City Council - Regular Meeting

Are you ready? All right, everybody. We're going to start this bring the regular meeting of January. Stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. Roll call, please. Councelor Reynolds here. Here. Councelor Sowski here. Councelor Chris here. Councelor Knox here. All right. Thank you very much.

Now we have our time for public comments. Any person may address the council. I recognized by myself. However, topics which are under appeal or legal in nature cannot be addressed. Please state your name and address for the record. Time is limited to three minutes per person. Anybody have anything? I do. Yeah. See if somebody else wanted to talk first. There you go.

So, parent dogs, I just live here. And so, I come up here all the time and the last couple of times I've been up here, I have complained about um parking downtown and our lack of endorsement. So, now I want to talk about how things have turned around. And just in a few days, I've noticed a huge difference in downtown Telmouth. and um he always says it's group effort. He always says it's a team, but you know, I just want to take a moment and thank Sean Bier. Um, he's over a problem that we've got here in Selma and he decided that he had time to help us. He and and he's he's come around. He's introduced himself to all of us business owners. [snorts] Um, and he's taken the problem seriously. And I just enjoy working with Sean. I really do. But I think that we as the city are blessed when we've got somebody like there. So that's what I've got today. It's good.

Hey, we'll get you a plaque for the mayor's signature. The punch. Um, so a lot of times I'll get in and name Justin.

Justin, uh, and, uh, but I do want to echo what Terry said. Uh, it has made a considerable difference downtown. Um, I also, uh, had the pleasure of meeting with Sean and John today. Uh, and we are going to be actively working on some, uh, communications with downtown businesses um, about where they can park um, to help just kind of bring the knowledge about where they can park, where they could file any kind of complaints um and then our office will help walk those around. So just kind of a major effort, but I appreciated them coming by today and I feel like we're making some major progress tonight was there too.

Hey, anybody else? Do we have anybody online? No. All right, last chance. All right, moving on to president announcements. You have a letter you drafted. Yeah, so um this is kind of an announcement. Um I have to be very very careful because we we've received official word but not official letterhead official word. Kind of put it like that way. So, um, for the last couple of years, um, thanks to Adam and our public works staff, we've been working with Senator Jeff Mkeley's office on trying to get a, um, federal earmark to help us with paying for our waterline project. And last Thursday, I think it was, um, we got notified from Senator Mkeley's office that the funding bill passed both houses, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was set to be signed by President Trump on Friday. And so that is an extra millions of dollars that will go towards our waterline project and um is a huge deal for us. Uh those don't come around very often and so we need to give thanks to Adam and and and those that worked long before I got here on trying to achieve that and Gustavo at Senator Mkeley's office. So, um, unfortunately the days get away from me sometimes, especially when we have holidays on the day we're at work. Um, but, um, I have a draft letter. Um, because we like to send thank you notes to people when they give us lots of money. [clears throat] Um, and so I just want to say this is a draft. I want to hear if you guys are okay with it and then who wants to sign it at the end once we get it on letterhead. So, it

just says it's the honorable Jeff Mkeley. Senator Mkeley, on behalf of the mayor and city council of the city of Silva, thank you for your leadership and advocacy in securing $4 million in federal funding to support [clears throat] the city's water transmission line replacement project. This funding is critically important to our community and will direct support efforts to strengthen the reliability and seismic resilience of TMO's water system. We are grateful for your continued commitment to ensuring that Oregon's coastal and rural communities have access to the federal resources necessary to protect essential public infrastructure. We'd also like to extend our sincere appreciation to Gustavo Aero, Mid Wamment Valley and North Coast field representative for his assistance and responsiveness throughout this process. His support and engagement were invaluable to the city. Thank you again for your partnership and service to Oregon. We look forward to continuing to work with you and your office on issues uh important to our community. Sincerely, uh, Mayor Till on behalf of the city council. Are you guys good with that as written?

Okay. Do you all want to sign the final draft or do we want to have just the mayor? That would be nice. Okay. So, we will prepare something with a letterhead with spots for everybody to sign and then if it's okay, I will have Chelsea reach out to you um to come into city hall at your leisure to get a signed off so we can make that good.

Okay. Um and to just add on to that, Senate by chance, uh Senator Berkeley held a town hall here at Toma on Saturday. Um I did go um he held a special uh preme for uh local leaders and I attended that on behalf of the city. Um and the uh once he walked in the door and we did our introductions um that he opened it up for comment and I jumped right to my feet and said thank you. Thank you. This was a huge deal. And everybody in the room including the entire county commission, mayors from other cities, um city managers from other cities, um applauded that Michelle from the port, they all recognize how important this project is not just to the city of Toma but to the region as a whole to have safe resilient water. and this is a huge deal for us to get this year. So, um I was able to send it in person, but feel like having a letter or something sent a would be helpful.

Thank you. All right. [clears throat] Uh next we have presentations to wastewater facilities plan. Come on, introduce yourself.

