Springfield City Council — September 21, 2020

0:07 so let's go ahead and start this meeting with roll call please counselors van gorden here mo here more here here here wood row here missionary here thank you aj um so work session are we going with the downtown upgrade this is courtney griezel we're going with the electric service upgrades first oh there we go thank you courtney

0:59 and i am going to start here i'm going to spare my screen can you all see my screen it's a mess right now i know that yes i can see it yes okay sorry now i apologize i'm moving things around so i can see you and my screen it's just too much tech on one little screen so um this evening we're here talking about downtown electrical voltage specifically um the power that runs throughout downtown kind of that backbone power system serving downtown businesses and

1:44 residents i'll note that i do have sanjeev king in the audience from springfield utility board as well as jeff nelson these are folks who are far smarter than i am around the technical nuts and bolts of this stuff but i'm going to try and make them cringe as little as possible um we see if i can get this to advance there we go um what we have currently is our downtown which is really the oldest region of springfield right this is where you know businesses really first started in mills and there is a backbone power system in

2:29 that downtown that is somewhat antiquated what i will note is that every business and residence currently in downtown is being served adequately today they're being served safely they are able to turn on light switches and serve the community and do good the issue is really coming up when those properties are desiring to plug in much larger systems or expand or create a bigger demand on the power generation and in that case what we have is that we have a low voltage issue in our backbone that is not adequately set up right now to quickly um be modified to serve those demands

3:14 and so in some cases what that creates is a timely it can take time to design the modification to the building it can also be expensive and sub is starting to look at this proactively to understand what would it take if they went in and made that upgrade on the in the backbone system so that they could really be very ready when a property in downtown was ready to expand redevelop add new tenants etc sorry there we go so this is kind of a rough image of what we're talking about when we say backbone we're really talking about this power

3:59 that is running in the grid throughout downtown and then each individual uh building or business is jumping off of that main line to power their entire their entire system and right now those two systems speak so they're talking the same voltage the technology speaks to each other and therefore it works if sub were to come in and do a substantial upgrade to that line in the alley the yellow what we then find is those buildings don't talk to that system any longer without being converted themselves and so that's sort of the double-edged sword of being proactive we're being proactive we're doing good things we're getting ready for redevelopment but we may have rendered the existing

4:45 systems plugged into it in need of upgrades themselves and that can be expensive especially to those private businesses or building owners so sub is really proposing right now a partnership with us that looks like an up an assessment of what it would actually take to do those conversions acknowledging what it would do to those private property owners who are currently using that system so assessing not only block by block what would it cost to upgrade it but also block by block what would the financial impact to those businesses be and what are some ways that we could partner to support that

5:30 i think ultimately a partnership to support voltage conversion um has not yet been asked by sub financially of us this is just sort of an early glimpse at work that they're doing and we want to be mindful of where it could ultimately go this is an image of a phased strategy that sub is proposing uh really looking at what are the initial blocks they might assess blocks number one being that three block section and i realize i'm using my hands for nonverbal and you can't see me so i'll sit on them so um blocks number one really we're

6:15 driven because that was where we've seen historically a lot of interest from property owners interested in redevelop and that's where a lot of the questions have come historically that said there are not a hand there are not a lot of businesses at this moment in time asking sub for additional power but we also know there's a lot of other things happening to businesses right now so um i wouldn't take that as a sign that it's not needed in the future so sub is proposing to approach it in this order kind of one two block three being between mill and pioneer and then up to block four and five on a street after that and they're also proposing they would cover that cost of the assessment of their infrastructure

7:01 they're also proposing to bring on us engineering a consultant to do some assessment of the financial impacts to the private properties as well and they're not asking us to financially support that they're proposing to do that themselves but we do know that that will mean we'll understand uh what the future might look like for this conversion so courtney are you ready yeah can you take a question absolutely yeah the map i'm looking at block number or the number two includes the school it does no so number two includes the wildish theater and

7:49 um hold on i'm i'm wrapping my head around block number two fifth street is city hall is on so sixth street in goes under city hall so block number two would include the wildish theater and bright oaks and the schools across the street yes it's not included in this correct okay so the school is not included in the upgrade no but i could ask why that might be yeah i'm curious the only reason i'm thinking that is i'm thinking of all the businesses that are in in number three and i'm wondering why why it's in the order it's in although i realize this is just a total this is just a you know an initial thing

8:36 yeah and i think sub has been really open and communicative that some of the phasing could adjust and this is phasing to do assessment um i think ultimately all of it would end up being assessed but i can ask a couple more questions about what we're dealing with on the south okay thank you yeah so let me ask you absolutely since we're looking at the map what about the justice center yeah does it need to be included so i'm going to speak ahead i believe not but part of that when you develop an entire block and when a whole block comes in under

9:21 redevelopment oftentimes we upgrade the entire backbone system to serve that block that's relatively new construction so much of that infrastructure would have been included in that site work all right thank you i think i see counselor stare is that true yes i'm sorry i wasn't tracking where whoops yeah hey courtney um so i i apologize if i missed this in the packet but are we close to capacity at any part of our grid right now so i want to um no yes and no so in the general at the

10:09 point in which where the power is generated kind of the power source is not sub has plenty of power to provide to future redevelopment our issue is really just in sort of that line that runs to the specific block needing to be upgraded so um not from a power generation or true sort of power source standpoint thank you and i can't see my sub folks but i just i'm always like i'm waiting for a text like they might be cringing if i say something just wrong i know they'll let me know

10:54 100 we lost your view you lost my view no leonard leonard's view oh i did notice thank you um so the only kind of last element that i it's sort of um just bringing it back to where we started you know a couple years ago with the economic development strategy reason why we're having this discussion with you all from the economic development perspective is it just fills within our categories of infrastructure our assets and our competitiveness just making sure that we have the best real estate products and sites so that's really the only reason that i put this up here we're just always kind of testing what we're doing to make sure we're staying in the category of work

11:40 that you have us doing um and this is really just more about what the nuance of that strategic plan kind of has us doing and why we do it um otherwise i think that really what i had this evening on this there's not a specific ask other than some feedback we're interested in like you shared on this phasing your thoughts on this anything you're hearing any concerns any areas you want to make sure that we highlight our next step if you all are supportive generally that we keep moving forward would be to stay in close partnership to support sub and the assessment work and then at the point when they have

12:27 some financial some understanding of the financial impacts of the project come back to you either the city council or ceta to have a discussion about what that means what the future might look like if this were a project that required some financial support for private property owners and just give you a clearer picture of what we're learning go ahead steve i've i've been part of this i've been down there walking walk the streets with sanji and everything and i think those faces can be moved around if necessary but i think they look pretty good but what we're trying to do is we're trying to develop springfield for the future economic development so we're gonna have a thriving community the uh as i understand sub is willing to

13:15 improve the lines put in the power and and deliver that to the meter base on each building and inside the building that's where the that's where a power or a financial thing is going to be pretty iffy that's going to cost money so and that's that's what sub's going to look at that and determine what we need to do to help the property owners do that yep thank you for that counselor i've got merrily followed by sherry followed by sean uh yes that was what i was uh gathering from what you were saying is that the assessment is going to give us a better idea um cost wise outside and probably give us an idea what it might

14:00 be for the uh property owners or the businesses on the inside is that correct yeah not that it's good that's correct not that it's going to be detailed but it's going to give us an idea um what we're looking at absolutely yeah that is it that is correct and and ultimately you know sub will be making most of their modifications really to the transformers uh that they're using uh to serve those buildings what will decide if they proactively go forward with upgrading those transformers will be if the entire block is able to convert their private systems we wouldn't want to upgrade those transformers and render buildings obsolete of being able to use that power so it will be i think our next

