Springfield City Council — April 4, 2022

0:07 good evening counselors staff i'm going to open work session of the city springfield city council with roll call mayor van gorden absent counselors pationary your counselors pitts here is there mo here counselor rodley here counselor stare here and counselor woodrow here first item good evening your first item is a development code update project quarterly check-in with mark rust uh good evening council thank you and um i would like to share my screen if

0:53 that's all right just a couple quick slides that i show every time in case the for the viewing public like to share the project purpose and the objectives but we are here to talk about the development code update project tonight we are at an exciting point where we are have moved beyond the planning commission public hearing process they have made a formal recommendation to you for the city council to consider as part of a public hearing that will be coming up on april 25th this will be a joint public hearing with lane county board of commissioners due to the extent of the code changes also impacting some of the lands outside the city limits inside the urban growth boundary but just to back up for

1:39 a moment the purpose of the project here i'm not going to read it but i do like to share it in case people are viewing the meeting later these are both of the purpose and the objectives i'm sharing are part of the community engagement plan which is available on the project web page and the objectives here listed as well tonight is going to be a fairly brief recap of kind of where we're at just 15 minutes and hopefully leave some time for questions within that 15 minutes so i'm going to move pretty quick and kind of just touch at a really high level this is the project schedule i do share every time as well this red line indicates we're here at the beginning of the second quarter of 2022 already we've been at this project now for

2:25 just at three and a half years we've made a lot of progress as you've seen in the packet tonight which we're not going to obviously go through all those materials but i think there's roughly 500 plus pages of code so with that i will ask whoops don't want to go there yet i will go ahead and stop sharing my screen here for a little bit the city attorney's office would like to ask the council to go through the conflicts of interest statements i think at this point and mary bridget may want to weigh in the historically or typically at these meetings we've been doing potential conflicts of interest i think it sounds like now that we're into the beginning of the public hearing

3:10 process in front of the city council the city attorney's office would like both potential and actual conflicts of interest so mary bridget yeah i get thanks mark i can speak to that a little bit so the hearing process has started at it's at the planning commission level and we'll move on to the council now that you're in the hearing process instead of just declaring a potential conflict of interest we'd like the council to consider if they have a potential conflict of interest because they're a property owner in the city or if they have an actual conflict of interest because they know that the code will affect a development that they plan to do a development that they know they want to do now so that's just the one change so just like every other meeting on the development code if you could each go

3:56 through and say whether you have a potential or an actual conflict of interest and if um counselor mo if you just want to go by start with yourself or go through ward whatever is easier for you okay steve oh i'm counselor for award two and i have a potential conflict of interest but no actual uh leonard ster ward four i do have a potential conflict of interest as a property owner but no actual conflict of interest cory rod we're going all over the place i guess so cory rodney ward three i have a

4:41 potential conflict of interest as a property owner in springfield and then next could be um counselor pictionary since you're in the room if you'd like to go next and then the next two counselors who are uh participating remotely sure uh joe pissionary ward six i have potential conflict of interest with properties in springfield and i have no actual conflict of interest at this time whichever maryland council for ward 5 i have no actual conflict of interest and a potential conflict of interest

5:31 uh damien pitts ward one uh no potential or actual conflicts of interest great thank you all i appreciate that and so just to jump into a couple high points like i said uh leave a few minutes here for some questions but so the for the planning commission did make a formal recommendation to you tonight that is included in your packet it's a order and recommendation i did want to note we don't have the votes recorded on the bottom of that order and recommendation i did want to share that it was not unanimous one um planning commission member was absent that night but otherwise it was five yeses and one no um passing that order and recommendation

6:17 so the one no i would just say that was one of the planning commissioners that did share four position papers as part of the information impacted through the deliberations process i will plan to include those position papers from the one planning commissioner in the packet for the city council's public hearing just high level topics though for those four position papers included you know statements on the state rule making process as one the second one was just public input in general the third one was in regard to solar access standards and the fourth one was the neighborhood impacts affordability and equity so those topics were addressed in through the

7:02 deliberations by staff as well you'll see also as part of your packet tonight a supplemental recommendation so this is outside of the formal recommendation the planning commission felt it was important to express some other topics and some concerns that they wanted the city council to be aware of in that have come up throughout this process i think those four position papers that i just mentioned um have to some extent been built into this supplemental recommendation as well i would say a lot of the deliberations even the testimony um focused around the new middle housing rules even though middle housing wasn't even conceived yet at the time we

7:47 started this development code update project it definitely took a large role once it did come through the state legislation legislative session and became law to incorporate it into the ongoing development code update so with that just a reminder we are on kind of a tight deadline we've been plugging away at this thing and with the specific to the middle housing laws at the state level we are required to have those enacted by july 1st so we feel we are on schedule to do that hoping that the joint city council and board of county commissioners public hearing process goes relatively smoothly i would say with

8:32 some tentative dates for adoption potentially by the city council in mid to late may would put us in time to put the july 1st effective date without an emergency ordinance and so with that really we're just looking forward to the april 25th joint public hearing we do plan to conduct a work session with just the city council that night prior to the public hearing the county's process is a little bit different the night you will hold the public hearing will also be your first reading of that the county is required to do a first reading prior to the public hearing at least 13 days prior so we are actually going to the board of county

9:17 commissioners next week on the 12th to conduct a work session with them and have them consider their first reading so the materials are in front of the board accounting commissioners at this point as well the the extensive code sections that are in front of you tonight will be slightly different at the public hearing there have been some changes identified to just some kind of typos and different minor changes that we'll point out at the public hearing but will be the the draft before you tonight is the planning commission recommendation draft there will be some additional edits to that draft for your consideration at the public hearing so with that i'm going to leave hopefully five minutes here for

10:02 any questions or i could elaborate on any of the information i provided so i know sandy's going to kind of talk a little bit more about some of the other implications to middle housing from house bill 2001 with you in the work session following this one tonight so anyway leonard um mark thanks for the update so um do you believe that the draft that we've got in the uh in our packet is in compliance with the middle housing legislation including 2001 yes it is okay we strived very much to get it to be that way i would just elaborate a little bit and say there are a couple areas

10:47 where and we note this in the board memo or the packet memo to you tonight that there are a couple areas that are providing a little bit more flexibility than were the minimum required by state law for house bill 2001 mental housing just one quick example is allowing the flexibility of having plexes so duplexes triplexes and fourplexes actually be detached units on a lot rather than having to have them be attached units so that's just one quick example of where we're proposing a little bit more flexibility to provide more housing hopefully thanks for the diagrams by the way that made things a lot clearer great

11:36 so i'm wondering on the um 14 units per net acre maximum and you indicate there's a 3 000 square foot minimum lot size so that used to be 4 500 or 4 000 right that's correct and so is that something that where'd that number come from who dreamed that one up is that or is that and the legislation itself no that's as a result of our own code so actually to meet that 14 units per acre maximum density there's no way to reach that maximum density with a 4 500 square foot lot size so we have in our code today the pre-existing code a zone that we call small lot residential

12:21 that includes 3 000 square foot lots that was a prior process years and years ago maybe even a decade ago to implement our comprehensive plan as required by state law so basically what we've done to simplify the code is just eliminate that small lot residential zone which there is no actual land zoned small lot residential the the hurdles to actually get to that were very cumbersome so we've just basically combined the two zones to make it more easily able to achieve that 14 units per acre density by allowing those 3 000 square foot lot sizes

13:06 so you're saying that the 14 unit per acre is the state legislation not what we came up with no the 14 units per acre is our own comprehensive plan that would have been based on years of land analysis when we last updated our comprehensive plan to determine what our land need was to provide 20 years of buildable land for housing in the city again this predates my time with the city i'm not sure the dates off the top of my head but that 14 units per acre is something we would have come up with at some point as part of our comprehensive plan okay so but it's hard to i keep thinking of there was it was 8.5

13:53 units per acre but that was the max that was the maximum or minimum and this is the maximum right correct i do want to just mention so it gets complicated really quick but that 14 units per acre is going to be allowed to be exceeded in the ldr the low density residential zone that it is today we're proposing to rename that to the r1 zone because of the new middle housing the new state laws allowing middle housing there will be cases where that 14 unit maximum will be exceeded we have to allow that number to be exceeded with middle housing that's when they choose to go duplex as

14:39 opposed to single family or for instance cottage cluster is a good example if somebody wants to do a cottage cluster there's no maximum density for a cottage cluster development okay okay merrily dammit darien any questions okay i got one more okay so in in order to exceed the 14 units wouldn't you have to just stack them on top of each other i mean would it be possible to get them without um without just putting them on the i mean putting them on separate stories right yeah um so one of the big drivers from the state standpoint for middle housing uh was trying to encourage smaller unit sizes