Good evening. My name is Brando Svin. I'm a principal engineer with Conor engineering. have been hired by the city of Telup to lead the wastewater facilities plan development uh which will be a roadmap for the city in their potential growth for the next 25 years for specifically your sanitary sew system both the collections and wastewater plan. I'm here today joined by two of my colleagues Brad Mercury and Austin Random who will each be talking about the various components of this system over the course about the next 35 minutes. Um, want to I guess I getting ahead before we got our presentation going, but um, just while we're getting that up, I'll continue. Just want to throw out a few acknowledgements uh, that went into for those folks that helped develop this plan for the city. Kenny Owen and Sean Bar were instrumental uh, in providing us the knowledge and information we needed to be able to accurately assess the city's program and uh, system. Uh also John Harrison consulting engineers who is a another consultant the city has hired to help run and operate the wastewater treatment plant. Uh he was an instrumental part in this plan as well. Um and then a myriad of uh my staff on this project from Consor that helped develop this uh program as well. So I'm going to give you a quick overview and then I'm going to hand this off to my colleagues. But uh here's a quick overall agenda of what we'll be talking about here for the next little bit. Uh let me give again an overview then pass it off talk about the purpose of the plan and then get into the details of both collection system and the wastewater treatment plan. So the wastewater facility plan is composed of eight distinct chapters that have been developed over the last about 16 months um that look at various characteristics of the city um the existing infrastructure uh flows and load projections regulatory requirements. Um then we did an evaluation of the collection system and then of the facilities including the

treatment plant and various pump stations which ultimate into developing a capital improvement plan uh which is that roadmap for the city for the next 25 years to address the issues that are seen in this city's system as it is. Um I have been in front of this council before years past to be the bearer of bad news saying that you got any issues in your sanitary sewer system. That has not changed in the last three years since that INI study was wrapped up, but we have now got a much better idea of what the system looks like at large and how it's going to be performing in the future and what we're going to try to do uh what the city will need to do to be able to what's both sustain the existing infrastructure but then also promote growth which I know is a big goal of the city and the county. And so with that, I'm going to lead out with just kind of the high level takeaways of what this plan and everything that we've done to date. Um so we know the collection system has some capacity issues a lot of RNI issues due to pipe aging plant and pipe condition. Uh there are pump stations and pipes that are undersized uh or in poor condition. Um the wastewater treatment plant is in generally fair good condition. Um it does have some aging equipment and some components are in poor condition. Um the city has made an investment in the treatment plan in the past and it is performing quite well in that regard. Um this plan also ensures that the city remains in regulatory compliance uh with DEQ as well as again promotes the growth that the city would like to see uh over the coming decades. Uh the plan will address the aging infrastructure and the capacity issues and again provides that 25 year road map for the improvements. Uh, and with that, I'm going to hand it off to Brad, who's going to go into a little bit more of the purpose of the plan, uh, as well as what we've discovered and what we have done working with city to develop the capital improvement plan and those improvements. There are a lot of Yeah. So, as Brena said, Brad work, I

was involved in the the planning for the collection system. Um and so uh the the purpose of the plan uh despite what Renon said is the road map um we look at the both the condition and the capacity of the sewer collection and treatment systems and determine how to address the how to address the issues that arise from the evaluation. Um it considers population, employment, land use growth, forecast, estimate, future flow and loading to the wastewater treatment plant and the collection system. Uh the end product is a capital improvement plan uh that lays out the needed projects to fix the existing issues and prepare for long-term growth. So a little bit about the service area and this and the system description. Uh so the system includes along with all the piping five pump stations and the wastewater treatment plant. Uh plus a small low pressure septic tank effluent pumping system or SE system in basin 5 in the north part of town dating back to the 1960s. The oldest pipes in town are from the 1920s. Um especially in the the downtown uh area uh some some pipes are they're over 100 years old which is considered beyond life the materials vary from clay to concrete uh to PVC [clears throat] and then as as you guys probably know here it the town received a high amount of rainfall so that affects the the system. And so here's an overview map of the

system. Um so the wastewater treatment plant is located on the west side of town. Um and uh we have the system divided into five basins that are colorcoded there. Um and then also highlighted are the uh interceptors uh which is pretty much the backbone of the collection system. Uh those are the larger pipes that direct all the flow to the treatment plant. Um, so there's the the north interceptor and the fourth street interceptor kind of highlighted cyan, the southside interceptor in the orange and the southwest part and 12th street interceptor kind of in the mid south highlighted green and then the east side interceptor highlighted purple. Um, and there there's a part on third there that's a 8 in main that's probably not really considered an interceptor, but that's kind of lumped in with that. So, uh, population projections. Um, this came from the Portland Research C Center's official forecast for the city and urban growth boundary. Um and this this method is generally uh consistent with planning in Oregon. Um so we have the population projection and the urban growth boundary. Uh and then we have an employment uh and the the existing employment number we got from the the census American community survey for the city of Telma and then we put a 1% annual growth rate on it um based on information from the city's comprehensive plan

and uh something to note is that the population according to the forecast will peak in 2040. Uh and then it'll it'll start to decline. And then the buildout population um is based on information we received from TMO's comprehensive plan. Um and then employment buildout since we don't have really a year for buildout is based on acreage of land available for industrial or commercial use of acres. Um and then we have another area u we call the Mar blue area uh that um was considered a potential growth and development area. Um and so we kind of separated it out from the the official projection and and uh added it on as a a just in case you know this develops. And so here's a map of the growth areas. Um, and so we have them kind of colorcoded based on, you know, fiveyear growth to 2029, which is like the light pink. I don't know if you can see it there. There's some in the north and in the west and some small parcels in the downtown area and then some others in the in the east and then they got the darker pink which is the 25 regrowth areas and then the buildout areas highlighted orange. Um and then the hash pink is the marath area we considered. Um, and then also identified were some potential UGB expansion areas in the south that we considered.

