Springfield City Council — January 4, 2021

0:09 perfect good evening everyone i would like to call the uh springfield springfield city council work session to order with roll call please counselor van gorden counselor mo here counselor elect broadly i'm here thank you let's go on with our first subject which is the fiscal year 2022 community development block grant program with aaron

0:58 good evening council happy new year um so i'm here tonight to share the proposed public process for allocating federal community development block grant or cdbg funds for fiscal year 2022 um and to receive any feedback you have or answer any questions um i'll just point out i did schedule this for 15 minutes so we don't need to use the full hour and i'll add that the process we're proposing tonight is similar to the process you have chosen in previous years so to back up as a reminder cdbg funds are federal dollars that the city receives on an annual basis to address housing homelessness and community development needs the funds can be used toward a variety of activities

1:44 but must meet federal requirements of the program and primarily benefit low-income households in springfield in order to receive cdbg funds springfield and eugene must develop a regional strategic five-year plan to identify needs in our community and set priorities to address those needs not that long ago in may of 2020 you did just that and the council adopted the most recent consolidated plan which we are now using to guide our annual allocation process until 2025. so this fiscal year 2022 one-year action plan um sort of summarized in attachment two of your packet um is to allocate cdbg funding for

2:29 activities beginning july 1 of 2021. so staff estimate right now um having available 705 000 um we'll be waiting on final word though from hud which may not occur until march or april on what our final allocation will be i'll just note that the proposed plan is sort of in two parts one to continue to support existing programs that you have supported in the past and then to make the remaining funds available to the public and non-profits through a request for proposals process and this is what's outlined in the council briefing memo and i'll just say there's one correction to the memo in the table the estimated dollar available for the

3:16 rfp process is supposed to read four hundred and three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars it's correct in attachment too it's correct in the narrative but in the council briefing memo we we missed an edit so um so yeah so to summarize those existing programs um propose thank you aj if that's you um this is great um this page is great so the existing programs um we're supporting supporting is the home repair program you'll see that meets the consolidated plan strategy number two um that is a program where grant dollars are used to help

4:01 fund urgent repairs for low-income households in our community and in recent years those have primarily been seniors on fixed incomes and go to repairs like a leaking roof a failed heat system plumbing needs um as well as accessibility um improvements to a house such as a ramp um the other program you have funded and we are proposing continuing to fund is the contribution to the human services commission this is an intergovernmental commission for lane county which springfield eugene and lane county electeds as well as budget committee members make decisions on how to allocate local state federal funds to support the needs of homeless persons

4:46 and special needs populations and then the final um set um proposed allocation is just at the bottom there toward um staffing costs to administer this grant um that gives the remaining about 403 thousand to be put into the rfp to see what comes in through that process um the timeline for this process um is such and maybe i'll see if the spirit hands operating this maybe could move up for the timeline but um our goal is to release the request for proposals uh in january to make it available for two months for

5:32 people to submit people nonprofits to submit proposals um at the same time we would release the one-year action plan um to the public for public comment um this would coalesce perfect this would coalesce in april where the city's own community development advisory committee would meet hold the public hearing for the public to comment on the draft as well as evaluate the request for proposal applications and make a recommendation to council for funding as with any of these processes the decision ends with you so we'll come back to you in may for your final approval you'll have the cdac recommendations to consider at that time as well um and then with your final approval um

6:20 staff can we can go ahead and submit the action plan to hud and funds can be available starting july 1. so that's that's the plan um if there are any questions comments please okay i think is that all aaron that's all yeah that's all i had like i said there i'm not really um there aren't any exact questions i had i just wanted to share the process we're proposing and i have a comment well okay i'll put you in cue uh merrily i have counselor steer and then merrily and then sean so uh do we have any number of proposals to accept in mind or is that going to be driven by the amount that's requested in each rfp

7:08 good question um it's something we've played with in the past knowing that there is a there is staff like cost i guess to monitor each of those activities but so far no um we do not limit the number of applications received we just sort of through the evaluation process by the cdac council i guess so there's obviously there's no limit on the number of proposals we accept but uh or that that we applications we accept but the number of proposals that we that we implement is also sort of up in the air based on the amount of yeah we've gotten feedback from hud

7:55 in the past um that in the past on some of those years where we have funded maybe 12 projects at one time we didn't have enough staff time to adequately monitor whether or not those projects were being implemented in compliance with federal regulations very good yeah okay thank you you're welcome thank you council steer and i have counselor woodrow uh yeah a couple things um to clarify the leonard's question just just before um in the past when the rfps have come in there have been times when we have not a lot of the entire amount but have allotted a certain percentage

8:41 of what they ask for is that still possible to do uh yes um yes the ultimate decision is yours however you make it um i just wanted to make sure that was still okay on your hood it was so okay that if for whatever reason we we found that we could we could uh approve something 90 of what they asked for because we wanted to put 10 percent over towards something else that that's still okay under hud is that is that right oh 100 yeah 100 um ideally and this is more on a note to myself is that through the evaluation process that question gets asked to the applicant what if you are not fully funded can you still implement this project

9:27 so at least we have that information for you to then make a decision that that is part of the yes the application exactly and the other the only other thing i wanted to comment on was that consolidated plan if anybody looks down through that left column um it was described to me and it was probably the best way that i could think of to describe it is it's like a menu it has been it has been developed under the principles that hud and standards that hud looks for in order for have those categories to be approved but they are not something that has to be done uh individual cities and individual partners in the consolidated plan

10:12 then select what's most appropriate for their um jurisdiction so um you may see a long list there but it's not all saying yes you have to go out and find a project that fits this category it's just it's a menu to select from as to what fits best in your community just to just in case anybody needed that clarified so that's all i want to say thank you yeah thank you cancer would you thank you merrily and sean go ahead um i'm good with the what the process is as you have it outlined here um really right like cbg funds it's always good to see the rfps you know as they come in because it's some of the more flexible funds that we have so you know you can buy infrastructure or land bank with them which is something we definitely wanted and wanted to get into the uh you know

10:58 into the business of if you will um i had a couple of clarifying questions when i look at this this is only next fiscal year correct so like we still have funding that's sort of allocated from previous years so there's sort of programs that we haven't sort of released for places like cornerstone right correct correct and that is what i tried to provide context for in the council briefing memo so that central column um in the council briefing memo outlines right just to provide context the next year's one year action plan is only proposing for these few projects however there are still projects from this last year that we are still continuing to carry out and that yes that is correct that money carries over and that is still

11:44 um available to them and it is not included in this rfp or the one-year action plan it is it is tied to them per your previous award okay okay and so and then i had questions about the home repair program and the first time uh uh down human assistance those are both um those are both uh areas that we've identified in the past where we may not have had the right amount allocated to those um to those areas what like i think one of them had too much money one of them had not enough money the way i'm reading this is that that sort of imbalance that those two programs carry the last couple of years has been corrected is that fair i think the pendulum isn't swinging as wide yes okay but like in the future you may we

12:30 may have to look at it again and adjust accordingly depending on how much folks are using it right exactly so we put that proposal of 90 000 for the home repair program based on how the first six months of this year have gone how much we anticipate being left over starting july 1 and sort of worked backwards to say okay on this year we're running at about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars for this program if we think we'll have thirty thousand left over by next june let's only allocate ninety thousand i think the the risk of of over allocating some of those programs is then you don't make them available through the rfp for example and yet maybe there could have been another program and how do we make sure we're not

13:15 over subscribing and just letting money sit there so uh last question that i had is in the council briefing uh packet there was a note about those problems using the down payment assistance program could you talk a little bit more about that yeah that is that is a problem i know eugene is experiencing as well i think the housing crisis um while magnifying the need to us like to greater assist low-income homeowners to be able to become first-time homeowners um the housing costs are rising to the point that these funds may not always be able to fill the gap between a homeowner can put down and what that home is for sale um

14:00 but also where we're seeing the low end of the entry-level home in this community is also starting to be out of reach for many people that we would otherwise be trying to serve so this question i think it's one that we need to to address outside of the allocation process if there's someone who needs down payment assistance by all means i do think it might be a more complicated question that as we look into how else can we support first-time homeowners and maybe direct down payment assistance isn't the best solution but maybe something like a community land trust is it meets the same goal but it actually allows us to use our funds in a way that we have better control over the market to put toward that home so it's

14:46 an idea that's there that i think will be coming back to you all with um but right now we don't have the answer yeah and i would be like i cannot support this particularly about those two programs of you know coming back and having a longer conversation about them because those are easy programs they make a ton of sense to finance and get people into their first home so thank you great yeah thank you sean um counselor well it's not counselor rodney yet so i'm not sure well i'm gonna need to look for the attorney for protocol in regards to input because you're not technically a counselor yet so i would not have that input yet um i mean i i know i want to make sure we

15:31 do things right steve so uh so uh mary bridget are you here yeah counselor missionary this is mary bridget so you're correct counselor elect bradley hasn't been sworn in yet um but she can participate if it's all right with the council she can um ask questions or provide input in this work session and since you're in a work session you're not taking any official action anyway so um i appreciate you asking but i think she's good to um volunteer at the meeting good sounds good i just don't don't take me wrong corey i just want to make sure we don't mess up right from the get-go so so go ahead what do you got thank you

16:16 and i was thinking i could always send it to someone too if it was you know if it was unofficial or i couldn't say anything because it's it's really not necessarily any questions about the plan but it's about a little bit around the implementation of it and since i'm new it's kind of a a newbie question and wondering um when we talk about the rfp process what our outreach looks like in terms of how we get that information out and do we supply that in spanish and are we looking to make sure that all of that information is accessible in both languages that is a great question so i don't believe we do supply it in

17:01 spanish and we can look into that i think that is a a bigger question i'm going to look to tom voyata on how we do that not just for this program but other things um but yeah it's a great question right now we sort of have a list serve that we manage based on non-profits and others in the past that we've worked with but then also putting the information out to lane county's distribution list and making it available on our website and putting a legal notice in the registered guards um those are kind of the the main outreach pieces um and then we certainly encourage people more than just going straight to the rfp

17:47 but also i'm certainly available for any and all questions on how to fill it out what we're looking for and whether or not an idea would qualify [Music] but yeah i think the outreach question is a good perpetual one thank you yeah thank you um anyone else i'll just throw my comments in if i don't have anybody else um thank you thank you aaron very much appreciate this i really like how this process has morphed over the years uh in regards to its layout and how it's presented i really like how in the past where our concentration of efforts have been and i think they're paying off and i think we need to continue with those efforts in those areas

18:33 so i look forward to moving on with this with this process and how it's laid out and looking forward to our responses we get from the rfps okay great i will um as the timeline says i'll be back later this spring um for your final decision well thanks for the warning all right thanks thank you very much aaron you do great okay our next item do we even have another item we don't no so uh i will go ahead and adjourn this work session and we'll see all of you back in about

