Springfield City Council — February 7, 2022

0:06 i'm going to call the city council work session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts counselor mo here council rodley here councilor stare here councillor woodrow here and counselor pissionary uh councilor pitts is excused for the evening for a work conflict and i know we are still expecting counselor pictionary in a moment we have one item tonight which is the westy street project update with christy krueger hello mayor and council um i would like to talk about the west d street project and next steps um

0:51 back in 2017 council discussed with staff the walking and biking funding the sdpu funding grant and in that package was a list of projects and one being the west d street project which was to add striping and signing and look at traffic control on westy street so we have completed that batch of projects except for the westy street project and so we want to get moving on and get something constructed designed and constructed so staff you know when

1:36 when we had that this project and we had staff resources to be able to move forward with design and construction we wanted to go a little bit further and take a look at are there any other quick possible things that we could do to improve the walking and biking out on westy street so we looked at some different concepts and um one of them being a cycle track bike lanes on the roadway and whatnot um and we spoke with the pack a couple times the bike head advisory committee we also heard from folks that provided comments at council meetings

2:22 as well as we heard from the folks that live adjacent to westy street the ones that are affected directly by the project and we quickly have found that to evaluate and to really do our due diligence on these type of other projects that we really need more time and resources to be able to do the public outreach that's necessary to do the proper analysis of the cycle track there are just some big safety issues that we're concerned about

3:07 that we would really need to take more time in looking at before implementing something in that nature also we have parking removal that we would need to discuss with council to see if you know council is comfortable with removing parking and that's a you know that's a whole process within itself um so we really do want to get something implemented oh yes just give me one second um aj or neil can you send counselor pictionary the link he's just texted me looking for it it's the brilliance of being in a hybrid meeting setting all right sorry to interrupt christy no worries so um with the resources that we have with

3:55 staff time we really need to get something implemented right now and so uh what i would like to do is move forward with the design and construction of the capital project that has been approved in that walking and biking svu funding package um which is the traffic calming of speed cushions and the number would be looked at during the actual design plus the transition where the bike path comes into westy street adjusting that transition for better sight distance and then also having a path a ramp that comes off of westy street further to the west so if folks

4:43 are uh in that on actual westy street with the sharrows then they could get on and off westy street on that at that location and so then that that would be the first piece then the second piece would for staff to come back to council to discuss work programs and funding opportunities to look at further options to separate bikes from other modes and then the third piece is during the next transportation transportations system plan update is to include an amendment to take a

5:30 look at studying the possibility of implementing an elevated path which would extend from where the westy street path um is along the river to island park so that would just be a study that wouldn't mean that the project would actually be implemented but that would involve um public outreach what would actually take what would be the cost um as part of that piece leonard christie thanks do you have any sort of

6:17 just general picture to give us of the uh of the cycle track if it were to be implemented i mean is this one of those curved tracks or is it a um a bigger one than that a the cycle track would essentially be the concept that we looked at um during this process was to have it on the south side of the street and so that would mean we remove parking along west d street there's parking on the north side not on the south side but we would need to remove all of the parking on westy street and then there would be a concrete divider a traffic separator

7:03 essentially that would divide the curb um there would be the curb and then space for the bicyclist to go in eastbound and westbound and then there would be that traffic separator okay so this is really more of a lane correct okay all right i was just trying to get a separated lane essentially for both thank you we're going to go to merrily next answer um yes my first question is could you uh describe for me what a speed cushion is sure it's basically um a speed bump okay now is does it go across the entire

7:48 street or is it along the side so it wouldn't it would go along the street the design of the actual speed cushion that would be during the design process um you know because we need to look at emergency vehicles and the bicyclists so we need to make sure that we accommodate those folks as well and control the traffic speeds at the same time yes um that's what thank you i i wasn't i couldn't picture in my mind without having your description the other thing that i wanted to say was i appreciate the um deliberation you've put into this i think the three steps sound good i think it's important to have people who might be directly influenced

8:34 or affected by whatever is done they get to get their voice into the conversation and so i like what you have set up as far as the three steps um i think to me that sounds very logical um as far as what what kind of there's i'm there's going to be things we can't do and so we're trying to get to a yes on things that we can do that are going to help um i think i like the way you've said it after three steps thank you steve if if the parking were removed which i really really am sort of against would there be enough for the cycle track between the two curbs plus the two

