Springfield City Council — October 26, 2020

0:08 okay uh we have enough staff on neil to go ahead and call them any order we do counselor okay so uh welcome everybody at this october 26 work session i'd like to call the meeting to order with a roll call attendance counselors van gorden here hello here more here here here wood row here missionary so i'll go ahead and go with the first topic is white bird outreach team report

0:53 with emily david and councillor emily david um will not be here this evening but i'm happy to introduce alex farmer alex is the front room coordinator for the whiteboard clinic and is managing the outreach ever efforts to the unhoused through a contract the city emergency operations center initiated late in may of 2020 in response to the oregon executive 20-12 stay at home stay safe order and we have 15 minutes for this agenda item and i believe alex you are here i am here yes okay go ahead

1:38 all right uh well i'm going to actually share my screen with you all i have a small little presentation uh powerpoint here and i'm hoping that this all works let's see are you guys are you guys seeing the powerpoint at this point we do great and are you also seeing the control panel on the side or i don't you just see the powerpoint perfect okay great well i will do just a quick uh personal introduction and let you all know that i am the front rooms coordinator which might not mean anything to you uh the front rooms team is a team of individuals at whitebird clinic who

2:23 provide basic needs uh supplies to folks and we help connect individuals who come to our clinic with supportive services in the eugene area we've been doing that for since about 2015 we transitioned from being just an information referral line to a more uh broader supportive service um project through whitebird and i have been the program coordinator for about three years now and uh as covid19 hit uh we recognized that the um the community need was much larger than our our normal scope of service and so we decided to transition into becoming a

3:09 distribution site for shelter and place materials and we operated that wave we are continuing to operate that way but we started that in about february and then around april uh the city of springfield approached us to provide outreach services to the community of springfield and our our neighbors who are living outside so we saw this as an opportunity to really support folks who are living outside who are much more vulnerable than than folks living inside especially right now during the pandemic and we saw this as an opportunity to get out and just provide supportive services and build relationships with people who are

3:54 living outside and we'll just move on here so our our main objective was to support the unhoused community during the covet 19 pandemic and in conjunction with lane county public health and our medical clinic we have put together information specifically for folks who are living outside basically describing how to stay healthy and how to stay safe during the pandemic and what to do if you are experiencing symptoms we've also been able to provide through the emergency operations center the necessary shelter-in-place materials which includes tents sleeping bags sleeping

4:40 pads we've provided food propane tanks clothing from our own inventory and we've also been able to provide covid19 health screenings we put together a very basic health screening with lane county public health that basically anyone is able to provide to folks you don't necessarily have to have medical training to provide these screenings so it was an opportunity for us to get out into the field create relationships with people and offer these uh very necessary things during this time uh as as we have expanded our services again after shutting down most of our services at whiteboard we've also been able to provide information referrals to community resources

5:26 including our own resources at whitebird clinic which includes a medical clinic a dental clinic we have specific services that help folks sign up for benefits and maintain their benefits and through this process we've just been able to go out and evaluate specific needs and provide those the supportive materials and those very specific referrals to to community resources so our outreach teams consisted of do consist of two trained whitebird staff we've been going out monday through friday and we've kind of been doing variable shifts uh just to basically meet the needs of our our clients out there

6:12 it's sometimes mornings work better for some folks and evenings work better for for others so we've really been trying to transition and figure out what the best way to serve our own house population out in springfield really trying to provide a trauma-informed approach seeing people in a holistic their their situations in a very holistic way and trying to navigate those situations um in a trauma-informed way and really trying to meet people where they are at in in the moment and recognizing that each individual's experience is unique and recognizing that each individual's past and history and you know a lot of different things come into play when we

6:58 when we meet someone and we look and see what specific needs there are for that individual so since um i believe may 25th was our starting date up until last week i didn't include last week's statistics but we've had 656 individual encounters with people in springfield who are living outside we've provided 204 referrals to whiteboard services but also other community services in town and we've provided 112 covid19 screenings none of those were positive by the way so that's

7:43 an excellent thing so basically what our goal is as an outreach program is providing stability by meeting basic needs we have seen from the beginning of our distribution sites as well as other programs and projects that we have done in collaboration with the city of eugene that in order for folks to take control of their situation and find stability in their lives they first need a strong foundation and uh for many people foundations you know it means a different thing to each individual but what we found is the important first steps in that is to be providing folks

8:28 with their basic needs and help folks feel at least a sense of comfort in knowing that they have a safe place to lay their head down at night and they will have a bite to eat each day and they will have someone that comes out and that they trust and they know that they can ask questions about services and and get a really solid answer from them about what's what services could be provided to them we know that building trust is a huge part of this process because as we all probably know there is a sense of distrust in the unsheltered population with different services and and different systems and we

9:14 have really put an emphasis on creating trusting relationships with folks so that when they are ready to receive services we can help guide them through that process and get them connected with the appropriate services and it's a really empowering process to help our unsheltered neighbors get back on their feet and um really provide them with a sense of empowerment that they can they can do this you know they can they can get um their needs met in their own way and we're there to help guide them and help support them through that process and so we're recognizing that

9:59 let's see i'm going to just do that and you could stop sharing my screen at this point there we go thank you alex so yeah you're welcome oh no problem um so just recognizing that uh people who are living in unsheltered locations they need access to supplies and information to enable them to not only shelter in place and stay in their current location but also to protect themselves and protect the public we need to slow the spread of covet 19 throughout the community and a huge way and a huge first step is providing support to those who are the most vulnerable in our communities so thank you for your time and i really

10:45 just have appreciated working with emily and sandy and and neil and i think there was one other person on here that i've jeff all of those folks have been extremely helpful throughout this process and i just really appreciated their tireless efforts in in helping our unhoused neighbors so thank you for your time and i i'm very uh willing to answer questions if you have any thank you also i have a question from marilee woodrow councilor woodrow you're on mute

11:30 i got it first i think that you're kind of like a traveling triage and i think that's great for being out there and trying to generate trust um and and with the needs and what you recognize and see um and the little help books that you're able to hand out too helps as well um i had a couple questions one um it's fun at the moment it's funded with cares and fema funds uh do we know how long those will last uh i am not exactly sure how long those will last that might be a question for either neil or someone else in the eoc okay um and um well if if would this be something that would be worthwhile considering to continue even past uh

