City Council - Regular Meeting

of housekeeping so the work session is going to be um before you tonight the first half of the meeting tonight so in a work session it's basically staff coming to council and presenting an issue in this case the levy failure and then giving council options and having a discussion about next steps and that's what we're going to do tonight for that first portion of it right the work session And during the work session, public comment is not typically allowed. And I'm gonna hold that tonight to be the case. We will follow the work session with the town hall where your comments are absolutely encouraged and allowed. So that will be your opportunity to interact with council and give opinion. Whether you have criticisms, which are perfectly fine, or solutions, we'll accept that as well. But totally open to whatever you have to help us determine next steps with the failure of the levy. Sound good? Okay. And with that, Julia?

Thank you, Mayor and Councilors. So I'm going to try to be brief with the presentation, just orienting us to where we're at.

Oh. One second, please. I forgot. So in the spirit of everyone's time, I'm going to try to put a hard stop on this meeting at 8 o'clock tonight. So just for recognition, please, 8 o'clock, and we will try to accommodate everybody's feedback and opinion up to that point. Go ahead.

Thank you. So I'm going to start with the... Sorry, like I keep wanting to do it. I see it up there. Okay, now am I ready? Okay. Yes, we're here tonight to discuss funding options with the failure of the park and pool levy. With the failure of the levy, there's an estimated deficit of $795,628 for fiscal year 26-27 for the park and pool fund. This is the amount that we would have received from the May 2026 levy. Tonight, I'm going to briefly review relevant tax history and funding constraints. Just as a reminder for everybody, review the parks and pool funding and expenses, discuss staff developed options and alternatives that we've identified, and then really turn it over to council for next steps discussion and then leading to the town hall. I do want to note that this discussion is really to address budget shortfall for the remainder of this budget. It will not be sustainable long term. So we'll need to have additional policy discussion if as needed. So just a quick overview of the relevant tax history and funding of the general fund. A lot of this is probably repeat for council, but just as a reminder, in 1990, Measure 5 passed. What that did is it limited property taxes to $10 per thousand of real market value. And importantly, it also created a permanent tax rate. Staton's permanent tax rate at the time was $3.33 per thousand, and that is what it is today. forever more going to be. As you know, different cities around the state have different permanent tax rates based on what it was in 1990, and so it varies greatly by jurisdiction. In 1997, because the property values were still fluctuating and raising rapidly, the state passed Measure 50 that essentially differentiated the real market value from the assessed value. It took the 1996 Real market value decreased it by 10%, and that became the assessed value, and that can only be increased by 3% per year. What that has done over time, you can see the assessed value line on this slide is the red-orange line, and you can see that that's diverged pretty greatly over time from the real market value. Another way of looking at that is your own residential home, depending on the size of it. If your real market value is $504,000, which is the average assessed value for the city of Staten is $252,000. So if your average assessed value is $252,000, you most likely have a property that's worth about $500,000. And another point is that the assessed value does not reset at resale. A lot of people think that it does, and it does not. So that is the assessed value limited to 3% growth per year. I also wanted to provide a reminder that there are essentially special revenue funds or capital funds, enterprise funds, and internal service funds that can only be used within that fund. They cannot be transferred out of that fund, whereas the general fund is able to be spent on many things. But it also, as you can see from the list on the slide, it pays for many things. This slide shows the general fund revenues for the current budget cycle 2527 you can see that less than half of the general fund revenue as from taxes and levies about 5.3 million. whereas the general fund expenditures is over $13 million for the biennium, so not per year, per every two years. And I show these two slides to really highlight that the funding is beyond taxes, and it is committed to many necessary services for the community. So now I'm going to talk about park funding just Laura Flanders, Oh, hopefully quickly, so this slide is showing you our park resources for the 2527 budget, you can see that over half of that 54% assumed taxes from the levy with the failure of the levy, we have a deficit of approximately 420,027 dollars. The expenditures for parks is spent on a variety of sources. There is a large portion that is staff and administrative overhead that covers full-time FTE directly to the parks as well as associated staff support from payroll, human resources, accounts payable, things like that. And then park maintenance, custodial services, utilities is the remainder. The current budget is really intended and designed to basically still do the bare minimum. You can see from this level of service slide that we're running the parks and we're doing okay with replenishment, refurbishment, replacement, but we're not doing fantastic. We don't have the funding to do fantastic, and we certainly don't have the funding to do expansions or redesigns. But we're we're we're doing what we can with the budget prior budgets as well as going into this. leading up to this fiscal year. I will note that the 23-25 expenditures for parks had a lower park maintenance and improvement budget. It was about 21% instead of 29%, which was included in this budget because we were trying to get a little bit further along on these areas like replenishment and refurbishment that we were not able to stay on top of very well. With the failure of the levy and no additional funding, we're looking at really barely keeping our basic operations running. And again, we have a shortfall of approximately $420,027. With the pool funding, it's a little bit better because we do have charges for service, but the levy is still contributing just a little over half of the budget, 51%. With the failure of the levy, we're looking at a deficit of approximately $375,601. I did mention that we have revenues through charges for service, so I wanted to show the makeup of this. This slide shows what we budgeted for 25-27 going into the budget. We did, when the November levy failed, we revised some of the charges for services, and we assumed some increases for the May levy that would increase this by about $33,000, but that was already accounted for in the deficit I told you about. The expenditures for the pool are really a lot of staff. As you can imagine, we need people to be lifeguards. There is also, again, the administrative overhead, utilities, and insurance is the next largest category for the pool. This slide is showing you our current level of service based on projected funding, similar to the parks. We're keeping it running, but we don't have a lot of excess funds to do fantastic improvements or anything like that. We're doing what we can, maintaining it as we need to. And with the levy failure, because we're so staff heavy and because We need the revenues, you know, if we can't cut back hours because then we lose revenues. With the pool, with the levy failing, we anticipate that we would not be able to do really any of these things at all. We're looking at a shortfall of approximately $375,601 again. So staff looked at options and alternatives of what we could do. This is the reality. Effective July 1, we will not have this levy revenue. We had the existing levy that will go through the end of June, and we will not have any additional levy revenue. So we know we need to do something. So we looked at parks first. Just a quick reminder overview, the park operational costs are about 679,489. This does not include the Mill Creek Park or contingency. And the projected levy revenue was 427,000. So that's really the number that we're trying to shoot for is that 420,000. We identified about $268,000 in park reductions. This wouldn't be painless. It would be bathroom closures through elimination of the janitorial services, reduced mowing and park maintenance, reduced hazardous tree response capability, deferred playground and retaining wall improvements, reduced equipment purchases and staff training. We didn't feel like we could just cut everything out of parks because then we still have to have the ability to do some basic maintenance or we have fire hazards, we have safety hazards, things like that. So we identified $268,000 in cuts for parks. Thank you. So for anybody at home that doesn't know why we paused, we got a note about our virtual joining. So we identified, we looked at the general fund and public works admin to see if there were cuts there. We identified $33,000 in cuts in the general fund and public works admin. That would be training reductions across administration police and planning reduced contract services and facility improvements at the police department and administrate and reduce public works administration support and the table on the slide shows what the impacts of those would be as well as on the prior slide i also identified that So that leaves still $118,000 in cuts that would need to be made. If the pool remains open, that needs to be made. If the pool were to close, we would recommend removing the subsidy that's going to the pool into parks to help fill that hole. But that's something that we need to discuss. Additional options that staff doesn't have a firm recommendation on for remaining budget gap options and what we're certainly seeking direction from is potentially sponsorships. Whether or not we could fill the gap with that alone, I don't know. Increased general fund subsidy. We do have franchise fees that were allocated to streets, 15%. That is a general fund revenue that... that council made the policy decision to transfer 15% out. So that is something that is available, but that would obviously impact the street fund. I mentioned if the pool closed, transferring the general fund subsidy that was allocated to the pool to parks or additional general fund reductions, potentially decreasing public works administrative transfers more, but that would have impacts to public works administration. or even selling property and using revenues for remaining park operations. Again, these I don't know, would allow any of them. This would get us through this budget year, but wouldn't necessarily be sustainable long term operations. For the pool, the operational costs for the pool are about $605,132. That excludes major capital projects. And the revenue from the levy would have provided $375,601. So that's the number that we're really shooting for. The challenge with the pool is that most of the costs are essential and can't be significantly reduced. We can't cut staff. We can't cut chemicals. We can't cut the utilities or that would directly reduce the operations and revenue. There is an administrative transfer to the general fund of 89,000, but as Mentioned previously we've we've already identified 33,000 and through the parks so without significant general fund cuts somewhere else that would be challenging. And the water charges I am one of the things that identified in parks I didn't highlight was just not charging water for the parks or not watering the parks and that would save about $20,000. The pool, oddly, when it's filled with water, it actually doesn't use a lot of water. It's only $37.50 a year. So we've heard a lot of thoughts about raising the fees to be cost efficient. you know, to do the cost recovery, as you could see from where we get our revenues from, that would be almost tripling what the fees are. And we, that would require pretty dramatic increases. In this slide, I'm showing just the math. If that were to be the case, we'd likely be looking at resident drop-in fees going from 650 to 1950, monthly memberships going from 55, 25 to 165. And we think that would likely increase

not be a um not not allow usage of the pool julia question counselor uh yes just a clarifying question for the for the resident drop in fees raising the rates like what does that look like if Where do you come up with the 1950? Is that like in conjunction with?

That was just the basically it's when you think about the charges for services.

But is it with everything that we're doing or?

