Springfield City Council — March 7, 2022

0:04 i'm going to call the meeting of the springfield 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 that's their woodrow here and counselor pictionary i'm here thank you all right we've got two items for the work session tonight the first one is the update to willamelaine's 2020 or 2012 park and recreation comprehensive plan with monica sather and i'll turn it over to monica thank you mayor van gorden and good evening councillors um the plan we're talking about this evening is the 20-year comprehensive vision and implementation strategy for

0:50 willamelain's district-wide parks and recreation services i wanted to mention that christina beau who is managing the plan update project at willamelain and eric adams william elaine's planning parks and facilities director are with us who can join our discussion and help answer questions when we get to that point so as an overview of what this plan does and what we'll be working on to update it i'll mention some highlights but recall many of you served in your leadership roles here at the city when willamelain last updated its plan and worked on it between 2011 and 2013. um a clarification i wanted to mention is although the plan's time horizon looks out 20 years lamelain revisits this document in depth every 10 years to explore opportunities for updates which

1:35 is why we're here today some tangible things that can result from this long-term plan are funding in projects uh for example the thurston hills natural area and the trails within their um the middle fork and mill race paths which are also a key part of the city's transportation system and then most recently um the master plan for the georgia pacific natural area which this group worked to create followed by uh council approval last fall in the land use planning worlds as mentioned in the packet for this evening this plan is a specific element of springfield's overall comprehensive plan um so with that we will eventually come to council with the request to adopt willamelaine's plan um our interest in seeking your guidance this evening is about at which stages of

2:21 the project council has interest in updates from staff and um what council wants staff engagement at any of the key steps to look like whether it's a memo update or a work session so i don't have a presentation but i do want to recap um the high level phases of the project in a visual way um really quickly so i'll pull up one powerpoint slide here okay so this early step would be a chance to review a more detailed version of the work plan uh before our work launches more formally and publicly we could share more about the proposed methods

3:07 for information gathering community engagement and some of the more technical details that we haven't yet like the project boundaries or other assumptions and then get into the project timeline if we did a work session on this this would be council's opportunity to ask questions and offer big picture thoughts but it could also happen tonight one thing the city and willamelain staff are preparing soon as part of this step is to discuss the project's draft community engagement plan in detail with the springfield committee for citizen involvement on april 5th before proceeding to that second step which is about researching uh what's working about the existing park and recreation system and and what could or should change information we would share at this stage would be after willameline completes its

3:53 needs assessment and the needs assessment really involves a mix of following park system standards for service levels and these are more formula based but it would also involve a mix of hearing from people stories and ideas according to the community engagement plan just to really make sure the plan meaningfully hears from people as part of community engagement but also that the adopted plan reflects that as best as possible so here we would report on how a lamelian conducted the needs assessment and what we learned from that and could hear from council here about what we should consider before beginning to identify the projects and at this third phase it would be um to share information about how lamela

4:38 informed and prioritize the draft service service strategies for recreation or draft list of park projects what comes out of this step will essentially be a project list and that will be ranked with funding and possibly operational management ideas tied to them this could include new sites that aren't already dedicated to parks or other types of facilities so possibly some acquisition considerations and lastly council will participate in this step as springfield's official decision-making authority on planning matters like this if council wants to engage in one or more of the previous three steps we will also provide an overview of any new findings we didn't already share before the purpose of the hearing once we get to this step in terms of content will be

5:24 to confirm that the draft plan satisfies the land use approval criteria and state requirements and wanted to mention that lane county's board of commissioners will also need to co-adopt the plan based on the lamellae's early thinking so far and we expect this to be about 2023. um so that's the overall plan and wanted to mention at one point back in 2013 um when will emily went the previous round of updates we had a work session with council between steps two and three but it doesn't mean we have to do it the same way so i wanted to play out all those options and discuss them and if we need to we can pull up a detailed timeline if we need but i will back out

6:09 of this now um i hope that overview was helpful and the main questions really are at what stages is their council interest and how would we best share that with you all right merrily i remember when we went through this before and i actually like that system because when we got to the work session between two and three we actually had um the beginning process and understand evaluation that will emily did when if we start the first one we don't have that benefit of having that information so we so doing it the way we did it

6:55 before at least gave us information in between those steps two and three to um we just had more meat to to to talk about to be in conversation and understanding of and um and a lot of the questions that we might have had in step one were already answered by that time so i think it gave us it gave us more of a something to chew on and get it and get a better idea as to where william lane was coming from um in what they were doing so i i think the system worked before i liked the system that we had and um and that's my input

7:48 all right no other questions or comments wow we are a quiet bunch tonight so monica it sounds like follow the same um follow the same sort of strategy that we did before and put you know and put a work session in i think it was between two and three um and then just keep us informed as this go as this goes along i think we'll have a pretty uh robust conversation between step two and three thank you very clear and i would expect that to happen um next year but we will keep keeping attention to that timeline and make sure um to get on the calendar so thank you know you're all busy all right take care have a good night

8:37 oh good i see sam and nathan play so second items the master fees and charges cpi with sam and nate uh thank you mayor good morning good evening everyone uh so i'm sam talbot turkey i'm here with nathan bell as you can see uh talking about our lovely master fees and charges the cpi inflation rate for this year uh previous council sessions had directed staff to look at the bureau of labor statistics western region class size b or c cities which was supposed to sit around a three or four percent increase and sort of follow along with inflation a few weeks back when we looked at the rate it's sitting currently at 8.1 percent which is much higher than the previous years had been while we staff think it's important to keep these fees going and increasing to keep up a sort of a retention of costs for these services he provides we also

