Springfield City Council — February 22, 2021

0:43 aj are you ready yes thank you i'm going to call the springfield city council work session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here counselors mo here bradley here here woodrow here and pictionary here all right looks like the first item's the continuation of the uh interviews for interim council candidates so mary bridget uh good evening mayor and council uh says mary bridget smith the city attorney presenting this item can you hear me

1:29 okay yes so uh as mayor van gorden said we are continuing the um interviews for the ward one vacancy you know four interviews scheduled for this evening and that is timothy cantor grace bergen damian pitts and tj allen the question is the same as the previous week and the formatting is the same where one counselor will ask all the questions of the interviewee um aj and neil are working sort of the back end of bringing people up and just a reminder to any attend meeting attendees this is a work session only night so there isn't an opportunity for public comment but people are certainly welcome to reach out via our

2:15 website we'll direct you to some email addresses also can drop off comments on friday when city hall is open and provide comment that way and also an opportunity for public comment at the march 1st meeting and unless there are any other questions i can turn it over to you to discuss the logistics for asking questions so um like mary bridget said same format as last week but i think we're gonna i think we left off with leonard so marilee's gonna have the first set of questions when we get ready so i think we're ready mary bridget when you're ready

3:01 okay that's good first person is timothy cantor and i'll see if he is online hold on hello timothy can you hear us um i can good evening hello so we're gonna go through the interview questions um is the formatting goes one counselor is gonna ask all the questions to you um and then give you a chance to respond while the rest of us take notes um do you have any questions before we get started uh no all right i'm going to turn it over to counselor woodrow to take you through the questions hi timothy

3:47 hello i'm gonna go ahead and start with the questions number one what are the primary reasons for your interest in the ward one city council position so you know for me i think it's the fact that i have lived here for 25 years in springfield um i've worked for springfield schools for 20 years um and the the great thing about this town is that i love that it has that kind of small town feeling um i love the fact that springfield has that feeling of being kind of a small town but i also love that uh we have access to a metro area um and so it's the both you know it's you get

4:32 the best out of both worlds there um and i think bringing people into city council who have different uh lived experiences is really important uh being a veteran uh being homeless at one point uh being a renter my entire time uh here in springfield i think those are all things that have kind of led me to this point what unique abilities or experiences would you bring to the council you know i i think you will probably already do a really good job it is but uh bringing together um i think is

5:18 something that um i have some good skills in uh part of my job um is to bring agencies and community members together in what we call the springfield safety net program um and so i have a lot of experience bringing people in who have kind of varied experiences different goals different agendas themselves to bring them all in together and try to look at an issue and then move forward together thank you when faced with a complex problem with multiple solutions what process would you use to select the best solution to the problem so in this area i really like a hybrid so i first really like getting input

6:05 from as many people as possible uh bringing in different communities uh gathering as much information as you know you can get on a particular issue but i also really like having a set time agenda and um a goal and a timeline that you're working towards because one of the one of the issues i've been known to have is that when things drag on and on forever in conversation mode i tend to get a little impatient uh because i really like to bring things together in a unified manner and then get to a decision that you can then implement

6:55 please describe your understanding of the relationship between the city council and staff so well number one i think the relationship always needs to be professional and cordial um i think in most cities in oregon i know it's a little different on the east coast um but the way it usually works is that the the council and mayor uh direct policy um and that the council usually only has one or two actual employees which is usually a city manager and at times the city attorney and i think it's really important for city councilors to keep in mind that you know the that's the role

7:42 is that you're working with the city manager to then work with department heads to then work with supervisors to then work with the line employees and i know most city managers really like to kind of maintain that structure i think counselors can get themselves historically in trouble in many places in the united states uh where they um tend to want to go around that process and you know show up and say i'm on the city council and you must do this and so i think that just really needs to be avoided and the structure in place politely and respectfully followed if there were three things in springfield you were permitted to do whether it be to add eliminate or change

8:28 anything what would those be oh well um something kind of close to to my heart is low income housing um i really think springfield needs to continue continue to move forward um and really get some momentum around low-income housing um i really think bringing people of different cultures and i use the word culture as the big tent word um so you know veterans people who might be low income uh people of different races and ethnicities

9:13 uh i mean i think we have to look at all of that and bring it in together into springfield um i would love to see more vets get involved in city government um being like i said a veteran myself it's it's something that um i think veterans have a lot to contribute um and something that i've also been interested in for a number of years now um is restorative justice um and i i i've seen restorative justice go really well and i've seen restorative justice go really badly and so one of the things i would do is implement the perfect restorative justice program

9:59 um in springfield um and then last but not least um and this is really just purely for myself uh more bike paths and easier biking routes um i'm a person who does not drive i rely completely on public transportation or biking uh and so um i know you're all familiar with the gateway area uh especially up on gateway um it can be a little scary at times there are six city council positions what do you believe are the advantages and disadvantages of collective decision making and shared leadership

10:46 um well i think that's how you really make progress in a community is by bringing people together um you know so you have to get um people involved and um sorry i lost my train of thought there just um so collective decision making and shared leadership i think shared leadership is important because no one person can do it all um you know there's so many different committees and different groups and different organizations um and there's just no way that

11:33 you know one or two people can take care of everything that needs to be taken care of and then finally i think it builds trust within you know the team itself is that when you go through the process um you're constantly building trust to the next process and then to the next process and so i think it really can uh build trust amongst the the team counselors are elected city-wide rather than by ward what advantages or disadvantages do you see with that process so you know ward wise uh of course you have a city councilor who's representing that ward and that's really their job and so that ward primarily gets all of

12:19 their attention um which can be a good thing um city-wide i think it opens up to more of a feeling of responsibility for the entire city so it's not just that i care about ward one i care about the city of springfield um and um to be totally honest i actually like a hybrid model of where um there there's a mixture of both ward and city-wide positions on a city council but that's just something that i've personally kind of been into um so yeah

13:07 thank you very much tim thank you thank you tim um our decision is not scheduled to be made until march 1st so we will well if you tune in march 1st you'll definitely see where we come out in the end so tune in march 1st i love it have a good night all right have a good night thank you all uh so mary ridgid i think we are ready for grace great next person is grace bergen

13:56 grace can you hear us yes can you hear me yes we welcome um so the game plan is that we're gonna have one counselor ask all the questions and take you through it um and then the rest of us will take notes as you uh as you respond so uh counselor pictionary is gonna lead you through the questions and i'll turn it over to him okay thank you good evening thank you for joining us um the first one out of the gate is going to be what are the primary reasons for your interest in the ward 1 city council position thank you well i want to be the city councilor from ward one for a couple of reasons uh first and foremost springfield is home i grew up here um i've been here my whole life

14:41 over the past three decades i have been privileged to watch springfield blossom and into the city that we are now uh i've watched leadership take great strides for the betterment of our citizens it's not easy always but it's the the right decision um often is reached and i want to be a part of that team um next it's no secret that our country is experiencing a great divide um in a time like now our citizens are looking for leadership that listens and is not here just to check boxes that inspires and makes informed decisions and not being placed on here as a learning experience but someone that already has the applicable experience um i'm not here to build my resume but rather build our community and have a positive impact so that our

15:27 kids will mine and my husband's kids will want to stay here just as i did when they grow up thank you what unique abilities or experiences would you bring to the city council i would say the unique abilities that i bring to the position would be the ability to not only listen but to hear and that's really important in our society these days the ability to collaborate and come to a well-informed decision my time serving on the planning commission has given me the first hand experience in working with city staff working within our code our city goals and the goals that they make the most informed decision in my work with oregon realtors i have

16:13 worked with strategic plans large budget budgets excuse me talking with legislators to help solve issues that impact communities across the state and our country including fair housing housing issues in general i've held various leadership positions where i've had to put my personal feelings aside to lead an organization into making the right decision and recognizing that it's not about me as a person but us as moving this the city forward thank you when faced with a complex problem with multiple solutions what process would you use to select the best solution to that problem

16:59 well the best process to reach any solution is to listen of course to all of the evidence and supporting documents provided prior to coming in rather than excuse me rather than coming in with a bias in hand already and to objectively make the decisions based upon the criteria of approval planning goals metro plan goals etc um of course it's always crucial to make decisions that best serve the city and then if it comes down to if i'm still uncertain on the best solution i'm not one to uh just say yay or nay being uncertain i think that it's important to continue to ask questions until you feel confident in the decision that you make and not just a waverly decision so i with multiple solutions i think that

17:45 there's if there are multiple solutions i think there's an opportunity for more questions to be had for a more confident single solution thank you so please describe your understanding of the relationship between the city council and staff in serving on the planning commission i have observed that the work of staff is what makes it even possible to deliberate on an issue and carry out a decision staff is the blood that rushes through the veins exceeding through the heart of the city um to make it function i have a deep respect for all the hard work and knowledge that the city staff has on a wide variety of topics it's really impressive without their expertise city council and in my experience planning commission as