No. So that's just a loan. That's raising the fees alone. And we're already right. Yeah. So that was like if we just did it that way, just raising the fees, it would it's a third of the budget. Thank you. We do think that there's strategic increases that may be possible. And To be like for swim lessons non resident rates and swim teams and a quick estimate would be that that might be able to provide a maybe additional $34,000 on top of what we've already assumed for the May 2026 ballot increases. Okay, so i'm going to get through some options for the pool, because the pool and really does have more true options than than the parks and and. staff's opinion. One is keeping the pool open. We think this is possible potentially if we increase fees strategically, launching a major community sponsorship and donation campaign. We've heard from a lot of people that both inside the city and outside the city that, you know, would like to contribute. I don't know how much people really would be willing to contribute. I've identified a goal of maybe $100,000. It'd be awesome if it was more. And then potentially filling the gap with general fund subsidy. But that's that comes at cost if we were to use general fund subsidies. This would allow for temporary operational funding while exploring other long-term solutions such as a district partnership with the YMCA again, another levy, or something else that maybe you or somebody from the audience has a grand idea on. The next two options, I'm just going to preface. Well, I know there's a lot of swim supporters, pool supporters in the audience, so I just want to... So these are things that people will probably boo. But option two is mothballing the pool. We estimate that would be about $80,000 a year. And it basically, it would be similar to what we did in the COVID era shutdown. There would likely still be equipment deterioration because of the extended inactivity. It would require ongoing monitoring and maintenance, and it would also include staff. Staff would be laid off. Staff would be, you know, there'd be, you know, layoffs and employee payouts associated with that scenario and unlikely to be able to just unmothball it easily. The third option would be to fully close and decommission the pool. That actually comes at a cost too. We've estimated that to be $80,000 to $120,000, and that would involve draining and filling the pool with gravel, which would be necessary because of the high groundwater conditions, and also include additional costs, layoffs, and employee payouts. So really what councils needs to be considering, we have the budget deficit of 795,628. Staff has identified some potential cuts to parks, some additional revenue increases and revenue generating ideas for the pool. And there may be opportunities to reallocate franchise fees We recommend that you discuss amongst yourselves, take input from community members, and then ultimately we really, the budget ends for this, you know, these revenue funds, or at least the levy sources, end at the end of June. So we really need to have decisions made as soon as possible, but no later than June, especially if there are closure decisions, because staff needs to be informed. made aware and prepped and things like that. And also just remind you again, that this is really just to address the shortfall in in this 2627 budget year, and isn't long term solutions. So that is my presentation to counsel.

Hey, thanks, Julia. I want to remind the audience that tonight is not a decision-making session for council. That would come in a formal council meeting. So there is no, it's just for informational tonight. So feedback from there. Julia, did I hear you say that you accounted for the levy passing in the budget?

Yes, the levy assumed, actually the budget was built upon the levy that we proposed in November. Yes.

And is that the biannual budget?

Yes.

Okay. All right, Council. I'm open for discussion. Who wants to start?

Mr. Mayor.

Council Orrick.

I have a question for staff about what the thought process was of potentially using the reallocated 15% of the franchise fees. I just want to remind the council that the reason that we decided to put those into the street funds is that those utilities that are giving us franchise fees They have, it's the garbage trucks, it's Pacific Power, the gas company that are all using our streets, tearing them up. So putting that money towards the streets, that's why we did that. And so I'm just curious as to why that was one of the things that you're offering up as a solution.

Because it was something that we could offer up as a solution. It's a general fund. It can be moved. There's a lot of things that are in these other funds that can't be moved. And that's a general fund stream that doesn't have to go there. But that is absolutely, that's the trade-offs and that's a hard trade-off. And when we initially put that forward, we were not aware that Public Works does have plans to spend that money. So that would be a cut. It's not budgeted, but it's in the contingency, and they had hoped to use some of that contingency for some projects.

Any other thing, Councilor? Good?

I'm good, thank you.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Yeah. Thank you, Samara. Appreciate it. Just kind of looking over option three on the decommission one. Is there any sustained costs after the estimated cost range would be complete there?

Yep.

Can you hear me?

Okay. Can you repeat the question?

Sure. I was wondering about option three. Is there any sustained costs following the estimated cost range?

I do not believe, I'm getting a head nod that yes, there are. But I, Barry, can you come up and speak to that? Because I'm not aware of what they are.

To answer the question, Barry Buchanan, Interim Public Works Director. I cannot tell you the specific number, but as far as the operation is concerned, the pool, some of the air conditioning would have to continue running. There is ongoing just general maintenance of the building because we're not proposing and taking the building down itself. So there would be ongoing work. minimal operations and maintenance requirements for the building itself. We are talking in that price of decommissioning the pool, removing equipment, making it safe and putting it in a condition that other activities or other potential use of that building could be made in the future. So there would be minimal ongoing cost as far as the maintenance and operation of the building is concerned. I can't tell you exactly what that number is right at the moment.

Thank you, Barry. And then going back to option one, I'm just curious in general broad strokes, have we as the city been approached by any private organizations or anything like that to purchase the pool or fund the pool in any shape or form? Or have we been approached by any private citizens attempting to form the private tax district? Has there been anything like feelers put out to staff about that?

So we have had several people reach out to us about donations, some potentially sizable, but I don't have a specific number. I have a meeting with the Y on Friday, and there's some interest there. As far as district, kind of the same that, you know, everybody says that there should be a district, but nobody necessarily taking the lead. Yeah.

Thank you. And Barry, you can sit there for a minute, please. All this is great. I guess my question is, is there any capital improvements that need to be done right now to keep the pool moving? I know it's a hooker, but we have to ask the questions.

Immediately, as far as the pool is concerned, we did in the original budget allow for work to move, sorry, for the pool to continue to operate over the next five years, utilising the living. But in saying that, yes, there is ongoing significant, bad word, there is ongoing capital works that would be required in the relatively certain media future. Those include things like changing of media from the from the filters, ongoing maintenance as far as the HVAC is concerned. There's three or four things that we would add up as far as capital works were concerned, which we would cover over the next coming years. Yes.

And I'll add, and James, you can chime in. When we built the levy budget, it was based on a certain amount of capital improvements that were going to be necessary over the five-year period. So, yes, we can get through this year, but there's going to be some capital projects that would absolutely need to be funded to get us through that five-year period.

All right. Well, I'm a little confused now because I thought the levy was operational. But now we're talking we have capital built into that? Maybe elaborate. Maybe I'm missing it.

Yeah, the levy was for five years, and that did include some capital projects, some of them funded by the endowment as part of the budget. But some of those projects included resurfacing the bottom of the pool. It's a sizable thing that we weren't planning to do in this one year, but it would need to be done very soon.

That's why I asked the question.

Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. So have we contacted the Friends of the Pool at all about any donations towards running? I know they usually do use their fund for capital improvements, but I don't know if that was something they'd be willing to do.

So I know that there are representatives here this evening. I've not specifically talked to Friends of the Pool about donations. I do... If that was a direction that we would want to go, I would recommend doing maybe a short pledge campaign and seeing what sort of interest there is from the community and the greater community and potentially doing some donations. I actually was just at Rotary this lunch period, and Rotary could potentially donate some money. Nobody's going to be able to do enough to do it all, but I think that there's potential to to cobble together funds for the operational piece, but that's not necessarily the five-year long-term need.

Yeah, because there's a $375,000 shortfall. And then the other question is for the mothballing the pool, how long can we legitimately do that? I mean, is that a one-year, two-year type of thing, or how long is that feasible?

So we don't know. I mean, I guess that's the answer. Very equated it to parking your car in the garage. You know, if you park it for, you know, two months, you might have a dead battery. You might you might not, you know, and so it's really hard to tell. So I don't know. I mean, you can try to answer, but I don't think we're going to we don't have an answer. It's just there's risks.

How long did it take you to rehire people after the last time it was mothballed?

It was quite a while. I mean, I think being able to get lifeguards back is a little bit easier than trying to find someone to manage the pool. That position is probably the hardest to fill and you need to have that filled before you can start bringing back and hiring on lifeguards. It's definitely a process because you've got new hire paperwork, the recruitment process, everything starts over from the beginning. Training, everything.

Was it like six months or?

At least three to do like a whole process probably.

I was just trying to get an idea how long.

We have about 22 part-time staff at the pool.

Yeah, I know there's a pretty big staff there, so it'd be difficult. That's for caring.

So the impact of raising fees, Paige. Jordan alluded to the raising fees for the resident drop-in. How about the resident monthly membership from 55 to 165? Is that per person?

Yeah, that was just illustrative to show if we were to fill the gap by fees alone, which we've heard from people out in the social media world that just let the people that are using the pool pay for it. I just wanted to show what that would look like. Yes, it would. And we'd have to do more analysis if that's really the direction that you want us to explore. But that was really just illustrative to show that the charges for services is actually about a quarter of the budget. So I can't say definitively that that's exactly what it would be, but I just wanted to show you that it's a pretty significant impact.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilor Ork.

Thank you. Has staff, I know we've been kind of in talks with the swim teams about negotiating rates and whatnot, but we have four swim teams in the area that utilize the pool for practices. And this would be a significant loss. I would not have a swim team probably here in Stain. Is there opportunity or has there been talks about opportunities to partner with them in a bigger way? Because this is a practice facility for them. It's not just a community pool.

Not specifically. I mean, we definitely through this, you know, through some of the, we assume that if the pool were to stay open, we would have to have more from the swim teams. But we haven't had like specific partnership conversations.

I definitely think there's a big opportunity there to do that.

Julie, I think one of the things that has to be acknowledged is that if we indeed partner with the Y, that's programmatic for the most part. That still leaves the city on the hook for all the other operational aspects of it. And I think some of the feedback over the years is that the schedule at the pool is limiting and it limited people from attending and getting in there. So I appreciate the possible and potential accessibility on the programming. In that case of the Y, it still leaves us with the expenditures for the operation of the pool itself. So just make sure everyone understands that. The other question I have is there's not a half option on here, like a seasonal closure of the pool. There's not a seasonal closure of the pool option on here. For example, Turner, everyone says, well, why don't you do what Turner does? Well, Turner has an outdoor pool and the outdoor pool is only open part of the year. It's not open year round. And they also partner with the school district. So is there an option for seasonal closure?

I think you hit it on the head that it's outdoor. Our pool is indoor, and therefore we do have to keep the humidity. There is a humidity issue. There is an ongoing operation of the pool to keep it in operational condition, and there is an ongoing cost as far as the maintenance of the building. If we close the building down, and basically did we effectively are going into a half year i'm going to round the numbers now 40 40 000 cost for a half year close down because we need those operational costs the operational pieces to keep operating to keep the pool restartable for want of a better word

And we can certainly run what those numbers might look like. I think that it would, you know, a lot of the people that use the pool use it year-round because it's available year-round and it's not available in other pools around here. So I think that would definitely impact the revenues. But we can try to run some scenarios.

