City Council - Regular Meeting

You're good. All right, folks, it's a little after 630 on Monday, July 20th, and I'm going to open the state and city council meeting. Can you please join me in the flag salute? I'm going to ask Councilor Carey to lead us in the flag salute.

All right, thank you.

For the record, Councilor Orrick's been excused tonight, but the rest of the council is in attendance. Are there any additions to the agenda? Julia, anything?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Carey or Sims? Who was it?

Sims. Oh, never mind. I didn't. I was thinking of...

Okay. Any declaration of ex parte contact, conflict of interest, bias, etc.? Okay.

Okay.

Don't hear any. Any upcoming community events or announcements?

Okay.

There is Summerfest this Saturday.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

There is Summerfest this Saturday. Yeah.

All right. Well, who wants to cover Summerfest real quick? Mr. Araba? Why not? I'll yield to you for a second. Go ahead.

Summerfest is celebrating its 30th year. This is our second year of doing the fun run and walk, so I encourage everybody to register. Come early. It starts at Vault Fitness. Registration opens at 8 a.m. The run starts at 9. State and Roadrunners is doing the course support for it. And then all the festivities for Summerfest start at 10 a.m. and run until 6 p.m. There's free entertainment, live music, vendors, all the festivities, food trucks. It'll be a great time. All right. Thank you.

Anybody else on council? I'm going to take a minute to make a statement. Somebody asked me, staff asked me actually, if I had watched the last meeting. And I don't want to get into rehashing that meeting, but I will say that I think that meeting was a stressor of all the things that are beyond our community right now. Certainly a lot of topics, a lot of emotions that night. But it really is a reflection of what we got going on here. We have the annexation pressures. We have the levy pressures. We have all sorts of pressures going on us. And so I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that. And I also want to acknowledge that the hard work and dedication of our city staff. They serve our community every day under challenging circumstances, and I appreciate their professionalism and commitment. While we may not always agree on every decision or perspective, I respect the work that they do, and I value their contributions to our community. So I just want to make sure that I state it for what I believe. So there you go.

Mr. Mayor, I do want to just, during my reports, we'll share and piggyback on what you just said after I watched the meeting. I was very concerned about some things, but I'll address that after we're done. Okay.

With that, we're going to move to public comment. And before I do the public comment, I wanna make sure that the council will now receive public comment. We value your input and ask that remarks be shared respectfully. The council's role is to listen at this time and may direct staff to follow up as needed. Speakers will be called one at a time and asked to state their name and city of residence before the three minutes of comment. And with that, Polly Greaves, please.

Thank you. Am I on? My name is Paula Greaves, and I am the senior president of Santiam Seniors. And I'm on, I'm here on behalf of myself and the seniors of the community in general. Can I sit down?

Sure. Yeah, of course.

Thank you.

