Springfield City Council — June 28, 2021

0:05 i'm going to call the regular session of the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts here councilor mo here council rodley here counselor here councilor woodrow here and council pictionary president all right please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag is the flag of the united states of the united states america for which it stands for which it stands one nation one nation under god under

0:50 god individually 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 you until you are called 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 with this talent smartphone or computer and wish to speak during that time please your hand use your raised hand option to be called upon to provide public comment when the designated time is announced when we will call on you please state your name award or general location for the record the or the order of public testimony as

1:35 it follows anybody who raises their hand and then i want to acknowledge we have some public comment that we received by email tonight first item please here the first item is the consent calendar motion yet i am ready steve okay i'll make a motion to be approved the consent count watch it's been moved in segment that we approve the consent calendar neil could you call the role please counselor pitts hey counselor mo yes council radley yes councillor stair

2:21 aye counselor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary all right the motion passes 6-0 next item please mayor you have no public hearings tonight your next item is business from the audience and as you mentioned if folks would like to speak during business from the audience please use the raise your hand feature and we'll get you in the queue

3:08 mayor our first speaker is chris mcallister chris will be followed by ben christensen and chris you should be able to unmute your microphone good evening council my name is chris mcallister i come from ward 3. i'm coming before you as a member of the community serving or unhoused i wanted to say thank you for helping us help our folks on one of the hottest days in record history we served people who would not have any other options one of the things that we do as carry it forward is we go out and we try and solve issues in the moment and try and fill the gaps that are not

3:54 currently covered in our county or city networks and so i really wanted to say thank you for your efforts both now and during the winter when we were able to help a lot of our unhoused who were unable to get shelter due to the coveid limitations in our county we have been working really hard to try and adjust and shift and meet the needs as they come and with that there's a certain level of flexibility needed and also the ability to uh problem solve in the moment and so i uh i wanted to uh welcome the continued partnerships and uh ask y'all each to uh look forward towards the winter knowing that it's not that far and the fire seasons as well we need different solutions and different uh types of

4:40 fixes for each of the needs as we encounter them and also not forget that for every high school kid we have we need to have housing we need to have the ability for those people to grow and stay in our community and that also starts with our own house folks we need them to have homes and places to be here too thank you for your time and have a great day mayor the next speaker is ben christensen followed by rn mazda spain and ben you should be able to unmute your microphone now alright can you hear me we can alright i've been listening to conversations around the changing the culture of policing in springfield and i've seen an issue that keeps popping up it is the idea that it's very difficult to change

5:26 or to enact change and that it will take a very long time this is simply not true and i can prove it in 1960 martin luther king was told the exact same thing but the white people of birmingham alabama they even went so far as to write a letter they published in the newspaper asking him to let this process happen naturally as the law and society would allow for it his amazing response was just as long delayed as justice denied we all know even those of us that were taught a very whitewashed version of history that he did not listen to them what you might not know is that during that time he was arrested 29 times over the course of a little under 400 days of protest what they said would take years or even generations took about a year to happen so my question is why are all the white

6:11 people on this city council trying to or why the why the people that on their city council try to stop him the answer is called bounded rationality a term in political science the idea that the decision-making process uh the rationality of it is the rationality of individuals is limited to the information they have the cognitive limitations of their own mind and the finite amount of time they have with which to make a decision we like to think that we're always making the best decisions sadly all the scientific evidence says that we pick an option of the available options this combined with the idea that historically when change happens it happens very fast you this city council have a problem and i don't think you even realize it your city is sitting on a powder keg

6:58 the fuse is lit and you have no idea how long it is you have a very violent police force that's known to use excessive force of violence far beyond that of every other department in the state sending a second record lawsuit that's in the courts right now and scandal after scandal and this body wants to drag its feet on the idea of change king chose to fight in birmingham alabama because he thought it was the worst city in the country at the time of the protests a good argument can be made that the springfield is currently the worst city in the entire state of oregon right now so my question to you is this what's it going to take to get you to decide to enact change because if you don't choose to there's going to be an event and when that event happens change will happen very quickly

7:44 thank you our next speaker is rn master spain followed by kirsten london and arwen you should be able to unmute your microphone now hello can you hear me we can great my name is arwen mazda spain i'm executive co-director of carry it forward and i want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to the city council tonight i'm here to briefly address comments that are made in the packet that you'll be reading about carry it forward in our proposal and i'm happy to answer further questions as needed so at the june 9th cdac meeting we requested that consideration for 185 000 in cdbg funds to continue services to springfield's unhoused community including public showers food pantry

8:29 case management car camp hosting outreach and inclement weather activation for the rest of 2021 although the cdac recommends directly funding our efforts city staff expressed concerns for limited capacity to manage funds coupled with doubt sort of in our ability to comply with contractual obligations of federal dollars and therefore it was suggested that funds be allocated to the county who will manage it through the rfp process so i'm i'm sure there are benefits and drawbacks to either strategy but i'm here to speak to the benefits of funding us and other local organizations directly so as an organization that is active on the streets of springfield every day we're able to mobilize quickly and we know the people in areas they inhabit we are able to reach people who cannot and or choose not to access traditional

9:15 congregate emergency events produced by the county over the weekend for example we quickly coordinated teams and routes to distribute water to 70 people in springfield and this effort was in collaboration with the city of springfield and community partners similarly last fall and winter we mobilized quickly for fire response and cold weather activations helping to prevent hospitalizations and deaths associated with smoke and cold weather conversely county turnover and processes delay funding and may impact our ability to continue serving springfield depending on where the county decides to focus the funding concerns about our ability to meet contractual obligations are based in contextual factors that i am totally happy to explain and are currently being rectified after our recent audit and yes i will say we are a small homegrown organization that is

10:00 relatively new to government contracting but we are totally transparent we care about quality and improvement and we are dedicated to making sure springfield is not overlooked so i thank you for your time and consideration our next speaker is kirsten london followed by zia wang and kirsten year microphone should be you should be able to unmute at this point hi good evening um first of all i just want to thank you for this opportunity to talk about the cdbg funding that we have applied for i work for youth era we formerly youth move we are an organization that wants to empower young people and create breakthrough through dedicated systems that serve them we operate drop-in centers one here in

10:46 eugene four others throughout state of oregon and one randomly in pennsylvania we offer peer support wrap-around services and working collaboratively with collaboratively with youth and young adults to ensure that their voice is part of the process our big project that i've been brought on to help spearhead and i'm very excited about is we are getting a youth hostel up and running that will serve lane county youth and we are asking for um city council to approve forty five thousand dollars to help us with those operations specifically to help with an fte that will be focused on working with springfield youth we currently partner with mckinney-ventos 15th night 15th nights expanding into springfield so we're

11:32 really excited about the opportunities in terms of serving springfield youth and families i do want to say have almost 17 years of experiencing operating runaway and homeless youth programming throughout lane county including operating a shelter services and i am so excited about this new opportunity that's going to feel fulfill an identified service gap um and and the focus that we will have on springfield youth um the cdbd or city of springfield funding will ensure that we can continue to offer our great services to springfield youth i thank you for your time

12:21 our next speaker is z wang followed by emily peterson you should be able to unmute your microphone hello can you hear me we can hear you great thank you so my comment tonight is pretty simple just want to follow up the the question i think i um comment i think the two meetings ago about the culture change uh i try to reach out to the counselors um back first emails but i never got the you know the or gender how they look like so i don't want to repeat the questions about the culture change is what cultural change does it look like for you and how to make it happen and what other steps can lead us to make

13:06 a culture change in springfield um because springfield each what local culture right now is white supremacy dominant community i have a friend came over to visit from california last week and the springfield so well known for the fascist based and white supremacy dominated so he requested me to take a tour for him to drive around the springfield for a visit to this well-known um you know white supremacy and the fascist in the town so and we have the fascists right stopped in the washington at the washington dc and also we have the fascists the white supremacist storm

13:52 the you know capital building oregon so my question really is i i don't want to hear people tell me say the you culture change is different as my culture change i'm not asking that i'm asking about what you cultural change that look like okay so i hope i can hear some you know brief at least brief picture how they look like and would like to get an agenda to support how the city council want to make the culture change we need to stop and the white supremacist dominant community culture in this city thank you our next speaker is emily peterson followed by amy catherine and emily should be able to unmute your microphone

14:41 hi everybody can you hear me we can okay great so i'm emily peterson i live in ward 6. um i just wanted to start with i really appreciate our police department i appreciate everything they do and sacrifice for us i know that they put their lives on their line every single day and i just i really appreciate that okay so now that that's out of the way i wanted to talk about the fireworks um that people are trying to ban up in the thurston hills um i'm an admin for for many of the thurston sights and i will tell you that a vast majority of the people do not want a ban on it we understand the risk however illegal fireworks i'm not talking about that that obviously should not happen but i'm talking about the ones that are

15:26 legal the little ground bloom the little um lightning flash the stinking sparkler that my five and six-year-old like to play with that's mesmerizing to them that is so much fun and i really can't express how i just it seems like our freedoms are just being taken away one by one by one and this is it feels like this is one of the last ones and um people who are responsible keep hoses out they keep fire extinguishers out they keep buckets of water you know as soon as it goes out you pick it up and you put it in the bucket of water and that's how i've always done it i was raised in a small town in minnesota and that's how we did it there and that's

