City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we are ready. Welcome everyone to the uh Sherwood City Council meeting April 21st, 2026. This is the work session. We got three items on the agenda tonight. We got an update from our Chamber of Commerce. I'm looking forward to that. Thanks for coming out tonight. We also have a public continued public safety fee discussion and we're going to do a free code review. Exciting stuff. So, um, with that, Craig, I'll kick it off to you if you want to introduce our guests.

Yeah, Dave, uh, welcome. Uh, Dave was the executive director of the chains and I'll let you introduce everybody else, Dave. But uh this was something we were looking at uh going to have a meeting regarding a business plan about a year ago. I think come and talk a little bit. Dave's really here tonight just to talk a little bit about what the plan is for the next June is my understanding. Uh we'll meet with Dave ahead of time. So turn Chris introduce Chris. Uh he's the president of the board. So, I'm Chris Mclofflin, the president of the um Sherwood Chamber of Commerce this year, uh the board of directors, and we have Kyle Green, who's our treasurer this year, and Rachel King, who's our secretary. So, the officers on the executive committee. And with that, we will turn it over to Dave to um tell you a little bit about or a lot about what we got going on in the next uh year and in the past year. So,

yeah. Go ahead. Before we get started, um, is there an expected discussion or direction from council coming out of this conversation or is this just information? Okay. I just want to make sure. Thank you. Just an update. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, honorable Mayor and President Kim. Appreciate uh the opportunity to be here. Um, counselors and Kristen and Craig. Um, I see the Erics aren't here, but I've gotten a lot of the advice from the Eric. Eric, the Eric,

well, uh, you know, I met with the Erics last week and they were very cautious. They said, "Whatever you do, don't tell a city joke." Okay? Because I didn't know to tell city jokes. So, uh, those of you might know a little bit about my history there. So, I'm not going to tell any city jokes. Well, see, now we want to hear the jokes.

Well, I didn't bring a silly joke, but um I'll tell you something about me then because I can pick on my son. So, back in the day when I was going to school, elementary school, and I hated math, and here I am a finance guy, you know, spent my entire career in finance. Back there in high school and uh elementary school, I was asking the teachers all the time, I go, "What good is math? Why do I need it? how am I ever going to use it, you know, in real life? And she took the time and she looked at me and she said, "You might not, but one of the smart kids might." So,

so anyways, well, thank you uh for having us again. Uh this is my first presentation in front of a public group. Um, I've done dozens and dozens of business uh uh presentations and the purpose of tonight's is um really to just give you an update on the chamber, where we've been in the first trimester and where we're going for the rest of the year and looking forward to 2027. So, uh, early in the early late last year in the fourth quarter and early this year, we took a hard look at some things and we said we really need to slow down and get some stability and we also wanted to basically provide uh stakeholders on where we're at. So, we looked at our strengths and weaknesses. uh we looked at our financial results from 2025 and where we're going in 2026 and basically one additional thing um how we're going to build our partnership with the city and I wanted to take a few minutes here too or a few seconds to just thank you personally uh in my transition uh everyone here has welcomed me all the staff has welcomed me warmly provided me information and just been top-notch so I really appreciate Uh I already feel like uh we're friends versus uh business relationship. Um as we got into the year uh you know we had three new board directors coming on and um we adopted an operating philosophy for 2026 which was basically stability, retention and growth. And those are three adjectives that we all felt very strongly about. um stability as as you know the chamber had been through some hard times over the last uh few years. We've had five executive directors in five years and I'm the fifth. So uh

we'll we'll hope I make it uh through 2026 here. Okay, good luck today. Um but the putting some definition to those terms stability um we developed some operational values. Uh I had always worked I've worked for companies without values and those companies are no longer around uh anymore and I've worked with for companies that have had strong values and all of those in my history are still uh still around. So we wanted to adopt some operational values for our directors to make decisions by and employees and um people that know us. um this is what we're about and I put that in the back as attachment a uh we also wanted to uh create a strong board of directors which we have we have 11 directors three of them are new uh we also wanted to develop some internal and external policies so um again so uh that we could make good decisions during the year then uh one of the things that kind of we really wanted to get done is revitalizing basic fundamental principles and business principles and concepts. So that's what stability is about. When it comes to retention, um groups like this usually have some form of attrition. That's natural. Um but we were sold on the fact that we don't want to lose one member because we couldn't deliver the good, so to speak. Um and we've done very good there, as you'll see in just a minute. And then growth. Um, you know, typically when you're in this type of meeting, you're looking at uh asking some questions. What is the growth of the organization? What do you expect in financial results? And um that's true, but we were looking at growth a little bit differently for 2026. Um we're not saying new to new members, and you'll find out in just a minute. We've already

uh met our budget for this year of new members. Um, but we wanted to add things like um improved member uh benefits. So, back in 2023, um you might not know this, but I was on the board of directors before I took a leave of absence and I was the chairperson of the membership committee. So, very well informed and I was passionate about back then and still today. We need to add member benefits. Um and and that's one of the things that we're focusing on in terms of growth. We also needed to improve deliverables such as uh B2B offerings and BTOC uh offerings. We needed to develop new membership classifications. So membership classifications being such things as wine makers and vineyards. Um if you don't know, we have 15 vineyards in the Sherwood area and uh they're growing and having an ever more presence here. Um the last thing we were looking at was developing professional um programs such as um if you you probably haven't seen the C grant, but we're proposing that we develop a speakers or professional speakers program and we're excited about that and that's going to bring in a lot of traffic into the area. The next thing that we did um we wanted to u do a good detailed analysis of our strengths and weaknesses. And so we sat down. Uh we it was pretty easy to recognize some of our strengths. And if you had a chance to look at this um you you probably uh see some of our good strengths. The ones that I like are we have a strong and emerging vision of a worldass chamber. So one of the things that we talked about last year as I was going through the interview process was what is a worldclass chamber? And uh we'll know when we get there, but people

will be asking, "How did you do that? How did you get there?" And so those are one of our strengths. Uh commitment to excellence and uh a keen understanding of accounting and finance. Right now on the board, we have two really strong finance people. Uh you're going to meet Kyle in just a minute. He's going to go over the budget and um last year's results. Of course, uh we had some weaknesses and um I'll just focus on a couple of them that you might pick up on your own. Um we lack membership incentives. So, having been on that uh board 20 in 2023, there's not a lot of reasons. So like we have a sole proprietor and then we have a a corporate or professional and then we have a corporate level and we have a brand and um to try and get in when you're selling you have to admit that we sell memberships. Um trying to get them to upgrade is difficult right now. So we're building in and taking the time to get those uh uh benefits in there. Also currently we lack sufficient funds to even cover the salary of the executive director. So that's a little bit that's a

for you. Yeah, I was waiting for a comment and I I didn't name Doesn't that get to the What was one of your values in here on people? The spirit of service. Spirit of service. You're exactly right. You should give double a salary like ours. Yeah, we could double double. Yeah. So I I was giving you a hard time. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's okay. I like it. We can slow down and have a conversation too rather me talking rather than me talking all the time. Uh opportunities, a lot of opportunities. And what we're going to do this year is shift all those opportunities into strengths between now and the end of 2027. Um our threats. Um yeah, we got a few. We're uh cash poor. Okay. So, we don't have a lot of money um which prohibits us from starting new programs that we need to offer to our members. Uh we're going to work on that. Um we don't have a marketing budget and uh a couple of other things. So, that's our swap analysis. Any questions about that?