15:24 to thereby provide more options for affordability whether that actually works out that way or not it's you know yet to be seen but that was the idea so i think part of the vision was encouraging smaller units so you could build you know a dozen 500 square foot units or something like that as co as cottages on a property and potentially have a higher density without having to go up necessarily but going up would be another way yeah yeah i was just visualizing a 500 square foot unit it's a pretty small unit correct it is thanks okay yeah um you know several years ago we were

16:09 talking about how cumbersome are to go and get a permit so we decided to redo our codes and this is and then the state stepped in and uh this is a completely different different view than we anticipated at the time and at the time we're so we're sort of hoping to make it simpler for somebody to come to the counter i don't think we've done that but that was our intent it was encouraging to be on a phone call with a local architect this morning who is working on three multi-unit developments that account amount to hundreds of apartment units that they see the code changes at least for more of the multi-unit housing is very encouraging and having it be much simpler

16:55 that i think he he kind of said we will be realizing more at least multi-unit housing development but the the middle housing definitely is was kind of a a twist in the plot of our code update project for sure the multi-unit housing was the long long range intent i know thank you for your time i look forward to seeing you about three weeks you you are so knowledgeable about this stuff i've read this i didn't read it nobody really reads it i'm through it i've read every word of it and and a lot of it overlays what we what we already have but there's so many

17:40 new changes yeah because the state mandates legislation right okay thank you now our next item thank you counselor mel uh next item is increasing the affordability of middle housing with sandy belson good evening counselors my name is sandy belson i'm the interim planning manager for the city of springfield so mark gave me a bit of an introduction as he stated one of the impetuses for house bill 2001 was to provide more affordability by encouraging or requiring additional density and hoping for some smaller housing within that legislation there

18:26 was also a requirement that the city consider ways to increase the affordability of middle housing by considering ordinances and policies that include but are not limited to waiving or deferring system development charges adopting or amending criteria for property tax exemptions and or assessing a construction tax so the discussion before you tonight is whether you want to further any of those efforts as part of the city's housing strategy so we have um for system development charges we have been waiving them for accessory dwelling units and that program has been very

19:12 successful the system development charge waiver is set to finish or to expire at the end of june so the question before council is do you want to continue that or change it or suspend any further waivers of system development charges as i noted in the memo we already have in place an option for deferring system development charges as well as financing those and i see a question really yes push the wrong button i had a question on what is considered a success with the sdcs what what if you said it's successful how does that what does that mean

19:58 so for the decade prior to our effort to encourage accessory dwelling units i think we had maybe two applications um two two or three accessory dwelling units built over the decade and within the past uh three plus years we've had over 60. so that's that defines success as far as waving the sdc's for the adus well i think it was a combination of the code amendments that made it easier and potentially less expensive to build them as well as the waiver we had the waiver in place a year before the code amendments and we didn't have any applications for adus when we just had the waiver in place it wasn't until

20:44 we also amended the development code to remove some of the impediments in the code that we started getting applications for the accessory dwelling units i believe that the sdc waiver was a good marketing tool it gets people's attention uh and so it was also successful that way you know i cannot tell you um without doing some kind of a questionnaire as to those that did build accessory drilling units would they have done it without the waiver i don't know since fasting since the sdc's helped contribute to the infrastructure um have we has have we been at this long enough to be

21:30 able to identify if there's any uh um uh negative impact on that as far i mean because with the with the 80 years we're putting more on one lot the lot's already hooked up so are you understanding my question you're not in your head yes and you know we talked with engineering as we were preparing the sdc waiver and as you note these are interspersed throughout neighborhoods they're not concentrated in an area they're already developed lots and so as part of the resolution that the council passed to waive the system development charges it

22:16 recognized that the impact to the funds available for capital construction you know there is an impact but it was absorbable within the context of all of the sdcs that we collect on all development but it is something to keep in mind because if we are not collecting the system development charges needed to build the capital projects um then we either are not going to be able to build them or those costs are going to be more borne by the ratepayers in the case of stormwater and wastewater and with transportation we don't really have other options for funding

23:01 any i this is a way out quite far out question any speculation as to what might be the limit before we hit that point the limit of adus i don't know um does it seem like we're pretty far away from that point or are we closer to it it's okay if you don't have an answer [Laughter] i don't have an answer um i mean i could check back with steph and and and come back to you but i mean in in a sense it's also a policy decision i mean there is a financial component but there's also a policy decision component as to how you want to share the cost

23:47 of future infrastructure yeah i was just curious as to what kind of an impact would would affect the policy decision so okay that's that's okay so you didn't have to have an answer thank you hi sandy excuse me so going through this uh memorandum that you submitted for the work session and you have some specific questions and it looks like you have worked your way all the way down to the property tax exemption spot on that proposal is that correct i hadn't gotten there yet we were talking about the system development charges but i can go on to property tax exemptions no no i'm just trying to figure out how far you got because

24:33 there's there's some questions that i have and i don't want to overshoot you so that you have it you do have a question above where you're talking about the sdc deferrals and the assessment lien process before that you had a question as to whether or not does the council want to continue to waive stcs are we at that point yes okay that's what i thought so i personally would like to continue that stc waiver program and extend it another two years and it makes sense it's working and you you said how many adus have been built i'm not sure how many have been built but we've given permits for over 60. you said over 60 6-0 so and then the graph that you have included in your in your document shows 50 5-0

25:25 well i'd have to add that up again but um to see where the discrepancy is but my understanding is we've um received applications for over 60. okay so there's there's something needs to be fixed there okay because my math comes up to 50 i've done that three times so all right so moving on is that um so yes i do like the adu sdc waiver program and we're talking 60 units compared to the many thousands of properties out there i don't think it's a huge impact and it's not going to break the city and i think it's a move in the right direction in regards to housing uh even adus can be put and built at different price points and that's my goal is to have housing available at all price points not any single price point um moving down is where you you indicated that that the um

26:16 the staff believes that sdc waiver programs should be very focused so and then you you move on is where it almost seems as though if we increase the amount of waivers because it's it appears as though you're trying to kind of open that up is that not also going to increase or decrease the amount of funds collected by the city and exasperating a problem that you indicated that it may we may be having so it seems like it's you say one thing on one side saying hey we've got to be careful about the infrastructure result of reduced sccs but then you want to add some other projects that will have those stcs waived so i don't know what what the and

27:01 merely was hitting on it and i'm just going to approach it a different angle was that at what cost to the city does your proposal what costs the city will it impact based on the proposal if what you want because it says staff believes they they want this how much would it cost the city so staff's recommendation is to stop the waivers for system development charges for accessory dwelling units so to to no longer allow the waivers for adus after june but to instead focus the sdc waivers on housing that is guaranteed to be affordable to income qualified households

27:48 okay so um i i happen to think that the the adu stc waiver program is a good program it's been successful and i like to see it continue it's not hugely financially impactful to the city but it has resulted in an increase of housing and and also increase of residence on a single lots so our density has been helped with that so to answer your question yes i want to continue to wave sdcs and take a look at what you're talking about for the housing developments so i i'm i want to come at this even from a little bit of a different angle

28:34 when i read it my understanding was around um us no longer offering the cdcs for the adus but i want to just i'm interested in your opinion around this because what i'm getting from this around the comments around with the changes in the development code the encouraging folks to our folks will be able to build duplexes and triplexes whereas prior to the development code they the the only way to increase density was to um add an adu so am i understanding that correctly okay so what what i'm what i got from this is the reason for the switch is to

29:20 to think about encouraging folks to be building duplexes and triplexes instead of adus or in addition to just a way to sort of switch where we're sort of putting the encouragement and so i'd love to hear you just talk a little bit more around why i mean i have my own my own sort of biases and opinions around why i think that is but i would love to hear you say why do you think that that's the direction to go in in terms of encouraging us to if we're gonna build density um to encourage folks to by offering an incentive to build duplexes and triplexes does that make sense my question yeah and stuff is not encouraging um waiting uh sdcs for those other middle housing

30:05 um but part of the reason that uh we're moving away from the adus is as you say there's really not much distinction anymore with the code changes between an adu and a duplex if you can have a detached duplex in adu is basically a certain type of duplex uh and so the distinctions between these different housing units um become less and as i was explaining in my response to counselor woodrow you know that the sdc waiver alone was not sufficient to get adus it was the code changes that really made the difference so i would like to see what the code changes actually do with the market how the market responds to those code changes

30:51 we're opening the door a lot wider if we start waiving sdcs for all the middle housing that could that's a whole lot more potential for housing units and it could really have an impact on our infrastructure and so that's in part why we're a little concerned about trying to identify what middle housing would be eligible because it's such a broader universe and there's a a real need to meet the housing of the that really the lower income the very low income housing options are really lacking in our community and so that's why staff was thinking if we're going to have a program let's focus it on those housing units that are either affordable for purchase or rent by the lower income