19:18 um 41 minutes for the regular session all right take care do we um amy do we need do we actually leave this meeting come back to the same one uh yeah you are welcome to leave and come back into the same one if we have any problems all right thank you [Music] hey aj can we also stay logged in if we want to yes sir you may i would just recommend muting your microphone and turning your camera off good idea you can sing the whole group for 40 minutes

20:06 i i know uh sweet adeline i can just um all right

28:29 just as so far i'm gonna uh i'm gonna mute because i'm apparently picking up some ambient noise from building here just want to know how much ambient noise is in the union hole like it's it's always some serious it's serious background noise it's usually ambient noise from the members did you get anything good for christmas leonard

29:19 i'm sorry stay again did you get anything good for christmas did you uh yeah i got i i i got an extremely uh an extremely loud stream of invective for many members over the christmas holiday that was my that was my present i don't miss peak season at ups it was a it was mostly from people who wrote your ex employer as a matter of fact well blame me that's what you used to be able to do that that that's that was my plan but they didn't let me do that they said you they said you've been gone for too long

30:05 there the weird thing is i'm starting to see people that i don't know who they are right so uh-huh yeah that's right considering a sort of length of time that i spent there right it's like followed by those youngins how long were you there sean ooh no not an insignificant amount of time in my life

30:51 are you ready for this craziness corey i think so i'm as ready as i'm ever going to be there you go i feel like we should invite the public to our you know our pre our pre-session stand-up comedy routine maybe they realize how much of a talent we've got there you go [Laughter] there's only one thing missing leonard yeah the members tell me i'm missing those too [Laughter]

32:05 hey joe hello stranger person i can't see ghost person

33:05 good evening everyone i'd like to call to order this springfield city council meeting with roll call counselor ben gordon here councillor moe here councillor elect bradley here councillor stare here councillor woodrow here and counselor pictionary here thank you neil um let's go ahead and start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you i'll go ahead and read some instructions for the public

33:51 as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us online to please keep yourselves on mute until you're called to provide public testimony there is one time this evening designated for public testimony and will be listed as business from the audience on the agenda if you are joining us online with a tablet smartphone or computer and wish to speak either of those at that time please use the chat window it looks like the speech balloon on the upper right corner please send a comment to the organizer with your name word or general location and a subject you would like to speak about you can select the organizer at the bottom of the chat window i will call upon you when it is your turn to speak for people calling in by phone only you're in listen mode only and cannot be called upon

34:37 the order of the public testimony is as follows anyone who has submitted a chat and then anyone who has submitted email in advance and if there's time neil will read those into the record so here we go springfield upbeat go ahead neil i'm sorry go ahead also the first item is business from the city attorney one item springfield council members oath of office and mary bridget smith is here for this item good evening counselors i'm here to walk you through the oath of office for our new counselor like broadly and two other counselors can you hear me can hear you fine great all right um so just by way of introduction our charter requires that

35:23 elected officials take an oath of office the wording of the office comes of the oath rather comes from the charter tonight we'll be swearing in councillor elect rodley for ward 3 and then councillor stair for ward 4 and counselor pictionary for ward 6. um typically i have done a back and forth with counselors but i think that might be more complicated with the virtual environment so what i would recommend is that each counselor read out loud the oath that is on the ais i thought we would start with council rodney rodley in ward 3 and then move on to ward 4 with councillor chair and then counselor pictionary in ward 6. unless anyone else has any other questions

36:14 sounds good to me okay um counselor bradley do you uh can you see the oath or do you have it handy there i can see it okay so um if you wouldn't mind raising your right hand and then inserting your name in the oath and going ahead and reading that out loud please i corey rodley do solemnly affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and of this state and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of city councilor of the city of springfield oregon during my continuance therein wonderful congratulations if we were in person i'd be shaking your hand right now thank you [Laughter]

37:00 all right and next counselor stare can i just say this is going a lot more smoothly than it usually does i agree i think this might be the way to go moving forward all right um i leonard stare to solemnly affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and of this state and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of city councillor of the city of springfield oregon during my continuance therein wonderful thank you and congratulations

37:45 and counselor pictionary for ward 6. thank you i joe pissionary do solemnly affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and of the state and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of city councilor of the city of springfield oregon during my continuance therein wonderful thank you and congratulations and that's all i have for this item thank you mary bridget next item neil next item and congratulations is the consent calendar i move that we approve the consent calendar it's been moved and seconded i will do a roll call vote neil councillor van gorden yes counselor mo

38:30 yes councillor rodley yes councillor yes councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary yes thank you neil it carries with the unanimous vote next item uh the next item is uh you have no public hearings this evening so your next item is business from the audience we do have several speakers um your first speaker is mike eister and mike and i think we went we changed the process and looked at it was based on the amount of people wishing to speak to two minutes each so that way we can

39:15 maximize the amount of speakers as opposed to limiting it to three minutes each and twenty minutes total uh counselor pictionary this is mary bridget the council can do that if you have a lot of speakers tonight you want to make sure to hear from everybody that should be um either consensus or a motion and vote by the council before you move forward with that well let's see how many we have to speak here is we have about 10 counselor pictionary so that's that's going to pretty much need necessitate a a shorter period of time each so we can get everybody in uh do we at least in my mind do i have a concurrence with the council please actually

40:05 [Music] i i didn't hear sean because of the noise go ahead and speak um i i said i would be comfortable giving them the additional time if we've got 10 people we're going to in theory until 30 minutes and it's a pretty light agenda so like i don't see any reason to sort of rush through this okay go ahead uh counselor steer and then accounts for broadly i i agree with counselor vanguard i'm just gonna be the third to say i agree as well to giving folks starting out the year giving people the maximum time and i also see a counselor mo way nodding his head and waving

40:52 i don't disagree i just thought it would be necessary to bring it up because it's been a problem in the past so i want to make sure everybody's happy which is impossible so we'll go ahead and go with the first speaker nail and we'll go with three minutes each thank you yes counselor pictionary the first speaker is mike eister and mike if you unmute your microphone at work we can hear you thank you my name is mike eiser and i live in ward 2. happy new year to all of you and thank you for your work on behalf of springfield and welcome councillor rodney my

41:38 statement tonight is my own personal statement and doesn't represent the position of any of the any of the boards on which i serve i'm here tonight to talk about the need for a charter amendment regardless of how good a job an acting mayor or an appointed mayor do the citizens of springfield deserve to have an elected mayor everyone understands the need to have a provision for an acting mayor in the event that the elected mayor may have to miss a meeting or two however because of the way our current charter is written springfield has not had an elected mayor for nearly five months further we're about to enter into a period of two more years without having

42:23 an elected mayor two and a half years is simply too long for springfield to not have an elected mayor fortunately the solution to this problem is simple the required amendment is straightforward this council has the authority to place a charter amendment on the ballot that would prevent this from occurring in springfield again i'm aware that some have proposed a comprehensive review of the charter suggesting that council wait and incorporate this amendment into a comprehensive review however we all know how easy it is for something like a comprehensive review of a city charter to stretch out into the indefinite future for that reason i'm asking the council

43:09 to make the simple amendment to the charter that would prevent an extended period of time for the mayor position to be occupied by an unelected acting mayor this would be simple straightforward and can be done relatively quickly i've also heard comment that a charter amendment should not be placed on the ballot for a single issue i believe the city of springfield has placed charter amendments on the ballot for single issues in the past and there is no reason it could not be done now to ensure that the citizens of springfield never again have to go two and a half years without having an elected mayor thank you for your consideration aj i've sent a copy of this statement to you and asked that it'd be incorporated

43:54 into the record for this meeting thanks thank you michael and next speaker please our next speaker is chris mcallister good evening counselors my name is chris mcallister and i live in ward 3. first i'd like to thank and congratulate council raleigh lee on winning ward 3. i look forward to seeing many projects and some revitalization efforts coming through to try and make sure that our award is represented as much as gateway and glenwood are in some of our works and i know that you are a voice who is one who will listen and also speak truth so thank you for taking the seat um

44:40 secondly i would like to thank the city of springfield for being here for our unhoused folks during this winter where in years past we have not had as many options to be able to try and problem solve in ways that mean something to both the community and those being served we've been able to take what has happened with kovid and turn it into a positive we've been able to see people taken care of offered shelter on the coldest days and when kobet has closed down doors springfield has opened them so i want to give my heartfelt thanks and saying that it doesn't stop here we are in a new year we have a lot of things to move forward on and if we want to be net zero with homelessness as we have as a community said that we would be participating in we have to look at the fixes that are not easy the non-utilitarian

45:26 fixes the ones that take into consideration the hardest to help and help map out and chart out a future for all springfielders regardless of where we came from regardless of where we're going we all deserve to have a voice and so i also want to thank the counselors for moving to continue the three minute limit for all of our people and i also wanted to echo that while i understand the need to get an answer for our mayor is soon and necessary that at some point soon that we should restore democracy back to our process as the national uh scene looks at discounting votes we need to make sure that we hear our people on the local level and that our voices are not drowned out we are not red we are not blue we are not purple we are springfield

46:11 thank you for your time and your service thank you chris uh next speaker meal when you're ready our next speaker is samuel benjamin can you hear me yes we can hear you sam awesome good evening my name is samuel benjamin i live in ward 2 i am a new springfield resident and since moving here about a year ago i've been very disappointed by how the city operates particularly in regards to the democratic process when i heard our mayor was resigning i was shocked to hear that there would not be a special election called which is a pretty standard democratic process i understand that the rules governing the city do not allow for special election currently but it is also the job of the city to engage in self-reflection and understand when it is time to change

46:56 the rules i truly think the city needs to consider adding in special elections for both mayor and council for any future vacancies in order to enhance public trust and democracy this is the citizens of springfield need to speak for themselves and not have a limited group of just six individuals make this decision on their behalf thank you for your time i yield the rest of mine thank you sam next person when you're ready now the next speaker is lauren williams lauren you should be able to unmute your microphone there you go everyone hear me yes hi good evening my name is lauren

47:41 williams i live in ward 2. i wanted to say a quick happy new year in such a challenging year i hope you all had restful and joy-filled holidays i spent mine reflecting on last year's meeting meetings plural and i have a few things i'd like to address as we move into the new year first i'd like to see you take all public comment without shortening our time you represent us and to do so you need to hear what we have to say counselor pictionary said on more than one occasion last year that he would allow extra comments but that he thought if council had rules they needed to be adhered to

48:26 meaning the public needed to stay within our allotted 20 minutes tonight was another example of that so i'd like you to make new rules please expand the allotted time for comment or as a rule take all of our comments second i heard the sentiment multiple times from council council that you're just volunteers i would like you to know that i'm also unpaid to be here and i'm not compensated for attending meetings or doing research on topics discussed you all ran for your response your positions and asked for the responsibilities you have so please moving forward let's have the mutual understanding and respect for each other's time commitment and concern third i'd like to address