12:17 this particular funding so it seems that uh kahoot started in springfield in about 2015 if i'm remembering correctly and as their call volume increases um the likelihood of of kind of in a just in response to um community complaints and people who are seeing you know maybe folks who are living outside and who might need some support i really see this as kind of an alternative to as well as having cahoots in the in the in the neighborhoods and just being able to have a more focused approach to people's situations and being able to spend a little bit more time and and really provide a more

13:03 in-depth information and referral process to folks and so we've seen it benefit folks in in springfield and we're seeing it benefit folks in eugene as well yeah that well that's why i was asking because i'm seeing uh i'm seeing a long-range benefit as well and that's why i was was wondering what your assessment was is that you know the opportunity for if we can to be able to continue it beyond the i mean the current funding so thank you yeah you're very welcome newton i'd like to answer your question regarding the funding oh okay so the cares funding um extends into the um all all funds must be expended um by the end of the year that's december 31st of this year as far as the fema dollars that really

13:50 kind of depends on how long we are under um emergency declaration with fema and regarding kovid um certainly i don't see that going away anytime soon and we will continue to look for any external funding we can to keep this program going thank you thank you uh sherry did you have a question because i can't see you yes i did have a question i thought uh leonard had a question as well it's possible i just want to make sure i don't mess people up okay well my question has to do with um the percentage of folks that you're um seeing in springfield compared to the percentage in eugene i

14:36 sometimes hear people say we don't have any unhoused in springfield i think they're not aware maybe even housed in springfield but so we're about the third the size of eugene and i wondered if that corresponds to the number of people that you are seeing and able to help so depending on the day at our distribution site uh in eugene we're seeing anywhere from 30 to 100 people a day at our distribution site and it's been reported that there are about 4 000 people who are living unsheltered in the eugene and springfield area and as we uh have started to explore different areas

15:21 in springfield we're finding more and more folks and so we're recognizing that um the unhoused problem is not just in eugene uh it's it's certainly present in in springfield and those this these types of supportive services seem really necessary in helping folks well thank you and i i really appreciate hearing you say you're talking about providing a sense of empowerment to people and helping more than just their physical needs but also their mental and emotional needs to help them stabilize they really appreciate that as being a part of your program thank you yeah thank you thank you and go ahead mr leonard uh thanks joe

16:09 so i'm alex thanks for this report um you um i think whiteboard um has done a really good job of performing triage as counselor woodrow says what if whiteboard determines that the main medical need for a medically vulnerable person is shelter itself what would you do to coordinate some sort of roof over their heads in the event of say a cold snap like we just had well it depends on the situation if they're experiencing any sort of uh coveted 19 symptoms we would refer them over to the river avenue shelter that's currently being uh let's see when did they i think they started just about two months ago occupy

16:54 medical is uh has been in the process of providing support to folks who are experiencing symptoms um but shelter is a a big topic right now especially going into the winter months and it's not necessarily something that whitebird has approached in the past we've helped place people in conestoga huts around town but we have never had a large scale shelter program and so it's challenging for us to know exactly what to do in terms of providing folks with immediate shelter however we are able to connect them with case management services that we provide at our clinic on 12th and high in eugene to get on central housing waitlists

17:39 and you know connect them with community supported shelters and other other programs in town who do provide shelter yeah i i was aware that you don't have any kind of housing per se i'm out of white birds that's that's why i was asking who you coordinated with that that answers my question thanks yeah great thank you thank you counselor steer if there's no more questions we'll get back on the agenda um alex thank you so much for your information we appreciate it keep working hard and we will be thank you for all of your time all right take care have a good evening uh next item is going to be the housing and infrastructure discussion with jeff pascal and sandy belson

18:38 all right all right am i unmuted yes you are we got all right uh good evening uh councillors i'm jeff pascal the city engineer and i'm here this evening with sandy belson the comprehensive planning manager um and we're going to discuss housing in the community and specifically potential the potential impediment infrastructure needs have in a project's viability and then ultimately get direction from the council on the possibility of the lead role that the city could take in infrastructure and expansion to unserved areas i'm going to turn the presentation over to sandy to actually start out discussing and giving background on the housing needs and then i'll come back in and follow up with some information regarding

19:31 um i've clicked to show my screen can you see it because it's not showing me that you're seeing it we're seeing a yeah i'm sorry you're seeing what the go-to webinar link oh well that's not what i want you to see that would be my guess as well do you see a map now yes great okay thank you so as jeff was explaining um we're bringing this item to you as an expansion of your potential strategies for housing so we've been working on housing and providing more housing across the

20:16 continuum of housing needs for the last four years and so we're looking at other ways that we can continue to develop our housing strategy and it seems that one way that we can do that to help private development actually produce more housing units in our community is to help address the financing burden of extending infrastructure so this map is showing in a general sense the vacant and partially vacant land that is designated for residential use that is not served um

21:01 and the big service that is required the expensive one and the problematic one to extend really is the sanitary sewer that's within the city's control there's also issues around storm water and transportation but in some cases um there might already be roads in areas but um not sewer so that's the key service and this map is showing you um with these bubbles different areas around the city that have land that could be developed if the infrastructure was available there were willing property owners and the developers had a plan so that kind of sets the stage

21:50 there are some areas within the city limits as well that are vacant generally these areas have services nearby and of course we're looking at marcola meadows here which is currently under development that's another large area um that is being built so we wanted to see if there were ways that we could use existing funds that the city has on hand that jeff can talk to more specifically to help make these properties more development ready so with that i'll turn it over to jeff and he can go into some of the financing options that we have and funds that are available

22:36 yeah yes thank you sandy and if there are any questions please jump in and just let me know um if you have any questions while i'm going through this and um and sandy please leave the map up that's helpful um so when a developer walks in and one of these properties that's out there one of the things they're responsible for is all of the public facilities those facilities which the city then went on public streets sewers storm water lights any of those sorts of things they're responsible for paying for and constructing those as part of their development then the city would then take those on and they would become public infrastructure and and so it's pretty costly for developers to develop all of that within their property alone

