Springfield City Council — May 2, 2022

0:09 do you see counselor prisoner i'm gonna i'm gonna text him and then we can get started all right i'm going to call this springfield city council work session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts here anselmo here councillor rodley here councillor stair here councilor woodrow here and counselor pationary all right we have two items tonight the first one is the review of city council operating policies and procedures with mary bridget smith good evening mayor and council can you hear me all right yes we can okay

0:55 i am here this evening to talk to you with your annual review of your operating policies and procedures i do have a powerpoint tonight i'm going to try and share my screen it's really just meant to help guide the discussion and then slow me down so it's a little different from the powerpoint that was in the packet but it just overall talks about some of the recommended changes uh the um staff does have some recommended changes tonight mainly to follow up from previous direction about the filling vacancies of elected officials issue that um you all worked out throughout the year and then also changes because of remote meetings um so let me try and share my screen

1:42 and then you can let me know how i do here are you seeing a powerpoint no not yet oh shoot okay now nope nope okay all right well perhaps it's not meant to be now i'm going to look at or i don't know how you've got that whole configured neo is it is it's hiding on a different screen

2:27 it's probably operator error on my part i'm home today so i can just go ahead and um work through the discussion if that's all right that's perfect all right so as i mentioned uh we're here to talk about the operating policies and procedures those are the rules that really um dictate how the council does its business the focus mainly on the council meeting because that's the majority of the work that the council does is conducted in a meeting but these rules also cover items like boards and commissions reimbursements and other council business the charter requires um an annual review of the operating policies and procedures and any amendments need to be approved in a regular session by a two-thirds

3:12 vote um but that's really the only legal guidance that we have for um operating policies and procedures and when you compare these to other jurisdictions they really vary depending on the jurisdiction so there's a lot of flexibility to come up with rules that work for each jurisdiction oh okay um [Music] aj are you helping me out yes i am okay thank you so the first um substantive change has to do with changes in council vacancy so this the purpose of this change and

3:58 this is um found on attachment 2 section 2.3 which is page 7 of 30. if you want to take a look at the proposed language the purpose of this language was to follow up on previous um council direction for how to incorporate a process into the operating policies that deals with how to fill a counselor or mayor vacancy when we discussed this in january the um approach that the council wanted to take was something we called more of a hybrid repro approach which was having some guardrails on a process but some flexibility we based this on city of medford had some language and their municipal code for how they do fill vacancies and then also took some

4:45 from public meetings law the intent is to be flexible but also require the council to declare a vacancy to adopt a process subject to review at a public hearing and the purpose of that is to have some public transparency and feedback about that process so the language here really borrowed heavily from medford but if counselors have any input i'd be happy to take it now or at the end of the presentation

5:30 the purpose in a public hearing and what we expect the product of a public hearing to be um i understand going out for uh for um input from the public in regards to but is that um is it set up to have a say as to what the process is or is it a set up so that the public has a chance to make comments about a process that the council has come up with i'm just not i'm not quite sure what um what the expectations are and what the expectations the public should have in regards to having comments on this

6:16 mayor would you like me to respond or are there any other questions i don't see any other questions yet so if you want to uh respond and then okay why don't we start with marilee's question and then we'll come back to leonard okay i think councilor woodrow in um in answering your question i think it's the latter it would be the council comes up with the policy and before they adopt it there's a public hearing where the public can provide feedback about that policy is how i would see that happening and that's similar to the um process that i took from the public meetings law when the city for example is going to hire a city manager what they'll and they want to meet an executive session what the law requires is they adopt a process that's

7:01 open to public feedback okay so so if the vacancy has been established and the council decides their process for filling that vacancy then they then they would go to a public hearing uh prior to approving it in regular session that's correct okay okay i just i was just curious because i it could get messy um what what depending on what the expectations of the public is and um my personal opinion is the council is representative of the public so as open as we are to comments um we still have the final decision and so i just

7:47 i was just kind of trying to figure out where the expectations lie all right leonard um mary b i was wondering if was i remembering this in error was there some thought given to maybe two different tracks based on how long the vacancy was going to last um it seems like if there was if it was toward the end of the of the term that we were contemplating a possib possibly a different process than if the vacancy was created right after the councilor had taken office for a new term or is that or am i getting that confusion the mayoral vacancy

8:35 i think we had discussions about um how to treat elected official vacancies we did talk some about how to treat a mayoral vacancy versus a counselor my understanding of the direction from council in january was one process with some flexibility where you can where council can come up and adopt a process that works for that particular vacancy so there wasn't two tracks was my understanding so two two steps one is to determine the process and the second is to adopt the process for filling the vacancy okay thank you all right any any other questions about vacancy language before we keep moving on all right very bridget let's keep on going okay thank you all right so the next um

9:20 item is to talk about hybrid meetings so obviously as you all know more than anybody probably is that these council meetings have changed significantly due to the pandemic and uh we shifted to a you know all remote now we're hybrid and the legislature has um adopted house bill 2560 and the purpose behind 2560 was to really leverage the technology to enhance public participation and access so that's what i always think about when i'm trying to figure out how to implement this law here and really it means that a hybrid meeting where you have the opportunity for people to appear

10:05 or listen in or provide testimony they can do that in person as we used to do sort of in the before times or they could submit written testimony to you or they can appear virtually such as what i'm doing this evening so um it made sense to change our rules somewhat to show that change now that that's been codified into law and really what we're proposing here are um it's in the first one is in section 3.33 in attachment 2 which is page 9 of 30. and this talks about i'm just going to take the bottom of the slide first council attendance this is staff attend staff um used to be the counselors the wanted counselors to

10:50 notify staff if they were going to be um attending remotely because it took some coordination on the part of the counselor and the staff to set up the phone and all that but now that's not really necessary so the options can be just to remove this language altogether or to come up with something kind of general that says you know counselors can participate either remotely or in person so that's the first issue with hybrid meetings um wanting to know if the council has an opinion about option a or b corey i have sort of a loose opinion around option b um just because it shows that we thought about it we paid attention and we made a decision as opposed to just left it out

11:35 but i'm not gonna it's not a hill i'm gonna die on okay that sounds good to me okay anybody else so that that effectively codifies and says that hey going forward each individual counselor may attend in person or virtually depending on their preference okay let's keep going yeah i'm in favor great okay and then um moving on to the next issue with hybrid meetings this really gets to the public's ability to interact with the council so as i mentioned earlier there'd be access to the public either virtually or in person so just like you're doing tonight there when we get

12:20 to a little more i think down to the in the weeds i guess i would say about the rules is how folks can address the council either with oral testimony or written testimony and the reason that this is important to the rules is that we had some language about you know the request to speak cards and the order that testimony taken in so all i really tried to do with that language is i worked off of the script that the um staff and the mayor used for opening a meeting and some of that language there to allow for for example in-person testimony to take folks who are in chambers first with their request to speak cards then the next folks can be um those attending virtually um and that sequencing of testimony um so that is uh it's actually a little bit

13:06 later section 7.5 on attachment to page 17 of 30. if that works it's really status quo for what you've been doing for the past few years yeah that i think that works for us okay written testimony um is uh section 3.6 on attachment two and really just a discussion point about written testimony because i know that has changed some now where you receive emails from um members of the public i put in the draft rules some language from the league of oregon cities we really don't have to change this necessarily but i just wanted to do a check and make sure that this is working for the council the

13:51 way you're getting written comments from the public and for staff if this whole process is working anybody have comments about this one really yes um my only comment is to make sure that we understand how uh an email received uh gets to be part of the record sometimes it can get a little uh unknown um so just just so that we have a smooth path

