City Council - Regular Meeting

Mark is applying for a position on the planning commission. Tell us a little about yourself and why you'd like to do this. Well, my name is Mark Hogman and I've been in the community uh since 2004 and coming down here since the late '60s. And um I currently am the general manager of the Best Western Plus. And I have a wife and two kids living still at home and they're both over 20. Oh my gosh. Actually three, one under 20. So. Um you know, there's the normal stuff that everybody always kicks out, you know, kind of civic duty and all that stuff and while that's all good, I actually thought about it and I decided that I would write down this one statement because I thought it was genius. I would like to learn, know, and understand the specifics of planning and zoning in our community and apply that knowledge to ensure the regulations are clean, fair, and consistent. Then I drive by stuff and I think, what the heck is going on with that? Why can't we do something with that? So, that's what I have. How do you plan to learn? By reading and engaging. And listening. Have you been involved with the comp plan update? Been watching that?

[clears throat] The 2025 one or

working on right now, yeah. Not as much as I should. Good. I think that's true for a lot of people. There's a lot of information that I just read today that the council is uh looking at park regulations and getting all of those consistent uh or as consistent as they can be. I just I just heard something about that today. I don't know how long that's been in the works, but Just at the discussion level starting tonight. Very new. Gotcha. Well, not all of it is very new. Have you had the opportunity to attend any of the planning commission meetings? I have. I attended two and they um they are run very well. Uh there's not a lot of um time wasting. Uh everything seems to be important and on point and uh relevant. So, I was impressed by that. Mark, what are some of the things that uh you think you'd be adding value to with the planning committee? Perspective. Uh as a 22-year-old, I probably would have less perspective, but I'm far beyond that. Uh I've held a lot of positions in a lot of different uh companies and lived a lot of different places and you know, I think that with uh good planning, you know, in your infrastructure and stuff like that, you uh

you save money in the long run, you know, doing it right. So, a lot of projects, a lot of planning that come through management and I've been in management since I was 24, so um I think that experience and perspective are the are the biggest things. So, how would you face something with uh you know, somebody brought something and had different differenting different views. I thought that was difficult to get out. Uh different views from other people on the board. And that happens all the time. Yeah. Absolutely.

Everybody has a different perspective. But I think what it comes down to is uh cost and common sense. Their perspective, uh while valuable, uh because it can lead you down a different path and you have to be open to that. Their perspective might be better than another one's. Uh but through brainstorming and majority rules and consensus and discussion, usually there's one clear winner everybody should follow. And And they don't, then you have to kind of wrangle that person in or talk to them on to the on the side or, you know, especially if they're really passionate about something that doesn't make any sense. Planning Commission is a big time commitment both at the meetings, which run long sometimes, but also all the study you need to do to prepare. Do you have the time to to put in to commit to it? I believe I do. Uh If I don't, I'm open to stepping down. I mean, I I'm committed enough to volunteer and be here. I am committed enough to uh make the commitment as far as you know, if it's uh I assume they meet Well, they meet once a month. And I assume that it's no more than, you know, a total of 8 hours of commitment both with the studying and the um the meeting itself. And if that's the case, then I have 8 hours. If it's 40, probably better to get a second job and get paid for it. Much of what the Planning Commission has to deal with are the uh state planning uh goals and also the the um the

state laws and rules of land use and land use planning. And um uh I think one of the challenges is that it's often that those things uh the way the state does it is kind of a one-size-fits-all. Well, I like the beaches. Yeah. All right, I got you. You and I have dealt with those. Um and so um have you thought about uh when things don't make sense, but it's a requirement from the state law perspective and the residents don't like what's coming down? Well, you should explain that in a way that people can understand [cough] as opposed to just blaming the state. Uh while it is one-size-fits-all, again, you have to nobody's going to be happy if you can't do anything. Uh but I I do believe that if you talk even if you talk to them the best way you can and explain it the best way you can, there's still maybe some grumbling, but there's there's nothing they can do about it. There's not a lot you can do about it except take it back to the state. Unless you have a different perspective, I'm open to hearing it. Practice with the group. The Planning Commission has very specific rules about ex parte contact and it's it's very different than the council in the sense that we're supposed to go out there and get feedback and speak to people involved in things and they're prohibited from doing that. So, definitely, if you do get chosen, read up on that. I'm sure they have an orientation now, right, that goes over that? I'm sure Jeff goes over that, yeah. I'll show you the ropes.

The The thing that's kind of different about Well, not kind of, it's very different is that there's a set of rules that you are working from. All the zoning, the comp plan that we're creating, the state laws that come down actually have to get incorporated into our uh regulations. So, anything that's new you're actually going to come across anyway uh because it needs to be started at your level and then it may come to the council if it needs to. Uh particularly if it's some kind of new ordinance like when um ADUs were allowed basically everywhere. So, um again, by state law. Now, it works both ways. Sometimes it's something that really helps us like when we created the affordable housing development. That was based on a state law that allowed us to to uh do something on something was actually zoned industrial land and we were able to put um affordable housing there because of that law change. And so, um our community development director, Jeff, will do a really good job of keeping you up to date on that kind of stuff. Um you do have to follow the rules maybe more than we do. We can have more opinions, but any decision you make needs to really be based on the law and the zoning and all those things. So, uh Jeff will help you understand that and then you have the discussion to see if there's something anybody's missing. So, it's a it's a great place to get involved. Any questions for us? You've been around long enough, you've seen the Planning Commission at work. Um because you've been around so long, you probably remember that they used to do a whole bunch of uh vacation rental uh rules. Oh, yeah. That's no longer the

case um other than some very specific circumstances because we took that out of the Planning Commission realm as simply a ordinance now. A business operation. So,

business licenses. Well, it always was business license, but we we changed it so it's it's not a land use per se anymore. Um so, I think that's pretty good. uh you don't you don't or won't see those things if you're appointed to the Planning Commission. Okay? I don't have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your meeting. Feel free to stick around. Or you can go home and uh fast forward through Zoom. Next up, discussion of um creating some park regulations and Spencer There he is. There he is. Spencer's going to lead us through this. One of many discussions for tonight. Uh Um so, this is something that's uh been on my mind for a while and that is city doesn't have an ordinance, it never has, about park regulations. Uh maybe it's that we've never needed one. Um but uh it does present some challenges where we have any hard rules on signs. Um I would say they're more suggestions cuz right now our police couldn't enforce anything because there is no law backing up whatever rules in place. Uh obviously, they can um refer to anything uh in state law, but purpose of this isn't really necessarily about um police enforcement, it's more about having enforceable rules for our parks. So, going to walk you through um kind of the basics and then um the purpose here is to get some general

direction on some key decisions and then that'll be the basis for an ordinance, take it to the Parks Committee, have them review it, discuss it, and have them give you a recommendation to get a Parks Committee recommendation, a staff recommendation, and then ultimately the City Council can um pass these rules. But there are some common areas, um maybe about 10 things that are kind of different in every city. Every city handles them differently. And so, I think that's where I wanted to start before going straight to the Parks Committee. Do you have a general sense of what you want to do on some of these questions? So, um let me kind of walk through. So, as discussed, uh current situation, there's no Yeah, see right here. See that one right there? I have to keep turning around. So, no no no formal parks ordinance has been adopted. The rules exist informally or through signage. There's no enforcement mechanism. So, we have limited ability to enforce any park rules, um inconsistent expectations across parks, and no clear citywide standards. So, uh we want to Well, my proposal is I just drew something on there. Uh uh want to establish baseline rules for all parks. Uh they would be enforceable standards and then allow park-specific rules uh based on their needs. So, similar to what we've been doing with uh commissions, committees, and um or boards. I know I missed one. Uh have an overlying ordinance for all and then where there are specifics, where there's a specific amenity or a need to have uh a different rule for that park, we would sign it differently. But as an example, if we have hours

uh for a park, hours when it's open, that gives the police department a better idea, okay, all parks are generally open from this time to this time. Now, there may be an exception for a specific park for a specific reason, but they don't have to pull out a a book and check every single um park. There's some generally understood rules. Um I'm creating you something with pencil and pen. Okay. So, uh let me go back. So, here are the key topics that for the discussion tonight. We'll kind of tackle them one by one. Any direction. So, the first one are park hours and parking. So, the proposed structure right now uh staff uh sorry, I should say we took this to all the department heads and got all of their feedback and had some lively discussion about some of these topics and went around a little bit, but this is kind of where we settled. So, the generally speaking the park hours would be from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. So, this would still allow some early morning users. We're not going to cite someone at 5:30 who's jogging in a park or something like that. Um Uh generally the parking lots for a park would follow the hours of the park. So, as an example, if we say Cartwright Park is open from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., those would be the only hours that you could park at Cartwright Park. Um and that would be again s- generally to all parks unless we identify some certain parks that would be different. So, one of the things that as staff we discussed is um there may be a different expectation of hours if you go immediately downtown

or like uh Avenue 12 parking lot where someone depending on the hours and their clamming and things like that, is there a different level of um expected hours that someone should be able to park there. So, I think there's three things to consider. One is this would be the general rec- recommendation for most parks. Two, there may be some specific parks um that we identify that have different hours. Is the parking at the Cove different than this? Uh is the parking at the Estuary different? We can tackle those and have the parks committee give a specific recommendation of which parks should be different. The third thing I'd say is there may appear to be some overlap, but I'm trying to make a distinction between parking at a park and um the city's parking ordinance. So, we have a parking ordinance on public streets. Um now, I don't know like I think the Estuary parking lot we can make an argument that is a park with a parking lot. The Cove maybe seems a little bit different, and so that's one of the things we want to look is we want to make it clear which ordinance we're enforcing at different locations. And the easiest thing to do will make sure that there isn't a conflict between those. But um we could see that some of our beach access points may warrant different hours. And so, again, we're not trying to necessarily get into the specifics of each one. Um but what are what are your feelings on the 5:00 to 11:00 and having the parking lots follow the park hours and then flexibility for other sites? I'm all for the parking lots following the park hours. Um there's already parking restrictions, I think, till I want to say 10:00 at the Cove. My concern about letting it go till 11:00 is I do believe we have a noise ordinance

that uh talks about 10:00. Many of our parks are in neighborhoods, and um I would hate to see that we say the park is open from 5:00 to 11:00 and we have a really noisy party or uh event going on in that park that is upsetting to the neighborhood. So, I'm thinking you you need to take into consideration our noise ordinances as well. Yeah, I think noise ordinances are sometimes difficult to enforce because how do you determine what's reasonable or not? But um the way the approach I would take on that would be to have park specific rules on maybe the types of activities after certain hour. Cuz I think what you wouldn't want to prohibit is someone walking their dog between 10:00 and 11:00. Uh now, someone having a full-on family reunion between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. at, you know, in a park with lots of noise, you know, that's different. So, I think we'd try to address that maybe through park specific rules on the activities, but not necessarily the hour. So, I think cuz I think what we'd say is um activities that don't interfere with the neighborhood, we're probably not

[cough]

Um but we want to respect the neighborhood at the same time. Now, that being said, I'll tell you for I'll speak for Chief before he jumps up and says something. Um they're not going to be patrolling looking for people at 11:01 in parks to write them a citation. Generally, they're going to respond when there's an incident or a complaint in a park, and this gives us a little bit of teeth to say, "Hey, you're here after hours." But I don't think they're patrolling for people extending their stay in the park. Am I wrong on that? It's about behavior. So, how many parks do we have? Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you. I I was going to say something like 17. So, There are some Yeah, depends on what you include.

They'll be listed in the ordinance. At the Mill Pond's event, they handed out an actual sheet that had every park in the city, and I was surprised by some of the parks they called a park. Little pocket parks they're calling a park. I don't know if she had Carriage Park. There's a few that are called remnant pieces. They're called parks. One uh I don't care how it gets settled, but basically Cartwright Park actually has the old admin building, the old hospital there. Some of the neighbors use that parking lot as overflow for their houses right in that local area. And they park overnight, so it might be something for the parks committee to decide on. When you mentioned the list of parks, what I would I would see not putting that in the ordinance, but having an accompanying resolution. Yeah. Um so that these are the general rules, but if we want to get park specific, uh that way it's easier to amend and change, and especially as we make Get more specific.

specific and but also specific exceptions to parks and there will be needs to oh, we need to add this rule or take this one away. Those will come up. So, do that by resolution, but keep the ordinance as the kind of basis for it. I'm not I the direction I agree with. I'm just trying to get a picture in my head like without knowing exactly what parks we're talking about. I I I I I I mean, I think most likely these will be used on our big ones like going through them. Broadway Park, Cartwright Park, um Goodman. Goodman, that's the one I was going to say. I can't think of that. Um Quat Tab Park, um those are the kind of the main what I would say park parks. Are there any There's some other ones like Downing that's more like a plaza than a park. And and that one would not be subject to being closed at 11:00 at night because that's downtown and you walk through that to get from the parking lot.

of the businesses still open, so exactly. Exactly. I would I would want to see that every park has a sign that gives you the particulars for that park. Certainly, if there's an expectation of uh what rules you want people to follow. But that's kind of unique unto itself because quite often it's that's the event place. Yeah. Where events are going to happen, so um but I don't know if we want to get into all these specific deals and details like we Yeah, I think the purpose of this is what we want to

I I think the proposal right now as a general starting point is 5:00 to 11:00. Is that too early, too late? Yeah. I think [clears throat] it's reasonable except for some exceptions. Yeah. Uh alcohol and smoking. So, the proposed approach, no open containers of alcohol in parks. Exception would be granted for a permitted event, so meaning permitted through the city. Um so, with our approval process, um and then uh no smoking, vaping, or marijuana use in parks. That seems to be pretty standard for many cities, but it is something where they vary from city to city to s- to a certain degree. So, this is a great time to interject a question I received on Facebook regarding ORS 430.402 prohibits on local governments as to crimes involving use of alcohol, cannabis, and drugs. Have you guys looked at this yet? Not that specific code. It Basically, from what I'm understanding is it says we can't enforce certain things on public intoxication. Maybe the Chief could chime in on this, or maybe we just circle back to this later.