9:22 understand that 8.1 would be a tough rate to pass on to the community and we wanted to get council's thoughts and feedbacks on this for both this rate going forward and then possibly future rates you all want to see i just didn't want to come forward in a few months with the master fees and charges and surprise you all with eight percent of an increase so i want to get ahead of that while we still could um nathan here he's excited for the topic i might provide some feedback as well uh but for now i think we'd love to hear from you all on your thoughts on this inflation going forward and i'd like to have a little more context um when we saw this raid it was it was kind of hard to swallow and uh so you know in fiscal year when we went to this index i think it was back in 19 that in fiscal year 20 with the copic

10:07 pandemic the rate was 2.8 but because of the pandemic and the impact it was having on the community we chose not to pass along the increase that year the following year in fiscal year 21 uh the uh rate was 1.6 we did not make up the previous year's rate and we just implemented the 1.6 increase and now here we are at 8.1 um this masterpiece and charges schedule includes all the fees across all the departments and for many of them uh it's basically a fees for services we've talked a lot about our property tax constraints the collar of three percent from measure five and fifty which has really pushed us into fees for services when we can directly tie them to a specific individual rather than a service that is consumed in the

10:52 aggregate for finance and dealing with the inflation that we're dealing with right now is we don't know what the future holds but if it is sustained we will fall further behind and when your main revenue source is capped we need to stay current with these other uh fees and so i just want to add that to your uh deliberations this evening leonard thank you sean um nate i i certainly don't want to pass on an 8.1 percent increase in the cost of living to the public but i also don't want to leave the city services in the lurch either so would this would this money that we're

11:38 collecting from fees for services be folded or routed right back into services we've done a lot of these and we haven't actually done an analysis of whether with their full collection i can say for instance on the planning side i know that that full collection because we made a deliberate decision some time back to incentivize development within this community and not charge out the full cost of those services but in other areas our intention is full cost we just haven't done that analysis in a number of years so back to um does it go directly to services you know indirectly yes it is part of our revenue in terms of putting together our budget each year that allows us to have the staffing that we need them to

12:23 perform a lot of the services that these are tied to does that answer yeah that that answers my question i i certainly don't again let me reiterate i it kills me to put the the tax burden on the public but i also don't want the quality of our services to suffer so i um i am regretfully in favor of passing the full um the the full cost of living on um that's what i got cory all right so i want to preface this by saying i know that this would what i'm about to say would probably take a lot of capacity and a lot of work however have we considered um weighting

13:08 the increases or looking at as opposed to doing a flat 8.1 kind of looking at the different services individually and seeing if there's a way we can um both be considerate about the burden and who is paying it and also um see where are places where we could maybe go to four percent or one percent and i know that maybe you just can flat out say we do not have the capacity to do that but it would be a way to look at it as opposed to just across the board flat eight or three or whatever but to look at those services and think about the use and the ability to pay for folks who would be using them if that makes sense

13:57 i would say if unofficially there are some of the directors take that opportunity within their department to look me with their budget analysts and see what their revenues are in their costs so i think planning was a good example they will usually go to the maximum allowed increase i've seen our library director when she returns the fees talk about we'll hold this one flat this year this one's fine to keep as it is um you maybe speak to courts how they kind of operate but i think each director kind of takes a hands-on approach with the with what their staffing limits are yeah and with court some of those are dictated at the state level and we don't have that control over them you know with others you know we don't apply these necessary as a flat across the board a lot of our fees are in smaller increments and rather than get very odd sizes we will sometimes kind of pay attention to this and then do more sort of incremental

14:43 jumps every few years to try to keep us in pace with uh the inflation so to a certain degree we already do that um i i'm not familiar enough with the individual fees in here in terms of how much work it would take to start breaking each one down and say okay who's paying these how do we feel about their ability to pay and why not a lot of times it's just easier to apply a inflation index from purely a staffing convenience level so um so one of the questions that i had sometimes we see these in two sets of fees right so one of them would be hey here's a set that is a cpi adjustment and then a different set that you're

15:28 recommending you know um either con you know cost containment adjustments or a separate set are we getting one set of fee increases this year are you asking us to consider two sets is there another one that's sort of behind this there'll always be multiple sets because it's just not a one size fits all but it's easier to do this when we know that the sort of driving rate is an inflation index and then as we get to each of those fees working with departments we kind of come to the proposal that we then bring in front of you but the knowing that the driving fee is eight if you know if you want us to still move forward kind of with that and to implement eight percent where we can

16:13 where it makes sense uh and you know we'll apply discretion right so the proposal we would see in a few weeks would be you're going to take the number that we choose and sort of apply it across the board and then you're going to make some adjustments to i don't know let's say give it a sanity check to see that it you know we're not charging people weird sort of weird fees yes exactly i would clarify uh santa pac has their own feed process you'll see that one separately and then our storm water and wastewater user fees you'll see separately but all of those plus these fees become the master fees and charges schedule so there will be a few different feed books you may go through just so it's clear okay but we're not going to see we're not going to approve a number tonight and

16:58 then you're going to go back and you know say at eight percent and then making another adjustment on top of that correct and then correct me if i'm wrong sam but let's just use one very large uh b structure that we have it's for our sdcs i believe our sdc's will most likely have the 8.1 percent applied okay anybody anybody else might i'm not seeing hands go up you guys are quite much tonight my preference would not be go to eight percent instead just try to keep it at that five percent level and kind of choose a number that's a little bit in between and go a little bit more conservative this year

17:44 inflation is it's a tough one i know we've gotta recover uh we've got to recover costs but we have to do this in a way that makes some sort of sense i'm starting to see some head nods um the other thing nate that i think is you know is important the next time we see it you rattled off four or five uh uh fee increases that we had is you know that make up the whole master the master fee schedule if we can just get the bracket at some

