Springfield City Council — May 17, 2021

0:08 then i'm going to call the work session of the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillors pitts here all right we've got two items tonight the first one is the check in on recreational vehicles as temporary housing with jim donovan and sandy belson jim are you you want to stall or you want to just dive right in well we can uh start uh sandy must be having some technical difficulties sandy and i touch base uh briefly this afternoon before the work session so

0:53 um i feel comfortable yeah we can start with the ais package that was submitted and as you will recall that on october 9th 19th excuse me of of 2020 we added um a somewhat temporary program to allow the use of rvs and driveways this is outside of the normal camping and other allowances by code under the executive order the emergency order for covid the fires in addition to the normal need for um housing and if not housing temporary housing and uh sandy belson and i took your direction and created uh the

1:39 handout that i believe is attached to your ais we've been working with the public and we've been working with homeowners to publicize if you will the program itself now that being said it's been a little bit difficult it's a bit of an honor system to determine how many people are using it i think we allude in the ais to the fact that you don't hear much about uh the positive use of the program uh it is an honor system and people who follow the guidelines that we wrote up for placement and connection and quiet hours uh tend you know to kind of fly under the radar for my piece as a code enforcement and

2:24 planning supervisor you'll recall we took the position that rather than doing an ordinance and changing the code we used the prosecutorial discretion allowed um to me on behalf of mr boyat the director to suspend any code enforcement action on the use of rvs with the power codes and the placements from talking to my staff anecdotally we've had very few interactions with the public with the negative aspects by and large it's been used pretty consistently with the handouts we we've heard through the grapevine that

3:10 some people were trying to charge rent and i think you know given the level of discussion and all the other positive aspects reported i think that's pretty minimal so um judging the need is still great in the community and that feedback has been relatively minimal we were recommending that as long as your executive order for the covid protections and the other things afforded by the state and federal government are still in effect that we extend or keep the program in place and maybe come back and consult you uh six months from now or

3:55 as necessary or we could always provide feedback if you ever took into consideration the lifting of your um emergency order so i think in general that's our report back to you and again we're asking for your direction or a head nod on this particular approach to the program that we've been taking we would continue i think the last line in the ais was my line in the field we'll be talking with folks to just gain compliance if anything gets a little sideways and we won't be using the enforcement approach i guess i'd be remiss if i didn't say

4:41 for my staff if and when we we get to discontinue the program there should be a bit of a grace period as people have to find other arrangements in the sort of returning housing market and that being the last line of the ais i think i'll leave it there and just maybe stand for questions as necessary joe did you have your hand up yes i did thank you um i think the program is working fine like you said i've seen dozens upon dozens of rvs park it's being heavily used it makes sense to keep it during this covet issue during executive orders and i would i would support extending it for another six months for the six month check-in

5:32 leonard so um jim is there an estimate of how many people are living out of their rvs right now again counselor if you recall some of the original discussion we talked about permits and tracking and we steered away from that and i think you know uh counselor joe's uh perspective is similar to mine i i do notice quite a few of them in the city but as far as hard numbers the short answer service no okay well i um just strictly anecdotally i've noticed them in my ward and they've seemed very orderly and haven't seemed to be a menace to the public in any way and i will certainly uh sign off on an

6:17 extension for the next six months as well thanks merrily uh yes i feel the same way i think we've really we've been able to meet a need uh a need even more than we expected when the fires hit so we ended up with the double need not just coped but the fires and i think we've been able to to help alleviate some of those issues that people would have encountered um and i'm definitely for extending another six months and checking in and seeing where we're at and what's going on all right anybody else for questions or comments some kind of steve i talked to the other day about another use that's being that's good out

7:02 there and we're talking about housing right now and i understand that there are properties commercial industrial properties out there that have rds rvs on there and we say people are there for security and so you got to be licensed for security it's not the security it's to have somebody on that property just a body on there with a with a cell phone and it deters a lot of homeless situations pretty bad it just it just determined deters a lot of people who are coming on the property and it also provides housing but their basic need at that time is for protection i don't want to say security because everybody wants to get somebody licensed for security but there's a need for that there and one other thing i noticed the other day was

7:49 the code is the whole urban growth boundary for for those outside the city limits the code applies there but let's see if you don't if you don't have somebody in that property you can't call the police they're uh and they're prohibited from doing that to sort of help protect the property but you can't call the police so if we put somebody on there they'll help protect the property and so that's it's different than the housing but it's it's something i want to see us consider as we go on you want to bring it up now that's all all right anybody else okay so i'm definitely behind let's

8:35 extend it for um you know and come back and talk about it for in in six months um any you know any sort of additional anecdotal information that you could gather i think would be helpful to to folks as they kind of think about the program and i just want to put a pin in this for right like you know this is our response to sort of emergency housing needs right like and to give us sort of space to work on the long-term problems in the housing market and we want ultimately we want people to have homes here and apartments here and if that's an adu or something that's long-term secure and safe for them and their families all right i think you are off the hook good seeing you jim good to see you mr mayor councilman

9:20 joe's leaving so jim when uh counselor mo is talking about the private security function and seeing what the city can do about it what not you're gonna need to make sure that you look up away our two five nine zero six zero point zero zero two zero i know all about that i'm not talking about security people i'm talking about a body being on the property i'm talking about the functions and how the city if the city is going to approach writing something up that will allow that or whatever we need to make sure that the city is not trying to preempt an oar that's all i don't i don't have a problem with it okay thank you thank you counselor that uh saves me a little bit of tracking all

10:06 the way back to the camping program so to just check with you one more time [Music] oar259060020 capture that that's yeah that's correct and and even under uh it goes all the way up to uh 120 and 300 so starting at the top that uh that should that should get you right on the ballpark i remember the conversation and we'll try to bring back a well-rounded approach and we'll you know have that yeah it just i just didn't realize the city spent time on something that that's not going to be workable but then gives them some gives the city something to look at that they can work with very good thank you jim thank you joe thank you folks thank you

10:59 all right mary bridget you want to talk about the council training you bet uh good evening mayor and council i'm here tonight to um do a couple things uh we're gonna do a quick refresher on some council training and then i was also hoping to have a conversation with you all about um sort of revamping council training moving forward and maybe looking at some different methods for delivering training to you and expanded topics and kind of going from there so um if that sounds good to you i'll go ahead and get started the um what i'd like to do first is talk about the attachments in the packet and then that'll kind of lead us through the first part of the discussion so in your packet today there are in the

11:46 packet this week um there was just a brief discussion about the reasoning behind looking at council training a little bit differently and then the first attachment is just a really quick kind of brief overview of public official ethics public meetings and public records i was hoping we could do a quick refresher today and then that way we can kind of check that box and get that done for the year um this is information that i presented recently to counselors uh rodley and pitts when they came aboard and we send it to the planning commission i think the city council has seen it these are sort of the core areas that we train the city council on um in terms of these areas of law there

12:34 haven't been a lot of changes recently so it's kind of status quo keeping in mind for public official ethics um you know the main thing to think about with public official ethics is that you're not supposed to get a financial gain from serving as a public official so the classic example of that is like if you own some type of company that then contracted with the city but there are other ways that i think elected officials are more often confronted with this issue and they're always kind of like how do i handle this and it's a little different now that we're um dealing with the pandemic because you're not kind of out and about in the community so much but it could be anything from like going to a chamber dinner and having them pay for it um because it's a sponsored event and you're going your capacity city

13:19 councilor some gifts you receive some honorarium those things are okay to accept um so it's really just i think learning kind of after a while what is appropriate and what's not and always if you have that kind of feeling of like uh i don't know about this feel free to call a city attorney's office and we can talk through these issues with you and the other thing that i often hear about ethics um someone will say well i think i have a conflict or he's got a conflict or she has a conflict and in the context of public official ethics if they remember that's really a defined term about using your um having making a decision um about something when you have a

14:04 personal stake in it that's a conflict of interest under the public official ethics laws sometimes conflict of interest is sort of this umbrella for like maybe i shouldn't do this or i feel weird about this and that's a totally fine thing to think but it may not necessarily be a conflict so it's good to talk through um and then recall that for public official ethics the liability is personal so even when you do talk with us and we're certainly happy to do that you'll always hear us say hey you know you also can consult your own attorney or be your own counsel on this or think about it yourself just to kind of keep those rules clean of us representing the city and then each individual elected official being responsible for their own liability in terms of public