23:22 let alone have to extend a sanitary trunk line or something like that to just get that to their property and the city has put in in place of several options to get those out there and for perfect uh potential for those developers to get reimbursement as an example some of the counselors who've been on the council for a while might recall the jasper trunk sewer it was master planned it was put in the master plan it was in the master plan since 2004 again in 2008 was in the master plan and that was a trunk line to extend from 42nd street out jasper road and serve all of the jasper natron area and so you can kind of see all of that down in the south east portion of springfield all that

24:07 brown and green well we've completed the first two phases at the direction of the council putting that in the cip capital improvement program in deciding to use bond funds and capital reserves to extend that to kind of spur development out in that area and so what you see like down in the southeast that would be phase three to serve that area and so with that the council we've seen like four or five subdivisions come in in that area in those brown and green areas and start to construct and what we noticed is that that project sat out there for a long time because it cost the city i have the numbers here so for the first two phases the city invested six million dollars almost seven million

24:52 dollars to construct that trunk line and it was roughly two miles plus or minus of trunk line out there and so you can imagine if you're a developer and you're out towards the end of that that just adding that cost alone to get the sewer to your property and then develop your property it's a pretty hefty burden the city had a couple options there were sdc um sdc credits that they could get if they constructed that as part of their project and there were also reimbursement districts but the reimbursement district has a limited time and so they're really dependent on other properties coming in and developing within a 20-year time frame to re to recoup the funds that they expend on

25:38 that and so i think what the city chose to do is extend that line using user fees and then what we do is we charge an in lieu of assessment and we've set up a special district so developers that access that line then pay their share and so as we look at these six areas out here um by the end of 2023 we will have um served all of jasper and natron because the council gave the go-ahead to put phase three of the jasper trunk line into the capital improvement program and then also the south 28th street area and that the reason we're going to end up serving south 28th street is because with the congestion mitigation air quality

26:25 funds we're paving 28th street and we're just going to extend that sewer at the same time because we don't want to we don't want to dig up the street once we pave it so the sewer will be extended there so we're going to use sewer user fees to extend the sewer and south 28th street before we pave it and so that this discussion really lies with the council and if they want us to come back and start discussing as part of the capital improvement program the potential for adding projects into the cip for some of these other areas a couple of the areas like the willamette heights doors ranch area the sewer line's in the ground we have a pressure line in there and we have a gravity sewer line what

27:11 what it requires is a pump station out there to connect all of that system up and then it makes all of that area ready for annexation and development to urban level standard um similar to the area out by the hospital and all of that's been master planned and is in the current wastewater master plan um similarly the east springfield area out main street we have several projects that are identified in the master plan and even in the cip uh unfunded currently but for extending sewer out to those areas so i think that's really where the discussion lies and what we were seeking discussion with the council was the potential to use the reserves that the city has built up

27:58 uh to extend those services to those areas and potentially spur or make more viable projects in those areas for housing okay i've got a counselor steer followed by counselor woodrow hey thanks for the report jeff so the developers in this southeastern quadrant have they given you any sort of idea of what the value of these houses are going to be when they go up in the subdivisions no they haven't um the the last couple we talked to out at the end they just were saying that they had developers it was i think a spec person who is speculating working for a

28:44 property owner and in speculating sandy and i actually met with them and they were just saying that they were ready to go and looking for it but they didn't give us any indication on what kind of developments they were looking at okay my uh my my level of support for um extending public uh or city services to this subdivision would have a lot to do with the affordability of these properties thanks think our councils here and counselor woodrow go ahead oh yes um they're they're plotted all over the outskirts of the city um in what order or how would you approach um setting them up to do that i i think that would be a conversation for future

29:29 discussion as we came in with the cip i i think what i would be seeking is in when sandy and i talked about this is if you would like when i come back because we're in a cip planning your capital improvement program planning year where i would be updating the cip with you is bringing something maybe earlier rather than later to discuss potential projects and maybe what those the list of projects and then maybe what the criteria that we would be looking at but i think we'd start with an internal discussion and bring some thoughts to the council to get get your feedback on on where your priorities and maybe what those criteria might look like uh would you also consider the viability of uh areas that the developers have

30:14 expressed an interest in yeah exactly i mean i think that's where we got to on the jasper jasper natron is we actually had developers coming in and asking you know is the city willing to extend those services out there that is one area where we have you know we've extended the jasper trunk line in two phases and like i said we've seen a couple at least i was looking at about four subdivisions who that have you know come online since that first since that first phase was in 2012. um and so it takes time and i think that's where the developers are always at if you're at the end of the line and you extend that what's the chance that you're going to recoup any of your 8 million dollars that you expend on that in 20 years and they're never going to

31:00 get fully reimbursed whereas the city we don't have a time frame it we can eventually we will recollect back the investment on on behalf of the users the citizens at some point um and we just we can wait longer than most developers okay thank you thank you jeff and i have one question from council van gorden followed by counselor mo but the plan right the plan is to recoup these over time is that correct jeff we're not just financing you know financing financing development that as these as these properties come back online they're going to pay essentially pay the citizens back if you

31:46 will correct um yeah in essence the city doesn't have a time limit on a reimbursement district we've done we've done a couple of these so jasper natron we've constructed that out and we've set a special district where we set a special rate for the in lieu of assessment because we know what the cost of the project was franklin boulevard we extended the mcveigh sewer out to the ex you know out that area and we're starting to see interest and development out there as well with that sewer out there and we set a special rate because we based on the cost of doing that project so eventually as all of those projects or all those properties that benefit from that project tie into that line the city will recoup the funds that they

32:32 expended for that project so and we would get like it sounds like we would get additional information depending on us giving a little bit of a head nod tonight i i yes i think when i look at the when i look to future budgets and allocation right one of our goals is preservation of our current assets and system that is one of our main goals with with our funds and so i think with the reserves we have it would be that balance to where we don't draw the reserves down so far that we're looking at you know we're not gonna go spend all nine million dollars on expanding the system and then be left with nothing in case we need to move forward on some rehab projects so i think it would be bringing that balance to the account uh the council of

