the proclamation on women's history month. I I believe that this council has never had three women on the council at one time in a long time. So, yay for us. Um, we've come a long way since I was a kid and I see we have a group of youth here. Are you all here for a class or Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. [snorts]

Um, so yes, women have made great strides in this country since since I was a child. My mother could not have a credit card in her own name. She couldn't have a bank account. Um, couldn't couldn't rent a a an apartment on her own. Um, we've made great strides, but at the same time, there seems to be a pendulum backlash trying to put women back in a box, trying to take away their right to vote. And these are the kinds of things that you need to pay attention to. Um, I was your age when I first my saw my first ever female police officer. She came into my civics class at Mount Tacoma High School in Tacoma, Washington. I'd never seen a female cop before and I was like, "Whoa, that that's that's that's a that's possible. That's something I could do." Took me 15 years to get around to it, but I did. And it was because of her. So, it is important that the young ladies and and the minority populations get representation and that we recognize that it it's takes all kinds to make the country great and everybody deserves to be recognized. Thank you,

Council Monto. Well, I'll take that segue on representation. Um Spencer, we want to be sure that um on the workg group for the north 40 that we have some representation for those with disabilities. Um okay, the tree board met last week and they're finalizing details for the arboritum at the Seaside Museum. There will be an Arbor Day celebration on Saturday, April 18th at 2 PM. Um, this Thursday, I believe February 25th, there's fascination tournament fundraiser at the Fascination.

Fascination is a game. You don't know about Fascination at Colia and Broadway. Oh my goodness. Anyway, it's a fundraiser for the community center and it's at 6 pm. I think you have to reserve as teams because there's only so many teams. Um, uh, they have space for only so many teams. Um, Travel Oregon has put out their I think it's every two years they put out uh, this survey. It's called the Travel Oregon resident sentiment survey. And um I received an email with it today. I filled it out. Um I would like to recommend that we please put that on the splash page of our uh city website because you want as many residents as possible taking this survey. It um a lot of questions on what do you think about tourism? Uh what do you think about the effect on your community, etc., etc., etc. Um, the the link to it is pretty long. I could not get a short link. It's on my Facebook page and I also reposted it on a bunch of group pages on Facebook. Um, but if we could please put that on um on the city website. The close date for it, I believe, is in March. So, it is a they're only going to be taking um input for a certain amount of time. Um and just to go back to um Jennifer's presentation on May 31st when we have the one book, one seaside live stream of George Teai uh his interview. Um that's also going

to be a uh a highlight for Seaside Library and Friends as we're going to be sponsoring um and providing um uh refreshments and having our annual membership meeting uh either before or after. So that we're making this a a community event and we're really looking forward to um providing uh books for people to read and um as much support um and uh we are uh we have redone uh some of the bookstore so hopefully people um will come in and buy more books because people giving the library books and then us selling used books It just feeds and it keeps coming in to make the library better. And we're we're um in our budget this year, we have um at a minimum of $7,000 already promised for programming for the library. Council Baker,

I talked about this a couple of meetings ago, but I want to do another PSA um for the this villages northwest organization that is trying to get a village started in Seaside. And um this is a an a grassroots organization that there are 11 of these villages already in the Portland area and one along the coast. They are community-based nonprofit grassroots organizations formed by caring neighbors to support aging in place. So they are designed for our senior community. 90% of older adults want to age in their home and communities. And they are about creating a village and starting a network of people that can help seniors age in place with things like errands and getting up on a ladder and and things like that. Um so there is going to be anformational session scheduled for April. If you are interested at all, please reach out to me. We are looking for people who are um wanting to kind of help get this um get this started and uh be you know founders of this organization. So I will continue to talk about this. I have a lot of information. Um but uh email me um email villages uh look at the website. It's villagesnorthwest.org or and there are are places that you can email on that that uh site as well to get more information. Um the second thing is I really appreciated the presentation at the last meeting from public works and Paul I have had many sleepless nights since