14:50 meetings and public records again not a lot of change here i think the most change has been just the format of the meetings and how that has changed um how we do business usually in this training i talk about um the idea that if someone is disruptive at your meeting you know some ways to handle it but that certainly is in a circumstance when we're all together in the room and so it's a lot different now you don't have that as much but just recall that the policy is that someone really has to be disruptive and they get a warning and if they don't heed the warning then they can be removed so i think it's that balance that idea that you know the courts have said look people get to come talk to their government they don't always necessarily

15:35 have to be real nice about it and not to say that you have to be unsafe or be disrespected but it is important that people have a chance to be able to speak out so something to keep in mind there and this wouldn't be a training about um council training if i didn't nag you about emails so just keep in mind that emailing um can lead to danger i think for elected officials you can inadvertently participate in a deliberation that hasn't been noticed be real careful if you're replying all to something or if there's multiple of you on the email just really give that some thought um you know think should i just pick up the phone or should i be responding to this

16:21 you know it's i mean emails they just don't age particularly well and so it's something to think about in terms of and i know we all send lots of emails i know i certainly do but just keep that in mind and then the last area is executive sessions remember that executive sessions are only for particular reasons you can only cover the topic that it's been noticed for and then if you want to stray from that topic the problem is that sort of opens up the whole meeting and then all of the contents of the meeting can be public so really keep that in mind and we really keep a tight lid on the types of meetings that that can be an executive session to try and protect you from that kind of outcome so that's kind that's attachment one that's just the quick and dirty

17:06 oh and the last part is um and the council doesn't deal with this as much but your responsibility when you act as a tribunal to be impartial and fair and those are usually in land use context and we talk to you about that ahead of time so that's the first attachment so mary bridget i think i've got a question when it comes to when it comes to emails right so i did notice in here right that that reminder that your personal email can't you can have a public record arrive in your personal email and historically what i've done when that's happened is essentially just forwarded a copy and back to my city email and then responded from that is that the right sort of process yes that's what i would recommend yeah remember it's the content of the

17:52 record not necessarily the format of the communication so an email to your personal address if it's city business uh just forward it back to your city address and then it gets on the city system and then you can get it off your system a text message is the same is the same thing you know it's one thing to text back and forth like okay see you at five or very short messages but if you are getting into something more substantive it would be a good idea to make that text transfer that text to an email a city email so you preserve that record generally you know city records i think the two things i you know we always tell folks are city records need to be retained and they generally need to be disclosed and so just be thinking about that um there are some exceptions to that but

18:38 for the most part it's the people's business you know so they get perfect yeah and are we responsible to retain the records in our email or is the it world sort of that backing up all of that so once it's in our email we're free to delete it that's correct so the it department does maintain a backup of your city emails so that is retained okay yeah perfect and then i wanted to jump ahead speaking of emails to the third oh go ahead i'm sorry so just another quick one uh similar but maybe for uh just for ease of stating now when i've gotten an email that appears to be a city business i simply i respond back stating this appears to be city business please resend my city email and i provide a link to my

19:23 city email that's kind of the same thing as what sean was talking about but just kind of a different way yeah that's a great that's good too and then it kind of puts it back on the person to be sure they send it to your city right so i'm not i'm not forwarding stuff to wherever yeah yeah that's good so sort of dovetailing with that um i wanted to talk a little bit about the third attachment and it might just sort of seem like it's um sort of attached on there but that was uh we were talking with the county council steve dingle and he gave us some templates for what he gives his board of commissioners for email responses to constituents so we thought that might be helpful as a reference it's just really meant to be a reference and a template so take it or leave it but it's things like

20:08 if somebody um wants you to deal with a certain situation and you could say hey i'm gonna forward this on to the appropriate staff here's uh thanks for the email or if somebody wants you to tour their business but you know you have an application that you're deciding so you really can't go toward the business at this point um or if someone you know i've i've seen lots of these emails or someone that constituent emails you they're upset about an issue understandably and then they say well i have a lawyer and my lawyer is going to do this and this is how it's going to go and then you know you really shouldn't be talking with that person if they're represented so you can send back an email that says hey look i hear what you're saying but you say that you have an attorney so i need to confirm that person that we can talk directly or

20:54 i can jump in as a city attorney and say hey let's make sure that we're all communicating correctly another thing sometimes i know constituents will want to meet with each one of you you know and then and you're all that's a risk i think of a serial meeting so kind of having some ground rules about talking with folks and they're just it's just meant to be an aide but when he gave that to us we thought it just might be a nice thing for you all to have uh just for ideas for responding to some of those emails so really that's what that is i don't know if anyone has questions about that third attachment i'm also happy to mail you a hard copy if that would be easy to if you'd want to refer to that be no problem

21:39 i think that would be um i think if we could get an electronic copy that would be helpful and and with that serial meeting line i thought that was a really interesting call out just sort of an acknowledgement that you know that even if we're meeting with folks is to expressly ask them not to convey our position yeah yeah we thought so too that was a good reminder to people and i know that um you know i mean we know that you get emails all the time from folks and you're always trying to figure out how to be responsive but also helpful and not unhelpful and so or create more problems so anyway we just thought that might be a good guide for that kind of thing so yeah we'll we'll send an electronic version so you can cut and paste that in and drop a hard copy in the mail too

22:24 just in case somebody wants it okay so then the second attachment is kind of leading into the discussion today is just some a list of resources that are with the league of oregon cities and city county insurance for free training webinars and other online written materials that might be helpful for the council just some resources for you to see uh league of oregon cities has a and they call it the elected essentials program it used to be and probably will be again an in-person training like six hours of training about topics for elected officials they recorded them this year so they're

23:10 online on their website they also have scheduled training you also can hire them they'll hire a facilitator to come conduct some trainings and they have materials on their website and there's some links there that are helpful particularly for newly elected officials some reference stuff that i think is good if you know you're walking into a particular type of meeting and you want a refresher or to get yourself a little more acclimated on a topic and then the second half of that attachment is from our insurance company and that's cis they have an extensive collection of webinars that are free um that we can connect the council to and i do want to keep in mind i understand that you're not employees so i don't think this training should be as extensive as it may be for

23:56 employees so we reached out to cis to get an idea of some types of training that are helpful for counselors so some of its overlap with what we already do ethics public records public meetings but some of it's like political activity in the workplace cyber security unconscious bias diversity equity and inclusion harassment those kinds of things that would be good trainings and particularly good because there are some city administrative regulations that apply to the council for example harassment um non-discrimination um use of equipment so cyber security those apply to volunteers counselors and employees alike

24:41 but i don't think we've done a good job you know of training the council on some of these things so would be nice i think to be able to provide some of that so you guys can get some background and that sort of thing so that's what the i think the cis library can be good for so really was just meant to be an opportunity for you to see what some of those are and then kind of help us sort of frame a discussion about how you'd like to see training go moving forward does anyone have any questions about that attachment leonard yeah um mary b thanks uh for uh just sort of uh informing us about the cia cis resource uh so i'm cia um so anyway uh yeah i i did want to let

25:27 you yeah i i did want to say that i took the um implicit bias training at some point when i got involved in the unions and it was eye-opening and sort of enlightening and i uh i learned a little bit about myself as they say so um i'd encourage anybody um who's interested um to uh to look into it thanks okay great and then but i'd like to try oh go ahead councilwood i'm sorry um it doesn't specifically refer to cis but a while back um maybe a year year and a half we had uh considered the option of doing a brief even if it's just an overview of the alice training that was given to the employees yes and i'd like to see that brought back up

26:12 again so that at least we are aware of how we don't have to go through the whole training but at least so we have an overview of what they've been trained in and what their you know what what their roles are in that kind of a situation and i think i recall a couple years ago an officer came in and talked with the council about the alice training is that right he came in and gave a very brief explanation as to what it was and explained that they were going to be doing it with the employees and all that and at that time we said we wanted a brief opportunity to have an overview of everything everything that was in that not not to go through the whole day's work but to have an overview and and that's and it stopped there it never happened okay so a brief overview of alice

26:57 trading as it would apply to counselors like if you're in the building and something happens well yeah and and to be aware of what the how the employees have been trained what are they just a an overview of what are they trained to do or how are they trained to react i think it's just a really good uh just a good awareness uh situation okay i can pass that along and we can incorporate that okay i was going to try and if it works share my screen and then see if i want to have a little more discussion about council training moving forward so is that all right if i give that a shot this is expanding my skill my skills here we'll see it goes all right