18:30 point of hey roughly here's the increases that we've approved so people can understand you know kind of the broader context of what we're doing sometimes they come to us in you know sort of onesie twosies right and we lose sort of site that we've got storm water and wastewater and santa pac and the inflation adjustment out there and i see stan modding his head so i think he has an understanding of exactly what you're asking for yeah sorry for taking no service that makes sense mayor no problem okay corey can i i just want to piggyback on that which loops back to what i said um originally which is and maybe you already have this but i also would like to just know who is who is who's making those payments like who's responsible because that impacts how i

19:16 think about it too um especially looking across overall um because if it's you know an individual who's using the library you know doing all of these things it's just it it feels like the impact on folks is something that matters as well leonard thanks sean um i'd also like to piggyback on councillor rodley's first remarks and just ask if it would be possible to break down the increases and or actually the impact the uh the economic impact of the raise uh the rise in rates for commercial um establishments

20:03 as of as opposed to residential accounts um is is it impossible for the uh the financial department of the city to make that sort of a make that sort of a breakdown yeah we would have to look at the commercialization look at maybe this year's permits and try to trend within permits number of permits and then what that increase would probably do um without making the number as much as the kind of confidence level i could give you this moment i'm not sure anything if you've done something somewhere before even a thought but it could be done with a little bit of here's our parameters of what our assumptions were based on we think next year will be like yeah go ahead and no i i'd like to see that if that

20:49 breakdown is possible um and i just kind of want to mention too in this um if your memory uh you know of this uh schedule it's a pretty large schedule uh with a lot of fees and so just kind of breaking it down i'm trying to kind of work this in my head how we might provide this information to you but um i would say sort of the largest um you know group that is is paying these fees is the development community the majority of them are associated with development maybe take a step back counselor stare my mind went to development first or residential development for commercial development but are you saying residential as in like what police

21:34 impact on citizens library like residential is a individual person's impact by these fees or residential developments the the um the first one i i was looking for res uh the the impact on people who live in springfield as opposed to people who do business in springfield okay yeah let me make it a little more a little murky but i can look into that for you no problem thank you okay so i know that there's questions from from both corey and leonard about that um so i think we're looking for probably and i'm looking at you cory and leonard probably more like 75 percent certainty sam this doesn't necess you know have to be that 99.99 precision level i think what they're asking is ultimately sort of

22:20 more directional by nature to try to understand where these costs are are hitting folks thank you that makes sense yes correct thank you and then when i know you guys are coming back in a couple of weeks um but that that should be the place when we we're going to see the actual schedule with the new proposed fees attached to it so that we can actually kind of look uh look at individual fees and and ask about them correct yeah you all are pretty busy so it'll be more like early may um but it'll be that time you'll have a much longer session review the fees and then a follow-up to adopt the resolution so you'll see the old fee and the news and i think as you work your way to the schedule it'll be pretty um

23:05 evident of who's paying those fees do you need any other direction are you guys good i think we're good uh 5 and some understanding of the kind of impact on classes of individuals all right great thank you guys thank you thank you all right i'm gonna adjourn the work session and then we are going to reconvene at seven o'clock

24:02 i'm going to call the regular session of the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here counselor he's going to be late for a couple minutes counselor here council radley here councillor stare here sponsor woodrow here and counselor pictionary here thank you and i'll just note for the record that we're expecting councilor pitts any any minute now he's just running a couple minutes late um could you please join me for the pledge of allegiance into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all

24:58 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 testimony there are two 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 to speak card located at the entrance of the city council chambers and give it to the city recorder if you're joining us online with a tablet smartphone or computer and wish to speak either of those times you will use the raise hand feature in zoom the order of public testimony is as follows anyone in the public anyone in person in the council chambers and then we will proceed to anyone who has raised their virtual hand before we call the first item how many people do

25:44 we have joining us neil mayor we have approximately 30 people in the room here in the council chambers and 23 online all right first item please recite him is springfield upbeat uh item number one is the mayor's recognition item a recognition of eagle scout devon madden and mayor van gorden this is your item all right do we have devin here all right come join me at the podium let's go right so i i wanted to take the opportunity to recognize devin madden for earning a

26:29 prestigious rank of the eagle scout and receiving his award during his court of honor on saturday january 29 2022 his scouting attributes include but are not limited to arrow of light 2014 recruiter badge 2016 joining the order of the arrow 2018 earned brotherhood in the order of the arrow 2019 eagle scout 2021 133 camping nights and 153 community service hours along with this incredible list from above devon was also required to plan and conduct a service project to help his local community this year past year after the troop had already placed american flags at the gravestones of veterans for memorial day devon realized that all of those flags had been placed were old tattered and

27:14 needed to be retired and replaced after speaking with the cemetery leadership they agreed to have devin replace the flags and create new holders for the flags as part of his service project devon did the fundraising raised enough money to replace all of his flags and created the holders in this next memorial day may 30th the graves of the veterans will have brand new flags flying in memorial so congratulations that's quite an accomplishment we're really proud of you thank you so do you want you have anything to talk about your uh project before we have these guys up and we'll take a quick picture i just uh i want to thank everybody who donated the money to the project uh there was two people involved gave a lot more money than i thought they would and they uh they really helped me with the project i just want to give a special thank you to

28:00 them yeah and this community is really just service minded and like when i heard this story it was just really fantastic to hear so congratulations and then if you guys want to come up and we'll take a quick picture together we're gonna have to get close like we like each other so stand there that's true here find a hole okay everybody settled

28:45 all right i'd like you like each other thank you guys all right cool go sit down guys all right next item please mayor your next springfield upbeat is 2022 women in construction week proclamation and mayor this is again your item all right and i just have a proclamation to read into the record and then we will get a copy to the chapter in the next couple of days