So our approach um began with our study we did our INI study we did in 2023. Um, it involved an analysis of the INI or groundwater and brain entry brain water entry into the collection system. uh the INI study was really the starting point for us [snorts]

uh in the analysis of the collection system and it's where the sewer model was first established using available data from aselt CCTV inspections and flow monitoring and so the model is important because it's the main tool we use for evaluating the collection system capacity uh we further refined and expanded and updated the model with new survey information and flow monitoring or flow information from the wastewater treatment plant and pump stations. And so we used it to see how the system performs today and how it'll function in the future for the planning period. And then we also have a buildout scenario which is particularly important because it it tells us um how to size the improvements for the planning period. this pipe tends to last a pretty long time. So continuing with approach um so the future flows were developed using the population employment growth. Uh we also accounted for INI uh in into the system using industry accepted standards for new construction. We developed criteria for evaluating the collection system deficiencies based on indust practices, city standards, and state guidelines or DBQ requirements. Uh key to this is that DE requires the collection system piping to have enough capacity for a 5-year 24-hour storm event so that no sewage overflows occur. So, so this 5year 24-hour storm is a is a 24-hour duration storm that has a 20% probability of occurring every year. And so, specifically, our criteria included searchcharging. And searchcharging is when the flow exceeds

the capacity of the piping and the [clears throat] manholes begin to fill. It doesn't necessarily lead to an overflow, but it can. And so the criteria we have for piping a manholes is to allow search charging so long as the water system so long as the water surface is at least 6 ft below the rim of the manuals. For the pump stations um our criteria was the flow could not exceed the firm capacity of the pump station and the firm capacity is fine as the with a large compound service and this is based on state guidelines. And then the force veins which the pump stations pump into the fing pumps into uh we have a criteria that the velocities can't exceed 8 ft per second. So the findings uh the findings for existing and future storm conditions include uh that the model identified search charging and all the interceptors. Overflows are identified in the model for three interceptors which is the south side the tall street and the east side interceptors and the basin by step system uh has undersiz main piping with high velocities. Capacity issues were identified at the 12 Street pump station and the wastewater treatment plant inflow pump station which are the large pump stations for the city. And then there's aging downtown piping that needs replacement and rehabilitation due to the pipe condition. So here's a map of the deficiencies with the uh

the uh the red is showing searchcharged pipes that are greater than 75% full and that and manholes with less than 6 ft of preboard under the the design storm. Uh and then the key prong areas were the southside interceptor to the southwest there and the 12th street interceptor, the east side interceptor uh and the the third street main which is part of the east side interceptor and then a couple of areas in the Stillwell uh avenue area. a whole pipe set of no down there yet. Past observed flood overflows support the model findings. Um there have been observed overflows in the southside interceptor and the east side interceptor and the basin five issues aren't shown due to the low pressure system but remaining concerned. A separate analysis was done on that system outside of the model. So continuing with the findings. So ionize significantly increases the winter flows and reducing it to acceptable levels would require extensive rehab including the sewer service islands. Alternatives were developed with city input and account for a new wastewater treatment plant insulin pump station or IPS as recommended in the wastewater treatment plant upgrade alternatives report by John Harrison. The new IPS is a key element because it resolves the wastewater treatment plant bottlenecks and creates flexibility for upstream collection system improvements.

referral alternatives were selected with city staff. So getting into our recommendations, what came out of that is a new history interceptor is recommended to move flows from bases three and four which are on the east side of town and relieve overloaded pipes. Um recommen recommendations also include relocating the 12th Street pump station to a better site outside PE's paved area and diverting the flow from that station from the southside interceptor to the new fifth street interceptor. The highway six improvements um which are recommended includes a new gravity main and pump station to relieve the east side interceptor and third street man. We also recommend upsizing main piping for the step system in basin five at ground. So these recommendations form the backbone for the capital improvement program for the collection system. So getting into our improvement projects um the capital improvement plan includes both collection system and wastewater treatment plan improvements. And I'll I'll walk through the collection system and then Austin will cover the treatment plant uh projects later in this presentation. But part of my collection system improvements include the inflow pump station at the wastewater treatment plant and the influent inflow piping. So the projects were categorized near, median and long term and then a schedule was created to prioritize them and show the sequence of work. Planning level cost estimates were developed for each project including construction pro cost and markups for