27:43 okay like a pro now you're just saying that okay let's see um [Music] so there's really not a lot of content here it was just meant for me to slow down and have this discussion without kind of um rifling through it too quickly so um let's see if i can make this work on the next one so what i wanted to do is just frame up the discussion you know really the purpose of council training it was funny i felt like when i got to my firm city council training was just something i inherited and everybody all city attorneys did it i never really asked why we did it or

28:28 what would be effective and so one of the things i did in this project is try to reach out to some counterparts and see like are we off base here what are we doing and i think we are similar to other communities pretty consistent training on um public records meetings uh procedure um trying i think more councils are getting into other training about harassment implicit bias cyber security starting to look at that a little more comprehensively but when you look at the purposes of council training you know i think we're talking about having a high functioning council right as you are but to help serve our community and and make our objectives move forward obviously prevent liability

29:13 and as i mentioned in the ais this is tied to our enterprise risk management efforts and then staying up to date on new laws rules and practices so the idea is as things change you need to be informed and really tonight what i'm trying to understand from the council is if you know you'd like more training on expanded topics the types of methods for training i think in the past year we've had obviously a lot of change for how we receive information so recorded trainings webinars written materials that kind of thing and then frequency um often this work session you know gets rescheduled or bumped for other things and so wanting to make sure that this really gets the space it needs and then just trying to make sure that this is right size for

29:58 the council that we don't make some huge program that we can't ever actually do but we just start it and see if we can refine it and kind of keep moving forward really it's the this would be my objective so training formats this is where i'm looking for some input you know still if you'd still like to have some in-person discussion um written materials webinars last year we did a pre-recorded video because of the pandemic if any counselors have any thoughts on things that do or don't work i would love to hear in terms of training formats anybody leonard i um i i don't really have any strong opinions about the formats but i do um i did want to suggest i i think these

30:43 trainings are a great idea but they should be on a voluntary basis um i think you know the people that i i i think the people who can benefit this uh benefit from a training like this we know who we are and you know and they um it it could be something that certain people that certain members of the council would benefit from and other members might feel that they already have the knowledge that they require yeah i think that's a good point our our thinking was you know we like let's say for example we start to push out webinars maybe once or twice a year you know we can give that reminder to the council and say hey that we'd like you to take this training we can keep track of it but really it's up to that individual person to actually

31:29 do it and think like okay yeah this works for me i should do this um so i see your point there in terms of you know you know if you need the training or if you want the refresher that makes sense to me so corey so um i have somebody said first i don't know that we just just to be a pill i don't know that folks do always know the training that they need as someone who does a lot of um equity inclusion access diversity and bias training i find it's often just the opposite that the folks who do need it are the ones who are the most resistant so i just just want to hold that there um and in response to your question about the formats i think it really depends on the topic that sort of also falls into

32:15 um you know what we're doing like some things are definitely best done in person with a facilitator especially if we were you know working on something like bias training as a team whereas other things so you know i i just recently did the ones that you all sent and the harassment training was great so i think that there are there are ones that just depends on the topic in terms of what we're trying to accomplish and where we're trying to get okay that's good feedback that's helpful opinion yeah i i definitely have to piggyback on what a counselor always said i do agree that sometimes the people who need the training the most don't but then you do have people who think that they know more than they really do uh and and i've seen especially within you

33:00 know social justice circles here in lane county a lot of people swear they know but they really don't and so i do think that as a council we should establish like certain things that we should all have to do whether it's yearly every two years but one thing that i do wonder is certain trainings you know is it possible to create a platform whether it's through the library or somewhere else that are sentencing it's ah i cannot speak today our citizens can access some of these trainings because i mean i i think about the the sexual harassment training that i did and i thought it was i thought it was fantastic it was kind of like a choose your own adventure book that a lot of us read as kids and i think that other people outside of city employees

33:45 can be can benefit for something like that but the thing is i guess in my life i've realized that training around sexual harassment there's a lot of energy that's given towards it because it affects well they assume that it affects a certain demographic but when it comes to anything related to you know race or even you know sexuality the trains are sub-par at best and it'd be great if there was a way we could find some type of training that was similar to the the sexual harassment training that focused on bias or or race as well uh because i mean as somebody who does these trainings i mean it's you'd be surprised about

34:31 how many people even those who preach equity and diversity are actually clueless and do more harm than good i'm kind of rambling now but it's monday and i'm tired so my bad we all feel that one um i yeah and one of the things that you know i guess i think two things and maybe i'm looking for a head nod that maybe we can help decide some of this that you know at council leadership if there's training that we think we all should do is to kind of give a little bit of a get a little bit of direction but like some of the some of the stuff that we would normally do in a big organization the harassments the administrative rules i think they should be mandatory um and is a refresher um for us going through them even if we know all the

35:17 information it sends the right signal to the community and the the rest of the organization that we all take it seriously um so that we can kind of reinforce where we want to go but i also think there's probably a a group of trainings that you know mary bridget described like there's an email that come may come out from what about a webinar that the league's putting on that clearly probably could be optional if that's your interest area go for it but i but i think that i think the difference is if it comes to sort of compliance issues or public meetings law or anything that could possibly change that we we sort of set the bar really high and say hey we're going to do the training maybe maybe it comes in a webinar maybe it comes in a video mary bridget shoots and you know just do a check-in discussion once a

36:02 year about it and say okay is everybody good does anybody have any questions so that we can you know set the right the right tone in the organization so i can add a little information on this um kind of following up on your discussion we do have some um responsibility to cis they do a best practice kind of work with us each year like an audit like hey what are you doing and part of that is training your counsel on sort of those um what i always think of those bread and butter topics like records meetings procedure and then i do think also part of that too is um harassment specifically not so much getting into uh diversity equity inclusion and bias

36:47 but sort of the kind of harassment that can result in liability those kinds of training so there is somewhat of a check the box on that that you know that we know we need to get before the council get information to the council on a yearly basis on those items then i think there's kind of that other level of training that's you know when a professional develops the right word but you know maybe a topic that someone's interested in or as the council as a group says hey you know we really want to work on this topic x then we can start moving that forward in a way and figure out kind of like what concert rally was saying like what kind of training is usually really dependent on the topic so i think we can work on that so it'll be a combination of checking the box some of this we got to get done and then some of this really

37:32 being council driven for things that you guys want to work on is what it's sounding like to me and i think that's pretty manageable and then the counselor pitts question so for example the cis training library is limited to the council and to the employees because we're members of cis so i don't think we could push it out to the community at large but it might be you know there might be opportunities to have maybe if if there are some recommended trainings that are on youtube or videos on youtube that could be a way to try and push out to the community that might be something to look at but those particular trainings we cannot share outside of the organization so um are written materials okay oh go

38:19 ahead i'm sorry um i i just wanted to say that i love the idea of us creating a library of trainings that are available to the community at large i think of that as you know just just a way of us all moving forward together and as we've talked about in previous meetings you know we're co-creating what we want springfield to be and so i just think in terms of who we want to be i just love that idea so okay great well i can i'll bring that back to the executive team and probably particularly the librarian city manager's office will have some good ideas about best ways to move that forward so yeah i agree yeah great okay

39:04 um are you all right so it sounds like webinars are okay still doing some in person maybe facilitated depending are you okay with just kind of traditional written materials i mean i can think of you know one area i'd like to be able to train the council on a little more is defamation it's not like there's a lot of change in it it just but you know we could crank out sort of a legal memo with a case study and just say hey here's something to think about for defamation and see if that's something that's helpful for that type of training if that would also be helpful um so that's also a question that we have if written materials on their own would be helpful early yeah i think i think each one of these

39:50 kind of generates its own importance um and so you have they're more they're case specific almost i mean there is a there is a topic like you just mentioned that would be worthwhile to have in a written written form um and and yet you may not want to put something like that into a webinar so i think they each kind of fall into their own category and i love the youtube youtube library idea too so i i like this whole conversation the way it's going i think it's great and yeah i think there's there is a time when written materials will satisfy uh the need to have the information out there okay okay that's helpful yeah and and especially in places where it's sort of low maintenance right something that doesn't change

40:35 and that you know you just want to get back in front of us and say hey read and consume this and think about it a little bit you know those those are are good spots for written materials okay that's helpful and then this is kind of shifting forward to the types of topics and we've already talked about this some when i reached out to my counterparts to get an idea and kind of see what the league has and what cis has these are kind of the sort of the categories that i found and like i said some of these are sort of check the box training um procedural stuff or how we do our job and then other stuff is maybe more in terms of what we're talking about in terms of building the community you want to see and those other types of

