City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I will call the meeting of March 9th to order city council meeting and we'll start with a flag flute which council will please lead us. To the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May we have a roll call, please? Councelor Cornwell, present. Councelor Bravo, present. Councelor Sha here. Councelor Wilk here. Councelor Kentu here. Councelor Greyhalbug here. Mayor Lan

here. Thank you. All present. Uh do we have any announcements? I do have some announcements. All right.

Um this Friday is Friday's on front and um March 13th from 5:00 to 7:00 at the Bungalow Theater. There will be an art exhibit, wandering through Gaelic Country by Linda Chapfield, um, Emerald Pad Scavenger Hunt, and a viewing of the Woodburn American Dreams video series. Um, and then March 18th, Connect North Marion from 4 to 7:00 at 4910 Brooklyn Road Northeast in Brooks. Come learn about resources to start, grow, and support your business. And then it looks like April 29th through May 2nd, um, Woodburn will be hosting the 2026 Oregon Heritage Conference, um, which is stories, culture, and place, weaving, community herit heritage. Uh, registration is open, so early bird pricing ends March 20th, so you still have time to sign up for that. And then some updates from the Woodburn School District for March. Uh there is a band concert March 10th, which is tomorrow, um at 6 PM at the Woodburn High School. And then March 12th at Balor Middle School is their winter concert at 7:00 p.m. Uh March 12th is the district STEM festival, 600 p.m. at Nelly Mure Elementary. And March 18th through the 19th are school conferences, so no school, the beginning of spring break. Um March 20th conference is comp day, no school. And then spring break is uh March 23rd through March 27th. So everybody watch out for those kiddos out there.

Thank you, counselor. Uhu. But I am totally shocked that you totally blew over the biggest holiday of the year coming up next week. St. Patrick's Day. Thank you. Hope everybody enjoys celebration.

Yes. Um, and then I'd like to announce a the council of government uh had a banquet and a year-end uh meeting last Thursday. Council of government is located in Salem and they oversee uh uh support and uh government agencies helping tri counties being pul and Marian County. And they make an at every year at their annual meeting they make a presentation several presentations. One is called the West Karsten Award recognizing one of their past directors back in the 60s and 70s who was their executive director and uh was well known, high ethical standards, uh very in tune to to the job and people. And that award um on an annual basis is recognizing somebody that uh living it lives those standards that he put out there. And this Thursday this year was recognized our city manager Scott Derekson that we're very proud of uh his work and all he has done for the last three decades in Woodburn uh and follows like I say high ethical standards and uh and integrity. So, uh, a lot of people were there to appreciate, recognize Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was I was really honored and um a little overwhelmed with the the nice compliments and all the people who were there. Uh, you know, I feel pretty blessed to be able to serve and work in this community and work for the city council all these years. But nobody does anything by themselves. You know, we we've got a great team here and uh we've got a city council that holds long-term goals and has the wisdom to see our strategic partnerships and relationships are critical to making those things happen. And u it just shows, you know, it's a it's a perfect it's a perfect arrangement between the community, the council, and the staff. And I'm just very grateful to be part of it. Um, I went and told my wife she was out of state, but I told her I can't believe every morning I I wake up and look in the mirror and I can't believe anybody thought that I should be able to do this job. Like what were they thinking? Right. So I just feel really really blessed. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Well deserved. Yes.

Um before I move on, I do have something under uh my invisible list called reflections. This happens to be a uh month of recognizing historical Oregon women um here in the state of Oregon. And I know that there are many women in this room today that we could every woman in this room that we have here today that we could recognize and say many positive things about and they've all been very historical and been done a lot for Woodburn. So I thank you for that. But there's one in particular that uh I it does deserve recognition. Stacy Allison. Stacy Allison uh was the first American woman to climb Mount Everest from Woodburn. She still has family here in Woodburn. She did this in 1988. Um so think about that. 30 years old maybe. Uh certainly no more than that. But uh climbing a mountain that people die from every year going up it. Um, so I know that she she went to schools here. Uh, I think she she actually went to school with one of my brothers, but uh, a a true pioneer and uh, speaks fondly of Woodburn still. I think she was named after a street that we have here in Woodburn. So appreciate that. So thank you Stacy for all you uh, you've done and wish you the best also. So moving on, I do not have any appointments. I do not have any community government organizations. I do not have a proclamation tonight. So we are going to move on to a legisl legislative update. And I'd like to invite our lobbyist, Zach Muse, to come up. Zach, before you say anything, it's a

little warm. I thought I would uh you ever I love the edit on it.

Sorry. It's a great start. You might start with the historical what 1564 is. Mind everybody. You just cross that number out. Am I on?

