Springfield City Council — April 5, 2021

2:08 my sisters [Music]

3:02 all right aj let me know when you're ready i know you're still getting people i am ready when you are i am going to call this work session for the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillors pitts here mo here rodney here here um and counselor woodrow is excused for the evening uh we have two items the first item is housing and infrastructure discussion with jeff and sandy right thank you uh good evening mayor and council uh

3:49 jeff pascal here city engineer and with me is sandy belson comprehensive planning manager um we're here to discuss housing infrastructure and in essence the needs of infrastructure to support housing development um if you recall we discussed this issue previously in the fall and i think what i'm going to do since we have two new counselors since that meeting is kind of just give some highlights from that last presentation real quickly we identified some areas where there's residential land for potential development identified what the infrastructure needs mainly wastewater would be for those improv or to spark those or for those developments to occur and then you know identified that sometimes

4:34 that's an impediment to those developments the cost of that infrastructure and then coupling that with the cost of on-site developments as well that they're required to do then we also went through uh some different ways that developers can pay for those improvements things like self-funding which includes they just pay for all of the infrastructure they may get some sdc credits or things like that for extending infrastructure that will be used by potentially future or other developers there is the reimbursement district which then the developer still pays everything up front but a district's established it allows the city to collect fees and then reimburse the original developer for their costs or

5:20 some of their costs and there are limitations with that and then the third identified was the local improvement district which requires getting a budding property owners to join in petition the city it's still a city-run project but a lot of that the timing of uh developers is not always the same so that doesn't get utilized very often either so given where council was asking us to come back we're here tonight we've gone into a little more depth we've within the material provided provided a list of the projects that would be necessary for each area a little bit of analysis on the number of acres associated with that cost and then kind of put together some criteria that the council can consider and use for the discussion

6:06 other than that i i was pretty much just looking for counsel to discuss ask questions of staff any additional questions they may have you're on mute joe oh sorry i'm usually pretty good about that um so jeff got a question for you thank you for the information um so when we're talking about the delayed sdc reimbursement and that the reimbursement goes to the original developer so what if or how is that triggered i guess i'm looking for fairness so you have a developer that buys let's say you have a developer that's spec buyer and they get they go ahead and and make

6:53 the plans and they go ahead and um pay for those improvements uh the infrastructure etc get you know streets in or whatever water etcetera and then um this spectre now spec buyer now puts it on the market and puts it on the market based on all those improvements being made and paid for by him so he's getting he's getting he or she or whatever that buyer is or that seller is now getting paid for the valuation of that infrastructure because it increases the value of that property and then oh four or five months down the road the new owner then develops that land and we start to

7:38 issue credits for those sdcs to the original developer spec buyer and so he's double dipping on those so to speak of overvaluation or i should say undervaluating or over valuation of the property because he's going to get credits back from the city and the new purchaser is not going to have any advantage of that and to me that seems you know i i don't have a problem i think we need to do something to to stymie and stimulate development at all price points from very low income to to whatever but but that that seems out of balance and it seems that it would it would um it would create the uh maybe the honest person to become a little dishonest a little deceitful is there what kind of trigger

8:25 can be there is there one there that would or at least wording or some sort of encumbrance on that property providing a new potential owner that information or the new owner getting because he's paying for he or she's paying full price for that property with the with the infrastructure in place is paid for with sdcs and then them getting the advantage of that by buying that property you see what i'm saying is so i i think mixing a little of uh some of everything in there so we'll start with the reimbursement district the reimbursement district would it's kind of like lid it has to be established by council approved by council right and so what would happen is they they might get some small sdc credits but if they're

9:12 but we've only had one so here's a since 2008 when council kind of put in place the ability to do reimbursement districts we've had one reimbursement district approved by the council since 2008. right um and it only covered no no that was an lid uh local improvement district nope it was two properties kind of in the hayden bridge area and it only covers two properties so the property owner who did the improvements and another a budding property owner and um but you know i had so i haven't studied the the requirements of the code but really if the areas established by the council and i don't imagine if we were to establish that that would require that person who it was established for

9:58 developer whoever to actually build the improvements on their dime right so they would be paying for the improvements out of their pocket and then they would get reimbursed as additional properties develop not um that they sell it off but that and another so if we took jasper natron area and one of the property owners and they're out clear at the end by brand s they annex and they want to they want to build but we weren't we hadn't built the trunk line yet so they pay to build a mile of trunk line even though they're at the end of that line they would get reimbursed for the portion in between as other property owners that utilize that line tie into that line and one of the reasons i think it hasn't been utilized very much is for

10:44 those big projects it's still a big out-of-pocket expense for a developer and yeah and it only it in the code it's for 15 years with an extension up to total of 20 years so you're really hoping that those other properties develop within that time frame if you're that developer because once it expires they're out whatever costs they're they're gone they can't recoup those um and so it's kind of that you know gamble on are those other properties ready to go and so that's why we haven't really seen it utilized um kind of like why we don't see lids utilized for major developments because it's really hard to get all the property owners on the same page

11:29 and moving in the same direction at the same time and i i guess you know i see where your head is at as far as fill backfill infrastructure to get to the developed property i get that but what i'm talking about too is is properties that are adjacent to infrastructure that that a person wants to develop and that there is not that that concern or where someone is going to buy in between but also just buying property and having that ability to have the infrastructure sdcs reimbursed or is that possible unless unless there's space between that i guess there doesn't have to be space yeah there would have it doesn't have to be space i typically we only give reimbursement or we only give credits sdc credits when

12:15 they build infrastructure that's not necessarily for them for their specific project but they over build say we need a storm pipe and maybe their calculations say for their development they need 18 inch but we say well looking at future developments we need a 30 inch pipe and so would they oversize that so we'll the city will sometimes participate with our own funds in that project or offer them sdc credits at that point in time and there was some of that experience out on jasper road just recently right yes there have been a couple instances we there those kind of things happen fairly often so then all the developers that did for example instead of having a a three-inch app or actually more in this case that i i

13:00 recall write a 12-inch outflow saying that okay we want a 20-inch outflow now in regards to storm water etc so now they're faced with that but then told too that they want a a settlement pond or a cooling pond prior to it going into the stormwater system yeah so if we had yeah if we had them size a pond for a bigger area than just their property they're required to treat the storm water from their development so they're required to do a calculation that shows this is the size of facility if we're using stormwater as an example that we need for our development the city could sit there we could come in and say well this is a really good location for this and maybe we need it

13:46 bigger for future developments to take more water or have expansion areas and so then then we would be asking them to over build that or requiring them to over build that and then we would negotiate how that expense gets paid for because that's because and that's a great example because that's kind of kind of my point where i was kind of doing my little rabbit dance here was that um now when you have an over build and you have a pond a cooling pond requirement etc and that's it then our folks say hey we may have a development just across the street here with with 14 new homes let's say it's an acre development got 14 no homes on there which meets the requirements but we want this pawn capacity to increase by 50 percent

14:33 or even 100 so now that that person's property now when they enlarge that pond or increase the specs on that pond their buildable land then shrinks potential i i mean i it's hard without looking at specific areas and locations in each project because each project's unique but there is that potential then we're getting into talking about potential regional stormwater facility which we have i mean we've done those but those have usually been city initiated projects where we go purchase the property okay um but on some instances which if i'm recalling the project you're talking about there was already storm water that went into the area and so they had to account i mean

15:19 they couldn't just cut that storm water off they had to account for that storm water plus current runoff and so that that could have led to the calculations of what was necessary okay um do you have anything else joe no i just i'm actually asking questions so i can educate myself whenever i have the opportunity no perfect so jeff we're we're only discussing moving this as a concept forward right so there's like so that you guys can look at the reserve funds and sort of figure out how much we may have available to do this yeah so as you can see of the six areas the city as a city we're already moving a couple of those projects

16:05 forward the jasper trunk was a clear council decision that we want to open that area up for development so we're going to build the trunk line with user dollars and we've seen quite a bit of growth out there in residential properties more and more all the time developing and and we're seeing and one of the reasons that led us to come to you on phase three is we had interest from developers out there towards the end um and then the south 28th street project is simply an economics thing it wasn't a decision other than we're going to pave the road and we want to make sure that the sewers in there so we don't have to dig road up in the future so it wasn't that there was an interest or anything like that it was really just not wanting to destroy the road later when a developer does come in

16:51 and so with the questions of looking at trying how can we incentivize or how can we encourage residential land development it was really an exercise in identifying the potential impediments to residential land outside in you know large tracts of land and what what holds those properties back from potentially developing you know beyond annexation and things like that so what was the real infrastructure needs yeah and so um you depending on our direction tonight we could we could when we get to the cip trigger trigger a couple more projects to bring infrastructure and infrastructure of these areas i have um one question about the east main the

17:36 one that you sort of circled there is some of that the thurston uh hills natural area like the map's a little bit unclear but some of that vacant land right like is that all buildable on there well i think you see some stuff down closer to main street and then you obviously have the stuff that is north of main street that is is flatter um but yeah i i i would be it's not without doing an analysis and that's why i identified that that area really would require some more analysis especially on the wastewater side of things is because much like why i i would not recommend to the council that they do phase four of the jasper trunk is this is that cost per

