Springfield City Council — February 26, 2024

0:05 I'm going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with a roll call Mayor Van Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo here councelor rodley here councelor Blackwell here councelor Doyle here and councelor pisher here thank you we have uh two items tonight for the work session the first is the revised Bike Share Proposal with Dre

1:00 de pilot uh bicycle fa expansion that included the launch of 100 bicycles in a geographic area that ranged from South A Street to Centennial and essentially I5 to Mohawk Boulevard so quite a large area of town uh the proposal included multiple Bike Share hubs uh with minimal Bike Share uh specific infrastructure and while it seemed that Council was uh interested in seeing Bike Share expand to Springfield there were concerns regarding the number of bicycles deployed as well as the large geographic area proposed uh in addition Council was specifically concerned with dedicated funding and Springfield's ongoing financial responsibility so in response to last year's work session and continued desire

1:45 from the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee Springfield staff has worked with regional Partners including the City of Eugene Lane transit district and the operator Cascadia Mobility to address council's concerns and develop a revised three-year pilot proposal for the city council to consider this evening uh first I'd like to address council's concerns regarding the dedicated funding source and Springfield's ongoing financial responsibility the Lane Transit District or LTD has signaled that they intend to play a larger role in funding operations and planning for regional Mobility including Bike Share through a planning effort called reimagine the ride that is currently underway this planning effort is uh reimagining a transportation system that

2:31 is more connected sustainable Innovative and Equitable and to and projected to be completed in 2025 So based on this planning effort staff met with and confirmed with LTD staff that if Springfield council is supportive of The Proposal tonight and approves funding for the initial pilot year that reimagine the ride would support a regional Bike Share program and that funding could be identified in 2025 to alleviate Springfield from any ongoing financial responsibility however any funding provided by LTD in the future must be approved by the LTD board of directors so while it's not a hard yes tonight the intent is LTD is moving in that direction and going to take that to their board of

3:16 directors uh in addition to ltd's stated goals of reimagine the ride the City of Eugene was awarded 600,000 in federal redistribution funds last year uh dedicated to an immediate Bike Share expansion the the expansion is planned this spring and looks to expand the existing area and deploy an additional 100 bicycles uh this planned expansion is funded by rder Revenue sponsorship City of Eugene University of Oregon and of course those uh federal funds from last year so when Springfield staff learned of this planned expansion and immediate dedicated funding source we asked Eugene if the expansion and Regional funds could include portions of Springfield and at a meeting with Eugene and cascade Mobility Eugene staff agreed

4:01 that the awarded funding planned for the 2024 expansion again this spring uh could include portions of Springfield to start developing a regional Bike Share program uh sending city council approval uh however Eugene staff did need a financial commitment from the City of Springfield so that they weren't footing the whole bill for the regional Bike Share and have asked Springfield to provide uh funding for that and I'll get into that here in The Proposal here in just a second uh the last of council's concerns revolved around installation maintenance and removal of bike Shar specific infrastructure however the new proposal that I will discuss here in a second will only utilize existing bik racks in downtown Springfield so in the event that the program is deemed unsuccessful

4:47 no infrastructure would need to be removed and no added maintenance responsibilities to Springfield operations department so for the proposal uh like last year's Pro proposal staff is proposing a three-year pilot expansion but with a reduced service area and a reduced number of bicycles deployed in Springfield to address council's concerns the expansion is only proposed to cover downtown Springfield ranging from Island Park to 7th Street and South a to d Street uh which can be seen in attachment to in my packet uh the proposal also reduces the number of deployed bicycles to 25 uh in springfi versus last year's proposal of 100 uh these 25 bicycles will will represent

5:34 5.55% of the total existing Fleet deployed with the expansion this year for a total of 450 bikes in the regional system so that 5.55% is how we calculated the cost share for Springfield's portion for a one-year pilot expansion which would be $655 to fund Springfield's portion of the cost share for one year of operation um let's see here so yep that's that was the simplest way that Eugene and Springfield staff could come up with there's 450 total bikes Eugene gets 25% of or Springfield gets 25 25 dedicated to downtown Springfield which is that 5.5% and the