You're all right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Mr. Mayor, council members, uh I'm Zach Reeves. I am your uh contract lobbyist down in Salem. Um we most likely all know we just finished up a uh 35day legislative short session down there and um I would say it was overall at the end of the day a resounding success for um the city. Uh, I'll kind of set the it's that the 35day sessions are um were approved by the voters for balancing the budget and um as we all know when we give um elected officials the power to pass laws they are going to do that. So even in these 35day short sessions we see some pretty big policy pieces pass. Um you know we are um in the middle of some pretty significant budget challenges at the state level as you're all aware. Uh and so a a large part of the session was um finding savings mainly through unfilled positions at at state agencies. Um end of the day there were not a ton of cuts um statewide which is is fantastic. Um we may have more challenging biania coming up here on the on the horizon but for now um most uh you know social safety programs and whatnot escaped relatively unscathed. Um, one of the biggest kind of policy conversations this session was around uh renovations to the Moto Center uh involving the Portland Trailblazers. The legislature ultimately allocated up to $365 million uh to renovate the Moto Center in Portland in the hopes of keeping the Trailblazers there. Uh that's accompanied by about $240 million in matching funds. uh the city of Portland and Multma County for a total of about $600 million. Um there were a

few other kind of big policy issues, many of them related to uh changes at the federal level, both from an immigration perspective and then also uh HR1, which was the big beautiful bill and some of the tax changes that um were involved in that. Um the state connects to the federal tax code every time it changes every year. Uh most of the time that is a fairly routine process. This year with the significant changes uh to tax collection and and some of the tax codes at the federal level, there was a a conversation around what we call disconnecting from the federal tax code. And so essentially we don't link up to some of these new policies and we keep what has been established at the state level um as the the collection policy. And so that resulted in a savings of about $350ish million to the state essentially keeping that tax revenue for the state for um funding some of these these agency programs. So that was a a very contentious issue. would ultimately pass on essentially partyline votes. Um, Republicans argued that it was uh uh that we would were supposed to link up with many of these tax policies which were um popular with the general public but um in the end they they ultimately uh decided to disconnect. Uh, I think the other one that you all may have heard of was Senate Bill 1599, um, which revolved involved the, uh, gas tax referral that was going to be put on the ballot in in November. That was another, uh, highway controversial one that, um, the majority Democrats wanted to move the date of the gas tax referral vote from the November election to the May

election. that ultimately passed um very at the very end of session uh after much uh deliberation. So those were kind of the the the big issues of session. Um ultimately, you know, despite the threats of of walkouts that we've seen in sessions past, everybody more or less got along um and and sang Kumbaya and and we were able to get some stuff done. I think one of the couple of the uh bills that the city may be interested in, in particular, Senate Bill 1516, which was a public safety omnibus bill. Uh a large part of that bill dealt with automated automatic license plate readers and how the data collected from ALPRs is used and what it can be used for, who can access it. Um the the it was a heavily negotiated bill. uh law enforcement was was at the table on behalf of of chiefs and sheriffs around the of state. Um it some of the kind of pertinent pieces that are are relevant to us. Uh it it uh limits retention to 30 days and it also explicitly prohibits the use uh for immigration enforcement. And so, McKenzie, I don't know if there's anything that I'm missing there that we want to go further into or

Yeah, I don't think we'll get into the specifics of the bill this evening. Um, but I did just want to share, you know, as the council continues to review um our contract with Block and any decision making um around, you know, either re-implementing or, you know, ceasing that relationship with Block or any other um ALPR contractor. Um just knowing that we will be subject to the criteria within this new bill. Um which again includes things like data retention, data sharing um requirements, certain policy regulation um things I think that most cities using ALPRs were already, you know, somewhat in step with, but this will be basically a statewide requirement now that everybody, you know, essentially follows the same policies and procedures. And and so the final thing I think the mayor shared essentially spells out the uh the the last issue there that is uh relevant to the city. uh as you all signed a a or or approved a proclamation um looking for additional land for housing in in the city of Woodburn. uh Senate Bill 1564, which is underneath that Sharpie there, was our uh initial vehicle for pursuing a onetime UGB expansion to bring in uh the parcel of land just to the north west of here um for over 600 units of housing with 30% of that at least being um affordable. So, um, many folks in this room worked very closely with the folks who own that property and legislators to, uh, craft Senate Bill 1564. That ultimately did not pass at the first chamber deadline. Um but due to some some work from the mayor, councelor will counselor Sha um and others, we were able to um work with the governor's office to get new language crafted uh and put into a different bill uh to

allow Woodburn to go through the uh one-time UGB expansion process to bring that land in and um hopefully sometime here in the near future get uh those units of housing uh construction started and and get folks in in those houses here um in the near future. So, Scott, I don't know if there's anything else that

Well, I I think I would just like to say that um uh Senate Bill 1564 we worked pretty hard on and um our state senator worked with the city to introduce that bill and Zach said it failed to meet the deadline, but I think it's been better described as unceremoniously dying in committee and uh and we were all kind of taken back. I think we were expecting a different outcome with that. But the day after that our that bill died, I was uh I talked to Zach on the phone. We were crafting a strategy on how to move forward. Like how are we just dead in the water? Are we out another year or two? Like what where we at? And so we kind of crafted a strategy together that we were going to move forward and try to to try to still advance with the city's interests legislatively. And I think I mentioned to Zach, I said, "Zack, if you pull this off, I'll name a street after you." Um, you know, unfortunately I don't know that I can name a street after Zach, but I think I can I can do something almost as good.

Oh man,

you can put it on your street. Reflective and everything.

