Springfield City Council — November 22, 2021

0:04 all right i am going to call the springfield city council work session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here counselors pets here mo here bradley here here woodrow here and pissionary present thank you okay looks like we've got two items tonight we are finishing up interviews for the police advisory uh committee um and before we get started with that one of and i want one of the questions that um that i was going to add for folks is this is the place where we have a lot of applicants and one of the questions i was going to add when i asked them was if they were willing to serve on other boards and

0:49 commissions and i didn't know if anybody else had anything uh my plan again i will i'll leave the questioning and let you guys take notes um before i turn it over to chief here see if you guys have any other questions corey there's three openings right did i read that right okay thank you all right chief scheer we're gonna turn it we're gonna turn it over to you um yeah i'm to be really brief thanks again for sitting and doing these interviews we have three open neighborhood citizen um at large positions um there are no specific ward requirements for these we originally had

1:35 nine applicants but apparently one withdrew their application today and i think that was uh cameron gertson due to some schedule conflicts with the meeting times i'm told um and with that that's about all i've got for you and i'll let you get to doing the interviews and i'll be here to answer any questions when you're done if you haven't thank you all right aj i think we are right aj you have your hand raised i do have one question um we do have our cdac member that was unable to make it last week that is here in the audience this week um if you would like to do that one interview we could do that um either at the beginning or the end whatever your preference um let's do it at the end perfect thank you i will get carla berg

2:42 hello carla hello so um i'm gonna go around and do a quick round of introductions for people i know we've got a lot of folks that are scheduled to be interviewed in the audience so they'll give a chance for to help with the introductions later later on so we're going to do it by ward um sean van gorden i am the mayor damian pitts ward 1 steve mo ward 2 ray rodley ward 3 leonard stare ward 4 merrily woodrow ward 5. where do i live carla gosh darn it um it's out there

3:28 all right hi how are you doing how are you i'm i'm wonderful i am in ward 6 by the way the thurston area just so you know okay all right so carla are you ready for your first question i am all right why are you interested in serving on s-pac um so i was previously on the springfield the b-pack um and i did that for three years and i loved serving this city i moved here about 25 years ago and i bought a home here about eight and um and i just love springfield and um i rotated out of b-pack last december and i saw the posting for this and i was just like this is awesome i would i

4:14 would love to be part of this to serve the city okay um describe your understanding of the role you will have in serving s-pac and how it relates to the work of the council so a bunch of my friends have asked me that same question um honestly i don't i don't really i don't really know i haven't researched it i um i again i was on the b pack and i and i know that what we did there can't be done it can't be translated to probably what the police advisory committee does um so and i haven't researched it i just um so yeah i guess that's my answer okay um what do you see as current issues and challenges for the city of

4:59 springfield i think the probably the city of springfield i have not again not researched it but my guess is they are no different than what's going on everywhere how do we keep people safe how do we keep people included and how do we balance those things very good and then i'm going to offer the bonus question we have eight applicants for three positions tonight and we have plenty of other opportunities out there would you consider serving on a different board if you were asked it would not my preference but i would consider it perfect thank you so much for your time carla and and so do i go away now they're going to move you back to to the uh normal audience um

5:44 away from being a panelist so aj's going to make some magic uh happen and then you'll join join the the audience all right wonderful thank you so much and we are making the magic happen um and our next applicant is going to be jonathan hayes good evening everybody hello jonathan hello hello thank you for joining us thank you for having me are you uh we i saw you on the list when we were doing it so we're going to skip

6:29 the introductions again um are you ready for your first question uh yes sir i am okay why are you interested in serving on s-pac uh frankly i'm interested in in serving in almost any capacity i'm a firefighter uh paramedic with eugene springfield and as services just in my nature um looking at the climate of the country and our cities you know one of the questions that have come up on some of the other boards i'm involved in is you know equity how do we take some of the events across the across the world and the nation and make sure that we we learn those lessons without going through those struggles i mean that's something i'm interested in being involved in on the law enforcement side through this advisory committee

7:16 can you describe your understanding of the role you will have serving on s-pac and how it relates to the work of the council well my understanding the the role is going to be kind of a person-on-the-street uh point of view to give advice to the to the leaders when it comes to policies and procedures giving them a fresh set of eyes and letting them know what the impact is as as it relates from my experience to being a citizen what my concerns are and the concerns of the rest of the community that we serve um what do you see as your current issues and challenges for the city of springfield mike the current issues and challenges that i see is finding a way to continue to grow the city and attract good people and retain the good people that we have

8:02 that's something that i've seen throughout both eugene and springfield having the opportunity to work with both cities is a question of how do we get good people and and welcome them here and making sure that our police force um and is able to offer protection for our community and let them know that they can bring their families here and be able to thrive here is something that's very um is very important to doing that so contributing to the police advisory committee where we hopefully be able to help foreign policies that are going to be um fair and equitable to everyone um is how i best see my work with this committee and then we added one quick question since we have three positions eight applicants and we have plenty of other opportunity if you were asked would you

8:47 consider uh serving on a different board i would consider it uh my my interest is the police advisory committee but i would consider serving another board yes okay perfect thank you so much for spending time with us to tonight um that was the all the questions thank you have a good night you as well damian did you have something okay and it appears our next is colleen hunter and she will be coming up momentarily

9:44 it looks like you're still yeah yeah everything just shut off from another zoo meeting i was in previously um thank you for the opportunity to interview for this position um if you're ready i'm gonna go ahead and start asking the questions yep all right um why are you interested in serving on spec um as a over 20-year resident in springfield and a teacher in springfield schools for 18 or so of those years who is now retired i would like to be able to help my community right currently i'm working as an advocate for public schools and public school students so

10:30 i would like to just add to that and give my opinion on what it's like to live in springfield what it feels like to be in ward 5 and you know issues that might uh be of interest in terms of livability in my neighborhood and those kinds of things and concerns that i would have can you describe what your understanding of the role of s-pac is and how it relates to the work of the council yes i was reading the bylaws and it sounds pretty much like um my or people on the committee basically just give advice and their input their perspective from being a community member