That may be more related to like um the state law on public drinking or public intoxication cuz there's some state laws already about that, isn't there? Or an open alcoholic container in public. exception or something for that. Like Cayden Beach, I believe you can have open containers down there, but we have an ordinance that doesn't allow for it within the city limits. Yeah, we have that already. I I think okay, that's that's um for sure we want to look at. I will say when I looked at many of the other cities, uh um um that was a common um inclusion. This specifically the basis for this or it's a starting point I'd say it was the Astoria code because it seemed to be on recommendation for them working well for them. There's a little bit of history behind this. Well, first of all, pot is illegal. You can't smoke pot in public anyway. That's a state law. But there's a little bit of history about the smoking and this was before vaping was a thing and that is that the Clatsop County Health Department went to all of the cities and were trying to get all of the cities to ban smoking in their public parks and there was a pretty big anti going along with that because people started talking about Broadway Park. That's where the school games are etc. And where are you going to give people someplace to smoke to leave the game and smoke etc. etc. So So there is some history to all that and I'm I'm not saying yay or nay on either side. We just need to be aware of that history that it was tried here and the public was against that restriction. I generally think that probably

I don't know how long ago that was but I think the public opinions on smoking public is probably evolved over time. And and this is this is a starting approach and this is where I think general feedback I think there'll [snorts] be more dialogue with Parks Committee and hopefully with the council. But if there is a general feeling I would like to start. I think that's kind of what we're looking for. If there's more that you want us to look into thoroughly with [clears throat and cough] the ordinance together, we can certainly look at that. And whatever, you know, we can't go against state law so make sure we whatever we're saying is okay. The way I understand this ORS 430.402 is I haven't fully dug in but it seems like you can be drunk at a park. Maybe you can't. Maybe we can enforce you're not allowed to drink in a park but you can't say someone can't be intoxicated in a park. Yeah, I think this is just you can't have an open container. Yeah. So drink at your own place or drink somewhere else and stumble into the park, you're fine. Don't bring it in. Right. But I think I would say as I go to other parks in the cities all over the state, I mean I think it's a a common rule. I wouldn't say every city has that rule but it's common enough that you see it. Well, and that would mean that if somebody rented one of the picnic areas for a family event, they couldn't bring alcohol to it. Yeah. I think the the exception there for the permitted events would be this is a little bit different cuz it's cuz it's in the on the beach but you know, we have a beer gardens like that. What's that? The park does very and that's it that's the example of we would allow it for permitted events and there's a process we go through. There's a process they go through to get state approval anyways and so there's some checks in there but again this is just a starting place so what's the kind

of general feedback? I'd check out, you know, versus state law but make sure that we're okay. I'm thinking about the question about having a renting the park for a event, a family gathering, a reunion or something and us saying no alcohol at that. It seems restrictive to me so I'm not I'm agreeing with general but I think there might be some maybe exceptions are more than just permitted events, I guess. I think we could probably look and see what those are. Off the off the top of my head I think the permitted events probably give us a method to have an exception. It would be tough to have an exception say for a pavilion rental because you have one family here drinking and one family in a lawn chair outside the pavilion not drinking so but we can certainly look at what options are if there is more of a kind of a middle ground option. You could even possibly even say certain types of alcohol not other types or something like that. Or or I guess I'd Have the officers testing or something. I I guess the restrictiveness I guess is where I'm headed. So Seltzer Park, is that a park? Is that on your list? A lot of people they have a glass of wine and look out at the cove in Seltzer Park. I don't know that we'd want to restrict that. So I'm just Chief, do you um Do we how often or do we Do we have kind of issues of say public intoxication issues that that you guys are needing to respond to? Yeah. So it may be one of those things where you start with a

more relaxed approach and if it becomes a problem then we create the rule rather than jumping to a rule that other cities have adopted but we haven't necessarily seen a need for it yet. That's my Well, you can always regulate bad behavior as opposed to saying no alcohol and I I don't think you have to say there's alcohol permitted but [clears throat] maybe you just need to be vague and regulate. I think the the the the current criminal code we have would likely address that with um What's the citation you'd give? Disorderly conduct or something like that. If if someone were in the park and intoxicated and creating issues, there's probably other things other than this rule. But would somebody with a glass of wine be considered having an open container? If there's a prohibition on it, yeah. Well, if there is already, right? Right now I believe the code allows in the pavilion in the covered area of the park. So Really? I believe so. Well, I would say we'll have to check the alcohol. We don't have a pavilion section of our park code because we don't have a park code but in the alcohol ordinance we can check and see if there is an exception in there. All we have is a practice. Make sure that we're we're okay with our own laws as well. So I'm getting the sense the approach would be take a less restrictive and see if it needs to be changed later. That's what I would be open to. The only thing I'd say is just remember that you know, like a pavilion there's there's a group there but there's kids all over the rest of the place. What about we can't talk alcohol? What about the smoking, vaping, marijuana I guess? I guess marijuana is already part of that is just kind of some of this is also you put it in the code because it becomes part of your communication to the public and whatnot.

like that's a little bit different just because it affects other people directly as far as breathing it so I think I don't know if you make those two different things or not but it seems that's a little different to me. Not to backtrack but Cannon Beach has an open container law that allows you to walk around and drink wherever in town. I'm not advocating that but I've it's a different city than us but I've never seen that really be a big issue. I don't know that they have issues with that so I I don't know. I just don't know how restrictive you need to be for people to behave or not. It's a good question. Yeah, but and your point about looking at the behavior is yeah, I think that's I think sometimes my guess would be when behavior gets difficult to regulate and there's an underlying problem is when you see cities go to well, this is easier to enforce As far as smoking and vaping there almost need to be like a designated area if you were to allow that because you can't just allow it everywhere if it's going to affect other people.

what was discussed those years ago. You know, where are you going to have a designated area and maybe that's the way you deal with it. Is that kind of a preference leaning would be designated area? I mean it could just well Maybe only in some parks. I don't think it needs to be everywhere. So maybe the code would generally prohibit smoking unless a specific place is identified in specific parks or something like that. Only in designated areas. Or perhaps parking lot is okay to smoke. Not the park though. I think we need to look at the

you have to walk through the parking lot. The other thing we I think I would say is a let's say Broadway Park as an example, the sidewalk along Broadway wouldn't be considered part of the park so you'd always have that option of going to outside of the park to smoke or vape or whatever. Okay, I think we have some good general direction there. Dogs, Roseburg dogs must be on a leash in parks. Off leash only in designated areas and then specifically making mention that the beach is regulated separately. So we already have the our beach ordinance that covers a lot of those things and we don't necessarily want to have some crossover there so And I'm thinking you want to say animals because I mean people can bring cats, they can bring birds, they can bring pigs, they can bring snakes, they can you know, so I'm I'm looking at animals and also making sure that we designate animals that are not service animals. Or, you know, Sure. Yeah. We need

Yeah, I think our uh We need to make sure we have our ADA Yes. Whatever the ADA code, I think we'd want to have that exception. That makes sense. Um on the other animals, I think I would go back to what we're talking about with maybe some of the other things. That is, is it a problem or not? I haven't seen cats on leashes. We could require that or birds on leashes. Um but maybe if it becomes a problem, snakes on leashes. I know. I know. They are on leashes. But if Dogs are fine. The But mentioning uh again, Cart- Cart- right, cuz that's the one I'm most familiar with. I know I think I figured out there's at least three of my neighbors take their dogs down to Cart- right. And so they And they They don't let them off leash right where everybody is, but over against uh you know, kind of away from everybody and throw the ball and let them chase it. They So it's the same issue about uh is that going to be a designated area type

So I think that's where we get into the details. Uh I think the ordinance would allow for it on a park-by-park basis. I think first and foremost, if we had a dog park, that's clearly an area for it. Then the question would be, do we want to designate certain areas of parks to be off-leash allowed um with certain restrictions, like must be under the control of the owner or something like that. Yeah, you do need to talk about the the animals need to be under the control, no matter what animal.

So I will say the general consensus from our department heads was generally, if you're in a park, dogs should be on a leash. I agree. I agree. I agree with that completely. Yeah. And cuz there's something that I was looking through and it not to get down to details, but it said under control 10.7 defined to mean a dog responds to verbal or physical commands and remains within sight of the handler. You know, that doesn't It doesn't work with a 3-year-old. It doesn't work with a dog. Any number of things can come up and so I say the dogs have to be on a leash otherwise, uh unless they're in a controlled dog park area. I would agree with you. Well, I think if we keep off-leash only designated areas, if we want to designate those areas, it gives us the flexibility to do that on a park-by-park. As long as there's a Well, if there's a fence, it has to be fenced in. Well, I think that's what you guys would decide if the request comes in for Cart- right Park, uh we want to have the back half to be able to throw the balls for our dogs. The default is no. The unless the city goes in and builds a dog park or unless the council changes their minds and says, "Yeah, it's fine." It needs to be on a on a park-by-park basis for sure. You could have a a general rule, but like a Cart- right Park is a big park, so maybe that's a place where I don't know, that could be approved, but it's tough. Maybe you can see if there's there's no one else in the park. But the parks community Um that's another one. Just make sure

[clears throat]

it doesn't uh is not in conflict with any rights with the laws we already have. Right. Private rentals. Okay, so we would allow for reservations of rental of park spaces. Um we wouldn't necessarily handle this in the parks ordinance. We would come up with a different policy, but the ordinance itself would allow for it. The example would be someone wants to rent a pavilion for a family get-together or or something along those lines. Um those are available to be rented. I'm not saying we want to put that program together. The ordinance just allows that to happen if we choose to start a program like that. What's the current policy with that? I don't think it's first come, first serve. Yeah, I think it's just first come, first serve. Who would manage that if we did allow that?

That's that's one of the issues why I'm not necessarily proposing it at this time. We would have to have a reservation system and stuff like that. And there there's some work that goes along into that, so I would only propose it if we think it's needed. Um but it's just as far as the ordinance goes, it allows it if and when the city wants to put that program together. And you have to look at um the intricacies that go into it, such as we have at Chisholm and at the library. Uh we got into trouble some years ago because somebody who wanted to have a clothing meeting uh was renting the library and we ended up getting sued. Go back and look at that lawsuit. And um we had to look at everything we were doing again. So having it first come, first serve is a Sure. you know. Um I think the the one exception is uh outside I think keeping the first come, first serve would be what we would do for now, with the exception of if someone is planning an event. So, um if Sun Empire or the school district wants to do an event at Broadway Park and some of that uses the part that we kind of control to the east end of the park and they want to reserve it for whatever they're doing, a school thing or function or something like that, um that we would we would currently allow for private use, but through the event permitting process, not through a general park reservation process. I guess I'd like the residents to be able to use the parks. They'd like to be able to use them. If we don't need reservation system right now, great. Um but to allow that

you say use the parks, that could be interpreted as they need they want to use it when they want to use it, they want to be able to plan ahead, so they want to be able to reserve it, or everyone should have access to it, so first come, first serve. Yeah. Um I I don't know what's broken, I guess is what how I would answer you. So I'd love to know like what would they like? What is it working the way that it is right now, or Is there Is there a desire reservation system? And maybe that is only at one park. Maybe it is just Broadway Park and we, you know, could handle that kind of reservation.

that would be a good question or a good assignment for the parks committee to look at. Um but again, I think this is just an ordinance that allows it to happen if and when we want to put it in place. And you don't want to make it restrictive. I mean, one that's Broadway Park has that pavilion. That's one thing that pops up to me, comes to mind. Rotary Park. But we're going to do that through the chamber, or excuse me, the convention center. Either way, it would be the same thing. It's do you want to allow it for private use? So That kind of changes Well, I would just think the convention center potentially could manage that.

Exactly. Probably better managed. Because it And it's a different kind of a venue. Yeah. Because it is a venue. Yeah, it is a Yeah, I think there there's a process already underway with our staff to kind of oversee how we do our event permitting and stuff like that. So I think some of those things will be kind of looked at then. Uh commercial activity. So proposed approach, no commercial activity in parks is the default, and then it would only be allowed through permitted events and city agreements. [clears throat]

So this would be um so someone wants to put on a yoga class that they charge people for it, they're going to hold it in a city park, this would not allow for that or for I mean, we already have a food cart prohibition, but if it was something like that or a vendor popping up in a park to do things, we would allow it for events and if we had an agreement. So an agreement would be um it could be like a permitted event that's a type of agreement or um uh if there is we have an agreement for concessions at the North 40 or something like that, we would have some agreements in place and things like that. But it would be kind of under the city's control rather than a people can do what go out and do what they want. If we wanted to have, let's say, recreational classes in the park, that could be allowed. We would just want them to come and make a proposal. If the city council thinks that's a great program, we put an agreement together that limits our liability and gives them certain rules to go under, but it wouldn't just be a go in and do whatever you want. Like that's kind of the intent behind it. Yay, nay, good, bad, ugly? Again, we don't want to restrict people's ability to use the park. So Fires and fireworks. Uh so we would say no fireworks in parks unless it's a permitted event. So that would be to be clear, so we're talking about other things tonight, any fireworks, not just illegal fireworks. Uh no fires, so no wood fires, no charcoal, no fire pits. That was specifically requested by the fire department. But we would allow for portable propane cooking devices. So bring your stove in and and cook at a picnic table or something like that. And this would be allowed cuz that's a safer This wouldn't affect any of the uh fire pits, I guess, or the the

cooking facilities that we have in the little pavilion. So we've talked about that and some of them have been removed, and I think Yeah. um that's something we were here to we talked about circling back on. I think we would allow it where they already exist, but I think there are uh we wanted to gauge how much they were actually being used, and I think more and more people are generally bringing in their stuff in anyway. Yeah. The The charcoal pits I've seen in parks just throughout my career are usually rusted out, and I wouldn't put food I want to eat on it. No. So, but some people do use them, so uh but we weren't sure how many we actually had left of those, and so

They could build a fire for Uh yeah, if we have any left, I'm sure they could be removed. Oh. I'm sure they're not in very good shape. Any other thoughts on fireworks? Okay. Oh. One other thing that's not on here is the the use of skateboards, bicycles, e-bikes, other things through the park. Is Are you going to Are you thinking of any kind of statements about that? Um No, uh not specifically, and I think maybe one of the things that we can do is make sure there's some wording in there so that we have the ability to add just general park rules to a specific park when there are issues to arise, but kind of going from that approach of generally let's leave it much less restrictive, and then um you know, fine-tune it a little bit more if the need arises, but I'm not aware of any problem areas that we've had. Are you, Chief? So, like if we have paths through parks generally, I think we would want people to be able to skateboard, rollerblade through there. Um but if there is

reasonable speed Most of them don't have speedometers on their skateboards, but yes. Um but if there are become problem areas, then we kind of address those on a case-by-case or location-by-location. So, as far as specific park rules, cuz obviously there's going to have to be specifics, is that just going to be the parks committee that's going to go through each park and then propose something? I think I think there's there's a there's a twofold approach. One is let's get their um thoughts on the overall ordinance, and then let's get [clears throat] them working uh with that in place for all parks, what are the exceptions, and what are the park-specific rules, and have them do the work to come back with a recommendation for you to consider. And some of that may likely be what's already in practice. We already have signage up there, we just not signage that we can enforce. I would just encourage them to not be restrictive and unless it's necessary. And so Well, I think

instead of coming up with a long list of rules that aren't really needed, maybe just focus on the problem areas as opposed to Ultimately, anything they provide will be a recommendation, and you as a council will decide what the final rules That's true. That saves them a lot of time if they know that's our That's the I guess I that's easy to pass along that the the philosophy of this council is keep it less restrictive, and only go more restrictive when there's a discerned problem.