In June 23rd, I took a fall in front of the Lovin' Oven. It was about 4.45. I was passing out flyers for the senior rummage sale at the grade school that weekend. I had just left the city planning office and walked across the street there and I'd come around the corner. I was going to go, I believe, to the tattoo store there. And they weren't open, so I walked across the street. And the sun was very bright that day. And I looked down, and I stepped up and went to take a step, thinking I was still on the sidewalk. And I tripped on that next step up, which I had no idea was there. I went down. Lucky for me, I didn't do a lot of damage. Bruised my pride more than anything else. Did hurt my hand. I had just been tested for carpal tunnel. I went in, gave my flyer, came out. There were some people that offered to help me out. But I'd like to say I don't want my age used against me in this situation. I was told that the reason that sidewalk was made that way was because people pulled up to the curb and they couldn't get the doors open. Okay, I'm going to be 79 in a week. I started driving and took drivers in in 1964. My driver said, I did that driving. I parked next to a curb. He said, explain to me if there's no car in front of you or behind you, back up a little bit and pull a little bit from the curb so your passenger can open the door. So it is my opinion that that curb is, it's a hazard. Because I wasn't aware, because if you look at it, I have a picture on my phone. I don't know how to send it, all that stuff. But if you're on the street and you step on the bottom part, it appears you're on the sidewalk. That yellow line that's painted on doesn't do anything. In a person, in my case, with visual problems, it's real deceptive. My big concern is you have seniors with wheelchairs and walkers, and if their car is parked there and they're able to drive, and they come out of there out of the bakery with their walker or their cane, They can't see that. They see the yellow line and they think, oh, that's, you step down, that's the street. And since my fall, I've talked to a few seniors and they wonder why that second curb is there. You know, it's a hazard. And I know, I came here thinking they're going to say, well, because for age. My age has nothing to do with it, you know, It's just, it's a hazard. I don't understand. Out here, out front, the two steps, on the street part of it, they are both painted yellow. So it kind of gets your attention. But there's nothing there. You know, and I knocked over their chair, you know, and threw my papers everywhere. Of course, I was about ticked off, you know. I was fortunate because I have artificial knees and hips, and I was fortunate I didn't hurt myself worse. And I went back over to the city and I explained to them what happened. I went over there the following day and showed them my knee because I had a goose ache on my knee. But I just don't understand why that curb is like that. I think that curb, that first step should be removed.

Okay. Thanks, Polly. You know, I've heard that same concern expressed by other folks, so you're not in the minority. Julia, can we just make note of that and then see what you can do to mitigate that?

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Holly. Well, Polly. Nick, do you want to do it again? Yeah, I'll do it again. One more time. Nick Graba.

Good evening, everybody. Again, my name is Nicholas Rava. I'm a resident of Staton. Since moving back to Staton four years ago, I've made it a priority to become actively involved in our community through volunteering, serving on local boards, and the different commissions, and working with local businesses and organizations, I've had the opportunity to see what makes Staten such a special place that we get to call home. Tonight, I'd like to share a recent experience that reminded me of the value of the Staten Police Department and the professionalism of the officers who serve our community. Recently, an item went missing from my business. One of our new hats had been apparently replaced with an older dingy sweat-worn hat. The past evening, while my wife and I were out on a walk, we saw a group of juveniles passing us by. One of them appeared to be wearing that missing hat. Coincidentally, a police officer happened to be driving down the street. I flagged him down, briefly explained the situation, and the officer told me he'd go have a conversation with him. Short time later, the officer returned and handed me the hat. I asked him how the conversation had gone. He shared that he simply started complimenting on his hat and asking where the young man had gotten it. When the kid replied that it came from our store, the officer calmly asked how much he paid for it. That conversation led to the young man handing the hat over to him. Rather than immediately escalating the situation, the officer chose a path that emphasized accountability and an opportunity to make things right. The young man was instructed to return to the business, apologize, and take responsibility for his action. which he did today with his two buddies. What stood out to me wasn't that the hat was recovered, it was how the situation was handled. The officer demonstrated patience, professionalism, and sound judgment. He found a way to resolve the situation while teaching an important lesson about honesty, accountability, and respecting others. As a small business owner, every item matters. When merchandise disappears, It isn't a loss for a large corporation right away, but it directly impacts small businesses. I know policing today isn't an easy profession, and I know our officers work in an environment where every interaction is scrutinized, and they're often asked to make difficult decisions in challenging circumstances. That's why I believe it's important that we recognize them when they exemplify the kind of community policing we all hope for. Thank you.

Thank you. Damian Santani.

Thank you, Mayor and council people. Damon Satani, 866 Sunrise Drive. Apparently two Mondays ago, myself and I think two other people speaking with the green sheet weren't on the YouTube. So I brought you in my dialogue just so you have it. And I think one of our council people was absent. So you've got my dialogue from July 6th. And I would just like to recount, I really, really, and a bunch of my friends and neighbors would really love to have Mr. Barry Buchanan returned as a public works director. It's very important to keep the work that he was doing. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. And just for the record, that was a technical error or difficulty when we started recording the video last time. I think this is Casey, but I'm assuming. Come on, Casey. I think this is your...

