City Council - Regular Meeting

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Dad, yes, we hear you. Can you hear me? Yep. Cool. Thanks.

unmute. Councelor Richardson. Good evening. Here. Present. Councelor Ring. Present. Mayor Mace.

Present. Item three is the pledge of allegiance. I'd like to call on counselor Scott Randall to please lead us in the pledge. Please stand if you're able. Pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Um item four is is the um approval of the agenda and we have one item to add to the consent agenda. So this will be item 9D which is a resolution approving an amendment to the agreement with click attack county. So with that, can I have a motion to approve the agenda as amended?

Runion. I'll make the M a motion. I'll second it. It's been moved by councelor Renan and seconded by councelor Randall to approve the agenda as amended. Is there any discussion? Okay. All those in favor, please say I or raise your hand. I. Okay. It passes four to nothing. Thank you very much. So we go now to presentations of item 5A is our annual tourism report from our chamber of commerce executive director director and her sidekick. Maybe you could introduce yourself as well.

Good evening uh city council mayor and staff. Uh, one, thank you for this opportunity and tonight I have the amazing privilege of not presenting to you. Uh, so Lynn Cox, who is our director of tourism, uh, will be presenting to you this uh, report that has occurred basically from July 1 until June January 31st with our data uh, both overview and goals and forward moving. So, uh, feel free to ask us any questions along the way. You do not have to wait till we get to the very end. We love questions. U, but with that, I'm going to let Lynn take over. You I'm Lin Clock Lin Cox, the uh, tourism director for Explore the Dallas. Good evening, mayor and city council members. Thank you for letting me present this to you this evening. As Lisa said, it's uh Can you hear me now?

Much better. Thank you.

Okay. Normally, I have a really loud voice, so I didn't want to seem like I was yelling at you. Um this is from July 1st of 2025 through January 31st of this of this year. and we will be um looking at the performance results, community impact and forward direction of explore the dowels. I will also be letting you know that there are tabs, numbered tabs in your presentation if you'd like to follow along. I'll let you know when I switch sections so you can do that if you so choose to. So section one um during the last seven months we have had over 5 million impressions across all marketing channels showing a strong exposure for explore the Dallas Katu and our digital campaigns drove the majority of that visibility 3.5 million broadcast impressions were a result of our partnership with the KATU Weather Cam. Over 1 million impressions were from targeted digital campaigns and 110% year-over-year increase of visibility for Explore the Dow's website. 3,275 direct visitor interactions with the visitor center located here in the Dallas. We supported eight grants that were tourism focused events and we had accessibility leader training and became sunflower hidden with hidden disabilities certified for the city of the Dallas that welcomes all visitors with any type of disability um that they might have that you can't see.

Our visitor center, as I said, had 3,275 uh interactions. That included 1,811 walk-ins into the center and 1464 phone interactions. Visitors were uh regional, national, and international locations. They came from the Pacific Northwest, California, Texas, the Midwest, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Canada. that reflects a strong demand and broad reach beyond our local environment for the Dallas to be a regional and international destination. July lodging performed strongly at 85%. It exceeded the prior year and exceeded the Pacific Northwest and regional national averages. The winter months of course were slower. That's always the case. And explore the Dells will be focusing to bring in more experiences and lodgings with overnight stays during the shoulder seasons. During the reporting period, the Dow saw 1,17,74 total visitor trips. Based on the datafy tracking, an average visitor when they come to the Dallas and to the Hood Gorge region spends $260. That's on food, fuel, shopping, lodging, entertainment, whatever they're going to do while they're here. This resulted in an estimated $264.6 million in visitor spends brought into our community. That's over a quarter of a billion dollars supporting local businesses and our economy here directly in the Dallas.

Section three, marketing. Our marketing campaigns generated over 5 million impressions across all channels. That is print, digital, social media, websites, the whole nine yards. The KETU webcam partnership that we have provided 3,531,800 broadcast impressions. That would be where it was seen on the TV or on your mobile and then clicked on to come to explore the Dells. Digital campaigns in targeted markets resulted in 26,394 impressions directly linked to explore the Dallas.com's website. An impression, just in case anybody needs to know, is simply the potential for a visitor to see our ad or our campaign um and then potentially come here if they so choose. Digital campaigns generated over 1 million impressions. We had two digital campaigns. We did a by coastal campaign that was 581,855 impressions. We also did a datafy campaign that resulted in 5,000 or 529,622 impressions. Datify tracks uh tracking shows 500 5,244 trips total. That's 9,521 visitor days. and it resulted in $913,000 in estimated spins following the ad exposure that we got through those campaigns. The website visibility for explorethed.com increased significantly uh year-over-year. It reached 274,746

uh research impressions which is 110% increase. Media relationships allowed access to discounted advertising opportunities for us. We secured two that were pretty prominent. the 1859 Oregon edition magazine and the 1889 Washington edition magazine. These magazines also have digital platforms that they reside on. 98,000 social media impressions and 17,000 newsletters were printed across both. So each one of them prints off that much for their magazine. Each placement saved approximately 39% compared to the standard cost of a normal ad. This extends the value of tourism dollars while maintaining a strong reach in our regions. The Frosty Trail, you might have seen that when you were out shopping for Christmas or in in in the beginning of this year. That campaign targeted Portland area visitors that came from 50 miles plus out from us. It generated $5,000 in tracked retail spending locally. And we had an additional engagement through the Goose Chase app that while it couldn't track spending, it definitely the participating businesses let us know that there was higher foot traffic in their businesses when we were doing that. A similar campaign to the goose chase app we did for Frosty Trail will be happening through the month of April for the Cherry Fest. Section four, our grants. We supported eight grants that were tourismdriven

events. We prioritized out of area visitors, overnight stays, and shoulder season activity. Some of them that we supported were Neon Nights, the Dallas Hoot, Cherry Stomp Revival, and the Pride Party. The others are listed in your report that you have up there. Explore the Dells also supported uh regional exposure through the Pacific Northwest Sportsman Show in Portland and the Central Oregon Sportsman Show in Redmond, Oregon. Section five, our cruises. Uh, we have established direct contact with American Cruise Line leadership and helped guide cruise passengers into downtown and into our businesses and attractions. We want to enhance the passenger experience while they're here in port. Passengers usually stay on board overnight when they're here in port, but they do contribute to restaurant, shops, and attractions along with events for e-commerce during the daytime while they're here. We have added QR codes and communication tools to the to the material that the um passengers get prior to them exiting the ship in port. The QR code, one of them goes directly to explorethedells.com's website. The other one goes directly to our community events calendar. So with that said, we encourage everyone to please use the community events calendar for any event that you have so that our ship uh passengers can see what's happening in the Dallas section six strategy. So, the city is exploring a partnership with explore the Dallas and the University of Oregon students to assist

with developing a long-term strategic tourism framework. This would provide market research, visitor trend analysis, and a long-term tourism strategy. Um, we are definitely supportive of this opportunity and look forward to being able to collaborate on this section 7. We work closely with Travel Oregon, the Columbia Gorge Tourism Alliance, and local and regional partners. These partnerships help extend visibility for the DAS and ensure our messaging is aligned across all of the markets in our Hood region. We also work on coordinating we're working on coordinating with the city of the Dallas to strengthen the transparency with the TLT uh dollars and improve communication efforts between the city and explore the Dallas. Section 8. The con. In conclusion, during this reporting period, tourism efforts generated over 5 million impressions, supported eight tourism generating events for with grants, and recorded more than 3,200 direct visitor interactions in our visitor center here in the Dallas. Looking ahead, our focus remains on increasing overnight visitation, strengthening shoulder seen activities, and continuing data-driven marketing efforts. Beginning this spring, we'll be launching a business storytelling video initiative where we will interview businesses, have a short video on their story, how they got started, why, you know, they have their business here and we will be using those for social media campaigns

on Facebook, Instagram, the our website and YouTube to help promote the Dows and our businesses. explore the Dallas remains committed to transparency and accountability and alignment with the city priorities moving forward. Thank you. Questions? Well, we'll start with uh Council Run.

Yeah. So, as an old broadcaster, I would say this is the fluff, all the things reported and whatnot. Maybe it's a question for you, Matthew. City manager. Do you get a a copy of the actual dollars spent on different things so we can be assured of what they're going to u you know, not just operations of the chamber, but that they're going to what we want them to go to. Yes, we we get a monthly uh invoice and we have uh the reporting documents to support those different expenditures in alignment with the annual budget that they submit uh as part of the contract that we have and you're satisfied with what you're receiving? Yes.

You still think that once a year is enough?