I'm looking for alternatives anywhere we can find them.

Yeah, so we can see if we can pencil out what that might look like.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilor?

I wanted to talk about options of keeping the pool open and different ways that the parks and the pool can be revenue generating. I really think that... I have said this before, but I really feel like that needs to be a bigger focus on what we do. And not, while I understand the need for the levy, but not completely relying on it. Things like encouraging memberships to the pool and having it open for different hours, but If a membership is somewhat discounted or a membership drive, something like that. Advertisements and sponsorships. Excuse me. The mayor of Albany gives out, if you guys have seen our pool tokens, anybody seen our pool tokens? We have one hand in the audience. Okay. So not very many of you know that we have pull tokens and the mayor of Albany, he gives out pull tokens for their carousel, but they're sponsored. So businesses on the other side of the coin have, uh, their business either stamped or somehow printed on the other side. Um, and they give them out different events. He's always giving those coins out constantly. Um, but someone is helping advertise and, um, supplementing those then we're not just giving those out for they're not just giving those out for free um we have opportunities to have events for fundraising what else did i have um advertisements on the disc golf baskets at the park there's actually like people's ads on there but they've been there for years we haven't re-upped those we haven't um We haven't asked for new sponsorships. We have new cornhole boards, if you haven't seen those. Those could have sponsorships. There's several opportunities for... for ways to partner with community members if they wanted to, to try to advertise. We can sell food at the pool. I know we tried that for a little while, but it wasn't advertised very well. I think that merchandise and food are definitely ways to supplement. And those are things we also need to be exploring as ways to generate revenue. at our parks and pools.

Okay, thanks. Julia, can the pool be operated through the summer with general funds and their revenue?

I'm going to look to James to help me answer that. You're saying basically fund it through

I'm asking, is July 1st a hard cutoff stop? Can we operate the pool through the summer with general funds and revenue?

James, help me.

With subsidies from the general fund, the cuts that we've identified a couple more months, we could probably run it through them. It's just difficult to say something like that definitively because of the staff factor. When you know your job is going to end, you start looking for other jobs. So it's kind of hard to know definitively. It can stay open until a certain date when that staff know they have to be out by then.

Okay.

Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of our staff seasonal in nature? They are college students, high school students.

I wouldn't say it's seasonal in nature. We definitely have an uptick during the summer because we also have an increase in the staff availability and swim lessons and things like that. But we have staff year round that are high school students and things like that, as well as the pool director, pool manager. Okay, thanks.

All right, council, what else? Mr. Mayor. That's right.

James can you enlighten us on the endowment? One, how much is in it and how much are we allowed to use for essential things? Can it be added?

I believe the balance is somewhere around $200,000 to $250,000. It's an investment. So I think that may have been before the current. That was before they contributed the $100,000. So it's probably around $100,000 to $150,000, depending on how the market's done with it. Traditionally, it's only been used for capital projects. It's up to the people that run the endowment what they want to use it for.

i guess i just want to make sure because not everybody knows what the endowment is the endowment is um and actually i'm going to turn it over to elissa to explain it and how it was formed um that's okay so back in the 90s there was um it's mary madlinger i think was her name and she left money to the pool which is why it's covered and um it was in her will that this money would go to the pool. She wanted it to be a pool that was available year-round to the community. And so throughout the years, I'm sorry, I feel like I talk loud, but apparently not. So throughout the years, they have contributed money into the pool. Typically, it is only available for capital projects and not for operations.

Julia, I asked this question earlier, but I'm going to ask it again with the audience here. We have an open civil engineer position that's budgeted for the biennial. I asked about cutting that position and moving that money, and I was told that you advised against it. James, can you elaborate why?

Yeah, there's certain rules around collecting money for one use and using it for a different use. So most of the money in our enterprise funds is funded by our utility rates, the rates that people pay on their bill. And those are supposed to be used for the utilities, not for other purposes such as the pool.

I understand that. I guess my question is, how long will a position sit open with that budget being there when we can't bill it? Can't answer that.

And I guess I would say that's a different issue. I don't believe it can be used for the pool. It could potentially, in a roundabout way, be used for the parks because of the Public Works admin contribution. But it really, I mean, that's a different question, but that can't be used for the pool.

It's relevant towards the situation we're in right now. That's why I asked it. And so the second question, Julia, is, How many positions from the general fund have been added in the last three years?

James, you might have that more.

Sorry, how many positions? How many new positions that are siphoning from the general fund, for lack of a better word, have been added in the last three years?

I think one and a half.

And has staff considered if those positions are essential or not?

I've identified them as possible options.

Possible options as far as helping us get out of the situation?

A long-term solution, not the one-year solution.

Okay. Those are my questions for now, counsel.

Mr. Mayor, a clarifying question about the civil engineering job. James, are you saying that the entire job is funded by enterprise funds, or is there a percentage that is coming out of the general fund?

The fund is, sorry, that position is funded by the five public works departments, which four of them are enterprise completely, the other is parks. And I might also mention that without that engineering position, we are probably paying some consultants some fees that otherwise we wouldn't. So there are some costs there by not hiring the position.

Is there a way to suss out how much of those fees that we're paying Like, are we using the entire salary for those fees is what I'm asking. You don't have to answer that now, but that's just a question that I have. Like, we're not paying someone that entire salary right now, is that correct? For those?

Yeah, we're not, yeah.

For the consulting fees? Oh. It's hard to say. How much in consulting fees we're paying while the position is vacant, but I know that there are some. Yeah, it wouldn't total to the amount of the position, but it's impacted us. It slows down the projects from happening.

Sure. Is it possible for the council to get, you said that there's five funds that they come or that are transferred for that position, is it possible to get that number?

Yes.

Okay. Or excuse me, the number specifically that would go to parks? Yes. Because that could be, like you said, transferred to parks. If we are not using it for consultant fees. I don't need it now.

So you want that now or you're asking?

I don't need it now. I would just like to know what that number is at some point soon in the future.

And James, I have a follow-up question. Since you mentioned transfers, has the city recently changed the way they budget as far as the transfers go? I guess what I'm getting at is have we always paid for the operation of the pool the way we're paying for the pool today? When we transfer this fee for admin, for example, to admin now, the pool is now paying a portion of admin, correct? Yes. Have we always done it that way?

Since before I've been here, at least the last five years, I'd say yes. We've modified the methodology a little bit, but it's been similar.

So is it just now being exposed to us to show us where the pieces of the pie come from? It's always been in the budget document. Has there been itemized expenditures in the budget document to show the cost of what it takes to operate the pool? Does it show electricity? Does it show insurance? Does it show et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

Yes, a budget document.

My last question, what's the biggest user of the general fund? What department takes the most of the general fund?

The expenditure side is the police department.

Right. Okay, I'm going to stop there unless council has any further questions. I think a lot of this will be hashed in previous meetings. I want to give the rest of the community an opportunity to weigh in. So is council okay with that? Any further questions, staff, Julia?

Well, I just wanted to note, I think you alluded to it, that you're not making any decisions this evening. What we're hoping, we got a lot of questions and we'll get more information for council. And as you take feedback, letting us know what you want more information on so that we can have another work session and hash that out before you ultimately make decisions.

Okay, thank you. Mayor? Councilor Carey. I think we need to really take this opportunity to look honestly at what didn't connect with the voters right now.

Okay, that's what I intend to do. So what I'd like to do, folks, is try to limit your comments. You know, typically the council minutes are three minutes. I'm not going to hold tight to that, but let's just remember that everyone else here and there, like I have an opportunity to speak. So if you'd be brief in your comments, that'd be great. And do we have a, how are we going to do this?

I guess we need you to close the work session.

Okay, I'm sorry. Technicality. All right, with that, the work session is closed and town hall is open. Hold on a second.

And so with the town hall, no need to get up. Melanie and Howard are going to be walking around and handing the mic to people. Alyssa will be... Okay. Are we timing? Do you want us to use the timer or just ask people?

We can. I'm just asking everybody to be respectful of everyone's time. And the other piece to that is really what we do when we receive public comment at the council level. It's not an exchange per se. It's just that you all have an opportunity to share this. And if we feel that council is compelled to respond to you, great. But hopefully there's not a necessity to answer a direct question. We'll see how it plays out. That's what I really want you all to have an opportunity to give feedback. So does that work?

Yes. And then we do have people virtually. And if time allows, we will take questions through the virtual.

What I want to make clarifying, I really like to have the citizens, state and residents be the majority of the feedback because there is an opportunity. They are the ones with the skin in the game, per se, on the tax levy. But everyone else is welcome. So let's start with that. Sure. So Mark, hold on a second. Let's let's. Let's raise your card if you want to speak to start with. All right, let's start with Noreen. Way up front. Howard, sorry, I didn't know you had the mic back there, but. Okay, I know, I know. I'll make sure I, sorry. So who's going to document the notes for staff? Staff's going to write down any ideas that come up? Recording it, perfect. Go ahead, Ms. Chamberlain, sorry.

Thank you. My name is Noreen Chamberlain. We've lived here in state in about 45 years. I've been swimming at the pool for over 20 years. We spent all day looking at the budgets for the pool and coming into the meeting tonight. To be honest, I feel sad. I feel really sad. Everybody in our family has been touched by this pool, whether it's swimming lessons or senior lessons or lifeguarding or, um, in so many ways. And I, it just saddens me to hear even the idea of having it close. I, it's really hard because I swim two to three days a week now and Larry's beside me the other two days. And so that's five times a week we're using the pool, but I had a couple of questions. I'm going to go quick. Um, Right now, the levy went down. So are the state and residents, taxpayers, paying anything at this time for the pool? Is there a base? Can somebody answer that?

Yeah, go ahead. That's a fair question.

In that they paid property taxes that go to the general fund, and the general fund does provide a subsidy to the pool. There is a contribution fee. from state and taxpayers to the pool. But it's basically that $120,000-ish.