11:17 who is not like employed in in policing or anything like that but just um has like a finger on the pulse of being in springfield and what it feels like and concerns that i have or people in my neighborhood or people that i know in the community and to help coordinate the cooperative relationships between the schools and the other aspects of the city as well as uh the police force and what do you see it isn't really a policy thing it's an advisory thing i'm sorry um what do you see as current issues and

12:02 challenges for the city of springfield well a few of the things that i am concerned about or have issues about that motivates me to want to be part of this is that the recent development of new thriving restaurants and bars and other businesses brings with it an increase in need for traffic parking and health and safety provisions be it through the police or fire and safety issues another thing that i'm interested is is transparency with the police department in fair and equitable procedures for all

12:48 uh i think that rebuilding trust with the community for prior events and efforts under the guidance of the new leadership with interim chief share and increased efforts for transparency on behalf of the police force i would like to see uh follow them following the guidelines and the other mandates that resulted from the kenny lawsuit and the settlement and also continuing to implement recommendations from rick brazil's long and very thorough study of the events of thurston in 2020 summer okay and we have three openings tonight with

13:34 eight applicants if you were asked would you serve on a different committee um i can't say for sure i would serve i would consider it and based on my other things that might conflict with the meeting days times and whatever yes i would consider it for sure all right perfect we appreciate it i'm so that was the last question um thank you very much for your time have a good night and we will be in contact thank you very much and it looks like our next applicant is adam jenkins and bear with me

14:22 adam will be pulled up momentarily well thanks thank you for joining us for uh the s-pac interview um so i've got just a couple of questions and then if you're ready we can get started yeah why are you interested in being on the s-pac i've been in part of this community for the last 20 years partly the gene mostly springfield i've got two young children in thirst elementary um and i've just kind of been starting part of the uh leadership cohort for

15:07 eugene springfield chamber commerce got to actually hear a few of you speak in that class which was very insightful and kind of intrigued me a little bit to say i need to do some more for my community um i want to be a part of something that helps provide protection for my kids and their friends and our neighborhood could you describe your understanding of uh the role of s-pac and how it relates to the work of the rest of the council yeah my understanding is providing an insight and perspective of my neighborhood and community help the city council who's always busy can't be there for everybody on advising what can be done help finding solutions discuss

15:52 some items before they become issues with either the police the community itself and what do you see is the current issues or challenges for the city of springfield well i mean uh you know i'm something that's important to me is uh what this community is trying to see it continue to thrive and and be a place that's desired for people to live um obviously something important to that or something related to that is the protection of our of our community members and neighborhoods and just seeing what can be done to make sure that we all can all communicate and be cohesive together and the final question i had tonight was we have three openings and eight applicants

16:37 um if we asked would you consider serving on a different board uh it's something that i would um consider uh i guess i'd be depending on the timing of those meetings like to go from there perfect thank you very much for your time all right thank you everybody and our next applicant is carlin kephart and carlin will be up in a moment

17:28 hello hello how are you i'm good how are you oh good good so um we are just going to ask you a couple of questions and then um then we will we will let you go hopefully it won't be too painful are you ready to go yeah okay why are you interested in serving in the sns pack um i'm really interested because um i hope to be an advocate um for those who um aren't able to be in this kind of a position um due to time or you know whatever the constraints are um i want to be present to hear community members concerns and bring those to the committee and the council

18:13 i've never actually served in an official capacity before and it's something that i've always wanted to do so um that's definitely a big part of it as well i'm here in ward six and um i've lived in springfield now for seven years and so i feel like it's time for me to um you know do what i can to help make the community better could you describe your understanding of the role of s-pac and how it relates to the work of the council from the meetings that i have um zoomed in on um it looks to me like you know in the title in an advisory situation where um the the advisory panel is there to hear community members concerns um a lot of

19:00 listening a lot of you know taking in the concerns that people have and um being just one more set of ears you know the the city council you know there's all these different things that they're in charge of and i feel like this is one place where um you know the advisory panel can help kind of filter some of that information and bring concerns that that might kind of get lost in the shuffle with all the other um things to take care of so um yeah just being one more one more set of years to to listen into what the public concerns are and what do you see as current issues and challenges for the city of springfield um as was mentioned by another applicant i think a lot of the um concerns and

19:46 challenges um are across the country um and you know currently a lot of that has to do with covid um increased mental health issues um increased homelessness um also increase in domestic violence taking place those are all things that i feel like the police advisory committee can you know hear hear from community members where they're seeing these kinds of issues take place i also feel like just making sure that historically underserved populations get care access to services and a pathway to building fulfilling

20:33 lives and just making sure that our public safety systems are treating the community members of springfield equitably and that there's transparency and accountability there as well and tonight we have three spots for eight applicants if we asked you to serve on a different committee would you consider it i might i hadn't really thought about it fair enough it's it seems like most people are going you're gonna have to give us more details than that before we sign up so yeah um great uh thank you so much for your time thank you all for your time

21:26 and our next applicant is uh sarah miller hopefully i'm saying the name correctly and i apologize if i'm not well welcome hi thank you we're glad you're you're here um me too so if you're ready i can start with the questions let's do it all right why are you interested in serving on s-pac so um i will start off by telling you that brevity is not my strong suit um and i'm gonna do my best to be concise so knowing that i have written out my answers i hope they don't sound too canned but i'm trying to keep myself on

22:12 track that said with the first question um springfield's my home and i plan to be here a very long time i am deeply invested in the city and our citizens and um i would like to serve on us pack to be an involved advocate and liaison for my community and i'm very desirous to contribute my skill set as well as the passion that i have for the issues this committee oversees so could you describe your understanding of the role you will have with your work on spec and how it relates to the work of the council yes so my understanding is that as a committee member i would be an active participant in soliciting and providing input on police issues

22:57 i would have a responsibility in order to serve as a community liaison to the group and a sounding board to provide citizen input to the chief of police and matters of public safety i would also be expected to assist with input evaluation feedback in various areas encompassing policy strategy and other types of community coordination i do understand that this role is advisory in nature only and not a decision-making body as that is the ultimate role of the council and what do you see as current issues or challenges for the city of springfield so like much of the country we have been split on divisive issues with a call to action on law enforcement for accountability and reform