18:30 well as other areas within the city we wouldn't be able to make the informed decisions uh that we have to which would leave us exposed on appeals um which obviously none of us want to do they're such a great resource they're also really great listeners but what i also appreciate is that when um when i've on planning commission when we've had discussion and deliberation and there have been additional findings that we wanted to include into an approval conditions of approval they've been amazing at getting that worked in the way that our vision was um and i think it's it's absolutely crucial for staff and city council to have a great working relationship to accomplish great things and not just be

19:15 one-sided um they definitely are a important part of the team here thank you so if there were three things in springfield you were permitted to do whether it be to add eliminate or change anything what would those be this uh i could be talking about this one for a long time um i i would say in collaboration with council i'd like to bring more businesses and restaurants to the thurston area um as well as main street area and do a little bit more um hands-on in the um mohawk marcola area um because you know i think we've done really great work in downtown

20:00 and gateway areas and we've become well known within our community and eugene for those areas and i think that if we were continued to do that you know our citizens deserve that so that's something that i would focus on another thing is when you look at our city map um you see there are a lot of residents that aren't represented because they're within the urban growth boundary but not within city limits um i know it's probably a long shot but i would love to see a way for them to be represented whether that's an additional council member or um i'm not sure what that looks like um but i would love there's there's a lot of residents out there and there's pockets specifically in the haydenbridge area um so that'd be interesting to dive into um and then of course near and dear to

20:46 my heart being in the housing industry would be to eliminate obstacles to building houses i know we've done a great job in the past of waiving the sdc fees that we're able to that we have control over but i would like to dig in a little bit deeper to see what is causing people or what is stopping people from building and i'm not talking about builders i'm talking about um individual people individual owners that are looking and building because as we all know uh we have a massive housing shortage and the best way to get to um fixing that is is building and i know that the building costs are pretty expensive right now but that's something that i'd like to look into also

21:31 thank you um so there are six council city council positions what do you believe are the advantages and what are the disadvantages of collective decision making and shared leadership well i think that you know collaboration and um representation of all of our city um and the citizens is crucial in making decisions that will benefit the city as a whole having counselors from around the city um it's six geographical areas being represented and for people that don't know springfield they may not think that our city is big enough to for that to be such an impact but when you look at the different areas it is it's really important and so having those all areas represented

22:17 and being the shared leadership it offers the opportunity for a healthy discussion on what might affect one word of the city differently than a different ward um i think it's important to have those different perspectives on um you know if we're talking about a development in north gateway um and we're only having we and we don't have a representative in the room that has the hands-on experience as to how that would affect not only other businesses but neighbors i think that's it's important that we have that representation um i also think it's really important you know when you have that collective decision making and shared leadership it's important that we're using each other as sounding boards i mean we all have blind spots and i think together um that's how where great decisions are made

23:03 because you might be focused on one specific area but if someone brings out another point oh i didn't think about that i'm so glad that i don't have all of the liability of our entire city um so i think that's very crucial thank you so counselors are elected city-wide rather than by ward what advantages or disadvantages do you see with that process you know i thought about this question a lot um you know even though we're divided into wards at the end of the day when um council is at council chamber whether that's virtual or um someday we'll get back to in-person chambers um we're still one city so the decisions that each councilor is making is though we're from we live in

23:48 different areas of the city it still is affecting the city um at large and so i think uh you know one of a positive about that is this because those decisions do affect the city at large and not just the wards specifically it allows the city to opt to select who's going to be making those decisions for them um at large not and collectively not for one specific area because there might be someone who is hyper focused on a specific area but they don't have the larger city goals in mind and i think that's important to recognize um if i had to take the disadvantage of that um i would say that the entire city might not know who the best person is to

24:34 represent a specific ward um for their what their housing looks like or their business looks like um or the development in the area looks like um just speaking from my experience specifically i represent lane county realtors at the state level and if we were to select if the state-wide and which is similar to what we're doing now on the ward side of things um if we were to select who would represent for example someone out in prineville i wouldn't necessarily know who the best person is to represent so i could see the other side of that of having the ward specific elections because they would know more boots on the ground um who is best fit to represent them

25:23 hey thank you those are all of my questions and i'm handing you off thank you counselor you're welcome thank you grace um we will be deliberating march 1st and then hopefully coming to a decision at that point have a great night thanks for joining us you all so much for your time appreciate it mary bridget okay next is damian pitts good evening damian hi how are you good how are you good thanks so

26:08 um the game plan is one of us is going to be leading you through the questions while the other um takes notes um and then we'll we'll we'll go from there um i've got the questions so could you start off with what are the primary reasons for your interest in the ward one city council position okay i mean i think some of the main reasons is that i want to provide a space to elevate the voices of the unheard i want to plant seeds that will allow future generations to see themselves potentially holding some of these positions and i want to build a strong community that will you know exemplify what springfield can be i think there's a lot of potential here uh and it can be a lot greater if uh

26:53 we stand true to wanting diverse representation perfect what unique abilities or experiences would you bring to the council i think just based on my life experiences i've developed a very unique world view uh that has allowed me to navigate various spaces uh i have years of leadership in various environments to include a local national and international i have an innovative spirit that can truly benefit the masses and i have a personality that makes people want to support me and my endeavors uh i think since i've lived in springfield i haven't been been afraid to challenge the status quo and i think people who know me know that to be true

27:39 and even when doing that there's always a fear of losing something but i i'm not afraid because it's less about me and more about the people uh you know i'm a combat veteran i'm a sociologist by education you know and the way i think is that the team is always greater than self uh last but not least you know i'm pretty direct i'm friendly and i really like to feed people so you know good and free food you know you can't beat that all right um when faced with a complex problem with multiple solutions what processes would you use to select

28:24 the best solution to the problem okay um i think the first thing that i do is i take a deep breath uh and then i i determine the end goal uh then i take a step back and do my research you know uh i'm definitely not afraid to ask for help as needed but i want to make sure that i have some type of guideline before i reach out for help so i can be respectful other people's time and energy um i think from there you know i'll develop primary and alternate potentially even a tertiary strategy uh with all no matter what strategy i decide to go with it's going to benefit the greater good

29:10 uh please describe your understanding of the relationship between city council and staff okay so i'm going to use a baking analogy i think because of the pandemic all of us have realized that maybe we're pretty good at you know navigating the kitchen or some of us have realized that we probably don't need to own a stove and so i think a bacon analogy is very uh relatable uh i see the city council as being the ingredients and i see the staff as being the baking soda for without the staff uh there is no rice you know from scheduling to documenting to communicating to disseminating i think these are essential tasks that if not and if they are not supported properly

29:55 nothing is going to get done uh also i think a lot of them live in the area and so sometimes they're that first voice of citizens that we hear uh and i think that's a great thing because if they feel happy in their position and they feel comfortable being able to provide us with input uh then city councils will be able to do their jobs if if there were three things in springfield you were permitted to do whether it be add eliminate or change anything what would those things be i think the first thing that i would want to eliminate would be supremacy and and that's not limited to

30:40 white supremacy gender supremacy class supremacy as well as heteronormative supremacy if we get rid of that we can do some big things uh secondly i would like to provide a living experience that will make our residents our biggest cheerleaders you know it's really easy to say what we can bring in uh but we got to retain before we can recruit uh and so i think in the grand scheme of things by making our residents our biggest cheerleaders just a few of the things that include housing uh different jobs uh various new spaces for gathering uh and personal safety and lastly let's see uh i want to bring businesses to gateway mall and q street specifically

31:26 as well as uh the mohawk mark excuse me i cannot speak today the mohawk marketplace as well as pioneer plaza you know uh those are some of the first places that i visit when i moved here and i've seen a lot of my favorite businesses come and go even before the pandemic hit and you know i just think about the things that they brought to those areas uh and not only do they bring jobs but they just bring a greater sense of community so those are the three things there are six city council positions what do you believe are the advantages and disadvantages of collective decision making and shared leadership um okay i think one of the greatest advantages is uh it creates a checks and balances system

32:13 so that no person necessarily has more power than the other uh and i think the collaboration piece is very uh very important to me because they represent part of the whole but that part can't operate unless the other pieces are working with them and supporting them i think one of the biggest disadvantages is that you know sometimes just because you're over ward your interests might lie elsewhere you know some people may focus on the bright and shiny uh which may reside in a specific area uh and that means that they ignore the dull and the dusty but the way i see it is sometimes the dull and the dusty with the right amount of attention can be just as bright as shiny and so