31:36 segments okay sandy i'm not sure you were through with your presentation yet but we're firing questions at you like crazy so merrily and i've got joe and leonard all have questions also so if you want to finish that's okay or we can ask questions now is that okay i think it's great to dive into this topic and then when we're done with this one i'll move to the next go really um yes i clarify for me because now now you've got me a little confused are adus available for rental yes okay so i'm looking at the adus as a step one a level one uh opportunity for

32:21 extended family um uh and and and and a low income affordable place uh with minimum square footage for somebody to be able to use as a domicile and i think that waving the sdcs in order to have those opportunities on a lot are great to me a duplex is a much more complex larger um uh dwelling or uh or um i can't think of the word i want but anyways it's it's larger it's more complex it has more uh things in it and and would be probably more expensive to rent

33:06 and so you know if somebody were setting things up that way um i like the level of the adu being being an opportunity i like it being separate from and if it requires a distinguished distinguishing uh phrase or definition in the development code or in the policy i would be in favor of that as opposed to getting rid of the distinction i think i think the distinction is important um and like i said especially in regards to trying to find different levels of uh income and different levels of being able to have residences i think the adus are a very important element and i think i agree with what you said as far as the

33:51 the waving of the sdcs and that too but it's also the timing of it is also uh very um very real and the people all of a sudden realize that they could be they could have them they could have and so in coordination with the stc's they took advantage but i think that there was more elements to the fact that and i love seeing those high pillars on the on the graph and so um i you know especially with the with the cost materials and everything going on right now somebody may start out with an adu and decide to expand it later but i think i think having our aid use continue and especially continuing with the waving of the sdc's and we could do it that way and stc uh um i'll say this

34:36 and i'll quit let somebody else talk the adus can get the waived secs if you're getting into a more complex um property edition you can have you can still have the sdc's on the duplexes triplexes four practices cottage um but you could still waive them on the adus so i'll quit now on councillor woodrow you're right that the adus are limited in size there is a limit to 800 square feet for the adu and there is no size limit on a duplex so you're correct in that thank you okay missionary you before me leonard i'm i don't know i um okay okay oh sure all right thank you uh so

35:23 don't get me wrong when it comes to i don't oppose expanding the sdc's program as opposed to what you termed as refocused or and or eliminating adu program so i think we could do both i don't think that the adu program has been such a financial impact to the city that we cannot continue to do that my other thought is is that the mwmc waiver is not really a waivers a refund on the stc's paid is not authorized for anything outside of that description of the adu that i'm aware of because i was part of that vote so that is a a challenge because we can turn around and say okay we're going to eliminate the adu program

36:09 therefore mwmc can take that off their line budget item and we're going to introduce this item in mwmc say nah we're not too interested in doing that so that's a real possibility based on the conversations on how we got to that point with mwmc so it you may be basically shooting yourself in the foot in regards to how attractive the what you call the middle housing may not be something that will have be fully supported we don't get the support of sub we don't get we get some support well i'm elaine at some point but that's all directed behind the lane and mwmc was directed towards that small accessory dwelling unit of 800 square feet so you're you're opening up a whole other can

36:54 and we don't know what the other entities are going to do so it may be for naught so i do but i do appreciate and i think that it's something we should look at and explore with the sdc deferral that i've i've been trying to do that for over a decade as regards to okay why can't we do these deferrals so we can get these things built and then when they're sold when that sale goes through be prior to occupancy that that sec should be paid but we ran into a lot of problems with that 25 years ago with the was it the bancroft loans so with bancroft we bid it big time in a city got dumped on with a whole ton of property and guess what our economy picture looks like

37:39 nowadays it's a repeat so that's that's a dangerous uh dangerous realm i think the city's been bit really hard before the assessment lien process that's all great but how how well will that work if we have the same type of economy shut down as we did 25 to 30 years ago with all those properties so i appreciate looking at it i'm not opposed to it i don't know if it would i think there's some real risks involved but i am absolutely not supporting eliminating the adu program the sdc program i am looking forward to and i'm and i'm supportive at looking at expanding that to middle housing

38:26 um thank you mr president um i agree with councillor pictionary that the we should extend the sdc waiver for the adus and um i agree with councillor woodrow that it should be considered as a step one option for housing here in the city and toward that end i would endorse the staff's suggestion that we focus very narrowly on the sdc waiver as a way of making an incentive for lower cost housing for lower cost rents and lower cost purchase of the adus as well we got sort of away from the construction costs here i mean the construction tax

39:16 sandy you know are are we are we going to be talking about that later yes okay so just to clarify counselor stare you're saying you do support an sdc waiver for adus but only if it is um at a certain affordability threshold yes i am i i am for extending the waiver for lower cost adus yes so my own my only thing around this probably not my only thing but my thing right now around this is um that i'm absolutely supportive of adus and all of that um but they are small and it's usually one person maybe two people can live in them and so i think if we're really gonna get serious about

40:02 opening up housing um affordability and you know working our way up to workforce housing the idea of duplexes and triplexes and four plexes you could at least have families in those and so i think if i'm understanding what y'all are asking of us i'm in favor of expanding it to include the duplexes triplex's fourplexes the the waiver with the focus on the affordable you know so it's not like a big bougie townhouse it's more like let's set a threshold around affordability so that we're expanding the options for building um the density housing but at an affordable level if i'm understanding what you're asking

40:47 sandy continue let's go so too many people leonard you made a good comment and i'm not sure how sandy received it or if she heard it the same way i heard it because sometimes that happens differently you said affordable adus when prior to this our program did not have a price tag on the adus and it was intended to where the adus can be built at any price point that would allow for whatever that adu could be occupied based on the market of the area my understanding was that staff had recommended that we focus more narrowly on lower cost adus

41:34 i'm getting a conflict in my mind sandy well i staff is recommending that we focus the sdc waiver program on any type of housing but that meets a certain affordability threshold for income qualified housing so that that sort of affirms what um councillor rodley was saying was that potentially it could extend to duplexes and triplexes and quads yeah and potentially even apartments um okay well i'm i'm i'm fully in favor of that approach before i could even come close to supporting what you're saying is that i want to see what the cost benefit is and i want to see what the

42:19 cost potential cost to the city is because if you're going to say right here and now that we're going to go into sdc waiver program and we have triplexes four pluses etcetera and we have five five six hundred of those pop up tomorrow is this can the city afford that because i can tell you right now there's some very large projects that are going 100 unit project off of uh um out by the tracks off of mount vernon we got 400 units out arcola so what are we doing what kind of impact are you suggesting because it sounds like it could be a train wreck well right now we're looking at 50 or 60 units right i mean

43:04 we got 650 units of adus that are 60 to her but 50 on the graph and so that those numbers are small i totally get that but if you expand the applicability to duplexes triplexes and fourplexes i can guarantee you that number is going to explode i would love to have that problem and how could the city afford it that's that's i mean if we can afford it i don't have a problem i have a problem if that's going to impact the city so negatively that we're going to find ourselves up against the wall and that's what could easily happen get some numbers and see how that works of course corey i think nancy's waving at us to say excuse me and merrily thank you uh counselor mo uh counselor

43:50 questionary i think your comments are are well stated um i appreciate the work of staff on this on this program i think that uh we need some additional data to talk about what the actual impact would be to the city prior to your you know this is a work session tonight there's no you know vote or anything required of you this evening so before we tee this topic up again before council i'd like to have some more data around that mayor lee yes that was thank you nancy that was what was on my mind is that as i started out saying sdz sdcs apply to our infrastructure and if all of a sudden we're going to have three or four dwellings on on the lot or we're going to whatever then all of a sudden we are

44:36 going to affect that infrastructure and how will we afford that if we don't have the sdcs so i would definitely like to see more data that was where i was going was i would definitely like to see more data before we got any further along in this because it could end up costing the city money we're talking i don't know how many properties are out there residential properties are out there but even if even if 25 percent of them decided to uh we we're talking a lot of money that would we would wave um if we could afford it great but if we but i i doubt if we can and i i'd like to see some data uh joe and just on top of what merrily just said is that we're looking at

45:21 whenever you waive an stc you're you're you're requiring the taxpayers to subsidize it and so what you're saying is that when if we look at an explosion of these types of uh increases in size for example going from an 80 thing up to a four plex you're going to have some significant infrastructure costs just to put it in place and if you're waiving those sdcs guess who gets to pay that and i think that the taxpayers that's not serving the taxpayers best interest even though we would like to take as much money as we can from every taxpayers what it seems i'm not about that right now our developers have a tremendous profit motive involved in building bigger units and i think what

