City Council - Regular Meeting

start. All right, we're gonna call the work session for May 11th to order. We have one topic tonight and it's led by our assistant city manager, John. Talk about a seminar that he went to. Yes, I'm going to move down there. Give me one second. Sorry. Thank you. All right. Hello everyone.

So, yes, the topic um I think you might recall uh I guess it's a couple months ago, but um the league did a an online presentation on community engagement that I was able to participate in. And then of course um Council at least you were able to participate in some community engagement at the recent um pend pendle conference LLC conference

so there's a lot of conversation around that um coupled with what I learned as well as uh um an event that I participated in Oregon humanities in February called reflective conversations um kind of put something together to talk through community engagement through a couple of different lenses So, we'll start. So, I think the first thing that's important um to note, here we go. Oh, now I know what it's like to run through this.

All right. First, um and I'm going to just kind of go through these bulleted points because I think they're pretty important, but um first thing to note that why this conversation matters is um communities expect participation. I think that's that's first and foremost. Um trust in institution uh is shaped by transparency and responsiveness. Um really leads stronger engagement generally leads to better process, better decisions, better delivery of services, earlier identification of concerns uh to more durable and better community outcomes and improve public trust. And um you know good engagement does not eliminate disagreement but it helps communities understand how and my decisions are made.

I really like this too because I think um all of this information is really good, but it's important to note that this is not what community engagement is. It's not just public notification. It's not just public relations, advocacy, voting, or delegating author authority. What it is is a sharing of information, listening to different perspectives, identifying values and concerns, exploring trade-offs, building relationships, and informing decisions. And so really, if you look at those signs, it's more it should be more of a two-way street as opposed to a one-way street. And I think um what the probably the biggest word I like from this too is that um community engagement should be intentional. It shouldn't be just about checking a box. And I think that um too often, hey, yeah, this is the right thing to do and and so we do it, but uh and this will be kind of a repeated theme, but have we been intentional about the way we've designed community engagement should be inclusive? We'll talk more about that. Um structured, transparent, and then I think this is a big one too is ongoing. Um, sometimes it maybe can't be ongoing, but I think if we're intentional about it, it can be. So, this is a kind of just a a spectrum that looks at engagement, you know, from kind of maybe a low level all the way to the highest level. Um, and I won't read through all this, but five levels, inform, consult, involve, collaborate, and empower. And another kind of I think good mantra of this is that biggest mistakes municipalities make is only using inform methods when the public expects to be involved or believing that they were going to be collaborating on process and were ultimately only consulted. So you can see um at those different levels there's a number of goals that I

think we can have and then some examples of where that lands on the spectrum of engagement all the way from simple posting on a website um up to advisory groups and then citizen boards. Some common pitfalls and risks. Um, I think you can probably all uh look at these and see where maybe some of these might might line up. Um, number one, engagement is too late. And we've definitely seen this where, hey, I didn't hear about that. You know, why didn't I know about that? It could have been that that information is already out there, but for whatever reason, they didn't receive it. Um, overpromising influence. This obviously creates frustration and distrust. Uh, pitfall number three, we're only hearing the large loudest voices. Pitfall number four, oneizefits-all. Uh, this definitely is a challenging one. I think, you know, we have a forum like a city council meeting, but it doesn't always work for everybody or it can be intimidating or um it's simply they don't have the avenue to to stand up and be a voice or it's it's just frightening or something like that. And then pitfall number five, a lack of followup. Um and this ultimately is participation without physical visible outcomes reduces trust. So these are I think largely things that we are doing kind of went through and um we're words are italicized there. Uh that's where I think we've either have done some things or are currently doing some things. So everything from public meetings to informal resident interactions and I witnessed an informal resident interaction today. Oftentimes we have people come in and ask questions at the counter and just today council Monttero happened to be in here a little

earlier and ended up having what I would classify as an informal resident interaction. So they happen every day when uh employees are out on the streets when you all host you know I guess that's less informal in terms of you have invited you've all said hey I'm having coffee with the counselor but ultimately it's a way that you're having interactions with the community about when we just go to the coffee shop is that informal yeah I would say so I mean everywhere we are

yeah and especially with you all being um you know visible members of the community long-standing members of the Oh, I've seen your picture online or hey, I've watched the I've watched the YouTube meeting, so I know your accounts really might not recognize you for a minute without your classes on. I know, but um yeah, definitely.

Um couple others just to highlight without going through the whole list. Um project specific outreach. So, I don't we don't do this on a regular basis, but a big one where I think we've done quite a bit is on the seaside comp plan. you know, they early on in that process holding um SDA and the Times Theater wanted to get involved in that. So, holding an event where people could come sit down in maybe kind of a restaurant environment, grab a beverage and and partake in the conversation. Um, we don't go to every weekly meeting, but SDDDA and chamber are good examples of ways that the mayor participates, maybe some of you have over time, staff participates. Um, these are things that we're doing. And then I I wanted to pay point out digital communications from the fact that I think this is um something that we've I think you all are aware of. We start experimenting with a little bit more and that's in the Q&A features. So, when we've had um help me out with one of the examples, Spencer, because I'm drawing a blank on what are the things that we've used in the Q&A feature. Now, we did fireworks um and we did the

fireworks, we did, uh the exclusion thing exclusion, the head start, the parks regulations.

That's right. So Joshua Heinman um who also serves as a public information officer has has learned a lot about how to I think properly code those two. So when people are searching about these things on Google or whichever search engine they're using, they're popping up uh in a way that addresses it in kind of a conversational way and kind of through the AI search. Also if like as an example you know nowadays if you do a Google search you get a little Gemini AI thing right the first thing now if it says what are the fireworks regulations in seaside it points right to our newly adopted ordinance as in C and so it's it's Gemini has given the first response as accurate which is kind of cool

so it's sourcing us as as an official source in a in a really strong way and so I just wanted to draw attention to that one particular Particularly, John, I have noticed more activity, social media activity lately. Has that been intentional? Has Josh been It seems like press releases, the waters low, the parks regulation, the Q&A stuff. It feels to me like there's been more lately. I think the the Q&A stuff was very intentional. The other stuff, I think sometimes we run in a pattern of we have a lot of news to post in a short amount of time. Uh, and other, you know, there's a lot of reasons to post consecutively. And then other times you might see, well, geez, like they don't they haven't updated their website for like a month. Well,

fortunately, maybe there hasn't been a big event to post about. Sometimes we're slower. It's a it's a slow it's it's not that we're not doing the work behind the scenes, but it's maybe that we don't have anything that is at that high level of feeling to need. I think we've gone with the mentality that we don't want to just post a post. We want to make sure that we're posting for the right reasons. It's when content that matters to people. Uh because we also operate from the mindset that if we do too much of that, they're not going to pay attention to the really important things. Oh, it's just more news. It's like making sure that we're hitting the most important things. So, I think it's just happen stance that a lot of what you're seeing is yeah, there's some intent there, but I also just think that there's some really big topics that we've been talking about as well. It's been good. I've gotten good feedback on it.

It's great. So, here are um some opportunities to strengthen and again I won't go through the entire list. Um but one that couple that pop out to me that I think are important is one I think the more interactive formats. Um we've talked um you know and engaging the youth in different ways. I think that's one. Um, again referencing the the coffee with the counselor, you know, those are areas where you individually are doing things, but are there ways that we could do more of a popup event at the community center utilizing a coffee shop that's more uh for an evening type of event where more of you are there? All of you are there. I think there are um that one is just intriguing to me, I think. Um, and then because of uh just like what you mentioned and seeing more stuff out there, I think the Q&A's questions and answers, they represent another way to I think we could do some visual storytelling with that as well or even um recently we've we have done this or we've looked at doing this where we take um a segment of a council meeting and say repurposing that because there's a broader story to tell there. Um, in fact, you if you go back and ever watch the council meetings now, you'll you'll see that we're inserting timestamps in there to quickly find points of the meeting that are of interest or I heard this is going to be rather than having to watch the entire thing. Um, community members have responded and that's been valuable, too, which is which is great. I've been asked why we don't put out a social media post the day of a city council meeting or perhaps other meetings, but city council in particular reminder. Here's the meeting tonight. Here's the Zoom link. So,

okay. People get it uh the day of or the day before, whatever. Chris, can I respond to that? Yeah. I worked in a city where we did do that and it was total noise because it's the same post every two weeks or whatever. uh if someone's not interested in coming to council meeting and they start getting flooded with council meeting in like invites then they start stop following. So I think that goes back to the strategic what do people want to know and want to talk about. Um that's what my experience anyway. Maybe we could find out what they if they would I mean I've gotten feedback that they would like that reminder. I think another way to

we talked about a survey and that's something you could ask in the survey

I think and the way that Josh has approached and that's why like not even we've have we had a conflict a couple weeks ago where we had a couple things that we wanted to post. We didn't want to post them in the same day because we both we wanted them both to get a little bit of airtime if you will and not one get overrun by the other. Um so to Spencer's comment about hey geez I see the same exact post every two weeks. Now, it's not the same exact post. It might be different content, but maybe it's led in a different way. Perhaps that's where, hey, this topic is tonight. Here's the Q&A on this this big event. So, we don't necessarily lead as council meeting. We lead it as a it's a fireworks discussion or it's a um exclusion ordinance and it has the FAQs, but then it's if you want to learn more about this, it's at tonight's meeting. So, I think there are ways to do that.

Yeah. If you led with the topic, it wouldn't be the same post interesting to the people that it'd be interesting to as opposed to just council meeting. Yeah, I like that. Uh before we move on on the earlier engagement in projects, one of the big feedback that I got on Pacifica apartment complex uh is that the this is kind of a one-way required notification, but it's 200 feet. I believe that we have to notify residents of a project, right? Well,

I don't know exactly if we have a measurement, whatever that is. Yeah. So, that I think makes a lot of sense. Let's say it's a vacation room and you can notify 200 feet and that gets you two or three houses in every direction, right? But when it's a project that big, 200 feet actually only gets you one or two houses in that area. So, the complaint was that the neighborhood didn't actually know about it. Only the people that were right there knew about it. So maybe something to consider if we really do want to engage the public earlier in projects is depending on the size of the project, it might make sense to notify further. So if you're building something like Worldmark, it might not make sense to notify 200 feet. Maybe that's a citywide or a bigger this is a huge apartment complex and so 200 feet just didn't really do it justice.

Something to consider. Yeah, I think for some of the projects I've heard that they've done door hangers on a lot of the houses in the area. I think this is the required notification though that the city goes through. So this is what by statute or ordinance you guys are required to notify, right? And that's only 200. Jeff, do you know what it is since he's happened to be here? A single family residence. I think it made sense, but when it was this big apartment complex, I don't think it did.

Yeah. on land use decisions. There's a 100 foot notification requirement in our city ordinance and it's also part of state law. But some of that is actually changing uh with was it Senate Bill 974 that goes into effect this year that actually prohibits us and limits our notification requirements to some extent as it comes to when it comes to building housing. uh to for some reason they're kind of changing directions on um public hearings for land use decisions when it comes to housing.

And I was going to add to that if you go go back to what was the slide you had on a couple of the problems um overpromising influence. And so I think this is a problem that we run into where the state has a goal of more public outreach and things like that which is good. But when you do it on a project that has a right to do something, a right to build, then that's just overpromising influence to say come have come have your say even though by law we have to approve this. Now that's not the Pacifica because the Pacifica um where it was our project, our property, that's totally within our discretion. But if you had another thing where they have a a right to build, it'd be like having a public hearing every time there's a building permit, someone could just come and object to it. I think that's that's a case where I think the legislature is trying to push us back because there's been so much push back over the years generally throughout the United States um on um get my mic just case on um push back on high density housing because they don't want it in their neighborhood. That that's one of the reasons where we have this housing crisis uh is because it's been pushed out. Um, and so I think they're getting away from that. There's a there if there's a right to have a certain type of housing, they should just do it. Anyways, that's going down a rabbit hole,

but it's how you say it. Come and have your say is way different than come and find out the facts. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. So, so I think that's where it goes to overpromising. A public hearing suggests you haven't made up your mind and you're considering all information. A openhouse you know, that's geared towards informing people is a different strategy. And so you have to know, you know, which one to use at which time. I would just say that even if the public maybe can't change the trajectory of the project, I still think they just like to know and notified as far as the 200 feet. So I'm looking at the city website. So that's subdivisions that are 200 feet.

Yeah, subdivision 200. Everything else is one. So the apartment is just considered 100 foot notice. The depends on where the apartment's constructed. If it's constructed in the R3 zone, there's no notification. It's a land use by right. Okay. It's an outright permitted use in the zone. If it's a conditionally permitted use that, then it's 100 ft um of the subject property. And but that's that's also something if this council wants to make those. Is that our code or state law? Uh that is our code currently. Um there's new state laws coming down that we're going to end up having to do some code changes. We're actually working on that right now with the planning commission on our housing code update.

But if there are opportunities where we want to communicate with more people and it's it's in our code, that is something that we can change. Maybe some things should be citywide, but it would be certain things, not all things. That's where we have to be careful. Council of Ontario brought up door hangers and we when we when the stepping stones community went uh in an initial planning phase and we did hold some open houses to discuss it. We did door hangers as well as mailers to just the the immediate neighborhood as much as we possibly could um just to kind of get the word out. And that really wasn't that not a part of any land use decision. That was just trying to get the word out that hey we're going to have an open house and have a discussion about this. In retrospect, I feel like we probably should have done more of that on the Pacifica apartment complex, even though maybe not legally required at this point. I think we should have

Well, in the Pacifica was kind of a different one because the only way we were able to build apartments there because it's industrially zoned is that it was owned by the city. Yeah. Um, so there was really no The only land use process that was part of the Pacifica was a highway overlays review. It was very narrow in scope. It wasn't a matter of whether or not they could build apartments there. was whether or not they met the criteria in our highway or the the real opportunity would have been prior to accepting the property because when we accepted the property we accepted housing going there so engaging with the public on should we put housing here that's the time to do it rather than you know when we have a project ready

even that was a quick turnaround to say hey the county has this land are you interested in it doesn't mean that we couldn't have done it but it would have been it would have had its own kind of chall challenge behind it. Sorry, good question. Good questions lead to lots of discussion.

Um just and so I think one other note just to make here is there's we're going to talk about some more things. We've already gone through a number of things. Um and I guess I my word of caution is opportunities do not include unlimited resources. we still have to be considerate around the fact of of our staffing of how many evenings we want to be involved, you all want to be involved, that kind of thing. So, we can do a lot of things, but you know, let's just be cautious about how we approach that. Um, and my kind of pull out here is the city engages the community in many ways. Biggest opportunity is to become more intentional, coordinated, and strategic. And I come that's the one like I'll come back to that a lot. I just think intentional is really I mean it's a powerful one when you when you sit sit with clipboard intentional. So this now gets into

and uh this image may invoke all kinds of thought but the point of this is to and this is where so I mentioned a couple months ago um that city supported my involvement Spencer supported my involvement and be going and participating in a two-day workshop with Oregon humanities and if you're not familiar with them um they're a great organization and uh I sat in a room with folks from all over the state, different backgrounds, all kinds of stuff for two days. And one of the things that uh we utilized to get into conversation was passing on a photo and then talking about it.

You all are pretty comfortable with each other. You've spent enough time with each other, but I wanted to just kind of go through the exercise and and first ask you just a simple question like what do you notice? I have some additional prompts just to consider, but I think you can think about Well, I'll just leave it at that. So, you sit with the photo for a second. Do you have any initial thoughts on on what you notice? Salt acres. Okay. So, you know that that's something you know. Somebody looking at this photo. I know where this is going, so I'm going to stay out of it. It's not It's actually not going anywhere. It has no intention other than uh I asked Josh to give me some photos that matched a whole bunch of criteria, and this is one that matched it. So,

I noticed the Moby Mat because the first before that was out there, I had to try to get my mom all the way out there over this rocks and sand with her walker and, you know, chair and it was impossible and that made it So, so accessibility all of a sudden we see accessibility on there. Yep. I see accessibility to salt makers. Mediocre surf. Yeah. I was just going to Do I see that?

Um, are there any if if somebody didn't know what this was all about, they might be saying, "Why are you letting people camp on the beach?" It looks like uh, you know, since I understand the history of it too, that there's education going on underneath the tarp. Okay. And the accessibility. love that when my parents were alive and down here. Would have loved to have that for that. There's not a lot of signage. If you aren't from here like us who know what that is, you wouldn't have a clue. You have to get a little closer. Yeah, there is a little sign on there.

And there's a sign you can't see up on the prom. Are there any uh obviously we said saltmakers but are there any any other stories present in this image and others then I mean you you've all mentioned some kind of key words but are there any stories present here that um some people should know about or maybe we're concerned about? Are there any tensions that come that might come to mind for people when you look at this?

I'm looking at the uh you know and trying to be more objective, you know, thinking outside of somebody who actually lives here. I'm looking at wood that that looks like it's going to be a big bonfire on the beach. Okay.

And and this again, this is um I I think the good thing about this photo was it it wasn't meant to create a bunch of polarization, more of a simple exercise and not not create debate. But I the the goal in in doing this too is I think perhaps we can look at where um in an engagement session we could show some imagery and ask questions around this for what people see especially you know some hot sort of hot topic. Hey we're going to do something with the north 40. This is what the north 40 looks like now. What could be here? What couldn't be here? What should be here? What shouldn't be here? Um but um thinking about like what p what perspectives are easy to hear when we're looking at images. Um what perspectives are easy to miss?

It's kind of easy to miss, but the people that are back behind the uh the crossbar there are dressed in period clothing. Is that a pile of rocks? Pile of rocks are actually a uh place to put the fire. The fire is protected on through sides. Well, somebody would say, "Why are you allowing fires on the beach or in the uh dunes?" The dunes. Thank you. Can't really see it, but there's a significant amount of no grass area. Yeah, but you can't

see it till you get up there. I'm looking at and saying, "Boy, I don't remember it being that green." Yeah. In September. Well, that's so that's the other thing that happens. I think the longer we sit with something, the more uh we can start to pull out even the littlest things and it and it sparks conversation amongst others. So, that's really what um that's what this is designed to do. I have one more question for you on this before we move on to the next But um what is meaningful engagement required from us? You think about that early in the process. Okay.

Engaging early open to listening.

Engagement also requires us to be responsive. If we say we're going to uh look into something, if we say we're going to return a call, if we we need to be responsive, we need to fulfill whatever commitments we make.

All right. So, this was another um example from from the uh reflective conversation. So this is from a book um that was provided to us at the end. It's um called taking action readings for civic reflection. It was edited by Adam Davis who is the executive director been the longtime exe executive director for Oregon humanities. So, um, I went through this last week and I tried to find something that I thought, you know, might resonate, might be, again, wasn't trying to create a lot of polarization, um, or, you know, big debate, but just kind of some some starter ideas. So, um, and this, uh, was written, uh, by Boris Novak, um, who was born in Belgrade and he is a poet, um, communication professional, I would say. So, What we can do here is I can read the entire thing or if you can see it, it's big enough on the screen there. Um, I'd ask you all to read a couple of those lines and we can read. Everybody can have a participation. If you choose not to, that's okay. There's silence and somebody wants to take the next couple of lines, go ahead and jump right in. So, I'll start. The poem is called Decisions. Between two words, choose the quieter one.