Okay, so there's a little bit left in there. Okay, so basically when you're operating a business, you're operating a pool, you have two ways to go. One is to increase revenue and cut expenses. Okay, so We tried increasing the revenue. That didn't work too well. But there are some things. Julia, I don't know if you can do it, but can you put up the pool revenue sheets up there, the budgeting, the circles, and also the expenditures?

I noticed today that

The pool, first of all, the pool has revenues. The parks do not. Am I correct on assuming that? We have no revenues for the park. Okay, the pool budget is about, I don't know exactly. You have different numbers from some of this online and some of what you said tonight. About $900,000 a year. But the parks have a much higher budget. they're about 1.5 million. And I was looking at that thinking, oh my gosh, how do the parks have such a high budget and how does our pool have such a low budget? How could we be lower because we have so much more personnel and everything else? And I don't have answers for all this, but I would just say that that's one area definitely to look at. Maybe our parks, you know, we can't have quite as much If it's okay, Larry has three minutes, too, and I'm going to use some of his, all right?

Real quick, there's a lot of folks here. Go ahead, real quick.

I'll be real quick.

I'll give you two minutes of Larry's three minutes. There you go.

So I guess that's one question. The other thing is, in looking at the budgets online that you had, I noticed that staff was 57%. Have we thought about cutting hours? in my mind and I don't know about everybody here but losing the pool is the worst thing we could have happen so what if we cut the hours in half I mean or whatever you know we have to to come up with it but something where we have a place to go we can take ourselves our children on and on And so I know staff is one of the highest expenditures. And so if we cut down on the hours, we can't cut down on the insurance liability, you know, on and on chemicals. I mean, you got to have everything. So I would propose the idea of shorter time. And, um, the other thing I guess is the increased fees. Many people here are from out of area. And I can't tell you how many people have told me that they're ready to pay more. They will pay more. We checked with, for instance, the courthouse fitness center in Salem. They will take your, um, silver sneakers, silvers and fit, whatever. And, um, you add $45 as a surcharge. And that sounds a little bit unfair, but you know what? When gas goes up, we pay surcharges on fuel for all kinds of things. So maybe adding that too. The other thing I noticed in your budget is like swimming lessons bring in 22%. Right now, seniors are bringing in 1%. Hey, we're cheap, okay? We can do better. You know, we got to do better. We're going to lose our pool if we don't. So-

appreciate it, I think what we're going to do is counselor patty I agree idea we're gonna go row by row so carrie.

carrie sessions covered bridge cafe um we don't have business license in our town. I know I would be willing to do a yearly license on my business and if every business in town. Had to have a business license. Maybe we could come up with some fast cash. Also would be more than willing to sponsor and do what we can. As a business person, it's very obvious it's not looking good. You don't grow money. So I would maybe focus on how we can come up with the money because it doesn't sound like we can shift it around.

okay anyway my two cents thank you mark mark's in the front row right here sorry howard doesn't know everybody neither do i but i try uh mr mayor and council thank you for being here and taking the time uh as ed deal's senior advisor still i'm perfectly aware of the anti-tax climate in oregon right now um for possible changes its magnitudes You know, we need more than three minutes to do this. First of all, a biennial budget doesn't allow council the time to really look at things and respond to crises. I know it saves staff time and money, but the annual review process is something that's important. Number two, what does it actually cost to run the pool? I've looked at the 140 pages and I can't find the granular detail. Secondly, You know, if we raise fees and we get less people, that's great. If we close the pool, we'll have even less people. Lake Oswego charges $768 for an annual pass per resident and $1,182 for a non-resident. Independence charges $12 a month to the utility bills to the pool. Ontario just raised a million dollars on their pool. How do we do that? How do we maintain... Private equity companies right now are buying community pools right and left, just like they bought plumbing companies, HVAC companies, whatever. May or may not be a good thing, but it does keep our pool alive. How do we entertain? And I've got a whole list of public equity or private equity companies looking at buying pools. You know, how do we keep the pool going? You know, the FTEs. In 2023, we had three FTEs funded. Today we have six. The facilities manager is $94,000 with a burden of about $150,000. That's a significant chunk of the deficit right there. I know it's horrible to have to lay off people, but if we close the pool, we're going to have to lay them all off. Thank you.

Thanks. Anybody else in the first row? We can move on to the second row. Howard, please. Anybody in the second row over there?

good evening loren mulligan i live on eagle street um i appreciated the question about hearing from the public about why the levy failed and i think from my perspective and what i heard the number was just too high and lacking an explanation of why it doubled right if the levy was working for the pool and the parks to be running for the last five years why in the heck would it go up that much and the communication just wasn't there for people to understand why the significant increase. So my question to council would really be what would an ongoing operations levy rate be excluding capital improvements with the suggestion that those capital improvements could be line item doubt, And then that could be the focus of fundraising by people who are outside of our taxpaying district to help make up the difference. The taxpayers of Staten keep the pool operational and running. The users of Staten from Almsville and Turner and Sublimity and others help make up the difference to keep our parks and pools in good working order and be good neighbors and friends.

Great question. Thank you. Anybody else in the second row? I think over here. Oh, go ahead. Right there. Go ahead.

Hi, I'm Donna Holloway. And I was thinking that my family has really enjoyed that pool. And my grandson is one of the lifeguards there. And he has gone to college and used the funds to help him out. And it'd be so sad to see the pool closed. And when my husband went with me to watch him in the swim meets, when he was on the swim team, my husband had cancer and he went there anyway and he died, but he still said that was some of his best times. when he was there at the pool to watch the swim meets. So it means a lot to people in our community to keep that pool open. And I was wondering also how come they can't have another levy and lower the price down at the levy.

I think that was one of the options that was presented tonight. So that'll be discussed.

My husband's not here to take a minute, but I did just want to mention, I would be curious to know when I say the true cost of an operations levy, of course, taking into account that 20 to even 30% inflation that has happened over the last five years, it has to be enough money to make it through the next five years. So we're not having another town hall. I did just want to be reasonable about that. And also call council's attention to the fact that if you address that price hike and lower it down with clear communication about how you came to that number, there's a lot of support in this room. And I feel really confident that it would pass. And I would ask you to please put it back on the ballot.

Okay. Hi. I'm really loud there. Sorry. I'm Jack Burnett. I am not a resident of the city. I've been involved with this pool for over 15 years. I am the president of the Friends of the Pool. So in answer to council, yes, Friends of the Pool absolutely would work with that. I am also the president of the swim team. And yes, swim team would absolutely work with the city on building partnerships and so on. I think the last speaker's ideas are very good. And I think we would get a lot of support from outside the community as far as major repairs, which we have in the past. We've been able to raise money for pumps or chairs for blocks for all sorts of things. We also should be looking at our school districts. We have two school districts that use this pool, our city one and the Cascade School District, as well as we have a private school, the Christian school, that also uses the pool, who I think would partner with us as well in supporting this pool. Oregon is very pool poor. I've been in the swimming community a lot. I officiate nationally, and I can tell you this pool is an incredible treasure that you won't find in most communities. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Clayton Tebibaugh. I'm a pretty new resident to Staton. I moved here in November and I have greatly enjoyed this pool over the last few months. I have two sons that were not good swimmers and I've been taking them frequently trying to get them more practice. I don't know the full situation. I'm definitely trying to learn and get up to speed. One of my ideas that I'd just like to present is, is it possible to have some of the staffing handled by community members on a volunteer basis? Would we be able to have community members, for example, be lifeguard certified and be working as a zero cost or volunteer basis to potentially offset some of that cost? I understand that's a small chunk.

of the total but it's just an idea that i'd like to present as a potential option and thank you thanks hello my name is ashley wingett i'm a state resident grew up here and i did swim lessons here as a kid i did swim team as a teenager lifeguarding was my very first job this pool is very important to this community I know it is and so the partnerships that we're talking about I think is a really great idea school partnerships for sure anybody who can use and will use the pool should have some sort of sponsorship or partnership um inclusion I feel like that could be a really great way private funding grants I mean The Kroc Center. Sweet Home Lebanon, as far as I know, is partnership with schools as well. Can we do some kind of promotion for the elementary schools for these kids to get life skills? Very important life skills to learn how to swim to prevent drowning in public places and rivers and lakes and streams as well. So could we partner with the other private schools or public schools to offer some kind of option for classes to do this, that would, I know, also increase entertainment for our students at our schools too. So maybe they could get swim lessons as part of their education.

Hi, I'm Phyllis Bond, and I live outside of Dayton, but I come here several times a week to swim. And, oh, I could, I, okay, oh, that better? Okay. I'm Phyllis Bond, and I live outside of Staten in the McClay area. And I come to the pool two or three times a week to swim. And I felt that that 1% that you showed on the income part, I didn't feel that that was a great representative of how much the seniors pay. How many people in this room are seniors going to the pool and have like silver sneakers or... the fit you know those kind of fit programs things like that well in the pool uh when i'm there it's about at least 50 to 75 percent and so i'm just wondering if you're billing them enough to get all this income that we think we're providing see this is the thing we think we're paying And if we're not, if you're not billing the silver and fit and the silver sneakers and all that, that's income you're missing big time. And so I just think that that's something you need to look at. It's worth filling these programs. And then in addition, just like this wonderful lady over here said, is add a premium to people who would like to even, I mean, even if they live here, they could add to that because it's, I mean, people are swimming for free and that that's really not our intent. We want to do our share.

So Julie, you want to comment on that?

Uh, yeah. And thank you. Um, yes, it is low. Um, we actually have recently done some audits and, um, changed some processes and that number, um, is increasing. We actually assumed those increases when we lowered the levy from the November to the May cycle. So yes, we are doing much better at that, but it's still not going to be a lot. I will say, and Melanie can chime in and correct me, the silver sneakers pays a fraction of what the actual costs are because it's an insurance program and they have 250 per visit is what SilverSneakers pays us. And we're not allowed to charge more for like out of district or out of city. We are working, if the pool does remain open, we will be renegotiating that. But we're talking more like maybe $4, not what it actually costs for a drop-in visit or a monthly visit.

I actually I did call the courthouse and they said we can negotiate if you were to tell them our pool is going to close and hundreds of seniors are not going to get served in this community, you might be able to renegotiate that contract on your behalf.