Well, I can't help but notice that you have an outdated look and feel. Logo, fonts, branding, marketing. Um shocking that. Yeah. Uh, just so you know, there's a free way to do that and I'll be happy to chat with you after. It doesn't cost any money at all. And so you can or you can have a very lowcost way 100 bucks. Okay. So, and there's and you can get fantastic logos. You can you can age it in over time with digital. No,

there there are eager young designers. There's people that are in your chamber right now who are designers or have been designers that would be um that would want to throw their hat in the ring. There's retired designers. There's stay at home people that used to be design. Again, part of it is a marketing campaign through your social medias to look tell people what you're looking for. And then because it's all digital, you can ease it in over time. You don't have to reprint everything. You don't have to get new badges. You can when you print the new one, you can print the new logo.

Well, we love that because uh we also want to integrate the vineyards into the logo somehow into that marketing message. Uh vineyards are going to play a really important role. Um I noticed that uh Mayor Rosner mentioned that in the city state of the city the other night. So uh gateway to class. So why are we not doing bridge to wine country? Yeah. Um, somebody told me that conversation to be had there. I have some other suggestions. Yes. Somebody told me that you shouldn't use the word gateway because that recognizes passing through. Yeah. So, um, we need a stop and tourism.

Uh, moving on because, uh, I'm almost done with my 15 minutes. Do I get to leave?

All right. Our achievements. And, uh, I put the words up there. Confidence, not arrogance. Um we've in the first trimester here, we've accomplished so much and we're so proud of it. Uh number one, board of directors. We probably now have one of the best board of directors that's ever existed with the chamber. Uh they come from all types of business backgrounds and we're also blessed to uh have uh a former executive director uh as a director. So those are all very positive things. We're moving along really fast adopting different uh key policies. So some of the key policies that we've adopted are kind of what we call in good standing so that we can define when a member uh is in good standing and also helps us collect the membership fees that they're passed due. You notice a little quirk on my face and little smile because that's the accounting part of me coming up. Uh, one thing that we're very proud and I'm just kind of going over some of the highlights. Um, membership assistance program. We haven't voted this in, but what we're thinking about and talking about is something really exciting is, uh, putting aside a certain amount of cash, like 1% or 2% of the membership fees into a reserve fund. And over time, that's going to build. And so, if we have a member that gets in trouble, what's the first thing that gets cut? Well, it's uh chamber dues or you know things that aren't producing revenue. And so what we feel is we want to keep those members there even if they're in financial difficulty. And so that member assistance program would take over. Um I don't know if you've noticed, but uh for those of you that have been to the monthly meetings, we have a a renewed and revitalized ambassador program. So phenomenal. We have uh two women. I'm sure everybody here knows them. Rebecca Fairbanks and Amber Gardner. And I heard

the mayor's wife is interested in becoming an ambassador. She had several beers when she made that statement. It sounds like a commitment. Sounds like a commitment to me.

Okay, now we're on It's always about alcohol, right? So, anyways, uh anyways, you're going to see a whole revitalization there. Uh I mentioned the wine makers group vineyards. Um what the big deal there is. Uh that's all about tourism. It's bringing in uh we've got seven wineries that have uh signed up. It's not generating a lot of revenue for the organization yet, but it's generating a lot a lot of excitement. And what's going to happen is they're going to be up on our website and there's going to be a map where visitors can come and um figure out who's selling big bold reds and who's selling whites and who's selling pinos and the shortest distance within Sherwood. Okay. So, we're really excited about that. Um, can I ask a question about that? Because, you know, as you come into town, coming from the north, there's a sign that because there's I can't what they call it. It's the wine country route or something. You come in and it's a right turn. I don't show and been any conversations about getting that changed.

Um, who's in charge of signs here? That's that's an old Washington County. I think the sign that makes it go to the right is the uh tour route. Right. Right. Yeah. It doesn't mention why, but um I'll take that on and we'll get it fixed.

New website. You probably haven't been on the website. The we've uh uh Kyle has put a lot of work into the new website. We're really excited about that. Um we have links to all the uh city sites now, city pages that are important. Last but not least, which I don't have on your sheets that you're reading right now, but we're really excited about this is lunch on the patio. Okay. Um in the summertime, we're going to invite uh certain members key members to have lunch with the directors on the patio. And this is an invitation as we sit here to have uh one of the counselors there as well. Okay. So that transparency transparency is written into our values and so as our members come and have lunch with us um they're we're right there to ask question answer questions. So and we hoping that um you guys will join as well and reinforce that partnership that we have. All right, moving on. Am I on the right page? Okay, the next three years. Yeah. So um uh see the future. I love that. You played uh Exploding Kittens. There's a card, there's a game cards called see the future and my grandson always tries to get that card and I beat them all the time. Uh, a little bit about the uh, next year. Um, so as we move into 2027, uh, let me back up just a little bit to kind of repeat myself in a way. By the end of this year, we will be positioned to really start marketing a membership program. Okay. uh membership drive. So, as I mentioned, we have 124. Did I mention we have 124 members currently?

Okay. Did I mention that? Yeah. Okay. Uh currently, do you have a breakdown of that membership type? I'm just not one. Yeah.

Wow. Thank you very much for that question. It was well timed and very much appreciated and you can see how our membership breaks down very well when you get a our average revenue amongst all members is $1,450 a year. Our goal is to raise that up. Our goal is to uh upgrade um I'll just put it from a business point of view and not to sound selfish but to upsell s sole proprietors into the next level. It's only $100 a year, $8 a month. And right now we're building those benefits to get them out of that category and increase the average to $500 and or even greater than that by that time. And our goal is to have 200 members by the end of 2027. And uh that will be bringing in about 90,000 to $105,000 in revenue. So don't worry, the executive director's salary will be covered at that point.

How many total businesses are in Sherwood? Uh there are 2,400 businesses in uh Sherwood and right now we're only penetrating 5% of those. Um, so it's a very marginal, very small margin, only 3% increase to reach our goal of 200. By the end of 2028, uh, we're going to be at 300. Um, we expect to exceed these, okay? And, um, that's our new building that um, that's in planning.

Said, "Don't show that." Okay. Because uh, I have an idea where that should go. And he said, "No, no, no. the city council wants that site, but you know, there's an old gas station over here down and as people come into the city. So, I'm just it's an invitation to join the vision of the chamber as we build it and grow it. Um, so, uh, moving on. Let's see if I got all my points there. I think I did. And it is time for me to turn it over to Kyle. And Kyle's going to talk to you about where we were last year. We ended up with a little profit and where we're going next year or this year. Excuse me. Time check. We have seven minutes left then.

Oh, talk faster. I was going to talk slow to give so I'll try to hurry up.

Uh 2020 2025 we uh finished with 168,000 in revenue. We had a net profit of $12,000. Uh so far in the first quarter we're at $40,000 in revenue uh with expenses around $27,000. I know Dave said we were cash poor, but at the moment we're we're not cash poor, we're cashri, but that'll go away as some of the expenses come along. Um we have a 2026 we are forecasting budget revenue of 173,000 and hoping to get about $10,000 in net profit. So it's a 6% profit margin. Who knows what the next year brings.