There you go. Thank you. So, I'd like to say uh yeah, 1564 was pretty dead. I And like Scott said, a lot of work went into that from McKenzie to Chris RNA uh and Zach certainly carried that through. Um and and some of our team even worked on 3064 to begin with. And I want to thank Representative Marsh for giving us an opportunity to uh to add on to to hers. and uh said Senator Thatcher was very involved in the first bill, but Representative Munos was was awesome in the second bill and seen that through with the with committees and very appreciative that a lot of work went in from people in this room uh and like you say people out outside too in the in the state.

Hopefully this is something that will maybe carry on. We know it was a one time thing, but uh it's still difficult to to work through through the process. Uh but I'm very proud of Woodburn and the people that we have. They got together and and worked on this and and McKenzie did did so much on on the final version of this. So, Zach, thank you so much for being part of this.

Well, thank you and and you all are great staff be behind here that work tirelessly to to get this done. And um the mayor, you mentioned Representative Marsh and and Senator Fam on the on the Senate side as the housing chair um Representative Munoz certainly Senator Thatcher um and the governor and her staff were also fantastic and and helpful on this and and it's not easy to get something like this done in a short session. So um it takes a village for sure. Yeah. Something that was just uh a thought a year ago really came a long way.

Mr. Mr. Mayor, could I add one one comment on that? So, earlier this evening, we we heard what special and unique abilities it takes to get a a street named after you have to climb Mount Everest. And this is not unlike that in terms of so I just really want to emphasize how to dream the impossible and then make a reality. Uh it can be done here in Woodburn. Yeah. Well said. Thank you. Yes.

So, next session, say if Woodburn wants to get in and say create a bill to take over ODOT so we get our potholes fixed. Have Have we burned any bridges? Are we still do we have possibilities out there? We can be active participants in a uh any sort of transportation funding conversation and I assume there will also be land use conversations to be had. um a as well. So, we're still good. Can be in the game. As far as I know, nobody's kicked me out of their office yet. So, that's good. Good. Good. Thank you. Any questions to to Zach from

There was another bill. I don't know. Um Abacov Falls, you might want to mention that. That That's true. And that that was a $1.8 million, I believe. I don't have my numbers. 2 million is 2 million. 2 million they ended up with. So I say I it's I I don't know. I know it's around here somewhere. As a native Oregonian, I should know this, but the other side of Silverton. Yeah. Um but yeah, that's that's um absolutely exciting and there were a lot of folks in the building who were excited for that and it's going to be a nice uh addition to Oregon State Park system for sure.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, working with with the monks around Mount Angel to to buy that, but yeah, if I had $2 million laying around, I would have just bought it myself, but not yet. Yeah, then you would have charged just to go on. You can put your streets on it out there. There you go. Anything else? Mary, thank you for bringing that up, Council Mle.

Thank you, sir. Great. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Next up, we have a opportunity to uh review some city ordinances that are ti up for an update. And uh any uh I think our council is looking for input from us on maybe some others if we have any ideas. I'll turn it over to Mackenzie. Okay, we're going to do it I guess trying to get it all on one page, but two pages works too.

So, at the end of last year, we talked a little bit about, you know, things that the city attorney's office is working on in regards to ordinances. And so I thought this evening we would talk just generally about the city's ordinances, where they're located, um what is included in our general ordinances when they were last updated, and then I'm going to cover a couple of the ordinances in particular that I think our office is going to be bringing um to the city council for both working and possible review and revision over the next year to 18 months. um so you guys can kind of get a road map of what's ahead and then also um kind of talk through you know some of the ordinances that have been on our books for a long time and maybe why we don't need to review those yet but you know things also that might be coming in the next few years. So um there's really no need for a formal action this evening. This is really just informative. Um, but I did provide you with a packet with all of this information so that you can read through it at your leisure. And then if you have questions about specific ordinances, um, you can always, um, you know, send those to our office. Um, come talk to me about them. Um, and if there ever is an ordinance that you think, you know, does necessitate some type of, you know, review or you're just like, hey, I want more information about this. um you know you can direct that through the mayor and it or to Scott and that will make its way to our office as well. So um in case you guys don't know obviously the city's website and this website's getting um a little bit under re or under construction right now so some of the links are still getting worked out but under government we have ordinance compilation. Hopefully you guys all um are aware of where this is at. And this is a list or compilation of all the city's general ordinances. So, um, it's a searchable PDF document with links. Um, again, these are all listed in the

report that you have in front of you, but I did want to make you aware that, you know, if you're looking for a specific one, this is where you can come and find it. So, you guys all know that, you know, our ordinances are just our local laws. Um, they authorize general, uniform, and permanent rules of conduct relating to corporate affairs of the local government. Um, these are generally considered permanent. Um, and they can only be amended by another ordinance or a new ordinance. Um, ordinance structures, they all have a number and a title. And then they usually start with what we call recitals. And recital are just kind of the background information. It's the why are we implementing what's in the ordinance itself? Is there something in state law that changed? Is there some federal constitutional issue we're trying to address? um are we just trying to create good public policy? Um so we have certain expectations and behaviors of people in the public. Um so that goes into our recitals and then we actually ordain or enact what the specific ordinance includes. Um you know that's the action piece. You know we ordain what. And so Woodburn action may then set out essential definitions, specific section numbers and titles and the substantive text are important details of what's to be implemented. Oftentimes we'll have penalties within our ordinances. So you know we're talking about some a regulatory act um you know a specific park rule. So if we're going to have a rule, we need to have a penalty for people that violate that rule. Um and then you know what conduct is being regulated or prescribed. Finally, we usually have at the end some sort of enactment date. Um, oftentimes the default is 30 days for all of our ordinances, but sometimes we enact things with an emergency clause. Sometimes we actually have the um effective date come later because of, you know, certain policy reasons um that