18:21 kind of hot well because it gets steeper and so you're just not gaining as much density for the cost of the infrastructure the infrastructure gets a lot more expensive and so i think it's better to kind of leave it to the developer to propose how they want to service that from the end of the trunk line i think the east main is similar to that there is some stuff where you could extend down hayden bridge road and get some of the areas that are flatter out there and not be up in the thurston natural hills natural area but there's just a lot of more analysis that needs to be done to determine what the right projects are sandy uh yeah mayor van gorden the maps do not show any of the thirst and

19:06 natural areas as being partially vacant or vacant our gis removed the thurston hills natural area so anything that you see that's green or brown is not owned by will animals okay perfect thank you does anybody else have other questions leonard and then then steve yeah thanks sean um so it looked like one of the green areas in the south side was pretty close to the jasper trunk was that um was one of them the proposed phase four of the jasper trunk yeah so we could have actually probably labeled these a little on the map a little better so yeah that's the jasper natron area without roads on here that a lot of that green area would be phase four and we're in essence taking the pipe to

19:52 the edge of the green area so it's really that determination on how if and when that area develops how the developer develops that area how how far east does that area go oh great question i don't really have any landmarks right about where the water ends hey that's very helpful thank you no it's serious it is it's just it's probably about 250 feet east of that uh historical house the a large rock structure comes up rises up to the surface and doesn't allow water to be transported further east so that's why no ice homes and they're not included so there's a natural barrier there is what you're saying okay um all right well i

20:37 i will say that if if our idea was just to encourage development along jasper road then i would say that was a resounding success because driving down jasper i don't see a single intersection that doesn't have a subdivision attached to it i mean i i've got to say there's there's been a lot of housing along there and we could do a lot worse and continue that um i i do have one other question um how how many acres altogether are in the green areas that are depicted in that map do we know i just lump those together let me see if

21:22 i have that information real quick seems like we did get that broken out uh so let's see i have amongst all six areas 291 acres vacant 291 acres okay yeah all right steve on to my favorite subject the windwood i brought that up last time and it's sort of been

22:08 like it's not doable but i've got some words here i want to read development government is stagnant it's approximately 648 acre that's a square mile in springfield's urban growth boundary some development is now beginning but the core residential area nothing it's one half mile from downtown springfield the first bullet point under the comments on glenwood was obtaining access to centers sanitary sewers requires annexation to the city this is this this is the thing they set up for people living installation or replacement of a septic system for a single family house is not an option when a sanitary sewer is within 300 feet the house is required to connect and annex state law says we can no longer annex

22:53 properties that are not contiguous that means that property is even one property back from the city limits and that one property owner doesn't want to manage the applicants a lot becomes undevelopable and worthless the suggestion the springfield annexes existing county streets is rejected the reason operative streets are primarily local and they're not in good shape or anything uh i've had some other comments here but members like a small village and maybe an idea for the future my suggestion has been to annex those streets that most powerful hours will be next to the city limits and future planning consumers can happen naturally it will begin the evolution the clintons the suggestion that government streets are in poor condition

23:38 isn't true i'm a little touchy about one by the way is true take a drive down glenwood's poor conditioned streets and drive down millster then you won't know what poor condition is forming a small sewer district is an idea perhaps some cedar money can be loaned but paid back some time in the future and glenwood is in an urban renewal district and taxes in that district are paid into a fund that is controlled by ceta and can be used for infrastructure improvement exactly what the urban radio district is supposed to do in the 1990s springfield installed a major trunk sewer from where the new hotels were located down the middle of franklin boulder to the roundabout the south to to the south end of bledwood with a highway crossing the railroad

24:23 none of that was in city limits at that time now it is but it was for another reason now there has been no effort to expand that line to any other areas i've talked about some trivia here but i want to do that but well i want better trivia glenbard water district provides all the street lighting for all of glenwood in and out of the city limits including franklin boulevard and includes installation maintenance and cost of the power some lighting has been transferred to city such as another but the point is glenwood has been quietly supporting springfield in a small way it's a huge geographical area ready to be an asset to our city we continue to keep policies in place and discourage change of improvements all right that's it

25:14 yeah i think you know a lot of um i would agree with much of what counselor mo said i think that um glenwood at least from how jeff and i are looking at it is a little bit different than the other categories and that those are pretty simple to add a project to a capital improvement plan with glenwood i think it's more actually of a planning process with more discussion with the residents how this is going to impact them how they want and have some other policy questions around the streets and how we would finance some of this with the existing residents to put together a financing plan for them so it's more complex than adding the project to the cip so that's just um you know we're open to

26:01 to your direction on that but it's a little bit different type of project to take on yeah we haven't even started talking about anything like that it's never going to go anywhere it's been going on for years like that so i'm just pushing a little bit now so i'm seeing head nods can somebody help me with what the next steps are like are you guys taking taking it away and working on it a little bit more i i think the next step would be is if councils i i guess if there's other criteria or other analysis that that council would like from staff beyond what we provided i think it would be is the council interested and i guess we'll be having a capital

26:46 improvement update discussion would they rather have a more in-depth discussion like that in the in the um cip discussion or are they interested today and kind of giving that direction based on the criteria and information provided of saying yeah we want to pick one area or one of the projects in and look at putting that in the cip and funding that i mean i was looking back at the information and just you know to remind counsel and i haven't looked at the numbers in a little bit but you know there was in the wastewater fund 9.3 million dollars in reserve and in the storm water fund 7.1 million in reserve so there there is

27:31 money to go move a project it's that balance between an expansion project and then not saving enough for you know operations maintenance and rehabilitation of other projects so it's that balance of how much do you spend for expansion and make sure you're holding back for those inevitable repair projects that we need to get out the door as well yeah and i think evaluating that by price per acre is going to help and then i had you know obviously i would want to know a whole lot more about what peace health plans were before you know we we brought infrastructure to that property because i i just don't know what they're planning it yeah this is really a question to help educate myself i'm new to this conversation so a lot of

28:18 this sort of partially vacant and vague is out in thurston area in east springfield and i'm curious as to how this intersects with some of the other challenges the you know working on the main street safety plan because that's a lot about the sort of traffic flow out that way and the sort of impending um levy rebuild that needs to happen out that way so i'm wondering if if if it's how those intersect in terms of prioritizing areas if that would put additional stress on those areas if we were to prioritize building out there and again it's a way to sort of educate myself about how that all comes together

29:06 yeah so and that was what i was somewhat alluding to if we so if we go much like jasper natron if we extend sewer out there or actually let's take peace health so if peace health were to say they're going to develop the residential land that would most likely require some off-site planning and analysis for traffic impacts in the area where we already know we have severe traffic limitations and needs for upgrades and so it would require off-site improvements to other systems specifically what those are today we don't know and it could be a gradual build up uh you know you just start seeing things get busier and busier and then you're

29:52 like we're back we're coming we need to do a east springfield traffic study to say what do we need to do to certain intersections or is it hayden brit or is it um thurston road that needs to get upgraded is it you know what are the upgrades necessary those aren't really identified there are some projects identified in the tsp that when we hit a a certain point pinch point those projects are necessary to move forward you know one of them out in jasper natron is the need for developing the weyerhaeuser hall road out to wallace creek for circulation and providing secondary collector access but what is when's the trigger for that you know i don't know

30:38 when we'll hit that so and i'm looking back at the council to see uh it seems like that i'm seeing some head nods that yes we still want to pursue this um we're going to need some more information do you guys want to see it in a separate work session or with the capital uh the ci budget [Music] i think we need to pursue it i've definitely headed in the right direction jeff and uh sandy um and i i mean there was there was a lot of positive energy last time we met and spoke about this and it's nice to see this kind of boil down to uh area specific issues um you know one area that i was looking at

31:23 too was was like the butte south of town near the park and i see is that all within the city now right because before or is it missing some houses or residential areas i don't know how far south it is but that used to be county islands out in there is that still county yeah so that once you get out there um it's county it's in the urban growth boundary um the interesting thing so that area and one reason that areas is cheaper is per acre is all of the infrastructure as far as the what is put in so the um dry sewer line down south second street and the dry pressure line is there right it's just the pump station hasn't been

32:08 installed to open that area now there's obviously other sewer extensions that would be necessary throughout the area but just getting the pump station there would then open that area up to developers potentially redeveloping the area and adding sewer to their um so could that be some project that could be uh well that that seems like that could be a city slash nwmc cooperative project uh typically because that would be a strictly a city-owned um pump station we would work with mwmc because they maintain and manage all of our pump stations but it would be strictly a city owned only you know only managing city flow right and so we would if if the council desired or we put that in the cip

32:54 the city would take that project on and getting that constructed i mean if you were looking for the lowest hanging fruit that area kind of is it because a lot of the other infrastructures there the county just repaved south second street you know the road is got sidewalks bike lanes so that you know looking at the collector street and and that infrastructure if we were to reach out to the county and say want to look at jurisdictional transfer and annexation we're looking at taking on they would probably they're not going to say no and we're looking at taking on decent infrastructure that they've they've just maintained like last summer or two summers ago they just repaved the whole road of their tours i think i think maybe we could concentrate i don't know how the council feels but