41:20 trainings that can get to those good conversations so i think it's sort of a mix of those two things um and i think probably for my purposes you know if i know i have direction to make sure we get the to move forward the stuff we got to do to make room for the stuff you want to do maybe is the way to kind of look at that um but these are the types of topics unless someone else has anything else they'd like to add um but it's sort of how do other local governments get in trouble what are some of the claims those kinds of things anybody got feedback i don't see any hands um not open for all of them i'm open for any training i can get because i know okay good

42:06 okay all right and if i hear of other things um i'll let you know i think um you know particularly like cyber security cis has a really good like 20 minute repressure on cyber security that i think would be helpful like for email phishing scams and that kind of stuff that i think is just helpful overall so we can work on that and then the last i part is really frequency i'm trying to get at you know what is the amount of training that's really right size for the council in terms of the all the work you already have to do and the meetings that you already intended so um i always think of your schedule in sort of two parts in the year you know when you come back from break in the summer and when you come back in the winter so we could get try and get on a

42:52 schedule where we push out a suggested webinar to you like twice a year you know once when you come back in january once you come back in september give you a good chunk of time to get it done still have an annual council work session could work with the council and council leadership ahead of time to get to that topic to see what you guys want to talk about um written materials from cao we can try and schedule to get some kind of written background stuff to you that elected official elected official essentials program at the league is good it's about eight hours of training so it's a little bit of a commitment but could let you know when that's happening and then the other area we thought might be helpful is sort of situation specific materials so you know an example let's say we have a big land

43:38 use hearing coming up well christina could probably film you know tape a five-minute refresher on you know conflicts of interest bias and ex-party contacts and procedure maybe you could watch that really quickly before the you know before the big hearing and then that that could be a refresher as opposed to like a dry legal memo so something like that might be helpful you know something on political activity before a big election you know things that are timed to things that you are going to be confronted with and dealing with and just having a little more of an eye toward that it's another area we thought it all sounds good okay is that frequency okay twice a year does that work i i think so especially taking advantage of the breaks and planning to do something that would

44:23 be relevant because we would uh coming into january because we would have kind of all those organizational activities normally yeah okay all right so we'll work on that and i'm trying to kind of get this tuned up so thinking about we're sort of we're in may now so um and this will have counted for our training this year but we'll get a little bit of a schedule together and probably get a memo out to you about that and then look for information um when you come back in the fall i think if that works all right so i'm going to try and stop sharing here any other feedback or questions or something we forgot or if you think about it later certainly you could let me know but

45:08 steve i everybody yeah we keep talking about breaks not doing anything during the breaks i'm willing to do anything anytime but if maybe some of these things were made available during the break so we could voluntarily just look at the past time that would be that would be okay with me as much as i could get it's corey my only last comment is when we're looking at these trainings my preference is to consider local trainers and to consider you know paying local people and our local folks to do these trainings for us as opposed to looking outside of the area so i just wanted to put that in as a preference okay

45:54 that's good to know so you mean like if we're talking about training maybe if like something more around um unconscious bias or diversity equity inclusion using local folks as opposed to bringing in out of town facilitator yes got it okay yeah all right anybody else um the only other comment i had mary bridget is like it you know post post this covet era right and we're seeing a lot more technologies used to deliver training so i just as we kind of go in you know forward in this new world right like i'm i'm okay revisiting that list for how we sort of deliver create content you know we've done it very well well the last two years in the budget committee

46:39 um so you know even if even if you guys on the city of attorney side are sort of shooting those five minute videos saving and referencing and using them a couple of times to make you know good use of your time um i'm totally comfortable with okay good because that's what we were hoping you know for example that land use one it really doesn't change but it's just the procedure that you guys don't deal with a lot so it's nice to have that refresher about this is how this is gonna work and here's what we're gonna talk about and but you know we don't need to reinvent the wheel each time that's what we're talking about is how to run on andrew's hearing so yes and that that's the that's the way that i would that i would prefer to pair this right there's a regulatory piece that we have to do that we we need to you know as a council we're saying yes we need to do and then

47:25 you know as things change right there's a little bit of a conversation and then anything you can use that would help that would make your life easier if it's reading it or watching it i'm good with it okay great okay that's really helpful so i think we'll work on trying to get a schedule together trying to kind of keep an eye on what's regulatory and what can we get to you in kind of convenient ways and then just they'll have some space open for that sort of more community training or things that can help with um other topics that really are benefit from more discussion like you can get a lot more out of the discussion on bias or diversity equity inclusion or those other types of topics or how you work as a functioning counselor communication as opposed to me lecturing taking pork session time to lecture you

48:10 on you know ethics and conflicts of interest so really that's what we're trying to get it's just better okay okay well that was really helpful i appreciate it if you think of something else let me know but we'll kind of work on implementing that and more to come all right thank you very much great thank you all right that was our last item um so we're going to adjourn until seven o'clock but please leave this open um because it's the same it is the same uh what uh zoom meeting link so we will be back here at seven o'clock we are adjourned for the work session thank you but we're on the downslope now so we're we're you know we're heading to the finish line on it so good glad to hear it

49:02 all right aj we are ready when you are then i am going to call the regular session of the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here counselor mo here council rodley here councillor stare here counselor woodrow here councillor pitts here and council pictionary here all right please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance we didn't see the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands

49:49 one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us online to please keep yourself on mute until you are called upon to provide public testimony there are two times this evening designated for public testimony and will be listed as public hearings and business from the audience on the agenda if you're joining us online with a tablet smartphone or computer and wish to speak during that time please use the raised hand option to be called upon to provide public comment when the designated time is announced when we call on you please state your name award and general location for the

50:34 record the order of public testimony will be anyone who has raised their hands anyone who has submitted email in advance if there is remaining time neil will read those emails it can enter the record first item please first item is springfield upbeat item number one and mayor's recognition for national public works week proclamation and mayor this is your item i didn't get a hardback well done counselor rod lee all right whereas development and public works professionals focus on infrastructure facilities and services

51:19 that are vital importance to sustainable and resilience resilient communities in public health high quality of life and well-being of the people of springfield oregon and whereas these infrastructure infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of development and public works professionals who are employees and managers at all levels of government in the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding improving and protecting our nation's transportation water supply water and wastewater treatment and solid waste systems public buildings and other structures and facilities essential for our community members and whereas it is in the public interest for the community members civic leaders

52:04 and children in springfield to gain knowledge of and to maintain an interest in the understandings of the importance of development and public works and related programs and services to their respective communities whereas the year 2021 marks the 61st annual national public works week sponsored by the american public works association therefore i mayor sean gordon do hereby designate the week of may 16th through 22nd 2021 as public works week and i urge all community members to join with the representatives of america public works association and government agencies to pay tribute to our development and public works professionals managers and employees and to recognize those substantial contributions they make to protecting

52:49 our communities health safety and quality of life well it's great to neil it's great to recognize the department and how how hard everybody works down there to make sure the city runs and please make sure you pass on our thanks and gratitude from is the council in the community to them we will do that mayor we are very fortunate to have such an incredible group of people in development and public works thanks for your support your next item is the consent calendar is there a motion to approve the consent calendar i'll make a motion that we approve the consent calendar second neil can you call the role please yes counselor pitts all right counselor

53:36 mo here yes counselor rodney yes counselor stare woodrow yes and counselor patient all right the motion passes six to zero next item please next item mayor you have three public hearings this evening all with motions item number one is the liquor license endorsement for renewal period of 2021 through 2022 tom boyat is here for the staff report so i um when you switch over you can't hear the rest of what neil's saying but i assume

54:21 uh you're ready for this item mayor and council tom boyat community development director and for some reason it falls to me to bring you this item every year this is your annual pre-renewal step in the process of olcc renewing liquor licenses you have 175 licenses on the list and also in the packet is the police department's response or info about responses to calls and also the relevant section of the code tonight you're basically being asked to hold a public hearing to hear from the public if there are any comments on any of these liquor license renewals and then

55:07 provide your recommendation at this meeting to the oregon liquor control commission and we'll pass that along um before you open uh your hearing tonight i should let you know that as of 4 p.m the department had not received any uh written or phone call uh verbal testimony with respect to this item so no public comment came in during the the several weeks that robin had made that available all right then i'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing neil do we have anybody wanting to speak to this item