49:13 sentiments made by chief lewis in various interviews last year minimizing incidents and suggesting that everything in springfield was great but the current unrest and frustration stems from things happening far away and did not really apply here however the lawsuits of barone peroni stone uman hoffer mckee kenny chaplin and beechman were all filed prior to the murder of george floyd things have not been great here they've been problematic for a while and we've been asking for change for a while all of that said i think your work matters more than ever i'm so hopeful that 2021 will be a year of rebuilding with care for those who are most vulnerable i'm really looking forward to hearing

49:59 your thoughts about reform and to see the changes you make this year i want to sincerely thank you for your time and welcome counselor rodley thank you i yield my time thank you lauren and a next speaker nail when you're ready our next speaker is holly shaper and holly let me just get to your microphone you should be ready all right can you hear me yes we can okay my name is holly shaper and i live in ward 2. good evening and happy new year counselors and welcome counselor rodley it is now january 4th 2021 and we still don't have a mayor leading

50:44 springfield this means that we have been without a mayor for nearly five months during this time there's been public comment given about all of the challenges we are facing including a global pandemic economic freefall continuing housing issues horrifying wildfires civil unrest and calls for real police accountability however without a mayor there's no leadership or direction for the city to tackle these important challenges more importantly we have been wasting time listening to council rehash why they must appoint one of their own rather than beginning to craft and debate policies to address these challenges what makes this all the more disappointing is that we did not have to take this path with a lack of leadership

51:30 this was a council decision devoid of consideration of any external input of which there was plenty including countless emails and a petition beyond being simply disappointing and rather embarrassing it shows some clear flaws in the system and a failure of process why are elected offices allowed to go unfilled for nearly half of a year why are the residents of springfield explicitly excluded from helping to elect their representatives in the event of a vacancy why do we not operate in the way other cities in our area do do we really find it acceptable that offices can be vacated midterm and result in long-term appointments which then roll into incumbent elections

52:15 given the significant outcry from springfield residents pleading for a voice in these appointments i think the answer to these questions is no we do not find this acceptable so let's change course and enact a new plan let's change the city charter on the may 2021 ballot and allow for elections when vacancies occur let's work together to close the loophole that allows for long-term appointments and instead open it up to elections so that people can hear the platform of each candidate how they would solve the challenges that have been articulated in public comment and other discussions and then allow them to make an informed decision don't choose to wait because government moves slowly choose to prioritize this

53:02 and show us that you are really listening to your constituents let us vote for our leadership in the future again move forward immediately with a charter amendment on the may ballot put democracy back in the hands of springfield residents listen to your constituents and give them the agency they deserve thank you thank you harley next person when you're ready neil and just a moment here

54:00 sorry my fault on that elizabeth your microphone should be ready okay thank you neil good evening counselors this is lizzie at her back from ward three um with the new year finally here i am hopeful for changes in our city that will lead to justice and equity i see small glimmers of hope from this evening's work session when i think for the first time ever i saw pronouns listed alongside a counselor's name and then i heard counselor rosly inquire about materials being available in spanish this is fantastic earlier this week i was also encouraged to see that all of the candidates for the mayoral appointment support police reform as quoted in eugene weekly article published on new year's eve i

54:45 have seen the community led by black unity and bypoc activists drive this conversation about police oversight in our neighborhoods in council and at the police advisory committee meeting contrary to white contrary to right-wing propaganda we are community members many of us actually live in springfield we do this work in the community and here at these meetings with volunteers we do this work and manage jobs families spotty wi-fi and personal tragedies just like the rest of you it is heartening to see the city councils our elected officials respond to these requests and calls for police accountability as you are at the top of the food chain

55:30 so to speak however i have also seen you limit opportunity for public comment not tonight luckily but granted it was said this evening that having a lot of public comment has been a problem um at previous meetings i've seen you cut down the lotted time for community members to speak i have sent numerous emails to counsel that went unanswered a committee from my church that lives our religious values by challenging racism wrote an op ed seeking police accountability in springfield that was published in the eugene weekly on october 8 2020 this letter was also emailed to you and it also went unanswered i've heard from others during public comment period to explain that their complaints made to spd also went

56:17 unanswered when our emails aren't responded to and our complaints aren't responded to we have no way of knowing if they are read or taken seriously i'm telling you this because i see the necessity of elected officials hearing from their constituents in these public meetings since it seems email is not an effective way to reach you it is even more important for us to be able to speak in these settings like others have requested tonight i'm asking that you increase the allotted time for public comment a city council meeting whenever needed regardless of whether you have a heavy or light agenda moving forward so every community member who volunteers their time to participate in governance will be heard thank you

57:02 thank you next person when you're ready neil our next speaker is carla berg and carla you are ready to go hello council thank you for giving me this time um i will be presenting the uh bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee end of year report i will try to make it as quick as possible you should have all received this i just want to go over the highlights we did create a letter that will go that you all got regarding the west d street project originally we had come up with some suggestion and and ideas but as a group we decided that we were not uh we did not have consensus

57:48 and so we would like to continue talking about solutions for that with your help um we uh with your help and based on suggestions from 2019 uh we did add shareros and wayfinding to 4th street off of broadway um so that people could be routed off of fifth um in getting getting close to downtown there was an odot funding that will do some crosswalk enhancements and we're working on an intergovernmental agreement that you'll be asked to assist with and that also includes uh some of the cross work stuff around 14th and maine

58:34 a pedestrian network inventoried this sidewalks in springfield along with city staff there's about 25 percent complete uh in previous years we had done uh really big light giveaways uh for people who were pedestrians or bicyclists for both for different kinds of lights this year due to covid we weren't able to do as many but we were able to partner with some local organizations so that we got them the lights and they were able to hand them out to people who needed them and then the last thing is um the metro policy committee approved funding for some bike racks and bike fix stations in springfield the uh bpac committee is um suggesting that we put

59:22 two instead of three of the bike fix stations um so then use the rest of the funding to keep those in good repair uh there's that we are suggesting that uh two of either of any of these three either at the springfield downtown bus station gateway station or the springfield justice station that's all i have thank you all for everything you do well thank you carla i appreciate that i appreciate the report and um look forward to reading that thanks for coming in um speaker is jay smith i believe that's jennifer smith followed by benjamin wilkinson

1:00:08 thank you hi can you hear me yes we can miss smith thank you hello thank you yes you're right this is jennifer smith um i wanted to say that i saw the eugene weekly article and i just wanted to thank councilor van gorden and counselor stir who are both as i understand interested in becoming the next mayor of springfield and as stated by a previous commenter both favoring police reform it really means a lot to us as a community that as we've been coming and speaking for you know several months now um that we do feel that that there's some some listening happening so i just very much appreciate that also

1:00:54 appreciate counselor stir raising the topic of gentrification and lack of affordable housing in springfield these are issues that very much affect our community i also want to echo previous commenters praise for this council in um taking action to help with the um unhoused population and other marginalized populations it is it's sad that it took kovid to get us to this place but i i still appreciate um that action is being taken there and that we're making improvements there um i did have a few questions and i don't know if you'll be able to respond on these but um i'm curious about rick brazil's

1:01:41 report if it's still on track to be completed by january 31st this is on the um use of force and july 29th thurston black unity protest incident um i'm curious what form the report will take are there going to be any meetings with the community to share the results any room for feedback um i'm also curious i know i think at the last council meeting it was mentioned that there was still plans to have a blue ribbon committee um investigate this situation outside of um sort of from i assume from a community perspective as opposed to from a law enforcement perspective um so that's just something i wanted to ask about if we're still planning on

1:02:26 doing that um i also just wanted to express concerns over chief lewis's statements made at the springfield city club where i mean he works for you guys right city manager works for you he works for city manager he's stating that everything is fine with policing in springfield like quite publicly trivializing the kinney lawsuit um this is a a lawsuit that received national news and it's just some of the statements made a statement made about how dishonesty is a big deal it gets you

1:03:11 brady listed it's career ending why did spd fight to retain ryan stone a brady listed officer while working to fire scott mckee the officer who investigated him thank you jennifer uh next speaker neil council our last speaker that we have in the queue is benjamin wilkinson and benjamin you should be ready to go uh thank you so much aj thank you council um i i have to say that in 2020 i have purchased a home and closed a business more than once in springfield and i i will say hopefully we will reopen uh

1:03:58 in this new year but it's it's been fascinating for me to be a part of this small community now both officially um as a business owner and a resident and i'm heartened to show up in a city council meeting on a monday evening at 7 30 and to hear such enthusiastic voices commenting on our civic process if 2020 taught me anything it's that we need more engagement in this thing that we call democracy in our community at every level and that we need to find more ways to reinforce the idea that every vote counts and every vote matters now i haven't gone uh to the lengths to prepare such eloquent statements as my uh as fellow residents here have this evening but like i said i echo their sentiments and just i'm

1:04:44 excited to hear that we have that sort of um vociferous support for processes that involve more parties especially those who might be aggrieved or underrepresented who might not have the wherewithal to speak for themselves in situations uh such as this um i can figure out go to meeting barely and that's why i'm late and probably why i'm at the end of the queue but not everybody can we've all come a long way in 2020 in our in our uh e-learning i'm uh working on some stuff myself i'm excited that will grow out of springfield and the downtown business community and the support from the city has been great that's all coming up but i think it's critical that at the most visible way possible we have a democracy that reflects the will of the voters even when circumstances that

1:05:30 we can't account for and prepare for come up such as the vacancy in our mayor's office we certainly wouldn't plan to have an election and then need to have another election a few months later you know but we need to put into place practices that allow our voices to be heard even in these difficult circumstances so i would encourage you to adopt an amendment to the charter that allows for a vote when we have vacancies such as these um and then in the future would it be a council vacancy a merrell bank and see your other important uh role in our city that we would have similar elections so i think that's my thoughts um it's nice to see your faces i think i met a few of you in person i look forward to running into you again when it is safe to do so thank you aj i yield my time

1:06:19 thank you benjamin neil do we have any more in cube those are our speakers for this evening okay thank you very much thank you to the public i appreciate all of your comments and concerns uh next item neil the next item is any council response to business from the audience actually actually i did have one question i've heard this come up a couple of times in both emails and sort of in public uh public comment um is there a way to get how many um uh police complaints that we still actually have opened is it in that maybe in s-pac

1:07:04 meetings because i keep hearing people say that they're filing complaints and they're not getting resolved or they're still open maybe that's a question for nancy or neil or chief lewis or somebody well they're not those the numbers are not shared and as pet um so can we know how many are still open councilor van gorden i believe um chief lewis is here chief louis are you available i think you might need to unmute your microphone