We can change our mind later and add something if it becomes an issue. Yeah. That's fair. Okay, so process moving forward, we've got your feedback. I'll draft a formal ordinance ordinances. We'll send that to the committee, and then we'll return for your adoption, and then we'll have to that have have them start to work on um park-specific exceptions. Okay. Let's wrap up. We're adjourned.

I call the Seaside City Council meeting to order. [snorts]

Please rise for the the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. City Recorder, please call the roll. Thank you. Councilor Ainsborough. Here. Councilor Beneker. Here. Council President Morrissey. Here. Mayor Wright. Here. Mayor Harmony Barrington. Here. And Councilor Montero. Present. You. Okay. This is one of my favorite meetings of the year. Uh [snorts] may I have a motion for approval of the agenda? Please note that we send out a updated agenda. Item 13A should say it's Ward 3, not Ward 4. It was revised this morning.

Mhm. So moved. Second. Council President Morrissey and Councilor Beneker. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, let's go down here to the floor. Each year, the If I Were Mayor contest, come stand right here. And we have two more. Oh, they're up front. Come up Come on up here. Come on and join me. Uh we have the Oregon Mayor If I Were Mayor contest. It's put on by the Oregon Mayors Association. It gives us the opportunity to hear the dreams and ideas of the next generation. This year, there were 61 entries, the most we've ever had. And they were from the cities represented in the fourth grade classes at Pacific Ridge. Gearhart and Cannon Beach have already selected their winners, and they submitted their winners to the state contest. I have submitted our winner to the state contest as well. Um I want to offer a big thank you to Ruth Swenson of the Seaside's Hillcrest Inn, because she helps arrange all the prizes. She got a prize a gift from Sea Star Gelato and Phillips Candies for everybody that submitted a uh a poster. And then she's also provided the cash prize that you guys get tonight. Fourth grade classes at Pacific Ridge inspired us by showing how much our young people care about their communities and how thoughtfully they imagine a better future for all of us.

Uh those uh that helped me judge had a tough decision on which posters to select for first, second, and third place. There were a whole lot of interesting ideas. There were some common themes. And maybe we should have had this um 2 weeks ago when we had the celebration for Arbor Day and Tree City, because a lot of them had to do with trees. I have too many pieces of paper here. So, tonight, we're proud to honor the three students. And for third place, Audrey Daniels from Miss Betsy's class. She gets a $20 prize. Her main themes were no graffiti in the parks. Make more homes. Councilors, we're trying to do that, right? And trees. If you cut one, plant one. Okay? SO, AUDREY.

[applause] HERE IS YOUR PRIZE. Do you want to say anything? I want to say that there there I didn't have that big of like a choice cuz I was thinking and I was just like what would be something that would speak out to the mayor. And I was like I'm just going to do what I really want. So, yeah.

Okay, all right. A future mayor candidate there, right? For second place, we have Dean Armstrong, also from Miss Mahoney's class. Here's your cash prize of $30. What Dean said his main things were he wants to have food trucks. And he also said trees, if you cut one, you got to add one. And he thought that the community center should be free for military and first responders. So, we can certainly take those under consideration. Would you like to say anything? I had I thought of something, but I couldn't think of anything. So, I asked my dad and he was like definitely definitely do food trucks. So, I definitely I so I did that.

[laughter] And my dad wants the community center for free. So, yeah, so that too. [laughter] Okay, [clears throat] Dad, watch out. It just so happens that [applause]

All right, I really good copy here, yes. And then our first place, you've been introduced to Harmony Barrington already. She's from Miss Simonson's class. She gets a prize of $50. There you go. And she is entered into the statewide contest. First place there, I believe is $500. Ooh. So, her ideas were and this is this is a great idea. Community swap centers. Place where you can bring something you don't need anymore and maybe pick up something you you need that's there. A lot of a lot of the kids said they want to add more beach cleanups. We do a great job already, but we could certainly do better. And she wants to promote a homeless shelter. Which obviously is another great idea. So, well, Harmony, would you like to say anything else? I didn't really have a choice, but I mean I did, but I didn't really I couldn't really think of anything, so I picked those three. Well, they were three great ideas. Give them all a big hand.

[applause] And parents and relatives, you want to come up and take any pictures, feel free to come on up. Why don't you come gather around here? Come come over here. Just face that direction. Let everybody get a picture. Okay. Well, like I I told you earlier, feel free to stick around if you want. I imagine if you go home, you might have homework or something to do. [laughter]

You'll have some very interesting things going on here tonight, but thank you all very much for bringing everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So, I have to ask, are we maybe going to post their posters on our website on our I think that would be a great idea if we posted them on the website.

[clears throat]

Like I said, one of my favorite meetings of the year. We have two proclamations tonight. First up is older Americans month and I apologize already to Chris for not inviting somebody from her favorite agency that she's going to talk about later. The proclamation is older Americans month. Thank you, Mayor. Whereas on this 63rd anniversary of Older Americans Month, we honor our nation's senior citizens whose lifetimes of hard work, devotion to family, and commitment to community have laid the foundation for the country we are today. We have a responsibility to ensure our nation's seniors can age with dignity and financial security. And whereas President John F. Kennedy's first proclamation for Older Americans came at a time when many seniors lived in poverty and lacked health insurance. In response, the nation created Medicare and strengthened Social Security lifting many seniors out of poverty. Today, honoring seniors means keeping the promise that these essential programs will continue to support them in retirement. And we have a strong commitment to protect these and other vital lifelines. And whereas Older Americans should be able to live, work, and participate in their communities with dignity. This growing population enriches our community with their strength, wisdom, and diverse life experiences. And now therefore, I Steve Wright, Mayor of the City of Seaside in the State of Oregon, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as Older Americans Month. I call upon all of us to celebrate older adults for their contributions, support

their independence, and recognize their unparalleled value to our city. Thank you, Counselor. I like the way it says older, not old. [laughter]

Our other proclamation night is Children's Mental Health Awareness Week. Miss Bangs. Come on forward. Introduce yourself. Tell us why this is important to you. Thank you so much for having me today. My name is Shaylin Bangs and I am Miss Clatsop County's Teen 2026. According to Mental Health America, one in six kids experience mental health concerns. However, 70% of those children do not receive adequate care. And in rural communities like ours, access to care is even more limited. Discussing this topic frequently increases the likelihood that we reduce the stigma surrounding pediatric mental health and also increases the likelihood that we have more access within our communities. Thank you so so much for having me today as pediatric mental health and access to care is very important to our community's children. Thank you. I've asked Council President Morrissey to read the proclamation. Whereas addressing the complex mental health needs of children, youth, and families today is fundamental to the future of Seaside. And whereas mental health, also known as emotional or behavioral health, is a vital part of every child's medical health and development. It affects how individuals think, feel, and act. All children and teens have periods of anger, frustration, and sadness. However, for some kids these feelings can reach a tipping point, interfere with everyday life. And whereas families need to know about the the availability of free, accessible, and inclusive child and youth mental health services and how access to them to help create healthy, thriving, and connected communities that support personal growth and well-being. And whereas providing early intervention and treatment for child and youth mental health is essential, all children, youth, and their families in need of

mental health supports must have access to services when and where they need them. And whereas for kids who struggle with their mental health, talking to someone and getting extra support or help can make a big difference. And whereas mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real, and but most importantly, they are treatable and often preventable. And whereas it is appropriate that a week should be set apart each year for the direction of our thoughts toward our children's mental health and well-being. Now therefore, Steve Wright, the Mayor of the City of Seaside in the State of Oregon, do hereby proclaim the week of May 3rd through 9th, 2026 as Children's Mental Health Awareness Week. In Seaside, it invites all community members to join in this local observance of Children's Mental Health Awareness Week by recognizing the value of our children's well-being. Thank you, Counselor. Thank you.

Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. Thank you. 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 public hearing or public comment. Individuals wishing to speak should complete a public comment registration card. They're over there on that table by the door. And submit it to the city recorder, Kim, before being called. This time is 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 is allotted 3 minutes. We had one uh request earlier from John Bilsky. John here? I don't see him. We have uh Roger Whitaker. Roger? Are you You're from Seaside? Pardon me?

You live in Seaside? I'm just going to give you that information.

Okay. Stand right up to the mic. I live on 910 Ocean Way here in Seaside. And I've come to a kind of a slow boil on this safety of Ocean Way and even First Street. I know it's a 25-mph speed limit. The sign is poorly aligned. And you can't even see it when people turn from the south. It's cockeyed in the wind. I'm uh I've watched a plumber turn the corner from the south. He turned the corner fast and then accelerated. Before I could turn around, he was already parked in front of us. There's no excuse for any be anybody being that in a big hurry. And I object to it. It's not safe. There's other car people in cars driving it fast, too, both directions. There's a lot I'd say a third of the cars on Ocean Way are above the speed limit. Probably First Street, too. There are four kids that live on Ocean Way Street. It's not safe. They have a poor attitude. And I just hope that some action that when the sign gets up, maybe a two signs one at each end. And maybe you need to consider speed bumps. I don't like speed bumps, but I don't like fast driving either. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our uh city manager as well as the police chief have heard your comments and um they'll look into it. Um Sheamus But May from Seaside.

I wanted to put input in on a couple of things tonight. Uh one was the earlier discussion on potential uh park regulations. Uh specifically having to do with the section about keeping your animals uh on leashes. I would highly highly highly encourage that the wording be specific should that go through to include that the leash be under the control of the human, not just attached to the animal as it runs away. Because then it's still technically meeting the rule of being on a leash, but not in any way what you're actually trying to do. Uh the other thing was uh later on there's going to be a discussion about uh public property exclusions. And I would hope that with whatever gets ironed out, there can be some kind of follow-up report in 6 months to a year uh indicating how it's being used. Uh that way, although I saw from the packet that uh there are built in safeguards that it not be used say against just the homeless. That the practice is meeting the intent. Thank you. Thank you. That's all I have uh submitted, so we'll move on. Any counselor wish to declare a potential conflict of interest with anything on the agenda? I need to address item 13B and let you know that I am the elected official representing Clatsop County and the chair elect on the board of the Community Action Team. Um and uh I don't feel this is an actual conflict of interest. Um I'll be acting in the best interest of the city of Seaside. Thank you.

[snorts] I have a motion for approval of the consent agenda. So moved. Second. Council President Morrison, Counselor Beneker. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Finance Director, you're up. You're to present the quarterly financial report, which is in your packets, Evening, your honor. as his annual report for his department. Oh, yeah. Well, you threw me a little bit of a loop. I thought the annual report was going to be first, but I'll do this one first. Well, you can do it whatever order you want. Aha. Let me clarify one thing.

[cough] The monthly report is in your packet. Yeah, the quarterly is. Yes. The quarterly report is the in-person verbal report that he's giving.

It's a weird situation where he is giving a You have a written monthly report and you're also getting a quarterly and annual. It just kind of worked out that way. Kill three birds with one at one time. Try not to put anyone to sleep in the process. Thank Okay, so this is the first iteration of the of the quarterly part report that council suggested that we do. I think it's a great idea. Um so this is not set in stone, obviously. If there's anything that you all would like to see in this, please take notes and let me know and I'll do my best to make it happen. So, with that, um So, I tried to take a look at economics nationally and then zoom down locally as as best we could with the sort data sources that we had. So, um the city is Here's the takeaways if you get nothing else from this. The city's financially stable entering the second half of fiscal year 26 and will be entering fiscal year 27. Um For Oregon, the growth out outlook is improved. Um but uh and Clatsop County in particular has has fared a little bit better than some of our peers uh throughout the throughout the state. Um but all of that is to say uh hiring is still a bit slow within the state and nationally. Um and then uh we'll talk a little bit about the budget toward the end of this and then uh infrastructure. It's not going to shock anyone to have that on this slide. Uh that's our central issue. It will be for some time. Um So, hopefully that's not surprising to anyone. Uh so, nationally,

comment. Um when we were at the um League of Oregon Cities conference, um the coastal mayors had a meeting uh as we usually do and many of them are struggling more than we are. Uh tourism heavy ones like us and Lincoln City are the ones that are um going along okay. Yep. Uh so, nationally, if you look out at the past year, I think uh most economists will tell you that we've done quite a bit better than than anyone uh expected that we would be about a year ago. Um when you take a Econ 101 class, the first thing you hear is tariffs are the end of the world and the sky will fall. Um Now, that is not a political statement. It's just what economists say. So, uh that said, um about a year ago now, maybe a little maybe a little over a year ago, um when the broad broad-based tariffs were uh announced by the administration, I think most I think most economists would tell you they didn't know what was going to happen because it hadn't happened at that scale per se in some time. Um but I think most would also tell you they thought it was going to be negative. And it thus far, you can see the GDP growth uh on the right hand um chart there that didn't actually materialize. Um Now, there's a laundry list of things out there that could change that tomorrow, right? Um Gas prices are too high. We're still at war. Um recession is the is the word that you know, that no one wants to say, but it could happen and then inflation is still stubborn. So, um Add on to all of that some technological items that the the world has never seen

before and has has a strong um potential to to change the way that the US and the world does business and it's a coin flip. If anyone tells you they know better than a coin flip, they're lying to you. Uh then Oregon. So, Oregon is not quite fared as well as the national economy has. So, you can see the unemployment rate is about um 80 basis points higher than the national average. Um and more variable than the national average. And so, um for example, I wrote this down. Uh GDP growth in Oregon, if we go to back to this last one, so for the first quarter of 25 nationally, it was 1.8 and Oregon, it was -5.7. So, um Now, that improved toward the end of the year. But hiring has not generally when an economy heats up businesses the the their Outlook grows for the future and they start hiring people. That's the piece that hasn't happened yet. And so the the the question I think most state level leaders will tell you is well is that something structural in the economy or is that just a a leg waiting for the the business sentiment to improve. I don't I don't know that anyone knows the answer to that quite yet.