33:00 yes uh that's one advantage that's one disadvantage so counselors are elected city wide rather than by ward what advantages or disadvantages you see with that process i think one of the main advantages is we realize that people's interests may alter based on where they work and live and not everybody uh is going to live or work in the same area and they might see things in a specific area that they don't live in that might be very you know beneficial to the masses and i think regardless everybody's influenced by the changes within the specific wards uh and everybody is uh affected by change and stagnation and so sometimes

33:45 it is always really good to have an outside input or maybe there's a counselor who's dealt with something similar and then you have that exchange of knowledge which i think is is essential as far as disadvantages um i mean the truth of matter is uh you know some people might look to put somebody that they know that they've supported in the past they might look to put them in a position of power because they feel that that person is going to benefit their own their personal gains you know sometimes if you don't live a working area you might be affected but you won't be directly affected to where you know it's kind of one of those things you know the nimby comes at the nimby concept not in my backyard or the out of sight out of mind and so they might not really feel the outcomes of them putting

34:31 somebody in that position that might not truly be invested uh and and i think the worst part of that is that history will continue to repeat itself in a specific area and that's not always a good thing perfect um we made it to the end of the questions so that will be it for the evening um thank you so much uh then we're gonna deliberate on march 1st and then we will make our decision then have a great night thank you very nice meeting you

35:30 mayor this is aj i'm just going through the attendees list really quick and i am having a little bit of difficulty uh locating mr ellen so if you'll give me just a moment we will pause for station identification

36:21 so mayor i have a couple of um attendees that may be um using a phone to call in or maybe anonymous if permissible i would like to give tj an opportunity to raise his hand i'm not finding him in the list by name and i just want to make sure before i say that he is not here that we give him every opportunity to identify himself if he is anonymous or by a phone number

37:18 at this time i do not see any raised hands so i am going to say that mr allen has not arrived as an attendee in our meeting okay um mayor van gorden we might have some options here you know if he's having technical difficulties trying to log on or there's some other circumstance um the council could decide just to move forward and go on to the next item we could go on to the next item see if we can get a hold of mr allen while we're having the next item discussion and could always come back to this interview he's able to log on a little bit later or we could just move forward

38:04 um anybody have a preference my sense is like maybe we try to call him while we're working on the next item that sounds good to me okay can we go to the next item and then can somebody on staff try to get a hold of him so the next item is the discussion on the potential charter amendment for filling the mayor and vacancy um christina is leading that discussion so i'll i'll text aj about trying to get a hold of mr allen and then um we can have that discussion in the meantime

39:00 [Music] we're ready when you are christina uh mir i'll start off um the if everyone's ready i'll go ahead and start that let me just get rolling here and then um we'll see if we can uh find mr allen in the meantime perfect thank you okay so good evening again mayor and council uh we're here tonight to discuss um i'll get my camera going uh a first discussion on um a potential charter amendment this has to do with filling vacancies for mayor and council um i'll be presenting

39:47 and facilitating the discussion tonight and then christina kraus the assistant city attorney is also available for additional questions and we thought we would sort of tag team it by i'll facilitate the discussion and then if you have particular specific questions or want to talk through hypotheticals she can be thinking about that while i'm uh working on the discussion part and i don't know if she can like you know if we're in the same room she could elbow me or something and find something but we'll see we'll see if that works so um so as i said this is a discussion on a potential charter amendment for filling vacancies um the issue had come up that some members of the public had brought forward some concerns during the last vacancy kind of centered on two issues the issue of whether um there should be a charter

40:34 amendment that would make a time limit on council to make a decision about vacancies and then whether the charter should be amended to allow for other election opportunities besides just the general biennial election sort of the impact of our charter is that in some circumstances um there can be like for example in this last vacancy the city was without a mayor for a few months and then the other issue was is that the election being to re for the successor being at the general biennial doesn't happen as often so then that means the appointed person holds the office for some time and then could be viewed as an incumbent when they are running um and some folks just brought forward some concerns about that

41:19 and so here we are tonight to look at that uh in the packet what we did was set forward some options for the council to consider thinking framing this is this would probably be a first discussion based on your feedback and questions divided the issue into two parts one looking at the time limit issue if the council wanted to look at a charter amendment about having a time limit on which they need to make choices for filling vacancies and we listed out some communities here that have some time limits part of our direction from the council was to look at other communities so we

42:05 reached out to our counterparts around the state got some information consulted with the league of oregon cities and then also some members of the public who had brought this issue forward so just trying to bring you kind of cross-section of some options so looking at the time limit issue you know there are some communities that do have time limits anywhere from 30 to 90 days is what we're finding one had one that was 60. doesn't seem like there's anything magic with um the time limit one note we had is that bend had third has 30 days in their charter for filling a vacancy um and when we were consulting with them they did say they had some direction from their council to look at making that a longer period of time it was challenging to fill a vacancy in 30 days

42:50 um but they would have to do a charter amendment and they haven't moved that process forward so just food for thought on the time limit issue um and then the next issue is sort of the i guess i would say the meteor issue which would be the election you know when does the election occur so i thought what i could do is either we could open it up for questions or i could sort of walk through the different options however the council would like the information uh merrily um i'm not sure uh i see the two i see the two different parts

43:36 i'm not sure um i think i was disappointed that there were only a few examples i thought you know we're talking about a big state we've only got a few examples were there more um were there more cities that had uh specified how they would create replacements or or how did we end up with just this certain number sure so what we did was um we reached out to our counterparts some who responded who had just dealt with this issue and filling vacancies we also consulted with the league of oregon city they have some reference cities on their website and we spoke with them and then we included eugene because that was some information that um a community member had brought

44:22 forward as an example and bend and eugene are a little different than other charters so we thought that would be a good example to see and then the model charter so you can get an idea of how the model charter approaches it that's the charter that's put out by the league of oregon cities it's really meant to be a template for communities as a starting point to look at a charter and then they can always change it depending on what works for that particular community so we can definitely get more information i can tell you we didn't look at every city we just tried to get a cross-section of different options and we can definitely get you more information i just i'm not sure whether i'm not sure where the discussion or conversation

45:07 carries forward i i guess i'm kind of confused i i think because what we just went through was such a unique situation that even if you threw a time limit in there we almost met it anyway because until we had indication from mayor lundberg that she was not going to take her seat for the four year that she was just elected to we our hands were tied anyway so so time limit wise we really were within um within the realm of time even some of the time limits we're talking about uh as soon as we could act on that we did um so that in that particular sense i i g like

45:54 i said i guess i'm at a point of confusion the other thing that concerns me and maybe this can come up in the discussion is that if we're looking for a general um consensus on the part of the community i think we need to look at a general election and not a may election or not a special election because the if we look at the statistics on the number of voters in those smaller elections they're not uh representative of the amount of voters we get in the general election and if we're if we're truly looking at this for that reason i think that needs one needs to be a point of discussion so that's like i said i'm not exactly sure where you were headed with the discussion but that's what i would like to see some of the discussion be around

46:39 okay so it sounds like um you're talking about the idea that in a general election there are more voters so that would lead to a more quote democratic i suppose process and um also you know recognizing we really had a unique situation with former mayor lumberg's resignation and then i think with more examples you know we could look at also maybe we just don't you know obviously dump 50 charters on you for all do some analysis in terms of like okay this is kind of what we're seeing in terms of what communities do and what trends are understanding you know they're made that i don't know yet what those trends would be but we could definitely look at that and see if we can get for you some ideas of of not just what's out there

47:24 but kind of what generally most communities are doing does that sound yeah in thinking along the terms of being responsive to what uh this smoking people have been asking for they're asking for a democratic process they're asking for the community to be able to select a a counselor a mayor or whatever um and if we're truly looking at that being a process to have a a goal to have an end result then i don't think a special election or a minor a primary election will bring out the voters that general election does so that was just you know a concern i had in trying to if nothing else respond to the concerns that were being voiced

48:09 okay understood um other questions i don't i steve did you have your hand out up before leonard i did uh we i i support uh looking for a change that works but we were in a unique situation when christine resigned and we were faced with the fact that on january 1st she could walk back in and claim that seat so far as i know legally and anything we did in the meantime would have been a waste of time election anything but just been a waste of effort and money until january first and now we can address the situation and uh and i'm thinking now whatever we come up with if that

48:54 situation were to be repeated again wouldn't solve it i don't know right but uh but i want to look for a better way to do it and and and councillor woodward's suggestion about a major major election getting more voters out that's that's pretty good deal because i know the primaries people just don't turn out but i'm i'm willing to work for a solution that satisfies the people because a lot many people want us to make a change and um i'm for it yeah i um i'll i'll tell you i think that if we pursue the most

49:39 democratic solution which would be a special election that by definition almost is going to delay the process it's not going to be as fast a process if we include the the voters and i i personally think that we should be including the voters in this process and so the cost that was with that there were some figures being sort of uh bandied about when we were considering how to do this um were was the cost of i i think it was like ten thousand dollars or something like that that um what was that sixty thousand yeah