14:36 so if we receive an email and that person that sends the email expects it to be part of their testimony or part of the public record that we have a smooth track for it to get there cory i appreciate counselor woodrow bringing that up because i think that's part of my question is just what is there a problem that we're trying to solve with this i think that i just automatically assume that all of the emails are public record but i don't know why i'm assuming that because i don't know that there's a process for me to make sure that that's happening so that's my question is in order to make a decision about what's the maybe what the language looks like it's like is there a problem we're trying to solve

15:26 by changing it in mary bridget this only cut this only covers simply if items that we receive would appear on the agenda as correspondents is that correct yeah so i can clarify this a little bit and aj um step in and um and help me if i start to not make sense here but um so when the council receives um written information from the public it can be accepted or um part of correspondence it can be on the agenda and accept it as correspondence um so that is something particular that would mean i guess sort of the equivalent of um in the record like it's in the record of the meeting it's to counsel bradley's question it's

16:11 all public record in terms of retention or disclosure if someone were to request that information and the city recorder would keep track of that i think counselor woodrow brings up another good point about in the record like in the public record particularly if you have a land use issue um that's a very that has a specific meaning in terms of is something in the record upon which you're going to make a decision and so um i think what this section is talking about is when you receive written information about something that is talking about a few things when it's on the agenda will that be included in the packet or will it be included in your information when you receive written information has nothing to do with the agenda but it's something that's important to somebody and they say hey i want you to know about issue x and they

16:57 send you an email you know what what are we supposed to do with that information um and i think that allows for it doesn't necess just because it gets sent to you by a certain time it doesn't necessarily have to be on the agenda the city manager could for example say oh this is an important issue it's related to something that's coming up we're gonna take i'll i'm going to give this to the council but not in the context of a meeting packet and then we're going to handle this next month when we talk about this issue so it can be a little confusing and i have felt over the last year or so been like gosh i wonder i think everything's getting to you but is it really are we understanding kind of where it's going or is it going someplace from there i think was my concern that maybe um we were confused about that so that answer some of your questions

17:50 leonard yeah thanks sean um so i know that there has been a certain amount of frustration on the part of groups that wanted to comment on a an item that we were considering on an agenda and i wonder if it would be possible for a group to submit or an individual to submit an exhibit that would be introduced into the packet whenever that item came up i i know that by wednesday you're not necessarily going to know what's coming up in the next session right so whatever go mary bridget no i think you i i think it depends the

18:35 way the rules are now if you um if something comes in the wednesday of the preceding council meeting for which it's attended it could get on the agenda i think it does matter about timing i think it's intended to let it get in the packet aj do you agree with that um timing wise a wednesday we don't have a deadline out to the public in regards to how to get something into the council packet the deadline for staff is actually the week prior so they have to have everything submitted the monday before the meeting so today's information that comes in from staff is for next monday may 9th

19:20 and all of that information has to be in by noon we don't have a deadline for the public in the same way that we do this staff but my understanding is it is the discretion of leadership as to if something is added to a council packet that can happen on a wednesday the day before um but the packets are published on thursdays um there have been instances where we've had to amend packets um but yes there we don't have a hard fast rule as of right now and aj if i could just jump in with a question before counselor withdrawal

20:05 talks if something necessarily doesn't get in the packet it doesn't mean it doesn't get to the council it still gets forwarded to the council it just may not be part of the count of the packet is that correct that is correct yeah so you're still getting it it just may not be an official part of the packet which i guess means you know you could think of it as part of the record that way i i was also thinking about the public having access to it as well true very true yeah merely uh one other one other item to differentiate from this particularly is if you have something that's ongoing that the public has has continuous comment or input for that needs that they need feel the need to have it be part of the

20:51 record um it is to have an established point person for that particular item uh point staff point person um example we we're continuing to get emails from people regarding the mainstream project when i respond i respond and copy molly so that they immediately get to be part of the public record input that she's managing and but not just that anything that has something that isn't ongoing especially if we have if a point person's staff unless there's another easier way but if not then an appoint staff person that we could copy where they would be recognizing that that becomes part of the packet part of the record um would would help

21:37 um i know that it has helped with the mainstream project but it's that's not the only thing that's going on so i know there's other times that that happens and having a point person to do that with but where the counselors can copy somebody and know yes i can assure you that's part of the record because i'm copying this person in order for it to make sure that that happens yeah so here's here's my sense mary bridget and then we'll go we'll go to joe is maybe that section needs to be before we get too far down a rabbit hole here uh that section probably needs to be reworked a little bit maybe to to um you know sort of take people down one path of if it's a land use hearing or we've got a record sort of rolling that like that's where the public testimony goes and then maybe some some clear direction that if

22:24 you're submitting something by email that is related to a specific item on the agenda that you know this is how we attach it to petitions and correspondence um because that's not that section's very i would say it's probably not very clear and really what we're talking about is emails that are specifically related to the meeting itself not necessarily the numerous emails we get about issues thank you found my mute button wouldn't it be i mean it seems to me i i totally understand what mary lee is talking about and it seems to me for ease of clarification and ease of understanding for future counselors walking into this crazy business

23:11 that if they get an email from the public and they want to respond to it regarding whatever subject that's obviously a subject about the city that it seems to make sense to just cc and nancy is and neil probably won't like this but it seems to make sense to just cc the city manager's office and let them do their job to figure out where that's supposed to go if it's supposed to go anywhere and at least it's been documented that number one somebody sees your response if they see something that's like an oops need to address that a little better or yeah this seems to be an issue we need to include it in agenda review or shoot let's push this off to the planners let them be the hub and let them decide where it should go if

23:57 anywhere so if that way if there is an issue that wasn't handled correctly the counselor is not sitting there on a hot seat trying to and not represent somebody properly so it seems to me that it would be more effective and much more efficient to just send it to the hub which would be the cmo and call it good mary bridget does that give you enough direction this one may you may just have to hammer away at a little bit more in the next revision which i'm sure we'll be here before we know it yes definitely so i think this is helpful i think what i'm hearing is some more um specific direction so what people the public can expect when they send something to city manager's office about whether it's included in the packet or not

24:42 um or if it's an item that's on the agenda or not and then some help some kind of background helpful information for counselors to know that they can either send it to the city manager's office or in a land use issue the particular staff person who's been working on that so that's helpful to me i've i just felt that this language is a little um our current language is maybe not helpful if you were just a member of the public trying to understand like hey i want to get my letter in what are you going to do and so um i can work on that yeah and i think it was written in in uh in an era when all the petitions were coming by physical mail yes i think so too yeah so and i i have seen that where you know you guys all get sent emails and i i just have wondered like i wonder if they wonder where those are going or how that's

25:27 being handled so we can we can definitely help with that leonard it's really quick um i um i like counselor pictionary's idea of copying the city manager's office and i also really like councillor woodrow's idea of designating a point person so maybe the city manager could be the person to designate on major issues like the main street project designating a point person to sort of shepherd public comment into the next packet that concerns the main street project i mean it seems like a release uh a really sort of intuitively sound idea okay so i'm gonna make sure we clarify one point when we receive when we like i've been sending my my emails about main street to nancy and neil and aj and i feel like

26:12 half a city hall but like that that doesn't mean it's going to show up in the next packet right in some cases the record may right when that matter comes up so like in the main street example when we get to it in february that's when all the public comment will come forward opposed to hey we got it now we're we're showing all the stuff we've gotten every week and so no yeah you're right okay yeah good let's keep going okay okay so that's moving away from hybrid meetings and i think we have enough direction there and then the next um proposed change is just to update really the language around security and council chambers we had had some pretty antiquated language about a sergeant at arms being the