Between word and silence, choose listening. Between two bugs, choose the dustier one. Between the earth and the sky, choose a bird. Between two animals, choose the one who needs you more. Between two children, choose both. Between the lesser and the bigger evil, choose neither. Between hope and despair, choose hope. It will be harder to bear.

Thank you everyone for participating in that. I I think this was really interesting to me to sit in a room full of um basically 25 strangers And yeah, I would say pretty much no one knew each other there. And it was a way to suddenly uh hear another's voice, be interacting with someone without and there was no pressure to feel like, hey, I have to say this, I have to do this. But by suddenly participating, it was then interesting to see how people chose to participate moving forward. So I think the the idea behind illustrating this is to show a way that maybe we can engage in a soft way and it it suddenly can make people feel like hey they belong in this conversation and they're they're more willing to stand up and speak and say something. Um so I have I guess it wouldn't be I think it means it has a little bit more meaning if I ask a couple more questions and think about this. Um why do you think see Why do why does the speaker say that hope is harder to bear than despair? And hope is harder to bear. Why does the speaker recommend choosing it?

I think because hope means you're still trying. You're still in the game. Despair means you've given up.

Why does why do you think the speaker gives an explanation only for the last choice.

The way I look at it, uh the speaker is defining boundaries and putting the last piece is in between those boundaries.

Okay, last question for you. Um faced and I like this question for you all because I think this is how as a council you have to operate sometimes. Um, but maybe there's another choice. So, faced with a choice between only two alternatives, when should we introduce a third possibility? Maybe that's not a question you can answer right now. What a split vote. I think anytime

anyone I mean if you're faced with two alternatives if anyone thinks there is a third and I think it's appropriate to offer it.

I think another word for that is compromise. All right, thank you for participating in those exercises. Um, so some things that we we maybe have experienced today that I just wanted you all to think about. Uh, first and foremost, I think people interpret information differently. We see that right in the photo, what you see, what you don't see perhaps at least initially. Um listening I think I believe this strongly it has the potential to change understanding when we really sit and listen to others with intention. Curiosity when we ask some more questions lean in a little bit more. It can often reduce some defensiveness. Engagement is often about surfacing values not just opinions. And then uh so I took note of this one today because when I came in this room uh 45 minutes ago, it was pretty hot. So I turned on the AC a little bit because it's a little more comfortable when you're speaking and and want to cool the room. But I think that's another thing that we need to pay attention to um and carefully consider when we think about community engagement is hey where does it happen? Um what is the room set up? We've talked about this before. It's much different when we sit here as a group around a single table versus me, other staff members, the community sitting up and looking at you on the dis. It's not that much higher, but there is definitely a feel of of maybe an elevation of power dynamic there. It can be. Yeah, there's some symbolism there.

Say that there's a reason the work sessions are down there. Yeah, totally different dynamic

and you can feel that when you sit down. I mean, we've done it for a long time now, but it's it's a I mean, the energy is definitely different in this environment. So, I think those are just things um that we think need to think about. Um again, back to this Oregon or the reflective conversations when we went through that whole process, there was a really it was really done well in terms of we arrived, there was a greeter. Um there was a very defined process in the whole thing to where people that were participating that day and I can liken it I think to a community event was you were made to feel welcome in that environment and encouraged to be communicative and I think that really set the stage and then one more thing to really think about is inevitably especially around a difficult conversation there's going to be energy and so how do we diuse that energy? Um, if it's more of an open house and people are are moving around, perhaps we can pull somebody aside and and kind of harness that energy a little bit. Um, sometimes that's not always possible. So, it takes uh a strong leader in the room that can kind of kind of settle the room down. But, I think especially when we have a gathering, I think it's important to try to be again intentional about, hey, what might happen here and how we prepare for this. So, these are just some questions just to kind of um I've talked probably more than I I needed to or wanted to, but um I I want you all to think about, you know, just kind of what's next. You know, maybe you have some thoughts. We talked about some of these things already, but maybe, you know, where do you think that we're doing a good job? Um where do we have some opportunities for improvement? We can always do better. We can always do different. Um again, how can we be more intentional, deliberate, strategic, and then also some ideas to talk about is, you know, are there any specific

outcomes um that you might expect or want to want to see from this? So, part of the challenge is that I've noticed just in the past couple of weeks in various places that

not everybody wants to be engaged the same way. There are still a significant amount of people. Yeah, this came up at the library board meeting. They print this calendar out and that calendar is getting really crowded on some days and the print goes squeezed down more and more, but that's the only way somebody wants it. Uh there certainly a lot of people and uh you know on the opposite spectrum I guess I was thinking maybe a little older people want a piece of paper except me. I'm way over here. I don't want to eat paper. But, you know, people just want to have something on their phone. They want to get a text, get a, you know, Instagram message or something. So, we have to think about that. You know, who are we actually trying to reach? Trying to reach everybody, then maybe you need to have something for everybody. The one thing that came up over and over was people are not aware that they can get text when we change something on the website or when we post a notice or they want to find out when one of the meetings is, they can get a notice about that. includes a link to the agenda where they can look it up and we could maybe change that a little to get the actual data or you know a short thing into the text rather than having to click it and find it that way. That's simple. But anyway, there's that's the thing I see is that there's just lots of ways to do it and there are people that want it different ways

and you know connecting to that and also looking at all the different opportunities I know when someone says uh this doesn't work for me or when I'm looking at reaching out um before we can assume what works for different people. I think we need to ask people what worked for you, what would make this um what would what would get you to engage with this or what makes this meaningful to you? How do you like to get it? And that's where we've talked about surveys before. And I think that kind of a thing, getting information from people before we say, well, we'll do it this way, this way, this way, this way. And we think those ways will work. Um, hearing from people, you know, because I think people have different ideas, too, that

that we might never think about. Did we participate in the National Citizen Survey? We have not. we thought about it. I think it came up in a it may have come up in the last goal setting we have, but h have we done anything with it from there? Probably no. That's probably one thing. Okay. I would really recommend. Okay. Um it's already set questions that can go out. Um you have the option to customize a little bit for your city or town. Okay. um if you want to ask some specific questions about some topic. I think that's a very powerful tool. Um it drove everything we did around engagement in Denver.

Good participation. Yep. That would be good. That could even lead to that's one other thing though is I know a significant amount of people that hate surveys. They're only as good as whoever fells, right? But then if you follow it, you have to figure out some other way to reach the people that don't want to do a survey. I think one of the things I follow it up with a public kind of meeting. Okay, we put out this survey. Now we're going to talk about the survey and you can come and talk about it. You can do p you can do open forums, open houses through the questions with you. You can offer library time, all kinds of stuff.

And it's also kind of a build it and they will come. Once you actually start responding to the things in the survey and they see action on behalf of it, the word spreads and more people participate. So,

one of the major challenges the city's going to face in the next decade or so is engaging the younger generation to start joining our boards, committees, commissions because it was very obvious at the volunteer event that the mayor held that we have a lack of the younger generation wanting to volunteer. And I don't know if it's a communication style. I I don't even know if that's necessarily the issue. It's the way we're engaging, but I think we need to solve it or we're going to be in a lot of trouble. I totally agree. I think it's a lot of we've got to it's it's electronic, right? It's

that's very common across the state, particularly in small towns. One thing I was going to add is um we don't necessarily need to wait for a survey because that feels like waiting. We can just do a whole bunch of things and see what works. So

the we started doing the questions and answers and all of a sudden getting positive feedback. Oh great, let's keep doing that. Um you know uh so where we have ideas, let's try it and see what works and what you know falls flat. And that's another way that we know you know what's working, what's not working for our residents. I think what we got to be conscious of is is something feels successful. Are we are the right people? You know, if we have the same 20 people that always participate providing comment, maybe that field that we could check the box, say it was successful, but not really. So, but you know, there's nothing says we can't just try stuff.

I have two kind of tactical things like I think this deserves a strategic plan overall. I think we I'm glad you're here and that we need to put more thought into it. I know that's not a shocker. Um, but on the tactical front, one thing is we receive public comments from residents via email. I don't think we have a very good process for responding to those and I think we could improve that. when you think about two two-way communication, um, we offer that as an option and I don't think as a council we handle those um, appropriately. Good point.

I don't always know, for example, if Spencer's going to respond to something or not or, you know, um, I wonder, you know, sometimes if it's in my ward there's a I will reach out or what, you know, but it's just not clear. So, that's one thing. The second thing is, and I know I've brought this up before, Spencer, um calendar. We um we there is so much going on in this town. There is always things to do. Family stuff, volunteer stuff, civic engagement, support businesses, volunteer, like all kinds of stuff. And I don't feel like there's one good place where our residents can go and find out what's happening in Seaside on any given day. Okay.

Um, so I'd like to see how do we improve that. Yeah, it's good. It's a good thought. The way I respond to emails is if someone messages me specifically, I always respond, but it is challenging when it's out, it's to the whole council. So like, does this deserve a response? Are they asking for a response? So, I found that a little hard to decide what to do because sometimes we get a lot of those messages. If someone's reaching out specifically to me, I always engage, but a lot of times I won't if it goes out to everyone because I don't know who they're really asking.

Well, I think we've set kind of a standard on what the public comment is is that, hey, it will be presented to the council, but have we and I don't have it in front of me. Um, I don't I mean, it even seems like when public comment is offered, we around the public comment policy. It talks about that it won't necessarily be responded to me to be offered, but I think it's a good point to consider. Hey, once your public comment is received, here's what you can what can you expect if you if you submit public comment, I think maybe is the way to consider looking at that. Yeah, I definitely agree. I don't know that every if they're ever get engaged with by anybody, though.

Yeah. And I don't I think I I think from residents perspective they don't think they're just making a comment. I think they expect that they're making a comment and then we're going to respond to that. Yeah. Setting some clear expectations around what it means to suggest.

So obviously we still have a lot of work to do. That was a great presentation. A lot to think about. But what I do want to bring up is I think it was about might have been about a decade ago. I know TA you were there. I think you were there Steve. I think you were there John. We made it a one of our council goals to improve communication with the public. And this was when we had a website that was in the stone age. We basically did like no communication. And I think we've come a long ways. We're definitely not perfect but we've made a lot of strides. So great work every day there. It's I mean I I've been with the city for almost 16 years now and thinking about how we marketed the city when I first arrived and how that's what I was referring to

and also yeah and the forms of communication it's only it's just only continued to get more challenging because there are so many varied and um no right up against the time but um in a previous world I laid out uh I did newspaper design for one of two dies in in Salt Lake City. And at one point in time, we would sometimes use a tint box like that to put behind the text.

And the editor told me once that, hey, like I don't know why you guys always do those tint boxes. They're really hard to read. Well, at that point in time, I had early 30s eyes and it wasn't a problem for me and I didn't recognize. And it was it was about 10 years later and I was long gone from the Desireette News, but I had an experience where I was suddenly seeing my site changed and all of a sudden that tint box, gosh, I can't read that. And I was like, this editor's name was John Ringwood. So if John, you're listening somewhere, hello. But I it's never left me that John all of a sudden that's what John was talking about. And that I think is a really good thought on how communication changes. it changes as we as we mature in in our age and our eyes change or maybe suddenly we have um difficulty hearing or moving or whatever it is. But I think that's that's and when you think about the modes of communication that way when I do it helps me realize that there are multitudes of way to not only get information but um to give it as well. Well, thank you very much, John. That's great. Appreciate it. Have Kim put that in our folders back and refer to it and it will continue to be a topic of discussion.

Strategic goal and there are a couple of handouts that I got with the stuff I participated in that I'll include right here, additional resources, but a lot of information. So, thanks.

Call the city council meeting for May 11th to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liy and justice for all. And please call the role. Thank you. Start with councelor Montero. Present. Councelor Ansboro here. Councelor Baker

here. Council President Morsy here. Mayor Wright here. Mer. Thank you, Kim. I have a motion for approval of the agenda. So moved. Second. Council President Morrisy and Councelor Montero. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have uh three proclamations tonight. We'll start with the Pride Month proclamation. Uh, councelor Patrick is going to read it.

Mayoral proclamation to recognize the city of Seaside, Oregon, supports the right of every citizen to experience equality and freedom from discrimination. Whereas, the city of Seaside has a diverse community and is committed to supporting visibility, dignity, and equality for all people in our community. and equality for LGBTQ plus people is reflected in the tireless dedication of advocates and allies who strive to forge a more inclusive society. And whereas President Bill Clinton on June 2nd, 2000 declared June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month to commemorate the June 1969 Stonewall uprising in lower Manhattan. And on June 1st, 2009, President Barack Obama expanded the commemoration further by declaring June to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride month. And whereas discrimination and violence against LGBTQ plus individuals persists, and it is incumbent upon all levels of government to protect the rights and safety of every resident. And whereas the city of Seaside is committed to ensuring that all residents, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, are treated with respect, dignity, and fairness. And whereas Pride Month offers an opportunity to promote visibility, foster dialogue, and celebrate the resilience and joy of the LGBTQ plus community. Now therefore, Mayor Wright, city of Seaside in the state of Oregon does here pro hereby proclaim on behalf

of all the citizens of Seaside the month of June 2026 as Pride Month and encourage all residents to eliminate prejudice wherever it exists and celebrate the diversity that strengthens our community.

Thank you, counselor. Let's see our police chief. Um, next proclamation is for National Police Week. I'm going to read that one. Proclamation to recognize National Police Week 2026 and to honor the service and sacrifice of those law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty while protecting our communities and safeguarding our democracy. Whereas there are more than 800,000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across the United States, including the dedicated members of the Seaside Police Department. And whereas since the first recorded death in 1786, there are currently 24,067 law enforcement officers in the United States that have made the ultimate ultimate sacrifice and have been killed in the line of duty, including our own Sergeant Jason Gooding with the Seaside Police Department. And whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington DC. And whereas fallen heroes are being added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this spring, including 45 officers killed in 2025. And whereas the service and sacrifice of all officers killed in the line of duty will be honored during the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial 38th candlelight vigil on the evening of May 13th 2026. And whereas the candlelight vigil is part of the national police week which will be observed this year May 11th through 16th and May 15th is designated as peace officers memorial day in honor of all fallen officers and their

families and US flags should be flown at half staff. Now therefore, I, Steve Wright, mayor of the city of Seaside in the state of Oregon, call upon all citizens and upon all patriotic, civic, and educational organizations to observe the week of May 11th to the 16th, 2026 as National Police Week and call upon all our citizens to make every effort to express appreciation to these men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives. And be it further resolved that we invite all citizens to reflect on and remember all who lost their lives in service and will forever be remembered for their ultimate sacrifice signed by me. Paul, our public works director, would you like to come up and say anything about your staff before we read your proclamation? put you on short notice here.

I'll make this short. I have the best staff in the city, hands down. Good deal. Wow. Uh, councelor Monttero is going to read this proclamation.

Proclamation rooted in service powered by community. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities, and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality of life, and well-being of the people of the city of Seaside. And whereas these infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers and employees at all levels of government and the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding, improving and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment and solid waste systems, public buildings and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens. And whereas the Seaside Public Works Department is responsible for 41 miles of streets, nine bridge structures, 8 mi of shoreline, 39 mi of sewage collection piping, 602 sewer manholes, 32 pump lift stations, one water reservoir, three water tanks, 43 miles of water line, 3,4 405 water meters and 656 fire hydrants. And whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders, and children in the city of Seaside to gain knowledge of and maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs in their respective communities. And whereas the year 2026 marks the 66th 6th annual National

Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association. Now therefore, Steve Wright, mayor of the city of Seaside, does hereby designate the week of May 17 to 23, 2026 as National Public Works Week and urges all citizens to join with representatives of the American Public Works Association to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees, and to recognize the substantial contributions they make in protecting our national health, safety, and advancing the quality of life for all.

Yeah, after all those numbers. Yes, we better clap. Wow.

For public comments, members of the public may use this time to provide general comments on matters not scheduled elsewhere on the agenda for a public hearing or public comment. Individuals wishing to speak should complete a public comment registration card. They're found over there and submit it to the city recorder found over there 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 three minutes. I have uh three people signed up. First one up is Vivian Baches uh from Gearhart. Thank you, Mayor Wright and Seaside City Council for giving the public the opportunity to express and share concerns that are on our hearts. I am here this evening to express my disappointment that yet another gay pride month proclamation has been read. My husband Pete and I have expressed our feelings to Mayor Wright over the last couple of years about what proclamations he chooses to read and honor. We have expressed that we see such inequality over asking our community to celebrate for a month with our gay community when any other proclamations have been given recognition for just a day or a week. As a Christian, I believe that God loves all people and he has created each of us with the right to make our own choices about our lifestyles. We live in America, the land of the free.

But I also know the Bible does not teach that God loves all lifestyles. Honoring and asking us to celebrate Gay Pride Month is offensive to many Christians here in the Seaside community. What Pete and I also asked in the letter we sent to you several weeks ago is if you would make a proclamation to honor America's 250th celebration and its rededication back to God. We shared with you that this coming Sunday, May 17th, is a day that has been deemed as rededicating America back to God. History shows us that our Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written and accepted by our forefathers with many biblical truths and values as the foundation. We asked if you would be willing to proclaim the week of May 17th as the week America is being dedicated back to God. No response was given from you, mayor, but I'm here tonight to share that many Americans will be crying out to the Lord next Sunday in repentance for ways we have sinned against him and thanking him for true freedom found in him. America was indeed founded on biblical values and I for one am so thankful that many of our forefathers recognized their dependence on God Almighty. In fact when the Declaration of Independence was being discussed among the leaders much disagreement was happening. That call to prayer and fasting led by Benjamin Franklin happened on May 17th, 1776, exactly 250 years ago. God heard those

prayers and has had his hand upon this nation all these years for which I am so very thankful. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Pete Bach from Gearart. Mayor Wright and city council, thank you for your time and thank you for your service in this community. Vivian and I have uh reached out to Mayor Wright in the past about a month ago and other times and uh regarding your personal decision to declare Pride Month and offering we offered to meet with you and to discuss this and there has been no response. As mayor, we understand that this is your sole decision as to what proclamations to declare. We have appealed to you to recognize rededicate America back to God this coming Sunday, May 17, and honor a week of rededicating America back to God. And this has been ignored. As Christians, Vivian and I believe that God's word revealed in the book of Proverbs stands true. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to the people. We don't understand your willingness to again make a gay pride month proclamation. We have challenged you, Mayor Wright, as one who is a member of a local church where biblical truths are taught and to uphold God's righteousness in our community. It seems that the opportunity to celebrate what our founding fathers upheld in their convictions of recognizing the hand of Almighty God in the forming of America has been ignored. We believe it is time to turn from immorality and return to righteousness. In the culture of this day, which is constantly changing away from morality

and righteousness, we we believe that our nation is in peril and the hand of God's blessing may be removed. We will continue to pray for you and the city council and we ask that you lead us and the citizens here in righteousness for the benefit of all those who uphold godly standards. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Next up is Donna Benil from um Seaside. Hi there. So, I want to thank you for the pride proclamation and for including the 10% of the population here that is part of the LGBTQ community in the seaside community. Um, as you know, the Pride Walk is coming up and we always have it on the first Saturday in June. So, I just wanted to let you know that it will be happening on June 6th, which is the first Saturday in June. It starts at 12:00 at the 12th Street and Prom where the parking area is. We walk down to Avenue A and then we disperse. You are all invited to come join us and walk as allies for the Pride community. Thank you. Uh Sheamus McVey Seaside. Thank you, mayor, for issuing this proclamation today on Pride Month. Um I know last year it uh didn't get on the schedule quite as easily, so I'm thankful that it happened this year. Um, the main reason I want to get up and thank you for it is on display tonight. The level of vitriol that this community faces on a regular basis that's given platform to just air their grievances and hatred of a community that they won't bother to get to know. So, thank you. It's it's unfortunate that right after calling for um respect that this is what we've gotten, but it's not surprising. Unfortunately, one day

the community might get to the point where we can recognize each other as human beings first, where we can see that uh we may not believe the same, we may not love the same, but it doesn't change that we're all driving around the same meat machines. We're all human and we're all deserving the same basic levels of respect. So, thank you, mayor, for the proclamation and thank you, not a doctor, for uh displaying why we needed it. Jules Lions from Seaside.