Good evening. Casey Falconer, 810 Sunrise Drive. I don't have a prepared statement. I've come before you multiple times about my presentation from 13 months ago. Councilor Patty reached out to me. There's still zero resolution and zero conversation. I guess at this point, I'd like to know why. Thank you.

Okay. Can we put that to follow up with the council, please? Amy?

Good evening, Mayor, Councillors. I'm sure all of you have seen the post I put on State and Community Connections.

Amy, can I stop you for a minute? Can you just give your last name, please?

Amy Falconer.

Thank you.

On Friday, July 10th, at approximately 8.20, as my husband and I were coming home from the TGI Friday event downtown, we noticed three people, two men and one woman, sitting in the grass at Santiam Park. They were semi-hunched over like they were trying to hide what they were doing. My husband thought he saw one of the men doing something to his arm. It looked like he might be trying to hide a needle. As we circled the block and passed them again, I noticed the same man sticking something up his sleeve and saw bright orange. Last I knew, syringes had that on them. We parked and took a picture, then called the police at 826. As the response time with the previous unrelated incident took over 20 minutes, twice in the same night, we parked and waited. Within three minutes, the police were rounding the corner. As soon as they turned onto Wildflower, the woman got up and walked away with purpose. The police were there less than two minutes and left. They called us back to tell us they made contact with the individuals, all three individuals. They saw no drug paraphernalia of any kind. The police said they knew who they were and they had been kicked out of Pioneer Park and were no longer able to go there. Also, that what we thought we saw in the guy's hand was probably the vape, which is illegal in the city parks. We know what vape smoke looks like, and we saw no vape smoke. The officer said they had also talked to the woman. No, they did not. We watched her walk away. Finally, the officer said that if they were there after 10 p.m., we could call back. Why should I have to go to the park and check to see if they left after closing? It's not my job. Isn't that their job? The entire police involvement from call to call was nine minutes. Unacceptable. Why did the officer lie and say he made contact and talked to the woman when clearly he did not? And why did the officers make absolutely no attempt to do so? It's a little grainy, but the zoomed in picture shows the woman smoking something. Since this has happened, we have seen posts on Facebook about the trio, two brothers and a woman known around state as fentanyl users. The trio are at the park where we take our one-year-old granddaughter. From other posts we've seen, they frequent Pioneer Park and other parks in Staten. Sorry, not sorry. I don't want that in my neighborhood and the town that I've come to love. If you look at the Community Connections page, there are many people who say they see these people doing drugs and it doesn't seem like anything's being done. Please, please listen to the community and somehow find a way to either get these people help

something because if we don't do something about this it's going to bring more people into the community that are doing this type of thing and we don't want that thank you okay thanks um i'm just going to give a follow-up to that real quick counselor sims and i are going to meet with the chief this week and we're going to learn from each other and hopefully bring some clarity some of the concerns So we will report back out after that meeting. All right. What would council like to do with the consent agenda from July 6th?

Mr. Mayor. I did have one. I think there's a correction here on resolution 26-020. Okay. Didn't have who was the second on that.

It kind of just had XXX on it.

I don't know if we missed that or maybe I had an early copy because I picked this up early.

No, it's probably just something we missed and we can make that correction. So you have a couple of options. You guys can vote on it or you can table it and I can bring it back at the next meeting with a corrected version since it's the only thing on the consent agenda.

Can't just make a modification to it or...

So technically it's on the consent agenda. You either approve the consent agenda or you take it off and you discuss it. So you can take it off and we can discuss it or we can not approve the consent agenda and then we'll just bring it back next time.

You can remove that one item, correct? It's the only item.

Yeah, it's the only item, so.

It doesn't matter to me.

I think since you noted it now, what do you all want to do? remove it or you want to?

I'm probably should have a correction, I think. I agree.

All right. So you want to remove or you want to come back to the minutes?