[clears throat]

So zooming into Clatsop County. So as you can see um these are the unemployment levels for Clatsop County. Uh the blue is a little over a year and a quarter ago. The yellow is a few months ago. So they have increased uh but you can see how we fared against our peers up and down the county and up the Columbia a little bit. Uh and we've done fairly well comparatively. Uh our job creation Clatsop County is led by private education and health care. Um construction's there. Hospitality's there as well. And then I think there was a stat that I read about Clatsop County. This is an aside from this but I believe they think that job growth will grow about 5% in the next 8 years. So when you take all five of those counties that equates out to about 6,000 jobs. So Um not the rosiest picture in the world but it's not all bad either. And then you can't talk about Seaside specifically without talking about tourism here. Um Coastal visitation is up year-over-year both on the hotel side and the short-term rental side. Um domestic spending on the coast that the coast is the best I could get. I couldn't get Seaside specifically. I couldn't get Clatsop County but I could get the coast region. Um is up 15% but international is down 25%. So you can see our our Canadian friends up north are not coming down quite as much as they used to. Um and then credit to you all the the transient taxing or transient tax reforms will help all of the communities out here that grapple

with with some of the impacts of of tourism on our roads and infrastructure. So moving into the more technical part. Um so as I said strong starting position entering 206. Um operations are generally stable. There's a few areas that I'll talk about that that we need to pay attention going into the end of the year. Uh and then uh infrastructure we already touched on just a little bit. So here you can see uh and this is a this is a busy slide. I I will admit that but here you can see revenue earned through March of 26 and then all of the um the various funds that we have that have earned revenue. I stripped out all the ones that had zeros so that it made this readable. Otherwise it's a it's a laundry list. Um So you can see we've got pretty strong uh building because of of quite of the or quite a few of the apartments that have either come online or in the process or what have you. That's why systems developments charges are are well beyond what we budgeted for. Community develop is about 150% of what we budgeted for. Um so that is great news. Um Some of the other ones general fund is is tracking beyond what we what we should be at this point in the year. Um Let me touch here. This will this may tell a little bit more. Um So here are here are our top 10 revenue accounts through well this is as of today actually. So um the the last slide had you through March. This one is is adjusted just a bit because I could get more specific. Um So room tax is obviously the biggest

line item in our in our revenue budget. Uh and then followed by property taxes. And then you got sewer water um room tax for short-term rentals. Uh interest is something that we'll talk about a little bit more as this goes on. And then uh food and beverage at the convention center. Anyways, all of that is to say all of these are tracking well and our um collections on each of these accounts are uh better that through March than they were a year prior to that. So uh no no I should knock on wood. No concerns on the revenue side at this point at least. Can I point out one thing? Absolutely. Um just in general always do what Zach just did. He pointed out big percentage numbers but you got to look at the actual dollars too because 4,000% is only well only half a million dollars.

Right. But uh and some of those big ones that he didn't include here you know they're only a few thousand dollars. But if it varies a lot on a small number then it you get a big percentage. So always do what he did.

And we and we have so many revenue accounts and well we have so many accounts on our chart that I that there are accounts out there that have $2 budgeted to them. So I do my best to filter those out when I can but uh they may catch you by surprise. Zach. Yeah. We're if my math is right in my head we're two we have two months left in this fiscal year, right? So we're 5/6 of the way through the year. Yes, that's correct. So and your numbers would be complete as of today, right? These numbers are I would I would say Friday but yeah it's not going to change materially or materially from here to there.

So we're we should be around the Now I got to do the 5/6 in my head but we should they should percent received should be around that. Yeah, right around That's what you kind of look at. over 80%. Okay. Thank you. Now on the on the

Can I add to that though? Some of the individual things like some of our utility [snorts] building happens in two-month intervals and there's some other timing of issues where they don't come in and so we're maybe a couple months behind in that. Yeah and the the other thing is there's quite a bit of seasonality uh with with revenue and expenses, right? So uh we go from a in July and August uh spending as much as as much money in a month as the city will spend all year and then we get into the fall and um and winter and that drops considerably and then it comes back up in the spring. So uh I can put that as a note and show you some of that in future iterations of that of this. Thank you. Mhm. So revenue highlights um as I mentioned all of them are positive year-over-year and we're highly liquid. Uh we're on pace to meet the the revenue goals for the city. Um a few concerns uh we are pretty reliant. No one's going to mistake Seaside for anything other than a tourism town but we're pretty reliant on uh on a few revenue sources. So if um people stopped paying property taxes or people stopped visiting we can weather the storm for a little while but that's that's going to hurt us a little bit more than it might hurt some other cities. Uh the other one to pay attention to I I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of pressure on whoever is the next Fed president to lower interest rate goals as much as they can as quickly as they can. Now that's not to say that that's going to happen. But I think there's going to be a lot of pressure there for that to happen. Every percentage point that our that that rate falls is a half million

dollars to the city. So you know there are pros and cons to this whole thing but that is when you're watching the news and you're saying hey they want to lower this to 1% that's what that means. So Is any of our long-term debt variable? No. No it's all it's in the in the realm of 3 to 4%. It's locked in there for pretty much. All right. So moving on to expenses. So these these are our operational fund what we'd call our operational funds meaning that these are the funds that have that pay personnel. And so you can see generally speaking this is through March. So 75% of the way there we are tracking really well. And then as I mentioned before I stripped out all the zeros but uh these are the other funds that have expenses in them and where they stand. Now economic development I'm sure there was a debate at some point on why that's a fund. I don't know why it's a fund but it spends 100% of its money uh about 20 minutes after the after the year starts. So that's pretty well always going to be at 100. Uh and then downtown maintenance. So with our new system, when we have static contracts, meaning we know we're going to pay someone X amount of dollars per month through the through the course of that contract, we'll set aside those dollars at the beginning of the year. So, when we do this in the fall, you may see some pacing issues with say downtown maintenance is one of them. Um Shoot, there's another one that came Oh, the municipal judge is another one. Right, that we just pay the same amount over the course of the contract. And so,

um that'll quickly outpace and then it'll come back. And then this is This may get slightly confusing. You You all have this in your OneDrive now, so you can take a look at this later, but this breaks down that Basically, these two slides on the department level. So, last two were on the fund level. This is on the department level. So, you can see building. That is one of the areas that we really need to pay attention to. It's not going to be an issue from a fund uh operation standpoint because planning can make up for the the overages in building, but that's a result of us needing to rely on some outside help to do plan review and and inspections and those type of things. Um Parks is ahead of pace. That's just work that we've done around the city. Um and the visitors bureau is a little bit, but I wouldn't Josh is very good at at his budget, so I wouldn't be concerned about that. So, expense highlights and concerns. Um most funds are on pace. And then the spending levels that we've got and their their point of this year suggests that we are their their budgets are pretty well uh pretty well placed. We may look at building and I may suggest to council if if we don't if Jeff doesn't think that this is going to improve next year, we may suggest to council to move some of that so that we solve for this. Um but that's a that's a future decision. Um concerns, we we touched on some of those already. We're going to have a one-time charge. I don't know I'm I'm 90% sure that it will happen in this fiscal year. Um but at some point in the

near future, we're going to have a one-time charge for an overtime audit that we're in the process of doing right now. So, uh for the last I would argue probably hundred and some years, um the city has not correctly calculated the overtime rate that we've been paying our folks for overtime. And so, we're in the process. We know it's an issue. We're in the I've I've already solved or I've already uh finished the analysis for one of the bargaining units. I'm in the process of the more complicated one now. Um so, I'm hopeful that that's done by the end of the year. Uh and then the other concern is we as we as we talk about infrastructure, um those projects need to be overseen by folks at the city. Uh or we need to pay project managers outside to be able to do them. And that can lead to some capacity issues. So, as we um as we look at completing some of these big projects that are on the horizon, we just all need to keep that in in the back of our minds as we're doing that. Okay. That's the first quarterly report. What questions can I answer for you?

I noticed there was a line item for land for sale. Was that the lot to the Pacifica apartments? Uh we're talking to that 4,000 No, in the actual it was 400,000 I thought. Yeah, so that's number nine on our list here. That's that's 4,000% ahead because we still Yeah, that's the Pacifica lot. But the expense was earlier. Right. And it wasn't the Pacifica lot. It was the lot in the middle of the Pacifica lot that we purchased. piece of the Technically, it was a house.

Yes. Right. The residential piece. Any questions? Okay. Good job. Thank you. Thanks. Like good news. Now I get to Now I get to brag about my team a little bit, so that's even better news. Okay, so moving on. So, the annual report. What have we been up to? So, here is my team. So, some new faces on there this year. Zach Mitchell is our our court clerk for the next three days. And then she is moving to Delaware. Oh my. Uh so, we we are John and I are in the process of reviewing applicants for that position. Um so, there'll be a new another new face on that next year. Uh Lika is our head accountant. Jessica is our AP clerk. Uh Randy is the smiling face you see up front who also handles our business licenses. And then Kaiza has been with us for a few months now. She is our new uh utilities clerk. And so, our responsibilities um I'm not going to go a ton into depth on this unless anyone really wants me to, but um but I mean, if if it involves a bill, we we're involved in it. We We touch about everything in the city. Um Yeah, it's it's uh It's really It's really fun to come in and be able to do something new every day. That's what I'll say. Uh so, why why does finance matter though? Uh at [clears throat] the end of the day, what what I'm trying to do is help you all and help Spencer and John make informed decisions for the city. Um and do so

while keeping the city compliant with the ever-growing list of requirements that the state has and the feds have. Um and then make sure that there are safeguards in place for the funds the public has. So, at the end of the day, make sure that the dollars that the public trusts us with are are safeguarded and used at the best way we can. So, a few numbers because I knew you guys were missing out on on numbers on these. So, uh we have about 4,000 utility accounts. Payroll last year was processed at about 13 and 1/2 million. Uh over 3,000 invoices for almost 11 million. Uh 7,600 court transactions. Uh so, I did the math on this, but I don't have a report that actually counts for me. But, when I ran the report for how many cashiering transactions we had, it locked up my computer for about a half hour and I tried twice and gave up on it. But, uh that 979 pages equates out to about 44 to somewhere between 44 and 53,000 last year. Uh for a total volume of uh 22 and 3/4 million dollars. And then we have close to 1,700 business licenses in town here. So, in review. So, what have we been up to? So, uh over the past eight better part of the past 18 months, uh we have been working very hard to modernize the the finance office here. So, um as you know, we switched to a new and I'll touch on each of these a little more a little more in depth. Um but we switched to a new new financial suite called Caselle.

Uh I'll show you a side by side on the next one. Um but uh we've gotten rid of of quite a bit of manual paper processes. That's been a a big goal of mine since I got here. Um if you go back in our office now, with the the walls that used to be lined with filing cabinets, I'd say 9/10 of those are gone now. That's by design. Um and then we flattened out accounts pay I'm going to touch on each of these, so I'll just go as we do. Um So, as I mentioned, we switched to Caselle about 18 months ago. Um each of our our team members has been instrumental in getting that done. Um Include to include a couple people who are no longer with us. So, Wendy Bradwell did an excellent job standing up the utilities piece of things. She has since retired, and I hope she's having a fantastic time with her grandchildren. Uh and Anna Dennis stood up the court module. She's over with community development now. So, um that's not to minimize Lika or Randy or Jessica or anyone else. They've all done fantastic, and they all deserve kudos in this. So, this is a quick snapshot of where we were and where we are. Um So, the picture on the light on the left is our old system. Um every screen looked about like that. Uh and then that is the furthest I could zoom out on a on an account. And then on the right is now the dashboard that we have through Caselle. So, all those numbers that I gave you guys today,

It's on. So, this is a bad picture, like I said, but uh these are all of our all of our funds in segments. So, personnel, materials, and services, and capital, the things that we track. And this bar here is is a projection of where the system thinks we're going to end the year at. Now, every every way of projecting something has pros and cons. Uh but, I mean, coming from here and going to here is just a world of difference that has saved all of us a ton of time and effort. Zack, have you um buried [clears throat] the AS400? Is it at the bottom of the ocean? No. Uh it is it is there for uh it's a historical relic, but it's there for it we still use it a little bit for court. And I still use it if I have to go back and look at historical spending. Those are the two things that we use it for still. Uh but I have instructed all of my staff that they are not to get into it anymore because we've had a bit of leaning on the system because it was familiar. And so, rip the band-aid off, find out how to use the new one.

Is that Can I add There's also a interesting historical HR record in there that's kind of nice to be able to get into occasionally. We have a retiree, and we need some yeah, dates of information for our retirement system or something like that. So, there are still some valuable things in there. Uh and that's I mean, I don't want to downplay the AS400. It was a great system for 40 years, and it doesn't seem like it like [clears throat and laughter]

you can still look back to the early '90s and still see that we spent $342 on food, right? That stuff never went anywhere. Uh and so, uh it was it was great for its time. Um but it was time to move on. And it's 40 years old, so

40 years Remember. Well, and the other piece of it is you couldn't Ours was so customized that there was no one that was willing to service [clears throat] it. And the one group that we found that could was in Louisville, Kentucky. We we worked on their hours. So, if you had a problem after 2:00, you're you're waiting until the next day if you can get through then. It's just everything about the new system is Okay, last question. Have you guys thought at all or talked about a project to migrate your legacy data out of the AS400 into a just a database or something that's

database that's just sitting on something that's I haven't I haven't thought about that, but I am open to the idea. Okay. Um we when we first were talking with the Caselle folks, uh I wanted to migrate as much information as possible because I thought it would um be beneficial to need to get in and see historical here's what we spent two years ago, here's what we spent a year ago, so on and so forth. I haven't actually accessed it as much as I expected I would. And that And that's what that was their guidance as well. So, it it has come to come to pass pretty well. So, some of the benefits, um increased transparency as you saw on the dashboard and audit trail visibility. I can tell you at any point if I wanted to look exactly every click that every person makes. So, uh cuts down on on any um shenanigans that might take place. Um faster processing and more efficient workflows. Uh that's across the board. Um it's taken a little bit of time over the past uh year or so to get to the point where some of it's more efficient, some of that's a comfort level, some of that's we we updated our processes to fit this system versus changing this system to fit our processes, uh which was by design because I wanted someone to be able to call when something went wrong. Um reduced enter manual entry. I'll touch a little bit on that on the AP piece. Um ve- vendor support. I mean, we've called these guys I I would be actually interested to see how many times we've called these guys over the past year. It is in the hundreds uh pretty easily. Um and then reduced risk of error. It's

just the the ability to see more information at once is is a much better way to do it. Um Accounts payable. That is if I had to uh boil down the the number one place that this system uh makes our processes more efficient, it would be this. So, prior to um Caselle, Jessica would generate a volume of paper that was all of the invoices that came in over the past 2 weeks. And then um she would go through and she would check them all, and then she would put them on either my desk or John's desk or Joey's desk or Spencer's desk, and one of us would go through that volume and double-check that yes, everything that you're saying is happening is happening. And then that volume would then move to the next person's desk. Two of us had to do it. And so, uh that entire process, um she was also the only person that input uh invoices into the system. So, you saw our invoice volume earlier. Um imagine doing that 3,500 times. You know, it just your eyes cross at some point, and it just increases the the risk of error. Um Limited review path. So, we our policy was that department uh leadership would look at these invoices before we got them. Did we ever actually have any way to verify that they were? No. Um so, we took it on faith that they were. Uh so, with all of that, uh the average time to process an invoice before this uh was 5 weeks, probably. Plus or minus a week, depending on the time of the year if we were if we were busier or slower or

whatever. Um Fast forward to the new process. So, we've we've flattened it out. Now, there's uh 1 2 3, there's four or five people in the city who enter invoices for their respective areas. So, Hadley at public works does theirs. Um I think Chief Daniels still does his um because he likes the control over there. Uh Jessica does ours. Uh I don't know who at the police station does theirs. Um and then Jennifer Biomonte at the convention center. So, all of that is to say it cuts the the amount of time that any one person has to spend on this task. Uh and then from there, now it is mandatory that department heads check their invoices and approve them. And I can see everyone that does, and I won't sign one unless everyone does. And then uh from there, it comes to either um Jessica if it's a low dollar purchase, she can she can verify that, or it comes to Spencer or myself or John if it's a higher dollar purchase that needs to go out. Um and all of that reduces if we got an invoice today, we could have it out the door tomorrow. I mean, it's it's that quick. And we could with the To be fair, we could with the other system, too, but it took pulling a lot of strings and making sure that any two of us weren't out of the office at the same time to make it happen. Um Payment processing. So, this is when you get on to pay, right now it's utility bills. Uh you can pay a business license, you can pay a court fine uh electronically through our website. And to do that, uh we partnered with a group called Express Bill Pay out of out of I think they're just a few doors down from Caselle, actually. Uh but they

are probably the number one bill payment soft municipal bill payment software in the country. Um I've I've heard nothing but good things. No No one wants to pay a bill, but when you pay a bill, you want to do it pretty And so, I've heard nothing but good things with these guys. I use it personally, uh and they've always been great to work with. Uh our previous group did great for a long time, um but they their technology didn't quite keep up with with the times. Um So, that's Express Bill Pay. Um Rever is our document management system that um So, now when uh invoices are entered into our system at any point throughout the year, uh our department heads can get into uh into a system, look at a specific charge, and click that charge and pull up the invoice for that. And so, that that process just wasn't possible with the old system. You we would have to go to one of the filing cabinets, pull the invoice, make sure it was the one they were looking for. Um so, this is really streamlined that. Uh and then, this is brand new. Um but what you're looking at here is now uh Jessica or or right now Jessica's testing it out, but she can drop a handful of invoices into a folder in this system, and the AI um software in Rever will input uh invoices into the system for her. So, it saves all the data entry uh stuff that goes along with entering invoices for AP. Then, she just has to focus and make sure that the things that it input are correct. And so, that she's she's uh had some good luck with that so far.