55:53 mayor if we can give folks just a moment to see if anyone uses the raise your hand feature if you have a public testimony on this particular item may or we're not seeing anyone on this item okay then i'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and entertain a motion okay uh uh i make a motion to grant yeah i'm trying to read this thing i'm trying to i'm trying to make a motion to grant the applicants demonstrates commitment to overcome listed concerns well that's hard to read you're hard to understand what to say here anyway

56:38 anyway i'm looking for emotions to to grant is there neil can you call the role please yes counselor pitts all right counselor mo yes counselor rodney yes counselor stare aye counselor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary all right the motion passes is six to zero next item please okay

57:27 mayor your second public hearing is uh public hearing number two setting local and regional wastewater and storm water user fees effective july 1st 2021 matt stouter is here for the staff report good evening mayor and council i like the beaver orange there on tom's hard hat it was excellent i'm pleased to be here tonight um to present the user fees for you for your consideration uh as you know each year the council consider the considers these user fees for regional and local wastewater as well as stormwater services uh on april 26th staff held a workstation with council presented options for your consideration and input and that feedback has been incorporated through your consideration tonight so before you the proposed fiscal year

58:13 21 22 unit fees will provide adequate revenue to continue to operate and maintain our systems deliver reliable services for the citizens of springfield fund our adopted capital improvement program maintain our existing debt service requirements and hopefully the need for future financing meet environmental regulatory requirements and ensure valuable protection of our public health and local environment user fees before you this evening include local storm water of an increase of two and a half percent or roughly three cents a month for the average resident customer uh local wastewater three percent increase or roughly 72

58:58 percent 72 cents per month and then the regional wastewater fees which is three and a half percent roughly five cents a month so on the regional side that increase was adopted by the nbnc after public hearing on online so with that available for questions and staff requests that council will talk about hearing uh and the doctor resolution establishing these are fees in effect so i would are there any questions hi counselor withdrawal just a quick question with the i i look at those increases as basically being very very deliberate and very minimal you know in the in the best way possible

59:44 in doing minimal increases like that knowing that services and things like that broadly um increasing cost does that involve any cutting in costs to in order to be able to do the increase um i'm not always trying to understand question counselor i would say um staff looks at these pretty closely each year generally speaking these are inflationary adjustments last year council covered pandemic we pulled away any sort of adjustment it was a flat fee and the year before that it was uh two and a half percent and so averaged out over the last three years looking at roughly one one and a half 1.3 of an adjustment and that's really not

1:00:30 even keeping up with inflation right you know where we're at we feel comfortable with um and collecting this amount okay that was i was just good because realizing that realizing you do a really good job and and and even without keeping up with inflation i was just i i was pretty sure that it didn't have anything to do with the caliber of service no the level of service uh remains the same yeah okay thank you all right then i am going to go ahead and open the public hearing um and see if we have anybody wanting to speak to this item here we'll give folks just a moment to

1:01:15 see if they have uh comments on the nwmc um sorry the regional wastewater item and mayor we're not seeing anyone okay then i will close the public hearing and entertain a motion i would like to make a motion that we have got resolution number two a resolution of the city of springfield local and regional wastewater user fees and local storm water user fees as set forth and the springfield municipal code second been moved and seconded um neil can you call the role please counselor pitts all right councillormo yes councillor rodley yes councillor stair hi councillor woodrow yes and council

1:02:00 patinary all right the motion passes six to zero next item please your final public hearing for this evening is public hearing number three master fees and charges sam kelly quattrocky is here for the staff report good evening council i'm thrilled before you all again my third time in the in a month or so uh much like matt stouter i'm following up on a few different meetings we've had these are the rest of the city's master fees and charges uh so i'm here to keep it pretty simple answer any follow-up questions you have and then request a public hearing and a vote to adopt or not adopt these sections 1 through 10 of the master fees and charges effective july 1st

1:02:53 all right then i'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing and see if there's anybody that was wanting to speak to this item and mayor we are not seeing any hands go up for this item then i will close the public hearing and entertain a motion i would like a motion to be adopted resolution number three a resolution amending messenger fees and charges scheduled chapters 1-10 with an effective date of july 1st 2021. second it's been moved and seconded neil could you please call the role yes councillor pitts all right counselor mo yes councillor radley yes counselor

1:03:39 stare hi counselor woodrow yes and counselor patient all right the promotion passes six to zero next item please mayor the next item is business from the and again we'll ask if you would like to provide public testimony just raise your hand and we'll get you in the queue mayor our first speaker is ginny osteen followed by elizabeth butterback and jenny your microphone should be you should be able to unmute

1:04:31 jenny you should be able to unmute from your end hi um my name is jenny osteen and i live in ward 2. appears we may be having some audio uh issues with jenny mayer would you mind if i put genie on hold and i think that would be perfect and let's go to the next person and we can come back okay so we'll have elizabeth utterback followed by amy cothron and lizzie your microphone you should be able to unmute thank you this is lizzie utterback from

1:05:18 ward 3. um i wanted to thank you all for your extra work attending the budget committee meetings these past few weeks i haven't made it to all of them but the ones i did make it to left me feeling very impressed with our city staff that said i was absolutely shocked last week when none of you all seconded the motion for 250 000 to move out of the police budget to the insurance liability budget we know the police are caught are the cause of many 250 000 per claim deductible so this money would just cover one of those and who knows how many more we will face when the per claim deductible increases to 500 000 in a few months

1:06:04 my question to you all is where does this deductible money come from are other departments receiving less money to pay these bills our police department is responsible for i've been in conversation with many of you over the last year about concerns with our costly and overly brutal police department some of you have made comments that are encouraging of change some of you remind others that they can't talk about this due to pending litigation even though this pattern of bad behavior predates current litigation some of you indicated that change in government is slow but that motion at the budget committee was an opportunity for change seconding that motion would have at least allowed for conversation and an amendment but none of you took

1:06:50 that opportunity as you can imagine this is pretty upsetting and disappointing to me at least two ward three people myself included spoke of concerns a budget budget committee related to this so at a minimum i would have expected my board 3 counselor to represent us where i did find agreement and common ground with many of you was around our wonderful public library i saw a document on the city website about library funding did you all know that per capita our library receives the lowest funding in the state so we give bucu bucks to the police department and we don't hold them financially accountable for their bad behavior and we completely under fund our library however i found it odd that budget committee

1:07:35 chair was concerned with generosity during the pandemic of allowing free digital library cards to those in the urban growth boundary but i think the focus should have been on the police deductibles just so you know it would have taken 4 167 paid library cards to discover the cost of just one of those deductibles so again all of you praising the library during budget committee could have turned that praise into dollar signs but did it this is important because it's not just money i've said before that budgets are moral documents your values are on display when we look at the budget and i encourage you to revisit this motion at the budget public hearing i'll try to attend and give you a reminder just in case until then please help me understand how your comments and presumably your values align with your actions thank you

1:08:31 mayor our next speaker is amy cothran followed by thomas lawrence all right thank you amy you should be able to unmute it can y'all hear me we can cool my name is amy cothran uh formerly of ward 5 just kind of updating you on your favorite liability uh spd so most of you are probably familiar with uh the issue i had with filing a complaint with spd earlier this year i will let you know that they did finally respond to it uh after 75 days or two and a half times what their policy is and

1:09:16 imagine my shock and disappointment when the officer that investigated my complaint was another officer on scene if you don't understand how this a conflict of interest let me explain it to you i was criticizing some of the actions of officer conrad and the other officer on scene is equally responsible for those reactions so having him investigate this complaint is a slap in the face because any criticize any criticism of officer conrad is a also a criticism of the investigating officer uh councilman picaroni i would appreciate if you pay attention uh it's abhorrent

1:10:02 like at this point it's not just it can't be incompetence it can't be anything like that uh at this point it can only be purposeful they even joking they even joked about some lines of my complaint in the report uh frankly i don't know what to say at this point uh they are you know spd you know the story with them and time after time you'll keep going to bat for them what's your breaking point what is the point where you say we need to defund these people we need to make real changes within this department

1:10:47 because all i'm seeing is just time and time again people bringing really valid criticism the department hurting other parts of the city and y'all just doing nothing i see the rest of my time mayor our next speaker is thomas lawrence and after thomas we'll try jenny osteen again if that's all right and thomas you should be able to unmute your microphone okay thank you all right can you hear me yes we can all right last week at the budget committee we had for the first time in the last year since policing issues resurfaced into everyday life for all of us