6:21 total operational cost is about $1 million with a budget shortfall of about 300,000 so 5.5 % is about $16 16,552 uh additional things that came up um that for Council to consider is the expansion of Bike Share into the City of Springfield meets many of the objectives of climate friendly and Equitable Community administrative rules Bike Share can help the city me uh City meet many of the desired outcomes of CC Rules by reducing vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions a BMT reduction vehicle miles traveled may allow for the city to choose a project or projects to be included in the upcoming tsp that may increase BMT per capita that would

7:07 result in an overall zero or Net Zero increase so Bike Share could offset new uh projects into the future um with that there is one caveat the State has yet to develop the methodology in which they're going to do this but in conversations with dlcd they were like yes this will help we just haven't figured out how to how to calculate it yet um hopefully that will be soon but that's that's the answer I got from the state is that yes it will help but they're not quite sure how yet um let's see here uh we also wanted to touch on metrics of success um what would deem this project or this program successful

7:52 in Springfield while there's many studies that have been done and metrics established to measure success of more of a standalone Bike Share program similar to what Eugene launched uh staff was unable to identify anything that's a 25 bike expansion of an existing system um so staff in consultation with Cascadia Cascadia Mobility uh more of the experts in this uh recommends a three-year pilot expansion of the existing program giving the community time to acclim to the system and staff time to fully evaluate its impacts uh the first year of operation would be used to gather data and establish a Baseline to measure uh success using the following metrics number of trips that begin and end in Springfield as well as anecdotal uh data

8:39 downtown business owners and Community feedback surveys so in year two these Baseline numbers are expected to grow and will be tracked and compared to Eugene's initial launch and growth and in year three council could evaluate and discuss the numbers and Community F feedback to determine if the expansion is a success um finally just a quick touch back in 2022 23 uh Kelsey Moore our transportation Specialist or Transportation options specialist uh conducted a bunch of public Outreach and briefly the input received via the in-person SE surveys indicated a strong support for bike share with a preference for Bike Share operating in and nearby the downtown core the in-person surveys showed of the 91 People Who provided

9:26 response to the survey 76% were familiar with Eugene's Bike Share system and 86% of the people indicated they were interested in seeing Bike Share operate in Springfield uh in addition to that she conducted uh downtown business Outreach as well as property owner Outreach and 13 business downtown business owners signed a letter of support for Bike Share uh several Property Owners including uh Al Patel Hotel owners off of Franklin David Lal who owns I believe is 1% of downtown signed a letter of support as well as wam malain uh and lastly this last year fall of 2023 staff conducted a a survey at uh the Springfield history museums bright night back in October uh and like the

10:13 initial survey staff surveyed 64 people and 80 80% were familiar with Eugene's Bike Share program and 95% interested in seeing Bike Share operate in Springfield in addition staff specifically asked the 64 individuals if they supported allocated Public Funding for Bike Share in Springfield and that number dropped from 95% to 89% in support So tonight the request is to direct staff to work with cascading Mobility to expand peace health rides into downtown Springfield in 2024 for a three-year pilot expansion uh direct staff to provide 16558 to fund Springfield's share for a one-year of operation and finally direct staff to return in year three of the

10:58 program to measure its success and have an ongoing conversation thank you and I'm available for questions as well as Tom schwetz for from LTV well thanks thank you and thanks Tom for joining us any questions yeah Joe and then we'll work our way down this way so I've got three areas of concern that I would like to get some more knowledge in or get some more information on um number one is that the Springfield share I know is not coming out a general fund it's been identified from other funds and that's fine because I don't want to see general tax dollars going to this program uh secondly though it concerns me that although we have a a nod from LTD but we don't have a yes

11:45 from LTD that's a little concerning but most concerning to me is I look at these numbers and it shows a loss of $300,000 to the program and spring or Eugene adds another 100 bikes to the program which would I think commensurately increase loss because it'sit getting bigger and I would like to know why the loss how come it's not how come it can't sell fund and is there any controls next year so if we have a $300,000 loss this year this coming year what's to say it's not 600,000 the following year and those numbers will keep climbing is there there's no doesn't seem to have any at

