Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Amhill County Board of Commissioners formal session on August 13th at 10 a.m. I'd ask that Commissioner King leaves in a flake salute. Thank you for that. C is our calendar session. Is there any changes by the commissioners?

None.

You guys all right?

Apologies.

No worries. I just want to make sure that we're still okay to proceed. Any changes?

When it was sent yesterday, I saw that National Night Out wasn't on there in Willamina, and I'm not sure if that was added or not.

Yeah.

We'll get that added.

Dee's public comment. If you're online, raise your virtual hand. If you're in the audience, raise your regular hand. Seeing none. Moving on. E's department updates. There is none. F is work session. There is none. G is consent agenda. We have some meeting minutes. I would move approval. Is there any further discussion?

None.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. H is old business. There is none. I as other business, I want as consideration of approval of change order number one to the North Valley Road Improvement Project Board Order 26-088 in the amount of $43,706. If we have questions, we have Greg and Mark here. None. I move approval. Any further discussion?

None.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you. I choose consideration of approval of an intent to award the 2026 Highway Striping Services Project to Construction Ahead Inc. DBA Pavement Surface Control in the amount of $406,782.32. I would move approval. And we also have Mark and Greg here if there's any questions on that. No. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. I-3 is consideration of approval to donate a retired vehicle to Encompass Yamhill with an estimated value between $5,970 to $6,645.

chair i have a few things i'd like to just share with the board about this uh my question to uh director manfred and our administrator yesterday was what was the process by which this was offered to the community and what on non-profits were um apprised of this opportunity and i was told that this organization had reached out and asked for vehicle and but my understanding is is that when it was operating under another name it also received an HHS vehicle so I wanted to take a look at the process by which we do this so I would definitely say that at this juncture it's not appropriate for us to just hand over something because a nonprofit requested it, because there are other nonprofits that I'm sure would like the opportunity. So I think either we have a discussion at some future time on the process by which we do this, and Ken and Lindsay and I talked about how that would work in some of the various vehicles, the way that we list these on various websites and things like that. So at this point, I would vote no to approve the retired vehicle donation. And then, I don't know if you want to discuss it now or we talk further.

No, I think we should discuss it now. Are we okay then just opening it up like on a public basis so everybody gets a chance then? And then reassess in a month or whatever that process is or-

Well, I know that, and I can't explain the procedure by which we list them, but for me, thinking through this and discussing this, it's almost like the board now is put in the position of picking winners and losers. And we all have our, you know, I might say this needs to go to the VFW. Somebody else might say it needs to go to the relief nursery. Somebody else might say it needs to go to Love, Inc. And then it really puts us in a difficult position to make these decisions. Because we all see a need out there. And then how do we make sure that everybody gets a fair shot at this? So my recommendation, and I think we were talking about it, is list it with the other surplus vehicles and then let people know that it's there. And isn't that how it works where they bid on that particular site?

So, and Mark's here too, and I might have him join the conversation to the overseas fleet. So what typically happens when we get a vehicle that is, you know, we have a mechanical issues, it's end of life, you know, for our use, and we're ready to surplus that vehicle. if we get an inquiry like this where an organization's interested in a donation, we have the ability under statute and our surplus rules to be able to do a transfer to a other governmental agency or a non-profit. There's provisions for allowing for that. If we don't do that, typically Public Works and their fleet management will take the vehicle and put it on, it's a government auction website that we have an agreement with is where we post all surplus vehicles. And so it's posted and available there for purchase based on an auction standpoint. How that process might look if we post it to that and we have somebody who wants to approach us to donate the vehicle. I'm not 100% sure what that might look like system wise or, you know, what our controls are. And so I'm kind of looking to Mark and I know Mark you weren't we chatted briefly about this, but I didn't You know, you're probably not prepared to talk in more detail about what that might look like, but You know, my hope would be not to necessarily build another additional process in this, you know, like if we're suddenly advertising for, hey, any nonprofits or government, you know, posting a secondary listing, we have this available if you're interested, and then putting it on the site. I mean, so I don't know. Mark, do you have any thoughts on this? No, not, you know, if it's something... can we just pull something just straight off? You know, like if we have it submitted to that auction website and the board elected to, hey, we got a van, we got a bus, we got a truck that's on the list and a nonprofit's interested in us transferring that vehicle to them, could we just pull it off that list?