are explained at the time that we adopt the ordinance. So, maintaining woodburn ordinances, um, an original copy of all our ordinances that are signed and dated or kept by the city recorder. Um, many cities do maintain general ordinances in what's called a digitized municipal code format. Um, and those are, you know, still found on all the C's websites. Um, but what's really specific about a digitized municipal code is that the mechanism to do that is through software services. So, um, a lot of times those are called MUN code or Civic Plus. So, if you're at like an LOC conference or maybe other conferences where you're talking to cities about their ordinances, a lot of times they're going to refer to, oh, our code is online and they'll talk about code sections. Um, but those are software service, basically organizational tools. Um, we don't actually use a digitized code here at the city. Um, it's hasn't necessarily been a priority of the council to create a digitized code. um one because of costs and it's pretty expensive um to have to use one of these software services. So again, we use a compilation or a book of ordinances. Um we organize the compilation through search a searchable PDF document with a table of contents on the city's website. Um again, those are all of the general ordinances. So, um these include things like offenses, public improvement procedures, zoning codes, traffic codes, um things that are binding on all members of the community. The city also has what are called special ordinances. Um special ordinances are single subject matter ordinances. So, think of an ordinance to annex property into the city. That's not a general ordinance is specific to that land itself. And so, we don't put those on the city's website. um they are still searchable and available to members of the public upon request. Um but the general ordinances are all listed in our compilation online. And then I did provide you with an

inventory of the city's general ordinances. Again, those ones that are found on the web page and I colorcoded these um you know after doing my own review. So you have the date of enactment for these ordinances, the last time they were updated and then kind of um green are things that have been updated or recently reviewed. These are like what I call the gold standard. You know, cities taken a good look at these in the last five to even up to 10 years, but really the last five years. Um, yellow are expected to be probably reviewed and updated in the next two to five years. And I made that determination based off of a few things. One, it's probably not an urgent matter, but through good practices, I do expect we'll probably review some of these ones in yellow over the next two to five years. And then the orange or if you want to call it red, I try not to use super bright red, but you know the orange here is expected to be reviewed in the next 24 months. So let's talk a little bit about those ordinances and why they've been identified. So this one here, 2182, u this is the ordinance adopting the bylaws and governing procedures of the city council. And part of the reason that this one has been highlighted is because we just completed a charter amendment process. And there are pieces within the charter that I think while not directly like today impacting the council's bylaws, I think may necessitate a review to just make sure that those um policies and procedures of the council are consistent. We want to make sure that the bylaws that you guys use, you know, for your meetings actually now reflect some of the changes that are in the charter. So, we'll probably take a good review of this in the next six months. Um just down below this 2381, this is an ordinance that adopts our public contracting rules. And a reason that this is highlighted um I'm excited to announce is we are going to have a summer law clerk in our office. Yes.

And um this ordinance hasn't been looked at or really hasn't changed since February of 2005. These are our purchasing rules. So, if you think about, you know, money today is very different than it was um 21 years ago. And it's a really, really good time for us to reook at this. There's been state laws that have changed, administrative rules around um financial uh public contracting procedures and, you know, financial thresholds that we use to um comply with those rules. And it's really going to be a great project for our summer law clerk. So, I'm very excited um to have that person come aboard. And this will definitely be a project that they're going to be working on. uh 2433 is highlighted. It's the master fee schedule. We look at that almost every year. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to change. Um but we do look at that ordinance every year because it impacts so many different areas and uh services at the city. Taking a look at utilities. So 2438 this is the ordinance that we started talking about um earlier this year and this is the transportation system development charge ordinance. Again we did a bit of a workshop in January and next month we'll probably be bringing those amendments um related to the policy considerations around the application and transportation SDC's. Um we also you know again in the two to fiveyear range we'll be looking at new SDC's for water and sewer as well as storm. So those are why those are highlighted in yellow above. Um but you know these around utility infrastructure are probably ones that we will you know be constantly reviewing areas around sanitation. Um this is where our changes you'll see a number of um ordinances highlighted in yellow and this is because these are driven by state law changes. We do expect