26:57 police of chi the chief of police and looking to update that language to provide more flexibility for the city manager to provide security i want to be clear there still would be security but it just would not be this position of a sergeant of arms and that's attachment to page 16 of 30. i'm not seeing i'm not seeing any questions so like yeah so that that's just making nancy responsible for it and how that happens is up to her i'm good with that exactly yeah the next change has to do with um really putting out in the operating policies and procedures that public officials have some legal

27:42 obligations that they need to be aware of so this is um section 8.5 on attachment 2 22 of 30. and we already had some language where it said city councilors need to be familiar with public records on public meetings law which definitely makes sense because that's how you do your business and um the league of oregon cities uh model code and some other jurisdictions would also make a reference to on public official ethics which are your conflicts of interest use of office and then also non-discrimination laws um which is really important as your role as employers so um this was my attempt just to bring poll in some of that language to kind of

28:28 have some of what i've talked about before that connective tissue between you know the charter the code and the operating policies so um that's really all it was intended to do joe sorry i was wanted to jump in on the just a little bit on the sergeant-at-arms sergeant of these things yes um and not a bunch and i understand this is redesignated the city manager and that position so to speak of security and i just wanted to um just a little tinge of concern when it comes to uh you have that position hurt the city manager sitting at the front of the council chambers and if there's and typically security would not be at the front there towards the back

29:14 observing i'm i'm a little bit hesitant to think that they would be limited waiting for some sort of direction from the city manager when the city manager may not in fact see anything going on and so perhaps in in rules or policy that the city manager already pre-designates the person there for security to act upon their observations without having to wait for some sort of direction from the city manager does that make any sense yeah 100 and i could clarify there the idea was is that for a particular meeting there be somebody who was assigned to handle security most likely are building security and that person would be in the back of the room president meetings able to observe

30:00 and then take direction from the presiding officer who is the mayor in the case of running a meeting so that's the intent and nancy if you want to jump in but i think that's what we would do it would be someone who's dedicated to that role which which raises another bar of concern when you're talking about in-house security that those are unarmed positions and so that is correct so we're now going to not have an armed person for security in the council chambers from this point forward is that what i'm understanding [Music] i can answer that um counselor i don't i i we haven't made a determination as far as um whether or not uh security in the council chamber would be armed or unarmed i was just looking

30:46 to have more flexibility rather than designating a particular position by name in your procedures just putting a generic the city manager and that would then allow myself or whoever is the city manager at the time to appoint or direct um who would be responsible for security in the chambers and i think you know it's worth the discussion with this body whether or not you would like that to can you continue to be an armed position i'm just trying to be sensitive to the fact that with the option of hybrid meetings we haven't seen as many people here in the chambers and that

31:31 that trend may continue it may not we may have a situation where people want to appear in person i was trying to also be sensitive to the fact that our police department is low on staffing and i i i'm trying to uh be pragmatic about the most effective use of resources uh chief shearer is in uh the the hearing room tonight but i'm trying not to tie up every single monday night of of his so i think it's warrants a greater discussion along with um maybe some reconfiguration of this of this hearing room uh for safety measures i think we can do a combination of things to me for safety so why why don't we do this um you know that why don't

32:16 joe why don't you call give nancy a call that way you guys can have a more in-depth conversation about where your concerns are and then you know if if she sort of it takes over over responsibility for making sure that security is taken taken care of nope okay um so looking at the legal obligations is that makes sense to the council to have just some kind of blanket statement about being aware and cognizant of public official ethics nondiscrimination laws meetings and uh records law okay all right um those are the uh there's one other

33:01 change i just didn't think it um it's very small change but in the beginning we had some kind of antiquated old statutory language about folks who are deaf or hard of hearing um coming to council meetings and requesting accommodation so really just pulled that from the statute to update that um we did do a crosswalk with the league of oregon cities rules and reformatted these rules and added a table of contents to hopefully help and ease with readability um so those items um that really next thing i'm looking for if anyone or counselors have direction about additional topics or things you would um like us to look into for either this review or future reviews

33:46 go ahead joe thanks you can go on page 23 attachment two pays 23 8.7 condolences i think that's also an anti antiquated number dollar number i don't know was last time you tried to buy a bouquet of flowers but it was right around 100 bucks for me yeah so i think that it would be behooves us to update that and and put a maximum amount of 100 on both of those items that doesn't say we're going to spend that much but it allows us to because i'm telling you you go go buy some flowers you're not going to be able to do it at least at least a good representative of flowers that that level of uh cost or loss uh warrants a better flower a better arrangement than what you get

34:31 for 40 or 50 dollars so i would just suggest doubling that all right corey so and this is just in response to your question about future things that we might talk about and i know that we've talked about this in other ways but i do think that there is an opportunity for us to revisit the structuring of our boards commissions committees and task forces and kind of dig into how we do that when we do that and who gets to do that or doesn't have to do that um but i think that's probably bigger than a bread box and maybe is a whole work session to talk about that okay all right uh mary bridget i'm going to give you a couple more

35:17 7.7 when you talk about the recording equipment this is just a general cleanup there's a lot of references to videotape not a lot of representatives of modern equipment okay got it so um and then i have a question about 7.3 um which is eliminations of flag signs posters etc and that covers the city council chamber right so would let's see the way i would be reading that how would that impact somebody who was testifying in um in a hybrid format with their video on

36:03 yes um i think the way i took this to mean is this is just if you're in the room and we wouldn't have any um ability to comment or make uh changes you know something make comments about how what somebody's background looks like um [Music] so if i'm trying to think about kind of the legal issues about that um i can think about that and also see if some other jurisdiction has already addressed that are you talking about maybe perhaps if something is offensive or um well and uh absolutely i think i'm asking the the the broader question about right like because we wrote it in a way that is to help you know govern people being you know um that are in the in the meeting being sort of disruptive and i think the question about whether

36:48 or not it's obscene or offensive you know but it's on the video screen so the text is sort of written in a way that is specific to the meeting room and i'm like and i'm going okay does it does it support wherever we need to be from from a hybrid meeting perspective okay i can look at that and then um the other one that i have um 8.4 is a really good call-out i don't think we're good at you know uh good at the council about doing that really what it says is that as we do media events and we do interviews that we should just keep in communication with folks about hey we're doing a media event or an interview um that's not something you need to change mary bridget it's more that these are pretty in-depth rules

37:33 uh joe and going back to that 7-3 uh sean which you mentioned some of the background if i recall back in the day we were looking at that and that was mostly it wasn't necessarily a content issue but it was mostly so peoples can can still view and observe the council and people not standing up in front of them with placards so it's more of a it's more of a anti-obstruction rule as opposed to content and of course the disruption falls under a different rule but i think i think as it stands i think it's fine it's just just written as you know not allowed anything that will obstruct anybody else's view all attending to council chambers okay that makes sense i think um you

38:18 know as you're bringing this up it reminds me we've done some work on like what do you have to do to really be disruptive at a council meeting to the point where you can be removed and there was a case out of california where um you know uh someone doing a nazi salute was actually found not to be um disruptive enough you know it's this idea that you really get this opportunity to interact with your government so if you have a rule about a sign or a placard it would make sense to me that it really needs to get its content neutral right it got it has to get to safety and the ability for people to view the meeting not disrupting other people's experience those kinds of rules is what i would think it's just the idea about how do we bring those kinds of concepts into the idea where someone's background is you know wherever they happen to be it's

