City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. We good to go? Okay. Well,

thank

you all for being here. I am sitting in for our mayor who is will be here shortly, but he is just having left class this afternoon, and so he'll be here as soon as he can safely get here. So I would like to call to order this 03:00 work session of the city council of West Linn. Could I get a motion on the approval of the minutes? So moved. The agenda, please.

Second.

Alright. Thank you. I said minutes. I meant agenda. And now we have public comments. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Approval of agenda. Roll call. Thank you.

Councilor Baumgarten?

Yes.

Councilor Breich?

Here.

Council president Baumgartner? Yes. Councilor Groner? Yes. Thank you very much. Alright. Now we are on to public comments. We at least have two, I believe, who have already submitted. If anyone gathered has not submitted a sheet requesting public comment, please do so. They can be found over on the table and turned into our administrative assistant, Teresa Howard. Who is the first public commenter? Are they online or in person? In person. Okay. Thank you.

Gail Greenman. And just for people who aren't used to public comments, we'd like you to state your name and city of residence, and then just make sure the little light's on and the microphone and have it be kind of close to you.

How's this?

That's perfect. Perfect. And you have three minutes.

Thank you. You're welcome. City of West Linn, 19725 Suncrest Drive. Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment. I want to give a quick overview of a project we are doing at our house, which is a bathroom and a bedroom addition for my elderly and sick father who is a recent widow. We lost my mother unexpectedly in September. And we're planning active plans to move him 3,000 miles from the Washington DC area. It's just what it is. It's a bedroom and a bathroom. On March 25, we were alerted by our contractor, Metke, who was alerted by the city that in just water permitting, we have $35,000 of permits just for that bathroom.

That is 10% of the bedroom and bathroom project and considerably more when we're just talking about the bathroom. That afternoon on March 25, we got on the phone with the city immediately, walked them through what we had previously researched in terms of code that this didn't these SDC charges did not apply to our project. It was not an independent living unit. It is not inclusive of a kitchen, a living area, any of that. To which they were, you know, very responsive and said we'll look into this but you make a very good point.

A week ago, last Tuesday, we were informed that unfortunately, ordinance that had been passed in 2006 had never been updated on the publicly available city code. Frankly, that's unacceptable and I understand that's nobody that's not the fault of anybody on council, that's not the fault of anybody on staff now, but unfortunately, it does fall to you guys to clean up. We have made formal application for a waiver. We feel we fall in the provisions that a waiver can be granted. The timeliness is important. My dad is 83. He is sick. He's 3,000 miles away. And we have a project that's gonna take six to nine months to build. And we haven't put a shovel in the ground yet.

So that's what I'm here to explain to you in terms of our situation. I think also having spent my life in public policy, I'm a public servant myself. I think there's an evaluation of the public policy needed. Did did the counselors in 2006 intend for the repercussions for adding a bathroom to be $35,000 in just water permits? I would think not. It's somewhat irrelevant. I think it's for you guys to decide if that meets any sort of reasonableness standard or laugh test. I don't think it does. I think it's important. So just to conclude very quickly, my two asks are we have an active waiver where the timeliness is really really critical.

It's critical to the survival of a human being. And then the evaluation of the policy so that nobody has to nobody has to go through this. I think when we talk about livability and affordability and density, you know, you have people who are actively trying to do that and who are seeing a blockade because of these service charges unnecessarily. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, next we have Joe Greenman. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Joe Greenman, resident of Westland, Gail's spouse as you might have surmised. I won't rehash what she so eloquently put down, but I'll just take a minute to address a few other additional points. First, in the policy piece and then with specific reference to our project here. In the context of dealing with a really traumatic event in the history of our family, wanting to help my father-in-law, her dad, thinking about the different options that may be available to us. Do we sell our house and move?

Do we do this? Do we do that? And honestly, the concept of creating something in our home that would promote intergenerational living in our family was just by far more preferable to any of the other options or alternatives, including like, why sell this house that we've lived in for nearly twenty years now that our kids are used to, that we frankly like, including our neighborhood and the local schools, when another alternative is available? Now had the code been accurate at the get go and our builder been able to discern that, oh, by the way, it's gonna actually be the building cost plus this $35,000 additional fee, that might have thrown the evaluation in a whole other different direction. And that would have been a shame because I think that the solution that we're landing on, and that frankly we're pot committed, our chips are in the table to do this, is the best solution.

Although good solutions can get destroyed by bad policy that equates to additional costs. We might just go in a different, less preferable direction if the costs are just prohibitive associated with that. So leaving that bigger issue that you guys might want to consider in future months or years even, and I know you're constrained by budgets and other things when you make those decisions, I'll talk about our individual project itself. The good news is that the issues presented by an inaccurately published municipal code that we relied upon are remedy they can be remedied under current policy that is in existence in the city of West Linn. The city is obviously responsible for publishing an an accurate municipal code.

And in this case, it was inaccurate, and we relied upon that. Our builder relied on the code as well in creating our initial plan. Our reliance has been detrimental to us to the extent that we have extensive design and building permitting costs already in the hopper. And then finally, granting the waiver remedies all these potential misjustices. And the good news is is that in your your master fees and charges document, there is a provision that permits waiver in situations where there's an unusual circumstance or event, past practices, demonstrated hardship, or public benefit, the SDCs can be waived.

And I think that when you when we look at those criteria, many of them have been triggered by the unique circumstances of this particular situation. So, like my wife, I urge the city to give strong consideration to our heartfelt plea to waive the SDCs in this case due to the circumstances. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Yes. I think our city manager had a comment.

Yes. Hi folks. Thanks for coming in today. We've been in some email exchange. Just wanted to let you know we're planning on you'll be hearing from me probably tomorrow on this, and I'll also follow you out when you leave, and I'll just say hi. Thank you.

Thank you, city manager. Now we move on to oh, do we have any other public comments? There are no further comments. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item four, mayor and council reports. This would go ahead, councilor Bryke.

Thank you, council president. Since our last meeting on March 10, I attended the water environmental services advisory committee. We did a we had a preview of the state of the district, which I believe their executive director will be here to present to councils at some point in the future, and we also got a preview of the budget preparation. Also was able to attend the chamber of commerce coffee at the Library Community Room. Clackamas County district attorney John Wentworth spoke about a new project that he's very excited on that will be he's trying to roll this all into a comprehensive, basically first in the nation resources available for, people dealing with domestic violence and sexual abuse.

And then on the twenty fifth, there was the South Fork Water Board meeting, and they are currently working on their water conservation and management plan and preparing for potential summer algal blooms should that happen with the limited snowpack that we have that will be melting in. And, and then also on April 2, I attended the swearing in of, captain Garland for his promotion.

Thank you, councilor Reich. Either Bonington or Groner? Councilor Groner? Thank you, Councillor Groner. Councillor Bonington?

Last meeting was the tenth. It's quite a quite a long time ago. Since then, we have had a Parks and Recreation Board meeting. And I guess since then, we have also said goodbye to parks director Megan Bigjohn who I wanted to thank for her years of service and friendship as well. Let's see, we also went to Washington DC. That was a lovely, lovely opportunity to meet with Congresswoman Janelle Bynum and Senator Jeff Merkley's staff.

What else? And Senator Wyden.

Yes. And Senator Wyden. What else? Yeah. I think that that pretty much sums it up for now.

Great. Thank you very much. Yes. I also was present at the National League of Cities Congressional Conference in Washington DC as was the mayor. And we did get some great relationship building and also advocating for our city and region with our federal delegation.

So we appreciate the city making that possible for us to do those relationship building and lobbying efforts. I also attended today actually, the Children's Center sponsors a luncheon for different agencies regarding children who are exposed to drugs in the home and so they do a lot of support and interact with law enforcement agencies and also social services. And so I had recently had a tour of their facility, their intake and investigation facility over by Willamette Falls Hospital called the Children's Center, and it's an amazing resource for people who need it. And they also then are coordinating with other agencies and it was interesting to listen to their lunch today, their meeting actually. I also wanted to mention that for anyone who might be interested and like minded as I am extremely keenly interested in beavers, it is actually International Beaver Day today.