continuing changes. Um you'll see we had green um ordinances for 2556 and 2620. Um those were state driven changes um regulating discharge of both sanitary sewer as well as storm water system discharge. And again those regulations are coming down from DEEQ. We have to make sure that we're consistent with state law. Every time we make updates to those we need to also go back and review some of these ones that I've highlighted in yellow. Um, we have some kind of legacy ordinances on the books that again we should probably take a look at and really review if we really need anymore and probably some of those have been replaced by these newer ordinances. Getting into everybody's favorite section, this is offenses. So, these are um what I consider the uh person regulatory ordinances that we have. And you'll see a number of these are green. is because we've done a really good job of keeping up to date um with kind of good public policy as well as you know these are the ones that councils oftentimes want to review. So, in the last um probably 5 to 10 years, we've taken a look at our solicitation door-to-door advertising ordinance, um the parks and recreation rules, the library rules, the noise ordinance, um tobacco use and parks, um ordinances around public camping because those again those were state driven requirements that we needed to have on the books, as well as um enhanced penalties around tree removal. Um, the one that I have identified here for probably a good review and update because I've heard this from the council is uh taking a look at our ordinance concerning the care and control of animals. Um, I've heard from a number of you that you'd like to take a look at that this year. Hasn't been reviewed since 2010. So, it might be a good time.

Kay, are you open to us adding other things to this? Absolutely. Um, if there's spec specific ones that the council feels strongly about, I'm happy to ask. I'd like to go back and look at at 2411 the graffiti. See what I'd like to Oh, the graffiti order. Graffiti. Yeah.

See if there's anything we can do to strengthen that. I know some members of the council that have been around for a while, but some some of these I remember looking at um and and spending a lot of time past meetings at years ago. One was the uh parking on private property, what uh vehicles could be in and how that could be. And and I know we came up with an ordinance for it. It's it's here. I can't remember what number. Uh 2521. 2521. Thank you.

Um I don't know if some of these might be worth talking to code enforcement. Yeah. And see really what they think and and what they legally or or feel comfortable citing.

These ordinances in particular because they are you know the enforcement of these is code enforcement intensive. and just one practicalities around enforcement and our ability to enforce um you know changes depending on what you know priorities the council um wants us to look at. Um, looking just at traffic generally, we did a big overhaul in 2004 around uh, parking enforcement, which you'll probably remember. Uh, this is 2632. Um, and then that also had impacts on our general uh, traffic ordinance, which is 22.85. Um, most of their traffic ordinances are pretty up to-date just because they um, follow along with a state law requirement. Um, the one that may have some discretion in the future, um, that we may want to take a look at is 2464, which is our taxi cab ordinance. Um, always has some pieces around it that, you know, can be controversial, but we did, um, have a review in 2016. So, you know, whether or not we get to that sooner than later, it will probably get a review at some point.

I remember that we had something like 13 taxi Yeah. companies that came in that night. Yeah. anytime that you kind of open the taxi cab ordinance, a lot of um public input on, you know, good and bad policy around that. Um it's kind of a very complicated area to regulate.

Um businesses generally um just highlighting one of interest 1925. It's been on the books for a very long time. Um but this is our ordinance for regulating public dances. Um, I always high to highlight that one because it's really, you know, this is where we have legacy ordinances, we have old ones, whether they're worth taking a look at and determining whether we need them anymore. Um, you know, kind of comes down to the priority, again, the priorities of the council, our bandwidth, how much time, you know, there are things we do want to focus on. This may not be one of them, but I do highlight it here um because it gives me a laugh.

Uh 2339, this is our general ordinance providing for the registration of business. There's always a discussion on whether it's worth reooking at this. You'll see um you know it's been almost 20 years since any change has been made to that ordinance. Um but it is our business registration ordinance. Uh building ordinances um these are really derived through changes in state law. There's actually very little that we can do around the regulation of buildings um outside of that process. But, you know, you'll see 2415 was just updated a few years ago um related to again state specialty codes. And then um I didn't put in the full Woodburn development ordinance. That's our zoning code. Uh that gets updated every almost every year. There will be an update again this year, but you'll just see, you know, we just updated this in September 2025. As state land use law changes, this document gets changed pretty regularly. Um, I know Chris Kerr is going to have a resol probably a resolution at the next meeting to kick off the next updates to this document. And then we have a whole section on franchises and taxes. Um, and these ordinances I didn't list out in um, length because there's quite a few of them. These are more considered our special ordinances um, because they're either franchise agreements with our um, specific utility providers like PGE, Northwest Natural or Public Services or cable television providers. um those get renegotiated and readopted about every 10 years. And then um you know we have a general regulation for the management of utility services outside of the franchise process. And then of course uh regulations around gas tax and hotel motel taxes. Again, those don't change unless a state law comes down and tells us we can change them. So not included in here um in specificity, but just know that those are all there as well. So that's just a run through um to kind of give you an idea of you know where things stand right now, what we think is

you know coming in terms of workshopping and our review process. And sometimes you know our office will do a review and we may come and workshop it with council and the decision could just be that looks great. Even though it's 20 years old, it's still working. It's still functional. There's no need to make an update or a change. Um, sometimes our office kind of does that internal review process with staff and with our code enforcement and we kind of kind of come to that conclusion, but if even if we workshops up with the council, doesn't mean that everything requires a change just because it's old. Um, some things that are on the books that are old still very much work. Um, but I do I hope that at least the ones I highlighted are the ones that are have been in your mind or things that um, we kind of talked about and you know are coming.

Any questions? Council have any questions, comments? No. Anything to add? Trap, waste of our time. It's good to periodically review everything we do as a city, including our ordinances.