More to come on that. I don't know. We got the We got the license for free, so it was worth trying. Ben Mailing [clears throat] Service, I think I'm I'm getting close to the end here. Uh we used to when um back in the day, Kaiser doesn't know about this because this uh phased out while Wendy was still here, but when Wendy used to run water bills uh every other month, she would spend the better part of a week in front of the sorting machine, and then in front of the folding machine, and then in front of in front of the stuffing machine, and then putting them in a very specific way for the post office cuz that's the only way that the post office would take them. We don't do that anymore. Uh now we now we run a uh file that we send to uh Ben Mailing Service, and they do this whole thing for us. Um it saves a ton of time and frustration because those machines were notorious for breaking, also. Um okay, current risks and pressure uh pressures. Uh I will mention for all of the good that Caselle is, um we've had a few issues with their payroll processes. Getting getting someone from their end to figure out uh right now we could we could Let me take a step back. Um part of this is probably also on the city because we've got 1970s era uh payroll um processes that um have run headfirst into 2025 Oregon law. And so, that's that's where we ran into some of the overtime thing originates from this. Um we're working to improve on that, but it's going to take some help from our partners and our bargaining units um

to be okay with some of the stuff we're doing. I'd like to um move all our time card right now our time cards are paper uh written out of an Excel sheet. I would like to move that all online. It would just make it easier. No one would have to save paper copies anymore. Um so, that is something that John Spencer and I are working on on getting done. Um Banking and short-term credit. Uh I think there's another slide that says what's forward. Yeah, next next slide tells you we're going to go out to RFP pretty soon uh for banking services. Right now, we use Wells Fargo um which was okay when they were next door at Safeway, and they are not anymore. And so, now we need uh one of our staff members to stop by Astoria about twice a week to drop off any cash that we get here in the building. Um it's not efficient, it's not safe, it's not a good practice. Um so, the bank RFP will come shortly. Um Staff capacity and cross-training. So, in the in the pro um we are in the process of making sure that there's a backup for everyone on my team has primary duty, a secondary duty. Um so, Jessica doubles as the court clerk so that um when one person goes out, another person can stand in for that. And so, um we were we were at a pretty good place at one point, and then people have moved on, and so now we're now we're starting that process again. Uh records migration. Uh Councilor Beneker, you talked on this a little bit. Um we do need to get the court information in particular into Caselle because right now we have to look in two different places to see if someone's got outstanding court fines or fees. Um so, that is a work in progress.

Um software and process and legacy process cleanup, that kind of goes hand in hand. It's uh getting people comfortable with new processes and systems. Everyone does that at a at a different pace. Um so, we're doing pretty good. Uh and then, in increasing compliance and reporting demands. So, the state of Oregon is always happy to say, "Hey, we would like to know about this at this interval." And there's not necessarily more time in the day to be able to do some of that stuff. And so, um so, that'll always be there. So, looking forward, uh we have an audit RFP that is out now. Um I've had some some folks reach out to us and ask questions about that. So, I've I've really got my fingers crossed that we're going to find a good partner there. Um bank RFP, we've touched on. Fund consolidation, uh that is something that I'm targeting for right uh hopefully at the end of the fiscal or at the beginning of the next fiscal year. It doesn't make any sense to do it in this fiscal year. Um Business Licensing Ordinance, I think um that is worth taking a look at, particularly if we're going to change where the uh where the revenue goes, we might as well just look at the entire thing. And then, um over the next 2 years we've got uh labor negotiations this year with the public safety bargaining unit, next year with the the general employees bargaining unit. And there we go. We got to the end. Wow. I got I got a few things going on. You've come quite a ways in your comparatively short time here, doing a lot with um not very many people. So, we uh greatly appreciate that. And uh you're maintaining our um concerns and uh our excellent practices that we've kind of

always had, but tuned them up now to um modern era. Yeah. So, uh we greatly appreciate that. Well, my folks my folks deserve a ton of credit, too. Yeah, I'm really impressed with you and the team. If you think about maybe what you knew when you came in here, and then what you know now, um yeah, night and day. So, congratulations. Really good job. you.

Great job. And thanks for giving us what you're going to be working on. So, we have something else to keep you up on now. Yeah. We'll be watching. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thanks. Moving on, uh City of Seaside Boards, Commissions, and Committees. We still have vacancy on Airport, uh two on Community Center, uh two on Planning Commission. We interviewed an applicant uh this evening. Mark Cottman. Is there any action the Council wishes to take? I move to nominate Mark Cottman to the Planning Commission. Appoint. Appoint.

Appoint. Yeah. I'll second. Uh Councilor Beneker and uh Councilor President Morse, I I move to appoint Mark Cottman to the Planning Commission. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations, Mark. And we have one opening on Transportation Advisory. Moving on, uh unfinished business, Ordinance 2026-02 regarding our municipal code for fireworks. Sponsor. Tried to make this presentation as uh short as possible [snorts]

uh with really no significant changes since our last meeting. Uh so, current status, we reviewed this ordinance several times with the first reading, work session on March 23rd, second reading on April 13th. Um and then, there's been no changes to the policy or the structure since the last meeting. Uh two minor updates only. We changed um this was in order for someone to get a um a second violation, uh we changed it from after a first violation to after a prior violation, which the Council talked about. Uh and um and then, changing the language from a five the enhancement and changing it from up to $1,000 to just [clears throat] plain $1,000. As you all talked to both these things, the first one was straightforward, the second one got some clarification from our city attorney, and she thought this was a good process so long as there lessens discretion for the judge for a case-by-case basis, which our ordinance already uh considers and has allowance for. So, no changes to the penalty amounts, the structure, or anything in the intent. Uh so, as a reminder, we can only make or the council can only make minor changes after the second reading. Uh, the [clears throat] updates contemplated are clarifying were previously discussed. We I looked at we changed one word and removed two words. That's the extent of the changes, so I would consider those to be minor. And then we need to have it adopted by May 11th, so it could be tonight or at the next meeting to be effective for the 4th of July. So, with that, uh, here is the requested action. I will, uh, open public comment if

anybody wishes to make a, uh, statement. Mr. McWay. Resident of Seaside. I just want to point out that fireworks season has already started in Seaside. Uh, over the course of this last week, there have been at least two nights where, uh, coming out of ward four, right over that way, um, already getting fireworks going off. So, just to speak to the importance of of actually doing this. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, we'll close public comment. Councilors, start with Patrick. I've I've got nothing to add. I would move this forward. Okay. Peter. I am not looking to to change anything, but I want us to be very aware of one thing, um, and be on the record about it. If you go to item, um, 96. 24, [clears throat] C, um, two. And this [clears throat] is where we've made the the change. If someone has a violation, a fir- any kind of violation, first, second, third, whatever,

[snorts] and their next violation is 300 60 4 days later, they will pay a $3,000 fine. If their next violation is 366 days later, they will bounce back to the original 1,000. And that is whenever this happens. So, we all just need to be aware that that that's how we've set it up. That if you have a violation [snorts]

in excess of 12 months from your previous violation, you will pay less. You will pay the the $1,000 level, not the 3,000. I'm not saying that to change anything. I'm just saying it so we make sure that's on the record. We make sure we're very aware of that. Okay. Councilor Beneker. I've got nothing. Council President. Has the city or any council member received any additional feedback since our last meeting on this? [clears throat]

All right. I'm fine with it, too, just the way it is. I have a motion to read ordinance 2026-02 third reading by title only.

for a third reading of ordinance number 2026-02 by title only. I'll second. Council President, uh, Councilor Beneker, Council President Morrissey. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Spencer. Ordinance 2026-02, an ordinance amending section 131.11 of the Seaside Municipal Code relating to fireworks and establishing civil enforcement provisions for the possession and discharge of illegal fireworks. I have a motion to adopt. I move to adopt. I second. Councilor Montero, Councilor Ainsborough. This will be a roll call vote. Councilor Ainsborough. Yes. Yes. Councilor Beneker. Yes. Patrick.

Council President Morrissey. Yes. Put your mic in front of you. Yes. Councilor Montero. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh, motion passes. Will be, uh, adopted in at the appropriate time. Want to thank all of the people that have taken part in this, uh, from the committee, as well as you councilors and the people have spoken, uh, from the public. It's a beginning of the process, and we will see where we go from there. New business. First up, discussion about the council, uh, appointment process ward one and two, the at-large position, and ward three. Spencer's prepared a memo. Do you like to lead that discussion?

us through this, and I'll say, um, it was enlightening to go through the process and do the research on this because the outcome was different than I had originally originally assumed. So, there's a plug for, you know, reading the language of the charter before making any assumptions, so that was very informative. So, uh, current context, I think we're all aware of. We currently have two vacancies on the city council. Um, right now, the remaining five seats are already going to be on the 2026 ballot. So, um, all of you except for Councilor Ainsborough, would your terms would normally be up at the end of this year, and Councilor Ainsborough, because you were appointed mid, uh, term, that seat would be is will current will be open on the November ballot for a 2-year, um, the remaining 2 years on the term. So, uh, all five of you seats are up this year, and so we do have a potential outcome where all seven seats on the of this council could be on the November 2026 ballot, which I'll say is something, uh, that would somewhat unique. Um, okay, going back to the charter. So, the provisions, uh, for appointment are found in section 30,

[clears throat]

and it says vacancies shall be filled by appointment. Uh, appointee serves until the next general election more than 100 days after appointment. So, two t- two the key takeaways, the council must make an appointment, and the timing controls the election outcome, meaning whether, uh, the positions are then, uh, on the November 2026 ballot, or if they wait until the November 2028 ballot, as everything to do with the timing of the appointments. So, the key decision is this isn't, uh, a question of whether the vacancies will be filled, it's a question of when the appointments will take place. So, again, the timing will determine if it's on the 2026 election or 2028 election. So, option one is appoint on or before July 25th, 2026. The result is the seats go on to the November ballot. Option two, appoint on or after I need to check on the on cuz I put I realize in the wording here I have on on both, and one of those is not correct. So, we'll get the exact dates, but I don't think it affects it unless we have a special meeting. Uh, after July 26th, uh, the result is the appointee serves until the end of 2028. I checked, and I'm pretty sure it's July 26th is the date, so I think you're okay. Okay. Okay, so option one, this is the sooner appointment. Um, pros, uh, the vote the voters get their input in 2026, so a little bit sooner. Um, there's a shorter appointed service that's expected, uh, less expected of

those being appointed, and earlier transition to elected representation. Cons, uh, again, all seven seats will be on the ballot. There's a higher risk of major turnover, uh, limited time for the appointees to learn their new roles, and it may be harder to recruit candidates. So, the idea there being, uh, who wants to throw their hat in the ring to do to serve for a couple of months? Could I ask a question before you move on to two, please? So, in this option, though, um, it's the all seven seats turnover option on one ballot, um, are all seven then back onto the 4-year, or with the exception of, um, ward three, or with So, if all if all seven are on the ballot this year, the seats that the four that you four here serve on would be for 4-year terms, and the other three would be for 2-year terms. So, we keep the staggered the staggered.

The stagger stays. Thank you. That's in the charter.

The stagger says. Option two, uh, so this would be appointing after July or July 26th or after. So, this maintains the current staggered terms for the next 2 years anyway. Um better continuity and stability. Appointees would gain some experience and have about 28 months to serve. Uh and possibly easier to recruit candidates to fill that role. Cons, no voter input until 2028. A longer appointed service rather than an elected service. Um uh there may be some perception concerns and then there's an incumbency advantage meaning um giving more of an advantage to those people that you appoint rather than um people who elect to run. Um let me go back and just say, so I would say this, there are good reasons to do it sooner, there are good and valid reasons to do it later. There isn't a right or wrong answer. I think there are various values on here and priorities and it's a matter of where you as an individual elected official weigh those values and priorities. Um uh and so I think putting that out there, there's not a right or wrong answer. It's what you feel is in the best interest of the community. Um Can these seats go on the 2026 ballot without appointment? And the answer is no. Uh why the 2026 ballot is not a default option. So, the charter ties the election to the appointment timing. The vacancy alone does not create a ballot position. Election is only triggered if an appointment is made more than 100 days before the election. Any questions on that? That was the kind

of thing that I just I think I just really had to put the time into think about. I think uh even back when we were considering counselor Ambrose Ensbro's appointment, I remember thinking well we had we were somewhat deadlocked that you know, if nothing happens well we'll it'll figure out in 2026 and that was just in my mind in reading through this, that was not accurate. Um it um ultimately uh the timing of which uh election it goes on has to do with the timing of the appointment, not a lack of action by the city council. Does that make sense? Um so, the key takeaway, no default path to the 2026 elect election, no mech mechanism to bypass appointment. Decision is fundamentally about when to appoint and the timing of the appointment is what controls that outcome. So, if there is no appointment, if the council cannot agree, there is no enforcement mechanism in our charter, uh the seats would remain vacant and eventually they would be filled in 2029 after the November 2028 election. This is I would say not the intention of the charter but the practical outcome if the council takes no action. But it also is the practical outcome if no one applies. It's not just if the council takes no action. That's right. [clears throat] I don't know, maybe you can appoint someone who didn't apply. It doesn't say they have to apply.

