Springfield City Council — February 22, 2022

0:20 i'm going to call the city council work session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts here councillor mo here council rodley here councillor stare here counselor here counselor pictionary all right it sounds like the uh consular missionary's still trying to get in so we will get him up here as soon as as soon as he's available we have one work session item tonight which is the city council and springfield police advisory committee joint meeting and i think we've got chief shear for the staff here good evening i'm andy scheer the interim chief of police here at springfield mr

1:05 mayor my plan here tonight is do a brief introduction and i'm going to defer to the committee so as the police department's management liaison to the springfield police advisory committee i want to introduce spac chairperson barry lind i look forward to their presentation tonight of the annual report to council and i want to thank them for the the hard work that they've put in just during my short time here at the city you know long before that as well so i look forward to hearing the report all right thank you chief um so before we get started um before i turn it over to barry i i just wanted to say thank you to the s pac for joining us remotely i know that we all wanted to be in the same room together but uh we we still are still are kind of meeting in one one foot in the uh

1:50 the hybrid world and one foot in person so thank you guys for being flexible with the timing and the spacing to make this happen um barry i'm going to turn it over to you i know that you guys have some discussion items that you want to cover with us um so if you want to get started or and we're ready to go i wonder if it's worthwhile for the spak to take a moment just those who are here to introduce themselves is that helpful or should we just dive in oh that would be great so um i'm barry lind i'm chair uh representing the faith and uh faith community of springfield the rest of the spac would introduce themselves that would be wonderful thank

2:36 you i'm michael bean i am a long-term stack member i used to be on with merrily and i think i'm the business community when i last checked i'm terry dylan and i'm member large and vice chairman thank you i'm brittany deleconte and i am the cultural minority community representative hello i'm carla berg i this is my first year on s-pac and i am a member at large

3:25 and i'm eric adams representative of lamelain good evening i'm jen mccully and i am the springfield schools representative i'm adam jenkins and i am also neighborhood at large first time on aspect hey my name is jonathan hayes i'm a firefighter paramedic with the city i'm an at-large member i believe that's the spac that is joining us if i'm seeing um everyone

4:10 so i uh if i'm going in the wrong direction um i'm not uh this is first time chairing this uh committee and then first time with the joint meeting um we did spak um had a team of three which was michael and brittany and jen um really worked hard at a work session to provide first of all a summary uh of how we had spent the last year and that's presented in that annual report um again very detailed uh covering uh from month to month meetings um going from i think quarterly meetings to uh monthly um and that's all detailed in

4:56 there and why we made those choices and what we had hoped to accomplish during that time we have set as one of our goals for this year is to set some goals uh there were some that were stated but we hadn't had a chance to work through them as a as a committee so we're going to be taking that on uh as one of our commitments uh as we start moving into the this year what are the goals that we want to accomplish as a spec and in all honesty hearing from the council could be helpful in giving us some direction for that as well um i think we would be open to that beyond that um we had quite a discussion

5:44 and and thoughts uh and ended up just with really a couple of thoughts as far as next steps and discussion um one of the recommendations that spak was asking city council to potentially consider um was overseeing a a public process or uh consideration and the implementation of a police oversight commission uh or a similar body uh the thought that was generated in the smaller group and was accepted as a whole by spac and then um again i think there's a sense of just really wanting to better understand what the city council

6:30 would love for spak to have as their focus some role clarity there and then even uh understanding is there communication that happens between other uh committees uh working uh in the community and is there a way to work together in a way that um helps uh the process as a whole so those are the things that we are presenting tonight um i would be more than happy for um anyone on spac to add to what i've said tonight or for the city council to share with us their thoughts or ask us questions

7:16 all right um before i start letting the council jump in i want to maybe open it up to see if there's discussion points or any additional observations from from the s-pac members all right uh leonard thank you uh and uh thank you for uh the introductions um mr lind i uh i wanted to ask about this uh possible police oversight commission it sounds like the mission of an oversight commission might have some overlap with the police advisory committee um how how would you define the roles of each of each body the advisory committee and the oversight commission and would the oversight commission have more of a binding

8:02 role to play in the policies set forth by the by the police department thank you i'm going to ask if one of the three teams members that were working on this that had more in-depth conversation has a a sense of that um or would like to give a thought to that so either michael brittany or jen are one of you um capable or willing to talk about that yeah i'll take a stab once i get my my screen is sort of jumping in and out so i can't see who is and isn't speaking when i started with spak merrily was the council representative we were

8:49 more or less a glorified neighborhood watch reporting group um and i think merrill merrily would would confirm that and then we disbanded during covid and then after the incident up in the thurston neighborhood which i'm apart joe's apart we got called back in and we hit the hit the ground running and for the first time we started taking a lot of feedback from the public and most that feedback initially and ongoingly was at times hospital i think we did a good job of de-escalating trying to clarify a lot of the public input during that time we tried to define

9:34 what the purpose of spat was it was more or less after we did our research a policy review committee now the public is asking for the police oversight commission and that's not our preview we would not do that and that would be up to you guys to decide if we need it and what it would look like i think there are a lot of public testimony towards us that we really can't respond to other than you know we have a great new chief who's taken notes uh but we thought that process should go to you guys and maybe formal he said i'm not sure what you would want but it

10:20 would be your preview to to do what you want so i guess the the next question would be advisory versus oversight so would oversight would an oversight commission have any input into setting the policies of the police department so leonard i don't know and i'm looking at s back right like i think they just gave us that simple a simple bullet point so i think i think that was just a um them summarizing what they've heard in the public in public comment for probably the next for the last for the