39:03 different so um i'll do some look and i'll do some looking yeah and and understand this is always constantly a a work in progress and as we continue to update the rules to make them more hybrid friendly you know we'll we'll continue to find things yeah i think so um if there's not any more feedback i'll just give you a preview of what will be next steps this will come to you um in a regular session for your approval so you'll have another opportunity to look at the language and if there's something that looks off there we can always uh run up for another reading to be adopted by the council um at a subsequent meeting i think in terms of previewing future issues um you know councillor bradley had talked about boards and commissions

39:48 i also think once the development code is adopted um some communities do kind of have more specific language about land-use hearings incorporated into the operating policies that might be something that this council may want to look at once those um once your new code is in place so just to kind of give you an idea of things i think to perhaps be coming in the future okay perfect thank you all right these next item is master fees and charges the update with sam

40:35 good evening american council sorry that uh panelist delay is always just too long to be a little nervous i got dropped there um i know we got a quick 19. so this will be our fastest uh master fees and charges update yet possibly um so i'm just here to bring with you all the redline version before i come to you in a couple weeks with the public hearing and the adoption of the proposed master fees and charges a previous session i heard five percent was the appropriate rate this year and this outlines the five percent increase across the board there are probably a dozen or so fees that didn't quite fit the five percent or were removed or were adjusted and those were highlighted um in your briefing memo i can quickly go over some of them for you um we changed some issues with the gis rates they really were specialized they were no longer using those anymore

41:20 they wanted it nice and clean just staff time and materials 95 of their requests won't be charged it'll be simply handing over data and this is a pretty easy one for them to make their life a little bit easier there were quite a few that were dropped from previous bills and log sus so our tobacco licenses won a lot of the municipal court issues you saw those were all removed due to state statute uh in my new role as a legislative analyst i'll be working closely with our quartz team to kind of monitor this issue as the state continues to cut additional fees fire and life safety was pretty standard across the board still nice and even with eugene we're trying to keep those two in step together again library removed a fee that was taken out earlier this year the extended

42:06 the extended use fee uh that was not being collected so the fee left the schedule um police just had a couple there's a new citation fee this is a lower cost option than what's currently being proposed for citation-only requests as opposed to some of the more complicated ones so a cost saver there for people and then this used merchandise reporting system used to be a thing in the city of eugene police department provided with our staff that has changed we're now doing it internally and there's a new setup it is still mirrored off eugene's system but there's still there's still some new costs as a smaller system we have to run on our own the engineering section updates on the sidewalk construction permits some of the reinspections for that uh engineering staff pointed out this has kind of long been historically

42:51 unrepresenting of the actual time and energy this work causes uh but the reinspection fee will hopefully kind of keep it from doing uh just a long term between looks over the fees and help sort of flatline the fees out for folks rather than spikes of high fee usage section 8 it looks scarier than it is and i wanted to highlight that a lot of this is due to the code change and the work mark rust is doing uh him and i had a long meeting to go through these point by point and really wanted to make sure the only non-code change is this department motor vehicle licensing fee that was removed it's been combined into a different fee and then sort of a amalgamation of all the postage fees and just one fee it was currently listed several times and we want to kind of clean that up the rest of those changes

43:36 may not fall to five percent but do follow our new code requirements and we wanted what those to reflect alongside that project the final two sections uh section nine a lot of that is mwmc and then standard pack both of those you saw last week and then our lovely sdcs again we're pretty standard across the board five percent and those are looking great um if there are any questions i'd be happy to go into these more um and again if not i'll see you on a couple weeks for adoption are there any questions so to me and i know as discussed earlier it seems like five percent is stiff all the way across hard to justify but uh going back on

44:22 section seven um sidewalk construct and construction permit it's historically low and does not cover the necessary staff time so now it we're gonna automatically charge two hours or it covers two it takes two hours and so what what is the fee how much is it uh let me pull up the actual match freezing charges redline uh one second sorry i'm so sorry my cat just destroyed my camera there i'm trying to find the actual cost for you there sorry counselor uh

45:14 so the actual fee is moving up to 200 and then it'll be an annual 100 inspection fee um that the timing that they have figured out for this is sort of the historical use to kind of get that work done um so what page is that yeah of course uh 31 of the pdf okay and i can also share my screen if you prefer as well no i've got it right here in front of me thanks so it's just it's just sidewalk construction permit just going from 68 dollars to 200. yeah as i said it was historically really undercut so they were really trying to bring that back up to what the time is but it's really 300 isn't it uh then the following year so the

45:59 re-inspection will only be a new hundred dollar fee correct it'll be much less work through the re-inspections than that initial inspection so if someone is fixing a crack in the sidewalk because of a limb they're gonna look at about a hundred and fifty dollars worth of materials to have it done and have to pay the city of springfield three hundred dollars to be able to do it i'm sorry that must have been a missed school this is the uh the cafe permit for sidewalk fees oh i'm sorry so this is no my apologies that wasn't clear in the handout uh this is not for like construction which is a would be a challenging number to change it to uh this is the permit costs um for the right-of-way um for the food and beverage facilities i can't believe i misread that as well so which still is a lot of money now that i

46:44 see it i'm still having a hard time look understanding that the first number has got a 1 with a 2 7 line through it and a 33 so it's going from 127 to 133 is that what you're saying no that's so that is the so you had the right dollars before the 68 dollars to 200 um but the work isn't the isn't the construction or the crack um it is the cafe permit um so you had the right numbers before i want to make sure we were i want the right work getting done well yeah just it i was talking about sidewalks but now the cafe permit

47:29 raises my air radar as well trying to justify that but what i'm still trying to figure out specifically for the sidewalk is that that's construction for new sidewalk or repair um i couldn't speak to whether that's newer i'm assuming it's it's not mentioning repair i think this is new sidewalk uh to answer your question from 127 dollars to 133 dollars right that's what the five percent increase that we're seeing there that makes sense so is there a permit required for sidewalk repair this is uh reading the permit language more interesting right now this is a for either new construction or repair is the last line um so does both is included in that sidewalk permit

48:14 okay and those fees aren't huge horrendous type so that that's okay but um it's still again you're looking at a hundred and two hundred and fifty dollars plus well you got actually just 24 24 that's the repair permit cost hundred and forty five where's that no from 24 225 okay so the four should be crossed through oh i wonder if that the cross might be sitting on the uh the bottom part of the floor there nice that doesn't look really odd i see that now i see it no i see it thank you but i don't know if the rest of counselors counselors see this but i'm looking at the sidewalk cafe permit and that seems to be a pretty

48:59 pretty expensive shift and i don't know i just have a hard time seeing how we can justify spent charging some cafe or restaurant 300 to be able to have a sidewalk cafe or seats out there so all right any other questions i do okay steve technology fee five percent a few years ago i brought that up and my question was why isn't that five percent part of the fee why is it a separate add-on for everything and i think i thought it was sort of eliminated at that time but it's come back it was uh i had not heard requests to remove this fee we had still been collecting it uh in the three or four

49:44 years i've been here so far i think it's selective to certain fees that use technology that five percent is to upkeep those systems and that's why it's selective on which fia goes on why is it part of the fee pardon why isn't it part of the fee i didn't definitely bring this up a few years ago i counselor i think we need to do some research on that and get back to you thank you all right early [Music] real quickly on that one i just wanted to know what the f five percent five

50:30 percent of what so and then and then and then the the other thing that joe questioned that 68 to 200 seems like a really big i agree seems like a really big jump we're trying to accommodate or help out the sidewalk cafe business um it's really become an attraction and i think that jumping from 68 to 200 at 200 is a big is a big leap 68 to 100 may not be so bad but 68 to 200 sounds like a a giant leap yes your first question counts so the five percent apply to the entire fee when it's listed um so until this example is it'll stay in the bottom five percent it applies to each part so in the sidewalk construction permit there are multiple options of fees you can charge for each of those it's five