[laughter] Yeah, cuz the the appointment process we came up with that. It's not specified in the charter. Correct. So, it just says you appoint. appoint someone today. say you win. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there'd be lots of repercussions. That would be real interesting. So. I thought you were going to make it easy on us. [laughter]

So, discussion questions I think for tonight, I think the first question we we want to answer is when should the appointments occur before July 26th, 25th or after July 26th? Really just a before or after. And then once you decide that, uh we can have some general discussion about what process are we looking to something similar to that was done back in January? Do we go back to uh was it November 2024, December 2024? The previous one. Um really this is purely the council's discretion, what you think worked well, didn't work well. Um and so we can have that discussion but I think the first question is the before or after and that will kind of lay out the timing of the other issues. Turn it back to you, Mayor. Thank you. I guess.

[laughter]

Um there are a few other issues that may or may not come up um because this also leaves our budget committee short. It leaves our improvement commission really short by two councilors as well as two appointees that were never filled. And uh it puts more work on the five of us that are left as far as um board committee commission liaisons. Um so, you know, there are other factors that aren't as big a deal. Um so, uh boiled it down to what it amounts to. Um I'll just say off the top that I kind of lean towards um going ahead and opening it up and see what we get. Simply because we have no idea. Um we've been through this recently and it wasn't a pleasant process. Um who knows whether that'll happen again or not. But um my concern is, you know, the people that are in ward one and two um lose a little bit of are going to be concerned there's a little bit less representation there. We still have a ward one and a ward two councilor, but the overall is a little less. It uh because they're each from uh different representations, overall you really don't lose anything. Uh ward four um ward three uh uh ward three still has representation by the at large for ward three and four. So, um I'm not really sure that the representation issue is is big concern, but uh people are going to possibly think that and we want to listen to them. So,

I'm going to start with you, Seth. What are your feelings? It's a lot more complex than I originally thought. Um I didn't realize the shall language was there. I missed that. So, I do understand what that means. I don't I don't really have a strong opinion either way because I see pros and cons in both sides. I can we put it to the vote of the public or is that [laughter]

Well, this is the first time we've come out with what the options are. So, well no. You're good at doing that and we will one thing I forgot to mention earlier, I was really appreciative of the Q&A kind of thing that went out on the website today about um the parks regulations things. And so, we should do same thing for this one, you know, the others we have as well. Uh because that gets the topic going. And it will be up to us to, you know, go around wherever we can and find out what people think. Um uh you know, wherever your realm of of uh contact is, do it at your councilor uh coffee times. Find out what people think. Um you know, they're both kind of similar choices. So, this is just the hand we're dealt, so we're going to deal with it. So, whether we were to appoint before July 25th or after July 26th, we're still going to give those appointees an advantage in the election, whether it's the election coming up or it's election 2 years. So, um that's kind of a moot point. I do have a question about let's say in the appointment process we get one individual that applies. I'm assuming since we control that process, we could just not take them if we didn't think they were the right fit, right? We wouldn't have to.

Sure. There's nothing that binds you to do anything. Um ultimately what you're looking to get is a majority in this case, three councilors that agree to appoint someone. Well, before we voted for this person or that person. So, I guess my my point is we could just vote no. Let's start over. I think that's the process. I mean, you could follow a process similar to um like you do the committees where you can nominate someone, interview them. But that's an option. You can as the mayor suggested, you could open it sooner uh even without a closed date if you wanted to and and once applications come in, make a decision, okay, we'll close it on this date or we'll start to interview people now, but we're not going to make a decision till a certain date. I mean, you can really you have as much flexibility as you as a council want to have on the process. The process we went through before was very long and I don't know if we could get that done before July 25th. Possibly. But that's five

five meetings, I think, if I count right. Yeah. One more in May and two in June. Two in July. So, if we gave them 30 days, we possibly could Oh, is is So, it is after the 27th. have Okay. Four meetings. So, it'd be four meetings if we were going to appoint.

Quick. I like the idea of the Boards, Committee, Commissions process where if we just get one candidate, we just if if it's not the right fit, we can say no. Um but aside from that, I'm open to hearing the other counselors' feedback cuz I see pros and cons either way. Yeah. Chris. I agree on the pros and cons. I will say I am leaning towards the the before July 25th option. I like it because I think it gets the decision back in the hands of our residents um more quickly. And um I also I see the con in turning over seven positions at one time, but I also see that as a pro. I think it could create a um sort of heightened, you know, excitement in the city about this is the year to vote. Everybody, right? Everyone's up. So, I um I my concern with it is we're going to have to tighten the process. So, I think we had the luxury of more time last time and I I don't think we're going to be able to do it the same way. I think it's going to have to be a tighter process, but I would try to appoint before July 25th. Dita. I think in um that that people who are interested in uh being considered need to know what day we're looking at, whether we're looking at before July 25th or after July 26th. That may make a difference to people who are thinking of of applying. Um I I also like the ability to get this into the hands of the voters sooner. Um however, uh

well, one of the considerations might be that if somebody applies for the position knowing we are going to appoint before July 25th and they tell us they don't intend to run in November. Um then we're looking at somebody who uh is only going to do a few months' work and I think we all know what a um an uphill uh trajectory there is for learning what to do and how to do it in in this position. So, that may have some some effects on how we think about someone, but I think I think I tend to look at um let's forge ahead. Thank you, Bonnie. Yeah, I'm leaning toward number one option and um get somebody some people in and uh get them on the council if possible. I know we have a very quick timeline to do that. Uh I too am on board with uh giving the community an opportunity to vote on uh anybody we bring on. Uh being in a unique position of being uh the new guy on the block, uh yes, it's drinking from a firehose. The hockey stick uh it's a hockey stick of learning. Um uh I've been privileged to learn so much and in a short period of time and there's so much more to learn. Uh I can appreciate anybody who steps up or becomes appointed to the council. They're going to be going through this process as well. Um

And so, [clears throat] I'm leaning toward number one and also giving the community an opportunity to vote in the 26 elections. Okay. Well, I hear the majority saying we want to move forward. Um And we mentioned there's only four more regularly scheduled meetings. Obviously, we'd have more meetings. Um there's nothing says we can't have special meetings. And uh we could certainly do that. Uh gets into summertime, so it makes it maybe a little more difficult, but I think we all feel the importance of this. [snorts]

Um we do have five people, so um the there won't be an option for a tie. So, um is that what we're thinking? Yeah.

Um As Chris said, we got to tighten the process and figure out a way to get it done. So, and we we also got to give time for quality candidates to apply. So, there there got to be a balance there. So, that would be the next step is saying, "Okay, we open it basically immediately with the same I I thought the the ideas of the process that we had were good ideas. And they've generally worked. Um this was maybe a special case. I don't know. But um just opening it for now, not putting an end date on it and see what we get. And getting the word out as quickly as we can. Um I know it's a I don't know if it's a scary thought for me or not if all if we had seven new people at the end of this year. Um Spencer would tear out his hair, but uh he could handle it, I'm sure. I'm I'm concerned that not putting an end date on it will lengthen the process and by default will end up with option two. Possible. [snorts] So, um I'm thinking maybe we do need to have a deadline for the applications because the other thing is not we also want to get input from the community um as we've done in the past. So, I I'm thinking we might want a a deadline on that. 30 days is kind of what jumped out at me.

Yeah, I was thinking May 31st is a good good one. That would give um we're not having a meeting Well, we decide that later, but probably not having a meeting on Memorial Day. Um so, but if we said it was whatever that Friday was, um or the 31st, what day is that, John? You're looking. The 31st is a Sunday. Okay. Well, we wouldn't want to Where where it's electronic, you can pick whatever day. Whatever day you want and it'll I kind of like having it on Friday so that we don't have to wait for Sunday. That's the 29th of May. So, um what did we do last time? Did we do 3:00 or 5:00? I think midnight.

Something earlier. I think we said 3:00. 3:00. Or maybe it might have been noon. I think Okay. Well, let's say 3:00 p.m. that Friday then. The 29th? Use all the same process we did before. And you know, we can obviously change our mind the next meeting if we need to. It'll be open by the next meeting. We can we can say that and then Yeah. And Again, you have all this isn't like an HR hire where you have to you can do whatever you want. So, Well, within reason. I don't want to get too carried away. Okay, Council, we have a consensus there? Yep.

Yeah. Okay. Next item.

[clears throat]

Beginning [snorts] of our discussions here, continuing our discussions, um we have a city-owned facility um property building that is um run by Head Start over near the Broadway Field. Spencer. Yeah, this may be new information to many of you on the council and many of our uh residents as well. So, this is just a discussion to feel out um some ideas that we've had and see if there is enough interest here for us to pursue further. Um so, as the mayor said, uh the city does own a building that has the Head Start facility. It's located at uh 1225 2nd Avenue. So, it's right there behind um the baseball football field at Broadway Park. Borders onto the park there. Where the stars located. Um it's been the long-standing It's been long-standing use for Head Start programming which serves the children and families in Seaside community. What is Head Start? Uh so, it's a early childhood education program for low-income families. Prepares children for kindergarten. Provides more than just classroom instruction. Some of the additional services, they do health health screenings and nutrition support, family services and case management and support for employment and housing stability and uh connection to community resources. As they've discovered, um if you want to have kids prepared and ready and high-functioning, it's more than just uh they prepared for kindergarten. There's a whole wrap-around um you know, needs that need to be need to be met and so, they support all of those. So, there is a a definite community benefit to the programs they provide for early childhood development, helps to

stabilize families, improves long-term outcomes for children, and it's a key component of our local social services network. The facility itself was originally, this is the best I can determine, originally constructed and likely expanded with grant funding. And at one point that did include include a community development block grant. The city likely did not acquire the property with grant funds, but the building construction was used with grant funds. And we believe all the grant requirements have been satisfied. I think the last one would have been in about 1997-98. I think is when the last community development block grant um was issued. The current arrangement is that the city owns the building. Community Action Team operates the program. Uh so, it's it's leased to this nonprofit, and the city is responsible for major capital repairs. Um we receive $150 a month in lease revenue. Um so, that's pretty minimal to the city. Uh there are future capital improvements that are anticipated, and the city is responsible for those major building costs. They take care of like a renter may of improvements on the inside and whatnot, but anything structural or on the outside is the city's and has been the city's responsibility. So, the question that we're kind of bringing up is should the city continue to own a facility for a program it doesn't operate? So, I have was able to have discussions with Community Action Team. They are open for a transfer of ownership. Uh similar arrangements exist elsewhere. In fact, every single one of their other So, they provide services in Columbia, Clatsop, and Tillamook counties, and every single one of their

um Head Start programs that had similar arrangements, all of those facilities have already been turned over to um to their ownership. Um we're the only one that still maintains ownership. Um Uh so again, yeah, other facilities have transferred from city ownership to the operator. Uh click on the screen for me, John. Uh so, from Seaside's perspective, um so, we don't provide the Head Start services. We have a very limited role in the facility beyond ownership and the ongoing capital responsibility without operational control. So, if we were to transfer, um I think there's some benefits on both sides. City benefits, it aligns the ownership better with the service provider, reduces the city's capital obligations, allows the operator to act more efficiently and eliminates need for the city involvement in some of their improvements. Benefits to Head Start, uh I think the non-nonprofits are better positioned for their facility funding. So, when they have ownership of a building, they have improved access to grants and other funding sources. Look at this way, a bank will lend you money to do improvements on your home, but they're not going to lend you money as a renter to do improvements on a rental property. Um removes the city the need for the city as an intermediary. So, when they have large projects, they've got to work through the public works staff and whatnot and get on their priority list and and this would allow them to go straight and start um finding the um the services they need to meet their needs. And I think it supports long-term investment in their facility.

Next one, John. Can I just pass you the keyboard? Uh so, there is a public investment context. So, this the facility was, as I mentioned, constructed with grant funds. It's not funded by our local taxpayers. If it was our residents paying for the building, maybe it would be a little bit different. So, the funds came from elsewhere. The public benefit continues whether we own the building or not. And so, I think that considers uh uh support for donating the property rather than selling it to them. Um we do want to protect the public interest, and so we would include a reversion clause in there. So, if the facility were ever to no longer be Head Start services or other similar public purpose, the property would revert back to city ownership like we've seen in other properties arrangements with the county. So, that ensures that its long-term use is for the benefit of our community, and that's the one thing that we can hold on to to ensure that that happens, and they mentioned that's that's consistent with how the other cities have handled it. So, really tonight this is just presenting the the topic and seeing if there's interest in us

[snorts]

further pursuing and working towards a transfer of ownership. Are there other some general terms and conditions like the reversion clause that we should be considering? And to what level of protection do we want for the city's interests? And so, uh again, uh we can have we'll obviously have some more discussions if there is interest, but this is just kind of testing the temperature for the council on this idea. There. Thank you. This has been on a list that I've had for a while to get this settled. Um how many have actually been at the facility in the council? Driven by it, never been in. Okay. Okay. So, two of us have been in it. I've seen their programs. They've had open house occasionally. Very worthwhile project as far as I'm concerned. Anything I think we can do to help them continue the work, um depending on the level of support from the federal government, um that would be the issue. Um and the only other thing I thought of was just make sure that whatever we have in it as they maintain the property properly. I had one other question, too. There's no property tax, right? It's owned by us. I'm pretty sure Yeah, I just looked. There's not. Would it Would they get property Would they get on the tax rolls if it transferred? Um Not if they're nonprofit.

Yeah, I I I doubt that would happen. I doubt there would be I think it could become taxable, but I don't think it would actually become taxable. I don't think it would change that. Um Dana, you're closer to this than the rest of us. Get up to your mic. Well, this first came to my attention as an issue when um uh I was reviewing a grant application by the Community Action Team for improving the inside of that facility. And then I started looking into a little bit more about the ownership. Um Head Start is a program that was started in the '60s under the Johnson administration. It's the same age as Job Corps. And um the reason for Head Start is for the early education um of our children. Um so, the the facility was built specifically to house Head Start with the CDBG grant funds. So, it And so, it has benefited um Seaside and Clatsop County um since it was built. The it it's sort of an a a interesting thing that well, the city was used as the conduit to get the CDBG grant funds and to provide this building for Head Start. CAT has the contract with the federal government to provide all the Head Start services um in Clatsop, Columbia, and Tillamook counties. Um it is a highly regulated program and has um the they are audited uh

frequently. They have to submit all sorts of records and um of course the funding. Um the CAT board gets a report from the Head Start that the director of Head Start in these areas uh is an employee of CAT and does a report to the CAT board um every month. Um when I saw how all of this sort of meshed and and I saw what the costs were potentially for the city and how the the building is used, it really came to me that the best thing to do would be to do exactly what all of the other um cities have done who have done have had this same arrangement. And the last one was Warrenton. Warrenton just um transferred the ownership to uh to CAT. Um and so, I I think it would be in the best interest of both the city and the Head Start program and CAT to uh transfer the ownership. Thank you. Patrick. I agree with that. Yeah, I the one question I had was uh about the property itself and if it stops becoming uh used for the purpose that it's already there for or another one comes in after that that the property reverts back to the city. So, that was my only concern with regards to that. Otherwise, I think it's good to transfer the ownership to them. It'll be different for us to be on the right side of a reversionary clause for a change.