contingency and engineering and legal and other administrative fees associated with the construction project. So, uh, central to these improvements is reducing sanitary sewer overflows. um with these improvements. So the next few slides here will summarize the the improvement projects to increase capacity or or operating efficiency of the existing system. Future service extensions were also identified in the plan but are not included in the capital improvement program as they're usually developer funded. So starting with the first project CIP1 contains the most downstream piping of the collection system just ahead of the US water treatment plant includes the new inflow pump station screening facility and new interceptor piping to direct collection system flows to the new new pump station. This project addresses existing and future capacity issues at the head of the wastewater treatment plant and the end of the collection system. CIP2 includes the new fifth street interceptor to address exist existing and future capacity issues. CIP 3 and five uh contain elements of the Highway 6 amendment and pump station to help serve future areas along Highway 6 and to relieve the existing East Street interceptor and Third Street Main. So these projects address exist existing and future capacity [clears throat] issues for the collection system. CIP4 involves relocating the 12stream pump

station to a more accessible site and rerout the flows to the new fifth street interceptor to relieve the existing southside interceptor. And this project addresses future and existing fasting issues. CIP fix involves replacing the main piping of the step system with larger piping and rerouting along Highway 101 so that it does not need to cross underneath the parts and sloop. This project addresses future and existing capacity issues for the collection system and concerns with the existing cross underneath for city. CIP7 involves rebranding the southside interceptor out of residential properties, fields and pens and putting into the alignment and rightways along existing streets. And this project addresses maintenance, access and reliability issues with the existing piping. The capital improvement program also includes maintenance projects to address critical areas identified by the city where pipe condition is poor and a disruption could have significant impacts to areas served. This includes highway crossings and line serving schools. We also have recommended annual budgets for pipe replacement and rehab and for stations. And also part of the ongoing maintenance is the enforcement of the city sewer lateral ordinance. And so here's a map of the projects. Um, and I can't really point them out, but so on doesn't show up on the TV.

They're good. So, yeah. So, this this includes the projects. Uh, the the critical areas are highlighted red. You see the highway crossings one there. Um and then the fifth street interceptor kind of in green there going across the downtown um the yellow area. Um and then down at the south there at the 12th Street pump station relocation and diversion. Um, so there's a gray box where it it's currently located and a red box where it'll move to and then some orange dash pipe is showing where it'll divert to uh to the fifth street under u and then the highway six lanes of pump station are kind of in the the purple and pink uh going out east there along highway six. Um and then the basin five improvements with the dash purple going north in the green area. Um, and then the southside interceptor, you can kind of see in gray where it's located now, kind of diagonally going across the the lavender area and then a new alignment and kind of light blue where it kind of zigzags on streets. I think it was a Beachwood at night and then down maybe keeping it in the streets. Um and then also a part of it is the step valves uh in a basic fine um to address corrective a corrective action letter from DEQ um requiring that for each of the step system pumps. Um and then the front street pump station I think was originally built in

the 1960s. It's fairly old and will need a replacement. And then in in green um our future service extensions. I think there's one going out further on Highway 6 and a few others located throughout there that will be developer funded. So the next two slides show the capital improvement plan projects with costs and order priority. Uh this slide shows the near-term projects. [clears throat] Uh projects are categorized these are as either capital improvement project with CIP or a maintenance project with M and the ID. So those are the costs there for the near-term and then for the the medium to longterm this is the next set of projects. Again a mix of improvement projects and maintenance projects uh for a total of 28 million for them. And then for the sewer operation and maintenance staffing and equipment, um our recommendations in include four full-time employees. Um and the staff will be dedicated to the collection system and they would also likely be involved with the storm water system as well. Um that's pretty typical for for other cities. And then um some recommendations for equipment include a CCT uh truck or van along with a back truck to help with inspections and cleaning and maintenance of the

system and repairs. Uh and then also part of that uh is the ordinance um which outlines requirements for inspection, testing and repair of property service. Um and that concludes my part at m hospital waste water treatment planner. Thanks.

Thanks Brad. Hi everyone. My name is Austin Brandon and I am from Consort. Um here to talk about the treatment plant, part of the master plant or facilities plant. Uh so the treatment plant as everyone knows is on the west side of town kind of at the end of fourth and fifth street next to the Tras River. Um it's a conventional activated sludge plant which means uh it's tried and true treatment technology machine. Uh it works well for Kenny. Um the plant discharges to Tras River and it's governed by a discharge permit um from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Um and kind of on the north side of the map out there, I know it's hard to see, that's where most of the liquids treatment or trains are. And the south side of the plant is more dealing with the solids, but that'll that'll come up later. Uh so on to the analysis. Um the analysis was kind of too bold. Um we had the city's longtime wastewater engineer John Harrison help us out with a capacity study. Uh he reviewed data 10 years worth of data. Um evaluated the influent flows and loading going into the plant and looked at every unit process and from a capacity standpoint to see how much more uh flows and loads it could take. Uh the consour team did the condition assessment which was more of a visual uh site visit walk through each unit process. Uh we looked at the operational regimes and uh interviewed staff and how they operate the plan. And so the improvements kind of come out in two categories as well. Uh John Harrison's upgrade alternatives and the condition assessment identified issues.