1:07:58 he may be having some issues with his microphone but we can get that information yeah and i and i would be fine seeing it in a in a council briefing uh memorandum if if it's not available i just trying to get i'm hearing one thing from the public i'm just trying to sort of get context of you know it's going to take time to look at these i totally understand but like you know are we are we actually getting the complaints and sort of are they getting resolved are they staying open and for any given time um and then the second question that i had that i think came up is what could we get maybe an update on the like brazil report councilor van gorden this is uh nancy um i can certainly provide you an update and i also would

1:08:44 like to ask before i do that just a clarifying question the outstanding complaints that you're referring to are these are you referring to complaints against our police department or are you referring to incidents arising from the thirst and protest i'm just talking about complaints that i think i'm just asking about complaints in general right like so here's what like when i hear the public speak i i hear them say okay we filed a complaint and we're not sure anything is resolved i'm not as concerned specifically about thurston i think that's probably going to get resolved for information for you from the from the rick brazil report but i'm just trying to get my head around when when complaints happen are they getting looked at are they getting close and then how are we communicating back to the person that filed them that this has actually been addressed okay

1:09:31 got it as far as the report i received an email from him today an update email um and he has been actively still working on this project we after the community forum he received quite a large number of from from from different individuals some uh sent just emails some people sent additional video uh coverage um so he he is over 350 different video clips that he is looking at just to give you an idea of the scope and scale of what he has received um and what he's also looking into he's also conducted um some some phone interviews with some of our our police departments um i'm we're

1:10:19 still targeting a january end of january deadline for a report from mr brazil i plan to have a meeting with him either this week or next to finalize what that might look like what the council could expect to see and then we'll be in communication with council about how we would like to move that forward okay i appreciate it and then one final comment and then i'll toss it back to joe um i know that there's a lot of concern questions comments and feedback about the whole mayor like the entire mayor conversation i just heard like one of the things i've heard a couple of times is that somehow our language and our charters are different than the vast majority of cities in oregon it's pretty in line i know that this is a real question we've got to work

1:11:05 through it and talk through it but i don't know that it's necessarily our language is different than what everybody else in the world is actually doing it's my understanding it's pretty in line with what they're doing still a real issue still means we kind of have to figure it out and talk about it but i wanted to do that okay thank you sean is that it i have a concert rally followed by country steer i think counselor steer was first but i'm gonna just maya culpa since you called my name first so um all i really want to do is express appreciation as someone who has sat in the dark for a couple of years and watched these meetings and listened

1:11:50 to a person after person testify during the public hearings i just want to thank all of you for that time and consideration and passion and commitment to democracy and say that i appreciate it deeply and will continue to so please don't stop whether you're doing it out loud at a city council meeting or you're sending emails or you're reaching out in other ways i just have a very deep and forever appreciation for that because i feel the more folks that get involved the more democratic the process and the more we can together build the springfield that we want to see so thank you country steer thanks joe um well since uh since

1:12:37 counselor van gorden brought up the issue of the charter amendment i would say i i don't know exactly what the provisions are in other charters across the state but if there is no provision for a special election in circumstances like this then i think that's a problem for everybody i think that there should be a uh a democratic solution that should be sought for a two-year term and um i i agree completely with the speakers who were speaking in favor of a charter amendment joe yes ma'am i was wondering if you had your hands up i did i did um yes i had a couple things i think that a future

1:13:22 discussion conversation regarding um how that uh uh amendment or how the charter situation could could happen is definitely on the table i think it's something that we need to address um and the other thing though is i wonder if mary bridget might be able to review the timeline that we are committed to in regards to the mayoral appointment and and that because i think i think there may be some misunderstandings as far as the restrictions that we are under uh momentarily um and i think mary bridget can probably explain it better uh than anyone else but um yes and i and i do i agree i think it needs to be addressed um the amendment or the charter needs

1:14:07 the amendment to the attorney needs to be addressed and at a future conversation not not 10 years out but upcoming conversation thank you mary lee and i have accounts remote i agree with us going ahead and doing a charter amendment addressing the problems we have right now we didn't see it coming we're here now so let's let's address the charger and fix it and then continue on thank you okay and back to counselor van gorden um i'm open to taking more information and having a conversation about it i don't know what you know what fixing it might look like um but i think it's valuable

1:14:53 to have a conversation make an active sort of an active choice whether or not we want to do this for something that the voters are like hey we're flying where we're where we're at but at least we need to look at it you know and i don't know the timeline to have that and have that conversation okay well it looks to me as though the um majority of the council and including myself that we need to look at the charter and see uh instead of putting it on a burner set at two let's go ahead and crank the burner up just a little bit and see where we can go and that would be pretty much marching orders for mary bridget and nancy for us to set a course as to

1:15:38 what that might look at like and what kind of timelines and what the ramifications are because there will be ramifications we'll have need to look at all of it before we get too uh fast on this but we need to look at it and make sure we do it right and see where the council's at so from that dude i guess that's march in order for you mary bridget nancy from the council uh this is nancy yes we we hear you loud and clear um we can schedule this for a um for a future council meeting not not in the distant future but in the near future i will say you know i want to give our city attorney some time to do some research and and she and myself to provide you with some options that you

1:16:23 consider just as a starting point for a discussion i think it's always helpful if you have something to reference rather than just a blank slate of what you think we should do so we can have a thoughtful conversation and so we can we can cue that up for you and then uh go from see where that takes us and and also i'd like to throw in there too is if we can make uh reach out to the league of cities llc organ league of league of cities to get some input from them and see what cities of various sizes are doing and why they are doing it and why they've chosen to remain where they're at or not change or ones that have changed and why they did change so we can so we get a good full report excellent idea we will do that thank you

1:17:08 all right uh anyone else for comment merely you still in the dark so i can't see a holler at me nope i'm i'm good i i would like mary bridget though to address the timeline that we've been through in the last six months sure okay go ahead uh mary bridgette sure so councillor woodrow um just uh in response to your question um council or uh mayor lumber's resignation was at a time um an unusual time in that it was at the end of one term and then she had just recently been like reelected for a new term um and the thing that is complicated is that a council can't

1:17:53 deal with the new term until they get to the new term so it would have been premature to try and appoint an interim mayor earlier um and um so that is why we've had to wait but that is also why the council and the charter has a provision where the council president can um act as the um function as the mayor when the mayor is absent and then you also appointed a council president pro-tem to assist so i think that business has been moving forward here at the city and it was just the um timing that made it difficult but now that we're in the new term we have a schedule set up for the council to move forward with appointing an interim mayor at your meeting after martin luther king day on the 19th

1:18:40 thank you okay that part of the meeting is concluded i believe next item your next item is business from the city council item number one city council president appointment and city manager nancy newton has this item good evening councillors according to the charter for the city is the responsibility of the council to appoint a president after uh the president has served the two-year term counselor missionary has been able to performing that role for the last couple of years and now we are

1:19:25 at the point where we need to look at we're changing the guard so to speak i will say i'll give some context i am aware that we have a discussion forthcoming about a uh filling a potentially filling a mirror vacancy on on the board and i would i would say that any council member could be considered for this role as council president so if if council members are interested in in having this role um councilor van gorden counselor stare had uh expressed that i believe uh counselor prisoner you had as well and then decided kind of opted out but

1:20:10 irrespective if if you are interested i i wouldn't have that preclude you from being appointed tonight because even if we did have to you know fill a vacancy for among the council we can always revisit that in a couple weeks an alternative would be you could do a uh well i think i'll leave it there and just kind of open it up for your comments and and questions anyone with comments or questions i have leonard steer yeah i'm comfortable with moving forward on a uh presidential uh uh president of the council of uh vacancy uh i mean addressing the vacancy or um

1:20:57 naming a new one um um i recognize that there's no obligation for somebody who's running from the mayoral vacancy to exempt themselves from the election and that's fine thank you leonard any other comments questions emotions i had a question um i'm not sure i i mean i i i don't want to be considered for pre for president council president so i just want to play that out there um i would like i in the same breath i would like to say that i would like to continue if possible chair of the economic development agency

1:21:42 i'd like to now they've got my teeth in there i'd like to continue to help guide that so um so i want to pull myself back from any consideration for council president i do have a logistical question that and that is i'm council president pro tem at the moment does that carry through to the appointment of the mayor or is that done as of tonight i'm i have no idea counselor woodrow i can answer that question for you when the council um appointed you to be council president pro tem that ran uh until this meeting tonight or until an interim mayor was appointed whatever came first and so it actually effectively ends tonight okay that's fine i didn't know what i didn't know what the course of that was so that

1:22:27 worked that's fine so thank you that was a good question merrily so i'm just wondering if if instead of unless there's a person that is that really is excited about being council president for this week you know until the new mayor is there or if you don't until we're more on solid ground if we have a problem with moving forward as is until the following meeting or mayor appointments made and i see counselor steer's got his hand up go ahead i i've actually got a nomination um if we're uh if we're going to move ahead

1:23:15 well if you have one i think we have to accept it okay um that being the case i'd like to nominate uh councillor mo for the position of council president i second i accept i think am i on yeah you're wrong and i'm honored to be considered this requires a vote and so if we can go with the roll call vote neil

1:24:02 yes councilor mo can i vote for myself yes okay counselor yes yes counselor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary you bet thank you so much so that action has been taken we have a new council president steve moe um which throws me into a quandary what am i

1:24:47 mary bridget yeah you are the um you've just been sworn in for your new term of city councilor and um your uh term as council president um has just finished and councilor mo starts his term as council president okay so steve i will send you a list of meetings you'll need to attend okay you're fired huh yeah like i said i will send you a list of meetings you will need to attend now thank you okay that is uh that's uh steve or i mean uh sean go ahead um i'm comfortable with maryland continuing to like attend and represent the council so that we have two people going until that sounds like the 18th or the 19th whatever the meeting is so i guess i moved american

1:25:32 continues as uh council president pro tem until the new mayor is selected on i don't know the 19th or whatever it's scheduled okay i will second that okay thank you so uh all those in favor by signify to neil on a roll call vote counselor ben gordon yes councillor yes counselor rodney yes counselor

1:26:18 yes counselor woodrow uh yes and thank you i wasn't expecting that at all encounter yes okay uh so i'm handing the meeting over to steve take it over okay what do we have the next item council is uh any other business from the council okay any other business from the council i can't i can't read down here so i have to look over my computer over here uh business from the council committee reports corey had her hand up i changed my mind okay

1:27:04 anybody else all right well hi i i'd like to welcome corey aboard yeah thank you well yes now i have to speak [Laughter] i want to say thank you to all of you and i want to say um how grateful i am to all of the voters and the the residents of springfield and who put me here and um i have this deep gratefulness also for the hard-working and dedicated staff at the city and look forward to working with all of you so thank you and thank you

1:27:52 uh let's see business from the council other business anything there then we're going to business from the city manager thank you no further business this evening council business from the city attorney no further business thank you i guess we're ready to adjourn so enjoy the meeting thanks steve thank you everybody very much