23:42 the public's perception of police has been under a great deal of scrutiny i have noticed a concerted effort on the uh on spd to do more public outreach through social media and community events and i really think that's helped to humanize the department and to create a connection with residents um but i think that in order to build upon that trust that the messaging may need some help um so perhaps by avoiding technical jargon um so that information dissemination is better understood by the lay person in the community at large additionally as stated on my application um working in healthcare throughout the pandemic response has taught me the vital importance of a community that is

24:29 integrated and connected and i think that we could improve upon those connections by leveraging cross-collaboration with different community groups great thank you um and the final question we've been asking we have three three spots eight applicants um would you consider serving on another board if we asked you to i would consider it it would depend on the board i think that um you have to have a certain amount of passion excitement or interest in what you're serving for in order to be an appropriate liaison for your community and so it would it would have to depend perfect thank you so much thank you guys have a great night you too

25:22 and our next is barbara sward and barbara will be pulled up momentarily can you see me or hear me we can hear you we cannot see you okay i am new to zoom and i apologize for that and if you can tell me how to turn on my video i'd be more than glad to do that when it comes up thank you there you go you're a pro already yeah you think after a year and a half two

26:08 years with school you have to have this down but let's do the intros well um welcome we're glad you're here um i've got a couple of questions so when you're ready um i can start asking them are you ready to go i am why are you interested in serving on on s-pac well i am a community member we moved here in 1973 my husband and i we raised our kids from ridgeview to thursday high school so i've seen a lot of community and a lot of activity our family is a mixed ethnic family so i'm looking for some things like equality equity i want neighborhood concerns answered by parents when they have a question that

26:53 they can raise that they can bring to the police and get an answer i have a lot of insight into the police department i have volunteered on we started the springfield citizen police academy alumni many years ago i was on the beginning of that board for 14 years and then i also served on the lockout crime project but i'm still part of so that gave me a lot of eye into the community and how the police work with the community and how we can serve people and build a better community so i'm looking forward to to continuing that and possibly having input through the city council and other sources to

27:38 improve our neighborhoods i'm also looking at the world the way it is right now and there are a lot of talk about defunding police departments i think our police department's already ahead on that by keeping our officers we already have cahoots in place which a lot of these places are trying to do similar things and i think we're a little bit ahead on some of these items so i look forward to coming together with whoever's on the committee and getting input sharing input and talking to the community perfect all right so describe your understanding of the role of s-pac and how it relates to the work of the council

28:23 uh i've only been to a couple council meetings so i'm not really familiar with a lot of the workings of the politics of the city but i think it is uh you'd be a liaison between the police department and the community and like i said before you'd be sharing if somebody brings something to you you can bring that to a meeting or if we come to a meeting we need to bring it back to the community we can share and bring our people together and hopefully make a positive impact on the community and then springfield and what do you see as current issues or challenges for the city of springfield well i know there's a lot of talk about our boundaries there's a lot of talk about um let's say equity uh we've had a lot of things going on in the country that were coming down to springfield some of our

29:10 riots so to speak things like that we want to keep our city calm we want to keep our community joined with us so that when a question comes up we can get a fair answer for both sides all right and if we've got uh three uh three spots for eight applicants tonight um if we asked would you consider serving on a different committee if there was a committee that i could serve as with a better fit that would be a possibility thank you for the thought perfect thank you so much i appreciate it have a good night you too bye

29:55 and our last applicant is zachary gossel lewis and he will be up in just a moment hello zach hi there all right all right are you ready for your first couple of questions thanks for coming back tonight absolutely yeah i was going to say i'm a little bit more acclimated to it but absolutely thanks

30:41 for having me back again um why are you interested in serving on s-pac so living in ward 2 and being in this area for the last three and a half years since i moved to springfield we see a fair amount of police activity in the area where i am and where my neighbors reside and my friends are and i hear different things from neighbors and hear different complaints and things of the sorts and and recognize you know where they're coming from in an area where we see police when things are going wrong i want to be an advocate for better community policing in this area and throughout the entire city and so my hope in getting involved is that i can be an advocate not just for my fellow citizens in this ward but also from the work that the police department is doing back to the citizens in this area because i feel like from what i've heard

31:27 that they're doing some incredible work within the police department to improve and to hold themselves accountable and be in those spaces but that's not getting communicated to the folks in this area and i want to be able to be involved with that hear that and be able to say that you know coming from an area of actually seeing it and hearing from the folks doing the work could you describe your understanding of the role of s-pac and how it relates to the work of counsel absolutely so as many of the folks have indicated it's an advisory position having those conversations being a liaison communicating things but one of the things that i also think is valid is like i said being in a position to where you can help to execute programs as they come up be a representative go out and support be in those positions that you know if there

32:12 are things like coffee with a cop etc where they need help setting up or getting things going or spreading the word around town whatever may be i think that's an area where we could also put our money where our mouth is as committee members to show up and support not just using our time to talk but using our time to put you know words into action and support the work that the police are doing to be more involved within the community and to be seen and represented and what do you see as the current issues facing the city of springfield i think that from where i sit and where i see i see that there is you know i wouldn't say a crime problem but i do think that there is an aspect to where there is a distrust of the police and you know many people mention a national landscape and while i respect that i feel that what we have here is visibility that there is an incredible

32:58 amount of work being done to improve our police department um with the addition of the interim chief and the work that he's doing to bring things up to spec and and all the accountability measures that are there i still feel like being seen and being heard within the community is what's most important so i feel like that aspect not just of transparency but visibility is something that can improve uh not just within the police department but also you know i commend the what the city's done in recent years of improving their social media presence and doing more public events and those sorts of things that's huge you know and that's something that i respect as a university employee and seeing all the work that goes into those sorts of efforts i want to be able to support that you know with my own background with my knowledge and ability that i have to share that out and support the work that the police are