Are you um is is membership um on the on the calendar year? So are you getting all your members revenue in the December, January, February months or is it No, like when they join 12 months later. Yeah. They pay monthly or annually. We have both. Okay. Yeah, we're offering monthly focus and trying to make more options for people to join quarterly maybe. I was like somewhere in there that I read that you had um a goal of 15 memberships for this year and you've already hit 15 by yourself.

Yes, thank you. I was just going to mention that. So, in the budget that included 15 new members. uh very conservative approach, but uh as Kim mentioned, we've already met that goal. Um we're going to exceed that goal. So, we're really excited about it. I'm really giddy on the inside. We had a new business in town that signed up today in my office as well. So, uh for April, um we're going to have another three or four businesses that signed up. Well, and you can tell by just going I just been attending the monthly breakfast or the mixers and they've just been well attended. I mean, they have that was awesome. Yeah, that was really good. Well, and this last one at the uh

at Merill Gardens was I don't know how many people were there. Bring more. It was it was very well attended. So, definitely the excitement, the buzz is what's the retention goal? Pardon me. What's the goal for retention? Well, it's uh 100% but we're just losing some because um just natural the projection. I don't have a projection for loss. I just have a projection for wins. Right now looks like it's about 20%. So 20%. Wow.

That's what we got 28 inactive out of 124 members. So, um I I would say as part of a city chamber partnership, is there a way for us to notify when people have signed up for a business license or applied for one or Well, Eric and I have a very close working relationship every time uh he's great and talk to you. Yeah. on a paid act on behalf of it because hopefully you need your rates. We have that. I'll have to check with you know what the policy is for sharing our business license data and certainly look at that. So for sure

I mean I know the state business license you can just go look it up. It's it's public record. Yeah. So public record and so at the very least you can scrape it and have it tell you when some of the some of the nonprofits have done public requests for it. It's pretty easy for staff to get. So, I'm sure you guys are already talking about it. Um, that would be very helpful if we could do that. Um, I'm almost on time. Uh, appreciate this time and hope you have the confidence in the chamber. Uh, we're very, very excited um about the changes that are going on and the changes that we're going to finish making up this unit and looking forward to a great relationship with the city. So,

you're off to a very good start. Definitely very encouraging. Yeah. No, I'm super happy. Well, just for the rest of us, I think we're all very happy. Um, meeting attendance is up. You know, we're just feeling it that some of the events have been greatly attended. It feels like it's on the track and I'll just say the city needs a strong chamber. So, we appreciate all the work and effort you guys are putting into this. Thank you very much. And we'll add some more mixers to that. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. That was fun.

So, the I mean the this is nice um for me type, but it doesn't really u um as you're looking at membership and I don't even know, but um having a diverse industry type. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, in the past, our chamber has definitely been dominated by the service space. Um but if you're able to get it get into um the other other areas that would that would be great. Absolutely. Agreed. Yeah. Thank you.

In the past it's been we've failed to give value or demonstrate value to those other types. Um and if you can achieve that then then uh yeah I think the one thing I've heard over the last five years of people who have left their membership is they didn't find the value in it. So the fact that that's to you been on that since the first Oh yeah. So I met within months ago. Yeah.

Sat down within three minutes of top 10. Yes. Definitely. Being a veteran community, we're certainly there is a, you know, an overwhelming, you know, people a lot of businesses come here to to try to uh get the residents to be customers. So, so that's natural, but we as are the efforts we're making to try to have more and more manufacturing here. um high-tech stuff. We want to uh have you guys also u embrace them and figure out what the secret sauce is to attacking attracting ret and retaining them.

And that's part of my personal commitment to a a high standard of excellence and commitment to excellence. You know, I'm um so far away from perfection, but I can guarantee you excellence, okay? And that excellence will deliver what you want. So well, thank you again for coming. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And would you like to do it again in six months? Sure. Why not? That's just part of the partnership and uh you know, we'll we'll let you know we meet our goals. Awesome.

Awesome. Thanks. Thank you.

I know. And our legal film plans.

But the safety team probably not. Oh. Um, I was just probably

I mean, you're welcome to just wait for me. I'll sit over here. Yeah.

Wow. Is not strong. All right. Um we are on to our second item. We have our uh Chief Hamlin here to talk about um options for public safety funding. So, I go straight to the chief or Craig, did you want to start with me? Okay.

Uh, just I sent out some stuff last week. We have made a couple changes to the PowerPoint just so you guys could see what retail would look like compared to retail. We took it out originally because we want to make sure it's fair, right? So, you don't have some small business. But it also works with the setup that was provided. David can walk through that. We still have really tonight. Uh, I want to make sure this is we're going down the right road here of ESUs that everybody's like, if we're going to do this, this is where we should go or we should look at something else. We looked at square footage of buildings. Pretty hard for us to get uh that information because we don't track that stuff. We thought uh we got some but not it's inconsistent. So we would have to actually if we wanted to go down that road we'd actually have to go uh sight to sight to uh with staff to actually get the numbers probably one of those things our business licenses is uh they're just telling us so we would want to go no different than we did on the ESUs that did that. So really tonight, I want to walk through what we got, make sure we're in line because there's still about 60 or 80 accounts that uh in the ESU other category that we're actually going to have to field verify because what could happen on that is it could be in a center that has a let's just say a 2-in meter that feeds four or five and it could be different businesses in there and we're going to have to come up with something there. But I want to make sure before we spend much more staff time on this that we're going down a route that the council wants to go. Okay.

I'll turn it over to David presentation. You're going to walk through what a ESU is for he's got it all. Yeah. But first, I'm gonna have the chief talk about kind of his staffing needs. I I know he brought this up. Uh it was I think it was a couple weeks ago you had a work session on this, but this is kind of leading into the conversation what we're going to talk about tonight. So, he's just having talk about this slide kind of his needs for his department.

So, we kind of ended on that question I think last time. Councelor Scott. Uh really uh I think what's glaring to us right now is about four. Well, it is four. I should be clear on that. And what I mean by that is to shore up our shifts because if you remember, we run six of which four of those uh we only start with three and the two swing shifts start with four. What this also does is it addresses our supervision issue. Uh we currently only have four supervisors. So this would allow us to bring in an additional two uh so that we have 247 supervision. So uh this request is for the four we get that the conversation tonight does not cover that but it is certainly a step in the right direction uh of addressing that. So

of that four to our supervisors it would be it would net difference. Well, you want four per ship. What's the net increase to get there? Four. Four. Four answers to get I need a total of four to get four on each. Okay, that's that's I was just on that. Okay.

Uh obviously you can see the cost of that is on average about 220,000 an officer. Uh, I know you've seen this slide before, but uh, we'll go into, as I said, we'll go into some of those, uh, cost opportunities with the commercial fee and what that potentially could look like. Uh, not only to address just personnel, but we've talked a lot about obviously technology and the costs uh, that are driving the increases with just our budget alone with that. So, that could help absorb some of that in this. So that that column the tech 250 that's not tied to the four officers. That's you're just saying departmentwide. So the column on the chart to the left here,

250,000 annual that's not specific to these four officers. That's departmentwide what you want to try to accomplish in addition to the officer at correct. Got it. Thank you.

New tech or existing tech. You're just breaking out. uh it's existing and with the addition potentially of DFR drone first responders. So that would be an additional cost to us. Right now our current contract is about 600,000 for our U Axon contract, a 5-year contract, body more cameras, uh tasers, all that evidence.com. We know that that continues to rise at about 5% every year. And as I said, DFR, if we're able to go that way, that will obviously increase about an additional $70,000 a year. So, we go down that path. Are we having a conversation as a council talk about it before we do it?