Uh so on to the findings uh for the capacity side of things the treatment plant will provide service through the planning period the 25 year planning period um John came up with a number of about up to 7500 uh people in the treat um [clears throat] the aation basin is flexible and will allow for future loading and um the ability to meet nutrient regulations and the solid treatment processes need the most attention and you'll hear me say this more than once. Um, and that was just on the capacity side. So on the condition side, u it's fair overall. The solids handling is the most efficient on the condition side as well. U and there's some aging equipment that needs to be replaced. Uh so findings continue. Um the recommendations were to keep moving forward with the dewatering and sludge storage projects that Kane's working on now. Uh be nimble to be able to align with future regulations that are might not be known at this time. And [clears throat] start placing aging equipment to be preventative versus reactive. And lastly, establish an annual budget for known items equipment, tank clean, things like that. Now to the recommended alternatives. Uh this slide is a high level overview of John's work. Uh he looked at alternatives for inclusion in the capital improvement plan. Um some near-term needs solid solids handling equipment. Big surprise there. Uh a new shop. Some work on the chemical feed systems. uh SCADA upgrades and equipment replacement. There will be uh another set of slides later that have all the

projects listed out with a cost similar to what Brad had shown. Uh moving on to the long-term recommended alternatives from John's report. Uh these are mostly needed to um account for future growth, replacement of aging equipment and to meet regulatory requirements. Uh so just some highlights here. The uh aerration basin improvements uh will be needed. A new clarifier, new screw press, a digtor. Uh there's filtration and temperature adjustment projects and these are also going to be needed to meet future regulations. And then bioolids handling equipment. U on to additional CIP projects identified from the condition assessment. Um we need to rehab tanks. uh repair concrete, replace valves, gates, pumps. Uh the structures there just needs to be brought back to its useful life. Replace the boiler and generator. Uh and then the south side of the plant needs a new electrical service. And some projects that came out of the the study, uh let's start that tank cleaning program just to be preventative. don't react when uh you can't use the tank anymore because it's it's not clean. Um there's a variable frequency drive replacement program. This will ultimately save energy over the long run. And we've identified just over $2 million a year needed for O andM and staffing uh for the treatment plant. Now these next three slides show the detailed project list making up the CIP for the treatment plant. I'm not going to talk about every single project uh but these have planning level costs that were developed for the financial analysis and for budgeting. Uh the same cost estimating methodology

was used that was used for the collection system and this first slide here includes near-term projects from John Harrison's evaluation. Some were mentioned previously in the highlights but outside the solids handling equipment here on this slide. Most of these are smaller ticket projects needed for compliance. Uh these are the medium and long-term projects from John's valuation. Uh the aeration basin upgrades are needed to meet growth and regulatory requirements and the new solid handling equipment and tank repair to address aging equipment. And finally, this last sand slide is uh for projects associated with the condition and longer term needs. Uh so again, we're rehabbing more tanks here, concrete repairs, replacing all the components to refresh the systems. Now, as far as operations and maintenance and and staff needed to do the work, uh we want to be proactive versus reactive. You'll hear me say that more than once. It's very important to be able to stay in front of a problem before it upsets your whole system. The treatment plant staff now covering the collection system. Uh and apparently they're down to three since we made these slides. Um we think that there needs to be five uh staff dedicated to the treatment plant to effectively stay ahead of maintenance and maintain compliance. That's been built into the budget. Um so finally the summary u the collection system projects total 47 million over the planning period and the treatment plant projects total 26 million over the planning period to a total of 73 million and again the CIP addresses capacity and

regulatory issues related to growth and permit compliance. Now on to next steps uh DEQ is currently reviewing the draft plan. Now, uh, we have gotten comments back from the city and once we get comments back from ADQ, we will address all those and wrap up a final plan and have it ready for city adoption. The rate study is underway now. And there will be on that. And that's all I have today. Thank you everyone. And we'll entertain any questions at this point. Now, thank you. Quite a shock and bless I know. Um but hopefully if you do have any questions we can answer them right now. Uh we don't have answers right at this moment for you.

Just a quick question on the proposed uh costs is that uh are those costs adjusted for inflation long term? Yes. Okay. As much as we can guess what inflation is going to look like. We do have built-in continuous for

I'm good and it's it's so green thought especially with everything else we have but I do the math but it's a total 73 over the next job security we have a fiveyear remember like 8 and 5 years from now what I'm thinking not on the top right

if I did my back in math correctly it was about 21 million over the next five years to follow the capital improvement projects um I did go through and divide that by base number of users and what a rate increase might be but I'm not going to say that because I don't want to influence influence what they're I I'm not a professional modeler, so we'll wait for them to come back with their proposal, but um it it's not hard to come back it with a ballark number and that's on top of the additional money needed to run a sewer plant.

I [clears throat] was including both there. I was including both of those. Yeah. Question for Kenny. Can you propose a 500,000 yearly budget for line replacement? What do we do now? Right now, I have like usually two to 400,000 for the collection system. Uh, and that's that's like capital my on&m for the collection system is less than 100. So, and most of my on is goes for the plan I guess it just takes so much.