We could, yeah. I mean, anybody can bid on it.

Right.

So I think we need a little deeper thought about how we do this. If it is for nonprofits, maybe we kind of have our own little lottery maybe with nonprofits. I don't know. It's just first.

Yeah.

It just came to mind.

Can I ask how often, I mean, I've heard a few times in my two years here of nonprofits, but it's not very, it's not super often that I, hear of nonprofits wanting or requesting a vehicle or if there's one available. How often do you hear about them?

Two in the last month that we've discussed. One through transit and now this one. Commissioner Serrett's right. If we don't figure this out, we're still going to have this problem when we discuss the veterans one that we've already lightly talked about when we get to transit. My other question, too, is if we do end up deciding that we're going to donate a van, is there one that transit has that would be even cheaper yet as a donation so i guess there is a lot of quite a few questions so maybe let's put this off for a couple weeks see if there's not a process internally that we can come up with because we will be running into this again when we decide um when we figure out the vet the veterans van from

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Yeah, transit. I don't know that I would vote no today, but maybe a pause and come up with some sort of PB, Harmon Zuckerman, System like Commissioner starts recommending and then give encompass a chance to come back and ask in that

Yeah, I think that's patently unfair because I've received an email from an organization that said, hey, I saw this on the agenda. What was your process?

I didn't know what the process was.

And that's when I went to Ken and Director Manfrin yesterday and I said, hey, how have we done this in the past? And I said, I want to make sure that I don't say, yeah, well, we're going to give them a pass. But going forward, I think that would really open us up to some real hurt feelings in the community with nonprofits that really could use this. I mean, this is not to say that they can't. But then somebody else says, hey, what about us? And I was naming like three yesterday of, oh, I'm like, what about this group? And what about this group? They were asking for... Like, I'm just going to throw one out there. There's a nonprofit that helps people in recovery and they have to get men from this facility, which is outside the city limits. And I asked Cynthia like a year ago, can we get a bus up to them so they can get to Carlton so they can get to McMinnville so they can work? And we weren't able to do that. So I thought about them. I thought about the VFW. I thought about, say, families or families. you know, the relief nursery, it was like, and that was just, I just don't think it's right for us to do this now.

And I would just emphasize that we have the, you know, the surplus property code and what we do for surplus vehicles, you know, and there's all kinds of requirements or, you know, around this, you know, so it's not just nonprofits, but it's, you know, you know, you could potentially get a call, you know, like if, you know, just as an example, you know, If a municipal public works department knows that we're surplusing a backhoe, as an example, and maybe they're reaching out to Mark, you know, this applies to nonprofits, public agencies, everything else, and we have these rules. But typically what we, I don't know how often or the frequency that we do this. Yeah, but they're purchasing it. They're not getting it donated to them, but a little bit. Well, potentially they could call in a similar fashion. Like if they know that we're surplusing something, maybe they see that, hey, I noticed you were surplusing. I saw it on the agenda. Would you be interested in transferring this? And that could come forward as a request from an agency, as an example. So it's agencies, nonprofits, things like that. So, but... Typically, what will happen is we'll come in just like with buses and graders and everything else that's reached the end of its lifespan. We surplus it and it goes on the auction website and it's available for, you know, anyone to bid on, you know, but again, that's not there's. There's just under the policy and under statute, we have the ability to share resources with nonprofits and other governmental agencies for something like this, that if you're surplusing it and there's an interest, we can transfer it at no cost.

I had one more question that has to do with the with the revenue. Obviously, we remember we're dealing with other people's money. This is taxpayer money so that there was an opportunity to recoup some of that, even if it was a fraction of it. And then it goes either into the vehicle fund or in other words, we're talking about a dollar amount. And so we might say, oh, it's only a thousand or it's only two thousand. It's a thousand of somebody else's money.