Thank you. That's all good.

I just, since we have an audience here, so if, if the senior, I have a show of hands, if the senior program were to go away and you had to pay the either drop in rate or the, you know, if you bought a pass, would you still like the show of hands of people that just said that you do, would you still come to the pool? Would you still be able to? Okay. So the audience said gas prices make it better to stay here. Okay. We're just curious about that because like Julia said, even if we were to negotiate higher, it's not going to be at the rate that we would need or that even our current rate or if we had to raise rates, it wouldn't touch that. So that's just a curiosity and a conversation that we've been having. So thank you.

Okay. Let's keep going.

I'm Elaine Wagner. And I live over at Shaw, like probably many of us seniors who take advantage of the swim aerobics. We're not in perfect health anymore, a lot of us, and I have a bad back and it has kept me from having to have back surgery. I've been in the pool for almost two years. I go three to four days a week. And I know that I speak for many of us that are here and many of us who do not live in district. We would be willing to pay more in order to not have to go somewhere else like in Salem.

I appreciate both you young ladies participating. I know you came in the last fall, so I appreciate that as well. Come on, Howard. Get that crowd riled up.

Get fired up out there.

I miss the... My name is Luana Bellarive. I do live in Staten. I've lived here for about 11 years now. I've taken my grandkids off and on. They lived with me for Eight years, I raised them, and we participated in the pool as members. I just had a few thoughts. I did miss, I apologize, the first five minutes, so I don't know what was shown. I do recommend a sponsorship program. I think a lot of our, I think our business community is great here and would be more than willing to participate in that. And then we can recognize those who sponsor with a plaques or some kind of recognition in the newsletter or a love me wall, if you will. And also, I'd like to see an opportunity the city to accept donations through perhaps the utility payment program. Have another line item you can add $100 towards the pool fund. And I liked what this other lady over here said about the levy. It wasn't very well explained. And I thought that my thoughts were five years was just too long, but maybe that's typical. But I do think it could have been explained better, and it would have had more support. And I think it would be important to be a lot more clear as far as carving out what the operation expenses are, rather separate from the capital projects are. And then maybe some of those capital projects can wait. Or we can fund those through donations. And also, I would like to see, and maybe it's online. I'll have to go home and see if it's on the website. But what are the staff hours by month? And also, what is the attendance by month? And I like the idea of doing income generating events. I think that would be just a great way to pull the community together and participate. And then I also think there should be an increase in fees.

Thanks.

Good evening, Casey Falconer. I think most of you know me. I want to kind of go a different direction here. Council and staff, you have a lot of great ideas. I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to all the hard work that you do that isn't seen. There's a lot of social media out there that a lot of assumptions to council and staff. I, for one, greatly appreciate everything you do. You've got some hard decisions coming up. I hope we can work through it. Thank you.

My name is Kathy Kinsley. We moved here nearly three years ago. And since I joined the pool two years ago, my life has greatly improved, I'll say, physically and mentally. Great bunch of people down there and great staff. I just have a question about the Silver Sneakers programs. Did you say that you're not allowed to charge money above and beyond that privately to the public if if their memberships come from from those programs.

Yes, that's correct. You are welcome to donate any time outside of that we just can't charge you.

I mean the trees. I have been a member of this pool and use it for over 40 years. And I know this pool closed before. Have you been in touch with that to see how did they reopen it and what did they do? Would that be in any way helpful to you? Because I know we walked around with open the pool and so on and did that. I'm sure that we were not the only thing. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. And nobody, oh my gosh. Okay, anyway, I used to pull, we used to pull for over 40 years. In the beginning, we paid out of pocket. And since we lived out of town, we paid more than state. And so we were used to that. And still it was worth it to us because our health is very important. And in my case, The pool is the only thing that I can rely on to keep myself moving. I'm 88 years old, and so therefore I do definitely need it. But anyway, that's one of the suggestions is that go ahead and just, I think most of the seniors will pay more just to have the pool available to them. And the other suggestion is find out what the last time when the pool closed, how did they open it again and see if that won't be helpful because I know it can be reopened again. So please try and do that, okay? Thanks.

I am Earl McCollum. Can you hear me? I'm 93 years old. I've been using that pool for 20 years, and I contribute my current health to being able to be there twice a week for that entire 20 years. You are doing a wonderful thing with that pool, and you don't realize what it means to people like me. Thank you very much for having that pool.

Howard, can you come back after that? Go ahead.

Okay. Hi, my name is Jennifer Godfrey. I am a fifth generation state and resident, a former volunteer on the budget committee. And I learned how to swim in the uncovered pool days when it had the old diving boards. So my sisters were lifeguards. They taught swimming lessons. I survived a riptide one time because of a trick I learned in swimming lessons. So I am very grateful for the swimming pool. I currently use it twice a week at the aqua aerobics. I remember when I was younger that the swimming pool was kind of a community vibe. It wasn't so much relegated to just the seniors and the swim team. It had more of a community personality and a presence. And it was when you did the summer reading program, guess where your end of summer celebration was? You had a big swimming pool party and the whole community kind of showed up. there were those token things in the parade that they would give out on the parade days. It was a person in the community. The pool was part of the community and it had more of that ownership and sense of thing. And I think that if we can kind of find a way to return it to its presence in the community, as opposed to this thing that's like shoved off in the corner. I think that would go a long way towards the community support of those ballot levies, because in those conversations on the state and community chat thing, that's what you really felt was, it's not mine, it's theirs. And it's getting back to the, it's mine. It belongs to the community and it's all part of us. I would love to see sponsorships, Frank Lumber, Freres Lumber, Summit Cleaning and Restoration, all the big players in town. They could help be part of those celebrations and they could have the big banners and they could own the pool for us and like do those big things. I would love to help with fundraising and do those kinds of things. I was never asked. I was never asked. I wasn't asked to go door to door. I wasn't asked to help gather signatures. I wasn't asked to donate. I wasn't asked.

Tag, Juniper. Now you are. Appreciate that.

I can't stand up that easy. My name's Jan Weakley, and I can remember when the pool first opened. My children were one of the first ones in the pool. And my babysitter lived right across from the pool. They spent all summer in that pool. I don't know why I paid a babysitter. I live out of district, so I have always paid extra. for all this until I got on senior sneakers. And I did not realize that you were only getting just a couple dollars because I would have been willing to pay more because I go three times a week and it keeps me moving. It's the one exercise that I can do. And I have fibromyalgia and I have neuropathy in my foot and can, hardly walk some days and that's when I feel free is in that water. And I would really be sad if we took it away. My daughter and son started swimming when they came to the pool when they were four and eight. And by the time the end of that summer, my daughter just turned five and she could swim the length of that pool because we had good instructors that taught them to swim. And it was safer for them to come to the pool than to go to the river or someplace where they didn't have anybody to be a lifeguard. swim team. They were on swim team, swam competitively for 10 years until they got into high school and then got busy. So I, um, I am more than willing to pay extra because if you close the pool, I'm going to have to drive someplace else. And, um, with the gas prices, the way they are, I'd rather stay here in state and support the facility here. So, uh, Let's see if we can find a way to, I mean, I paid out of district all those years and I'm willing to do it again. So let's see what we can do about keeping it open for us.

Thank you.

I'm not 93, but my body is. And so John here got me swimming. And I've been swimming at the pool for about 20 years at least. But as my body deteriorates, swimming is becoming one of the only things that keeps me going. And I look forward to it. And I'm one of those seniors that's certainly willing to pay more money. The other thing I just thought about, I've got a spouse that could get on Silver and Fit, but she's not doing anything with it. So I'm going to get her on Silver and Fit. So there's other people here that have a spouse on Silver and Fit or whatever. They could sign up at the pool, and you might get them down there at least once a month. But that generates a little income as well. So anyway, hopefully we can keep that thing going. And it's just livability. What an incredible town we live in here. But these are the kinds of things that just make this so much more livable and desirable to be in state.

I have one question. What was your name, sir? What's your name? Kevin, would you consider paying triple since you're a Yankees fan?

rhetorical question.

Hi, my name is Lisa. Wow, this is loud. So we moved here my mom, daughter and I about three years ago. And my nephew did not know how to swim at all after coming to the pool for about a couple like even days. He was so much better at swimming felt more comfortable. I, like many people, I'm sure have different elements. And one of them is fibromyalgia, neuropathy, and transverse myelitis, which mirrors like an MS. So I use it as physical therapy. And I know a lot of people do. I'm 31. My daughter is 10 and my mom is entering into her sixties. So it's definitely great for like all generations. And I feel that if it gets taken away, there's going to be a lot of less things for teens and different kids to to do because there's, let's face it, there's not a lot of stuff to do here. It's a great town, a great community, but I think that's definitely helps keep, helps keep kids out of trouble. And so that would definitely worried me.

My name is Steven Dalrymple. I'm a 23 year resident of Staten. Since my retirement in 2014, I've consistently swam 34 lengths of the pool three times a week. 40 minutes in the pool really builds stamina for me. That is critical. I'm 75 years old. I had a heart episode in 2018. It turned out that I had a 95% blockage to the back of my heart. When I was in the emergency room, the doctor said, your heart is strong. I said, well, I swim a half mile three times a week. He said, swimming saved your life. During COVID, when the pool was closed, I did a power walk, ended up with a bone marrow problem in my hip with temporary osteoporosis, and I was on crutches. So a power walk is out. Swimming is the thing that is going to keep me healthy. There are several men who swim or exercise that have knee or shoulder replacements. It's very critical for them to be able to be in the pool. You will be losing a huge enhancement to our lifestyle in Cambridge to lose a pool. As someone has already said, it's unique for similar sized communities. It's a drawing card for new residents and a source of pride. And it would take millions of dollars to replace it. I have three questions. First question, have you studied how the pool schedule affects pool attendance? The change in managers that we had several years ago, we had a huge change in schedule and attendance is obviously down. Before the schedule change at the noon hour, there were often three swimmers in a lane and often they'd have to add a fourth lane for the lap swimming during that period of time. And now it's not possible to swim during the noon hour. I'm sure there are people around town that would come to the pool during the noon hour to swim if that were an opportunity. have you actually initiated any polling surveys, collected any data on the times that people would swim or exercise to be able to make the schedule fit the most number of people? It seemed to me that the schedule changes were really a monetary thing because you could hire kids from the high school to come in in the mornings. And but that really limited the amount of people that are in the pool. The second question is, what have you done to promote the pool? People often ask me whether the pool is open and what their times and schedule is. You often announce community events in the flyer that their companies are water bill. Have you considered promoting the pool with that flyer? There's so much information here from people that use this pool, testimonials. Why can't we have some of those get out to the public so that when they look at voting for the levy, that they see how important and critical it is to many people that live in our community. And what about the future of our youth? What about our swim teams? When I was teaching, the service clubs were bringing elementary children in during school hours to learn how to swim. I don't know if they're doing that anymore, but what a service. I was fortunate. My school district in California, the city council built a new pool. And from seventh grade through 12th grade, we were bused to that pool for about six weeks every year for swimming lessons. With all the water recreation we have in Oregon, learning to swim is really important for our children. Thank you. Thank you.