Hi, I'm Jules Lions. Um, I wanted to thank you guys for making City of Seaside a place of inclusivity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender, and orientation. I appreciate living in a community that prizes diversity in times like this where hatred is so rampant in the in in our country. So, thank you,

Karen Flores from Seaside. I didn't write anything out, so I'm just going to speak from my heart. Okay, you have three minutes.

Okay. My granddaughter, my very favorite granddaughter, who's 18, is telling people she's gay. And I love her. I love her to death. And I'm going to always love her. But I wanted to bring up two facts. I'll try to go fast because you were talking about the well-being of the city. Well, Time and Life magazine wrote an article about how all living matter has a design and the logical conclusion was there must be a great designer. So, we were designed to function a certain way and if you go contrary to the way we were designed, you're going to have some pretty undesirable consequences. Correct. Everybody knows that if a manufacturer makes a makes a stereo and gives you the instructions how to best get results of your stereo. Well, I know of a doctor who said he loves the gay community. He serves the gay community, but he said, "All of my patients have 100% of my patients have something in common." Sorry to be crude, but this is what he said. They have all lost the elasticity in their rectum and can no longer retain their feces. They have to be sewn and resone to function. That was and that was on a radio program on the whole United States. It was he was just telling his testimony as a doctor. So all I want to say is they they call it a alternate healthy lifestyle. I don't think that sounds healthy. So when you're saying well-being so we should we should not

celebrate sin and like he said immorality. But there everybody is in we're in America. You can live however you want. Nobody they're not drinking from the back fountains or sitting in the back of the bus. But we don't need to celebrate it. We don't need to celebrate sin. Otherwise, we can have a whole big a month for all the adulterers and other sinners. So, we don't need to celebrate it. Thank you.

All right. Um, sorry you had to hear that, folks. any declaration of potential conflict of interest from anybody. Mayor, um I want to um talk about item 12F on the agenda tonight. I just wanted to let you know that I serve on the board of the chamber and I receive no compensation or have no financial interest in uh the chamber. So I will be participating in the discussion and voting but wanted to let you know. Okay. Anybody else?

I have a motion for approval of our consent agenda, financial report and minutes. So moved. Second. Council President Morsy and Councelor Baker. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have uh two reports presentations tonight. First up is the um stepping stones camp update from Kenny. There he is. Spencer, you want to lead into this for anything?

I don't think so. We we meet monthly with C represents from CCA, public works and the police department and um I think we have it the program is working as intended and I think better than expected. Um not that it doesn't have a tickups but um um we are um very pleased with how it's going and in fact um suggested to CCA since our contract is for one year that we should begin discussing um you know an extension or another um contract or whatever we want to do and what changes we might anticipate making and things like that as uh we have a few months left on the current one. So, um, just putting that, uh, putting that in for you to think about, but we'll do some work and come back with a proposal. Um, but anyways, I think Kenny's got lots to talk about.

All right. I listened to you on the um the podcast a little bit ago, and I I learned a lot more about you that I didn't know. Lot lifetime resident of Atoria within the city limits the whole time. Yeah, that was amazing. Thank you. Welcome. Tell us give us an update.

Well, I'd like to start off with saying that um expectations are definitely being exceeded as as far as a stepping stones community goes. Um I think we're rounded a corner at this point and things are looking pretty good. Um there were some times in the beginning in and through some of the middle where things were kind of touch and go and you know um but I think we've rounded a corner now. Currently we have 32 people in the community. Uh four couples are included in that. Uh seven dogs and one cat. Um, we've had success in getting some people um to other shelters and uh into some stable housing, apartments, things like that. Um, one person we had uh recently go to Esparonza. Um and there was a couple um the lady she went to Espironza and then her boyfriend he went to uh drug treatment and he finished drug treatment and now he's also at Espironza and that he went to treatment came back to stepping stones and then with Espironza so he's he's doing well. Um, one of the challenges we have is, um, if there's a couple, generally it's only one person at a time that's eligible to go to shelter.

And that's what we find up in Atoria, too. You know, nobody wants to be separated from their significant other, which has has become kind of a challenge here and there, but they're learning to work through that. They're learning to realize we may not be able to stay in the same cabin or the same room, but we're on the same property and that we can spend a lot of time together and and just go to our separate rooms at night. So, it's that seems to be working. Um, we had one person uh she started out um at Stepping Stones. Then she went to the Columbia Inn and then she went to the Baker building and then from there things didn't work out and now she's back at Stepping Stones already. But this is definitely not a person to give up on. Um this is not a a unique type situation by any means. Um, it can take numerous times before stable housing finally takes with a person. It's not a one-time oneot deal. Um, it it can take many times really and that. So, um, this person re realizes what their mistakes were and they know that when they're offered another opportunity, those mistakes will have been corrected. Um, Dr. uh, Silka um, he's he's on the board of directors for class of community

action. He wrote uh a guest column in the in the Daily Historian recently. I don't if everybody's seen that. It was it was a nice article. And then also um the Dailya had a reporter come down and talk to some of the people living in the Stepping Stones community. And that that was a that was a good article she did

and Dr. Slot continues to come visit. Um he is a a great asset to have coming into the community. Um because if it wasn't for him coming in, a lot of our people staying there would not be receiving any medical care of any kind in that. Um so he's it's it's great having him there. Class of Behavioral comes by and engages people as well in that. um with with things they're they're going through. Um, one one of our community members, um, they had a a death of a sibling recently and CBH came by and, um, helped the person through that process. Um, let's see. Um, we had another person go to the Columbia Inn as well. um she's still there and we had one person exit after she declined shelter and then now she's staying with her boyfriend is what we hear. Yeah. At another location here in the seaside area. Um, Officer Barnes from Seaside Police Department has made it a point on his own to patrol through Stepping Stones three times a day when when he's working.

That was that was one of his own goals. He set on his own

and um and we do see him there. He does that. And uh Officer Knock is very responsive to what our our needs are there at the camp too in the community. And uh public works, Ed and and Paul Stall, they're they're very responsive um to getting things um cleaned up and orderly after someone uh vacates the site. Now they're everything has come together finally. Everything's everything's doing really well. And um we've actually had several people who've been longtime seaside residents who have um been kind of on the fringes of coming to the camp. They've been out in different areas camping. They're starting to come into the camp now and give it a try. And let's see. That's that's all I have. Thank you.

Okay. Counselors questions. Talk to me about the the cleanliness of the camp. I know that was one of our big concerns. I'm sorry. The cleanliness of the camp. Yes. Yeah, that was one of our big concerns with Avenue S. How how has that been different and how are you maintaining that? It's it's very clean now. Um there was a lull in getting things initially done due to um training things that needed to be done to properly do to properly get everything cleaned up. Those those things are all taken care of and the city's very responsive on getting in there and getting stuff out of there. Now

awesome. I know last time we spoke you asked for a covered area for campers so they can have the rain. Is there any other requests that you have that would make your job easier? Um, I I think a covered area um for the people in the community to cook would be good. Um, during we have a lot of inclement weather and they're not supposed to be cooking in their tents and things like that. Um, on the covered area would be good. Um, I can't think of anything right off the city's been very responsive. That's been wonderful to work with.

Good. Kenny, um, um, you talked about the doctor coming in taking care of the people coming in. See, um, is there a vet that's coming by to look at the animals in there? There's not a vet that comes by, but um, all of our pets, I say most most all. There might be one or two that don't, but everybody goes to North Coast Vet up here at the North Y. Yeah. Um they're they're very um receptive um to our unsheltered community and what their needs are as far as pets. That's great. Thank you.

Yeah. The the doctor, is he affiliated with somebody or is he just doing this on his own? Dr. Slott. Yeah. Uh, from my understanding, he initially had a a contract with another community partner and I believe that contract's now expired and now he's he's doing it on his own. And that um he's getting set up for the billing of OP and stuff like that. Okay. So that there's there's been no um disruption of service at all during the transition. Right.

I know you've mentioned before that uh many of the people that are in our camp are actually seaside people. Yes. And uh not the um fallacy that you know people are coming in from all over the place or being shipped here from Portland and that kind of thing. So we get that word out more and more that we are helping our own people, our own residents, right? And and that's very important that Seaside is is helping their own residents. Yes. Well, we appreciate all the work. Are you got a question?

You mentioned 32 people in the camp and I know we have 25 slots plus five um emergency ones. Have you had to turn anybody away for lack of room? No, we we really haven't had to turn anybody away. Um Okay. we may not have a spot for them right away. Um, and then those people also may not have a have a tent right away available too. So, um, what we'll do also is work closely with helping hands across the street.

Okay. and that um yeah, as far as you know, there may have been throughout the tenure of the camp maybe a couple times maybe where we're full full and didn't have room, but um we usually get a spot freed up pretty fast. Thank you. Well, we greatly appreciate everything um CCA is doing through you and especially that we know Kenny's on the job. Oh, thank you very much. That means a lot. So, thank you very much. Thank you. How do we renew this agreement? Yeah, Spencer will work on that. Um, that sounds like a motion. Yeah, I I'll be working on that. Do you want a motion on this one? No. Happy to make it.

It'll bring it back. Thank you, Kenny. Okay. Thank you very much. Great job, Kenny. Thank you.

Good evening. Next up is uh our annual report from the community development department, our director, Jeff Forey. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council. Uh we got a packed agenda tonight, so I'll jump right in and and uh get going through here. Um, as always, I'll start off my annual presentation this year. We'll talk about housing since housing is always a topic of discussion and in the forefront of all of our minds. Um, you just heard from Kenny and uh, one form of housing with Stepping Stones, Esparanza Village, um, the Columbia Inn, and we'll we'll go into what's happening in Seaside with other developments that we have. So, the Oregon Housing Needs analysis, we touched on this a little bit last year. Uh this is what through their methodology they have determined um we need to be producing as far as housing to keep up with population trends and our current uh need. Uh that one-year housing production target hasn't changed much. Still 112 units. Um over that 20-year period, we're we're still looking at needing 1500 plus units. Uh this is a lot of housing to build with no land to build it on. uh we are not subject to a strategy to implement and and meet these uh goal requirements because we're not 10,000 residents yet. I say yet because our population is growing and some of these things have a tendency to change as far as what that uh cuto off line is. And I wouldn't be surprised to see 10,000 drop to 7500, even 5,000 uh sometime in the near future.

Jeff, I'm gonna put you on the spot. If all the apartments that are in production now are filled up, what would you estimate our population would be in Seaside? That's that's tough to say because we do have a good mix of two and one-bedroom units. That's that's really hard for me to to estimate. I could see us jumping by 800 to a,000 people. We sit at about 73 7400 right now. So, we're we're approaching that 10,000 uh mark and we should be planning our um development strategies around meeting that the requirements for that that mark because we're going to hit it in Did I hear you say the state of Oregon could actually lower the 10,000 threshold to 7500?

They've done it for a lot of other uh land use uh bills that have gone through the legislature where it starts out at a certain threshold and then it drops uh through amendments to those bills. uh House Bill 2001 was one of them that was at 10,000 and now they've dropped some of the requirements uh for larger cities are now we're now subject to that because we're over 2500. So, it wouldn't surprise me. I'm not saying I've heard that they're going to do that or rumors they're going to do that. It just it would not surprise me if if there's further um action by the legislature to get more housing developed. This is a statewide problem. So, don't think this is a seaside problem. this is all over Oregon and Washington. Um producing producing not only housing but producing housing that's quality and affordable uh becomes the uh becomes the the biggest challenge. But I'll go into our housing units here uh next. So this year this is uh our permits that we've issued for actual housing units compared to the last few years. Uh and we we did uh permit a few uh less single dwellings. Um ADUs have been relatively minimal. Um what you see this year is the apartments. Uh the big jump in the apartments. So we actually issued permits for over 153 apartment units this year. That's not all that's planned. That's just what permits have been issued and construction is is undergoing. That bottom photo, for those that haven't been near the Pacifica in the last week, uh that third floor is going on fast. Yeah.

And I I believe they're going to start framing up the next building this week. Uh within the next week or two. There is a second building already. Yeah. They've got foundations poured for all of them, but uh they they have the community building going. You've probably seen the the big uh timbers they've got up there that look really nice. And then this is the first uh housing building. and then uh kind of see where the uh excavator is. There's another building near there that they're going to start I think they've already got the lumber package delivered. They're going to start framing that up and getting that going. Um so we've done we've done well in permitting housing this year. We've got several units in the pipeline. And that upper picture that's on um Fifth and Downing. Yep.

Yeah. That's a manufactured home installation.

I was surprised to see a manufactured house. Yeah. Yeah. And just up the street from there um is one of the ADUs that was constructed this year um above a a garage that uh some folks put in. This is what we still have in the pipeline that have received land use approval. Um, so Cross Creek still has a few uh buildings uh to to put in and I believe those developers are selling those lots off with uh plans attached to them to build either a forplex or a sixplex. Of course, the Pacifica um we've got those uh going up. Um and then uh the Wanoplexes. And to give you an idea of where the Pacifica is, that shower enclosure is inside that building. So, they're starting to set the plumbing already. Um, and and electrical. Uh, you can see junction boxes. I mean, the the trades are already in the building, already working, and they don't even have a roof on it yet. That's how quick they're moving.

And a number of those are local people. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh, we'll talk a minute about housing costs. Um, this is taken from Zillow andrealtor.com. This is the uh median listing, median sold. The red numbers mean that those prices are decreasing from last year

or three-year change and from last year. Um you can see since 2022, we've our housing price has kind of leveled off for what is actually uh being sold. It's important to look at that listing price and that sold price. That means that there's been some negotiations happening with uh potential buyers and they're actually coming off the listing price a little bit, which tells me that inventory is probably sitting a little bit longer than it was when we were in the peak COVID uh boom. And again, I I we have a price per square foot up there of $356 for a a home. Um that's per realtor.com. And and I always get asked, why are housing construction costs so high? And I I showed this picture last year and I'll bring it up again. That's a very expensive, very intricate foundation system just based on where that house was constructed. The cost of that alone was was pretty significant, I believe. Um, so housing is all the easy lots to build on have essentially been built on. Now we're into the more challenging uh lots with slopes that require engineering. They require uh heavier footings, bigger foundation systems. Um, we'll talk about rent and I I I put the uh the shock and awe photos up there for the commission to see. This is these are active listings right now. We have one that they want to rent for $10,554 a month.

Another one at $6,100 a month. And then as a comparison, those are the two uh lowest per month uh rentals that we have listed on Zillow right now. right around $1,000 for a studio and $1,250 for a one-bedroom. Um, down at the bottom, you can see for Seaside, our average rent is $1,750. And this is all based on uh Zillow Zillow's num uh numbers. And again, that 145, that's showing that rents are potentially starting to decrease a little bit for us. And right now we have 29 available advertised rentals on on this platform.

Um the information on the right uh you can see uh the darker line is last year and uh the lighter sorry. Yeah, the lighter colored line is this year. I have that backwards. Darker is this year, lighter is last year. Um, you can kind of see where rents were in May of last year compared to where rents are this year. Uh, we have seen a decrease in in rent costs as far as rentals that are advertised on these platforms. We're also able to take a look at our comparison to Atoria and to Newport. Two similar towns, larger towns, but similar in in makeup in nature coastal. And uh we our average rent is lower uh compared to there. It's about 8% lower than Atoria and 13% uh in Newport. Um we'll jump into some of the other uh items our department covers. Uh short-term rentals is always a big one. Um this year we've uh our count uh for the end of 2025 was 383 vacation rental dwellings uh 48 condos and uh the smaller uh homeay lodging in the mini motel brings us to 440. So a total increase of about seven uh short-term rentals that we permitted. Um, when we get into our building department statistics, um, over the last, uh, two years, we've seen a decline in permits going out the door. Um, I I I can't really point one thing to, uh, that attributes to that other than the the cost of building, and if real estate's not moving, then people aren't as interested in in in building. And that also factors into remodel, too. A lot of people do buy houses and then immediately go into remodel mode. um especially with some of our older houses that that require maintenance and

upkeep. Um on the planning side, um we have stayed pretty much the same in the same ballpark as far as uh planning applications that we've seen. Uh I will point out uh the vacation rental dwelling, those aren't just applications, those are also uh prevs that we charge for. A lot of times we'll hear from realators or prospective buyers. They want to know if their house could be a short-term rental. They pay a fee. Uh Anna goes out and inspects the building, gives them a punch list of everything that needs to be completed to to so that they could get permitted. Not all of them uh turn into applications. Uh for obvious reasons, um people back out of the sale. people realize that the amount of work that needs to be done to bring the property up to standards that has been set by the council um it it it often will uh deter people from from following through with an application process. Uh this is our department. Um you'll notice some uh new faces on there. Uh David Castro joined us this year from Hemtt, California as a permit tech. He's studying to be a building inspector. And then uh Jeremy Faircloth, he's been with us for a few years now. Um he's in office Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He actually lives in Redmond and commutes. And then Anna Dennis has taken over the uh short-term rental and code compliance uh work that's done in our office. And then of course uh Debbie and uh and myself. And that is all I have for you guys. If you guys have any uh questions, I'm happy to answer them. I know. Land use, building permits, not the most exciting. Uh,

it's fun. Annual report. I I like it. All the building and the real estate. I uh I do find it uh sad that we don't have more property to build on. Yeah, we we uh when we looked at that buildable lands inventory, there's not a lot there.