Um so in the contract that we actually have, we set a minimum of uh an annual report. If the council was interested in additional reporting, there is the option for that. I think up to quarterly uh was the maximum there. Um given the agendas that we've we've had, frankly, and we've had some very very uh uh uh long uh night meetings to get through all of our action items. Um I think annually is sufficient at this stage, but it's council discretion if you'd like uh additional reporting periods. One other question here I noticed and again my background um local broadcasting I see one company noted there are three in our community. There's some reason we're not doing sharing the wealth between the three different companies. So, by coastal has a digital campaign uh method that they do and they came to us with it with a proposal um and we did some research. We've already done datafy and it's been a great uh campaign for us to do. So, we tried uh the by coastal um we'll probably just stick with datafy uh going forward. We do advertise as a chamber with all three of the companies, but not not all companies have those same types of campaigns that we take advantage of. This is a specific type of digital embedding all over the digital world. And it's a campaign that's done that way. uh they're with gifts uh that are usually 15-second or less that are put all over using our data that we have as to what our audience uh is that's coming to our community. We're not eliminating or um not including

everyone. It just happens to come they came to us with a proposal. So just like dataf fi come to us with the proposal just like 1859 um and we researched it and decided to take a try um uh but we have gotten better results and better following data with datafy so we will probably extend and continue to stay with datafy for those campaigns. All three have diff remarkably different audiences and whatnot and I think it'd be helpful to review that but at least

I'm going to interject for just a second because one of the things is the digital campaign that we did with by coastal is further out than 50 miles. Um some of the other stations are advertising yes but they don't all do this type of campaign. And these dollars that we do to promote are meant to be spent to target audiences that are much further than the 50-mi radius. That's a travel Oregon and the state of Oregon specification and ordinance. That's all I have. Mr. Mayor. Okay. Council Randall.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, are you involved at all with the Dallas walking tour? Is that still a thing that like when passengers on the cruise ship get off, they can um take a self-guided tour on their There's an app I believe on the phone. Are you um we um Do you mean like the murals or just a walking tour? I think there I thought there was a walking tour. Was there an app you can get on autocast?

Yeah. Yeah. So I can speak to that somewhat. Um there is a a a walking tour that I believe was originally organized by the art center several years ago. It's on an AutoCast app and it's actually something uh we're reviewing right now. U we're looking at the the contract and the relationship that we have with AutoCast. Um and uh it's something that we have under review right now and something to promote uh if the city elects to continue uh uh using that service. Okay. So, the chamber has no involvement at this point anyway. Uh I don't think

we just have a placard out front with a QR code on it, but we haven't been involved engaged with that. That's something that we had no control over or any but if it is something that we can be definitely putting out there, we will. It it's something that I think we can we can ascertain and once we once we land where we think we may land, we can reach out to promote it. Um I'd hate to be premature and something that, you know, we're still evaluating at this time, but originally I believe it was the Dallas Art Center project. Thank you,

Councelor Ring. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, two I I think two probably really quick questions. So, you mentioned uh marketing impressions and research impressions. I'm personally more much more interested in research impressions because it's more analytical. It's not like marketing impressions are, you know, essentially the number of times that an ad was loaded, right? research impressions would be um you know the difference between how many were served or you know having an ad loaded versus somebody actually viewing it. So could could you

I believe you had the research impression numbers in there. Can you um refresh me on the on that specific data point? So, are you referring to the datafi information of the campaign that we ran with the actual clicks trans that transitioned into visits to into dollars? Well, I'm going to go down that that in a second. I'm I'm interested in the number of times that somebody was able to see an ad, stayed on the ad, or clicked on the ad um before before we uh get into like the dollars and things like that that were spent.

Okay, you're So, I will tell you right off the bat, our information doesn't give us that much detail. We get an impression if they've seen it on their screen. However, with the digit with the datafy tracking, that one does go into if they've seen it, clicked on it, and then came that, you know, cuz they're tracking with the cell phones. So, that information that we used on a month-long campaign through Datafi actually created 5,244 actual trips from people who clicked on those ads. Okay. And

that was just a 30-day campaign that we did with them. And then that actually translated to 9,521 visitor days. So because not everybody actually spends the night, but that's how many times we had for visitors. And then that took and converted it into $913,000 that resulted from a 30-day campaign. I'm curious, what month was that done? that fall. I'd have to go back and look because we've done a few campaigns with them. We usually do one in the spring and one in the fall so we can catch those shoulder seasons. I believe this one was in the fall that we did of 2025.

Okay. And then how do we the my next question related to to revenue generated um with our businesses in the city. How what what sort of uh mechanisms and data gathering are you using to um better understand what the cruise ship uh passengers and tourists the city not just like the downtown but anywhere and I'd imagine that that information would cover the entirety of the city not just our downtown. So, I would have to have every business reporting to us how much money a ship passenger spent in order for us to have that data. I really would um because we don't have a way to track them.

I thought affiliated with that.

I thought you had a data a dollar figure or some amount of data associated with the cruise ship passengers. So, we can go and look up how many people may have come into and visited our town on a specific date and we can try to pull as much of that from the cruise ship as possible. But you have to remember it's also only a block from commerce and other people parking and visiting. So, it's not going to be a clearcut simple calculation. We can do projections of what that is, but um that's going to be a little bit harder to um figure out. Um I do we have given some of those numbers and questions to Travel Oregon so that they can give us an approximate how much a visitor spends when they're on cruise ships in each port so that we can have a better idea. This many people came into port that day. Their average spend is this. so that we can have a better idea what those are. Um the hotel guests are easier because they come and we know they spend overnight. You know, that's an easy uh calculation that we can do and we know that there's an approximate spend that travel has determined for us by region in the state. So that's where we use that and everything is an estimation obviously because we can't interrogate our guest um like the FBI and say how much did you spend? um it doesn't work that way because we want them to come back. Um but we do the best that we can with what data we can get. But Ben, I'm willing to look into what we can narrow down with that. And maybe you and I can meet over the datafy with Lynn and see if there's a way to narrow that down even more with the cruise ships. Yeah, that'd be interesting because I hear like on one hand I hear that people

passengers from the cruise ships are spending time and money downtown, but trying to quantify that.

Um, as you stated as well, um, you know, information from Datafi and others is not really quantifiable yet. So, um, I'd love to better understand if we can identify the potential, not just the potential revenue, right, but actual revenue if we could. Um, you know, sort of like you everybody that goes into Home Depot and carries a cell phone in their pocket, Home Depot a thousand% knows how long you spent in their store, where you were in their store, and what you left with. right now. That's a spec that's a very like specific like um uh data gathering methodology and it's very expensive. Um but I'm wondering if we can get drill down to similar information, similar data so we can better understand how we're capitalizing on things like the cruise ships and whatnot coming in. Ju just like you do with hotel guests, right? Yeah, we get help with the hotel guests. That's why it's a little bit easier to drill that down. Somebody else does the heavy lifting as far as the pay on the data system. So, we can take advantage of that. But, Datafi is getting better. It's adding more tools. It's getting a little bit more efficient, a little more accurate. So I may invite you Ben for a meeting and you and I go through datafy and see what we can drill down because we can save that report and then we can bring it up every time.

Yeah, that'd be great. and and Matthew just like my own two cents uh not speaking for anyone else but if we could get I don't know that an presentation is necessarily something that I would ask for um like a quarterly thing or something like that but having the data and understanding like what's going on periodically throughout the year I think would be helpful to me at least um so that when we come into these presentations, we, you know, we we have that data gathered and can maybe have a uh additional dialogue and and whatnot be pretty fruitful, I think. Um, that's certainly something we can explore. And again, similar to Lisa's comment, maybe we can have a conversation about what specifically you might be looking at so we can provide that direction um uh and and and be focused in that effort.

Sure. Thanks, Ben. Before you go, are you looking for quarterly data so that you can know the lodging reports and if we can drill down to cruise ships, but are you looking for that data on a quarterly basis? Uh or trips or what just like we gave the total trips in the data fire report. Is that what you're wanting to have on a quarterly basis so you just have an idea where it's at and when?

Yeah. So what I'd like to do is see if we can identify trends during you know the assumption or theory would be that obviously during the summer we have more visitation right um the the logic follows for the winter time you know we didn't we didn't have any snow downtown this year um but you know during a normal winter season that would drop off significantly right

well unless your cousin and the freeway is closed, Addie might be doing a little happy dance because she exceeds her rates and stays on those occasions far more than any other time of the month. So, it depends. If we have closed freeways, you guys know that we're doing really well. Um, but yes, in the winter typically when the travel is down, we're going to have down rates. And it's a trend all over the US when winter hits and we actually have a winter. Um but yeah, that was different. It'll be interesting to get the stats for this last winter. Some of them are still rolling out cuz they're always one to mostly two months behind uh for us to get those actual um stats. So um but we'll be watching. But if that's we'll talk to Matthew.