1:11:32 the first real opportunity to make a change in our department this change was in my opinion about the smallest possible step forward a minimal change to funding that would reallocate funding in the way to reinforce police holding themselves accountable none not a single one of you counselors seconded a motion there wasn't even a discussion about it just an empty silence while you all sat there almost every meeting for the past year policing has been at the forefront and the majority of you consistently talk about how you agree that there is an issue you all talk about how distressing it is to hear testimony from the people who live in your wards and it is how heart-wrenching it is to read meals from people who feel like this city is not safe for them yeah here we

1:12:18 are again talking about during times like these where a significant portion of the town state and country all feel like they are not equals specifically in the eyes of the law and its enforcers i'm just going to go ahead and say it not taking a stand not making changes is taking a side your decision to stay silent means you are content with springfield police department and their current method of how they do their job for reference the same meeting had an interim police chief in attendance because the current one is suspended regarding the way he handled documentation of the firing of another officer who is part of a separate yet related lawsuit i really don't know what else to say

1:13:03 because we've said all of this already so many times do we have any updates on the body cams yet those were approved in last year's budget how about those business cards that we're still waiting on to be translated into a second language i believe that was promised back around december of last year those are all very very those aren't even step forward okay those are neutral side steps and they're still not happening who is holding them accountable and when are we gonna see any of these changes i see the rest of my time and mayor we'll go to if you don't mind we'll try jenny osteen and just see if her uh jenny can you

1:13:48 unmute your microphone can you hear me we can hear you okay great so um my name is jenny osteen and i'm from ward 2 and i know across the nation and even this evening the term defund the police is creating a lot of controversy partly because of misunderstanding what it is so the idea is not to just immediately stop paying for the police but to use some of the police funds to support other departments or agencies that can provide services that the police are asked to respond to to which they have no training so in our area of course the prime example is cahoots who can handle mental health and drug or alcohol prices better than the police

1:14:35 camp but what is happening right now with the budget is just the opposite of defunding the police because of the huge deductibles we now face to pay for lawsuits other departments budgets are being cut i understand that currently it finance and the city manager's office are possibly going to have their budget cut in addition it appears that the city fees are being increased library fines are being reinstated and i wonder if the amount of the fines will be increased and permit fees are also going to be increased so now there is no defunding of the police happening instead the costs of the

1:15:20 police department are defunding other departments and they're also defunding me and the other residents of springfield by increasing the cost of services we received from the city which i thought we were already paying for with our property taxes this whole thing has just got me flabbergasted um so i realize i understand the city is definitely in a very unique and very bad and difficult situation a financial box and i don't mean to be cavalier but we really need to start thinking outside of the box um being open to suggestions and discussing them but i was astonished and angry at the

1:16:06 last budget meeting when no one was even willing to second emotion by one of the committee members so at least you could talk about it in talking about an issue new ideas can arise that's what brainstorming is about so now is the time to start opening up to a different way of doing things instead of just shutting down and hanging on to the status quo that's what i have to say mayor it appears we have one additional speaker under community member and your microphone you should be able to your microphone on your side

1:16:57 great can you hear me we can right i am in ward 4 and i'm going to be as blunt as i can be it is absolute asinine that this community this council accounts who's not listening to the community and in regards to fpd they are an issue they have been an issue and until you do something about it they're going to continue to be an issue and there's a lot of people in our area they're not thrilled and not happy to be living in this community and it is about time that you guys answer our questions and answer what is going to be done because

1:17:42 i don't know we're working on it and no response at all is not acceptable it is not acceptable i yield the rest of my time mayor it appears that's our that was our last speaker and i neglected to mention we have 31 attendees um tonight and 12 panelists all right great thank you um i'm gonna open it up for any council response counselor pitts yeah uh first of all i do appreciate everybody being blunt and you know i'm sure a lot of people are really upset that many of us didn't support it

1:18:27 but i mean i'll be the first to say the fact that you use the word defund versus reallocate comes off as very performative and uh it's it's trendy you know and i also think that it's really interesting to everybody that spoke and he likes it i appreciate it but oftentimes i've seen this community the people that are the loudest aren't the ones who are actually being affected so i i question you all what are you doing to actually provide these marginalized identities with a voice to be able to speak now granted don't take offense to this but i'm speaking from my experience as a black man here in oregon oftentimes the loudest voice for minority issues are often white people and you all don't even provide a space

1:19:12 for those of us to really speak and i think that is often the case when it comes to this policing i'm not a numbers person but i am a culture person and so you can move money around all you want to but then let's be honest crime is not going to decrease yes the police need to be held accountable but personally i don't necessarily think moving money around like that is going to do it because guess what you got to hire more people i'm sorry like there's a lot of stuff going on uh someone in my apartment companies got their car stolen at friday night and are citizens going to handle that no we're not it's gonna be the cops you know uh a lot of people talk about white supremacy this and white supremacy is

1:19:57 that uh guess who's gonna handle those people but it's gonna be the cop well hopefully it's gonna be the cops and so i just asked you all to take a second breathe and then think about who are you allowing to have a voice at this table and if you are bringing anybody else in and you are thinking about long-term strategic plans moving money around's not going to do anything y'all nothing you know i come from a city where if we didn't have police like there'd be a whole lot more crime i mean memphis is always in the top ten now i know i don't live in memphis anymore but i i do follow things that are going on they just hired a new black woman police chief when i was growing up we had various races of people who were pleased and it changed things you know we had a

1:20:43 resource office in my office who was a huge part of our community and we loved and looked up to him how do we change our police department to be that because like i said i mean i'm all for change and but i'm also i'm for a culture change and that's not just going to be with the police it needs to be with the community as a whole and so i think that's a long-term strategic plan that cannot be solved by defunding reallocating whatever you want to call it like i said i'm hoping to talk to anybody about this but i suggest you bring your a game and not try to educate me because you know if we're going to be in this together you have to be able to understand and listen why and how we feel but then also

1:21:29 you cannot get offended if we don't jump at everything that some people say because it's not going to be like that like i said i really do think that we need some change in the community as a whole but if you think that it's only with cops you're wrong and i think a lot of us all of us are responsible on some of the things that we allow to go on our community and so we need to do a hard strong look internally and externally and create a long-term plan to make this a better place and that's going to involve police and i'm sorry regardless of how you feel this is these are my words we can talk about it afterwards i'm not going to back down uh i like i said before i really do appreciate your

1:22:15 comments uh some of you have emailed and i really appreciate it but the bottom line is culture shift is not based on money it's based on changing the system as a whole and that means changing all of our sales as a whole too uh counselor missionary i just want to uh throw my support behind uh counselor pitts and what he just said and i wish i could be as eloquent and and thoughtful as he because i tell you he has really taken a lot of my own thoughts and has put it to words and so i am standing unified with counselor pitts at this point

1:23:02 and i wanted folks to know that and him leonard yeah i um i also wanted to um just uh add a second to damien's um very very thoughtful sentiments just now and i also wanted to say that the budget is a very practical and very um a a a very um literal process and i think what we're trying to do by imposing unilaterally a cut that would be the equivalent

1:23:47 of one claim against our insurance is something that would be perceived and i think to an extent rightly as punitive i'm not against addressing specific line items in the budget if we were to confront various specific expenses then i would be 100 behind that if there are superfluous and needless expenses i do feel that right now what we need is that cultural change as councilor pitts said thank you counselor uh yes i want to stand by stan was damien as well um i i appreciate 100 percent what you said

1:24:33 damian the the living experience and the thoughtful experience behind what you just said i agree with joe i i couldn't be anywhere near as eloquent as you've been and i appreciate everything that you said um when regarding the the budget and leonard mentioning that it is um a literal piece um part of the reason why we don't move money like that is we have to move money or reallocate money with a plan we can't just automatically take a whole bunch of money and take it from one place and put it in another place if we don't have a plan for it and what it's going to accomplish and that motion had nothing other than just moving money out of it from one to another which as leonard said was you know seemingly

1:25:18 put punitive so we need to get together we need to work together and have that plan and have that culture change together so that we can all participate and we can all benefit uh all the way out through the community thank you damian counselor mo i am since last year i have expected probably a lot of political activity for for deepon the police to come about and so we went through the budget process and and it wasn't mentioned and uh but i was respecting it so at the last year when uh the motion was made to uh transfer at 250 000 i was i was unprepared for that