[laughter]

I I think we might want to see if there with the funding that we got from the CDBG, if there's any kind of reversionary clause there. Uh I went through it and could not find anything that discussed transfer of ownership or any restrictions on that. So, it sounds to me like the general consensus is to proceed um with these ideas that we have, you know, that you've listed out listed up there. Protect us and uh go for it. Let me make a comment real quick on that. So, I looked up the real market value. It's just north of a million. I guess my only concern is that we make this very public and we get public feedback before we make a decision on this. It will be

Cuz that's a significant Yeah, I think because it has to do with um with the city selling or um otherwise uh disposing of property, there's a very public process that we need to do anyways so that it's clear and above board cuz those are areas where sometimes cities can get in trouble. So, we'll make sure we want to do that and make sure that we also uh you know, discuss why it's in the city's benefit and in Head Start's uh benefit and that it's above board and transparent and everything. And I'd be interested in um participation from Seaside residents as well. You know, I know Clatsop County, Warrenton has one. Is it Is this mostly serving our Seaside residents?

it is serving the children in the Seaside school district area. So, they partner pretty closely with the school district and that's their audience. Okay. Thank you. And I'm sure Counselor Montero could probably arrange a uh tour of the facility if you'd like to see that. Okay. to. I'll talk to them. I'll set up something. Thank you. All right, moving on. Uh coordinate with the city recorder if there's going to be more than Okay, yeah. So, make sure there's no more than three of you there.

You're welcome to do it. We just need to notice it. Yeah. No, I understand. Okay. Moving on. Um Discussion about public property exclusion ordinance. Again, uh Spencer. Okay, thank you, Mayor and Council. So, this is one that's um probably I'm going to trade back. [snorts] And the software's not working.

may be new to to many of you, um but something that staff has been working on for a couple of months now and working with our attorneys even just to present the idea. So, that's again tonight. This is This is kind of a major thing and so we're not presenting it for any kind of consideration uh only for um some initial feedback and see if we're going in the right direction. So, why this is coming forward? Um So, right now the city does not currently have a general ordinance that allows for a temporary exclusion from specific city-owned public property for repeated violations of any kind of city or state laws. So, our current responses if there is illegal activity happening is a warning, a citation sometimes arrest where it's otherwise authorized in the law um and repeated just requests to leave if someone is is somewhere they shouldn't be. These tools are often sufficient, but not necessarily in every case. So, this proposal is intended to address situations where repeated unlawful conduct continues after the usual enforcement steps. So, the practical enforcement gap. So, police have encountered situations where the same person same person repeatedly violates Oregon law, city code, or facility rules on public property. That can occur in parks, natural areas, public facilities, or other city-owned public spaces. In some cases, staff and law enforcement are left using the same limited responses without resolving the actual issue. So, the issue of ongoing unlawful conduct at same locate So, the issue is ongoing unlawful conduct at the same location, not a one-time or a minor issue. So, those are already addressed.

It's the constant and repeated violations in the same place of the same the same laws. So, uh we do have an existing uh local example. City already has location-based exclusion um exclusion ordinance in place for the downtown area. That's our drug-free zone. And so, if someone um my understanding is if someone is uh cited for a drug offense within the area, they can be excluded from that area for a period of time. Um and it's been effective. I don't think we've used it very often. Chief, how often do you think we use it in a given year, maybe? A couple of times, few times. Used to be a little more prevalent, So, he said for the record, a couple of times a year, maybe. We used to use it more, maybe less so now. Um so, this proposal follows a similar philosophy of that uh ordinance that we already have on the books, but is uh whereas that is to a general area, the downtown area, and is specific to drugs. Um this is uh more specific to public city-owned public property. So, again, not public property. So, we're not talking about ODOT property, school district property, just city-owned. So, what the draft ordinance would do. So, it would allow the city in limited circumstances to issue a written exclusion notice. The notice would temporarily bar a person from a specific city-owned public property. Would only apply after documented violations of Oregon law, city code, or adopted rules governing that property. The exclusion would apply for a defined period and only to the location identified in the notice. And I think one thing we'll say, I don't think I put it in the slides, but I think it generally requires a warning

first. And the exclusion would only happen after a warning and if there was another um another violation. Uh the exception to that is if it's something um more um more significant like a violent act or something like that, we don't do a warning. But if it is something minor, they can have a warning and that could be the end of it. Why this is more enforceable. So, a warning or a citation issues addresses the the original violation. So, that's what we're currently doing today. An exclusion notice adds one new legal step. So, the person is formally excluded from that property for the period of time determined and if they return, they can be subject to a criminal trespass. So, that escalates the enforcement ability of the police. If we want to um if we do want to trespass someone from public property, this ordinance has to be in in place. We can't do it just because someone has been cited for the same thing 10 times. We don't have the ability to trespass them unless something like this is in place. Um so, if the person stays away, the issue ends. If the person returns, they can be subject to trespass. So, without this tool, the city may be limited to repeated citations. With it, returning after the exclusion creates a stronger enforcement issue. So, what this is not. This is not uh an ordinance targeted at any anyone's status-based. It's not a citywide ban. So, um it's specific to that property. So, if you get excluded from a park, it's not excluded from all city property. It's just from that park. It's not a permanent exclusion. I think

the maximum it can be is at 90 days and that's after repeat repeat violations. And it's not a replacement for existing criminal or civil civil enforcement tools. So, it's behavior-based and it's location-specific. Examples of how it could be used. Example one, this goes back to our earlier discussion. If the city adopts a parks ordinance prohibiting alcohol in parks, which we may not, but uh let's say that were on the books and a person was repeatedly found violating that rule at that a specific park, they could be excluded from the park for a limited time. Uh public buildings. If a person repeatedly engages in disorderly conduct or other unlawful disruptive behavior behavior public building they could be issued a temporary exclusion from that location. It may be a situation we had a situation a couple of months ago with an irate customer here at City Hall. Police had to be called and he was ultimately he was he was arrested um but that could be a situation where it might warrant an exclusion even if it was just a 24-hours exclusion for like I say a cooling off period before they need to come back and conduct their business at City Hall. So I could see a case where situation like that may be warranted. And it could uh apply in any other places whether be natural areas or rights-of-way um any other city-owned building where the unlawful conduct continues after lesser enforcement. So why this matters? So it helps protect the intended use of city property. So what we're talking about is when when activities and behavior that are illegal interfere with the propo- with the established use of the property. So provides a practical tool for location-specific problems. It improves the city's ability to address ongoing issues at specific sites.

Supports the safe and orderly use of public spaces and the focus is on compliance and public use not on punishment. So there are some limits in this draft ordinance. So it applies only to the like I mentioned only to the specific property where the violation occurred. Um broader exclusions are limited. So if you have repeated violations or if you have if you're excluded from multiple locations you then become eligible for a um a city-wide exclusion from city parks. But um it it has you have to meet certain criteria and there has to be written findings that require a higher level approval. I think it says sergeant or above has to be able to make those findings and so it would be there's a lot of guardrails in place. Um all the exclusions are temporary not permanent as I mentioned. I think it's it um the first offense it's up to 30 days second up to 60 and third uh up to up to 90 days um but there's a lot of discretion in there. Um I did talk to our attorney following on the the fireworks discussion of police and discretion and uh giving discretion over the time how many days versus having a set um a set duration. We had that discussion when it came to um the enhancement on the fireworks ordinance of $1,000. The police department wanted and we ultimately chose to just set it at $1,000. Um in this case because we're talking about public access to a location we need a lot more guardrails in place and so in order for this to um I think um

hold up to any kind of challenge um the attorneys our city attorney um said it's imperative that there is we keep the language of up to in there so it's very specific to whatever the circumstances are. Like I said generally requires a warning I'd say requires a warning unless there is some specific more um aggressive or egregious um violations and includes a written notice and they have appeals rights. So more safeguards against any kind of misuse must be tied to documented unlawful conduct. Again warning generally required. The notice identifies what the violation is, what the property is, what the duration of the exclusion is and the name of the individual issuing the citation. So all very transparent and made available to the individual. Um they can appeal it through the minis- municipal court process and if they choose to appeal it the exclusion is automatically stayed while they go through the court process. So again limits are designed to make it practical, enforceable and legally defensible. I expect the use to be limited. We don't see this to be needing to be used frequently. Actually we hope it doesn't need to be used frequently but it would only be in limited situations where prior enforcement has not been effective in stopping the illegal behavior or when a stronger immediate response is justified a significant event. I mean example I'll say uh a fight breaks out at a high school football game at Broadway Park. Um there may be an immediate need for um someone to be excluded you know for the rest of the football season or

something like that as an example um where it's a public safety concern. Um but we expect this to be um not the first thing we go to. In fact it's really built in that this there are many other steps that would have to be used before you get to this and then if you're using this tool it's very limited in how long and and the scope of where it would apply. So at this this time this is the first time we're bringing it to you. Um kind of want to put it before you um see what kind of uh questions, comments, concerns you have, get some feedback and if there's a desire from the council then we would bring it back um for your consideration if once we've worked out any um any of the things you'd want us to look at further. Turn it back to you mayor. Thank you. Yeah you've obviously put a lot of work into this and I assume all with uh chief's input from his department as well.

I'm going to blame him. He was the first one to bring it up.

Okay. Um there's a lot in here and you know this is going to be one that we'll be very careful with. I appreciate all of the very explicit limitations that are in here. Um and I believe you used a pretty um good basis for this. Um one that has been in place for a while and works. Uh we had a public comment earlier about following up what we end up doing and I would suggest that we do that at the police annual report once this goes into effect. And you can certainly let us know any other time again if it goes into effect if there are any issues with it. So um I'm fine with you proceeding. I don't have a problem with this uh particularly since your staff has requested it. Uh Patrick. I agree. Yeah. I I think um it's got uh it's touching all the bases and more thought needs to go into it. I have I need to read more about it. There's a lot there. Mhm. Chris. I'm good with moving forward. I trust that it's a tool that we kind of need in our toolkit. I have some specific questions but I'll hold until we move more forward on it. Well I'm I'm sure we'll be extending this out over a period of time giving plenty of time for the public comment. Peter. I definitely think that there is need for this.

I have a couple of questions. What is the difference between exclusion and trespass notice or trespassing? Um so I know that a business can call and ask that somebody be trespassed from their their place of business. How how does this different or the same? So um this is I'll put my attorney hat on and so take take it for all the legal training I've had but um the big difference is between public and private property. So as a private property owner you have full control over who comes and goes from your property and so if you do not wish to have an individual on your private property and they refuse to leave you have the ability to call the police and they can trespass someone. They can either give someone a warning that if they return they're trespassed um or if they refuse to leave they can be subject to arrest uh for trespassing at that point. When it's public property the the assumption is um it's a public space um and the public has a right to be there. We we already take a look at that quite carefully in public facilities. As an example our lobby out here would be a public uh public area that we wouldn't control who can and can't be in the lobby but we've designated the area behind the doors and behind the glass as not open to the public and we've gone through specific steps to say this isn't a public area and so people can't be there. Um when we get to areas where generally speaking the public is allowed to go in that and is expected to go um constitutionally and for other reasons we have to be very careful on we can't just limit for any reason. Even even breaking the law is not reason for

being trespassed. The consequence for breaking law is whatever the penalty is for that law, whether it's a fine or subject to arrest. That's that's the only course of action. And so in this case trespass gives us the ability like a private business can have someone removed when they don't want them. It gives us the ability to have someone required to be removed or subject to arrest. But unlike a private business, it's not for because whatever reason we think of, it's under very narrow and specific purposes. So we would we need something like that because otherwise the assumption is it's public and the and the public have a right to be there. And when you say that it's it's in appeal and the trespass is stayed does that mean the trespass is null or they It means it's not would not be enforced until the appeals process goes through. So the assumption is the benefit goes to the individual. If they believe they have a valid reason why they shouldn't be excluded from particular property and want to pursue that, the assumption is that they can continue to use that property until a court finds upholds the exclusion decision. Okay. And that's that was something that came from the city attorney that needed to be in there. I'm I'm very much in favor of um this kind of action to protect our city employees. And um I would suggest that um there needs to be some recognition and conversation about our library.

I do know that we're already trespassing people from the library and removing people from the library and for cause. Um I can remember one just recently setting a fire outside the library. So I do know that the the police are already being called for this and so that we do have some of this going on. Um I think it's a good idea to have it formalized but I also think that um if I was an employee in the library and I had been physically threatened by somebody and they were appealing so they could still come back to the library and threaten me. Um I might have a problem with that. So um I want to look at it from both sides. Um and yes, it's behavior based but we've got to take both of those things into consideration. I think you bring a good point. I hadn't considered the library and so I think that'll be good for us to understand a little bit better under what authority we're doing that and if this how this applies or doesn't apply. And I agree with what what what you said. Um ultimately all I'm going to defer to what our city attorney says is enforceable. Mhm. And but definitely we want to protect our staff and the patrons of the library or any city facility. Including the convention center as well. Oh yeah. One thing I will say about the convention center is um by the nature of its use. In fact, I've been working with Brian to create a a policy within that designates what is and isn't public and when and when and not it's public meaning um city hall library during open hours is always a public area. The convention center is not the same because people it's subject to private

rentals. And if you're the renter of the space, you have a right to say who comes and goes from there. So it's it is a different situation and I've been working with Brian to make sure we um come up with a policy that um takes out any of the gray areas so that uh the some of the questions we've we've had recently had to do with um people renting the facility and wanting to be sure that we didn't allow certain individuals in and we want to kind of have our ducks in a row. So we've been working on that and how what we would do in different situations if things come up. And so that is a little different where it is be like a municipal golf course or something like that. It may be public but you only have the right to be there if you paid to be there. So but generally speaking most of our our of our facilities and public spaces are not like that. Including the Chisholm as well. Yeah. Yeah. Good. That's I think the need for this has been well articulated over many meetings. We've talked about this for a long time. As long as the attorney has reviewed it and it's legally enforceable then I'm all for it. Okay. I hear consensus move forward. Okay. Okay. Last discussion consideration cancellation August 26th and December 28th city council meetings. These are meetings we for Patrick we generally let you have the second meeting in August off. Many of us I think try to schedule a vacation every time that year so we're completely out of town. And December 28th is going to be just shortly after Christmas.