33:19 here are the list of projects and kind of here's a priority list so that we can balance revenues coming in and revenues going out so that we're never left with um inadequate funds to manage the current system that we do own yeah and i think i think that would be like that would be the information that i would be um you know interested in seeing um you know if us being able to finance and extend services to places that have got large bank and land to them will help drive additional housing units that we need but i just would want to see the bigger picture of you know how much do we think we could draw down what is the potential impact to the ratepayers just some of the next level questions um i think would be relevant

34:05 yeah i i agree and and i think that's all uh wonderful we can bring that back as we work and and i think that's really kind of that discussion around the capital improvement program and and where the council wants to move forward on the waste water and potentially storm water investments as well as as we digest and look at some of the new requirements once our permits approved i think the other thing that we that is to consider is the benefits to those property owners that may be in developments that were already built at county standards out in the ugb because they're except they're on septic systems now today and we currently see coming in a handful of

34:50 septic systems annually that are failing and they can't get permits to replace i think the council seen some of these where we've had to connect them on emergency basis our emergency basis and the benefit to them is once the sewer's there that's one less burden then rather than going through a whole pip hassle or an emergency extension it's there they just have to annex and pay their their plumbing fees and connection fees and so there are some benefits um i and i know there probably is some drawbacks as well to expanding in those areas within the ugb so jeff and i've got one other i guess question based on looking at the map a large when you look around mountain gate a large swath of that vacant land is that is that big

35:37 green blob there that there's the hills natural area or is there a vacant land on the city side that could be developed i think there's some in there i think sandy was going to have the natural area taken off i i can't recall where that finally landed on the map and what version right my understanding is that um we have removed the thurston hills natural area but that large green area that you're talking about does have some fairly significant slopes up there okay so it's not a giant area that we're suddenly gonna crack around and get a thousand units in well i mean with engineering it's possible but

36:26 not likely with enough money you can build anything [Laughter] okay uh sir i can't see anybody right now for some reason i was having something strange i'm next i'm next okay all i see is a map sorry go ahead steve uh for coming from west springfield and i look at that map i'm wondering why glenwood is barely touched with what you think about the future when um when glenn was put into the urban growth boundary uh mike kelly jumped in there for some reason and put a trunk line down franklin board cleared down and passed with the springfield bridges then a few years later extended it cleared down to the wilderness properties so the trunk line is in there i don't know where that money came from i always wondered about that but why can't

37:14 why aren't we figuring on tapping off that going into the neighborhoods there's a there's there's houses there but it's a redevelopment area and we get sewers in there it's going to be much more attractive to other people coming in there building some good stuff i i think that's a great question we have i think when we looked at this we were looking at large vacant land and those would be partially vacant or already have houses and you're right there is some redevelopment and we have we've actually had some developers come in on some of the properties out there and it one of the impediments is the main extensions from the trunk line and those are all master planned and the stubs are there um that that would be a consideration

37:59 the council could take is extending those and we have talked about that it's just it hasn't been a a council priority or position in the past much like in north springfield to extend those mains off of those trunk lines into some of those areas but that is is something we could look at those are all local access roads so kind of like our memo dictates most likely what we would have to do is just work with the county and the county would gladly give up those lars those local access roads to the city and we would take that on and extend those sewers in ceta spent 600 000 on the design of a parking structure and i've actually

38:45 asked public works to give me an idea of how much pipeline we could have put in for that 600 000 but cetus should still be looking at somehow maybe help funding those sewer lines another thing a few years later after that trunk was put in mike kelly went out canvassed the area and held a meeting on trying to get people to annex and they off he offered them a good deal on the from springfield bridge south i think it was 19 18 cents a square foot and then they they also had a deal for the from the uh i-5 to the to the springfield bridges you have president he presented that and nobody took it so they dropped it and i think that 19 cents was a pretty good deal uh i don't know why he dropped the rest

39:32 of it but i sure we i sure wish we would look at that to help encourage people to do the annexation okay this is sherry okay sherry followed by counselor steer okay were you first learned okay well i had a question about i this looks great i mean i'm i'm excited about the prospect and possibilities my thought was when you're coming up with uh a little you know further flushing this out looking at um which one of these or kind of listing these in um prioritizing by

40:17 how many how much use people would actually you know what are the chances that it's actually going to be used and and the cost because it looks to me like some of these might be much more costly than others and then i wondered about the um gray area out in the east that looks as if it's within the city limits it's not just a ugb but we don't provide sewer is that correct are you talking about the light gray yeah the gray outfit that is probably res uh in some of those areas even looking to the north that may be residential land but it's not considered vacant or partially vacant and maybe sandy can speak to that

41:07 right there there is property out there that's owned by the school district and liam elaine and so it's slated for other than residential but i am wondering about the area um south here why that's not showing up um as you're mentioning that counselor more so that might be something we can take another look at as well and it could be that you know we're building this map off of our residential lands and housing inventory and so um it could be that there's some reason in the methodology why that's not showing up but i can look into that a little bit further well thank you for exploring this this is just a

41:52 you know this is something i think we need to move forward on um because you're right i mean the cost of adding those sewer systems and then not knowing whether or not somebody's going to come along to help you pay for it is huge for a developer then my other question has to do with behind the hospital there that green area is that hospital-owned property that they might develop in the housing i at one time i thought that was a pro that was part of their plan so yes that um was part of their master plan that master plan has now expired okay in terms of the hospital area um i cannot say for sure that all of

42:38 this area in green is still owned by the hospital i'd have to look into that okay well that was just a great idea thank you very much for bringing this forward thank you sherry councillor steer yeah i was just um looking at the action that's requested so what we're being asked to do now is just approve conceptually the use of user fee capital reserves for the possible extension of public utilities out to these new subdivisions is that correct correct so i i think what i would be looking for from the council is potentially looking at these areas if the council's agreement that this