12:30 least I haven't been able to identify any checks and balances in regards to these are your these are the guidelines and these are hard NOS Beyond this point so I'm very concerned about that um and the third one is starting to excape me already because I got wrapped up in the second one so I'll think of it and hit them up second okay uh so the first the identified funding um is within my Transportation Planning budget uh there is savings one from the vacant senior Transportation position now filled thank you very much for that uh and two uh contractual Services I have a line item of about $70,000 for programs and ongoing planning efforts and so there is

13:16 70,000 planned in this existing budget it wouldn't be taken from any other program or anything else it's planned for these types of events um two was ltd's Role and I would let Tom speak to that more a little bit um Tom Tom do you w to hold on up for a second so when when Drew punts here I know that you're available we're going to put you on the spot good to see you good to be here um and three remind me of what three was again I apologize oh that it was the funding the funding shortfall right what kind of caps do we have in place and why is it why is it a shortfall and is that a management issue and why is a management issue now can it get worse

14:02 so Brody could probably answer this better he's the the director of Cascadia Mobility but Bike Share in its Essence is a a transportation option and it is not something that is Standalone something that can self fund they have tried that method and it has failed in multiple cities um it's just an ongoing issue of providing Transportation options such as Transit I mean any sort of Transit is that it's a lowcost option for citizens to to use and it's a program that is generally funded by federal dollars local dollars in this case peace health is a sponsor uh there is wrer revenue University of Oregon is putting in a significant amount of money but even with those it's just a it's

14:47 kind of the nature of bike share that it's kind of always looking for funding additional funding it's always going to cost the taxpayers it is always looking for additional funding yeah cost the taxpayers okay and Tom you want to jump in here yeah so I'd like to just jump on to what uh what you're saying here in terms of of thinking about public transit uh or public transportation in a broader sense uh you may be familiar with the story of why the uh US Government supports public transit across this country uh but if you're not very quickly uh the private sector was operating for decades uh couldn't make any money out of it and uh in the late 60s the U actually the 1964

15:32 Congress passed the urban mass transit act uh providing um heavy subsidies to public transit across the country and that's that's how public transportation has operated since then um and so like like LTD Services um uh Bike Share also is that kind of transportation and so in some respects that's in part you know it's it's another form of shared Mobility uh it's something that that we know how to manage uh but I'll tell you we we are not making a profit and it's just not the way it it works it's a subsidized Transportation Source uh or system uh to get people uh the transportation that they

16:18 need and do you have any comments about the question specifically to um to the LTD portion of it oh uh yeah I mean we're we're just in the in the middle of our process uh again as as he mentioned reimagine the ride is the the the term term of uh for that process and in that we're looking at uh a wide range of things first of all the board passed a a policy back in May uh that uh was around Mobility um uh basically was a Mobility management policy uh and it laid out kind of some some fairly uh specific things that that we uh would go through as a process to

17:03 determine kind of what what uh we're going to pursue in this broader uh form of mobility and uh based on that uh we're undergoing a broader uh range of of planning that's intended to be completed uh in time to inform the uh uh Eugene Springfield uh and the in the regional uh uh climate friendly equital communities process so uh in that process uh we're conducting right now a comprehensive operations analysis uh we are about to adopt What's called the community outreach Communications assessment recommendations to improve our public engagement uh I should say we're going to ask the board to adopt um I shouldn't say that we're going to adopt um and then we've also got a

17:48 broader Mobility management framework part of it if you can um imagine uh we're a transit or organization most of our people are oriented to putting the buses out every day uh safely and and effectively um uh Mobility management is a broader frame and so that Mobility framework is just helping us evolve uh and take the steps we need to to take this on and then finally all that's going to feed into our long range Mobility plan so with respect to um a nod not a yes today uh we really want to do this we want to finish our process first um and that's going to lead us to I think and and the board more uh easily uh say yes let's this is what we're