29:31 so whereas the national association of women in construction was founded by 16 working women in the construction industry in 1953 and was established in 1955 in fort worth texas the work developed by nawic chapter 77 has benefited the state through community development educational programs whereas the eugene springfield chapter has unceasingly promoted the employment and advancement of women in the construction industry and whereas in a wic chapter 77 has sought to achieve successful results for lane county in a cooperative spirit with other organizations therefore i sean van gorden the mayor of springfield do hereby recognize niawic chapter 77 and its many dedicated volunteers who work on behalf and

30:17 support women in construction and proclaim march 6th through 12 2022 as women in construction week okay next item please may your final springfield upbeat is the 2021 groundwater guardian presentation to city council and megan murphy is joined by amy chinetz for the staff report i'm megan murphy city of springfield environmental services analyst and i'm here tonight with amy chenetz springfield utility boards groundwater protection coordinator thank you so much for having us 2021 was springfield's 25th year as a designated

31:03 groundwater guardian community we are thrilled to join you tonight to celebrate our silver anniversary reflecting on a quarter century of groundwater guardianship is groundwater guardianship is an apt time to focus on this year's theme for national groundwater awareness week the promotion of professional opportunities in the groundwater industry according to the american geoscience institute nationally there are more than 135 000 open positions in the industry now because over 44 of the u.s population depends on groundwater as a primary water source including us here in springfield developing interest in the groundwater

31:48 industry is of vital importance groundwater professionals span a wide variety of careers and skills including well contractors hydrogeologists groundwater policy advocates and protection specialists the educational programs that our groundwater guardian team supports in the springfield schools contribute to the national effort to educate and inspire young people to consider a career in groundwater or water resources more generally in a community whose identity is so closely tied to our water resources we are proud to answer the call to promote professional opportunities in groundwater my colleagues and i at the city strive to incorporate groundwater protection into everything we do by cleaning our stormwater runoff with

32:34 green infrastructure like swales and rain gardens we are ensuring that the quality of our waterways and our groundwater are the best they can be sub the city longtown watershed council and other agencies have been working together to improve stormwater runoff at older sites that were developed prior to current water quality standards this work is voluntary for businesses that wish to participate a newly awarded grant from the oregon health authority drinking water protection program will help businesses improve their stormwater voluntarily with housekeeping practices and green infrastructure if anyone would like more information about springfield's water protection programs and projects please contact amy

33:19 at seb or me at the city thank you for supporting our communities protection efforts and happy groundwater awareness week thank you to both of you and hopefully we'll get the pla to see the plaque soon all right i think we're ready for the next item here the next name is the consent calendar i i don't see anything on the consent calendar your next item is public hearings uh public hearing number one a public hearing for the declaration of surplus real property resolution number one a resolution authorizing the sale of surplus real property located at 725 south 57th street in springfield vahana

34:05 keen and christina krabs are here for the staff report i am here in person and christina is virtual so i will start um so in january i came before you at the counselors sorry let me back up nice to see you i was uh so ready to get this resolution going that i forgot to introduce myself the hannah keane city manager's office um it's nice to see you all tonight in person it's been a while uh so back in january i came before you and i requested the authority um to partner with a broker to sell the real property located at 725 south 57th street it is a city-owned property

34:50 so tonight i am here requesting that the council declare that address 725 south 57th street to be declared as a surplus property and if agreed we will sell under the broker's agreement and uh the list price will be 4.95 so i suppose i'll let uh christina kraz continue with the resolution i think thanks fahana the procedure for tonight for tonight is for the city council to hold a public hearing and then based on any input received at that public hearing declare the property surplus by adopting the resolution unlike recent declarations of surplus real property that you've heard recently this one does not already have an offer on it so what you are doing is authorizing the

35:35 advertisement and eventual sale of the property under the terms and the listing agreement um to the best offer working with that real estate agent so if you adopt this um surplus property resolution tonight it would not come back to you for final approval if it was able to be sold under the terms of that listing agreement if for some reason it can't sell um at or near the price that's being offered for then it would come back to the city council to consider other terms all right uh counselor pictionary thank you just a quick question so uh the when when our last work session we spoke about this and we also put some parameters in which we would like to see that property sold out so those

36:20 parameters haven't been altered at all no do it thank you welcome all right any other questions before i open the public hearing right now i'm not seeing any um i'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing um i don't have any cards for this item and neil do you see anybody raising their hand no hands online for this item mayor all right then i'm going to close the public hearing answer mom i make a motion that resolution number one authorizing the sale of surplus real property located at 725 south 50 cent 57th street in springfield to be approved second all right neil could you call the vote

37:06 yes counselor pitts councilor mo yes counselor rodley yes councillor stare hi counselor woodrow yes counselor pictionary hi and counselor pitts all right uh the votes five yes zero knows and one absent next item please you know the next name is business from the audience all right give us one second because we gotta get organized here thank you

37:52 all right so per the instructions we're going to start with the folks in the room first and then we'll proceed to anybody that's online the first speaker is going to be jennifer lee my name is jenna fribley um do i have to give my address and all that on your ward or location in the city um on annexed 1360 tamarack street springfield um i'm here on behalf of the historic commission tonight and basically we just want to start a routine of saying hello and checking in from time to time to give a

38:38 quick update of what we're doing and um so here's the update um we just recently submitted our grant application we do this on a kind of it's an 18-month cycle um our last grant application we focused a lot on trainings um and this upcoming one we have we're going to focus more on some public outreach events and so one of those you may have heard some chatter about so far but we're planning to start an awards program for heritage resources in springfield and there are multiple award categories for that um so some of those are specifically for like restoration of

39:23 physical environmental you know like a house or a window project but there are other categories that are for legacy awards lifetime achievement as well as kind of making history awards so for like a living history so stay tuned for more information about that the nomination will be launching hopefully in the next week or so and then the awards will be presented in may sometime during historic preservation month um another thing we're working on um or we have completed um so a few years ago we did a first batch of these and we've done a slightly updated batch these are postcards about the washburn historic district so it