51:16 percent of the total is what the technology is collected on all right oh yeah i think i agree with steve i think that needs to be really looked at uh nancy's taking it away as a note she'll give us uh more information from you know either a memo or come back to us i think the question is do we want to change the the sidewalk seating fee you know what i'm hearing folks wondering if people are comfortable going from 68 to 100 instead of 200 um joe you got anything yes sir um so yeah it's actually merely it's not like a 200 jump but also they have a reinspection fee of 100 to add on top of it so you're talking going from 68 dollars to 300

52:01 so i absolutely uh do not support that i i think frankly exactly what mary lee was saying is that we're trying to support businesses downtown and um yeah it may take staff you know i don't know what the basis where the 68 came from in the first place but someone thought it was the right mount so i think that that big of a jump um and i don't know the re-inspection um who determined whether a re-inspection is required or why the fee would not be built into if the initial permit doesn't uh have the reinspection fee in that then why would you even have it separated when if if it's something's been required so again i don't think i don't

52:48 think that should be over 100 period for any of it total so hang on a minute sam neil did you have more information for us we have the open air cafe seating coming for a public hearing looks like may 16th so that would give us some time to give you the details on exactly what that funding goes towards okay that i think that would be helpful and i think there's a there's a pretty consistent desire to to lower that to a hundred dollars so if we could get more information and just sort of start with that hundred dollars as a is a going point that would be helpful yeah thanks neil that's good info and then and then on back to the effect five percent technology fee i remember mo brought that up and it was it was uh highly supported by the rest of staff in regards to what's that for how come it's

53:33 there etc and i think at the time we were given that there was a quite a large fund in that and they were given a breakdown as to okay how are we going to spend it because no one knew at the time but we had a ton of money sitting there i know the development community is very uh we're aware of this fund and they want to know what they're getting for it because if they're paying five percent technology fee for some construction project they want to know they want to know hey how's that helping me and and i that's a very valid question um so i'd like to get a breakdown of that that technology fee balance and bank and where it's but where it's been spent on what it's been spent on and what is the projected budget for that and how it's going to help the developers directly

54:23 all right so i think you guys got enough direction sam that's great thank you all perfect then i am going to adjourn the work session and we will be back on this uh same meeting link at seven o'clock so you have a five minute break thank you we are adjourned

59:42 all right i'm going to call the regular session to order with roll call mayor van gorden here councillor pitts councilor mo here council bradley here sponsor here councilor woodrow here the council missionary uh we are still good for quorum so he must be on his way back please join me on the for the pledge of allegiance for which it stands one nation under god

1:00:33 as we begin our meeting tonight i would like to ask members of the audience who are joining us by phone online 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 if you are attending in person please complete a request to speak card located at the entrance of the council chambers and give it to the city recorder if you're joining us online with a tablet smart phone or a computer and wish to speak with either at either of those times please use the raise hand feature in zoom the order of public testimony is as follows anyone in person in the council chambers and anyone who has raised their virtual hand first item please

1:01:19 okay the first item is springfield upbeat you have two items under mayor's recognition item number one national nurses week proclamation all right i've got the proclamation now so they'll read it in the record we don't have any nurses joining us tonight but we we will get a copy to them whereas the over 3 million registered nurses in the united states constitute our nation's largest health care profession and whereas the nursing profession plays a critical role in improving patient outcomes increasing access and coordinating cure and reducing health care costs and whereas a renewed emphasis on primary and preventative health care will require a better utilization of all of our nation's registered nurses and whereas more qualified registered nurses will be needed in the future to

1:02:04 meet in the increasingly complex needs of the health care consumers in in this community whereas along with the american nurses association the springfield city council has declared may 6th through 12th is national nurses week i shawn van gorden the mayor of springfield do hereby proclaim may 6th through 12th national nurses week in springfield and urge all residents to join me in this special observance now i do want to share a little bit of a story i have the start of this little guy right here and you can't really see it well we're going to angle it in the right place but it's a welcome to springfield packet and you can see the sort of outline from the community of opportunity mugs in the

1:02:50 background and this was started specifically because we had so many traveling nurses in the uh in the area so mckinsey willamette reached out one day and had a conversation and just had asked the question like we have all the the staffing coming to the area where do they actually go and we had and how do they feel welcome to the city so that led a con that started a conversation with the city staff and the chamber of commerce has been a partner to just simply assemble a welcome letter similar to what you know we had when the city managers candidate candidates came into town so we will be providing a packet full of information of hey welcome to springfield it's a great place to you know live and work and we're glad you're here as well as a lot of information about where to go eat especially in downtown

1:03:35 um where to go places to go see and you know contacts with it within uh within the parks district so it's a i thought it was an interesting story to share um while we were talking about nurses all right and thank you to the chamber of commerce for partnering on it it's going to look really good out of your visitor center all right next item please next item here is national law enforcement week proclamation so before i read this um you know uh somebody wanted me to point out that you know we had just approved nancy being in charge of security around here and then we turn around and all the law enforcement guys were sitting back there that one was for you counselor pictionary all right

1:04:21 whereas there are more than 800 000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across the united states including and dedicated members of the springfield police department and whereas the first recorded death in 1786 more than 23 000 law enforcement officers in the united states have made the ultimate sacrifice and been killed in the line of duty whereas the names of those dedicated public servants are engraved on the walls of the national law enforcement's memorial in washington d.c whereas the service and sacrifice of all officers killed in the line of duty will will be honored during the national law enforcement officers memorial uh vigil on the evening of may 13 2022 whereas may 15th 2022 is designated as the peace officers memorial day in honor

1:05:06 of fallen officers i sean van gorden the mayor of springfield do hereby proclaim may 11th through 17th as national law enforcement week in the city of springfield and publicly salute the service of law enforcement officers in our community and the communities across the nation so we're going to take a quick picture and i've got a copy of the proclamation for the springfield pd and then we'll go to the next item

1:06:02 thank you [Applause] if we're sort of wondering who's guarding our streets right now [Laughter] you should have had a canine in that picture all right next item please uh man the next name is the consent calendar i'd like to make a motion that we approve this consent calendar second it's been moved and seconded uh neil could you call the role please yes counselor pitts counselor mo yes counselor rodley yes answer

1:06:48 here yes counselor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary yes motion passes five yeses zero knows and one absent next item please you have four public hearings tonight public hearing number one is annexation of territory to the city of springfield annex 1.77 acres of property located near the intersection of south 66th place and jessica drive in mountain gate that's map 18-0-2-0-3-0-0 tax slot 302 this is ordinance number three an ordinance annexing certain territory located at the southeast edge of mountain gate second edition near south 66th place and jessica drive to the city of springfield in willamelain park and recreation district adopting a

1:07:34 severability clause and providing an effective date this is a first reading and andy limbert is here for the staff report yes good evening mayor and counselors um just going to start a quick uh slideshow here to show the area in question this is a site that's located at the southeast edge of the mountain gate neighborhood and it adjoins the thurston hills natural area park this site is surrounded on all sides by the city limits and it is located near the intersection of south 66th place and jessica drive it's kind of on the extreme edge of the

1:08:20 mountain gate neighborhood and it joins some undeveloped property including the thurston hills natural area park to the southeast contiguity with the city limits is one of the criteria to allow for annexation of the city of springfield currently this site is used as a reservoir for sub water utility and springfield utility board water is requesting annexation to allow for redevelopment of the site with new reservoir tanks staff does have a copy of the conceptual site development plan and i've superimposed the annexation area on the diagram to show that it's an intrinsic part of the development of this utility site to