1:26:04 and i wish i had seconded it i'd like force to discuss it i don't think it would have gone through but i'd like to see that the conversation open up just a little bit there and uh so i i and and we i still like to look in the future too if something like that be effective or not but i uh so thank you all right i'm looking for counselor rodney or anybody else i all right um though one uh clarification that uh and maybe nancy you can help us is the last state we saw for the body cameras was may 26th that they were

1:26:52 going live that is correct and that date hasn't changed in probably the last two months is that right no it is not and the business cards are out on the street right now they are out and they are being used and we do have um a section in spanish uh that people can use to contact the police department okay thank you that was just one set of follow-up items that uh that you know i think it's important that people hear that you know as we were working on these sort of projects that stuff's happening with them they're getting done i will give you some more updates um at the conclusion of the meeting from business from the city manager

1:27:37 outstanding um and then one comment i did want to respond to from jenny um the i the the change in fees and the change of costs right the the city does face a structural deficit right so um you can't like the link between liability issues which are real issues so i'm not dismissing them at all and the actual constraints on the budget and how we're talking about you know um costs rising and sort of back like dealing with sort of cut you know inflationary costs and things like that those are not those are not the same thing they're actually two separate conversations even if we had the whole liability issue sort of solved we would still face probably annual adjustments to our rates rate uh and fees that we were

1:28:23 charging because of how because of how the city's finances work all right last call for anybody else before i let the switch items all right next item please mayor the next item is any business from the city council all right next item please the next item is business from the city manager uh you have four items tonight item one ratification of the metropolitan wastewater management commission mwmc fiscal year 2021 2022 regional wastewater program budget

1:29:09 and capital improvements program cip matt stouter is here for the staff report hello again council and mayor so i have an abbreviated presentation for you tonight we had more detail this year in the department budget presentation and actually were um after the budget committee presentation so i'll be brief um on april 9th um mwmc adopted to approve the regional budget in the cipd and send it out to the governing bodies for ratification they held three work sessions in a public hearing prior to taking action to adopt and the budget is predicated on the three and a half percent rate adjustment we discussed earlier in accordance with our iga gene continues to be the operations and maintenance

1:29:54 functions for the nwc and springfield does the administrative services functions uh including planning capital construction financing budget tool etc so this budget for you tonight uh if ratified will allow the nwc to continue to fund our capital program uh meet our net service requirements uh provide service to the nearly 250 000 people that live in our area operate and maintain our existing facilities and infrastructure and protect the health and safety of our citizens and our environments we've got a bunch of nodes here ftc's revenues are on target the overall operating budget is set at

1:30:39 20.67 million that's a 4.5 budget increase from last year driven primarily by seven and a half percent increase in our m s things like our utility bills chemicals kind of indirectly going up there's an overall 2.6 increase on the personnel services side and then our capital budget i'm not going any detail there we talked about it that budget committee but it's set this year at 22.8 million i'm happy to answer any questions about specific projects in the cip last week uh virginia city council verified the budget on monday night and the lake county board of county commissioners applied tuesday during the day springfield

1:31:25 tonight nwc will adopt the budget final budget on june 11. so with that uh answer the questions you may have and staff request that council about the motion ratifying the fiscal year 21 22 wc regional wastewater program okay then i would entertain a motion i'd like to make a motion to adopt a motion to adopt emotion ratifying the fiscal year 2021-22 regional wastewater program budget and capital improvement program second

1:32:12 it's been moved and seconded neil can you call the roll please yes councillor pitts all right councillor mo yes counselor rodley yes counselor stare aye counselor woodrow yes and council christian area hi the motion passes six to zero next item please mayor the next item is business from the city manager item two a resolution waiving the assessment of special benefit for the vacation of an unimproved portion of public right-of-way row abutting private property at 5409 ivy street melissa carino is here for the staff report hi everyone um good evening let me see how i can get my

1:32:58 video working all right so good evening counselors and mayor van gorden i couldn't find my hat so i'm wearing my trusty vest um so tonight the city council is requested to consider a resolution to waive the assessment of special benefit for the portion of unimproved city-owned right-of-way uh that's located along the northern side of south 55th and ivy streets abutting private property at 5409 ivy street 5409 ib street is uh outlined in yellow and the portion of right of way is in red you've seen this image multiple times over the month but let me give you some historical context the subject portion of right of way was dedicated to the city in 2015 with the recording of a new subdivision plot while the city

1:33:43 attempted to not have that portion dedicated to the city at that time the former owner was actually not willing to cooperate because she wanted to retain the rectangular shape of her property there were no acquisition costs exchanged for the dedication five years later in 2020 the current property owners who are also the applicant for the right-of-way vacation purchased 5409 ivy street when the property was in foreclosure the applicant has already started improvement plans and wants to build a compliant garage if the right-of-way is vacated additionally as we heard during the public hearing on may 3rd the property owners have also been trying to maintain a wall and a tree located in the right-of-way as requested by their next-door neighbor

1:34:28 sorry next-door neighbors at the last council regular session counselor pictionary shared valid concerns about the financial impact of vacating the portion of right-of-way and providing that land back to the property located at 5409 ivy street based on 2020 lane county assessments we calculated the land value of that subject row portion to being approximately 8 100. you can see kind of how i broke down that calculation as this is a proposed resolution here are the reasons why we are requesting the waiver from the property owner's perspective uh they've already invested over eight thousand dollars in application and professional fees such as hiring a

1:35:13 surveyor uh two since purchasing the property at the request of their next-door neighbors they've been maintaining the wall the retaining wall and the a tree that's within the right-of-way and they have a plan to make a lot of improvements to the property which will increase the value of the property from the city of springfield's perspective vacation of this right-of-way will help provide consistency and uniformity with the width along both ivy and south 55th streets and again as a reminder the city attempted to do this back in 2015 but was unsuccessful this would also bring the right-of-way into compliance with the city's transportation system plan and development code in closing and as a reminder the right-of-way vacation was requested by

1:35:59 the property owner in order to facilitate the owner's plans to construct a garage that meets the minimum springfield development code code setback requirements so thank you for considering this resolution and i'm here to help answer any questions you may have before i open this up for questions um can you just clarify there's two items for this this first one is about the economic value and then the second one is about whether or not we turn over the property is that correct that is correct yes this is a resolution for the uh assessment and then i think the second one is an ordinance to vacate them right away perfect thank you um does anybody have questions uh counselor pictionary so i'm trying to figure out when you're

1:36:44 talking about calculating the value since when did we start to evaluate what property owners have paid for in regards to permitting uh fees etc it almost appears you're giving them a credit towards the value of the property and correct me if i'm wrong but that's it sounds like that and then you then you said that we as in the city are requesting that property be turned over to them and i thought that they were requesting that of us am i confused so the property owners are the ones requesting the vacation the vacation uh the city of springfield supports that vacation so when i was sharing the different perspectives from why the property owner

1:37:30 wants to waive this resolution or i'm sorry to uh yes to wave the the assessment but then um that those were the reasons i gathered from them from the city's perspective it's going to provide the uniformity that we need so is there other examples that we have given property that have evaluation to private individuals the property that's owned by the city i am not aware of it i've never processed one but i don't know if any of my colleagues do i i recall um that we have done right-of-way uh exchanges but the property owners have paid for those and such as a property over on franklin

1:38:17 boulevard was a long skinny fairly worthless in the eyes of development property that there had to be considered in exchange for consideration to uh and that also involved the department of motor vehicles but uh odot but there's been other times where right-of-ways have been given to private citizens but they've had to pay market value or close to market value and i'm trying to figure out why market value is being waived and it doesn't matter how we got the property it still has value so i'm still trying to figure out i'm very afraid of creating a precedence here yes i understand that it is the council's option to adopt this resolution or not and you

1:39:05 bring up some good arguments so i'm hoping i'm not standing alone when i'm bringing up some decent arguments i'm very i very very much feel this is a dangerous precedent i don't think the council should go this direction i think we should get value for the property consideration exchange and call it good the owner wants the property it's owned by us and yes it's odd but fact of the matter is it has valuation that we have a fiduciary responsibility to the citizens of springfield to make sure that their best interests or financial interests are being cared for by us which we are the fiduciary agents

1:39:54 all right anybody else all right counselor i understand what joe's saying um i'm wondering if there is a middle point that we could get to um where there was uh remuneration on the part of the current property owner of the rectangle um i yes i can i can see where he's concerned about president for the future and i think maybe there's more conversation that can be had regarding this particular piece of property council ramon i don't see this as a president for the future this is a decision on this piece of property and this alone and we we go with whichever way we want