Yeah, let's let's do that because for example on on page six, we have an occupancy report broken out by month already. um not only for this year but for last year as well. So um I just want to avoid duplicating effort and that if there's a data set or um a quarterly trend line that we're specifically trying to track um we can have that conversation and I can convey that. No, that sounds great. Thank you, Ben. Thanks, guys. Any other questions? Yeah, the $260 you mentioned, that's an average.

Yeah, that changes every year. It actually changes sometimes per quarter. Uh, Travel Oregon does they have a third party that does tremendous amount of data research and looking at what those are and what their average spend is. Looking at the economy, looking at this and looking at that and then we get those rates to use. And like I said, those last 18 months, those have changed almost every quarter and not the average rate for the year. So, you know, we're looking at those. we took a low um end on that average and not the high end. Um sometimes those average rates were up to 275. So we projected that 260 just to stay on the lower side so that we could um have a little bit more um even number all the way through the year. And so we get that research from Travel Oregon uh because they're again they're doing the heavy lifting. Uh, Datafi also has some averages that they have uh, derived from all of the data that they do. Um, and they were pretty close to the same number. Datafi had I think a little bit bigger number and we inserted our number that we got from Travel Oregon to make sure that we're staying and not overprotecting.

So, it's a Travel Oregon number and it's they're third party that does it. Yeah. Well, ours is for the region though. They developed a numbers for every region because obviously sometimes on the coast you're going to spend more depending on the cost of the hotels, cost of food, um, and all of those things. So all of those averages, this our average that we used is Hood Gorge. That is our that is our average for us. Um, and so that's the number that we use. That includes um lodging. Yep. Lodging, fuel, food, and shopping. Okay.

Um the University of Oregon program that you mentioned that is that a class or is that just random kids that sign up from all over campus or how does that work? I'm going to let Matthew address this one.

So this is a this is an initiative that we're exploring and we've had a couple different conversations with um with urban renewal and and uh some of the other uh department heads and staff that we have here. There's a list of about, you know, a dozen or so, maybe a few more, uh, potential projects that, um, classes from the UFO would work on with a, uh, teacher, with a professor, uh, advising them. Um, a tourism strategy, um, strategic document of some kind was one of those projects. Um, I think we're really eager to see that move forward, uh, potentially this fall. Um, we do have to go through the city's budget process as there is a funding component to this partnership with UFO. Um, it's really been uh spearhead by uh Josh Chandler and our planning department uh along with um Jake Anderson, our economic development officer, and some staff out of public works depending on the specific project. Um, so it's not just um like like a random college student, it's a class effort um to uh deliver the the identified work product for the relevant project. Thanks. My last question is um you have a service to provide the city for tourism. What there's things you can control and there's other things you're that you have no control over. What what sort of concerns do you have or any weaknesses that you see uh during the course of providing this service to the city that you're particularly concerned about if anything? Um, number one, beyond our control is the economy.

Um, I'm watching businesses hang on by a thread. And so, you know, that that decreases our vitality as a destination. Um, it gives our visitors less choices if we if they close. So obviously as a chamber and a visitor center that is my my number one concern is do we have businesses that are going to be staying in business? Uh, so you know the goal between Lynn and I, we've talked about this a lot, is how do we increase the visitors coming to our town, but also making sure that our businesses are open and have customer service and all of those things that are ready for visitors so that it's a handinhand operation. Um, we need to have them open in order for people to come, but in order for them to be open, we need to have people to come. It's that egg and chicken story, but we do our best in making sure that that reaches out. Uh we're also trying to find any training that we can provide for those businesses so they can be better diversified, have more tools in their back pocket um and be able to stay open uh with let's just be period to stay open um just because it is a trying time. Things cost have gone up immensely. We're worried with the fuel cost increase because that always trickles down to your deliveries to that and people don't think that but it also decreases the amount that people have to spend. So even if they come they may spend half of what they normally do. So that's half of the revenues for the businesses who are still staying open but paying a higher cost to stay open. So it's it's that it's a vicious circle but we're trying to do what can we do? what can we bring in more people? What's a good way to actually, you know, and and I'm going to

be honest, one of the things that we did do that and we hope to do it again is the big events. So, Cherry Festival, it is a boost for the income and revenues for our businesses and it gives them a little bit of a bigger longer thread to make it until tourism season starts. Um Lynn and I have been looking at how can we do campaigns that are going to be bigger, broader so that we are bringing more people here. Um and you know to be honest, one of the things that we're looking at is if I fill up that port with bass tournaments on one hand while she's working on some other things and we're working on this, then every person who stays is revenue for this town that stays in this town. The other part that we're actually added is that we're trying to get uh sponsors for events that are outside of the town. So, if we can do that, we're bringing outside dollars in and we're not getting it from our own businesses and organizations, which that's another bonus if we can do that. It's getting fewer and far further um or there's fewer of those of opportunities available anymore just because of the economy. But, you know, we're very aware that our business that our town is small. Uh we are a hub, but that hub sometimes is a drive-thru rather than a come in and stay. So, our messaging is come here, explore, uh do things, and we're trying to get on everything that we can think of uh and utilizing those big uh avenues that Travel Oregon provides, our region provides. We're looking at like the um Oregon's magazine and Washington's magazine that has become huge all over, but we're also in targeted areas like a simple private airplane uh that takes these uh a little bit higher budget private flights, but

while they're there, they don't have all of the outside television, radio, and that. So, they have our articles to read. Um, and it sound it may sound funny, but when you've got a story in front of them and they're a captive audience, this is the group that's used to traveling. So, we're targeting a little bit better consumer, a better customer, and a better visitor. Um, one that has a less footprint, but a higher uh, spending. And so those are some of the things we're looking at also just so that like I said, we're hitting every angle we can think of so that we're bringing outside dollars into our community.

Okay. I did have one other question on um section 7, page 20 at near the bottom. What your first bullet point at the bottom of the page talks about increased transparency around the transient lodging tax. that almost implies that I don't know what what do you mean by increased transparency is

I'll answer first and then you can help that one of the things that we wanted to do and we talked about was we're not helping each other as far as exposure goes um you know tagging the city uh doing this or referring to and adding the information to both our website and the city's website um we're like why isn't the explore of the Dallas over there on that website why isn't the city over here on. So, we're just trying to help each other do that cross promotion. Um, and one of the things that Matthew and Amy came up with that we're like, "Oh, yeah, duh." Is why are we not tagging the city of the Dells in our post for Explore the Dells on all of our social media platforms? You know, we're so used to doing ours, but why why haven't we done the city? And it was like, great question. So, we have started to tag and I noticed that some of the city stuff they're using our for the chamber if it's chamber if it's business-like um if it's totally fun and tourism which I'm sorry Matthew your post haven't been all tourism lately um so but you know tagging us on that too so that we can help increase that footprint and transparency might been a wrong word it's helping to cross-promote um and being there for each other as a true partner would. That's my take on it.

Yeah. I mean, my only my only brief comment and and just kind of saying it bluntly, but you know, Explore the Dallas is city work product. It's the city's brand. It's it's what's been developed under this contract uh through the hard work of the the chamber over over many years. And I think there's some confusion around what that is and what it isn't. And so, the city participating and being connected and promoting the brand that we own and are paying for uh strengthens it. I agree. Yeah, it sounds like it has nothing to do with transparency as I would define transparency, nor does it have anything to do with the tax itself than that. That's it's a partnership because of that tax. Okay. How's that? That's good. I'll take that. Okay. Any other questions?

Any other questions for Lisa or Lynn? No. Thank you all very much. Appreciate you being here.