46:07 we need to do is just have some sort of a corrective in order to incentivize building these smaller units the uh the the duplexes and the triplexes and the quads and it seems to me that this would be one approach i would be looking i would look forward to seeing nancy's data on this okay sandy you want to go on now so just to recap my what my understanding of your direction is is that um you still want to consider scc waivers for adus as a potential beyond ju beyond june and you also want to look at if we focused sdcs on

46:52 housing units that were affordable to low-income households what would the impact be and what would be some parameters around that i'm going forward and bring both of those back to you for future consideration okay and if you can throw in there instead of like a one year let's look at a two year extension of that so so it's we got some data some case history on that very good so i can go on to the next topic which is the property tax exemptions so we put in place in 2018 as part of the city's housing strategy the low income rental housing property tax exemption we

47:38 have had several discussions although not for a couple years on the tax exemption for housing diversity which is the springfield version of eugene's mukti the multi-unit property tax exemption and so council had been giving staff direction to go forward with that exemption and it's still on the work program when we get time with a new housing analyst to to move that forward if you are still interested in doing so but this is a check-in point on that tax exemption and then there are two others that according to statute you must cons i mean yes that you must consider the non-profit corporation low-income housing tax exemption it would be somewhat similar to the low

48:23 income rental housing property tax exemption but there are some differences and then there is the single unit housing tax exemption so in the interest of time i'll stop and see if you have any questions or interest in pursuing any of those joe has a question yes sandy when we talked about that a couple years ago in regards to identifying areas when we landed or at the time the low-hanging fruit was the downtown area by way of some i think there was some actual borders used for that area and that we asked staff to look for other areas that may be applicable and you indicate it because of the how the employment issues and whatever economic

49:10 issues etc that that other areas have not been looked at or looked have been identified yet and that i am hopeful that one of the highest priorities of this new staff person this would be a good jump off point for that person to identify so we have some more land to look at or more and more or better yet developers have more land to look at so we um you're right that the most recent focus was on downtown because we had not included downtown originally but we are looking at properties along main street uh in the q street area mohawk um and marcola meadows is where i think we

49:55 decided not to do marcola meadows but we had talked about it and decided not to include it so we have main street mohawk q street and then we added downtown so that's what our starting point would be if you want to continue working on that is to bring those back to you um with those mapped out with uh some more detail about what the exemption would look like with some public benefit considerations and such um i would you're still on board we would work on that i would definitely um and and that you mentioned mohawk now that mohawk is the marcola road area correct so it include the old wehrmacht building the banks in that area on both sides of

50:42 um i and what about the marcola road corridor you mean up north of i'm sorry i'm getting north of the freeway north of the freebie freeway towards marcola meadows but south of marcolo mode at meadows that whole strip of area where the arcola road goes yeah we hadn't included that but that's something we could look at adding in yeah there's properties in there that could be developable a bunch of larger properties with single homes on them that can put multi-unit properties or structures on those same pieces of property and and that would also affect what senate bill three was it 348 where they were they decreased the minimum size to divide property tax lots to allow for home ownership

51:28 or homeownership so along that same tact would be i think would be pretty fruitful for that corridor okay yeah if the rest of the council agrees um we can add that to what we would bring back yes please yep leonard yes corey yeah well see we all agree but we didn't vote it's a consensus it's a work session okay are you wanting to consider any of the other property tax exemptions i'm sorry you haven't smoked for a while so uh yeah hi um

52:14 you know once again i'm not super well versed in this but when i think about gateway mall and the lack of anything in there i mean would there be some type of exemption i mean i mean are we talk if we talk about just housing then i mean not everything to say but just you know when i hear exemption i think about when i hear about development you know how can we really redevelop the gateway mall area and provide tax exemptions for organizations that want to house their businesses within the mall uh which i mean i think inherently will increase jobs but then also uh bring up a conversation about how do we develop you know that area i know the lds church is going a little bit further

53:00 down in springfield and just that whole area along gateway there's a lot of space that potentially develop but it can be directly correlated with more jobs within the gateway area especially to the mall so tonight's tax exemptions are focused on housing um so it sounds like what you're talking about would be more in the economic development realm and there are i'm not as versed in that but there are like enterprise zone options and such i don't know if the gateway mall would qualify but that's something that our new economic development manager could look into yeah we're most privately owned i believe yeah and they're they're doing a major replay right now uh that's coming

53:46 through our offices here so they they definitely have plans um i'm not real versed in what they all are but they're basically trying to divide all ownership of all those different stores great uh in answer to sandy's question i am interested in learning more about both the nonprofit corporation low-income housing tax exemption and as i've mentioned before i'm really whatever we can do to help move people into home ownership so additionally the single unit housing tax exemption i'd be interested in seeing what those are and one of the things that i saw in there particularly for that last one was that it's like a 10-year tax exemption

54:32 so i'm just interested when y'all come back if there's any wiggle room in those in terms of how long the exemptions are okay um on the construction tax um i i see we're running out of time here so i just wanted to get this in real quick um it's based on a percentage of the total construction cost it's you can charge up to one percent of the value of the project so that would be the construction value is there any precedent for levying a construction tax based on the sale price of the units that you're constructing that's not um contemplated in statute okay

55:23 yeah that would be a sales tax that would be more of a sales yeah frowned upon i am familiar with the construction tax in eugene and it has repelled many developers and i am absolutely not interested in considering one for springfield i don't think it's a fair tax and it is targeting individuals that are trying to that we are trying to get to do some good in this city and we're we're doing it appears so we'll be doing everything we can to push them away okay yeah i mean any further input on and i heard councillor broadly expressed support for the two other

56:08 um tax exemptions property tax exemptions so i'm wondering if there's a more council support for that and if anyone else has opinions about the construction tax so we have direction as to whether to pursue that or not i'm trying to leave and merely so you you put your hand up there i can't see it it's so yes i am interested in all the categories under the property tax exemptions um what corey mentioned i'm i'm interested in more information on all all those all four of those um and uh the construction tax concerns me as well i'm not overly fond of construction tax i'd like to set that aside for the at least for the time being and

56:53 concentrate on the others um i'm not uh i i want us to be friendly especially in this time right now where like i said with we have no idea when the construction cost and everything are going to come back down um to a more normal level and i just feel like that's one more hit is the construction tax and i'm concerned about we're giving a head nod to that at the moment okay we got two minutes so joe and then leonard okay so going back to the other programs is is i'm not opposed strongly to any of those other programs i think it's it's incumbent upon us to look at always look at ways in which we can improve our community so i'm just very concerned about helping the community so much that it

57:38 breaks us so i really am looking forward to getting some numbers back to see i want to see what the financial impact is for these proposals for each each and every one and i'm a little concerned about the renter the renter program i don't think we've had how many how many rental property owners have taken advantage of that thus far none that's what i thought so it's the program has failed and we got to look at okay why why did nobody take advantage of this what what's wrong with this program and where can we make it work because we know what we wanted to do but we didn't get it so how come and that's that's what i would like to explore okay leonard

58:23 i'm definitely in favor of the multi-unit property tax exemption also known as the muppet um i am also in favor of the uh the a some sort i i mean i i'm not saying that the one percent flat construction tax is necessarily the way to uh to the way to approach this i i would like to bring these back at some point um but i um i have a feeling that the average developer here in springfield is making more than a one percent profit margin so i think that it's probably uh probably not make or break for any of the developers here corey right almost out of time okay and i just wanted to follow up on counselor stair i also am not totally opposed to a

59:08 construction tax i'd like to learn more about what the possibilities are um which will probably come as no surprise um and so i'd like to just learn more about that for me it's not totally off the table it's just like what are the possibilities and can we use it to specifically sort of drive building affordable housing okay nancy if i may i would like to suggest that uh staff uh go back and do some more uh work on this issue uh perhaps bring this forward to counsel in a formal work session um my apologies to counsel this evening i think that we really didn't queue this up as well as it could have because the way it reads it is asking for a determination of counsel

59:53 without all of the information and in addition this is a work session and if we're going to be talking about a policy issue as serious as this it should really be done um in a full work session excuse me in a full hearing in front of the council um and we would probably need to be a more deliberative process it may take more than one appearance before council to have all of that information and i also want to respect respectful of the time that it will take to collect data such as this but i think it's important to think about the other ramifications to city systems sdcs are intended to be paying for the growth that comes into a community yet if we are not able to pay for the

1:00:39 impacts of growth it will have a ripple effect on other programs that we pay for it so my concern is that when i look at the backlog especially in our street maintenance and the percentage of streets in our city that are deemed as poor i worry about the deferred maintenance bill on that so i just want to make sure that we're deliberate in this process i'm not trying to sound negative i just want to be realistic about what the implications are make sure council has all of the information i'm gonna have to adjourn the meeting we're out of time how can you say it like an apology i'm so sorry all right this work session is adjourned