33:43 doing because all the work in the world doesn't matter if people don't see it and i want to be a part of helping folks see that because it really is tremendous what can be done when that happens um what do you see as current issues and challenges facing the police department well uh are you ready to um if we ask you again are you ready to uh serve on a different committee yes sir yeah i'd be more than willing to serve on either both whatever works best out um i am particularly passionate about the work that this committee can and would do but i have no hesitations in serving both in the museum role and in this role or whatever is most viable i just want to be involved and i think that the work that this committee is going to do is going to be completely different from what my role would be within the

34:28 springfield museum committee but i don't want to hold up seats you know if folks are there but i do think that i could bring a lot to this and i'm excited at the opportunity great i appreciate it thank you so much yeah thank you all y'all have a good rest your night you too all right um aj that looked like the last one that is correct that's our last applicant for the s pack um and it's totally up to you if you would like to deliberate on s-pac and then go to the cdac applicant or how you would like to do that i'm going to look to the rest of the council my recommendation is that we deliberate on s-pac right now since

35:13 there were you know a significant amount of them um and then we move on to uh okay uh the information is fresh before it falls out of my mind so um does somebody want to start yeah i want to point them all god what a wonderful bunch of applicants resumes and their answers uh quality all of them so we're going to be really difficult selection for us to make as far as i'm concerned i i do a one to ten rating when i do it they're all they're all six seven eight uh way up there so i want to listen to the others but but i've got one and one picked out and then we'll see we'll

35:59 see how the others feel about the others who was your one uh the uh jonathan hayes um thank you um i've got my i've got four top picks so hopefully that'll get the three in agreement with the rest of the council at least three out of that four um i have uh sword berg jenkins and um hayes i think all of them got their strong suits is that it's got a wide uh breadth of background um and i i do like the fact that we got some citizens coming in from different parts of the city finally from the east

36:45 into the city which to me is very important we've we've been weak in that area and this is a great opportunity to strengthen that so anyway those are my top four sword bird jenkins and hayes very good leonard thanks mayor yes i i think what we're looking for or what i'm looking for anyway is people with a diversity of backgrounds i'd like not just to have one person with an emergency background but i would like to uh i'd like to recommend jonathan hayes as well um are we voting for four three

37:30 if you've got a list of four we can take we can take them and see if there's a consensus some other ways but we got three spots okay well joe joe voted for four so it sort of threw me off he's breaking the rules yeah he's a he's a rebel right um without a cause let's go with colleen and carlin copford all right merrily well i had the same four as joe i just i like jonathan a lot like jonathan hayes a lot um i like i know barb personally i

38:15 didn't realize she was gonna apply for the for the spac but um i worked with her of the citizen police academy alumni association for several years um she's a very good a strong advocate um not only for the community and the different involvement she's had in the community but also um her connection with the police department from the uh alumni association so i think she would serve well and she brings um she comes in from a completely different part of the community um i jenkins adam jenkins i really liked um everything that he had to say and his again he's a parent in it with kids in the school and he's bringing that kind of a perspective and the other one was uh the only other

39:01 one i had had a little hesitancy on was carla just because she's not totally um immersed in what the s-pac is all about um but so my three strongest are probably jonathan adam and barb um and and and all three of those are completely different from each other and then carla is my fourth so those are those are my four i have three um jonathan hayes colleen hunter and sarah miller

39:53 thank you corey um i think marilee and joe you still have your hands up oh i'm sorry i joe are you back in the queue are you gonna okay joe i just wanted to add i um through uh full disclosure i've known carla berg for probably coming close to 30 years and she and i've seen her she's been active as a volunteer with our working with the incarcerated folks in our local jails she has been very active in the community over the years and hasn't didn't really spell that out too much in her application but i but i do want to say that she's got a thorough knowledge of kind of the whole the cj

40:40 system and that i think that her perspective as a volunteer especially working with the incarcerated folks and and getting to know them personally and not personally but getting to know them one-on-one she's cause she'll bring a great i believe a great insight um to the committee that we don't currently have um so i just wanted to give you folks that information that i've known for a very long time i'm i haven't seen her in in several years or talked to him in several years but i know of her for many years so um i just wanted to say that that i think she would be a a loss to gem if we didn't didn't get her on this committee uh steve i i mentioned uh one when i when i first

41:25 spoke up but i do have four now uh jonathan's one carl is another one sarah is is another and barbara those are those are my four selections uh and damian are you ready to jump in here or you want me to go to leonard first no i'm good uh jonathan top um um i really liked is it carlin kephart that i pronounced it right uh just because she she brought up things that a lot of people having what you talk about homelessness and domestic violence and and i think that's something that we often overlook because we're so busy focusing on you know national level stuff and and

42:11 the things that are in our face the most uh but those are are still happening behind closed doors and even in person i think we need to handle that uh i like zach because he's young and you know he mentioned something that no one else mentioned as far as like helping set up like being present and so you know you have that participatory versus people just want to be in on boards uh and then i mean it was behind i mean my fourth it was either between colleen and adam colleen just because it seemed like she really did a research or she's been paying attention uh i don't know but she seemed honest uh then adam you know

42:57 when you think about the eugene springfield chamber commerce leadership cohort and something in that propelled him to be active and that's what these leadership cohorts are supposed to do versus just page a resume and so it's a tie between those two all right um leonard and then i'm gonna read who i like who aren't worth where i think we're at so if we're voting for four i'd like to throw in barbara's sword well we we're only gotta get to we gotta get to three spots but knowing what your fourth choice is may help the conversation okay so he's trying to add he's trying to add stuff too he does that all the time i gotta keep an eye on him all right it's these eastern words right like

43:42 you get out the thurston all right okay so i definitely have jonathan as one of our folks um so he like he's definitely uh he's definitely in and then um i've got uh three for seward i'm gonna shot them down sword i'm sorry sword thank you i wrote it down wrong three for hunter and that would be colleen and three for berg and i know people are taking notes so i don't know if you want me to read the rest of the ones that that i've got but that looks like all the threes i've got