Thank you for the cherries. Okay. Item six, audience participation. During this portion of the meeting, anyone may speak on any subject which does not later appear on the agenda. Interested citizens are required to sign up in advance to be recognized. Up to three minutes per person will be allowed. Citizens are encouraged to ask questions with the understanding that the city can either answer the question tonight or refer that question to the appropriate staff member who will get back to you within a reasonable amount of time. If a response by the city is requested and that response is not immediately provided, the speaker will be referred to the city manager for further action. Tonight we have two

second speaker. Oh, okay. um two people. The uh the second one uh we've been given a handout, so I'm going to pass these down. So, as long as we're mentioning Nancy Fork, why don't we lead off with you? Come on. Yeah. Okay, red light on. Yeah,

please put the mic right up to you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Oh, wow. That's loud. Um, I'm Nancy Fork. I own the Dallas Wedding Place here in town. Um, I wrote up uh kind of a little thing um to follow. So, anyways, it's great to be here. I haven't been to one of the meetings in probably 10 years. So, um I I own the Dallas Wedding Place. I've been in business for about 20 years downtown the Dallas. And um I've been in different locations over the years. I started out on Washington Street and then over to Second and kind of moved a little bit up and down Second Street just trying to get the better rate of rent and locations. Right now I am at 419 East Second. Um, which has been a really nice location. I really enjoy it. As well as the clients seem to think it's a nice area for me to be as well cuz they can see it. Um downtown we've um really been always about getting our customers parking and being able to come to our establishments without too much of a hardship. Um, with that being said, today I visited a number of businesses on my block and I did collect business cards from from several of them. Um, we're all concerned about the parking. Um, has become kind of a cluster of trial and error, I think. So, with that being said, um I park right now behind Clint's area where the

public parking is supposed to be provided. Um Wednesday last week, uh excuse me, Nancy, can you stop the clock? Um you're barely a couple paragraphs. You only get three minutes and you've got about a little over a minute left. So, I just wanted to Oh, warn you that we're try to be pretty strict. Okay. Well, so I'm sorry. That's okay. Just make I just

last week on Wednesday, I almost got hit by a huge sewer truck business vortex. He was backing into the alley which going west I guess he was trying to navigate backing in. Um, I was trying to get out because that's where you guys requested us to leave. I don't think he saw me. He was by himself. There was a crew down on Federal digging and doing their own thing, too. But let me tell you, scared the out of me. And when I backed up to get out of his way, cuz he was not clearly seeing me, I I rearended somebody. Therefore, it was frustrating. So, uh, luckily, there was a gentleman that was also that watched what happened who's an owner of another business, and he said, "This has just been a huge problem back there with the link bus practically going the wrong direction and different people not knowing where to go." I would like to find a solution. I don't prefer to be in the same parking area where construction is. We're even walking through construction areas. It's just crazy. I've never seen so many places absorbed at once taken away from businesses downtown.

Okay, your three minutes is overexpired. Could I just hold on a second? Would you like to comment on Oh, this is my only comment, Nancy, is I'd love to get together and have a conversation with you about how we can address some of your concerns. Um, I think I still have your number from from the Main Street days and whatnot, but I know you're right down on Second Street, so I'll I'll connect with you. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you for coming. Y Matthew, Mr. Mayor, Matthew, can you include me in that, please? What was that, Ben? Sorry. Sorry. Could you include me in that in that discussion as well? Uh, certainly. Thanks. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Linda Miller wants to talk about the Chennawith Water PUD. She's on the agenda. Oh, got it. Okay. Item seven is the city manager report. Mr. Cleaves.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. A few items. Uh I was part of the community outreach team trip to Washington DC last week with Commissioner Hegy from Moscow County and Andrea KL from the Port of the Dallas. Uh we advocated for some of the policies that uh impact our region including uh secure rural schools, uh wildfire preparedness, um some concerns around visas and a workers, which is uh critical for our our cherry industry and and other agricultural industries. And of course had conversations with our representatives about House Bill 655, which is the Dallas watershed act. Um currently this bill sits in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. uh Senator Widen is on that committee and what we've really learned from that trip is that his support and championship is essential if we want to see that bill move out of committee. So, we will be continuing uh our conversations and outreach. Uh and I believe the mayor will be uh hosting a town hall uh for him in the coming weeks and that may be another opportunity to touch base um with the senator. Uh the mayor, Dave Anderson, our retired public works director, and myself uh will present to the governor's to uh governor Cotek's data center advisory committee um this Friday with a focus on water. Uh if you haven't been following uh this committee, the governor formed it um just a few months ago uh looking to really um ground truth and see evaluate the impacts uh both pro and con uh data centers have on communities. Um and this does seem I spoke with the chair does seem to be an opportunity to really uh present uh what actually happens on the ground for cities for uh water utility uh operators, power utility operators, etc. and that the committee is really interested in in ground truthing um how these data centers enter a community um how a community prepares and plans for you know their water master system

master plan for example on a 10 or 20 year horizon um and I think it's a good opportunity for us to engage and be part of that conversation. Um some of the highlights that we'll focus on like I said is um the first and foremost our water master plan looking at that long-term horizon and a holistic system that serves our community as a whole. How do system development charges uh play into that or in the case and in addition in the case of Google how infrastructure agreements that as the council is aware of may play a role in that and uh I'll be certain to report back to the council after we present on Friday. Um, and the only other item I think I have on my list this evening is that there is a QFI board meeting uh this coming Thursday uh which is uh um I'm really looking forward to as as the council recalls um QIF was the recipient of a bead uh grant award and so there's going to be a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline and uh councelor Ren and I will keep you informed and with that I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Mr. Cleaves? Okay, thank you. Item eight is the city council reports. We'll start on our Zoom with Council Ring. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I had a busy week. Uh last week on 17 March, I was at the urban renewal board meeting. Um, and we reviewed several of the inputs gathered from the board on how to use the rest of the urban renewal money that would be received through tax increment financing um through 2029. Um, the next night, March 18th, I was at CGCC and was able to attend and participate in the career and technical education uh program, the CTE. Um there's a unique management engagement opportunity for education and and industries such as healthc care education, human services, uh computer science, business and entrepreneurship as well as our construction, advanced manufacturing and aircraft systems or aircraft industry at large uh to collaborate and ultimately offer educational and actual work experience for youth and younger adults. Um the following night on March 19th um I did attend the parks and wreck meeting. One of the things that I wanted to emphasize this evening was that um based on if you remember previously uh the end of last summer we had a uh the Rip City rally where the Trailblazers and whatnot came out. Um we met at Waterfront Park. uh that event uh the the Trailblazers organization um had was so impressed with the turnout and organization of that and working with the staff at parks and wreck that they have decided to give uh give a donation to our parks and recck department. So uh this is an annual thing that they do. They've uh over the

course of several years uh they've provided something like $300,000 to uh communities uh similar to ours and some some larger than ours in the Oregon in the state of Oregon uh through the MOA assist program. Basically what that is that every time that a trailblazer makes an assist during a game in the regular season, they put money into a bucket. At the end of the season, that money goes to a community like ours. Normally, it's a competition through uh application process and whatnot. this year because of the interaction that they had with our parks and wreck uh team in the city, the trailblazers organization and the moto assist program decided to forego the competition and uh award our parks and recck department outright. Uh the total amount of that is is uh not known right now. It's going to be awarded um at the last home game of the season on April 12th. Uh so there'll be parks and wreck uh department uh like board members and things like that that are there for the game that receive that award. Um but it's estimated to be somewhere somewhere north of uh $30,000 and they'll be able to use that money towards additional equipment at parks like Cerosis and whatnot. So, it'll be interesting to see how Scott and the Parks and Rex uh board decides to spend that money, but I think it'll be pretty pretty awesome. And then, uh, pardon me. And then Friday, March 20th, I met briefly with our city attorney uh to go over some of the notes that I had for uh this evening's meeting. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also attended the urban renewal board meeting. We had quite uh workshop conversation about what the board wanted to see as far as the urban renewal uh agency's role. And there was a lot of um there was a a pretty strong emphasis from many board members uh expressing a desire to have the agency um show leadership in helping the community set direction and sort of thinking about itself as as a as a community specifically with regard to the to the district and how it might market downtown. think about downtown um emphasize or focus um the funds that we have for renewing and supporting and uplifting uh entrepreneurs downtown. I will say also in addition the uh just one point of note the um or two points of note the urban rural district does have significant funds. So, anyone who is um thinking about getting engaged downtown or um wants to enter into a conversation about either getting started or um even business retention um would do well to reach out to our agency manager Jake Anderson. Uh, additionally, Urban Renewal uh, recently started call like a pilot refresh program, which is essentially a small grant up to I believe it's $7,500 for essentially um, uh, refresh um, painting repair upgrade of building exterior. uh as of last week, two businesses had

gone through the the little bit of paperwork that we require u to get that uh funding and 18 more were in the pipeline. So I would say um that has been uh is proving to be pretty popular. Uh the following morning we had a traffic safety commission meeting. The focus of the meeting turned out to be quite a lot of conversation among board members regarding the um the intersection of uh in front of the high school of I think the Washington and in 10th and 11th and sort of that uh odd shape um intersection there. Um there was um uh inerson testimony from somebody who had uh who had been hit struck as a pedestrian and and injured there and saw quite a lot of discussion about the volume of traffic having increased over the years. So, my understanding, and Matthew can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is um staff is going to be taking a look and presenting some safety improvement options um to the traffic safety commission that we could um essentially vet or think through and then recommend to city council. that might be signage, uh possibly even a stop sign, um perhaps traffic calming or other measures. The third thing I have to report just is that I've had a number of conversations with constituents and um who have heard about and are concerned um having seen um some environmental advocate um social media posts about the Delershood Act u posts that I think have been um a mix of inflammatory and erroneous and also um reflecting some legitimate concern.

concerns. That's taken a fair amount of thought. I appreciate the uh staff putting up the FAQ on the website and I would like to encourage um staff, our city manager and staff to uh refresh that and push it out again. It's as as not a a one-time social post, but sort of an ongoing engagement. the uh Hood River County Commissioners meeting last week and thank you for the notes from that had quite uh an interesting set of historical and and watershed um uh facts that were brought out about Dog River and the Hood River and and I think that if my math is right, the result was that um the city of the Dell's share of Dog at at you know full take was something on the order of 4% of that wershed which makes up about 10% of the Hood River or in other words despite all the uh social posting about the threat to Hood River the Dell's share of the watershed if we took all of it was something like 250th of that flow So, pretty modest. Um, somebody can check my math if you want, but anyway, there's some good facts and a lot of documents and I just want to encourage us to to continue to update and push out the FAQ on that.