40:08 shows a map on the front with sort of the walking tour sites and then on the back there's resources about um if you're a homeowner or you're looking to own a home in the washburn district just kind of conveying the responsibility of stewardship that comes with that and how you can find more information about that so um i can i'm happy to leave a pile of them there are some also in the development office i believe in the library and the museum and i sneak them around town you might see them in some of the coffee shops so i think that's it thank you so much thank you next speaker will be june father go

40:56 hello everybody i'm june father gill at 317 30th street in springfield and i'm i'm here on behalf of springfield shelter rights alliance um you all received a letter from us in february so we're just here to remind you that we're asking you to do to plan a work session for to talk about the needs of unhoused people in springfield and so we're looking forward to hearing about their hearing that you will be doing that i want to highlight one of the things that we think would be really good to do that you folks have the power to do and that is to make some changes in the current code that will allow for more types of sites for the parking program right now it's just churches and light industrial sites and the churches have pretty much decided whether they're going to do it or not in

41:42 springfield and so we need to open that up to allow more other places to to make that decision to help in that way there's also maybe to look at some code changes that would allow for more variety of kinds of shelters like the pallet shelters that are at the mainstream um housing project maybe those could be also other places and that needs to be grandfathered in as well so those are just two things the council is actually responsible for and doesn't cost a lot of money so we're looking forward to having letting you have a work session where you can really look at those kinds of things in detail and make some important decisions for the unhoused people in our community so thank you for listening i appreciate all that you do

42:27 thank you the next speaker is joseph brunt my name is joseph bruns uh i live at 6002 main street and we own commercial property at 2750 main street and operates operate a business out of it and i just want it known for the record that i don't approve of the proposed changes for the safety the main street safety plan whether it's widening main street adding roundabouts or race median the last i had heard about this from the city was

43:12 a lady named emma if my memory is right quite a few years ago and another fellow from the city that came down and talked about things that might be on the docket and there were some meetings following that and my last recollection was from a few years ago the mayor had said the previous mayor to come up with some other solutions gain more input from the city and from business owners to come up with some viable options without taking property without doing roundabouts and without doing a continuous race meeting the emx side of that thing has appeared to be kind of taken off from the reading that i've done and it's kind

43:57 of shifted change to a main street safety plan and all those are proposed changes and i haven't been contacted one time by the city about any any input any question about how it could affect my business or my employees or um just the economic side of all the construction that's been that would take place um i questioned how i could back my trailers into my house on main street currently i sit in the middle of main street for a minute to seven waiting for traffic to slow down going west so that i can pull up and then back into my driveway i don't know how i could do that with a raised median i mean i don't know how i would be able to do it

44:44 the the data that's in there that is being used to show the concerns of the safety of main street is from like over five years ago it's like 15 2015 and back it doesn't account for all the added street light that's been added directly in front of our house which is great the lowering of the speed which that speed limit sign from 45 to 35 is directly in front of my house which is great the added crosswalks with the the blinking lights and all that kind of stuff the data that's being used to push this doesn't factor in that stuff because it's all been since this has been proposed and i think the transparency

45:30 of either maybe my words are wrong like the planning commission or the the drive of this you know it's been super poor and i don't approve of it and i want it made for the record thank you thank you the next person is dan roche and hopefully i got your last name correctly dan roche springfield automotive is i represent my business on 2355 main street and i also along with joe oppose the safety project as far as the widening of the main street corridor

46:16 it seemed like it could be more of a fine-tuned crosswalk with the lights there are several businesses that will be impacted including mine with the widening losing viable parking to allow trucks service vehicles 18 wheelers with 40 foot box really bring engines and transmissions to my shop the razor meridian would not access availability for such a task a lot along with the service vehicles that i i need full width or length to come into my service base and i work on a time sub vehicles uh police vehicles um vehicles that require the ongoing community service

47:03 vehicles i mean probably people in this office vehicles um and so on so the the amount of space you you think there would be an allowable more crosswalks slower even lower the speed limit down um but basically it's the amount of space taken it just kind of kills so many business opportunities and employees like eduard says and the um profitability of making a running a business and so on so basically it's i don't do a lot of planning here but it's just the space the space given

47:49 i know roseville next to me there's going to be some business that won't be affected and others will be hugely infected the roundabouts the whitening so if we can have a fine tune i know that it was plan three there was the extra widening there was the middle part and there was the the narrow division or not the um the white the way it is now and if you don't we can't safety safety corridor the way it is now with more crosswalks beautify it and i mean that's kind of why i feel about it all right thanks thank you jeff wing

48:47 good evening and uh thank you for uh giving us a voice um i'm jeff wang i own and operate uh the finish line car wash at 41st and main street um i am also echoing what both joe and dan said i'm opposed to the main street safety project different from those guys i was aware of it early on and was actually uh selected to be part of the uh strategic advisory committee and so i've been involved in the process and and i've been very disheartened by uh the advisory committee because i don't think it was an advisory committee at all um the business members of that committee of that committee were were unanimous we were saying from the very beginning that

49:32 raised medians were horrible for business we didn't want raised medians um we were told very early on that there would be a vote at the end of our three years of of participating in this and um there was never a vote we were never given an option to have any vote um the only options that were ever presented to us involved raised medians from one and one into the street to the other my understanding is is that was pretty much always on the table that that was the only way that they were going to go because that's the only way they're going to get odot funding in federal funding and so my participation in the committee was a waste of my time um