9:19 lanes yes if the if the parking was removed then we would be able to accommodate the cycle track plus one lane in each direction okay thank you so i concur with steve i just want to make sure i heard you correctly that that the that there's a plan or there's motion to eliminate parking on both sides or is that something that is being considered or i just want to see how far along that's morphed no at this time as part of this project we have only heard from folks directly affected and you know we've

10:04 heard from different community members and whatnot but that to remove parking is it's not out of the question as far as you know we've just started talking about it and so to remove parking is not part of this walking and biking funding this project that i would like to move forward with removal of parking and looking at other options that would have to be a future phase after coming back to council about our work programs and funding um the one thing that i do want to mention though is is that we will need to be talking about parking removal um very soon and i will be coming back to council regarding uh parking removal

10:50 because we finally received the notice to proceed for mill street and we have a lot of competing interests on that street where right now we do not have any bike facilities we don't have a bike lane we don't have anything and it is legally required for us to have on mill street and with that we also have to have new new stormwater facilities um you know the bike facilities we have a lot of different competing interests we have polls you know in the setback area so it is a topic that i'm going to need to come back to you folks soon is uh regarding parking removal to accommodate everything that we need

11:35 okay so back to the d street is where i i oppose removing both parks both sides of the parking i've heard about it from other folks and i think the neighborhood opposes it as well um i don't i i'm okay with accommodating bicyclists but frankly i was quite offended in the last meeting we had when people spoke up and i heard someone say that the people that operate cars need to understand they're the guests and i that is absolutely incorrect and that we need to make sure that we do accommodate vehicles and and bicyclists in a safe manner but i don't want to see the pendulum going the other direction we need to we need to be able to find a

12:20 middle ground so as far as removing things i'm you know i get it but we also see that does not mixed-use lanes accommodate bicycles are you saying that those lanes are unlawful we as part of this project are putting in the sharrows where you know the vehicles and the bikes would need to share the lane okay um that's that's what we are moving that's what i would like to move forward with as far as this piece but that does not that does not address the concerns that are out there in really needing to accommodate all types of

13:06 folks that are using bicycles you know little kids folks with the trailers with little kids in it you know elderly that might want to you know use you know a big tricycle and get through that you know the speeds are not usually where you have sharrows is where the speeds are the same and um you know and also folks that are experienced cyclists you know knowing what's going on um mixing mixing those two together so putting charros in on this project um this is just to basically accommodate folks that are experienced feel comfortable

13:51 you know traveling with the vehicles but it does not address any of the other safety concerns that we have for all different types of mode or sorry all different types of uh cyclists so i support the speed cushions or speed bumps that's not a problem that makes sense to me and of course i understand that especially with fire vehicles the emergency vehicles are are heavy and that they are concerned about going over those and potentially bottoming out but um so otherwise i mean i'm i'm okay with with making this more biker friendly for sure but i don't want to sit there and negatively impact every single homeowner along there because

14:36 we're doing multiple ways in which people can can travel but i think i think inside there within this project there is a combination of things that you can do that that um don't negatively impact folks as much as some that you have been discussing so i want to be able to say that that i'm going to support defeat people that appear to be negatively impacted the greatest to make sure that that their interests are also covered thank you uh so i have a couple of things that i'm going to try to organize in a way that i end with the question part so i i think there's there's no doubt

15:21 that this is you know this is a heavily used multi-used area which is why it's taken us a while to get to us um i actually appreciate the fact that we're trying to tackle it in phases because i think that things are evolving over time and i think that we have an opportunity to take care of some of the big stuff and one of the biggest things is that traffic calming because it really i mean honestly people do speed along there and there's a lot going on so i wonder if you could we say traffic calming and we we have the terminology but i wonder if you could just say more for everyone to understand like what those steps are going to look like and is there anything i think there's an opera i think there is so that was i shouldn't ask it as a question but i think as a as a city and just in the

16:07 realm of what we have control over i think there may be a way for us to maybe layer in some traffic safety some things to go along with those changes to help to really slow the traffic down and to get a better understanding of how people are using it but could you say more like how many speed cushions and what the idea is if you know yeah so every every location is a different design and you definitely want to have the speed cushions to be spaced close enough so that vehicles don't have enough time to accelerate too greatly but you also don't want you know a roller coaster