And that's, you know, cause the process, how it works with all of our fleet vehicles. And there's some, a little bit of variation depending on how the vehicle is originally paid for and bought. So we purchase a vehicle and they're paying into the replacement fund for the eventual replacement of that vehicle. Sometimes they don't like in this case, some of HHS, they don't, they buy the vehicle outright. They don't pay into the replacement fund. But they still pay for fuel, mechanics, the shops, the fleet management, that portion. There's a portion that goes into the public works fund. And so when that vehicle reaches the end of its lifespan and we've worn it out, and whether it's a patrol car or it's another piece of equipment, sometimes there's a lot of miles and it's time to rotate these out. So you're correct that when we put this up on the auction list and whatever money or bids that we get when that vehicle sells, it either goes back to the department if they didn't pay into the replacement fund, or it goes back into the replacement fund to help offset the costs of the purchase of the replacement vehicle.

Is there any stipulations that if it was gifted to a nonprofit that they can just turn around and sell it for cash?

They cannot. One of the rules that anything, if we transfer a vehicle under the rules to another nonprofit or an agency, it still has to be used for public purposes. And who tracks that?

I guess I do. I do want to share, I believe it was the city of Sheridan, was their enforcement officer, I think, needed a vehicle and we were surplusing and it was going to go to, I think it could have been Willamina, but I came before the board. That's the only time I remember going from one government agency to another. And I think it was a transaction was like a dollar or something like that.

Yeah, but then that government agency has rules that they'll need to follow when they surplus it, which would be put it on auction site. The nonprofit doesn't have that stipulation, right? Yeah. Let's say they're done with it. It breaks down at whatever and they got to get rid of it. It's not coming back to us. They just end up selling it and then they would take any proceeds from it at that point. So it is a little bit different as it goes to a nonprofit. But are we okay...

um i think talking about this for maybe a couple weeks or something and if we can't internally come up with something if not then we can take a vote and vote no at that time or yes or whatever uh so no we're just going to remove this from the agenda for today that would be a no action that would be no action and then the other thing i would just want you know maybe we could look at numbers i mean what do we what do we typically recoup when we look at surplus vehicles and how much of that when they go to auction how much are we And where do we go? Because I know HHS has a different system in terms of because they're buying their vehicles. So in other words, what would we be? The financial part of this is important. So I would like to have a clear understanding of what we would be saying, okay, we can be real generous with other people's money. And I don't want to take that attack.

You're saying for this, what was it? $6,000 or so at auction, what would we... on average, would we get $6,000 or are we getting three?

Well, no. What I mean is when we typically put something up on that, just on a general or anecdotal, what percentage do we get? But I think that any percentage is worth considering when you factor in that that is money that we have outlaid and now it's it's going to come back to the county and that's going to impact the budget. And that budget time, I think it might matter.

It does. Do you know if we put a minimum amount for some vehicles or minimum bid amounts?

Sometimes there's a reserve, but not that often. And I can come back in a couple of weeks and give you some examples of what we put on the government.com and what we actually got bids for that and what we paid. It does fluctuate high and low.

Do you know any back history on this vehicle? Has it had issues or?

I do not on this vehicle. Okay.

All right, let's table it. Thank you. Let's see. We're on to item I-4, consideration of approval of an agreement between Yamhill County Health and Human Services and Yamhill County Community Care for system of care grant in the not to exceed amount of $5,000.

Move approval.

Motion's been made. Any further discussion?

None.

None. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. I-5's consideration approval of an intergovernmental agreement between Oregon Department of Transportation and Yamhill County Sheriff's Office to provide temporary access to CCDs 36-02 Dayton and the 27-04 Fort Hill way stations to assist with commercial motor vehicle activity effective upon full execution until September 30, 2035. One way zone. All right.

um sheriff's here if we have any questions i would move approval okay this was the this went away for a while and now it's back just making sure it was the same program we lost a grant or

We've never had an agreement to have access to the weigh stations. Last year when I was coming through the budget process, we had initially received an agreement from ODOT that they were going to reimburse us for time spent doing these commercial motor vehicle enforcement activities. Shortly after the beginning of the fiscal year, we learned that there actually was no money. Uh, so we have not received, we did not hire a deputy to, to backfill and create another position, which was what originally was intended. We still do have, uh, a couple of deputies that have been through the training that have all the qualifications to do the commercial motor vehicle enforcement. This agreement is just allowing them to have access into the scales at Fort hill and McDougal, um, so that they can, uh, perform, um, more of the weight enforcement aside from just safety inspections. We don't have any temporary or portable scales that they can use roadside. So this is just ODOT's standard agreement to allow us access. There doesn't have to be somebody from ODOT there for us to have access into the facility.