1:01:24 all right do we go right into the other i think we should buy just a journey yeah so move straight ahead all right i'm going to open the regular meeting of the springfield city council with roll call mayor van gorden is absent councillors pitts here answer mo here councillor rodley here councillor stare here spencer woodrow here counselor pictionary president thank you [Music] uh i'll leave with the pledge of allegiance

1:02:14 to the republican republic for which one is under god indivisible with justice they introduced under god in into that back in the 1950s and it screwed up the way that said for years after that and that's another story but i i still remember that okay uh as we meet begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience for joining us by phone or online to please keep yourselves on mute until you are called to provide public testimony there are two times designated for public testimony this evening under public hearings and business from the audience

1:03:04 if you're intending in person please complete the request to speak card located at the entrance of the council chambers and give them to the city recorder if you're joining us online with a tablet smartphone or computer in which to speak either of those times please use the raised hand feature in zoom the order let's see the order of public testimony is as follows anybody in this council chambers anybody who has raised their hand okay uh nancy the next item thank you counselor the next item is for the consent calendar approval i'd like to make a motion to approve the consent calendar second a second

1:03:51 moved in second to prove the consent calendar rule call count counselor pitts all right chancellor moe yes councillor rodley yes counselor hi councillor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary hi motion carries next item next item is a public hearing a public hearing number one annexation of territory to the city of springfield located at 2189 lamond avenue this is ordinance number one an ordinance seeking annexation certain territory assessors map 17-03-25-12 tax slot 4400 to the city of springfield and all willamelain park and recreation

1:04:38 district will withdrawing the same territory from the rainbow water district adopting a severability clause and providing an effective date melissa carino is with steph uh we're going to uh people speak to it but there will be no decision made tonight it's just a first reading so [Applause] business you know are we gonna open this up okay give a presentation now yes can you hear me at this time yeah we do okay thank you sorry about that um well good evening mayor and city councillors good to see you all again uh tonight the city council is requested to consider an ordinance to annex an

1:05:24 approximately 0.25 acre property municipally addressed as 2189 lamonde avenue and 23rd street intersection and the applicants are new property owners of this lot and have requested an annexation in order to connect to the city's sanitary sewer for the current residential use on site there's already a six-inch sanitary sewer connection stubbed to the property in its northwest corner

1:06:13 here is an image of the current zoning and city boundaries the site is zoned low density residential with the urbanizable fringe overlay as you can see it is contiguous to city limits immediately to the west and north across the lowman avenue right of way here is what would happen if this annexation is approved no other zoning changes are requested except for the removal of the urbanizable fringe overlay and city limits would change i do want to take a minute here to explain the full annexation area as shown here no rights of way were included in the previous annexations of the properties to the west and north in order to bring these sections of rights away into city limits we've added

1:06:58 them to the annexation area for this request so there are no gaps in service areas along the loman lomand avenue right of way specifically for the loman avenue right-of-way segment it contains the city's public sanitary sewer system and the city staff decided to include the entire le monde avenue right of way as highlighted into the proposed annexation area please note that the current planning practice moving forward will always to will be to always include adjacent right-of-ways to the center line for future annexation areas in coordination with lane county there are four criteria for annexations from the springfield development code and that is listed in section 5.7-140

1:07:44 i'll go through each criterion and note how this application meets those criterion so criterion a the affected territory proposed to be annexed is within the city's urban growth boundary ugb and is contiguous to the city limits along its western boundary and to the north separated by the lamonde avenue public right-of-way criterion b policies specifically numbers 27 29 33 34 and 35 from the city's 2030 comprehensive plans urbanization element are met through this application the subject territory again is within the city's ugb and is currently covered by the urbanizable fringe overlay

1:08:30 with annexation the subject property will be removed from special districts such as the urbanizable fringe overlay and service areas such as the rainbow water district and the property would be then included in urban services criterion c policies specifically numbers 29 31 and 32 from the city's 2030 comprehensive plans urbanization element are met through this application if annexation is approved the subject territory can easily obtain key facilities and services from the wand avenue public right-of-way just north of the subject site again these facilities and services will include sanitary sewer connection sub-water and electric service fire protection services from eugene

1:09:16 springfield fire department police services from springfield police department and willamalane recreation district and the last criterion an annexation agreement has already been signed by the applicants the agreement covers obligations for the applicants and for the city including any financial responsibilities the agreement includes details on future connection to key urban facilities and services decommissioning of the existing septic system on site and withdrawal from special service districts like the rainbow water district if the annexation is approved by city council the agreement will be ready to be executed by the city manager and the agreement would then be recorded with lane county

1:10:08 with that i just wanted to bring up sorry having a couple technical difficulties here um bring up that all the annexation criteria have been met and again this is the annexation annexation area that is being considered for approval from the council that is it on my presentation please let me know if you have any questions but also i believe the applicants are also available for your questions as well yeah just a quick one easy one the um on le monde i know that the lot is right around 10 000 square feet and so the whole property annexation is right around 70 000 square feet and i know that that includes the street where the staff has

1:10:55 increased it i just want to know if anything that the staff did that increase that size of that lot is there any cost to the property owner or is that going to be absorbed by the city um so there are no additional costs to the applicants for this enlarged annexation area um in fact the city actually uh contracted and put some investments to getting the service the area surveyed with a legal description as well perfect right so just making sure that their interest was covered thank you sure thing leonard well that was pretty much my question so we're annexing the street in front of the lot um is the intent

1:11:40 is is the intent just to include all of the infrastructure that's necessary to support that lot okay so that's correct yes okay got it i guess i can open this up for public public hearing do i do that yet and then i know the applicants all right well okay that's for later that's after this right that's not that's public that's not for for this this item so i do open public hearing all right

1:12:25 yeah okay open up public hearing on this annexation proposal and uh i have two cards i believe the applicants are also here i'm awkward at this you guys well you're better than i am state your state your full name and the and maybe the word you live in you can do that gail love my address is 22 40 23rd

1:13:11 street so i actually am adjacent to the applicant my house is adjacent um so mine i'm not for or against it necessarily i'm just i was just curious as to how the annexation was going to affect that area that area is part of the county and not actually annexed into the city and a lot of the homeowners in that area actually like that so we were just concerned as far as meeting homeowners in that area that they weren't just going to automatically annex our houses into that so those are perfect comments that you made very good thank you that's it for me that's the context

1:14:21 hi i'm karen bowden 2187 23rd street so i've been in that same neighborhood for 45 years and my concern is annexing into the city you know when stewberg was alive you know kitty corner he got his house so he could be commissioner and all that and you know now then there's another one the habitat for humanity and then the new owners again i'm not for against it i just don't want to be in the city and taxes and and it sounds like you just answered the question previously so is that going to make more people involved in it because all they're doing is just all the neighbors you know and we just don't want to be in a city and why did they have to go into the city

1:15:08 to expand i i mean i i don't get it well i think annexation is left up to the individual property owners so yeah joe and i was going probably out of turn or violate something but they they had a septic tank issue and they cannot build on a tank that was not in a location they thought so therefore they had to get a permit but you can't put a new tank in in the county anymore it's within the urban growth boundary so i had no choice if they wanted to expand they're going to have to get permits and have to go into the city as annexation and i can tell you that our city practice is not going around annexing people's property that's not past practice and i just and i oppose that i mean that's me speaking

1:15:53 and so then when you start just hang on a second i mean i don't know i was gonna say it was a procedural issue right i would recommend that we um have we get your contact information we can uh get through issues directly with staff rather than that's me being told to shut up so i'm gonna yeah that's fine and uh one other uh minor thing let's see lost my train of thought okay so let's say the septic can car septic tank goes kabuy do we pay uh does the city come in it's not this is not the right form for that that's not the right form right okay i understand thank you very much i stepped over the yeah that's okay i appreciate the time thank you would you ask your question we do have your contact information and we will have staff contact you directly based on the

1:16:39 information you give us on your card thank you so much there you go yeah just for the sake of clarity the payload is being annexed at the request of the owners okay thank you anybody else we don't have any virtual um anyone virtually asking to speak to this particular item so you are welcome to close the public hearing at your discretion okay i'm going to close the public hearing they said hit the gavel i've never done that before do it okay here we are there you go thanks i have good guidance here

1:17:30 are there any cards raised for business from the audience do we have any additional questions for our staff melissa carino on the public hearing before we i don't know let me do the best i can here thank you thank you jay thank you joe any additional questions regarding that cut topic for staff i don't have any additional questions but i did want to see if the applicants wanted to share anything if not that's fine just wanted to yeah i knew they were in here but i don't have a card for them so i didn't know when was the proper time to invite them up here huh i would suggest that since the public hearing is closed that we move on okay okay um if the if the applicants would like to speak during the business from the audience portion

1:18:15 of the agenda they can certainly submit a card to the clerk okay sorry thank you no other questions where i'm at where am i at now business from the audience i apologize no i apologize to applicants for getting things screwed up business from the audience i have two cards here and i believe there's a couple virtual people and june father gale is my first card