14:46 conversations will be very telling about what we learn and um and that's why this phasing is valuable as well because it will require uh conversations with property owners and sub and the city and you all you just we all want to talk about this together and so i think we're very sensitive to whether this phasing makes sense if you're okay with us starting with phase one um that type of feedback as well okay thank you sherry it's your turn go ahead um question about that financing for those private owners and my question has to do with what what happens when we do uh infrastructure developments

15:32 like sidewalks and the homeowner has to pay for a portion of that and i can't remember what it's called we do a district a um an improvement district right an improvement district so i wondered if that because this is an infrastructure project if that might be come under that i understand ceta might be able to come in as well but if there would be some way in which homeowners or the business owners could purchase the improvements through some kind of an improvement district if you could look yeah i think we could look into that i might talk with our finance director as well what's interesting about this is that we really are talking about

16:18 private improvements and so we want to think through what that mechanism might be essentially urban renewal is a version of almost an improvement type uh tool or district it just gives us that ability to use the tool on private development which is what makes it unique um so i think we'd want to look into that i think this is a good note just to think through different ways we might create tools and bring that add that to what we bring back to you so in the linen in fact that we might come to ceta then ceta could look at ways of devising some uh ways of financing that improvement then that would yeah maybe help or

17:03 involve the owner as well yeah i think that i think that's a strong point that we we would i'll add some notes here and we make sure we do that and um and and and we talk about different ways of cost share or kind of support over time you know just being mindful that sub the request is not right now from sub sub is not requesting any support financially in their conversion the their voltage backbone i think they're just truly kind of raising the flag that it will cause potential need on the private side um sub is looking to bear the cost of their conversion

17:48 can i just say wow it's looks you know an amazing improvement and again comes right under that economic development umbrella of ceta so thank you i have sean followed by steve mo um i just have to say i'm supportive of going forward here i know we're gonna get the financing and the actual needs and actually having a long in-depth conversation so a lot of the questions that i have about the how i think you're going to come up with you know in the future um you know just in regards to downtown as a whole right like i think it's important that that we sort of continue to get sites ready right like what what has been successful in springfield in the past really has been us doing that all the lake worth getting

18:33 ready for you know for private industry to sort of pick up and grow and be involved and i think we just like this is a good opportunity to get it done in these in these blocks because they've grown so much in that in the last couple of years and i'd like to see them grow a lot more steve your turn followed by counselor steer yeah sub is sub is ready and willing to upgrade the system but they do want to make sure that the businesses don't move out there's no users for it so that's a delicate thing because there's financial stuff involved so that's what we need to accomplish what's going to cost

19:18 counselor steer uh thanks joe so um i i hate to keep beating this drum but courtney when do we project that we're going to be nearing capacity in these blocks that we're proposing to improve so what i would say is that we are at a kind of a ceiling on some of these blocks already if redevelopment were to be proposed tomorrow and when i say ceiling i want to be sensitive sub could design a system to serve that redevelopment they could find a solution but it would be a one-off solution and it would take some time and it might be costly because it would be working around the voltage issues

20:04 so right now all current businesses are safely and effectively served we're just sort of at a we're at a threshold if somebody were to come in and need substantial expansion now if if we were to approve this when would the additional capacity be available to the businesses you know i couldn't tell you that just yet we'd need to get in and do this assessment on the systems in these different phases and then uh come back to you as soon as we have that issue i my sense is we're talking about um at least a year's worth of work does does jeff have a projection or is he thinking a year or two i'm looking

20:49 at my text thread to see if he's possibly feeding me some valuable information [Music] i don't have that yet but we can get it to you i think our goal would be to move as quickly as possible it's hard when we don't know yet the full um a full amount of work to be done i will say that some of this work will also require some easement works and he's meant to be procured so with private property owners so it's it's far more complicated than my simple mind often tries to uh frame it thank you

21:35 so um if i can comment please so in summary i see that i mean there's a all these questions are super good questions but i think that um there are going to be questions that will be able to be answered after this study that we will all have that information and i think we're kind of getting the cart before the horse in regards to that it's a to me it appears as though it is a no risk situation for the city for them to do this because they're burying all the cost and that that still puts us in the position to where after the study is done we can pick that apart and i assume just like with counselor mo mo had indicated that prices to have that power into the building can be iffy quote-unquote and i agree so but we won't even know any of that so this is i think just getting out of the starter gate and we

22:21 need to let that happen and and get that information we're not committing to anything really we're just saying okay we're interested do your study and and we would like to see that happen in a sense of giving us the flexibility for all these buildings to be able to improve themselves put in new equipment that they can't do now so it opens up a lot of opportunities but we can't even really talk about that until we find out what sub has and what kind of of options that they have that that i can tell us am i off base on that um courtney no that's that's correct and and so tonight our goal would be to proceed at really starting with phase one and start bringing you back those details that answer those questions well i i fully support it and i think

23:07 give sub the head nod as far as i'm concerned i'd like to see the head nods or thumbs up on the rest yep okay i think we got full support courtney good job sub go ahead and push forward appreciate that i'm gonna back out of this one do you want me to just start or do you need to close that okay no i think we need to go ahead and start with the next u.s ignite grant and citywide fiber update topic please awesome just getting that set um here we go okay so fiber

23:53 i'll note we we're talking about fiber and voltage the same night because there was a moment in time where we thought the two were intrinsically tied and we've learned a lot over the last several months and so we'll kind of talk through why that is but similar to the last one just talking about how we got to where we are why is economic development working on fiber we're working on fiber because it was called out also in the strategic plan talking about really the importance of affordable accessible high quality broadband access to households in springfield as well as employers in springfield so just kind of my normal gut check are we

24:38 on still working on the things we're supposed to be working on um when we started this initiative under the strategy we really talked about what are some ways to get after it if you will and a lot of it was to talk about some early wins test the market engage internet providers work closely with sub to understand the dynamics of our existing infrastructure and what's ultimately possible when we first started the conversation we really thought that downtown was going to be an interesting place to pilot some public fiber assets being leased to internet service providers

25:24 under a certain system really a hard system meaning we would put fiber in the ground in multiple locations and the thinking was that if we're also doing a voltage conversion we could do that construction simultaneous what we've learned is that there may be a couple different mechanisms for doing broadband in our community and so um that original built system may not be the most effective so we'll talk about some of the ways we came to that conclusion but just first some celebratory stuff one of the strategies really the tactics was capitalize on some low-hanging fruit do some easier projects create some wins

26:10 create some buzz show internet service providers that it it does make sense to expand into springfield and offer affordable fiber in springfield so we have a couple examples in the last year and a half that have come to fruition um one being a fiber to the home project now this was tested in um one neighborhood of springfield where there was empty conduit to be used what this really proved was that there are providers interested in doing this type of work they can do it affordably and offer affordable prices and they can create pressure on some of the big providers who are charging quite high rates and not

26:56 always delivering a world-class service so this started to up that competition this fiber was lit just here in june and july of this year so this is a relatively new win for us it's also shown to providers that um they're the providers are starting to look at other similar neighborhoods with infrastructure like this to talk about replicating it so this is positive for us for sure it's definitely brought providers to the table to talk with us the other strategy is one that we received a grant to explore this is a relatively small grant in total it's just under a hundred thousand dollars it's a mix

27:41 of some um funding to do design as well as uh technology actual equipment um this concept is funded by u.s ignite which is a national science foundation grant uh granted program and it looks at replicating or building off of regional fiber so specifically in this case we're talking about how do we connect springfield to a main connection point that exists in eugene at 859 willamette it's a building that's owned by lane council of governance governments over the years we've affectionately called it the wix

28:27 although that has different meetings but it's really a physical point in which fiber comes in to a building from portland area and then allows the larger region to have access to internet the idea being in this grant can you design a path from that physical point to a smaller physical point in springfield that brings fiber even closer to our businesses and residences and gives internet service providers an even more affordable and closer location to branch their service off of so that grant has been studying that path over the last six months and has gotten to a point where