11:06 last six months sure and my i guess my recommendation as we sort of die you know dive into this conversation is i don't know that there's enough information as it's presented in in their reports to really dr dive into a discussion about that tonight um and i want to remind folks that if i think in april we have a pretty big um police uh update coming that includes the use of force report plus probably you know the updates of the other projects that they're working on and if people are interested in more information then i would say maybe we we punt the conversation until we have the broader police conversation well let me just say on general terms i would

11:52 certainly welcome the idea of an oversight commission depending on the role that we um approved for it merely hi uh yes michael we we've been out we've been we're on spec long time but i think um the original idea uh was before the name was changed was the police planning task force and the original plan for it was to set up a strategic plan for the police department and work your way to work its way through when i was the liaison along with getting the reports from the police department and you know the combinations the complaints and that they came through like like michael was referring to but we completed the strategic plan the

12:37 police department completed his strategic plan just before michael came on to stack and just before and as we changed the name to the springfield police advisory committee um at that point the idea was to set up a new strategic plan uh to work through and then um as we know and what has occurred over the last few years the strategic plan kind of got down in the list and in order to take care of more urgent more urgent matters and respond to uh comments and concerns that were coming in um i uh i just in a very brief response to leonard and

13:24 the mayor mentioned um i think more information needs to be brought about in from various perspectives when it comes to the setting up um of a uh advisor or a oversight commission i my questions that i wrote down were um what in the in your your last set of questions what would spak share with other committees that you mentioned what would you know what what do they look at as being what would what would you share and um um and what what do you define as broader civic engagement so barry or somebody on s-pac you want to take that

14:09 jen i'm gonna ask you if you would because i i think that you had some input on that and i think you'll state it much clearer than me if you would absolutely thank you so much sir um i think that our thought on that was our after um inviting in some additional information about our charge and really understanding it as more of a community involvement uh committee and sort of community awareness so what we have worked on was and you'll see in our report elevating policies on a more regular basis and bringing them forward and i think our goal and and one of the things that we'll talk about as we move forward in the spax plans for this coming year is a commitment of the individual members

14:54 to make sure that we're really involving our community in hey we're going to be discussing this police policy how does that impact you so that we can come back and share that with the police department this committee is really more about sharing community feedback and so i think that when they were talking uh when the initial conversation came up about other committees for example if there is discussion or a new police policy around um or maybe campaign around motor vehicle accidents or the intersection of you know bicycle and pedestrian if we enter committed to engaging more with our counterparts on other committees we would have broader input to bring back and share with the

15:39 police department about how those policies impact our community and um give them you know food for thought as they continue moving those policies forward in their process again we're we're more of um elevating those policies so that we're having that discussion in the public um inviting the public in to review and think about those policies and so i think that we thought of that as a natural expansion with other groups hey lions club um did you know that this back exists and here's the set of policies that we intend to publicly discuss this year um let us know if there's if you have thoughts or interests or things like that i think that's what um i believe our goal was when we were talking about that bullet

16:28 i i i understand where you're coming from my concern is the um that my concern combines your goal setting for the year or being a right and i totally i because i was the i was on the spec under police fan task force when uh chief dona was trying to balance out the membership of the committee and so i'm glad to see the representatives we have and how much input we can get from the different parts of our community because i i think that's very important but at the same time i also am cautious that what is going out from your committee is what is um

17:14 i i don't i i legitimate isn't the word i'm looking for but it's along that line and you need there needs to be a to me it needs to be a a stamp on it says it's okay for you to go out and and take this point of view where it's okay to talk about these things um part of if this were to become part of your goal setting um and i'll make my comments now and then let everybody else talk um i would want to see it included in your minutes that we would get right away um from your meetings so the council is aware of what you might or might not you know be looking at doing um and i look at it being a dual role in not only taking information out to the community but also being ambassadorial

17:59 for the police department i think that's a very important dual role that not only do you take out information and get information back but i look at each one of you as an ambassador of the police department because that's a position that you're in and i think that's i think it's a very a vital uh combination so i will um oh go ahead michael sorry i would like to jump in and say you're absolutely right and i think we've done an excellent job in that role we've been taking public comments for not six months but for a year and a half hey michael yeah can we wait until merrily's done and then we'll we'll go over to you and work the queue

18:45 i appreciate it michael i would i was just about done uh but i thought when i when i put it in an itemization process the first thing that i would put at the top of that list is the goal setting and then work you work the way down through the list in an outline formula in a project form okay we've got our goal set for you this is what we wanted to do and part of those come from the policy that's set by and the definition is set by the council uh the council has the definition of what the purpose of spec is and what's we know how it how the commission committee is defined and so that the goal setting involves that as well so

19:31 um i'll stop there and let somebody else talk thank you okay michael i i know you've got some uh you were next in the queue so go ahead oh no that was it i actually was agreeing with maryland okay uh demon hey y'all uh just real quick so you know based on the makeup you know you have two identity-based positions and you know i think in my time in oregon we have a tendency to put you know one brown person or a gay person and think that they cover all the bases of everything uh and though i see some relevance

20:16 uh i see those positions potentially being burdened because they're supposed to represent everything but that's literally impossible and so i'm wondering one do we think that those positions those specific ones still need to exist and if we do how do we strengthen their voices to where they're more intersectional and they represent a larger group of people but on the flip side not get burnt out and not be expected to speak for everybody who is religious or is a a minority if that makes any sense

21:06 all right so did somebody from the s-pac want to take that one yeah i'd be i'd be happy to chime in here because uh community representative yeah thank you i um no i really i really appreciate your comments counselor pitts i've um i've only been in this position i guess actually like about a year and a half now since december of last year um and i know i think that my experience has been similar to what you're describing right i think that the position that i am in went in with really good intent in terms of wanting to have more representation on the committee but yes it can be a really tokenizing role and um you know i have i have felt this kind of um increased burden to to represent populations that i am not i i can't like