There's not a lot left uh in our urban growth boundary. And what's left, a lot of it's protected wetlands. Um a lot of it is significant slopes that it's not going to it's not going to turn into any any kind of cheaper or affordable housing whatsoever. Um it's yeah it's it's tough and as as you will see the planning commission's already started talking about it. Our um housing code update uh the next option if we're out of land is to start building up or infill and try to get more dwelling units through those means. I was surprised you didn't have more ADUs. Looked like there was two on the year.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't we don't see a lot of ADU applications. Um um I I know people have uh come in wanting to build an ADU and then the system development charge typically deters them from doing that uh because it is it is you know a rate to hook to the system. Um we we see a few guest house a year which is you know just a a little cottage that doesn't have a kitchen installed. Uh we see those every once in a while but even those are few and far between. Um it would be nice to see more ADUs come in. We just we just don't see a lot of applications for them.

The um open piece of land on Fifth and Down in Kitty Corner from that u manufactured is that in here and I I thought that there was going to be something built there. There was something in the pipeline there and I haven't heard from them in a long time. So I don't know if that project has been delayed or if it's going to move forward. Uh we haven't uh we haven't heard from them. So Okay. Do we ever do anything like outreach because we're wanting to promote this kind of building? I don't know.

Um not particularly no. Um I I will be curious when we get these housing code updates done towards the end of this year how and how that spurs movement. Okay. Um, my hope with some of the suggested changes, we'll start seeing some of the older, more dilapidated buildings torn down and replaced with two or three or a cottage cluster. Um, and uh, that'll give us more dwelling units. But like I also brought up with the planning commission too, if we start talking about infill dwelling units, dwelling unit density, we need to revisit short-term rentals um, and make adjustments to that ordinance as well. So, uh, the the city council will be heavily involved in that for sure. And do we need to revisit UGB?

That's something we can take up if you'd like. Uh, we end up in a situation though of where do we expand to? And is there value in that land? Uh, if we if we expand to the east, we're still on the hills, we're still on the slope. If we we can't go to the north, obviously can't go to the west. We can look at going to some of the places in the south. We still deal with protected wetlands and slopes there as well. Yes. And those places don't always have infrastructure which is a continued issue that we have. Yeah. Um

we don't want to outbuild what we've got now. And you all know the problems that are coming with our sewer system in particular. Where are we at with the comp plan? Uh we Glad you brought that up so I don't forget to make an announcement tonight. I wasn't going to let all Seaside residents uh either today or tomorrow will get a letter in the mail. Um we have set the hearing for the first public hearing at the planning commission on June 2nd, the first Tuesday in June. Uh

um the planning commission will take public comments. That doesn't necessarily mean that they will move it out um with a recommendation to the the city council yet. I have a feeling there'll be more discussion uh at the planning commission level before um it's refined and they they make a recommendation to to bring it to you guys. Um and this is a legislative decision. So you guys are more than welcome uh to watch that part of the meeting as long as it's not a uh a quasical land use hearing. You guys can watch the public comments u as the planning commission is not the deciding body but they are a recommending body uh for the council. The council will be the ultimate decision makers on that comprehensive plan.

Have we have we received comments from DLCD? We have. Yes. Um our consultants are compiling those right now. Um, and we meet with DLCD again this week, I believe,

um, to discuss further comments. And they're trying to we're trying to compile them in a manner that where we can have the comment, show, did we put it in the comp plan? And if not, why not? Or if we changed it, why didn't we? And so they're they're uh our consultants putting together a matrix that will publish on the website as soon as it's available with with all not only DLCD's comments, but we received comments from uh the Shnook Nation and Surf Rider and um I think was it the Nature Conservancy? One of the other um groups also submitted comments for us. Did you have public comments already in the past as well that went into this?

People uh these groups knew we were doing a comp plan. So as soon as we put the first draft on the website, they took a look at it and and provided their comments. So groups of groups rather than individuals, right? Yes. Okay. Well, we also had public hearings or not hearings but public gatherings where y we met at the times and got a lot of input. We met at the convention center. So, did a list of all those kinds of comments and input go to DLCD or where did that kind of go from our public meetings that we had? Uh, no. Those were just used to draft the the draft, right?

Um, remember we were essentially starting over uh with our comprehensive plan. While there are themes and elements of our old plan that are very relevant today, they're going to be in our new plan as well. This was a complete rewrite as opposed to just an amendment. Yeah. Jeeoff, what were you telling me about the consultants are going through the feedback and comments?

Yeah, they're they're putting together a a comment uh matrix for lack of a better term that'll show the public comment and show uh if we put it in the comp plan and why we did or did not on some of the things. Um or if uh we'll you'll you'll find out that there are things that we would like to change but by state law we can't. So there are elements of the comprehensive plan that are mandatory and that's where a lot of DLCD's comments come into play is as they help guide us in the mandatory uh state um requirements that we have to have in our comprehensive plan and we we meet with the ocean shores people, the housing people um all of the DLCD takes a look at it and they uh they provide their their comments to us on it.

So you said that this is sort of a a new plan rework. Do you have some sort of a cross mapap that shows this was in the old one and this it's not in the new one or it's here in the new one or or this is in the new one but wasn't in the old one. I'm not can follow through at all. When you say the old one, do you mean the one adopted Yeah. 40 years ago? Yeah. The one that we've been operating under. I feel like you can say for almost everything not included. Not included. Not included in the plan. the the one that we are currently operating under, right?

Um I I I vaguely remember that they were our consultants were putting something together. I'll ask them. Um, I meet with them this week too and see the more we can inform ourselves and I mean that helps ask questions that helps see okay are we covering all the bases because this is going to last us what another 40 years who knows I don't think so but comp plans are supposed to be utilized for a 20-year planning yeah well we know so we we set ours up for 2050 um and and these as you've seen these projects take time. I mean, it's it's not a fast process. And we haven't even gotten to uh the city council yet.

It's not a it's not something that should be rushed and it should be very thoughtful and and intentional. And the intention was to completely rewrite it because it is so old, so outdated that it's going to be I mean, there are things in the old one that carry over, but a lot of it's rewritten because the laws have changed. Right. The new one is just um exponentially easier to read and find things compared to the old one as I would hope it would be.

Um I had one Oh. Uh we are both on the county uh housing task force and um we're kind of the star of the show. Jeff has done such a great job uh putting everything together as far as you know those kind of numbers. None of the other cities are able to come close to it. Some of them don't want to. You can guess which ones. Some of them are just as constricted as we are for land and they have nowhere else to build. Um we're kind of all in that boat. So, um, but as Jeff will tell you, we're getting really close to not having much more opportunity and these are going to be little things that we can pick off in the future. Um, so we're making best as we can and you know part of the the story you told tonight was, you know, we have maybe reached a plateau on the rent side and uh and can start bringing that down a little bit with a bigger supply. You got to balance it because, you know, the builders aren't going to want to necessarily build if they're not going to get um a decent return on their investment. So, one of the things I'd like the council to just kind of keep in the back of their mind is um it would be really good for our future if we could set up some kind of fund that we can help uh you know developments that are in a particular thing as well as being able to say this this apartment or you know these apartments are going to go towards something that's the legal definition of affordable. So we can help our residents, the people that live here in Seaside and you know that's going to help a little bit. So we just have to come up with the money, right?

Is one of Is Yeah. Yeah. back. Yeah. Zach's back there. Is one of the things you're referencing um akin to the fund that uh Canon Beach? Well, Canon Beach has a construction excise tax. I think they're the only one in the county, right? Yeah. And they have used it for that, right?

In fact, we even asked them to give some to us because we think Pacifica could hold some Canon Beach residents and workers, but they declined. But that's a tax on builders, and that's kind of not the direction I think we should go. I think we need to come up with some uh outside money. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. I got my letter today. I don't know if anybody else did, but I did. You always wonder when you see this letter coming from the city of Seaside and it's got your name on it. Well, the city what's going to be in this?

So, you know that we're thorough. The city did receive our own letter since we were a property owner. I think that was that was sent to the uh the improvement commission at our address. Right. Okay. Well, good. All right. Um item 10, Seaside, City of Seaside Boards, Commissions, committees. I'm still waiting for somebody to apply for airport. Um we have two openings on community center, one left on planning after we appointed Mr. Hopman, who evidently left. No, he's back there. He's back there. Yeah, he's back there.

And one on transportation advisory. Unfinished business. Uh let's continue uh see if we can nail down anything or on uh the process for filling ward one two uh at large. And then um I said that wrong. ward the atlarge position for wards one and two as well as ward three. Spencer.

Okay. Mayor, this is uh following up from the direction the council uh gave uh staff and the community at the last meeting. Uh so tonight we want to focus on the appointment process itself. How you want to handle in interview structure, scheduling and public engagement if that's something you want to do. So, previously at the last meeting, um the direction from the council was that you would like to make appointments prior to July 25th. So, that um both positions would appear on the November ballot this year. So, the applications um uh the applications are open now. We're we're actively taking applications and it has a closing date of May 29th, uh the last business day of the of the month. Um, and correct me if I'm wrong, John. When an application is submitted, the council is set up to get a copy. No, on this one. Sorry, I misspoke on that. That's what I was thinking in the case. Um, and so we we can talk about if we want to distribute them or or um how we want to to do that. Nice to put John on the spot. Oh,

while he's getting his batteries, what what's the council think? So, the the

the one issue with the the way the application process is, it's a little bit more um of a complicated system where it's user based and so we have to create a user. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's just a lot more to it. Um, but I think what we did last time was when the applications were received, then we can ultimately put them into a PDF and distribute them that way. And I don't recall if we did it all at once or as they came in. I mean, we don't haven't had an abundance of applications. It's not like a job where you might see 10, 20, 30 applications, but um, that's how the system works. I'd prefer to see them as they come in myself just versus a pile of them at some point.

A pile? I'm hoping optimistic. Yeah, I agree with you. I'd like to see them as they come in. I don't think it matters one way or the other. Okay, we will uh maybe John, if you can work on getting PDFs out now and then as we see some come in,

we'll send them out. So, let me raise a question then with that because um correct me if I'm wrong, Kim, but I think we've had two every single one of the applications have they included all the necessary pieces yet. So, do you want to know that hey, someone's interested or do you want to wait until all of the materials have come in? Because I think that's the other element to it where they've a couple of people have essentially raised their hand and said, "I'm interested." But they haven't yet acquired their signatures yet or they haven't finished the documentation. My I would think it would need to be the completed. Yeah, I completed. So we have no completed applications yet then.

Okay. But Kim will reach out to them and let them know what we expect. Already have already have and anybody else that does it. Okay. Then uh where do we go from there once um May 29th's passed and we have piles piles of applications. I've got more I've got more to go through. Okay.

That's just the current test says. Okay. Uh and this is for our public as well. So they are understanding what the process is. So um as we discussed last meeting per the charter all vacancies must be filled by appointment. Uh so requires appointment. Uh there is no uh process that's prescribed and the council has a lot of discretion on on what you want to do uh for timing. Um so if you do want to have the appointments done prior to July 25th um you've got the meetings there. So, we've got uh we've got two meetings in June where you could make those appointments. And in front of me, I believe it's the 8th and what's April?

8th and 22. 22nd. Um so those would be your dates unless you wanted to have a and then sorry and then you'd have the first meeting in July but not the second. So July 13th.

Yeah. Uh so uh one important point of clarification city is not obligated to appoint anyone from the current applicant pool. Meaning uh there's a difference between someone running unopposed and only one application. If you don't think the person is qualified or would would do a good job, there's no reason no requirement to appoint them. If that same person were to run unopposed, uh that's a different story there. they they would be on the council. So if needed, the council can extend the recruitment, reopen applications, you know, continuing to accept applications, delay the appointment. Again, you have lots of flexibility here. So question for tonight, how does the city council want to conduct interviews, make appointments? So interview format, number of meetings, public engagement, selection method, scheduling. Um we've been through it uh for well three of you have been through it twice in the last year and a half. One of well some of you are on the other side of the table and so you'll have a different perspective and so um couple of things we uh maybe we can talk about this as we go through each of them. Interview structure. Do you want to conduct all the interviews in one meeting? Do you want to do it over multiple meetings? Do you want to have some sort of um forum with with interview questions? So the one consideration I put here is the what was expressed at the last meeting was you want to move the process along efficiently and give the maximum time to serve on the council prior to the end of the year. So you've got um what the process could be versus how how quickly you want to make the appointments. And so I think that's a consideration uh that you can take. So um there's a we have interview structure, public

engagement and selection process. So maybe we'd start here and just kind of Maril let you kind of lead a discussion see what what the council wants to do. One quick piece to that in the current application setup. We have a question because last time we made we had chance to discuss this but we put a question in there. The council may choose to interview at the June 22nd or July 13th meeting. The thought process there was that you would have enough time maybe maybe a preceding meeting. Question was and would you be available at those meetings? Correct. Kind of you know block out your time just in case.

So we didn't list June 8th. No, because that is our next meeting and there was a sense of that because we're now having a Memorial Day meeting, you would discuss then when you want to do or how you want to do the interviews potentially. You still can do it. That meeting wasn't.

So, okay. Um, that was I know our charter says we shall appoint. The question in my mind that's kind of still up in the air is if we are not able to appoint and it gets to election time, somebody files to run and they win, does that override what our charter says? There is no ability to file because there isn't a vacancy eligible to be on the ballot unless you appoint someone prior to July 25th.

Otherwise, they it would be when they the only opportunity to file would be in two years, right? So effectively what it means is if we um continually push this off because maybe we don't get piles of them and maybe we get zero. then this just continues to remain open and we um either appoint somebody um you know let's say in 2027 or it just stays open until

the charter is silent on like timing of appointment. It's just clear that the only way to fill the seats is by appointment. So now the default to that when it's unspoken is that if the council never comes to consensus or never receives an application or for whatever reason an appointment isn't made then it would be the November 2028 election would be and that would be because those seats would normally be up for election at that point anyway. So the only way to be on the ballot for the remaining two years is if an appointment is made with more than 100 days before the election.

So we all have that. Yeah. And why is that the case? Because that's confusing to me. Is it why does appointing prior to July 25th put it on the ballot? So, the charter specifically says um appointments made with more than 100 days before the ballot will uh be placed on the ballot and uh appointments made with less than 100 days before the next general election um will basically be pushed to the to the next election. So,

Council Baker was past the election date and well more than 100 days, but the term she was supplying was actually, you know, 2 years into the future. As opposed to councelor Ansbro is the opposite. He was well before the election day, the 100 days. And the 100 days varies depending on what the election day So, he was well before that. So, he is going to be um on the ballot this fall, but only for a two-year term because he has to fulfill the rest of that term. Which say his seat, not him,

his seat. His seat. Yes. I think maybe part of the confusion is um what what you just said and that is if nobody has been appointed to a pos a certain position then there cannot be an election for that position. Am I understanding that? Yeah. And I think that's the confusion. Well, I just find it strange. Yeah, I understand it. It's just a strange perk of our charter. It's

Well, think think of it this way also. Um there's the practical side. So um let's say you continued let's say there were no applications. Um, at what point? Um, so is it would it because you've got the whole window of people filing. If you took up until the last day of filing to run as your opportunity to make a decision um, and you can't come to a decision, the period's closed for someone to apply. If you so, so you you've got this gap. At some point the county needs to know there is a vacancy for this position. So in some ways if we had the discretion that decision would need to be made by the time it opens. But

vacancy now though is the thing. There's a vacancy now. That's what's strange about it.

Yeah. And but per the charter um the only way to get it on the November ballot this year is to make an appointment prior to July 25th. Right. I had it much more clearly laid out in last meeting's presentation, so I don't have it here. So, I'm kind of stumbling a little bit, but I can pull it up. Well, if we have put on our application that they need to be available June 22nd, it would seem to me like that would be the date we would do an appointment and then we can decide whether I mean do interviews and it would seem like we could then decide whether we want to appoint that night or we could possibly appoint on the following meeting on July 13th. Um, if we go beyond that, then whoever we end up appointing, assuming we do, they're in office until 2028. They because that's past the deadline for the uh November election.

So, I like that. I think that is option A basically. Um, I think this is this is assuming you want to appoint someone prior to July 25th, which we do. We've said that.

Do you want to have one meeting, interviews, a point? Do you want to have two meetings? You want to have a meeting and an open house, which kind of lends into the the next slide, the public engagement like we did the last time. So, I think council Baker, when you were appointed, it was one meeting, interview questions, appointments, which I think took you by surprise a little bit. Councelor Ansboro was a kind of community meeting followed by a city council meeting followed by a couple of city council meetings and then an appointment. So, so um I think the question here is what is the goal? Let's try to focus in on that. Is the goal to tr if you have applications and you're ready to make appointment July 22nd, sorry, June 22nd, would you like to interview and make an appointment? Do you want to have other kinds of open houses, public greetings, public interactions? Um, that's we want to kind of get those on the schedule for now. And obviously we can keep that flexible depending on if we have applications and whatnot, but just trying to pencil some dates in and and the and the program the process so that if we have

candidates that you are ready to appoint, we can do so before July 25th. We could do a special meeting. Yeah, there's always the idea of a special meeting, but I think um hopefully we wouldn't need that if if we're able to use the dates that we have. So my preference would be an expedited process where we do the interview in one meeting. I'm I would prefer that we do questions that they know ahead of time and then our interview questions at the same meeting. The only question that I'm kind of toying with is do we appoint at the end of that or do we wait for another meeting to get public input before we appoint?

But I I didn't really like the process of the two separate meetings. it felt redundant and I think we could do all that in one meeting. So maybe not necessarily go over all of the questions they have ahead of time. We just have them there and they don't need to necessarily uh respond to them since we have their answers. But we questions were different. the questions that we posed. Yeah, they were different alto together and they didn't know what the interview questions were up front.

I think that's still a good process for people to complete questions on their application and then also to answer questions at the interview. So I think let me clarify last time it wasn't it wasn't questions on the applications once the deadline closed. We sent them a list of questions like an interview and they gave written answers. Right. That's what I mean.

Separate from that, there were interviews from the council. So, we can do that. We can provide something ahead of time that they provide a written response on. Um, we can have give uh we you can give them questions ahead of time that they just give orally. Um, you can have a preset uh group of questions that you ask uh that they don't know ahead of time. And this wouldn't be a this would have to be different than the ones we asked the last time,

right? And this and I'm not saying this would be a good practice. You can also kind of shoot from the hip on this one. This isn't a this isn't like a human resource like an HR hire where there is a a legal and professional need to ask all the same questions. I think that's appropriate and a good practice. But if you just wanted to question them and have a bit more freestyle, if you will, I think that goes back to the council has full discretion on what what works for you. So, it's really a matter of what you as a council can come to a consensus on and think would work in this situation with the timelines, the amount of time serving. I think what works for you. Um,

let me throw this out. We so we I think we already decided we'd like to try to appoint before the 25th of July, which means we have an expedited timeline. I feel like the public forum openhouse is not necessarily feasible in this new timeline. I also feel like part of the reason why we're trying to expedite this is so that it can go to the residents for a vote in November. So, it's not like we are appointing someone for a 2-year period of time. We are appointing them for a very short window to get another council member here and to give them an opportunity to get on the ballot for the residents in November. So my view is that we should make this a shorter process where we have the do the interviews in one evening. The questions can be however we figure out to send out the questions but I just feel like um this is one in which we don't have to go overboard with the process. Agreed.