33:39 i know that i know the city pretty well in the properties pretty well and and that area definitely stuck out in my head and i think it's got like you mentioned low-hanging fruit and it's got some great develop a land there that can be really multiple different price points there's it's it's really it's really varied in there because you got some some fairly low income type properties there that um you know and the densities there i mean they also have some that are up towards the hillside a little bit and and away from the river but but still a higher price point potential so i think i think we're going to go okay pick an area and let's concentrate on it yeah well and i i like to and i like the fact especially since the sort of jasper nature

34:25 projects are already in flight right so this gives us a big chunk of land um but i think somebody probably needs to get back with steve about the question about whether or not we should annex all those roads um i think that's a longer conversation um anybody else we need to find a solution that is maybe one of them i know it is someone or not but what are we going to do with that community it's just rotting away yes yes anybody else have any other comments before we go ahead so i mean i think development is always great but and honestly i'm not super familiar with that area uh but i have been in around it and i know that there are residents out there and so when we talk about development

35:11 oftentimes uh people are displaced and i'm curious is is that going to happen uh if we do develop out there you know once again are we going to focus on the bright and shiny are we going to support the local populists have we talked to the local populists about how they feel about what they need and what they want to see in that area as well i don't know if you're directing that to me but i think in my mind in my mind i was looking at not necessarily well not at all displacement but basically looking at you've got undeveloped lands out there and when you look at the right type of development it's going to improve people's lives around it as opposed to diminish from it i think it would be

35:57 uh it would improve their quality of life and then and improve their ability to expand their neighborhoods so i don't it's not i totally didn't have anything as far as displacement in my mind at all yeah it's all vague according to the map damian it looks like it's all vacant so um leonard go ahead and then we gotta get this wrapped up we got another item yeah i um i'll i'll make it quick i um i share damian's concern uh just i and i think that whether it displaces anyone is going to be based in a large uh to a large extent on what the nature of the development is i mean if it's a a development that encourages uh affordable housing then i think that we have the potential of not displacing anyone i i think there there was a major concern

36:42 with some other potential developments that we were considering there with that that ultimately got rejected i think partially for that reason so yeah you're on you're on the right track i think thanks okay perfect do you guys have enough direction i do thank you thank you very much sandy yeah i guess i'd like a little bit more direction in terms of glenwood whether how council wants to talk about that or what you would like from staff on it i think that one's going to be probably me well why don't can we pull that one off into a gender review because steve's going to be there and we can talk about it maybe at length because i think it's going to require a couple of different

37:27 conversations that's fine at this point i'm not really sure what to do so if you can uh talk about it further and get back to us that would be great yeah that would be perfect because i think steve you're gonna have to help with that one because you know with it being your award and it's gonna have to you're gonna have to work walk people through it sandy we need ideas okay um perfect uh sandy it looks like you've got the next item i do thank you so as our comprehensive planning manager i am trying to keep you informed as to what my staff and i are working on to make sure we're in sync with how you're wanting us to spend our time

38:14 and effort so i put into your packet a summary of the various projects that we have underway or those that we know that we'll be starting on soon and then there's a spreadsheet table which is ordered in a different way than in the memo but it's ordered in the way that those projects are happening now and will finish up and then moving out more to the future so it's to give you a general sense and i think tying into a little bit about council mo's comment is you know if there if there is going to be a major planning effort in glenwood that will take time and stuff is probably going to be part of my staff anyway as

39:00 well as others and so we need to keep that in the context of the other work that we have what's the priority how can we balance out the various efforts uh so i don't have a whole lot more to say but i'm available to certainly answer questions um i will just highlight the overall trend that i'm seeing from the state over the past few years as they're providing more and more requirements for us to do and so i'm anticipating that not that we'll be getting more out of the rulemaking for the climate-friendly equitable communities there's also legislation around climate that is going to require dlcd department

39:46 of land conservation and development to develop a climate a new statewide planning goal on climate change that will then require cities to do work to come into compliance with that and then there's others some smaller legislation so we're having a trend where that state is really pushing on cities to respond to their either legislation or rulemaking um so it's limiting our options if we wanting to stay in compliance in terms of what projects we take on so i just want to make sure you're aware of that um and yes all right so i'm just

40:31 i'm just assuming by the the way you're saying it but there's no there's no funding or resources that's coming with this legislation right it's like do the things but no money right i can't say that completely true but there in some cases there is money going to the department of land conservation and development that will be available for technical assistance grants but there will not be enough to do all this work for all the communities and there's no guarantee you get it so while there is some funding being provided at the state level not enough to really pay for all of this as a on a guarantee basis because the legislature can only commit for

41:16 their biennium they can't commit future legislation or legislatures to provide money for the ongoing implementation so so corey this might be a good place for everybody to kind of head on i think our position for everybody that's been on the legislative committee at this point is to be if the state's going to require us to do something they should provide funds for us to do it and that's the message we've been taking to salem yes plus we're maybe going to see this big federal infrastructure thing right and surely we're going to get millions of dollars to do all the things on that good job i just could reiterate that if as far as i'm concerned they can come up with a thousand

42:01 different things that we should do and unless they pay us to do it then i can think of a thousand reasons why we shouldn't i mean i'm sorry it may be great ideas but you know and everybody likes great ideas but by golly they really like to bring out problems too but do you think they have any solutions to the problems they point out and i don't care what you're talking about so this is another thing another thing we're talking about the pending legislation and you know the comprehensive map the middle middle housing and clearing objective standards etc you have all these different things that are we're trying to anticipate how we are going to do that but i kind of look at it as okay well i'm not going to anticipate how to make a truck payment until i buy the truck so

42:46 there's no reason to there's no reason in my mind if you sit there and spend a lot of energy and a lot of staff time on things that we may think are coming down the pike and they may be but if they're not gonna if they're not gonna pay for that just like with what corey was saying if they're not gonna pay our staff time or the city for that um that's an unfunded mandate and i am completely opposed to it and i don't care what the idea is there's my there's my two cents thank you so sandy the the question that i had reading through this is you've got how you've got only a handful of staff here right you've got a a ton of projects how far over capacity are we i couldn't really tell by looking at this is like are we

43:33 do you have capacity to do all of them do you like are you over capacity like what's the actual what's the actual need there so we are not getting to the refinement plans and the comprehensive plan map as i had hoped we would be by now so that's the projects that are suffering in terms of they're not getting our attention the rest of the um projects listed we are handling um the i will talk about gateway a little bit um we are scoping so to speak what the issues there at the gateway beltline intersection and the broader gateway transportation context

44:18 so that we can have a better understanding of what will need to be done from a planning perspective there to address the couplet project that we don't think is the best solution because it takes out so many businesses and that is the adopted approach in our plan um the up that crews in hutton to have another connection there um parallel to gateway so staff is not supportive of that project that is in our plan and so we want to find a different solution um so that's a major undertaking that we don't have resources for now beyond the

45:04 scoping part of it all right thank you um anybody else with questions or comments okay um so sandy i know folks are working pretty hard on this uh my my take especially on on in situations like this is i'd rather get you know not work 10 things at 10 of the time but i would rather make sure you know even if we have to wait on a project right you just described a couple that we wanted to prior you know that got down prioritized i'd rather focus to try to get things to the finish line opposed to really dragging out everything in the entire world um

45:50 recognizing that there's a lot of projects and there's a lot of changes at the state level right now and i think we should continue to you know send that legislature the message that like we're barely keeping our keeping up with the requirements from the last session they don't they don't necessarily have to help so quickly they can spread it out over time thanks i um i i agree with you mayor van gorden i feel like we you know one of the reasons that i was asking about how many acres we got available right now is that it looks to me like we've got a lot of land to work with as it is and i one of the things i was a little bit concerned about when i was going through the packet was the idea of building out

46:35 infrastructure with the idea of speculatively uh encouraging development down the road it seems to me that we've got a lot of land that already has access to water and electric without um without the na the need to preemptively build out any further i'd like to concentrate on getting things built now all right anybody else sandy is there something else you want to call out for us that you would like us to kind of dive into a little bit more or do you have kind of enough feedback i know this was an ask that we brought that we asked you to come back after probably last fall if my memory serves um correctly to kind of give us an update about this

47:25 yeah i mean i think it's it's good to hear your perspectives um and it'll help us as we continue to prioritize our work and decide what grant funding we should try for in order to you know if there's money available should we take it on if it's a stretch or not so that hearing your thoughts is helpful um and if we come to any major decision points i'll i'll make sure and meet back with you yeah yeah and i know there everything on this list is important right like you've got gateway we you know we're just barely touching now all the way down to the parcel level map so like we got there's a lot of work here all right perfect um looks like we've got 15 minutes before the regular session so um leave this we're staying here um

48:10 and then if you guys want to take a 15-minute break and then be back here at 7 o'clock thank you so much okay we are adjourned