We can. We did apply for a grant through the feds, but I don't know if we're going to be successful at that. But well, that grant's more for technology overall, but yeah, of course, we would have a conversation about that. Good. That's what I just Yeah. Go back. I didn't quite understand that bottom right box. This one right here. Yeah. Okay. That's um Well, the supplemental revenue is what we're talking about tonight. What we potentially could bring in to offset these costs, the 500,000 a year, which David will show. And then so you're saying, but overall we need 5.9. We're saying that this approach could get us 500k. We'd still need the other

and depending on you guys what or be 2.5 over 5 years. So that we'd still need another 3.5 to get us to the 5.5. Okay, that's at four. Yes. Thank you.

So I just want to kind of explain for folks at home, even city council if you don't quite understand um bra or Craig brought up kind of equivalent service unit. I know at the last work session uh we might have had it there's either two weeks ago it might have been the one in January where you were interested in square footage. Right now the system is not set up to calculate square footage as Craig mentioned. So we thought why don't we explain to city council and kind of show them some examples of equivalent service unit and equivalent service unit is a standard measurement. It's used by cities to calculate storm water fees. Um, one ESU represents the amount of imperous surface and a typical one here, typical single family, but we're only talking commercial. I'm just using this as an example. There's 2,640 ft. And they're you they're currently used on commercial accounts. So, it's already set up in our system where if council is really interested and we move forward, it would be an easy transition. Um, it's used to calculate street fees, uh, street light fees, and sidewalk fees. So it's a rudimentary standard for square footage.

Correct. Yep.

And so why use ESUs? Well, one thing we we try to want to make billing fair and consistent where you don't want a small commercial property mom and pop maybe is 2,000 square foot being charged the same as say Walmart this massive this huge. Um so that's why we're we're recommending ESUs as a potential possibility. I already said a typical single family home equals one ESU, but then the commercial accounts you'll find out for example um like Walmart's made up of almost 203 ESUs. So just to kind of give you an idea really takes into the square footage the footprint they have and and just for people I'm listening basically we're talking about the depending the surface area. So it's is the area where water can't go into the ground and it's getting shuttled into our storm water.

That was on the last slide. Okay. Well, I didn't I just want to make sure it's clear for rooftop sidewalks. Rooftop sidewalks. Yeah.

This is the slide that's changed. This is one of the slides as Craig was mentioning where you know the other category currently right now there's still 63 accounts as Craig mentioned. Those are insurance companies, storage, uh, various office spaces, nursing homes, banks. And it gets really tricky. Like Craig was saying, we had to look up certain sites cuz a legal name might not be the same as a doing business as where we had something holdings LLC and realize, oh, that's the Bank of America building. So, you really have to dive a little bit deeper into all these. So, I apologize that we couldn't get them all split out, but we tried to split out as much as possible. One other change that we made is we moved all retail in a bucket, but we still kept it split out between large and just all the regular other retail. Um, still we're recommending they all pay the same. Our recommendation,

wait, shouldn't the chart on the left say summary non retail? So, non-large retail. Yeah, it should say non retail. That I I missed that. Confusing me. Yeah. So that's all on the left it's all non- retail and on the right of course it's all retail but split up into two buckets and large retail is you know in my mind is the Home Depots, the Walmarts, the Targets, the Kohl's, kind of those larger box stores. I I get that we want to pay the same. Is the crime at the church and the nonprofits the same as the crime at the Home Depot and Target? And no, that's why they have a less dollar amount for ESU.

Okay. So, every type of retail though, is the crime the same at all kinds of retail or is it? It can be. I mean, it's impervious to crime. Um, with regards to the churches, yeah, we spend quite a bit of time there servicing them. Okay. One fashion or another,

right? And it's based off, like you said, ESU, the per the pvious surface area. So, a smaller retail could be only 2600 ft². That's one ESU versus Walmart, like I was saying, is over 200. So, they're going to be charged different monthly. And I I think other than the ESU, which is dictated by primarily size, the only distinction we're seeing here is that we're saying retail is going to get charged more because they drive more calls for service. Non- retail is going to get charged less because they drive less calls for service. Exactly. We're breaking it out of all these different categories, but they're all getting charged the same. So, it's really just retail versus non- retail, right? Okay. Yes. Or I guess you have Yeah.

Yeah. And we're we're going to show different examples of we might not charge non- retail the same that we're re recommending for retail here. Yeah. Is the schools category schools? They're all in the same same bucket. But there might be some questions where city council might say we don't want to charge a fee to this certain group. So that's why I tried to break it down by churches and certain schools and so forth. Kim, you had a question. Oh, is the schools is that all the public schools or is that any school, private school, preschool? That's like St. Francis, Leit, um those schools. This is not sure what school district is not included. Not included. Yeah. So, school district pays for SRO's. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Good point. So, they cover 50% of the cost for both SRO's, which chunk shares. Well, do you have the the counts for each of those categories? So like I'm trying to understand the numbers like how many restaurants, how many nonprofits, how many churches, irrigation, etc. Like how many ESUs reach? No, no, no. The number of businesses here like why was that? Yeah, we we could get it. Um it's in a pretty large spreadsheet I have up in my office.

Well, I'm just under because I also want to understand how are like a small small business or differentiz businesses or types are being impacted by this. Okay. because this gives me the gross number, but it doesn't tell me, you know, like restaurants for instance, you know, what's the average? What do we think the average is going to be for restaurants or and stuff like that? And that's probably different compared to like a I'll just use they're not in town anymore. Hops and drops versus a uh aellis. I think it would be good for each of those breakouts to have the number of businesses that fall in the restaurant category and then maybe at least the average ESU size

or two columns, right? And that's why too us cleaning up the rest of these accounts is going to help too because there's some of the ones and others that could probably fall in those other categories. But Craig and I sat down for a few hours today kind of going through each one. And I'm sorry a lot of I'm guessing too that if you have a landlord that owns a whole shopping center that's the ESUS for that whole shopping center. The landlord gets charged that. Is that correct? The owner owner. the property owner. Yeah. Okay. And as Craig was saying, those are some areas we need to kind of dig a little deeper kind of into the multi-tenant um locations.

If we build it singly, right, as soon as this would be added to our billing statement. Yeah. So, if we build five businesses to one statement, then it's on them to figure out how to div as far as I'm concerned. But it's important for my we can provide guidance. Yeah. the the uh light industrial strip mall across from Home Depot in 99 is technically light industrial, but not one of those businesses is light industrial. Yep. And and those are kind of conversations I was having with Craig earlier. It's like do we want to identify the specific building type or but I but we were talking where could it be a manufacturing then someone moves out could all a sudden become retail or something.

Generally that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. But it's the legacy stuff from 30 years ago. Yeah. That got grandfathered in. Yeah. Awesome. So, can I Oh, go. Yeah. So, one thing we can we're concerned about the retail side. You could break that down into different categories like one through nine ESU is one cost. 10 through 20 is another cost and so forth and so on so on. 21 and up is a service fee the scale.