16:11 how we do it here my husband grew up in springfield he's lived here um we came back from seattle and he's lived here his entire life before that and and that's the way it was for him it was a small town it was a great town that's why we came back to raise our kids here um but like i said a vast majority does not want them banned um a small majority do and i've seen that they're working on trying to get them banned um so i just really wanted to reach out to you guys and let you know that please let us celebrate our holiday that's it thank you guys very much

16:56 our next speaker is amy catherine followed by rodney peterson and just a quick update we do have 48 attendees in the audience tonight just for your information and amy you should be able to unmute your microphone now yep y'all can hear me we can great first i would like to address the previous uh speaker drive 30 miles you know out east and ask them if they think that you know starting extra fires in dry season is a smart idea uh but of course once again i've come here tonight uh to speak to council about spd in their planned culture change uh every time i've spoken to the council uh you know asking how they plan to do

17:41 this what type of time frame they're looking for any type of details aside from trust us we're doing it i've been met with nothing no one on the council has addressed this question so i'm guessing based on your lack of answers that you don't have a plan and you know admitting that it would be great and you know from there we can move forward i know that you're looking at stuff that was recommended by these different reports but the biggest problems are not based on bad policy it's based on poor leadership and a lack of accountability through spd you know

18:26 we have the largest lawsuit on oregon's record we're about to have the second biggest lawsuit on oregon's record and neither of those incidents were based on poor policy they weren't based on poor uh never mind they were just they weren't based on poor policy they were based on officers who thought they could get away with something that they couldn't who had a happy trigger figure or decided they could block a road from people and oppress people's first amendments rights with with no repercussions so i do think chief shearer has been a great presence so far uh and that you're i really hope that your next hire will

19:11 take care of the leadership part the accountability has to start now or this will continue to happen once you have those accountability issues and leadership issues figured out talk to the people who are most affected by police violence in your community talk to the lower income people talk to the people of color talk to the lgbt community talk you know talk to the patriots too talk about if they're affected by anything because this is something that we need to this is something that we want to fix for everyone not us and if anyone would like to question my motivation question my morals uh i'm transgender uh officers in springfield killed a transgender person which led to the biggest lawsuit in state history

19:56 i believe that if i still lived in springfield and officers saw me commenting saw that i had a complaint that i would probably not be safe so that's why thank you so much our next speaker is rodney peterson followed by stacy holt and rodney you should be able to unmute your microphone hey good night everybody can hear me we can hey thanks for having me uh my name is rodney peterson live in ward six uh grew up in springfield born here graduated 95 left about that time i've lived in illinois mississippi florida a couple different cities in texas washington

20:43 been overseas for a few years i wanted to talk about the fireworks ban you know my kids uh deserve to have a patriotic fourth i'm a veteran i am responsible we do little kid fireworks in our street we have buckets of water we have a fire hose we wet everything down we have sprinklers running the fact that there is a small group out there that wants to take this away from my kids and treat everybody like idiots is i just i just cannot understand how people can think this is okay you know we're not shooting illegal fireworks up into the fur trees we're doing little stuff on the ground responsibly like good americans

21:29 i just want my kids to have the same fourth that we all have had growing up we have all had fourth of julys during heat waves when it's hot so i just i appreciate you guys time um i want to say springfield pd is great never had an issue got a ticket for doing something dumb i deserved i think springfield pd is great i wanted to thank the city council for giving me time to speak tonight please don't let a small group of people take away our freedoms that we deserve as americans thanks you guys have a good night all right so we're right about 20 minutes it looks like we've got three folks left and i'm i just want to pause

22:14 for and uh take a look and make sure council's still comfortable going forward good yes okay very good continue on neil okay mayor no problem our next speaker is stacy holt followed by timothy morris and stacy your microphone um you should be able to unmute hi there okay um i first of all i am so exhausted calling into these meetings and hearing the same voices over and over again with the same complaints about our amazing police department i didn't call in to speak on this but i feel the need right now to say thank you springfield police department for doing everything you do every single day you are appreciated

22:59 okay now i called in i'll tell you what the hoopla around fireworks this year has been huge i get it what our community experienced last year during the fires was unprecedented for many it was traumatic and while i do understand this i also know that most adults in springfield are responsible especially in regards to fireworks in my 30 plus years in the thurston neighborhood i have never known a year that hasn't been a safe show of freedom and independence what better day to celebrate freedom than july 4th yeah people live for years set fireworks off even illegals i trust the people the adults to do so safely i also personally take precautions that day on unusually hot summer days like keeping water buckets nearby watering

23:44 the lawn well and even spraying down the roof you know there's a lot of precautions that community members can take to make it safe for everyone i implore the city council to not make rash decisions to appease a minority of community members by instilling a fireworks ban to be frank i suspect a ban would just make people feel the need to show their freedom and independence even more after having so many freedoms taken away over the last year i don't know about you but i've lived through a lot of independence days let's trust our community adults to continue adulting the way they have shown us that they always have in the past on another note after camping over memorial weekend i realized just how poorly our managed uh our forest floors

24:29 are managed it's terrible i i could not believe what i was seeing and i'm not just talking the areas where there were fire damage there our forest floors are messy it's just hot tender it's tender waiting for the next lightning strike perhaps those fearing fires from the fireworks should actually be looking to legislators for you know fixing the forest floors problem you know a little bit of forest management in oregon would go a long way i'll relinquish the rest of my time thank you our next speaker is timothy morris followed by thomas lawrence and timothy you should be able to unmute your microphone [Music] fantastic can you hear me we can all

25:15 right it's uh great to see y'all again uh my name is uh timothy morris should i just check in this is a good time to talk about the cdbg c3 okay perfect uh so my name is timothy morris i'm the executive director of the springfield eugene tenant association uh and i'm just drawn to anything that's uh acronymed ceta so uh that's where i'm coming from but i wanted to say thank you uh for considering ceda's application to the cdbg funds um i know the board of directors and myself are incredibly excited at the prospect of working together uh to help keep renters out of this off the streets and in their homes um ceta has reached nearly 1500 renter households since we have been founded back in april of 2019 uh and as the only free tenant specific hotline in our area

26:01 we have quickly become an invaluable resource to the community um over 70 percent of our callers identify as either low income or severely low income and uh the city of springfield as a population as a whole is nearly 50 percent renters so almost half the city of the sp city of springfield are renters themselves and as i'm sure you know even pre-pandemic renters have been faced with a significant amount of economic disparities and very little housing options um this includes psu reported information about severely rent-burdened information our severely red burden tenants uh who are paying over 50 of their income uh just to rent and with springfield at nearly 25 of their uh the renters in

26:46 that uh in in the city of springfield are severely low income i'm i'm highlighting all of these facts because i want to um really showcase an outline that even beyond the uh uh economic uh oh the the economy opening up post pandemic um and even with the end of the eviction moratorium renters will be faced with long-term economic and financial difficulties for quite some time and will need every resource available to keep them safe and off the streets uh ceta has established a tenant hotline that any renter can call in with questions concerns and be able to have their issues answered and that's what we provide to the city of springfield that's what we provide to our community and so we're excited at the prospect of working together we're excited at the

27:31 prospect of providing information and data and ideas from our tenant hotline on how best to serve those most vulnerable in the tenet community thank you again for your consideration and if there's any questions or concerns i'm always available thank you our next speaker is thomas lawrence uh followed by what looks like our last speaker um who has a hand raise and that is mary bell thomas you should be able to unmute your microphone all right thank you i too would like to kind of talk about the the culture change phrase that keeps getting thrown about because it feels like a placeholder in the last few meetings we've talked a lot about fireworks and we've talked and

28:16 those same people continue to talk about how much they love spd because they're not having any issues but the person just a couple speeches ago just basically pointed out exactly what they think about that which is if you just try to ban them if you try to restrict them to make them safer we might even just go more overboard on it to show you how much we don't actually care about laws rules and regulation that is the culture change we need to address i haven't had an issue with police does not mean police is good in fact it makes it even worse because it shows that police can be very good and caring when they want to spd really really cares about the people out in thurston the people that are white straight etc we all know this the all lives matter rally that was out there the other day the

29:02 anti-vaxxers the anti-masters the please don't teach children about racism in school crowd three of those members were at the salem capital smashing it up the day that they broke into it three of them have been arrested in eugene or springfield during uh for assault in the last year during protests and as someone who was at many of the black lives matter rallies last year i saw a very different handling of it for how many police were out there monitoring them that is the culture change that we need to address the response from the city has two different responses or from the police department sorry there are two different responses for who is complaining for who is talking for who is who has whatever issues and that is the the change we need to

29:47 address and we cannot address it by we're working on it we'll change the culture and then not having a plan so we have a couple we have some time off before we come back for the next sessions please come back with some action steps some here's where we are here is where we want to go here is what we will do to get there not just trust us we're working on it and we hear you that is not going to cut it for me and people that agree on my side or for the people on the other side everybody here should want to get somewhere we need steps to get there not just these open-ended oh culture change this culture change that please come back with some steps some solutions some ideas uh i too so far like what i hear from chief shearer i have no idea if he is interested or willing to

30:32 um take the job after um but i do think that he seems to truly get it and understand hopefully that is taken into consideration and hopefully everybody on both sides of this aisle can come together on something but so far this meeting alone and every other one that's talked about fireworks has shown you just how much a certain portion of this population does not want anything to change because their lives are fine and they think that means council is doing great police department is great everything is great while another group of the population is continuous saying we are being attacked we are scared of this town we are being assaulted etc thank you and our last speaker is mary bell and mary you should be able to unmute your