50:25 thanks merrily was the sixty 000 was that going to be for the uh for an election just to resolve the mayoral vacancy was it going to be that single issue i can provide some clarity for that um so just uh the the state law says that if a city is going to hold an election that's not during the primary or the general election so that's may and november but it's essentially needs to pay the cost of the election so we checked with lane county elections to get an idea and inserted in the packet and it is their estimate and that going off previous elections for a similar jurisdiction was about sixty thousand dollars for if

51:10 springfield were to hold its own single election for its issue at a special election time recall that there are elections in march in september so one of the things we found with the charter language that we thought was sort of interesting and something to think about was i think bringing up this really good point of like when you have the election so um you know obviously like a good point about the general election that's in november when everyone's used to having elections and so turnout is generally higher may is when this council has primaries often has i mean has their city council elections so more notoriety there but march and september are that special election time and some of these charters

51:56 talk about having an election at the next quote next quote election and so you know our recommendation would be is if the council wants to think about that issue about potential costs and timing to maybe have us look at the idea of you know do we look at something like how eugene or other communities that said no it's the may election or it's the general election just for clarity so you don't find yourself in a situation where the next election that would work would be that march or september and then you could be on the hook for those costs yeah if we were going to have a special election say um in a march or a september period already and then we were going to have his vacancy to settle then we could

52:42 to an extent piggy back onto that special election with the mayoral vacancy right if you if the city um already had an issue going to a special election you mean yes that's correct yeah the city could potentially have more than one issue go to a special election i think the issue is if the city is the only jurisdiction on the special election it's on the hook for the cost and you can't share with another jurisdiction i get it all right um well i i would like to say that the the cost while it should be a factor i would say that it probably is subordinate to including the will of the voters on this so i would like to advocate for some sort

53:27 of special election during this special election period that we're talking about or these special election periods march or september cory so um first of all i appreciate everybody digging and having this conversation um and i appreciate what council woodrow said about the general election and i think that if we're thinking about timing um and depending on a situation i'm actually interested in it either being may or november that it's whatever the next election is um i realize that we get a higher turnout in november but also i think it just depends on where there would be a resignation or a or a death or whatever would make a

54:12 person leave a position that um if we're going to lean into how to be as accessible as possible to just keep both of those and i hear what counselor stair is saying about a special election and thinking i don't know how often that might happen but i mean i think if we were i mean maybe there's a way to put that in there too as to whatever the next whatever the next actual re-election is it's not gonna cost us sixty thousand dollars so just to kind of build that in so that we have we have a few things so that it's not as um restrictive um so before we go to merrily um you can then we'll go to joe but mary bridget could you con confirm in the way i understand it is in the off-year election of so like the

54:58 november 2019 i'm sorry 2021 election if nobody has about a ballot measure out like we could we would have to foot the cost for that so it's not just special elections right but if there's if if nobody if they're not planning on running an election because there's no issues in say november 2021 would we would we have to pay for that you know i'd want to let me confirm that the way the statute's written it just says um if a city holds an election that's not at the primary or the general they're responsible for the cost but it sounds like you're asking if nobody has anything going in the november election in a general election and we do are we still we're responsible for the cost yes because we might know i don't jump in if you if

55:43 you know i pulled up some of the statutes to prepare for this meeting so the state law does define the general election as the even numbered year only you still if you're holding an election there are only four allowed election dates in a year so no that november date is still an election date in odd-numbered years but it is not the general election so it's not um so one of those ones that we can piggyback off the county's costs i think it would fall under that special election so really what we're talking about and i just want to make sure we're because we've got like four different mays and two different novembers going along is that even-yeared election council is normally elected in the may ballot and then if we need to have a runoff we use the november ballot

56:28 so there's a primary mate even year to election that we wouldn't have to pay for in a november even year to election and like when i hear people sort of talking about general election what i'm really hearing is people talking about the elections that would normally occur on an even numbered year and i'm kind of looking for head nods that that and so when i hear people talking about turnout i mean there i hear people talking about turnout specifically being higher on the even numbered years okay merrily yeah i i would like to back up one more step the last time we took a charter amendment out to the public was um the consideration of the possibility of stipends for council um and before we even did that we went

57:13 out to the public and did had a poll done to find out if the public was even interested in in having that come to them in an election i would like to back up and think that might be a good idea with this is to have a formal poll done community-wide to figure out if they are out there interested in the charter amendment um it might save us some money in the long run to get an assessment of where the community sits on that to do uh to do a poll um i just i i'm con i guess my biggest concern is that i feel like we're not necessarily getting a a representation from all the community that this is what they want us to pursue and i'm really i

58:00 really try to be responsive to that so i'm i'm thinking maybe to back up one time like we did with the with going out for the other amendment to see if it's even something that the community would like us to put out there for a vote to have a charter amendment uh election done i'm joe and then steve thank you so um my my thoughts are is repetitive of what i've heard already is that i think that the general election even your general election with the may primary makes a lot of sense we have the greatest number of responses from the public and frankly our system in my my humble

58:46 opinion is i don't see this as something that's broke and i don't see a great need to try to fix something that really isn't that broke i i am amicable though to looking at it and and frankly i am i feel more responsible to the public than i do to some individuals even some one or two people or three people on the council i think we have a responsibility to go to the public and say what do you want us to do in this on this matter the public still has the ability to submit a referendum if they're strong about it then then they need to get out and submit a reference referendum referendum and put it to a vote put it on the ballot but i don't think we need to do that that's

59:31 an awful lot of work and even some uh expense for the citizens and i and i really hadn't thought about what mary lee just said is you know let's do a poll find out what the general public would like to do and if if there's an interest in it but frankly at where we're at now i think that as other folks have said to have this repeat of the blue moon is pretty rare and i don't think it was going to occur in our lifetimes again just think of the odds of that and just think of the possibilities of that i think how we responded to that that blue moon effect i think we did a great job the city didn't sink the projects got done business carried on and um and i'm not interested at all in

1:00:18 some sort of special election when frankly that's almost a full fte position that we could potentially lose because we want to do a special election we're talking 60 grand that is at some positions and correct me if i'm wrong is a full-time employee wage for the year so um and as lean as we're going to be this next year or two and you know financially i don't want to put that at risk losing it lose a staff member because of a special election so i think that it would be wise for us to go out find out what the public wants to do that's fine those uh poll is yes it costs money but not nearly as much as a special election and we have a system in place that has worked for many many years and

1:01:04 just move forward with that and and listen to what the public has to say these other cities their other policies are very close to that anyway they all go to election and that's fine but i think that you know if someone if a position or somebody leaves a position less than halfway through their position then it's an appointment and and they go and it goes to election the following election so i don't have a problem with it okay um leonard and well i'm sorry i had steve first okay i don't i don't whether i should bring this up or not but i will because i'm a counselor and i need to be responsive to the people we're going to have an election for charter amendment for we're talking about mayor and counselor now are there other things in

1:01:49 the charter that we need to address that we could do at the same time so just want to bring that up perfect leonard before you dive in i got a couple more questions here if um so i see the time limit right like and mary bridget i wanna so if if we had if we had a situation with christine's uh vacancy again the way i would read any of these proposed charter amendments is it wouldn't have changed the final outcome the final outcome is we would have just simply had we would have had to make make a decision in the fall and then make a decision in in the in the beginning of the year we wouldn't have been able to make one one decision right

1:02:34 yeah i think so christina do you agree i think you have to deal with each term uh separately yeah i i agree okay and then then i'm gonna hearken back to when joe came back from his break on council we left that position open for i feel like in like 90 days because there was an actual live election going on right so in the situation and i'm kind of thinking about these time frames for it for an example we could restrict our inadvertently restrict ourselves to having to fill a position while the election for that position is going on right so like in in joe's case where we left it open all summer until november we might have had to make a choice right

1:03:21 because that's what the charter said you mean if you had a time limit in the charter for example 45 days or something yeah i think you probably then would have um been required to appoint somebody within that time frame uh yes i think that's true okay and then i think the last thing i guess i wanted to point out because i've looked up like is i i think the question about how you think about voters and how and people getting to vote and participation sort of matters um and i think that's a really important question here the lane county number for in the last in the last primary election was 121 000 total votes cast in the same election in the off year it was like 70 000 total votes um so right but and

1:04:07 again there's not springfield numbers specific i just sort of wanted to recognize it is is part of the conversation that they're in that off-year election that's a significant that's a significant drop and i would assume that if we ran a special election it would be an even an even more like a bigger drop because voters aren't used to voting so that might be something that to consider when we think about choices and how many people get to decide decide decide these seats leonard yeah thanks sean um what would the timetable be on conducting a poll of the public to assess their desire for a special uh election you know i can check with the city