44:28 and feel free to correct my math if you think i've got it wrong it looks like i've only got two for jenkins uh let's see who nope i have three for jenkins as well i apologize yeah that's what i thought was there was uh three three on jenkins three on sword sword three on burger and three on hunter yes so we've got to get we we got to get to two more probably of those four folks and i don't and i if you guys have you know an emphasis or i can i can just choose if that's if that would be easier oh good they're all good i'll go with any of them oh i know we're gonna we're gonna try to recruit these guys for for uh

45:13 for some uh for something else here in a little while i didn't i didn't have a vote i didn't put in a vote for carla but i would be i'd be willing to go on that one and give carla four that would mean we need one more between or maybe i did maybe wait a minute let me check my notes um i had you as a if i did i had carla i i [Laughter] um out of my out of this group i would have prefer my preference would have been berg and jenkins um

45:58 i just if you look i had hayes um as well good job let's throw in and advocate for jenkins um only because from on the on the committee perspective he he he is really definitely in it from a looking at it from a role as a uh patriarch so to speak and from a father position of he's got children etc and he's he's really talking globally and um i think that that's what the committee needs instead of people that that really want to dive into the weeds i think he appears to me that he will look at things holistically first and then go into things at a deeper level when needed so

46:43 i just thought i'd throw that was my my notes that coming from that perspective from him he would add quite a bit of diversity to that committee anybody else want to make a comment so that we would the go ahead leonard yeah i i just wanted to say there were a couple of candidates out of the school system and i i think it might uh be a better um representation if at least one of them got in so i i'd like to advocate for hunter out of um out of that group before of course there is a school district representative on the board on the committee yeah so i think unless anybody if nobody's changing their preferences the i think we need them to bring hayesburg and

47:29 jenkins forward um just based on where where my preferences are um now the big ques the next question is we there are a lot of good candidates here like there are it is an amazing group of people we have two choices and i'm kind of looking for what people's preference is one is we can when we put the applications out we can simply tell we can simply tell aj hey go remind them that they can apply and go through the application process again the other is that if we're just happy with this pool of candidates we could also simply ask aj to pull the pool of candidates and see what their second choice for a committee if they're interested in and then we can talk about we could talk about that we could talk about that list again at a future work

48:14 session do you guys have a preference joe well i thank sean that that i think one of them we just didn't we just we just appointed one uh we we put zach on the museum committee yes so i think that um if we were to look at now that leaves uh kephart and hunter correct and and uh and sword and who and sword yes and miller yes oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so i think maybe it would be something where we can i mean i agree aj can take a look see what our

48:59 vacancies are throw out a list of these folks i don't have any adverse feelings about these folks i think we got just like steven standard good high quality people so yeah i think we ought to go ahead and try to recruit him and sucker him into some committees here for us we gotta ask nicer joe like we want to say yes okay so so we've got three we've got the three folks we want to bring forward for s pack and then aj's going to look at what our openings still are and essentially ask them to you know what their preference would be okay any other comments before we kind of close out the s-pac piece and then we um and then we bring up the seat act person

49:51 very good uh chief aj do you have everything you need here i do yes thank you very much okay thank you guys um i think we are ready for tinker perfect so i will pull tinker flum and i can also pull up the questions if you would like me that would be great i think you're stunned there we go oh hello hello we still can't see you though

50:37 oh my camera is on okay let's try that again there we go hello um thank you for yes thank you for being patient i know you we had a long set of interviews that we asked you to hang out through i really appreciate it no i appreciate that it was nice to be able to hear just the consideration you gave for the position so it was kind of a great experience for me as well um so if you're ready i'm ready to ask some questions okay shoot um why are you interested in serving on cdc well my interest lies in mostly coming from my passion of connecting people organizations for a mutual benefit

51:22 in the case of springfield we have a lot of different community members and i think they could benefit by becoming even more aware of programs and services which we can provide more equity as well as just promoting other activities and that sense of springfield what it is what we are to people we're going through a lot of growth and so to be able to help elevate and the and define the identity as we grow of springfield i that's something that i would really um love to be a part of um could you describe your understanding of the role you will will have serving on cdac and how it relates to the work of the council from the the um the meeting that i sat in on i obviously it's very advisory

52:09 as well as um having some input into activities and and opportunities for the community to participate and what do you see as current issues or challenges for the city of springfield i think for us right now it's again i'll refer back to the growth as we provide that um that what springfield is becoming you know we have a great foundation and we're building on it and i'm a came from the outside in the country of eugene and then moved into springfield so we are really enjoying just that sense of community and i'd love to be able to um let people know more about what's there you know people go through

52:55 life transitions so how can they connect and benefit with um different programs services activities and being able to just make springfield um a a more positive more positive as we've been growing in our community or even in the state of oregon great thank you so much we appreciate your time okay thank you so much bye-bye um so we did have a spot uh for tinker on cdc go ahead merrily oh no i was just wait go ahead sum up um we do have it we we do have a spot available on cdx that we could appoint her to

53:43 yeah i was just gonna say i thought i thought we did and i'm good with that okay leonard i i see more thumbs up from people so that's good good yeah i just wanted to ask what happened to the other two applicants did they withdraw no the other two applicants we agreed to appoint last week um she just wasn't available during that interview oh oh that's right i forgot yeah okay fine i'm good okay i'm count council aside on that i look forward to meet working with them we have a ton of great applicants here so that that concludes the interview segment this evening um so i think the it looks like the next item is talking about uh city council ward boundaries and that's christina's

54:29 presenting sorry my connection cut out while i was rejoining as a panelist are you ready for me we are ready for you okay sorry about that thank you mayor and council i am going to really quickly share my screen all right so i'm assuming you can see that fine because my screen changed um so the point the purpose of this short work session item is to have a preliminary discussion about changing council ward boundaries or not changing council war boundaries based on the

55:14 2020 census information for the city of springfield and um these are the current ward boundaries just um in case that helps refresh your memory i'm sure you're all at least really familiar with your own words but i thought this would sort of help to see how they have been laid out for the last 10 years um so typically in each after each you know decennial federal census the regular federal federal census and the city attorney's office and city recorder and it and elkhog work together to bring forward some um ward boundary population scenarios to the city council the 2020 census was