0:09 perfect good evening everyone i would like to call the uh springfield springfield city council work session to order with roll call please counselor van gorden counselor mo here counselor elect broadly i'm here thank you let's go on with our uh first subject which is the fiscal year 2022 community development block grant program with aaron highfield

0:58 good evening council happy new year um so i'm here tonight to share the proposed public process for allocating federal community development block grant or cdbg funds for fiscal year 2022 um and to receive any feedback you have or answer any questions um i'll just point out i did schedule this for 15 minutes so we don't need to use the full hour and i'll add that the process we're proposing tonight is similar to the process you have chosen in previous years so to back up as a reminder cdbg funds are federal dollars that the city receives on an annual basis to address housing homelessness and community development needs the funds can be used toward a variety

1:43 of activities but must meet federal requirements of the program and primarily benefit low-income households in springfield in order to receive cdbg funds springfield and eugene must develop a regional strategic five-year plan to identify needs in our community and set priorities to address those needs not that long ago in may of 2020 you did just that and the council adopted the most recent consolidated plan which we are now using to guide our annual allocation process until 2025. so this fiscal year 2022 one year action plan um sort of summarized in attachment two of your packet um is to allocate cdbg

2:28 funding for activities beginning july 1 of 2021. so staff estimate right now um having available 705 000 um we'll be waiting on final word though from hud which may not occur until march or april on what our final allocation will be i'll just note that the proposed plan is sort of in two parts one to continue to support existing programs that you have supported in the past and then to make the remaining funds available to the public and nonprofits through a request for proposals process and this is what's outlined in the council briefing memo and i'll just say there's one correction to the memo in the table

3:13 the estimated dollar available for the rfp process is supposed to read four hundred and three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars it's correct in attachment too it's correct in the narrative but in the council briefing memo we we missed an edit so um so yeah so to summarize those existing programs um propose thank you aj if that's you um this is great um this page is great so the existing programs um we're supporting uh supporting is the home repair program you'll see that meets the consolidated plan strategy number two um that is a program where grant dollars are used to help

4:01 fund urgent repairs for low-income households in our community and in recent years those have primarily been seniors on fixed incomes and go to repairs like a leaking roof a failed heat system plumbing needs as well as accessibility improvements to a house such as a ramp the other program you have funded and we are proposing continuing to fund is the contribution to the human services commission this is an intergovernmental commission for lane county which springfield eugene and lane county electeds as well as budget committee members make decisions on how to allocate local state federal funds to support the needs of homeless persons and

4:46 special needs populations and then the final um set um proposed allocation is just at the bottom there toward um staffing costs to administer this grant um that gives the remaining about 403 000 to put into the rfp to see what comes in through that process um the timeline for this process um is such and maybe i'll see if the spirit hands operating this maybe could move up for the timeline but um our goal is to release the request for proposals uh in january to make it available for two months for

5:32 people to submit people nonprofits to submit proposals um at the same time we would release the one-year action plan um to the public for public comment um this would coalesce perfect this would coalesce in april where the city's own community development advisory committee would meet hold the public hearing for the public to comment on the draft as well as evaluate the request for proposal applications and make a recommendation to council for funding as with any of these processes the decision ends with you so we'll come back to you in may for your final approval you'll have the cdac recommendations to consider at that time as well um and then with your final approval um

6:20 staff can we can go ahead and submit the action plan to hud and funds can be available starting july 1. so that's that's the plan um if there are any questions comments please okay uh i think is that all aaron that's all yeah that's all i had like i said there i'm not really um there aren't any exact questions i had i just wanted to share process we're proposing and i have a comment well okay i'll put you in cue uh merrily i have counselor steer and then merrily and then sean so do we have any number of proposals to accept in mind or is that going to be driven by the amount that's requested in each rfp

7:08 good question um it's something we've played with in the past knowing that there is a there is staff like cost i guess to monitor each of those activities but so far no um we do not limit the number of applications received we just sort of through the evaluation process by the cdac council i guess so there's obviously there's no limit on the number of proposals we accept but uh or that that we applications we accept but the number of proposals that we that we implement is also sort of up in the air based on the amount of yeah we've gotten feedback from hud

7:55 in the past um that in the past on some of those years where we have funded maybe 12 projects at one time we didn't have enough staff time to adequately monitor whether or not those projects were being implemented in compliance with federal regulations very good yeah okay thank you you're welcome thank you council steer and i have counselor woodrow uh yeah a couple things um to clarify the leonard's question just just before um in the past when the rfps have come in there have been times when we have not a lot of the entire amount but have a lot of a certain percentage

8:41 of what they ask for is that still possible to do uh yes um yes the ultimate decision is yours however you make it um i just wanted to make sure that was still okay on your hood it was so okay that if for whatever reason we we found that we could we could uh approve something 90 of what they asked for because we wanted to put 10 percent over towards something else that that's still okay under hud is that is that right oh 100 yeah 100 um ideally and this is more on a note to myself is that through the evaluation process that question gets asked to the applicant what if you are not fully funded can you still implement this project so

9:27 at least we have that information for you to then make a decision that that is part of the yes the application exactly and the other the only other thing i wanted to comment on was that consolidated plan if anybody looks down through that left column um it was described to me and it was probably the best way that i could think of to describe it is it's like a [Music] menu it has been it has been developed under the principles that hud and standards that hud looks for in order for have those categories to be approved but they are not something that has to be done uh individual cities and individual partners in the consolidated plan

10:12 then select what's most appropriate for their um jurisdiction so um you may see a long list there but it's not all saying yes you have to go out and find a project that fits this category it's just it's a menu to select from as to what fits best in your community just to just in case anybody needed that clarified so that's all i want to say thank you yeah thank you counselor would you thank you merrily and sean go ahead um i'm good with the what the process is you have it outlined here um really right like cbg funds it's always good to see the rfps you know as they come in because it's some of the more flexible funds that we have so you know you can buy infrastructure or land bank with them which is something we definitely wanted to and wanted to get into the uh

10:57 you know into the business of if you will um i had a couple of clarifying questions when i look at this this is only next fiscal year correct so like we still have funding that's sort of allocated from previous years so there's sort of programs that we haven't sort of released for places like cornerstone right correct correct and that is what i tried to provide context for in the council briefing memo so that central column um in the council briefing memo outlines right just to provide context the next year's one year action plan is only proposing for these few projects however there are still projects from this last year that we are still continuing to carry out and that yes that is correct that money carries

11:42 over and that is still um available to them and it is not included in this rfp or the one-year action plan it is it is tied to them per your previous award okay okay and so and then i had questions about the home repair program and the first time uh uh downtown assistance those are both um those are both uh areas that we've identified in the past where we may not have had the right amount allocated to those um to those areas what like i think one of them had too much money one of them had not enough money yes the way i'm reading this is that that sort of imbalance that those two programs carry the last couple of years has been corrected is that fair i think the pendulum isn't swinging as wide

12:27 yes okay but like in the future you may have we may have to look at it again and adjust accordingly depending on how much folks are using it right exactly so we put that proposal of 90 000 for the home repair program based on how the first six months of this year have gone how much we anticipate being left over starting july 1 and sort of worked backwards to say okay on this year we're running at about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars for this program if we think we'll have thirty thousand left over by next june let's only allocate ninety thousand i think the the risk of of over allocating some of those programs is then you don't make them available through the rfp for example and yet maybe there could have been

13:12 another program and how do we make sure we're not over subscribing and just letting money sit there so last question that i had is in the council briefing uh packet there was a note about those problems using the down payment assistance program could you talk a little bit more about that yeah that is that is a problem i know eugene is experiencing as well i think the housing crisis um while magnifying the need to us like to greater assist low-income homeowners to be able to become first-time homeowners um the housing costs are rising to the point that these funds may not always be able to fill the gap between a homeowner can put down and what that home is for sale um

14:00 but also where we're seeing the low end of the entry-level home in this community is also starting to be out of reach for many people that we would otherwise be trying to serve so this question i think it's one that we need to to address outside of the allocation process i mean let's if there's someone who needs down payment assistance by all means i do think it might be a more complicated question that as we look into how else can we support first-time homeowners and maybe direct down payment assistance isn't the best solution but maybe something like a community land trust is it meets the same goal but it actually allows us to use our funds in a way that we have better control over the market to put toward that home so it's

14:46 an idea that's there that i think will be coming back to you all with um but right now we don't have the answer yeah and and i would be support like i cannot support this particularly about those two programs of you know coming back and having a longer conversation about them because those are easy programs they make a ton of sense to finance and get people into their first home so thank you great yeah thank you sean um counselor well it's not counselor rodney yet so i'm not sure well i'm gonna need to look for the attorney for protocol in regards to input because you're not technically a counselor yet so would not have that input yet um i mean i i know i want to make sure we

15:32 do things right steve so uh so uh mary bridger do you here yeah counselor missionary this is mary bridget so you're correct counselor elect bradley hasn't been sworn in yet um but she can participate if it's all right with the council she can ask questions or provide input in this work session and since you're in a work session you're not taking any official action anyway so um i appreciate you asking but i think she's good to um volunteer at the meeting good sounds good i just don't don't take me wrong corey i just want to make sure we don't mess up right from the get-go so so go ahead what do you got thank you and i was thinking i could always send

16:18 it to someone too if it was you know if it was unofficial or i couldn't say anything because it's it's really not necessarily any questions about the plan but it's about a little bit around the implementation of it and since i'm new it's kind of a a newbie question and wondering um when we talk about the rfp process what our outreach looks like in terms of how we get that information out and do we supply that in spanish and are we looking to make sure that all of that information is accessible in both languages that is a great question so i don't believe we do supply it in spanish and we can look into that i think that

17:05 is a a bigger question i'm going to look to tom voyata on how we do that not just for this program but other things um but yeah it's a great question um right now we sort of have a list serve that we manage based on non-profits and others in the past that we've worked with but then also putting the information out to lane county's distribution list and making it available on our website and putting a legal notice in the registered guard um those are kind of the the main outreach pieces um and then we certainly encourage people more than just going straight to the rfp but also i'm certainly available for any and all

17:51 questions on how to fill it out um what we are looking for and whether or not an idea would qualify um yeah i think the outreach question is a good perpetual one thank you yeah thank you um anyone else i'll just throw my comments in if i don't have anybody else um thank you thank you aaron very much appreciate this i really like how this process has morphed over the years uh in regards to its layout and how it's presented i really like how in the past where our concentration of efforts have been and i think they're paying off and i think we need to continue with those efforts in those areas um so i look forward to moving on with this

18:36 with this process and how it's laid out and looking forward to our responses we get from the rfps okay great i will um as the timeline says i'll be back later this spring for your final decision well thanks for the warning all right thanks thank you very much aaron you do great okay our next item do we even have another item we don't no so uh i will go ahead and adjourn this work session and we'll see all of you back in about um 41 minutes for the regular session