21:51 you're saying that's like i simply cannot represent it and i've and i think i've maybe brought this up at previous meetings in a in a subtle way but you know i would i would really support um these roles becoming more i guess embedded in our recruitment of uh committee members as opposed to having to be a designated physician thank you mayor so maybe i guess i interpret this as people that have got for example this this commissioner oversight committee whatever name you want to slap on it

22:38 those are ideas that uh per the report and per the subcommittee came from uh people from uh that have contacted us during their meetings etc and said hey um we want this and and i and they they took it on say okay well let's let's look at this and see what kind of recommendation and i think really uh that's not the committee's work the committee should say you know that sounds like a great idea and i think you should definitely voice your opinion to the directly to the council during work sessions or during a or i should say not works as during a council meeting so that is coming from the individuals that think it's a good idea to the council and not place that

23:25 on this committee as far as trying to make some sort of hey we heard about this and and here what do you think and it's really i think it makes it clunky and that um and i and i'm going to concur with uh the mayor in regards to i think uh where we were uh i guess if i can just gather from what he's saying and like my own thoughts is that we're make the the committee brought forward this idea but we don't know who we don't know how we don't know what they'll do we don't have any of this information and and the council still has a gurgitate a ton of information that is yet to be brought forward so i think that we are way ahead of the curve on this we and i would say that i hear

24:12 the wreck you know i hear the desires from some individuals in the community i get it and and we anything you know we talk about building something well we get those too and we consider those so i think it's i think it's early in the game i think that we need to get a bunch more information and i think the council can take it from here and i think the the folks that were kind of put between a rock and a hard place on this which i believe they were on this committee because again floundering around trying to figure okay what the heck are we doing or what are we supposed to do what can we do what you know how much authority do i have how much i don't have this whole thing is i and i apologize uh as a counselor to the committee members that i don't think i don't think it's fair to

24:58 any committee to have to feel as though you're trying to break new ground um so you know in that sense the council's got a lot of work to do we got to make things easier for committee members to get things done and accomplish things at least feel as though they have some worth and anyway so i rambled on but but as far as the uh individual members we we talked about that over several work sessions in regards to representation it's it i think the the gist of it is that it's not necessarily putting a job on an individual on a committee it is allowing that part of our community to have a person that they would feel safe

25:43 to go through or at least can relate to in some fashion as opposed to complete strangers or complete different cultures etc so that is where that we kind of rounded out the committee in that manner to make the committee approachable to for all aspects from our community and that's what's the most important we were thinking about that years ago that we realize that that is something that's very important and we have to have a spectrum across the community of you know who can who people can contact so anyway that's a lot so don't you yeah damien really

26:28 thank you so um what i'm getting from all of this is that we are in some transition and first i would just want to to call out my appreciation for the role that y'all have played over the past year year and a half because i know that you know from from the the story that we are telling or the the way that we are describing this committee it has shifted over time both internally because of what was needed and because of what the pressures that were happening externally and i just wanted i have appreciation for the fact that because we did have this committee and this what has been a place for the public to come during some really

27:13 tumultuous times and share their thoughts or see how things work and you've also served as a a transitional place for our new police chiefs so all of that is very real and very messy as councilor pictionary pointed out and i think that's part of it is just sort of uh saying that out loud appreciating that you're trying to take all of that and come up with some recommendations and really what i get out of these recommendations is exactly what counselor pictionary said which is like it's on us to figure out what is the purpose of this committee and or what sort of a committee do we need and it's always helpful to look in government in terms of what does this is this an advisory committee is this a um is this who does this answer to you

28:00 know we have committees that answer to the board or to the council we have committees that are supposed to be advising the city manager or whomever it's it's on us to get really clear about what the purpose of the committee is who it advises and if in fact it is a liaison committee that's supposed to be interacting with the community then you know councilor woodrow's right we need to get really clear about what is what is the authority there who speaks for what we all have to get trained on when we get to say our minds and when we get to not so i think it's just acknowledging that it's a messy place and that we are in transition both internally and because of pressures externally and that we need to just sort of take a beat think about it as an organization what

28:47 is the most useful thing going forward um and that's what i have to say about that steve um was a pretty quiet committee there for quite a while and a few years ago we had a major major political cultural change in our country and police issues came up and it came to the point where there's a lot of lack of trust in police and in our city i like to think that wasn't necessary to mistrust us but we have to prove to the public that we are trustworthy we have a new chief he's making big differences out there and i believe the public wants us to be a little bit more a little bit more oversight on some issues that have

29:33 been happening and i'd like to make sure that we we tell them that we hear them and we're going to try and do something like that so i support some sort of overlap oversight committee and hopefully in the long run we'll get the public to trust us to trust the police like they should i think this is understood but i just wanted to be clear that um in our conversations i don't believe stack is asking to be that oversight we were simply asking is this something that city council believes is worth considering i mean it's it's really

30:18 we're coming at it from just that broad and then again i appreciate the comments we are i believe still looking for some clarification in uh from the city council on what they would have respect to do because your your observation is correct um the role changed dramatically in the last couple of years and we've been just trying to find our way through and for right or wrong we took the role of being listeners to the community because we thought that was a a vital role for us to take that was helpful um and so we continued to find our way and are certainly