So I just wanted to read a little bit about beavers, it's just a sentence or two. Beavers are crucial ecosystem engineers and a keystone species that create, restore and maintain wetlands by building dams. Their activities increase biodiversity, improve water quality by filtering pollutants, recharge groundwater, and reduce wildfire risks providing vital climate change resilience. So big support of that. And that is about it. So now on to our proclamations, unless anybody else had anything else to add to community advisory or other reporting. No? Okay. Proclamations. The first one would be Arbor Day.

And I believe did I hand that to councilor Bonington, is that right?

Yes.

Thank you.

Whereas in 1872 j Sterling Morton proposed the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for the planting of trees And whereas, this holiday now called Arbor month was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska is now observed throughout the nation and the world. And whereas, trees reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce oxygen and provide habitat for wildlife. Whereas planting trees we emphasize views direct pedestrian traffic and complement or enhance architecture. Whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas and beautify our community. Whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy, peace, and spiritual renewal.

And whereas the city of West Linn is recognized as a tree city USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation and desires to expand its tree planting and stewardship practices. Now therefore be it proclaimed by the City Council of the City of West Linn that April 2026 is Arbor month.

Thank you, councilor Bonington. Next, we have Earth Day proclamation. Councilor Bryke.

Thank you. Whereas Earth Day was first celebrated on 04/22/1970 with the goal of inspiring an appreciation of our nation's natural resources through conservation and protection. And whereas the theme of Earth Day twenty twenty six continues to be invest in our planet. And whereas the idea behind the theme is to continue encouraging governments, corporations, and residents to take steps towards more sustainable practices. And whereas investing in our planet is vital to enhance environmental awareness, creating and implementing effective plans will help minimize the environmental impact and protect the planet for generations to come.

And whereas Westland benefits from green space and environmental amenities that enrich the lives of our residents and visitors, provide habitat for flora and fauna, but need stewardship to ensure viability for future generations. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the city council of the city of West Linn that 04/22/2026 is Earth Day.

Thank you, councilor Bryke. And now we next have the National Library Week proclamation. Councilor Groner has that.

Providing free and equitable access to books, digital tools and innovative programming. And whereas dedicated librarians and library workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery, collaboration, and creativity for all. And whereas National Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities. Whereas, we encourage all residents to visit the Westland Library, explore its resources, and celebrate all the ways that the library helps our community find joy. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Westland City Council that the week of April 2026 is National Library Week in Westland, Oregon and call upon all of its residents of this great city to join me in supporting the mission and vision and heightening the awareness of the importance of our libraries.

Thank you, councilor Groner. And I have the last of the four proclamations. Thank you for all of your patience out there. Mine is on distracted driving safety awareness month. A good good reminder for all of us.

Whereas motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of death and injury in Oregon, and whereas distracted driving is a serious life threatening practice that is preventable yet is a national and statewide epidemic that can lead to crash fatalities for drivers and passengers as well as pedestrians, and whereas distracted driving is any activity that could divert a person's attention from the primary task of driving, and whereas in Oregon between 2019 and 2023, there were twenty eight thousand six hundred and ninety nine crashes involving a distracted driver resulting in two hundred and twenty one fatalities and twenty eight thousand three hundred and thirty two injuries. Those are pretty significant figures. Whereas studies show that using mobile electronic devices involves visual, auditory, manual, and cognitive distraction and is almost the worst of all driver distractions And whereas in Oregon between 2019 and 2023, there were one thousand nine hundred eighty seven crashes involving a drivable driver using a mobile electronic device resulting in twenty six fatalities and one thousand seven hundred ninety injuries. And whereas Oregon law as of 2018 prohibits the use of mobile electronic devices when operating a motor vehicle on public roadways, and whereas to reduce the number of crashes as well as improve Oregon's driver safety culture, the Oregon Department of Transportation seeks to enhance awareness, understanding, education, and enforcement to stop distracted driving.

Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the city council of the city of West Linn that April 2026 is distracted driving safety awareness month. Thank you.

Council president? Yes. Thank you. With your with your approval, I have two items before we get to our business agenda that the mayor and I had discussed. First of all

Thank you. Yes. Please proceed.

We have a brief update from Danielle Choi and Doug Erickson on framing our future. But before they come up, Tyler Harmon from our recreation department is here and has a few thoughts about the the Arbor Week.

Wonderful. Thank you. Hello, Tyler. And I while you're getting set up, I'll just say that I was downstairs and inspecting all of the beautiful plants that, people can come and take a plant in honor of Arbor Week and hopefully plant it and not kill it, and they're lovely plants.

Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Oh, thank you city council. My name is Tyler Harmon. I'm with Westland Parks and Recreation. I'm a recreation coordinator. My team is very proud that our city is a Tree City USA community, a destination we've had held since 1993, making this the thirty third year. Tree City USA, an annual national program established in 1976 by the Arbor Day Foundation is a program that promotes awareness of the value of community trees and recognizes communities commit I'm sorry. Committed to caring for and expanding their urban forests.

To earn this qualification communities must meet four core standards. Standard one, a community tree board, department, or position with a legal authority and responsibility for public tree care decisions. In West Linn, this is carried out by our city arborists and our parks and recreation department. Standard two, a public tree care ordinance that provides clear guidance for planting, maintaining, and removing trees from public spaces. West Linn fulfills this through our community tree ordinance in the West Linn Municipal Code.

Standard three, a community forestry program with an annual budget of at least $2 per capita. West Linn's current spending per capita on community forestry is $16.17. Standard four, a public Arbor Day observance and have an official annual community proclamation. As a part of our Arbor Day observance, we are excited to celebrate Arbor Week happening right now through April 8 kicking off Arbor month. To mark the occasion, we are offering a free native tree giveaway at the Parks And Recreation counter at City Hall.

Please feel free to stop by today or tomorrow between 8AM and 5PM to pick up a small sapling. We're also looking forward for our biggest volunteer event of the year Earth Day Work Day on Saturday, April 26 from 9AM to 2PM at Fields Bridge Park. This is a great opportunity to come together as a community to remove invasive species, plant trees, and improve our parks. If you're interested in volunteering, visit our website for the Earth Day Worth Day event and you can register online. Thank you. We really appreciate all the work that you do and thank you for letting me speak about all the trees.

You're welcome. And all of you and the Parks and Recreation Department are our heroes for all of the work you're doing. So thank you.

Thank you.

And everybody come and get a beautiful native shrub downstairs.

Come and get one. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks, Tyler. And then Danielle and Doug, would you like to come up? And council president and council, the reason for this, the framing our future program is an important initiative we're doing with our community. It's council priority. Danielle and Doug are two of the internal leaders on this program, and the mayor and I thought we would give it a little enhanced visibility today rather than waiting for the the city manager's report where I must admit some people leave the room before I give it. We thought we would give it a a little prominence today. So Danielle and Doug, if you have a couple of moments to talk about the program. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, council. Thank you for having us here. We are very excited to talk about the framing our future program. It's the number one priority in the communications department and really all the departments of the city. So we're very pleased to be able to let you know that out of the selection of things we're gonna mention today, one of the most exciting is that the Owl newsletter, which is the print newsletter that gets mailed out to every single address in West Linn twice a year, all 10,000 homes and businesses.

It has already gone to the printer, and it is going to be available as early as next week. So that's very exciting. This is a special framing, our future edition of the OWL, which is twice as long as the usual one because it's just chock full of great information about each of our departments, you know, how they function, what it is they're responsible for, all that really good educational material that we hope the public can understand before we move forward as part of these conversations to discuss what's next.

And along those lines, it's also 16 pages long. So it's it's by four extra pages of information than we traditionally do at 12. So I think you'll enjoy it and I think it will be a wonderful point that people can look to and also direct them to what we're trying to do with this endeavor with framing our future.

Thank you so much. Wonderful. I look forward to it.

One thing we're really looking forward to seeing after the newsletter hits mailboxes, we expect increased engagement on the framing our future website. There are QR codes all over the the addition to make it as easy as possible for folks to get from reading, you know, the the newsletter around their kitchen tables to commenting online and letting us know what it is they think. Along the lines of physical media, you'll also notice you have some packets available. These include a refresh of flyers, new framing our future business cards, as well as a small group discussion guide and some talking points around this project to help introduce it to, you know, whatever groups you might be meeting around town or spread the word that way. So if you ever need more materials, please feel free to contact us.