1:19:01 you have three minutes give your name and get after location gin father gill um 317 30th street brentwood estates one of the last multi-family units built in the in the area 10 years or more ago yes i'm speaking be i came today because i had was under the impression that on the agenda would be the decision about whether to give the money for anne's heart women's shelter or for evert united methodist church to develop as a warming center obviously those are not on the agenda so i'm curious about when they will be on the agenda because i would love to be

1:19:46 here when that decision is made because i just want to know what you decide i want to make a plug though for anne's heart women's shelter and the money to have to be to purchase a house i sent you all a memo about that why we think that's important it would be a wonderful investment of the city in helping our most vulnerable people in our city right now it would be an investment in a new project that it's really hard to get off the ground without some initial capital investment um and if we had that investment from you to have a house then we would be able to raise funds for the operation and the other things that we need to do you have

1:20:32 to have the shelter before you can open a transitional shelter so i really encourage you to take this opportunity you have an opportunity to do something wonderful and we will work our darndest to make sure it happens so that you can be proud of what you did so please consider that very seriously and i appreciate your time thank you thank you next next card i have is right that's june's this is the next one okay carol carol hart if i mispronounce your last name i apologize thank you h-e-a-r-t hi can you hear me

1:21:18 can you see me okay all right i'm carol hart 2147 centennial boulevard and i am here because i have a concern that i'd like to share and i thank all of you for being here i have two goals in speaking to you first is to express my surprise and disappointment at the sudden permanent appointment of chief shearer without any national search or community input secondly i'm here to offer suggestions for positive corrective action on june 6 2021 nancy newton stated and i quote the position of city manager city

1:22:04 attorney and the police chief is probably the most visible and consequential hire a city manager can make end quote also stated in the same transcript quote i would seek out input from various groups in the community that aren't always represented here people that aren't always the most vocal and of course i would include the bipark community i would want to involve the springfield police alumni association you know the one you know there are a lot of voices i want to hear from and quote none of that happened

1:22:50 suddenly we have a permanent police chief appointed by nancy newton without a national search or community input nothing nothing that was stated on june 6 21 2021 concerning hiring a new police chief has happened i feel sad about this because we all know from the millions of dollars that have been spent in the last very few years paid in lawsuits and for the extremely high insurance deductible we now pay because of those lawsuits as well as the fact that even as i stand

1:23:37 here there are more lawsuits that have yet to be settled i'm getting emotional that's my italian heritage um oh man i'm sorry there are more so lawsuits that have been filed and yet to be settled we we in this community have a very serious and troubling pro problem confidence in our city leadership and spd needs to be restored and trust regained and i really believe that's totally possible i i apologize your time

1:24:22 is up my time is up okay well then i didn't get to say my suggestions but thank you very much and um it is a concern so thank you on with council responses i just wanted to make sure that folks know that that oh i thought there was more no more we have additional attendees that would like to testify or provide public comment i'm on the first plane here okay um as of right now we have nine virtual attendees that are ready to provide public comment let's see do i have a card here that i have no no you got it okay i've got

1:25:07 everything okay virtual so we are moving on to our virtual attendees our first attendee is going to be jennifer potter and jennifer you should be able to unmute your microphone hi thanks can you hear me yes thank you all right my name is jennifer and i am a resident of ward 3 and i have two things first of all i'd like to request that council do a work session specifically on helping homeless and very low-income springfield residents who are struggling with housing it's a difficult issue and i think that a dedicated work session would be really helpful to figuring out some solutions for that and

1:25:52 on a different topic well i really do appreciate the changes that chief shearer has been making much needed changes in our springfield police department i am concerned with this lack of transparency and the lack of public input and chief shearer being named to be our permanent police chief uh you know it's especially disappointing given that it was stated less than a year ago that the search would involve the council and the community and then it didn't and it's really not fair to chief shearer so you know even though he may be the most well qualified candidate by not having an open search the community now has no way of knowing if he is the most qualified candidate if

1:26:38 there had been a more open search the community would feel a lot more trust and confidence in chief shearer moving forward so it really wasn't giving him the best start to his tenure so in the future i would like to ask the council to just ensure that we have a much more open and transparent system for making major hires especially a really important hire like police chief thank you i'll yield the rest of my time thank you very much next our next speaker is holly s and holly you should be able to unmute your microphone can you hear me we can thank you okay

1:27:31 can you please say all right there you i got muted sorry i apologize no worries um so my name is holly shaper i live in ward 2. um has another commenter noted or a couple commenters now on june 6th of 2021 after concerns folks expressed dismay at the sudden appointment of an interim chief of police city manager nancy newton spoke at length and made a promise to the residents of springfield that she would engage in a quote very extensive recruitment process that she would be putting a lot of thought into she promised to include members of the community in this process thus mirroring the recruitment and hiring process she herself went through on that june evening less than a year ago the weight of this particular appointment seemed to be understood and

1:28:17 respected by her it is astonishing and extremely disappointing that a mere nine months later with no fewer than four active lawsuits against spd she chose to break that promise and betray the community by permanently appointing a new police chief with absolutely no input from the public there are a few reasons that this is so disappointing first the city claims that dei work is a priority how can that be the case when an executive position has been filled with no search chief shearer has never had to apply for this job there was no search when he initially was appointed as interim to be clear the fault does not lie with him in fact this was a disservice to chief shearer since he may have emerged

1:29:03 as the most qualified candidate during a national search however we will never know if that would have been the case just as we will never know if there would have been a more qualified candidate there does not seem to be a lack of qualified executive level applicants otherwise we probably wouldn't have seen lane community college have so many qualified candidates during the search for a new president at the same time as this i'm also dismayed since this appointment occurred a mere three months after an article in the register guard reported that lawsuits against spd have resulted in 9.16 million dollars in lawsuit settlements in five years accounting for 90 percent of all settlements paid by local agencies with epd and the sheriff

1:29:48 combined paying 819 215 dollars in that same time i really hope the city seeks community input for hiring or promoting spd officers and for chief shearer's performance appraisals additionally i hope the council forms an oversight commission for spd and seeks community input during that process and finally if you are in fact prioritizing dei principles i hope that city hiring policy is amended to mandate national searches for leadership and executive level positions so this never happens again i'm truly saddened by this i thought the city was finally taking steps towards rebuilding trust i was wrong i feel betrayed and like a fool for believing that a promise made by the city would be kept another instance of just trust us

1:30:35 leading to disappointment our next speaker is shay i'm sorry yes shay gallagher star and shea you should be able to unmute your microphone okay there we go hi i'm shea gallagher star i'm in ward six can you hear me we can thank you okay great um i'm also here this evening to talk about the sudden permanent appointment of chief shearer and i have some questions that i would appreciate it if the city council would direct to the city manager nancy newton

1:31:22 to put this on the public record i'd like to know more about what happened here because as other commenters have already pointed out we were given very specific promises uh including uh that she would need the expertise of a professional recruitment firm hired in a competitive process um that there would be a widespread search uh that members of the community and specifically the bipart community would have their input solicited and i don't see that any of that has happened uh and i'd really like to find out why

1:32:07 and where those decisions were made um so i'd like the city council to ask is springfield an equal opportunity employer that prioritize diversity equity and inclusion practices and how has that been shown or not shown in the permanent appointment of chief shearer by not conducting a widespread search have we opened springfield up for more lawsuits on the basis of an eeo or eo uh claim and how have the opinions and input uh been solicited from marginalized and often overpleased parts of our community

1:32:53 specifically bipac latinx lgbtq unhoused communities i understand that a survey was sent out i participated in that survey i have grave doubts that an opt-in survey sent to maybe as much as a third of our community is actually um adequate to the purpose so moving forward i would very much like to see uh that these level positions uh be made from hiring panels that have been formed to include community members i want to see mandated national searches

1:33:40 for our leadership positions and once again and i've spoken to this before it is critical that this city council work to form an oversight commission uh with oversight of spd and that needs to include representatives from marginalized and overplaced groups thank you oh good timing perfect so time is up our next speaker is johannes todayo and johannes you should be able to unmute your microphone hello city councilors uh my name is johannes dale i am a community organizer for springfield alliance for equity and

1:34:26 respect first off i just want to congratulate the amazing incredible folks at the springfield public library for all their work in creating an accessible safe space that feels welcoming emily david kristen cure mindy linder maddie mcgraw and many others they are well deserved in receiving the safer human rights leadership award as well as an incredible grassroots community member who has fought hard in uniting a community and making sure that there are resources and support when in need it's an honor to have granted rosalvo rodriguez the human rights community leadership award in another note i am very concerned uh to see that there was not an equal process when hiring the police chief for our city during a previous city council meeting that happened on june 6 2021