So that breaks the retail out too because then you get like maybe somebody's got a realy office downtown. They get one ESU charged or whatever and then you can pair it with somebody else uh that's in retail that might have 10 would be a different So I mean there's ways you can do the retail in that the US use if you guys are interested. So is that a monthly fee that's being proposed? Yeah, those totals right there is what the yearly collection. Yeah, but the top number is monthly, right? Yeah, per ESU. Yeah, monthly. Yep.

And we just give a gave a wide range up in my office. I do actually have an interactive. We could plug in any dollar and recalculate everything real quickly. Wanted to provide example. I know city council you always like to see, okay, what are some other cities around us doing? Uh this is just kind of a I think you put this together earlier just kind of a collection of what other Yeah. cities around Oregon. Um, not to mention you Newberg down there, Katie, she sits on our budget committee. They charge a public safety fee. Um, they're not up here, but that's another city. And I think even Tiger, they just might have passed something just recently. So, Grand Pass charge one in addition to the levy as well. Yeah, it's up the square footage.

Yep. So, just kind of give you an idea. So, even, you know, folks watching at home, this is not a new concept here in in the state of Oregon. you know, folks are trying to figure out how to um pay for staffing. So, the recommendation would be to charge seven per ESU for non retail monthly and $15 for kind of the retail. That would be your collections yearly, about $684,000. Um, and we're looking, even though the chief needs four officers, we're recommending at least two officers. Get him halfway to where he needs to be or to where he wants to be. Every two officers, you always have to buy another vehicle. So, we don't want to for you don't we don't want to forget about the vehicle, the technology, the the firearm, everything that goes with a hiring officer, the training. So, this is kind of a whole encompassing cost of hiring two officers. And with that, I'm kind of open for questions, direction of what you'd like to see. We knew this was kind of the first discussion. We'd be coming back with another work session potentially, but just trying to understand, are we on the right track? What would you like to see as a council? Well, I was just gonna for those that are listening and watching all of our council meetings, um the reason why we're discussing commercial is because our hands are sort of tied by a charter amendment for fees on residential. Correct.

Can't add any fees without voters. Yeah. Which we're also still discussing. Correct. No. So on the statement that you just made, David, where you said this gets into two officers, the only thing that's concerning about this is we implement a new fee and you're still not where you need to be. It's better, but we still can't go to people and say we're staffed adequately so that you know what I mean. And so I'm Is that concerning to anybody else?

I look at as a two-prong approach. This this approach covers the the increased to me. This recognizes the increased responsibility that the commercial sector brings on the burden it brings on to the amount of calls it brings in. So this is handling addressing that address giving us two extra officers and then whatever we do on the residential side whether you know a levy potentially would be the second prong of the approach. which I look at it as a two two tier. We can do this quicker, get it going, get those officers geared up, and we're also recognizing that the retail and commercial sector bears probably a responsibility that we're probably not meeting through the current funding mechanism. And that kind of helps us.

My last ride along, we spent half our time in the two large retailers parking lots. Yeah.

And thank you for bringing that up. Uh just uh I do have some numbers there just from last year. So, uh, in our two biggest retailers, we were there 421 times in one of them, of which 80 were traffic stops, uh, whether they're specific to that being in there or not. And then the other big one was 290. Uh, and then, uh, third was 171. So, you know, over a thousand times were thousand calls were shifted in just the three. That's three a day almost. So, so at the beginning of this Craig, you you wanted to see if there was because I think we all recognize we need to dig into this a little more to understand the details and do we do graduated, you know, what does that look like? But you wanted direction on this whether to keep going and pursuing this.

I've heard from a couple counselors. I would say yes. I think Doug, you're yes, Keith. Yeah, there's some I think there's some adjustments that are needed, but I'm I'm most supportive with this approach. Yeah, I think that uh progressive system would be more favor that where different tiers for the amount of RSU or if there's a better breakdown for service calls to have a be directly influenced by what the needs are for the police so that more in line

yeah even on the non-real retail side if we had we could match calls for service to the types that we had listed there maybe one of could be on a $5 and one of them could be on an $8 depending on there's more. I don't want I don't want to overengineer it, but maybe there's an opportunity to to fine-tune it a little bit by type. Yeah, because it seems I don't want to go specific business level, but at least by that categorization, but it does seem like it's harder to shoplift from like a hair salon than it is from Walmart, right? I don't know. Maybe. But but it just seems probably doesn't happen as often, but

that's where the size comes in. But I I know the size says, but it also seems like what you asked for about the types of businesses. Again, I don't I don't know cuz I'm not a law enforcement person, but it seems like there's more calls to certain kinds of businesses that are more that should bear a heavier cost for service. But I I also don't want to overengineer and say, okay, you made this many calls, you are charged this, so I don't know if there's a good way. That's the balance. You don't want the message of if I'm going to get fee per calling for service.

Yeah. Yeah. But again, it's just like with the chamber though, we're showing value, right? If we're saying, "Hey, we're we're we're responsive. We're doing all this other stuff and you're getting more than you're paid for essentially." Yes, you're paying more, but you're you're still getting better service than you do at your service. You know, I'm just thinking about some cities not too far from us who lost retailers who would gladly have paid enormous amounts of money for better police service and and cities refused to provide it even for even for money. And we're having the opposite approach here. We're like, hey, we want to actually provide that.

Yeah. And so I'm in favor of it. I I I'm I think I'm with Doug as well that there's there feels like there's a little finetuning on that, but I think generally on the track and I and I think it's also an open question at least for me on whether we include nonprofits in churches, but that's we can conversation for our next work. Yeah. Well, when chief just said that they have number of calls at churches. So, Mhm. I Yeah, I I don't believe other than groups that are already contributing like the school district, I don't think anyone should be excluded. I kind of agree with that.

Um because some uh are getting service and they pay zero property taxes. So, you could argue very easily that if a for a nonprofit that pays zero property taxes, their fee should be higher. or at least follow her.

Yeah. Um and the approach I'm supportive of the approach of the targeting to um be able to add two officers to the ranks from this program. So because in theory we could use this program to bring four 10 20 officers on the program. But I'm obia support the idea as you guys are going down the path of adding to.

So it sounds like we need deeper dive understand what a graduated program would look like. Um what else did we say graduated program? Are you interested in the retail breaking out differently for ESUs for different charges or are you interested in that will that will definitely change some a little bit but I think you capture most of it if you didn't want to charge the 15 and you want to go cheaper on the smaller retailer. I mean it's all going to go off of ESUs but there is some ways you could actually put that together. My concern with doing the graduated by you have less ESUs, you pay a less fee per ESU is you're already paying less fee because you have less it becomes almost like

doubly punitive to be bigger and doubly beneficial to be smaller, right? Because you're kind of working it on both ends. I think I I'd just like to see what the numbers look. Well, yeah. I just need the data then I could answer my own questions. Yeah. And then you kind of wanted some detail on the categories, average number, ESUs, and and kind of or did you want to kind of get in there and see the businesses and all that? I don't want to see any business names. I don't want anybody names, but the

Can you go back to the slide that showed the dollars? Just a reminder, it'd be good to see the count in each of those. And I'm What's the logic? I think I understand, but I just like to hear what you guys are thinking because restaurants in my mind for the purposes of this are much like retail. So why do you have them broken out on the other side? I'm just trying to understand that. I don't I disagree with that. Well, I'm just that's I'll be curious why you think that.