31:05 wanting and and appreciating the city council's uh um leadership here so um barry i don't yeah i don't think we're reading this as uh the s-pac is asking to be an oversight body i think we're reading it as hey as you guys discussed it as you sort of quantified where where the public feedback is you're asking us to consider that and work in the reality is you know i don't know where we were going to end up but we would need to get just a little bit more information about that and the the other piece that i think is really important for that i keep hearing between all all the group of counselors is just a genuine gratitude for having to work through a really tough situation and you know being sort of flexible to responding to the public because in a

31:51 lot of ways sometimes you listen sometimes it was an avenue for the pd to help have dialogue for people and sometimes it was to really push uh folks back towards us as the policy-making body in the city and i i think that's going to continue and understanding when i read the report and just having you guys understand that role where as you take public comment some of it can get answered there but if it's policy issues it really needs to come back to council and you know having you guys um be more i don't know if forceful is the right word just helping people see where to access and get support from government i think is really important the other thing that i had written down is a lot of times i think about um how things are supposed to work right

32:36 like and maybe it's the system engineer in me is like when you think you know the first thing is what is what's supposed to happen and what's actually happening right now but i'm really interested in your goal setting process for coming back to that strategic plan um that is a place in you know we've got new software for you know use of force issues and complaints we've got you know we we talked we just talked about a drone pilot that's out there um you know police you know the police are concerned about staffing and we've got you know we've got the body cams and you know data that is out there that is a place where you as a body can really work with work with the police department in a very helpful way to kind

33:22 of get a next what's the next five years going to be and that would be something that i would be really interested in is kind of going back to your core mission which is one of them is to build a strategic plan for the for the police and the comment that i that uh i guess the two other comments that i would have is when i'm at a lot of boards and commissions and between go out and talk to the community and support the community because there's coffee with a cop i know the chief does um community outreach all the time it wouldn't be i don't think it would be out of the ordinary to have somebody from s-pac there to talk about the community role and what what your guys's work would be but we would just have to

34:07 you know work through what that structure would look like um both merely and corey brought up really good points which is when you're out in the community there's certain rules about you know how you represent yourself and i think i think that's that's a valuable discussion to have because i can see a role um emerging for that the library advisory board does something similar um and then you know i know i know the 2020 like 2022 goals right that's a discussion that you know that that um you guys as a body are going to have whatever whatever additional goals you add to that list i would just ask that you communicate them back and kind of get us to head nod them that okay yeah we added three more goals you know and we and we as a board

34:54 you know we as a council kind of go okay that makes sense um that's an important check-in you know that's one of the reasons why you know uh we have a council liaison is to help guide you guys through and about where the council actually is and you know when i think about the rest of the year just understand like police policy issues and update about the work that's happening in the police department's going to happen at least quarterly right so there is opportunities for you to both plug in and share additional information as we sort of tackle some of these bigger policy issues merely um yes i i just want a couple things one i was remiss and not saying thank you i

35:40 know what you've gone through for the last couple years um we've paid attention we may not have had said much but we were paying attention and um and i thank you because you you could have walked away and said that's not my i didn't sign on for this and you could have taken and walked away and you didn't you stuck in there you hung in there and showed how much you care about the community um as a whole and so i do thank you for that one of the things that i noticed was that a year and a half ago you had close to 150 people listening in as attendees the last one had 14. you're doing something right you know as far as responding to people um and helping us and we have the

36:25 response i think the trust is building is rebuilding um the police planning tasks for strategic goal was to get the jail set up and and they and that was the almost the end point of that strategic plan once it got up and was running now the strategic plan looks forward and looks to the future and looks to all the different parts of this new age this transition and how that can move forward and you guys are in a prime role for being able to help us get that done so i i look forward to that and like i said i i wanted to say i was remiss not saying thank you but i looked at those minutes i saw how many people were

37:10 basically knocking at your door and then you got it down to a point of where you didn't have so many people so alarmed and uh and pressuring and i thank you for that that would i notice that all right i'm looking around and i think we've been through all the comments um for the s-pac folks you have any other point that you maybe wouldn't want us to come kind of come back to go ahead michael i just want to say that counselor pissionary has done a great job of keeping us on task and letting us know where boundaries are and letting members of the community so that that shouldn't be overlooked and why john i

37:57 clash once a while i really appreciate his understanding of the process thank you michael likewise well um all right so i think that is going to be it um so we've been through all the content really the ask from uh from spac is to come back with with those couple of goals that we had that we had discussed including anything else that you might add and then work with with counselor pictionary to get them back back to us so that we have some sort of eyes on them and then from a from a staff perspective

38:42 i think we're just going to get more information about the the oversight question when we meet what was it go ahead nancy i just wanted to chime in briefly first thank you to uh the advisory committee for all of the work that you've done and your commitment to our police department and also to um chief shearer who's been remarkable in as our chief and i um i'm so honored that he's with us um you know sometimes when you're looking at an issue um you can get a little bit um focused on one particular outcome and i guess as we continue to explore this feedback i would just uh encourage us to look at you know maybe ask ourselves some questions

39:27 overall you know what is the goal that we are attempting to achieve um what are the issues that we're facing and then what are all the ways that we can address this you know um an advisory committee is is one way there's there's a lot of other ways we would want to explore an advisory committee also takes on there's i've seen a number of configurations of how that would work so it's complex um and i just want to make sure that we're not limiting our thinking to one particular outcome when there's a lot of um good dialogue to be had on this i think that is a really good feedback and so um when is the the police update is that the 11th of april correct okay so it sounds like we

40:14 we're gonna have the police work session the 11th of april and then we're going to get into use of force um the annual use of force update a little bit more information about this and then we had if my memory serves maybe 30 things you know there were process improvement and policy updates um from last year that we're going to get an update on with that um really appreciate us back you you folks joining us you're the second group to uh meet with the city council since planning commission in the fall so thank you so much for being a little bit of our guinea pig as we sort of figure out how to do these joint sessions over the the virtual environment um then i am going to adjourn us we will be back in 15 minutes for the regular session so uh