19:25 all right take care do we um amy do we need do we actually leave this meeting come back to the same one uh yeah you are welcome to leave and come back into the same one if we have any trouble all right thank you [Music] hey aj can we also stay logged in if we want to yes sir you may i would just recommend muting your microphone and turning your camera off good idea you can sing the whole group for 40 minutes i i know uh sweet adeline

20:10 i can just um all right

28:29 just as so far i'm going to uh i'm gonna mute because i'm apparently picking up some ambient noise from building here just want to know how much ambient noise is in the union hole like it's it's always some serious it's serious background noise it's usually ambient noise from the members did you get anything good for christmas leonard

29:19 i'm sorry stay again did you get anything good for christmas did you uh yeah i got i i i got an extremely uh an extremely loud stream of invective for many members over the christmas holiday that was my that was my present i don't miss peak season at ups it was a it was mostly from people who wrote your ex employer as a matter of fact well blame me that's what you used to be able to do that that that's that was my plan but they didn't let me do that they said you they said you've been gone for too long

30:05 there the weird thing is i'm starting to see people that i don't know who they are right so uh-huh yeah that's right considering a sort of length of time that i spent there right it's like followed by those youngins how long were you there sean ooh no not an insignificant amount of time in my life

30:51 are you ready for this craziness corey i think so i'm as ready as i'm ever going to be here you go i feel like we should invite the public to our you know our pre our pre-session stand-up comedy routine maybe they realize how much of a talent we've got there you go [Laughter] there's only one thing missing leonard yeah the members tell me i'm missing those too

32:05 hey joe hello stranger person i can't see ghost person

33:05 good evening everyone i'd like to call to order this springfield city council meeting with roll call councillor ben gordon here councillor mo here councillor elect bradley here councillor stare here councillor woodrow here and counselor pictionary here thank you neil um let's go ahead and start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you i'll go ahead and read some instructions for the public

33:51 as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us online to please keep yourselves on mute until you're called to provide public testimony there is one time this evening designated for public testimony and will be listed as business from the audience on the agenda if you are joining us online with a tablet smartphone or computer and wish to speak either of those at that time please use the chat window it looks like the speech balloon on the upper right corner please send a comment to the organizer with your name word or general location and a subject you would like to speak about you can select the organizer at the bottom of the chat window i will call upon you when it is your turn to speak for people calling in by phone only you're in listen mode only and cannot be called upon

34:37 the order of the public testimony is as follows anyone who has submitted a chat and then anyone who has submitted email in advance and if there's time neil will read those into the record so here we go springfield upbeat go ahead neil i'm sorry go ahead also the first item is business from the city attorney one item springfield council members oath of office and mary bridget smith is here for this item good evening counselors i'm here to walk you through the oath of office for our new counselor let bradley and two other counselors can you hear me can hear you fine great all right um so just by way of introduction our

35:22 charter requires that elected officials take an oath of office the wording of the office comes of the oath rather comes from the charter tonight we'll be swearing in councillor elect rodley for ward 3 and then councillor cher for ward 4 and council missionary for ward 6. um typically i have done a back and forth with counselors but i think that might be more complicated with the virtual environment so what i would recommend is that each counselor read out loud the oath that is on the ais i thought we would start with council rodney rodley in ward three and then move on to ward four with councillor chair and then counselor pissionary and ward six unless anyone else has any other

36:07 questions sounds good to me okay um counselor bradley do you uh can you see the oath or do you have it handy there i can see it okay so um if you wouldn't mind raising your right hand and then inserting your name in the oath and going ahead and reading that out loud please i cory rodley do solemnly affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and of this state and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of city councilor of the city of springfield oregon during my continuance therein wonderful congratulations

36:52 if we were in person i'd be shaking your hand right now thank you [Laughter] all right and next counselor stare can i just say this is going a lot more smoothly than it usually does i agree i think this might be the way to go moving forward i think all right um i leonard stare to solemnly affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and of this state and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of city councilor of the city of springfield oregon during my continuance to therein

37:37 wonderful thank you and congratulations and counselor pictionary for ward 6. thank you i joe pissionary do solemnly affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and of the state and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of city councillor of the city of springfield oregon during my continuance therein wonderful thank you and congratulations and that's all i have for this item thank you mary bridget next item neil next item and congratulations is the consent calendar i moved that we approved the consent calendar

38:24 it's been moved and seconded i will do a roll call vote neil councillor van gorden yes councillor mo yes counselor rodley yes councillor yes councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary yes thank you neil it carries with the unanimous vote next item uh the next item is uh you have no public hearings this evening so your next item is business from the audience we do have several speakers um your first speaker is mike eister and mike and i think we went we changed the process

39:10 and looked at it was based on the amount of people wishing to speak to two minutes each so that way we can maximize the amount of speakers as opposed to limiting it to three minutes each and twenty minutes total uh councilor pictionary this is mary bridget the council can do that if you have a lot of speakers tonight you want to make sure to hear from everybody that should be um either consensus or a motion invoked by the council before you move forward with that well let's see how many we have to speak here's we have about 10 counselor pictionary so that's that's going to pretty much need necessitate a a shorter period of time each so we can get everybody in uh do we at least in my mind do i have a

39:56 concurrence with the council please actually [Music] i i didn't hear sean because of the noise go ahead and speak um i i said i would be comfortable giving them the additional time if we've got 10 people we're going into them in theory until 30 minutes and it's a pretty light agenda so like i don't see any reason to sort of rush through this okay go ahead uh counselor steer and then accounts for broadly i i agree with counselor vanguard i'm just going to be the third to say i

40:41 agree as well to giving folks starting out the year giving people their maximum time and i also see a counselor mo wave uh nodding his head and waving so i i don't disagree i just thought it would be necessary to bring it up because it's been a problem in the past so i want to make sure everybody's happy which is impossible so we'll go ahead and go with the first speaker nail and we'll go with three minutes each thank you yes counselor pictionary the first speaker is mike eister and mike if you unmute your microphone

41:27 at work we can hear you thank you my name is mike eiser and i live in ward 2. happy new year to all of you and thank you for your work on behalf of springfield and welcome councillor rodley my statement tonight is my own personal statement and doesn't represent the position of any of the any of the boards on which i serve i'm here tonight to talk about the need for a charter amendment regardless of how good a job an acting mayor or an appointed mayor do the citizens of springfield deserve to have an elected mayor everyone understands the need to have a provision for an acting mayor in the event that the elected mayor may have to miss a meeting or two however because of the way our current charter is written

42:13 springfield has not had an elected mayor for nearly five months further we're about to enter into a period of two more years without having an elected mayor two and a half years is simply too long for springfield to not have an elected mayor fortunately the solution to this problem is simple the required amendment is straightforward this council has the authority to place a charter amendment on the ballot that would prevent this from occurring in springfield again i'm aware that some have proposed a comprehensive review of the charter suggesting that council wait and incorporate this amendment into a comprehensive review however we all know how easy it is for

42:59 something like a comprehensive review of a city charter to stretch out into the indefinite future for that reason i'm asking the council make the simple amendment to the charter that would prevent an extended period of time for the mayor position to be occupied by an unelected acting mayor this would be simple straightforward and can be done relatively quickly i've also heard comment that a charter amendment should not be placed on the ballot for a single issue i believe the city of springfield has placed charter amendments on the ballot for single issues in the past and there is no reason it could not be done now to ensure that the citizens of springfield never again have to go two and a half years without

43:46 having an elected mayor thank you for your consideration aj i've sent a copy of this statement to you and ask that it'd be incorporated into the record for this meeting thanks thank you michael and next speaker please our next speaker is chris mcallister good evening councillors my name is chris mcallister and i live in ward 3. first i'd like to thank and congratulate council raleigh lee on winning ward 3. i look forward to seeing many projects and some revitalization efforts coming through to try and make sure that our award is represented as much as gateway and glenwood are in some of our works

44:32 and i know that you are a voice who is one who will listen and also speak truth so thank you for taking the seat secondly i would like to thank the city of springfield for being here for our unhoused folks during this winter where in years past we have not had as many options to be able to try and problem solve in ways that mean something to both the community and those being served we've been able to take what has happened with kovid and turn it into a positive we've been able to see people taken care of offered shelter on the coldest days and when covet has closed down doors springfield has opened them so i want to give my heartfelt thanks and saying that it doesn't stop here we are in a new year we have a lot of things to move forward on and if we want to be net zero with

45:18 homelessness as we have as a community said that we would be participating in we have to look at the fixes that are not easy the non-utilitarian fixes the ones that take into consideration the hardest to help and help map out and chart out a future for all springfielders regardless of where we came from regardless of where we're going we all deserve to have a voice and so i also want to thank the counselors for moving to continue the three minute limit for all of our people and i also wanted to echo that while i understand the need to get an answer for our mayor is soon and necessary that at some point soon that we should restore democracy back to our process as the national scene looks at discounting votes we need to make sure that we

46:04 hear our people on the local level and that our voices are not drowned out we are not red we are not blue we are not purple we are springfield thank you for your time and your service thank you chris uh next speaker meal when you're ready our next speaker is samuel benjamin can you hear me yes we can hear you sam awesome good evening my name is samuel benjamin i live in ward 2. i am a new springfield resident and since moving here about a year ago i've been very disappointed by how the city operates particularly in regards to the democratic process when i heard our mayor was resigning i was shocked to hear that there would not be a special election called which is a pretty standard democratic process i understand that the rules governing the city do not allow for

46:49 special election currently but it is also the job of the city to engage in self-reflection and understand when it is time to change the rules i truly think the city needs to consider adding in special elections for both mayor and council for any future vacancies in order to enhance public trust and democracy this is the citizens of springfield need to speak for themselves and not have a limited group of just six individuals make this decision on their behalf thank you for your time i yield the rest of mine thank you sam next person when you're ready now the next speaker is lauren williams lauren you should be able to unmute your microphone

47:34 there you go everyone hear me yes hi good evening my name is lauren williams i live in ward 2. i wanted to say a quick happy new year in such a challenging year i hope you all had restful and joy-filled holidays i spent mine reflecting on last year's meeting meetings plural and i have a few things i'd like to address as we move into the new year first i'd like to see you take all public comment without shortening our time you represent us and to do so you need to hear what we have to say counselor pictionary said on more than one occasion last year that he would

48:20 allow extra comments but that he thought if council had rules they needed to be adhered to meaning the public needed to stay within our allotted 20 minutes tonight was another example of that so i'd like you to make new rules please expand the allotted time for comment or as a rule take all of our comments second i heard the sentiment multiple times from council council that you're just volunteers i would like you to know that i'm also unpaid to be here and i'm not compensated for attending meetings or doing research on topics discussed you all ran for your response your positions and asked for the responsibilities you have so please moving forward let's have the