51:48 looks like we're still wait waiting on a couple of people [Music] um

52:36 why are you gonna do that you just have to say your name three times i guess it's it's seven o'clock now right let's do it aj are you ready yes sir okay i'm gonna call the springfield city council uh regular session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts here councilor mo here council rodley here counselor stare here counselor woodrow and counselor pictionary president and councilor woodrow is excused for this meeting um please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america

53:21 and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god with liberty and justice for all [Music] as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask the members of the audience who are joining us online to please keep yourselves on mute until you are called upon to provide public testimony there are two times this evening designated for public testimony and they are listed as public hearings and business from the audience on the agenda if you are joining us online with the tablet smartphone or computer and wish to speak during that time please use the raise your hand option to

54:06 be called upon to provide comment when the designated time is announced when we will call uh when we will call on you please state your name in ward or general location for the record the order of public testimony is as follows anyone who has raised their hand anyone who has submitted email in advance if there's remaining time neil will read emails first item please mayor your first item is springfield upbeat item number one mayor's recognition national library week proclamation and mayor this is your item oh fantastic i love getting to proclaim things whereas libraries have long served as

54:51 trusted institutions often the heart of their cities towns schools and academic campuses whereas libraries which promote the free exchange of information and ideas for all and work to create an equitable society by providing access to accurate information are cornerstones of democracy whereas libraries are a resource for all regardless of race ethnicity religion ability sexual orientation gender identity our socioeconomic status by offering services and educational programming that transform lives and strengthen communities whereas we recognize librarians as information professionals who develop collections and programs that are wide-ranging and explore the diversity of our society

55:36 and to provide expertise and services and guidance for patrons to access credible sources and materials making their own informed decisions about the world today and whereas in a time of changes and challenges for individuals communities and institutions adapting to covet 19 emergency measures libraries are leveraging technology to provide those they serve with digital resources and virtual activities to meet their educational and recreational needs even while physical locations are partially closed whereas libraries librarians library workers and supporters across america are celebrating national library week now therefore be it resolved that i mayor sean van gorden proclaim april 4th through the 10th 2021

56:22 national library week [Music] woohoo it's and it looks like there's a ton of extra programming at the library so please go and check it out next item please next item is the consent count can't see anybody i'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent calendar second it's been moved in second in to approve the consent calendar uh neil will you call the role counselor pitts

57:08 sorry i had to step away did i hear my name you're calling them they're calling the vote for the consent calendar hi counselor mo yes counselor rodney yes counselor stare aye counselor woodrow and counselor pictionary hi uh five eyes zero nays and one absent uh the motion passes next item please area of one public hearing tonight public hearing number one annexation of territory to the city of springfield annex 0.31 acres of residential property located southeast of the horace street and filbert lane intersection map 18-02-05-23

57:57 tax slot 202. this is ordinance number one an ordinance annexing certain territory map 18-02-05-23 lot 202 to the city of springfield and willamelain park and recreation district withdrawing the same territory from the willikensey rural fire protection district adopting a severability clause and providing an effective date this is the first reading and melissa courinho is here for the staff report hi everyone can you hear me yes wonderful um counselor pictionary i saw your hand up did you want to say something before i started actually go again give us your spiel and

58:43 then if you may answer my question and if not i'll i'll raise my hand again okay sounds good um just out of curiosity amy aj can i just share my screen for the powerpoint yes you should have a share option on there perfect thank you all right okay now i can't see anything sorry folks all right let me get started here so good evening mayor and city councillors as neil had stated the city council is requested to to consider an ordinance to annex a 0.31 acre parcel not yet municipally addressed on horus

59:28 street in springfield it is located on the south side of horus street just south of mount vernon elementary school the property owner has requested annexation to facilitate residential development on this property which is zoned medium density residential here's a picture of the current zoning you can see where the city limits and the um and the fact that everything that's not in city limits it has an urban urbanizable fringe overlay and again surrounding areas is immediate zoned medium density residential if the city council approves this annexation this is how the zoning will change um

1:00:14 no other zoning changes except for the city limits boundaries relocated as well as the removal of the urbanizable fringe overlay now there are four criteria for annexations from the springfield development code section 5.7-140 criteria one the affected territory proposed to be annexed is within the city's ugb and is contiguous to the city limits and criteria two the pro pros the proposed annexation is consistent with applicable policies in the metro plan and other plans uh so just dealing with criteria one if i go back here the subject site is contiguous with um with city limits to the north

1:00:59 and to the east actually the city council um did a proven annexation of the properties to the east of the site as well as the horse street right away in 2019 policies from both the city's metro plan and the 2030 refinement plans urbanization element are met through this application the subject territory is within the ugb again and is currently covered by the urbanizable fringe overlay with annexation the parcel will be removed from special districts such as the urbanizable fringe and service areas like the willow kensey springfield rural protection district and would be included in urban services such as sanitary sewer

1:01:45 sub-electric and water emergency services and willamalane recreation an annexation agreement was also approved and signed by the applicant and if the annexation is approved the agreement is ready to be executed by the city and recorded with lane county i included the annexation agreement as exhibit b in attachment 2. the next two criteria sorry hold on here we go the next two criteria are listed on the screen here so if annexation is approved the tax lot can obtain key facilities and services from either horse street or filbert lane just north and northwest of the subject site again these facilities will include

1:02:31 sanitary sewer subwater and electric fire protection services from eugene springfield fire department police services from springfield police and the willamelain recreation district and then the last criteria where applicable fiscal impacts to the city have been mitigated through an annexation agreement as mentioned earlier a signed annexation agreement is ready for recording with lane county upon approval the agreement covers obligations for the applicant and for the city including any financial responsibilities because all four applicable annexation criteria have been met and annexation will help facilitate full street improvements in this neighborhood and bring this specific property into city limits staff recommends the council approve

1:03:16 this annexation that's it on my end i'm here for any questions you may have and the applicant is also on call if needed counselor missionary thank you um so i got a couple questions so um was that a rich i i realized that was in county but was the land designation ld i was or was her latin any land designation i assumed there would be was it ldr and they now wanted mdr no it was designated mdr as well okay and zoned mbr oh cool okay and so the property directly to the south is this owned by the petitioner

1:04:02 no not that i know of so i'm concerned that's a private okay so i think um geographically or let's just say topographically speaking um i think the stormwater flow goes south through there and i'm wondering i may be wrong but i think it's go south and pretty sure and um so because they don't own the property to the south i am wondering is uh what the people to the south how they feel about potentially having their property disrupted in in regards to that runoff or do they plan to interrupt or involve the two properties to the south west of them um

1:04:47 so all storm water mitigation would actually happen on site on that specific property it would not be directed to the south um are you meaning the properties that are already annexed to the east the southeast yeah south no no i'm talking about southwest okay okay those two properties down there again the stormwater would be treated on-site engineers and the applicant have already discussed this so if that's 0.31 acres and they have to mitigate stormwater so that that basically means another pond right possibly there has been some talk that the the development might expand to those other properties that were annexed in 2019 to give a little bit more space

1:05:33 is it the same the same investors involved i assume um if they do purchase the properties to the east then yes okay so and then the very last point is that it's my understanding that there's been some changing in regards to affected property contact and affected property questioning or questionnaires and their opinions on that and those have been done away with as far as door knocking is concerned because of the instituted coven 19 precautions and so and i don't see anywhere on this application what the neighbors think about this and i would like to see um personally before it goes any further i realize it's the first reading but

1:06:18 let's get let's get it all taken care of prior to the second reading or before we find bumps in the road down down the road is that the adjacent properties we i think while we're doing these coveted 19 precautions and basically doing kind of an end around to what the adjacent property owners opinions are that maybe that those folks should be mailed questionnaires to provide them the opportunity to respond back and so that's documented and we know what they where they're at with it just so we don't have people popping up the last minute and then wasting a bunch of staff time and having to kind of regurgitate stuff i hear you uh so public notice was sent out and mailed out to all the property owners and residents

1:07:04 within 300 feet of this property and i received no comments from the public so i don't know if you're asking for further well i guess what i'm saying is that you know and i i get the notices too et cetera um based on different properties that i've got my hands on but it's but the way they're written it's like saying okay well hey you can come do a public comment if you have a problem with this but it's not really inviting in regards to we really want to hear from you and we're not making a contact due to covet et cetera i don't unless you put that on there i i think people are just kind of uh throwing them away and i'm i just seems like

1:07:50 the the owners next to these lands that are changing before the very eyes that they really we really need to jump up ahead of things and and get a hold of these folks and say hey we really want to hear from you and we don't want to hear from you after the fact that's happened so many times right so i don't know maybe some ideas you may come across because we changed our process we're no longer doing door knocking but yet we didn't we haven't if i recall have not changed those form letters that we send out not sure if the city attorneys are on but my understanding is the affected property owners to fill out the annexation forms were just the actual property owners of that property not the adjacent um i think when we're