50:17 just like your time my time is valuable and so very disheartening i think a lot of people are unaware of of what's being planned uh we're talking about spending tens of millions of dollars um and honestly there's been no recent study as as joe mentioned earlier and we've got improvements we've got the the lighted um crosswalks which i think are very effective um obviously you're gonna have some people that that are gonna ignore them and you can't legislate against stupid i mean it's just the way it is but they're they're a very effective means of crossing the street letting the motorists know that um that uh somebody's in the crosswalk we've reduced the speed limit there's

51:02 been no study there's been nothing to look at um the impact of that so we spent this money and we've tried to improve main street and and nobody's bothered to to um to study to see whether it's been an effective tool and yet we're talking about spending tens of millions of dollars and um that doesn't make any sense to me at all so i do appreciate your time and thank you thank you danny wright and i live in walterville and i own a business on main street mckinsey feed and pet supply 4441 main street

51:54 the business communication uh with main street has not been good as most of the businesses that we've concurred with have not heard of it have not received postcards or individual calls or any kind of notification they're not part of the chamber of commerce or the rotary club or the senior center or the hispanic club that they went and spoke with we are small business owners that work in our community and we work hard um i was part of the strategic advisory committee also i'm looking for a copy of the letter that was sent out to businesses that said uh you know six to eight feet of my property could be taken and my property values could be impacted i found a document um that was

52:41 created on september of 2019 or two excuse me september of 2018 and it's called the main street safety project and it's scripted what the strategic advisory committee was going to talk about at each of their eight up to eight meetings and the final one was um so business one was project goals talked about coming to a conclusion everybody you know maybe not everybody would agree but we would come to a unanimous decision over it and then it talked uh number six we would talk about a refined solution and meeting number eight we would talk about a draft plan and number eight we would have the final plan and we would have a celebration that was created in september of 2018

53:29 when i was invited on the strategic advisory committee and it was already scripted what was going to happen my time was wasted my my business suffered my pets my kids my grandkids i didn't need to be part of that committee because they didn't care um the main street solutions now says that it is will be safer for people walking biking and taking transit previously it said that it was infrastructure the implementation of infrastructure will improve safety and support business and economic development to me that's a 180 degree turn from 2018 to now where support of business and economic development is not part of the safety plan

54:14 so with that i feel that more stakeholders need to be invited to the table on this they need to be informed we've created a group and we're trying to get the word out so that you guys everybody that's on them on the commission are on the council understands that even though my name's on it and it says strategic advisory committee i do not approve this plan thank you thanks for your time byron davis good afternoon my name is byron davis i own auto body specialties in springfield oregon we also own a big closure repair center called a m auto body in eugene

55:01 um again this is last minute like last time i literally just jumped off an airplane and ran to our little meeting it seems like we get blindsided by this a lot so as a business owner the last two years has been crazy stressful on us we've gave to employees we have this massive tax base that my companies own that we pour into our we pour into our you know our neighborhoods and our city um i was conceived here i was born here i was raised here and now i put hundreds of thousands of dollars back into our community every year with our taxes our land taxes and then to get blindsided by people you know bureaucrats that aren't elected that have probably no stake in it except for a star on their resume makes me sick

55:47 i've never been again no card nothing given to me just blindsided so you know i usually i speak much more eloquent than i am right now um i don't want to be emotional but you guys i mean this it's almost an insult that as taxpayers and all the crap we've gone through the last two years trying to do our best for our employees giving and giving watch our net drop like a rock trying to save families put kids through schools all the things we do as business owners and now we're you know it feels like there's some kind of light at the end of the tunnel and now you're putting us through this again it's not acceptable not from you you you or anybody else on the zoom call you know we we throw our lives in these businesses like i said i've been here my whole life we own a robotic company in arizona we could pack and be gone tomorrow but we

56:32 choose to stay here and you know it's it like i said it's really disappointing that we have to go through this garbage every couple years so you know the people that are doing this plan they have i don't think they have any skin in the game do how many employees do they have do they have commercial properties they've invested their lives in probably not and i would ask if the you know if the council do you it's easy to it's easy to come up with great ideas that don't affect you and we're all for safety trust me we love safety we love springfield what you guys done to downtown springfield is amazing we love it but we can't have downtown springfield go all the way to 71st it's not feasible we all know that so anyways just thank you for your time and and i do appreciate all you guys do i know it's not easy but um as you make decisions coming up

57:18 know that you know again because the last minute we're really trying to organize and we want to hold people accountable for your votes coming forward thank you thank you neil do we have anybody on the zoom call we do okay i have about one minute left on the on the timer so i'm gonna look to counsel that that we're okay to kind of extend the time how many folks do we we have in the queue looks like we just have one hand raised right now okay great okay our next speaker is lizzie utterback and lizzy you should be able to unmute your microphone hello can you hear me okay you can okay this is lizzie utterback from ward 3. i just have a quick comment tonight

58:03 um first of all thank you for allowing me to speak to you remotely especially since numerous folks in the chambers aren't following the public health mandates um briefly i want to remind you that children were killed on main street so that should be the center of this conversation about changes to main street what can be done to protect life i know i feel for the business owners i have family that owned businesses and property on franklin in glenwood they went through this whole thing they didn't think they would make it they did it will be okay so back to the drone program chief shearer presented before you at the january 3rd council meeting earlier this year as in january 2022 and

58:49 mentioned that they had been working on a program on the program for over the past several months but then about a month later a facebook post authored by spd and posted on the spd facebook page says that after over a year of training logistics presentations and legal considerations the drone team has gone live so you may have noticed i'm a fan of transparency so i'm just wondering which is correct has the city been working on the drone program for several months only since chief shearer arrived or for over a year and started under chief lewis which police chief is this initiative from if this started under chief lewis are you relying on the legal advice you was provided and if the city has been working on the drone program for over a year why has it