1:04:52 manager's office and see just the kind of talk timeline in general if we got on the poll right away um to get you some information uh we could you know thinking about if you wanted to try and get a ballot measure on the upcoming november election um the time to file that is august though we could try and get the poll done before you go on summer break and then bring this and then bring it back and then get from you um you know work through the data with you talk about that and then if you wanted to you need to give us direction before you go on summer break about whether you wanted it on the november ballot so that could be um i can look at that in my direction and get back to you

1:05:37 about time and cost on that because i think that i haven't worked on a poll before i okay um if if that's what it takes to get us there i mean to get this onto the ballot for the uh for the november election then i'm i'm all for it i think if we ask if we ask the question the way that i think it should be asked um i think it's going to be something along the lines of do you want your opinion to count toward the filling the vacancy and i i think i know what their opinion is going to be but i i would support polling the public to find out what's going on what what their what their opinion is on this merrily i i understand what you're saying but i think we need to specifically ask if they want a charter amendment that

1:06:23 has to be the question of the poll as to whether they're interested in having a charter amendment in order to have their opinion counted but it's got it's got to mention charter amendment sure so i guess my sense of this is that you know i know that there's a lot of information for mary bridget to sort of you know mull through and gather um i my sense is we probably should work towards the may 2022 election that's actually if we're like that would mean we got a ton of time to research it we can talk about it in the fall decide if we want to run a poll in the fall and that would give us sort of you know and all the other things we got going on and i'm kind of looking for some head nods here that you know we're going to election that people are used to voting in

1:07:09 and then we give ourselves you know plenty of time to kind of come back look at the additional information decide if we want to pull and go go from there and pitch did you have something else and then i'll go back to leonard you're still a mute fish you would think i'd be used to this right now anyway so um again it goes back to a greater response in my book i think the the most input we can possibly call from the public is the way to go and i think that that will not occur in 21 because people are not used to voting in even our odd years but i also i do like in

1:07:56 counselor mo had um injected a little bit in regards to any charter amendments i think that will give us some time i think i've got some ideas for some charter amendments that i'd like to see entertained at least to see if there's enough will behind some of those changes that i have in mind that we can do it as a do it as a package instead of just one item that would be fiduciarily responsible of us which we are required to be and um so i i have no problem with with looking at going to the public and polling for that may 2022 election so we have the maximum amount of people maximum amount of response and i would feel much more comfortable listening from

1:08:41 more people and anything that we can do to get the greater input is if in my mind the better i don't see the harm in doing it in 2022 we're in place now and i think that that it's a great opportunity for us to make some improvements but i'm also looking at what we have right now and right now i think that we have got a a good representation of the public and um good leadership for the city so i'm okay with going going and looking at it what the public wants us to do that's what we're supposed to do and i think the 2022 election is the most appropriate and i think we get a greater response in the may election

1:09:26 and plus it'll give us some time to look at other charter amendments which will require some significant time from our city attorney's office i'm sure that's where i'm at leonard uh but before we abandon the idea of putting it on the november ballot i'd like to just get some sort of a feeling from staff on what the timetable would be for doing the poll that's where i'm at council this is this is nancy we're just uh kind of trying to figure that one out ourselves it depends on whether or not the the vehicle that we would choose for uh pulling mechanism um you know you can

1:10:12 be as formal as uh go going with a pr agency and have a very systematic way to look at it which might be helpful as far as providing us with clarity around the question that we would want to ask um and or you can be extremely low-tech and do something online but uh probably a uh i'm getting a reminder from a counselor sorry camera on nancy while you're talking probably to be conservative i would i would give it a couple weeks to um you would you have to first engage your what mechanism you want to use if you want to go with a formal firm

1:10:58 or do something a little bit less extensive and then develop your questions your sample size and then then do the actual polling and you know sometimes you you have to decide okay are we going to do say a survey size of about like 400 people and have them do phone outreach or what the mechanism is so i think what would be best is if staff could come back with some options for the council to consider yeah yes can you call on me yes i did okay so um i'm just i'm just gonna be a little bit messy and just honest and say i'm of a few minds really around this

1:11:44 so i understand that there's this urgency and i've definitely heard from people that there's this urgency because there was this frustration with the process how it went which was partly around timing and partly around who was able to be considered for the the mayor position which we have sort of forgotten about that so there was frustration around that also i think that we have and i have again i have been on council for such a short time so you all can get really crabby at me um it's felt like we've had to be really reactionary for the last month and a half because we're trying to like do all these things really quickly and so i would really like us yes i

1:12:30 would love to do this quickly so that people are happy and i would like to do it really well so that we don't have to do it again and to give us an opportunity we haven't really even sat down and said as a council here are the like top five priorities that we have to really tackle um and where does this fit into that so i that's what i'm saying i'm in a messy place of like yes i want to do for the people and i think there's a lot of things that we need to do for the people and a few of them probably take precedent over this so i don't want to not do this but i want us to get really realistic and do it well and say what what else what else are we going to do while we do this so that was me being sloppy and messy and saying can we figure out where this fits in the

1:13:15 priorities of the big things that need to be solved tomorrow merrily hi thank you corey i think i think the best uh when you're talking about major changes and you're talking about a charter that's been in place for years and years and decades i don't think you make changes quickly or overnight and i think it's important to be deliberate and to process everything and even though it might seem like um like it needs to be done quickly um i don't think that that i i don't think that the right decision or the good decision uh well it

1:14:00 comes as quickly sometimes as we think it should and i think being deliberate and taking our time and making sure we get it right is the is the way to go so thanks corey it wasn't messy joe and actually i guess uh what i want to say is is uh corey articulated what i was trying to say in that sense that she did it well in a sense that that's really what i'm meaning is that is is i'm a deliberate person i am i want to everything i do i want to make sure that i do it correctly and i want to make sure that you know we've got a large responsibility to the entire city

1:14:45 and and that this is a significant change and um i guess in in today's environment um there is this and she put it well and and steve i think was trying to say it in in that sense too is that there is a sense of urgency and leonard i get what you're saying and um but i it's one of those it's one of those deals where you uh you got to take a breath take a deep breath and say okay let's let's walk our way through this and do our small steps through this so we do it right and and we just can't do i don't believe we can do it right with that type of of urgency and and i'm okay with whatever however it lays out but in the interim i want to be able to do it right and and i think we've already heard that by we want to hear from as many people

1:15:31 as possible i don't believe anybody would disagree with that so um in that sense i think the road map is is laid out before us and and it's just a matter of coming together and saying okay well you know what we can we can live with this and we can we can move forward we hear the people i i've heard every one of them every monday and i i listen to him and i take everything to heart and i and i really do and so but i'm also responding it's like hey i've got a responsibility to respond in a in the correct way and the best way for the city to be able to allow the staff to present their to present their packages to us in in the right way and for us to be able to be fully informed and i don't think we could be fully informed unless we do these things in the with in the right steps in the

1:16:17 chronological order so i guess that's a lot of words for agreeing with what you said cory and councillor woodrow and i think even mayor van gorden and i do recognize leonard that that i i get the urgency and i'm not i'm not downplaying that at all and i totally understand steve with what you're saying is it's the same thing i don't i'm not downplaying i i just have got a greater sense of responsibility anybody else so mary bridget do you feel like you've got enough direction here we're kind of had a long discussion through a lot of different portions of this sure but i think let me try and restate it and then you can let me know if i'm moving in the right direction so in terms of timing we can work

1:17:02 toward a potentially may 22 election um so that'll impact how we talk to you about process in terms of getting timing for getting something on the ballot but in the meantime you would like to look into polling for the community to have an idea of what the community would think of this type of charter amendment and then also i think some data and analysis about what other communities in oregon are doing not just the list of what they do but maybe some analysis about you know this many do this this many do other things um and then also it sounds like a key issue is voter turnout if you if we're in a situation where there's a vacancy and then there is an election for the successor that that is held at an

1:17:47 election that are wanting to see if we can have it held at an election or what that mean to have it held in an election where there'll be a higher turnout therefore more people voting sounds like that's an important issue as well does that sound did i miss anything honored well i i i think we we might be putting the card a little bit before the horse on the dates um i i would like to just have i think um the city manager was talking about being presented with some options on how we were going to do the polling and i think once we've decided on how we're going to do the polling the the dates probably going to fall into place okay so find out more information about the polling first and then that'll help you inform about dates for people yeah let's hear from

1:18:33 everybody else but yeah well she she was mentioning may 22 that's made may of next year i i know i mean what i'm what i'm saying is before we before we commit to a date i'd like to hear the options on what the polling are getting oh yeah hear that leonard and i think that's totally reasonable in case in case everything falls into place and we can get it going by november i'm with you in terms of we don't have to set it far in advance it's just make sure we take the time to be inclusive and do the stuff so i hear that and i think that's reasonable