So just an opinion here from Sophia Winkler. She says, I like the pool. I think we should keep it open for kids and adults to create memories and Or how much their parents love them.

Hello, I'm Dan Posvar. I've probably been swimming longer than most of you guys. I was one of the first lifeguards down the pool.

I'm sorry about that.

My daughter... was a lifeguard down at the pool, put herself through college, went through the pool. A couple of things that I've noticed, I don't have answers. There's been some fantastic ideas in this room. I don't have answers how to spend. I live out of, I have a small farm out in Jordan out here, so I didn't get a vote on the levy. One of the things I noticed, so the levy didn't have a very good turning. I mean, we had about, what, 30%, Is there a way to change when the levy is we vote on it? Is there a way to promote more voters? You know, I just don't have those answers. But I think there's some fantastic ideas. You guys have a tough job ahead of you trying to figure out how to keep the pool open. I would hate to see it close. It's been kind of a lifesaver for me. I swim. three to five times a week. In the mornings, most of the ladies, most people out here see me down at the pool in the mornings. But work hard at getting that pool and keeping it open for us, if you would. Thank you.

You guys want to speak? Anybody here? You guys?

Yeah, good evening. My name is Nick Armenakis, and I'm not a state resident, but I am a sublimity resident, and I'm also a board member on the swim team. I wanted to share that my son uses this pool and he swims on the swim team, practices five days a week. He's 11 years old and he spends a lot of his life in the pool. He also looks forward to swimming for state in probably about three or four short years when he makes it to high school. The loss of the pool would be a huge detriment. And I think, frankly, we would see a loss of some of our youth to other territories that really have SWMM programs, like Silverton, for example. I just want to reiterate, I think it was brought up at the beginning of the work session, that a special district was something that was being considered. I think anything that we come up with from a funding perspective in the short term, we really need to keep an eye on that special district as a longer term solution. And I know that's going to take time, energy, and funding in and of itself. But I know as a sublimity resident, I'd be happy to pay taxes to keep this pool alive. So I think everybody in my row, at least over on this side, has kids that would be impacted and affected by the loss of the pool because they're part of that swim team. So appreciate the time.

Hi, I'm Amy Sutkus. I'm an Almsville resident. I'm a mom. I'm a physician. I'm a parent of a swimmer on the manta rays swim team. Um, and I'm a board member of the manta rays. Um, I just wanted to stand in strong support of the pool, obviously, or in all those capacities, we would not have moved to this community 15 years ago if there wasn't a pool. And it's been a really integral part of our life as a family. My kids both did swim lessons, both graduated up into the swim team. My daughter's 14 and she's been on the team for seven years. And it's really something to see the kids from our little swim team with one or two coaches go up against these teams from Portland with hundreds of kids, a whole staff of coaching and compete at the top levels in our state. It is incredible to see that. makes me very proud to live here. So I don't have any solutions either, but as an UMSVIL resident, I would say I was thinking we should have a levy for our own community. Don't know how that would go, but I really think there's a lot of support in the outlying communities and Staten does not have to do this alone. You know, I don't know how that works on your end of things, but it's super important. This is a very livable place because of the pool, the parks and so on. So appreciate your giving us this chance to talk. Thank you. Yep.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Ashley Fordham and I am the mother of a swimmer who represents Staten. And while I don't live in this community, what I can tell you is that those kids have the most incredible pride to represent your community on a very large stage. Our son has had the privilege of representing Staten, not just on a state level, but a national level. And it's a really incredible thing to watch our students come together and represent this very small but mighty community. And I recognize that we have some budgetary issues. The current funding challenge is serious, but it feels solvable. There hasn't been one comment in this room that says we can't come together and make this happen. So I just have a couple things. I would really encourage the council to reject decommissioning at this time. I recognize that there's a serious but solvable challenge. I would encourage us to adopt maybe a one year stabilization funding strategy to keep the pool open, to allow time for the district to happen. The other thing is, I don't know, has the city at all thought about putting together a task force of some of us here in this room who would be so happy to go to work to preserve this pool? And lastly, I'd just really encourage you to consider reallocating funding to keep it alive until we can solve this problem, because it is solvable. And I can sense that there is a willingness from this community and outside communities to make that happen.

Hi, I'm Julie Boxler. I'm a resident and I find it funny that we have a parks and pool and we haven't heard one person yet speak for the parks and yet that budget is higher than the pool budget. So maybe the city council could look at some reallocation where we have quite a few parks and only one pool and bring some money in to help keep that pool open. The other thing is I would like to just challenge everyone in the room, especially the silver sneakers, to go and get a membership at your next exercise class. do a monthly membership outside of your silver sneakers and show that you support the state and pool. And then maybe the city council could look and ask the pool how many people have signed up in the next two weeks. So we could all put our money where our mouths are and go up and sign up for memberships, even if we don't swim. And lastly, I just wanted to say, we used to have like a triathlon and I think the pool put it on and like those fun runs, those are big money makers, like 15, $20,000, um, So maybe silver sneakers or the almsville community could put on a on a pool and bring some of the Community back as a fundraiser and just showing. What the pool does for a lot of people there's also senior nights that they'll do like at the courthouse different high schools will go and rent out the facility for. a senior skip day or the senior graduation night. I don't know that we do any of those, but those could be fundraisers. Friday night beach parties for the kids, high school kids, giving them some entertainment besides not a lot of things to do around town. That's it, thank you.

Howard, Howard, can you come back up here real quick? Yep. Second row, please.

My name is Corby Minnick. I've been a member of the pool for about 25 years now. And I'm a member of the Friends of the Pool. For anybody that wants to make a donation, we've got a donation box. We've bought a lot of things for the pool. There are Another question I got, how many of you councilmen have used the pool? We've bought a lift chair. They're friends of the pool. We've bought new drinking fountains there. We've bought a lot of the equipment. Yeah, we're over 100,000 that we've raised. So if anybody wants to make any donations, put it in the donation box. Thank you.

I'm Michael Oz. from city of staten and i am also on the board for the endowment one of the questions you asked at your work session was what funds can be used for the fund was started in 1998 by the city of staten city council they transferred roughly two hundred thousand dollars into the endowment over the years about every other year We have supplied between 30 and $60,000. We've remodeled both of the locker rooms. We've helped supply maintenance projects. The fund is limited by the original endowment contribution. to capital and maintenance. It is not allowed to be used for operation expenses. We currently have $162,000 in our funds. This last year for this current biennium, we did supply $100,000 to the city for various maintenance projects. Thank you.

You guys want to speak? Anybody here? Anybody here?

Hi, my name is Sue Hatton. I'm a resident here in Staten for the last almost 45 years. I remember when they put the roof on the pool, and a wonderful man named Kurt Ward did it. And I think if the pool closed, he would be turned around in his grave. because he was so supportive. He was a swimmer back in his day. He was a lifeguard down in San Jose. And he really believed that all the kids should swim. So please, think about some of these ideas that have been mentioned tonight. The multi-purpose, the different races we could do, the promotions and what have you. There's a lot of good ideas, and so let's not lose our pool. Thank you.

My name is Curtis Brown. I have been stating for the last 30 years. I have worked for NORPAC starting in 1978. In 2000, I got hired as the year-round club coach and then also hired by Andy Gardner at the high school for the year-round swim team at the high school. I've been doing that for 27 years, and I've also been doing 20 years with A lot of these kids I coach, we go to California, Washington, Idaho, and they're 10, 11 years old. And like they say to some of the parents, we compete against some of the top teams in the state. And it would be a real shame that these kids that work so hard. We're a very small club. We've come up to like 50 on our club. Downward down about 40. But we're always rising. I remember starting in 21 after the COVID. When we started, we got about 60%. I talk loud anyhow. But, yeah, we have such a good community, and I'd hate to see this swim team that I've built over 27 years just go away. I'm 64 going on 65. I got hired at the pool four years ago as a lifeguard so I could help Monday mornings to open up so people can come in and swim and do lap swim and aerobics on Mondays. And I dedicate a lot of my time even to swim without any money. And it's not about the kids in this community. It's about the people in this community. I know I'd have no solutions to what's going to go, but I just hate to see my career end after I've built for 27 years to keep this going. So that's all I have to say. Do you guys like to say anything?

Hello. My name is Philip LaRue. I live downtown in Staten. And like everybody else here, I love this pool and I love this town. I want to thank the city council and the city staff for everything you've done, trying to get multiple levees passed. Unfortunately, they've failed. I don't know why that is. None of the people here have spoken to say why anybody voted against it. But the majority of people in this town have. So I would ask everybody in this room, go talk to your neighbors. Ask them to vote yes on the next levy. That way we can keep the pool because we live in a democracy. There are elections. Elections have consequences. The people in this room have voted yes. The majority of people outside this room have said no. They're not hearing what you're saying today. Please go knock on doors. Go talk to people. Put the message out. If you share the stories that have been shared here today, I'm moved. I want to vote yes again. I want to keep the pool going. I don't know how we can do that. the budget shortfall, if we keep the pool going, other people are going to lose their jobs. We're going to lock the bathrooms at the park and people are going to be still needing to use the restroom and have nowhere to go. And that will be another mess that nobody is there to clean up. I don't know how we live with that either. I don't know what the solution is. I thank you for working forward and trying to continue to do this. And We just got to keep trying. I don't know. Thank you.

