Springfield City Council — March 15, 2021

0:02 Joe about 2 seconds to get back on and then we can catch up. Um Hello, Joe. I'm going to call us to order with roll call. Mayor Vin Gordon Here. Councillors Pitts Moe Here. Rodney Here. Starr Here. Woodrow Here. And Pishionery Here. All right, it looks like we have one item tonight, the development code update project. That's the quarterly check-in with Mark Rust. But Christina always likes to remind me that we have to do a conflict of interest. So uh statement before we talk about this. So Christina, can you help us with what we got to do?

0:48 I'd be happy to, Mayor. So um before any item where councillors have an actual or potential conflict of interest, you are required under state law to disclose whether you have an actual or potential conflict of interest. Um with the development code update, because the code amendments have not been formally initiated, at this time you're just providing recommendations to staff for the project, and so you can only have a potential conflict of interest right now. Because this project will affect all residential property in Springfield, we have an opinion from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission staff that all councillors who own residential property in Springfield would have a potential conflict of interest. You may also have potential conflicts of interest if your recommendations on the

1:33 development code project could have another type of financial benefit or avoiding a financial burden for you or your close family members, such as a spouse, in-laws, parents, siblings, children, um or those of your spouse. I'm happy to answer any questions, otherwise you can declare potential conflicts of interest. Does Does have any questions? All right, I'm going to go first. Um I have a potential conflict of interest because I'm a homeowner in Springfield and if we can just go ward order, that would be great. So, Steve? Uh I have a potential conflict of interest cuz I have a residence in Springfield.

2:21 I guess it's me. I have a potential conflict of interest as a homeowner in Springfield. I have a potential conflict of interest as a homeowner in Springfield. No ex parte contact as of yet. I have a potential conflict of interest as a homeowner in Springfield. I do have a same potential conflict of interest. I have properties in Springfield and I have no ex parte contact. All right. Perfect. Um then Mark, we will turn it over to you and you can take us through this. Great. Uh thank you, Mayor and counselors.

3:06 And you can all hear me okay? Yep. Head nods, great. I'm going to um share my screen as well. I have some slides to present tonight. And let's make sure this works. Hopefully, you can all see my screen there is um also. So, I'm Mark Rust, senior planner with the City of Springfield. I'm the project manager for the Springfield development code update project. We've been working on this um since late 2018, so almost 2 and 1/2 years. Is Is that right? I think so. Um I was last in front of the council giving you a quarterly update on October 5th of 2020, last year.

3:53 At that time, we were still working with the state on the draft uh administrative rules for implementing House Bill 2001, which I'll talk some more about tonight. The House Bill 2001 is the middle housing legislation that was adopted by the um state in 2019. And the City Council subsequently directed staff to fully implement House Bill 2001 into the ongoing code update project. I also provided counsel on January 5th of this year, more recently, a communication memo um going into detail about the adoption of the final administrative rules

4:40 adopted by LCDC, the Land Conservation Development Commission, um for the implementation of House Bill 2001. I was on the Rules Advisory Committee at the state level for helping develop those rules, as well as one of the Technical Advisory Committees. Sandy Belson, our Comprehensive Planning Manager, was also on another one of the Technical Advisory Committees for the rule-making process. I also in January, January 20th, I met with the Governance Committee for this project. That consists of two councilors, Mayor Ben Gordon and Councilor Moe, as well as two of our Planning Commissioners, um Councilor or Commissioner McGinley and Commissioner

5:26 um Bergen. So, the Governance Committee is was formed at the initiation of the project through the community engagement plan to um receive feedback from the elected and appointed bodies in a more unofficial form to provide guidance. At that time, we were pursuing guidance from the Governance Committee on the direction for implementing House Bill 2001 and how it impacts or relates with our comprehensive plan. And so, that communication memo goes into detail about the options that we were pursuing, and the option we recommended is and the option that the Governance Committee gave direction on was to um include what

6:13 we call bridge language into the comprehensive plan. This bridge language concept was also um in line with the direction we received from our local technical advisory committee that's been formed on the housing phase of the project. And in addition to the recommendation from the Department of Land Conservation and Development themselves, who we've been coordinating with. So, all of that input has has brought us to a point where we're nearing completion of a revised housing draft code. Um it's multiple code sections. As most of you will recall, back in February of of 2020, so a little over a year ago, we released some draft housing

7:00 codes to the public for public input in anticipation of what we thought the administrative rules were going to be from the state. And we realized in when they adopted finally in December of 2020, LCDC adopted the final rules. We didn't quite hit the target exactly, so we've had to go back and revise those draft housing codes. So, we've been working on that as well as the phase two of the project, which is the employment lands phase, which deals with the commercial and industrial lands. So, I'm going to go into some slides and talk more about housing. You had a copy of these slides in your packet, so hopefully you had an

7:45 opportunity to pre- preview them. I'm not going to read this purpose statement. This is the overall purpose of the large code update project that was adopted um or approved, I should say, through the planning commission as part of the community engagement plan. And then these are the objectives that are also in that community engagement plan. So, I mentioned House Bill 2001 and it was passed by the state in 2019. Um there were rules developed to implement that legislation and those rules were finally adopted December 9th of 2020. We've been working to implement those rules into the code update for the the housing sections. The

8:30 in terms of just some a little bit of brief background or reminder of what is middle housing, the the legislation defines middle housing as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and cottage clusters. There's different provisions for different size cities. Springfield is considered a large city. Um there's also separate provisions for medium-size cities. Um but what the rules and the legislation says about large cities is that we must allow duplexes on every lot or parcel that allows a detached single-family home in a residential zone. And then so duplexes are treated

9:15 differently from the what are sometimes referred to as the higher middle housing types, which are the triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and cottage clusters. So, for those higher middle housing types, we're required to allow those and what the legislation says is in areas. And so that term in areas was used in the legislation and was left vague. And so it was attempted to be defined on what that meant through the rule-making process. And I'll get into that in a little bit. And just to give you some visuals on what the different housing types might look like. Um these diagrams or figures are out of the state model code that was

10:00 developed through the rule-making process. So we've And these are kind of open-source code or diagrams that we can use in our draft code. Um so but just to give you some representative examples, this would be a typical duplex. This would be two units on one lot. In this case, they're showing as two attached units. Here's another example where they're attached via the garage sharing a common wall. Another option that's built into some of the implementation language is that you could have um an option to have detached units still be considered a duplex. And the difference is that it's two units on one lot. They would not be on their own

10:45 separate lots. This diagram represents a vertical orientation of two different units. And here's a detached orientation. So depending on And I'll get into a little bit of it or you may have read about it. There's two different ways of implementing the standards. One would be through the um minimum development standards. And those are really the the minimum a city has to do to implement the rules or the legislation. And then there's the model code which a city could just adopt wholesale if they chose. Um that all the standards are pre-established and are found by the state to meet the objectives of the legislation. The

11:31 flexibility of allowing two units to be detached on one lot and be considered a duplex is flexibility that's allowed in the minimum development standards, but is not built into the model code. The model code is a little more rigorous in that respect in that it requires to be a duplex for them to be attached. It's similar with the other housing types, um the attached versus detached configuration. This is a detached configuration that they go back into a deeper lot, maybe not side by side. So, similarly, a triplex is three units on one lot. These could potentially be detached as well if a city wanted to implement that flexibility.

12:16 These are side by side. These are three units represented kind of going backwards on a lot. And then a fourplex is four units on a lot. These are kind of a stacked and side by side configuration of four units. And then here's kind of a detached fourplex, again with flexibility. It almost looks more like the the cottage cluster configuration, um but they're detached four units on one lot. Mark, I have a quick question. Sure. One tax lot, two houses. How do finance companies handle that? You know, you borrow to buy to buy a house. How does that work? Yeah, I'm not a finance expert or even very knowledgeable in that respect. I don't know the answer to that question. We

13:01 could We do have on one of our technical advisory committees, um a person that works in the mortgage industry. I could pursue that question a little bit with our technical advisory committee. There must be some solution. I'm just trying to know what it is. Cuz you buy a house, you know, the land's attached to it. And uh Right. So, how does that work? Okay, thank you. Yeah, I I think typically in that case you wouldn't be able to sell the units separately. They would be you would have to sell the two units together on one lot. But if you didn't own both of them. Well, okay. Well, that'd be the same thing as a condominium, basically. Right. You can go through the condominium process. Um and there there are some examples even in Portland recently of eight, you know, we allow ADUs, accessory dwelling units

13:48 Yeah. on lots where somebody in Portland actually condominiumized just one ADU in their backyard so they could sell the airspace within the ADU separately from the land. You know, that's what a condominium is. You don't own the land. You just own the airspace within the structure. All right. Thank you. Mhm. All right. So, then moving on to a couple Oh, were there more questions? Yeah, I just just sort of a follow-up just because my understanding is part of what I might be jumping the gun, but it's because of Councillor Mosi's comment, that part of the thinking about the different definitions of a duplex would be so that within the code, whether it was attached or detached, it would still be treated as a duplex, which I'm thinking that

14:35 would influence the access to financing, but I could be making that up. Yeah. And I'll just mention I think that's a great point. Thank you, Councillor Ryan. And I think just I'll mention that some of the flexibility it's easy to think about these developments as kind of a greenfield development where uh you have a vacant lot and you want to build a duplex or triplex. But through the rules making process it was also considered that a lot of this could be infill where somebody has an existing house and they say have enough lot area to add one or two more units to create a duplex or triplex. But the configuration of the lot is such that structurally they might not be able to attach those new units to the existing house.