The end. Thank you, Council Richardson. Councelor Randall.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, on March 11th, I attended the uh household hazardous waste steering committee. It's a it's a quarterly meeting we have to kind of review the uh the events like the hazardous waste pickups um review the success of those events and plan for future ones. On the 16th I attended the uh League of Oregon Cities Advisory Committee on Water and Wastewater, which given Councelor Richardson's uh comments is timely, although it seemed to be um for our purposes more pertinent to the wastewater uh which I think is our upcoming master plan is going to be on wastewater. So that was useful information and that will be an advisory committee that we'll meet uh again in the future. Um on the 18th the Columbia Gorge Community College had a roundt a focus group on mission fulfillment and I participated in that and then on the 19th uh league of organ league of Oregon cities held their president's uh regional meeting here in the council chambers and I attended that as well and that's on my report.

Thank you councelor Renan.

Uh not a whole lot here. Um, just want to uh point out that on May the 2nd, the Wasco County Pioneers Association will have their annual meeting and it's at St. Mary's again. Doors open at 9:30, lunch 11:30. It's always a a good good program. I think uh former u um surveyor and planning director and whatnot uh Dan Bolt will be giving the program. He was with Wasco County for many many years and I attended their meeting just this last week. Um so there'll be more information coming out and brochures and flyers and stuff. So be looking for it. Also um tomorrow morning I'll be up at Oregon Veterans Home Point Ministries will be up there between 9:15 and 10:30 just having coffee and talking uh with residents of the Veterans Home. And anybody is invited. just come up and relax and sit down and they're always glad to see people show up. So that's tomorrow morning 9:15 to 10:30. And the other thing is the Dallas is a Medal of Honor city. We have if you walk out the doors out these doors right here and go straight across the hall, you will see pictures and a certificate on the wall about that history as we have a Medal of Honor recipient from the Dells from the same individual from the Second War and Korean War. Anyway, and that reminds me that the 250th anniversary is this year. And I would put out there to our city manager and anybody else to uh we should be making some plans because of our uh status as Medal of Honor recipient city. Um I'd like to see us start moving forward in some direction of having some kind of things that we either help to sponsor or back those that could do some things regarding that. So that's my

report.

Thank you, Councelor Renan. As far as my report goes, uh March 11th, uh our retired public works director and me uh made a presentation to the port of the Dallas about the history of our relationship with Google as it relates to financial and water uh and infrastructure arrangements that we have had over the years. And um this is something that uh our city manager mentioned that uh is kind of a followup to that whole issue uh with our water supply and Google. On March 16th, I attended the Main Street board meeting with our economic development officer Jake Anderson at Freebridge Brewery. On March 17th, I did an interview with Alwin on KODL radio. I also attended the same meeting that councelor Randall alluded to, the League of or League of Oregon Cities regional meeting held here at in in the Dallas. And finally, um I want to recognize the uh Oregon Military Teen Panel is uh looking for some recognition. there. It is composed of 18 dedicated National Guard youth from communities across the state and their mission is to support the thousands of children whose families serve in the orgon National Guard. This includes more than 8,000 uh families of service members who navigate the unique challenges of military life such as parental deployments and they are inviting us uh to join them in two key initiatives. One is to recognize April as the month of the military child and the issuance of a public announcement which I'm doing now and also recognizing April as the month of the military child. And the second initiative is what they call purple up day which is a statewide event to visibly show support for military youth. And that can be uh something as simple as wearing per purple on that day which is going to be April 9th, 2026.

So, with that, um, we'll move we'll move on to item nine, which is the consent agenda. Items of a routine and non-controversial nature are placed on the consent agenda to allow the city council to spend its time and energy on the more important items and issues. Any councelor may request an item be pulled from the consent agenda and be considered separately. Items pulled from the consent agenda will be placed on the agenda at the end of the action item section. Tonight we have four items on the consent agenda. First is the approval of the March 9th city council meeting minutes. Second is authorization of expenditures for the city uh street chip seal project for 2026. Third is a resolution designating two previously adopted resolutions for administrative clarity. And finally, the one we added tonight is a resolution approving an amendment to the joint funding agreement with Click Attack County for the aviation hanger expansion project at our airport. And with that, I would ask for a motion to approve our consent agenda as amended.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended. Is there a second? I'll second that. And moved by councelor Randall and seconded by councelor Renan to approve the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say I or raise your hand. I I um may I add something since we've have we approved it?

Sure. Okay. Um I find our website a little bit tricky to get around. I've mentioned that before and I know we have improvements down the road in the consent agenda for the chip seal project and and Wasco County does a wonderful job working with the city on that and I've personally been involved when I was in my old position. Um but it listed in there a list of streets in the report. trying to find it was of some degree of difficulty and a member of public works here tonight um was able to show me it is there. So if people would like to see the list of streets, go to public works, go to the transportation link and then go way down to the bottom and that's where it'll show up. And it would have been nice to have that in the report, I thought. But um anyway, my questions were answered because I just wanted to see what streets were on that list this year because it does change periodically. And so, thanks again for your help.

Okay. Item 10A is cost of living adjustments for non-represented staff. Mr. Cleeves.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh I'll be presenting this staff report this evening. Uh the city's historically evaluated the need for cost of living adjustments or colas to wages and the methodology we use is looking to the western region consumer price index for urban consumers. Um CPI is the cost change for goods and services in response to inflation. Uh this year we're looking at a 2.7% increase. Uh the cola for the last 12 months ending in January was 2.7. A little bit of background here. We have three distinct groups from a labor relations perspective here at the city. We have uh SEIU members, the Dallas Police Association members, and non-represented staff. The cola this evening is for non-represented staff. They include um uh staffers such as the police chief, our directors and deputy directors, IT staff, planning department staff, finance specialists, and several others. Currently, we are in negotiations with SEIU and so there'll be additional information for council in the coming weeks and months uh as those negotiations move forward. And then the Dallas Police Department um association has a COLA uh detailed in their uh respective collective bargaining agreement. Um this is an important step uh in the budget preparation process and so we're bringing this item uh this evening for council approval. Uh, as I mentioned, we're uh right in the middle of preparing for the 2627 fiscal year, and we intend to include uh this as part of those budget projections. So, staff's recommendation is to move to approve the proposed 2.7% cola for non-represented staff at the city of the doubts. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

Any questions for Mr. Clees?

Uh, councelor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Matthew. City Manager Clees, can you remind me please roughly how many of our staff is unrepresented? Oh, that's a great question. Um, if you give me a couple minutes, sir, I can I may be able to find that number for you or I can report it to you u after the meeting. Sure. Just a round number. I'm not looking for, you know, a precise FTE, I would guess. um 40 or maybe 50 are non-represented.

So this is a substantial portion of our roughly 110 employees. Correct. I think we're right around 120 employees, 40 or 50 are non-represented, 40 or so are in SEIU, and then 25 or 25 to 30 are in the police association. That's that's what my gut is telling me. But I will get specific numbers for you after the meeting. Thank you very much. When you provide that number, could you break it down by supervisory, confidential, and other? I will break it down in some manner for you unless you want those specific categories. What other categories are there?

I don't know. I want to think about Okay, you come up with whatever your heart desires. Thank you for your discretion. Okay. Um, any other questions? Looking for a motion. This is Richardson. I'll make the motion to approve this. Is there a second? I'll second it.

So move by councelor Richardson and seconded by councel Randall to approve the proposed 2.7% cola increase for nonrepresented staff at the city. Is there any more discussion or questions? City Council uh non-represented? Uh no, we're um we're kind of in a group by ourselves. Why are you interested in forming a union? Okay. All those in favor, please say I or raise your hand. I Any opposed? Passes four to nothing. Thank you very much.