I can absolutely just bring it back to the next meeting. Okay. Let's do that. Okay. That's fine. That's not a big deal, right? I'll just throw it on the next agenda. Corrected. Thank you.

All right. So that moves us to presentations. And it looks like the first Yes, Will? Yeah, did you have something to say? You're good. Why don't you submit a green ticket real quick to Alyssa?

Yeah, the green forms is what lets us know that people are wanting to testify, but you can fill it out after.

Yeah, Will, you can fill it out after. Three minutes, please. Just state your name.

Will Myers, Satan. I'M HERE TO GIVE AN UPDATE ON HISTORIC DOWNTOWN STATE ASSOCIATION. WE'VE BEEN DOING THE FARMER'S MARKET. WE'VE HAD A SUCCESSFUL RUN SO FAR. WE'VE GOT AVERAGING 25 TO 30 BOOTHS PER WEEK. IT'S EVERY WEDNESDAY FROM 3 TO 7 P.M. IN THE CITY PARKING LOT, 3RD AND FLORENCE. lots of baked goods, handcrafted items, produce, all that kind of stuff. If you get a chance, we're trying to get people down there to support it, keep the vendors coming back. We've had TGI Friday festivals that have been going pretty well. We've got the next one is on the 14th of August. And the band is Blood on the Plow. It's a John Cougar Mellencamp tribute band. I guess we've been averaging 450 to 500 people, which is pretty good. So the Oregon Heritage Grants for downtown, two of the five buildings in 2025 have been finished. There's two more that are in process. And we also had a Diamonds in the Rough grant WITH OUT OF 13 STATEWIDE APPLICANTS, SEVEN WERE SELECTED AND TWO OF THEM WENT TO DOWNTOWN STATON. SO WE HAVE A HISTORIC DOWNTOWN ASSOCIATION IS RUN BY A BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR FOUR COMMUNITIES. DESIGN, ECONOMIC OUTREACH AND PROMOTION. We invite anyone that wants to come to any of our meetings. They're open meetings, and anyone can participate. We're looking for more volunteers as well. And the board is... We're interested in making... improving the the historic downtown area um tim we want to make it a great place to visit and to work and to do business and support the businesses that are downtown um and and that's it great thanks will appreciate it all right so that leads us to

presentations. Saniam Service Integration Team. Kim?

Good evening. Thank you all for having me. Kim Dwyer, Saniam Service Integration Coordinator. You have a packet in front of you that I provided, which is the slide show that you'll see. There's also some programming information and a meeting calendar if you care to attend a meeting this coming year. All right, so how many of you know what service integration is? Okay, I'll take it, I'll take it. Sanium Service Integration is a partnership between Sanium Hospital and Clinics, the five school districts in our catchment area, and over 200 partnering organizations and agencies in our area. It is a program that's built on relationships, integration, and collaboration between those partners. Thank you, Alyssa. I forgot. You're doing my clicking. We really value that this program is built not just on one person or one type of household, but it's anybody in these catchment areas. It's not income-based. It's not demographic-based. It's anybody that needs assistance in our catchment area. Next. So who is on the service integration team? You have our backbone agency, which is going to be Santiam Hospital and Clinics. You have the five local school districts. You have government agencies and several of the counselors and city administrators are on that, the North Santiam team. You have our nonprofit agencies, our faith community, businesses, and most importantly to me, sorry guys, but you're also community members. So I really value our community input that makes each of the five teams individual.

Next.