49:06 mutual understanding and respect for each other's time commitment and concern third i'd like to address sentiments made by chief lewis in various interviews last year minimizing incidents and suggesting that everything in springfield was great but the current unrest and frustration stems from things happening far away and did not really apply here however the lawsuits of barone peroni stone umenhoffer mckee kenny chaplin and beechman were all filed prior to the murder of george floyd things have not been great here they've been problematic for a while and we've been asking for change for a while all of that said i think your work matters more than ever i'm so hopeful

49:52 that 2021 will be a year of rebuilding with care for those who are most vulnerable i'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts about reform and to see the changes you make this year i want to sincerely thank you for your time and welcome counselor rodley thank you i yield my time thank you lauren and a next speaker nail when you're ready our next speaker is holly shaper and holly let me just get to your microphone you should be ready all right can you hear me yes we can okay my name is holly shaper and i live in ward 2. good evening and happy new year counselors and welcome counselor rodley

50:39 it is now january 4th 2021 and we still don't have a mayor leading springfield this means that we have been without a mayor for nearly five months during this time there's been public comment given about all of the challenges we are facing including a global pandemic economic freefall continuing housing issues horrifying wildfires civil unrest and calls for real police accountability however without a mayor there's no leadership or direction for the city to tackle these important challenges more importantly we have been wasting time listening to council rehash why they must appoint one of their own rather than beginning to craft and debate policies to address these challenges

51:24 what makes this all the more disappointing is that we did not have to take this path with a lack of leadership this was a council decision devoid of consideration of any external input of which there was plenty including countless emails and a petition beyond being simply disappointing and rather embarrassing it shows some clear flaws in the system and a failure of process why are elected offices allowed to go unfilled for nearly half of a year why are the residents of springfield explicitly excluded from helping to elect their representatives in the event of a vacancy why do we not operate in the way other cities in our area do do we really find it acceptable that

52:09 offices can be vacated midterm and result in long-term appointments which then roll into incumbent elections given the significant outcry from springfield residents pleading for a voice in these appointments i think the answer to these questions is no we do not find this acceptable so let's change course and enact a new plan let's change the city charter on the may 2021 ballot and allow for elections when vacancies occur let's work together to close the loophole that allows for long-term appointments and instead open it up to elections so that people can hear the platform of each candidate how they would solve the challenges that have been articulated in public comment and other discussions and then allow them to make an informed

52:54 decision don't choose to wait because government moves slowly choose to prioritize this and show us that you are really listening to your constituents let us vote for our leadership in the future again move forward immediately with a charter amendment on the may ballot put democracy back in the hands of springfield residents listen to your constituents and give them the agency they deserve thank you thank you harley next person when you're ready neil our next speaker is elizabeth utterback

53:43 and just a moment here sorry my fault on that elizabeth your microphone should be ready okay thank you neil good evening counselors this is lizzie at our back from ward three um with the new year finally here i am hopeful for changes in our city that will lead to justice and equity i see small glimmers of hope from this evening's work session when i think for the first time ever i saw pronouns listed alongside a counselor's name and then i heard counselor rosly inquire

54:28 about materials being available in spanish this is fantastic earlier this week i was also encouraged to see that all of the candidates for the mayoral appointment support police reform as quoted in eugene weekly article published on new year's eve i have seen the community led by black unity and bypoc activists drive this conversation about police oversight in our neighborhoods in council and at the police advisory committee meeting contrary to contrary to right-wing propaganda we are community members many of us actually live in springfield we do this work in the community and here at these meetings with volunteers we do this work and manage jobs families

55:16 spotty wi-fi and personal tragedies just like the rest of you it is heartening to see the city councils our elected officials respond to these requests and calls for police accountability as you are at the top of the food chain so to speak however i have also seen you limit opportunity for public comment not tonight luckily but granted it was said this evening that having a lot of public comment has been a problem um at previous meetings i've seen you cut down the lot of time for community members to speak i have sent numerous emails to counsel that went unanswered a committee from my church that lives our religious values by challenging racism wrote an op ed seeking police accountability in springfield

56:02 that was published in the eugene weekly on october 8th 2020 this letter was also emailed to you and it also went unanswered i've heard from others during public comment periods who explain that their complaints made to spd also went unanswered when our emails aren't responded to and our complaints aren't responded to we have no way of knowing if they are read or taken seriously i'm telling you this because i see the necessity of elected officials hearing from their constituents in these public meetings since it seems email is not an effective way to reach you it is even more important for us to be able to speak in these settings like others have requested tonight i'm asking that you increase the allotted time for public

56:47 comment a city council meeting whenever needed regardless of whether you have a heavy or light agenda moving forward so every community member who volunteers their time to participate in governance will be heard thank you thank you next person when you're ready neil our next speaker is carla berg and carla you are ready to go hello council thank you for giving me this time um i will be presenting the uh bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee end of year report i will try to make it as quick as possible you should have all received this i just want to go over the highlights

57:32 we did create a letter that will go that you all got regarding the west d street project originally we had come up with some suggestions and ideas but as a group we decided that we were not we did not have consensus and so we would like to continue talking about solutions for that uh with your help um we uh with your help and based on suggestions from 2019 uh we did add shareros and wayfinding to 4th street off of broadway um so that people could be routed off of fifth um in getting getting close to downtown there was an odot funding

58:17 that will do some crosswalk enhancements and we're working on an intergovernmental agreement that you'll be asked to assist with and that also includes some of the cross-work stuff around 14th and maine a pedestrian network inventoried this sidewalks in springfield along with city staff there's about uh 25 complete uh in previous years we had done uh really big light giveaways uh for people who were pedestrians or bicyclists um for both for different kinds of lights this year due to covid we weren't able to do as many but we were able to partner with some local organizations

59:02 so that we got them the lights and they were able to hand them out to people who needed them and then the last thing is um the metro policy committee approved funding for some bike racks and bike fix stations in springfield the bpac committee is suggesting that we put two instead of three of the bike fix stations um so then use the rest of the funding to keep those in good repair uh there's that we are suggesting that uh two of either of any of these three either at the springfield downtown bus station gateway station or the springfield justice station that's all i have thank you all for everything you do

59:47 well thank you carla i appreciate that i appreciate the report and um look forward to reading that thanks for coming in um speaker is jay smith i believe that's jennifer smith followed by benjamin wilkinson thank you hi can you hear me yes we can miss smith thank you hello thank you yes you're right this is jennifer smith um i wanted to say that i saw the eugene weekly article and i just wanted to thank councillor van gorden and councillor ster who are both as i understand interested in becoming the next mayor of

1:00:33 springfield and as stated by a previous commenter both favoring police reform it really means a lot to us as a community that as we've been coming and speaking for you know several months now um that we do feel that that there's some some listening happening so i just very much appreciate that also appreciate counselor stir raising the topic of gentrification and lack of affordable housing in springfield these are issues that very much affect our community i also want to echo previous commenters praise for this council in um taking action to help with the um unhoused population and other marginalized populations

1:01:20 it is it's sad that it took kovid to get us to this place but i i still appreciate um that action is being taken there and that we're making improvements there um i did have a few questions and i don't know if you'll be able to respond on these but um i'm curious about rick brazile's report if it's still on track to be completed by january 31st this is on the um use of force and july 29th thurston black unity protest incident um i'm curious what form the report will take are there going to be any meetings with the community to share the results any room for feedback um

1:02:06 i'm also curious i know i think at the last council meeting it was mentioned that there was still plans to have a blue ribbon committee um investigate this situation outside of um sort of from i assume from a community perspective as opposed to from a law enforcement perspective um so that's just something i wanted to ask about if we're still planning on doing that um i also just wanted to express concerns over chief lewis's statements made at the springfield city club where i mean he works for you guys right city manager works for you he works for city manager

1:02:51 he's stating that everything is fine with policing in springfield like quite publicly trivializing the kinney lawsuit um this is a lawsuit that received national news and it's just some of the statements made a statement made about how dishonesty is a big deal it gets you brady listed it's career ending why did spd fight to retain ryan stone a brady listed officer while working to fire scott mckee the officer who investigated him thank you jennifer uh next speaker neil council our last speaker that we have in the queue is benjamin wilkinson

1:03:38 and benjamin you should be ready to go uh thank you so much aj thank you council um i i have to say that in 2020 i have purchased a home and closed a business more than once in springfield and uh i i will say hopefully we will reopen uh in this new year but it's it's been fascinating for me to be a part of this small community now both officially um as a business owner and a resident and i'm heartened to show up in a city council meeting on a monday evening at 7 30 and to hear such enthusiastic voices um commenting on our civic process if 2020 taught me anything it's that we need more engagement in this thing that we

1:04:23 call democracy in our community at every level and that we need to find more ways to reinforce the idea that every vote counts in every vote matters now i haven't gone uh to the lengths to prepare such eloquent statements as my uh as fellow residents here have this evening but like i said i i echo their sentiments and just i'm excited to hear that we have that sort of um vociferous support uh for processes that involve more parties especially those who might be aggrieved or underrepresented who might not have the wherewithal to speak for themselves in situations uh such as this um i can figure out go to meeting barely and that's why i'm late and probably why i'm at the end of the queue but not everybody can we've all come a long way in 2020 in our

1:05:09 in our uh e-learning i'm uh working on some stuff myself i'm excited that will grow out of springfield and the downtown business community and the support from the city has been great that's all coming up but i think it's critical that at the most visible way possible we have a democracy that reflects the will of the voters even when circumstances that we can't account for and prepare for come up such as the vacancy in our mayor's office we certainly wouldn't plan to have an election and then need to have another election a few months later you know but we need to put into place practices that allow our voices to be heard even in these difficult circumstances so i would encourage you to adopt an amendment to the charter that allows for

1:05:55 a vote when we have vacancies such as these um and then in the future would it be a council vacancy and maryland could see your other important role in our city that we would have similar elections so i think that's my thoughts um it's nice to see your faces i think i met a few of you in person i look forward to running into you again when it is safe to do so thank you aj i yield my time thank you benjamin neil do we have any more in cube those are our speakers for this evening okay thank you very much thank you to the public i appreciate all of your comments and concerns uh next item neil the next item is any council response to business from the audience

1:06:47 actually actually i did have one question i've heard this come up a couple of times in both emails and sort of in public uh public comment um is there a way to get how many um uh police complaints that we still actually have opened is it in that maybe in s-pac meetings because i keep hearing people say that they're filing complaints and they're not getting resolved or they're still open maybe that's a question for nancy or neil or chief lewis or somebody well they're not those the numbers are not shared in aspect um so can we know how many are still open counselor van gorden i believe um chief lewis

1:07:33 is here chief lewis are you available i think you might need to unmute your microphone he may be having some issues with his microphone but we can get that information yeah and i and i would be fine seeing it in a in a council briefing memorandum if if it's not available i'm just trying to get i'm hearing one thing from the public i'm just trying to sort of get context of you know it's going to take time to look at these i totally understand but