Just from all the conversations um that I've heard the chief in work sessions and city council talk about, it seems like the the bigger box stores. So that's where my mind went. I was thinking about retail the big box stores that are taking up the that you know thousand plus calls for the two and I don't know how much how many hours one officer by time you go there do something have to write a report could be a couple hours worth of work I don't know not to complicate this too much but the because if you have a large uh um site you know um shopping mall

shopping mall and stuff like that um the land owner is paying it right but you're going to have a mix of retail and restaurants in there versus a standalone restaurant, you know, that owns their own property, you know, versus a restaurant that leasing, you know, see what I'm saying is it's we need to keep it somewhat manageable and easy and have a fair system, but there's there's some caveats in there that Well, especially if we're counting people that pull are pulled over from traffic. If you're on 12 and you get the lights behind you and you pull over just at the nearest parking lot. That's going to skew the numbers a bit, right? Yeah, we were break that out. So, we can capture that. Yeah, I certainly wouldn't count that as

I'm gonna be more careful next time I get pull say who should I these numbers do I want to do? Don't get pulled over. Do you pull over? So, I guess the last question I have is are you fine with using these numbers that we've used to bring something back to you or do you you want to look at some different numbers too? Just one other thought on that. I'm you know having the range then we can kind of debate in betweens right when we talk about it again but is there logic that says is there general logic that the larger the site the more more time we're spending there?

Yes and no. What I mean by that is because retail larger sites, yes, but then there's other large ESUs that don't see you at all. We'll never see you. Okay. Like industrial.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why we kind of separated out when we were looking at it because that it wasn't fair like whoa compared it to retail large retail because just because they had the same amount of ESUs. This kind of driving me toward a thought is as a different way of looking this maybe open to the public, not open to the public. Like if you're open to the public, whether you're a restaurant or a retailer might be more calls for service versus a business like a manufacturing business or like a church is open to the public as well, right? But like you know something that's not open to the public, does do you see any distinction there between crossers or the idea? Yeah, I mean it's it's it's difficult because uh uh a big ESU that's close to the public we probably rarely go to, but when we do,

it's a big event that is time consuming uh personnel consuming, but that's far and few between compared to the premise open to the public kind of thing, right? So, it's I get where you're going with that. I kind of like that idea. That's a better way to how you break that out. Oh, I mean by you can still do it by category. Exclusively industrial but dominated by industrial. Yes. Yeah. And maybe you just put industrial on the true industrial not the retailer in the industrial in our restaurant category. I assume that's restaurant bars police. I'm in at bars and for call service.

Thank you for not after Need some service. Uh I mean I we have it here. I don't know if I have any I understand what you're saying. Yeah. If if right if I had my brothers I would have in the summary of non retail you know if you were to pick the different dollar categories the industrial one I would have on the lower end um probably so okay awesome you got your direction

yeah I just want to make sure we were heading down the right path and Yeah, I love the concept. We got to figure out the right way. Where does this take the discussion on the levy then? Is that not part of this? I think that we need to actually have that conversation. Uh if we're going to do something in 27 as you guys mentioned, uh maybe looking at we need to bring that out to you at some point that and did these businesses get impacted? Should we do a levy also also get impacted with the levy? Yes. I I know that that was the same question and there's always different there's always options.

Well, we have if if we do a levy um we we could always resend this too. We have I didn't want to say that but that's an option. We can't do a residential only levy. We can section says you can't do the fees without going in front of the voters or any tax without going. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Awesome. We have options. Thanks, Chief. Thanks, David. Thanks, Chief. Appreciate it, David.

All right. Um, want to get us set up for the next one that All right, we're going to go ahead and get started on our

third item of the evening, which is review of our tree code, potential tree code update. And we have Eric here from planning to present to us tonight. Eric, you brought some friends. I brought some planning prints. We got Sean Conrad, our planning manager, and Sean Gusto, our associate planner. You both helping helping prepare for the work session. So, this is an item that is on our council goals. Next slide. It doesn't like you slides for you tonight. How short it is.

This is the only slide. There we go. Um so it's uh pillar three livability workability and the specific goal is review benefits and off of perspective sort of burning the tree code. I guess somewhat good timing. There was also a house house bill that passed in 2025 uh HB238 which basically says that tree code has to be clear and objective. Uh there's a little bit of background there. Um, tree code the the local jurisdictions's understanding for the past few years has been that tree code and all regulations uh regulating housing had to be clear and objective. There was a luba case that clarified that only the structure itself uh had to be the code regulating the structure itself had to be clear and objective. So then this legis legislation came in and said trees as well. So now where we're at is the structure plus the trees through legislation has to be player objective. Um just for what it's worth, there's a a case in front of I believe it's the Oregon Supreme Court right now to determine if actually all regulations for housing have to be put in objective including things like infrastructure, driveways, you know, all everything. So we'll see where that lands, but right now structures and trees. So um that's why we're here to talk about the scope um of a potential tree code update.

Is our existing code legal under that we're related to trees or the whole thing? Is our current tree code legal under the guise of clear objective and that's what we want to ask you about tonight. So determines what clearest found objective Jean does. Sometimes it's Jean, sometimes it's Sean, sometimes it's you on appeal. Um the the local jurisdiction takes the first stab at it. Um and then of course and Brad, I'm having issues changing the slide here. I'm not sure why.

Brad in the very middle that need to be right there in there. Got a new computer.

Jade, what' you do to you? Oh, technology dangerous having the two Dave sitting next to each other over there. Two days sitting next to each other. Yes.

We keep going without it. Okay. Yeah. Yep, we're good. Um, okay. So, we're just going to describe what the slides say. So, the talk a little bit about the code itself and then really what we wanted to beat back on the scope of this. So, should we even take on a tree code update? If we should, what should what should the priorities be of a tree code update? At a minimum, should we take a declared objective? Of course, we've recommended yes on that. U, these guys are experts in the code. I think we do have a recommendation for you if you like it um in terms of where to land this based on your priorities, but I want to hear um policy preferences first. So um in terms of developments, when we're reviewing an application, the code does allow trees to be removed. The language is uh trees can be removed to accommodate development including buildings, parking, walkways, grading, etc. So it's pretty broad. Basically, if if it's needed to accommodate the development, it can be uh the code does allow the city to preserve specific trees in specific cases um within a flood plane, wetland, for soil stability, uh for buffering between incompatible land uses based on size, historic preservation. That's where we get into issues with clan objective. I mean, historic association for who for for what. Um and so that's where our code currently has the main problem.

So a question about that because one of the concerns I had just anecdotal is when we move remove a tree for construction that falls into two categories. One is the building's going to go there, right? So we can't have the tree there. The other is it just makes it easier to do the work because they're not having to drive around a tree. Right.

Right. Does this give us the flexibility to say you got to maintain the trees that aren't specifically necessary um for the project due to like you know obviously a parking lot or a sidewalk or or the structure itself. There's there's not currently language in there like that to say if it's not you know absolutely necessary for removal to accommodate a building for example. Uh that that language is not in there. In theory, we if we made it clear objective, this this other these other discretionary items, if we made those clear and objective, then we could pull on that for a variety of reasons and have protected.

Yeah, that that's I would support trying to do that.