31:18 microphone now and mary we're not hearing you if you're trying to talk are you able to hear me now we can hear you okay thank you my name is mary bell and i live in ward 2 and i would like to speak to the council today regarding the issues both within the culture of springfield and within the police department we talk time and time again about culture change and that is a reflection upon the city and the individual members of that society

32:04 police are individual members of that society and they too need to go through a culture change police reform is something different when we talk about police reform we're talking about addressing the specific problems within our policies that i'll allow our police to act as autonomous authority figures within the city and address issues as they reasonably see fit this is inappropriate it is wrong there is no accountability i have written to the city council to the mayor to the city manager numerous times and received very little response one response was an auto reply to explain to me that that account is not

32:49 checked 24 hours a day which tells me that the city manager is doing a great job at checking in on other issues within our city and our police department i want to know what our hiring practices are for representing bypoc i want to know what our practices are for representing women i want to know how we're addressing the issues within the police department that have allowed them to get away with sexual harassment and misogyny i want to know why when i called the police department to have them respond to a domestic violence dispute issue i was made to feel the victim and escorted from my property as quickly as possible so that the springfield police officers could return to eugene to help them with the riots that night due to blm protests i want to know why

33:36 you say there's no collusion with the white supremacy population within this city when there clearly is i want to know why the mayor says that white supremacy and political violence are not welcome in this city when just last week a white supremacy rally was held inches from the city door thank you mayor those are all the speakers we have this evening under business from the audience all right thank you um i will open it back up for council response and see if anybody wants to make some comments damian hi first of all thank you all for the comments a couple of things and so i

34:21 think there's a difference between a change in culture and i do agree that it involves the whole city and in some ways the whole county and the state but you can put an actual plan to that but when it comes to cultural change that are going to welcome uh minoritized individuals to come here and stay here that's not something you can necessarily put on paper and there are things that are already in place that you might not ever know about it because you're not a part of that the truth of the matter is uh we do all have different cultures and that's okay i mean i can talk on and on about how having more black fraternities are going to retain and recruit more black students and we're going to create spaces for them to feel welcome but you probably don't care about that you know i can

35:06 talk about how there's a list at ufo of all the black people that left in the last 10 years and it gets longer and how you know all of us are one foot out the door and and you know but once again if you're not a part of that you're not going to know about it the truth matter is a lot of people are very humble and they might be doing stuff behind the scenes that you might not know about uh i mean as far as in a council position you know realize that sometimes just you know uh in the last few times when i've spoken you know you all talk about bipac and this and that well i'm a black man and when i speak the truth of several people who look just like me i get shut down i get called angry i get called defensive and so it's like

35:53 this culture change means that we all have to and there's no hierarchy there's no person who is better than the other person and a lot of it starts with self-reflection as i said before you are not going to get a a plan with everything that's going to potentially change when it comes to culture especially that culture that's going to recruit and rate recruit and retain diverse populations that's impossible to do but there are a lot of things that are happening whether it's at the city level whether it's at the county level what's at state level that you might not be involved in and honestly it might not ever directly affect you but it's going to affect somebody else i mean i wish i could give a better answer but uh a culture change is not something that is going to be written on paper and if

36:38 you're looking for a document then you're not going to get it and some things that you will i mean i can provide you with a list of things that i've done personally since i've been here that have changed the culture but it's not about me it's about us and i'm not one to toot my own horn about what i've done and what i want to do all the time but you best believe that some of these conversations will happen and it's not something that's going to happen overnight i know earlier somebody talked about the civil rights movement and mlk and i mean the civil rights movement was extremely sexist classes and homophobic and if you go back to the south i don't really know what's changed uh and and so you know we can compare

37:23 our times to how this works and how that work but we need to look deeper sometimes and i think oftentimes we don't do that we don't do self-reflection and we have a tendency to be upset when you don't see something right away and you know i wish i could say give you time but obviously that's not good enough for a lot of you and that's okay just know that there are a lot of us that are doing things uh 24 hours a day in our daily lives as well as our jobs to make things happen that are going to ultimately change the culture and it might not be something you see you know like if you might not realize that they have black hair care products and fred meyer but i will and and so i repeat and i close this off by saying culture change is going to look different for each one of us thank you

38:15 thanks um mayor so um i'd also like to thank everybody for their comments tonight i did hear a couple of commenters pinpointing a lack of leadership as the culprit in the um in the downslide of the uh the police department and i'd just like to say that i think the most direct way to deal with the lapse in leadership in the city is to change the leadership and i think we're very early in the process of changing the leadership but i think the signs are promising the implementation of the body cams are also an excellent sign

39:00 i think that we're going to be a lot more transparent as a result of that a comprehensive review of the uses of force is going to be a very promising sign toward increasing transparency and toward increasing uh culture change i don't know how else to put it um if there's a uh if if there's a better way then i i would certainly welcome um any any kind of input but um i i will say um that the um the the signs that i'm getting from the new chief and from the general direction of the department since he has taken um the the interim chief has taken office are um are enormously

39:45 auspicious and i'm hoping that we're going to be here in another year talking about how much better things are thanks all right so um no yes go ahead sorry it's very awkward not being on camera um i just wanted to speak up as far as um not allowing time allowing for time um the interim chief has only been on since what first of june or thereabouts um so and maybe a month total

40:30 in order to change anything or you have to even recognize what's there as to what remedies might be needed or what res what have you have to recognize the people that you're working that are working under you in order to be able to recognize what's good what's bad what needs to be gotten rid of i mean chief shear just showed up he's still he's still trying to get oriented to whoever's in the department and the policies and all that i'm just i think i think we have him for a reason we have his leadership for a reason for as the interim chief um and i think we need to give him um the expectations that because he was brought in as our interim chief he knows what to do and we need to give him room to do it

41:16 um and then if we have issues or concerns but we've got to give him time um he's got to get oriented to the city um he's not he was not familiar from the interview that i had with him he didn't know springfield before he got here so it there's a whole new world for him to to even just understand before he starts to make changes and he is dedicated enough and devoted enough to the department and their job in order to be able to do it he wants to do it the right way and in order for him to be able to do that he has to be able to understand what he's working with so i think i think we just need to give him time on on the reforms that we've been that we've people have been concerned about

42:01 our questions about it's not that we're not not that we're not concerned about it but we need to it takes time to do anything like that that's all steve i've been pushing for change for the past year not quietly but sort of quietly with the council and and been hoping that we would go for it faster and faster and we haven't but we have been going and and we have a new chief there and i've talked to you and things are going to be done i'm very optimistic with him so i hope people out there will give us a chance with him and i think they'd be i think they'll be impressed with what we have that's it

42:47 all right so i had three quick comments um one of them uh i believe it was mary bell you had some questions for for the city manager if you want to write them down i will forward them to the correct email there's a email box in there and it sounds like you got pointed in the right direction and i will make a virtual introduction to you guys so that you can get uh you can get a response um second thing you know i i know we all want this to go quicker like we want to be done with this and it's going to take the time it's going to take and i think the bar that we've got to push ourselves is we've got to take it's going to take as much time we're going to get there but we've got to move through this is reasonably and effectively and choose the word that you want want to insert it

43:33 as quickly as possible but that to make it really stick it really does just take time and i know that i'm an impatient person and it frustrates me sometimes because you know i want it to be done so we can move on to really amazing things but this has got to get done and so when you guys speak of your impatience through this i hear you and i you know i'm impatient too but it's going to take the time it's going to take and what i would encourage people to do is just simply keep showing up keep pointing out places where we get it right point out places where we don't get it right because those are the points that we really can take take a step back from a policy perspective and start to and start to talk about okay where do we

44:19 even go from here um and then oh the uh one quick story that i thought was really you know and i'm professionally i work sort of in process improvement and change um and things go the way we're gonna go and i wanted to at least just point out two things right because the real check that we need to make right now is are we just simply moving if we if we are moving the direction that we want then we can work on speeding it up right but if we're standing still that's not going to cut it so it's just going to take a couple of steps but i wanted to at least point out two things that i thought were effective um you know saturday we were walking around during

45:04 the race walk and i had i had people walk up to me and they had business cards from police right i know that that seems small it seems simple it seems hard to actually but like just to see a couple of business cards that are out there right that's the kind of place where we're going to want to in you just integrate the change in there right and the the other piece that i thought was really effective is just how much water i saw them handing out right like and again if we want to get to a point where we're caring for everybody in the community right it's going to take all these steps combined and i know that folks are going to say hey that's never quite enough that's but we got to start walking towards this this direction one step at a time we got to do it together i just want to know that

45:50 we hear you all right next item please mayor the next next name is ordinances you have one ordinance tonight a fire code ordinance ordinance number three an ordinance adopting the springfield 2019 fire code by adopting amending adding and deleting sections of the state of oregon 2019 fire code providing the issuance of permits and collection of fees therefore repealing ordinance number 6334 adopted february 2nd 2015 and providing an effective date roy emery should be here for the staff report good evening mayor and counselors my name is roy emery and i'm the intron

46:35 fire marshal for eugene springfield fire there were two questions from our last session related to the adoption of the proposed code and the first question was asking what were the specific new amendments and there were four new amendments the first one is operational permit permits are required for unique conditions the second is emergency responder radio coverage allows payment of the mobile emergency responder radio coverage fee that the council approved in 2019 the adoption of appendix h which gives instructions for required hazardous materials management plan