And then I proposed for staffing and funding of the plan 2.01 million. That's everything and you we're less than 400,000. No. Uh right now like staffing is like 700 and on is like 1.3.4 portal like that's what those are combined. Thank you. We'll get a sticker shot. Thank you again.

Yeah, it's what it is. Y I want to Thank these guys. They did a lot of work on this. Put a lot of effort in. All right. Thank you.

Thank you guys. We appreciate it. All right. Next will be new business. A request to adopt the resolution authorizing city manager to execute a contract with the highest qualified lowest bidder for the water transmission line replacement phase one. You want some good news, mayor?

I do. So, um, we recently had our bid opening. So, um, the money that we got from Mr. Merkeley combining with our ARPA funds that we're spending already on this project. We were budgeting $15 million for this waterline replacement. Our qualified bid came back at 12.7. So that is a big savings for us. Um we are um asking because with any construction project invariably there are change orders and such that come in and unforeseen problems. So uh the resolution that is before you tonight is to authorize me to sign the contract with our uh low bidder um that this the highest qual the lowest with the highest qualifications. There's a a way that it goes. It wasn't the lowest bidder that we had but the lowest bidder did not meet the qualifications. So the the um the lowest with the highest qualified um and what we're asking for is to be able to sign the contract um in 7 days by providing the notice of intent to proceed. That's kicks off a 7-day protest period for other biders to come in. We can't sign the contract till that protest period is done. Um, but we want to be authorized to sign that contract when the protest period is done and then authorized me to um do up to 14 million um total cost which would allow us to do some change orders along the way. We we'd hope that it stays at the 12.7, but just those change orders and then we're limiting the change orders to $150,000 that I can authorize um without coming back to you all. Anything over $150,000 we would bring back to the city council

just because what is a protest? What does that involve? Seven days that means

so the protest very we have we have the way the process works as I understand it and maybe our public works guys can chime in if I get it wrong but we had we did a pre-qualification. So under our request for proposals, request for bids, we had certain biders pre-qualify um to say so that we could say, "Yeah, you meet the base qualifications to bid." Once they made their bids, um, and we had four biders come in, um, once they made their bids, our consultant, which happens to be Consort that's here tonight, um, took those and ranked them based on the low bid and then the different qualifications and the scoring pattern that was presented beforehand. The 7-day period allows for any of the other biders, so the three that didn't get the bid to protest our methodology or anything to challenge the decision. So, um, it is a legal thing that we have to do. We have to allow them that seven days. Um, I don't know what happens if somebody does protest it. We don't anticipate.

I ask my followup was do we have to get back in here and give you another authorization or can we just collect that in and say get it done? I think that's get it done. Does Brendon do you want? Yes. So this is all regulated by OS 279B which is for public contracting law and uh that process period allows biders who were not the apparent bidder to protest any potential anomalies they saw in the process or the bid that was received.

Yeah. um that's required by the RS and it is um I guess to answer your question, we're looking for the blanket approval to proceed with the project of pending [clears throat] whatever protests may or may not come. As protests come in, we review them uh with the city and with city's legal counsel um council's legal counsel as well can advise uh if there are any anomalies that are brought up and then we make a decision whether that protest is valid or not and then proceed whether it's latigious or we just say your protest we find invalid because you are not a party then we can move on and continue with awarding the contract to the apparent most bidder. So, for example, I don't know if I can talk about the one we had, right? Sure. Okay. Um, on our pre-application qualifications, we had somebody protest. We had a bitter protest that um we sent that through consor's legal, our legal. We identified several areas where they were deficient in their protest and where it was a a weak case and we denied that protest based on uh the legal analysis done. they could appeal that. I don't think they've chosen to do that. Um, this is just that that same type of opportunity once the final bid is there.

Thanks, I just sometimes say stuff. I don't think No, I'd rather have you ask the question now. So, we can still expedite the process. Yeah, we will expedite it as soon as we can. Uh, during the protest, are the protesters allowed to revise? No. They're they are not allowed to revise bids. No bids are in. They were due by 2 p.m. on January 8th. That is the bid that was assigned. That is what we evaluated and handle. There is no option to change. And that's a legal that's on a legal basis. They can't Yeah, absolutely.

The protest is on process, not on outcome. Right. So they can't they can't go in and say, "Well, I'm going to come in $100,000 less and change their score." They can challenge whether our methodology was incorrect but they can't challenge the actual or change their and that's per yes thanks also anybody else any other questions I move that we uh adopt resolution R 012 to zero states.