43:23 concept works is looking at these areas and looking at the projects and possibly both storm water and wastewater what the needs are through the master plans or other plans that we may have and maybe coming back to the council sooner than the one work session we typically have with the capital improvement program to go through look at the projects prioritize give the pros and cons and kind of maybe a hierarchy of what would be the best order to tackle these in or um looking at it what areas may be riper for development kind of thing but that's still looking at our crystal ball but bring that back earlier than our one work session so that then i can take that back

44:08 and and take any conversation or any comment i get back from the counseling kind of have more time to put that into the final draft or the next draft that would then come back to the council for approval to the public hearing okay well um assuming that the the criteria are going to include the practicality and cost effectiveness of extending the utilities to the development in question and also the affordability of the housing that's going up then i would be and i would certainly be in favor of this of this idea conceptually thanks thank you leonard and i think um jeff to in the interest of moving on a little

44:53 bit we we got correct me from wrong council everybody likes this everybody is supporting it i i my own opinion is that i completely support this it's a long time coming i appreciate folks finally looking getting down and saying hey we got some capital extra capital money here um in reserves and they're coming from sdcs so that's what they're for and then we need to expand our our horizons a little bit and use this money the way it's meant to be and i agree jeff to leave some in reserve but let's look at using it for these purposes and you're right none of these no nothing's going to develop if they don't have the right performer and this is the number one killer right here so uh i completely agree and i see

45:40 uh comes from oh with his hand up when you when you're ready i'm ready okay as i've said before i've been hearing for years and years and years about what a what emerald the one that is but we continue to pass it up and in this case it appears that we're trying to do that too and i'm going to be honest man i uh that's one of my goals as a counselor to do as much good for clinton as i can and putting sewers in is one of the first things we need to do yeah but i agree i'm sorry i agree steve but this is this particular place is identifying uh unreserved vacant residential lands as opposed to what needs service and so i think there's going to be two different purposes and i i concur with

46:25 what you're saying we need to look at who needs service and and what we can do to make that happen but as far as as far as new developable lands this is what this topic is about what those sec monies would be for um so with that i think you got enough support from us yeah i i do and i think what i i hear is is this probably warrants a more detailed capital improvement discussion like i said about probably around sewers and stormwater extension and perhaps expansion of the system and to and i can also incorporate we do have a project in the cip currently counselor mode that is local sewer extensions which would be more akin to what you're looking

47:10 for in glenwood and we can have that conversation again with council that the typical direction is to keep that in serving because we do still have areas within the city that folks who are in the city limits annexed who are on septic and not served but the intent with that was extending more of those mains into those neighborhood type settings to folks who aren't served but maybe not these large tracks of lands that are developable so i can also we can also discuss that at that same time and maybe what the purpose is behind that cip project and and incorporating more of these areas like what you you're discussing with glenwood thank you okay uh i think go forth and conquer jeff all

47:55 right i will look for some time in the earlier uh late winter early spring before we come in our typical march thank you all right take care have a good evening you too bye uh next on the agenda is the uh budget check-in with uh nathan bell all right i'm gonna take advantage that there's actually a spot open up here on the screen so uh good evening council uh the last few years we've brought to you a five-year general fund forecast in october as we begin to kick off our budget cycle to bring you the context of the budget cycle that we'll be addressing and some of the challenges that we're facing

48:40 uh the general fund is the primary funding source for a number of core services that are very important to our community that our community has come to rely on and is funded primarily through property taxes uh property taxes have not kept pace with inflation um over the years and so this has been a challenging fund for us and from uh the five year forecast i think you can see that that continues um you've heard me speak to this in the past and that is what is a healthy reserve and we've kind of set a range of a healthy reserve of 20 to 25 percent that's 20 percent is the floor of what we consider a healthy reserve so when

49:25 you dip below that that can become problematic and why that reserve is important is that's what provides the cash flow or funding uh from july 1st at the beginning of the fiscal year through november when the current year property tax receipts start to come in so you know looking at the forecast and when you look at those outer years and you see that reserve dip all the way down to zero what that effectively means is we don't have the cash to fund the first four months of services before our property taxes would come in what a business would do in a situation like that is they would probably turn to a bank for a revolving loan but that also takes away our cushion in terms of you know revenues and expenditures don't always behave exactly

50:10 as we forecasted them to and what's more is it also would result into where you had to create a budget that was exactly equal to or less than that current year property tax revenues that being said we would never let ourselves get into a situation where that reserve would dip down to zero percent and that's part of the reason we're having this conversation this evening if you look at fiscal year 22 uh you can see that the reserve gets to 19 and it's just below that healthy level when i look at that you know and i i think to myself and we're just beginning the budget cycle that's doable we can find a way still to bring that back up into the healthy reserve level it is concerning though that we have

50:56 forecast at this point in fiscal year 22 a 1.6 million expenditures over revenues and overspend this is the result of pers increases that are happening in 22 as you remember the pers increase has come by annually the last one we had was in fiscal year 20 and the next one we'll have is in fiscal year 22. it levels off for a year and then we see another increase in fiscal year 24. looking at fiscal year 22 i think we can safely anticipate that we're going to have budget reductions to balance that budget or bring it into a healthy reserve range and i think we can also get fiscal year 23 close as well but that

51:42 only buys its time in the short term it really doesn't address that long-term structural deficit that persists the other thing i think worth noting is that we just went through a budget reduction exercise this past spring in response to the pandemic's impact on our finances and one of the things that we recognized was that we are a lean organization at this point and we are getting to a point where it's becoming challenging to find budget reductions that don't impact outward facing services so what we'd like to do is is while we work on um the coming year budget um and that short term solution we really need to start working on that long-term solution

52:27 um simultaneously as that long-term solution isn't going to just be a one-year project it's going to span multiple years and i looking at that long-term structural deficit we're at a point where we really need to start looking at revenues whether it be increasing existing revenues or implementing new revenues or expenditure budget reductions that have a corresponding impact on outward-facing services it's likely that it's going to take a combination of all of those to address this structural deficit and so we're here this evening to ask you for guidance on where you would like to put our energies initially in addressing that and what kind of balance between the two you would feel most comfortable with