1:08:37 talking about vacating a right-of-way or yeah i may be confused of that you're right yeah that would be yeah that would require affected vacation properties you're right okay i'm done thank you so much no problem leonard um is there is there a reason that council um decided to stop having people door knock in the vicinity of an affected area i i don't remember when that happened um i think since this is i think referring more to the uh initiation of to vacate the right-of-way on the next application um it was actually the applicant who stated concerns about going door

1:09:22 knocking and um actually breaking the governor's rules when um we were asking them to get all the affected property's consent oh i see so it was um it was pandemic related i see okay yes that that's all i got thanks no worries in leonard it sounds like it's a different process right so once for one application and i don't think we've ever door knocked for annexations all right any other questions before um we open the public hearing all right then i'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing aj or neil do you have any cards

1:10:12 uh mayor we have um 37 attendees this evening it looks like we may have one hand raised for this particular item let's see here or maybe two again this is for the public hearing and sorry the hands are moving so just give me just a moment okay it appears we have one speaker sj lore on this particular topic and sj you should be able to unmute your microphone hear me we can perfect so this has nothing to do with the topic at hand is that appropriate still or would you like me to wait well i would like you to wait if it's not related to this public hearing

1:10:59 perfect i will wait thank you thank you with that mayor it appears we have no speakers for this particular item very good then i'm going to close the public hearing and this is the first reading so no action tonight um any other comments before we move on all right perfect next item please here the next item is business from the audience and so we'll give folks a moment to put their hands up okay mayor your first speaker if you're ready is ben christensen and then you should be able to unmute your microphone

1:11:51 all right can you hear me we can hear you then alright with the second record lawsuit from the springfield police it's clear that there's a fundamental failure for the city council to understand the role they play in the harm that the police cause in order to be seen by a court you have to be able to point to a specific instance and say this caused a miserable harm by the time the dam by that time the damage is already done and there's nothing that the court can do to undo that harm and this assumes that you can find a lawyer that will take your case in order to file a complaint against the police you have to do with another police officer for many people in the bipoc lgbtq and disability community police are viewed as people you should fear this creates a system of privilege to file a complaint or receive any other form of justice where i'm from we call this putting the coyote in charge of the chicken house a

1:12:36 completely inaccurate analogy to describe the situation because it assumes that all the chickens are being treated equally and despite this i chose to use it anyway here's why there are two major flaws one in the analogy the coyote is not a government employee that is sworn to protect and serve a diverse population of people and the second the coyote is not killing incarcerating and brutalizing some groups over others in order to fix the analogy the coyote needs to target the black and brown chickens disproportionately as well as any with injuries or those that don't fit the binary requirements of society while simultaneously making a space that is only safe for the white chickens with perfect feathers that conform to all of society's expectations only then does the analogy convey the that's done by the city council's failure to protect and serve the most vulnerable people in

1:13:21 their city the suspension of chief laws will do next to nothing to address the issues of police brutality as many of the officers that have been involved in the most egregious action that have caused lawsuit after lawsuits still hold a badge and a gun the only way fundamental change will happen is that there's an investigation from a third party that's not affiliated with the police and if that person has the authority to hold the officers accountable not set recommendations or suggestions like we call the illusion of change that we've seen in the past the people of springfield deserve a real investigation with real accountability up to and including legal consequences i'm calling also calling for a full investigation into the springfield police into any ties to white supremacy or other racist organizations as those were the allegations made by the cldc in the recent filing it was clear there was a collaboration

1:14:07 between the between the groups until then there will be no justice and until there is justice there will be no peace i yield back the rest of my time mayor your next speaker is rayleen linnemann followed by amy cothron and raylene you should be able to unmute your microphone can you hear me now you can i am here as a member of the library advisory board to represent the library and as mayor van gorden mentioned and proclaimed at the beginning of the meeting this is national library week with the theme of welcome to your library libraries have managed to welcome people in spite of the pandemic

1:14:53 closing their doors as they prepare to open back up safely they continue to provide curbside pickup computer appointments digital cards and telephone reference services they hope to have browsing appointments by the end of this month where patrons can come in for a limited time and quickly browse the shelves pick up holds and even use self checkout this week also kicks off a new service at our library and that's remote printing it will be a soft opening this week to make sure that the staff is familiar with how it all works before it is marketed and really promoted the following week it will allow people to order print jobs directly from their home computers or wireless devices

1:15:40 without needing to be on a library computer they just need to get have an email to get a retrieval code and then they can pick up their documents during curbside appointment times each visit the first 10 pages of black and white printing is free and additional pages are 15 cents each color they can do but it's 25 cents a page they also had successful spring break program this year's program centered on stem education with free family activities featuring dinosaurs kits provided by the museum of natural and cultural history they also gave away non-fiction books that were sponsored

1:16:26 by sub to spark kids interest in science and history the library's efforts to promote stem learning in our community was even featured in a kezi news story on monday march 15th the library has put posted 197 videos to youtube and currently has 223 subscribers so that's another way they're reaching out to the community and dia de los ninos is annually one of the biggest programs at the library this year it will be in a virtual format but it will happen the last week of april as you can see our library is welcoming people to the library many ways as we celebrate this national library week

1:17:21 mayor our next speaker is amy cothran followed by zia wang and amy you should be able to unmute your microphone all right good evening everyone uh this is amy cothrin formerly of ward 5 recent uh mover router uh first i do want to say i am happy to hear all the remarks about the library tonight uh springfield public library is awesome uh and something that really did strike me was mayor van gorden's proclamation how much he spoke about how they were inclusive how much they worked for the community how much they helped people and you know that's great that's exactly what government should be doing you know where this is going uh the

1:18:06 contrast of this is spd svd how many lawsuits do we have against us right now three or four uh record ones at that it's not the fault of chief lewis heath lewis is a symptom he is not the cause without broad sweeping change you're going to be back here in another few years doing the exact same thing having the same discussions talking about the quote unquote same good high performers who just have more interactions who just happen to get sued because they have more interactions and we all know that's funk we all know that there's a problem the only way to fix this is not going to be

1:18:53 bringing in some outside hire it's not going to be bringing someone from within to be the new chief it's not going to be firing chief louis the only way to fix spd is to start from ground zero and build anything less will lead us back to where we are right now i see the rest of my time our next speaker is zea wang followed by holly shaper sia you should be able to unmute your microphone hi uh good evening um i hope you can hear me we can hear you great thank you um i'm glad to see uh springfield city

1:19:39 council showing more openings openness to lesson and the counselor marilee wujo spoke up about the intolerance of a racism issue regarding my situation last meeting however spd used a lot of my reading time in the past two weeks the assessment of independent investigation into spp misconduct have proven that they are incapable of investigating their own actions spd is the main reason i become involved into social justice work after after spd violated constitutional rights to attack a peaceful blm protest i attended thank you spd for breaking my american dream of freedom and the liberty by knowing these

1:20:24 are just a propaganda after reading the cldc lawsuit documents of stf of spd officers using racist language towards bipark citizens can you imagine how spd would handle a hate crime report my stomach was twitching and i cannot i can't i cannot stop my tears when i was reading oir report how spd used a deadly force to kill stacey kenney a transgender with mental health struggle how would you expect sbd to respond to a mental health crisis and how to respond to a person from lgbt community i speedy sexual harassment towards internal female officer and continuously continuously accumulating their her after she was fired

1:21:09 how would you expect svd would respond to the mass violence and sexual assault victims icepd is so corrupted and toxic they have zero cultural competence and no ability to provide safety for our community stop saying majority officers are great people no slave snowflake in a launcher a long bench is innocent the worst part is this crop system has been running in this community for many many years how many other harms we don't know have a springfield city council try to hold spd accountable or continue looking for excuse springfield needs a real community to make the marginalized population feel safe we're women where women and the bipolar

1:21:54 community and lgbtq will support resources in springfield defund spd and reallocate funds to build social services and the investor resource for the bipolar community every single city council here has a chance to correct mistakes from the past and make a change for the future you can do this thank you here the next speaker is holly shaper followed by sj lore probably you should be able to unmute your microphone great can you hear me we can hear you uh good evening my name is holly shaper i live in ward 2. so there were four front page articles in the register guard in the last 10 days around problems within spd in the last

1:22:39 two years the city has settled the largest police claim in oregon history with the kenny family settled with lieutenant mckee and officer stone to leave the department settled with the beecham and chaplin families for excessive use of force and is facing one lawsuit and three tort claim notices so far this year i'm glad to see that the city is at last taking the first tangible step toward police accountability with plans to seriously review and consider the recommendations within the brazil report and i really look forward to hearing the discussion between council and the author of the oir report in two weeks about his recommendations based on the kenny case in addition to all the front page news i find it concerning to think about the fact that each

1:23:24 internal misstep is causing the need for independent investigations that cost the city around 35 000 each is this money coming directly from the spd budget councilor pictionary expressed concern in february over spending around eighty thousand dollars to host a special election to ensure that springfield voters are choosing our leadership due to fears of loss of staffing it would seem to me that we are already in excess of the cost of a special election through the expense of these independent investigations how is this going to be addressed regarding the brazil report i would like to hear council specifically address the videotaping of the peaceful protest on june 6 and other dates by two spd detectives this is concerning because according to