59:34 taken the city over a year to disclose the program to the public i heard the business owners als also complaining about communication with the city so given the department's prior lack of accountability these misleading statements just continue the growing rift in the city's trust with the public thank you for your time the mayor that appears to be our last speaker all right um so we're going to open this to council response so uh counselor missionary thank you mayor well um i am going to address an issue that that is uh very big right now in our community and it is the main street

1:00:20 project um i have been reading uh literally hundreds upon hundreds of comments from the public on social media i've addressed probably a hundred myself to those folks with concerns um but you know what it bugs me to see and listen to some of the words i'm hearing from these people and what comes out is uh words of insulted disrespected ignored and we don't matter and i want to tell you and the folks listening and the people in the audience and on the online that you absolutely matter you absolutely are being heard and i concur

1:01:05 with many things that is being said because uh businesses you know like our staff needs to know businesses don't always own the property they're sitting on many of them lease that property so it doesn't mean you didn't send out a postcard but you sent it to the property owner that's my guess so they're not getting that word and and frankly um even my understanding was that there wasn't you know there wasn't necessarily going to be nine roundabouts because i was told that that's this is still a plan and can still have room for change et cetera but yet when i read on the plan itself right in the pages it says there will be nine roundabouts and i was shocked absolutely stunned i never remember i don't remember

1:01:51 approving nine roundabouts and then in a conversation and i don't recall i think it was a work session that i was believing at least at the time that there is going to be interrupted areas along the median and then i look now i look and it says in the plan itself it doesn't say that anywhere and now i don't really know i was told by staff there would be but yet i don't see it in the in the plan so as far as i'm concerned there's absolutely no way i can support this plan period until i see us go back staff rework things communicate with the public communicate with the businesses and and find something that will work that doesn't negatively impact businesses

1:02:37 we've said it before and many times we're a pro-business organization this doesn't sound very pro-business to me i think there can be a plan that that is increases the safety on main street and it's about pedestrian safety this wasn't this wasn't about increasing traffic safety it never was it was it was this plan was made for pedestrian safety because that was our issue but now all of a sudden we don't it's not really doesn't seem to be a big point here so as far as i'm concerned we can go back to the drawing board and and come up the plan that the community can accept but for right now i hear everybody and uh i need to hear more and i can't get behind it the way it's written all right um before we go too far kind of down um down this discussion um and

1:03:24 maybe i'm looking for either mary bridget or christina is the record still open for the planning commission this is at the planning commission right now correct uh mayor the record for the planning commission is actually closed it's going to go back before the cl the planning commission i believe for deliberation i think that got bumped to april 5th instead of march 15th and christina might have more um detailed information about the process yeah mayor the um planning commission um closed their record and what all of that all that does for the planning commission is it just caps a point in

1:04:10 time that they can base their decision on so that they're not having to they can just you know touch base at a point in time for them to make their decision so they're not having to continuously re-update their information in order to proceed to their deliberations the record for public comments remains open continuously through the city council's final decision so um any comments that were submitted to the planning staff or on the project website or to city council after the date that the planning commission closed their record come to city council as part of your record um for your decision i do think that it makes it difficult for the planning commission to reach their deliberations if the if the city council

1:04:55 begins their deliberations or begins to deliberate i guess i should say outside of the normal legislative land use process because we do have to follow that process under statewide planning goals and our code and and that's and i think that's the point that um and i that that i was coming to right now so i have a recommendation for the council and then a quick you know sort of explanation for for the folks in the in the audience my recommendation would be if the if the planning commission is still deliberating on this item that we really give them space to do their job and not you know get into a long conversation about this tonight because we don't have the public comment we don't have the plan we're supposed to pick this up and have a and have our own public hearing in may

1:05:40 which will allow us to have all the information in their recommendation um if if we start getting too far into the weeds right like you know it's going to sort of bias the conversation that the uh that the planning commission is going to have for folks in the audience and i know that this is a big topic and i thank you guys for coming and continuing to get public comment about it and we're a long way from the finish line on this item right and i recognize a lot of a lot of you folks and your businesses out there and you're concerned about how this impacts what your livelihood is and i know it's i know it's a lot i i guess i could just i would just leave it at that what i'm asking the council to do is since the planning commission is the

1:06:25 recommending body is simply give them the space to make the dis make their recommendation to us and we are the final decision making body for this which means we will start to you know based on the current schedule open a public hearing to take in public comment over over uh starting in may and then we can really have all the information and get into the get into the discussion about where we need to go with this is a plan i know that we want to end up in a place that both you know protects business around along main street can improve safety and makes it better for everybody and i would just ask for a little bit of patience to let the let the other body finish and then we will get the information and then we will start diving into it in due time so i

1:07:12 really appreciate you guys coming i i understand danny but we're not we're done with public comment um all right leonard uh thank you sean um i'd like to thank jennifer blee and june father gill and lizzie utterback for their comments and also the testimony of byron danny jeff dan and joe i just wanted to echo what my colleagues have said just about the fact that i'm sure the planning commission and the council intern will be giving prime consideration to the interests of the businesses along main street the goal is to balance the

1:07:58 safety of the public in both the bike fed public and the motoring public with the business interests of the owners on main street so thank you for coming out and i assure you that we take your testimony very seriously merrily uh yes i just want i wanted to say thank you the folks that showed up to make their comments about maine street i've talked to a few of you personally um before we got to this meeting and i just it's important for us to hear from every one of you uh no matter how many times you want to get in touch with us and let us know what you think and what you're and what you're encountering um the only way we're going to get to a final spot uh and work our way through the process

1:08:44 is to have all your input and i don't feel like i don't feel like we have it all right now and or haven't had it and i don't want you to be discouraged and feel like you're not being heard i want you to step up speak out let us know what you're thinking let us know what your concerns are if somebody approaches or encounter or gets out and talk to get a chance to talk to you respond let them know what you think there may be people getting in contact with you asking you questions asking you what your concerns are let them know let them know what the what they are um but as much input as we can get um the better the final pro the final uh result is going to be um but it as as councillor stair mentioned it council christianarian the mayor