1:40:39 and the next time they'll do the same thing okay um any other comments or uh council steer yeah i um i i'd like to second what a counselor pictionary and councilor woodrow um are saying i i do i do have a concern that the um action that we're contemplating right now might set a precedent i i wouldn't mind um taking a step back and reconsidering mayor if i could just uh this is very if i just jump in for a minute so the council has a couple choices um to cancel woodrow's question i'm not

1:41:25 sure if i'm understanding you right if there's a way we can get to i guess a compromise or a middle ground we did look into uh previously i believe it was counselor pictionary had asked about you know could we condition the building of the garage on the vacation and we determined that wouldn't be an appropriate condition of approval for vacation because it's not sufficiently related to a vacation so really the council's choices in this are to assess the special benefit or to waive it you know staff has presented their reasons about why waiving it may make sense in this circumstance but if the council doesn't want to do that we can pull these items um talk with the owner and then bring it back before the council to pass a

1:42:10 resolution for the special benefit and for the vacation there's probably some i think there is also some additional process but doesn't involve the council but it's allowing the property owner to view our valuation and make sure that it makes sense from their perspective so we arrive at a they believe that a figure's fair but we can handle that that's just part of the process that staff would do so if that's what the council would like to do we certainly can do that or they can move forward with a vote but both of these items should be either handled together or both pulled if that makes sense counselor mo i suggest we pull him back and let him let him look at it some more and then bring it back to us yeah well i'm kind of looking around for head nods and i don't know that um for other

1:42:57 people to kind of weigh in about whether or not do you guys want to try to vote on this or do you want to pull it and give the instructions to assess some sort of economic value counselor pictionary well i can't support it as is or as a staff has suggested us do but i can absolutely support looking at it further because i don't want it to just be gone but i i want to make sure that i when i vote yes on something that i am doing it right for the citizens and that i don't have any second thoughts about it i think it needs to be fair it needs to be fair for the citizens first and secondly to the property owners so they're subordinate to the citizens but i don't i don't want to sit there and quash the deal but i do want to make sure that when i say yes then i'm comfortable and i can move on

1:43:43 and not have anybody in the future say hey you did this for them and how come not from me so i can say well this is why we did it for them and they paid for it so let's talk about you now and that's what i want to be able to be okay so steve's in the same boat leonard's in the same boat yeah okay okay um before we pull it any other questions or concerns melissa do you have enough direction here would you like us to talk about it a little bit more nope i think we're good i think i i need to go back to the property owner and discuss with him about the valuation okay thank you perfect thank you

1:44:33 next item please mayor i understand we are pulling the next item as well the request to vacate the unimproved portion of public right-of-way so that would leave us with any other business from the city manager yes thank you um thank you council um so the mayor beat me to this a little bit because he asked questions about the body-worn cameras and the business cards i wanted to address so thank you mayor you're on it as usual um we have made um changes within the police department and i just want to tell people that there are there are more changes to come there is a lot of things that we need to do and we're working in them in a methodible methodical and deliberate way i do want to highlight some of them though um for instance now when you go to the

1:45:20 springfield police department webpage you will find that all of their policies are on the web page if you're curious about a particular policy you can go there and look and they're all right there including the updated use of force policy that was just completed last month after the report from work brazil was completed spd had set up an internal committee and they are going over all of the recommendations and looking at what they can do to address them some that have already been addressed and others that um are for lack of a better word or kind of like a to-do list and assigning some um

1:46:06 responsibility around that and time frames um i also felt that the discussion that we had with the police department around use of force was a very open and productive discussion with the council i see that as a very positive indicator of the recognition in our law enforcement community that you know we really do need to um communicate more with each other and and especially with the policy makers in the community such as the council i just want to let you all know going forward what some of my priorities are with this department um working with the department leadership i would obviously like to prioritize

1:46:54 de-escalation tactics certainly prioritizing risk management that goes to the issue of our claims history i'm doing everything we can to improve that getting to really a police department that um just kind of goes up to the next level and i think that we are really on the precipice of doing more um to get there um i appreciated counselor pitt's comments tonight because i think that um this department will actually need more resources not fewer in the future when you talk about affecting a culture or a atmosphere in

1:47:39 any department irrespective of where it resides it takes training it takes dedication it takes people on staff that are committed to that and kind of have that in their on their radar at all times certainly issues like diversity equity inclusion are you all know are very important to me um and and to um many people in the city as well and it's council it's one of your goals it is one of your overarching goals and i take that very seriously and i tend to push that forward in all departments in our city so just want to let you know thanks is that a question counselor yes it is

1:48:26 yeah hi hi hi counselor or goodbye later on you talked about the department internally assessing those changes and that bothers a lot of people on the outside i respect them i know they'll do the best there is but i think i would like to see some way that they use the word transparency nowadays it's also overused but it's it's the right word there's some way to do that so the public feels comfortable with what's going on there i agree with you i think part of um what we need to work on um you know myself with the with the department and also uh just with the overall with our maybe with our public information officer is just really increasing our communication

1:49:11 uh one on a positive note i know that i think they are in the final process if they haven't already hired a new public information officer at sbd i think that is an excellent move in in order to really communicate out to the community uh what we're doing and also the context behind it um i will say that you know it's always challenging when when you're trying to work on issues because some some issues you can put out to the public in in that way other issues if they're internal or if they involve um hr or personnel you can't talk about it so you know so it's kind of like you know there's the duck on the water and the feet are going a lot but we

1:49:57 can't show you the feet because that's that's just not possible to do it doesn't mean that it's not occurring it just means that it's not something that we can discuss nancy before i call on cory could you just clarify that point is is that an issue of like our internal policy or is that an issue that about like oregon state statute that keeps us from talking about personnel issues it's it's well probably mary bridget would be the better person to talk about it but overall as a general rule you don't discuss individual personnel matters people have the right to privacy with their personnel file um you can talk about policies you and we have updated some of our policies

1:50:43 um you can talk about trainings but you can't talk about individuals and their own um history and i think that's just you know a good practice all the way around and i i i do follow that very uh closely i appreciate you clarifying that um counselor broadly thank you and thank you for the update i appreciate it i know that um folks think that things either i aren't moving or they're moving slowly which is real um i just building on what counselor mo said and then what counselor pitt said earlier i think that there isn't there's an opportunity for us to think about who is missing from the conversation and with that you know we're we're

1:51:28 talking about transparency and like counselor mo said you know if we're we're looking at what's being done internally because there are internal challenges and you know to rebuild policy or whatever um but i think that there's also an opportunity for us as we're moving through this to to get really intentional about who's missing from the conversation and who are those people who aren't in the room who are likely affected and not able for whatever reasons whether it's on our end it's on the police department's end or it's you know culture issues to come forward and talk about the challenges so i think again that maybe slows things down and yes what we're talking about in terms of

1:52:14 building a public safety and what what councilor pitts said this is this isn't just in our police department if we're going to talk about um you know racism if we're going to talk about homophobia transphobia violence this isn't just in our police department so there's an opportunity for us to just get really intentional about who's missing how do we include those folks in the solutions moving forward so i just i wanted to say yes thank you and yes i think we are starting to move and there's an opportunity for us to get even more intentional about it so that we create lasting change thank you council o'reilly i will say that we have i agree with you we do need to have more people in the conversation we we do have a current um and very close and long-standing relationship with

1:52:59 safer and um we have um matt and i were came to the last safer meeting that we had the last zoom meeting uh neila got in i also attended that meeting as we always do and we had a pretty robust conversation about how the police should um use the business cards in the in the world view of the safer community and um their committee and you know and then we had some discussion about when is it practical when is it not um how could that work um and i think you know that's what i when i talk about context i think that's really important because um you know it takes a long law enforcement is such a specialized field

1:53:45 and many people just can't understand uh all of the variables that people that are on patrol have to experience at any given given moment and so um yes it is always you know our intent to be out there be friendly offer a business card um but there are some situations where you know it's an urgent issue or perhaps even an officer may be in danger and that's not really the time and place to offer your business card when you're trying to protect your own self so you know just kind of talking through how things work out in in policy and in practice you know and i think that's that's where we have to make that intersection and it takes time

1:54:30 it does take time to have that conversation um but i think when both sides talk about their experiences it helps us get closer to understanding and having a lens for that when we're thinking of other policies in the future anybody else nancy did you have anything else for us that is all thank you all right next item uh next item is any business from the city attorney no additional business thank you all right thank you everybody have a great night we are adjourned now goodbye goodbye