1:09:07 provide water to this area of mountain gate and other future development areas in the vicinity um at present there is an existing pump station which is in the upper left that was done with a previous project the intent as stated by sub is to replace what is an existing concrete water tank uh with two steel water tanks and to provide geotechnical and seismic stability for this feature to ensure continued water system provision for for springfield we did receive after the city council packet was prepared and and published we did receive a letter and i'm going to enter it into the record this is from the fair housing

1:09:53 council of oregon um they were alerted to the annexation action because it's removing the urbanizable fringe overlay district so it's technically a zoning action they state or they are advocating for a housing needs analysis uh for this action staff will review and comment further upon this letter with the second reading report um which is currently scheduled for may 16th um staff does not feel that the annexation action changes the housing inventory for the city because it is already zoned and

1:10:38 designated for residential use it does not affect the city's inventory and there is allowance within the city's comprehensive plans including the metro plan for utilities streets and other necessary infrastructure to be developed within residential properties and resident residential zoning essentially so there will be additional commentary on this letter at the next staff report staff and i accept responsibility for this staff missed some critical deadlines uh for notification public notification of this public hearing so we're making the unusual recommendation to keep the

1:11:23 public hearing open for the next two weeks in case there are any needed notifications or public comments that have yet to be received as a result of later than ideal and later than required notification through both newspaper the website posting um and letters in this case it was newspaper notification and website posting that did not make the required two-week advance notification so um that is the recommendation of staff i do know that the applicant's representative is in attendance if you have any specific questions and do see counselor woodrow has a question i'd be happy to answer any other questions of staff so merrily can

1:12:09 you go with your question yes um i was it was a curious question what um what occurs that prompts a letter from fair housing what what initiates uh somebody to the executive director to write a letter like that sure what we were alerted to this they monitor the state's uh land concert it's the department of land conservation and development or dlcd when there's a zoning action that occurs within the city staff provides advanced notification to dlcd at least 35 days in advance and so there are postings made periodically as soon as the staff provides the notification to the state it's posted on their website and agencies such as the fair housing

1:12:54 council monitor this so it automatically triggers a response in this case reading into the response it's a little oblique to what's happening this evening but fair enough the comments have been made staff wishes to enter them into the record and can provide detailed response uh with the next council packet thank you so andy um while we can we go back to the notification piece uh i i want to make sure i understand so we missed the notification deadline and but the notification as they nor as it normally happens occurred it just happened later than what we would expect is that right correct we were off by um by about one day uh for the newspaper

1:13:42 notification and we were off by a couple of days for the website um if we did not we did not meet the requirements of our own development code for notification and that's why staff is recommending um that we um continue the public hearing to the next meeting um that would still allow for the council to deliberate and take action at the next meeting um and if there are any further comments received of course they will be provided to counsel that time so so you want to continue the public hearing until may 16th that's correct okay it would remedy what was not um code compliant as far as the public notification for this action okay great any other questions

1:14:31 uh did you have anything else andy or was that i guess i would the only other comment i would make is that um most of the adjoining public uh joining properties are already owned by sub um or willamelain so it's it's not likely that there would be adjacent landowner comments however as we've seen there could be agency comments um this arrived over the weekend um so this provides an opportunity if someone wishes to make comment um on this annexation action that certainly will be considered in council's deliberations okay great all right i'm gonna go ahead and open open the public hearing i don't have any cards for this item and then we're gonna give it a second to see if anybody has raised their hand on zoom

1:15:19 no hands there okay we're gonna go we're gonna leave the public hearing open until may 16th for any additional comments with that i i don't think we have any other action so we can move to the next item the next item is public hearing number two an annexation of territory to the city of springfield nx 0.41 acres of property located at 5423 mount vernon road assessors map 18-02-04-42 tax lot 800 and a portion of mount vernon road public right-of-way abutting the property this is ordinance number four in ordinance annexing certain territories addressed as 5423 mount vernon road assessors map 18-0-2-0-4-4-2

1:16:06 tax lot 800 and a portion of the mount vernon road public right-of-way abutting the subject property to the city of springfield and willamelain park and recreation district withdrawing the same territory from the willa kensey rural fire protection district adopting a civil ability clause and providing an effective date this is a first reading and melissa carino is here for the staff report thank you neil good evening mayor and city councillors so tonight the city council is requested to consider an ordinance to annex an approximately 0.4 acre property municipally addressed as 5423 mount vernon road in springfield along with a portion of the adjacent public right-of-way the applicant has requested annexation in order to connect to the city's sanitary sewer and sub-water services for the existing residential use on-site

1:16:53 due to a failing septic system the city's public sanitary sewer system is located on the north side of mount vernon road and the applicant is actively working on extending the system to the subject site as soon as possible because the annexation annexation agreement has already been signed by the applicant and due to the health hazard situation the applicant has already connected to sub water services as you can see the full proposed annexation area is highlighted in yellow the subject site is marked with a yellow star and the subject site is also located on the south side of mount vernon road between jasper road to the west and mount vernon road i'm sorry mount vernon cemetery road to the east

1:17:40 this is the current zoning and city boundaries of the site the cytus zone community commercial with the urbanizable fringe overlay as you can see it is separated by city limits by the mount vernon road public right-of-way northeast of the subject site the springfield development code does not allow residential uses in community commercial zoning without a mixed use overlay therefore the existing residential use is a non-conforming use prior to submitting this annexation application the applicant requested city approval for non-conforming use determination and continuance application this application was approved by the city on march 9th 2022. please note that the staff report for this annexation request takes into consideration of future commercial

1:18:26 development at the site specifically in terms of the capacity and availability of key urban facilities and services if the annexation is approved this is the proposed zoning and city boundaries no other zoning changes is requested except for the removal of the urbanizable fringe overlay there are four criteria for annexations from the springfield development code section 5.7-140 for criterion a the subject's property is separated to city limits by the mount vernon road public right-of-way northeast of the subject site so therefore it does meet criterion a for criterion b policies specifically numbers 27 29 33

1:19:13 34 and 35 from the city's 2030 comprehensive plans urbanization element are met through this application the subject territory is within the city's urban growth boundary and is currently covered by the urbanizable fringe overlay therefore criterion b is also met one thing to note also is with annexation the subject property will be removed from special districts such as the urbanizable fringe overlay and service areas like the willa kenzie rural fire protection district the property would then be included in urban services for criterion c policies namely 29 31 and 32 from the city's 2030 comprehensive plans urbanization element are met through this application

1:19:59 if annexation is approved the subject territory can obtain or has already obtained key facilities and services from the mount vernon road right away just north of the subject site again these facilities and services include sanitary sewer connection sub-water services fire protection services from eugene springfield fire department policy for police services from springfield police department and william lane parks and recreation district the subject site will continue to receive electric service from the emerald people's utilities district otherwise known as epud criterion c has been met and then the last criterion is that an annexation agreement has already been signed by the applicant the agreement covers obligations for the applicant and for the city including any financial

1:20:44 responsibilities the agreement includes details on connections to facilities and services the decommissioning of the existing septic system on site and withdrawal from special service districts like the will akenzie rural fire protection district if this annexation is approved by city council the agreement will be ready to be executed by the city manager and the fully signed agreement would then be recorded with laden county because all applicable annexation criteria have been met and the annexation will help facilitate bringing this property and the budding right-of-way into city limits city staff believe this application can be approved by council however similar to the previous annexation application we did not meet a public hearing notice requirements as well specifically our