47:20 and a hazardous materials inventory statement and adoption of appendix l which requires certain new buildings to provide an air supply for firefighter self-contained breathing apparatus and the second question surrounded the false alarm penalty and so in 2015 the springfield fire code adopted a false alarm penalty at two or more alarms and this proposed code is three or more alarms so it increases it by one and so if we don't have do we have any other questions counselor pictionary

48:06 first thank you so so very much for uh articulating those to me and um i appreciate that a lot makes a lot of sense to me and if i was incorrect in my recollection of the fire codes i apologize so i appreciate this coming back around and i have just one question sir if i can under um attachment one page seven of 15 you'll see uh general definitions about the sixth paragraph down where it says open burning and i don't and i i can't see where you know it's just a definition and i can't see where it's related i wanted to find in this code but it's so big um in regards to the um

48:51 backyard burns so to speak does uh does any new changes or amendments in this code alter what's currently lawful in springfield such as the greater than half an acre are allowed to burn yard debris there's there's no change to springfield's backyard burning rules okay that's what i'm saying i just couldn't see it and i but i did see the definition of open burning and it doesn't doesn't look like it includes um that those type of backyard burns but it does mention el rapa's authority correct so okay i appreciate it very much i really do any other questions

49:39 steve you're on i would like to make a motion to be adopted ordinance number three for the barcode i second all right it's been moved in seconded neil could you call the vote please counselor pitts all right counselor mo yes council broadly yes counselor stare aye councillor woodrow yes and counselor visionary hi motion passes six zero next item please next item is business from the city council item number one committee appointments mayor council committee assignment revision and mayor van gorden and aj knights are the staff for this item we make a great comedy routine as well

50:25 um so we just simply have to validate uh by motion the committee assignments i added corey to the human services committee we had a budget committee member uh rotate off and i made the decision to replace that that citizen member with a city councilor so does anybody have questions and there's no other changes on this list okay i'd like a motion to accept the revised mayor and cancel assignments dated june 28 2021. second all right neil can you call the role counselor pitts hi councilor mo yes council radley yes counselor stare

51:10 hi councillor woodrow yes encounter visionary hi right the motion passes 6-0 next item please next item is any other business from the city council do we have other business or announcements from anybody corey thank you um i just wanted to take a couple of minutes or seconds minutes because i tend to ramble a little bit um we are coming to the end of pride month and i just wanted to take a moment to sort of acknowledge that and um i appreciate that we as a city made a statement i really appreciate our internal diversity committee that worked on the language around that because springfield hasn't always been so

51:55 welcoming to um our lgbtq plus community members um and i wanted to just call out that you know pride month commemorates the riots of 1969 and is an opportunity for us to take stock and see how far we've come and how far we need to go and i know as we move into talking about the cdbg funding and particularly unhoused youth um some of you may or may not know that up to 40 percent of our own our homeless or unhoused youth identify as lgbtq plus and are more likely to become homeless at a younger age than other young folks and additionally one in four teens who

52:40 comes out to their parents still now is likely to find themselves forced to leave the home so as we talk about on house youth i just want to hold a pin for the fact that a a big majority of our unhoused youth are kids who are lgbtq plus so while we may be celebrating pride there is still a lot of work to get to do and a lot of work to go so thank you for giving me a few minutes to just call that out perfect anybody else next item please next item under business from the city manager item number one community development block grant coronavirus cdbg cb3 funds allocation

53:26 and aaron field is here for the snap report good evening mayor council i'm here tonight uh asking for a final decision on the allocation of federal community development block grant coronavirus funds these funds are primarily targeted for low-income households must address impacts from the coronavirus and as federal funds they are also subject to federal regulations previously you discussed a draft allocation during your may 24th work session that draft proposal was made available to the public for comment council's community development advisory committee met on june 9 held a public hearing and

54:11 made a recommendation for funding in the packet you'll see that recommendation you'll also see a summary of the process including the comments received on the draft which also include a new request for funding from carry it forward during the may work session council also has some questions for additional or some requests for additional information on certain projects and that additional information is provided in the table starting on page three of attachment one i don't know if aj can share the screen to looking at the table on attachment too but i just want to point out a few things between the um council's original draft allocation and

54:57 the advisory committee recommendation they're actually pretty similar um both recommend both allocations prioritize public services for the unhoused primarily um yes so here's the option one is derived from the council draft allocation and option two is the cdac reputation so you'll see some similarities i would like to point out these funds are one-time funds as a response to the coronavirus so there are some differences than normal cdbg funds one we have an opportunity to fund human services in the way that we don't normally there isn't a cap or a limit on how much you can allocate so that's why you see so many requests right now coming forward that we normally we don't

55:42 see through the cdbg process so that is new for the city it highlights also the need that exists i will say all of the requests um and activities are i'm like amazing sort of ways that i think our community is proposing to respond um to the need that there is always more need than available funding i think the big difference between the two columns you'll see have to do with how to provide resources to the unhoused in a general population so county part of their broader strategic plan is to provide in-depth case management through street outreach to the house with the goal of placing

56:28 folks connecting them to shelter options or permanent housing you'd see that request in column one um and they would administer that through an rfp and it would be sort of awarded to a local agency and then the other request you see is direct services and resources for the unhoused at 185 000. that is a request that carry it forward put forward in the advisory committee public hearing i just highlight that and say i think they need the the need is there i think they're doing amazing work i will say my best advice as the cdbg administrator is that this is a new request and a new agency and we have not had a chance to evaluate the request itself and so if that is an

57:14 activity you want to support that's great but i would just ask that the city be allowed to do an rfp even even if we do it directly rather than through lane county so um here i'm here for questions again i'm asking for a final allocation so that final column if we could put in final dollars that add up to about 366 000 um and aj all i have a copy of this in an excel file then i'm happy to share so we can um do it in real time all right thank you aaron question a letter yeah is it um is it too early to make recommendations well you you just need to slow walk it give her a chance to get the excel out so we can start okay

58:02 wait i i see it up can we uh can we proceed uh you're you're still on mute so i'm going to take that already my dog's barking sorry um yes i'm happy to plug in some numbers all right go for it leonard well thanks um i'd like to advocate for option two i know that there are hesitations about carry it forward on the basis of the newness and the relative size of the operation i've had the pleasure of working with them on several occasions now and i can assure you that they're a very lean and a very efficient operation they have squeezed every nickel out of the money that they've been granted and i think they deserve the full amount i'd

58:49 also like to advocate on behalf of springfield eugene tennant's association they've done work um that i think is admirable and much needed and i'd like to make sure that they get the money too that's all thanks steve i was uh a council of ass on on that committee and i'll tell you i've never seen a more dedicated group of people look at every issue before they made the recommendation and so i hope that the council also feels the same as is so that's what we've come up with okay anybody else to give some direction

59:34 before before we get to some motions corey um yes uh i i'm i also i'm fine with section two they're the second one um although i would like to see some of that ten thousand dollar funding for fair housing education and training i think that kind of goes hand in hand with the work that um the springfield eugene tennis association is doing and i wouldn't i would be okay with you know not funding at the full amount in terms of um carry it forward and i really i want to also lean into i tend to lean into staff who work so closely with this work so i would want to

1:00:19 support aaron's recommendation that there was an rfp process and there was a way to sort of vet i agree with leonard that they're doing really great work and they are a young and emerging organization and so you know working in terms of government contracts and and fee for service and things like that can be a little bit complicated and we want to make sure that they have what they need to succeed and so i would i would absolutely support that um so i'm i'm looking at mostly number two but a bit of a hybrid so maybe taking a little money from catholic community services or you know to to do that ten thousand dollars um that's my suggestion i got my hand up hang on merrily joe's first okay

1:01:09 thank you um well before i comment about the allocations i would like to know why um aaron thinks that the city should do the rfp process and not lane county oh in an ideal world lane county i think could handle this um lane county has stated they wouldn't um i guess it would be a conversation um on the direct services and resources question um that's not exactly part of their strategic plan the case management for shelter and permanent housing is part of their plan they said yes that is we're already doing that throughout the county but providing direct resources like a shower trailer is not something they would necessarily manage i think if it became part of a winter strategies effort then it kind of gets into an

1:01:54 interesting you know more part of what they're working on but um that's that's where it would be managed by ourselves because lane county it's not part of their their workload so okay so it wouldn't it doesn't apply to them is what you're saying basically is that right well like like candy's tricky like they um it's not their forte they've truly it's not a priority for them okay so they're not really interested in doing that so it so that's interesting now is so now we have these funds and typically we would refer them to lane county for rfp process but now it's back in our lap and that um which puts me in a little bit of a quandary it's kind of

1:02:40 kind of not i like the flavor of that because we're also going to have staff time and and to administer that frsp and i don't see a budget for that except for off to the right it says 2 000 out of well 10 grand out of the 185 000 that unhoused services is is that the cost or it just seems like those costs our city costs are a little bit light it's again those are guesstimates so um i will say you'll see a very thin line under row 18 um so city administrative costs option one um we put tbd because we weren't sure what the total list was going to be option right

1:03:25 we built in those city costs during the cdac meeting so of the we were adding in the estimated cost on the right and those totals add up to the 19 000 that were chosen um for the activities um in option two um but you're right i mean even though even though there may be funding to pay for staff costs it doesn't mean we've added staff to do these things then how do those numbers add up on the city administration costs if we go with column two it looks as though um we got two thousand five thousand two thousand that's nine and then you get ten for nineteen and then you got 2 000

