Springfield City Council — July 1, 2024

0:04 I'm going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call May Van Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo here councel rodley here councel Blackwell here counc Doyle here and councel pisher here thank you all right we have one item which is the fire governance update um but before we turn it over to Chief Caven and his very large staff that he has brought with him um Neil had an update just a quick um intro to the item so um as you know in 2009 the Eugene fire and EMS Department in Springfield Fire and Life Safety commissioned a feasibility study um with Emergency Services Consulting International and then in 2010 from that study the two cities entered into a functional consolidation and since 2010

0:52 Eugene and springfi have been working as a Consolidated agencies and so the next step um that we're in right now is exam the governance uh so in 2022 a joint governance review panel was formed consisting of councilors rodley and mo from Springfield councilors Groves and Clark from Eugene uh Springfield City Manager Nancy Newton and Eugene city manager Sarah maderi um this panel has spent several months discussing the current operations operations and functional delivery in August of 23 as things got very complicated to try and figure out the city's hired AP Triton to complete the feasibility study and Dan will run into some of those details with

1:38 USC does his presentation uh the city council received an update on phase one in February of 2024 um and this is the second update again this is for information only there's no recommended actions or votings tonight we're just in a work session before I turn over to Chief caveen I do want to um share May of Springfield's appreciation for uh Eugene assistant city manager Christy Hammet and El cogs executive director Brenda Moore and staff from both agencies um for the incredible effort that they've put into helping Triton bring the most accurate information to the council so you can make an informed decision so with that I'll turn this over to uh Chief

2:23 Caven thank you Neil mayor council it's a appreciate the opportunity to be before you tonight and working with ap Triton on the governance review as you know we've gone back through how did we get here why are we here um as an organization and it's important to highlight uh the operational kind of excellence and efficiency and search capacity that's come from this effort uh all of the staff at uh ESF and myself uh have a tremendous amount of gratitude for our elected officials in supporting uh our merged organization and um our overall capability ities a lot of appreciation for assistant city manager le as you mentioned Eugene staff city manager Newton um and all of the support staff

3:09 in the cities that have helped provide the information necessary to to fire staff who conveyed um information to AP Triton to complete this study um we stand ready and look forward to uh the outcome of this process and moving our organization forward um without further Ado I'll pass the mic to Dan Peterson from AP Triton who's been our our lead consultant among a team of experts to bring this study forward to you today thank you very much I'm I'm really glad to be present today instead of trying to do this over Zoom that's difficult at times so you know as as we go through this today we're going to give you the executive summary of the findings right and we're going to we're going to talk through that um I've got

3:56 spots where I'm automatically going to pause and ask questions but I'm encouraging you to ask as we go right the the presentation is really what we've done everything we can to do is give both cities enough information to make the best decision individually as a city decide what to do next in this process that's that's really been a focus for us so as as we go through this uh don't hesitate to let me know if you want to stop ask a few more detailed questions on how we make that fit but our purpose here was really to um evaluate those options right continue to operate as we are uh one city providing service to the other uh establishing an intergovernmental entity forming a

4:42 district or dissolving the agreement we we looked at the administrative needs as well the operational work the the evaluation of the needs in that area was outside the scope of what we worked on that is not a component ultimately we wanted to give you ideas on what might be the best move forward and from that what components of an agreement would need consensus what would be the financial implications and and what's the impact to the city the administrative staff for instance that are supporting those components the background you already covered and I think you know this all too well started in ' 07 with that Third Battalion and then since 2010 the functional consolidation agreement the functional consolidation

5:29 uh improved capacity you have 16 stations that can move around you have a more consistent Dependable reliable response I think most everybody seems to be well aware of that we talked last time we were here about some of the shared admin and support functions and that you've been able to eliminate 11.25 positions that were present in 2010 that are not now there's a few new ones that have been staffed but those ones are still gone with an annual cost reduction of about 2.5 mil million in FY 23 wages 1.2 million of that for Eugene 1.3 million of that for Springfield no you're you're good he was getting my pin not my attention to ask a

6:16 question good no worries the green light helps me a lot too so that's positive um the the next part is we did about 50 visits in person when we came out uh earlier or late last year and we followed up with a lot more visits uh with ESF City staff both sides and we fundamentally came up with these desired outcomes that we we we really aren't going to find any one option that meets all of these but it's really what we wanted to talk about as far as measuring each of the options towards these outcomes so the the perfect outcomes would provide single governance and administration being achieved the operational advantages are continued

7:02 retained oversight by both cities are ured that was important Financial impacts are manageable the staff at ESF their experience is positive the impact on City Administration is reduced the sustainability is achievable long-term planning for ESF is achievable and it has a reasonable time to implement so as we walk through we're going to look at each option and share what our findings were on on each of these outcomes for those particular impacts moving into the continuing as currently organized the the key challenges really do remain that there's two separate City councils and city managers for ESF two separate budgets