40:59 we will see you then thank you we are adjourned gcp aj okay i'm gonna text him and say we're getting started oh there you go all right i'm going to call the regular uh meeting of the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts here councillor mo here council bradley here announcer here councillor woodrow here and counselor pictionary i'm here thank you please join me for the pledge of allegiance

41:59 under god indivisible with liberty let's just grow as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us by phone or online to please keep yourselves on mute until you are called to provide public testimony there are two i times designated for public testimony this evening under public hearings and business from the audience if you are attending in person please complete the request card to speak located at the entrance of the council chambers and gave them the city recorder if you're joining us online with a tablet or a smartphone or computer and wish to speak either of those times please use the raise hand feature in zoom the order of public testimony is as follows we will anybody that is in the

42:45 city council chambers and then anyone who has raised their virtual hand before i call the first item neil can you tell us how many people are joining us in zoom land yes mayor we have 26 participants total online and 13 here in the council chambers thank you first item please first item is the consent calendar i make a motion that we approve the consent calendar second it's been moved by councillor mo seconded by councillor visionary to approve the consent calendar uh neil could you follow uh vote please yes counselor pitts all right councillor mo yes councillor rodley yes sponsor stare hi councilor woodrow yes encounter pictionary yes thank you

43:31 the vote passes six to zero next item please uh next item we have one public hearing this evening public hearing number one is fiscal year 22 supplemental budget three and appropriations transfer resolution number one a resolution adjusting resources and requirements in the following funds general street special revenue building code fire local option levy regional wastewater capital street capital sanitary sewer operations regional wastewater ambulance booth kelly and vehicle and equipment and authorizing the transfer of appropriations within the general fund from contingency expense to police department operating expense neil obringer is here for the staff report good evening mayor and council this uh

44:16 this is the third supplemental budget of fy22 i'm happy to take any questions you may have on the specific requests outlined in the packet tonight but first i do want to make note of a couple quick items first the packet describes 250 000 in the booth kelly fund for a facility assessment and possible demolition of the carter building however since this packet was put together we've learned more about the condition of that facility and so now we we really know that a facility assessment's no longer needed uh the 250 000 will be used for demolition of the facility but not a an assessment so that's the first item

45:02 second is i want to make note of a typo in exhibit a of the resolution so that's attachment two page four of seven in your packet in the police local option levy fund legal services is listed twice um in the list of departments uh one of those two the the second instance um should be the police department um so this error has been corrected in a revised version of the resolution and so that i just asked when uh stating the motion for this item that the council moves to adopt the resolution as corrected so with that i'm happy to take any questions leonard um neil i heard you say that the carter building was no

45:47 longer necessary i think the the question that we had was whether it was structurally sound can you speak to that my understanding is uh it's not structurally sound that carter building facility assessments no longer needed and i believe that due to the the structure and the condition uh they're moving forward with the process of demolition but if if you want more details and i'm able to provide them i'm sure we can gather some additional information for you yeah i guess so you said that there was uh no longer it was no longer necessary to do an assessment of the soundness of the building my understanding is that we know enough at this point and the condition of the facility is

46:32 is poor enough um that they uh the money you know necessary to basically move forward with an assessment is unnecessary we know the condition we know that we need to move forward with a demolition neil adobe yeah we we did have an engineer look at the building there was a major trust failure so there's scaffolding um embraces keeping the building up at this point um so it is uh not only a um assessment is not needed but looks like an emergency um can be used to remove the building and do the demo and tear down at this okay thank you are there any other questions

47:17 all right then i am going to open the public hearing and see if anybody wants to make comments to this item there we don't see any hands online [Music] or anyone here in the room all right then i will go ahead and close the public hearing and then steve i'll make a motion that we adopt resolution number one hang on one second i think you have to move it as corrected so okay that's correct okay i'm correct you're okay i make a i make a motion that we adopt resolution number one as correct

48:03 second it's been moved and seconded to adopt resolution number one uh neil could you call the vote please yes counselor pitts all right counselor mo yes council rodley yes answer stare aye councillor woodrow yes and counselor petitionery right thank you all right the motion passes six to zero next item please mayor the next item is business from the audience all right so as i discussed earlier um we we do have folks in the in the chamber i'm going to call them first if you are at home or online and want to testify please start putting your hands up so neil can track you in the queue the first person to speak is matt bryson um could you join us up here and give us

48:49 uh your name and location in the city for the record please and then you have three minutes my name is matt bryson 388 q street springfield all right go ahead my name is matt bryson president of metco investment realty inc and i along with numerous property business owners we represent that will be negatively impacted want to make it clear to this council to the this council's members we strongly oppose your approval of the main street project as it's been proposed the proposal flat out displaces popular businesses and employment which are important to the community for example

49:35 and people need to be aware the shopping center under our purview on 40th core 42nd and main where a two-lane roundabout is proposed appears to be significantly impact or eliminate two viable eateries a coffee stand a national bank kiosk along with numerous personal personnel they employ at this location with this in the same center parking spaces will be reduced to the extent current and future infill opportunities creating viable small business and local jobs may be restricted this proposal restricts critical access along the entire corridor placing undue hardships on both residents and small

50:20 businesses for example residents and several residential properties under our purview will be unnecessarily forced the wrong correction when turning out of their residence and faced with the choice of committing a dangerous u-turn during rush hour or going blocks out of their way to fight through a confusing roundabout just to get to and from work on the same note small businesses will no longer suffer will no doubt suffer the ill effects of lost regular and potential customers due to lack of ease of accessibility reduced parking from proposed right-of-ways and overall income an overall convenience all critical elements