Mr. Mayor, one uh uh note here that I uh did I just forgot to mention when I met talked about the Medal of Honor recipient from the Dells, I didn't say his name, Lauren R. Kaufman. And um the clinic veterans clinic up near the veterans home is actually named after him uh from a local because of a local support group. And uh anyway, his uh picture and so forth are all out here in the hallway as far as I know. Lauren R. Kaufman, Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War, but he served in World War II at the end, too. So, I always kind of lump them together. He was quite a citizen of recognition from the city and county. Thank you.

And Mr. Mayor, if I if I may, we we have such excellent staff here. Uh we have 56 uh non-represented employees, 45 in SEIU, 19 in the police association for 120 total. Uh compliments to Brea for getting that to me so quick. Good work, Bria. Okay, item 10B is a special ordinance approving a short-term franchise agreement extension with Spectrum. Uh m our city attorney is zooming in. Uh Mr. Cara, would you like to explain this one? Sure. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Yep.

Thank you. I I'm very sorry I couldn't be there tonight. Uh this is a special ordinance uh to extend our current franchise agreement with uh Spectrum Charter. Um back when this was originally signed in 2016, they were known as uh Falcon Community Ventures, but they all um end up as as Charter Spectrum as as their sort of everyday name. um that franchise um is slated to expire in about a week. Um and and this is fairly regular um for for those to sort of go down to the wire and and almost just as regular is um an extension. And so the the mechanism to extend a franchise uh like this one is frankly all of them is through a special ordinance. And so the intent of tonight's special ordinance is to simply extend the terms of the existing franchise um about six months out um in order to give the city manager and I um the the the time that we need to finalize the negotiations that we're currently undergoing with Charter. Um it doesn't change any of the material terms of the current franchise agreement. It just updates Charter's address because um the last time that this was signed or the first time that this was signed um 10 years ago, the address has changed on their end for their official notices. But other than that, it's simply just a procedural step. Another procedural step is the fact that this this is technically an emergency ordinance. That is a function of uh our our city charter um which requires um it to be designated as an emergency ordinance in order for it to take effect right away. Um and so it shouldn't be there to it shouldn't serve as any sort of alarm uh for the council or for the public. Um, again, this is just a practical 6 months extension to give us the runway that we

would need to finalize our negotiations with the charter. And, um, I think that that's a very feasible timeline for us. Um, happy to answer any questions. Any questions for the city attorney? Not for the attorney. Any questions for um, anybody else? Just on the off chance that there's not a Spectrum office now between here and uh Yakama to the north and I believe Gresham may have one to the west. Hood River doesn't have one any longer and we don't. Seems like when you have a franchise in our community, there ought to be an office

within some sort of reasonable distance, but that's just me. Can we slip that in the contract upgrade? Well, probably not. Well, I I I think that's I I sympathize with that point of view. I I know other cities uh are experiencing the same thing. I don't suppose that's ever been brought up, has it with Spectrum?

Yeah, we used to have that in our contract and then in 2016 it was removed and it's something that we could explore negotiating. I'll be candid, we haven't done that in this goound. Um the the primary reason why is when we're talking about cable cable service, it's largely oh it's it's entirely preempted by federal law. And so there's this u federal act, the the cable act that really regulates this world of cable throughout the United States and throughout cities and counties. One of the conditions of that federal act is that the overall limit um uh that that a city can can um charge a cable provider for operating uh cable services. That limit includes things like whether that operator has a a brickandmortar establishment in that city. And so in the in the case of the city of the Dallas um that has been something that uh we used to have and if we wanted it again we we could ask for it. Um but it would cut into the franchise fee that we collect because at most uh we're capped at 5% of the gross revenue they earn here. And so let's say that that store would cost $250,000 for them to have here in the Dallas per charter to have uh you know with staff and employees and and and the brick and the mortar the building itself that let's say that quarter million is what it costs that quarter million would come out of the money they would otherwise pay the city um because we're we're capped at a certain percentage. Does that make sense?

Yes. that 250,000. Did you just kind of throw that out as an example? I just I just tossed that out a number for Okay. You know, but you can think about like, you know, two or three employees in a building or rent for a building. That that's sort of where my head was at. It it very well could be a h 100,000 or or 500,000. I don't really know. Since you've already been uh participating in negotiations with Spectrum, would it be considered bad faith negotiating if you were to raise the issue after after discussions have already taken place? Not particularly. Okay.

I mean, it's something we haven't it hasn't come up. They haven't said no. We haven't asked because it's not in our current franchise. Um we've been sort of focused on that. Um it's not something that we've asked for. Okay. Yeah. One one other addition. Yeah. Before I get to council, was this a followup on what I raised? And then council ring,

I would just say the likelihood of of them reopening because of those costs or whatnot are probably nil and none. But we have other franchises here in the community and require them once a year to come in and talk to us. And that wouldn't seem like too much to ask. I have them send a representative once in a while to let us know what's new and what's going on. and how they can better service, you know, that sort of thing. But anyway, do we have other is that the only one I can think of off the cuff is the management waste management comes in not necessarily for a presentation, but more in pursuit of rate adjustments. But with it comes the context.

Just a thought, council ring.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, I just want to point out the charter does still have a brickandmortar building downtown. Um, yeah, they provide services out of it. So, there's rents, there's people, there's equipment, there's trucks. The thing that we're missing in this town from charter is an office for us to exchange equipment. Um, there is no I I've had my own personal dealings with charter with with Spectrum Communications, like you know, good, bad, indifferent. Um but um there's there's service here. They have office space here. They don't have a storefront. They don't operate a storefront in their brickandmortar building that they operate out of.

I personally would love to see them do that. I think it would be a beneficial thing for both them and the city, our residents. That building you're alluding to doesn't have any staff there, do they? I mean, like customer service customer service person or anything like that? They used to and they still operate out of the same building. I see.

Well, you know, I I would mention if the intent there is customer service, I think, you know, that's one thing. Uh the other is as I understand it if you have like let's say a very common situation a single family home and a residence somebody will have a charter subscription for service for spectrum for their internet or maybe for their television as well but let's just use internet. Um they'll give you like an all-in-one kind of a modem and a router and you you pay for that monthly as part of your service or maybe there's a small fee for that. And let's say you want to change service providers and you no longer want spectrum or let's say you're you're moving residences and you're you're moving somewhere that doesn't offer spectrum. As I understand it, um you simply just take take that device um and you take it to like a UPS store um and you can just hand it to them without a box, without a shipping label, without anything. You just you just walk into the UPS store and you just say, "Here's here's my charter modem." and then they will simply just mail it away for you free of charge basically, no questions asked. Um, and so yeah, I and I know that they also mail out their equipment as well. So I'm not so sure h how other um communities that have brick and mortar customer service facing um locations uh how how they offer services that are different than that. Um, I'm sure that they they do somehow, but um, yeah,

I would I I I know that to be true. Here's the problem. Um, myself personally and a number of people, this has become telecommuting from a home office has become a magnified thing uh, since co a few years ago, 2020. Um there is no UPS store in the Dallas. Um there is no no drop off location, right? There's no there's no UPS or Staples or FedEx to go into in the city of the Dallas or Hood River. The Hood River does have a independent shipping station next to Safeway.

They have a UPS store in the Heights in Hood River. You're right. Up by Rose. Yeah.

Um, but that still requires people that work from home to go without services potentially for some amount of time while they exchange equipment. That's a problem. It's been a problem for a long time. Um I I I think that some of our residents would um certainly appreciate uh having that back so that they can you know do more business uh things like that. Also, you know, um since co uh programs like Innovations Academy at District 20, North Wasco County District 21 have become more popular and children cannot conduct online school without internet service. So, if something does happen to the router or Wi-Fi uh modules and things like that that they do provide a few years ago, you could go down to this big brick and mortar place. You could you could go in, exchange your equipment, take new equipment back to your house, and have it done the same day. Right now, you have to call, schedule a time. either somebody has to come out and look at it or do you have to drive to Hood River, ship your equipment out, wait for equipment to show back up. Um I I think they're pretty I don't want to beat up on them, right? Like I I think that the Charter Communications has been pretty expeditious. Um, but it's still a problem and I think it would behoove us to at least ask the question, hey, what would it take for them to provide that sort of service again like they used to? Um, especially given that they already have a brickandmortar building, they've