1:04:12 which adds up to 21 000. that's fair that's a good catch i did see that later um right so if we do want to fund it at 21 we would take two away from something else thank you for actually it's 25 pointing that well not the one at the top wouldn't apply if we go with column two option two oh okay yeah okay so i do numbers um and then i'm looking so i i i support um what counselor steer uh had mentioned and said and and i think that i don't know if i want to move any monies around other than that and i do strongly i couldn't i won't support it i can't support unless we go through the rfp process on on all of

1:04:57 those but as far as the use of the money i think it's great and i appreciate the work that they're doing that's fine but i want an rfp process to make sure it's done right and fair and then we've crossed our t's knotted our eyes and i support how option two is is funded all right i've got marilee first and then i'll connect to corey uh yes i am i like the way the option two is lined up as far as the dollars that are allocated um i think um i i i'm very appreciative of what ceda is doing springfield eugene tennis association i think they're they're

1:05:43 offering a tremendous service i one of the things that i might suggest to them since i have an opportunity to say something at the moment is that in our executive committee meeting of hsc in the first week of june one of the comments that was made was the oregon law center can be helpful and so they might be a great partner as well for ceta to be able to um be partnered with or at least you know be able to be in communication with each other um as much as as tim's comments tonight about being able to utilize spring the city of springfield as well so um just just aside inside information for you um in case you don't have it you may already have that um the other thing that i would like to see the reason i would like to see an rfp

1:06:30 um it kind of in a way when i first looked at the material i was a little surprised to see the suggestion and so i had to think about it and then the more i thought about the more i thought you know this is these are one-time dollars these are dollars that are going to be allocated they're going out they're not we're not looking at having them available next year or the year after or the year after these are one-time dollars i would very much like to see um as a result maybe of doing rfps the insertion of okay if we do this how are we going how are we going to go forward how are we going to set up programs or do something that can be sustainable in some way

1:07:15 um probably one of the most discouraging things in my past when i was working as a family counselor in social services was the fact that it's very hard once you offer things to someone or a group to sustain them or keep them keep them in place so the person can continue to be successful and it usually involves a whole lot of a lot of interaction not only from the people providing the services but the people that are receiving them and all the ones that are helping in the middle so i i think i would like to see an rfp process so that we know that we are being able to set up something that we can hopefully continue

1:08:00 i like the services that are being provided i i'd like to see rfps so i just need some clarification because i might be i might be confused um some of these because i know that i because i snuck and went to the the cdac meeting so some of these were already in response to our original rfp so like the springfield eugene tennis association the daisy chain these already were folks that applied and responded to an rfp we are just there's there's a couple in here where you say um i think maybe on maybe and tell me if i'm wrong maybe it's only carry it forward that wasn't part of that initial vetting process and so that's why you're

1:08:45 talking about having an rfp for them as opposed to because because i don't i think i'm not i also want to like call out that we have capacity within the city and also these smaller organizations so asking them to submit a whole new rfp for the money that they already you know like basically a grant proposal for money that they requested am i am i kind of on track with how that went or am i off yeah no thanks for the clarification my um request is that if you wanted to fund the direct services and resources for the unhoused that that be the one project that go out for an rfp because the others have already gone through the evaluation process um except the ccs request at the

1:09:31 bottom has gone in the past and the uh the city is currently funding that this would just be an extension of services so the one unknown or the two unknown really are the street outreach that lane county has already said they'd be doing through rfe if you wanted to go that route or services which was not requested for an rfp i'm just advising staff that let's go through an rfp process so yes just it would just be the one rp depending on which one line 13 would be the only one you're recommending an rfp on or line 12. depending on which one exactly yes thanks yes exactly thanks for the clarification so um i think i hear a sort of framing up around uh you know a version of option

1:10:17 two and i think the only sort of difference is corey wants to slice some money off and put it into the uh uh fair housing i don't hear anybody else but we're very consistent that we want whatever the money is we want want it to be an rfb okay so does anybody have comments or do we want to try to form that into some sort of motion sean i didn't hear i heard a buzz on my in my computer or somebody's phone or something so i didn't hear a couple of your words and i think you were talking about with corey's recommendation to move money i didn't hear what you said about that i'm saying that the only thing that we haven't really

1:11:02 sorted out or talked about is really whether or not we're going to find fund line eight and i hear corey want to fund lines eight line eight and i didn't hear that come up with anybody else well i heard people wanting to support column two correct so which doesn't show moving that money correct but and corey jump in here if i heard you wrong you wanted to you wanted column two with money for uh for fair housing yes that's what i was advocating and like you said i'm the only one who did i wanted to have that 10 000 for fair housing and that would mean maybe decreasing whatever those lines are down there in 13 or 12

1:11:47 at the bottom for the rf the rfp the on house services i actually uh support council riley i mean is there a way that maybe even if we don't find the full amount that every organization that we're giving money to could they can we cut a thousand or 1500 off and provide that money to them i mean once again uh it's been a while since we've discussed this but i'm curious is that is that exact amount of money needed or could they do just as much with a thousand less uh because i mean i'd be willing to if possible move some of that money upwards and give them at least five or six thousand so i

1:12:32 do support according to council rally on that one okay so steve do you want to try to form a notion there i only hear you for moving money to fair housing so no okay let's see here then we're going to do fair housing where we're going to pull it from corey i'm going to suggest i'm going to suggest we pull it from the direct services and resources for the unhoused since that's that's to be determined through our fp and it doesn't affect any of the others that's my suggestion but steve there was only like sean had

1:13:18 mentioned there was only two counters that supported that move so but if you want to make the motion i may not fly hey as long as we can look at it so we're going to pull ten thousand this is real small print up here by the way we're gonna pull ten thousand from which one and then and then do it for add it to fair housing is that correct is that the most corey i'm yes that sounds a sort of motion-ish yeah i know it's it's it's option two okay decrease decreasing the unhoused to 175 000 and adding 10 000 to the fair housing council

1:14:03 okay that's proposal to go ahead do you want i mean i i was just going to suggest that we uh diverted instead of from the uh resources for the on house that we diverted from the um outreach and shelter oh wait a minute no uh for the um let me see here um from the staff support for homeless families the catholic community services our second purpose we could say both of those i mean we could say from either of those or either of those

1:14:48 we're gonna decide which one we probably need to give we need to give them better direction than that and so maybe we can before we dump it jump into this so aaron can you those are on the those are online trainings that they're producing from the fair housing council right right they would be training specifically that we would choose a time and place and outreach and figure out what the focus is and then they would do them over zoom online and then record them and then we could post them but we don't have topics for those right like they would they would give us four hours of where we would select the actual material right well i would say the material probably all revolves around specifically what are a tenants or landlords fair housing

1:15:34 rights and so if you're like oh let's focus on tenants specifically and do outreach might be one training landlord specifically might be another tenants of a certain uh area population maybe we do two one in east springfield one century you know so it's they could be the same trainings but would be offered at different times okay so what we would have to somehow work out right okay okay um i have joe first and then leonard okay so i'm trying to get clear on what they're asked for we've already funded them the same group and the same group is asking for additional funding to do trainings for what you're calling aaron renters that may want trainings but is it seems like that is redundant if a

1:16:20 renter has an issue and wants to have help would the would not the sita inform them what their rights are and what what types of things they need to do which is the same thing as training but not necessarily in a group so it seems as though it's a very um expanded program but it's redundant to what they already offer i'll let corey i like how no no i i mean i hear what you're saying but it's not the same organization um it's not it's not you know the springfield eugene tennis association that thirteen thousand dollars the fair housing council of oregon is something different and so they're reaching a different population

1:17:05 and um it's also working on you know fair housing rights and people who are who may be at risk for losing their housing because they're being because of discrimination or prejudice or things that might be working against them so it's it's an expansion it's both of them are trying to work to keep folks in their homes which is something that i'm really you know i want as much prevention as possible but it's two different organizations doing two different things ceta is definitely more localized but the fair housing council of oregon is might be accessible to other folks that wouldn't otherwise but aaron is an expert and i'm just i'm fighting for my my my college so as i'm saying it seems like it's redundant and it seems like it's it's

1:17:51 not specifically focused on springfield citizens period 100 percent and that if they can get the same services or assistance through who we're already helped funding is receded correct i think the only difference would be how the information is being presented um so ceta would be a phone number a hotline number um that someone could call and ask about um questions they may or may not have or may have and then the fair housing council is saying you might know this but let me tell you what your rights are and we're going to put that forward in the training that's online so it's just i guess a little proactive versus reactive maybe um but perhaps yeah ceta i would would have that information on hand if someone were to call leonard do you want to go with your

1:18:36 question um sure well i uh the the reason that i was proposing uh possibly taking it uh the ten thousand from uh catholic community services was that it seemed that it was at least adjacent to staff support for homeless families it seems like part of their budget would be dedicated toward the transition toward to housing for these homeless families is that a fair assumption aaron i would characterize it it's um more of the um the oasis day center staff support so extending hours at the day center for g street oasis families um i think ultimately a goal is hopefully to get someone plugged into housing and

1:19:22 provided resources but the trainings on fair housing rights i think is more on education um as opposed to helping an individual family so my suggestion uh whenever i'm i'm done okay um i think maybe we need i yeah with this fair housing council my my instinct would be if it sounds like it's more technical training which is good but i think my question is is it more is it actual training that they can deliver with sort of in that sort of standalone we've already recorded it right maybe we all work together and we have one set of training about oregon law that goes across this goes across the state