56:00 very delayed getting the results from the federal government so we have a very short window if you want to change those boundaries um this time if you don't adopt new ward boundaries now base because of how lane county says their precincts the next opportunity is after the 2030 census so it's um not a this is explained more in the council briefing memo it's not a strict legal requirement for the council to change those word boundaries um you're not required by the charter to do that and um there's no state law that mandates the city um change its ward boundaries also springfield votes from one voting district the entire city of springfield is a single voting district so awards merely set out where counselors um are

56:45 eligible to run from and then you've also included some of your board's committees and commissions um made those uh related to board representatives as well ideally each ward would have an equal population um and then but over time obviously these populations change city attorney's office for the past probably 40 years has consistently recommended a council keep within a 5 variance within each ward as measured from the amount the award is more or less than the ideal population sorry one second i have children in the background who are screaming

57:30 um so i'm sorry if you hear that i think my husband is trying his best um but so five percent is what the city city attorney's office has recommended the council use but there um is constitutional case law that places ten percent as sort of the upper limit um and that's a standard that applies to voting districts where if you know if people just voted in ward 1 for the ward 1 counselor and justin ward 2 for the ward 2 counselor but we've recommended trying to match those trying to match the city council awards to those um same rules around voting districts because it creates just a more equitable um

58:16 system for the council to um sort of allocate where people can run from so these are the numbers for the 2020 census as you'll see um ward 5 and 6 had the most population growth and in 2010 they were predicted to have the least population growth just based on where green space development was predicted to occur over the next 10 years at that point we didn't end up seeing a lot of that development happen um in the 10 years from 2010 until 2020 and so um wards one two and three and then to a lesser extent word four um lost you know sort of population share while wards five and

59:01 six grew so currently words um if you were to adjust the boundaries words five and six would shrink um while ward two would grow the most followed by some um increases towards one and three the limit you actually just covered the point that i was going to make that's fine thank you joe i'll wait till the end of the presentation very good so if you put me a cue for that that'd be great uh steve did you have a question up until this point

59:47 um no i have a suggestion so go ahead i'll wait okay so um does anybody have a question up until this point because people are kind of jumping in and then merely okay and christina just keep going okay so the first question for the council tonight is whether you want to look at adjusting council ward boundaries there would be a very condensed timeline for doing that and i can talk more about those um next steps if that's what the council wishes to do but the council is not strictly legally required to change those boundaries and because we have such a short timeline i mean essentially you'd have to work through this process all in december where you would normally have had about six months to go through it um so the city attorney's office we still think it's a good idea to look at the change but it's not a strong

1:00:33 recommendation if the council wants to leave the current war boundaries in place until 2030 but you should also know that this is the opportunity to adjust those mandaries for the next 10 years if you want to do that so there's not an option to come back to it later um sometime before 20 30. so christina can you please could you go through the timeline first and then i can open it up for discussion yeah so if um the council does want to move forward we have elcog ready to enter into an iga with the city there's budget for the cost to have them provide services and they would draw up some council scenario maps for different word boundary scenarios which is the next set of questions i have for you if you decide you want to move forward and then we would have a dedicated about

1:01:18 an hour on december 13th to go through those scenarios and get to a council consensus on the scenario to put into an ordinance for public hearing and adoption on january 3rd and it would need to be adopted by emergency ordinance on the third because lane county needs time to draw precincts based on those word boundaries very good um i'm going to open it to discussion so joe first and then then we'll go with steve thank you mayor all right so typically i generally lean towards um staff recommendations but on this particular matter i'm absolutely opposed completely opposed um for this for one reason and actually

1:02:04 for several reasons that you stated christina is that number one there's no law that says we need to do this or have to do this we're already within the constitutional parameters so to speak five percent is what's been recommended by city council but for example but it's just been a recommendation where i don't see the basis for it and frankly it's going to cost money and notice on the on a memo it doesn't say how much it's going to cost at all how much is it going to cost for us for elcock to do it how much is it going to cost for us to to redo maps how much it's going to cost us to to move everything around electronically and when we don't have to do it and frankly as a taxpayer i see this is an absolute waste of money we are bit we are voted on citywide is we don't have precinct voting at all

1:02:50 it has no bearing whatsoever for any voting and the only thing that you mentioned that may have a bit of substance is that it allows for people to apply and it may change the borders for people to apply for positions but the only position that is because we've obliterated the requirements of people coming from wards would be a council position and so i would venture to say that based on how many people put in for council positions i think this would have absolutely no bearing so i i can't get behind us i'm convinced otherwise that this makes sense financially which in my mind it does not i i just i really am kind of blown away as to why this is before us when typically we should be responding to

1:03:36 things we're mandated to do but i don't even see the imaginative buy a payoff for doing this so in case you can gather where i'm at i think this is a waste of time right now merrily i'm sorry steve first i agree with joe i don't want to spend money on it but we have to our voters our constituents are pretty sensitive to how we elect and how our our words are are so i think we're going to have to do that i was on the county redistricting 20 years ago and alcog came up with two or three scenarios very quickly and and we studied those and one was selected and and uh it was pretty easy to do and in a way we went so i would i

1:04:21 would recommend we go that way i'm looking at the mechanics uh we went through this not too long ago uh because i was on council when we redistributed the awards last this the last time and we had the maps and we negotiated where the lines were gonna be drawn and all that um and i'm looking at the mechanics of this i'm thinking okay ward four is under uh by one percent in order to be able to do that to do this um uh with any sense of having accomplished anything we would have to go all the way back to ward one and work our way back work our way through

1:05:06 to get to ward five and six um and uh one of the comments that joe made was where city-wide as far as elections are concerned that makes a big difference where um uh as opposed to being like eugene where each ward is specific for its own counselor we're city-wide voted and so we're not we represent our people we're the immediate contact for our awards but we're not the only contact that they have um from that regard but i just i'm looking at what we're looking at ahead of ahead of us and i suspect that in 10 years there's going to be a lot to do

1:05:52 and it's going to make it's going to make a bigger difference than negotiating these couple percentage points at this point and i just don't see i don't see the relevance at the moment for um i hadn't even thought of cost until joe brought it up and that that makes sense to me um going through all this for the small percentage points um that are a variant and only two of the awards so um i just yeah i'm not in favor of doing it um okay before i call on leonard um i want to offer two quick observations that may help may help people um like we still have a lot of housing going in marcola

1:06:37 meadows that is going to finish up in the next year that's 800 units so i don't know if that and again don't know if that impacts people's thinking and um keep in mind that especially as merrily uh ward five is probably going to see continued growth as they kind of go out that southeast corridor yeah especially as we extend that trunk line um leonard marcol isn't it uh mark colamentos is in ward three yes okay okay and that was actually adjusted in 2010 um as a result of the 2010 process to provide more growth opportunity for ward 3.