1:24:10 the report no pro-police protests were videotaped only blm protests yet chief lewis read aloud an oregon state statute at a spac meeting on february 4th this statute states that the department shall not collect or maintain information about the political religious or social views associations or activities of any individual group association organization corporation business or partnership unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct in accordance with this oregon state statute what is being done to ensure that this practice of recording the

1:24:55 actions of social justice organizations ceases and finally what is being done to protect city staff specifically within the police department from sexual harassment we lost an entire spd command staff in 2013 due to inappropriate relationships this was followed up by a lawsuit from former staff alleging stalking and sexual harassment and by multiple other sexual misconduct lawsuits why were changes not instituted at that time in order to prevent what is happening currently thank you mayor our next speaker is sj lore followed by thomas lawrence

1:25:40 and sj should be able to unmute your microphone you i am in ward 4 can everyone hear me we can we can perfect i would like to share a quote today from chief ardonato of the minneapolis police department quote we may be the first and last time they as in the public have an interaction with a police officer so we have to make it count it matters end quote this should be the mentality of all springfield police department has the city considered starting fresh with a new police department entirely sergeants set the attitude and expectation for the boots on the ground so to speak of the officers interacting with the

1:26:26 community there's absolutely a trickle-down effect of negligence and corruption proven by the plethora of lawsuits over the last few years springfield has made corruption a priority unfortunately which it should be making community input a priority it is absolutely inexcusable that you guys do not allow public dialogue via the chat and zoom um just making that clear that it's inexcusable the city should not be in charge of spd's social media either as it seems to me that the public you know the city and the police department should be separate and um it's a huge problem in my opinion i yield the rest of my

1:27:12 time thank you our next speaker is thomas lawrence and it appears thomas is our last speaker with a hand raised and thomas you should be able to unmute your microphone all right awesome thank you uh i too would like to talk a little bit about the brazil report and i mean i don't even know where to go with it because there's so many things but the main one that i want to get to is that there were 30 what 38 recommendations made but ultimately the report said you know they're doing okay no major violation um maybe that's standard for every police department i guess that wouldn't surprise me too much but one specific that i do want to address that i haven't heard enough about is

1:27:59 his report that there was no collusion with other people but there was also a direct quote that i will read real quick i'll shorten it a little bit but it was discovered that radio channel spd2 had failed to record any radio traffic from march 24th through july 30th 2020. this failure did not allow this reviewer to listen to radio traffic including directions from commanders information provided by officers and the extent officers and dispatchers add to or reduce the chaos of the incident so how do you know there's no collusion when we don't have any record of the audio um it should be obvious but that timeline covers the entirety of every blm protest that was done in springfield but what i really want to get to and other people have touched on is the extent of

1:28:44 putting lewis on suspension isn't going to fix the problem i want to know what happens with the audio for july 31st is it working again does that mean someone realized it was broken on july 31st and fixed it and nobody reported it because we're just now finding out about it here in april or march or whenever he concluded his report uh who wasn't doing their job during that entire time was it recorded and then deleted i mean there's just so many questions to it that it throws the entire report out of the window how can you say that there was no collusion when you don't even have the records where is that report at where's the investigation into the investigation can we do that now because i don't even see the value of a report that is so contradictory 38

1:29:31 recommendations but ultimately no major issues we'll just kind of fix it as we go no collusion but also i didn't get to view any records this report has absolutely no value to us and since then obviously we've had a couple more lawsuits you know you know the rest of the usual um we need sweeping change um we need to put money into other programs that can help us instead because at this rate the springfield police department is going to defund itself through their lawsuits thanks so you have my time mayor it does appear we have one additional speaker lauren williams and lauren you should be able to unmute your microphone

1:30:18 hi can you hear me we can great hi everyone um my name is lauren williams i live in ward 2. um i wanted to start by thinking counselor pictionary i was listening to this back meeting and i really appreciated your questions and your participation it was really heartening to see people asking some of the harder questions and it occurred to me that maybe council hasn't [Music] hasn't read or doesn't have access to or

1:31:04 hasn't collected whatever it may be the 11 lawsuits that i'm aware of that are public um with sbd i wanted to offer emailing you each the 11 public lawsuits that i'm aware of they kind of establish that these problems aren't new that they don't originate with g lewis and that it's pretty vast within the police department i think it's really critical information that you all have to combat these issues moving forward and i would love to make sure that we're all on the same page that this is not an issue just with cheap lewis um

1:31:52 it's a pretty messed up culture that we really need to address that's it i yield my time thanks so much there it appears that those are our speakers okay um thank you very much for everybody that uh that spoke um mary bridget or nancy could you before i let any counselor respond could you provide us maybe a little bit of guidance since there's issues about lawsuits involved personnel decisions involved just about how to construct our comments that would be really helpful i'm happy to chime in first and then if nancy has other information just a reminder that the um city has a lawsuit we're calling it the black unity lawsuit it's in very

1:32:37 early days it has to do with the demonstration at the end of july and the um items in the brazil report i would just caution the council about making comments about that since we're involved in litigation and it is so early on uh also as to chief lewis being on leave public employees are afforded due process rights that's an opportunity to a fair hearing and to be heard and i just cautioned the council that that's an administrative matter under the city manager's preview purview and that again it wouldn't be appropriate to make a lot of comments about that um this evening in the city council meeting this is nancy i think mary bridget handled it uh that that comment well um i would just encourage the council just

1:33:23 um i know that you are all uh keenly interested in um in making our city the best that it can be and i i appreciate that um i know you this is a difficult to kind of edit your comments but things that are personnel related i treat them all the same and so you know there's certain rights the public employees have regarding due process as mary bridget mentioned and so i do want to point out though that when an employee is placed on administrative leave that is not um indictment an indictment of that employee it is simply a method that we use in order to investigate

1:34:08 um a situation further so it's not a commentary about that employee nor is it a judgment about about them so i just wanted to uh be clear on that and that's all i have all right thank you um did anybody have council response counselor stare thanks mayor van gorden i'd like to thank everybody for their comments tonight and i'd just like to say um in light of what the city attorney has said that we are taking the findings of the brazil report very seriously and i would counsel on the public to exercise patients as we go through the findings and as we as as we consider the city's

1:34:57 options going forward thank you conservationery i um actually i think um leonard was very eloquent how he put that it was very similar to what i was going to say or actually i'm going to say i think i read the reports very thoroughly front to back a couple times i look at those reports as a as a great way to dive into and make some changes wherever they are and um and it doesn't mean that the changes everybody agrees with as obviously as we heard from the public there's there's going to be some differences but the the part that's exciting to me is that you know we have it all before us

1:35:43 and that we have something that that that's in front of us that we can look at and address one by one and i want to keep an open mind one by one and and look for areas that that need to be and or make changes whatever it's it's just the um to have that and to have a tool in front of us to make those types of things changes occur to me is exciting and i think people should look at this whether they agree with it in whole or not um should look at this as you know it's definitely a step forward and you know we cannot change the past but we can definitely i know it sounds cliche but but we can certainly learn from it and and make right decisions based on the past so uh i look forward to that and i

1:36:29 appreciate the comments from you lauren that was that was kind of you and my i know my heart's in the right place and and i am excited about uh delving into this further so hopefully it didn't hurt anything legally but there i am that's where i'm at also rodney thank you um i appreciate counselor stare just reminding us all that this takes time um and the patience that it takes which can be really frustrating i absolutely understand that as someone who works within and without um systems so i understand that and also just echo the thanks for people who are uh reading these reports along with us and engaging in this process because we are we are a community and as i've said

1:37:14 before we are co-creating this together so thank you for coming and i also want to hold a little piece to um thank raylene linneman for coming and reminding us of all of the fabulous things that the library does um and i am excited about the printing and i am excited about the possibility of reopening and just want to just extend my appreciation for the curbside pickup and all of the new website and all of the things that the library has done during the in times to make sure that people have as much access as possible so thank you for that

1:37:59 counselor pitts uh good evening y'all first of all i wanna thank everybody for attending this uh but then also the people who are brave enough to do public comment i know that some of the issues are somewhat controversial and kind of hard to talk about and some of you have buried your own soul and that's very appreciated at least you know by me yeah one thing i can say is that every day i challenge myself to do self-reflection and to think about ways to bridge the gap and when i mean bridging gap i think about how can we as springfield citizens get to know one another how can we create a culture that people would want to come here but then also want to stay here how do we create a culture to where when something volatile happens we can comfortably say that rarely ever happens here we're sorry we're gonna fix it and i think

1:38:45 that's hard but the truth of the matter is we don't know each other uh we might pass each other we might run you know run in the same circles but not really know each other and so this is a challenge to all of us uh is to step outside your comfort zone uh get to know somebody new get to know somebody who doesn't look like you think like you act like you uh now granted you know this might sound very kumbaya ish or we are the world it but you know that's not the case but you know somebody mentioned changing the culture and the truth of the matter is we can read as many books as we want to we can look at news we can embrace various elements of media but there's always multiple sides of multiple stories and sometimes you got to be able to go