1:20:07 or is it designed to be more more q a um uh designed to be more q a that's specific hey we're gonna put like a drop-in center like we're gonna we're gonna provide you a resource you're gonna get to ask some questions about your specific issue do we know that i would give it the latter the impression i got from talking with the outreach coordinator was like if it's funded let's talk about what you'd like to see and we could certainly frame that up like what are you interested in as a city to know more about and we can certainly figure that out so it's they've got certainly the federal fair housing rules that they want to convey but um i think if if there wanted to be a q a or that kind of um piece to it i got the impression they were very open there isn't just a

1:20:52 playbook that they recite my recommendation would be maybe we just get to option two um and then we actually we send somebody with uh on um from council to the top talk to fair housing and give them just probably a little bit more direction to like marinate it a little bit more like i don't know what the right answer is and maybe maybe to you know uh ceta knows right but whether or not we want sort of standalone training or q a and just let that idea develop a little bit more i'm not opposed to funding something you know like 10 000 is not that much in this world i'm not opposed to finding it but it doesn't sound like we know what it is good joe and that's that's my point is is it's it's an outfit that is asking for money we don't know what we're going to get we

1:21:38 don't know who specifically it's going to serve and yet that also bothers me when aaron says well hey just just tell us how you want us to spend the money to an organization that's asking for the money and to me that is when we have the difference of that 10 000 coming away from even catholic community service it's got hands-on direct benefit to folks that are unhoused i don't want to take a dime from anyone that's already doing the the hands-on i'm not saying that that the fair housing council would not have a good program but to me it is it is absolutely too ambiguous and they don't have any hands-on to the people that are in direct need and if we have services that are already being provided for them at least some level especially with ceta involved and thus funding that

1:22:23 i'm still need to be convinced that it's worth the money and even though you say a small amount it's still every dime adds up to a dollar so i'm not in and please corey don't take me wrong on this as far as i'm not opposing you i'm a pl i'm i'm just i am really a believer of being fiduciarily responsible and and that is that's why i am uh very uh heartfelt and when it comes to looking at these books and and seeing where the money goes that's all can i just add i'll i don't want to throw the fair housing council under the bus they did not request these funds it's just been it's been one of the strategies in the eugene springfield consolidated plan for many years and we have not been able to fund them because

1:23:08 there hasn't been flexibility so it was something i brought up as an option for funding during the work session so i do like they're doing good work and i just it was me making a phone call to them be like oh council is potentially interested can you tell me more and they're like you tell me more and so yeah i just i i just wanted to add it's they didn't request it it was a it was a suggestion i had put forward so so we're talking about some somebody that you called said hey i may be able to get you some money do you want some i wouldn't clarify it like that um i brought it up it kind of sounds like that i brought it up during the work session with council and you had expressed interest as a council um and asked for more information don't let him give you a bad time i love giving her a bad time

1:23:54 last meeting of the year sir i'm punching here i'm ready i'm ready to move on but i think we ought to i personally still supporting just doing exactly what option two says and there that's where i'm at i believe what i'm hearing is is option two would be preferred so i'd make a motion i believe i hope i'm doing right here up adopt a substantial amendment to the springfield physical year 2020-21 cdbg one-year action plan to allocate cdbg cb3 bonds to respond to the coronal virus we're talking about option 2 correct does that include the rfe

1:24:43 yeah as stated i think merrily it's it's on the document yeah okay so i'm uh i'm my second act it's been moved and seconded um neil can you call her vote please yes counselor pitts aye counselor mo yes counselor rodley yes counselor stare hi councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary hi the motion passes six zero um and we still got like two more steve so just keep going right down the list okay i'm gonna make a motion to authorize the city management to sign an agreement with the us department of housing and urban development to d receive g dash c v three funds

1:25:32 it's been moved and seconded you know could you call the role please counselor pitts aye councillor mo yes council rodley yes counselor hi councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary all right all right the motion passes fixed authorize the city managed to negotiate and sign agreements with agencies receiving the awards in order to distribute distribute the funds allocated second all right and y'all can call the roll on the boat counselor pitts aye councillor mo yes councillor rodley yes councillor stare hi councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary hi all right the motion passes 6-0

1:26:19 um and it looks like that is all for this item thank you very much aaron next item please thanks next item item number two under business from the city manager extend development timelines during the covet 19 pandemic resolution number two a resolution amending resolution 2020-05 to adopt special regulations to extend development time limits during the covet 19 pandemic mark rust is here for the staff report sorry about that thank you mayor and counselors i am here and um tonight before you is a resolution we are asking for the

1:27:05 council to consider adoption of this resolution to address approving or tolling certain land use approval timelines during the covid emergency this resolution would total those time frame timelines to 30 days beyond when the emergency order is discontinued so there's a handful of applications we've dealt with over the last year and a half or so that would fall under this it's really not that widespread but we feel it'll provide a flexibility to address a few concerned applications so i'm happy to answer questions joe uh just to comment mark i think this is

1:27:51 a wonderful thing that the city can do i think it is the right thing the city can do and there is no victim here it is a win-win flat out so i appreciate you bringing it forward all right any other questions uh mark i just had a clarification on the 30 days there's only a handful of applications that this impacts does the 30 it if does that 30 day window does that sort of if the emergency lapses is that going to sort of care for those those handful of applications do you feel comfortable with that timeline yeah we discussed that timeline internally amongst a number of staff members and we felt that was the appropriate buffer time um it will give

1:28:38 a little bit of notice for when the council decides to end the emergency order to wrap up any loose ends so yes we feel that that's adequate all right joe and just click on for more clarification i appreciate your question sean uh so mark that means so in my head so this doesn't kick in until after the declaration expires and that is that correct so the way and um christina krabs the assistant city attorney may be able to address specifics i don't know if she's on the call tonight but so in talking about it the way i understand it is the time frame from when the emergency order was put into place right is basically not counted towards

1:29:24 the applicant's timeline during that whole time until 30 days after so um it it it is retroactive back to when the emergency order was put in place so and you discussed this change with those handful how you're talking a handful about give me an idea or give us an idea of about how many you're talking yeah i have a list of it's either seven or eight applications and have you communicated this with those seven or eight folks and they concur that that would be fine that works for them as well yeah i mean we've been working with them all separately and so some of some of them aren't specifically aware of this potential ordinance we wanted to make

1:30:10 sure it was going to be passed first but we've been working them throughout to keep these applications alive this would just create a lot clearer of a path for that to happen okay so that greatly increases the odds of something getting approved and everything's a green light is that correct and i'll defer maybe to christina for a second to make sure my understanding is correct as well i was being promoted to panelists for part of what mark was saying so it cut out briefly but i think what you said was that it's retroactive to the beginning of the declaration of state of emergency and so it basically just pauses the clock there for any application and then the clock will pick back up again 30 days after the council wraps up its declaration

1:30:55 but and um counselor pictionary you're right it will make it easier for those developments to can you continue to happen if they've run into a snag over the last year and a half and not buying them up okay that's right i appreciate that very much and and just keep in mind we need to be nimble on this because of that mess we just lived through thank you so much appreciate it anybody else all right steve i make a motion that we approve resolution number two all right uh neil can you call the roll counselor pitts all right counselor mo yes council rodley yes counselor stare hi councillor woodrow yes and counselor

1:31:42 pictionary hi motion passes 6-0 uh next item please next item any other business from the city manager no further business at this time thank you any business from the city attorney no business tonight thank you all right so um for the council just remember that we will probably be scheduling a special session in july to come back and talk about a couple of extraneous items and it sounds like ceta is looking to meet in august um other than that uh enjoy uh the time away from each other we get to go are we on vacation after this we're gonna miss everybody oh my goodness i'm gonna so miss i'm gonna so miss all of you [Laughter]

1:32:29 may be live and in person from an undisclosed location in city hall chambers uh right after labor day so we're gonna get some more information about that bye good summer everybody adjourn it adjourn it all right okay

0:03 never mind all right i'm going to call this springfield city council work session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillors pitts here mo here bradley here oh yes i'm here all right we have one item tonight it's the jordan pacific natural area master plan with monica sater good evening mayor and council um i am looking for a couple others to join here but i know i can get started um so as um as noted i'm here from the community development division in planning i'm one of the senior planners and um supposed to be joining us tonight

0:50 at our virtual table will be brian conlon and i'm sure he's joining as we speak um that's the city's operations director and also tuning in and available to answer questions are tom voyat our community development director christina kraus from the city attorney's office jeff pascal our city engineer and matt stouter our environmental services director i'm excited to say we're also lucky to have willamelain with us this evening to share the work that went into the master plan for the georgia pacific natural area christina beau is going to be here as willamalane's landscape architect and we also have eric adams willamalane's planning parks and facilities director here as well um we do have some slides to share um this evening so bear with me while i

1:36 pull those up now okay can everybody see the slide thank you um so based on who is with us um it's clear that managing and planning for the georgia pacific natural area is a collaborative effort uh one piece which involves the master plan that we would really like your input on this evening um before we get started on our discussion we'll give an overview of