But in the meantime, we're we're gonna keep cranking them out. Thanks.

Great. Thank you so much.

The other thing I wanna mention is that if you've been noticing our e newsletter that every single week we have new content that's being created throughout all our departments across the city. The three things that you can be looking for, not all at the same time in the same week, but our infographics, what we do statistically valid and relevant information that we want to share with our community, Short stories of special interests for our community about what we do, and then also the one minute videos. So we kicked it off with a one minute video last Thursday, which also then goes out towards on our social media platforms as well. So it will be one of those three things, if not a couple of them. And we are continuing to work on them and we'd love to have your feedback on if you like them, if there's things that you'd like to see, things that can be added to.

We've got a lot of drone footage that we've created and we're creating more here. And I think that the most important thing that I want the community and for you all to know, this is all the cottage industry of our own. We are doing this all ourselves. We are not outsourcing anything to anybody else in regards to this kind of content. So it really is on the strong shoulders and legs and backs of our 144 employees here and everyone's engaged. And so if you get a chance to, you know, say thank you to them, I know they'd appreciate it. And hopefully it'll give our community a little bit more insight as to what we do and who are the people that do it, that they can be proud of.

Thank you so much. Yes. I was I did personally attend the staff appreciation and recognition ceremony breakfast recently. And just again, once more time, I was struck by how few people are doing so many things so well in our city and it just made me really proud. So thank you all for your work.

Thank you. Doug has called the effort to educate and reeducate our community about how much we do with how little each of our departments an evergreen effort. So that's, you know, as we continue with framing our future, we're collecting material that can be used over and over again to continue to tell those stories, which are so important. So thank you for that recognition.

And the last thing is that you've been seeing and you will continue to see in your own email boxes every week, kind of what we're doing every week in regards to framing our future. So you can follow along. Please feel free to interject, feel to make ideas and come together as a council in ways that we can, help you in sharing this message out. But we are committed on Thursdays when the e newsletter comes out that again you'll be seeing what we're doing that week and what we're planning on doing for the rest of, the following week. And we're also working with John and Alyssa, in person every week as well to make sure that we're all coordinating the efforts in a way that is constructive and we think we can share our story in the best way.

Thank you so much. Yes, we appreciate the updates.

Fabulous. Thank you both. Appreciate you coming to the meeting today. With that, we are just about exactly on agenda time, which is cool. So we can move on to the first business item or the first work session item.

Okay. I think we have item number six.

Item number six. So this is about the early work package contract for the public work the City Operations Complex, and it looks like Morgan Lovell and Eric Lice are both here. These are experts, as you know, on this, and they're gonna be sharing with you what this early work program is and what the next steps are. Eric, are you gonna introduce? Excellent.

Welcome, mayor. Good afternoon, council. Eric Lies, public works director and city engineer. Here today to discuss the early work package for the Epic Works City operations facility. We will be bringing it back again next week for approval.

The city's operations complex has achieved significant progress since its original kickoff meeting in February 2023 when council awarded the preliminary design contract to Scott Edwards Architecture. Since that time, the project has progressed through CMGC construction contract award to Skanska USA, final design with Scott Edwards and budget allocations, and recently land use approval. At the time of the award of the pre construction services to Skanska on on 06/16/2025, council was notified that a future amendment for construction services would be presented at a later date. So here we are. This early work package will provide limited scope authorizations to facilitate early procurement and construction services of selected materials such as concrete and mass plywood, panels, structural steel and prefabricated metal buildings.

Also included in the early work package is on-site construction activities such as earthwork, road building, water, sanitary sewer, and storm water utilities. All this work will be performed under a site development permit in conjunction with the building department and engineering. Advantages of the early work package include reduced material escalation and supply chain volatility. It secures fabrication and procurement for long lead items. And it establishes early site access and earthwork during the dry weather.

If you may remember that was one of our value engineering efforts, whereas we were able to get in to the site during the dry weather, it was $1,000,000 plus savings. It also maintains transparency of the budget while design and construction planning progress through our review city departments in review. The early work package budget is set for $17,869,443 split amongst the streets, water, storm and sewer parks budgets. And with that, I will turn it over to Morgan to go into further details.

Good afternoon, everyone. Just starting off with that overview, is there any specific questions before we kind of get into the contract amendment? Okay. So the contract amendment for you will be presented at the April 14 meeting for formal approval. We just wanted to bring this to you if there's any discussion or concerns that we could address ahead of that meeting.

This contract amendment has been fully vetted by Barry Ellsner and has gone through the legal review process. It is standard procedure for this kind of architect CMCG design project. So we're excited. I wanna remind you that 17,000,000 is part of the whole 45,000,000 approved budget. So it is just one component and it is an initial separate site development package.

It is not the entire GMP, which will be provided in or thinking around May. So that will be the final construction project amendment brought to you that includes all the vertical construction. So this right here is limited scope just for site development. It does not include anything under vertical building permits, which will be issued separately. Again, it provides a lot of assurance to prices right now, we can get the trades that are valuable to site access secured and have those budget in place.

Again as you all know as construction continues prices can change, we so want to lock in these prices where there's a good competitive market, which currently does exist. Skanska has done a lot of work to secure these prices. Kaufman excavator is their partner that was selected through the RFP process. So they will be doing the earthwork process and Skanska will be self performing some of the concrete work, and then we will be doing early procurement of the mass plywood, which is a vital component of the construction. Again, that won't be built yet, but it'll be securing it getting it on-site because it has a long lead time for manufacturing.

The pre engineered metal buildings will be ordered, but again, they're not going to be put up prior to the issuance of the building permit. So hopefully none of this is really new news to the council, but we just want to make sure we're bringing it to you and able to answer any questions you may have.

Good afternoon, everybody. I was following along online. I've been watching the meeting. Thank you for your grace. Any questions on this topic for the early work package? My question is just when when you're looking at the 17,000,000 and thinking about what we thought it would cost for this type of work going into the project, are we tracking on the budget? Sempas is just like on on par with budget over budget under budget?

Yeah. It is tracking budget. There are two things in here that you'll see there's two allowances. Those are for unknowns. So there's some like pilings and possible boulder removal.

Right now that's just allowances in case we run into that. If we don't, that money will be rolled up into the the standard GMP. But right now things are tracking pretty well within the expected budget. And before we get to the GMP they will have time to go through this, they will reconcile the entire budget, we will have more conversations if anything looks off. We do have a list of, you know, wants, needs, things that could possibly be removed if we were to come in over budget, but we're still targeted to meet that initial overall price of 45 that was previously approved by council.

That's great news. Thank you. It looks like the GMP will come to us in early summer twenty twenty six, date to be determined, I'm guessing.

That is correct.

Cool. Any other questions, Comments? Seeing none.

I have

a Oh, go ahead.

I just wanted to tell you that it it I really appreciate the detail and also just the confidence that this builds in all of us because this is a big project for us to take on. So I just wanna thank you both so much and everyone else who's doing hard work for this so we can bring it together.

Absolutely. Thank you. Agree with those comments and great report from Skanscan here as well. Seeing nothing else, I guess the next step would be just bringing this back for adoption at the next week's meeting. So I hear no objections and sounds like there's a consensus to doing that. So we will see you back here on fourteenth. Fantastic. Thank you all.

Thank you.

Excellent. And while Lauren comes up and you guys are walking away, I just wanna echo the council's thoughts. You're doing fantastic work moving this project forward on budget as the mayor pointed out. So we appreciate it.

I don't wanna jinx it, but a project under budget is something good, something special good.

Under budget. We like on budget, and we like under budget.

It's something this day and age. It's a nice thing.

Speaking of under budget, one of Lauren's favorite phrases, Mayor, Lauren Breithaube, our finance director is here to explain a proposed ordinance related to a installment payment option for SDCs that the city currently has. So Lauren will present an explanation of that. And we had a legal changeover here to get our specialist on this topic up at the desk.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Take it away. Very interesting topic actually, this financing of SDCs.