Second that. All right. Motion is made to adopt resolution and second. Any further discussion? Motion. Questions called. All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose. All right. Motion passes by the council seated. All right. Thank you. I have I have no departmental reports. He wants to go first. Um, we don't have police public works. Do you have anything? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I just uh Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Like I tell you guys, don't thank me. I'm the one little small piece. What's happening downtown? I can't do anything without Sean giving me directions to do it. So you kind of give me the free range to do, but really it's all Spencer. Those are the guys that are doing all the work. And so I just I appreciate the acknowledgement, but I'm not doing the work. It's those guys. So I just I want to make sure there's credit given for us, too. So but thank you. And you guys you guys work with us a lot. So it's a community effort and uh just keep working on new events. So thank you. Yeah. Uh, I just have one quick thing. I have my report in there. I know questions, but one one awesome thing that's going to happen is that we hired an AI company that's going to come in and um put all our applications online. People will be able to make payments online. Um, submit online. A lot of the review process will be done for the AI. Um, so alleviate buying time so we don't have to hire any tech, which is awesome. We don't have any budget. Um, so I'm super excited about that and hopefully that was one of my goals last year. Few months late, but at least we're getting it done and it's going to be super excited about that.

Or do we need to be worried about this AI doubting down on all this? No, it'll also be review time.

Couple of things about that. We've contracted Polymorphic. They are one of the least expensive ones out there. Uh we use some of our contingency budget for consulting that that we're not using this year through the planning department to pay for it. Um this includes an AI chat box that we can put on the website. So somebody can go in and type in I want to build a fence and it will quote back the the laws and stuff. It is entirely contained to our website and what we need. So it's not going out and searching the what chat GPT or any of those others. what it's it's entirely self-contained to us and we will be doing I hadn't announced this yet because we wanted to get further down the testing rabbit hole but the idea is that um we will put it through some robust tests to make sure that it is returning the right answer and and and doing things for us but it does allow for the online applications and and we can review that the the thing being and I folks like Terry may appreciate this when you submit a zoning application to us. This is supposedly smart enough to be able to review some of the documents and look at such as a sign permit or a construction permit and say maybe you've turned in the wrong document and you're or you're missing a document and it can do that initial review. were on a signed permit, it could actually do some of the review that then Megan can call up and do the double check on and just not give it totally to the technology but allow those those kind of things to happen. Um, so it's very interesting. We resisted uh they actually had a product where they could change our voicemail, not our voicemail, but when you call in the auto attendant that says press one, you could talk to it and get answers to that. We thought that was a little bit over the line for what we're trying to do right now. We'll keep it to just the website. So, um, but we're very very excited for this. Other cities in Oregon

have used it um and gotten good good results, especially smaller communities that don't have a lot of staff. This has helped save a lot of staff time. We have a launch date

um two or three months down the road. Um, we're taking it in small chunks. We've just barely signed a contract with them a couple weeks ago. Um and uh just actually just before the new year um so that we've had our first launch stuff where we're providing them data. They're taking it back. So um we'll get through it as quickly as we can but I think uh 90 to 180 days would be the conservative. Thank you. Any questions? Um, where are we? How are we doing right now compared to previous years on TOT and marijuana?

Um, we're a little bit lower than we have been in previous years. Not a lot, but a little bit lower. Marijuana is higher. The other one is not. Um, why are we lower? Because we have fewer rooms available or

Well, we lost Red Apple in we lost a whole, you know, hotel motel. Um, we need to find somebody to go into that spot so we can get those going. All right. Urban Renewal Agency. [clears throat] Um, pretty quick meeting this month. Um, we have a new chair which would be Victor Janeiro and the vice chair is kind. Um, I said not a ton. We're still working on the sidewalk project becoming bigger and bigger. So, it's kind of where we're at. Okay. County Housing Commission appointee. You're back. Back.

Um, this month we had uh Jeff Wong from CS Fisheries come and just give an update on his report. He was able to give some funding from the housing commission a while the rounds I think two rounds ago. And so he was updating us to that. He's in the permitting process and he's getting ready to add um housing and a retail location. And so they're on that racing. So it doesn't affect us, but we it's cool to see those move along. We get out money to see progress.

Um the other thing I wanted to announce is that uh Corin Carly from Care announced that they're going to have an outreach program next week. It's kind of a headcount that they do every year that they have to turn into the state for the house's community. Um, so if you know of anybody that's a nonprofit that wants to get over there and hand stuff out or, you know, be part of that outreach, they're going to have a food pantry. They're going to have giveaways, takeaways, a closed closet, things to help them out, resources and resource tables. Um, but it'll also be for us, the main goal is to get a headcount. They can get those members turned into the safe.

Is that uh No, it'll actually be at Sacred Heart Church on the 28th of January. Any questions? Thank you.

Okay. Um, going off our uh previous our new pattern of uh commenters from our our public comment period from the last meeting was all about downtown parking and lack of enforcement. Um, we had Kell, Terry, and Sky speak up against that. And luckily we've had some comments tonight saying that we have followed up and and done some things about it. I want to go a little bit further into that. One of the things that we've done is is we have um encouraged our we we've done education and sent the downtown parking map uh to all the businesses and and done that a lot by hand. Um meeting with Justin and going over our codes. Um, we think the best approach for us right now, there was a parking code that was established in 2018, um, that is on the books but isn't really enforced a lot. And so, we're going to go back to just enforcing what's on the books right now. Um, one of the changes that we will make to that though is the chamber lot which is owned by the city um currently has a restriction um just in signs of no employee/ employer/resident parking that is not on the books as part of the ordinance. Um those are just signs that are there. So we've authorized the removal of those signs to open that up. that will have the old library lot and the chamber lot as open parking for anybody who wants to park there. Um, and hopefully that will open up the street parking on Main and Pacific to those that want to park for the businesses and hopefully we'll see that. Um, I've got to tell you in talking to the business community, a lot of our stores are hurting. You've heard the story last week. I heard a story today where one of our downtown businesses had to lay off their last employee um this week or or recently um this summer is going to be