1:21:30 website posting and the physical postings at the site so we do ask that council continue this public hearing to may 16th before making a decision on the application thank you counselors i'm here for any questions you may have i also believe the applicant is in attendance if you have any questions for them leonard thank you mayor um melissa did this annexation proposed annexation come before the planning commission and if so were there any concerns that were expressed so annexations go directly to city council it does not go to planning commission so i did not get any comments from planning commission very good thank you you're welcome joe just curious on i used to correct me if i'm wrong you said that

1:22:16 they're going to stay with eped services is that water and electric just electric they are they already connected to sub water sorry that's right you said that um so i'm curious is there once it's brought into the city doesn't sub have a requirement to provide services inside the city yes and that was actually my assumption earlier however there is an agreement between sub and epud and other utility providers and my understanding is this is epud service area and therefore sub is not planning to build any infrastructure here okay so i thought sub wanted this whole area brought in so i'm just curious okay thank you i don't have a problem with

1:23:02 this good presentation thanks sure thanks so could you go back to that uh that point melissa so did we is it an agreement or did is there a written agreement in place that the epa provides electrical here or is it that we that we sort of ask sub and they sort of opted out so my understanding is there is an agreement between sub and epud that this service area is already under epud and will remain so there are other properties within city limits who still have e-pud electrical services yeah well that is always a hot topic so you happen to provide uh insightful information about something that we constantly talk about in the uh in the public sector uh

1:23:48 christina thank you mayor the state has assigned um this area to epad and it is actually a state um assigned by law um there's a legal history that goes back several day decades to this so um sub and epen may be having discussions about what their territories look like in the future but at present um neither the sub doesn't have the authority to serve that area with electrical services thank you very much are any other questions specific to the application then i am going to go ahead and open the public hearing um i don't have any cards for anybody in the room and we'll pause for a second if anybody on zoom wants to testify please raise your hand mayor we have one speaker

1:24:35 speaker is mike eister mike you should be able to unmute your microphone thanks neil yeah i uh chair the sub board uh and i i live in uh ward 2. i would just like to ask chad the staff to do a thorough check on the question that just came up um it was my understanding that whenever there's an annexation uh that whatever is annexed goes to uh subs it becomes a sub uh service area so i'd just like to ask the staff who are thorough investigation that make sure that we get that exactly right that's all i got thank you

1:25:21 all right thank you do we have any other hands no other hands mayor okay so we're going to continue the public hearing until may 16th which is our next public meeting um there's no other action requested for this item so next item please your third public hearing setting local and regional wastewater and stormwater user fees effective july 1st 2022 resolution number one a resolution of the city of springfield setting local and regional wastewater sewer user fees and lower storm and local stormwater drainage user fees a set forth in the springfield municipal code matt stouter is here for the staff report good evening mayor council i was hoping to be there in person with you tonight but i'm here at home so it's my pleasure to be here speaking

1:26:07 to you to talk about rates so as you know um each year council considers user rates for regional local wastewater fees as well as local stormwater services last week on april 25th we held a work session with council and presented options for the council's consideration and input and we took that feedback and incorporated it for your consideration tonight so if approved tonight the proposed fiscal year 22 23 user fees will provide adequate revenue to for the city to continue to operate and maintain our systems to deliver reliable services to the community members in springfield to fund our adopted cip and maintain our debt service requirements uh help us be positioned to delay the need for future

1:26:52 financing meet our environmental and permit and regulatory requirements and then ensure the protection of public health and local environment here in springfield so before you tonight we have a user fees for public hearing that include a local stormwater increase of two and a half percent which is uh 38 cents on the average monthly bill increase a local wastewater increase of three percent which is uh 74 cents monthly for a typical for an average customer who uses 5 000 gallons we talked last week many people use quite a bit less than that but we use that number for comparison purposes and then a regional uh wastewater increase of three and a half percent or 98 cents monthly and that regional

1:27:38 increase was adopted by the mwmc after a public hearing on april 9th so at this time uh staff request that the council hold the public hearing and consider adoption of the resolution uh of a resolution establishing user rates that will go into effect uh july 1 2022 and with that i'm available for any questions from the council are there any questions from the council before we open the public hearing all right i'm going to open the public hearing um i have no cards in the in the actual room so if somebody is interested in speaking in zoom please raise your hand no hands mayor all right then i'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing i do have one comment before we go to counselor mo for

1:28:24 for for the motion user rates are always are always a tough subject and i just want to commend the staff right because in an era where we have such high inflation the fiscal stewardship that it takes to keep you know and request only a three percent improvement our three percent increase in the in the fees is significant right so i appreciate the all the work that's going in to make sure that this wasn't a six percent or an eight percent number um yeah so thank you earlier tonight we talked about raising fees five percent so this is this is nice to hear this uh i make a motion that we adopt emotion ratifying the physical year

1:29:11 2022-23 regional wastewater program budget and capital improvement program uh steve you you're you're one washing up what did i miss it again yeah probably i've done that before go up to three well okay uh yeah i sure did okay so let's do it again here this is resolution one right three resolution one under number three okay okay sorry guys uh resolution of the city of springfield setting local and regional wastewater sewer fees and local stormwater drainage user fees and set forth in the springfield municipal code well i've done that before sorry second

1:29:56 i don't think that was a notion yeah i don't think it was the most emotion can't be seconded uh so okay i'll do it again you gotta go to the one below that starts the i had i moved to adopt resolution number one correct hang on but the bold part and the cowl caps right below it actually joe do you i get it yeah okay okay a motion to adopt the resolution number one setting local and regional waste waste water and storm water user fees second does that work okay thank you we are good all right neil can you call the roll yes councilor pitts counselor mo yes answer rodney yes bouncer stare aye sponsor woodrow yes i'm counselor pictionary hi

1:30:43 motion passes five yeses zero no's and one absent next item please next item is your fourth public hearing ratification of the metropolitan wastewater management commission mwmc fiscal year 2022-23 regional wastewater program budget and capital improvements program cip matt stouter is back for the staff report all right welcome again um normally we'd be bringing this to you under a city from our business from the city manager but i think the public hearing will work just fine we did hold a public hearing with the commission and i'll talk about that as well so i have an abbreviated budget presentation for you tonight uh more detail this year in our department presentation which you may have already viewed and may have some questions on tomorrow so as you're probably aware the mwmc iga allows for the governing

1:31:29 bodies which is eugene springfield and lane county to ratify the annual nwmc budget and cip on april 8 mwc did approve the regional budget in cip and prior to that held three work sessions in a public hearing before they took action to adopt the budget that budget does include the three and a half percent rate adjustment that we just spoke about so in accordance with our iga eugene is responsible for the operations and maintenance of all the regional facilities and assets and springfield is responsible for the administrative services which includes planning capital construction financing and budget et cetera so quick summary of our budget here um oops

1:32:15 manage my screen here um this regional budget uh provides for the mwc to operate and maintain our existing facilities and infrastructure and then provide service to the approximately 250 000 uh people in our service area which includes eugene springfield and portions of the of lane county inside the urban growth boundaries it also will allow us to implement the commission's key outcomes that drive our work as well as fund our capital program and cover our debt service obligations uh and protect community health and respond to regulatory and permit requirements uh including the pending permit renewal that we are embarking upon right now in conversation with the eq and we actually have that draft permit in hand

1:33:00 and we expect we do expect that permit to be issued to us by probably early late summer early fall the approved fiscal year 2223 operating budget includes uh 22.33 million dollars as an operating budget that's an 8 increase from last year there is no fte change this year at a high level we have a 3.9 percent increase in personnel services that includes health insurance wages medicare etc the biggest jump we've seen is 7.5 percent increase in our m s that's due to a variety of factors including indirect rates charged with both cities chemical costs that have been increasing over the past year as well as utility costs that are