16:53 effect up down up down up down so um you know roughly every 200 feet but we really want to take a look at what we have out there you know are we gonna be in a situation where it's right in the middle of a driveway you know there's driveways on both sides so we need to really look at what's out there are we going to affect you know something that we just haven't thought of mailboxes and you know we need the mail carrier to be able to not be on a hub when they're delivering the mail so um so right now the speed limit signs do say 25 miles per hour the majority of traffic goes 35 miles per hour so the signs are not helping

17:40 a bit and so what we really need to do is we need to design to force traffic to travel at a certain speed or less and so that's really what our goal is and we do have one location where it is an elevated crosswalk on the east end of the project so we would do that and then we would have speed cushions um you know at the rest of the locations that aren't actual crossings at intersections and then um you know we that just putting putting in all this traffic calming does not mean that we can't do some other design with it you know so for instance if we

18:26 decided that well if council decided not we but if council decided yes we want to put in some bike lanes we could still have the speed cushions all the traffic calming with that you know we can incorporate a lot of different elements so with us putting this in this does not stop us from doing other designs so i have just a slight follow-up question is there any any lighting or flashing lights or anything that are going to go with that that cross walk uh that was not a part of that funding package that is something that can be looked at as part of that second

19:11 step you know what else do we need you know taking a look at how how did the how does this project uh how did it work and then analyzing what can we do even more and then getting that funding to be able to implement more thank you actually i'm going to jump here in here for a second steve so did i hear that right that it's posted at a 25 miles an hour but a majority of the traffic goes 35 or miles an hour correct okay is that something that we can and that we can well i see the chief out here is that something that we can help address through traffic enforcement

20:03 yeah i think it absolutely is we have a reader board we can put out there that shows people speeds when they're going up and down the street and we you know very often put our traffic motors out in different parts of the city to address citizen complaints so this is absolutely an area we can do um intermittent patrols in that area and run some speed speeding missions yeah i think and i think that would help right because we've got a facility where the bikes are mixed with cars right like at a at a speed that is far too high to be safe and anything that we can do to help drive the traffic speed down i think that would be helpful i have taken that exact route to work when i ride my bike too so i'm very familiar with that stretch right there all right thank you uh steve speed cushions is a rather new term

20:48 sometimes i describe it to people sort of like like a raised crosswalk and and uh maybe a different configuration but that's what slows the traffic down i think those are very important to put in there and i'm i'm not we can put the police out there but boy in the long run i'm not too sure about that i got that every day and i'll tell you i don't like 25 but i know i should and i will so uh signage and and and lines and painting you know make things visible and and and uh the traffic calming i like all that

21:36 leonard and then we'll go to joe and uh it sounds kind of restful doesn't it let's be a speed cushion um so um i uh what what i wanted to ask um i know that in some of our zoning we mandate parking spaces um x number of parking spaces per lot um is there any kind of mandate in this neighborhood not that i know so in other words if there's if we were to eliminate the parking on either side of the street then it could potentially it could potentially not make any any parking available in that on on westy or right we we actually only have parking on the

22:21 north side of the street there there is not parking on the south side as we speak okay but that is correct that would mean that there would not be parking along that street if we move forward in that direction later got it joe i think you just on it on the side note with the enforcement that i would think that there's a possibility that that there is some grant monies available for special enforcement and i i know the chief knows about that but but i'm talking about a you know a very focused enforcement on these these couple blocks areas to where that 100 of that grant money would be used to pay overtime for the

23:08 enforcement of traffic laws and i would like to see that because you can use those grant monies and stretch those out and and people start to think that gee whiz there's a motor officer here seems like all the time and it's like well yeah there is so i think that would also go a long ways too all right um and i guess i have a couple a couple more questions um i like the phasing too right we've got to get to a point where we're at we've talked about doing something on west d street for for a while getting to the point that people actually see something out on westy and sort of mixing it with you know either enforcement or more signage or reader boards to try to slow down the traffic i

23:53 think is really important and then getting this the additional study done and i and i don't christy do you have the time maybe have an idea on the timing when we could when we wouldn't at least put it program that for construction or to start design or sorry just just to complete this study right now to complete right it sounds like you need another study to to kind of look at the whole corridor um yes so we would have to meet internally because it wouldn't just be the capital engineering folks it would also also be transportation planning and traffic engineering as well and so we would need to look at all of the