1:09:30 the only way we get to that is to go through the process and make sure that we do get all the information that we should we should have so thank you for stepping up and and speaking out tonight and and uh don't stop thank you steve i wait till last because all the other counselors i like what they're thinking and where they're going for you people your public testimony at these meetings is very important that you guys came tonight i heard you and uh meeting some of the meetings that you guys went to you said weren't worth it they were worth it because when you came and told me what you went through i learned what was going on so thank you for that i support you and

1:10:15 we're going to work we're going to find a solution that will please everybody and that's it corey i'm the last one um i also just wanted to um at the risk of just doing things i really appreciate when folks come and share where they're at um and how they're experiencing things and it gives us an opportunity to um hear what's being said hear what's being shared and just to reiterate that this has been a long process and one of the things that i'm gathering from the testimony is that things have shifted and changed because the world has shifted and changed and so it's an opportunity for us to to bring all those voices together and try to figure out

1:11:00 where we're going um so i appreciate the patience and also as counselor woodrow said please continue to share whether you're sending emails or you know wherever you wherever you stand on the issue it's helpful for us to have the full dialogue around it so thank you to everyone who's participating next item please next item is business from the city council you have several items items number one committee appointments budget committee appointment and nathan bell is here for the staff report nate if you can just hang on a second we got uh we got a couple of folks exiting

1:11:45 since they're since their item was over and then i was coming to the portal so i missed the introduction but i think this is for the budget committee appointment that is accurate real quick thank you very much the troops to come in both the girl troop and the boy trooper recognizing devin eagle thank you so much thank you

1:12:37 all right nate we are ready to go everybody has uh cleared out well uh good evening mayor and council um i'm covering the site with neil o'brien [Music] um what i'm bringing forward is a budget committee appointment for ward 6. the occupant of that position was paul selby and he completed his three-year term we allow for two consecutive three-year terms so he was uh we posted this position as we do at the end of the turn um to all applicants in ward 6. uh he applied and he was the only application received and because he has served on the committee previously we're bringing this straight to you as an appointment um and with that i'm going to turn it over

1:13:28 steve are any other questions no motion and make a motion we appoint paul selby word six to the budget committee with the term expiring december 31st 2024 second all right it's been moved in seconded neil could you call the roll please yes councillor pitts counselor mo yes council rodley yes sponsor stare counselor woodrow yes and council missionary yes thank you motion passes five to zero with one absent next item please next item is the committee appointments community development advisory committee appointment and aj nidis has the staff report

1:14:15 council i'm here um on behalf of aaron feifield um we have prepared the ratification for rebecca kashiro as instructed in last week's work session i make a motion that we appoint rebecca cashiero to the community development advisory committee to finish out the term of a vacated position with the term expiring december 31st 2023 second all right neil could you call the role please yes counselor pitts counselor mo yes council rodley yes councillor stare aye announcer woodrow yes encounter pictionary all right motion passes five yes zero no and one absent next item please next item is another

1:15:02 committee appointment historic commission applicant appointment and aj nidis is here for the staff report good evening again i'm here on behalf of melissa courinho and we have brought the ratification for taran wood to the historic commission based on last week's meeting i make a motion that we appoint taran wood to the historic commission for a four-year term expiring december 31st 2026. second all right neil can you call the role please yes councillor pitts councilor mo yes councillor rodley yes councillor stare aye councilor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary hi motion passes five yeses zero knows one

1:15:48 absent next item please next item is your last committee appointment it's the museum committee applicant appointment and aj knightis is here for the staff report we asked that you ratify david schmuck to the museum committee according to last week's instruction i make a motion that we appoint david shmoop to the springfield history museum committee with the full term expiring december 31st 2025. i listened to him the other day and i'm very impressed with that man [Music] second all right neil could you call the roll please yes counselor pitts counselor mo yes counselor rodley yes counselor stare aye counselor woodrow yes encounter pictionary

1:16:33 all right motion passes five yeses zero knows when absent next item please next item may or any other business from the city council is there any other business i had one quick item on there's a piece of uh property that is on the sub agenda for this wednesday which is well coming up for their board meeting it is a p um it's these property on 16th and q street i know corey and i have talked about it before um and they're discussing whether or not to exercise their right of first refusal based on a request from the city and i'm hoping since i have to go to another meeting that one of the counselors could call into that testimony or call into

1:17:19 that board meeting and give testimony asking sub not to buy this piece of property from us so that we can use it with and connect it in into another affordable housing project when is that wednesday i believe 5 30 it might be six we can get you the information all right let's do it i will okay that is the only thing i had next item please next item is business from the city manager the first item is senate bill 5561 grant agreement resolution number two a resolution approving a grant agreement from oregon department of administrative services for one million dollars for housing programs or services

1:18:04 sam kelly quatro is here for the staff report thank you neil good evening again mayor council i'm here for you quickly with a resolution for your adoption uh this is to accept the million dollars from das this is for the um in ambiguous uh housing and homeless services uh quick reminder that aaron field will come back to you all later with the list of projects again and identifying funding sources this is simply an administrative step to begin accepting the funds and get that process going but we've not identified projects spending this money yet they make a motion they approve resolution number two approving a grant agreement from oregon department

1:18:50 administrative services for one million dollars for housing programs or services second neil could you call the roll please yes counselor pitts counselor mo yes counselor rodley yes counselor stare aye counselor woodrow yes encounter pictionary all right motion passes five yeses zero knows one absent next item please any other business from the city manager no further business this evening thank you any business from the city attorney no business tonight thank you all right thank you everybody we are adjourned for the evening have a good night good night