1:19:18 anybody else joe yeah we'll have to get used to raising a hand on this new platform it works pretty well it works well to raise your hand but it doesn't necessarily work that well for a response so anyway so yeah i mean i i'm not opposed to what you folks are saying at all i think it makes sense but i do know that that i would not i would be opposed to putting out a poll next week and saying hey what do you think about this when when we just talked about and and counselor mo just brought up what other changes can we entertain and let's put this poll out and just question the public and be be smart about uh how we're exercising how we're spending these resources to do that so i think that i i have no problem with pointing it out is as soon as practical

1:20:03 but but let's talk about what else should we try to get information from the public this is a great opportunity for that and there and i hate to see it wasted i'm not wasted but i hate to see it the outcome to be so small when we can get a bunch more information this is a you know when you do polls you want to be able to do it on in multiple subjects and try to call as much information as you can and this is a good opportunity if we're going to spend the money on it on a poll then let's use that money wisely and ask the public multiple just multiple choices for different things different topics primarily yeah it's i don't think that there's much of a difference in cost for a poll once you're out there for a poll to ask maybe seven or eight questions

1:20:48 and you know would you be interested in a change in the charter amendment for such and such would you be interested in this charter amendment you know and you could go down through a list of eight or nine or whatever um but i think that in the we're going along with what joe's thinking and steve that um we should have we should look ahead to scheduling a work session uh for anybody that has questions regarding the charter and you know maybe maybe all they want is clear maybe all they need is clarification but if not then is there further discussion that's needed that would take its direction to that poll so i think i think a work session on that would be would a great start so the other thing and i want to go back to something that mary bridget said

1:21:33 while we're talking about this november versus may uh the november election if there's nothing else on it right that that costs us to run it right and like i just want like it's just one of those facts that we want to make sure that we're that it you know on one hand it could you know we could be on the hook for 60k to run it joe which goes back to why i think it makes more sense to do it during a general election on an even year um as we discussed earlier at least i discussed earlier and recommended because i am definitely not interested in in spending that kind of money for this for an election to hold it earlier on the pretense of just because we can hold it earlier when

1:22:18 theoretically that's darn near a full-time position so if you want to tell whoever employee whatever employee may get laid off for that then you then you go ahead and do that but i'm not interested in doing that steve uh not only do we have the cost of the election we're going to have the cost of poll too is that ten thousand fifteen thousand so so it's getting getting more costly we need to do the polls we need to do the election but i wanna make sure that we don't we spend our money wisely right okay so back to you mary bridget now that we added more direction to this hole okay so um i think what i'm hearing is get the information on the poll in terms of cost and time

1:23:03 frame um before you're locked into uh which election you are considering bringing this forward to so we can work on that right away and then um it sounds like maybe two thinking about for that poll the scope of the poll and so if there are other potential that's why make sure i'm clear potentially other charter amendments the council might be wanting to look at to see if maybe we have a council discussion about that at a work session or if we get public feedback about something but ways to bring that forward in case there's something else out there that you may want to do at the same time right okay is that okay all right okay well thank you so much for um your discussions really helpful

1:23:53 all right looks like we're on to the last item do we have an update on our last interview before we this is aj and um we have left text messages and voicemails and have not heard a response he is still not in the attendees list so at this point i don't have any new information for you okay okay then we should keep going so last item is pallet shelter presentation with aaron fifield okay great um are we doing video i'm sorry i just this was this was news

1:24:44 um up to you we've been doing video all uh all day some of us can see everybody some of us can't perfect um good evening mayor council i'm here tonight to provide info on lane county's pallet shelter program and give you an all an opportunity to share your thoughts on the program um ask any questions um as you know we're in the middle of a public health crisis the recommendations for sheltering in place and minimizing our interactions with others can be profoundly difficult for folks experiencing homelessness to address that lane county is partnering with jurisdictions willing property owners and local service providers to provide

1:25:29 safe and secure places for peace for people to be while also connecting them to basic services and case management currently they have partnered with properties in florence cottage grove veneta and eugene and they are also looking to springfield to see if we are interested the shelters themselves their pictures in the packet are sort of simple construction they're 8 by 8 or 10 by 10 panels durable sort of composite materials that can be assembled in an hour taken down moved connected to electricity if needed um you know the shelters like i said do give someone sort of an individual place to be apart

1:26:15 from others um but i'm finding also a key component of lane county's program is this addition of services and management for each site their aim is sort of kind of a conversation with the property owner um sort of placing a small number of these shelters on any given site and contracting with a dedicated provider to to manage the site to manage the program to manage clients ensure that covid safety protocols are in place while also developing and sort of developing rules for appropriate behavior but then also ensuring that those are followed

1:27:01 such rules such as no alcohol and drugs on site for example or certain expectations for rules that need to be followed otherwise someone can no longer sort of be present but the program is also connecting folks to basic services so making sure sanitation is on site but also connecting to you know food if there's a referral that needs to be made for medical needs connecting someone to make sure that they are aware and connected to permanent affordable housing opportunities the program itself there would be no cost to the city lane county is using federal and state covert response dollars to buy the pallet shelters and also pay

1:27:46 for the management basic services and case management the city itself we particularly the community development division director can approve the use of this on a site in springfield under the city's current cobit 19 emergency declaration but staff wanted to first bring this item to council and make sure you all are supportive i guess of us doing that currently the city has received a few requests from different property owners in springfield to be able to offer this program on

1:28:32 their site you'll see in the packet mainstream housing in particular is ready to move forward they are if you don't know are a local affordable housing developer they're headquartered across from the justice center downtown they serve clients with intellectual and developmental disabilities and they've recently recently purchased a one acre site on south 42nd street and have goals to develop permanent affordable housing on that site in the meantime before they able they're able to move forward with that they'd like to place some pallet shelters on site and sort of ensure that someone is contracted with lane county and serve the population

1:29:17 their board is committed to helping to prepare that site preparing a fence sort of ensure sort of stormwater needs are met and you'll see also in the packet they went ahead and set a flyer to every um property owner and um resident um connected to their property i believe that's 47 households they received two responses you'll see the back and forth in the packet there were some concerns they um i think do a pretty detailed job of addressing those concerns and i'll say the one line that sort of sticks out for me um is that the executive director is sort of trying to make it clear that a managed shelter community which was what they see their goal here being

1:30:03 is not the same thing as an unmanaged homeless camp so the latter is not what they're looking for it's not what they want to do but they want to create a managed shelter community so yeah that's sort of the brief overview again we're looking to just i wanted to introduce the program um and give you all an opportunity to ask any questions and share your thoughts um before we move forward with um sort of actually considering a request for approval uh merely i had a couple questions do we have has anybody else besides main street housing

1:30:53 have put in a request i would say not to the extent that mainstream does all um i don't know if the county something i don't know if the county has received any questions i received an email of folks um one you know i think in some ways folks are curious what's allowed as opposed to having a vision they're like we know we want to you know we know there's a need we have willing property we'd love to be able to host someone in some sense um can we do x and so um we did receive one question recently from i think it's laurel hill they have an apartment complex downtown um and they have a large parking lot they they say right now as being underutilized um and we're wondering um what sort of um

1:31:38 ability they could have to sort of provide shelter for someone what are we looking for as far as supervision is concerned you mentioned lane county but i know is is main street housing also looking at lane county being the oversight of their pallet or or are they it's a good question um so lane county has emphasized that they are not the ones providing at least in the the metro region they are not the ones providing the oversight um they are contracting with local providers um so that would be sort of like maybe an organization um i think mainstream has expressed their interest but it would be a request for proposals and lane county has sort of outlined exactly what would be required of

1:32:24 someone um and so what i put in your packet is taken from that rfp so those bullets that you see are the expectations that lane county has for whoever they would be contracting with now the contract would the contract be with lane county since they own the pallets um i think it's with lane county because they're paying for it but um but yes they do own the pallet shelters and would be loaning those out um for use i think right now this is under the umbrella of covid um certainly i think lane county is willing and open depending on the relationship of how this pilot project goes of what the property owner is willing um to consider it longer term but right now we're sort of looking at it under the

1:33:09 cobot umbrella now the mainstream housing is looking at eventually making that property a shelter for residential type for developmentally disabled am i am i correct in that yeah permanent permanent housing permanent affordable housing for that population yes so what kind of a transition would there need to be from pallets into the point of where they're ready to develop that property that's a great question um that's a great question um and i think that's a little bit um i don't think that's been answered i think throughout the region i think right now there is a need that

1:33:54 folks are looking to solve and um in some ways are saying we'll solve we'll address that other issue later um i guess i i think the reason my mind is going that way is because i heard this morning in hsc that there was a concern um on what to do with someone who doesn't follow the rules where can they place that where can they place that person in a somewhere where they can get help not they don't want to kick them out and just say goodbye they want to be able to place that person where they can where they can um have a positive experience or as much as possible so they were looking and they were korea they were mentioning the need for mental