15:21 So, in terms of preserving some of the existing housing stock, that tends to be a lot of the affordable housing stock is existing housing stock. Um so, you can add units without necessarily having to have them be attached, if that makes sense. This diagram here is representative of town homes. Now, this looks a lot like maybe what a triplex would also be. It some of the rules do get a bit confusing between duplex type or housing types. Um town homes versus triplex or fourplex might look on the ground identical, but be treated differently. The difference with the town homes is these are each unit is on their own lot. So, there's zero lot

16:06 line attached single family homes, each one being on their own lot that you could sell separately. Um let's see here. So, the original lot you would divide up legally, is that what the what would happen? Correct. Okay. And I'll just take the opportunity here to briefly mention that there's actually some draft legislation right now in the current legislative session being contemplated to allow um some of these middle housing types to be so to be divided onto their own individual lots. So, for instance, if somebody built a duplex and then this new legislation would allow them to divide that duplex, so each unit was on

16:52 its own lot. We don't know what how that will result, um but that is being talked about in Salem right now. This is an example of the cottage cluster um housing type. I'll just roughly mention that or quickly mention that the the legislation itself provided a definition of what cottage cluster housing type meant. It's the only housing type that the legislation itself, that the house bill itself provided a definition for. The rest of them are provided defined by rule. The cottage cluster housing type has three primary characteristics. One is the bill said it has to be at least four units per acre, so that's a density

17:37 requirement. From City of Springfield's density threshold standpoint, that's a pretty low density, so it doesn't set necessarily a very high bar or anything for density, but that is in there. The second provision is that each cottage can only have a maximum of a 900 square foot footprint for each unit. Mhm. So, the idea is a cottage is a smaller unit. Now, the footprint doesn't mean the overall building size. They could be two stories, so 1,800 square feet if they were 900 on each floor. The other thing that rules did in defining what footprint meant was they um discounted an attached garage. If it allowed up to I forget the square

18:23 footage number, I think it was either 200 or 400 square feet of an attached garage to not count towards that 900 square foot footprint size. And then the third thing, the third element of cottage cluster housing type is that they would be developed around a common courtyard. And so that's really the cluster part of the housing type is that they are clustered around this common courtyard idea. So, um I mentioned the two different paths for implementing. There's really and all this stuff that I'm talking about is really more complex. I'm giving a very high-level overview, but the minimum compliance standards are the rules written into um the Oregon

19:10 administrative rules, the standards that a city hears either the most you can do or the least you can do. It sets the sideboards for how a city can establish um these housing types. Um I mentioned the in areas term. And so, it's different for duplexes. Those have to be allowed on every lot or parcel where these other higher middle housing types for all intents and purposes, the rules define the in areas term as everywhere on every lot or parcel zoned residential that allows detached single-family homes except for these three things: goal protected lands, and those are statewide

19:56 land use planning goals. So, that might be um you know, landslide hazard areas or hazard goal protected area or something like that. There's a second provision for master plan communities. That section is pretty complex and Springfield doesn't do a whole lot of master planning. Although, we do have Mary Kolo Meadows, which that would apply to. And then, the third area that's kind of um allowed to not necessarily have middle housing intensively as other areas are federally regulated land. So, that might include flood plains, for instance. It's um there's federal law regulating flood plains. Hey Mark, um this is Leonard. I um I was wondering if um

20:42 these definitions have been established in court decisions or whether this is just commonly understood. So, I would say um primarily these Well, and I don't want to speak from the legal aspect. Christina might want to chime in at some point on that, but I would say they're defined in rule. And to the extent what's meant by, say, goal protected lands, I would say that's fairly I don't know if commonly understood is the right term, but it's already established in state law what that means. I I was getting what I was really getting at was whether that language that says in areas in the legislation means these three specific categories or whether there might be other categories

21:28 that are not allowed. Yeah, so no that itself was defined in the rules. So now Oregon administrative rules define what in areas means to be three things specifically. That's what I was asking. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, great. Good clarification. Um So there is the kind of a it was talked a lot in the rule making process about being kind of a outlet or a another way if a city didn't want to allow um the housing types in conformance with those standards we just talked about. And there's this alternative performance standard a city could choose. I'm not going going to go into great detail about this because we

22:15 did some quick analysis early on when they proposed this in the rule making and basically it doesn't really work for Springfield. And I could elaborate on that, but what is allowed in the minimum compliance standards um and I'm going to use the triplexes and fourplexes as examples is a city can limit triplexes to lots that are 5,000 square foot in size or larger and limit fourplexes to 7,000 square foot size lots and larger. When we analyzed how many of those lots we have in Springfield, compared it to these percentages if we went with these percentages, we would be allowing these triplexes and

23:00 fourplexes on more lots than we would have to limiting just to the 5 and 7,000 square foot lot sizes if that makes sense. Um the next slide is a map that shows some of this analysis. This was provided in your packet and it gets kind of complicated because then it gets divided up into census tracts and there's some equity concerns. I'll just mention here that a lot of the rules um and implementation of the legislation really focused on the equity concerns in housing and making sure that there were opportunities for these middle housing types in all areas of a city that they weren't just put in one part of a city or in certain neighborhoods within a

23:46 city, but really that they're allowed everywhere practically. The model code on the other hand is kind of a second way of implementing the rules is it serves two purposes. One is if a city maybe doesn't have the capacity to develop or modify their own rules, a city could just adopt wholesale this model code. It's kind of the standalone section of draft code that the state wrote for a city to take and implement. Um alternatively, if if a city did does not um modify their own rules by the deadline of June 30th, 2022, that's for large cities, which we are a large city,

24:33 then the model code gets directly applied to that city as kind of a um disciplinary way to force a city to implement middle housing. Leonard. Thanks, Sean. Um so, would the standards that the large city had to adopt on its own have to be at least as stringent as the state standards? So, they would have to meet the minimum compliance standards. And I'll just give an example how that's different than the model code. So, the the 5,000 and 7,000 square foot lot sizes I just talked about for triplexes and fourplexes, those are the minimum a a a city has to allow triplexes at least on all 5,000

25:18 square foot lots and fourplexes on at least all 7,000 square foot lots. If we try and do adopt our own regulations that only allow triplexes on 6,000 square foot lots, the state would say, "No, that's not in compliance." And it defaults to the model code. The model code allows even more housing. They say triplexes and fourplexes are allowed on any lot that allows a detached single family home with no lot size limitation at all. Similar to how the duplexes are. I I got 5,000 is the minimum for a duplex and 7,000 for triplex. So, have you got the square footage for the quads and townhomes and cottage

26:04 clusters or is there is there a model code for that? Well, it gets a little more tricky for some of the different housing types, but so the townhomes is an average of 1,500 square foot for all of the townhome lots that you do in a townhome development with the minimum lot size for a townhome being 1,000. And then the cottage cluster is even more complicated yet. It's basically there's no density applicable other than that really low minimum of four units per acre that I mentioned. You could do if you can fit 20 cottages on a half an acre, there you know, there's no limitation or lot size.