29:13 what we're calling a micro carrier hotel you just picture sort of a physical uh closet sort of a little tiny room um and in it there's a lot of electronics that's plugging into the bigger room that exists at the willamette and that bigger room at the willamette is actually plugging into an even bigger room up in portland um and so it's just stepping down closer and closer to our community members so we would picture that little location and we're picturing it on a city hall a city hall spot so likely in a in a parking lot in city hall and i showed this image to kind of talk about what we're thinking um so

29:59 where you see the round circle it's where the fiber is actually coming in from that willamette building in eugene and if we can create our own closet if you will or h for hotel and put it out to the edge what we've just done is we've created a physical place for the internet service providers to plug into and then to franchise or to expand their own equipment out to residences and businesses within proximity that they're comfortable uh financially or feasibly serving what we've just pretty much done is we've just bridged them even closer to the community members so over the next several months the strategy would be to take the rest of that grant

30:44 and work with an engineering firm to really design what this small closet might look like and what it might cost and bring some of that information back to you all to assess so should we construct this the grant won't actually pay for the construction it will pay for the design and it will pay for some of the equipment to go into the closet but it likely won't cover the construction costs it won't i shouldn't say likely we know it won't these are expensive buildings but they they really can do quite a lot for the community members by getting providers that much closer it also would allow multiple internet service providers to jump off this point so not just one but three or four

31:31 or six and so again that just creates some competition it sort of ensures that not one person is just monopolizing that access okay i've got um sean and followed by sherry so then courtney who actually owns or licensed that hotel yeah so you know these are things we're actually in this assessment with the engineering firm we have a group a technical team that includes rit and capital engineers as well as subs lane council of governments and a handful of internet service providers and we're having a lot of these discussions about

32:16 who owns which parts of the system um so when we look at kind of that diagram in the bottom left corner you know the city might own the actual carrier hotel because it is on our property we might even own the equipment interior to it although we might have uh elk on the equipment or sub could own the equipment i think these are all things we would want to map out and talk about the pros and cons of who owns and what our agreements might look like with folks like elkhog for instance around managing the leases of an internet service provider having access to the building there is also ownership of the actual

33:01 path of the fiber so a sub or the city would need to lease the miles from the willamette to this hotel in any of the fiber that we do not own so there's kind of multiple relationships that would need to be contractually outlined so no easy answer to your question just a really good question and set of questions all right thank you thank you uh sherry your turn so help me just understand a little bit so this is talking about hardwire as far as the hotel and what i'm seeing here in the downtown area so what are we talking

33:48 about with the ambleside neighborhood was that a hard wire project as well yes so ambleside was uh hardwired it has less so the way the competition worked on ambleside there's empty conduit to each tome fiber was pulled through that conduit but there's not necessarily room for multiple providers just because of the way it was done there's a lot of equipment out in that neighborhood so the competition occurred when sub put out a competitive bidding process for which provider might be able to serve that neighborhood for a window of time and excess media was the winning provider on that project so what it shows us is there is

34:34 competition there was interest there's a way to do that fiber directly to the home uh it does take a lot of electronics to go that direction and the competition needed to be on the front end this concept uh pivots it a little bit and says competition is only limited by space in this hotel and it's up to the isp to determine from this hotel point how do they get to their their customers some might decide to jump up onto overhead some might decide to take a hybrid that includes some wireless technology and we really say to them you propose how you want to serve to your customers uh your responsibility is to just franchise

35:20 it or do it uh via permits with us and through a lease in this hotel this closet so the individual um the citizens who might participate in this would get would purchase their internet connection through this whoever is is offering it in my neighborhood is there only going to be so for instance in the mohawk neighborhood we have a lot of businesses and banks and financial institutions who certainly could benefit from internet connection that would be you know a little less expensive i'm sure um so just give me a kind of over decided i know you don't know now

36:05 exactly but how would that work well so no it's a really good question so um this concept here that we're looking at you know my instincts right now is that this may become the most replicable of the concepts between a micro hotel like this or an ambleside model this concept that we're looking at in downtown is really only going to serve a geography that is relatively limited to downtown and some of the surrounding residences of downtown because it will be constrained by the isp's cost to go from this hotel to the home or to the office what that means is if we're thinking

36:50 about this concept we might start to evaluate what it would look like to locate similar nodes in multiple locations across the city as we start to kind of understand how much of the gap does this hotel this this micro closet actually fill to get the carrier that much closer to the home so it may be that we find a similar jump off point to this circle in the mohawk area and we say okay we're going to do it again we're going to jump off this location build a micro connect site and then let isps lease from that point out and start to build those concentric circles throughout the city to see if we

37:35 can create sort of a mesh or an overlay and then it becomes a discussion about strategic locations of these these these micro hotels and also thoughtful long-term operation of them so if you build it and they come we have to maintain it and i think that becomes the element of what's a smart way to do that um let's test it here potentially but then let's be smart about how we long term invest in a similar model okay so then my last question just has to do with uh financing this kind of a project and

38:20 it certainly sounds like it would be a seat it would come under um that economic development kind of financing that ceta provides is that correct yes this this would be ceta eligible this type of activity is within the plan is an allowed activity um the it doesn't have to be ceta funded but but the district is set up to support this type of work i i think that um once we have a design once we use this grant to do that design work and we can actually cost that facility out then we may have a different discussion about what makes sense is it just ceta is it multiple kind of what is

39:05 the council's perspective on that okay so then just one jumping off of that um so we only have what two three seated we only have two economic districts at this time is that correct two urban renewal districts glenwood and downtown yeah so it might be that we would look into expanding that into some of the other business areas of the of springfield you know i don't know that we would expand the urban renewal district just because there are um restrictions on how much of your city can be urban renewal area but i think what we would learn from this concept is how um how does it financially support itself so you know there are leases it would

39:50 tell us a lot more about what it would take to finance some of these elsewhere or who might be involved to do it this sounds like a whole brand new area we're just learning so much as we go along correct yes we are learning a lot even very smart people i'm watching them learn a lot about this which makes me feel very good thank you thank you um sherry could you maybe turn your camera a little bit because we got like half a face of you and it's well there you go just something there oh awesome thank you um so i had did anybody oh sean you got some okay go ahead sean um so still comfortable going forward here

40:35 um i guess my question from a policy perspective and again it may just be we have to figure out the governance right because because at certain points sub owns a portion of this and is that to you all wrapped up in the conversation about who's really going to be championing and owning the fiber project yeah and i think so that's actually gets to one of the the other asks um that i think is important so we're talking about how the whole thing actually fits together like how would it turn on and work but that element of but who owns what and how do we maintain and lock step around what we believe and what we aim to do it really still has to be discussed as well

41:20 and so you know sub is at the table requesting um and sort of pointing to the need for um a desire for some participation in a attack a technical task force a sort of a joint group that includes sub board members as well as a city a designated city councillor to really help navigate that discussion so that's one of their asks um to us as well do we have an understanding about what their what their board's position is on this meaning um what you know how much investment that they were going to put into this or whether or not their desire was to manage this is a for-profit enterprise

42:07 i i so i i think counselor mo may have some good feedback as well because he's been at a lot of the tables they are they have been fully supportive and all in at making this move forward the tone that i have received from them from has been that it does need to be profitable um but but partly that aligns with what makes it work for the isps as well um you know it needs to make financial sense and so the system that is constructed it's really aimed to be one that makes some financial sense um so okay so let me make sure i'm i'm saying it back back to you correctly right was when when i've heard that discussion or seen that in the policy documents