McKenzie, how do you want to approach these? Do you want to do a special workshop meeting one night? Do you want to do just bring a couple of these in periodically or what what do you work best for you? Um, you know, there are definitely two or three that our office I think they're going to prioritize in terms of bringing amendments because I think um they're just more pressing um items and then probably a couple of these will bring maybe a more informal workshops particularly I think the animal control ordinance maybe the graffiti ordinance we could do like a half an hour one night where we talk about um either of those ordinances um later in the summer and then if there's a need to um formulate direct direct amendments. We would bring those back as formal business items.

Okay. If that sounds like a plan for the council. Mr. Mayor, we talked about the dancing ordinance that's come up from time to time from year to year. Uh and the history and the story behind that. I guess it's unconstitutional. I uh I suggested that we watch the movie Foot Loose, the right that we as a documentary reconsider that ordinance. Okay. Good guidance, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Good presentation. Moving on. Next up is I do not have any communications. Chair. Uh next up then is business from the public. This allows the public to introduce items for council consideration that is not already scheduled on the agenda. Comment time will be limited to three minutes. Um, and I do have three people that uh would like to talk to us tonight. Uh, so I'd like to invite Robin Stalup Stala. Stala. Sorry about that. So I actually have my uh stat my statistics on a handout.

So um, is this live?

Yeah. Um, thank you. Uh, I'm Dr. Stalup and I'm a research analyst for the state of Oregon and, uh, I formerly was a viologist, so I have a science background. And I was looking through the, um, Woodburn Independent article of February 26 talking about the flock cameras. And, you know, as a research analyst for the state of Oregon, I work with this kind of data, you know, simple math data. Um and in in fact last week I was asked to respond to a reporter regarding um ICE uh enforcement uh effects on um school enrollment because that's what I do for the state and um so you know they had a hypothesis about how the enrollment would be affected by ICE actions and I couldn't show with our data that that ICE had an effect but I also could say well we don't collect collect data on that thing they were asking about. So I just went through your data and according to the paper there were 1910 uh uh police investigations in 2025. um 18 and a half% of those had were um actual investigations that were had some flock data um uh like the flock data was used to evaluate them um or collected and and checked against them. And then uh that that was about half less than half of those had no benefit um or had a benefit from flock. And so there was no benefit for at least 177 investigations out of that 354. Uh 70% um of the 177 investigations that had a contribution from flock that was

approximately um 124 cases. And so 124 cases out of 1910 is 6.4 four um percent of all investigations had some benefit using that flock data and you know if I was asked by the governor's office to provide data on a program it and I work for the department of education um or I was asked by a legislature to provide data which I have been and or or one of our agency leadership and I came back and said well it's 6.4% 4% effective, they would cut the budget. They would say, "Well, let's try something different." And so, I'm here to say, you know, experimentation is good. As a scientist, I can tell you 90% or so of of experiments fail because of the nature of an experiment. You're trying something. You don't necessarily know all the things you need to control for. You don't all know how things are used in the real world. That's why we're experimenting and experimenting for policing is important because we need to move forward as our society changes in terms of how we do policing and just DNA. There are people that say DNA is now why we don't see as many ser serial killers because they know they're going to get caught.

Thank you very much. So anyway, if I can just a clarifying question real quick. What agency are you with? What doctor? What agency are you with? So you're a researcher for the state of Oregon. Um I'm a research analyst and I work for the department of education and I provide enrollment and class size data. Are you here on behalf of the state of Oregon tonight or absolutely clarify senior states and golf person? Okay, very good. Thank you for clarification. Thank you very much for coming in.

Next up I have Devin Freeland. Hello, I'm Deon Freeland. I live in Ward 3. Um, and I just have a brief statement about also the flag cameras. Um, so the community of Woodburn has made it very clear um to this council that we do not want to have cameras installed in our town. Block cameras reduce our safety, violate our privacy, and present an enormous risk of misuse by bad actors because they're not adequately secured. Additionally, the assessment of the camera system completed by the city has shown no real lasting benefit to our community. Despite this, this council chooses to keep them in place without the consent of the people you represent. We are calling on this council to permanently remove the cameras and to not consider any mass surveillance technology or programs in the future without the explicit consent and endorsement of the entire community of Woodburn. That's all I got.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate you coming in. Laura Cox.

Thank you, mayor and council members. Good evening.