26:51 Okay. Thank you. And again, all this I'll just reiterate that all this tends to be a little more complicated than I'm making it. I'm not getting into all the really specific details. Um I I will mention that January communication memo did provide you a copy of the actual rules and the model code. And in addition, in that communication memo was a comparison table that kind of lined up the model code side-by-side with the minimum compliance standards and showed what the differences were. So, I would refer you to that table. Is it Is it fair to say some of the rule making is being driven at the state level by a desire to make sure that

27:38 cities understand that the state's serious about this? Absolutely. So Yep. No, go ahead. Finish your thought. I was just going to say um the rules are done and complete and it was a year-long process and there were of you know, there were 30 plus people on the rules advisory committee from all different um representative groups and interests around the state, but I would definitely say there was it was the legislation was written with the intent that the model code would directly apply to a city to avoid a situation similar to kind of what happened with the ADU legislation in the not-too-distant past where if a city didn't do what the legislation said,

28:23 there was no real repercussion for a city. So, they fixed that and they made it punitive that if a city didn't do it, they would this code would apply directly. So, the I guess the comment that I have is like some of the actual details I'm a little less concerned about because it's probably more in line with how we historically have thought about uh housing in the city that, you You you own a piece of property, we need to be as flexible as possible to let you develop that piece of property. Right. Um and, you know, it just seems like we're we keep working towards, you know, just simply letting people have more options to pencil out projects on their piece of property, and that good is going to give us more doors. Right. One of the attachments attachment um three in your packet for tonight's

29:09 work session shows kind of I call it a spectrum of options for how a lot of these standards could be implemented. And so, I used this spectrum of options, and I can put it up on the screen here in a minute. I just have a few more slides. Um But up in working with the housing technical advisory committee at the local level here for Springfield in drafting the revisions to the housing code we are looking at, you know, where Springfield should be more flexible or where we might be a little more stringent in terms of using the minimum compliance standards versus the most flexibility possible. And I'm open to conversations about all

29:54 those elements. I'm going to just try and get through the rest of these slides and leave plenty of opportunity for additional conversation with the um by the council. There's the difference between siding standards and design standards, and those are a lot of the provisions that are in that spectrum of options that I talked about. There This is really where the state says, "These are the most kind of stringent requirements you can require." Um it parking is a big one for siding standards. And then for design standards, I would say the big one is kind of the aesthetics. What's the most you can regulate in terms of requiring a housing type to have different aesthetic values. You know, all this these standards are

30:42 put under the guise of unreasonable cost and delay. And that is a term that's in the legislation. And what they're really trying to say is there should not be any standards that cause unreasonable cost and delay in allowing middle housing to be developed. And what they mean by it or how it was really ended up being defined was unreasonable cost and delay as compared to how we allow single-family detached homes. So really for the most part they want these middle housing types to be as easy to develop as detached single-family homes. And in almost all the exact same places. So it's kind of a level playing field whatever of these

31:28 housing types you want to build. This is an example for the townhome design standards that for each townhome so there's four townhomes represented here. Um each one would have to have one of these design features. So you can require some aesthetic um implementation of features for townhomes. This shows all the variety of different types that you could um require. And let's see. Oops, I skipped a slide. I'll just mention to here that another kind of safety valve that was built into the rules is these

32:15 alternative siding and design standards. So if and this is kind of where that um unreasonable cost and delay comes into play. That uh if because the city can only implement or apply the um siding and design standards that are specified in the rule or in the model code. If a city wants to have a an additional standard that is not in the rule or code, they can propose that, but then they have to justify that standard through making findings according to all these bulleted list of factors. And the state has to um acknowledge that they agree that that

33:00 standard isn't causing unreasonable cost and delay based on these standards. And that I would from my professional opinion and having gone through the rule-making process, they intentionally set the by the the bar fairly high for making the case that there should be additional siding or design standards allowed. Um and that in order to justify it, it's going to be a pretty tough case to make that it doesn't that it meets all these standards. So, this is the project schedule. Um these kind of uh ghosted in bars or dashed in lines and

33:46 bars were the original project schedule when we first started back in 2018. Because of a two primary factors, one is um the global COVID pandemic and also the implementation of House Bill 2001. We have come back to council um back in October and asked for an extension to the project schedule. So, these new extended bars, primarily highlighted in red, are the extended new timeline schedule. Um the yellow bars represent phase one, which is the housing phase of the project. These orange bars represent phase two, which we're already working on, which is

34:32 the employment land phase, dealing with commercial and industrial land. And then phase three, which we anticipate starting as we get towards fall of this year, is what I call the everything else phase, which I talk about in the memo, but there's a lot of other sections that still need to be cleaned up or revised or updated. Um just to briefly touch on the employment land phase, we are I I have a separate technical advisor committee convened locally for the um employment land phase. We've been meeting, going over draft sections of codes for the commercial lands and the industrial lands and some of the development standards. So, that's ongoing. Our goal is for both

35:19 phase one and phase two is by about the beginning of June, in just a few months, we will be releasing and and for the housings um example, re-releasing draft housing code sections to the public for their review. Part of what I'm asking um the council for input on tonight is whether the council as a whole would like to see the draft copies of all the code sections prior to releasing them to the public for their review or if the council as a whole would be comfortable with us taking it to the governance committee for their review or or none of that. Um we're open to your input on that. And I talked briefly in

36:06 the memo about our next steps. We We I am tomorrow giving a similar presentation like this, the quarterly update to our planning commission, and also asking the planning commission tomorrow evening in their capacity as the community uh Excuse me, the CCI, the Committee for Citizen Involvement, to approve the formal revision to the community engagement plan to adjust this timeline that we're looking at to make the kind of formal revision to the timeline to match what you're seeing here. And then I just flipped back to my notes and realized I didn't mention one thing that I wanted to mention very briefly. It is talked about briefly in the memo. And that is this idea that's been presented through the process so far for

36:52 housing related to a deeper affordability. And that would be along the lines of And I'm going to again I use the triplex fourplex examples a lot cuz it's a little cleaner to talk about, but allow and a deeper affordability might be that we don't limit triplexes and fourplexes to those 5,000 and 7,000 square foot lot sizes that we're allowed to limit them to, but that we might allow them on any size lot. And in addition, we may allow more than those number of units. Um if somebody can meet all these siding standards and or design standards, um it could be that we might allow six units on one lot. If you know, the idea

37:39 behind a lot of the rules was that they're trying to encourage smaller unit sizes with the idea that the smaller the unit that the affordability might be better for citizens to either rent or purchase. So, with that, I'm going to stop talking. I'm happy to answer questions or elaborate on anything. I don't I Yeah, they they trying to be open and trying to get people the public to comment on this stuff and there is no way somebody from the public can comprehend this stuff. You give it depending on us, governance committee, or the planning commissioner, or us council to try and do that and I hope we're doing the best

38:25 for the public we can, but and I'll tell you, the real people out there, there's no way in the dickens they they can understand what's going on. Corey. So, respectfully, I still think that we should make sure that we make this as accessible as possible for the public to be involved and I think we might be surprised. I think people are paying attention and people will have some thoughts about it. I could be wrong, but I think we should make space for that. And just just uh this is what I was originally going to say is that I definitely am interested in leaning into that deeper affordability and

39:10 looking at uh ways that we could not put those kind of limits in terms of lot size, this many, because I know there's some creative ways that housing is being built and I got to tour one of them actually on C Street and so I'm I'm really interested in us kind of leaning into that and and looking at that. So, those are my two pieces. Mark, could you clarify for us, right, since they're code amendments, they're required by law to go out for public comment for a significant period of time. There's a pretty stringent process that we have to follow. Then is that correct? That is correct. We will be proposing amendments to our code and we, you know, goal one of the statewide

39:56 planning program is citizen involvement. So, we have, you know, our community engagement plan is what developed and approved by our planning commission with the intent of how we're going to do public outreach. And so there's a lot of facets and ideas built into that community engagement plan. And we're continually working on especially adjusting for COVID and kind of the new um situation we're in with not necessarily being able to do our typical open house where we bring a bunch of people into a room, but you know, working on frequently asked questions, um documents, easy diagrams and things to explain to people. You know, just mention briefly an idea I had is is

40:43 going and riding the LTG bus routes and having flyers to hand out and just sitting on the bus and asking people if they want information on it or being available to explain it to people, but really trying to go out and reach out to people in a way instead of trying to historically have them come to us. But um just getting creative and trying to find ways to reach out and and explaining it in ways that hopefully people can try and begin to understand what's being talked about. Perfect. Thank you. Um any other comments? Um the only other comment that I really had is I was intrigued by the deeper affordability. I would love to learn a little bit more um if that model if like

41:28 works for developers. Um just because there's like two or three requirements that go into it. So, I would love to hear a little bit more back uh to see if that that was something that was workable. And the only other comment that I really had is this is like from a from a housing perspective, this is a pretty broad brush of the entire city. And I would just encourage that, you know, we're not going to see whole neighborhoods change overnight. You know, we're going to see probably a smattering of this happen throughout throughout the city and neighborhoods as people look at their property and try to look for the highest best use for it. Um so, I think that's important to keep in mind. And if I could just elaborate on the deeper affordability really quickly, um Council Rodley mentioned this project on

42:15 C Street and I was on that tour as well. It was it is being built currently and is available for tours. The developer has worked um, quite a while with the city. Um, so technically under the existing rules, it can essentially only be two units on one lot. How we define a housing unit is basically based on the kitchen. So, a house can only have one kitchen. If it has two kitchens, you know, there are houses that have like a canning kitchen or a a wet bar that isn't really a kitchen. And even to dive deeper, when we talk about a kitchen, it boils down to the cooking facilities. That's a stove. Um, cuz people might have a mini fridge and a microwave and you know,