from what I have seen over the last few years since I I moved here in 2009, right? Like I've seen that office expand as far as like vehicles and personnel related to uh service calls and things like that or like running new cable, repairing c, you know, what whatever it is that the the technicians need to be doing on the daily from their trucks. We're missing that service, that last mile sort of edge service. Um, and nobody in the gorge has that at all. I I I think that I think the counselor uh Renan brought up brings up a great point. Um I've certainly heard about it from other constituents over the years. Um you know, I've had my own personal comingings and and goings and um I have my own personal alternatives to uh internet services uh and whatnot uh in the city of the Dells. uh so that when I do have those services out service outages, I can still work. Um other people don't have the ability to do that. So I I think it's an important subject to bring up with them.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Uh yeah, Mr. Cleaves.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just just a couple comments here generally. I mean, certainly good quality customer service to our our our town and constituents is important, but I just wanted to add a little bit of context. Um the the revenue associated with this franchise agreement with Charter in the last fiscal year uh was about $92,000. And as the city attorney mentioned a moment ago, if Charter agreed to this and and provided customer service staff even at their existing facility on Union Street, you know, one or two customer service individuals could dramatically uh reduce the amount of revenue that the city receives. Um, so that's just one kind of piece of context in the terms of like scale or scope. Um, Charter is also not the only telecom that we have uh in town. Um, there are a number of different ISPs, Blue Mountain, Lightseed Network, several others. And I think it kind of begs the question, if we require uh such a service from one, do we require it from all uh with the resulting impact on revenue again there under the same premise? Um, and I think there's there's an element here of of competition and and market solutions that, you know, might might be a way to address some of this concern as well. Um, we can certainly ask the question and the city attorney and I can talk to talk to charter about um what their response may be uh and express the concern from the council and the desire from the community to have such service and we can include that when we bring it back for the council's consideration. I like your summary and I think um from what I'm gathering um does the council have any objection to M the summary is provided by Mr. Cleaves and our ongoing relationship with spectrum any any problem with what he had suggested.

Okay. The only thing that I would add to that um Matthew is that Charter Communications I think provides the bulk of residential services right um I I certainly and I don't ask everyone like you know oh who who provides you internet at your house um but certainly charter charter communications has a significant footprint in the area

and um you can go down to some of the other ISPs uh in the area and you know you can actually go talk to somebody face to face. Um, and I I it would be interesting to have a conversation and and and get feedback from them on what they what they would want to see and and what their perspective is on it, right? Um I I think it's it's only fair to our the residents of the city given that they are the largest residential provider of service internet services.

Yeah. I mean I I'd like to thank Matthew that we'll ask and report back. Great.

Thank you. Thanks. Thanks councelor Ring. Um before we get any more into deliberations, uh is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the city council regarding this uh extension of our franchise agreement with Spectrum? Anybody? Mr. Nichols. Is it supposed to be red? Okay. Faking me out here. Roger Nichols, 1617 Oregon Street. It is a quick question. It's more a question of understanding uh something that Matthew said and that is if if they add on something that reduces the to the city, are we charging them based on their overall gross income inside the city limits

because I don't understand how how otherwise that would affect I thought we charged them per pole charge or something like that. We I believe we charge them 5% of their gross revenue from revenue drive within the city limits. But if we require certain things in the franchise agreement such as requiring them to have a customer service off office, the costs associated with that can be can be deducted from. Thank you. That's what I wanted to. Yeah, I got that right, Jonathan. Thank you. Yeah, it's just an inkind sort of inkind uh uh replacement. All right. Anybody else? Okay. Um, any last uh questions or comments from the council? If not, I'm looking for a motion.

I'd like to make a motion to uh adopt special ordinance 26-611 as presented by title only. Am I on the right one? Yes. Is there a second? Okay. It's been moved by councelor Randall and seconded by councelor Renan to approve the ordinance of um approving a short-term franchise agreement extension with Spectrum. Is there anyone here who would like to have the ordinance read in its entirety? Yeah.

But I will tell you I've had Spectrum internet and Wi-Fi and telephone most of my life, you know. So, but I would certainly like to see some kind of face in that office over there. They already, as Ben pointed out very ablely, thank you that uh we should remember they do own a building here and they do have people here, but we can't go anywhere to mail anything back if we need to, you know, so it's interesting.

Well, we'll get uh Mr. Cara, Mr. Cleeves will be getting back to us about their further discussions with Spectrum is in that regard. Um, okay. I don't see any takers for you to read the whole thing by. So, will you please read it by title only, Miss City Clerk? Special ordinance number 26-611, a special ordinance approving a franchise agreement extension with Spectrum Pacific West LLC for the maintenance and operation of a cable television system and declaring an emergency. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Finally, we have item 10 C, which is an ordinance granting a non-exclusive water utility franchise with Chennowith Water People's Utility District. Mr. Cara.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, Matthew and I are happy to present this special ordinance together. Um and the city charter authorizes the city to um determine by in in our case contract for franchises uh the terms and conditions and charges and fees upon which uh PUDs uh specifically um uh PUD specifically but frankly any entity may occupy the city streets and uh highways and other property and uh the terms of that framework are capped at um 20-year intervals. And so, uh, tonight we have before you a proposed franchise agreement with the, uh, Chennith water PUB. Um, it's a people's utilities district that's provided water services, um, to customers located within portions of the city, um, and occupying city rights of way with water utility infrastructure, uh, mains, service lines, hydrants, meters, valves, and other related facilities. They've operated within the city's corporate limits for many years. And uh tonight's proposed water utility franchise uh agreement, it formalizes and qualifies um what the district's continued occupancy um in the city's limits would look like in our public rights of way. And so, uh, this, uh, agreement is is is truly a negotiated, uh, negotiated contract between technical staff, um, at both the city and our public works department and with the district, um, and their engineer. Um, this has been a few months in the making and they they worked very hard on it to to get it to the spot that both the city and the district are um, uh, they well staff at least from the city are very happy with. Um and uh as I understand it, after speaking with the district's attorney, um the Chennowith Water PUB board uh

approved entering into this agreement um uh nearly a week ago, 6 days ago, last Tuesday. And so, um, I'm happy to answer any specific questions, but the the the nature of the agreement and, um, and what it really means is is all about, uh, the procedural operational elements of, uh the the district's continued water, um, continued water systems occupancy of our rideway. And so it talks about um uh the the procedure for getting permits and and um different control uh traffic control and uh all sorts of different requirements relating to ADA and surface restoration for our streets. Um a whole list of those sort of operational ideas are the bottom the first page of the Jonathan, you're kind of breaking up. Hold on one moment.

Leading into about Sorry. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, I think you're back now. Is this any better? Okay. Thank you. Well, why don't you just take over, Matthew? Sorry about that.

Uh, no, no worries. Thanks. Um, so just a little bit of context here. uh reviewing and updating our franchise agreements kind of across the board has been identified in the city council's uh goal packets uh in the last couple versions. Um the most prior version was action 4.4 to review and update all of the city's franchise agreements. in the recently adopted three-year strategic plan that the council uh considered a couple meetings ago. Now, uh we uh identified continuing that effort, kind of a top tobottom kind of look with a specific call out to executing a franchise agreement with the Chennowith Water District. Um as as part of that effort, um the franchise agreement itself will take an effective date of July 1st, 2026 to align with the fiscal years and to give uh both entities time to plan their respective budgets. Um we have an objective here to ensure fairness and consistency across utilities and rateayers, including the city's own internal charge. Um and so we have uh a charge that we apply to our own water and sewer accounts internally. Um uh currently that percent is 3% of the the revenue uh associated with each of those funds, but we'll be adjusting that again effective July 1st to 5%. In that's for the city's own internal work for this franchise agreement um being considered this evening. It starts at a 1% franchise fee uh with an additional 1% charged uh in sub each subsequent year until they reach that 5% cap. Um and that reflects the impact and work associated with uh managing uh these franchise agreements and that relationship and the impact that those activities have on the respective right of way. Our hope is that that ramped approach uh gives the district time uh to absorb and plan for that increase, communicate that to their own customers and constituents and mitigate that impact over that 5-year term.

Um, as we mentioned a moment ago, kind of related to, you know, even charter, the franchise agreements will generate franchise fee revenue based on the district's gross revenue from the water users uh within the city limits. These funds in particular uh reflecting the impacts to streets will be dedicated to uh the transportation fund or street fund that we have here. Um, and so the staff recommendation tonight is to adopt special ordinance number 26-612, a special ordinance granting a non-exclusive water utility franchise to Chennith Water People's Utility District as presented by title only. And with that, we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Let's keep the discussion to just questions because we have someone who would like to address the council and then after that we can deliberate. So, uh, questions for the staff. Well, okay. I'll start. I understand that this all started because uh there was some work being done and we were unaware of it and it was it cut up open a uh city arterial a road and and when we found out about that, that's where this kind of started, right?

I wouldn't say that's where it started. We had already identified with with council direction reviewing and updating these uh franchise agreements that we we have or in this case that we did not have with an entity that was utilizing our right of way. The incident that occurred over on 10th Street highlighted the need to have an agreement such as this. um not only for the impact that it has to the city systems but also to strengthen the partnership and communication uh that we have with Chennith with water pud and how we operate within the right ofway to avoid uh those kind of situations again in the future hopefully.