then. Um so I just I want to not let that fall. I want to keep discussing how we can support as a council the city in making progress and finding budget and prioritizing and getting some of this infrastructure um fixed and repaired in this city. I think it is critically important to everybody who lives here and everybody who visits here and I just want to see us keep this a priority as a council. Um, TLT, I'm wondering if you are going to give an update on that. Okay, so I'll skip that one. Uh, lastly, my coffee with a counselor is the first Saturday of every month. Uh, so mine is coming up on March 7th at uh 9:00 a.m. at Seaside Golf Course and they have been scheduled already and um so we can talk about courting a different date or time or have two on the same um day, but I have really appreciated those who have come out. I have gotten some really good feedback and information and questions and um so I'd love to see you on Saturday, March 7th at 9:00 at the golf course if you're interested. Thank you.

I u appreciate you guys all doing this and it's not like um individuals can only go to the counselor that is for their ward. That's right.

Yeah. So, if you want to go around and and uh talk to all the different counselors, uh that's the way to do it. And uh there's a coffee with the mayor, by the way, on on Tuesday, I think it's the 3 um at Seaside Coffee House, which is actually preceded by another counselor, uh Mr. Morrisy uh starts at 9:00. So you can hang around and kill two birds with one stone there. Um couple of uh well three of us actually were at the T Thompson Falls community meeting. There's a project that it's actually not a project yet and that was the confusion. Somebody came and thought it had already been figured out what they were going to do and they didn't like it. um North uh Mechanicum Watershed Council, North Coast Land Conservancy, and Oregon Fish and Wildlife are all coming together to just look at the Thompson Falls area. That's one part of Seaside I know very little about and I was I went just so I could see what was going on. And there are a lot of very interesting areas there. Water uh water features and um actually there's a lot of history in that area too. So that piqued my interest. I just caution people to make sure they know what things are going on and not jump to conclusions because it was very clear that um this is just the opening of an idea and to see what could be done in that area. Nobody has any project at all proposed. Um on the 12th um councelor Montter and

I spent the day in Salem advocating for um uh agency for a hopefully the state to provide some money to buy a building in Atoria. Uh it's called CASA Mariposa. And I just happened to do a little side lobbying for lodging tax while I was there. um they kept having to come find me because I wasn't with the group. I was holding them up a little bit. Um so we'll see how that goes. Uh this short session is is getting a little bit sidetracked with the transportation issue. Uh ODOT funding. Uh HP 4148-7 amendment 7 actually passed out of committee to the House floor with a due pass recommendation. uh if you remember I mentioned before it was uh changing from a 7030 split to a 6040 uh with 60% uh maximum going to cities 30% m uh minimum going to lodging um promotion. The amendment changed that to 50/50. Uh so a minimum 50% going to tourism promotion and a maximum 50% going to the city to use um as they will and like I said uh so now it goes to the the Senate uh revenue committee and hopefully it doesn't get hung up there again. Uh there is a bill that is uh of interest to us here on the council. HB4177 will clarify serial meeting rules when you're talking about um you know you text one person, they text somebody else or whatever. Um there's some clarification. It doesn't really uh change anything. It just makes sure people are aware we're aware what you

can and cannot do. And the uh other one that should help us somewhere down the road and help a lot of small cities is Senate Bill 1585. And this one seems to have strong bipartisan support. Will reduce matching fund requirements for cities under 20,000. So, and it's scaled. So, 20,000 pays a matching fund at a certain level. Uh 7500 is one of the other breaks. We're just under that. So, we're in a good place for that. But it's things like uh the water tank or or projects that um help us uh be able to get these monies without spending too much of our own. Um it's always good to have a match and you have some skin in the game, but a lot of small cities have real issues with trying to do that, so they can never apply. Uh that one hopefully will go through. So tonight um I've uh done a lot of reading and um Elellanena Roosevelt is actually somebody that uh is interesting to learn more about. She was uh probably the first and certainly one of the most uh outspoken noneremonial presidential spouses. and she has a lot of really interesting things to say. And this one is appropriate for every person everywhere uh to remember. You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. We're adjourned.