42:53 that's more a reflection of if you're bringing in a third party private you know a private party that they're not gonna sign up for this unless you know that they're gonna be able to turn a profit versus we as government agencies or service providers that this is necessarily gonna be profitable for us it's probably a cost neutral activity yeah and and i think there becomes the discussion on our side so so you're correct that yes uh and we we call it you know take rate is something that they talk a lot about are there going to be enough customers to actually take the rate in order to justify the operations but then to our question being what is our priority you know from a city standpoint from the council's direction what are

43:38 the priority focus areas of where we want to see affordable and quality internet service soonest and in some cases it may it may not yet make financial sense for us to bridge that gap um early even though it makes social sense uh if that makes sense yeah yeah um i think and i'll give you a couple pieces of feedback like one of the things really supportive of the project i know that we got to keep this thing going forward um access to high speed fiber and is really something that if we don't figure out is going to really hold us back economically um so i think getting this going is probably is is a really good idea um the one

44:24 thing that's pretty that is sort of pretty technical that i that i sort of see here is i just don't picture you know three or four customers in our three or four providers investing all all the infrastructure to uh wire you know a block of house of households so we've got to figure out somehow how to get one set of infrastructure and then lease it out multiple times and then and then the third i guess the third thing is just the emphasis on flexibility our goal is not to catch up to eugene here it's to be past huge and with how fast technology changes right like um just the normal amount of flexibility and adaptability right like i know this is going to change in the next couple of years as we figure it out i

45:09 appreciate that a lot thank you and now i have counselor steer of courtney i'm just confirming are we what we're being asked to do now is approve a study to um assess the feasibility of this project yeah i we so we have the ability to do this study i think we did some communication with you a while back i i think really to be very specific we're we're also asking for your head nod that this study would be focused on a physical location in one of the city hall parking lots or on the city hall site and so with the next thing we would bring back to you is much more detail about who owns what and

45:55 where and the cost for that discussion and it will it would reflect a city hall site if you're okay with that very good yeah i'm in favor of moving forward on that thanks so steve would you raise your hand yes i did uh as soon as that that that uh money was available the grant was available i contacted the mayor and told her i wanted to get in on that so she let me sort of go and i contacted sub and uh jeff nelson man they're all over they know what's going on they do have a network of their own out there right now but uh uh john de winter and i john dewey just took off with it and so they have a lot of information on

46:40 this and they're going to put your to try and put together a team here and i hope to be hope you let me let me be honest thank you steve and councillor woodrow yeah that was going to be my suggestion steve's already up to snuff on this so i was going to be my suggestion to have him be the designated counselor to follow through since he's been involved to this point so i i'm i go along with what steve mentioned because i think that's a good choice thank you thank you so um i have a few comments there's a questions i would like to have answered prior before i could support this there's a few areas that haven't been addressed

47:25 in you know i've got some apprehension in some areas councilor van gorden kind of hit on it in regards to the take back but it's my understanding that that with excess media that contract with sub runs till 2028 and so they basically will have if my understanding is monopoly on this and they also if they don't address for example what kind of rate control is in place for the customers and if we have any say so because we have the equipment but do we have any safe zone rates do we um you know does the city for sure are we interested in owning some of that infrastructure so you know obviously it's going to be on our site but i think we should own it and not hand that out um also in regards to that

48:13 and the fees collection if it's you know net zero versus uh going to be cost surprise costs down the road what kind of what kind of guarantees we have that it is a net zero or zero cost for us down the road or are we going to get start getting invoice down the road plus and then infrastructure wise i'm looking at um courtney i'm looking at the the hotels you're talking about and it looked like you had several kind of place on that map but physically you know i assume that the square yellow dots are is that the potential sites i guess what you're referring to right there correct yeah yeah and and i will say um really just illustrating more that while we're talking about this north

48:58 corner it could be in other spots those are not um solidified by any stretch gotcha so we i mess that's up in here where we can we can select that down the road but i was also thinking too is that now physically that is running from elkhog physically to us here downtown if we were to put this in so i assume that that that route would be seems like it would make sense to not cross a river so i assume that route would be going right straight through glenwood to downtown here yeah yeah that route so that route already exists okay what's great is it's already in place uh there may be a couple different contracts required or agreements required in order to secure the route

49:44 but it does go through that's which is in my mind kind of cool in a sense that there does that not show the ability to where that's that fiber can be tapped in with other hotels in the glenwood area yeah which would expand that so it seems like that would make sense and that's that's that is an option then right yes i think to study definitely i think that's very much what we're thinking about so that could be two different um economic districts so then uh development districts so then just out of a technical question how wide of a how big of a umbrella or cast of service does a hotel hub provide

50:30 you know honestly i couldn't tell you that right offhand it would be dependent on the different technology used by the different providers so that's definitely a good question and uh one that we have but we don't know just yet we do know that this location has brought multiple providers to the table with interest so good okay that's that's an indicator to us although they don't always like to tell us their uh magic tricks okay well still i'd like to see how that their 10-year contract would start in 18 um how that would if that's gonna what kind of impact that is is that going to limit really what we can do with a system that is not bound by a contract and what that contract how does that

51:15 basically third party bind us as well i think these are really good questions that i'm kind of noting we have a lot of these questions too i mean ultimately we know that where these go they will be desirable based on how many potential customers exist and the more customers the more providers will want to participate which creates competition you know i'll say with the ambleside system it's a very different business model because it's just leveraging physical assets that existed competition still exists in that neighborhood because comcast and centurylink are also serving it it just introduced one more um

52:00 but this concept would potentially introduce a handful more at once which is efficient um but i think we would learn more about how many residences they felt like they could efficiently serve okay well i mean um unless there's further questions i have i mean i support looking at it further i'm not willing to commit as far as i'm concerned um until we got some of those questions answered i think it's a great theory in in a great vision um but i think we have i think we should um make sure we protect ours our the end user and the city's interests so as long as that's covered i assume that that would probably be covered during a work group

52:46 yes i and these are really good this is good guidance and i'm appreciative of it because it definitely highlights the areas to really focus in on great any other questions from the council okay well thank you so much courtney that was amazing a lot of information we covered just those two topics i appreciate you all being graceful and patient with me on it okay so thank you thank you courtney so our next meeting starts in seven minutes so um we can all take a break i can't i think we can just turn our microphones and cameras off if you want to take that seven minute break that way you just turn it back on and be back in the

58:08 hello again hello how are you merrily i'm good how are you doing well i'm doing all right much better now that now that the fire danger has subsided to minimal yes are you are you back are you back in your place yeah i was back i was back a week a week ago saturday but i actually i actually waited for him to get rid of that last level one did you hear how fast the united uh catholic community services are understanding fire relief yes and they were tapping into 250 gift cards yes what was that sean again

58:53 the cattle community service gave out the first hundred grand in fire relief from that united fund and direct cash assistance and they they it was probably gone in 48 hours but they did it in 400 400 250 gift cards that 100 000 will go quick like that yeah 100 000 is both a lot of money and not a lot of money for at that level at the same time right considering the number of people that were uprooted yes right well i took i get a i put in a request through uh some fema folks that last week in regards to um whether or not there's the program or the ability for people

59:40 that weren't actually burned out of their residence so to speak but the ones that were in uh zone three evacuation areas that um all their electricity was automatically shut down and so there's a lot of people out there that lost their chest freezers and their refrigerators full of food that are that is that are spoiled and they are they're victims very victims that fire they didn't get burned up you know they didn't burn out so um that that food i think should be reimbursed i'm waiting for an answer back i just asked it especially because they especially because they can't go back yet no they didn't have any choice so which is nice that there's there's no more there's no longer any any zone threes in the entire area