1:39:31 to the source and get to know people and i think that we need to start figuring out a way to come together and move forward as a community i know i'm new to this uh probably newer to springfield than a lot of you and so excuse me if this comes off as very uh i don't know naive uh but that's just way i think you know i try to see the good people uh i really want us to be able to collaborate and get to know one another and potentially figure out ways to make the city all right thank you um and the only thing i would i would just add um i think everybody's had some really wise comments about just the pacing of the this is gonna

1:40:16 take it's gonna take time and uh you know the material i can vouch for for everybody on the that on the council that the material that people are asking and saying have you read it have you understood it have you digested it yes we've read it we understand it we digest it but we digested it there's a lot of good recommendations and a lot of road maps from policy changes that we need to make that is that are in those and that in in those reports and like like kelsey fusionary said i think we kind of have a road map now that we can begin to work with a little bit of time so i would just caution a little bit of patience that you know we're working through this we're going to get through it and we'll get to the other side counselor mo i want to well since october i've been

1:41:03 really pushing for getting into this police issue and so many times i think the city manager is avoiding my calls but nicely uh anyway we're having to wait and i hate it because i don't like that but i want everybody to know we're going to do it and we'll make springfield proud of us i promise you all right next item please next item is a resolution resolution number one a resolution initiating vacation of an unimproved portion of public right-of-way abutting private property at five four zero nine ivy street um sorry resolution number two a

1:41:49 resolution initiating vacation of an improved portion of public right-of-way budding private property at five four zero nine ivy street assessors map 18-02 tax lot 300 and melissa courinho is here again for the staff report thanks neil hi again councillors and mayor so again tonight the city council is requested to consider a resolution to initiate vacation of a portion of unimproved city-owned public right-of-way located along the northern side of ivy street abutting private property at 5409 ivy street the site uh marked in yellow is 5409 ivy street uh just to provide more context here's a

1:42:36 hold on a larger map of the city of springfield just kind of a drawn back view and the site that we're discussing is marked with a red star it's west of bob straub parkway and south of main street you can see it here as well bob straub on the west i'm sorry the east side and then the property in the top uh left corner because the previous previous property owner of 5409 ivy street wanted to retain the rectangular shape of the property when the hayden homes pinehurst phase 1 platt was being recorded the wedge-shaped portion of right-of-way was dedicated to the city in 2015.

1:43:24 the vacation is requested by the new property owner of 5409 ivy street in order to facilitate construction of a garage or carport that meets the minimum 18-foot springfield development code setback requirements so if you could see here if we counted uh the setback from the yellow line of 18 feet it doesn't leave much room for the garage or the carport the city is requested to initiate this resolution to vacate because of the challenges and limitations involved in obtaining consent from all affected property owners during the coveted pandemic however what the initial applicant the new property owner of 5409 ivy street did provide written consents from the adjacent property owners so the one to the

1:44:09 south uh west and then one to the northeast again here's the springfield development code section for the setback requirements of 18 feet if this vacation is approved and the portion of subject right-of-way is transferred to private property the property owner of 5409 ivy street must record and execute a public utility easement along the ivy street frontage to be consistent and uniform with the rest of the right-of-way one thing to note there are no direct financial impacts associated with the initiation of this vacation process by city council resolution if this vacation is initiated by city council tonight a public hearing will be scheduled for

1:44:54 monday may 3rd and that's all i have for you any questions mr pictionary um just a quick one were was the did we provide any consideration for that property that was given to us um do you mean were we trying to make that private property back then no being provided consideration means a monetary payment oh right now so there was not any consideration of finances at that time the right of way that we're trying to vacate is actually the maintenance of that is uh required by the property owner of 5409 ivy street so right maintenance was done so so then

1:45:39 when they the the previous owner that wanted the rectangular shape when they uh gave up that slice that pie slice there and the city assumed that or gave that through or got received that through deed is that correct dedication dedication so then um the city didn't pay that property owner for any part of that dedication correct no there was no payment and so um okay and so the property owner to the mostly to the south a little bit west um they have no issue with that at all no they they had written a i think it's an application they had consented for that vacation i was briefly scanning this and looking for that so

1:46:24 okay i'm good thanks okay no problem counselor so um just so that i can get it clear in my mind if um the council were to take no action here then the property owner at 5409 would not be in compliance with the setback regulations and then what would happen i think what would happen at this point the applicant would have to get all the affected property owners written consent and take the time even during this pandemic or after the pandemic to actually move that vacation through is there any of the adjacent property owners that have not given their uh consent no the two adjacent property

1:47:11 owners did give consent the affected property owners did include maybe i would say 20 other properties and the applicant of the property owner 50 or 409 ivy street has had a very difficult time reaching out to the title company as well as those adjacent or those affected property owners okay so absent their consent the other the consent of these other 20-some um property owners then that would uh make it impossible for them to maintain um the uh or comply with the setback regulations is that right that is correct thank you you're welcome counselor rodney and it sounded like you

1:47:57 said that the property owner has been maintaining that and all along is that what you said that is correct that they've been responsible for maintaining that part of the property as if yes as if it was theirs already okay thank you yep no problem anybody else can then i'm ready for a motion if people are right like i'd like to emotion i'd like to make a motion to approve resolution number two a resolution initiating vacation of an unimproved portion of public right-of-way avoiding private property at 5409 ivy street assessors map 18-02-04-0

1:48:42 tax lot 300. second access okay it's been moved in secondly neil can you call the roll please counselor pitts hey counselor mo yes council radley yes councillor stare aye and counselor pictionary all right motion passes five to zero with one absent next item please next item is any business from the city council are there any announcements from the uh city council no quiet bunch um i do have an announcement desserts for dinner is coming up desserts for dinner two or three depending on how you count it

1:49:28 leonard's already interested he's like desserts yes sir are you just ordering one all right so it's saturday april 24th you can order off the catholic community services website so the money goes to support oasis now which is the uh which is the uh family day center in town for unhoused families and kids uh and we have eight bakers so it's pick up from its pickup from catholic community services and you take the box of delicious goodies home and you enjoy them at your own home so please check it out because there's still some boxes available anything else

1:50:16 all right i was going to tell you corey busy bee may be in there i know they're your favorite all right next item please the next item is business from the city manager item number one 2021 springfield enterprise zone read designation and courtney griezel is here for the staff report good evening um appreciate you all have had a long evening so i will try to keep this light slightly detailed but quick i'm going to share my screen so this evening we are here to talk about redesignation of our enterprise zone so it seemed like a great place to start

1:51:01 uh would be with a discussion about what our enterprise zone actually is and then go over some overviews of the exciting things that have happened with companies within the zone and what it means to be designated so from the standpoint of what the zone actually is it is a state-defined program it allows us to draw a boundary uh around certain areas of the community and within that boundary we then have the ability to administer a tax abatement program so it's a program that if a company makes a new investment for a short term for a short window of time we can abate some portions of the taxes that would be levied on those new investments so it's

1:51:47 interesting because we say it is a state program but the the water is carried at the local level and it is on property taxes as well so we're grateful that the state authorizes us to use it but we do administer it um so springfield has the current standard enterprise zone uh it is a rural zone and so we'll talk about what that boundary is uh really the goal of the program is that it is about incenting expansion of an existing business a business that's creating a good or service here and selling it primarily outside of our region our goal is uh that these companies invest in new equipment they modernize they expand they add jobs

1:52:33 and they make more of those widgets to be sold around the us or globe and bring more of those dollars back into our economy and our hope is that they're interested in making the investment for sure they make it here and they don't make it in a different state but that maybe they go a little bigger than they would have but for this tax abatement as well um and uh and really our goal is also in these three to five year windows that we're incenting the most precarious moment of their expansion the moment when they're really trying to stabilize the business plan get workforce trained up and that it comes off of that exemption for the many years after when the company is thriving and growing and

1:53:20 and using that new equipment so as we kind of mentioned it is traded sector focused making something here selling it elsewhere i'll note that we we really cannot um recruit a company from somewhere else in oregon if it's recruitment it's got to be new to our region they can't be curtailing jobs elsewhere but we do a lot of focus on expansion a lot of our existing companies use this tool the other element is that if they're going to request an abatement that a tax exemption that's longer than three years if they're going to request the five-year exemption not only do they have to increase jobs on this site but those jobs need to

1:54:05 average one and a half times the current county uh compensation packet so that means that these these companies employees are making about 68 000 annually so i want to talk a little bit about where we've been and we've i've focused on the last 15 years partly because the last 15 years are the years that the program has been most consistent and it does actually do quite a deep look back for springfield in total we've had about 19 uh enterprise zone projects uh nine of them are are current they're occurring right now uh so we're really busy right now it's a positive thing even through covid those

1:54:50 those current companies have maintained pace and they've maintained their employment um they have continued we've kind of always been both retention and expansion and recruitment but in the recent years we've made a very concerted effort to focus on expansion projects companies who are already here and we want to see them grow here so the majority of our companies are currently expansion projects so just kind of a list of the companies some you know uh some you may not have heard of but are doing really cool things just quietly and then uh in the packet we included kind of a look at the financial impacts of these companies