51:05 have success to a small business and a community commercially zoned corridor such as the majority of main street in summary this plan as proposed could have a devastatingly negative long-term effect on springfield residents businesses and the public in general when we believe there are far less impactful alternatives that could be implemented and at far less taxpayer expense to reach citizen objectives of the public safety i implore you to send this proposal back to the drawing board or put it to a citizen vote and let the people decide thank you for your time have an email from the property owner of question we own the shopping center on 42nd and

51:50 main street and we are very strongly opposed to the main street facility plan something of this type matt was i your your three minutes is up could you could you give a copy of that email to neil lady and then he'll do and he can distribute it to us yes thank you so much thanks for your time chris stewart hi there um my name is chris stewart i am a 22 year resident of springfield i raised my family here i currently operate eight dutch bros coffees in the valley

52:38 this proposal that you are coming up with will eliminate 30 of my employees immediately and another 30 will impact directly as well at a different location i want to tell you a little bit more about me and what i've done uh i've i've also uh my company has donated over a million dollars to local community charitable places in this area lane county uh food for lane county we just did 11 500 on friday so this is huge impact on my people and this company in in this whole community i've got i've got six or seven questions that i like for 10 questions that i'm going to try and get through in three minutes if not i'm going to send up my

53:24 office manager will help me finish up for 33 minutes so bear with me um the first question is you state on that report that just came out recently there's a 109-page report i read it yesterday i didn't know about any of this till friday glasses are streaming up i can't see uh it says during that report you guys engaged her people actually engaged all active parties i was not informed of anything until friday i know you guys were doing something but with covid and everything that's going on nobody knows what you guys are doing and what this whole thing nobody knows as you can see there's nobody here nobody knows

54:10 i want to know for the record who you've contacted and and how and when who you have contacted for this report for everything that's going on how many businesses along this corridor will be eliminated and how many people will lose their job as the result of this project next question is what is the financial impact to the businesses and customers who do not have time to navigate additional barriers and return back to the place of of business and then back to the direction of travel they originally headed what who where's the information that proves that you this is not going to be impacted in the areas where the road's going to be expanded

54:56 over 90 feet or at 90 feet there are several places businesses that the sidewalk is going to go right up the edge of the building now in my past i've noticed that you have to have a six or eight foot i can't remember exactly what it is right away if those buildings are inside that right away will they have to be destroyed i guess i'm out of time hopefully if you can find time for addy campbell to come up and finish up my questions yes um thank you um we're going to have june in between and then we'll have her up okay if if you're okay with me changing the order all right then we will bring up addie campbell

55:51 all right addie campbell office manager dutch brothers coffee so i'm just going to continue where he left off so based on the initial site plan on page 81 our business located on 42nd and main would be eliminated we'd like to know how does the city plan to compensate our 30-plus employees and our company for the loss of wages and the long-term income the long-term income to our company uh what other pre-existing infrastructure issues will the city be resolving with the implementation of this project if there are any pre-existing infrastructure issues that are identified will the city utilize federal taxpayer dollars to bypass city budget with this project

56:37 who from the city is going to tell our 30-plus employees that they no longer have jobs or is that going to be on us why would anyone want to start or maintain a business along main street that only will accommodate half the traffic or a complicated ingress or egress to access the business including delivery of product chris has been a owner of a business for 22 years it's been his experience that if you make it hard to enter or leave a place of business peaceful will not patronize your business or that part of the city he went through that on mohawk when they put in a barrier there there was major adjustments made there

57:22 when moving public utilities how long will businesses along main street be closed and or inconvenienced what are the financial impacts on the business community when current size freight trucks will have to stage or use smaller vehicles for the last mile and who will pay for the inconvenience what will the environment environmental impact of the additional mileage required for these freight deliveries be where will these staging areas be who will pay for them who will coordinate all the deliveries including the equipment needed to move the product and this is a potential logistical nightmare what would the draw be to start a new business on main street in springfield with complicated road that does not

58:07 provide easy access it is documented documented that the city will not use this project to pursue a future emx or lane transit project further impacting the taxpayer taxpayers or springfield or lane county is it documented as part of this project responsible business owners should not have to suffer the consequences of a major change that impacts the long-term financial impact of not only their but their employers financial success because a few are unable to navigate the current roadways successfully could this money be better spent on other traffic control resources including highway or city traffic control saturations when you look at the mobility statistics

58:53 it pencils out to an average of 18 000 average cars per day 126 000 per week or 1.3 injury crashes per week please justify how these low statistics justify a hundred and fifty million dollar project and how many crashes per year occur on the hayden bridge roundabout and where does the public find that info thank you very much thank you i know i went over i appreciate it june father gil june father gill three 317 30th street on not right off main so it's interesting to hear their their concerns anyway um

59:40 we sent you a letter i'm with springfield shelter rights alliance tonight and we sent you a letter not too long ago the around the 8th of february and i'm just here to remind you of that letter and ask that you consider having the work sessions that we're suggesting to look at the needs and options for unhoused folks in our community i just came from egan warming center at the memorial building and if that building's not being used where will we have an eager warming center and other other concerns that were in the letter some things that don't involve money they involve you making decisions to allow for more options for some of us trying to do things for how unhoused people and some things have to do with with spending money but anyway

1:00:26 we'd love to have you have a work session focused just on the needs and the concerns of them on house in the community so um also thank you for your session last time i was here last week well you've seen me a lot this um i appreciate the work that you're doing on those designations those those those funding choices i'll be sending you more information soon about the ann's heart program and what it's all about so some some of you were asking questions and also edward um where i'm the pastor is um going to be responding to some of the things concerns you had so look forward to hearing more from not just me from all these things so thank you and please have that work session and help