1:00:26 and that the zone the the area of the actual fire area is now controlled by odot it's the sheriff is pulled back and um there's 48 national guard troops that are helping with the odot checkpoints and they have specific uh times in which they will allow folks in and they're all escorted but it's shut down at night the kid isn't there isn't there an hour restriction for going in and out on 126. yeah there's there's specific times that our travel times are escorted and they're they're probably gonna they're trying to work towards a pilot car system and because of there's even there

1:01:11 was actually some more trees that fell across and some large rocks that fell across so they're not willing to let any night travel because of the inability to see it before it's too late and there's going to be for a while a long while yeah in fact they're talking um that the uh i think i got a quote from from odot this morning that um yeah there's the fire the danger it's going to take so much and it's so extensive that it may take um it may take multiple months for it to be um open to the public right like well maybe that's one video that one video that went through that showed the fire underground

1:01:56 yes that was really scary i mean yeah it was very eye-opening yeah they had an ir flight over last night about 10 minutes after 10 that showed that there's just dots everywhere and those are hot spots and there's little dotted everywhere but everything else is cooled off because of the rain right yes that rain was very nice i think i got like 1.47 inches of rain right smack dab in the middle of the corridor in two days yes so and and the lightning didn't didn't hurt much didn't there's nothing really i think to spark off so

1:02:44 i don't know but my ipad thought you were asking for siri i looked at that i said i didn't ask for you [Laughter] all right aj are you there i am here all right so uh now moving into regular session and um we'll do uh

1:03:31 open with roll call please counselor van gorden here counselor mo here chancellor moore here counselor here councillor woodrow here and counselor missionary i'm here and let's go with the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and republic publicly which it stands one nation one nation under god under god

1:04:18 thank you so i'm going to go ahead and read these instructions to the public so as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us by phone or online to please keep yourselves on mute until you are called to provide public testimony there are two times designated for public testimony this evening first we will have public hearings which will be a time for everyone to speak to the specific items listed on the agenda after the public hearings conclude there will be time listed as business from the audience if you are joining us online with a tablet smart smartphone or computer and wish to speak either of those times please use the chat window it looks like a speech balloon on

1:05:03 in the upper right corner please send a comment to the organizer with your name mailing address and the subject you would like to speak about you can select the organizer at the bottom of the chat window i will call on you when it is your turn to speak for people calling in by phone only you are in listen mode only and cannot be called upon the order of public testimony is as follows anyone in person in the council chambers aj will notify you anyone anyone who has submitted a chat and third anyone who has submitted email in advance if there is remaining time nina dottie will read emails into the record

1:05:56 so uh springfield upbeat we have nothing consent calendar a move that we go ahead i move that we approve the consent calendar i'll second it uh it's moved and seconded by uh counselor woodrow and seconded by counselor mo all those in favor uh signify with neil taking the vote joe i was sure trying to get in there was she sure i don't know well i was wanting an explanation about one item so can we play one item oh on the consent calendar yes yeah you'll need to identify specifically which one it is it's on the um it's the correctional health partners forty two thousand

1:06:41 seven hundred and seventeen dollars the number is one zero zero two five four six and i believe it's the july disbursements but i i didn't write down the date all right okay pardon i was just uh hoping that we'd have the transaction number or the um so that with that specific item to be happy i do have the number i gave you okay so that's his staff has had enough information to be able to pull that and be able to speak about it yeah once um we actually have uh chief lewis here in the audience and he can speak to this okay so uh that item being pulled

1:07:27 i move i move to approve the consent calendar with a uh approve within deletion or pulled item second okay it's been moved and second advice counselor mo all those in favor please take roll on the vote neil counselor van gorden yes counselor yes counselor more yes stare yes counselor woodrow yes and counsel pictionary yes the motion carries unanimously next item

1:08:15 shouldn't you information on the uh fold item yes let's go with that could you read the number one more time one zero zero two five four six it's the correctional health partners i just had a question about whether or not that was an annual contract um let me see if i can find it again

1:09:04 yeah it was july inmate um medical services so then that made me wonder if that was an annual or is that a monthly um and so i just needed a little explanation for it council uh chief lewis here i think i can answer that question we do we bill monthly but it's an annual contract so each month that that's billed will be correctional health is that 42 000 a month yes that's about right for last year's so i guess my question is is that based on services or is that just a um open that's how much we pay that's how much we typically pay every month

1:09:53 if we if we ask for additional services it can be a little bit more but that's if we ask for something additional so is that a competitive bid or is are we just lucky to get it for that cost amount of money well the original contract was done on a competitive bid okay and when does that come up for bid well one of the one of the items on here is the contract to extend that contract for at least one more year okay well that okay that was my question so did we get other um people who participated who bid on that contract or was that the only bitter was the um correctional health partners uh there was if i remember correctly there was one other bidder at that time

1:10:40 and that's going off my memory and i'm not 100 sure that but i can get that information for you okay so it just seems like quite a bit of money to pay for health care services for less i'm assuming we have still having less than 100 inmates correct with the covet situation we are less than that there's there's no way to prorate it basically that was the the contract we did with them and so it's based upon uh up to 98 inmates it's the most and the contract would still be the same even if our average daily population stayed at say 50 uh even if we ran at 90 then the contract stays the same

1:11:26 so is that covering physical and mental issues um does it cover the gamut or what basically ever yes it does and this is a little bit of an increase in the prior year because we went to from 24 hours of the mental health provider to 32 hours okay so is it basically a nurse at an on-call doctor or what exactly does it kind of call it it's an on-call doctor with a nurse an rn to be kind of the overall person who's there 40 hours a week and then it's staffed by either an lpn or a physician's assistant right they're dispersing dispersing medications and taking care of any um physical need type thing

1:12:12 correct okay thank you very much i appreciate the answers just it was a big number and it jumped out at me and i just thought i'd like an explanation i appreciate it thank you thank you chief and i think all of those are covered uh during the presentation when we approve that that contract and if if possible if there's more questions maybe we can just send sherry a copy of that agreement and then that would be able to answer everything she may have okay uh do you want a motion to approve that now yes i do sherry that answers your question okay i'll prove a motion to a adopter to uh approve that expense i i so move

1:13:05 it's second moved by council woodrow seconded by councillor mo all those in favor nail if you take a vote roll call yes councillor van gorden yes ansler moe yes councillor moore yep answer yes councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary yes next item uh you have no public hearings tonight so that would make your next item business from the audience we do not have anyone here physically at city hall uh we have one hand raised which means we'll call on

1:13:50 that person and they will be able to speak and then um we actually have i believe five or six waiting so if you could hold one moment we'll get the first one okay um just the comments for business from the audience is limited to 20 minutes please limit comments to three minutes uh speed cards are available at both industries if you're there and limit your speak your comments to three minutes and you'll be advised on screen aj i think you have something else that you say nope i think you've got it covered we normally um request them to state their name at the beginning along with their address you

1:14:36 are able to not list your physical address you can um provide your ward number um and i think that's it if you don't have um if you are unable to see the timer on the screen um and you are going over your three minutes we will politely advise you that your time is up thank you aj so our first speaker please your first speaker is lauren williams with jenny osteen on deck and lauren we will get your microphone

1:15:22 okay lauren you may need to unmute your microphone there you go okay i think i'm unmuted yeah yes okay great hi um thank you for taking my comment my name is lauren williams i live in ward 2. i would really like to see council immediately fill the mayoral position through the end of this year as it was stated in the last meeting by councillor moore as it was stated in your last work section session we need to act swiftly and start making significant progress on some of the many problems our city faces

1:16:08 with respect i know this year has been unprecedented but as council you have yet to meaningfully address black lives matter and police and i think that's woefully unacceptable um it was stated last week that council needed to choose from within itself because it could it would be too steep a learning curve for someone outside of cancel but i don't think that's accurate there are many people in this community who are competent have experience in local government and are abreast of what's currently happening i would really like to see you open up the application process and hold public interviews and to receive and listen to feedback from the