24:39 projects across the board that we have going on and you know prioritize this project you know against all the others that we have going on and then we would also need to acquire funding okay so that so i think you're good going forward here and steve okay there's there's a temporary measures that you're proposing right now to do for a while right temporary project no we have it would be the traffic calming plus the transition from the path to the project and then the connection on the west end that's

25:25 not viewed as temporary so we have to do us another study for that no no so the second piece that's that's what i study study study so no i i want to i want to get something moving and you've heard me say that and uh oh please go in that direction yes yes yes so just to clarify the first step would be to start the design and then construct this traffic call main transition project and then the second piece would for staff to come back with our um you know with additional resources

26:11 staff and financially to look at more options of what we can do to separate the bikes from other modes and then the tsp amendment for the elevated path piece and i think everybody's not in their head that they're that they're good with that approach um yeah for just from an outcome perspective as when we get to that point i'm not like i'm not sure it's got to be an elevated path at the at the end of the day right like i think when we tell you our goals and just understand that we've got a there's lots of ways to get to them but bicycle safety and slowing traffic down is is the critical part here yes yes i do want to clarify um

26:59 earlier so there are currently parking requirements and driveway requirements on site but not on the street itself so i just wanted to make sure that we're i'm not mixing apples and oranges here but that may change with um future state rulemaking all right i'm looking around joe actually i'm glad you mentioned it so i was thinking the very same thing when leonard was meant talking about that is that we we have you know we have minimum amount of parking per site that we have in the new code and so um

27:45 i don't think there's any someone maybe can take a look or whatever but i don't think there's any more developable lots along that stretch is that correct not that i can think of i would have to double check though so someone went to add go with a duplex then that's going to throw in some different parking requirements and so i just want to look at make sure that that i know that we can't say okay you can have one space per unit and if you have any other cars you'll just have to park on the street so if we we have to keep that in mind if we don't have a place for them to park then it seems like the um the code or then the requirements of those code would be counter-intuitive for those lots so maybe something to look at up ahead of time

28:30 i'm just trying to foresee that that that may be an issue maybe not all right very good anybody else well thank you christy so much for getting us up to speed on that project thank you i appreciate it um we are going to adjourn for about half an hour and then we will come back at 7 pm for the regular session so we are adjourned stay on the same link joe merrily

39:34 i'm going to call the springfield city council regular session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts counselor mo here council rodley here sponsor stare here counselor woodrow here and counselor pictionary here thank you and let the record show that the councilor pitts is excused for the evening please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag united states of the united states of america the

40:27 as we begin our meeting tonight i would ask members of the audience who are joining us by phone or online to please keep yourself on you until you are called to provide public testimony there is one time designated for public testimony this evening under business from the audience if you are attending in person please complete the request to speak card located at the entrance of the council chambers and give it to the city recorder if you're joining us online with a tablet or a smartphone or computer and wish to speak for either of those times please use the raise hand feature in zoom the order when we get to business from the audience will be anybody wishing to speak in the city council chambers first and then anybody uh who wishes to speak on zoom next and neil could you tell us how many

41:13 people are joining us online this evening mayor currently we have 34 attendees and seven panelists and those present here in the room and it is good to see people in this room uh first item please mayor the first item is springfield upbeat we will be rescheduling item number one which was the recognition of david madden eagle scout troop 751 and we'll let you know when we're able to reschedule that item two under springfield upbeat is the children's bookmark contest winners 2021 through 2022 and taylor worley is here along with emily david for the staff report

42:01 hi folks um is my sound okay yes it is okay beautiful uh so um first i wanna recognize and thank um our library director emily david who is helping me divide and conquer we have families joining us to be recognized both virtually and in person this evening so emily is helping us out in person um in council chambers and um i'm taking care of the virtual aspect so um thanks for having us for this springfield upbeat portion of the meeting um so every year for 41 years springfield public library has held a bookmark contest this year we received over 750 entries from all grade levels and from a wide variety of springfield schools