I agree with that. Yeah. And so do I. I like what Seth said, too. You know, just the uh if we shoot for the 22nd, I mean, that gives us two weeks at least, maybe even three to get all of the information to them. And then they already know they need to be at the council meeting that night. Um, if we can't come to a a good conclusion, we still have another meeting after that. But I'd like to get it done that night as well for all the same reasons. Well, I think

my only concern is the second meeting in June, unless we've gotten the budget done and all that work, the first meeting, we have a lot to go through there. So, and I don't know what the schedule looks like right now, but we can talk about that um as we move along here. I mean, we're still in the middle of May. The only thing I I'd clarify is I think there was I felt the consensus was going towards interview one meeting, appoint the next meeting, and you mentioned interview, same meeting. I thought that's what you said. That's what you were saying. Just get it all done one night.

Get it done in one meeting. And I also forgot one point which was I think at the last for the last one we all sent you ideas for questions and then you compiled the questions that we were going to use for the interviews and if that was easy enough for you to do I think we could do something similar. Let me let me point out that the issue here um ideally this council would have a consensus on the questions asked. However, the only way to discuss that is in a public meeting, which defeats the whole purpose. So, so, um, that's why Oh, I didn't realize that had happened.

So, that's the kind of weird thing here is if you guys want to all kind of sign off on the questions, it's an open public meeting. If you want to suggest ideas and send them only to the mayor and trust that he will kind of compile compile them into kind of a neutral set of questions, that's one way to do it. There probably other ways, but there isn't a way for you to as a group coordinate the questions. That makes sense. Without it being in a public meeting and no, you can't have an executive session for that reason. Yes, I can't. I mean, the other option would be we all ask a question. Yep. That's totally possible.

I have full confidence in the mayor to coordinate the questions and put together, you know, a neutral set of questions as well. So, whatever the council decides there, I'm fine with I'm good either way. I will say just my two cents. I think you get different answers uh based upon someone has time to think about it, consider it, and give you a response and someone who doesn't know something ahead of time has to think about it and come up with on the spot. I think both are important, but they kind of

evaluate different skills, different capabilities. And so my recommendation would be to have some written ones ahead of time that that we have the responses back maybe a week ahead of time. You're able to review them and then that they have on the spot questions that they have not seen before and we can hold one the other candidates hostage in the other room so they don't get to hear other people's responses. Well, there's going to be piles of them. Remember piles. Is our conference room big enough? Never going to live this one down, am I? We can move the meeting to the convention center. There we go. Okay. So, do we have Yeah.

Um, last year I don't know if Zach's going to do it this year like that or not, but we did all the budget stuff on June 9th. Okay. That was carried over to the second meeting. So, good. But I'm I don't know if that's going to do it that way. I'm just saying. I would like to, but I'm not too sure exactly. The only question I have is are there public noticing stuff that we may be too late to do on Okay. We can work around um what the council wants to do. If you wanted to do interviews at the first meeting in June, we can still

work towards that. we have we have time u and plus if we don't do any of this on June 8th we can talk about it again and if we need to adjust somehow we can you know depending on how many there actually are can and we're talking about two positions right not just one so right can I offer one wrinkle is there any is there any chance or I don't know how we would how you would determine this that you'd want to extend the application period T. Is there a chance? Yes. Yeah. But then but I guess I would say it would that would be after it's closed, meaning it would be more of a reopening than an extended.

So that would be in at the first June meeting that you'd have to because there this is the last meeting before the closing date. So unless they called an emergency meeting. So it would be a reopening rather than an extension. That's all I was. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, I like it. Oh, go ahead. Can we appoint someone that doesn't apply for the charter? The charter is silent on that. I think there's a practical problem with that. Um, if the council wants to consider that, I think I would want to consult with our attorney and see, you know, can someone be conscripted into service?

Um, I don't know if that's within your powers and duties. Uh, but it doesn't doesn't say you can't do that. It I will say it doesn't say that there has to be an application process. This could be if you're interested come to a meeting and by show of hands who's interested. I mean there really is full discretion on the council. So everything we're doing is based on previous president what we've seen in other communities. So if there are other options they're all on the table. Okay. So, are we shooting for June 22nd? June 22nd all at once, but the possibility of We can we'll try. Yes.

Okay. And we'll um you know, I guess I'll I'll ask for questions uh somewhere around June 8th and make sure we have some applicants. So, I think that's a good question. Uh with doing the June 22nd, that gives you an opportunity to uh re-evaluate if we're still on the right course.

Yeah. If you've got um no applicants or one applicant, do you want to consider reopening? Are you ready to move on? You'll know who that is. And so um you have an opportunity to reevaluate. Nothing is set in stone. So, but we will pursue June 22nd for now. And um if the council wants to change it, we still have time.

Okay. Right. All right. New business. Ordinance 2026-03, ordinance of the city council of Seaside extending the term of the assessment District for downtown maintenance. Is Kim leading this one? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I was prepared for that one this time. Last year, remember I wasn't. He kind of surprised me. Staff is requesting that city council conduct a public hearing, public comments, and proceed with the first reading of the attached ordinance. The ordinance pertains to the assessment of properties within the downtown maintenance district, which funds two contracts for the district, litter maintenance and landscape maintenance.

And I will open a public hearing for anybody. Uh you don't have to have signed up for this ahead of time. Anybody uh want to comment on this? This is um basically a district that's between um Avenue A and First Avenue. Is it It's not Oceanway. Yeah, First um from the uh the beach out to um 101. And we uh provide uh maintenance of that area both in uh the keeping the streets clean, sidewalks clean and the uh pocket gardens.

Anybody? Yes, sir. State your name and city of residence. Uh Randy Robinson. Uh I actually live in Atoria, but I work down here at the general manager at the hotel uh at the prominade in that used to be Shiloh. uh the hotel that used to be the old Shiloh the not in down here. Yeah. Um the owner James Malloy, he mentioned that he would like to see if it's possible that we can get flowers um maintained on the south side of the building since we pay a larger portion of the of the the fee landscaping fee. If that was something that could be done on the south side of the building.

Mhm. on Broadway right there against the prominade. I think that's outside the purview of us because we're just setting up the district itself. But I think uh you could go and talk to Kim about that and she

come and talk to Kim because she's the expert on this. Just kind of bring in circle on Google Maps what you're talking about and we can evaluate. I don't know the answer off the top of my head of what changes. Um uh but we can look at it. Um the interesting thing with this is we do have a contract in place for the work already. So we we're doing this ordinance and we also have an existing contract. So

there's it's it's a little weird there. Um and so that would be expanding the scope of the contract and it would expand the cost. But um I know we're not raising the rates this year because there's sufficient funds in there to cover what's currently um the work being done. So there's an expansion of what wanted to be done. Um I can't tell you what that process is, but we can certainly look at it if you provide us the information. So I would say shoot Kim an email or stop by city hall this week and and talk to Kim. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Any others? All right, we close public hearing. Counselors, any questions, comments? Patrick.

Yes. Um, go ahead.

Um, just some clarifying questions. Um, um, are the downtown businesses currently satisfied with the maintenance outcomes that are going on now? Do we have any metrics about that? Are they being surveyed about any of this? Um, we had a the contract that we have um ended in the end of December and it took us more than a month to get it renewed and going and um the downtown businesses we were were not happy that they were not getting the service and expressed and so we we had to go out through a public bidding process for that. The same um company was selected. We had two bids this time and the overwhelmingly support from downtown businesses was to keep the same contractor we have because um for how good the work is. So if we were going to go a different route, we were going to have an uphill battle to show that it would be an increase in service because they were very committed and very pleased with the work we have.

So they like it. Yeah. Yes. I think that's an understatement. Okay. Good. Um Um, all right. That that was basically all I had right there. Just a question, I guess, for your sake and mine, too, is how long has this been in place?

It's like the 80s, like 1983. I I can't tell you the exact memory. Just a significant amount of time. This isn't anything new. Yeah. Okay. amazing because a lot of cities will not businesses don't come together like this to pay for a contract to beautify their downtown. So, a lot of people are amazed at this contract and that the businesses are so um supportive of this being done to keep the city looking clean and everything. So anecdotally too from the tourism side, it's very pop as to kind of Kim's point and and being in the tourism industry for as long as I was, I it is so wellreceived and well respected by the visiting community as well. So

right, the pocket gardens and the pocket gardens are well known and and uh people love figuring out the uh flowers and how they connect to the businesses and that kind of thing. I would move for a first reading of ordinance 2026-03 by title only. Second. It's council president Morsey. Councelor Baker. All those in favor say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Kim. I'll read it. I was I was I was okay. Go ahead.

She did make it very wordy. So, ordinance number 2026-03, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Seaside, Oregon, pursuant to OS 223.112-223.132, setting a public hearing extending the term of the assessment district for economic improvement known as the downtown maintenance district, repealing ordinance 2000- 2025-03 and All ordinances in conflict herewith. Thank you. Done.

I I do not um Oh, you're going to got a vote on I'm going to ask if um uh anybody wants to move forward tonight on second reading. I do not typically support second readings at the same time as the first reading. However, this is the status quo. There's no change to anything. So I would support and I would move for a second reading of ordinance 2026-03 by title only. Second. It's councelor Montero and councelor Bakerker. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Again,

ordinance number two, 2026-03, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Seaside, Oregon, pursuant to RS223.112-223.132, setting a public hearing extending the term of the assessment district for economic improvement known as the downtown maintenance district, repealing ordinance number 2025-03, and all ordinances in conflict herewith. Thank you. That was great. Yeah. Very good. New drink. Yeah. Uh that will be on our agenda at the next meeting.

Uh next up, doing things a little different here with Recology. Um franchise rate adjustment. Spencer. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening. Please introduce yourselves. We'll do. Uh my name is Danble. I'm the government and community relations manager for Recology Northern Or. And I've got a couple of folks with me. Morgan,

I think that wasn't working. You push the button. I think it is. The light doesn't work on that one. But here's an extra one if you Okay, it we'll put it right there. Thanks for having us here tonight. Um, this is for hearing, not for I'm not listening to a ball game or anything. I'm a little deaf. So, um, in between proper hearing aids, uh, Chris is actually in my ear telling me what to say during this meeting.

Uh, we just have a a quick quick presentation for you. Interest of time. Um, this we are here for our annual rate review. Uh, we'll also provide just a a quick uh overview of Recology. Probably news to all of you. Maybe some folks in the back haven't heard about us yet. Uh, and then a couple of operations updates. and we're here to answer your questions as well. And we're going to change it up a little bit this year. We're just going right into the rate review process. Um we are here to uh seek a 3% uh CPI based rate adjustment this year. Um this would impact your most common customer 99 cents a month. Um this is really driven by fuel uh which everybody's experiencing unfortunately. Uh we are also um you know seeing some labor cost increases and tip fee increases and uh the 3% CPI comes in a little bit under the actual CPI for year-over-year. Um and it's you know it's never fun to come in front you know to ask for these but uh incremental adjustments do kind of take some of the pain off of you know waiting for a year or two in between. So that's where we are uh tonight. Just want to go over our rate review process really quickly. Each year by April 1st, we submit our uh annual financial report. You should have that in your packet along with a cover letter, our proposed rates, and then a report from our third-party uh auditor on our financial management structure. Um so we do uh report to you our previous year's actual expenses and uh our projections for this cycle. And then the way this franchise is set up, it is we report all of our costs and we are allowed a certain margin uh in exchange for for providing the services here in the city. Um that target margin or sorry operating ratio in your case is 90%. Um with an allowable range of 88 to 92. With this

3% CPI base rate adjustment, we are projected to come in at 90.7 uh% on our operating margin, which is just, you know, a little bit uh below the target. This is what uh our rate sheet looks like. It's in your packet. I just highlighted a couple of those rates that I've already spoke to. And for the commercial side of things, this is what that 3% would look like. These rates would take effect July 1st of 2026. Just quickly uh a little bit about us. We are 100% employeeowned company. Uh we serve the West Coast. We have uh here up the coast we have our Atoria transfer station. Uh we have our main office up in Warrington. We have a small yard in Nalum. Uh we're really happy to serve the communities here at the coast. A little bit about our waist zero services. You've heard some of this before, but we value our partnerships with the city of Seaside as well as Chamber of Commerce. I know right now we're working on the volleyball tournament. Uh I think we've done some beach cleanups in the past with Solve and others uh and some other things that we do in partnership. Um one thing I want to point out, last year we instituted a school-based Earth Day poster contest. And this year, excited to share the winner of that uh poster contest here at the coast was someone from Seaside, a student named Ellie. And we don't disclose last names, I believe, is why we don't have that last name on that one, but uh really exciting. The winning poster was put onto a t-shirt and given out um on Earth Day. So, kind of a great thing. It, you know, uh helps with education around recycling, right? And also acknowledges uh Earth Day and our waist zero services. We have a new waist zero person. Her name is Claire Walcott. Some of you may have seen her around town. If not, we'll get her to one of the events here. And uh we're really happy that she's uh working here at the coast. She resides in Seaside. Just bought a house. So just bought a

house here. Sean, where do you live? Oh, no. Don't say it. He doesn't live in Seaside.

So, um let's see. Jumping ahead. This is just a picture. We have an artist and residency program. It's called the Coastal Artist and Residency. Um, we've been doing it for 13 years here at the coast. We select a couple of artists each year, give them a stipen, let them take garbage out of the transfer station and make art out of it. This is a tradition in recology. Um, these are some of the many fantastic pieces of art that artists have made over the years. I have come before you in the past and talked about the recycling modernization act uh for seaside. The big changes for you at this point is that we made some changes in your curbside recycling. not not radical. Uh we added uh nursery pots in that can be recycled now. Gable topped cartons, aseptic cartons like you'd see almond milk or you know bone broth, that kind of thing. Shelf stable things can now be recycled in your cart. We did take aluminum foil and foil trays off because they burn up in the recycling process and don't add any value. And when I say we, the DEEQ made these changes. So it is a uniform statewide recycling list now. So if you you know live in the eastern part of of Oregon and you come to vacation here, you can recycle the same things in both places. This is uh called a recycle on center and this is uh a a container that is provided under the recycling modernization act to communities that want them. There's about 250 going in across the state. Uh you are eligible and you are on the list for this type of container to be um placed here. We would be happy to work with city manager and uh talk about locating something like this. This is for hard to recycle materials like styrofoam, plastic bags, other materials that you can't recycle at the curb. There's no cost to the jurisdictions to have these provided and so we can I'm happy to talk with um you Spencer about

the issue will always be where where I think it's great. I think the issue is where and will it lead to dumping of of inappropriate stuff which which is why we close the other site is if people just come and dump all their stuff that's not recyclable there and then it has to be cleaned up. That's the problem. But Jess, he's the guy to contact. So uh we can talk about that going forward. Happy to partner and help you uh plan for that. Uh it wouldn't be serviced by us. it would be serviced by the third party uh under the recycling modernization act. Wow.

And then the last thing I wanted to share is some updates about our customer service. Uh we have worked really hard over the last 18 months under Chris's leadership to really drive down our weight times and hold times. And uh Chris, would you state the actual numbers because last time I got it wrong, I got it backwards.

So we have some metrics in place. One of them is average time to answer the phone and we want it to be under 40 seconds. Uh we've hit that for almost the last seven to eight months, which is a huge improvement of what it used to be. And it's a human that's right up the road in McMinnville that speaks to you and tells you and knows your account. We also have two of those folks uh at the Warrington office. Uh it's just been amazing to see the improvements there. And then the average hold time is under a minute or a minute 20, something like that. Uh which is not a long hold either. So we measure both of those so our team doesn't just answer and say can I put you on hold right so uh great improvements uh we were able to get you know great wages for those folks to keep them in those roles to keep them trained our general hardly anything in that role which is a tough position if you've ever been in customer service that's that's a rough one um so just we're super proud of uh the leadership that's in place and the work that's that's happened and I hope um you know one of these days we'll show and we'll just have you call during a live meeting

go right to a human but unfortunately it's after hours so sorry you can't do that it always will be too thank you Chris and then the the last thing uh we are currently using a very old uh customer account system it's 40 years old green uh black screen letters um DOSS prompts yeah and we are finally the city we just did the conversion I bet it's the same program we used to have

yeah We we are converting to a modern accounting system or customer account system called AMCS. It's an industry standard. It integrates everything from sensors on the trucks and cameras and uh to the customer service experience. It'll have a lot of benefits for your customers, your rateayers. Um because the the information will be much more readily available. Also, the billing billing system will be much uh more user friendly. It's actually a modern billing system rather than a 30 40 year old one. So, just uh that is going to be happening midsummer and I'll be working with uh city manager on that and getting notification out to customers. So, that's all I think I have. Happy to answer any questions that you have.

I do want to add a couple just one thing. Um so, we said Sean's the new guy, but we haven't let him talk or anything yet. I'll give you a quick background. If you remember, Katie Hardesty was our ops manager here. She's since been promoted to a GM role in California. She's taken a big role down there. Um she's liking the weather. She's not missing the rain. She was just being rude about it. Uh Sean comes to us. He's been in the industry for I want to say 13 almost 15.

Yeah. And uh he was running a a collection company for us uh in the Portland market, but has worked his way up from, you know, being a temp employee for when he started uh washing containers or bus stations, that kind of thing. So, a really good example of what an employee owned company brings to the table is that we don't have a lot of turnover. Um, we we find good talent within and build that talent and Sean's a great example of that. So, no pressure, Sean. Thank you. Must perform. Uh, he's moved his family here, two young kids, and his wife uh in Warrington or no, I'm sorry. Uh, him in Warrington. Yes, that's actually okay.

Yeah, it's okay. Sean, did you ever want to add anything to that? No, I don't think so. Thanks for having me up here with you all. I don't do these very often. You could probably tell we don't bite. Okay. Um, any questions? Um, any at all here? Uh, Spencer, you want to explain what's a little different about this year?