1:35:11 quoting the city manager i think that short uh i think that short of say my position and maybe the city attorney the chief of police is probably the most visible and consequential higher that a city manager can take and so i take that very seriously and another quote you know we have a pretty small hr department this type of recruitment i would definitely need the skills and assistance from a professional recruitment firm i would want to have a process that involves all members of our community i would seek out input from various groups in the communities that maybe aren't always represented here although that sounded promising that did not happen something that the community wanted to see was the city hiring folks based solely on their qualifications in a competitive search where community members from various groups could be part of the process in hiring instead

1:35:57 the process happened without these components we missed out an opportunity to see what the polls candidates would have looked like and an opportunity for bipac and other groups to feel heard on what community members expect from police chief and possible changes that could have been made to build trust with the department for a moment it felt like diversity equity and inclusion was going to be a priority when hiring moving forward i hope to see the leadership from the city to correct and follow up with the community members who came to speak their concerns today i asked the city to amend the hiring policy to mandate national searches for the leadership team in executive level positions to prevent this from occurring again in the future i also hope to see that the community can be part of the evaluation process of chiefs share when reviews occur on performance and ability to engage with

1:36:43 the community i understand that counselors cannot respond on this issue today but i hope you all will follow up with nancy and steve mo you're doing great thank you for your time i'm not running a meeting too well but thank you our next speaker is ac ac you should be able to unmute your microphone hi can you hear me we can thank you okay hi um i live in ward one um thank you all for being here tonight um my comment is for everyone but also in

1:37:29 particular for nancy newton um i am a black resident of springfield and i would like to address the lack of national search for the next police chief nancy you promised me and my people that you would include our voices in a national search and you betrayed us that's all i yield the rest of my time our next speaker is lizzie utterback and lizzy you should be able to unmute your microphone thank you good evening council

1:38:14 this is lizzie at our back in ward 3. tonight i'd like to start by addressing the city manager nancy newton first miss newton since you began your work as springfield city manager i've seen you navigate difficult situations in a professional and skillful manner i've seen you develop meaningful relationships with various leaders in the community and joyfully participate in community events and unfortunately now i can say that i've seen you make a very clear promise and not keep your word i understand it was within your authority to appoint chief shearer as permanent chief of police and based on what i've seen you do in your short tenure here i genuinely believe that you thought this to be in the public's best interest

1:38:59 however the way you went about this hiring was deceitful disrespectful and brings another cloud of suspicion over our city just a few months ago you promised the permanent police of chief position would only be filled after a national search and public hiring process was conducted and of course none of this happened in recent months we've heard from business owners on main street who also claim the city told them one thing and appears to be doing another while these are separate issues it is apparent that misleading the public is common practice within the city and this is unacceptable with so many recently settled lawsuits and the current pending ones against the city springfield clearly has a culture of mistrust and misdeeds perpetuated by some city staff

1:39:46 and leadership council i hope you agree that policies and other structures that provide oversight are sorely needed these provide a mechanism to ensure proper steps are followed and will go a long way in repairing community trust tonight i'm asking that you seek a path to immediately establish a policy requiring a formal search process for all executive level city positions and i'd like to remind you that i support the police advisory committee's recommendation that the city established a police oversight border equivalent committee another example of a structure that ensures accountability regardless of whoever happens to be in charge we can no longer operate on the basis of superficial trust thank you i'll yield my time

1:40:31 thank you very much mo i would like to bring it to your attention that we have reached our 20 minutes so i will need the permission of the council to proceed with business from the audience we do still have four speakers or or four hands raised at this time i i would like to move that all the people that are in the queue be allowed to speak i don't want to oppose it really yes that's fine damian are you okay with that yeah let's do it i am too okay go ahead perfect our next speaker is grace b and

1:41:16 grace you should be able to unmute your microphone hi can you hear me yes thank you hi thanks so my name is grayson i live in east springfield thank you so much for the opportunity to address the council and for extending the time this evening the recent decision to appoint chief shearer in a permanent position raised some concerns for me as a springfield resident and left me feeling bewildered at best and it's been really illuminating for me tonight to hear how much i'm not alone i would like to learn about plans for future decision making i realize the decision has been made now and my testimony tonight is not meant to imply any concern with chief shearer as ultimate choice for sbd chief rather i recognize that there is ongoing work being done and that urgently needs to be done to build trust not just rebuild trust between spd and all

1:42:02 members of our community i'm wondering why there was not a more inclusive search and transparent process for making this decision as has been noted by other city manager newton is on records as saying that a national search would be conducted yet such a search never occurred transparency about what criteria were used to evaluate chief shares qualification and fit as opposed to alternative candidates would have increased confidence in this decision i'd also be interested to know who else was consulted if anyone during this process and who would be consulted for similar decisions in the future the accountability is so important for our public trust given that most officers view themselves as community servants it seems that community input should have at least been considered if not carefully weighed what steps are being taken to ensure that future decisions regarding high-profile

1:42:47 decisions are transparent in order to increase community confidence that democratic fair and high quality processes are being undertaken to ensure that the best candidate was selected also i heard a few other statements refer to the community service survey regarding spd that went out a few months ago now i completed the survey and i'm a doctoral level research scientist and i was quite frankly mortified by the quality of the survey i'd like to hear more about how this survey was designed how it's being analyzed and how it be used to inform future decisions and finally i'd like to second jennifer's helpful suggestion to have a working session focused on the challenges faced by our unhoused community members thank you and i yield the rest of my time thank you very much thanks speaker our next speaker is james hugo and james

1:43:34 you should be able to unmute your microphone can you hear me we can thank you thank you for allowing us to uh speak i appreciate you everybody um i'm actually really enjoying uh steve running the show it's been very nice having some change there um i've got a couple topics i want to talk about and but i'm gonna i guess let's talk about what's been spoken about the last few minutes here um i i agree with all the speakers i appreciate all of you coming out or getting on the phone here like i'm doing and talking tonight it gives me hope that there's people in this town that think like me that want equality that want change um that want to have a fair place to live i was told by nancy last year that

1:44:20 because i i personally as a man who was working on my uh ego every day and my entitlement especially being a caucasian male um i was i'm open to the idea of having a woman be the chief of police and i i brought that idea up last year because there's been so many problems within the department as women being treated really bad as officers since there's been lawsuits and whatever i don't even talk about that anymore but basically i feel that that a strong woman being uh the chief of police would be a great great decision and i'm kind of shocked reading the paper the other day or last week that that they chose who they did but anyway um i want to talk about the main reason why i want to speak and that's the environment we've got a problem climate change is real and i haven't still kind of haven't

1:45:06 seen the city of springfield acknowledge that i think a committee should be created to talk about the environmental issues we have with the businesses the factories the mills um i'm tired of hearing excuses uh from council members larapa larapa larapa you know i'm i'm tired of hearing that so um my suggestion is we get community members like myself to get together with the lawmakers and the elected officials here locally and talk about the environment talk about client climate change talk about how maybe we should look up and pay attention to what we got going on around us um we're gonna have wildfires coming up again you know the city needs to have a good place a plan plan in place for emergencies like that i don't think they do

1:45:51 um anyway i appreciate everybody listening oh i got 50 seconds i'll talk about the housing issues that i was listening to in the city uh work session and my suggestion for through all of you folks elected officials there's really no low-income people represented at the level uh you know as you elected officials um maybe in the discussion in the work session have some low-income people like myself that care about the community and like let's talk about it let's get some input from people because it feels like there's an elite ruling class in springfield deciding where the low-income families are going to live where the development's going to be that's what it feels like it feels like there's corruption in this town and there's a one percent with like religious fanatic ideas maybe

1:46:37 some racism there that want to control all of those folks that just want to work and pay our fair share anyway thanks for listening have a great night appreciate all of you thank you mr hugo next speaker our next speaker is anthony anthony you should be able to unmute your microphone can you all hear me we can hear you thank you my name is anthony reed i'm from ward six on june 6 2021 regarding selecting the next police chief nancy newton said she wanted a very extensive recruiting process she wanted input from the underrepresented folks in our community she wanted to include the bipod community she said she needed the skills

1:47:24 and assistance of a professional recruiting firm at some point between june of 2021 and march of 2022 nancy decided she no longer wanted to include those community members she did back in june she no longer needed the skills and assistance of a professional recruiting firm as for the reasoning behind this dramatic change of heart i believe the residents of springfield deserve an explanation on that process the apparent stance of those responsible for this complete breach of trust could best be summed up in the words of joe pictionary on march 15th in response to a post announcing chief shearer being appointed joe said and i quote very happy to see this i'm sure some feathers will be ruffled but to keep him it's worth it time to just move forward