1:55:35 so we talk about 19 companies but then when we say really those 19 companies are responsible for over 3 000 jobs every year it starts to feel a little bit even more exciting and when we talk about how much they're really investing i mean we're investing these are almost 400 million dollars in investments in our community that become taxable and that makes a really big difference and so if you think about some of the significant companies like swanson's uh you know but for this tool and partnerships they it didn't pencil to rebuild here um international paper um a lot of those companies that we see are part of their choice to choose us

1:56:20 in the beginning was based on this this incentive although their choice to stay is because springfield's pretty amazing so i'm not biased or anything but we win projects so we must be so what's interesting about this redesignation is uh in the past we we have been what's considered a rural zone which has always been funny to me and i just try and breeze over that with people because it doesn't make sense to them we're not very rural but as of recent years our metropolitan statistical area our msa has been redesignated and now includes the name springfield in it so we are the eugene springfield msa or as i refer to it the springfield eugene msa

1:57:05 that means that we do need to transition our zone slightly the zone will expire at the end of june we need to read we need to apply to redesignate it by that time and we need to bring down the size of the zone we need to shrink some of the geographic distances between certain pockets and we need to ensure that all parts are within our urban growth boundary so we've done a little bit of the creative mapping to show what that might look like and so we want to show you this new boundary that we're proposing should you desire to ask us to reapply for designation everywhere that you see

1:57:51 the um sort of hashed marks are are historic they were the the current enterprise zone that is in existence through the end of june because we do have to shrink from 15 square miles down we have to drop some of that but we've also done some great work to expand our urban growth boundaries so we want to acknowledge those places so where you see the purple is where we are proposing the new boundary to exist so this means we have dropped the county's goshen area this is not in our urban growth boundary and is required by the new guidelines that it no longer be in ours we are expanding to include southern

1:58:38 portions of where the urban growth boundary was bumped out in recent years as well as northern portions up in gateway additionally we really focused in closely to identify pockets of areas that are clearly neighborhoods and where there is some commercial it is community commercial relatively established and focused on serving those residential areas so by dropping those it's allowed us to come in under the 12 square miles we're at just about 11. the other thing we've done is removed some areas so like up here in the north this is a residential neighborhood uh this is marcola meadows so we are removing that portion

1:59:24 and then you see this large track of land which is actually kind of up on the hill and is a public facility it's a water facility so we wouldn't really want to incent that to redevelop leonard do you have questions i can't tell if you're scrolling or no i i don't at this point i was just trying to expand my screen to look at the map a little bit more thoroughly thanks yeah courtney i had a question about the map and in mid-springfield where's the is the line running on main street or is it running sort of south yeah it's running south so actually this hard line between the purple and the yellow assuming everyone is not colorblind

2:00:11 uh the hash and the non-hash that is main street so would the line include sort of the scent like the mid that the southern commercial properties on main street there or is it like actually in the middle of the road in that case it is running down the center of the loan the road so this is kind of a historic holdover um so it currently runs down the middle line or on the boundary of the right-of-way on the south side it's primarily community commercial uses we could take a look at uh if there's some opportunity sites in there and work with survey to include them if

2:00:56 it made some sense i would be open to that that was a that was one of two places where i was like i just can't tell from this map about like you know you know if there's some opportunity sites and then on the furthest kind of northeast corner where the highland property would be right that little when you come into high banks there with that little sort of commercial set of properties be in or out uh still in so it is this pocket yeah that's when i i look closely i'm sending people his way all the time um begging him to build more so that remains in there um it actually doesn't change anything except that it sort of wraps around uh and then

2:01:42 removes this residential kind of this neighborhood and core right in here but let us take a look at some of these parcels in here and um see about maybe bumping south even just a tax slot south of main street uh counselor mo i'm on my glenwood thing again i'm glad to see you expand the boundary to the urban growth boundary in glendale there's lots of opportunity there and this this will help thanks yeah agree you know glenwood had some pockets in it uh before and so areas that had been unincorporated were still in the pockets

2:02:28 it felt good to just wrap in there fish so it seems that um because we need to get it under 12 and we're already under slightly under 11 i like the idea of going bumping that south border or the north border of main street to the south side because even if it's just straight across as opposed to a jagged edge that will open that up for any of those properties through there to maybe look and see what kind of options they have maybe they want to make change things up and that'll take that tax incentive to be able to do that and i don't i wouldn't want to discourage changing things up and i would really like to see some some good uh some some healthy

2:03:14 changes along main street and that may even help improve the safety corridor if those changes are made so if we got the ability to change it i'll i i would move that south just a little bit okay counselor um thanks courtney where is the eastbound um border of the main street um development that we're or addition that we're contemplating i am not in in other words how how far does the main street corridor extend um in that yellow area that we're thinking about adding um i'm not sure uh for the enterprise zone

2:03:59 uh i think what we're talking about is dropping it south of this is uh i think at about 40 i'd have to look to be honest maybe around 48th so we would drop it south at that point we could take a look at what's occurring up in this area but it is pretty heavily even residential fronting this with apartments and we're always really sensitive in multi-family that that can be um vulnerable locations to this change we we want to be sensitive to that but we can look at it well i i the the reason i'm asking is that the uh the main street corridor from 42nd to

2:04:44 about 54th where thurston begins is pretty depressed right now i mean it's not that there's not a lot going on right now and there's some my my heart breaks for some of the family businesses that are owned in that corridor yeah yeah we'll take a look at a way to um to kind of hug both sides of main street a little better thank you so the the next steps on it for us it's kind of a two-phase process we need to make a application to the state by june 30th application to the state means a couple things we need to do some of the data and findings which i've included in your packet and that part is already done

2:05:30 we need to engage with our local taxing districts and partners we have a formal process to do that but we work really closely with them so we'll also outreach personally and then we need to come back in and have a public meeting to adopt a resolution formally a public hearing and that then points to that application it satisfies the application to the state the state recently removed rules from which they limited the number of zones that could exist so i do not believe we're in a um threat of not being approved as long so long as we do things effectively and we do tend to be one of the leaders in the state for um administration of the program so i think we're in good standing there

2:06:16 after that assuming those things go forward you have to redesignate me as your zone manager you could choose someone else but we should talk about that um and then we have to make notice to the county assessor as well and the department of revenue we then have about six to nine months where we get to work through sort of a finalization of the boundary so we do have time to do this where we look at parcels on both sides i always will say we should leave ourselves a little bit of a buffer because we never know when a new site or something might make sense for another's own amendment um and then we have the ability to explore move now that we're in an urban zone putting any additional conditions that we might want on an application process for a business

2:07:03 and we can really talk about the pros and cons or the impacts of those new conditions so we would do those in the second half of this calendar year so that's all my fun for this late in the evening with still a little bit of time left in that gonzaga game counselor mill i have a curious question in the uh in the thirsten area where you're pulling out 1.02 square miles that little piece that sticks out very narrow peak piece yeah what is that what was that yeah it was part of an odd tax lot and right-of-way that kind of remnant we had a couple others in some other odd locations that we noted when we were going through it it was just a curious thing that's all i

2:07:49 wanted to know thank you yeah really curious thing when when these organizations these companies apply to try to build is is it possible for the city to implement some kind of control on like any type of environmental pollution to where they have to have a certain code and have to adhere to certain rules to reduce emissions to avoid pollution but then also i think about uh companies with histories of discriminatory practices i mean is there any way to uh make sure that they

2:08:35 you know follow the rules that you know the the six points that we have on our website uh to where they will enhance springfield versus make it go the opposite direction than what we wanted to yeah it's so it's a great question and what's exciting about what's occurring for us now is this transition from rural to urban actually gives us more authority to implement any additions additional conditions like that specific to you know hiring or some of those practices it's related to environmental or land use or permitting practices you know what i'm always very proud about as a economic development professional in oregon is

2:09:20 we really do set the bar nationally and so our agreements and their really existence operating in oregon does require that they adhere to pretty significant environmental permitting they do pay the cost for those permitting and then we have strong partnerships with entities like development deq department of environmental quality but also lane regional air pollution and our own metro water metro wastewater management commission so those things are built in uh to them being in our urban urban area but i think there's some areas that we get to now do a little more work since we're moving to urban

2:10:13 i think you just needed to go over the material right courtney you didn't need us to do anything no just need to go over it but i do need you to agree just head nods that you're okay with us starting the process formally and we'll start to engage taxing entities and do another run at a boundary and off to the races perfect really appreciate it thank you courtney next item you next time is any other business from the city manager evening council i don't have any formal business for you just a quick comment um although i appreciate counselor moe's sense of humor which is often quite dry we are in a public meeting tonight so i just want to confirm from the record that i would never ever dodge a counselor's phone call so that's all i have i was joking

2:11:11 thanks everybody have a good night item is business from the city attorney uh no additional business from the city attorney thank you all right thank you everybody have a great night um our meetings adjourned take care