42:49 as well as homeschool representatives so we have the winning bookmarks have been professionally printed and they will be distributed in the library and through our various outreach programs all year long on top of that we invite you to pop out to the city hall art gallery where every single entry is currently on display in addition to some enlarged posters of the winning designs so this year we encourage the artist to use the 2022 summer reading theme which is read beyond the beaten path as inspiration for their artwork but bookmarks can always draw inspiration from books readings uh reading and libraries in general so i am going to share my screen and just take a couple minutes to

43:34 brag on all of our wonderful artists well you should be able to see 20 21 2022 bookmark contest did that work as i intended yes it did thank you all right so um these are just our stats and first we want to recognize aria wilson so aria's in kindergarten at douglas gardens and we loved the gorgeous colors the pastel rainbows and our reader right in the center there and all of the hearts um we enlarged her her reader in the center there for you to appreciate so aria thank you so much for your

44:20 beautiful artwork and congratulations next we have luke jordan who is a first grader at yolanda we really loved the slogan that luke came up with take your path to reading as well as our reader's um little companion and the bird and just the wonderful details with the flowers so thank you luke for sharing your artwork with us and congratulations uh for second grade we are recognizing lane maddox of walterville who created just the most amazing cobra who is reading um i'd like to think that he's reading the who would win books which is

45:06 one of the most popular series of books in the library right now um lane i i love your cobra so much thank you congratulations olivia enyart in third grade at douglas gardens olivia was very clever um so olivia took some of the artwork from the official summer reading program and incorporated that into their own design and then came up with their own slogan so as long as you read you will get better and i can't think of anything better thank you olivia congratulations and we have braley brooks in fourth grade at two rivers dos rios um i will admit that i am usually not a pun person pun person but we really loved

45:53 reading is magical and we've been repeating it ever since we saw your bookmark design so we have a unicorn cat with reading is magical and i encourage you to say it out loud because it makes us all very happy so braley thank you so much congratulations fourth grade again um we have isaac david brooks um who kind of went with an out of this world reading theme with the cutest extraterrestrial i've ever seen um really love the little details in the book and our our triple eyed friends there i said thank you so much and congratulations

46:38 going on to fifth grade we have samantha ortiz and samantha ortiz was reminding us all of like an alice in wonderland get lost in reading but i just wanted to point out all of the amazing details that she hid in this bookmark so um we can see all there's even details all the way at the top of the waterfall the mushroom hat the mushrooms have little book caps um and then there is a sign there that says uh you know do not leave the past but clearly our reader is doing exactly what they want which i appreciate thank you so much so much samantha and congratulations next we have brooklyn rose slider a seventh grader at agnes stewart

47:23 and brooklyn we were also impressed you have clearly been practicing your perspective skills and it shows everything from the um the lanterns hanging from the ceiling to that that single point perspective you just really felt like we could get lost in your bookmark and the dragon is always an excellent uh detail so thank you so much and congratulations next we have another seventh grader pablo element um pablo created this beautiful soft pastel read beyond the beaten path um artwork for us and again so many little details we've got little like dragonflies or damselflies small vines growing out of the bricks

48:09 and um the book i appreciate how the book almost looks like the library logo but instead of our our leaf coming out of it it's the it's the slogan for the year so very clever pablo good work and congratulations next we have anime walker so anime is uh staying true to her name and has this very um graphic style um with her illustration and anime your blending with your markers is just absolutely exceptional um keep up the amazing work um we just loved everything about this it made us so happy to look at your artwork so

48:55 thank you and congratulations rebecca paskett is an 8th grader at thurston middle school the composition here we loved so much that hair is amazing i wish i had that hair you were really clever with just how you fit everything in the bookmark and it looks so fluid and yet it's balanced excellent work thank you for sharing your artwork with us and congratulations all right just have some high schoolers left a mcfeeter's eating um 9th grade at thurston high a we laughed so hard when we saw your bookmark it is beautiful and it is cheeky and we love it so much so for anyone who's not familiar a has put in one of the most

49:42 famous picture books in the library don't let the pigeon drive the bus into their artwork here and i just love having a robin reading a book about the pigeon and there's hardly any words but it it says plenty so excellent work eh thank you so much maggie britton 9th grade at springfield high school maggie has pulled from i think one of the most well-known pieces of poetry ever which was of course an excellent match for re um read beyond the beaten path uh two roads diverge in a wood and then again maggie excellent color saturation and color choices it's bright and