1:34:39 health services this morning um as a result of have ending up in those situations and so i was looking at this in the you know trying to get a picture of this whole scenario um but what i'm understanding is that the initially with the pallets is just going to be a managed site not necessarily for developmentally disabled or are they looking at it as being for demo developmentally disabled i think the county is a lit um i think they're because of federal state dollars there are some procurement questions or not procurement sorry but like um sort of how clients are chosen and so the the centralized wait list is what the uh the county would be looking for folks who are identified as

1:35:24 literal homeless um i think mainstream has certainly expressed their preference for you know obviously meeting the needs of their population that is currently on house but also knowing that there's a a need and priority for unhoused families with children um that they would also love to help on site um i think i'm not quite sure exactly what the county's process is for um identifying folks um but i hear you i think that's you know i hear that question comes up a lot counselor woodrow in terms of like what about someone exiting from the emergency room how do we make sure that they have a good place to be i think that is something that's a little bit lacking in terms of transitioning where someone is to it i think the county acknowledges that i think service

1:36:10 providers acknowledge that um mainstream well i assume mainstream would be sort of pretty intentional about what that would look like and i think my last question or my last point is is that um there are deadlines to use the federal money we have to use federal money by a certain time um and so once we do that then where are we with these with these programs and that also ends up in my transitioning question um okay so a couple thoughts there the the shelters themselves are purchased so the shelters themselves have been paid for it's this question about ongoing costs and services so i i don't know exactly the source that

1:36:56 the county has received but based on their estimates they are thinking they have funding let's say through december of this year to pay for that um in the case of mainstream as being an owner i believe mainstream is willing to also possibly pay for ongoing services to this population when the you know say the county's funding runs out i don't know if every property owner would be willing to do that um but in the case of mainstream i believe they have expressed their interest in doing that um i think it's an i think it's an ongoing question to be honest i think the way the county sort of dust to dawn or other um shelter shelter programs in the region have that same question it's almost like year to year funding to be like what can

1:37:42 we get this year how can we pay for it this year um right that's a good question the the need is there and i'm i'm all for trying to help any way we can i just want to make sure that we make the right steps in the right direction and have the right help finances and help support you know management and all that um i would hate to see i would hate to see what i would hate to see is getting something set up and then finding out it won't work or if we can't do it i would much rather be deliberate on the front end and make sure once it gets set up it's there rather than um having somebody all set to be able to use something and then not finding out that there's a loophole or there's something that we missed so um that's why i was asking all these different questions is to try to get a

1:38:29 even more of a full grasp on what what all this is and i think the opportunity to be able to use these pallets especially for families and children um would be wonderful i i always think back on the number of years the 10 or 11 years of whatever that i did smart reading and the number of students i had that were living in their cars with their parents so you know if there's any possible way we could find out we could find a way to help them out that would be awesome so i've taken up enough time go ahead i almost didn't go off mute um okay so um i appreciate all of counselor woodrow's questions i also am interested in transition but in a little bit of a

1:39:15 different way one i'm absolutely for shelter and all the ways that we can get it to folks and particularly i'm i'm less concerned about um having a particularly in this type of emergency housing all of the services because i think that the low barrier the better but one of my concerns in thinking about this is this is the latest and the greatest and we're starting to see these happen and my concern is if we put so much energy or time into the the quick latest and the greatest and we're not also still making a plan for more substantial housing for people um that's the part that i get concerned about is like how do we

1:40:00 if in the in the transition how do we make sure that we're looking at how are we going to create stable housing how are we going to move people from this um emergency shelter or cova shelter or whatever we're calling it into um low barrier housing and really long-term tackle as opposed to short-term we've got people temporarily housed but we don't we're not actually solving the housing crisis or moving people into stable housing so that's the part for me which is probably bigger than this project um but just i just want us to be careful not to get excited about the latest and greatest and say okay we'll do this and we're going to also keep doing these things too joe did you have your hand up

1:40:50 i do and i did you did too so um and and uh corey i appreciate what you just said i i kind of like think about a cliff edge and saying well i'm gonna try to look before i do jump so that's where i'm at so i've got some questions before i mean in general i'll tell you right now in general i think this this potentially is a great deal i i like i like it i'm not opposed to it right off the bat but i've got some questions that i feel i need to ask before i can literally say yes so help me get there so the first question i have is that they indicate that they want to they're talking about some some neighbors had some issues about bathroom et cetera and and that

1:41:35 organization says we plan on building some permanent bathrooms for this project now if they're building permanent bathrooms that means they're also putting in sewer lines which also means that is that going to be where the houses are built and does that mean that they're going to be spending all that money on permanent bathrooms when they're going to have residences there that should i would think hopefully have their own bathrooms so seems like there's you know is that really what they're saying or is it going to be their permanent bathrooms are going to be blue with white caps on the top of them so my understanding is this came out of a discussion with the mainstream board so the board expressed their support for this but saying they didn't they didn't just want a porta potty they wanted something a little more

1:42:20 substantial thinking that would be better for folks staying there but also better for the neighbors in the meantime before whatever gets built um i think they are saying well yes if it means sooner let's have a porta potty um certainly and we're having this discussion right now i think they're going to come in for a development issues meeting a dim um in the next month or so or month maybe next month um sort of to say here's our plan for our permanent affordable housing site what does the sewer sort of structure need to be and is there a way to tap into it for this temporary use so to your point my understanding permanent affordable housing yes the units themselves are going to have bathrooms the idea isn't to build an out sort of

1:43:06 bathroom i'm not sure um how creative they're going to be to provide something better than a porta-potty in the meantime but i think that conversation is they're going to bring their architect to sort of our the city planners to say hey here's our long-term plan here's our short-term plan um what makes sense so they're not yeah so i i get that and and i also totally understand the neighbors concerns because that's very close proximity to their homes literally feet so that is something that that we should know at least i feel i should know the answer to that before i can get behind this program saying okay how are we gonna how are we going to make sure that the neighbors are not going to explode over this whole idea i know

1:43:52 there's apprehension but i want to be able to soften that blow because i like the program i think it should work but we need to have these questions answered not not in juxtaposed yes sorry can i confirm what the question is again so what truly is their plan are they going to build a permanent bathroom so that way it'd be it's more feasible and and more uh human humanity uh i should say uh less humiliating whatever words you want to use so that way these residents have got a place in which that that is respectful of them living there as opposed to porta potties because i don't know about you but porta potties are are not a real great thing and especially when you're talking that area you're talking about going through the summer time is that are those going to be closely monitored closely watched or in the summer time are they going to

1:44:37 be so disgusting that they're going to be not using them and using them in the neighborhood using the neighborhood things that's just a question i don't expect you to have the answer no it is i am actually thinking about how the overnight parking program currently operates i know those are in residential areas like right or churches right or you know you've got to um the units are right next to residences right if you want to lean on that how many people are in those overnight parking areas compared to this camp so it's a big difference so i mean just i'm just raising these i don't necessarily expect you to have answers and full explanations because i just really don't expect that but it's something that i think needs to be answered in the future um near future um second is that you

1:45:24 mentioned rules and there was and i totally agree someone else i think uh merrily mentioned those those rules so are they going to be shared with the neighbors so they know what the rules are and they don't have to guess if whether someone is going to be violating them or not violating rules that don't exist that they may think is in their head should exist so that should be majorly communicated with the neighbors so that that starts that that you don't have an automatic conflict secondly along with those rules that should be communicated with those neighbors is to who their contact person is so they can contact that person instead of calling our police department this is not a place where our police department should be getting involved with but i can see the neighbors call them hey they're violating these rules police and the police are going to go up well

1:46:09 you know uh let's let's head that off okay uh second it would be is you know i know you sent they sent out 47 letters and it's in the perimeter and that's our connecting properties are they going to say okay well let's go across the street from this property to the to literally the neighborhood as opposed to as opposed to connected properties because you have a person that's living right here next to the property but they got a neighbor right across the street they can be just as affected as by by them being a neighbor property so i would like to see that expanded so it's a ribbon of properties around it as opposed to the border that makes sense and then uh three is hit um so is is there a hard date do they even

1:46:56 have a hard date of when they expect to develop that property into permanent residences and and before you answer that because i know you go through dim and so that's going to be you know the i'm just looking for a projected date and i know you mentioned december as as part of the funding so i would like to know if that development date or actual shovel in the ground date where they're going to have to find residences where mary lee is talking about transition i'm very concerned about that because if all of a sudden you have a date coming up and say yes you can go ahead and build how long is going to take the organization to say okay well we want to build but we got all these people right here and we don't have a place to put them so we're going to delay building and