So the uh try to figure out how to say this. So initially it's so that they know they need to contact us when they're dealing with one of our rideaways. That's really that's the bottom line of it. it's our road, it's our sidewalk, whatever they're going to work on, they need to notify us and this will solidify that response back and forth. I just didn't really understand initially as we were going forward uh that they would now become subject to the city's billing charges as well. Uh I appreciate the ramped up fortune, but I don't know what that means to the individual rate play payers out there. So that was a surprise,

Mr. Mayor. So, so one clarification if I may is that the Chennowith water pud's rates and their rate system is entirely separate from that. The Chennowith water users aren't going to be forced to city water rates or anything like that. So, we're just charged for the book work we do or well the the the Chennowith district will be charged a franchise fee in the first year 1% of their gross revenue leading up to five. How they manage that with their rates or with the the current budget that they have is is their discretion. um but they're not being forced to adopt you know for example city water rates itself.

The other item was u said in here that uh their district board was uh going to be looking at that on March 17th. Did I miss was that approved by their district board or? Yep. So the city attorney mentioned a moment ago that he communicated with uh Chennowith's attorney and that they did adopt this franchise agreement at that meeting. They did. Okay. Thank you. Can you can you guys hear me? Okay, I just switched over to my phone. Hopefully the connection is a little bit better. Yeah, I guess we can, Jonathan. Thank you. Perfect. Keep up. Um, did I did I see a hand up? Council Ring. Yeah. Uh, yeah, but councelor Ren asked,

you think alike? Um, who else pays a franchise fee besides I know Northwest Natural, the North Northern Wasco PUB Spectrum. Now um uh so we have uh franchise agreements and an associated fee for power, water, sewer, gas, telecom, garbage I think that's it. Telecom telecom we have light speeded networks uh century link woden gorgeet now blue mountain zo group electric lightwave is are they all 5%. Some of those are 7%.

Oh okay. In fact, all of them are at least 5% all the ones I just named, the telecom ones. But as those terms of those franchises expire, um they will be all getting shifted over to 7%. Okay. There's some nuance to the respective industry. Yes. So I'll just to give a

Yeah, just to give a quick overview. Thank you, Matthew. Um different uh utilities uh and utility industries rather different utility industries um are uh capped by law at different percentages of gross revenue that um cities may take franchise fees from. And so in the world of telecom depending on the nature of the service the telecom service that's 7%. Um, natural gas and electric I believe are capped at 5%. Or there is no cap and just nobody ever goes really beyond 5%. Um, cable is preempted entirely by federal law which fixes it at 5%. Um and and there's other utilities like uh irrigation and and sewer utility districts in some cases and water utility districts in some cases and those are all capped at 5%.

Thank you, Council Ring. Thank you again. The question was I was curious how the 5% matches up to some of the other agreements that we have with other entities. Thanks. Okay. Uh, Ms. Miller, would you like to address the city council? Please introduce yourself and with your address. And even though we all know who you are, um, Linda Miller, Linda M. Miller,

950 Pomona Street, number 204, the Dallas, Oregon. Um, several years ago when I was on city council, this Chennowith Water PUD franchise fee came up and I said back then uh that the patches that were done the on the the streets or roads out in the Chennowith area out in the west side that when uh Chennith was completed and they did the patch, the patch was in better shape than the roads are. It hasn't changed. It's still the same way. And that one patch out on 10th Street that the Chennith Water had to dig up and redo um because it was a new pavement. Um there was a former uh city employee, public works employee said that when they went through when Chennith Water went through the procedure of completing the patch that they had to do something different, Chennith Water had to do something different than what the city does. If there's going to be patches made, they should everybody should be making the same should all be done the same. And I think a franchise fee to utilities that everybody has to have power and water. Why is there a franchisees fee for that? rate payers are already already paying their rates for what they're getting.

That's what I have to say. Okay. Thank you. Um, any questions from Mrs. Miller? Okay. Okay. Uh, city council, any comments or questions for the staff? Any more? Council Ring.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, Miss Ms. Miller brings up an interesting question. I I wonder if we could discuss for a minute. um sort of the in the in the case that like in the case that channel with water needs to make a cut in a public rightway like the 10th street um the the 10th street uh near the or along the safe routes to schools work that was done after that work was completed by the city. One question that I that comes into my mind is they're going to pay we're we're asking them to pay a franchise fee for basically access to that right away, right? But like when they tear up the street and they make a repair or what whatever work they're doing and then they close the street back up. um they're paying for that, right? In other words, the funds from that franchise fees are going to go into our street fund. But how does like who covers the cost? Who actually does the work of the the patch in the street in that case? My understanding is it's Shen with water because they do the they do the work from start to finish, right?

Yeah. So so like a fresh cut. I mean, all of the all of that falls on the on channel as the the entity who is making the cut. Um the there's a couple things there, you know. Um a fresh just generally a fresh cut is not a one-time patch. I'm also I'm confident I can't be in the room tonight. I'm sorry again, but I'm confident we have staff.

Okay, terrific. We have David Mills there. I'll just I'll just say this. Um uh yes, it's not just a onetime patch, though. So uh it shortens the life of the payment of the pavement the asset um which is an asset of the city um which in in the cases of the moratorium that we're talking about you know for for fresh cuts um has these additional costs over the time and the life of the project but David Mills is right there you can certainly answer this much better than I can. Yeah, David Mills, the deputy public works director, formerly the transportation manager, and Jonathan, yeah, you're correct. Uh, anytime a a street is cut, it reduces the life expectancy of that street. A brand new street, 20-year life expectancy. It's kind of on a curve as it goes down. When you make a cut, that's an intrusion into that road where water, uh, snow, freeze, thaw can affect that cut. And so, that's why we have the moratorium on that. uh one cut like on Chennith that happened reduced the road PCI from 100 to 88 just that one patch. So we took a brand new road that was a PCI of 100 and which is one cut reduced it down to 88. So that's why with uh the new engineering standards that we have that the city also follows um we have certain guidelines for if it's an arterial street or if it's a collector street different guidelines that we follow that we require other people to follow to patch those back.

What's PCI stand for? Uh pavement condition index rating. 100 is a brand new road and zero is the worst road. Pursuant to what Ms. Miller had brought up about the um the differences in uh say city resurfacing and the Chennaw with water district. Do we have resurfacing standards for all of our utilities who dig up our streets? Yes. Yes, we do. And they're they're renewed every every year. They're the

Yeah. the engineering standards for the city. Every I believe January they're they're reintroduced from our engineering department. And so, yeah, every franchise, it's in their agreements. If they make a road surface cut, they need to follow these the same guidelines that that everybody does. Okay? And they're all they all have copies of it. And they they all have copies of it. But what happens is when they fill out the rightway permit,

um that goes to the transportation manager who then lets them know, hey, this road is a arterial street. It's got a PCI of 100. Let's say we're going to require you if you end up cutting this road to patch full width the entire length from you know probably one street to another street for an example if it's a new road. Okay. And this 10th street incident that this first I've heard is this all connected with the safe routes for school project. Yes, that's correct. Yeah, this was this was an example that we had shared back with council at the tail end of last year where we had just completed the safe routes to school 10th street project and I think it was less than a week later there was a cut into it.

Okay. All right. Sure. You want to come up here please? And for the record,

that cut was on the shoulder of the road. So in the middle, you are to drive now from Chennith Loop to Snipe Street. That was should have been well, it was brand new paving. Well, there's tire marks on that on that street. When I'm driving my truck down the street, I don't feel them. When I drive my car down the street, I can feel those tire tracks. Yeah, those tire tracks are very much on the radar and they're anticipated to be fixed this spring summer. This this spring, the the contractor is going to come back and fix that um due to the winter weather. They weren't allowed to do it. It's it's on our radar for sure.

But the patch that was made, it's on the shoulder of the road. It wasn't down the middle of the road. Certainly. Certainly and and the patch by itself was not the reason for this effort. This is something that we had identified overall and I I again think we'll better coordinate those kind of efforts. Well, like I say, it was brought before council when I was on council and uh it it didn't go anywhere then and as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't go anywhere now. Okay. Thank you.

Excellent. Any other questions or comments? Anybody like to make a motion? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to adopt special ordinance number 26-612, a special ordinance granting a non-exclusive water utility franchise to Chennith Water People's Utility District as presented by title only. Is Richardson. I'll second

move by councel Randall and seconded by councelor Richardson to adopt the special ordinance creating a water utility franchise with the Chennowith Water District. Is there anyone who would like to have the ordinance read in its entirety? Will the city clerk please read the uh ordinance by title only? Special ordinance number 26-612, a special ordinance granting a non-exclusive water utility franchise to Chenn Chennowith Water People's Utility District. All those in favor of the motion, please say I or raise your hand. I I I

Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there any other business to