50:28 beautiful thank you so much and congratulations amelia hampton is an 11th grader with frontier charter academy uh really kind of mind-bendy bookmark we have here um love your composition your lettering is superb um and all the details are just really nice so amelia thank you so much and congratulations and then to finish this out we had a lot of winners this year it was very hard to choose we have joel elias borin and joel is an 11th grader at thurston high and this is proof that even though black and white rarely works for this bookmark contest that you can break the rules if you know what you're doing because joel knows what they are doing

51:15 um so joel left some sketchy pencil lines and then went back over in ink and even though it's sketchy it's clear and just wonderfully representative of the piece from that happens when you read outside and that is all of our bookmark winners so i'm going to stop my screen share here all right normally if we were all together i know we'd do a photo um for folks that are in the council chambers i don't know if that's an option this year or not we're going to go and have them up here in a second uh and and to get a p and to get a picture taken because i see a lot of people who are pretty excited and they are absolutely gorgeous bookmarks this year

52:02 um before we do that i'm gonna let you know the council say great things about this project um i did share this one story i was thankful that we saw these bookmarks today because i read a lot but my five-year-old twins every time they see my book pull the bookmark out and hand it to me and say i found your bookmark and that doesn't seem like it helps my cause so these will go into my pile of constantly recycled bookmarks to try to keep track of my page but they look absolutely gorgeous and i'm yeah i'm i'm glad to see him did anybody else want to make comments before we we had the folks in the room up for a quick picture go ahead learn yeah well just off the charts creativity this year yeah amazing stuff and um so um is

52:47 i i liked um anime's uh take on anime uh that was amazing and uh is is braley here br braley i want to start a major sports franchise here just so that we can have a unicorn cat [Laughter] thanks congratulations to everybody your stuff all looks great corey i think marylee's been waiting even longer but i'll go really quickly and then it could be merely not that i'm trying to tell you how to do your job because i'm not um i i love this time of year and we have i also have um and a 16 year old granddaughter who loves to pull the bookmarks out and does not hand them to us but eats them and

53:33 chews them and does things with them so we are due for new bookmarks and i appreciate everyone participating in this is one of my just favorite pieces of the year and i mostly appreciate that you're all using the library and you're all reading all these fabulous books so keep it up thank you early and then we'll go to steve okay i have to show you i wore my shirt in honor of library bookmark tonight [Laughter] so anyway i just want to say these bookmarks are absolutely fabulous there wasn't a one among them that wasn't absolutely a work of art that should be framed they just they did an absolute wonderful job this year i'm impressed every year but the group of the collective group this year is just are just outstanding

54:19 so congratulations to everybody a lot of hard work a lot of creativity and i go along with the idea i'm glad with corey i'm glad you're in there using the library because i used it all my life and i can't tell you how much how much of a difference it makes so keep keep up the good work if artists creativity was my thing in through through high school and i thought it was pretty good but you are far superior to anything i produce so i thank you thank you yes that's one of the favorite things i i one of the one of my favorite things is being a counselor all these years it's every single year that's like that's a guaranteed high

55:05 spot guaranteed enjoyment spot and this year didn't let me down and uh i'm just really proud of our kids and the energy they put forward and that and their artistic skills and our imagination was just across the board it was just amazing so thank you children appreciate it very much all right if you were a bookmark winner winner meet me down here we're going to do a picture

56:37 all right thanks taylor while we had you there was something else that i that i think i wanted to bring up a little bit and maybe maybe emily can come talk a little bit about it but i i heard you got a new committee assignment i i did yes i'm going to be very busy this year well i want to do you want to tell us a little bit about it uh me yes okay um i've got the note i've got the notes here but i really wanted to hear what made you excited about it um okay so uh i as a youth services librarian there's um a couple of things there on my bucket list

57:22 of things that i'd like to be able to do before i i retire i guess and one of those things is serving on um national book award committees um the biggest of which is the newberry award so the newberry award is awarded by the american library association um every year and it is given to a single book or or the author of the single most distinguished contribution to american literature written in english in a given year so a lot of people know this as the little gold seal um that you'll sometimes see on books in the library and on the bookstore um and i was appointed to that committee