1:47:41 then which raises my next question the next question would be is that if the um you mentioned you mentioned that there you know again we want a heart i would like to know what a hard date is what they truly plan on developing that property which i think would be a fantastic fantastic thing because uh developmentally uh challenged folks i mean it's a it's an unserved population that really we need to help and they need to we need to get some roofs over their heads and get these people some help and and so they can live with a little uh you know they can live um so now we're talking about the funding which you're talking about runs runs on in december you did mention and you use the word specifically possibly they will pay

1:48:26 so we don't know and so if the county is not going to pay if they they may say no we're out of funds and the uh the organization says we don't have them right now because we want to develop this property so where's the city at are we going to be on the hook all of a sudden because it got built and the the money's left and now we have the bill there's there's nothing or or do we kick them out i mean i don't know and i don't want to be in that position that's like senate bill 1145 with with state prisoners they said we're going to pay the counties to keep the prisoners there for the first year of their incarceration they paid their rent for the first couple years and all of a sudden rent money went out and now the the counties still have to house state prisoners for no

1:49:11 no money so is that's a problem for me and i'm not saying this is a prison i'm just saying for the for the project so but the understanding it's we need to know these things to need to to see if we're going to literally be on the hook are we going to be the bad guy and saying we're not paying for this and we're going to kick all these people out i don't want to be in that position we got enough problems we hear from enough people that are upset so that brings me to um when you said we will figure that out later really brought me some when with counselor woodrow's question in regards to that transition when you said that the the counter taking the stance of we will figure this out later really bothers me

1:49:57 we should have a very clear plan and if we're in a position where we will figure something out later then i cannot support this let's figure it out now that's where i'm at okay don't don't take it personally those are just very i think what you do is i your name is amazing you don't have some thoughts i guess some of those points um if there's um yeah i can certainly share the concerns around porta potties um rules communication um i then contacting the neighbors certainly um i think those are again like you know right now the property owner is saying we're trying this and mainstream i think um recognizes

1:50:43 that they would be an example for the city to say like we need to make sure this goes well here um to show others that it can go well so i think they recognize the position that they're in and they're willing to sort of be that um i think a couple questions and i i say this um sort of this question about what happens sort of at you know i think right now the the program is geared around kovid ideally you know is there a need for sheltering in this way after december i don't know um cross our hearts like no hopefully not um so a i think that's where the december kind of is is trying to align with maybe covet in that sense um mainstream has stated they're like

1:51:28 four or five years out from actually developing the site um they just want to make sure how they start with the dim to make sure they're on point to say like if we start to do something now will it be in line with what we want to do in the future um i think it's an interesting question of what do we do when this program ends um where where do people go um right now they don't have a place to go so is it is it what does that mean to give them some place to go for eight months and then and right now maybe not know where we're gonna be in eight months is kind of yeah we don't know where we're gonna be in eight months but right now people also don't have a place to go and so i think that is where the willingness um to set something up and give us time to sort of figure out what to do in the

1:52:14 end rather than not set something up or or wait but so i think that's where the intent around being okay with the discomfort is but i understand that not everyone is there and that's that's understandable leonard did you have your hand up yes i did thanks um so um aaron is there a hard dollar figure that the county is in for on this project yeah i don't actually know what the cost for um actually operating each site is i know they spent close to a million dollars in buying the shelters themselves um i think there's 120 shelters they bought but i don't actually know what the cost um for providing services is

1:53:00 yeah and would that um would would the county's uh commitment sunset at the end of the year i mean is it is their alignment is actually with how much they think that they've received and when they think it's going to run out i think as line is i don't think it's so much they've they're juggling a few different sources and so it's it's hard for them to give me a you know tell me what the you know tell me what the rules are um um so i think it's a little i think they're estimating to either run out of funds or kovitz no longer thing at the end of the calendar year um i i think joe is expressing a really valid concern that we run out of money and then we have to kick everybody out so i was wondering if it would be possible to take whatever funds we have and

1:53:45 allocate them in such a way that we can handle the transition as well i mean would it be possible to make it a less ambitious project that would then not sunset and would actually handle the transition um for the people that were that were living there into more permanent housing that's a great question i can certainly throw that to the county i will say at some point i'll be coming back to you all with a question about additional covid relief funding that the city has received and not allocated um and we can certainly discuss um the the need that we still have in this community and where you all would like to place it um

1:54:32 the the other the other question i had is mainstream housing um going to be contracting out the construction and the uh whatever plumbing and whatever electrical is going to be new for this project yeah would would they hire locally would they be hiring springfield people you know i don't um i don't know i don't know the answer to that um i mean because i know that it's sort of an ongoing sore spot for our our construction companies and for our plumbers and our electricians if it if it's contracted out outside of town and sometimes outside of the county as well

1:55:18 letter are you done i'm done thanks joe so i think that's come up before i think uh counselor mo had except head up hand up before i did is that did i see that actually i've been waving waving it for quite a while here yeah go once let steve go on our way and we're going we're going with steve okay it's very simple we need this we have a population that needs this housing i want to satisfy the neighbors around there and i want to build it i want to do it figure it out that's all i have to say thank you gosh that kind of threw me through a loop and you said that steve i thought i had a actual um i did have a good question dang it oh no yes um leonard when you're talking

1:56:03 about that i believe in and i think actually would like to see mary b jump in that's come up before is where i don't believe we can we're in a position in a driver's seat to be able to recommend and or require any type of how anything is sourced in regards to construction because then that would put people at a disadvantage and potentially at a put us in a liable position so mary bridget i think i think we've talked about this before and probably ought to just go ahead and let that be known so we are all aware of that and it doesn't come up anymore um are you asking about uh whether we can require local sourcing for construction contracts like

1:56:50 this yeah for anything anything that springfield has the uh there's in the driver's seat on in regards to a project and public funds i'm gonna see go ahead christina there is a dormant commerce clause which is the inverse of the commerce clause that the federal government sets the regulations for interstate commerce the dormant commerce clause is the idea that states are limited and how they can interfere with interstate commerce so there are limits on the ability to specify by local um i think we would have to do more research on how that would apply specifically in this situation but that is always

1:57:35 something to be aware of thank you christina so i'm hearing a lot of questions but definitely a yes a yes and okay i'll circle back with the team um and follow up with um counselor pictionary what some of your um concerns there were but then um thinking about broadly there it is a program and if there are multiple sites like how do we as a city want to respond to those multiple requests and i and i think that's the really big question and i think mainstream has got the right sense that

1:58:20 how this goes is going to really be def decide how the model what the model looks like yeah right like it's really it's really important that that we get this right sort of go slow to go fast here before we get before we say talk about it broadly uh i think corey and then joe just on the just on the heels because i know we've been chatting about this to what you just said sean i think if when we think about that as opposed to thinking about how many rules and regulations can we put on this how about how few so that we're actually setting it up to be successful as opposed to setting expectations expectations so high

1:59:06 because we can adjust it see what actually happens as opposed to making it like putting a lot of barriers on is actually getting it off the ground that's well i want to get it off the ground and i'm not trying to throw up any barriers what i'm really trying to do is is if it's predictable it's preventable and if we want if we want to head off any potential issues and not make this a negative impact and then circle back around and try to make it non-negative people are going to remember the bad stuff i guarantee you that and so what i'm trying to do is i like this program don't get me wrong what i want to do though is i want to get this going and that we head off potential issues so it

1:59:53 is welcomed in the community in the neighborhood and we have something that says hey see look we can make it happen but we should do we should have this process and do it this way otherwise we don't know we're gonna have and i frankly don't like jumping off cliffs where i don't know if i can't see the bottom i mean that's all i want so don't misunderstand me i'm ready to jump i just want to see the bottom merrily just just to throw in two cents the panel discussion that we had on at hsc this morning all addressed um the successes that they've had with this and it has been um around the organization of whatever service they were offering but it was um it was in line with both what cory

2:00:40 and joe are saying simple as much as possible so that we're not turning people away because they're confused or because they're intimidated so we don't want that to happen but at the same time we want the perimeter set so that everybody knows where they are and how do we adjust them how are we flexible with them so that they work and that was their their their description of successes this morning revolved around those those two things yeah and and i hear and i hear sort of support across the board from the council here like that yes and you know hey you some questions about the operating plan so i want to make sure we all leave you know leave the meeting kind of nod in our heads that you know yeah there's some questions but in general we want to go forward yes all right anybody else

2:01:30 okay um mary bridget do we need to decide is was that by aaron or did you have a question that's a [Laughter] um our last interview did they do we have them i don't think they're good yeah it sounds like they weren't able to reach him my suggestion would be you're in a work session tonight so you wouldn't be able to take official action on with regard to his um application i would keep him in the pool for your deliberation on march 1st we'll try and figure out in the meantime if there was some extenuating circumstance or something happen and have more information for you but um and we'll do that and have more information for you before march perfect i think that's it for the

2:02:15 evening thank you everybody i'm gonna join us have a great night good night