1:01:11 us to help each help you do a better job with unhoused people thank you thank you jim neil do we have we're ready to switch to online folks or is there anybody in the queue yes mayor we have one hand up at this point um [Music] and uh looks like we're getting a couple so lizzy utterback is your first speaker sj lore will be next and lizzy you should be able to unmute your microphone from ward 3. um i want to try to stay on topic with my planned comment but i feel compelled spiritually religiously to state that

1:01:57 when we talk about changes to main street the only concern should be to keep people from getting killed to keep little kids from getting run over by cars that should be the priority over anything else telling an employee they are laid off which i don't even know if that's a legitimate concern or not is nowhere near equivalent to telling a parent their child has been killed oh my gosh okay i really wanted to keep it positive tonight my planned comment uh was really uh to share appreciation i know i normally come to you with criticisms and concerns um but like i said i just i had to say that

1:02:43 so now to the appreciation part of my comment i really want to share my appreciation for the work the springfield police advisory committee has done to prepare and present their annual report particularly i am grateful for the subcommittee members that were charged with drafting the report during the spac meeting earlier this month i observed the committee work to finalize their report which was presented earlier tonight during the work session as you know this report includes a recommendation that the city implement a police oversight body which i strongly support and i hope the council will take the next steps to make the committee's recommendation a reality because we sorely need any and every mechanism we

1:03:28 can get that will lead to oversight and transparency thank you so much mayor the next speaker is sj lore and we have no one else in the queue at this point and sj you should be able to unmute your microphone perfect can you guys hear me we can we can awesome i'm in ward 4 and um i appreciate everything that lizzie had said um but unfortunately mine comes with a little more negative negativity um kind of what my feel for listening to you guys um taking in what the spec committee had brought to you um

1:04:13 i was kind of a little bit disheartened by the responses or lack of responses um you know for they need to change their name because from a community standpoint you know when i'm browsing the internet in springfield and looking up information of you know where can i go to make my voice heard when it comes to wanting change for our community um the springfield police advisory committee sounds really inviting and if their job is to just handle policy and look at reviews for policy changes um that what they're called isn't really appropriate i believe um it's uh they're definitely not the venue

1:04:58 to hear public concerns and i just have to give them major props over the last handful of months for taking in the community's comments and i feel like they have done a fabulous job by trying to say hey you know we're taking all this information what are we supposed to do with it and i don't feel that that was really recognized this evening so i'm kind of disappointed in the council in that aspect um i would like to bring up that springfield should not be known as a sun downtown we should not be sticking in the past we need to be moving forward we need to be inclusive and we really need to kind of step it up

1:05:44 if we want to keep families in the area and or attract more people to our part of lane county i would really love if the city council would maybe put a little bit more effort into moving progress just forward progress would be great um there's a clear disregard for public comment and concerns and um i would really appreciate it if you guys really took the time to take into consideration that we as a community may not hop on every time you guys have a meeting because it's exhausting trying to communicate that we are would like to advocate for change and um the city council doesn't really

1:06:30 seem to take that very well in order to kind of push back comments to move forward and i just you know it's a very respectful position that you were all in and i would like it if we made a little bit more commitment to moving forward and listening and making positive changes thank you for your time mayor we have one additional hand up that speaker is monica olsen and monica you should be able to unmute your microphone testing testing one two three can you hear me we can hear you okay i just wanted to uh quickly mirror that future forward is there being a civilian review board in every

1:07:15 jurisdiction um nationwide so that we can maintain transparency all over the country sorry i'm sorry to interrupt you monica could you state your name and where you're located for for the record please oh monica olsen ward floor oh thank you so much go ahead and um yes just uh future forward is there being civilian review board in every jurisdiction maintaining you know transparency all over the country not just here there's you know and springfield could lead the way in some regards to that that happened and i just want to make make it clear that we have the opportunity right now to make that happen and leave it at that is that all you had monica yeah okay thank you very much

1:08:05 mayor we have no other speakers okay um we have council response next before i open it up to make let people have comments um i'm i'm probably gonna need a little bit more guidance nancy or mary bridget especially about this main street item since it's still open in front of the planning commission as far as how like i think the record's still open so if you could help us about you know how much we we can comment and discuss that would be great i'll let mary bridget address the legal issue that you just posed but i do want to encourage people that are in the audience either here in the chamber or remotely we do have a dedicated web page for this project the website address is r

1:08:52 mainstreetspringfield.org r as in o u r and i will turn this over to mary bridger thanks thank you nancy um from a legal perspective this is a legislative matter it's not quasi-judicial so the council has more flexibility to hear comments and engage with the public about this however it's still in the process with the planning commission so uh like nancy had talked about there is a website where people can put in additional comments and then we'll inform the staff running this project that people came to council tonight so they're aware of those comments um the council could respond um to this because it's a legislative matter so if someone wants to decide to

1:09:38 make some response to the public comments they can but they're not required to and then just to encourage um thank people for their participation and encourage them to circle back into the process with the planning commission okay so could you uh clarify mary bridget like that all the testimony we took tonight is going to get forwarded on to the planning commission for the record that is correct so if people aren't able to get back into the planning commission process we can make sure that this information is forwarded to the planning commission's record all right thank you yes um uh basically that follows pretty much what i had in mind to say i appreciate i listened closely to matt