make or break for a lot of our businesses. So, anything we can do to help them uh in that is is good and I think the the partnership of opening up that parking so that so that their employees can park on the back lots and leave the streets open I think will be a good thing. We're also going to be sending out uh our enforcement so that there we can write some uh warnings or some tickets just to make sure that everybody knows that we're serious about keeping those 2hour parking limits on on our downtown parking um going. So you'll start to see some of that. Uh hopefully we don't make too many people angry, but um we're going to try. So, okay. Um so that's the followup from uh last meeting. need to thank Chelsea Hollis for being my brain again tonight. Um, our RCAC surveys were mailed. Um, so last week, uh, all the residents got a letter or should receive a letter announcing that they might get a survey. This week, the 500 or so people that are getting the survey should be it should be in their mailboxes this week. So, cross your fingers that we get really good response on that. Um, Ninth Street Park, um, the Coatsville Park has, uh, the rubberized service has been completed. Um, it's going to be reopening next week. Um, we want to do a tenative grand opening with Moda, who's been, uh, one of the sponsors of that, um, on March 19th to include a ribbon cutting and such. So, hopefully members of our city council can join us for that. We'll have more details as it comes up. Um, big day on Saturday. Um we've got the council retreat um in the morning where we're going to be talking goals and how what we want to accomplish over the next year or so. And then we've got the the gala for the chamber that night and you all should have received your um tickets today. So uh hopefully

we're all there. Um I think that is mostly what I have. I'll probably speak to something else in three minutes, but for right now, we'll we'll keep it at that. Okay. Anybody have any questions?

I have I have a couple questions about this appropriate non. It's been three years since I was here. I just have a couple of thoughts or questions about stuff that we passed back that's still still in place. So, again, it's not the right time for just actually council comments. Sure. How about you go first? Oh, okay. Well, one of them was just curious, how is the the ordinance on the sewer hookups? We just recently had our house sold and rebought and all that and they got to go through that process. Is that helping? Do we know all the extensions? I forget the right proper word. The the sewer laterals as each home is sold that has to be reviewed. Yeah, we are.

Do we see progress and how's that working?

We are reviewing them. Um it it gets to be a little bit uh hairy sometimes when somebody has to fix that at the house because that's not a cheap fix for a lot of people. We're looking for ways to help that and and Kenny's got some ideas on some different programs that maybe we can do. Um the wastewater plan that you heard tonight will will help go a lot of the way for that. Um I think we're seeing some progress because people are fixing them and and we are getting that done. Um, but it's slow because only so many houses sell each month. So, we're only getting certain reviews and then there's some comments on uh that I can go into a lot of nuances. But, I think the the general intent is it's working, but probably not as fast as we would like it to. And as we do some of these other improvements, I think what we will find is that um folks will want to improve their laterals as we improve our trunk lines. Yeah. on on this on the CIP plan that you just heard tonight. Um part of that was looking at fixing laterals going around. So there's good and [clears throat] bad

is how that's all going. We just since we had to get we came face to face with it. Um the other thing was um is there still a moratorum on on building on the east side that again that was that's a dirty word. I just asked and I want to hear um I don't want to talk about that in open meeting right now. So right now there is a we due to sewer capacity issues right

we are not able to approve building permits on the east side unless there is a a neutral impact to our sewer system. Okay. So we have allowed like the community college because they could show a neutral impact to the sewer system they were allowed to build. Um others have not because they would add impact to the sewer system. Okay. I more than happy to go through a lot of that but there's some legal stuff. You can feel free to come over and talk to me about it anytime. I really were just curious as a Sure. Remember when we put it in and there I was curious how that's going. Okay.

Other than that, thanks again. And I'll say publicly for updates you've been sending us uh keeping us informed uh last few weeks. I've really appreciated that as a definite great uh two things. Are we receiving any interest in our positions? No to start a frequently. Okay. Second thing, just as a reminder to the community at large, um here we are about halfway through the month, but

in just a couple of short weeks, the high school will be revving up for the annual charity drive and you will see high school kids out and about everywhere. Please be patient with them and uh enjoy what they have to offer. filled with your wallet as much as go to all the dinners and options, but that will be kicking off on February 6th. We got your 10day charity ride. Nice. We have the minutes for Monday, January 5th meeting. We approve the minutes for the Monday, January 5th, 2026. Second. Any other discussion on the question?

Questions called? All those in favor signify by saying I I opposed by the council seated. We pay the bill. Second pays. Hi. Councelor Sanduski. Hi. Councelor Chris. Hi. Councelor Nelson. Hi. Motion passes. Pay the bills. And that we have what what time on Saturday? be there.