Yes. So as you all know, we have a financing of SDCs in our code that we allow for a ten year program where they can finance over the ten years installment payments twice a year. I reached out to legal a while back, but again, in about six months ago and asked about what we could do about raising the interest rate for these for this program. Right now, we are currently at prime plus one, and this financing causes a lot of administrative burden on the finance department. It takes a lot of time to put these agreements into place, and then a lot of times what will happen is the develop if there's a developer, they'll finance all 40 houses that are going in.

And then before well, when they go to sell it, they pay them off early. So we don't end up getting the interest really for it, we get it for such a short period of time, which doesn't really make it worth it for us to go through all that initial setup and then have them be paid off within the next few months. Again, don't get any of the really much interest for them, and we've done a lot of work. And so with any upcoming housing developments, we worry that it would just become very burdensome to the finance department. Currently, have four agreements in place.

Those would be grandfathered in and we only have and of those four, it's three three individual installment plan holders. So when I reached out to legal, they started looking into this and said that it was potential that we could repeal it completely and not and not do this. And so I'll let Kristen weigh in on that. But yeah.

Yeah. Thanks, Lauren. On the legal side, state law, specifically ORS two two three two zero five subsection two, provides that the provisions of the Bancroft Bonding Act, what we're talking about, are not mandatory. So in other words, state law allows cities to offer this program to pay SDCs in installments, but it does not require cities to provide this option. Therefore, ultimately, it's a policy decision as to whether the city of Westland wants to offer this option to pay SDCs in installment agreements, and we look forward to your thoughts and questions. And I'm here to answer any questions on the legal side that you may have.

And one thing to note, we did reach out to those three installment plan holders via letter. We have not heard anything back from them in regards to that, but this is something that we wanted to put on your agenda and eventually come back in a couple months and discuss putting this through, this ordinance through.

Thank you for that overview of the policy considerations and the legal side. I saw some hands go up. I'll go to councilor Bryke and then I think councilor Groner had a question.

So when you reached out to the people that are currently using this program, was that just in case they planned on doing future projects, you wanted to make sure that they knew that we were discussing this policy about whether or not it would continue? Because as you said, they're grandfathered in. Correct?

Absolutely. Yeah. They'll be grandfathered in. We just wanted to make sure that there were no complaints from the people who have been using it or any major issues, red flags raised. Just kinda give them the courtesy of saying, hey, this is something we've done in the past but it's something we're considering moving away from.

Councilor Boehringer?

Yes. Thank you. I was wondering, I understand that repealing the installment payment program does save staff time and presumably, but I'm wondering if this does not move the burden to developers to now finance their SDC charge and is this an obstacle or friction in their developments?

I think it kinda depends. I mean, I think a lot of the developers that are using this program, they're using it because they're nervous. And I'm speaking for them, I don't know this for sure, but I think that when you're building a housing development with 40 units, you're nervous that you're gonna hit a recession or something like that, where then you would be stuck with 40 houses and not be able to sell them. And so they don't necessarily wanna pay all those fees upfront and then be stuck with them. But they it is a lien on the property, so they do have to pay it back right well, before they officially sell it or when they sell it.

And so I I think that there is the option for them to finance other ways or even pay outright in a lot of cases. I mean, some of that these account holders are just are not big developers. They're just single family or developed a couple properties. And but like I said, most of the people who use this are developers, and I think that they I I think that they would have the ability to finance it from a bank or through other methodology if they need to.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments.

Were we giving a better interest rate than the market generally, or how does that factor into this?

You know, it's hard to say. We are doing prime plus one. I think it was more just the ease of it. Doing it with the city is probably the best reason for them to come to the city. It's there's no there's an application process, but it's not like we're looking at their financing or we're making sure that they're able to pay it back or doing like a underwriting like a bank would.

And so, you know, it's a very easy process. They turn in a basically a two page application and then sign some documents with the notary and that's it. And so it's really an easy process for them. Like I said, it takes a lot of time on our side of things, especially with the audit. We have specific rules about how to record those for deferred payments and whatnot. And so it is a lot of administrative time on our side of things, and we do have to record those in a bunch of different funds because of all the SDCs and so allocating it out and each SDC is a little bit different. And so the percentages go different places, so it is a lot of work on our side and very, time consuming.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Council president.

Thank you, mayor. Yes. And thank you for this information. This is very interesting. I find myself wondering, I see you mentioned there's not been a significant tool for development feasibility within the community. Do we have a sense of on average, how many a year, or I don't even know how it how it would be calculated. Who's using this? Is is this it doesn't sound like it's being used very often.

Yes. So I I mean, we have had a developer or or two use it for when they have large housing developments. And so if they're, you know, twenty, thirty housing developments, and like I said, usually it's they take them out and within six months to a year, they pay them all off or a majority of them off. And it's as the sales go on. So it's not like all one day, it's like, oh, you know, if we paid it off this way, this day we would have to calculate the interest rate. But mostly it is large developers that are that are building, you know, 40 units.

Okay. That was my other question. So it's really develop larger developments rather than a single, like a person building their private home kind of

There are a few that are single people building private homes or a couple homes on, you know, developing multiple homes

But on their

I would say the majority of the use over time has

been

larger development.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Councilor Bright.

I have done that work in the past and yes administratively it is a very heavy lift. And I do think that most people would have alternative ways to finance that and maybe even over a longer period of time. And I think where the biggest challenge comes in is the developers because it's a lien on the property, it's not going to go ten years unless it's just an individual building a house for themselves. All the rest of them are going to be paid off in much shorter periods of time and with your fiscal year end of June 30, if they pay it off in July or August, you have a whole lot of additional work to do for that prior fiscal year. So I I understand what what the burden is.

I appreciate that. It is it is a lot of work. And happy to do it if it really is something that people need, but again, it seems like the it's been not utilized very often, and when it is utilized, it's a lot. And so that makes it challenging for us.

For me, I would like to know what a couple of other cities around us are doing. Like if I don't want to be the only city that doesn't have Bancroft financing and then have developers come in and then say, well, you're the only one. And the other thing is just on the cost of housing, you know, maybe we could check-in and just make sure that developers got the letter that we sent it to because I don't want them to say, we never saw the letter, you know, but we'd now we have a strong objections to this and then we get to the adoption hearing whether in a month or whenever that is and then there's, you know, a strong opposition which would then throw it into a little bit of uncertainty. So I don't know. I can think of ICON and Portlock or a couple of developers I've seen operating around town and maybe there's I don't know who else. You probably have the list of who has them.

Yes. That's I mean, those are the those And then I believe there's a new one and I can't remember the name it starts with a P, but they're not using the financing yet. We have looked at other cities. Some of the cities our size use them. A lot of cities don't have any outstanding currently.

Some of them do, very few. A lot of the smaller cities don't have them at all or even places like Hillsborough I noticed didn't have them. I know Happy Valley doesn't, but cities like Milwaukee, like Oswego, Oregon City do. I believe Oregon City doesn't have any outstanding Bancroft Finance Agreements, and I know that when I checked with them, they all had pretty significant interest rates that were higher than ours, a prime plus one. So a lot of times it would be prime plus two percent or prime plus 4% I think in a couple of cases.

Interesting. And then in terms of the developers, yes we can check or resend a letter however you want to do that. But again, it's three people at this point holding agreements.

So And I can certainly appreciate the staff concerns and the staff time and the Yeah. Absolutely. Councilor Brack was saying the bureaucratic time it takes to just administer. So perhaps it's not worth it. So we'll we'll we'll we'll we can put this on another agenda.

Yeah. I will add that most of our sister cities codes that I have looked at do provide for this option. So I do think we would maybe be a little unique in repealing this option. However, to Lauren's point, the actual frequency of use of this is not, like does not seem overwhelming. And specifically in Westland, we have the numbers and it is very low. But I think by code, will flag that most sister cities that I've looked at do provide for this.

Perhaps this is not the key to housing production. We just don't want to take action that strongly limits housing as we've done the housing production strategy and all these other things. So thank you for flagging that. Councilor Bragg.

I wonder what the use of this would be when we start looking at some of the development that could occur with the waterfront and with vision 43. That could be like another whole FTE.