When you talk about enforcement for safety, I know there have been lots of concerns because we've heard that there have been nationally on our roadways people who are not only not up to the task of operating an 18-wheeler, but can't read road signs. And there's been a lot of very serious accidents in terms of eligibility to drive those vehicles. Is there any of that going on?

So we did a combined enforcement mission over the last roughly year. We've partnered with Clackamas County and Washington County and done some special emphasis commercial motor vehicle enforcement. We did a mission in Clackamas County. We did one with Washington County. And then roughly six weeks ago, I don't recall exactly when we did one out here. And so we had those agencies out here helping us and they were set up out by the transit office on Durham. And I know just rough numbers from that day. They did put a couple of trucks out of service for safety violations. They had one driver that had a suspended driver's license, and they had one driver that failed the English proficiency and was put out of service at that enforcement mission. And so... We really don't have a good grasp of what the problem is here locally because we don't have dedicated commercial motor vehicle enforcement. This is just in between calls for service as they have time. The three deputies that I have that have the training to be able to do it are doing some enforcement. But yes, just in that one instance, that one day, we had multiple trucks that were put out of service here for safety violations.

Do you know if local jurisdictions are doing some of those stops?

What do you mean local jurisdictions?

In other words, it's like local police departments. Are they doing those types of checks online?

Here in Yamhill County, I can't speak across the state, but here in Yamhill County, I'm not aware of any of our police departments that have anybody that is trained to do those. You have to go to like a three-week class with ODOT. Oregon State Police used to primarily do all commercial motor vehicle, and they gave that up a number of years ago. and kind of expanded it out. So we get requests from local police departments that if they stop a commercial vehicle and believe that there might be issues, our deputies are going and doing inspections roadside to verify that they're in compliance with all of the enhanced regulation for commercial motor vehicles. But as far as doing regular enforcement activity, I believe it is us and us alone in Yamho County that are doing that.

Thank you.

All right. Motion's been made. Any further discussion?

None.

All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Jay is public hearings. There is none. K is announcements.

Commissioner King. Last week, there was a town hall in Newburgh, Congresswoman Salinas, after the three of us met with her. One of the last questions was about the SAVE Act from James Goings that asked about the... what can be done about the BPA closing, um, a fishery up in Clatsop County. So, um, I was able to kind of navigate with Gustavo a little bit on that and, and, uh, Salinas' team to try to get more information and get that information over to Mr. Goings. Um, but it's a bit of a serious, um, situation, you know, where 7 million smelt will die off with this closes and it's going to be all of a sudden, just real quick, there's no runway or anything like that. So, um, YCOM this week as well. Um, thanks to the sheriff and YCOM coordinating. There was, uh, during the lightning storm, there was, uh, I didn't write down all of the numbers, but what was it? Four or five times more calls, um, during that time than last year same date so um everybody kind of on the lookout over on the hills and um and i think that they all did all the jurisdictions and your and user groups did a great job um tamping those things out so thank you to all the fire departments and sheriffs and police workers that uh kept an eye out on that um Matt with Lincoln and Tillamook County Commissioners around solid waste. And there is a town hall today in Salem with Senator Wyden and Congresswoman Salinas. Thank you.

okay met with the amity superintendent jeff clark and also with the mcminnville superintendent and we talked about something that has been on everybody's radar for a while and that has to do with the truancy situation and one of the discussions that we had really centered on the nexus of what the county services could be providing with the CCO. Perhaps a CCO taking the lead on working with some of these families where it really is an issue with parents maybe not getting up in time or parents not having the wherewithal to figure out how to basically take care of their kids. We've got the base here at the county for some of those services, and we need to perhaps formalize it. How are we going to make sure? Because we've got, what, a 67% attendance rate in Yamhill County. And it's not great if there are other counties where it's way worse. But the bottom line is that after COVID, families, a lot of people and a lot of kids just said, hey, if it's not important for us to be in school, it seems to be not a priority. The state's not helping out. So we talked about that, and I believe on the 20th, there's a meeting here, and we're going to be discussing some of the options. But I would love to be able to take the approach that Safe Families does, which is like you kind of take ownership of the family, and everybody helps with the parents and the and the whole thing and that's what that hand-holding is what might have to happen. Also one of the things that we do have another nexus here and that is has to do with the administration of vaccines and during the COVID situation the prior board we made a decision that we really didn't want to be promoting vaccines on our Facebook page. We wanted people to be able to go to their doctors and make the their own decisions and I feel that that was a good decision in light of what just came out this week about Dr. Fauci's texts, where in 2021, he said there was a concern about miscarriages for those women in the first trimester. That was information that we had shared. And I know that OHA medical director Dean Seidlinger and the local medical community basically said that any talk like that was anti-vax talk. come to find out that this was vindication when Dr. Fauci himself said he knew in 2021 that this was a concern for miscarriages. So I feel very sad for the women who lost babies, because on the same hand, while he was saying, please, let's look at this as a safety signal, he was also saying, there is no reason why a pregnant woman should not be vaccinated and boosted with the COVID vaccine. So we're seeing this come out. There are 34,000 texts. I will be bringing information to the board about that because it really does impact how we look at public health in our community. And there's just a whole lot more to come, sadly.