1:33:45 increasing as well we are going to be planning to purchase additional power this year for the renewable natural gas project that we just commissioned and started up our systems development charges the revenues there are on target we've seen continued economic growth over the past year and our 2023 capital budget is uh 35 million dollars and that will span multiple years the majority of the projects that we have in our nrcip are plant performance improvement projects so things like our aeration basins that we're going to be improving an upgraded administration building which is a kind of the backbone of our plant where our operators work it was our highest rated um project for from the disaster mitigation recovery plan we just completed and then there's a host of equipment

1:34:31 that needs to be replaced as part of either equipment replacement or major rehab work at the plant and our five-year cip is projected to be about 105 million so before the budget gets final finally approved and adopted and that they must be ratified by lynn county springfield and eugene and that has to happen prior to start of the fiscal year on july 1. and so we're here before you tonight and then next week on monday will be before eugene council for ratification on may 9th and then we'll be before the county board of commissioners on may 10th and back to our commission on june 10th so with that you're going to request that council ratify the fiscal year 2023 regional

1:35:16 wastewater program budget and capital improvement plan and also available for any questions council may have are there any questions all right then i'm going to open the public hearing um i have no cards in the room uh neil is there anybody on zoom that was wishes to testify uh no mayor no hands all right then i'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing give it go again a motion to adopt the motion ratifying the physical year 20 22 23 regional wastewater program budget and capital improvement program second all right it's been moved and seconded uh neil could you call the role please yes counselor pitts counselor mo yes answer rodley yes

1:36:02 counselor stare i'm counselor woodrow yes and counselor pictionary right the motion passes five yeses zero knows and then one absent next item please thank you mayor the next item is business from the audience and to let you know there are 28 participants online and approximately 11 in the council chambers all right i have one card which is a low aloha heart could you please join us up here and state your name and location for the record and then you have three minutes to testify hi i'm aloha heart and i live at 2147 centennial boulevard in springfield

1:36:51 on april 4th 2022 i and 10 other community members spoke our concerns and disillusionment regarding our city manager's permanent appointment of police chief sear without a national search or any public input as she had promised in very specific comments in her statement on june 6 2021 we are involved in our community because we care [Music] so far we who have spoken have been met with and experienced this from the city council the mayor and the city manager

1:38:56 is she still commenting i don't hear anything she's letting us sit in silence i think she's making a political point okay i thought this was time for comment okay if if you are done um do you have anything else to add thank you mayor i see no other hands up for business from the audience oh i'm sorry i do see a hand the next speaker is sj lore and sj you should be able to unmute your microphone

1:39:47 good evening can you hear me okay we can we can perfect yeah i just would like to add this evening um thank you aloha for your karma comments today regarding exactly that empty promises from our city manager's office um you know it takes a lot of a lot to be able to come to you guys as a city council and um to be able to bring you know bring to the table some feedback when we have questions as people that are living working breathing raising children here in the community

1:40:33 you know i know you guys get frustrated with us but we need to be heard and we would like answers so please take some time to reflect on how you guys can best provide answers when the community has questions and thank you very much for respecting our community with being able to speak with you guys thank you good night is there anybody else neil uh mayor no other hands okay so mary bridget could you provide us some guidance before uh before i open it up to council response how we how we can navigate any comments we might make

1:41:19 um i would just caution the council and just keep in mind that we do have pending litigation regarding matters also the purview of selecting executive team members such as the chief of police is um with the city manager and then the council by charter is not supposed to um interfere with those um decisions or processes all right thank you and i think you so there's only one comment i want to make about it um and i know that this is a concern that's out there um and what i would suggest for folks to do is reach directly out to nancy and set up and set up a meeting to have a conversation with her roles and mary bridget alluded to this

1:42:05 briefly in her comments the council only has a handful of employees that's the city manager the city attorney and the municipal judge and those really are the places that we provide direction under our charter and system of government the nancy is makes the decision for administrative functions on her own as far as my understanding as of a couple hours ago nobody has reached out to her to talk to her about the issue i would strongly encourage you if you have questions or concerns reach directly out to the city manager with those questions or concerns so you can get them answered all right anybody else i'd um just like to thank aloha and uh sj laura for their comments and i

1:42:52 would like just to reiterate that before the last meeting where this came up we were also advised by the city attorney um to refrain from commentary and that's uh that's about all i've got thanks all right anybody else next item please next item is ordinances uh you have one item springfield 2030 comprehensive plan amendments for middle housing and affordable housing statutes this is ordinance number five an ordinance amending the springfield 2030 comprehensive plan residential and use and housing element an economic element to conform the plan with new requirements in state law use statutes

1:43:39 and regulations related to middle housing and affordable housing development adopting a severability clause and providing an effective date christina kras and mark rust are here for the staff report thank you um this is christina krauss in the attorney's office mark and i are bringing this forward i think the ordnance title just about said the entire contents of the ornaments um this is primarily a legal um it's primarily a um just a a we're calling it a bridge ordinance to square up the comprehensive plan with the fact that the development code update project that you've been working

1:44:24 through and the public hearings process on with mark includes implementing some state law that conflicts with language in our comprehensive plan and of course state law overrides our comprehensive plan but it's still a requirement that our code be adopted consistent with what's in the comprehensive plan so this would add um two footnotes to the um housing element the residential element of the comp plan and then a footnote in the economic element of the comp plan to clarify for those policies that now state law overrides that there is state law overriding those policies and that will also help the public who might be reading or comprehensive plan documents understand why we have policies around certain density levels but we actually

1:45:09 allow higher or sometimes lower densities based on how we implement have to implement state mental housing laws so i'm happy to answer any questions on this ordinance mark is available to answer any questions about how this impacts the development code update project or any questions you have to his expertise there is a specific state law that allows you to adopt changes to the comprehensive plan that only implements state law without a public hearing process there's really no land use decision being made here we're just capturing what the state's requiring us to do in our comprehensive plan so there's no public hearing or public comment process associated with this so that's why you're seeing it in a little different format than you

1:45:54 normally would a comprehensive plan amendment all right are there any questions so no action requested this is first reading only next item please next item is business from the city council all right you guys are a quiet bunch this evening next item please any business from the city manager i do have a couple of comments thank you um i just wanted to address some of the um individuals that spoke regarding the appointment of teacher um i want to let you know that i have done outreach uh to uh some individuals in the community and um have i've been trying to set up

1:46:39 excuse me i just hit my mic i'm just i was trying to set up meeting times um i haven't been able to connect on schedule with a couple of people but you um i would really welcome to have a conversation with anybody that wants to talk to me about this particular issue about my hope and vision for not just our our police department for but for all of our city employees um if you go to the city's web page there's a section on the city manager's office that has all of my contact information but i will read it here um in case you're listening or don't have internet access so you can contact the city hall main number that number is six 541-726-3 seven zero zero um it will prompt you and you

1:47:25 can press one for the city manager's office um and you can speak to anyone here and um they can get a message to me and we can get something on the schedule i will need you your contact information and your name to be able to set up a meeting um you can also email me my email address that goes directly to me is n newton at springfield dash or dot gov that goes right to my desk i will i will let you know i do get a high volume even of email but i um try to get through it as rapidly as i can i understand that this is an important issue um and um i i look forward to engaging in conversation with um those that are in concern thank you

1:48:15 all right next item please uh next item is any business from the city attorney no business thank you all right then that is it for the evening we are adjourned thank you everybody