Yeah, and I think that that was one of the concerns that we were talking about with future developments coming in, even considering, in the past we were considering Opinlander property, and if it's 40 houses going in, that's a lot for us. And like Carol said, in FTE, we have a very limited staff on our department, like everywhere in the city, and so taking that time away from other things like budget and audit is really challenging for us. So that's why, again, it's not really the one off that is concerning to us. It's not, that's easy enough. It's when you have 40 units going in, where you're doing all of the work in a short period of time to get those SDC liens put in place, and then having them being paid off within a year, and not really even seeing any interest on that, or very minimal interest.

It's really like we're just giving people loans for six months of time. And we're losing the interest that we would be receiving in the bank for that money too. So it is financially hurting us in some ways.

Sorry. Are we just do we hand over the money in this circumstance or did are we kind of letting them pay on a slower scale?

Letting them pay us on a slower scale. So virtually if they owed us $40,000 for a house for SDC funds, we would take that $40,000 and allocate it basically over ten year period semi annual payments. So, we would be foregoing getting that $40,000 before the project starts. So instead, now we're bringing in, you know, $5,000 or less over each year.

And a lot of staff time Okay. Involved in Councilor Bright, and then any other comment? We have two more comments and then we'll wrap it up.

I think in our housing production strategy we did talk about perhaps delaying the payment of system development charges. And I wonder if that could be rolled into this as an alternative. And I don't know if that was specifically for lower income or more affordable housing or if that was just one of the things that we had discussed. And I don't remember if that's where we landed, but I thought that that was one of our things. I'd have to look at that again.

On that point, a decent amount of cities like Portland, for example, will have a categorical waiver or deferral for SDCs for affordable housing development. Yeah, we'll definitely take a look at our housing strategy and see what we said in there.

Sounds like we're going to have a robust next discussion on this topic. So we have councilor Groner and then councilor Bonneton. Mean,

it seems to me that

Could you turn your mic on?

It seems to me there's some issues on essentially how the program was run. Like there probably should have been an application fee that was part of the process that could have covered some of the staff time for covering it. And also perhaps the prime plus one was not the right price point for a competitive market.

Yeah. And that's what the original conversation was that we were having was, you know, how can we make this more worthwhile? And then it came about that maybe that we don't even have to do this at all. And so I think that that's what led us here would be ideally not having to go through the administrative part portion of it, but understanding that if it's needed, it's needed. But we need to make it more worth our while. Thank you.

Councillor Bonneton, go ahead.

So if we're doing this with a larger development, I guess in the future, hypothetically, something like an Ottoman lander or in the past, something of the same size, and we're using this money to develop systems, as is in the name, are we then kind of having to pull that money from other places in order to build out the roads, sewers, parks, and all of that as they're going in in these large developments if that were being used there?

It's interesting because with SDCs you know obviously you can't spend the money if it's not there, and so we really budget based off of what we have in the funds at the time that we're budgeting. So we don't even say like, oh, we're gonna bring in $2,000,000 in the next two years because we know that these developments are happening and budget that expenditure out. We just say, no, we have 2,000,000 in this fund. That's all we're gonna budget for the next biennium because, and partially because of this. We don't know what's going to come in, and we don't know what's going to be financed, and how long that's going to take.

It makes budgeting really challenging, and the cash flow portion of it really challenging to know when things are going to come in. And also, it causes a lot of like flips because you're like, oh, well they paid off all of these this development in one year, or whereas we would have known, you know, when exactly development was going in and developing those systems would be be done at that time using those funds hopefully. But yeah, so basically, yes, we could be using money from other areas, other resources if we didn't have the funds. Okay. Previously.

The majority of home purchases that I'm involved with end up using a lender of some sort. I would assume that if you're you're doing a new construction loan things like SDCs can be financed in it. I don't know that for sure, but it seems like a logical conclusion. So I I would think that's probably more simple on their end. Potentially. Yeah.

Okay. What's the timeline for this item? Are you is it kind of just subject to the council's discretion? Yes. It's always subject to the council's discretion.

Everything everything is within reason. The we were gonna reconvene after having this discussion with council today and think about timing for bringing an ordinance forward depending on what questions you had, depending if there was any additional process. So

Perhaps we could have one more work session. Some of the well, we're gonna have a work session, but this can be on an agenda at a work session to talk about it one more time with some of the questions answered.

We'd be happy to do that. And yep. There's no there's no immediate press to change this right away.

So we'll schedule that and then we'll put it on an agenda if council's on board. So with that, anything else on the topic of SDCs and the Bancroft Act? Other than thanking everybody for their work on on this on this topic of bringing it forward

Thank you.

To us.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. That then takes us moving right along to the final item on the agenda, which is the Lady Bee River tugboat update.

Mayor and council, we have two of our favorite guests here today, mister Edwards and Carter representing the advocates for another discussion about the Lady Bee. It's been a number of months since you have met. Was in fact it was back in September that you had the last work session on this. We discussed some possible form for the understanding to be reached between the city and the advocates that these fine folks represent regarding the potential donation of the Lady Bee, the 40 foot tugboat posed for display in Willamette Park. At the time, we were discussing terms of an MOU, how the funds are raised, how the funds are managed, how the work is managed, and following that work session as it says in the staff report, the focus of our conversations with the advocates sort of shifted to the ins and outs of the details of legal agreements.

And I wanna credit city attorney Kaylee Klein for taking on much of the work and thinking about the city's risk and thinking about ways to mitigate that risk. As we have discussed with you for

quite a few years now

on as considering this project, This sort of falls in between departments. And so we have tried to we have tried to keep this project moving or the conversation moving, but it's been hard considering other priorities. So I think the the advocates had hoped for and expected a faster moving process and acknowledge that. Hopefully, we can be reaching a final answer with council policy direction, if not at this meeting, meeting soon. The key question today is again revisiting the question of the donation, but thinking a little bit more about the risk factors that exist and about who takes on that risk and how it works.

What you'll see in the packet is sort of a little well, a summary of the of the history of conversations of this of this topic, but also several documents that are attached. The draft memorandum of understanding for the lady b, this is the MOU between the parties that would set the set the structure for how how the boat would be donated, how the project would be managed, how funds would be raised, when funds would be raised, and all of those elements and more are discussed in the memorandum of understanding. The draft that you have in your packet reflects changes from your September work session that I think were generally mutually agreeable in the MOU. And I think our our our good construct, if the city's gonna be taking on this project, the MOU provides basically that the advocates raise the money, that the city manage the project, and that the fundraising include funds sufficient to hire a project manager to oversee the work. As council has seen with the city operations project, having a project manager and oversight experienced in construction and project implementation is incredibly valuable in all stages of the game and we would be very very strongly recommending that we use that structure again.

The MOU recommends that. The last three attachments are sort of a a back and forth exchange, I guess I would say of ideas and really thinking about how the boat gets transferred, who assumes the risk, what elements happen as part of that transfer. So you have an original transfer agreement proposed by the advocates that you may have may recall from before. And you have a restructured agreement, a donation agreement that was proposed by the city. And then you have a donation agreement with red lines proposed by the advocates.

And as you'll see in the staff report, one of the purposes of this work session is a council discussion about that question of risk. And you'll see at the let's see where is that? On the second page of the work session in the bullets under council options, one of the questions about should the vote be accepted as is as the donation agreement discusses. And two other questions are listed whether the project should be continued at all, obviously it's always a question. We are without a parks and rec director right now as you've already heard and so we're again in a challenging situation thinking about who the project manager is and how that would work.

We are in a hiring process of course, I'll talk a little bit more about that under my report. So that question, the risk question about how the how the boat would be transferred and what condition. And then also it's a also it's an option to check-in on the memorandum of understanding. As I mentioned, there are some different and improved terms. We do think that that's of agreement to both parties.

But as as I'm always duty bound to say, we we have a lot of priorities on our plate and this one has fallen sort of in between the cracks and we do we do continue to seek council direction on on the project moving forward at all. And then Kaylee and I can help support you with discussion of the risk questions. And again, I really do wanna appreciate Kaylee's work on this. It's been it's been excellent and much needed. So Kaylee, before we turn it over to the advocates, any thoughts on?