53:14 so before go ahead merlin i uh you're probably going to go into it but my question was what are the options of long term long term in terms of what types of revenues or um expenses we haven't gone there and and this is um an exercise that uh we're going to want to do with you um without getting too far ahead of myself on the revenue side um salem here back in 2018 implemented a sustainable services revenue task force and it was made up of council appointed members that comprised of counselors budget committee members and community members and they were looking for sustainable revenues and i think that's sustainable

53:59 is the word in that as long as our property taxes have a collar around them and they don't keep pace with our expenditure inflation we really need to look to revenue sources that track inflation so we have uh we're not looking to solve this problem uh tonight we're really just looking to start the process and get some guidance from you and where you'd like us to focus our energy and how you would like to focus that energy and then this will be a multi-year project that will involve us working with you closely most likely through many work sessions to come up with solutions yeah that was that was pretty much my question was where do we begin to take a look and see what's available and what's out there thank you thank you counselor

54:45 well i'm sorry counselor microphone you're mute leonard sorry about that okay um so i wanted to just ask um it looks to me like right now our cash reserves are in the neighborhood of 10 10 million ish and by the fiscal year 26 we're looking at virtually zero cash reserves is that right

55:31 if we were to do nothing right okay well i'm i i i mean this is um certainly um subject to discussion but i i'd like to explore new um revenue streams if we could and that that's um that's where i'm at thank you sure yes yes i do thank you so um it seems to me i remember about um 2012 i don't know when was it we were going through this whole process after the we know what after 28

56:17 2008 we lost revenue we had to make up and we cut staff i remember going through that process of actually looking at how how slim of staff we could get so my question is have we recovered from that where what level are we at now i mean we're not looking back far enough from this budget to see but at that time you know it was i remember how awful it looked and we weathered through and it wasn't easy and we made a lot of cuts i recall but um have we regained and come back up from that time um or are we still did we never

57:03 really fully recover i guess that's part of my question okay so i don't have it here but there's a slide that i use during the budget first budget committee meeting and as part of my presentation that shows the uh fte reductions we made during that recession in response to that recession and then it shows that we slowly recovered that fte up until the current year but then when we impose population growth because that's what drives our service level responses over that recovery what we discovered is that those reductions that we made back during recession essentially flatlined when you factor in population growth so the short answer

57:48 is no but it's more complicated than that having been present through that period also from earlier years for a number of different reasons we had some reserves and different funds that resulted you know the ambulance fund at one time had very strong reserves from the sale of the sports complex we had money in the fund 420. from the sale to bancroft lots we had reserves and funds booth kelly was a cash generator for us for many many years partially because we haven't put any money back into um building preservation of that facility just pulled it out and we've used that money in addition to small cuts just nibbling around the surface to

58:33 balance our budget year after year after year but always a short-term solution never a long-term sustainable solution um from my perspective on what we're looking at and if you want to get into the assumptions i think it might also help you out with our context here is we are really coming to the end of the runway and we need to make some structural changes whether that be new sustainable revenue sources um or something else bold that i'm just not coming up with at this moment we're gonna really have to be creative think outside the box and put our heads together gosh thanks but you know i do i do recall that it seemed like really dark days we did get through and maybe by the skin of our teeth but um

59:18 i have offensive faith thank you very much nathan for bringing this you know sort of arousing us early on i'm not going to be around to help you guys solve this issue but um you know thank you for making us aware i really do appreciate that okay thank you counselor moore i have counselor van gorden next well nate um and maybe a little bit of context from your your perspective may help here if we come up with a long-term structural fix we're still we're still always going to be working on balancing the budget is that correct well we'll balance the budget forever i

1:00:03 mean we all do it in our own lives every year um but i think what you're really getting at is let's say we were to address and fix this five-year structural imbalance here in the next couple years and like okay we got ourselves to where we're back to a sustainable point um measure five and fifty which are those property tax initiatives that put a collar around our property tax revenues will put us right back in this position a decade from now unless we're able to come up with a more sustainable revenue source and i i know that this is sort of the um what's the word hush word or never say in the state of oregon but when you think about a sustainable tax source sales tax i'm not suggesting i just want to say sales tax keeps pace with inflation

1:00:50 and so something like that provides you with the income tax does that as well property tax could do that through appreciation but because of of just the unique dynamics in the real estate market of oregon and the migration of folks in an appreciation the significant appreciation that we've seen in this state over the past decades we saw a little bit of revolt of the taxpayer and they collared the increase that we can have on property tax revenues that has made it uniquely challenging for us to fund government services that need to keep pace with inflation right and i think that's an important point to make for the for the public while we're all just friends here talking is that is that all big organizations

1:01:35 face the same thing five years ten years out is they're all you know always dealing with the pressure of the revenues keeping up with the pace of their expenditures um so even if we come up with something tomorrow like we're still going to be talking we're still going to be talking about this in a couple of years down the road always looking forward i like having the five year forecast i think that helps a ton um and i'm going to tell you that i think i'm open to having more broad discussions about how we find something structural i don't know where that would lead right but i think at this point we don't need to limit ourselves by artificially taking something off the table that's just too early in the process the the pro the uh the the points that i think are

1:02:22 important that are business decisions that's in here you always bring back the um the five-year forecast with an assumption of the general fund subsidizing the influence funds and i don't know what the solution is long term but it is an enterprise fund so like ideally if we could you know broaden that conversation to see what else we can do with the ambulance fund to draw down that deficit that's going to help our general fund a lot because a majority of the money that you're that you're planning on expending is really going back into the influence fund to sort of subsidize subsidize that fund the other point that i think is sort of valid here is you still drop off the money that we should be spending in deferred maintenance so this isn't really representing all those things we should be doing this is just how do we keep the lights on

1:03:08 and i think it's really critical that we start talking to the talking to citizens and among ourselves about not only do we have to figure out how to keep the lights on but we have to figure out how to do all these sort of structural things to keep you know the building maintained and those types of things and i think the last point and this is this is a really um i think critical point which is don't just look at revenue and costs right look for you know either um you know arbitrage you know places that you can move money move money around the answer that you know that i keep coming back to is every like in your financial forecast according to the last budget we have a huge increase related to cahoots that is built into