43:00 that's a gray area. Is that a kitchen or not? But so, with all that said, um, this unique project on C Street is is desiring to have six separate units on a roughly, I think it's like a 5,400 square foot lot. So, by our code, if each one of those units is like a studio unit, each with its own kitchen facility, that would be in excess of the density that would be allowed through this middle housing. In this case, it's an affordable housing project. These are income-restricted units. And so, that would be one thing for contemplation and we I can bring back more information on this. I'm happy to

43:45 do a little more research and provide more, but um, it might be that we provide this deeper affordability density type bonus for affordable housing projects only, not necessarily for all housing, market rate housing, or you might have it wide open for any and all housing. So, I mean, those are some things to think about or um talk about in the future. Um but anyway, I'm I'll bring I'll prepare something and and provide it either in a communication memo or bring it back. Corey? Just a just a piece as you're thinking about it. Um I know there's a lot of interest in tiny homes and that type of housing. And for me, um the the sort of

44:30 deeper affordability and the deeper affordability is that because you have more units on a lot, it makes it more And there there in this case, there's basically two separate buildings, but in one, there's four different units. So, it makes it cheaper to build and more energy-efficient and cost-effective. So, that's what makes it more affordable. So, for me, and this is just a bias, like I think tiny homes are great, but I think in terms of like long term, that some of And how these fit in a neighborhood, I think there's some some really exciting things about this kind of building. So, that's another thing that I'm thinking about is like in terms of um the living for the folks who are in those units.

45:17 Great. Yeah, thank you. So, um the only quick question that I had down that I don't think I heard comments to was whether or not we wanted to see draft copies of the code before they went out to the public. And I don't know if anybody wants to share their opinions there. My sense is we probably want to look like have a check-in before we put out have a bunch of stuff out in the public and kind of give it a you know, give it a logic test before it's in the public. Yeah. Go ahead, Marley. I think so. I I think it's important to know what's going to go out. We may not have anything to to battle over or to discuss or anything like that, but it's important to know what's going out and when it's going out. So, I think that as a check-in.

46:03 I have a question. Um, is it possible that some of the homes be required to be have accommodations for those with alternate accessible issues? Um, and so are you kind of talking ADA type accommodations or Yes. Right. Thanks, Counselor Pitts. Um, and and Christina, if you want to weigh in, I think the one thing I'll just say is at least for the middle housing, for the siding and design standards, the way the rules were written, is that in order to justify any standard like that, we would have to go through that alternative standard process that I mentioned. But the other thing I'll mention too is that I think primarily probably what those

46:48 standards would be are more building code related, rather than necessarily planning, but I think it does cross over into both, and I'll defer to Christina if she wanted to say anything from the legal perspective. Thanks, Mark. Um, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires those types of improvements to places of public accommodation, um, and to public facilities, but not necessarily to private homes. I'm not sure the extent to which we could require this, um, in in private housing for sale. But I also because Counselor Pitts, you, um, were not in the meeting at the very beginning, we we do, um, a uh, potential conflict of interest disclosure at the

47:33 beginning of this item. Counselors, um, are always required to declare potential or actual conflicts of interest, but for this project specifically, owning residential property in Springfield is a potential conflict of interest, or counselors may have other potential conflicts of interest related to the code project. So, I wanted to give you an opportunity, if you do have a potential conflict of interest, to also do your disclosure. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that didn't get overlooked. All right. I I get very excited about housing, so you all can tell me to shush. But I I actually really appreciate Counselor Pitts's um bringing that up because I I know that perhaps that is a building code,

48:20 but when we talk about equity, we talk about where is accessible housing in Springfield, I don't know how we start to talk about that or where that goes, but I would be really interested in thinking about that, also, because if we if we really have to if we're looking at we're looking at equity, which in that great map that you have, um where where where does it where do we make sure that folks there is accessible housing for people, whether it's around the walkable neighborhoods and walkable neighborhoods and places where they have closeness or throughout the city. I would love to have that conversation and say, "What do other cities do and how do we do it?"

49:07 And if I may, um Counselor Roddy, I think that's and and Counselor Pitts as well, I think this is a great topic, for sure. And I think I'm a little bit out of my league in talking about it because I think again it is more building code related. Um I don't want to commit any of our building department folks to doing work and so, you know, it might be something you ask the city manager to pursue through a different avenue there, but I I it the the little bit, you know, I have a a little bit enough of a understanding of the building code to be dangerous, and so it I think there are thresholds for, say, when you do certain number of multi-family units in a development that some number of those units do have to provide ADA accessibility, at least. So, my thought

49:54 would be maybe it's possible to get some kind of summary or memo from our building department on you know, what some of the existing standards are, but also potentially how the proceed city might pursue uh future requirements around that. And and from a planning standpoint, I could look at under that alternative standards review, you know, if there's an opportunity to say even just that the whatever how us the pedestrian way from the public right-of-way, the sidewalk um from the public sidewalk to the home, the entrance of a home is there's no change in grade or something

50:39 like that. You don't have stairs, you know, or opportunities. Those kind of would fall under the siding type standards for more planning related. But, whether the door frame is wide enough or um some of those types of things are probably more building code related. And I'm just throwing out ideas off the top of my head, so. All right. Um that was our only item. So, unless anybody's got anything else, I'm going to adjourn us until 7:00. It is the same link, so we'll see you here in 7 minutes. Thank you.

51:34 There were twins in my chair going, "Spin me, spin me, spin me." I uh I'm getting a message telling me that my video can't be started because the host has Oh, okay. There we go. There we go. Never mind. Okay. We're waiting to see Pishin. I got to get the the scratch here. When you're the twins' age, Jenny office is an amusement park. We took them to buy beds yesterday and they proceeded to run like hopscotch across the top of the beds. Only up.

52:23 Yeah, we used to love those um I'm trying to remember what they're called. They uh those um extended stay suites. You know, where they have like three beds in a row. It was amazing. I mean, that was that that that was the best. It It was practically like having a moonwalk inside the place. Yes. AJ, are you ready? Yes, I am. Thank you. So, I'm going to call the Springfield the City Council regular session to order with roll call. Mayor Van Gordon. Here. Councilor Pitts. Here. Councilor Moe. Here. Councilor Rodley. Here. Councilor Stehr. Here. Councilor Woodrow.

53:08 Here. And Councilor Pishioneri. Here. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. As we begin our meeting tonight, I would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us online to please keep yourselves on mute until you are called on to provide public testimony.

53:55 There is one time this evening to for evening designated for public testimony and will be listed as business from the audience. If you are joining us online with a tablet, smartphone or computer and wish to speak during this time, please use the raise your hand option to be called upon to provide comment when the designated time is allowed. When we will call when we will call on you, please state your name and ward or general location for the record. The order of public testimony is as follows. Anyone who has raised their hand and then anyone who has submitted email in advance. If there's remaining time, Neil will read emails into the record. First item, please. Mayor, your first item is the consent

54:40 calendar. I I want to make a motion to approve the consent calendar but I want to mention something before that. One of the resolutions is for a project that the bond we passed a bond measure a couple years ago, $10 million bond measure. This city the public trusted us to build that and this is part of that and I think we've done a very good job and and that's that's part of this. So, anyway, I entertains a motion I'll make a motion to uh approve the consent calendar. Is there a second? I second. Neil, can you call the roll, please? Yes, Counselor Pitts.

55:32 Sorry. All right. Counselor Mo. Yes. Counselor Rodli. Yes. Counselor Stehr. Yes. Councilor Woodrow Yes. And Councilor Pishioneri Yes. Motion passes 6 to 0. Next item, please. Mayor, you have no public hearings tonight. Your next item is business from the audience. Uh we currently have uh hands being raised, so we'll keep an eye on that. But uh we do have folks in the queue if you'd like to start. That would be great. Okay, our first speaker tonight is Amy Cawthorn followed by Dana Herket. And Amy, you should be able to unmute your microphone. Yeah, are y'all able to hear me?