58:08 to help determine the winner of the newberry award for 2023 and that's pretty much all i can say about it um everything happens behind closed doors i can't talk about the books or decisions or anything like that um but i can show that i'm on the committee and anyone who was in the library with me um when i got the email to the screaming and then the crying and then you're hyperventilating because i was very excited and now i'm just i'm clearing out an entire extra room in my house um to make room for all of the books that i will be receiving to review over the next year because it is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds is it's that it's that many books it's that

58:53 many books um i i will be able to one thing i can share is once this is all said done i'll have a page count um how many pages i read and um i'll be able to share the page count even if i can't tell you anything else well i'm gonna i'm gonna have emily up here to talk about a little bit about how big of a professional accomplishment this is but i can tell you when i saw it online i was really excited for you and really excited for this community because that's something special that we get to do and oftentimes i talk about so much about what makes us distinct and what makes springfield special and um and when i saw this it was really like our library makes us pretty distinct and pretty special and as i talked around the community in the last

59:40 probably a couple of days the the common thing was this that we're so excited for taylor she's a great librarian and we're so lucky to have her so i guess i wanted to say thank you so much for making springfield this is a special place to live emily you want to jump in here and talk us talk us through how big of a deal is this well it's a very big deal as taylor mentioned um you know it's a national committee taylor how many people are on the committee um there are um there's one chair who's appointed and has to have served on the committee before and then there are eight people who are elected um they run through a really um competitive election and there are six

1:00:25 people who are appointed and i was an appointed member so essentially there are 14 um committee members out of the whole country yeah that's for the entire country so you know taylor is one of the things that makes our library really special and so anyone who goes into our children's area and gets to observe taylor with the kids and with the parents it's really just an incredible experience she is so well read i mean her knowledge of our collection is just really really deep and kids come and they search for her and they look speaker out and they say taylor taylor i read that book that you said i literally really liked it it was so good what should i read next and taylor gives them about three or four

1:01:10 different ideas and the parents are the same way they just all appreciate her so much and she her knowledge and just her excitement is exuberant and it's um you know contagious so that the parents and the kids get excited too so we are just so very lucky to have her and it's just such an honor for us as our library to have her be a part of this so thank you very much taylor and i know you're going to be really extra busy this next year thank you all and yes i will be very busy it must be rough getting to read all the best books in the entire country it's the sheer volume that is a little intimidating

1:01:56 well thanks so much for joining us this evening yeah thank you and artists i'm gonna try to run over and see you all um here in just a minute all right next item please mayor the next item is the consent calendar make i make a motion that we accept consent calendar i can't just come up here second it's yet motion's completed we're waving not voting by the way just to make sure it's entirely entirely clear because they're clearing out to go look at the library all right it's been moved and seconded um by councilor mo and counselor pictionary neil could you call

1:02:42 the role please yes councillor pitts counselor mo yes councillor yes counselor stare here uh yes cancer woodrow yes and council efficient airing hi all right the motion passes five to zero with one uh with one absent and we still have not managed to let councillor rodley not vote on her voting machine mayor the next item is business from the audience i do not think we have any cards in the room so if you are interested in speaking to the council if you can raise your hand please here we have the first speaker okay and we have lost all

1:03:33 we're going to pause for station identification all right so are we gonna have to physically time it do you mind we'll make we'll make it work bring people let's start bringing people up

1:04:19 okay our first speaker is james hugo we have no one else in the queue at this point all right james i can't see you up on the on the screen yet so can you hear us okay james you should be able to unmute your microphone can you hear me we can um so you all got my letter correct or my email everybody could you could you just start with your name and your ward and location and then okay sorry um my name is james hugo i'm in ward 5 and i'm out here in thurston off of 52nd street okay cool go ahead um so yeah i sent an email yesterday um

1:05:04 i don't i'm not i don't want to take much too much time because we're limited um basically i'm just here trying to open up the dialogue with the local government here um maybe we can have a work session and talk about this these topics here in the future um the end game that i'm trying to accomplish is to get the city of springfield to create their own environmental policy um within the city limits to help regulate the business the big heavy industry we have here in springfield international paper is the big the big target because they're the biggest polluter in in the area um i i just would like to start that discussion um maybe create a help create a committee uh like all the other communities that exist in town maybe have one focusing on