1:07:26 guard lunatic thanks is there any trigger in population increase that would automatically lead us to consider adding another award i mean i don't think we're there yet i just wanted to find out um there is not i believe the six wards is in the springfield charter and would require a charter amendment um to add award all right um i i think what christina said everything that she said as basis in fact clearly if we were going to make a change it would be to expand ward 2 i think eastward and possibly northward and then just sort of scoot wards three

1:08:11 and four eastward and then slightly shrink wards five and six but you know we're about what um eight years from another census and i think that the the logistics are going to be complicated enough that i'm comfortable with keeping the boundaries where they are for right now but i think that it's something that we should be keeping an eye on and is there any possibility of revisiting this um prior to the next census no okay um in that case go ahead we we will have to catch it on

1:08:57 the the next census all right so it would be about this time 10 years from now yeah yeah and i would think we're still going to where our population increase right like if we didn't change anything and i'm not advocating either way but our you know uh corey's going to grow significantly and then probably five and six are gonna grow significantly a little bit yeah and then i would imagine the western part of the city because because the last time we did it both ward wanted to grow at a lower rate compared to the more eastern wards so just recognize that that's kind of the dynamics we're working through sure is there any sort of estimate about the cost involved in realigning awards

1:09:43 yes um elcog has indicated it would probably run about four thousand dollars at the upper end maximum um to have them provide this work i i i think four thousand dollars would be a small price to pay to accurately gauge or accurately represent the demographics and the population of the city uh so i'm i'm with councillor mo on this yo so steve i totally get where you're coming from and and it makes sense you know i hear what you're saying and representation is important but fact of the matter is we have city-wide voting we do not have ward voting if we had ward voting i would be an advocate

1:10:28 for this believe me i think it would be very important that if we had per precinct warding voting that it would be equitable across the board for everyone sitting here but we don't we represent i represent all your folks just as much as you do in ward 2 every one of them because they vote for me so i don't to me whether it's four dollars or 4 000 i don't care we don't have anything that's mandating this i haven't seen the logic behind doing it now and when we have and it may be and and christina it's 4 000 that elkhog would charge correct we would have an iga to pay alcohol for their staff time and that's the not to exceed amount i think that's in the draft right so okay four thousand

1:11:15 so but how much of city time is going to be in the fallout has that been calculated no but generally alcohol would draw the maps and then just provide them to our gis staff to import and then it would be a layer in map spring so there would be some city time but i don't think it would be nearly what um elcog would be providing through the iga for us and does the city have any printed material that has that shows the words and maps i'm not sure that might be a better question for aj i want the point the point i'm driving rightly yeah so joe your point is that it's gonna be four thousand uh i don't know maybe ten thousand dollar more cost than the iga i understand what you're saying and i agree you know and

1:12:00 yes you know four thousand dollars isn't much money leonard but but i am supposed to be an advocate for the taxpayers and i'm supposed to have show some fiduciary responsibility and to me this is like okay well let's do it because we can it doesn't make any sense but let's just do it and and and marilee's got an ex you know she's got an excellent point when she's talking uh about what this doesn't seem to fit right now and we're again we're 10 years from now i mean what's the projected difference uh in 10 years is it going to be are we going to hit that 10 percent difference of variance that that we look at as kind of a the maximum bar constitutionally speaking is what you said earlier

1:12:45 so if you think our awards are going to change or have a difference or variance by 10 percent or more by the next time this comes around then i would say well we better take a look at this but if it doesn't then i don't see why you know and i and and i'm not trying to squash what you're saying steve i totally i we we need to represent everybody and same thing with you leonard it it just i'm just looking at the facts of the facts are not going to change they're available to anybody so there's there's we're not changing facts or moving anything around or playing a shuffle game i'm just saying that this seems to be um i just can't justify it in my head okay so i'm gonna let before we kind of go back around for leonard and steve i'm gonna see if corey or damian want to get in here damien go ahead

1:13:31 um i don't know i guess i'm looking at this from a different perspective you know and this isn't me questioning anyone's intelligence in any shape or form but i'm curious how many springfield citizens that don't come to city council meetings that aren't involved in the boards of commissions know what work they're in i can't i'm not sure i knew for quite some time uh but regardless whether they know or not you know i'm curious do they identify with the award you know what can we do to increase you know the cultural significance of each war to make people really really want to identify to where they might see a need to either make changes or they might see how population can affect

1:14:16 various things but as of now me personally i don't really see a purpose but what i do want to know long term is how people identify with their ward if they know what their ward is and how can we as counselors uh be more connected to awards because i mean i i mean i've always lived in war one but and i feel connected because i do everything here but maybe because i live in an apartment and don't own property uh i don't know if i feel as connected as i would to you know a neighborhood that i lived in in the past that had a distinct culture that had a distinct you know something uh but i do want to build upon

1:15:03 that in some shape or form so yeah so corey did you want to get in here before i start going on the second round for folks no um i don't i don't have strong feelings about um yeah nope i don't have strong feelings about it one way or the other um i think that if anything i would be more i'm more interested in what counselor pitts is talking about about what what does it actually mean i mean if it just is a number um that's slapped on a map and it's tied to an individual number of houses or whatever i don't think that means as much so um yeah so i'm just like what does it