Something like that is I think would be great. The other area I was thinking about too is um with um the big push for density in our housing um and the big push um from the state to reduce setbacks. By the way, can we have like a 20 foot setback around every tree so that I'm sorry, I'm just kidding. But with the big push for density, can we uh how do we make sure that we're preserving trees and making space for trees in our residential areas as well? And maybe that's a good segue into um Hugo is going to talk just just briefly on the the other elements of the tree code, residential versus commercial, and that's something we want feedback on. Should we treat those differently? Hugo, you want to briefly touch on those?

Yeah, thank you, Eric. Uh evening, councilors. Uh so, under the current code, the new new developments are required to meet the minimum tree canopy standards. Residential developments must provide at least 40% tree canopy coverage across the entire site. Um while commercial and industrial developments must provide at least 30% tree canopy coverage. Uh an important feature of the existing code is that preserved trees do receive double canopy credit. Uh this was intended to incentivize retention of mature trees since preserving established trees can provide more immediate anesthetic benefits that newly planted trees can't really replicate for years. Um, oh, we back.

How how is canopy defined? So, canopy coverage is when uh essentially we define it in our code. I don't remember the definition quite off the top of my head, but essentially it it's the at the maturity once it's at full growth. Um, basically how far do the branches and the leaves kind of percentage of the site that will be covered by the tree like looking down circumference. Who's a mathematician here? Dave, you're not a mathematician. I know it be like the spread. Yeah. So looking from above circumference circumference it's the area. It's the area of the of the canopy.

Yeah. A a good a good example would be kind of our street trees which I I'll probably get into a little bit more but essentially they have a spacing standard which is also kind of defined by their canopy coverage and it's intended to prevent gaps uh so you're not dealing with like excessive heating or urban heating effect uh as a result of lack of trees. Um next slide question about the double canopy thing.

I understand the intent behind it. It sounds great at development time, right? You're preserving mature trees, but I'm looking at it in the extreme. If a developer says, "Okay, well, now I can I only have to do 20%. If I if I keep all these mature trees, I only have to hit 20%." It's great at the start, but 10 15 years down the road, you're actually now only at 20% instead of 40. So, I'm wondering if it's kind of like actually hurting us in the long run versus helping us. Yeah. And I don't even understand what the economics for that are with a developer cuz I can just buy a few extra trees and plant them at the end, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know how often it's even used, but if it's being used a lot, I could see it also being you'll lead to less tree coverage over time versus more. And I think that that was the trade-off by preserving the existing essentially old growth trees like you can't replace that, right? So sure, but if you're still only ending about 20% versus 40 20 years from now, you have less tree, right? And I think that that's an acceptable trade-off to maintain these older trees. Depends on the tree. Maybe

rather than cutting them down and having them plant 40% that are going to take 30 years. I think the point I was I agree with you, Dan, that the point I was trying to make is if I'm building a new mega a site, right? Um, and it's going to cost me X dollars to work around that tree versus the cost of planting a sapling there down the road. Oh, you cut it down 10 out of 10 times. Yeah. And is it truly an incentive? Yeah.

And it's and and I don't know how it clear and objectively you deal with the the notion of you have um you know our greatest success in preserving trees is obviously has been in stream corridors and by having big setbacks in stream corridors. So we have lots of trees in those corridors. Thankfully, if you're um going into XY area, you know, of a grove of trees are there um and are there um as a team and if you remove a third of the team, uh the remnants um are at a greater risk for Yeah. for failure.

And if you are really stupid and you Uh only you cut them all down but two. Guess what? Those two are great risk. Yeah. In a windstorm. Yeah. So we're not um Yeah, that's a very very high level overview of development review. We can answer if you have detailed questions how development review works. That's it. But essentially it's it's for preservation. It's incentivebased. you get you get you get more canopy if you protect existing trees.

Is under the new law of clear and objective for trees um have very many of our neighbors updated the tree code to comply that we're aware of? Not that I'm aware of. I can get that info for you. and our clear and objective tree standards under the newer laws that have come in in the last three years that well all these waiverss get just granted almost automatically or is the tree code subject to getting all these waivers

that's for v for or variances. So the tree code would have to be the the removal would have to be tied to a variance. So in theory, so if it was like 40%, in theory they could get a variance to modify that to a lower percentage. So short answer, I would say yes to a certain legislation to a certain extent. All that it's just it's just a great world. It's a great world. You're the Oregon way. Um just real quick, we'll get through the whole through the whole kind of picture and then and then get the feedback from you. So Hugo's also going to talk about outside of development review. So if you just own property commercial, industrial or or residential, what that looks for removal?

Yeah, thank you, Eric. Um, okay. So outside of development review for residential properties um outside of this process, current code allows removal up to five trees or up to 10% of the trees on the property without a permit or replacement requirement. If REM removal exceeds the above threshold, the permit is required along with replacements uh at least of half. Um, these standards were designed to provide homeowners flexibility for routine property maintenance while still protecting the overall canopy coverage. The annual threshold yes whatever is less or whatever is raised whatever greater less whatever's less. Okay.

That's a good question. We can look at a question that gets in the clear objective. Yeah. Yeah. The code does clarify. I don't know which one though. Is this for new development or if I planted properties? This is like existing properties. If you're not doing um a development, can you remove trees? If I planted those apples, if I planted 10 apple trees, I could only remove five this year or% which my only get to remove one. Yes.

Interesting. Y we don't see a lot of these requests and we don't issue a lot of permits that are exceeding the five or over 10 without any guessing trees even I'm guessing that the 10% gets violated probably quite a bit there could be violations we're not most people's houses and sure that be one tree would be over 10% people cut down trees could be a fair amount yeah could be worse and replacing it with something Yeah, but we just don't don't know about it. And then the last kind of element is street trees.

Yeah. Uh so street trees count towards the required minimum canopy coverage for development sites and removal is limited nearly to define a specific defined approval criteria. Exemptions to replacing street trees uh are also limited and generally granted only when a tree would cause damage to a public or private utility that cannot be prevented through ongoing preventative maintenance. Uh really in recent years staff have seen an increase in requests for street tree replacement exemptions. Um question on that because like in the Wood Haven subdivision they picked in some areas horrible trees. Horrible

as street trees. Some throw all kinds of fruit every year. The trees on my street the aphits on there for lack of a better sidewalks. They they basically they were only $5. My point is on the Thank you. My point is on the exemption because I know some folks on my street that would like to get rid of these trees because they're they dump sap all over their cars. Would that qualify as an exemption?

The language is right there. So, um you can only get an exemption if there's ongoing damage to a public or private utility that cannot be prevented through reasonable maintenance. So utility manage that one gal who emailed us not long ago sidewalk count in that or no it's not remove they just can't you have to replace yeah you can remove it and and plant with a better species is what we would say what the code in that in that regard but not just but have nothing exactly there's got to be ongoing damage to a utility essentially to to get the exemption basically that you you can't doesn't make sense to move the utility so you replant the tree.

So different scenario you have, right? And do we have an approved I know we changed the code years ago to have better standards around how we manage roots to kind of prevent some of the sidewalk damage as far as right and we have and we have better street permit request. That's what I was going to ask. So we have we have pretty good treatable. So that's the the really kind of very very high level

tree code. And I think what we really want to hear is like what should the priority be? Should it be through development review? Is it is it non-development review? Is it street trees? I mean I think we can provide some feedback on that. I think seems like it's through development review which is the main the main concern and we can some feedback on what that but she can we determine what that is for our city. Yes. As long as it's clear and objected.