18:33 going to do um and that's that's where we're at today all right thanks Tom um yeah if we can have you back up if you if there's more questions for LTD appreciate it sure Steve uh I'm fully supportive of any way we can get more people out of vehicles I drive a car I how you going to get me out of one but that's that's the future that's what we have to do and so I support whatever we can do that in Springfield I want to be able to come up with something that supports itself some way anyway it's hard to do but we need to need to work in that way uh couple questions I had last time presentation we talked about that $600,000 Grant from the federal government state of Eugene I

19:18 was looking around say did did Springfield apply for anything like that did Springfield what happened there you don't have to answer that yet and uh so that that's been my mind since then and then I look at this uh budget you have here uh the $281,000 from Eugene's contribution is that some of those federal funds that received correct okay good so that's important to know and anyway I support you guys uh so to your first question uh the $600,000 that Eugene received we requested funding for Mill Street to to shore up the Mill Street rec construction project so we got money from the redistribution funds at the same time that Eugene got 600,000 for

20:05 the Bike Share expansion I I believe we looked under every couch for every penny to get Mill Street to the Finish Line we absolutely did Corey thank you um I also have been supportive of this since it's been the get-go I was I was in at 100 um and I what I what I what I want to say is that I really appreciate the cre creativity and um reaching out to the partners and just regionally how supportive people are of this um and trying to like include us in that Regional work um and I know in conversations that I had with different folks it was like can we get to a right size to get this started so that we can see how successful it is um

20:50 and I do think that 25 is a good beginning number um I was already like let's have R so people can get to Gateway and get to the places is but we have to get started and you can tell that we're not all in alignment here but I just really wanted to call out that like digging in reaching out having the conversations with people and asking them specifically about um how they felt about tax M it sounds like people were overwhelmingly supportive of that so I appreciate the extra work that everyone has done to keep this alive and to to get it to a place where we can continue to push forward so thank you all right Nancy I just wanted to um briefly comment I've spoken to Jameson auton who is the um executive director for LTD uh we have an excellent

21:37 relationship with Ltd in the city and um I think Al although Jameson certainly can't speak on behalf of his board nor can he predict what a a future decision would be um he did say that you know any way that LTD could be supportive in this in this way that he would he would try to support that as staff so he was letting me know staff person to staff person that's something that would be a priority for him because uh he wants to be a good partner with our city um and I guess I would just encourage you to maybe consider also not just you know taking away the the overall program but um you know staff did scale back I I think you know the first run at this Council was probably a little bit too

22:22 ambitious um so perhaps thinking of this in a in a pilot project kind of respect but also Al to think about the overall Wellness of the of the community um obes obesity is a real epidemic in America and the more we can be active um that will help us as as a community to keep healthy and stay in our own homes and live independently so you know I think about that because we have two hospitals in our community and the you know uh more we can stay well and healthy to the better thanks all right anybody else uh Michelle yeah I would just also like to add my thanks for um all the work that's gone into mitigating council's concerns um I know you've worked really hard at it and and I see a lot of really good

23:07 you know information that helps me think about this in a different way than I did last time we talked about it um I also want to really thank LTD and the City of Eugene for engaging in the conversations and looking way for ways to help you know Bridge those gaps that we were talking or having concerns about um Tom I do have a question question for you so as we consider LTD support of this which I feel fairly confident in saying I I don't see that that's an issue um what kind of a timing do you anticipate for the process like just a guesstimate or can we just get to the

23:53 board and say just generally does the board support you know the next two years let me describe two scenarios and in in that scenario um we may not be finished with the the reimagine the ride process um in the next year say it's probably going to take like 18 months to get to the finish line but um what I would say is that we we can certainly find a way to support uh what this uh city's trying to do um maybe after year one I guess that's the fun you have uh and and I think we're we're looking at how we can you know provide a source of funding for even a larger system than than just downtown Springfield so that's something

24:40 that we have to figure out um uh we're looking at uh perhaps stiff funding um additional od. funding you know basically it's going to look kind of like our budget looks in terms of all the various forces or sources of funding right okay thank you Victoria thank you and I may I may already know the answer to this but it sounds like what you're talking about is two wheel bikes so if we're talking about Mobility are there any three-wheel bikes for people who can't ride a two- wheel bike because I would think those are folks that would be needing something like that so um currently no uh I I do participate in a regional shared Mobility working group um and and no we're most of the