56:18 We can. Great. All right, so tonight I want to keep it pretty short and sweet. First things I want to go ahead and congratulate Councilman Pitts for being on the board. Uh first meeting, uh welcome. Uh next I have a question for the council regarding SPD. Uh as you all know, three pieces of legal action were taken against SPD this week uh in forms of torts lawsuits and whatnot. Uh So, my question is when or excuse me, what what is your breaking point for SPD and Chief Lewis? You know, these lawsuits have shown that

57:03 SPD is not looking out for the citizens of Springfield's best interest or the city council's best interest or honestly from a couple of from the sexual assault allegations or sexual harassment allegations and uh the Scott McKee tort, they're not even looking out for their own people. They've become a chaotic force within this city and you know, what's your breaking point? At what point are you going to say we need major change? Um that being said, I will go ahead and leave you all some time to think on that, to stew on that because I'm sure if you would have heard these

57:48 things happening a year ago, you would have taken action action to stop them. Now that it's here and now, what will you do about it? Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, your next speaker is Dana Herket, followed by Jennifer Potter. And Dana, you should be able to unmute your microphone. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Hi, Dana Herket, Ward 1. Um I'd like to first say welcome and congrats to Councilor Pitts. I am so glad that you're my Ward 1 councilperson, and it's been really refreshing listening to all your recent interviews and insights. So, welcome. Um I would also like to thank this

58:33 entire council for unanimously appointing Councilor Pitts. Thank you for listening to all the public input when making this decision. Um that aside, I'm mainly here to offer public condemnation of SPD and the toxic culture and vile use-of-force problems that continue to permeate this department, especially on the heels of the CLDC complaint filing on behalf of Black Unity. Councilors, have you read the CLDC complaint? It is absolutely appalling. The actions and abuses outlined in it completely fly in the face of Mayor Van Gordon's denouncement of white supremacy and political violence as at his State of the City address.

59:18 And this complaint is just one more illustration that white supremacy and political violence already exist in Springfield, and they are inflamed and protected by SPD, by employees that you are ultimately responsible for. So, this brings me back to the topic of oversight. What does oversight of SPD actually look like? Is there a specific structure or process in place to exercise that oversight? And if there is, why isn't it being used? Why do we have lawsuit upon lawsuit piling up? Why do we have neighbor upon neighbor being irreparably harmed? Why do we have city leaders who aren't acting with more immediacy to work on this?

1:00:04 I've heard at least four of you say that police accountability and reform are high up on your priority list. And frankly, it's time to move past just that sentiment. It's time to move into having the hard conversations about what that actually means and what that actually looks like for Springfield. And I'm hoping that the Rick Brazil report will be out soon, and along with the Kenny settlement and CLDC lawsuit will only further outline all the changes that so desperately need to be made. Thank you. Thank you. Here, your next speaker is Jennifer Potter, followed by Holly Shaper.

1:00:50 And Jennifer, you should be able to unmute your microphone. Hi. Uh my name is Jennifer Potter, and I live in Ward 3. And um I want to echo what the other uh commenters have said. Welcome to Counselor Pitts. It's great to have you on the council. And thank you, council, all of you, for listening to our public comment last time, and for taking a step in the right direction. Really appreciate seeing that. Um so, I'm just wondering what the next steps are in um addressing all of these lawsuits and the problems at the police department. It is our police department and uh I would like to see some changes made as soon as possible. And I'd suggest that maybe you

1:01:36 start by adding an additional city councilor or more than one additional city councilor to the Springfield Police Accountability uh board uh as just one of the starting points. Thank you. Uh Mayor, you're our next speaker and I apologize I forgot to mention we have 50 attendees um and there are three more speakers with their hands raised. Um your next speaker is Holly Shaper followed by Elizabeth Utterback. Thank you. Holly, you should be ready to go. I can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Uh good evening. My name is Holly

1:02:22 Shaper and I live in Ward 2. Um first I want to extend my sincere thanks to all councilors for embracing change and appointing Councilor Pitts. Um it was so wonderful to watch all of you deliberate, discuss, and then include the community in in the decision for the appointment of our Ward 1 representative. I also wanted to say welcome Councilor Pitts. Uh now that council has taken a tangible step towards including more voices in our coming challenges I'm curious to see what comes next. So in the last couple of months I've read about three pending lawsuits as we've heard from other speakers tonight. Um these three lawsuits will fall under our new liability insurance deductible of $250,000 per claim. So they could cost the city

1:03:07 up to $750,000 plus any attorney fees or external investigation fees. Now that's a lot of money especially when we're looking at painful cuts already. Then after reading, you know, a number of prior lawsuits against SPD, including Nickel, Baroni, Umenhofer, McKee, Kenny, Stone, Chaplin, and Beacham, it has really stood out to me how repetitive the complaints are. It seems like this pattern of abuse of current and former employees and excessive force and racial profiling are pretty well established and and heartbreaking. For example, after settling the largest police misconduct case in the in in the state of Oregon's history over the death of Stacy Kenny, the latest sexual harassment complaint alleges training officers told a female recruit that she

1:03:52 must get in bigger fights than men in order to prove her worth and criticized her lack of force on a subject. Maybe instead of waiting to settle yet another lawsuit, we should start making changes now. We already have good places to start. The Kenny settlement was finalized in September of last year. It mandated changes in de-escalation and use of force policies, review and reporting processes, and a critical incident review. Have those been completed? And then, what about the $30,000 Brazil report? What are the those recommendations and when will they be implemented? Additionally, the CLDC lawsuit demands specific policy changes and more external oversight. There are many reasonable changes and we could start to make them now. Finally, I wanted to echo um the last

1:04:38 speaker's idea that we should um you know, charge the Springfield Police Advisory Committee with or assign an a second counselor or more. Um you know, they're technically charged with SPD policy review in their bylaws. They also have unparalleled access to ask respectful but probing questions about the policies and practices of policing in Springfield. Also, given the potential cost of $250,000 for each pending and future lawsuit against SPD, maybe it's time to have more oversight and to bring more viewpoints to that conversation. So if possible, maybe assigning another counselor would do some of that. Thank you.

1:05:27 Mayor, your next speaker is Elizabeth Utterback followed by Jay Smith. And Lizzie, you should be able to unmute your microphone. Thanks Neil. This is Lizzie Utterback from Ward 3. I don't know if you all know, but we can't see you, but I trust that you all are listening. And I'm really excited to address you all now that we have a mayor and a full council. Welcome Damian. Your unanimous appointment shows me this body is ready to move forward with the important changes our city desperately needs. And I'm glad you'll be a part of that work. In the work session, you all discussed ableism and how it's baked into the building codes and I'm so so glad you are considering accessibility and equity in your discussions of housing. Thank you so much.

1:06:13 As you all are probably aware and as others have mentioned, several new lawsuits involving the police department have dropped since your last meeting. I respectfully ask that the gaslighting stop. Please accept what the public has accepted that there's something terribly wrong within our police department and that it must change. The problem is not public perception. The problem is that the police department is harming each other and our community. Likely this stems from lack of oversight, poor management, the employment of unethical officers, none of which will be improved by officers spending more time with community members. So I'm hoping you thought about this and have a plan and that you will comment on some of the things that can be done now. For

1:06:58 example, we hear at almost every single city council and Springfield Police Advisory Committee meeting from someone Um, even tonight checking in on the status of their complaint against SPD. I imagine council can supervise this complaint process. This seems like an easy action you can take today. Um, various police policies appear to be stalled. Do you know the status of the business cards? What are you doing to ensure that progress is made with these? Which, by the way, I have to say that hearing Chief Lewis say concerns regarding his officers' interactions with women as a reason to not institute the business cards has a whole new meaning now with one of the new lawsuits. And where are we out with the body-worn cameras? At the last Springfield Police Advisory

1:07:43 Committee meeting, a member asked that a standing agenda item be added to track the statuses of new policies. And guess what happened next? The meetings were canceled. So, I'd like you to consider having new or additional council oversight for that committee. Lastly, I'd like to know what mandates and recommendations from the community settlement have been implemented. Thank you. Mayor, your next speaker is Jay Smith, followed by what looks like our last speaker, um, going under the name community member. So, Jennifer, you should be able to unmute your microphone.

1:08:30 Thank you. Uh, hello everyone on City Council and Mayor Van Gordon. Um, if I go on Google today and I search for Springfield, Oregon and I click on news, the very first result, the headline reads, "Lawsuit claims Springfield, Oregon police violated protesters' civil rights." This story made national AP news. Um, while I don't find this terribly surprising given the public testimony around SPD's mishandling of the July 29th Thurston protest, this is just not the type of news that I want our city to be nationally known for. I don't think it is what any of you do, either. Um I read this lawsuit

1:09:17 in detail. I I found the new details that were revealed through the previously unreleased SPD body camera footage to be extremely disturbing. And to every single one of you, if you haven't read the complaint in full, I strongly suggest you do so so that we can come from a place of discussing this as a community from an understanding of the facts. The AP article, this news article, which was reprinted by many national news sources, mentions the use of force investigation that the city of Springfield has hired Rick Brazil to complete. Uh as far as I understand it, this report was due at the end of February. Was the report completed and delivered

1:10:02 to the city? What was the result? When will this report be made public? Uh my emails asking these questions have gone unanswered to date. I would like to encourage transparency with the public in regard to this extremely important matter. I'd like to remind you how some cities deal with police misconduct is to investigate and prosecute. treat this extremely seriously and as a matter of reputation and honor for this