Thanks, Howard. I'm Desiree Jackson. I'm not a resident of Staten, but my two boys are, and I've recently moved back to SIO, and I've never been so sad that I don't live in Staten because I could not vote for this levy. I moved back to Staten with the intent of making a difference in this community after being gone for 15 years. Brian, our mayor, and I had the opportunity to sit with eight outstanding high school seniors in the last month that were nominated for Future for Citizens awards. And I questioned every one of them. If you were to win this award and come back to your community after school or whatever it is you do when you leave and you come back to make it better, what do we need? And resoundingly, every single one said gathering space. We need community space for kids to get together. That is a pool. That is parks. That is community space. And I know we're better than this. I know there are solutions out there. So I'm going to turn it over to David in just a second, but I want to just, you know, we're better than this. Our kids, ourselves, our parents, we need social connection, the physical wellbeing and the life skills that are taught by being in parks and a pool. and i think that if we all work together and continue to come together as a proud community like i know we are i graduated in 1999 and andy gardner told me you've got to leave and then come back to make it better and that's what all of us in this room are here tasked with doing is to make it better so i just thank you for showing up tonight as community members because I know there are solutions and I know we'll get there. We just got to get creative and solve the problem. And again, as our neighbor here to my left said, be really curious. Ask your neighbors, why didn't you vote for the levy and maybe open those conversations up and tell them, oh, yeah, but it wasn't just about the pool. It's not just about bathrooms at the park. Right. Make sure that you're telling your personal stories so that they'll vote yes the next time. Or maybe they'll vote yes for something better like David's going to talk about.

Hi there. My name is David Holcomb. I'm a resident with my wife and kids in Staten. We have been for eight years. I'm currently the athletic director and assistant principal at Staten High School. And as I sit with Curtis Brown in my office and I think about his amazing career of 27 years here in state and I can honestly tell you, I wish I could have Curtis for 27 more. As I walked the hallways at state in high school it's not just the swimmers but it's all of our athletes that make the Community better, they are some of our brightest and best kids our campus. We know that when students are engaged and when they're involved in athletics or clubs or sports or activities, they attend school more. Our state has an incredibly low attendance rate. We have chronic absenteeism because kids don't feel connected to their schools, especially when they reach high school. And so we see this pool go away and it's one less thing for students to have access to at the high school. I think about this amazing student and athlete next to me and the school records and the memories that she's made. as she's broken five records this year, as she broke four records last year, opportunities for someone like herself in the next generation that will not have them if this pool is closed. I think about the students who contacted me and families who's contacted me, telling me that they're gonna transfer to other school districts if the pool is closed. That's not an option and it can't be an option. I know that we're facing a budget shortfall. I know the school district is in the same boat with a biannual issue. I know we have teachers and I know we have staff that are living through that reality right now. But we should be looking towards creative solutions. I hear a lot of folks in this room that don't live in Staten that would resoundingly vote yes if they had the opportunity. But they don't have the opportunity and we've heard it a few times, but a special district just makes sense, I know that that's a lot of work, I know it takes time it takes dedication and you all do an amazing job for our city. But that seems like an honorable thing to put the efforts and the time towards in the coming months to make sure that this can happen so that kids have opportunity. So that our elderly population has a place to go and be active, so that our Community members have a place to be in Community. because I look at this town and I don't see space for people to be in community. And I don't want to see an opportunity for our kids to go away so that they have less reason to show up to school, they have less reason to achieve in the classroom, and they have less reason to aspire for their future. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Leah Ellerbe. I'm a Spilomonee resident. I've lived here for five years, and I'm a part of the St. Mary's swim team, the St. High School swim team. And I am a lifeguard at the pool. And I believe that the pool is essential for our community. And I believe it's essential because the first thing I'm going to say, I've been swimming there for five years. Ever since I moved here, I've been living other places. I'm a military child and every other community I've lived in has not had a great team. And it's always been better at stayed in. I've built life to long friendships. I've just built better connections with everyone because of swim and just vicariously being with them and having a goal and becoming a better person just because of them. I also work at the pool. It's my first job. I currently work there and I teach kids how to swim and I had the opportunity of teaching this disabled girl how to swim. She still can't swim, but we do it for physical therapy and I believe she benefits tremendously because of it. She has better mobility and a better life that she can live. If she did not go into the pool or even attempt, she wouldn't have been living the life that she is right now. She has so many problems. And I am so happy I have the opportunity to teach her. It has just improved her quality of life. As many as these other seniors in this pool who use it and everyone, it teaches kids how to swim and be safe. within lakes, rivers, other pools. And having this opportunity for everyone to at least better their quality of life or learn how to swim is essential. And I believe if we even open up costs of the pool to sublimity, Amsville, state and everywhere, my parents and everyone in the community around me would be willing to pay and keeping this open because the pool has saved their lives, whether you know it or not. And just being here, Listening to all of you guys speak has tremendously been amazing. And I believe we should keep sublimities and or state and school open because it impacts everyone around us and it keeps everyone out of trouble because state and essentially has nothing but the pool in the parks. And imagine living in state and being a grandparent or parent and not being able to take your kids to the park or letting them use the restroom or it deteriorating because you don't have the opportunity to do that. It would not make Staten a nice place to raise a family. And that's all what I have to say for today.

Hi, my name is Jalyn Dowell. I do live in Staten. And I just wanted to second what the gentleman up there said. I would be willing to volunteer on my days off. So I don't know if that's an option, but maybe we can look into it. I also know that some of the other pools, they take resources from insurance for physical therapy purposes. I don't know if that's something we already do, but maybe that would be helpful for the funds for people who maybe can't pay already. I also wanted to say too, that my partner would be willing to do some of the labor stuff for the parks. These are things that keep our kids out of trouble. We moved from Salem to get away from how bad it was. And if we take the resources from the kids, it's gonna be the same here. We have a growing population. We have two apartments that just went up by here. We're talking about more apartments. There's gonna be more children here and they need those things. And that's it, sorry.

My name is Diana Leff, and I'm a transplant during COVID to Oregon here. And I was taking notes all through, listening to everybody, and so I made some notes. And I was just wondering if anybody thought about getting pledges or grants from local businesses like doctors who have invested in sorry, vested interest in keeping people healthy. Maybe getting little stickers you put in the window saying, I supported the pool for a certain year, and then every year reviewing it. And then people can go and say, oh, this person supports the pool. And I'm really shocked that there is no business license here that could help fund these things. And more notes. Somebody mentioned merchandise or selling things at the pool. Towel rental. I know why a couple of times I've forgotten my towel and I would have done that. Or selling bags, gym bags, mugs, coffee cups, anything to help raise more money. Oh. And I don't know what all friends of the pool does, but if they're doing fundraisers and things, I'm thinking maybe they could raffle off like a limited edition, like three months, half a year, a year's swimming, you know, as a gift, a prize and swimming lessons as part of PE classes and even after schools. for the different schools to rotate through. Because when I lived in Alaska, they would bring in busloads from different schools on a rotating basis for the kids to learn swimming lessons. And I think that would be a good idea, too. I don't have kids in school here, so I don't know if you're doing that already or not.

Yeah, let me see.

Yeah, that's good. That's all that because a couple of my wrapped up together. But yeah, but I think I support the state and pool. I would if I had the authority from somebody, I wouldn't mind going around knocking on people's doors and businesses and selling them that little sticker to put in their window. I mean, it just makes sense to keep the pool open because I love the pool.

Thank you. Very good. Oh, go ahead.

Give me the budget. I cannot make the decision.

The city council makes the decisions.

City staff presents their budget. And they present their budget according to their policies that they want to have in place. And they present it to the city council and they either go along with it or they don't. There's been huge problems in the last couple of years on the way that process has gone. As Mark stated before he left, they switched to a biennial budget, which now leaves in this time of crisis, fiscal crisis right before the beginning of the fiscal year, they have no time to work on it because they already have a budget for two years that they budgeted in $780,000 that they didn't have. They have to look at the numbers and figure it out. I mean, we can talk about policy or I keep the bull open. I keep the parks open. But you can't use the pool as hostage to get a huge increase in tax revenue the other way. They just have to look at the numbers now and figure out what they're going to do. There's slide 24. Park operational costs total approximately $679,000. That is completely false. $679,000 is what the park budget would have been with all this increased revenue. It's not the cost. They just asked for it. The pool was operating at a .25 per thousand levy. I'll ask you this. We're here because it had been renewed at the end of five years. What if that had been a 10-year levy? Would city staff and council have shut it down and said, oh my God, no, we have to redo it and double everything to keep it going? No, we would have been right on singing along for another five years without this double ask. And that's what citizens saw. My neighbor brought it up too. Nothing was explained. doubled the parks budget, and immediately out of the gate said, if we don't get it, we're shutting things down. That was a terrible approach. And right now, the city does not have a legitimate budget, period. They have over $700,000 budgeted in that they're not going to get. And that affects not just the pool and the parks. It affects everything in the general fund. There's 124% of that park spot. Going back to the general fund would be $163,000 going back to administrative overhead. I mean, this was a great town hall. All of this needed to be aired. Everybody needed to express how much they liked the parks and pools, but it's all about numbers that they have to deal with.

um i just wanted oh lorraine mulligan i live on eagle street i just wanted to say there's been a lot of great ideas for long-term fixes but you guys are needing to make some immediate decisions about the coming fiscal year And in the options that were presented, I'm in support of moving the 15% franchise fee. It was the biggest chunk that could be taken. I'm making an assumption that it's 15% of a total franchise fee. Not that the franchise fee is 15% of the city budget. Is that correct? Okay. So I think that that's a reasonable bucket of money that can be used to help patch it for the coming 26, 27 fiscal year, because there's a lot of passion about finding long-term solutions. So as a citizen, I advocate for that. Also make it very clear. I am not aligned with folks that are against the levy in general. that i am not aligned with that perspective i'm very supportive of parks in this community we are daily users of the parks i have to shout them out because it's been a lot of pool talk our parks are great we love the pool too but um for your immediate needs and what you're considering that big chunk of money plus some of the other smaller things i also don't want to see maintenance of the parks cut Because I think it's a very fair point that if we're not maintaining like bathrooms in the parks or having folks there, you know, like reducing mowing. Okay. But making sure that you're maintaining restrooms for public sanitation is really important to me. So please don't cut that line. Thanks.