1:08:18 like you know are we are we actually getting the complaints and sort of are they getting resolved are they staying open and for any given time um and then the second question that i had that i think came up is what could we get maybe an update on the like brazil report councilor van gorden this is uh nancy um i can certainly provide you an update and i also would like to ask before i do that just a clarifying question the uh outstanding complaints that you're referring to are these are you referring to complaints against our police department or are you referring to incidents arising from the thirst and protest i'm just talking about complaints that i think i'm just asking about complaints in general

1:09:03 right like so here's what like when i hear the public speak i i hear them say okay we filed a complaint and then we're not sure anything is resolved i'm not as concerned specifically about thurston i think that's probably going to get resolved for information for you from the from the rick brazil report but i'm just trying to get my head around when when complaints happen are they getting looked at are they getting close and then how are we communicating back to the person that filed them that this is actually been addressed okay got it as far as the report i received an email from him today an update email um and he has been actively still working on this project we after the community forum he received quite a large number of correspondence from

1:09:48 from from different individuals some uh sent just emails some people sent additional video coverage um so he he is over 350 different video clips that he is looking at just to give you an idea of the scope and scale of what he has received um nobody's also looking into he's also conducted some some phone interviews with some of our our police departments um i'm we're still targeting a january end of january um deadline for a report from mr brazil i plan to have a meeting with him either this week or next to finalize what that might look like what

1:10:33 the council could expect to see and then we'll be in communication with council about how we would like to move that forward okay i appreciate it and then one final comment and then i'll toss it back to joe um i know that there's a lot of concern questions comments and feedback about the whole mayor convert like the entire mayor conversation i just heard like one of the things i've heard a couple of times is that somehow our language and our charters are different than the vast majority of cities in oregon it's pretty in line i know that this is a real question we've got to work through it and talk to it but i don't know that it's necessarily our language is different than what everybody else in the world is actually doing it's my initiative it's pretty in line with what they're doing still a real issue still means we kind of have to figure it out and talk about it but i wanted to do

1:11:19 that okay thank you sean is that it i have a concert rally followed by country steer i think counselor steer was first but i'm gonna just maya culpa since you called my name first so um all i really want to do is express appreciation as someone who has sat in the dark for a couple of years and watched these meetings and listened to a person after person testify during the public hearings i just want to thank all of you for that time and consideration and passion and commitment to democracy and say that

1:12:04 i appreciate it deeply and will continue to so please don't stop whether you're doing it out loud at a city council meeting or you're sending emails or you're reaching out in other ways i just have a very deep and forever appreciation for that because i feel the more folks that get involved the more democratic the process and the more we can together build the springfield that we want to see so thank you country steer thanks joe um well since uh since councilor van gorden brought up the issue of the charter amendment i would say i i don't know exactly what the provisions are in other charters across the state but if there is no provision for a special

1:12:51 election in circumstances like this then i think that's a problem for everybody i think that there should be a uh a democratic solution that should be sought for a two-year term and um i i agree completely with the uh speakers who were speaking in favor of a charter amendment joe yes ma'am i was wondering if you had your hands up i did i did um yes i had a couple things i think that a future discussion conversation regarding um how that uh uh amendment or how the charter situation could could happen is definitely on the table i think it's something that we need to address um and the other thing though is i

1:13:38 wonder if mary bridget might be able to review the timeline that we are committed to in regards to the mayoral appointment and and that because i think i think there may be some misunderstandings as far as the restrictions that we are under uh momentarily um and i think mary bridget can probably explain it better uh than anyone else but um yes and i and i do i agree i think it needs to be addressed um the amendment or the charter needs the amendment to the charter needs to be addressed and at a future conversation not not 10 years out but uh a upcoming conversation thank you mayor lee and i have council remote i agree with us going ahead and doing a

1:14:25 charter amendment addressing the problems we have right now we didn't see it coming we're here now so let's let's address the charger and fix it and then continue on thank you okay and back to counselor van gorden um i'm open to taking more information and having a conversation about it i don't know what you know what fixing it might look like um but i think it's valuable to have a conversation make an active sort of an active choice whether or not we want to do this for something that the voters are like hey we're fine where we're where we're at but at least we need to look at it you know and i don't know the timeline to have that and have that conversation

1:15:16 okay well it looks to me as though the um majority of the council and including myself that we need to look at the charter and see uh instead of putting it on a burner set of two let's go ahead and crank the burner up just a little bit and see where we can go and that would be pretty much marching orders for mary bridget and nancy for us to set a course as to what that might look at like and what kind of timelines and what the ramifications are because there will be ramifications we haven't need to look at all of it before we get too uh fast on this but we need to look at it and make sure we do it right and see where the council's at so from that dude i guess that's march in order for you mary bridget nancy from the council uh this is nancy yes we we hear you loud

1:16:03 and clear um we can schedule this for a for a future council meeting not not in the distant future but in the near future i will say you know i want to give our city attorney some time to do some research and and she and myself to provide you with some options that you consider just as a starting point for discussion i think it's always helpful if you have something to reference rather than just a blank slate of what you think we should do so we can have a thoughtful conversation um right and so we can we can cue that up for you and then uh go from see where that takes us and and also i'd like to throw in there too is if we can make uh reach out to the league of cities llc organ league of

1:16:49 cities to get some input from them and see what cities of various sizes are doing and why they're doing it and why they've chosen to remain where they're at or not change or ones that have changed and why they did change so we can so we get a good full report excellent idea we will do that thank you all right uh anyone else for comment merlie is still in the dark so i can't see a holler at me nope i'm i'm good i i would like mary bridget though to address the timeline that we've been through in the last six months sure okay go ahead uh mayor bridgette sure so councillor woodrow um just uh in

1:17:34 response to your question um council or uh mayor lumber's resignation was at a time um an unusual time in that it was at the end of one term and then she had just recently been like reelected for a new term um and the thing that is complicated is that a council can't deal with the new term until they get to the new term so it would have been premature to try and appoint an interim mayor earlier um and so that is why we have had to wait but that is also why the council and the charter has a provision where the council president can act as the um function as the mayor when the mayor is absent and then you also appointed a

1:18:20 council president pro-tem to assist so i think that business has been moving forward here at the city and it was just the um timing that made it difficult but now that we're in the new term we have a schedule set up for the council to move forward with appointing an interim mayor at your meeting after martin luther king day on the 19th thank you okay that part of the meeting is concluded i believe um next item your next item is business from the city council item number one city council president appointment and city manager nancy newton has this item good evening councillors according to the charter for the city is the

1:19:07 responsibility of the council to appoint um a president after uh the president has served the two-year term counselor missionary has been able to performing that role for the last couple of years and now we are at the point where we need to look at we're changing the guard so to speak i will say i'll give some context i am aware that we have a discussion forthcoming about a uh filling a potentially filling a mirror vacancy on on the board and i would i would say that any council member could be considered for

1:19:53 this role as council president so if if council members are interested in in having this role um councilor van gorden councillor stare had previously expressed that i believe counselor christianity you had as well and then decided kind of opted out but irrespective if if you are interested i i wouldn't have that preclude you from being appointed tonight because even if we did have to you know fill a vacancy for among the council we can always revisit that in a couple weeks an alternative would be you could do a uh well i think i'll leave it there and just kind of open it up for your comments and and questions

1:20:43 anyone with comments or questions i have leonard steer yeah i'm comfortable with moving forward on a presidential uh uh president of the council of vacancy uh i mean addressing the vacancy or um naming a new one um i i recognize that there's no obligation for somebody who's running from the mayoral vacancy to exempt themselves from the election and that's fine thank you leonard any other comments questions emotions i had a question um i'm not sure i mean i i i don't want to be considered for

1:21:28 pre for president council president so i just want to play that out there um i would like i in the same breath i would like to say that i would like to continue if possible chair of the economic development agency i'd like to now that got my teeth in there i'd like to continue to help guide that so um so i want to pull myself back from any consideration for council president i do have a logistical question that and that is i'm council president pro tem at the moment does that carry through to the appointment of the mayor or is that done as of tonight i'm i have no idea councilor woodrow i can answer that question for you when the council um appointed you to be

1:22:13 council president pro tem that ran uh until this meeting tonight or until an interim mayor was appointed whatever came first and so it actually effectively ends tonight okay that's fine i didn't know what i didn't know what the course of that was so that worked that's fine so thank you that was a good question marilee so i'm just wondering if if instead of unless there's a person that is that really is excited about being council president for this week you know until the new mayor is there or if you don't until we're more on solid ground if we have a problem with moving forward as is

1:22:58 until a following meeting or a mirror appointment's made and i see uh counselor steer's got his hand up go ahead i i've actually got a nomination um if we're uh if we're going to move ahead well if you have one i think we have to accept it okay um that being the case i'd like to nominate uh councillor mo for the position of council president i second okay your speaker is is off the thief i accept i think am i on yeah you're wrong okay i'm honored

1:23:44 to be considered this requires a vote and so if we can go with the roll call vote neil yes councillor mo can i vote for myself yes okay counselor yes yes counselor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary you bet thank you so much so that action has been taken we have a new council president steve moe um which throws me into a quandary

1:24:33 what am i mayor bridgette yeah you are the um you've just been sworn in for your new term of city councilor and um your uh term as council president um has just finished and councilor mo starts his term as council president okay so steve i will send you a list of meetings you'll need to attend okay you're fired yeah like i said i will send you a list of meetings you will need to attend now thank you okay that is uh that's uh steve or i mean uh sean go ahead um i'm

1:25:20 comfortable with marilyn continuing to like attend and represent the council so that we have two people going until that sounds like the 18th or the 19th whatever the meeting is so i guess i moved american continues as uh council president pro tem until the new mayor is selected on i don't know the 19th or whatever it's scheduled okay i will second that okay thank you so uh all those in favor by signify to neil on a roll call vote councillor ben gordon yes

1:26:06 councillor yes counselor rodley yes counselor yes counselor woodrow uh yes and thank you i wasn't expecting that at all encounter yes okay uh so i'm handing the meeting over to steve take it over okay what do we have the next item council is uh any other business from the council okay any other business from the council i can't i can't read down here so i have to look over my computer over here

1:26:51 uh this is from the council committee reports i changed my mind okay anybody else all right well i i'd like to welcome cowardio yeah thanks well yes now i have to speak [Laughter] i want to say thank you to all of you and i want to say um how grateful i am to all of the voters and the the residents of springfield and who put me here and um i have

1:27:36 this deep gratefulness also for the hard-working and dedicated staff at the city and look forward to working with all of you so thank you and thank you uh let's see business from the council other business anything there then we'll go on to business from the city manager thank you uh no further business this evening council business from the city attorney no further business thank you i guess we're ready to adjourn so enjoy the meeting thanks steve thank you everybody very much