Like if we had volunteer canvasers go out and identify historic trees to Sherwood and then have it in a database registry, we would need a some type of exemption or something to then remove that. So it have to go through a formal process. So we have some type of So you're saying we would we would designate specific trees to be on this list potentially if we're concerned about Yeah. as an option and then we'd have at least some process to say trees. I think there's enough volunteers in our community that would help identify trees so it's not reliant on staff although to

yeah and the um heritage tree program is I think similar to what you're talking about and that's not not uncommon in local jurisdictions. um it would be a bit of a lift as you're acknowledging you know and so I think that's one of the things that we're I'm keeping in mind is based on the scope here you know what what is it going to take is it going to take a consultant we need to get that in the budget probably wait until the budget cycle allows it and things like that so that's the most clear if the tree is identified in our list uh as far as I think that would be clear and objective a one time lift too because once you have that list it wouldn't change very much Right. Unless until the boundary of the city changes. Yeah. And they need updated.

But I mean, could you count because it'd be great to like if we have doubt we have very many of these, but some old growth areas, you know, the designation just be based on age as well. Sure. I think we probably do need a tree code update to align with the new legislation, the clearest objective.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like along with the trails and the parks and stuff, the trees in Sherwood is something that I always hear when people say, "What make Sherwood Sherwood?" And so I would say um let's strengthen it. And I love Dan's idea. I I I'm sure we got a lot of people for trasha. I feel like we could get people come out and do what it I sure would have trees. Yeah. How would you designate like a volunteer that would know? Well, even if you said, yeah, but even if we said as a council, if we said, "Hey, diameter, I mean, circumference is the thing." You give them a piece of spring that's the right circumference and you just say, "All right, go around this problem."

Yeah. But I mean, we could figure that out, right? Or you could say, "Hey, anything that's in, you know, within 10 ft of a sidewalk or, you know, we could just I staff can come back with some recommendations on that." There might be some requirements for an arborist to do that. Oh, yeah. So and that's the review I would see community members would just say hey you should look at that look at a tree in this property or this property but I also think that the development standards would have the higher focus if we're limited in what we can improve upon because that is the biggest where we're losing the most trees I feel right now.

Yes. So we start in that area. I think this guy will sign up for a Saturday. He'll list every tree. Sure. Why not? Well, we continue to hear from the comms the region. Fails the region. Um difference between should we look at commercial versus residential differently or 40 versus 30? And in terms of you know if we're strengthening should it be strengthened for one or the other? wonder why it was different why it was different to begin with but I mean I think if you look at the nature of like an industrial development that kind of

clear like you have a huge building you can't can't it's hard to hit a 40% threshold you don't have yards industrial yeah I think preservation of an existing if possible industrial area would be great but I agree with you that you know if you're putting in a million square feet of advanced manufacturing space. It's a million square feet. It's going to be hard to make that up. You can't have a tree in the middle of that building. Um,

you know, I I would I would recommend focusing on the the residential because I think that is um has more opportunity based on the smaller footprints and the design of infrastructure and things like that. Parks, park space that goes in. Um, that would probably be below hanging fruit. recommend again um a lot more flexibility with how you lay out a new central neighborhood than an industrial park. Well said, especially with our top employment area. Those sites, frankly, they need to be graded um to to the larger sites do. It's just really difficult to get those large buildings without essentially grading it.

But I do like But is it is it useless to say but we'd like some trees put in there so that in 20 to 30 years it's blocking the site, right? Yeah. So I know. So that's why I'm saying yeah, maybe preserving is not the right word in those cases, but replacement and saying if you're going 30, go 40 and just make it so we've got tree canopies. I think you can get 40 though on an industrial site because like you just don't have like where you going to put them like well they're doing arborvitees all along that front along but you're not going to get% the perimeter of that's

I do think obviously I'm taking into account geology because like in the conquin area that the top soil is so shallow and the bedrock bedrock's right there if you isolate trees up there they're going to get blown over in wind so we have to cut off some of that as well. Absolutely. What about when you have a new industrial site like we have on Oregon Street, all those ones that have been going in. The biggest thing I heard from people were, "Oh my gosh, all the trees are gone." Like, so we the code says you can put trees for development can be removed if there's a building going there, but what if there were trees that were removed, but there was no building? I mean, can we have something that says you can remove it where there was building, but you can't remove it if there's no building?

We we can look at that option. Um again it would be difficult because they they graded that whole site out in a in a single flat to get that one building there. So if like it's if you have there would be limited opportunities let me say that way because because of the slope like you can preserve them just at that final grade essentially because you can't bring a tree and bring it up here. So um it feels like the opportunity in these industrial sites is really the stuff that's on the perimeter of the property line that sometimes does get taken down. Maybe there's an opportunity. Yeah. Not to be taken down. Some of the center of the property. They didn't plant a lot of trees up there. In 20 years, it's going to look very different.

Yeah. I recommend I mean, you guys drive by there. I mean, I think it's it's there's a lot of trees up there. That's 30%. That's 30%, not 40. Um, a lot of the residential are doing the preservation in the in the creek area, so they get up to the 40 a lot faster. to your point. Um, and then just, you know, in close what I'd recommend is frankly not to do a an entire sort of flip the tree code on its head type tree code update because that's we're going to have to budget for that. It's going to be a little, you know, a year or more process. If we're really looking to make an impact, strengthen the tree code, preview preferences here, not not flip the whole thing on its head. And so we can bring back some really strategic policy updates for you guys. That sounds good. And making it clear that I would I was this is kind of tangent to all this, but you know, when we get into the comprehensive update for the request,

it's a great point. Yeah, we that there's a lot of green field out there we need to be concerned about, but also I one of the things I'd like to see is more uh planter strips, you know, with sidewalks on our streets and encouraging that as well. Yep. And that's a code requirement now. So, all new subdivisions unless they get an exe exemption, we'll have that. And then I'm sure with Wes because people um you know, if anyone's listening, we will do and for you guys as well, we will do a comprehensive plan as we talked about last meeting, that comprehensive plan update will allow us guys to weigh in on the tree vote for that area. So, even if we update it now, we stamp it when we go through comp planning, you will have another staff specifically for sure request if you'd like it.

And this will go through planning commission as well. Good. Okay. I remember property owners have rights. What you're trying to you're trying to end the meeting. No, he was called on. It's okay. Go ahead. No, you finish. Finish your thought. And and if somebody's outside the city and they before they come in the city, uh property owners often do stuff to their property.

That's true. We have a lot of land being cleared in Sherwood West right now. Go ahead, Doug. I would like to see maybe the two sets of code updates come back to us. If we could fasttrack changes that would get after some of these high priority items as quickly as possible and then come back with a second set that handles the state requirements just because I'd love to get these important things in code as quickly as we can. But my thought you have thoughts on that to push the state required code. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying delay doing it. I'm just saying while that's being worked on. Okay. Let's implement some

We don't have to do it in one package. Some easier things at the moment. Sure. Okay. What's What's When do we have to have that in place or It's in effect now. It's in effect. 25 in. I I think we could potentially do a um a lowhanging fruit cleared objective just to give us a placeholder so that we don't have to throw it out like we might do in the past and then have a more thorough conversation about about the final cleared objective if you'd like. Awesome. So, do you have everything you need? I think so. Yeah. Okay, we're running little long, but we'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting. We'll go to regular session in five minutes. There you go. Sorry Dave, did you have something to chime in? That's just interest.