1:48:09 and get over it again i ask you joe get over what i'm left to assume you mean get over being lied to get over being left out of the decision making processes in springfield and get over the fact that all of the pretty words said by nancy about being inclusive were just words and you all will do whatever you want to do in the end and the residents of springfield can as joe so elegantly stated get over it thank you i yield the rest of my time thank you mr reed i believe we have one more our last speaker is sj lore sj you should be able to unmute your microphone yes can you hear me we can thank you thank you thank you

1:48:54 i would just um really like to echo what everyone has been saying in regards to the hiring of um chief sharer um it did kind of come as a little bit of a shock because i was also under the impression that we were going to be going through a process to hire and um everyone was going to come together to decide um and it's just kind of disappointing considering um you know our last police chief was also an interim and then became the full-fledged police chief and look where that got us so i'm very disappointed in that and then i would love to echo what james was saying about climate change i also and our family is also

1:49:39 advocates for climate change it is something that should be acknowledged and should be planned on coming up with solutions to help combat it um i actually um over the course of the pandemic and homeschooling children and coming up with new ways to be creative and learn as a family i actually had reached out to our local library as well as the larapa organization to try to get more information and see if possibly the library had resources for the citizen scientist programs they've been becoming extremely popular with use to get involved in the community and i would really love it if the city council would maybe look at additional funding for our library having a citizen scientist program would

1:50:25 be fabulous for the young kids and families in our community who are looking to kind of learn more about climate change and getting kind of some hands-on science and having those opportunities would be really great um thank you so much i yield my time thank you that's the end of our public and now we have council response um excuse me counselor mo yes before the council responds i just want to um just do a procedural note okay all right yeah yeah i didn't know you had something but go ahead um just to remind the council that um appointment of employees as a city manager role as some of people have said tonight in their testimony so just

1:51:11 caution you um about responding about that issue uh the appointment of chishir in a meeting that's all thank you and uh council were you going to jump into the house um i thank you uh i want to thank everyone for taking time to zoom in and share their concerns and thoughts and um particularly just in response to june father gill who kicked us off my understanding and i wanted to double check is that we do have a work session planned to talk about um sort of housing and homelessness coming up on april 18th so um and i don't know all the details of that but i have i know we've been talking about these in different ways

1:51:57 and so i think that's around sort of projects in particular and then later in may and i don't know the date we are also going to be talking again or sort of revisiting um sort of housing um projects in not necessarily around um the unhoused but i think that we're also going to be talking about sort of housing strategy so it's we're i'm not lying right may 9th okay i'm looking around am i lying am i making it up i'm not promising anything i'm just i think that i've saw it on our development and that could be subject to change because i know we try to cram a lot into meetings but just that's my responses that we do for those of you who have been encouraging us to come back and talk about this we do have that on the docket thank you everyone counselor damian and

1:52:42 then leonard uh hey y'all uh everybody first of all thank you for your comments uh just want to make two points uh to the black woman that spoke thank you uh you don't hear many black voices and oftentimes the black voices grouped in with this whole concept of bipac which i find super problematic uh and oftentimes other racialized minorities have end up being the voice that represents us and that's never okay uh so thank you uh would love to talk to you offline about some things as far as blackness within springfield uh two uh for the person who mentioned uh low income and being on these boards i mean i don't consider myself low income but but i i definitely empathize and agree

1:53:28 to a certain extent where we have a certain type of person who wants to be on these boards and there's a lot of rotation uh i think in some ways we need to reconfigure power structures as well as attractability to these boards and commissions uh and it's not necessarily based on social economic uh but then also you know yeah i mean i'm all for a re-evaluation of how boards and commissions recruit retain operate and other stuff so we can't get more voices you know as a black trans plan i mean sometimes i don't feel that my voice is as prominent uh just within the state now this year on city council i think i feel

1:54:13 very welcomed amongst the the counselors uh but no i but i do agree 100 uh i would love to figure out ways to get more voices and involved from various uh intersections so we can represent everybody thank you thank you i'd just like to thank uh everybody for their comments june father gill but happy birthday june um carol hart uh jennifer potter holly shaper shay gallagher starr johannes oh i ac lizzie utterback grace b james hugo anthony reid s j laur um we have uh certainly um

1:54:58 listened intently to all of your comments and uh i just speaking for myself as a uh as as a person of privilege and a um and a white male in this town i think that um all of the people in the city council are looking for ways to be better all the time any other counselors which make comments let's see i don't see any then we'll move on next item next item on the agenda is business from the city manager no further business from me this evening

1:55:43 uh as far as business from the city attorney we have item one termination of the state of emergency during excuse me due to cobit 19 pandemic uh resolution number two a resolution terminating the declaration of a state of emergency due the to the covid19 pandemic mary bridget smith on the item good evening council i'm here tonight to ask the council to adopt a resolution terminating the city council's declaration of emergency due to a coveted pandemic the state has terminated their emergency order and at this time we're asking the council to follow suit that it would be appropriate to do that this um termination does allow for a 90-day grace period for some of the emergency

1:56:30 regulations that were enacted as part of the emergency declaration um that's to allow for existing temporary and emergency approvals that were done i do want to take a couple minutes just to highlight some of the emergency regulations and approvals so the council would have that information in case it comes up with constituents many of these items the city's no longer having to do or regulate so for example pcelt had a vaccine clinic that since closed down the pallet shelter project will be brought before the council in a separate matter there is one remaining item which is the expanded intensified

1:57:16 cafe seating that i am looking for council approval or feedback on if you'd like to see additional information about that as you know many restaurants i would say many but some restaurants had expanded their outdoor seating during the pandemic some of this was on their own property and that goes through a separate development process for example if you're gonna have like an expanded patio or something i think there's a couple restaurants in mohawk that did that but there were some other restaurants um a few downtown and other areas that had expanded or intensified cafe seating in the right right-of-way and that's where it intersects with the city's ability to regulate its right-of-way and asking the council if you'd like to see um some additional regulations about allowing those restaurants to keep those

1:58:04 structures that they have in the right of way or evaluate that so two items tonight asking for guidance on cafe seating and then to terminate the emergency declaration i just thought i'd jump in on the asking for guidance first before we get to voting uh i my thoughts around this is as i would love to look at how to continue and expand that and um one of my questions around it are how it impacts sort of um ada and accessibility in terms of people being able to move i know that up and down the street so i would want to just see some sort of feedback on that of how that's been for folks um and i love the idea of have extending it in

1:58:51 places where it would work as long as it's not impacting folks ability to get up and down the street and to have access to buildings and all the things merrily next uh yes uh basically almost the same thing um i would like to i would like to have more conversation about it to know how we could how we could help with that's been set up and how what might be not a good idea but i i'd like to definitely have a conversation to see how much we could we could incorporate that wouldn't inhibit other things um because i think it's a i don't know i think it kind of adds a uh an atmosphere uh in downtown that i think we'd like this i'd like to see perpetuated if if we could do it without

1:59:37 causing any any problems or any trouble okay fair enough all right that's helpful i will um pass that along to oh i'm sorry go ahead joe and damian i guess thank you um no i i think that's great we send the emergency declaration except for the uh cafe feeding on the different rights away and i assume correct me if i'm wrong that we have already addressed those making sure that we have some ada accessibility before we even put that in place and also um agree with the council rodley and woodrow in perhaps even exploring other ways which we can expand that program i think it's really great for the city i'm concerned about safety

2:00:23 issues of course because you're talking about cars and trucks and things but uh i think it's a great program and frankly i it's fun to drive downtown and see people hanging out and enjoying the sun and and having a beer and a hamburger or whatever so i'm a very big proponent of that program and and would not would not want to see it go away so but everything else you can dump next to damian and primarily you still have a hand up i don't know if it's still from before or not but okay uh yeah i mean i agree let's get rid of it uh and as far as like the cafe season i mean i think uh more seats have allowed organizations or businesses to facilitate more people coming in which means that they can recoup some of the finances that they lost

2:01:09 uh during the the main push of covet and so i'm all for it but at the same time i mean i you know i go down main street and i see you know cafe style seating probably leads to more pedestrians and i just think that sometimes there's a lack of respect for people who are who drive down that too fast and all that stuff and then also the parking kind of gets in the way which causes some other problems and i just think we need to re-examine that piece to make it more safe and accessible for all okay well that's helpful guidance i think what i'm hearing is um the council wants to look at this program to have it regulated on a more permanent basis but keep in mind

2:01:54 particularly aga access and safety for all involved those in cars and also the people who are using the seating right okay got it should i entertain a motion for uh resolution number two yes i would like to make a motion to adopt resolution number two second second moved and seconded roll call answer pitts hey counselor mo yes counselor rodley yes counselor chair hi spencer woodrow yes i'm counselor pictionary i'm done great thank you no other business from the city attorney thank you very much

2:02:39 meeting is adjourned i said i'm done that's what i'm in