1:16:54 community and above all else to foster democracy during this really turbulent time thank you i yield my time thank you very much and i think i have jenny justine next we have jenny osteen next and jenny will get your microphone and muted here in just a moment austin i'm sorry hi ginny um good evening my name is jenny osteen and i live in ward 2. school board member dr emilio hernandez is at the school board meeting tonight and asked me to read this statement on his behalf

1:17:40 he also lives in ward 2. this is in response to the previous council discussion on the process for selecting the new mayor right these are restless times we are living in we all need to work on a plan that will move all of us forward together accountability equity and inclusion are not at this part part of the council's communication to its you as the city council and we the elected leaders in the community need to set an example for our youth to keep them involved in their community and their future

1:18:26 the river divisiveness must go along with the past council leadership it's time for the council to step up and do what you were elected to do social justice is and needs to be accountable equitable and inclusive for the council to do the right thing the mindset of the council that only you have the needed knowledge to serve the community is to me a bilingual former migrant worker with a phd insulting classes and worse racist people of color women lgbqt unhowed

1:19:11 unemployed be abused and physically and mentally limited have not and it appears will not be given a voice in this process if you are stating is quote your option it is beyond me in our community that we do not get the respect to be involved in the critic this critical decision remember these words accountability equity and inclusion thank you jenny speaker is uh chelsea wilkes and

1:19:56 chelsea your microphone should be unmuted you might have to unmute your own microphone okay there you go great thank you so my name is chelsea wilkes and i live in ward 2. i want to thank you for the time that you're giving me here um given the unique situation of having elected a mayor who understandably resigned before the beginning of the term they were elected to i believe the people of springfield should be allowed to weigh in on who should fill the role of the next mayor over the past year we as a community have faced unprecedented crises clearly one of the issues at hand is police reform the next mayor must address the need for police reform

1:20:41 so far the current city council members sorry i'm nervous have only minimally addressed the issue with multiple counselors stating that they stand firmly and unwaveringly behind the police given the polarized state of politics across the nation this kind of one-sided reaction is understandable however is unacceptable from our leaders we need a leader who can acknowledge that problems exist within police culture and push for reform while building a bridge between police and the community this will not be an easy task it will take integrity and grace therefore i believe a special election should be allowed giving the people of springfield the opportunity to elect someone who can complete this task

1:21:28 thank you for the time i i yield it now thank you thank you chelsea the next speaker is matt salazar and matt your microphone is unmuted you might have to unmute on your side there you go okay thank you good evening my name is matt salazar and i live in ward 2. i'd like to comment tonight as well on the process of selecting our next democratically elected mayor support the idea of holding a special election in january 2021 to amend the city charter to allow for a

1:22:13 public election of mayor in may 2021 i know this would be challenging but i believe it is well worth the effort in order to have a democratically elected mayor months earlier than would otherwise be the case as we all know our city is facing many challenges most importantly how we continue to address the pandemic and hopefully soon begin to build back from its economic fallout it is important that the citizens of springfield have direct input into selecting the vision for this rebuilding as soon as possible i personally would like to have the opportunity to choose my next mayor as soon as possible to address the issues that we all face as a community thank you and i yield the rest of my

1:22:58 time thank you matt the next speaker is christy costello and christy your microphone is unmuted yes can you hear me yes thank you yes so my name is christy costello and i live in ward 2. and i am speaking tonight really to just express my support for casting a wider net in the mayoral appointment process um as others i think tonight have already indicated um we have many leaders in our community who don't currently sit on council that i believe should have the opportunity to apply and be considered for the position

1:23:44 and you know during the work session last week there was a lot of discussion about how long each of you has been counselor and how that makes you uniquely qualified to be mayor um i would also like to ask though why we've heard very little from each of you individually and really nothing from the council collectively affirming and showing that black lives matter um and i think you know if you've been here for so long and have the requisite experience you know what really have you done to address police accountability during your tenure these are urgent and important conversations that our city really needs to be addressing and taking a stand on but instead there's really been silence um and so

1:24:32 i think in times of crisis it's often important we consider a change in direction rather than maintaining status quo and and really right now status quo is not working it is not enough for what our city needs so please cast a wider net and allow people to apply for mayor outside of current council members thank you very much thank you christy our next speaker is holly shaper and holly your microphone is unmuted great thanks can you hear me yes we can great my name is holly shaper i live in ward 2. good evening and thank you for the opportunity to comment i want to ask each of you who do we want to be as we move through

1:25:18 the crises facing our society in our city do we want to maintain the status quo or are we ready for change currently under the status quo we have seen our own house being denied access to housing during unprecedented wildfires and hazardous air as well as being denied access to donations provided so generously by the community for those in need we have seen bipoc folks coming to donate goods being harassed and threatened by members from the quote unquote patriot group we have seen the protest in thurston where peaceful protesters were brutalized by both the springfield police as well as the pro police demonstrators sending a resounding message that bypac families are not safe or welcome in springfield we have had no response or resolutions based on the

1:26:04 black lives matter movement around police accountability the council offers little to no oversight of the springfield police department so is this who we are is it who we want to be i know it isn't who i want to be and it isn't the direction i'd like to see in a city where i have chosen to live with the choice of the next mayor we will be setting in motion the path that our city will choose for the next two years will the next mayor continue along the path we are on perpetuating the existing culture or will they be ready to change it i mentioned last week the need for a leadership team and someone in the role of mayor who can foster that who can recognize and nurture each person's strengths while also recognizing that there are weaknesses or conflicts of interest that

1:26:50 need to be addressed for the good of our community the best way to find this mayor is to let democracy work as it is supposed to and let the people of springfield have a voice in the selection of their leadership why not have a special election amend the city charter and then allow an open election for mayor to be held if the dual special election process is not chosen the very least the council could do is to open up the application interview and selection process to all those who are eligible to serve and not limit applicants to sitting counselors while sitting counselors may have their own visions for the city why not allow the field of applicants to be broader so that other potential visions for springfield's future can be heard and evaluated if a current counselor is appointed through this broader process

1:27:36 it will lend more credibility than if one of six people are appointed by a vote of those same six people without additional applicants in closing i strongly urge council to research and attempt the dual special election process for true democracy with the bare minimum choice being an open application process with robust public input including a committee to advise on the appointment thank you thank you holly uh council i think we have one more speaker dana dana your hand was raised the virtual hand but i don't see it up anymore so i'm gonna activate your microphone if you would still like to speak you would just unmute yourself

1:28:21 hi can you hear me yes in my apologies dean i missed your hand i apologize oh it's okay um hi thank you for the opportunity to comment my name is dana herkett and i live in ward one i'm here to comment about the mayoral appointment process after listening to the council discussion last week i want to express support for creating a committee to advise about the mayoral appointment and also for allowing anyone who is eligible to apply a current coupler is appointed through this process it will lend more legitimacy to the appointment since it would have allowed for a more democratic process additionally i would hope that any counselor who is interested in serving as mayor would want the public to have a voice in this process

1:29:06 i would open it up to anyone who is eligible and wants to apply thank you thank you uh council we have one more hand raised uh carolyn rache carolyn thank you good evening and thank you for the opportunity to comment my name is carolyn rashee and i live in ward 3. i'm speaking tonight in support as many of my fellow citizens of using a democratic process to select our next mayor it seems from the discussion last week that the seated six city councilors would choose one of their own only using their votes this is a bad idea springfield has a population of

1:29:51 approximately 70 000 people who would be disenfranchised from selecting their community's next leader i'm going to say quite frankly that in the last months and even the past years that there's been a failure in leadership in the city for example with all city councillors serving springfield was unable to open a shelter last week for unhoused to breathe clean air and despite hazardous conditions over a course of days when i called the city i was told the city was working on it and that failed to come to fruition after years of lawsuits whistleblowers and open knowledge of the issues with springfield police department and as the ink was drying on the kenny settlement police escalated and created a violent confrontation with peaceful protesters i mentioned this because i understand as