Um, so I want to speak to cameras as well, and I'm going to focus in on the mental health aspect, except real quick, I wanted to add one thing to Robin when it came to the financial piece. That's around 2 to 300 potholes. Just heard somebody mention potholes up here. That's about how many you could fill if you got rid of the cameras. Anyway, so I just want to real quickly speak to the mental health of your community. There was a study that was done out of New York that's saying that 53% of all Hispanic immigrants nowadays are living in constant fear. That's more than half. Um and this is causing a mental health crisis which is causing chronic stress, chronic trauma and chronic fear. Um and that is all leading then to depression, anxiety, sleep problems, school problems, and the list just goes on and on and on. Um, as was as Robin also spoke to, it's lower attendance, increased absenteeism, and the test scores are going down. And that's a lifelong effect on a human being, not just in the media. Adults are not going to work. They're afraid to drive. Um, I could really go on and on, but it was this council, I believe, that even said, and I quote, um, this is causing an economic and humanitarian crisis. And that is so very, very true. You have in this community 63% of Hispanic persons. That means roughly 8,700 members of your community are living in fear every single day. So when they do finally get up the courage to get in their car and go to work or to take

their child to school, just the mere presence we're adding to that fear when they see that camera, whether it's working or not, they don't know if it's shut off. They don't know if it's inactive just to see that camera. We are causing every person in that car to go through immediate trauma. And so I am going to ask again that this council remove the flock cameras and replace those with about two to 300 pothles. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate you coming in. Okay, moving on to our consent agenda. Items listed on the consent agenda are considered routine, may be adopted by one motion. Any item may be removed for the discussion of the request of council member. May I please have a city recorder read the items out loud that are on there. The items on the consent agenda are as follows. Woodburn City Council minutes of February 23rd, 2026 and new development activity for February 2026.

Okay. Anyone have any questions? I would entertain a motion to adopt the consent consent agenda as presented. I move to adop adopt the consent agenda as presented. Second. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor signify with an I.

I. Passes. Thank you. Do not have any table business. We do not have a public hearing tonight. Uh first time in a long time I do not remember uh not having any general business tonight. So we're moving along good. Then we were ready for uh if anyone cares to pull anything off the one item on the planning commission up which was uh public arts mural committee uh of the aware food bank painting or mural. It's going to go in the back. You know, I think it'd be great if we could just pull it up onto the screen so that everybody could see what a man just beautiful.

Really is beautiful. Yeah. Who was the artist? I don't know. Who's the artist? Do you remember who the artist is? The artist is Lee Tai. Yes. Thank you, Jamie.

Yes. That's half of it. And that mural will overlook our new community center and and the Espironza Court Apartments and the South Fil. Yeah, nice shot of it from city hall. Thank you, Heather, for getting that out.

Not hearing anyone that wants to call that up for discussion anymore. Then I'll move on to our city manager report.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a few brief things. The community center construction project is proceeding well. You can see they've ripped parts of the building off. I drive by it and I am shocked and then I calm down and realize it's going to be built. Uh but it's kind of dramatic. It's good to see the work going. Uh we passed the first uh phase of the CDBG grant application with Marian County for $250,000 for equipment and furniture that will um now go to HUD for review. And I think that is a a big step for us. We're hoping that that's going to come through. And then the Family Ford Foundation also has awarded the city $20,000 for the same project. So, even the project is being constructed, we're still getting funding to help help with the the project as well. And then I I just mentioned that um the city has worked and submitted a $ 1.8 million request through Senator White uh for uh another congressional earmark that will go in for uh a gymnasium component if we can land that. We did get uh from the uh from the House side from Representative Selenus $250,000 in her legislation. So that's great, too. Um but we're going to go for another another earmark of 1.8 million. And that leads me to my next thing which is that um we are sending a small delegation to Washington DC for the National League of Cities Conference um next week uh where we intend to meet with our congressional representatives on matters of of what I think are real importance not only funding for our community but these other issues around um immigration enforcement its impact in our community which is articulated tonight. We would like to see uh reforms. You know, the Department of Homeland Security right now is FA is part of the the funding I think if I understand it correctly. I just think we've got real concerns that

we want to share and we'd like to see the federal government redirect how it's using its resources in Woodburn elsewhere. So, uh and it'll also be good we get to meet with cities from around the nation to also hear strategies and ideas and to take a look at what they're doing as well. and we'll report back to the council when we're back. Thank you. That's always a good learning experience for the team that's going back there and I think those that are able to make it this trip be very beneficial to Woodburn. It always has been. Council Galvin, you have any add on that trip? No, but um looking forward to this uh Washington DC visit.

Thank you for being able to make it. Is that all you had? Oh, that's all I have unless there's any questions. Thank you again for the recognition, too, by the way. That was very nice. And we move on to uh mayor and council reports. Councelor Cornwell, do you have anything? Nope. Tonight, nothing for me tonight.

I just want to say um congratulations to those people that have been chosen to go on this trip to Washington DC. I've um done it before. It's rewarding. It's um eyeopening. Uh you have a opportunity to um to visit um representatives um from you know well from Oregon but from you know all over and um it's just a it's it's just a fantastic learning opportunity. So congratulations to to who they're going. Meeting the senators, the representatives on their terms, their their office has been extremely beneficial. It's better than sending them a letter.

Absolutely. Or having them come to to Woodburn, which they're always invited here. It means a lot going back there. It's been very productive for Woodurn. Yeah. Well, we have we always have to wait until they're here in Oregon, but when you're back in Washington DC, you get to go to their offices and meet their staff. And anyway, it's it's a great opportunity. That's all I have. Council,

you know, I just would add to that and Woodburn really is a city that's growing. It's on the move. And one of the ways that we can measure that is the amount of success that we have with our local and our federal legislatures. And uh we have brought home for both the city and for organizations within the city of Woodburn uh several sizable million dollar federal grants to provide needed housing and emergency food services over the last few years. And so it's really it's a testament to the fact that we are on the map our legislator's mindset.