25:26 conversation is about two wheel bikes and with the Exodus of the scooter we are looking more at electrifying the bicycle Fleet itself and not necessarily going back to a scooter type thing but the the three- wheel I don't believe there has been any conversation about that yet but that's that's a good recommendation for sure just to be clear we're not interested in scooters yes I am y okay um couple of qu a couple of uh questions so right now and I think I saw this in the packet if somebody uses a bike and comes to downtown Springfield to have biscuits in the morning at Cascade biscuit kitchen like what's the charge for them to come over here right uh so

26:13 ending a trip outside of a service area is a $25 fee um and so there is data that shows that there's anywhere from 50 to 75 trips during like summer months through Springfield but those trips cannot stop here without being charged $25 you want to ask goad do we have data on the socioeconomic position of the users of this system that is an excellent question I would love to know if it's actually working for the um folks that are being targeted and if not then why are we subsidizing a system that folks can afford to do something on their own so I

26:58 know I know that Cascadia Mobility did get a grant um to lower the cost for socio economic disadvantage and so the the fee has gone down for those that qualify um but I don't have that data in front of me I I don't know how many are are writing it so um in this broader expansion the like in the map you provided us it was for downtown Springfield right so is and but the botels came up and their hotels are in Glenwood MH could you talk maybe a little bit more like are I think the patels are getting a one of these part of the Bike Share right uh I know that there has been a conversation about putting a Bike Share Hub at their hotels I don't know where that is in the process okay um I'm supportive um I

27:45 think this is right like I think this helps us on a couple of on a couple of elements when we got businesses downtown saying this helps them do business that's a good thing and making it easier for people to get to Springfield and spend money is a good thing um I'm interested obviously in this PMT question you know I know we're not going to have an answer we've told the state for 24 months right that they didn't have their stuff together when it comes to CC and this continues to illustrate the reason why but if this is going to help us sort of buy down you know um something in the broader regulatory framework right that that that does nothing but help us um when it comes I think there's good feedback and maybe we can get the rest of these questions answered when you get back with Cascade Mobility um and send it to us in a memo um I think there the questions about mo

28:30 mo mobility and bikes is good I also think the um uh the when we come to metrics right like we we got to we got to see a report back sooner than like two years from now right like you know if we can have a check in in like a year that would make sense to me the other thing that I think would be really helpful in how we measure the program would be the operating fund Gap right because I think what if you know what Brody going to tell me is that that roughly that same operating Gap is pretty consistent through the history of the program but if we can just like if we talk about you know trips that end here we talk you know find some find a third thing and then the operating fund Gap right that will that will help us sort of understand and measure this program

29:20 appropriately yes I can certainly do those things okay other questions um also like we gave you guys pretty good feedback the last time around and you know to go back out and find a lot of dis additional funds that aren't relying on the City of Springfield I definitely appreciate it do you have enough Direction uh I believe so I mean is that a a yes on let's work with Cascadia Mobility then I'm seeing yet well I'm not seeing 100% of yeses L right but I'm seeing enough yeses to go around go forward yes I believe that I have enough and I will report back in a year all right well hear about it we're going to

30:05 hear about it sooner than that you will yes well there is we are giving some sort of Direction at some point there it's going to come back to a vote work session yeah gotcha all right all right thank you much thank all right the easier of the two topics well Master fees and charge annual adjustment you notice how all the bike folks are like we're out of here nobody wants to stick around for your item hi Nate hello uh good evening uh mayor and councel uh I'm here tonight to

30:50 discuss the master fees in charges annual update um this is never an easy conversation to have uh no one likes to raise fees and um this is an 80 page document with a pretty broad range of fee types and there is no perfect escalator for all of these fees um I'm hoping to give you a little bit of context this evening maybe to make the conversation a little bit easier um I'm seeking guidance um at the end of this conversation on a percentage escalator uh that will then take to this document uh it won't be applied unilaterally just black and white across all the fees it doesn't make sense to do it that way some of the fees are so small that we'll leave them as they are we'll look at each of those fees and just use common sense as we apply them