1:30:37 a lawyer that you might not want to discuss thurston openly as it seems there might be some future lawsuits however it's clear that the lack of oversight by the city council and the springfield police advisory committee has created an issue that we cannot avoid any longer this issue existed before the death of george floyd in city council meetings i consistently hear a city council that is unable to talk about equity issues and honestly seems written to talk about race at all and then a last city council meeting i heard a lot of talk about an inability to take any decisive action or have a forthright conversation about the mayoral appointment process it seemed that city council settled on what would be easy but certainly not what is best for the city so like many others i strongly disagree

1:31:23 that the city councillors are uniquely qualified to serve as mayor i know that this council needs new ideas and actual leadership and given this challenging time with so many issues facing the city including affordable housing coveted health issues unexpected budget shortfalls and the overdue need for police reform we don't need to remain stagnant it's not only harmful to the citizens you serve but it's also becoming a very expensive proposition for the city of springfield there are many potential candidates with a life and professional experiences beyond being occurred currently seated city councilor many who have dedicated their lives to public service and are leaders in our community we shouldn't exclude these talented and motivated individuals that may have a compelling vision for

1:32:08 our city's future so i ask that you involve the community in making the decision for the next mayor thank you thank you council that appears to be all our speakers i don't see anyone left in the or anyone in the council chambers and no hands raised i believe that's everyone okay thank you neil um so next on the agenda next item would be business from the city council so uh i see steve followed by sherry and i have a few comments so go ahead steve i'm come on well two committees we already talked about

1:32:54 tonight and that's the downtown electric and the fiber so you already know where those are going uh but my other comment is we had that ugly experience in july i'm appalled at that i support black lives i support the right to protest i support all minorities and i never expect to see behavior as well so it was videotaped it was disappointing disgusting we were told an unbiased investigator from outside the area would investigate and reveal exactly what happened i don't know where that is i'd like to see that moving along and uh at least get that solved but as far as valley i'm gonna stop with that for now

1:33:43 thank you steve um i think actually maybe nancy can you update us on that yes i can counselors thank you we are in the process of finalizing a contract with outside investigator through the city attorney's office and this independent investigator is i can get some more information out to you um as the council but has a background in law enforcement but also now does consulting on use of force and crowd management he was um involved with doing an after incident report in ferguson missouri just to give you some context of his breadth of experience and i'd be i'm happy to once we have that final i send it out to

1:34:28 the council along with his resume thank you so steve that's it's moving right along yeah i just want to be more open to the public we are working on you take it serious it's a very serious thing and i think i had uh sherry moore next followed by counselor steer yes i just uh wanted to comment about the letter we received from um johannes and jenny potter knows tito about from safer and escudo concerning some of the things that they'd like to see happen with the police department and i appreciate very much the response from chief lewis as well and just wanted

1:35:16 to let people know that we had we have read the letter and their concerns and i did appreciate that chief lewis had responded to that as well um so thank you to them and i then also i sent out an email or had aj sent out an email concerning the meeting that i went to for uh land workforce um last week so there was information there a lot of great information about what's going on concerning the tremendous lack of employment that we're experiencing in the city and some of the problems that we're you know dealing with businesses and how lane workforce is right in there working with solutions to those issues and i really appreciate the work that they're doing and i do want to say that i was

1:36:02 disappointed in seeing the videos that were i saw concerning the incident in july and um i do think that we need to start listening i realize that covid you know creates all sorts of problems for opening it up to the community and listening but i do want that we should move forward in that area so that the community knows that we do care and that we're involved and we do want to respond to them so thank you thank you counselor more and i think uh was it counselor steer i think did you have a comment go ahead yes i was just going to report what um the city manager just did about the

1:36:47 finalizing of a contract with an outside investigator and let me say that i like um everyone who's seen the tapes of what happened in the thurston area uh during that march was uh i i think was appalled at what happened and we're looking forward to a uh to a thorough investigation thank you thank you counselor steer any other comments from others go ahead counselor ben gordon could we go back to the contract for a second uh nancy um if it's going to be a couple weeks before you sign it if what's going to be i guess the the time horizon before we would see the final report talk about it in public so that the

1:37:33 public that's listening to you know kind of understand the time frame that we're looking at so i'm going to ask mary bridget if you're if you're um on if if that has been executed yet we were doing some final negotiations on a couple of matters items i don't know if it has been signed hi it's mary bridget can you hear me yes so we have been working with the independent reviewer and he has a final version of a contract we're just waiting for it to come back and get signed and then what we did was left the scope of work for the contract part of the public input part of the contract relatively

1:38:20 open depending on how the report goes the term of the contract is through january initially which is a long time but i wanted it to be long enough to make sure he had enough time to get his work done um it was going to initially be through december but with the fire we had some delay in getting him his materials he's requested a long list of materials and information to review then he'll draft a written report that the council and the public will see and then he also is under contract to do either depending on coveted restrictions or how the city manager and the council want to approach it some kind of community input or meeting um or information out but we left that somewhat

1:39:07 open just to just seeing how far along we get in the investigation so i'm anticipating i'll have the contract back any day signed and then we're going to move forward counselors i'd just like to add to that if i may um one of the things that i discussed with with the consultant was the potential for having um some kind of an online uh forum for people to provide their input uh to him as he does his investigation we received you know a number of emails and concerns and calls and i know you all have two from people and i and based on that input you know we kind of thought it might be appropriate to do like a large zoom call or something along that nature where

1:39:53 people could either submit questions in writing or you know he could talk about his philosophy nothing that would you know necessarily detract at all from the investigation but that he that people could be heard and know that he is looking at every potential avenue in this investigation um thank you for that i think that but being as transparent as possible with the timeline in the public is going to be helpful because i want to make sure people understand this thing's not going to get lost it just is going to take a little bit of time um i got a couple other things but apparently i didn't know if you had questions specific to this or if you're

1:40:46 again the trend that just just that specifically um as transparent as we can be um i know the comment was made that we haven't been but we haven't had anything to say um we were we were all reacted we all were concerned about what happened we wanted to see you know what the consultant had to say um and it wasn't like we weren't being concerned but we didn't we didn't have anything to respond with um other than our our concern over what happened so um i'm looking forward to the consultant's report and how we can move on from the information that we gather from that as a community thank you

1:41:33 um thank you go ahead sean so while we're sort of keeping with the the policing questions i had one question maybe two questions about the memo that chief lewis sent um i thought it was a fairly good memo in response to the questions that johannes had about how we like how we move forward as a community um i'm in favor of the business cards i think it's a simple idea that we could do um but it it was very unclear based on the memo if that was something that you know that was gonna that was gonna happen i think it has just give chief a moment to get back up to the front it seems shorter when we can't see you know when we don't see him wandering out

1:42:18 from the crowd yeah so to answer your question counselor the all our officers have business cards uh i think the question that the safer group posed is that it would be mandated that on every single encounter the officer or officer would hand the card to whoever they're talking to but currently the practice is all officers have business cards and someone wants their business card they should have that so that that becomes kind of the issue there is a cost factor to this i'm not going to sit there and say it's it's astronomical or anything like but we probably could add another ten thousand dollars to every encounter and and want to be careful about policies that's produced that requires officers to hand out cards on every single interaction as the first thing they have to do or sometimes during that action

1:43:04 well yeah and i and i'm not so concerned about the sort of the how right but the idea that you could sit down with an officer or have an encounter with an officer and not be sure what the office like who i have an encounter with just leads to confusion in the community um so like i'm not saying that i'm like i've got an opinion on how you get it done i think you need to figure out a way to get it done so that people are sure that who they talk to you know and they have that and they have that person's contact information sure if i could just add to that besides the business card being one aspect of that every single encounter is recorded in our cad system our community computer aided dispatch and so anytime there's a if you know the date and time or even the approximate date and time or location we can go back and figure out