1:03:53 the budget as a service that we need going into the future when you talk to the whiteboard folks right the whiteboard folks are telling us that the basic model of the state level and state funding could change around cahoots um so like when we talk about our financial picture i think in those types of work sessions i think pulling out those places where we can be better advocates as a city to make sure that we share up our financial picture would be would be helpful as well so like just i guess think about it more i'm supportive of thinking about it more broadly than just simply we gotta find something to tax or have a fee on or you know something to cut and and i'm going to recognize that like looking at this deficit there's some big probably structural changes that are going to be proposed um and i think especially now

1:04:39 right we got to start talking about like we got to start talking about those soon and we got to be willing to consider them yeah i'm glad you uh pointed out that we aren't contributing to um capital um replacement beginning in fiscal year 22 and that's a problem we really just started saving for that in fiscal year 20 and we managed to save for two years but we're kind of back to that point where then that's come out of the budget and that's troubling because we have a lot of deferred maintenance here at city hall and we also have a justice center now that is well over 10 years old maybe 12 13 years old but it's getting to that point where we're going to start seeing some capital replacement needs over there as well um you're right about cahoots we've started in fiscal year 22 of the right now it's a we contribute 25

1:05:27 and uh there's a subsidy of 75 that passes through the county that is it's been signaled that that reduces to us to 50 in fiscal year 22 and that's what this budget reflects but you as um the governing body that's an area where you could potentially have uh influence um and then um lastly is to in looking at different ways to kind of solve this we aren't looking at purely from just a you know reduce expenditures or find new ways um to create revenue through taxes and fees you know later this evening you're going to have an important conversation um in your um ceta meeting uh regarding economic development and um i'm partnering very closely with

1:06:12 uh courtney and looking for economic development as another way to help our budget structural deficit um you know and being creative within that realm as well well thanks nate i know we're all going to depend on courtney to save us all but uh um and i i think it's just important that we that we keep bringing the conversation about the nuts and bolts of the budget sort of up and give it some sort of context because we're gonna work we're gonna have to work on this more than just pluses and minuses on the actual financial sheet it's going to have to be policy it's going to have to be additional funds it's going to have to be restructured it's going to be a lot of different things

1:07:01 thank you councillor van gorden um so i've got a few comments as well nate the the uh it's a little uh discerning to see this but it's not the first time we've seen this type of projection like you said you uh lay it out there every every october and i can't remember since 2004 that any of your october forecasts have been bright and sunny actually they seem to always we seem to always be trying to figure okay how are we going to make it the next five years and uh it just doesn't seem like we've had truly flush years and i think it's because of those property tax relief bills that have come across and it's and it's automatically throwing all of us into trying to figure out how we're going to survive so i'm very interested i appreciate you

1:07:47 bringing this up i'm very interested in seeing what ideas staff have in regards to potential revenue streams

1:08:37 who's our backup believe that's counselor woodrow this is nancy i don't uh i we must have lost him out in the mountains um this is nancy my suggestion would be to um move forward hopefully we can re-establish a connection with councillor pictionary and in the interim have councilor woodrow um assume the control of the maine okay was there with any of uh i think joe was kind of summing up with it go ahead nate well i do want to touch on some other things in regards to this forecast because i think there's sort of a also a general sentiment that i've heard in the past that we bring something like this forward that shows that sort of

1:09:22 outward year scenario where there's a challenge yet we seem to balance the budget year after year and this never comes to fruition and and so one of the things that um you know in looking at that there's a number of reasons why that's happened in the past and it's not that anything was done wrong in the past but it was just the way that budget was built and um so we've kind of made some changes to where i think there's a tendency just human nature to be very conservative in your estimates that's one of the reasons another reason is that you set your budget to make sure that your expenditures would never exceed your legal appropriation and that's by department so you have to do that in 10 to 12 different departments and what you end up with is underspend and typically we come under our forecasted

1:10:08 expenditures by about eight hundred thousand dollars each year so in putting this together we built that underspend into this forecast but additionally in looking at these revenues we actually tried to say okay we've got some enterprise zone exemptions that are expiring and some property that's coming on to the tax rolls beginning of 23. uh those include both swanson's and ip a good proportion both of them will come on in 23 and then a smaller but still significant portion will come out in 24. additionally you're familiar with the markov metals development and we try to anticipate the valuation that will come onto our property tax rules over the next four years including that development and so when we were coming up with our property tax forecast we started

1:10:53 look by looking to uh the county they put forward some guidance especially based on the impacts they're expecting of covet on property tax revenues and let's just say it was a very conservative i think kind of scary guidance and it essentially had our property taxes uh at increasing by three percent in fiscal year 22 because we won't yet feel the impacts of of or fully fill the impacts of of covet 19 but thereafter essentially zero percent increases over the following three years and we knew that that was put together as a one-size-fits-all and that every community is made up of a different mixture of of whether it be residential commercial

1:11:39 or industrial and has its own unique things happening so we dug into those unique items for our community and in our property tax forecasts and we hope that they're very realistic forecasts they're not overly conservative but they're not overly optimistic and uh in fiscal year 23 we have property taxes increasing 3.2 over the prior year in 24 4 over the prior year in 25 5 over the prior year and in 26 5 and a half percent over the prior year those are significant property tax increases but with both um the enterprise exemptions expiring and that marco marcola metals development we think those are realistic projections

1:12:25 we also did put in conservative projections for personnel service increases over the coming years and what that really means is as an organization we need to hold our personnel cost to inflation one area that we don't have control over is uh purse our purse contributions um you know those rates are set by the state but um you know at the table um with our bargaining groups you know and and focusing on this community and our budget and our ability um you know we need to make sure that we've got fair contracts but also uh contracts that are sustainable for this organization so this is what we consider to be a very realistic projection uh we are not trying to err on one side or the other and

1:13:11 and and for the reasons is is that when you're looking at making budget reductions i don't want an overly conservative projection that leads to reductions that didn't need to be made in the first place but at the same time as someone who's responsible for this budget i also don't want to be so rosy that i have to come back to you later and say we got it wrong right any other questions on those assumptions steve i um i have the annual report for the fire department 2019. i don't have the current one in that springfield's fire be part of that was 20 million dollars does that come out of this five-year forecast or is that another fund uh the fire budget yeah the fire budget