31:37 um this is also just guidance uh there's no formal decision being made this evening uh this document is going to be coming back to you redlined with our adjustments on April 8th in work session um so this percentage won't be applied to all the fees in this document uh let's start with uh the planning fees um Portland State University just conducted a study in collaboration with our community uh development uh department and um the community development director Jeff Pascal will be bringing that conversation back to you in a work session in the spring seeking guidance for the planning fees so we won't apply list to the planning fees uh it also is not applied to the sdc's uh the sdc's we have an stdc uh methodology that's been adopted uh by a resolution that calls for annual increases based on

32:24 the engineering News Record CPI um that CPI uh from January 2024 is 2.6% and that's the percentage that'll be applied to the sdc's uh utility rates staff will be bringing utility rates in front of you in a work session uh in the coming months uh and so this won't influence those rates uh and then sanipac if santap Pac uh requests an increase we'll also bring that uh to you in a work session what this will influence are our business license fees um our building um permit fees um Fire and Life Safety uh the transport fees as well as the fire marshal office uh fees um police fees court fees and Library

33:09 fees uh so back in uh February of 2019 you know again we've got 80 pages and a pretty broad range of different fee types we're always looking for a simplified way to approach this and so uh back in a work session we decided that we would use the Bureau of Labor and statistics CPI U uh western region size uh class BC uh as our CPI for applying it against this master fees and charges schedule uh that made a lot of sense because we had a couple decades of low inflation uh and then we had the pandemic and high inflation um including the uh CBM I included a uh chart that shows the last four years of CPI and then the rate uh percentage escalator that that you decided on uh we uh

33:56 experienced two high years uh in 23 it was a 8% um CPI and you decided to go with the 5% escalator in 24 it was a 6% CPI uh and uh in the work session last year you asked if there was an alternative escalator that would be more applicable to these uh fees uh we gave you an alternative it's not a perfect one again but it was the growth in our labor rate that came in at 4.4% last year and that's the one you decided to go with uh this year we've provided both rates again um the CPI is 3.3% the growth in our labor cost is 5% and so I'm looking to you for guidance uh and we could do uh one or the other something altogether

34:42 different or potentially a hybrid uh if it's a fee that's based more on reimbursing staff time versus just a general generic type fee uh so with that I'm going to turn over to you for a conversation and questions questions Joe so Nate on the um fees that we charge for example and I'm not sure if I even got the right set of fees we're talking about so correct me if I'm wrong um when it comes to for example the stdc fees that is basically a reim uh collecting money to cover infrastructure and increase in infrastructure costs and construction correct um I believe it's both buying into the system uh so reimburse as well as uh future um

35:29 expansion of the system right so we got a development of pay stc's and and we were punching out sewer lines or you know street lights Etc that helps cover that so I like the trying to get in in line with actual current construction cost increase that makes a lot of sense because if we have to do the work then we have to be able afford to be able to do it I'm not too excited about increasing uh building permit fees because if we're collecting sdc's then then what would be the how would we justify the increase in the building permits unless we had a additional cost in staff but staff cost more and Jeff's here this evening uh to answer questions if you want to get down

36:15 into the um weeds it's a little bit into the weeds just my understanding is the building permit fees are typically to reimburse this for the cost of the um um the time time that we spend on those particular the inspections right so I I mean whatever we got that mean as far as it's close coming close to capturing what it it costs us because I'm not one for having somebody that's building something even though I'm pro buing pro pro construction but I'm not into having the rest of the citizens pay for someone else's project which could be profit for that project man or the project owner but I am wanting to make sure that our costs for increasing or developing our s our infrastructure is