1:43:50 if a citizen calls in has a concern with their interaction with an officer we can figure out that particular uh call for service and figure out who the officer was also all the vehicles have uh avl and we can go back and do it that way also figure out which particular patrol car was at a given location so if somebody has a concern and they don't remember the officer's name or something like that they should i always encourage them to call down because we can figure it out uh based upon the cad or the abl system yeah so chief and i would just encourage you guys to keep looking at this right because like i thought the business cards were a good idea and it may be as simple as just explaining to people how they go about getting that information i get a lot of calls you know obviously since the summer where people just aren't sure like even where to start to interact with the police

1:44:36 to get to track down that information okay so i have um counselor mo followed by a counselor woodrow i want to make sure that whoever the police encounter encounter know that the car is available they may not take it and i want them to feel comfortable that the officer is willing to identify him to them because they're pretty nervous in that situation and uh they may take it may not but i want i want the public to freely know that they're available okay we can definitely do that and counselor woodrow

1:45:24 i was looking at it from another angle um i know that uh um i went up to a a day-long thing about um community policing and and having contact good positive contacts with the community so coming out from another angle and not necessarily handing someone a card so that they know who to identify but coming out from the angle of it being a positive whereas you know hey if you need if you need something about this you need to know more you need you know more from a positive i realize when the police stop you or when you have an encounter with them it probably starts out with a negative and isn't necessarily a positive but still knowing who they interacted with um they can walk away with that

1:46:09 assurance that they had that that they had that interaction and know who they not that it's not up to them to try to figure out who they encountered with but the encounter starts with the police and it has a a positive react a positive action by handing them a business card saying this is who i am um i just uh not really going against what you're saying rick i'm just adding to it that i think that that um it can add to a more a little bit of positivity or reassurance uh to who they're interacting with sure and i think i think i understand i'll see if i can put something together and give it back to the council to see if you if i'm capturing what you what you're asking for thank you

1:47:02 sorry joe go oh go ahead sean um another one that i had a question about it was the language piece like is that actually a best practice from uh from policing like i just don't know like the you know because i think in the memo you had said that like essentially if you request a different translator they get it or if somebody infers that you need or that you're going to need translation that it had a stop then then they'll call back for it is that the best practice yeah i think if on a routine traffic stop i think if we have an officer or an employee on duty that can do translation we'll bring that individual out there uh if that's not available the second option is the language line contact and do it that way and that is

1:47:48 the typical practice around the country okay thank you chief yeah and i think just my personal knowledge language line they have 158 i believe 158 different languages available so they should have anything covered that we can't and plus the staff are paid a premium pay for being tested for their fluency on a particular language and they get they get a premium pay for that too if i'm correct chief it's correct it's gone it's five percent now that's what that's absolutely so uh and and that you know i'm just gonna reiterate um what all the council has said chief and it's it's really a matter of it's uh it has got to be

1:48:33 some very um concise and direct training that for our officers and i know a lot of them are are doing it already but i think that we need to emphasize to our officers that anytime and based on my background too is that any time you are concluding a contact whether it started negative or started positive or ended negative and ended positive it doesn't matter that everybody likes to know that at the end of that a professional person would say hey look if you you know here's my card if you want it and if you have any further questions or concerns about this or if i have any if you have any more questions that you didn't think about while i spoke with you be sure to call me and i will help you

1:49:19 out i mean it's that it's that ending point um for any good positive contact that needs to be made i understand the safety issues and you can't you know obviously if there's a you know whatever bad issue going on that you're not going to stop and talk about cards but there's always an opportunity when that is over when that is when that's terminated and even if it even for example it's better for another officer that wasn't involved in that contact if it was negative to have another officer at least offer it up at that time because sometimes you don't have uh good communications or worthy communications with the negative contact but i really think that that it's a training issue and that shouldn't be difficult and again i emphasize that that every encounter every person that asks for a card and

1:50:05 every every officer should be offering those cards instead of necessarily waiting to be asked okay is that kind of the moot is that kind of what the council is talking about um sherry go ahead so today i had to take an opportunity to go down and look at some of the uh photos that um the safer memo was relating to as well and one of the things that um chief lewis mentioned was the statement uh the values department's value statement that was made and i he showed me that on the wall and it was really well done and i was wondering if that might not be

1:50:50 something that could be posted out in the lobby when people first come in to the police department because it really does say a lot about who springfield police department who we are as a springfield police department and it would be nice if that was available to the public i realize your officers see it as they come and go so i would that would just be my suggestion chief okay we can we definitely look into that i think there's plenty of space on those big walls in the in the lobby area and we can probably find some space for that don't touch the canines [Laughter] let's hollow grounds for council [Laughter]

1:51:42 um we had housing governance uh governance uh meeting last week steve and i did friday friday um lcdc is having a public hearing about the rules making for hb 2001 between the two of us we're gonna arm wrestle um about who's gonna submit their submit testimony um and it's gonna be along the same lines that we've talked about with transportation a lot of things at the state level right now which is just asking for a little bit more clarity on goals but leave us a lot of options to decide as a community what works for us thank you for that that's good is that similar to the mpc gotcha yeah yeah um i point like when we when we talked to the planning staff we pointed them back to that npc written testimony is a good framework um

1:52:28 because i thought the issues were similar yep i think they are okay anyone else excellent so uh next item please neil next item is business from the city manager um item number one a resolution amending resolution 2020-29 to extend the state of emergency due to the continuing emergency response to the holiday mckinsey fire resolution number two a resolution amending resolution 2020-29 to extend the state of emergency due to the continuing emergency response to the holiday farm mackenzie fire and city manager nancy newton is here for the report

1:53:13 good evening counselors um very quickly on this resolution so essentially we need to extend the resolution in order to enable us to continue to receive funding reimbursement from fema and so for our response efforts we're still um doing things out of our emergency operations center and so we're looking to get reimbursed for our staff time for that one important thing to note on this resolution is that it removes the restrictions that were there prior about having like an outdoor barbecue or using hand tools or equipment capable of producing a spark that could cause a fire so that restriction is removed

1:53:58 but the resolution would still be in play and that's all i have thank you nancy i have uh counselor woodrow just just to comment i was glad to see that removed um i know that it restricted uh some folks out there working and it was a it was warranted at the time but i was glad to see it removed because now that there's a lot of people out there that can get back to work so thank you again i agree i fully support this so uh i would entertain emotionless someone else has more comments i move to approve resolution number two second it's been moved by accounts for woodrow seconded by councillor van gorden

1:54:43 all those in favor signify by saying yes to neil when he calls your name was counselor moe that seconded cancer pictionary just to confirm it was counselor woodrow and then kepler with the second okay and i shouldn't have said i'm sorry interrupt just a second i shouldn't have said signify by answering yes to neil i shouldn't tell you how to vote signify with your vote check the neil thank you go ahead now counselor van gorden since pitch has confused me so much i'm going to need another minute yes counselor yes counselor more

1:55:30 yes councillor steer i have not been coerced at all and i vote yet thank you for that i appreciate you yes the council missionary yes and thank you nancy for bringing us forward and and alternating this or making it alternative thank you um any other business from the city manager no further business thank you any business from the city attorney on behalf of you i'm sorry mary bridget you got sorry no business from the city attorney thanks thank you sounded like aj wanted to say something

1:56:20 no business from the city recorder i received a message from mary bridget saying she had no business and i thought her mic was not working so i apologize for the interruption no worries on that note i'm going to adjourn this meeting thank you everyone later good night good night you