2:22 what's in the plan since there is a lot in the document and what this means for the city's work and we're aiming for at least one half of the time tonight to be about hearing your feedback so the orange you see on the screen here is the area we are talking about um visitors can access the natural area from the trailhead and parking area at jasper road off of south 32nd street and non-motorized options can also come from clearwater park from the mill race path to the west and from the middle fork path to the south and before the paths opened up access which started about 10 years ago this property was closed off to the public most of it has just been brought into the urban growth boundary but is not yet

3:07 in city limits since 1994 the city has actually co-owned the property with willamelain and the springfield utility board around the time we purchased the property us team springfield partners put an intergovernmental agreement together the agreement is in need of updates to reflect each owner's interest but one action item the agreement does call for that remains unchanged is the need for a master plan both will lama lanes and the city's long-range planning frameworks call for the master plan project but i should clarify that this current effort to get the master plan in place is not one that involves a formal land use action examples of those would be adopting a neighborhood refinement plan or changing the zoning of a property instead the master plan work is on

3:53 willamelaine's capital improvement program list so this means there are no official criteria we need to meet when considering whether to support the master plan um having the chance to give willamelain our comments is really just an opportunity for feedback as co-owners i would also think about the plan as a big picture vision with the set of actions to make it a reality over several years um up to 20 years actually and um while i don't know if christina made it on yet um she does have more to share on what the vision looks like i am here thank you monica can you hear me okay yes okay i'm getting nuts that's a good sign had some trouble getting in um so i wanted to start thanks for having me tonight i wanted to start by providing some images of what the site

4:39 currently looks like so you can consider this your virtual tour of georgia pacific natural area which unfortunately is as good as we can provide you tonight but georgia pacific area is designated as a natural area park in our comprehensive plan so natural area parks serve the entire community and they allow for some recreational improvements to happen as long as they don't conflict with the natural resource priorities of the site so those natural resource priorities are more predominant in our natural area parks the process used to develop this plan included about a year of research and outreach and incorporated two public surveys a virtual public meeting that collected feedback from over 300 residents outreach outreach was also targeted and collected

5:24 at agnes stewart middle school where we collected over 100 student surveys and their property is located just northwest of the site it also included outreach to subject matter experts as well as several meetings with ownership partners to review findings and some of the proposed actions so overall the plan includes an assessment of the opportunities and constraints for both natural resources and recreation at the site and then from those opportunities against rates we propose a list of actions for protecting and enhancing habitat and then secondarily actions for recreational improvements the document closes with an implementation section that identifies short medium and long range goals for each of the recommendations over a 20-year time frame as monica mentioned

6:11 and because we don't have funds currently identified for this work it also includes a list of funding strategies and partnership opportunities to assist with those next steps so in the interest of time i'm going to just do a quick overview of some of the key recommendations from the plan so keep in mind that this isn't all of them but i'm happy to respond to questions and provide additional details at the end i just wanted to make sure we touched on some of the bigger ones so this is our habitat map that's included within the plan and habitat types identified within the study area included aquatic wetland and riparian forest habitats our assessment indicated that the quality of these habitats were fairly poor with a few exceptions and this is a result of past land use

6:57 activities on the site as well as a long history of the site not being actively managed some of the key goals that were identified for natural resources included prioritizing the protection of sensitive areas so these are areas that were identified and you'll see them actually on the next slide and prioritizing those in order to protect sensitive species identified in sight specifically the western pond turtle so this could include focusing habitat work along waterways and wetlands limiting or controlling public access in these areas and incorporating interpretive science or art to enhance awareness of these efforts another goal is to maintain habitat identified to be in good quality and keep it in good quality and then focus on working outwards from those areas to improve the habitat of

7:43 surrounding areas and lastly to utilize partners to implement work including the sea of springfield and sub as well as outside partners such as agnes stewart middle school students and local watershed councils many of whom we've already engaged with or are currently engaging with this is our desired future conditions of the site that is a direct outcome of the outreach and research that i mentioned previously and just a side note this is included in an attachment two of of your packet i think it's page 10. in case it's easier for you to see there on this diagram you can see areas that i mentioned as sensitive habitat these are shown in yellow and again these are these will require

8:28 special consideration and planning for any proposed recreational improvement and it will also be prioritized habitat restoration in these areas then that the numbers on the diagram correlate with the direct descriptions on the right side of of the diagram and additional information is provided there on each of those so some of the key ones i'll highlight one of the big things is additional access to the middle fork and mill race pass systems this is something that was in strong demand from the public during our outreach and it's also identified in other regional planning documents including willamalen's comprehensive plan and the rivers to ridge's plan plans and opportunities for new access points are specifically identified in this plan

9:13 document at south 39th street so you see that as number 10 on the diagram and from the western edge of clearwater park which is number 13 on the diagram each of these new access points come with concerns from adjacent neighbors so the plan notes that additional feasibility and neighborhood outreach would be necessary before moving forward with actually building those another goal is an expanded trail system so the paved multi-use paths that you see in solid yellow lines that's middle fork and mill race paths would stay the same but an expanded network of unpaved trails would be added those are the brown dash lines the longer brown dash lines show narrower trails that would be proposed for runners and equestrian use assuming

9:59 that that use continues into the future and then the shorter dashed lines are a wider half-mile nature trail circling the pond for pedestrian use only this would be an accessible route this nature trail would include boardwalks art and interpretive panels and then the last thing i'll just highlight here before moving on is that the increased access to um there was a priority for increased access to water views and this would be achieved by increasing access to the willamette river and you can see two points where that's being mentioned at 9 and 12 and also two overlooks one at jasper slew and one at the pond so generally speaking as far as implementation goes lower cost improvements such as gradual trail construction some

10:44 benches or access to the willamette river along with some habitat improvement will be easier to implement and will likely happen first and it's prioritized for for shorter range implementation larger more cost involved items such as the overlooks and the boardwalk system are longer priority items which is seven plus years or as funding allows so overall the implementation of the proposed work is strictly tied to the availability of funds as well as the need for some additional research in some of the instances so as you can see there are many interests to balance and many perspectives that need to be accounted for with this understanding there is a need to respect the property as a natural area and several city staff have been

11:30 involved so far including operations environmental services engineering planning and the city attorney's office and brian conlon in operations was even able to connect with his predecessor ed black for some valuable institutional knowledge gained in years past about the property um we've all really appreciated the lame elaine's work so far so um the key city interests that staff kept in mind when reviewing all that there is to unpack in the master plan document include water resources whether this means making sure flow levels are adequate as was the city's original interest back in the 1990s when we purchased the property whether it means keeping our water clean when focusing on water quality goals and

12:15 state and federal requirements such as permits or whether it means permit protecting and even enhancing wetlands within the property respecting water dynamics is an essential consideration of the master plan vegetative resources are also important we're interested in improving the site's ecosystem health by removing invasive plants and increasing the presence of native plants but the key is in the right spots so while clearing vegetation will help address safety concerns with better visibility shade for more vegetation near waterways helps cool water temperatures and improves habitat and plants near water they actually filter pollutants out of rainwater before it enters streams so the city will amelane and sub however

13:01 have generally been unable to prioritize actively maintaining vegetation within the natural area over the years but we have increasingly been working together and with other community partners to do so there is a real need for more resources from all three of us co-owners to maintain the site appropriately whether time money or even just equipment education is also important just with increased public interest because additional opportunities can reveal themselves to share information about how our natural resources work doing so would be another way the city can also meet our stormwater permit requirements and this could be through signage tours volunteering efforts and more and would be in addition to the

13:47 existing outdoor based classrooms at agnes stewart middle school public access is also another interest and feasibility studies and agreements would need to occur before anything is finalized as christina mentioned earlier we are staying aware of what our community members have expressed so far and are aware of what future access might mean just for increased use of public rights of way on city property but i will note that south 39th and the segment of clearwater lane touching clearwater park are county roads last but not least equestrian use if the use continues solutions for accommodating it include addressing safety with signage and thoughtful trail design keeping surfaces clean and

14:32 undamaged by collaborating with equestrian users on maintenance and addressing environmental issues by monitoring for bacteria and waterways the proposed extension of the pilot through the end of 2021 is on this evening's regular session agenda the draftmaster plan in your packet reflects this feedback city staff had on the first draft and reflects springfield utility board's feedback springfield utility board um and staff um the board included uh indicated their support for the plan last month including including um though that uh they would like their interests accounted for before willamelain implements the plan and eric or i would be happy to elaborate on those later if you have questions and we just really hope we

15:18 covered the needed considerations when thinking about how the property could evolve both in being proactive about issues and in identifying good opportunities but we could be missing something so we would like to get your input before coming back to regular session later this year for a resolution to adopt the master plan and keeping this in mind the two primary questions we have for you this evening are one is the master plan and attachment three ready for council approval and fall 2021 or are revisions needed first if helpful we have additional questions to guide discussion on this generally including whether the draft's framing of opportunities its goals and its implementation actions make sense whether timing of priorities is logical and even for

16:04 that matter what council likes about the master plan you might want to see more of and might even be excited about as we head into summer and the second is does council have an interest in participating in future efforts to create a new name for the property participation could mean contributing name ideas ranking ideas generated by others during the outreach process or other guidance willamelain welcomes any level of involvement council suggests and what we do know now um though a lot of the process is undetermined is willamelain will collaborate with local tribal nations to understand what their interests are in naming the property and more which could influence things so with that i'd like to open up the rest of our time to your comments and any questions you have for us