1:10:23 and chris and addie i appreciate everything that they had to say i think it's important for us to hear it i would like to hear from anybody i would like to hear what anybody else has to say i am discouraged to think that there's people out there that haven't felt like they've been heard so i would very much like to have them voice their feelings and their i and their ideas in regards to this and have it get through to the planning commission so anything they can get out there and get on their record i would i would really love to to uh encourage them to to do that um eventually it comes back around to us is that correct after the planning commission it comes back around the council is that correct you know i believe it does come back to you um that this issue will cut the main street will come back to the council i

1:11:09 believe that is correct okay well that's i like i said i just can see with the with the situation that it's in right now with commission i don't want to get off off field with this but i do want to encourage you know as many people as you've got out there that have things to say please please get that information out to us thank you yes thank you i want to reiterate or echo what what councilor woodrow just said i think it's very important um in fact i think it's uh i think there is a certain population excuse me or pretty good-sized population that don't realize that by them on facebook or social media

1:11:54 voicing their concerns um it doesn't count they they need to make sure that those concerns are sent up to the city in the in the proper way through the links there's plenty of links there's plenty of ways to get a hold of the city um and get that on the record i'm a little dismayed as to hearing some of the concerns it seems like those type of topics would have been uh addressed much a long time ago so uh i do want to continue to hear what people's concerns are and i want to be able to hear what the responses are so that way when i'm asked the very same questions that i just heard with somebody having those concerns i'm going to have a legit answer for them

1:12:39 right now i don't have answers to many of the questions that are being posed out there to me so i do appreciate those folks coming forward and i i don't want to i can't overemphasize the need to have as much public input as possible because i don't want to be part of a huge decision like that and find out later or after the fact that people feel as though they weren't heard and it doesn't matter how many people just if they feel that they weren't they were unheard then uh then we failed so all right thanks thank you leonard um yes i'd like to thank monica olson and sj lore and lizzie utterback for speaking out the despite appearances sometimes the council does certainly welcome

1:13:26 public comment on police issues and i i would argue that public comment has played a large role in some of the changes that have happened in the department here in springfield um june father gill thank you for your comments um well i i eagerly await more information on ann's heart and on all of the programs that are being considered um for the uh for for this sort of in uh infusion of money that we've got right now um and uh when you uh when when you talk to the pastor of everett methodist and uh be sure and offer my regards will you um also uh eddie campbell and chris and matt bryson thank you for your comments and we are we're we're certainly carefully

1:14:11 considering those too i there is one um one issue um that i would like to address right now and that is um i heard that the strip mall the uh the shopping center at 42nd and maine would have to be closed in order to implement the roundabout of 42nd and maintenance does can anyone speak to that with any kind of authority we i we we may not have the right people here tonight i don't know neil uh counselor i think that will be part of the the ten questions that we received in the letter we'll got it we'll get okay answers to those yeah and and i'm i'm sure that the staff is very diligent in getting these answers to the to the public after they

1:14:57 pose them and um they're some of them i i suspect are probably not going to have hard answers the financial impact on the community i i think we can make projections but they're not going to be completely accurate of course um so i uh i'm looking forward to uh to seeing the answers from the staff myself thanks damian uh hey y'all uh first of all i want to uh say thank you all for sharing it it's it's not always easy um but but here are a couple things that i want everybody to think about i'm not i'm not targeting any specific person or any group or anything but uh the culture of oregon is to all can speak for not speak of and and so

1:15:43 i know when i first got to council there's a lot of people speaking for folks of color blah blah blah but they never did anything to to get them to these meetings and i understand for various reasons why not but let's always be careful not to speak for people but speak up people and create platforms for them to speak for themselves because let me tell you it does not happen here uh especially for racial minorities it does not i don't care what you say all right uh two uh let's be cognizant to uh reflect before we react i think it's real easy for humans to act out of anger out of fear but if they took the time to just do a little reflection whether it's internal

1:16:28 or just uh on the situation then the outcome will be different and realize that having that type of uh reaction is very very dangerous to a lot of people and so please just think about this well once again i repeat i'm not targeting anybody uh this is my experience living here uh and i'm not gonna let anybody say that i'm wrong all right um but you know let's come together let's think about what community means i think that definition is completely different for a lot of us uh and like i said i don't know we're gonna get before doesn't move together realize that we aren't gonna agree on a lot of things but uh let's not be petty and let's uh

1:17:13 try to get past our shortcomings that we might see within each other because uh diversity of opinions is also just as important as uh diversity uh racial diversity and honestly you're going to get diversity and opinions way quicker than you're ever going to get racial diversity in springfield so just keep that in mind thank you steve the gentleman lady in the in the back of the room that hadn't heard about the thirst the main street project city really has been trying to get the word out there and i apologize you should have known you will know and uh so it happened i'm sorry it happened

1:17:59 all right thank you um the one comment i wanted to make specifically to main street was just to echo a lot of the importance of just public testimony and it's in front of planning commission right now and the the way that we end up with a plan that it works for springfield is for people to continue to take comments and get them into the record so that they're considered like like all public testimony every piece is sort of weighed and considered by all the different bodies out here so please if you have not given comment uh about it take the time and share your your feedback about the main street safety plan thank you all right next item please may or any other business from the city council merrily

1:18:47 what's the deadline for the testimony going to planning commission ooh that is a good question um nancy or mary bridget do we know when i think 3 15 maybe i'm looking over um aj who kind of keeps our overall schedule do you have the plan the next this one i don't have that in front of me mayor i have to get back to you on that um so it sounds like we will they've got the record open so they're working on it right now so um it may be an email merrily that we get back about what what uh what am how long the record's open

1:19:34 okay i just want to make sure people were aware of what the deadline would be okay next item please any business from the city manager no business this evening thank you and any business from the city attorney uh no additional business tonight all right thank you everybody um i'm going to adjourn us have a good night