Well, yeah. I would be interested in how you'd like this work session to go. There are specific provisions. One in the MOU and several different areas in the last version of the donation agreement that I'd wanna discuss with you and determine your appetite for how much risk the city would like to take on. But I also wanna give Jim a chance to speak. He's been a steadfast advocate and really a pleasure to work with, and I know he's been waiting on responses from staff. And so I wanna give him the chance

to say your, you know, your share,

your your experience, and and how you feel about these documents. And then we can get into potentially, you know, some of the more specific questions. Does that seem like a good format? Or would you like me to go through everything

we That's appropriate. We can hear from Jim and Jim, thank you for coming back. Welcome back. And we appreciate your passion for history, and we've gotten thus far. So glad glad to have you back and take it away and share your thoughts. And council might have questions as well.

Well, do I have do I identify myself?

Sure. Sure. Go ahead.

Jim Edwards. 19890 Bellevue Way. Next next door to you. Let me start by saying that the idea of saving the lady bee has been Sandy Carter's idea and she's very motivated to make that happen. And I support that, but I volunteered to accommodate the process, so to speak.

And so, I've taken several of you to say the lady B and Sandy has written some descriptions of the lady B and the but to get to the bottom line, the Wilsonville Concrete proposed the donation of the boat and they had no other use for her and so they were contemplating sending her to the scrap yard. And they submitted a one page assignment agreement probably here, year and a half ago. And I sent that to the city as unmodified by me. And the city attorney modified or responded with a city based document, you have. And I I received that from Kaylee and and the same time Michael Burner with Wilsonville Concrete received a copy of it and he called me and he said, I don't think this is going to work.

And so I asked him what his objections were and he said that it was a donation and that he didn't want any lingering obligations associated with the boat. And so, I proposed some language, some changes to Kayleigh's draft and I discussed those with Michael Burner and he said that he could live with those. And so I sent that to Keely and so that's what you have in front of you.

Can I just ask a question of legal counsel? Yeah. The agreement that with the red lines in in here, is is this the operative agreement that we're working from right now? Or which one

is I think now would

be an

appropriate time to turn in your packet to page two of the donation agreement for the lady b that has red lines in it. This is where the advocates and the legal department have landed and why I wanted to come. You know, John wanted to provide an update on the staff work and I wanted to provide an update on where we are with the donation agreement. Because my job as your city attorney is to provide the type of contract with protections and reducing risks to the city that I ordinarily would. But if the city is comfortable and wants to proceed accepting more risk

Can I just two of the packet meeting page two of the agreement, page 11 of the packet? Is that correct?

Yep. Page page two of the donation agreement document that has the red lines in it. So it's the

I'm looking at page 15. It's the page 15.

The last

attachment to this is to this item.

Page 15 is the the of the package.

I just have it. I don't have it.

Oh, you're good. No. We found it. Yeah. I think we've we've got some red lines and some highlights on here. Looks

Yeah. Exactly. And so if you look to section e sub b, this is what Jim was talking about in terms of his conversation with Wilsonville Concrete Products. They wanted to say Wilsonville Concrete Products makes no warranties. The city accepts the tugboat where is and as is.

And so I had other language that you can see struck out which says Wilsonville concrete would warrant that there are no other substantial hazards that could be toxic to humans or require environmental assessment and remediation other than the lead paint because we do know from the report that Jim provided that was done by an expert that there is lead paint obviously on the lady bee and that will be encapsulated. Normally the city would always provide some type of protection for other things that we are unaware of in case it's significantly more expensive. And John is the expert on the report, he reviewed that however when I looked at it I just went to the summary and recommendations page and this again is an expert's assessment of the lady b's condition. And there was a bullet point that said fixtures that may contain PCBs and mercury are present throughout the tugboat such as fluorescent light fixtures, pressure gauges, electrical ballasts, and electrical panels. So for me it was just okay, you normally provide this type of language to protect against these other you know risks that we may not be aware of.

If however the council is comfortable

and wants to move forward

and accept the lady b as is, that is something we can strike. That is a policy decision that yourself and the city manager can help advise on. Additionally, if you move further down into section f, the way it's currently written with Jim's edits is that the city would take ownership title of the lady b before the lead paint encapsulation was completed and it would remain on the property of Wilsonville concrete product and their proper lead based paint remediation would occur there, but the city would own it. So I'm not sure if you're comfortable with that timing, you know, example, if there was a hiccup in completing that remediation. And then also I had requested that Wilsonville concrete products confirm that they will keep it in a secure location so while we are the owner of it, someone is injured on the tugboat and that was struck and just reduced to a reasonably secure location.

So again, it's just the level of comfort that the council has and also you know your appetite for how much you want this to go forward. It sounds from Jim that these are essentially deal breakers for Wilsonville concrete. So if we want to go forward with taking taking ownership of the Lady B, it sounds like we will have to make concessions that we normally don't make as a municipality. And those are some of the things I wanted to discuss today.

Thank you for that. And thank you for all your work on this. So the red lines in here that are showing like the additions to the text, those are the current those are acceptable to the parties and the strikeouts are what we've taken out. That was your initial

No. They they are not acceptable to the parties. We we were kind of at an impasse and I wasn't able on your behalf to just agree to it. I wanted your input and, you know, obviously I can't meet with you outside and get everyone together outside of a public meeting. So I wanted to bring it to you and be like, these are kind of the tension points and based on your feedback I can work with Jim to accept or not accept. So the red lines that you see in this document are provided by Jim and they have not been no. They are concerns that I have. Thanks. Thanks without further direction from

Thanks for your work and thanks for bringing this to us. Councilor Groner had his hand up and then we can go to council

Yeah. Have a couple of questions. I think I I wrote you a memo and I kinda got a incomplete response on to what extent the insurance company CIS has reviewed any risks relating to the lady b. Yes.

Excuse me. We were waiting to get a meeting scheduled, Kathy Pham who is our insurance representative to understand that better. I know that it sounds like finance and some other departments had maybe made those inquiries. I know Cathy, our city recorder had asked some initial questions. But today, this morning in preparation for the meeting, I was able to get a hold of Cathy.

She confirmed that CIS will most likely cover the lady b once it's placed if we decide for it to be placed in Willamette Park. That would fall under our general liability coverage that the city already has. However, she did say occasionally, CIS will issue what's called a loss exclusion until mitigated. So they would need to come out and see what the risks are and they may give us a list of protections that we would need to provide to make it less potentially dangerous or injurious to children or adolescents who may be in that area. This was a legal issue I identified for you early on.

A boat of this nature placed without protection in a public park, I believe would be considered a potential attractive nuisance, which is doctrine, a tort doctrine where the city has a standard of care to make sure that it's safe because it's really interesting and fun and exciting to climb on. Like the most common example of an attractive nuisance is a swimming pool. As an owner you cannot just have a swimming pool out there, it's exciting, it's great and it's extremely dangerous to young people. So that's why you always see swimming pools fenced. I think the tugboat is similar in the sense that the city would need to put up a fence or planters, definitely signs that say no trespassing, no climbing to make it very clear that you cannot engage and climb on or go into this 40 foot tugboat.

And so I think we I do believe we can mitigate the risks of an attractive nuisance or negligence claim. And I do believe CIS will cover this, however they may have certain threshold requirements that we do have to meet before they will provide that coverage. And to know that better, we would need to provide them a photo of the lady b and the plans types of like risk management, you know, mitigation we would have the tugboat.

Yes. I'm thinking that's a precondition to our coming to any agreement knowing the insurance coverage and any exclusions or The other point is there's language about warrant that there is no danger which I think is quite a burden. But could and I'm not a lawyer but could some language to the effect to the best of their knowledge there is

no risk being compromised?

Jim can speak to that but I don't think they want to warrant anything. I think their view is they are giving the city this vote and they've been hanging on to it for a long time and they want to know whether we want it as is or not. And so it's really where you are at now is does the council want to take on the risk of inheriting a 40 foot tugboat that we know has lead base paint, we know probably has some PCBs and mercury in the lighting and may have other things that we are unaware of but that we were have to deal with. I think Jim would probably say the advocates have agreed with us and work to structure the MOU to raise enough money to mitigate any of those problems and try and take care of the lady be and to get it into a safe condition to give to the city. But again, it's a lot of it's unknowns and so as your legal adviser, I try and flag those for you and let you know how best to make sure that we're not saddled with the burden of the unknowns.

John, do you have anything you wanna add that would be helpful?