Our teams are regional, so we have five of those that range from Turner to Idana and Sublimity to Sioux and Jefferson. Each of those teams covers that school district catchment area. And really, it's just a geographical catchment area that identifies those are the households that we serve. And again, it's up and down the canyon. And although there are five different teams, they follow the same program model. Next. So each of the teams operate independently, meaning that each of that team, they're bringing those needs to the table. They're talking about what's happening in their community. They're bringing those needs. They're identifying solutions and brainstorming solutions. Each team has a pot of funding that they can allocate as a team to help those needs. I don't get to decide where the team funds go. The team members do that. And then, again, with those relationships, it's sharing across the different organizations. It's community members helping their neighbors by what they're learning at the table. Next. How is the program funded? So our backbone agency, again, Sanium Hospital and Clinics, pays for the full-time coordinator position, which is myself. They cover the office space, office supplies. And then our local school districts contribute half of that team pot of funds. So you have half coming from the hospital, half coming from the local school district. We also use a lot of leverage dollars. And so we have a neighbor to neighbor fund for each of the five teams. And those are purely community donations that come in. We have some of our regional cities that contribute to the team funds, to those neighbor-to-neighbor funds, such as the city of Almsville. They donate corn festival proceeds to their neighbor-to-neighbor funds to help leverage that Cascade team dollars. We also have several grants that we use as leveraging, including the City of Staten Community Impact Grant, which I'll talk about here in a little bit, and then just other leveraged dollars. So Salvation Army, Family Promise, United Way, Oregon Community Foundation, the list goes on. Without those leveraged dollars, we wouldn't be able to serve all of the households that we've been able to serve. So what do we support? So in addition to the relationship fostered around the table, we are there to help with urgent needs like rent, utilities, eviction prevention. We're there to help with basic needs, food, clothing, durable medical equipment, prescription costs, transportation needs. We're one of the only resources for households to cover automotive repairs. We help with community development, and that includes outreach activities, so back-to-school health and resource fairs. And then education, if there's a household where they need to get a GED or take a certification class for flagging, we can help cover those expenses. Next. and the model in action. So how does SID actually work? You might all think that it's called Kim Dwyer. She's going to solve your problems. And I'd like to take credit for everything the team does, but it is not that way. So again, around the table, you have the service integration team members. We also call them advocates and partners. They're all around the table working with households directly. they're then working on those relationships with one another, fostering those connections, exchanging resources to help identify the needs, try to figure it out amongst themselves, and then if they've used all the resources that are out there, exhausted all funds, that's when they can look at doing a funding request to that specific team. I have the privilege of vetting those funding requests that come in, and so I get to grill the partner and make sure, again, that all of the resources available have been exhausted and that this is a valid request, that there's a sustainability plan. We want to make sure that someone's able to pay their rent moving forward, pay their utilities moving forward. We do get a lot of one-time expenses like auto repairs, but a lot of it is a sustainability plan. We want to make sure that the household can move forward. And then, again, after vetting that request, the team will vote on that request. Are the funds going to be used for that? And then I'll go ahead and report back to the entire team and the advocate. Next. All right. So what does this mean in statistics? So this last year, so we do a July 1 through June 30, we served over 2,400 individuals. That number includes our warming center that we hold here in the community center that number includes Those households that we serve during snap the snap delay. So sit mobile reactivated last fall and those that are assisted with funding requests through the teams and The teams, the five teams spent over $16,000 and we leveraged over $143,000 totaling over 160,000 impact to the community catchment area. All right. So then I want to focus on the North Saniam team specifically. Some of our local funding partners and support come from, again, that's North Saniam School District. They're a funding partner for that pot of team dollars. We also were awarded that City of State and Community Impact Grant. The City of Sublimity has recently welcomed us into their downtown area. So we now have a storefront, I like to call it, an office space there. And they have allowed us to rent at a very nice rate warehouse space that we can hold our service integration goods and services. We have Calvary Lutheran Church and Foothills Church are also monthly and quarterly donors to our neighbor to neighbor fund. Our North San Diem team had 57 new team members this past year and helps put on different kinds of trainings as well, like fraud prevention, information about Medicare or Medicaid. Again, our team helps focus on housing stability, support during medical crises. Our goal is really to bridge a gap, too. So if there's someone that maybe broke their arm, they're out of paid leave, or again, they just need one month to get by, we're there to help for that need. And again, we want to support all households, not just one demographic or one one slice of the community. We want to serve everybody. So this team, by the numbers, we are looking at, so the team starts with $8,000 on July 1, and again, coming from the hospital and the school district. We spent $5,500 this last year and leveraged a little over $30,000. We have 30 funding requests come through assisting 155 individuals. And again, I think it's important to show that 19 of those requests that came through were urgent needs. So that's going to be your rent and utilities. And this is not abnormal for what we're seeing across the board either. One more.