Um again as we mentioned before if there is a need for a meeting, we will um consider that or we consider a different date um for it. All we're required by our charters have one at least one meeting a month. So I have a motion. I think it's important that we continue our tradition so I move to cancel [laughter]

August 26th and December 28th 2026 city council meetings. You didn't wait for him to finish and you wanted to second. Okay. That's got President Morrissey and Council Rainsborough. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? No. Okay. Motion carries. As we mentioned before we talked about the last time, we will try to do this at the beginning of the year from now on. Maybe even the last meeting in December just so we get the schedule worked out for the year. Okay. Lots of discussion tonight. Thank you very much everybody. I thought we made some really good progress tonight. City staff, anybody? Paul, public works. Yeah, busy are you?

[laughter]

As you know, I like to brag about my staff. Um and what you guys don't know is what they're doing because I bet any of you didn't know that the Cove pump station went down completely last week. Both pumps failed and our vector truck was on the fritz. So our guys scrambled. Walter, JP, Brian, Grace, Logan and Cole scrambled and got it back up and operational within a couple hours. They were able to get both pumps going. And then today it went down again. And the reason because uh the main power supply panel had corroded contacts in it because it's right there on the beach. And Walter scrambled, got the electrician out there, got it fixed. They got the crew is out there maintaining it. So this is me just giving kudos to the sewer department doing a fantastic job. Um I also want to brag about the water department. What you didn't know is that we are still operating on one main tank for the city right now cuz the north tank is almost done. The crew up there has just finished up and the paint's curing. It'll be done and sterilized um in about a week from now and it'll be brought back online. But Kevin and Ron and Duke and the rest of the crew have done a fantastic job keeping the south tank full especially on we have these weekends and the demand starting to come up. And our fire department has training which uses up a lot of water. But they still kept the tank filled. So this is just me bragging about those guys doing a fantastic job. Great. I always love to hear hear you brag. That's fine. Good. Oh, the chief's going to come up?

[laughter] All right. Thanks for having me. I just wanted to follow up after with Ms. McVey's comments last week and bringing up the the gang talk in regards to that social media post and what not. And I followed up with our officers and the detective that was supposedly in contact with this person which there was a conversation but there's there's no real validity to what the social media post was about if you recall too many of those but I just wanted to make sure that we followed up on that. And

I think I verbally introduced Elia Samod last last time in regards to new hire. She started just that day that meeting but she left for the academy last night, started today. So, excited to get her through training and then update on Scott Beaver, who's at the academy now, should be returning in in the June, I believe, so we can start the field training on him, but otherwise we're doing good. Over. Thanks. All right. Thanks. John. Oh, no no more Zach? John. Thank you. Just to kind [clears throat] of follow up on employee we're Excuse me. I continue to battle some allergies. We're pretty well staffed. We have hired summer help for public works. They actually started a little early. So, that's good. But I and then as as Zach mentioned, we're losing Zach Mitchell and so we're beginning the process to fill that position and what I wanted to point out about it is that we've seen a really extreme uptick in applications with our jobs. We've been filling several positions and it's not just the number of applicants, but also the quality of the applicants and I think it speaks to kind of what's going on in our world and I mean never seen in my now almost 8 years in this role, I've never seen as many applications for positions with with a really a high number of degrees applying for the positions and not just bachelor's degrees, but some master master degrees in there, too. So, it's um it's a really competitive field and and I feel bad when we have to say no to some really competitive individuals, but it also means that we have a good pool to choose from and so trying to go through those applications as best we can. So, thanks. Good luck. I know you'll make good choices. And who wouldn't want to work for the city of Seaside, right? Kim. Thank you. I I

I'll thank Kim right now for all the work that she did on our volunteer banquet banquet volunteer gathering. No, it was a banquet, wasn't it? It was Yes, it was. She did a tremendous job and I told her before, but I'll tell her again that thank you so much. That was inaugural as far as I know, we have never done that before and uh people that attended, I think really appreciated it. Yes. [applause]

Spencer. The only thing I was going to say is we've already meeting a staff today and um in anticipation of the fireworks ordinance to put operational plans together both for on the enforcement side and also for the communication side and so those are actively happening. So, we we are hoping to start to kind of uh turn the ship a little bit starting this summer, but taking a long-term view and approach to it. So, but uh otherwise we're looking forward to um you know, the start of the busy season season here in the city. So. Well, maybe you could give us a heads up when you you have whatever ideas that are going to happen, let us know what's going on. So, we know a little bit ahead of time. Well, I think that would be part of you know, the communications and putting the word out to the community. But I'll say Josh Heineman put together a pretty robust plan and and so I'm looking forward to it. Good. Patty. Um there were two proclamations you had today. One was older Americans month and I think this one's really important because our older community is a treasure trove of history. It's a treasure trove of history, life experiences and knowledge and in this country they're often discounted and sometimes become invisible. Other cultures and countries seniors are raised to positions of honor and veneration. If we are lucky, we will all achieve a long and viable life. I support this proclamation and suggest that we offer all of our seniors the respect and compassion due to their service to the community and the care that they've provided for their families here. The second one was the children's mental health awareness week and the care of

our youth is a responsibility of our entire community. To our youth please do not be afraid to reach out to all of us. Be available. Be aware, be kind and patient because a call for help comes in a variety of forms. Uh last week I had well actually, yeah, last week Thursday and Friday. Last week I had the wonderful experience of spending time as a first-timer and with other city councilors, city managers and mayors from towns all around the state. It was the League of Oregon Cities spring conference. We got the opportunity to listen to what other cities and towns were doing to make their communities better. Also, one of the topics was ways to engage the community in government. There were some pretty fresh ideas out there and it brought more of the community to the table to weigh in on things that affected them directly. In the next several months, I'm looking forward to you know, shop workshopping some of these ideas and implementing these ideas for the community engagement here in Seaside. And moving on with that, if you have any ideas that you'd like to share, speaking to the community out there please submit them through online submittal forms through our website come here in person bring them to uh uh coffee with the counselor. And which by the way, my coffee with the counselor is coming up. It's May 9th from 9:15 to 10:15 at the beer and wine house in the outlet mall. Bring your thoughts, bring your concerns, bring your solutions about building a better community here and for our families and businesses and I look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you. Yeah. Um and I have to look at my uh coffee with the counselor. It's I think the 13th. Yeah. So, um I want to also talk a little bit about us having gone to the League of Oregon Cities conference last week. I happened to sit on the um the committee that uh [clears throat] decided on which of the cities would get awards. More than 40 cities submitted um their programs their initiatives their accomplishments for [clears throat] uh recognition with awards by the League of Oregon Cities and six of them won awards. One of the things that came up for me as I was able to really read in depth all of the submissions was how many wonderful ideas and accomplishments all of the cities are are doing and a lot of things that we can learn from, a lot of things that we can adopt. Um League of Oregon Cities is supposed to post those up on uh their websites for everybody to be able to um to uh read and and you know, we don't all have to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from each other.

[snorts]

The two areas that there was a lot of heavy uh input on were citizen academies and uh and um citizen engagement. So, a lot of engaging our citizens in the future of the cities and in educating and knowing what's going on in their cities. I thought one of the best uh workshops we had was the city of Independence and I would encourage anybody to go to to their website. They've got some really creative ideas on how they're reaching out and engaging with their um with their cities. With with their um uh what do I want to call it? Their their citizens. And the name of that session was making government interesting. And um they did a good job in making government interesting. Um one of their one of their uh and as it turns out uh the their public information officer, their person who uh told us about all this he actually grew up in Astoria. So, um I worked with his mother at Job Corps. So, it was really kind of nice. Anyway, they have bright, innovative ideas that are up to attract the interest of the residents in uh giving input knowing what's happening in the city. So, I'm going to this is sort of goes along with what um uh Counselor Ansbro said and I would like to propose that we schedule a

workshop for us to discuss strategies and actions to improve our engagement with our residents. I know that it's in our goals and I think that um we can start working on this a little bit. So, I'm going to invite Councilor Ansbro to join me um, in requesting that we put this as a workshop. Um, as per our council rules, it takes two of us to get this um, on our workshop schedule. I support that. Okay. So, I'd like to see that put on the the workshop schedule in the near future. Um, the other every always engaging with the mayors and councilors and city managers, um, I think is is a time when we can learn so much and we can bring so much back to our city. Um, and it's sort of uh, renewal for us as well. And so, um, my coffee with a councilor in May is on Wednesday, May 13th at 10:00 at the Best Western Hotel. So, hope to see people there. Thanks. Chris. Um, just a quick thank you to you, Mayor, and to all of my co-councilors who showed up for the volunteer event. I thought it was really a nice event and to all of those people who couldn't make it, um, we are grateful for all of you the work that you do to help volunteer in the city, as well. Um, I went to um, the musical up at the high school since our last city council meeting, Clue. I don't know if any of you were able to attend it, but I just wanted to give a shout out to the high school.

I wanted to check out the um, space after we had had the presentation from Robert Montero and others about the the organization that they have to try to raise funds um, for the arts up at the high school and um, the facility definitely um, is not state-of-the-art, but the kids are state-of-the-art and they did such a great job and they put so much effort into it and I just want to say thank you um, to all of them. It was really great and I did solve the Clue mystery. It was an interactive thing, so I did solve it. So, um, the next thing I want to talk about is another thing I did um, over the course of the last couple weeks and I'm going to show for all of you on camera the Seaside Visitors Guide. Love this. I think a lot of us might think, oh, this is for visitors. There's a lot of great information in here for residents and um, my mom and my sister and I did the Treasure Quest 2026 last weekend. Super fun, not easy. Gets you out in the city, really interactive. Um, we had a great time. Shout out to my mom who got the last and hardest clue, which was actually right by my house, so really embarrassing, but she did a great job. And then um, go into the visitor center and you get this cool patch. So, just wanted to highlight that. Big thank you to the visitor center. They did a great job on the clues they do every year and I think it was fun to get out, so. Next, um, the Village, um, the proclamation about Older Americans, um, we have our first meeting of the Seaside Villages group. It is a non-profit organization that is designed to help

older Americans, adults learn not learn, but be able to stay in their homes and age in their homes with the support of the community. And um, we are trying to start a village in Seaside and there is a group of people that is um, spearheading this effort. It's very grassroots, but our first meeting for the community where we're going to kick it off, explain a lot more about it, talk to people who are interested is Friday, May 1st from 12:30 to 1:30 in uh, the library at the library. So, if you have any interest in uh, joining us, yes, Kim, the 1st, 12:30 to 1:30 at the library. Um, you don't have to commit, just come and learn and hear about it. We we'd love to have you uh, at the meeting. And then lastly, my coffee with a councilor is the following day. It's Saturday, May 2nd. I can't believe it's May already. May 2nd at 9:00 at the Seaside Golf Course and I'd love to get your thoughts on anything, but also we talked about quite a few things this evening. So, um, love to have you join me and talk about it on Saturday, May 2nd. Thank you. So, few takeaways [clears throat] from the LOC event. I attended a very interesting city charter health check. I'll move quick, but some of the questions that were asked is should the municipal judge be appointed by the council or on a ballot to be elected by the residents. I found that the most interesting cuz a lot of communities do put that on the ballot. Should the attorney be appointed by the council or the city manager? Should we handle vacancies? How should we handle vacancies on the city council? Very relevant to what we're going through now. Is the ward system that we have for Seaside a good system and the right fit for us? Should elected officials be compensated and what should be in the charter versus the council rules? Uh, the workshop and keynote, I got some good stuff out of. A very intuitive

thinker. She brought up some very interesting points. Some of the biggest were, how do we connect with people we don't agree with? I think that's very important to do. And then how do we move conversations from online where there's a lot of name calling and bickering to offline where actual collaboration can take place. How do we encourage more residents to play a small and meaningful role in their community? Something Tita just kind of brought up that and how do we apply this specifically to Seaside and in our city, that's our boards, committees and commissions. So, how do we encourage more folks to get involved in these and you know, we just had our volunteer appreciation event and the the big takeaway I had is the vast majority of our volunteers are what we coined today older Americans and they do an amazing job, but the reality is they're not going to be there forever. So, I think as a city, myself included, we need to do a better job of encouraging that next generation to get involved and take part in the future direction of our city and I think to do that better, we got to frame it differently. It's not just volunteer for two to four years on one of these boards, committees and commissions, but if you want to shape the direction of Seaside, this is how you do it. And so, we need to I think do a better job there. Uh, finally, my coffee with a councilor is Tuesday, May 5th 9:15 a.m. at Seaside Coffee House. Coffee with the mayor immediately follows. Yes, sir. Um, to Chris is talking about Villages Northwest. I uh, very gratefully um, and she gratefully accepted when I asked her to take on being the point person for that. Greatly appreciate it. I'm sorry I will miss it because uh, the LOC uh, small cities meeting is also at the same time. And I've committed to that already. But let them know the mayor is fully supporting what's going on in that.

Um, the ideas about you know, this it was called idea being coming idea friendly uh, where you bring in other ideas. I would like you as liaisons to your boards and committees to bring that up there and say uh, well, Chris, you weren't there, but we can give you the background of what the ideas were. It's basically just start small and have like a one single project to see if we can get people there and then go forward from that point. Um, but yes, we will have a future workshop. We have some other priorities we got to get done first, so we'll continue to work on that. Um, one one idea that I've never even considered before, this is for Zach and maybe Spencer. Um, there seems to be a trend moving towards biennial budgeting. Only doing it every other year. And I don't know, you know, what's really involved in that, but I was talking to a councilor from Albany and they've done it for a while now. And um, it's a lot of work for that one period, but then, you know, with our new improved system of keeping track of where we're at, um, you know, maybe it's an idea to look at. Uh, the Sisters doing the civic leadership, I've known about that for a while. Albany also does one. Um, you know, it'd be a great idea. It's just we're all with a limited amount of time. So, um, if there's anybody out there wants to take that on as a project, we're all ready for it. So, anyway, um, my I've said it over and over, my favorite, I think, meeting of the year is when I bring these kids in. Uh, this is a end of a process that's spanned most of the year so far. We go up and visit the kids in their classes, bring

three classes or so together at a time and let them ask questions of us. We do this as trio of mayors from Gearhart, Cannon Beach and Seaside. And it's just a joy to see what they come up with. And [snorts] then we we do the contest and we get all of these posters and we go through and look at them and and it's, you know, it's pretty tough. Um, uh, I wish Joey was here tonight. Um, his son did one and guess what it was all about? We need more firefighters. Yes. [laughter] [sighs]

But, uh, you know, all the kids they're passionate about something and, uh, it's like I said, we had more than we've ever had before. So, um, these are going to be, uh, I bet some of our future leaders and we just need to get them involved a little younger. Um, one of the other things you can do, um, I mentioned I go to the, uh, high school Pacifica presentations on May 27th. You can sign up to help evaluate if you'd like. So, my quote tonight, uh, to finish off, uh, is focused on kids. Uh, tonight's or today's young dreamers are tomorrow's great leaders. When we listen to their hopes, we catch a glimpse of the future they will one day shape. We're adjourned.