16:49 thank you i have comments and questions um first of all i love this area and this is one of the areas that i walk a lot and spend time in so um so some one of the things i really like is i like the addition of an accessible trail around the other side of that pond so i liked seeing that in there and you mentioned it at the very end so my one comment about the naming was going to be to prioritize um any local tribes and indigenous naming of the area as opposed to us naming it and then my question and this is a bit just me digging into

17:34 some of the feedback that i've heard and i'm sure other councils have heard for the possible new access up 39th what does the parking look like in that area because i know what the parking looks like in the jasper road area and it has like a restroom and all that so i don't know what the plan is for that access over there i think christina could answer that um better than i it's very high level conceptual um i'm not sure we're there yet so i could use your help yeah i'm glad you uh asked for clarification on that because i think there is a little confusion around what the proposed new access point so um the 39th street access point in particular is called out in the plan with a priority of developing a pedestrian access point so that would

18:20 include a sign and a new trail that would lead residents directly in that adjacent neighborhood into the natural area so when our initial analysis and again we need to do some more thorough feasibility shows those residents are approximately a mile from the jasper trailhead and then would need to travel further down to get to within the natural area itself in the new trail system that new trail access points uh provides access between uh a tenth of a mile to a quarter of a mile for most residents in that area without having to go up to jasper road which is a busy road so it's really focusing as a as a prior as a pedestrian access point if equestrian access was needed in the future

19:06 and and we were looking at different spots for equestrian access we might look at parking improvements but for that region in particular the parking is served from the jasper road trailhead as an access point for for vehicle use and it would just be for pedestrian access at 39th street can i ask one little follow-up piece before y'all think i'm just hogging all the time so it sounds like some of the concern that we're hearing from folks in the area is is about outside people coming and and trampling around the things which is the thing that people are always concerned about whenever something happens in their neighborhood but it sounds like what you're saying is that this is this is at least the the conception is around providing access particularly for residents and that

19:51 mostly um folks who didn't live in that area like me i generally go and park at that parking space there and then walk in that way um and i know you guys y'all mentioned that there was finding to be more outreach for the neighbors in that area so that maybe they would have some better understanding about that so i just want to say am i hearing that right that it's by being pedestrian only the idea is that it's to provide access from those neighborhoods in there as opposed to folks coming from outside and accessing the trail there yes um so that that would be the ideal and i see christina has her hand up too but i'll just chime in really quick and obviously providing access into also provides enhanced access out of

20:36 the park and natural area so that would be where we would need to carefully coordinate with neighbors and find out what the specific issues are and are they things that we can resolve through design um and and and how we go about that project sometimes there's easy things like fencing or um you know the way signage and road improvements are done and we can come up with agreements on how how to implement that that improves that situation and the neighbors are more satisfied but again we won't we didn't quite get to that next level of conversation so go ahead christina if you want to chime in yeah i just wanted to make sure that the council is aware that the property that connects 39th to the natural area that

21:21 was not shaded in that drawing is owned solely by the city it is not a jointly owned property so any arrangement for access off of 39 would have to involve not only city staff but a council decision at some point whether that's an easement or improvements to the property that would come before the council before any final decision is made and anything is built so in addition to extensive you know more work that would be done to implement the master plan there's a council decision as the sole landowner for that aspect of it as well all right great i'm waving my hand merrily um yes to follow up on what corey said because i had the same concerns especially from hearing from some of the concerns that came through emails and statements today is

22:07 how does that in looking at the access and how and understanding the necessity of the communication to those people and explanation of what you're looking at but also um uh involving council council decision and input how does that affect our decision tonight in approving the master plan the master plan document um on several pages identifies the um the accesses maybe so there's a framework there that we are not necessarily committed to at this point um and then that attachment to would would i think say that same thing just in that call out okay so that would assure those people that there's a lot more work to be done

22:52 uh prior to any kind of uh commitment uh to access and and that our approval tonight does not reflect a a commitment because it's still being uh investigated that's correct and also to clarify uh we're not needing approval tonight um if for some reason we end this with we want to talk more about it we can do another work session um but the goal would be to eventually approve it so we can do more as needed as well i understand thank you damian um yes uh i just have one quick question so as you know you all are making changes and creating uh new things that would be great for

23:38 our citizens what is a protocol if you were to uh unearth any indigenous artifacts or something of the sort the state historic preservation office gets involved and um the last experience i've had is we would notify them and stop work but i know that christina and i know he's not here but um our natural resources expert at willamelain um talked about that in the plan so i'm not sure if there's any more you want to add christina um i i think you kind of nailed it monica that that is when any new improvement goes in

24:23 you're mandated to stop work if anything was unearthed um we can do some preliminary research too and we have already to see if we can identify if there's anything already significant located in that area and um there hasn't we don't have anything on record on at the state at least which means you know our next level is to collaborate a little bit better with the tribe through the naming and and also just review of the plan so um if the tribe has anything that they would like to include on that and notify us about we would hear from them hopefully as well

25:17 i i have one um this is on a bit of a tangent but i the last time i was at clearwater park um it looked like there were the beginnings of a trail eastbound out of clearwater and i just wanted to see if we owned the land directly east on the river um from clearwater park i can follow up on that i'm not sure okay i know emily owns clear water uh yeah but i i i don't need an answer tonight it would just be great to be able to extend the trail eastward thank you christina might have something in the works i see her yeah i'll just i'll just chime in that is identified as a goal within our comprehensive plan to extend that trail

26:02 network eastward we but there is no official trail being constructed right now that's probably an unofficial trail that you've noticed we have a lot of those too yep yeah that that was the one i was using there's a lot of private lands uh east of there isn't there christina and also the old side of the bow range that was used to be used yeah there is a lot of private land and so the other probably that that's something that's a long-term goal for us whether it be along the river if it has to come off the river to achieve some of it on the road or whatever it is right i'm probably lucky to be here tonight i could have been arrested for trespassing i'm sure

26:48 the night's still young yeah um all right other questions christina can answer that really quickly the adjacent tax lot to the east is privately owned and it is outside the urban growth boundary from the clearwater park so willamelen's property does extend a little east of the parking lot but the next property over is not owned by a public entity and it's outside of the urban growth boundary you can still have trail systems that go outside the urban growth boundary but it's a different planning jurisdiction we work with the county as opposed to the city yeah all right i don't see in brian yeah jump in i'd like to really uh call out uh monica for the great work

27:33 she's done working with uh christina beau and eric adams on this and it really has felt like a collaboration i think if you go back to years and i as monica mentioned early on i met with ed black who was very passionate about this and some of the city councilors can remember and uh he was very excited that a lot of the work that willameline has done alliance with what the vision you know was many many years ago and it's sort of uh coming into a plan document that's going to guide us into the future i think operationally one of the things for us was we all we're always concerned with ensuring quantity water and quality of water of

28:18 course and it's gone beyond that to where the vegetative area and some of our responsibilities this will actually help us out uh from being a liability more towards a resource so and that you know a resource that you know of course a lot of people have the opportunity to use so great job monica uh she pulled together a bunch in a short time period working with christina kras as well joe thank you thank you just wanted to quickly mention i have always been a proponent of public access to our waterways as people reaching back towards the uh riverbend hospital and in guaranteeing public access to the river even though that's private land et cetera i did

29:04 notice on the master plan or this parks master plan that there appears to be three points of access to the river and they look like they're about 0.3 miles apart or greater and so i'm concerned that the access through that whole stretch and if i'm using the that or the the scale correctly it's 0.2 miles on that scale per inch and if i'm using that scale correctly that's about a three mile stretch through there two and a half mile stretch through there and seems like that's pretty a small amount of river access and i'm wondering if there is uh if it's possible to add more access points to the river especially where you look at the apex of that elbow to that northerly bound northernmost elbow towards the middle of the park where you see a a small uh gravel bar appearance of a

29:51 gravel bar and i think that may have been your first picture on your uh presentation on the bottom left corner that um has that area and i'm just want to make sure that that's still i just can't overest overemphasize the access and river points and to include the uh the fisheries and the fishermen um i understand those to be a little bit more flexible and um just in touring uh the property about a year ago i saw a lot of people fishing um i think we need to balance just what that might mean for erosion and water quality concerns but christina can you specify a little bit more on that flexibility our our two primary goals with

30:38 locating uh new river access points um were safety so looking for areas where the water's not moving fast we have some dangerous flows that are right against the edge of the property there so we want to protect people from accessing at those points and probably and direct them to areas that where the water's moving a little um more slowly and the other is having a nice gravel access beach or a the slope basically so there's a lot of rip-rap armored bank along a large even though we have a mile and a half of riverfront along the georgia-pacific natural area um a lot of it is armored and that's not really a safe access point for the public either so the two spots we identified both have potential and we're actually proposing to do one first and

31:24 see how it goes um see if it gets if we can actually control access or if it if we see unintended uses and kind of monitor it to help inform how we would develop that second point of access but we certainly did hear that from the public as a strong desire to increase that access to the river so yeah just really important to a lot of folks and i just wanted to bring it up i appreciate you guys uh keeping that up on top of your radar yeah certainly all right and then the only comment i had is i i would love one of us to be involved with the with the naming project you know it would make sense you know either that it's leonard or merrily given where where it is to just and we can sort that out later but i would love for a counselor to be involved um especially since this in their award well or near their ward not

32:10 all of this is in the city um unless there's anything else then i'm going to adjourn us and we will see you in the sita meeting room four minutes ago all right we are adjourned thank you so much