One more. Yeah, sorry.

Okay, so then I thought for those that don't get to come to the team meetings, what a real example would be. Recently, we had an extended family that were living in sublimity. There was some domestic violence within the home. It was a grandparent and their partner. The partner was not being appropriate, needed to leave. That partner also took all of the financial stability that household had with them. And so the family coach with Oregon Department of Human Services reached out and we were able to, with the resources around the table, look at leveraging and partnering to create a sense of housing stability for them. The North Sanium team covered $150 of that rent payment and we leveraged over $2,300 with other partners. And I listed those partners there, including Canyon Crisis, Marian Polk Early Learning Hub, Family Promise, Salvation Army, and again, the North Santiam Neighbor-to-Neighbor Fund. Next. All right. The Community Impact Grant that the City of Staton chose to award us within January was $1,200. We were able to leverage that $1,200 with a little over $9,600. We were able to serve eight households, a total of 16 individuals. So while it's a little amount, it did really make a huge impact. One of those requests was for a lot of car repairs, and we had a lot of donations come through with that car repair. But I just want to say thank you for that because it really does matter, and we really are able to stretch those dollars. All right, how can you get involved if you're not already? So you can contact me and get on the email list. You can come to a team meeting. Or when I am on Facebook begging for Warming Center volunteers, you can show up and help us out. So there are a lot of different ways to volunteer. But really, it's your support, knowing what's going on with the people here in this room, Just being present, which, again, I thank you all for doing. Councilor Sims, you come to our meetings pretty regularly, and I really appreciate you for doing that and being one of our biggest cheerleaders. So thank you. I think that's it. Yep. And just that it's a small investment, but I think it goes a long way, and I really value our teams. We're going into our 10th year this year. The program's been around for 30 years in Polk County. And go sit. Any questions?

Kim, I'll just say that it's amazing what y'all do. Going to your spring, summery meeting is just amazing. Watching those people that have been recipients of your generosity get up there and tell their story. So, thank you.

Thanks, Brian.

All right. With that, we go to Chief, State and Police Department Citizens Academy.

Just a moment for slide transition.