Yeah. So, uh, this is one thing I I had looked at and talked a little bit Dan about this. So we have a franchise agreement that spells out under what conditions they're able to raise rates. So if they are staying within certain operating parameters and the rates don't exceed a certain amount, there's a CPI uh uh reflected in the franchise agreement and that's what they're requesting and that's what they've requested in the past. But the franchise agreement grants them that. So, it's always seemed odd to me that we come and have the city council approve it. I also don't think we'd necessarily want the city council approving a rate change. That's not your rate change. It's their rate change. And I think I'd prefer to have

Recology raising the rates. Um yeah, there is something in the franchise agreement that says if they need to or if there's justification to request something above I think the maximum is 4%. Then they do come and there is a a process to go through and they have done that with you since I've been here but that's not the case here. So this is one of those things where it's not really discretionary and so what I've changed uh for tonight um if you look at the request in your packet it's not an approval of their rates. It's more of an acknowledgement that you've received their their report and that the rates contemplated are consistent with the franchise agreement. So, it's more of a I look at this as a kind of a rate review rather than a rate approval that would happen if it was greater than 4%. And so, I think it's

it's uh for transparency, you know, we're not we're not approving it. And so, you know, we're going to talk water and sewer rates later. So, um, you can own that one. They can own that rate change. So, um, I think I have the wording in the packet that I would recommend. Somebody want to make that motion? Yeah. I move to accept Recy's annual rate review materials and proposed July 1st, 2026 rate schedule as submitted and acknowledge that the proposed 3% rate adjustment is consistent with the franchise agreement. Second. Second council president Morsey and councelor Baker. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Thank you guys. Um I'm going to call a fiveminut recess. Please be back in your Actually, it's going to be four minutes. Be back in your seats by 7:55.

back in session. Next up, ordinance 20264, ordinance of the city of Seaside establishing a public property exclusion process for violations of law and city property. Spencer.

Thank you, mayor. Um, this is a continuation of the discussion that the city council had at the previous meeting. So, uh, we're discussing the exclusion ordinance. So, why is this needed? Um so the city owns and manages several public uh properties, parks, natural spaces, rights of way and um and there is a a need to be able to improve our management and of them and and for people's adherence to the to the rules. So uh currently if someone is engaging in uh breaking the state law, city code or park rule, the tools that our police department has are to warn them, issue a citation, to arrest where the law authorizes that or request them to leave. Um most of the time these are enough, but not always. In some situations we have repeated violations in the same location after enforcement has already happened. And so this ordinance is designed to um to uh react to that. Uh so um here's the here's the gap. A warning or a citation addresses the violation. It does not by itself prevent someone from immediately returning to the same public property. Um without a structured exclusion process, a police may be left to repeating the same response. So, this ordinance creates an intermediate tool for repeated or serious conduct on city property. So, um I know we talked about um some park rules and stuff like that. So, if if we had the same individual breaking the same park rules in the same park all the time and they were just like, I'll pay the fine each time. That's it. They would just pay the fine each time. the current ordinance or the current code does not have a mechanism

to maybe escalate or have a different tactic after that. Um, and so that's what we want to address. So what this would do, we create a new uh code in uh in the city's uh code of ordinances uh that would allow this written exclusion notice in limited circumstances. Again, this would apply to any violation of Oregon law, seaside code, or adopted facility or property rules. Uh, and they would be temporary and location specific. So, what this is not, and I think this is important because this is very limited, uh, scope that this tool exists. This is not a city-wide ban for any individual. This is not a permanent exclusion. This is not a replacement for existing enforcement tools. It's not based on who someone is. The focus is on conduct on city property and whether that conduct violates law or city rules. So we put quite a few limits in here. So it generally applies only to the specific property where the violation occurred. Broader exclusions require written findings and supervisory approval. Generally speaking, uh if I the code talks about if you've been excluded from multiple, let's say parks, then uh there can be a consideration for excluding from all city parks for a period, but you have to go through the warnings and the violations and the exclusion at one to even get to that point. So hopefully it doesn't get there, but that is uh an option, but most of the time it's very specific to one property. Um the maximum exclusion periods are uh 30 days for the first, 60 days for the second or 90 days for a third or later exclusion.

And the length must be reasonably proportional to the violation. Um I we had talked previously about making things less discretionary um when we were talking about the fireworks ordinance and just make it specific. This is one area where our city attorney advised us you you in order for this to you know save off any kind of challenge it um it needs to have that discretion built in. And so um there is an operational side that will work with our police department for some consistency which is really um what we would want that the same the same exclusion term would be um let's say someone was excluded for doing something for 10 days that um a different person in the same circumstances would also be excluded for the same amount of time. So, we want some consistency. Um, which is typically why you have you take away the discretion so everyone's the same. Uh, but in this case, it's purposeful that you have to look at the specific circumstances and determine what's what's warranted in these situations. And that was directly from our attorney. Um, in most cases, a warning and opportunity to comply is required first. Um again that's one of the other um limitations of this and then when there is a written exclusion given these are the issues that need to be identified. So it's very clear where it is you know where they can and cannot go um whether and the process to appeal um and information like that. Um so appeal rights a person may appeal to the municipal court. The city must prove that the violation occurred and that the exclusion is appropriate. This would be

the same way we would the police would do the same work for any other crime. Um most appeals are are stayed oh sorry most appeals stay the exclusion while the appeal is pending. Um I say most because uh based on the feedback from the council there are a few changes that I'll get get into a minute and m municipal court can uphold reverse or modify the exclusion. So the update since the last meeting the council raised questions about public facility safety and appeal stays. So the example was someone threatens violent behavior in the library. Um this has happened before. So, not only are they cited for maybe disorderly conduct or something, but they are also given an uh an exclusion. Um, so the question came up, well, if they go immediately and appeal it, can they come right back and start doing the same behavior? I mean, technically they could and we could cite them again, but um that's what I went through with the attorney. And so the the ordinance has been updated since the discussion with the council so that um violent or threatening conduct or repeated conduct during the state appeal um are do not be do not automatically stay during an appeal. So, let me go back and say someone threatens at the library. Um, if it's if the exclusion is due to threatening conduct or violent contact conduct, um, if the only way they can get a stay is that the court decides a stay is warranted, but there's no automatic uh, stay. Usually, it's significant enough that for the safety of the public and the the employees that we're not going to automatically um assume that a stay is in place. And then the same thing would happen, let's say

someone's violating a park rule, they're issued a uh an exclusion. Um they go and appeal it, which stays the exclusion, and they go back immediately and start doing the same thing again. And so if they're excluded from the same park for the same reason pending appeal, they can be excluded again, this time with no appeals rights, no automatic stay. The only appeal right is goes through the court. So hopefully it doesn't get to that, but sometime you write the code for the worst scenario. Um, okay. Yeah. So vi violent or threatening conduct. The ordinance now defines violent or threatening conduct includes conduct involves use attempted use or threatened use of physical force, reasonable fear or imminent physical injury and fire setting or threats to set fire. If an exclusion is based on this conduct, an appeal does not automatically state the exclusion. The mun municipal court can still modify or reverse the exclusion. Repeat conduct during a state appeal. should have just read ahead and not gone off script. Most appeals still pause the exclusion, but if a person returns to the same property during a state appeal and engages in new conduct that supports another exclusion, the city may issue a new exclusion or notice. The new exclusion is not automatically stayed. This prevents repeated conduct from continuing while the first appeal is pending. Access exceptions. So the exclusion does not prevent access to city hall for official business, municipal court proceedings, emergency services. Uh city manager and police chief uh may approve limited limited waiverss for good cause and access exceptions apply even if the exclusion remains active during appeal. So um there's always going to be circumstances and we've experienced this with the drug-free zone that we have

downtown. People have been excluded from there. Um but from time to time there is um kind of official business they need to do do and they request um a waiver and the ones I've given have been when they need to go to the post office. Uh and so they have a limited waiver you can go to and from the post office can't loiter and hang out in the in the excluded area but if you have business to do there you can go to and from there. That's an example. So here, if you know, if if someone was excluded from city hall, there would still be a mechanism for them to be able to come in and pay their utility bill or come and provide public comment at a public hearing, things that they kind of have a right to do. Um, but uh the more optional things is what would be restricted. Hopefully you don't need to use it for a building. Um, but you never know. So we still expect this to be used very selectively. um very limited situations and it's only used because the prior enforcement has has not resolved the repeat of violations or that the conduct itself justifies a stronger and immediate response than we can currently provide. So the goal is safe, orderly and lawful use of city public property. And um if this is something the council wants to pursue, we have the first uh motion and if you want to have a second uh reading, you can do that as well. Thank you. Um, open a public hearing if anybody out there wants to say anything about this. Doesn't look like it. So, we'll close public hearing. Um, let's start with Chris.

I don't have been explained. Well, I appreciate addressing the questions we had at the last meeting and I'm good. I think we've discussed this several times the last few meetings and I'm appreciate the updates and I'm all in favor of it. Dina,

um I had quite a bit of discussion with um Spencer on this and I do understand it. Uh, one thing that comes to mind for me is that I know that um there is a contract that people sign or agreement that people sign when they rent um the community center. And I would say that you probably want to review that contract wording uh in relationship to this ordinance to make sure that it's consistent.

Sure. And that would fit with any of the other facilities as well. Um, library board is going over their policy as well. Same be the convention center um as they have um rules for its use and things like that. Bender. Um I think it covers a lot. I I like it and I would like to also suggest that um we get some annual reporting on uh the number of exclusions uh the number of appeals, the number of outcomes and uh the geographic impacts any specific areas.

Sure. I'm I'm sure we could do that as part of the police department's annual report and as long as uh it's enforced across the board and there aren't any specific dem demographics impacted just people who violate the law that works for me very clear um about who this affects and there's certainly no specific group. Sure. Um, you answered my question already as well too. So, okay. Um, may I have a motion then? I move for a first reading of ordinance number 2026-04 by title only. I see.

It's councelor Baker and councelor Ansboro. All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Ordinance number 2026-04, an ordinance of the city of Seaside establishing a public property exclusion process for violations of law on city property, providing procedure, safeguards, and appeal rights, and amending the Seaside Municipal Code. Okay. Hearing no optional motion to read it a second time, we'll move on u to what is our first resolution of the year? Resolution 4082, a resolution amending water access and demand charges and consumption charges. Are we uh letting

this? This is me, but I'm going to invite our finance director. Okay. He's not going to escape. You might want to bring your laptop just in case you need that spreadsheet.

Thank you, mayor. Uh so, um I've pres I've I'm presenting one presentation for both uh agenda items, both resolutions. Um but they are separate, uh resolutions, so separate work to be done by the council. Um but I figured we could have one presentation. Um so purpose tonight the budget committee recommended uh a 3% uh increase in revenue for water and sewer. This was primarily to address just inflationary and normal uh operating cost increases. Um so tonight's question is not just whether to raise revenue. Tonight's question is how to allocate the increase fairly and defensively. So, we talked about this at the budget committee meeting um that um they approved the budget. The budget itself doesn't say who pays what and how is it distributed. Um we've talked about this in in uh previous years. Um let me back up and say because I don't think I put it in this presentation. Um the reason we're doing it tonight is because um we bill in two-month increments. And so if we were to wait to the budget adoption and then it becomes effective July, it puts us into like the fall before we're actually receiving any of the funds. And so it's we would get 75% of that increase that we need. And so um and so this is consistent with what we did last year is we adopted this in May so that it it starts the billing cycle that begins June 15th. if that makes sense. So, it's either June 15th or August 15th. Um, and so that's why it's uh on for tonight even prior to the budget being adopted. So, what this does not do, this is not com uh complete the formal utility rate study. That request for proposals is

out. I'm getting responses from from qualified firms. Um, this is not solve our long-term capital needs. I'll keep beating that drum until the uh report comes back and we can have that full discussion. Um this is not making final decisions about future rate design because we're going to talk about design tonight and it does not target or punish any particular customer group. So this is a datainformed adjustment while the city completes the broader utility rate study. Um so the council I'll summarize this really quickly. that we gave you options if you wanted to do more. And the feedback was the amounts for each additional half percentage increase were so small compared to what the capital costs were that let's just do what we have to do this year and we'll we'll make those decisions once we have more information.

And what was that capital cost shortfall that we discussed? I'd have to go back to the last slide. I think it was, you remember, it's about $2 million in sewer and Yeah, I think four or five million in water. Yeah, it might be reversed, but it's it's on that magnitude. I thought water was the bigger one. I thought it was. Yeah, water. Yeah.

Um but but I will say this, um that is based on the projects we've identified. I think the sewer master plan will, you know, we'll wait and see where that all falls. So what's what's what we've asked for with the uh for this the rate study is we have a lot of information now um let's do a study now and then when master plans are completed first the sewer and then the water then it's just a an update and not a whole new rate study rate strategy and everything and so I think um it'll be more of a fine-tuning uh approach than a than a kind of start from scratch scratch. I've talked a little bit about uh the billing cycle and how that works. And so everything presented here is how it um how it appears on people's bills for the two-month intervals. Uh so let's talk water rates. Um so uh the recommendation is to place the 3% water fund revenue increase on commercial and other large meter customers. So commercial and large meter customers means customers with a 1 and a half inch meter or larger and that will raise the $87,000 that we need for that 3% increase and then residential water rates are not proposed to in increase. Okay, there we go. And this is the reason why. So when we looked at the numbers um look on the chart uh residential uses 55% of the water and accounts for 61% of the rate revenue that comes in. Commercial users account for 45% of the water used but only pay for 39% of the uh rate revenue that's coming in. So residential customers are currently

generating more revenue than their share of water use. And so as we looked at that uh and kind of did some deeper analysis um uh the reason for that is because of how much we charge on the base rate and that's what's that's what's causing that. So we may have many people that pay a base rate with no usage or very low usage, but because they're being pay paying that base rate and we have so many more residential customers, they end up paying more. And so we want to shift away from that. The ideal would be that of the rate revenue we receive, um, each matches the other. Residents use 55% of the water, they pay 55% of the rates. commercial uses 45 uh they pay 45. Um that's just kind of the way I've been thinking about it. Um gener I think there will be different methodologies we can employ once we have a rate study that comes back and we can look at those. Um but but uh this I think made sense this year. So why water increase is assigned to commercial and large meter customers. So this is not a going after people with deeper pockets or something like that that I'm sure someone could raise. So a commercial and large meter customers account for 45% when they use 39. Larger meters represent greater potential demand on the system. The city must maintain system capacity for peak periods. So the proposed adjustment moves revenue responsibility closer to the actual use and system impact. Residential water water rates remain unchanged because the data supports this result. So think of it this way. Um uh you have you have a a really big hotel in the city and when it's being constructed we have to ensure that we design our system to meet its peak

capacity even if they only use that you know 3 months of the year. The rest of the year they're just being charged for what they use but that's not the impact on the system because we've had to design the whole system to accommodate something else. So that's where the split between the base rate and the usage is appropriate, but that's also where it kind of gets us um where I think our residents um have been burdening more of the share than they they should. Um so recommended uh division between the base rate and the usage was 20% on the base rate and 80% on the usage. And the reason is um to to try to drive that number down so the bigger water users are paying more um and try to both of these both of these uh or the the adjustment with this breakdown will start moving that needle closer to them paying for what they used. Um let's see. So uh proposed water base rate. So you can see here no change for 1in meters and last and there are some commercial users that have a 1 in meter. Um but they are not going to be your high water users. That's going to be office users and things like that. And so we're really t targeting not big or small businesses or anything like that. It's high water users and users that we have had to design and we have to have the capacity in the tank. We need to treat the water and have it ready to go if they have a high demand.

And the other piece of that is there are residential houses that have 1-in meters. So there was no there was no way this year to be able to separate those uh on a on a 1 in on a on a meter size basis. Yeah.

Wow. Um but you can see the change here. So for a 1/2 inch meter going from $110 as the base rate to 121. The largest being a 6 inch media which is a heavy water user going from 89 $891 a month to 983. And then on the consumption no change for the residential uh or sorry I shouldn't say that the 1in meters or smaller. And then um going from $459 to $5.3. So, a um 45 44 cent increase per 100 cubic feet. Um which is about 750 gallons.

It's about 10%.

Yes, 10%. Uh I can't picture in my mind what 100 cubic feet looks like but it is a measurement and it's how we build. Any questions on the water rate sewer sewer is a little different than water. Uh so the sewer impacts are not measured only by gallons. There's there's other things to be considered. So we look we can look at the wastewater flows the peak demand that's similar to water. What's the peak? So a big weekend with visitors will have a big a big impact on our sewer plant. We see that more more needs to be treated. Um it has to do with our pumping and collection system capacity, the treatment capacity. Then also the grease, solids, biological loading and wastewater strength and our system readiness. So meaning not everything that gets sent from every um customer uh needs the same treatment. So some customers will send um a different strength of sewer effluent that requires a different level of treatment. Can I put it that way?

Thank you. Yes. Hopefully.

So under the current sewer rate structure, residential sewer customers only pay the base rate. And so we don't see the same um we're not out of alignment there. Commercial sewer customers pay the base rate plus a usage charge. The commercial use charges applies above 700 cubic feet for per month. Because the city bills every two months, that's prorated to,400 cubic feet per billing cycle. So the recommendation is to share the increase between residential and commercial customers. Um commercial customers carry a modestly larger share. I think we put 60% there and 40% on residential. Um that generates the $98,583 we need for the in for the inflationary adjustment and it recognizes both the system cost and the sewer impacts. So why is it shared and not put on one or the other? Uh both residential and commercial customers rely on the sewer system. Both customer classes contribute to the inflationary operating costs. Uh residential customers participate through the base rate. Commercial customers participate through both the base rate and the usage rate. Commercial customers carry a modestly larger chair because commercial sewer impacts can be more variable. Um we've kind of talked a little bit this um already. I'm going to keep going. That's why it's different. So here's the proposed rate structure um for residential. The base rate, and this is for every two months, goes from $98.86 to $10110. And for the commercial, uh, it goes to $101.73 plus a usage rate of $7.28 for every 700 cubic feet. No, 1400

cubic feet by monthly. So, here is in the past we've talked about what does this look like to an average residential customer uh $2.24 increase per billing cycle. So, that is every two months or $112 per month. And obviously, here's total bill. So, in the past, you know, this is kind of what makes sense to us and to our residents. What what's the impact on me as a typical resident? And so, um, it's on here. It didn't really need to include the water, but just for kind of consistency, uh, $224, $224 increase every two months. So, these rate adjustments help fund help each fund keep pace with their inflationary operating costs. They do not solve the long-term capital needs. Uh, the city knows additional water and sewer capital needs are coming. The utility rate study will evaluate the long-term rate structure, capital funding, cost allocation. That includes between the different meter sizes, between residential and commercial, uh everything we've been talking about tonight. And so we should expect future rate discussions after that work is completed. So why we're why this uh approach makes sense, water and sewer lines were analyzed separately based on their own data. Um it's it's the data that we have available today. Water adjustment is focused on commercial and larger meter users because the revenue does not match the usage. Sewer adjustment is shared because both customer classes contribute to the system costs. Uh the commercial impacts are recognized without overstating the data and the formal utility rate study will determine the long rate long-term rate design and capital funding needs.

With all that said, here is the requested action for the next two agenda items. Anything to add, Zach? He covered it very well. Okay. I'm just here for backup.

Okay. Um, for resolution 4082, I will open the public comment time. Nope. I will close public comments. Let's start uh at the other end this time. Patrick, looking for my paperwork here. uh with regards to the water. Oh, it seems like um it is a balanced approach and uh adjusts for uh better equity for the uh for the residents. Uh that's basically all I have. I would agree with that and um I think uh wonderful explanation, very clear, very thorough and um certainly understand our present situation and our future.