All right. Who did I skip in the back?

Hello, everybody. My name is Elijah Payne, and I'm currently employed at the Staten Pool. I'm going to leave emotion mostly out of this because realistically, what the thing is, is the pool is a very critical part of our community. For example, I currently teach swim lessons, and I had a kid jump in the pool on the very first day and sink straight to the bottom like a rock. And if I wasn't there, if that wasn't a pond and a river, that could have gone very south. And we've all seen the news, all the bodies found. And this is a great way to avoid all that. And it also really strengthens our community for the long term. We need to look at all the kids who are looking at big scholarships. to make their life what they want it to be, especially a lot of the swim teamers that I've seen go through our system. I think that it's very, very important. And if we keep this pool going, it causes a big ripple effect. If people are coming back and reminiscing, then they'll strengthen our community even more. So not only do we need to think in the long term, we also need to think in the short term and we really need to get community involvement and people really seeing the long term effect that this pool has on people in the community.

Hi, my name is Sylvia Payne and I think of revenue. I have a gym membership and I go to the pool and I purchase the monthly membership. If the pool said you can do like an auto membership where it deducts every month for $5 less, I would take it. And I think that's a way to get people to kind of commit to the pool, just knowing that it's going to be taken out at the 15th of every month. And just like the gym, sometimes I don't use it. but I don't cancel it either because I know I'm coming back. And that might be something to think about in terms of trying to adjust how you do memberships and revenue and doing these slight decreases as an incentive to get people to purchase memberships that auto-renew every month just to get more generation of income for the pool.

Hi, I'm Stan or junior. I own a general contracting company. Previously, where Slayton was over by gentlemen. I have a couple questions, I think for the city just kind of clarification questions. The $375,601. That is the shortfall for two years or one year. So

July 1 through June 30, 27.

And I spoke to the city about this briefly, but I wanted to bring it up for the group. I haven't heard anybody bring up the mechanism for making donations to the city. Is that tax deductible? How does that work? Is anybody from the city prepared to maybe speak on that a little bit for this group?

So, yes, we did confirm that any donation would be tax deductible, and we would happily take any donations that come our way. We actually would propose, certainly based on this conversation, but we were going to see if council would be willing to or allow us to do a pledge drive just to see what interest there was. But, yes, any donation would be tax deductible.

Okay. Thank you. So when when does that payment need to be made that donation. End of June before the end of June or you just need a commitment by then or.

I think the commitment needs to be done before we counsel HAB-Juliette Boone, Decides whether or not to keep the pool open, I think the commitment is made, I don't know that there's i'm looking to James to see if there would be like a hard deadline I think it's really just.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, i'll just say in general commitments will help the decision making process and the decision needs to be made very soon.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Okay. I'm going to try and help you guys make the decision. I will pledge today here in front of everybody between $50,000 and $100,000 kind of whenever it's needed. Okay. And if it's, you know, we could talk about more, longer, whatever. Yeah. Or ink. We build water and sewer treatment plants. Yep.

All right, Mayor, back to you.

Hey, I'm going to, I think Barry, do you have a question?

I didn't have a question, but I did want to recognise the staff that have turned up tonight to support this exercise. Can our parks people please stand up? Can our pool people please stand up? Can our wastewater people please stand up? I've come here in recognition and in support of our parks council and also our PD people. Who have I missed? I don't think I've missed anyone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Well, I want to thank everybody from coming. We have another question.

Oh, it looks like Bob, you want to say something?

Go ahead, Bob. Bob, wrap it up.

All right. I'd like to say I'm Bob Parsons. I've been a longtime member of this community, 50-plus years. I graduated from Staten High in 76. My kids have both graduated from Staten High. I'm a park maintenance operator. there's been a lot of improvement, uh, mostly donations that you'll see down at the pioneer park. And we need to recognize those individuals that have made those donations, meaning that they are nice. They weren't very expensive, but they have contributed to the aesthetics of the parks. And, uh, I continually try to keep the parks along with these guys here in the shape that we can keep them in to the best of our ability. And we all know that losing the pool is going to be detrimental to the community. We've all got good ideas for finding a solution. And I appreciate our construction for the donation. I've been a longtime friend of the family. So I would just like to say thanks for everybody's input. Let's find a solution.

Thanks, Bob. We have an online comment.

I'm there so we've got we received one email comment and then to online comments all read the email comment or sell and it over to Melanie. This one is from Lisa at this says hello, my name is Lisa at this I no longer reside in state and now outside of sublimity and cannot vote on the levy for the state and pool operations. I have however run the state and pull as a contracted entity when I worked as a director for the YMCA of Marion and Polk counties.

It's easier.

I formed a partnership with the city of Staten to staff and run all programming at the pool. I used a similar model as in Silverton to get it set up. Once it was going, we looked at what the Staten community needed and wanted and molded our own programs. Examples, year-round certified swim lessons and youth water safety were always full. We also offered private lessons for children in situations where the class setting was not ideal, autism, mobility impairments, etc., Exercise and movement classes always fold to capacity. Multiple youth and high school swim teams using the facility. Physical therapy offices paying to bring patients in. Rentals and downtimes by the Oregon National Guard for water rescue training. Kiwanis swim lessons for the North San Diego School District third graders each spring. The programming goes on and on and all are important to the community. The pool needs aggressive marketing and programming to get patrons in, enjoying themselves and seeing firsthand its importance. Those experiences equal yes votes on levies when they appear on a ballot. I completely understand that alone aquatic facilities are tough because of the expense that is incurred to run them safely. It should be looked at as a service to the community, not a revenue stream. I left the YMCA in May of 2015, and unfortunately the partnership did not continue long after. But I do think a similar model could be reinstated and be successful with the right people in play. The YMCA is an obvious choice as it has strong history in aquatics. I would recommend reaching out to their executive staff and request input. I have not worked there in 11 years, so I don't have a relationship, but I have seen them do some great things in many surrounding communities over the last decade. I am hopeful that the city of Staten can find a solution that will keep this very important piece of the community open and thriving. Sincerely, Lisa Eckes.

Thank you.

Online comment from Alonzo Gonzalez says, I believe the levy didn't resonate with citizens of Dayton due to our current economy. When we have people in our community that's trying to gather votes for initiatives that will supposedly keep their tax rates lower while they're the same people who supposedly care about their community. This is going to hurt our children, preventing them from accessing affordable option since many sports teams are already too expensive. It's sad that our children won't have a safe And recreational space no parks and no pool. And from Ashley she says hello, I live outside of the city limits, but I use the pool two to three times a week i'd also like to advocate for non residents paying a higher fee i'd happily pay more for my membership swimming lessons, etc. closing the pool would be a huge loss for the community. I disagree that the current hours are not sufficient. I've been researching alternatives and there are not any options that even come close to the state and pool classes and open swim hours. On the levy issue, I feel like it wasn't advertised enough throughout the community and messaging needed to be simplified. I live in the Cascade School District and you couldn't go anywhere without seeing 10 or more signs advertising our school district levy. It was one of the few levies that passed during the May election. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks, Melanie. So I appreciate everyone showing up and giving their input. Lots of excellent comments. And I'll give the mayor story real quick since everyone's been sharing their story about the pool. So growing up, I was a competitive swimmer from probably third grade on through high school. In high school, they said, hey, quickly, do you want to swim the mile? And I hadn't swam anything more than 100 before that. So the 100 is four laps to the pool. The mile is 40 laps of the pool. So I'm sucking wind out there, trying to figure out why I'm last, trying to catch up the guy next to me. And that was my history of swimming through high school. In 2008, I had this crazy idea to do an Ironman. And I was on the council at the time, I think. And so for some reason, I decided it'd be a good idea to sign up for an Ironman. An Ironman is two and a half mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2 marathon. So I spent a lot of time in the state and pool up and down, up and down, up and down, back and forth. And in November in Arizona of 2009, I competed the Ironman in 13 hours and 13 minutes. Check that off my list. So that's my history with the state and pool outside of what we're doing today. So a lot of valued comments tonight, a lot of ideas, a lot of motion, tons of emotion. And I appreciate everyone's perspective and everyone's feedback. And I do have to agree with Jennifer. I think Jennifer hit the nail on the head when she talked about how it's just been pushed back to the corner of the city. and we don't have that connection anymore. What are all the things that made this community whole? What are all the opportunities for the kids that y'all talked about and mentioned? So I appreciate everyone showing up. The council has the job now to go out and fix this and try to figure out a way to keep what your all desire is and get the pool open. And with that, are there any further comments from council?

Yes, real quick. My name is Len Hayes. I'm not going to go into how long I've lived here. I'm just going to say I've been here since 73, watched the pool happen, everything. I used it. Kids used it. The numbers, Mr. Nielsen is correct. The numbers are the biggest thing. Great donation we just got today. I wanna remind people the TGI Fridays are coming up. Good time to be mentioning it. Maybe have a table. And a few other fests that are coming up. And the last thing I want to bring up, and I didn't really hear a whole lot about it, is has anybody contacted Santiam Hospital in regard to how much recommendation the pool has been used? I literally saw my doctor today in a parking lot, and he asked about it. And the first thing he said, I recommend so many people to go use it, whether it be for exercise or recovery. of a surgery. So just want to throw those out there. If anybody can shed more light on those.

Thanks, Mr. Hayes, councilor Hayes. The last thing I will say y'all is I appreciate the recognition of the council. A lot of times council gets the flack from the community for stuff that's a volunteer should never get. And I'm going to leave it at that. And I will tell you all that if you're interested in sitting up here, tomorrow night's a great opportunity for you to come find out what it's all about. Tomorrow night at what time? Six. There's an informational session for anybody interested in serving on council. There'll be three openings in the mayor's slot. And you can file for that on June 3rd. So come on. What's that? We can mute the pool. Thank you all.