Mayor, counselors, and staff, just for the record, Gwen Johns, City of Staten Police Chief. And I came to you, and we were wanting to implement Citizens Academy, so I wanted to come back with the report after. This was our first annual Citizens Police Academy. And as you know, first year events usually take the bulk of time and planning and logistics. So we're excited that we'll have a second annual next year that will be much easier get underway and have a lot of the planning behind us. State and PD hosted an eight-week course dedicated to giving citizens and business people an insight into the laws, legislation, policies, training, and issues faced by the police. So you can see up there we had 12 citizens. They're somehow related to Staton either by residence or by business affiliation. We had a wide background, people from the hospital system, just local businesses, whether insurance or finance, local volunteers, some school district, and then also some city staff and council. The reason behind the background is to create not only a bond between citizens, business people, and the police department, but also to strengthen our community and the city of Staten. And we saw that these 12 people became so connected and so bonded. learned a lot more about each other during the eight weeks that we were together. So three hour a night commitment. We had some optional time and went down to the range on a Saturday. Here you see they got to meet. The last picture was our chaplain and the comfort dog. So lots of different opportunities to meet our partners. And next slide. Thanks. Here in the middle is our future DA, Brendan Murphy. So a very unique and amazing opportunity for our citizens and staff to meet with our DA and have some really great dialogue to understand our circuit court system and how the city of Staten fits within that. So our conversations, we did have set dates. classes, presentations, but we also had a lot of just free dialogue. And this was amazing to create understandings, to ask some pretty raw questions and have some understanding perspective. So I will say our staff learned a lot from it as well. There were some very thoughtful questions that caused us to reflect or ponder or go back and research. So there were things that we learned as well from it. And just a lot of benefits across the board. So having these opportunities here. Next slide. We did go down to the range. So we did have a classroom, but we had hands-on stuff. Every person in class got to handcuff me, which maybe was exciting for them. But yeah, we were teaching the skills. But the reason we did it, not only was it kind of fun and exciting, But it reinforced the training that we go through, the laws, our policies that guide what we do, why we do it, when we can do it. kind of the consequences behind if we don't follow that. This picture here is at the range. They have the plastic training guns, but each participant that wanted to could fire different platforms and understand how they work. So for us, the other benefit was our instructors. The more they instruct, the better they get at their discipline. So having another opportunity to instruct. Our instructors loved Citizens Academy. That was an added benefit to me. They thought it was just amazing to share what we do with the citizens. Very exciting for them and very fulfilling. Next slide. So here you'll see our instructors were very connected with the citizens, making sure everything was safe. kind of incrementally worked through the night. So they were able to fire our handguns. Next slide. The rifles that we carry on duty to understand the necessity for having something more than just our handgun and the safety and training and policy and law behind that. This was where some of our expense came. We honestly had very low material costs to run this. So the range was what some of our costs came from. Next slide. The 40 millimeter launcher, that's our less lethal. Everyone got to fire that if they chose. Those were reloads, so no cost there. When we fired our tasers, those were expired cartridges. So again, no cost. We prided ourselves in keeping this very low cost and yet be very realistic and give great opportunities to the citizens. Next slide. Um, we did some hands on decision making. So some mock traffic stops, um, very telling, um, to some of the citizens, like some of the challenges, um, some of the restrictions that were faced, um, some of the case law that guides whether we can actually talk to the passenger on a traffic stop or not. There's a lot of things that restrict what we do. Um, and then also just kinda, uh, the safety of things as well. So a lot of good feedback there. We had our dispatch center come in and do a presentation. We got a tour of the jail. Like I said, some use of force, building searches, just a whole lot of stuff. We were very fortunate. We have a wonderful volunteer, and he went and audited another Citizens Academy. I've been part of one at my previous agency, and so his time It was phenomenal. It's all volunteer, all free. My time, Lieutenant Meeks, all salaries. So we just worked extra long days. So no cost there. And then we had some volunteers from another police agency that came in as well. We did have some costs to some on-duty officers that were instructors, but again, we work to keep it very low cost. We brought in people from Marion County Mental Health that spoke to us and how we all partner together. So just a wide variety of things that we're able to present to the citizens. Lots of great feedback from them. Again, the opportunity to dialogue and kind of understand what happens. And then we've put out a post on social media and already I think we've got 12 people interested in wanting to do it. So I think the feedback's been positive of the interest already moving forward. I could talk more, but I'm sure we don't need to necessarily in this space. Any questions?

Chief, I was going to have you have Citizen Sims there. Tell everybody about his experience.

Well, I will say it was a very good experience. I learned a lot. I mean, I don't have a background in law enforcement, but I have a pretty good background in security forces in the military. But it was a really good experience. I'd recommend it to anybody else. If you can be one of the students next year, I would highly recommend it. Hopefully we'll do it again next year. So, yeah, it was a really good experience.

I think there's a couple more slides. But as we finish out with the slides, I'll just say that we will open in the spring, probably after the new year, start putting up posts on social media, website, and newsletters. There's an application and background to be involved in it, but we want a variety of representation of our community to participate.

Thank you.

Good stuff. Thank you.