So yeah. Yeah, he made sure to put that in. Oh yeah. Several times. I think we need to I think we need to absolutely. Okay, Seth.

Yeah, great presentation, Spencer. I I'm happy that you took the time to really think out, you know, what is fair between the the different rate customer, the commercial and the residential, and I think that makes a lot of sense. I think it's important for the public to know that these are enterprise funds, our water and sewer, and they're struggling and have been struggling. And so, we're in a period of playing catch-up. And unfortunately, we just can't pull money from TLT or the general fund to make these balanced. We have to raise rates. That's really our only tactic that we have in our toolbox. So, it's something we have to do. And I think the process that you laid out, I think making the different commercial and residential pay their fair share of that amount makes a lot of sense. So, I I hate raising rates. I usually do it kicking and screaming, but we really have no choice here. And I think that was the right approach. So, I'm in favor.

I agree with everything. I um hammered uh Spencer and Zach a little bit on these numbers earlier in the week. So, I really appreciate the help. They um what you came up with I think is very logical and sensible and and I appreciate it. What I will say in addition to what you said, Seth, is that really the this modest increase just sort of brings us back to a level playing field, right? So, we're covering our operating costs. It's really not getting us anywhere. So, um, yeah, we'll be talking about this more in the future.

I appreciated the breakdown and good reasons for it between commercial and residential. That that was well thought out and you will find out more when you get the official rate study and see what is really happening. Um I will point out and ask for any help that um the rest of the council wants to give. Um there are funds uh out there uh state and federal level for water and wastewater. That's a big thing. We just have to get in line because everybody else has the same issue. So, if any of you want to be involved in that, let me know and um I'll put you to work. So, uh motion to read resolution 4083 by title only.

82. 82. First, I move to read resolution number 402 by title only. I'll second. Councelor Monto, Council President Morrisy. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. I see why I read 483 because that's what the motion says on the uh agenda. But the t it is okay. On the agenda itself, it has 4083 down where I just read. Oh, that's why it's there. Okay. That Okay. Um Spencer, please read

an ordinance. uh ordinance. No, I asked for a vote, right? Not yet. Yes, you I did. Yes. And I didn't advance my packet. So, give me one thing.

Right. Long staff part. There we go. Resolution 4082, a resolution of the city of Seaside, Oregon, amending water access, demand, and consumption charges. I move to adopt resolution 4082. I second that. You second. Okay. Councelor Montero and Council Ansboro. Um, all those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. I will uh open a public comment period on resolution 4083 for sewer service user rates. Nope. Uh close public comments. Any council comments? Ditto to what we said on on the prior one. Okay. Motion, please. I move to read resolution number 4083 by title only. I'll second. Councelor Vicker, Council President Moresy. All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Spencer. Resolution number 4083, a resolution of the city of Seaside, Oregon, amending sewer service user rates. A motion to adopt. I move to adopt resolution number 4083. I'll second. Councelor Baker and councelor Monttero. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Last uh stay here for this one second. I just asked to stay for

ordinance 20265 amending section 110.12 of the seaside code of ordinances. Who's leading?

I'll leave this one again. All right. Purpose of tonight is for our first reading of ordinance 2026-05. Optional second reading if you would like. No final adoption tonight. I've included a companion resolution I'll discuss later, but that's not for consideration tonight. We'll adopt that at the same time we uh you look to adopt the ordinance. So, uh we're changing the business license ordinance. What this does not change did not we're not changing the business license fee. We're not changing who needs a business license. We're not reducing funding for the chamber for SDA. Want to make sure they know that. and uh does not change the city support for their work. what what the code does. Um so the or what the current code does. So the current code uh directs how the business license revenue once it comes in where it gets distributed. It's distributed between the community development fund, the seaside chamber of commerce, the seaside downtown development association and the convention center capital improvement fund. And uh so the chamber and sea currently receive a percentage of revenue up to a max amount. So there's some formulas in there, but consistently for the last couple years, they get the not to exceed amount. Why are recommending the change? So the business license revenue is flexible revenue. The current formula sends flexible revenue to expenses that are tourism related and eligible for transient lodging tax funding, including chamber support, SDA support, and the convention center capital uh capital needs fund. So the staff is recommending that we use TLT for these eligible tourism related expenses and preserve the flexible revenue for the broader city needs. Um some of it was going to community development that is the general funds and when that all gets

rolled together it'll all be one fund anyway. So it's really no no change for that. So during the budget committee's deliberations this year, we discussed this with with with the budget committee and there was unanimous support to move forward. Uh but in order so it's contemplated in the current budget that was recommended by the budget committee and um the budget committee also recommended that the additional revenue be directed towards street maintenance and that's what's reflected in the um the the draft budget. But in order for us to do that, we do need the ordinance changed. So this frees up about $580,000 in unrestricted revenue, which the staff recommended and the the budget committee um agreed to increase our funding towards street maintenance uh with use of those funds um which has historically been uh underfunded. Uh let's see. So, uh, kind of knowing where this would go and I reached out to both the chamber and SDDDA, um, to make to assure them this had nothing nothing to do with decreasing or any change in our support for them. So, what you have in your packet tonight is a resolution brought forward um, for consideration. So, when you do a third reading and adoption, we would also move to uh, adopt have you adopt that resolution. So the resolution directs me as a city manager to include funding for these groups in the annual budget. So we did a similar thing with the museum. We used to have the museum go through the kind of grant process for nonprofits. Um so we started treating the the museum um that's also paid for out of transient lodging taxes. It's a budget line item until the council directs otherwise. And

that would be the same thing for the chamber and for STDA. Uh I did since it didn't seem like it was needed, I reduced the formula for how it's done. Um because it has not to exceed amount and we're always there. It didn't make sense anymore. So um that's what the resolution says is that we'll budget these amounts again. Um but that's subject to the council discretion and deliberations and considerations each year through the process. And so I knew this would spark questions about, well, is this the right amount? I don't know. I don't know if that's the right amount. I'm sure there's many different ways to do this. Um, that's not the intent of this ordinance at this time with this budget. We want to um free up these flexible and unrestricted funds for use in the general fund and better utilize our transient lodging taxes. Um, but there is certainly considerations and discussions that can happen. Uh, I think I've already talked about why the resolution comes later. It doesn't make sense to have the resolution if the council chooses not to adopt the ordinance. Um, the effective date. So, the ordinance is effective 30 days after adoption. Um, you you have the option if you call it an emergency, you can have it effective immediately. I don't think this is an emergency, so it wouldn't qualify. And so if you took this meeting to do your first reading, the two June meetings to do a second and third meeting, it would be effective from 30 days from after that date, which puts us into July. Um, and so there is an issue where for the first couple weeks of July, the revenue would be under the old ordinance uh and not the new one. However, we do the billing at the end of the calendar year and they're due in January or February of each year. That's when we receive the bulk of the revenue. There may be a few stragglers that come in the first few weeks of July. There be may be some new businesses that open

apply for a license, but in terms of a percentage of the overall revenue, it's pretty minor and minut. So, I don't think it's an an issue that I'm necessarily concerned with. So again, this goes back to the to the timeline. Um we'd recommend having uh its final adoption by at the latest the June 22nd meeting and the resolution can happen at the same time. Then we have 30 days. So here's our requested action tonight, the first reading and you can also consider an optional second reading.

Anything else to add? No. Uh, the only thing I would add to this is this this just amends the the revenue portion and makes this gives the city a little more flexibility in that. It's been on my list to take a look at this this the business license ordinance in a greater sense uh for some time. I just need to find the time to do it. So, um this just is the first step in that process. Okay, I'll open public comment. We have two representatives. They don't want to comment. Oh, sure. But not necessarily need to be answered today. State your name, please.

Carrie Lambert, Seaside Downtown Development Association. Um, when you sent the letter, which we really appreciate the notice, um, some of my board members were wondering just if there would be a um, guaranteed amount cuz as it's been, we just invoice the city and we get the 26,000. and that's what the SDA gets. So, we're just wondering, we're meeting on Wednesday about it. So, I don't have to have an answer right now, but they will be asking me that again. I I I can answer that. So, I think we we'd be following the same process we always have. Um, but uh nothing the city council the city council can't bind a future city council. So, if we have a future city council

that does not want to fund the chamber or STDA, that's their discretion and they can change that with the budget process in the future. If we didn't make any changes, they could change it with the ordinance. And so, um, I can't say that it's always and forever guaranteed, but it is set until or unless the council decides otherwise. So in that respect, you know, generally speaking, everything the city council does is somewhat discretionary. Yeah. But that's the only extent or limitation. All right. Thanks. Okay. You may come forward. What's your name?

Satie Mercer, Seaside Chamber of Commerce. I did just have a clarifying question um for the Nope. It just left my head. It just left my head. Just completely left. Nope. I take it all back. It'll come back later tonight. I know. As soon as I walk out the door, it will come back. We will have more readings of this. So, public comment available. All right. Sorry. Give you

We know the feeling is it's getting late. Okay. Close public comment. Uh council comments. Chris. Well, I'm thrilled about the money for street maintenance. Um, I've been on that bandwagon lately, so I think that's great. I appreciate the creativity um for finding that and making this adjustment. I think it's wonderful. One thing to clarify when we mentioned the resolution and using that as the opportunity to talk about the funding for SDA in the chamber and whether or not these are the right amounts uh what they should be based off of, etc. Will that conversation be when we bring the resolution back or is that a conversation that we need to be prepared for by the next budget cycle or or would be part of the next budget cycle whoever those people are.

So I think the my recommendation is that's not the resolution. The resolution that we bring forward at the third reading is just to a resolution that to instruct the city manager to budget these amounts each year. Same amounts. Same amount. Okay. Because I think uh you can have a different discussion. Um but my recommendation be as part of the budget process, but

the city council has the ability to um make these decisions at any time when you're ready to do that. Um I will say um there are some limitations on how much discretion you have within the budget committee's recommended budget before you need to go and reconvene the budget committee. I doubt the dollar amounts we're talking about here would trigger that. You'd be very generous to these organizations if it was that amount to to trigger that. Um, so my recommendation is that's better. I like to see all budget changes happen where you can see all the options in front of you and not kind of do one at a time because you know you make a decision now to fund this and 3 months later there's a need for this. Well, we've already spent those funds and so my preference is to kind of collect everything and have that all considered um kind of against each other lined up during the budget process. But that's the council's discretion when and if you want to have that conversation.

Well, just one followup to that. Um the resolution will be for uh effectively for the next budget year because it's already in the current budget. Right. Correct. So it's in the 2627 budget. The resolution is saying make sure it's included at least in the first version of the 2728 budget.

Yeah. re really um this is really kind of directing how we direct the revenue that comes in. We have an expenditure already budgeted to pay them these dollar amounts and so uh so long as the resolution is adopted. It happens either way. Um it's just we'll be using transient lodging taxes rather than general fund revenue which I'll let Zach what that means on the back end for the accounting software. I'll let him do that. But effectively, it doesn't change anything, right? And I don't know when we invoice them or or pay them or when that happens. Cash cash flow is not really Apparently, it's whenever

SDA sends us a bill. Yeah, I'm all for it. Any money we can allocate into the streets is much needed. They're in a state of disrepair, a lot of them. So, great job on coming up with this idea, but I think it must also be acknowledged how hard this is. It takes a lot of work for you to execute this, you know, to put this together, uh, come up with the ordinance and then move the funds around and make these changes. So, I appreciate you guys going above and beyond and coming up with this stuff. Hats off.

I've often wondered why either the chamber or SDA didn't say, you know, it's the same amount for 10, 15, 20 years or whatever. And, you know, no inflation just set. And then the fact that it was it could have come out of lodging taxes. I mean, you know, 600 grand a year that we could have been using all along.

Um, kudos to you guys for coming up with that. I mean, I I jumped when I heard that, you know, months ago when you brought it up. So, um, yeah, obviously I'm in favor of it and it does give flexibility to two of our important groups for the future. Yeah, I looking at the appropriate use of the different funding streams, um I I think uh it's too bad. I agree that we didn't figure this out a long time ago to to uh use transient lodging tax money this way and to be able to use the money from our business licenses in the general fund and being able to put this to u very good use in our very needed street repairs I think is um wonderful. So I'm all for it. Big fan of infrastructure. Big fan. Uh yeah, our streets need a lot of work as do other things as well. But uh this this is going to a good good cause and uh I also think that the COC and SDDDA are important to our community as well. Thank you for your work on this.

Okay. Okay. May I have a motion to read ordinance 20265 by first reading by title only? I move to uh read ordinance 2026 by-05 by title only. I'll second. Councelor Montra and Councelor Baker. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Spencer. Ordinance number 2026-05, an ordinance amending section 110.12 of the seaside code of ordinances regarding the distribution of business license fee revenue.

I move for a second reading of ordinance number 2026-05 by title only. And I'm going to set a record here and I'm going to uh I'm going to uh second that because this is really a housekeeping thing. Uh councilors Baker and Monttero. All those in favor of a second reading of ordinance 20265 by title only please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Spencer again. Ordinance number 2026-05, an ordinance amending section 110.12 of the seaside code of ordinances regarding the distribution of business license fee revenue.

Thank you, Zach. Uh we're at city staff um hang out for a second. Comments, anything you want to say? Uh yes, if uh if you all could set aside your um evening on June 3rd, uh we were planning on doing the budget committee for ju for the uh urban renewal at their normal uh improvement commission meeting. I'm glad Satie hasn't taken off yet. You're still the president, right? Oh, you're not anymore. Well, uh, so yeah, if uh if you all could um set that aside, I'd very much appreciate it. And that's what time? Uh, six o'clock.

Oh, got it here. Yeah. The budget committee first at 6 or uh I haven't got that far ahead. I think urban renewal budget goes first, then improvement goes.

Yeah, they're they're kind of one and the same, right? So, it's um the urban renewal budget committee. Uh oh, I see what you're saying. I'm sorry. I wasn't completely following. Yes. So, so my plan, and this can be be changed however you all see fit. uh was to do the budget committee meeting during the normal urban uh sorry uh improvement commission meeting and then on the following city council work session do the improvement commission meeting so that we can they can approve it there. Now that doesn't have to happen that way. Well, in the past we've always done it back to back.

The the only thing we might run into there is noticing um and I just need to double check on that piece of piece of things. you. Well, should I You've always been able to notice it that way before. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't have any problem with it if you will. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's all I got. Thank you all. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you. As I said earlier, I have the best staff and we do a lot of things. So, sometimes I like to brag about some of the interesting things that we do. Um, so this is just very recent. In fact, one of these things happened today. So, see, so I'm going to show you four quick things. Um, North Tank, I know you guys have been kind of following that. Um, the painting on the interior is pretty much done. and they were powerwashing it last week. Um, we did an inspection today, found a couple little things. Um, but we need to button those up before we start disinfection and use of the north tank. So, we should be bringing it online, fully online soon. They will be starting exterior tank work uh painting very soon, probably mid to late May. Um, you probably didn't know, but we had uh several beaver dams out at the airport. Uh the east the west fork of the uh Miller Creek goes right alongside the east edge of the airport and airport drains into it. Um and when you have beaver dams that can uh flood that and our crash zone um which is required by FAA um to the north um it gets pretty swampy and it's been pretty bad. We found five uh beaver dams and a den um along that. So, we had a meeting with um ODFW and USDA out at the airport to talk about how we can deal with this and they've got a couple things, but in the interim before we can implement those um we have been given approval to breach the dams and to see which ones are active and which ones aren't. Well, uh you're going to see um what that looks

like in real time here in a minute. Um, so, uh, also the next one, the daycare playground. I think a lot of you know that we had a vehicular incident, um, a few months ago and that we have been discussing a way to kind of remedy that issue and we came up with placing boulders. Um, and when I say boulders, I mean very large ones and you'll get to see them. So, I did a little more research on what the average weight of a modern vehicle is and it's about 4,400 lb. So, I'll show you the boulders here in a minute. Um, sewer has been busy. Um, we had a sinkhole that kept u sinking multiple times on the end of Third Street. When I say the end of Third Street, I mean, um, 101, then go east on Third, so right almost to the the Nijana. Um, right before it drives over to the pump station. So, we did that work today. Um, so why don't we all go into the first one. So, this is what it looks like inside the north tank when it's uh when it's done painting. These guys in there, we were they were powerwashing it. Um they were, you know, this is confined space and they were blowing air through here and doing uh what they needed to. But that's what the tank looks like. Um when it's painted inside, it looks really good. Um unfortunately, you don't really get to see the spots that they missed until it's wet because that's when it starts to rust. And so we found a few of those today. Overall, I think uh Scots Coatings has done a great job inside here. Um this is button-up work, but uh that's where you know half the the lower zone water goes is to the north tank here and that's way up on Royal View. So those damn beavers at the airport. So

um we have three major dams. One is the South Dam, which the ODFW thought was inactive, and they said we could just tear the whole thing out. Um, so we did um last week, and you can see it's opened up right there. Um, we cut back someho in there. Um, Matt Long, Steve Kever, and Chris Pollson did a great job there doing battle with the Beavers out there. And right now, I can't tell you who the conclusive winner is. Um, so the middle dam here. Um, now remember that first picture on that's April 27th. That's be that's when I was out there with the regulators. Um, that's about a twoft rise right there. So the water backed up is 2 feet higher than the water down below. Um, and I think um am I able to click on that? There's a video. That's a video right there. Uh, can you Yeah, you click on it and that's when we breached it for the first time.

Wow. So, it it kind of it the they're they're very industrious. Now, just remember the picture on the left. Wow. So there's a lot of water backed up and that goes almost that water can back up almost to the Dairy Queen and your heart. Wow. So that's how far that goes back up. Yeah. I had no idea they were so big. Yeah. So the picture on the left, that's the middle dam a week after we breached it. Oh my gosh.

So it doesn't look like we had even touched it. Uh so in in one week they had rebuilt it to exactly what it was before. Oh wow. From doing that. Um well the the plan is to put what's called a beaver deceiver in basically breach the dam and we put a pipe in that goes way up and way downstream u with baskets around it to keep debris out of it and the beavers and then we throw the stuff back on there. So the beavers can't understand why water is getting through their dam, but it basically tries to fool them. John, I don't know if I think that one's a video, too. There's Yeah.

So, here's the second time we've reached this dam. On the eighth. Yes. So, that was just last week. And you can see just how much water already is just coming out. Where did they find all the junk to build it back up? Well, we have to kind of take some part of the blame the second time because we ripped it all out and I think they just pulled it right back in. So, is there any Well, do they ever think about relocating the beavers?

Uh, sometimes they do that. Um, ODFW would wants to try uh the flow through device first before they do that. Um, there's a pretty good population in the Thompson Falls and Miller Creek area right here. So, it's kind of sad if they if these guys had gone up the east fork of the Miller Creek, there's tons of space up there for them to do these kinds of things. Um, let's see. Okay, so um the middle dam that's today. Um, it now it looks like they may be putting it back together, but that's only because the water is lower. Um I they haven't gotten back and rebuilt this one yet, but somebody built a new one up at the north end and that's why the water is so low right there in the middle one. And I had to kind of go up there and find that one today. But uh they have they have you know when they say busy beavers, they're not kidding. They're very industrious.