1:13:58 touches three funds it primarily is funded through the general fund but we also have the special operating levy that funds a portion of that fifth fire station which is actually on the ballot next week and then we also have the ambulance fund which funds are ambulance services now recognize that the ambulance fund and those ambulance services also are part of our first response our minimum requirements for first response so even if we were to discontinue transport there's a good portion of that ambulance funding personnel expenditure that would come back into the general fund so we could still meet uh our requirements for um first response yeah i'm not questioning that i'm just trying to understand this a little bit better i see the uh 40 million dollars 42 million dollars on the budget here

1:14:44 how much of that actually goes into this and i know this is supplemented by my other monies but yeah off the top of my head i think the um of this uh 42 million the fire budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 13 million okay thank you that helps me a lot anybody else this is sherry could i just i just would like to add that um i think that in looking at the budget we still need to always consider the livability of our area and i'm very thankful that um our school district and our and willamelain are seem to be relatively well funded at the moment and those provide a lot of livability

1:15:30 but i guess i'm thinking i don't ever want us to be able have to pull in our belt strings so tight that we remove some of the what makes springfield so absolutely amazing and great the services that we provide the joy that we provide to the to our citizens who live here and so just you know keeping that in mind that we need to be frugal but we also need to have cake once in a while sean nate i don't know if you've got more information my understanding is that uh sub and will emily are still

1:16:17 i'm sorry well elaine and the school district are experiencing experience significant budget issues as part of this too they're basically in the same boat right yeah um i don't have a lot more information um on those two i think though is similar um you know especially for willamalane that has their activity center and and the impact that social distancing has had on that we have very different revenue sources ours will be impacted more in the long term theirs were impacted immediately when things get back to normal i think they'll be able to recover faster and we'll see kind of a i think a longer drag yeah i mean there's a lot of work to do here and i appreciate you guys bringing it up and

1:17:02 i just i don't want to lose this it was my my five my take as far as two cents goes because i think it's a huge issue we're facing hopefully i didn't miss anything big you got all the homework i thought when i get what i get signed up for so i probably just more the same as what i'm guessing sean yes okay nate do you have enough from us yeah i believe so um it sounds like you're open to both the not taking anything off the table um considering uh both um revenues uh and

1:17:48 expenditures that could have outward facing service level um impacts uh as well as being creative and thinking outside the box and coming up with other solutions outside of those two realms do you want us to treat everything equally or would you like us to put a little more energy into one area initially as we get this off the ground my you know my personal preference and i think that the council's operated like this in the past it may be easier but everybody else obviously can chime in is um give you know provide a list of where are um some cuts that could be made or some savings i guess a reduction in costs for savings and then another list of possible increases of revenues and that so we can so the council can look at both sides of

1:18:33 that and you could literally i think you could literally create a a spreadsheet that has those different items on that spreadsheet and it'll have a running total at the bottom of you know cost reductions and then revenue streams and then you can have a change of the total at the bottom and i think that that type of working spreadsheet may be pretty helpful uh we'll definitely be having a list of potential reductions just coming through as part of this regular budget process for fiscal year 22 over the coming months on the revenue side it's something where we can just look to different types of revenues that other municipalities have implemented we could also look to salem to see what the results were from the sustainable revenue task force that

1:19:19 they put together or the other question is would you like to consider doing something similar in regards to a sustainable revenue task force that involved in addition to council budget committee and community members kind of i frankly am open to both but it seems like if we create another committee or task force it pushes the kicks a can down the road longer than we need to be i'll get to sean in a second um and then also but i i think we need to think out of the box and and that's why you know possible revenue streams is where people can say hey we got a blank slate what are your ideas i know that our city across the freeway came up with some ideas recently that didn't set well

1:20:04 with us because it's just approached this you know it's disappointed not applied correctly i should say at least to springfield citizens they're paying taxes over there on their payroll and and get basically nothing in return for their taxes so there's a lot of ways we can look at it but anyway i'm open for whatever ideas people come up with go ahead sean um i could be in favor of taxing eugene's payroll to pay for our government absolutely yes that's all raise your hands and start taxing them um i think i would hold off on maybe the citizen committee until we get the first set like the first conversation you know back you know after all this because i think it's a

1:20:49 little bit early i'm open to doing it if it's going to be a big you know if it's going to be a big lift but i would think another conversation would make sense don't i don't think we're ready for it yet yeah yeah and then two we can crop up the list of things that hey possible revenue streams then have a task force look at that say okay how are we going to do these but i don't think i would want a you know ad hoc committee start start that road or that work before we we weighed in okay all right i think i've got direction perfect um if i may this is nancy again oh sure nancy go ahead thank you um i appreciate nathan's presentation tonight that's why i wanted it on your

1:21:35 agenda um you know fairly early in the process of discussing the budget i will also we will also be giving a similar presentation to our employees so they have an appreciation of why the city will be needing to make the decisions particularly the council and staff additionally this year i'm going to be meeting with every department to and with budget staff and and budget staff and city management office staff will be meeting with every department to discuss their um you know not just the upcoming fiscal year budget but what are the challenges that they see coming as we are projecting out and what are the things that we need to be keeping in mind as we craft our our policies in the future um for instance i think

1:22:22 about our infrastructure with buildings um you know that that one weighs heavily on my mind um you know we we can look at how old our fleet is how how soon that needs to be replaced we can look at some of the internal services that we provide are there are ways that we can be doing them differently so there are conversations i'm going to be having with the department directors um i don't think that this has been a real standard practice in the city but it's something i'd like to do just to keep that top of mind awareness of not just the budget but also our fiscal condition throughout the year that's all i have makes sense to me thanks nancy um i think we're all pretty well have weighted in

1:23:08 on this and nate i think you've got enough to roll on it i do thank you all right so uh with that i'm going to adjourn the council work session and allow people to sign out and then to sign back in for the sita the springfield economic development agency meeting