1:10:48 city that we're failing at. Thank you. Mayor, your next speaker just has community member as a listing and we did get one additional hand. I'll ask the council if we can add the additional speaker if you would like to discuss that. Thank you. Yeah, I think we're good. Okay. So, the next speaker is community member followed by Kirsten Vineta and community member you should be able to unmute your microphone. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Perfect. Thank you. I am in Ward 4. Thank you everyone that is here this evening and thank you council for

1:11:34 listening to the public comments this evening. I would just like to echo what everyone else has said in regards to oversight with SPD. Um just kind of a brief overview. Um I have tried to Google Chief Lewis. It looks as if he has started with SPD in 1983. He um became interim chief around 2013. At that time it is noted that he indicated he would not be applying for the permanent position. Yet um he became active chief in 2016 and here we are today, 2021, and he is still our same police chief. So, um there are multiple lawsuits that have occurred within his active chief duties

1:12:19 which started in 2016. Um and it just so happens the same officers over and over and over again keep getting mentioned in these lawsuits over and over again. And I would just really appreciate um the council giving some input as to what is going to be done moving forward because it is extremely unacceptable that he is still in the position that he is in with the damage that he is causing the city. And I will yield the rest of my time. Thank Thank much. Mayor, our last speaker is Kirsten Vineta. And Kirsten, you should be able to unmute. Good evening, counselors. My name is

1:13:04 Kirsten Vineta. I live in Ward 2. Um I first wanted to extend a warm welcome to Counselor Pitts. Welcome, Counselor Pitts. Many of us are very excited um that you are in the position you're in. And um related to that, I wanted to offer my sincere gratitude to all of you on City Council who unanimously voted Pitts in for Ward 1 the Ward 1 position. I was so pleasantly surprised and felt that public outcry was heard loud and clear um and importantly that it was acted upon by all of you. And I think that a lot of what we're hearing tonight is that we're hoping that that kind of synergy is going to happen again around issues of policing.

1:13:50 Um I wanted to specifically thank Ward 2 Councilor Moe um for setting a strong tone during the Ward 1 vote in favor of Pitts and also for having a very valuable exchange with me over email about his priorities. And he stated that police culture reform was at the forefront of his list. And I I believe I I firmly believe that he's genuine in that expression. And it kind of makes me curious where the momentum is getting hung up, whether it's, you know, folks on City Council or elsewhere. And as you can sense, a lot of us are kind of growing just frustrated and unsure of why this is taking so long and moving so slowly. These mounting problems, lawsuits, and breaches of trust arising from SPD are not even the elephant in the room

1:14:35 anymore. Like these are issues that have been discussed and brought to the city's attention over and over. Um and I personally think that addressing these issues head on and holding SPD accountable to all Springfield's residents should be each and every one of your top priority. Um, I know that Counselor Mose is on board and I hope that the rest of you also are and will realize that this is your main task if you hope to maintain or regain the trust of many of your constituents and even more importantly with the question at hand uh making sure that nobody else gets hurt or killed because these are actual lives on the line. Um it was so exciting to see you all come together for the greater good

1:15:20 on the evening that Counselor Pitts was elected and I really hope that we will see you all coalesce again around policing issues in Springfield and I trust that that is um something you all are going to put energy towards after hearing so many of us make vocal statements repeatedly. Um thank you so much. Mayor, that appears to be all of our speakers. All right, thank you. Before I open it up for um for any council response that people want to follow, um Mary Bridget, could you give us a little bit of advice just strictly because we've it seems like we got a lot of lawsuits coming up and you know, about how to navigate that conversation. Sure, Mayor. So, this is uh Mary Bridget

1:16:06 Smith, the City Attorney. Um I've been listening to the public comment and I can certainly appreciate that people would want to comment on these issues. I just would recommend to the council that in uh we are looking at pending litigation for some of these matters and I would recommend that this early on in the litigation particularly that the council not make um statements or um comments about the litigation aspect of these claims um here in a city council meeting. It just may not be um the best place to make those comments. Did anybody have any questions about that? Um Leonard.

1:16:51 Um thanks, Sean. Yeah, I I I don't mean to make any comments about the litigation pending. I did want to just say that my understanding is that the Brazil report is due at some point this month. Is that correct? I think Nancy could probably speak to this in more detail, but yes, it is due this month. Yes, thank you. I'm Sorry, I was trying to find my unmute button. Um yes, the we have received draft of Mr. Brazil's report. Um part of the process of of this releasing to the public is doing a fact-check on elements of the report, not making

1:17:36 any changes at all, but for instance, it's a very thorough report. I have read it. Um Mr. Brazil talks about um on the on certain incidents like how many staff responded. There are some technical details on that that we are asking uh SPD to follow up on. Um I also had a couple of questions because Mr. Brazil makes a couple of references in the report um to um actions that happened during the during the time frame that he was reporting on, and I wanted to know what follow-up steps were taken. So, it's just a matter of providing some clarity on some issues that I know

1:18:21 the public has asked about, and I just anticipate that they would ask the council, so I wanted to make sure that they were addressed in the report. Um that is happening now, um and um after we get that done, I would um like an opportunity for the council to read it first. Um and then we would um release it to the to the public. That is my that is my intent. So Nancy, what's the ETA when the count is going to get released to the council? At this point I would say this this week. I um is is enough time. I think it's

1:19:08 I would want to give SPD another couple days. I think that I actually I just um probably Rick on the my phone right now. I just texted him and asked him if he had gotten his last question asked. I think he had one final point that he was getting clarification on. Um so really imminently I would say within the next couple of days. But I really do want this council to have you know, some time to uh read and absorb it. It's about 49 pages long. Yeah, so I would expect that we would have it for a couple maybe a week or two before we even talk about releasing it to the public because I would assume we're going to have questions about it. Yes. I want to be clear though for people that are for council and to people that are

1:19:55 logging in and watching this meeting. We are taking these allegations extremely seriously. I am going to release this report this month to our community. Um it's in in its entirety. Um we will release it on our on our webpage and we will have it available uh for the full community. Um that was my commitment when I commissioned the report from Mr. Brazil and I intend to follow through with that. Thank you. Uh while we have Nancy, could Do you have any more information about the business cards? I know that that keeps coming up and

1:20:43 When I last spoke to Chief Lewis on this issue, um they SPD actually uh was in process of redesigning the cards. Um on the front of the card, it will have the um employee's name and contact information. And on the backside, it it has a small form that enables the officer to write down when would be a good time for a for somebody to contact them back. So, to help with communication. Um I know that Councillor Roddy had in- inquired about um Spanish translation on cards. I'm sorry, my phone's blowing up. And um one So, the cards are going to include on the reverse side a phrase in Spanish that says essentially, "To receive um Spanish-speaking services, call this

1:21:28 number." And there's a number that you can call at SPD where if somebody needs translation services, they can call that number and and get that. Um that seemed to be um the the most efficient way of of trying to make that connection for for people to understand that they have uh the right to receive translation. So. Um and I and I think actually um SPD did talk to uh one of our local uh nonprofits, uh the language So, why am I spacing off their name? Anyway, the the language center here in Springfield um regarding translation and how to approach that. Um and their recommendation was to have have that phrase saying, "Hey, if you need um Spanish um

1:22:15 to have a Spanish-speaking person, please call this number." Down- Downtown Languages. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I'm still learning. I I don't think I can use the new card for this meeting. I have a question for Pepsi. Body cams? status. So, the body cam project um is I I I just signed signed off on the uh quote and the contract for the um equipment. I would need to check in with um SPD as far as when they anticipate delivery. Um I know that the intent was to um be be done by now or at least well on our way to being done. So, I will need

1:23:02 to follow up as far as when we um we um anticipate getting that equipment in. And um it's also important to note that along with the um body worn cameras, we also purchased in-vehicle cameras. Those will need to be installed in vehicles and um configured. Um so, we need to make sure that we have the bandwidth to do that, but uh that doesn't mean that they won't get going and um there's certainly no obstacle to um starting the body worn cameras. Thank you. Councilor Fishery. Um two things that were brought just brought up and I thought maybe I'd throw my two cents worth in uh in regards to now that's with the um

1:23:48 business cards and in answer to uh Councilor Rodley is I think that you know that that's great, but I think in more emergent needs the communication open communication's going to be need necessarily quicker than maybe a phone call later or whatever the contact later and that I would like to see, you know, I know that in uh different police agencies have used the language line services before. Uh something that can be used in the field in regards to a phone call at at that moment. So, if a person's having a problem with a communication barrier, um language services or language line services has got 240 different languages that they can key in on. So, that communication can be set up. The officer can ask the question. They would interpret that to