No. I think that's a great summary. And just one thing about the the CIS review, we'd obviously wanna do that before we complete an entire design. You know, I think what we would do is an iterative process as the MOU calls out. If the project goes forward, we get a project manager on board. This there'd be a site design. We would try to have an initial consultation with our insurance carrier on the site design to make sure that we're designing something that they they will cover. And if changes are needed, we'd all work together to make those changes and while still ensuring the site is, you know, attractive and and accomplishes the purpose that we're that we're trying to get out of it.

Good questions. Thank you, councilor Bonneton. And I just want to flag we have our interview starting at 04:45. So I probably give this another 10:15 minutes and then we don't have to make a decision today because this is in a work session format. So can bring this back. It's for future meeting shortly to make a final decision if if needed because I know I don't wanna rush the city council. Councilor Bonington and then council president Baumgartner.

Alright. As someone who was feeling an immediate pull to climb up on the boat and did the first time I saw it, yes, I can confirm it is an attractive nuisance in that that way. But going inside of it, I feel like maybe we are overthinking the potential risk of it. I'm thinking of it as if we were coming across like a nineteen forties World War two era Jeep. It's gonna have some of those same things.

It's gonna have paint with lead in it. It's gonna have fixtures and and gauges and lighting with PCBs and mercury and I don't think we would we would get overly preoccupied about a vehicle like an automobile. This is a boat that's never going to go in the water again, hopefully. So I guess I'm viewing it that way, it's more like a car, an artifact, not something that that truly has hazards in it. Maybe there are tiny amounts of hazardous material, but they're not any different than a vintage car in my mind.

So I'm not I'm not terribly concerned about just accepting it as is from that that kind of perspective I guess is how I feel.

You encapsulate the lead does that kind of take care of the concerns related to that? That liability concerns?

I'll have John answer that if he knows that's really an expert.

We're getting into yeah. That's And

and since I'm in since I'm an expert lead remediator, no. I think there are this is a known art. You know, companies companies do this work. The lead paint is a known thing that projects of all sorts have been dealing with for many years. And I think it I think it can be managed. It it you know, there's there's a cost associated with it, but the advocates already know about that. Okay.

I I have one more question on the cost. This is for Jim. You've been doing this a long time. And how are you feeling about the fundraising? I don't know. I haven't heard an update on that lately. And are there some timelines in these agreements that I don't may need to be changed if we were to move forward? Because this might have been contemplated last year and now it's been, know, several years.

Yeah. The dates will have to be changed. And the We have $25,000 currently, and we have a fundraiser next Monday night. And I believe that the $200,000 and I think I'm gonna raise that to $250,000 because we got, I made that estimate two years ago. But I I feel strongly about the potential of raising the money.

And I will add for you mayor and councilors, in the MOU agreement itself, the draft MOU, we've worked hard to come to agreement on those terms and I think we're comfortable with that. It really does it's a two phase process and it requires the advocates to come up with all the money in advance before we get going. So I think it really reduces city risk in that sense. The only area that's a little bit undefined is the section seven on maintenance and this is something that the former parks and rec director and others have brought up is just making sure we're not forgetting about the ongoing cost of maintaining something like this. And so in that section it says the advocates intend to raise funding in a lump sum for the estimated ongoing maintenance of the Lady B for a period not to exceed fifteen years, but we didn't provide clarity on how much that would be and if that will for sure be included in this agreement.

And I do think that is an important component given the work we've done recently on the budget and looking forward at what the budget is for the Parks and Rec department just to maintain our existing parks. So that's something I think John is probably more able to speak to, but that's something where it's always in the equation. If do we have the money to maintain? Do we have the staff time? And I think part of it is just how large the tugboat is.

40 feet is a is a large historical artifact to acquire. And this topic was brought to counsel well before I arrived here as the new in house city attorney. And so I may have missed a lot of the discussions. And I, you know, I I wondered if I think counselor Breich, maybe we have talked about it. Would it be possible to have not the full tugboat or parts of it on display because it would certainly be easier to manage.

Like I know the top part, the the green and white part is really neat with the name and could something like that be incorporated for display purposes and learning but not the 40 feet, you know, in Willamette Park on the the berm that's been proposed. And so I don't know if that's at all something you would consider or would be helpful to

I don't think that's a good idea. For a number of reasons. One is it's a whole representative of the of the original artifact and And I I don't imagine that it could be disassembled and still represent what it is.

We can thank you for raising that. That's it. Appreciate you putting that out there. There's more questions on city council. We've got council president Baumgarten and councilor Bray.

Okay. I'll try

to it away.

I'll try to be succinct here. So just to be clear, I totally love this idea and have spoken to you both extensively about it. And but I I do also have a tendency to immediately put on hold my enthusiasm for the concept and think about, okay, and I know, Jim, in our early discussions, I started listing out, well, here's some of the potential issues. And forty, maybe even thirty, twenty five years ago, we probably wouldn't have been maybe going through such a meticulous process to think about the liability exposures and the various dangerous materials, etcetera, and how to manage. But we're in today we're in today where just recently the legislature has been contemplating recreational immunity, which was a huge shocking development, honestly, in policy that we could not have been able to have access to trails and outdoor recreation because of liability.

So it's not it's not without merit that we are asking these questions, but and I know you you know that. So but I also I would like to just put at least a marker on the concept of some aspect of the lady bee that does not include the entire vessel in its complete form, current form. I'm I'm thinking of a a really interesting, and I will send everybody relevant to this discussion and a photo of this image, but there is a very attractive median feature on Southeast 13th, and it's over by the Iron Fireman Building.

That's whole Holgate.

Yeah. Holgate.

Southeast Holgate.

Southeast 13th and Holgate, and there's little boats. There are images of boats. They are sculptures, actually. They're not actually boats, but it's beautiful. They are kind of arranged with landscaping so that it kind of looks like sea.

And I just think we could be creative maybe and and still honor the spirit of the lady bee and the intention of this project, but so we don't have to eliminate the whole thing. I just wanted to put that out there because I don't like the idea of just saying after all of you've done and all we've done and the desire to honor this history, we have to give it all up. I I'd like to maybe if we faced with the reality of dealing with a large vessel object of this size and and the everything that comes with it, that's just what I'd like to put out there as an idea to to discuss.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Bryke.

Thank you, mayor. I brought in a tape measure today and measured out 40 feet, and from the wall behind Kaylee to that door is 40 feet. So this is a very, very large object. And a couple of my other concerns is the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board volunteers that that come in and and work with our parks department and make recommendations have recommended strongly against acquiring this object. I I I just I'm still not convinced that the city should be the owner of this, And I look at other organizations out there, the Willamette Falls Trust, the Lox Authority, that might be an interesting place for it to be.

If they're not anybody that wants to do that, then maybe working with another nonprofit to kind of pull that all together. It's just not really something that the city has done, and I think that we could be challenged with a lot of additional things if we if we go down this way. And I really appreciate that the advocates are raising money. They want to cover the cost of this, but I also think about the amount of staff time that has gone into this, that they've had to work on this project in lieu of doing other things that they need to do. And with already a kind of constricted staff, I think that's a concern.

And I'm not sure even with the funding available that that would resolve staff time that would be involved in this project.

Thank you, counselor. So it sounds like you're on the side of letting it letting it go.

I love the idea of setting up a historical marker with photos and language and other stuff like that to acknowledge it, to honor it, and have that available as education. I I I liked the council president's idea of can we have a model of it that is much smaller that still tells the story.

I

appreciate that. I kinda think about the the little monument down at Fields Bridge Park that but it's like a concrete structure representing that old house, which is kind of a which is I've just I don't think we've ever taken on a a object of this size that you're of the 40 feet. But I think we do have a history of taking on some artifacts or doing some memorializations of them. But I hear what you're saying. Councilor Groner.

Yeah. I used to live in New York City area. I visited the Aircraft Independence.

Could you turn your mic on, counselor?

I used to live in the New York area. I the Aircraft Carrier Independence. By the way, at the time I was taking some my kids who were 10 years old or so and anti aircraft guns have cranks and gears and it struck me even at the time that it's very easy for a kid to get his hand mashed by one of the gears. Battleships or aircraft carriers are not designed for children. I was recently on the submarine at Obsee.