Council, can I can I say something? Um if you don't mind, I should have mentioned this in my my report, but um we recognize a lot of people who are uh helped us and supported us in our legislative effort during short session. But I can't say enough about our work with May at Farmworker Housing Development Corporation. I know you're on the board for the corporation. They're tremendous partners and really were present in the legislature and advocated the interest of community in a way that only they can. And so we really do owe owe FHC um gratitude and our commitment to to see that construction of of 200 additional units of affordable housing a amii I I messed it up but average median income housing affordability and that was just a real success. So thank you for that councelor welcome. I know that's a great addition because the next thought I had was that uh this part of the success of our city and of the organizations in the city are the advocacy and the people who live here in this city. And we've seen that time and time again in this past year coming to our council and pleading with us to do the right thing and to make changes to to try to make um the people who live here feel safer and more secure and and and I just want to say again I appreciate the folks that have come tonight and all the hard work you're doing to advocate on behalf of those that sometimes don't really have much of a voice. So thank you. Before I move on, I want to jump on that too. I obviously appreciative of those that come in and speak to us, but also as we're talking about those that have have helped raise funds for for projects here in town. Got to thank Bernata for all the work she's done on this and Jamie over the years, too. Doing so much for for our city. And I mean, I can go through the everyone, Jim, Jesse, and everyone's involved in this, but uh yeah, RNA and Jamie have done so much

over the years. So, thank you. Council Can um I'll just piggyback on what Sharon said. Um I I believe as well that sending some delegates from the city to Washington DC, you know, pays off tenfold. And for us to be able to go into their offices, I've had the opportunity to do that with the city um and meet our representative and meet our state senator there in their territory. You know, does land us a spot on the map and I believe it pays off tenfold. Um, and then also I was not able to attend, but I think some of you here were able to attend the 75th annual DSAAS. Yes. That were not last weekend, but the weekend before.

Great time was had by all. Yeah. Right. I I heard that there was a great time. 75th annual. So, they invited back a lot of the past recipients of the junior and senior first citizens. There were 37 um past recipients in attendance. So, um just a great um honor to all those people that have served our city. Um I know the chamber board thanks everyone. So, thank you. In a way, it shows how old some of us are, but I won't bring you out. Thank you. Yeah. I don't have anything to report yet. Meeting the next meeting when I get back from DC.

Great. question for my So I've been getting these questions about the flock camera and I don't think we've really addressed it for the people that are here. So I know we have it on pause right now. Okay. Can you clarify all that and what what we're headed to or where we're going with that?

Sure. So um last fall the council voted to have those cameras shut off. Um and they're not just like off to the city and accessible to other they're literally like there's no power going to those cameras. Um, and until we get direction from the council on a decision, um, you know, they will remain off. And, you know, I do know that the council wants to continue to review, um, whether or not we would continue, um, a license plate reader program with Flock, another third party, or, you know, discontin use completely. Um the city manager may have some

Yeah, one of the things uh was important to the city was that we maintain a relationship with Flock long enough to retrieve data. I'll I will boast that Woodburn is the only city to release the entire database of over 3 million data points collected across the nation from the camera system. We turned it over to various media uh outlets. Not the Woodward Independent. They did not receive the database, although I'm happy to give it to them if they'd like it. Um but other but other news outlets did have access to it. We also audited uh we wanted to see for sure what was happening. I think that um trial access that allowed some agencies, federal agencies to access the nationwide system was a concern that also led to the shutting off of the cameras. So there's uh issues to be resolved with Flock. And then there's this pending legislation that we've been waiting to see what the state law was going to be, what the legislature was going to do on it out of concerns that arise statewide. Um, and so when that all gets kind of processed, you know, then the city council can deliberate on, you know, the value of the system. Um, that's kind of where we're at. I I think that, uh, you know, Zach and I mentioned that this law did pass. I think we'll take a look at that and then the council can deliberate on, you know, what the direction of it's going to be.

And my understanding, unfortunately, that Woodurn and Bennett did not interview anybody from the city regarding

Well, I I would just say I thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that. Um, you know, I would say to the doctors out here, I mean, I think as anybody who's interested in in statistical data and understanding the nature should go to the source data, you know, women dependent not have access to the source data. The source data is public now and available. So, I would encourage anybody interested in looking at its impact nationwide to do that. Um, our analysis uh and the audit that we released is available on the website while supporting data and statistics that were compiled. I think the council's all had an opportunity to review all of that. I encourage the public to go there and look at that and then we can, you know, deliberate on the the policy impacts. Of course, we've heard um concerns articulated quite well and I think everybody understands that. And then we also have, you know, we have other public safety um impacts that, you know, we also know the other segments of the community also support. So, it's going to be ultimately a policy decision for the council. We're just trying to get the best data, the update state law, the uniform regulations so the council can have all the information.

Thank you. With that, I have nothing to add, but thank everybody for being part of tonight's conversation. Our next meeting is March 23rd, Monday evening. Uh, and with that, I'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. Second. We have a second. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Passes. We are out of here. Thank you. That might be a bit worse than me.