1:24:33 the other person and back and forth like that right there on the scene instead of that that time break where a person may start having second thoughts about or fears of contacting them later. So, I think that should be looked into. And then uh Councilor Moe, you talked about the the cameras. There was a pretty extensive um council briefing memo that came out in regards to the uh the timelines. And it was very extensive and can answer any question anybody could possibly have in regards to those timelines on when things will be rolling out. Um I was very impressed with that schedule and it's pretty it's actually looks pretty aggressive to me. So, um that was my two cents with that. So, Just wanted to make sure the public knows that it's a serious thing and and it's coming. Yeah. Um councilors, I just want to add um

1:25:20 thank you for the assist from Christina Crutch. She just sent me a direct message um that in the uh the councilor um communication that the body-worn cameras um go live is on the last week of May. That's the time they go live. Thank you, Christina. All right. I don't have a question. I just have a comment. Are we to the comment part? Can I keep commenting? You can keep commenting. I can just keep commenting. Um one, I want to thank folks for coming and providing um comment. I always

1:26:05 appreciate that. And even though we may answer your questions, I absolutely support folks continuing to keep the pressure on because this is important. And I've I've a very much appreciated counselor Moe being very strong as this being his priority and I have also been sharing that this is a big priority for me and I know it's going to take some time. It's taken some time to build the systems that we have to start to pull apart, but that by no means is an excuse and by no means means that you should just trust and let up and just assume that we're doing it. I appreciate the pressure. So I just want to I want to say that. I want to appreciate that you're taking the time to do that and say that my belief from chatting with my fellow counselors that this is a priority, but

1:26:51 speaking for myself it's a big priority and it's going to be a big piece of the coming year and just we're digging in. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Greg. All right. Uh Damien, go ahead. Uh no, uh first of all, uh I just want to say thank you to all the people who uh have been supporting me regardless of never meeting me. Hopefully we'll all be able to cross paths in some shape or form. Uh uh it's definitely humbling experience. I mean, I'm I'm kind of drinking from multiple water hoses right now. Uh so please bear with me as I learn and listen. Uh one thing that I can say is

1:27:36 that I challenge all of us uh all of our citizens of Springfield to think about we can't change police culture until we change the culture of the city as a whole. Now granted, uh this is a great city, uh but the only way we're going to be greater is if we come together and if we hold each other accountable. Uh one thing I mentioned a few weeks ago is that police don't put on a uniform and become these tyrants or whatever you want terrorists if you want to call them. Uh it's something that was embedded in them from either upbringing, from schooling, uh whether it's book or, you know, life schooling. And so, we need, as we think about changing police culture, we need to think about

1:28:21 how did they get there, what is going on, whether in the school systems, whether in the streets, that are making them feel that they can get away with things like this. Uh and I just say that we, hopefully, we can remain vigilant. Uh vigilant, excuse me, I can't speak today. Vigilant uh and safe because, I mean, this is a this is going to be an overhaul that's going to take some time. I mean, you unfortunately, we can't snap our fingers and make everybody uh culturally aware and friendly. Uh but hopefully you know, we'll be able to come together and and make some great things happen.

1:29:07 Thank you, Damien. Next item, please. Mayor and the Next item is business from the city council. Item number one, mayor council committee assignments. And Mayor Van Gordon, this is your item. Uh how that happened? Um all right, so in the packet, you have a new document with um committee assignments in them. Um when I looked at what we were looking looking for, um at first, I had thought with so many new folks, we were going to kind of do a wholesale shifting. Um and this was a a moderately uh scaled shifting. So, what we have if you guys can take a look, I think I've talked to most of you. Um the big change is I changed the format and um

1:29:53 and then I put for places where we had uh alternatives, I labeled alternatives. Um I've added a couple of committees. Um mainly, I've added a fire governance committee, which we're expecting that have happen. And then I've added um a chamber liaison because well, Corey's loves the chamber and wants to go there more more officially. And then I'm going to stop to see if you guys have questions. AJ's making one more addition for me. She's going to send out a copy with the meeting times where everybody's scheduled to meet and the staff liaisons for for a contact place. And then I've left a spot a little bit of extra room to for for a couple folks to meet me is a is a smaller police uh

1:30:39 uh subcommittee because I think by the end by the end of the you know, in April and May we're probably going to need people to help frame up our our road map, our strategy for policy conversations going forward. So, I'm kind of expecting that out there to come to fruition. So, I'm going to stop. Does anybody have questions, concerns about assignments, something that I missed where you're like, "This is terrible." or "This is amazing."? Uh the police committee, I want to be on that. So, remember that. So. All right. So, the next step is AJ's going to send out the addition that's got the meeting times associated to it and the count and the and the staff liaisons. And then AJ,

1:31:26 help me. I think you're communicating with the staff liaisons and they're going to be in contact with everybody. Is that right? That is correct. Yes. I am confirming that the the dates and times that I have are still accurate. Um and so, my goal is to have this to all of you by the end of this week. Perfect. Can I ask a quick question? Sure. So, I have a couple that are are I'm going to lovingly hand off. Um can I just send what I know or do you want me to hold off on that and let AJ take care of it. Can I do a warm handoff of the things I know? Oh, I absolutely. If you want to call whoever's taking them and chat about

1:32:11 what you know and what you do, that would be great. You know, I know there's been a couple changes that you know, like Leonard's had a had a couple changes too. So, if you guys want to call and talk to folks about hey, here's the here's the conversation and where it's going, that's would be absolutely fantastic. All right, AJ I think I think we're done with that one. Neil, next item, please. Uh next item is any other business from the council. Is there any other business from the city council? Yeah. I want to say something. I hear your daughters in the background. That's the most beautiful sound I ever heard.

1:32:57 So. Thank you. I was hoping they were going to keep it down low enough. They were it's a rendition of Frozen if you can't quite hear all the details. They're beautiful. Any other business? All right, next item, please. Uh Mayor, the next item is business from the city manager. Item number one, a resolution affirming a formal interpretation of certain terms and phrases in section 4.3-115 of the Springfield development code case 811-20-000248-type two. Andy Limbird and Christina Kras are here for the staff report.

1:33:48 Yes, good evening. Um Mr. Mayor and counselors, um just let me bring up uh I'm going to bring up some PowerPoint slides that were provided to the planning commission at the time um that this was brought forward. Um, this does pertain to a particular site. Um, it is the sub electric substation in Glenwood. And so the site's located just off of I-5. And there was a site plan, hillside development overlay, and tree felling permit that were was approved for this location and properties running generally to the southeast back in 2019.

1:34:34 The applications were subsequent subsequently appealed to the planning commission and the hearings official because some of them are outside the city limits. After determinations were made by the planning commission and the hearings official, they were appealed again to the land use board of appeals. Um, because of COVID and the number of cases before land use board of appeals, it was only um, just a couple months ago that the uh, LUBA just decision was issued. It did remand the decision to the city and it required a number of elements to be added to this

1:35:21 application for clarification. And so one of them is interpretation of certain terms that were used in the application and also the decision. So just going to bring up a couple of the features that are on the site that were called into question. And among the terms which have been requested for interpretation are water courses, water quality limited water courses, and recreation resource areas. I'll turn it over to Christina. Um and if you want Christina, I can continue to advance the slides as necessary.

1:36:07 Um but it's um she can provide the more technical details on and aspects of this application as they pertain not only to this site, but the broader application uh to Springfield and the development code. Thanks, Andy. So, the um this is a standalone formal interpretation of these terms. SUB applied for this formal interpretation under the development code because of their interest in the other applications that are currently on appeal. But this decision does not directly approve or address any of those applications. They're currently on appeal at the Oregon Court of Appeals. And SUB and the city are anticipating uh

1:36:52 a decision um potentially at any point. So, I did want to clarify that um the result of this decision doesn't directly affect any of those SUB applications that Andy referenced, but they are important context um for why SUB is making this request. The Land Use Board of Appeals essentially interpreted the 2000 and or sorry, the 2016 version of the water quality limited water course map. Andy, if you could advance to that slide that shows the 2016 version. Um this is a version that was shown in the um application for SUB's um substation. And it's hard to see um it's a very,

1:37:38 very large map. It's hard to see all the all of the detail. But essentially in 2016, this uh city's GIS staff updated the water quality limited watercourse map to include new base layer data that would be easier for the public to read. The only version of the map that's adopted by the council explicitly, however, is the version in 2002. Andy, could you go to that map? Uh which is this version. One thing that this version has that the 2016 version does not have is call out um fields with uh specific water quality limited watercourses labeled on the map. And looking at the 2016 version and then reading the code, Luba said that every

1:38:24 body of water as water body is generally what sorry, watercourse is generally defined under the code is a water quality limited watercourse on the water quality limited watercourse map that is subject to strict setback regulations that are intended to protect the city's most vulnerable waters from pollution. Staff sought a formal interpretation to to get the city's approval of the interpretation that staff have been using for this map for the past almost 20 years, which is only those watercourses that are labeled as a water quality limited watercourse and called out with a name on this map are subject to those strict setback regulations. So, other features like non-significant