Wow. So that's our our dam report uh at the airport.

Our dam report. So, uh, the daycare playground, um, the boulders. So, the first picture on the top there shows, um, before we put placed anything and you can kind of see where the tables are, the car came in on the far side between the building and the tables and went all the way in and you can see where the cones are. They smashed sandbox that was there and then the tree actually stopped them, which was past there. Thank goodness no one was there at the time. Um, so we did some work and I talked to Keith Karen and Excavating about this um because they're they do a lot of boulder work in the area. So each one of the three large boulders that were purchased u weighed about 6,000 lb. So an average car weighs about 4,400 lb. So this would have stopped um that car pretty pretty fast. Now, we also grabbed a couple of the smaller boulders, which were only about 2500 lb that were just down on the property uh to put in there. So, what you've got now, and you can kind of see where the path they came from the library over, and that's where we put that one big one. Oh, I did want to tell you one thing. The rock may not look very big, but if you look closely at the at the mobile unit, that orange kabota,

the front tires are really squished down low and the back ones aren't because he's balancing that. And when he picked it up originally, the back tires came up. So, he was going very slowly um because he was just on the right side of balance in that picture. Um but they were able to do it uh safely. But you can see now that we tried to uh close off each of the potential paths in from uh Broadway. So you can see the two smaller boulders there with the large one in the center. So you've got the better part of 11,000 lbs of boulders right there blocking where the car had come in. And then the other picture shows two 6,000 lb. So if they came in the other way on the other side of the tables, those would stop. And then the trees are there too. So, um we're hopeful that this mitigates any potential future issues.

So, today um we we fixed the mainline. So, there's at the end of Third Street, um we had a breach at where a lateral came in to a concrete um mainline. And I circled in yellow where the sinkhole is. Now, it doesn't look like a sinkhole now because they had filled they've filled it multiple times. And the green line kind of shows you where the main line is um where it is on the street there. Um but the lateral came in and they were had a serious breach at the fitting there. Um and you can see um some of that flowed in before they actually took the uh the pipe out and some of it is afterwards. But you can see they were almost done uh installing the lateral from the home there. That greenish blue pipe coming in out of the sidewall goes into that white fitting and then it flows down and then it hits the pump station at the end of uh section line. But um uh contractor and uh public works staff. though most staff there uh James Peterson Walter um Cole and a couple other guys. So we worked with the contractor in order to reduce costs on this. So we were able to negotiate a pretty small cost for them to do that. They showed up with their equipment and did the labor but we provided all the materials and the rock which mitigated a pretty large um markup on it. the contractor was very um cooperative with helping us get this knocked out in one day.

Wow, that's great. So, um there's one one more problem solved. We've got other ones in the city that we're working on, too. But just uh since uh I was I like to brag about my folks and they're doing great work all over the city. Okay. And there is one more thing. Um, so we had uh a citizen come in complaining about the 25 mile per hour speed sign and I've highlighted it up there on Oceanway just west of 101.

Well, turns out he was right. Um, and you can see that it's kind of spun off a little bit. So, if you come in from the south, it's kind of difficult to see that sign. Um, so I had straits and in particular Nate Kerwin, he went out there and fixed the sign. So, it's oriented correctly now. So, good service. All right, that's great. Any questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I always like hearing from

starting. It was quick. Sorry. All right. So, this weekend we'll have the whiskey and wine walk. Um it used to just be the winewalk, but we've added whiskey to Friday nights. Uh we're expecting a smaller crowd than Saturday for wine. This is the first one. And we do have one scheduled for November as well. Um, flower baskets arrive at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 20th. We'll have 64 downtown and, uh, public works will be helping with that. I should talk to Paul, I just realized. Make sure. Um, and then later that day, uh, the Rotary, um, will be doing, uh, the clubless golf tournament downtown. I don't know if Patrick's going to talk about it. Um, sorry, Councelor Powder. What was that, Carrie? What was that? The Rotary.

Uh, he I believe that council answer. We'll talk about it. Yeah. No. Okay, then never mind. It is happening downtown. No, you're fine. Uh from 1 to 5, I believe. Um it's a clubless uh tournament. You go to different spots on the map and uh golf with whatever they give you. And uh then head to the American Legion. It's a fundraiser.

Um then Point of the Coast will be May 30th at Quattapat Park uh from 3 to 9. We'll have music out there, but it'll be done by 9:00. Um, and then, uh, June car show, usually Father's Day weekend, is suspended this year. Um, and the SDA has asked for more signage in the parking garage, and it sounds like we're going to get it. We really appreciate that. Just no loitering and um, just kind of keeping the 14 and 15 year olds out of there. Um, and then the good news is that SDA is moving forward with joining the Main Street program. So, we're in that process. All right. Yeah. So hopefully in the next three months we'll have we'll be official and that's

excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, John. Another one died. Okay.

Okay. Um, real quickly just on summer employment, I wanted to mention um, I think it was last year that the fire department decided to to I mean we had difficulty try challenging trying to get lifeguards all the time. So they started a program to do tower guards and so that tower guard can can be in the tower. Maybe they're not fully certified to be in the surf and be an ocean lifeguard yet, but they get that experience. So they did that last year. They're going to do that again. And so right now it looks like uh we have four guards, four lifeguards getting ready to be on boarded and then two tower guards. So it's a good program to kind of to gear people up. And then also like uh clatsup works looks like we're going to have six clats works interns this summer. Uh four rotating uh with the police department I think largely officer knock and then two at the library. So excited to announce those. Kim doesn't want it. Okay, Spencer. Anything dying to get out of here? I do have one item. I have one more presentation. We're going to solve the Highway 101 Broadway intersection right now. Just kidding. All right. So, coming on the heels of John's work session discussion on public engagement, um I want to run some some things by you. Uh as we continue to meet with

I think I turned

Oh, as we continue to work with you ODOT, we have gotten um updates back from ODOT with uh three options with with uh the the pros and cons to the different options. So we want to talk about public engagement on this. So especially where this is ultimately a decision that the city council will will need to make. Um this is this is ideal to put into practice some of the things we talked about in the work session. So ODOT needs city direction by mid June. Um we know the signal replacement uh is needed and then ODOT has funding to improve the intersection capacity. Um uh which is really what uh what is driving these changes. Uh we have three options that are available. Doing nothing is also a choice but it has its its consequences, its downsides. So each option has trade-offs, costs and impacts. And going off of John's presentation, so the goal is not just public comment. The goal is informed public feedback before the council makes a decision. So it's it's not helpful for someone say just do just don't do anything. Well, do you know what that means or just do this one? Well, do you again? So, we need to educate and then what I think you're hoping for is feedback once they they have that on what the what the best option is. So, this is kind of what I kind of put together and wanted to test by you. So the idea here is to inform then consult and then recommend and decide. So public openhouse because that's one of the things we had talked about. Present the problem, options, cost, impacts, and trade-offs. Use visuals and sideby-side comparisons and collect some structured feedback. Online project page with the opportunity for written comment submission. You know, for those who don't can't attend, that's not their style. they don't that they're not comfortable doing that or

for whatever reason. Provide the same information online. Allow comments from those unable to attend. Um not just say, "Hey, what's your precaution?" But hey, what are your concerns, your priorities, trade-offs? Um get some more information. Um then taking it to the transportation advisory uh commission for review. Um, so their review of the technical options and also the public input and then the goal is for them to make a recommendation to the city council. So you'll have a staff recommendation and a committee recommendation plus all the feedback from the uh public engagement campaign with a a return for a final decision uh by the city council at the June 22nd meeting. Uh so kind of questions for tonight. Does the council support this kind of um strategy to have the openhouse and an online project page with written comments as the primary engagement methods? Um one I'm really not sure on for myself. Do you think the role because we haven't finalized this of the transportation advisory commission

should their be role be a technical review and a technical recommendation or should their review and recommendation be also based on the public feedback. I think there are reasons for one and reasons for the other and so I think looking for the council on the direction on that and are there other publication opportunities that should be considered and so that's what I'm looking for direction for tonight so that we can start to line those out um trying to meet deadlines of getting kind of city council packets together information out to the transportation committee and then I think the First thing would be getting something scheduled for some sort of open house if that's the direction we want to go.

It's a tight turnaround. It is a very tight turnaround. I would like to see a public engagement opportunities for SDDDA at an SDDDA meeting and probably at a chamber meeting. Happy to do that if they have not booked out. you have space next week. The only thing to me is it might not be enough time with the way people give input. So

I think I I think my strategy on that would be to provide opportunities to provide written comment or give them access to the online comment portal because I think that's better than just here's what I think. You know what I mean? Yeah. So yeah, I think question one that's fine and then any other methods people come up with. As far as number two, I think technical I think the political consequences are kind of in our hands. So I think just a technical recommendation.

Does it make sense to also um at a at a transportation advisory committee? Don't they have time for public comment there as well?

Um, I think that we allow that because we allow most of our committees. I think um you can I think it comes down to what you want to ask them to do and even how we communicate to public. Here's where we'd like to hear your feedback. Um I kind of uh agree with councelor Moresy in that if our committees are supposed to be representing some sort of technical expertise or you know they can dive into the things those recommendations should be somewhat uh protected from sway from individuals. We don't want people going and uh swaying uh like the airport committee to do something that maybe they're not sure on and then you come and think that's their opinion. I think we would want to have their opinion. Um

I guess I don't understand asking them for technical uh feedback when we didn't ask for technical expertise when we appointed them to those positions. That goes back to what is the purpose of the transportation advisory committee. So which hasn't been decided. So I think this is project specific. Uh so if you want to make an assignment to them, what is that assignment? Well, I'll say um I'm the liaison to that committee now. The first meeting I was supposed to have, we it got cancelled. So, I have not

participated with that committee yet. But but I do believe from what I've heard anecdotally that they would be interested in reviewing and probably could put together a recommendation that is an input to the process with a lot of other inputs. So yeah, that to me sounds many of them have been doing it for a lot of years. So there's some knowledge there. Okay. That I think would be useful. Yeah. Okay. I definitely think we we need to take it there. The the issue is the timing.

I was just going to say I think public feedback should come to us because ultimately it's a political decision on what we choose to do. So what I would probably shoot for and I have the timeline in front of me. I'd probably shoot to take it to them. They have a meeting. Um it's the fourth Thursday. Yeah. It's like just a It's the Thursday before the meeting on June 22nd, so it would be a tight turnaround, but if they have all the information, I think all you really need is what's their recommendation? Yeah. But they have a May meeting. Yeah.

So, it will it be I guess will it be ready by May? I haven't I haven't gone through it yet to start kind of uh I think it's all there but until we go through and analyze it and there may be some followup for for ODOT. So it may be something that we can introduce at that and then wait for recommendation in the June meeting. That's possibility. Okay. But not having done the work yet, it's tough to say for sure when it can be ready.

When are you shooting for a an open house? Um, probably, give me one sec. Probably around the first two weeks of June, June 1st to 12th.

We have a lot going on in June. We do. I will say um this is trying to work within the timeline for this project to be able to happen. Um because they they they need to start on the design and then the bidding out of the documents. And so the mayor and I met with them and I think they were hoping for the first meeting in June and the mayor said by the second meeting in June. I mean, so um yeah, I do think the with some of the the final designs are much more palatable than where they started. So hopefully that's that's um a good sign.

Okay. Okay. I think I have hearing nothing else. I've got direction. All right. All right, councilors, Miss Ransboro. Um, the uh parks advisory committee is working on revised park regulations. You need the mic closer. Ah, how's that? That's better.

Yeah, I sing on stage. I should know this, right? Uh the park advisory committee is working on the revised park regulations and they'll be attached to the ordinance to give more authority to enforcement. Uh they plan to have them back to the city council after the pack's June 4th meeting. Um I attended the League of Oregon Cities Small Cities Network meeting in Manzanita. Uh this was an opportunity to meet with leaders from cities with a population of less than 7,500 to discuss issues and solutions that were relevant to small cities like ours. Uh thank you to Mayor Katherine Stock for hosting and showing off their new city hall and police station. It was fun to take a tour around there. Uh this past Saturday, I had my coffee with the counselor in our new location. Uh thank you to Rod Edens of the Wine and Beer House for hosting and thanks to all of you who attended. I really appreciate the input that you offered in the discussions that we had. Um I think it's going to benefit our community and I look forward to our next uh coffee with the counselor June 13th. Uh May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, a reminder that mental health is just as important as physical health and that many people silently struggle with anxiety, depression, trauma, loneliness, and stress. Uh some simple actions that we can take as a community is uh to check in on a friend. Uh encourage healthy habits. Uh support access to resources and leading with kindness can make a profound difference. And remind people that small acts of compassion can help light the way toward healing, resilience, and hope for the future. And then finally, um, here are the top five reasons to volunteer for a committee or apply for city council.

Number five, you finally get to use the phrase, "I'd like to circle back to that and sound official." Number four, unlimited opportunities to nod thoughtfully while staring at spreadsheets you only partially understand. Number three, you'll discover that arguing about parking spaces, sidewalks, and pickle ball courts is apparently the backbone of democracy. Uh, number four, you get insider knowledge on exciting topics like sewer rates, zoning codes, and while the pothole is still hasn't been fixed. And the number one reason is because instead of asking why doesn't somebody do something about this, you can be that somebody. And in all seriousness, local government works best when good people step up, get involved, and help shape the future of the community that they love. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks,

Nina. Okay. So, um the community center commission meeting um was cancelled. The May meeting was cancelled. Um I met with a resident uh at the Chisum Community Center um and spent about an hour and a half talking with her. She's interested in applying for the commission. She wanted to have more information. She wanted to know more about the community center. We took a tour. So, um, I'm looking forward to hopefully her making the decision to apply and I think she would be a good member knowing what I've learned of her. Um, I also attended the um, League of Oregon Cities Region One small cities meeting on May 1st in Manzanita. One thing I was really impressed with was how many grants are received and funding projects are happening in Bay City for quite a small city. They're getting a awful lot of money and getting an awful lot done. I was quite impressed hearing all that. Um, last week I attended an event at the Atoria Country Club sponsored through Schnitzer Care's student grant making. Third year I've uh I've uh attended their event. Um, Schnitzer Care student grant making works with students in middle school and high school um in helping them learn about civic engagement, about uh grant making, about funding. Um, our Seaside High School Key Club and our Seaside Middle School builder club uh are part of the process and they made grants. The students have

to raise um a minimum amount of money which is then matched times 10 by the Schnitzer Foundation. The students create business plans for themselves so that they can agree on policies and requirements and then they review the grant uh requests that are made by nonprofits and they award grants. The grants that were awarded um that night were between um $2,000 and $8,000. So, it's no, it's nothing to sneeze at. Um and um the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Care Foundation hopes to nurture the next generation of young leaders. Um and I have to tell you, I was super impressed by those young people. And there were some really very wellput together, wellspoken young people, especially at the um middle school level. I was very very impressed. My coffee with a counselor will be uh on Wednesday, May 13th, this coming Wednesday uh at 10:00 a.m. at the Best Western Hotel. And um want to invite you all to um to attend the um one book, one coast event that will be on May 31st at the library. Uh the Seaside Library uh friends and foundation are hosting the live streaming of George Teai Teay, excuse me, for the one book, One Coast that his book is a graphic novel called They Called Us Enemy. We're also going to have a um a member

meeting, membership meeting. We're going to have refreshments, but this is a book that 141 libraries throughout the the West Coast have had for their um for uh readers in their towns to read and uh have book discussions, etc. So, it's going to be I think it's going to be a very good event. uh and being able to um to listen to to George Teay uh talk about his book. Uh that's at 1:30. Chris,

real quick, um I want to say thank you to all of those people who came out to the villages meeting, our kickoff meeting. We had a larger um uh attendee list than we anticipated. So that was fabulous. I'm not surprised at all in this community. Um, but it was really it was wonderful. And we did uh ask for email addresses from people if they were interested in followup and we've compiled those and are putting together um a a follow-up email/newsletter with kind of next steps and u more opportunities to get involved. So really grateful to everybody who's helping and participated in that. And then uh my coffee seems like I just had it. I think I did, but cuz we won't have another meeting in May, it's going to be June 6th at uh Saturday at the Seaside Golf Course at 9:00 a.m. I want to thank everyone who came out to the uh grand soft opening of my storage facility. Thank you, Mayor and Spencer, for coming out. I don't know if it was the best venue for Good Morning Seaside, but it worked. It didn't rain on us.

It's a good time. uh coffee with the council president Tuesday, June 2nd at 9:15 a.m. at Seaside Coffee House. Um I wanted to and he actually passed away about a month ago, but uh I wanted to mention Bill Carpenter uh just on the record that um he passed away April 6th, which was the day I was supposed to come back from the Netherlands. uh very quick, but he was a a longtime volunteer. Um he was on the planning commission, he was on transportation, kind of mentored me a bit when I first started. So, I'm I'm going to miss him. He was wonderful.

Um I attended three ribbon cutings, two businesses here in Seaside, Bailey's Blankets in the Gaming Gallery, and I also attended the Canon Beach um ribbon cutting for their new police station. Very nice. Um uh quite a setup there. Uh it'll be their new emergency operations center. It's out of the tsunami zone. Um one thing I attended the same thing about schools. Uh bragging rights to Seaside though. We raised and gave away $1,000 more than the combined Atoria schools. Okay. Got to remember that. And the Seaside High School robotics got first place in district. mentioned already about the library board um how how they're going to communicate their calendar to the public and working through the the library policies. uh they're starting with uh the behavior policy and some of the interns that were mentioned uh hopefully will be there uh next Monday 7:30 a.m. If you're up that early I will be on KIN's mayor Monday segment on channel 6 and I'm going to mention some things like the track art campaign the chamber and Robin Monttero put together and show a few of those pictures. Um, lot of other things that are going on here in the city. I'm mentioning those. Uh, squeeze as much as I can into my 5 minutes. Uh, counselors, uh, if you signed up to evaluate Pacifica projects, uh, those are on Wednesday, May 27th, 5:00 p.m. You should have gotten an email today from the teacher that's now in charge of it, uh, Mr. Clostman. Uh, my coffee follows um council presidents at 10:00 a.m. on the June 2nd. Um, something is going to be

interesting for me on June 6th. I found out today actually that there's no longer a separate Starlight parade and a grand floral parade in Portland. It's combined now. And it's a evening parade. It's more or less where the Starlight was. So on June 6th in the uh evening, I'll be marching with dozens of mayors from around the state, including a good representation of those us here on the coast. So that's going to be fun. My quote tonight is uh actually found on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. They've got like I wish I could have known that was there the last time it was in Washington DC, but there's like four lions. Each one of them has a quote and the quote that I thought was most appropriate was, "It's not how these officers died that made them heroes. It's how they lived." We're ajourned.