37:05 covered uh so councelor I think so to separate so sdc's are different than the building permit we just collect them at the building issue of the building permit um for the building permit fees to remind Council we didn't increase our building permit fees last year our application fees because um we we were sitting on reserves and we decided to tap into reserves to cover any sort of cost last year so the recommendation when I met with Nate was looking at this year that we probably shouldn't forego another year without raising our fees so that we don't want to put ourselves in in a situation where we're either depleting our reserves or we're um running short the other issue is is looking at Future budgets and strategically planning with as busy as

37:50 our department is is looking at potentially needing to add some building inspectors to start um secession planning because we have a couple that are du near retirement and a couple that may be difficult to replace such as an electrical um building inspector that that are very um specialized and so just thinking ahead that we may be coming to the council in future budgets in the budget committee to look at how we secession plan and add staff to keep up with the the number the the work so I I think it's prudent to we last year we took a pause I think it's prudent to at least look at some sort of increase this year to keep ourselves in um Good Financial Health I don't I don't have much angst over that but and I'm going to throw you a slider uh technology

38:37 fee are we still collecting that where are we sitting with that and is there any pot of money so to speak to help mitigate some of these contemplations of increasing the other fees so we do still collect the tech fee the technology fee and we are utilizing the technology fee um so some of that presentation you saw on the development center and all of that activity and adding that where it's like that the developers and the anybody in the community can go and see information on that that Hub that that was technology fee the other thing is is going through our after the conversation I had with the council last year on the technology fee is going through our personnel and look in and saying what what makes sense

39:23 are there Personnel positions that directly relate to utilizing that technology and assisting developers does it make sense to kind of move them into the technology fee and use some of that to offset some of these costs yes we are going through that process it's just a an iterative process to make sure that we're staying true to where the council was when we met last fall about making sure that that Tech fee was really dedicated to folks who were in that business and and working through that and and utilizing that software or helping the folks who are utilizing that those tools thank you Jeff um before we take other questions so just could you clarify one point and we can use the building fees if that's that would be helpful

40:08 the year-to year in the budget it's going to cost us is it going to cost us more less or the same to deliver the same hour worth of work it's going to cost us more and that's the 5% number that's in there that's the 5% okay so um a lot of our um labor contracts were bargained prior to the pandemic and the inflation that we experienced it is just now coming into our budget uh the first one came in this year um that was the uh police or Spa contract um we are uh implementing um a SEIU and non-union Compensation Plan the study is out right now that's already been bargained and then we're going back into bargaining with those groups as well as if so that inflation is now

40:53 finding its way and we have that built into our forecast right and then and okay other questions Victoria so the only thing I'll will say is I understand the fees have to go up I just think that it's hard to explain to people who are not getting a 3 to 5% increase in their pay and they're paying 15 to 20% more for their groceries to have to try to explain to them why we're increasing our fees 5% is a lot um and and I understand too again we' you know it's holding off last year um so it's just something that we hopefully able to with the with providing a a quality service you know a more efficient service and that type of thing we can justify those costs in the service that we're providing for that for that

41:39 product so just I don't know times are hard all over so okay so we got to get to a number where we're directing them on something to come back with all right so is the escalator four and a half percent or 5% well I gave you two U the um BLS CPI uh Western regions right that is 3.3 and then the growth in labor is 5% we could do one uh the other or we could do a hybrid potentially where we look at each of these and decide is this one that is more labor driven or is this just more of a generic fee um and then you also have an opportunity for instance like with building permit fees um when we come

42:24 back with the red line you can look at category and decide you want to do something different once you look at those numbers yeah so could so we could give you a range saying we're comfortable with 3 to 5% let you mark it up and then sort of examine the work if you will yes we take that guidance and then we take this document and send it out to all the groups that have ownership in it which is pretty much all the Departments and it's just not again applied unilaterally we have conversations and we kind of massage and do what seems reasonable and makes sense I think I'm like I think I'm comfortable with giving you the or the 3 to 5% range and letting you judge like if it's a sort of labor intensive activity right then you know maybe it's on the upper end if it's a non-labor intensive activity where we've made other Investments right to try to keep

43:09 it down at the 3% range people good with that all right thank you all right thank you and we thought we're were going to need all 30 minutes for the uh for the fee schedule that is the last item for the evening so we are adjourned have a good night everybody