1:39:10 local wetlands or other items shown um in staff's opinion for reference on the map are not subject to these restrictive setbacks for um really the most um significant pollution issues for the city in terms of fish habitat and and those types of things. The criteria for the formal interpretation uh require the term or phrase to be consistent with the purpose and intent of the code, including the chapter or section to which the term or phrase is related. This term These terms are used in section 4.3-115. Um and here Andy is showing some general detail. You can go to that. This is a difference close-up for this site of the difference between the way it is shown on

1:39:55 um the the current the the 2016 version of the map here and then next page the um 2002 version of the map. And you'll see that the wetlands in Glenwood are actually not even shown on the 2002 version because at that time those wetlands had not been adopted into the city's inventory so they weren't considered part of the base layer layer data. And more specific explanation of this is discussed in the staff report. If there are questions about that, I can answer them. In looking at the criteria in addition to purpose and intent of the code the council can Yeah, Commissioner has got some questions. Yeah, sorry. I can't see Sorry, it was cut off. That that side was cut off on my screen. No, it's all right. Um I really just got

1:40:40 one question. So, to try to reduce this to layman's terms, staff believes that the site as proposed for the substation is compliant with state regulations. Is that correct? What SUB is SUB does believe that. That's more germane to their development application so the council is not hearing. What SUB is asking is for the council to affirm the planning commission's interpretation that there is no water quality limited water course on their site that is subject to restrictive setbacks. Okay. Cuz the low impact water the low impact Sorry, the non-significant wetlands are not subject to those those specific setbacks. Okay, very good. Thank you.

1:41:31 Um I just want to really quickly finish letting you know what the the criteria are. Um you can use legislative history which is discussion the council had at the time. Um the original um map and terms were adopted. Um you're not required to use that. Um and if you cannot use the purpose and intent of the code or legislative history, then you would look to dictionary um definitions. However, there's plenty of legislative history here and the purpose and intent of the code is clear, and so there's no need to do that. Last, I want to let you know that this is not a public hearing tonight, unlike other land use matters that come before you, um because this is under a specific section that allows for review by the city council. Informal interpretations to be on the record only, which means that you are looking at the planning commission's record, which was in your packet, and either affirming or modifying their

1:42:17 interpretation um as you see fit. The reason this is being brought to you is that this is an important issue for the city um as a whole. There are a lot of non-locally significant wetlands in the city, and if this setback was applied to all of them, it would impact um other projects in the city, such as Mark O. Hatfield Meadows. Uh Counselor Kichnerary, you have questions? I do. So, um I am you know, I totally understand what you're saying, and I also was that was one of the first things that came to my mind as to globally speaking what would be the impact on both sides of this argument. And it appears as though it could definitely negatively impact us of going with just the material that we were given without going outside of that. Um

1:43:02 I am a a little bit I'm not sure if I'm disturbed about it or or I'm confused or I guess taken back with a statement in on page 87, where it says, "Given the important practical and policy issues created by Luba's mistaken understanding of the city water quality rules, sub requests that the planning director elevate this application to a type three blah blah blah." So, I don't I mean, that's a statement that says that's that's basically alleging that Lupa is wrong and that they that they misinterpreted that and is that finding a fact or is that their assertion? That is the argument. Staff agrees that Lupa got this one wrong. If that's one of the basis is that the Lupa decision was appealed to the Oregon Court of

1:43:48 Appeals. Um was was the was staff and subs um belief that Lupa did not correctly understand the map partially because the version in the record was the updated 2016 version and not the version that council originally adopted. So they're basically just asserting that they made a mistake. And and that that's why they wanted to bring it to you and they're bringing it to the pallet and and to override Lupa's decision and want Springfield city to um concur with them and support that argument. Yes, essentially. And because the Planning Commission and Hearings Official decisions of what the code means do not get any difference by Lupa. Lupa does not give any weight to what a Planning Commission or Hearings Official

1:44:34 says that the code means, but the City Council as the governing body is given deference to what the code means. And so that's why this decision is being elevated to the City Council to look at. Okay, that's that's I was pretty much that was the gist I was getting is that they need our signatures behind it in order for it to have or carry more weight with the pallet. And Christina, could you and whatever we do with if we approve this tonight this isn't going to end their court case, right? This isn't No, this is information that the Planning at this point that the Court of Appeals process is underway. They've had their oral arguments already. Sub did tell the Court of Appeals that they had sought this request and they've essentially asked the Court of Appeals to remand it back that to the city to

1:45:19 make this interpretation and we're just doing it ahead of getting direction like that. Um this interpretation would be applied by the planning commission or hearings official when those when or if those applications become remanded back to the city to look at again. All right, great. Anybody else have questions? Corey? All right. Are you looking Is we looking for just a head nod? Is that the deal? Well, make a motion, don't we? Well resolution in the packet. Oh, there is a resolution. Yep. Okay. Well, we'll check here. Christina, do you have any more presentation left? Cuz I know we stopped. Okay, great.

1:46:10 Then I'd like to make a motion. Okay, it's over here on the screen, so I'll read it off. I'm looking a motion to adopt or not adopt a resolution affirming a formal interpretation of certain terms and phrases in section 4.3-115 of the Springfield Development Code case 811-20-000248- TYP2. There, I did it. All right. Steve, can you clarify? Right. You said a motion to adopt or not adopt. Yes, it was a Well, it's a motion to adopt. Sorry. Second. What I did is read off the screen. All right, it's been moved and seconded. Um Neil, can you call the roll, please? Yes, Councillor Pitts. Yes.

1:46:55 Councillor Mowen. Yes. Councillor Roddy. Yes. Councillor Steer. Yes. Councillor Woodrow. Yes. And Councillor Picioneri. Yes. The motion passes 6-0. Next item, please. Any other business from the city manager? I do have um one quick item just for one a moment council. I'm extremely proud of um our employees and particularly our internal committee for equity and inclusion. And I just want to give you an update on a decision that we made last week as a result of their work, their input, their research.

1:47:40 Um we had a member of our finance staff uh send us an email um letting us know that um an acronym that we have commonly used in government for many, many years um to describe the comprehensive annual financial report is actually um considered to be a racial um a a derogatory slur in South um in South Africa. And in fact in in South Africa when people use that word um they bleep it out on television. Um it's it's it's censored in that in that way. Um and so there's been an initiative started um by other organizations including the

1:48:26 Government Finance Officers Association to encourage local governments to quit using that acronym for the comprehensive annual financial report. Um it's meaningful because this report is really foundational to a lot of the other work that we do. Um it is part um our budget um uses information for it um other agencies when they want to research the city um often um reference that report. And so when our staff member um sent this out to the rest of the diversity committee um and the staff member was um Sam Kelly Petrocci. He sent that out to our committee. Um immediately our finance director Nathan

1:49:12 Dell responded and said um that we would no longer be using the acronym for the comprehensive annual financial report and we would from from here on fully state the name of the report in all of our communications. Additionally, we will be encouraging any contractor that works on that report to also reference it in the same way. I'm just really proud of our staff for bringing that to our attention. I'm proud of our finance director for He didn't He didn't ask me. He just immediately made it happen and that's the exactly the kind of culture that I want in this city where our employees feel empowered to bring up issues and

1:50:00 you know, this was an easy one and we just did it right away. So, I just wanted to let you know that in the future, you will not hear us use that acronym. We will instead be using the the full name and I encourage you to do likewise. Thank you. Thank you for that update, Nancy. Next item, Neil. Mayor, the next item is business from the city attorney. We have one item, the annual statement of economic interest SEI filing and Mary Bridget Smith is here for the staff report. Good evening, Mayor and Council. This is a just a brief reminder item for the statement of economic interest which is due on April 15th. This is the filing

1:50:47 you do at the Oregon Government Ethics Officials Commission on a yearly basis to list out business associations and gifts and honorarium and other financial information. City councilors along with other elected officials and some public officials such as the city manager and I believe the municipal court judge also file an SEI along with the planning commissioners. You know, we have some new counselors this year. AJ is your point of contact for this process. We included the instructional manual and some background from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. But if you have any questions about this, certainly feel free to contact the city attorney's office or the city manager's office. And as a reminder, the deadline for this is firm and the the liability for this is a

1:51:34 personal liability for the individuals who are required to fill out the form and if you don't get it in in on time. So just a important reminder, it's that time of year. And Mary Bridget, it's like our taxes. It's got to be done, right? Yeah. That's right. It's pretty easy, so good luck. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mary Bridget. All right. And no other business from the city attorney. All right. And that looks like it for our business for the regular session for city council. So I'm going to adjourn us and we will reconvene on the C-double-link for our CEDA meeting.

1:52:19 Thank you, everybody.