Thursday, we had Andrea Salinas visit. We had a very... I guess a small meeting with her between the three commissioners and Ken, our admin. We all got to discuss or at least pitch to her what our main concerns are for the county or projects that we're keeping an eye on for funding-wise. And so hopefully that stays on their radar as they progress through 2020. next legislative season. And I know there's a lot of big asks out there and I know that Andrea doesn't come with a blank checkbook every time, but I sure do appreciate the support that she's brought so far for McDougal and a little over 1.9 million for transit. So it's, it's there and they're helping out, but we definitely need to keep striking while the iron's hot and make sure that they know what we have for projects so I think that's important and I really do appreciate her time that she spent with us Saturday was Amity's water treatment tour and their grand opening for their newly expanded water treatment plant they're very proud of it and capacity wise they actually have room to grow to add another 30% if they need to but right now they've built for the future and they're very excited about their new water treatment plant out there and kudos to nathan their city manager he's very in tune with uh with their with their water treatment he actually gave the whole tour and answered all the questions as we're all going walking through there so kudos to him and congratulations to mayor king um don't forget uh this weekend's air show they are going to have a test run i think today somewhere this afternoon do you know what time sheriff 230. So you'll see them flying over around 230 and then Friday, the air show starts. So make sure you get out there and support those guys will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we have the Blue Angels coming in. Tonight is Lafayette City Council meeting at 630 and I wish Hillary was here, but I think right at 630 they're going to have a One of two flag retirement boxes is going to be in Lafayette, and there's going to be a ceremony for that because I believe Daimler Chrysler Truck Company in Portland actually gave them all a new coat of paint. Our clerk donated the old... um ballot boxes to them so two of them and then they shot them with brand new paint made them look really cool so we'll now have two one in newberg and one lafayette um flag retirement boxes so if you have a flag that's tattered and you don't know quite the process you can go put it in there and the vfw will take care of that for you so i'll be there tonight for that um and then we have a homeward bound ribbon cutting five o'clock i totally messed this up last time i apologize if somebody showed up on a monday at noon but it is eight o'clock friday morning chamber greeters there will also be a ribbon cutting for the homeward bound pets new facility out there well they have one tonight That's just, yeah, that's the invite party for tonight. It starts at 5, right? I didn't want to mention that one because I didn't know that was.

Oh, okay.

All right.

But the public one is Mac Chamber Greeters ribbon cutting, 8 a.m. Friday morning. Okay. I don't know where I got Monday.

We're going to have two ribbon cuttings then, tonight and tomorrow.

I think tonight's is like a pre-ribbon cutting.

It's a tour and a grand opening. Yeah. Pretty grand opening.

I'm looking forward to both, but I got to leave early to go to the Lafayette City Council one. And then Willamina National Night Out. You've stepped in for me. So thank you very much for that. Okay. Yeah. So that's going to be on Tuesday at 6 p.m. So make sure you go out to Willamina and throw some softballs at the dunk tank and dunk both of these guys.

I sponsored one of the tanks. And I can't be at the 18th because... But anyway, I know that it's to benefit our canines. So yeah, it's a good cause.

Anyway, that's all I got, unless there's anything else for the good of the order. Okay. All right. I'm going to close this out at 1031. 29 minutes early for you. We really do appreciate you coming in and being... Really the audience of Jason, I guess was audience.