So my question is, there are lots of old boats around which are probably in some way inherently dangerous or could be. I'm wondering who who actually administers these things and again I have the question, is the city of the West Linn the right administrator for such a thing? I'm very curious who does run these other boats.

You're you're kind you're asking a difficult question. Think the answer would would vary. But I mean The

city of Coos Bay has several and and they're easily accessible. And and the Port Of Port Of Boardman also has one.

Yeah. I've I've seen some pictures of different, you know, boats that are as historical artifacts that are at at like at a place along the river, different areas. But I don't know the health specifics of who's administering them, probably the city or a private organization. Sandy, welcome. Please.

Here.

Go ahead and stay whatever you'd like.

Does this work?

I think you're on. Yep.

Thanks for letting me say a word or two about this. Who's been to Astoria to the Columbia Maritime Museum area and they have the Columbia River light ship sitting up there at an angle as though it's going into the breakers. And they also have I think now a coast guard vessel. This is a very very small boat by comparison to those displays. Those are central to the history of where they are and they have not been miniaturized or replicated or reduced to a kiosk.

And I appreciate the creative thought that's going on in this room right now. That boat is There are a lot of old boats in Oregon. But that boat is, I believe, the last of its kind from the mid twentieth century log moving, gravel barge moving, decades of work on the Willamette between at least Wilsonville and Portland. It's very probably eligible to go on the national register as a historic item. They have such a thing and if we had an extra $3, we could probably get it declared a historic object.

The point The object is now to let the people see something that's real, that real people walked on. In fact, Jim had his way, it would have a little art on the back that would represent a log raft and there would be a person with a pole standing on the back. We didn't have the budget or the space between trees to do that. But I just can't tell you how valuable it is as a physical representation of Bernards Landing of this of this city on two rivers. Two rivers, right?

You don't have three. And Astoria is a very small town. And it has this wonderful museum with these two boats that everyone is immediately attracted to, and I have never heard of them getting in into any trouble with those boats. So sorry I just wanted to point out that story

I think is a good

example of boats that tell the story. Lake B

is small but we're bigger than us.

Know. Lots of problems. But thank you Greg. Thank

you.

One last comment. We have the opportunity to save a real boat, a real tugboat that was used on the Willamette River. And a replica could be produced, but it's not the same thing. This is the real boat. This is the real thing.

I see the historical value in this. I I'm just I'm trying to get myself to, you know, the that I'm concerned about the if you get to the point of where we take it ownership of it and then the fundraising doesn't come through for some reason. Not that I have I have no reason to doubt you, Jim, but, you know, how that would go. And then we'd be in a situation where we'd be back in position position having to terminate because we don't have funding, and then it would be going to the scrap yard. And I I just I don't wanna get into that situation, and I don't know how to reconcile that in my head.

But I and I hear what councilor Braykin is saying and I understand. I'm just I do see the historical volume but it's a tough tough situation for on on on the funding issue. But

Well, the city doesn't have to do anything until we raise the $200,000.

Understood. And the first

phase is $50,000 to fund better estimate of the total cost.

Thanks. Thanks for that. Appreciate the clarification on the time phases. Councilor Bungeon, we're we don't have to make a decision today and we're running out of time for the meeting. I just We want to

can't make a decision today because it is a work session.

We're in a work session.

So just wanted some direction and John will chime in too in terms of how you would like to proceed with next steps. Whether you'd like us to come back, whether you'd like me to work with Jim further on this.

I would like more another discussion I think just because we're out of time. But I discovered something interesting last week when I I went to the team building exercise with the parks department. Last year or no. It was 2024. I was taking a walk through Sunset Park, and I discovered these giant obelisks which were laying on their sides.

Wilderness Park.

Yeah. I asked all of yeah. Wilderness Park.

How could

I get that wrong? I asked what they were and no one seemed to know. Well, it turns out there is a precedence for us accepting random historical artifacts because those were part of the Oregon City West Linn Arch Bridge. And we just took them with a big skid loader apparently and put them there with no particular plan. I'm cool with that. Like I don't have an issue with the fact that we did that, but I think it does show that there is some sort of precedence for us accepting historical artifacts without necessarily a plan in place for them. So I would not say we should do that as a practice. We should have a plan for anything large we're taking, but it it is something that's happened.

Appreciate that. Did you have something to add mister Williams? You raised your hand a moment ago. We're gonna wrap

this No. That raise hand raised was that I knew what those things were.

Oh.

Although I was not responsible for accepting them.

But I

I I do wanna echo what city attorney Klein just said. I think the key thing if if council wants to wrap this up today, the key thing is there is there additional information you need and what type of venue should we schedule for the next conversation? Do you want an additional work session? Do you want a business meeting so you can make a decision? We often talk about, you know, Renee Brown, clarity is kindness. So at some point, we do need clarity. The advocates need that and city staff need that. So we'll we'll need to set us up for an opportunity to make a decision here so that we can move forward or or not.

I'd personally like some clarification on the fundraising piece of this and just make sure I understand exactly where the city off ramps if the fundraising doesn't come through just contingency planning and another another meeting would be appropriate. To

that mayor, if you are able to take a look at the MOU, it is pretty clear that we will not get started on any of the process until the advocates have raised all the funds. So there's low risk there. I think the biggest risk is the ongoing maintenance cost, making sure it is not an attractive nuisance that children or adolescents who are down on the dock will climb on and and become injured on. Although I from my conversation with our insurer this morning, I am like confident that they will insure it. We just have to make sure we have the proper protections around it which may include fencing.

And the other the real point where I needed direction to move forward with Jim because I don't wanna keep him waiting is whether the council has the appetite to just accept this in the donation agreement as is and whether it is acceptable for us to take ownership of it before the lead paint encapsulation has occurred. We would to be clear, we would have the money. The agreement makes it so the advocates would have the money, but the process would not have been complete and it will be in Wilsonville Concrete's yard with all that work being done, but we will own it there. And then it will have to be transferred, loaded with huge machinery and and and driven to Westland and installed.

Thanks. Okay. Well, we'll You think a special a business meeting? Are we ready to make a decision on this? Are we ready to Or do we want to have a one more follow-up work session or a brief discussion on those on those items? Any thoughts?

Well, I would like to see the CIS report as a prerequisite.

Okay. Any other thoughts on that? Okay. I'm seeing no thoughts. So to to me that means maybe not we're quite ready for a decision, but would like it work quick short work session with the CIS report and then we can give some direction on the contract items. I don't wanna make that decision right now, rush it in this moment. So does that make sense to everybody? Certain some want to let go. I see the look on the face. Okay. Alright. With that, we will schedule this for we could do a business meeting if people maybe we do a business meeting and let's do a business meeting and get it done one way or the other for everybody's sake. So put it on a business meeting.

We have a business meeting next Tuesday. Okay.

We'll do it next Tuesday.

Tuesday night.

We can do it. Be there or be square. Alright. Decisions will be made. Okay? Can bring it back then. So I think we have to do it for everybody's benefit. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much everybody.

Thank you.

We're we're we have an interview that's supposed to be going on right now. So with you He knows? Is it okay would you like to give an abbreviated city

manager There's only a couple of things really. I just wanted to talk about your upcoming schedule. The business meeting next week, the main item we'll be bringing back from tonight is the op center early work package. And I just wanted to make sure that you and the public knew that we are in a recruitment process for Parks and Recreation director. I'm encouraging everyone I run into to tell talented competent folks that they know to take a look at that.

We are getting good applications but with it's still open until next week. Meanwhile, we have an interim parks and rec director that would be John Legarza. He's well known in our area as an as a project manager, assessor of organizations, and very talented at keeping things going while we're doing the recruitment. So that's that's great news. I'll follow-up with those folks that we spoke with earlier about the SDC issue that they raised.

We will continue to bring you framing our future updates and I would encourage you to I like the Danielle and Doug showed me the package that they left on your desks. If you are going to any groups, any nonprofits, any neighborhood associations, that gives you all the material you need to to share information with them and get them involved in the process. The last thing I'll say is we do have some lovely new art here in the council chambers. Elaine Daggett I I is the our local artist of the month, and she's got information about her work and is even selling some greeting cards based on the art over in the corner. So other than that, I will see you next Tuesday night for your business meeting.

Thank you everybody. And with that, we are adjourned and we'll go downstairs to do our three interviews.