1:15:48 actually mean and is it just about population and it doesn't really affect the the voting after all um so yeah i had nothing to say but then i started like thinking about i'm like it should mean something like it just shouldn't mean something um and i have i have other thoughts if ever we want to go and revisit how we vote and whether it's by ward or citywide i would love to chat about that but that's not what this is about well i appreciate your effort to keep us on topic leonard yeah yeah always a good idea so um i think um what we've what we need to be considering is potential significant shifts in the

1:16:34 demographic in the next 10 years aside from marcola meadows we're looking at a possible explosion in the population in glenwood in particular and steve's ward is not 10 above where it is where it was 10 years ago but if we go forward with this development that we're talking about then i think that that would cause a an enormous that that would cause potentially an enormous um increase in the population in his ward and at that point we may very well live to regret the fact that we didn't reconsider the borders uh or the other boundaries at that point that's all leonard the steve's too small right like so him

1:17:20 actually picking up more folks and in uh in glenwood as we work through that would actually help help our cause right so right no i'm just talking about different um different possible shifts in the demo um and i i what what we could do in the meantime is just reflect a uh reflect a change now and then possibly um reevaluated at the time ten years from now you're right we just to throw in a thought i thought we have lots of people that have filled out applications for committees that have had to ask what ward they're in we just don't have um there just isn't an identity necessarily

1:18:06 with the ward for the basic common everyday person just because we don't have um ward specific voting for councillors and so it is city-wide and it make it is a big difference from our sister city across the highway so with they identified with the community at war their own local you know small neighborhood but not necessarily the ward um or the boundaries and i think that um i i still hold that i would prefer to see um i i see the purpose of wards being geographic in population i don't see them being identity although it would be fun to have them have that if we could get to that point where we could create that kind of

1:18:53 identity like downtown springfield or the marcolla area or whatever but um at this point i don't think it's it it's well defined um so i'm not inclined to make any changes until the next census and i think it depends on the ward right about how what what that definition that those defined features look like you know right the mid-springfield ones are a little bit tougher um you know and that's something we've talked about for for 10 years steve you want to get in this and then we can wrap up i do uh i i don't want to spend the money for it either but we're a little bit out of balance now in 10 years how much more out of balance are we going to be and the other thing about population is is state land use codes are changing

1:19:38 we're infill and building up more concentration and i don't know which word that's going to be but that's going to make a difference ten years and the way we appear to our voters i think it's important that we at this point in time let ourselves be equal words and then then it'll change from that so that's all okay so joe you're on mute yeah i know it's been it i kept clicking it wouldn't do a darn thing so no i i i understand but in reality

1:20:24 it will have zero impact on voters zero i know that yep and and voters just like marylee said is and and i see it and many other people see it when you ask what ward they live in they're going to go huh and we are equally available to all voters and that's and that's that's why i'm so passionate about this is that right now our city's equal across the board and i'm it blows me away that people see it as even any disparity it's literally just a matter of of where those lines are and it changes the numbers but not how the city is and and it's again i just don't want to be any part of spending

1:21:10 money when someone has not mandated we do something or it actually makes sense to do and this doesn't make sense to do it just it we're pulling pulling things out of the sky saying well gee maybe people may feel this way maybe people feel this way and it's like we don't have any evidence of that whatsoever i haven't heard any evidence of that i haven't heard any any voters that are all upset because they're in the ward that they don't want to be in well i think i think there's two points that i think are worth worth sort of discussing here one of them is we shouldn't be making this decision whether or not it's four thousand dollars right like we should be thinking about okay what's the what's the actual right thing to do for the public is right and i you know and i'm not and i hear that sort of in the in the in the conversation

1:21:55 with folks um but i but i think that you know as we and whatever we decided right is something that is a council right this is our one opportunity we sort of actively need to stack hands and decide what we're gonna do right the other way us walking by and not deciding is still a decision so having that taking the time and having the conversation and saying this is what this is what we decided to do is really important and when we did this in 2010 um we went through a lot to try to get them sort of more aligned geographically and sort of describe you know from a descriptive perspective if people are comfortable with that they're gonna be slightly different sizes um then you know then i think that's fine and what i'm hearing the city attorneys say is

1:22:40 you we definitely will have to do it the next time around you know uh like because of their reading of the law yeah i think if i can jump in i think it'll i think it'll depend on where the population growth happens and i think um councilor mo made this point i think about you know with changes in land use law it's going to be really hard to predict where that growth is going to happen um in 20 from the 2010 census it was anticipated that words one two and three would grow much larger and so they were intentionally undersized and it wasn't thought that word six would grow much at all and then we saw more of the growth in ward six than in words one two and three so it will i think it will depend it's it's possible that those are some if you don't decide to change boundaries it's possible those

1:23:26 uh assumed you know developments that they thought would happen between 2010 and 2020 will happen between 2020 and 2030 and they'll kind of balance themselves or it's possible that the growth will continue in wards five and six and they'll become more outsized um in 2010 i don't recall the top of my head which word it was but one word was 20 larger than that difference and so it was very out of proportion um with those others and so that that's definitely a case where we strongly recommend that the council make the words reconfigure the words in this case um i want to recognize that the city attorney's office has had really consistent advice over time that it'd be five percent i think that's good advice but i you know the case law points to 10 as the sort of the safe harbor if you will and

1:24:12 i want to acknowledge that there's a much more condensed timeline here that doesn't allow for as much of the thoughtful consideration the council's been able to put in you know in the past at least three or four censuses before this um so it's a it's still a i would say it's not a strong recommendation that you um change board boundaries but it was it's a recommendation you at least consider it and reach it reach agreement as a council if you decide not to move forward there's no formal action that you need to take the boards will just will just stand as they are but um that direction from from the council is what's most needed perfect and i think i'm hearing um well heads not nods but say no we don't want to do it so um unless anybody has other comments before we close and give you guys a couple minutes before ceta starts

1:24:58 um all right then it looks like our direction is we're not gonna we're not gonna make any changes in the word boundaries and then we are going to adjourn and i believe ceta is on a different link is that correct aj yes that's correct okay so we will see you guys in four minutes on a different link we are adjourned thank you bye