Council, have any questions before she leaves? OK. All right. There is no public hearing. So that moves us on to general business and ordinance number 26-008, repealing the state and municipal code Chapter 2.08. Alyssa.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you is Ordinance Number 26-008, Repealing State Municipal Code Chapter 2.08. So this chapter is basically around the city administrator is how it was titled, city manager position. So at the May 19, 2026 primary election, as you likely know or remember the state and city charter was passed by the citizens of staten the updated charter included updates to section 34 chapter 8 section 34 city manager it was pointed out to me recently by our legal counsel ross williamson that this is actually would could create some it's a duplicative of the code that is in that's in the municipal code and so his recommendation Was to repeal the chapter in its entirety due to it being repetitive and creating potential confusion and conflicts That's pretty much it and happy to try to answer any questions if you have them Okay, thank you is there any public comment Okay council discussion

Mr. Mayor, this one seems pretty straightforward to me. I'm not an attorney, so I have no reason to dispute why we should do this. So here we are. Okay. I'm going to speak on deaf. I can't hear you. No, that's okay.

Anybody else? What would council like to do?

Mr. Mayor, my motion to approve ordinance number 26-008, repealing state and municipal code chapter 2.08 as presented.

I'll second that.

Okay. There's a motion on a second to approve ordinance number 26-008, repealing the state municipal code chapter 2.08. Any further discussion? Alyssa, can you pull the council?

Sure. Councillor Hayes? Yes. Mayor Quigley? Yes. Councillor Hattie?

Yes.

Councillor Carey.

Yes.

Councillor Sims. Yes. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay. That moves us on to, hold on a second. Mr. Carey, did I miss something you were trying to say before the presentation? Okay. It's going to come, yeah, going to come back. Yep. Sorry. Go ahead, Julia. Communication from city staff.

I actually don't have anything written down, so I'm looking to the audience to see if any of my staff jump up and say that they have anything. We do not have anything for you this evening.

Communication from council.

Okay.

Mr. Mayor. Go ahead, Councilor Kerr.

A couple things. Just an update on the park and ride. We're going to get something done with that overgrowth thing.

Yeah, I know that code enforcement asked Marion County to address it, I believe.

I will check and confirm that they did. I know that there was a complaint that was made to code enforcement and it's not the city, but we will reach out. We also have a meeting later on this week with Marion County, so that would be another opportunity. It's really an ODOT facility, so I will follow up and get some additional information.

Lieutenant Cross from the State and Fire Department walks by there. He's got a huge concern about that. The other thing is I was contacted by Myron at the teen center. And we're going to have a meeting on Friday morning. Okay. And one last thing I'd like to share. There was a reason I was gone last meeting. And that was my vacation. But I think it goes greater than that. It allowed me Monday night to sit at home and watch the last meeting. And I was very taken aback by some of the public comment. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I wrote this down. I'm going to read it as I wrote it. So I'm clear on what I want to address. When I put my name in the ballot to serve on the city council, I did so because I care deeply about the residents of our community. I didn't run to see division develop between our city staff and the city council. Our community is best served when we work together with mutual respect, open communication, and a shared commitment to the people we represent. We may not always agree, but we should always strive to work as one team. Let's not allow division to define us. Instead, let's focus on building trust, strengthening relationships, and moving our community forward together. Yeah, I think watching that meeting Monday night really allowed me to become as transparent as I can writing this. And what I'd like to suggest to propose is with Summerfest coming up, On Saturday, with the city canopy or display, I think it would behoove us to maybe have one or two counselors volunteer and be part of that as well so we can show some unity to our community. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else? Julia, I got to say that I was driving home today and I drove by First Street and Hollister and I'm like, something looks different. And that lot was cleaned up. Fantastic. I got to tell you that some other visible changes in the community should be recognized. There's a lot of hard work gone in the last couple of weeks since the last meeting. You can clearly see it. There's trailers that are no longer on the street. There's parks that are cleaned up with folks not hanging out in a particular spot for a long time. It's the general sense of we're on the right path, I think. And as you and I have spoken individually and for the community, I can't do this by myself, nor can the rest of the council. That's not what we're here for. So I have to make sure that we recognize it's a team effort, as Councilor Carey just said. And we will continue to act like that and when our behavior is not such. And I expect to be called out on it. And I'll leave it at that. Anything else, folks, with a good order? All right, with that, we're adjourned.