1:05:49 environmental policy and um just getting people aware educating people in the community about the concerns that um are what are real um i sent some links i'm not sure if anybody was able to get there actually to access them um i'll attempt to it didn't work i'll attempt to send some more links tomorrow um to everybody but um so yeah that's basically what i'm requesting the city council to do is to further this discussion um and uh appreciate your time thank you for listening to me and um that's pretty much what i got to say mayor the next speaker is kevin shaper and we have no one else in the queue at

1:06:34 this point kevin you should be able to unmute your microphone hi thank you um uh my name is kevin shaper and i live in ward 2. uh i want to support what james said um kevin you need to meet you me yes sorry about that hi uh my name is kevin shaper and i live in ward 2. i want to support what james said uh if you on the council believe in climate change why why aren't we doing anything about it no why is there no city political policy and why why do we have to be forced by the governor uh anyway that's not my the intent of my of my comment um

1:07:19 what i want to say is that i am affected by westie when a driver passed me on my bike with inches to spare at 30 miles per hour while carrying my three-year-old i was affected when i rode my bike behind my wife who was carrying are then four-year-olds and i heard the roar of an f-150 past a foot from my handlebars and speed towards my wife and daughter and i did not know if they would be hit i was affected i understand that it's easy for you to imagine the frustration of having to park a few blocks from your destination but i'd like you to try to imagine not knowing if your family is going to survive the next three seconds as a 5 000 pound truck is passing within inches of them and whether you might feel that you've been affected

1:08:04 thank you here those appear to be all the hands we have up for business from the audience okay um then i think we're ready for next item is there any council response do we have an eta on getting the rest of the participants on oh leonard go ahead i can't see merrily or i do i i just wanted to thank james and kevin for their testimony tonight and i'm i'm sure that we're going to do our due diligence on um finding out whether it's even possible for

1:08:50 a city in oregon to establish a climate policy i i don't know if it's within our purview or not but if it is then it's something we can consider thanks i'm sort of we're not talking about it and talking about the the greenhouse effect and that is it's coming i'm pretty sure in the future we're going to take it we're working on it now slowly slowly slowly but it's going to be very very serious as we go along so i'm pretty sure that hopefully we'll be able to satisfy those that are really concerned

1:09:35 and i guess the and you know i i've talked to mr hugo a couple of times i would just continue to encourage him to reach out to arapa who covers the air quality issues um you know or he can reach out to counselor pictionary who's on their board because we do not the city of springfield doesn't uh monitor the air quality in in the city it's already it's the air quality authority joe thank you mayor excuse me yes it's the city has delegated that uh authority over straight over to el rappa and arapa has got the regulatory authority throughout the region entire county and that the the lrapa issues permits and that arapa also requires and does

1:10:22 check and cross-check and confirms that the permittees are staying within the guidelines the um the other side of this is that the deq is a state agency that does all the regulatory work when it comes to water soil and waste so um i'm happy with with what's been happening in arapa i'm very happy with the results and i'm very happy with the numbers that we have been seeing in this county in this region we've got some of the cleanest air in the united states so again they're doing a great job and they've taken a lot of work off of the city's plate because frankly we would have to pay employees to do that amount of work and it would it would cost us a

1:11:08 lot more to have our own staff doing that type of work than it is for just the nominal fees that we pay arapa and it's a partnership with the city of eugene cottage grove creswell i mean cottage grove this lane county oak ridge they're all in partnership which which creates a ton of savings for really good work for a bunch of professionals all right next item please may or any other business from the city council any other business all right let's keep going then any business from the city manager uh one item please um just a quick reminder uh mayor and council that the springfield police department will be

1:11:54 hosting two community events for community members to learn about their upcoming small unmanned aircraft system program people can go and see a live demonstration of these crafts otherwise known as drones the events will be on february 10th at 5 pm and also february 12th at 5 pm both of which um will be at the justice center uh there will be an opportunity to uh talk to the drone operators ask questions um really uh dive into how this program will be used and and also just um there's a this is a heavily regulated uh program by the state of

1:12:39 oregon so i just wanted to acknowledge chief shir and his team for being responsive to some of the questions that this council and community had about this potential program and by putting this together so people could go and for themselves ask questions and experience it thank you next item next item any business from the city attorney all right that looks like it for the evening thank you everybody we are adjourned