7:47 ESF staff are either employed by Springfield or Eugene not by ESF and that structure has comp creates complexity and efficiency and we heard this not just from ESF staff up from both cities have had some of the same challenges of duplication of work and making that happen what I did find though is that both cities and ESF worked really well together they really Tred their best to work through this some of these things just require inefficiencies because of the risk management for both cities that some of those components and there's persistent issues that just seem to keep remaining and not really going away the uh findings that we have related to

8:33 continuing as currently organized uh it does not provide a single governance it retains the operational advantages that you experience today right the cities retain the oversite you have today for all of the positions that keep ESF together we feel it would be valuable to add five additional positions uh at a estimated cost of about 900,000 uh a deputy chief and a Pio are are the top priority a program specialist and a program coordinator are the second priority and then a data analyst would be the third those are simply recommendations from our review of the actual work the continuing is organized that we we didn't feel that the work that's

9:19 today is really sustainable either for ESF or the cities we think there's a real challenge in trying to maintain that each City can can plan longterm but ESF themselves can't because there there's a a potential termination of an agreement or a change those are challenging a little bit of an enhancement maybe with the city manager's involvement or even the budget process could help with that but it still becomes each City independently planning for their fire department the time to implement is easy it's already there there would only be whatever enhancements that might come from that model the key issue that we found in this is that it it just doesn't appear to be a feasible option to continue in the way it is today the

10:06 staff have worked really hard for 13 years but there continues to be challenges and it's about as good as it might get few minor improvements could be made but that wouldn't make a substantial difference any thoughts on this particular option or questions Joe you keep mentioning challenges can you spell some of those out they're talking about persistent and seemingly not negotiable can you sure elaborate a little bit I can absolutely do that so the budget process forces U two completely separate budget processes and styles for the term to be delivered to the city and there's really no nobody looking at the the full budget of ESF except for ESF so the way that that kind

10:53 of Blends in the purchasing practices and policies are enough different that the the ES has to submit that to two different systems the payroll systems are are run differently one one will provide payroll kind of smoothed the other provides Peril to the employees that is on actual hours worked so the employees in the stations can see different paychecks and T and processes in Human Resources you have a fairly consistent problem where if there's a discipline action odard is going Tolo include maybe a Eugene employee a Springfield supervisor and so you end up getting HR involved from both cities risk management involved in both cities for an issue that really shouldn't

11:38 require that many people to manage those uh labor negotiations ends up going back and forth between the the two cities for the process which can make it difficult to move through on an agreement the disciplinary actions like we talked about in human resources were there health benef benefits are different for for the two employees and both plans offer opportunity but the employees don't get to pick so they're one or the other where those fit and the hiring process is is done kind of together but it's randomly mostly assigned for who becomes a Eugene or a Springfield employee so so those are seem to be some of the challenges that those operational

12:23 processes right and those policies create those complexities it's pretty amazing how how well the cities have tried to work together but all it takes is a new employee in HR and then it's like a doover on learning the complexity of the fire department versus what it is in every other City entity Victoria isn't there also some problems with logins when different employees get in there there's challenges and there's some workarounds that have been done to make that possible but the the challenge is if if an employee is working in one city normally and then ends up working in the other they definitely have a challenge but the employees that move back and forth have figured out how to make that

13:09 work right but it's not it's not as easy as running one department but but it is working uh in in a manner that's needed right that's a good workaround that's happened it's really unfortunate though when a person comes over to one to the other city and isn't up on it h they they kind of get a little frustrated ated and maybe they don't get their work done on time but they there is a way to make those things happen the it departments have done their best to work around those things those were the highlights of the challenges all right thank you the um the the next option goes into one city serving the other and this would require revision or a new intergovernmental agreement in essence

13:56 the day-to-day operation employment of staff administered by one city or the other the the city managers could collaborate and work together on the direction but fundamentally all oversight and support is provided by one city clearly a very simple method to address the situation and eliminates duplication um offer some streamlined decision-making as I as I walk through what we found in related to the uh desired outcomes it provides a single governance you retain the operational Advantage but we believe that the city providing the service would clearly have more decision-making Authority day in day out of of the fire department it could be minimized it it could be

14:41 managed a little bit with additional collaboration but fundamentally over time the operation of the fire department would become that one City's responsibility and the other City would not be as involved clearly in the process um it also needs the five additional positions that we are recommending we believe uh the some of the other challenges is that it it does require an increased cost and potentially a challenge for the city that picks up the new employees not all of them felt like they had the resources to manage that there would obviously have to be a shift and support service funding to one city or the other to manage that neither City would be able to just ramp up and do it without some

15:26 change uh the city that was not selected would need to potentially rightsize some of their support services that are no longer being used both cities expressed concern that some of their infrastructure some of their other components would be a challenge to down the price you know reduce that price if the if Springfield were to be the city that was providing the service there'd be about a 3.2 million overall in savings from purs and health care costs the purs and health care for Springfield is less expensive but the movement of her's employees over to Springfield from Eugene and transfer the of that liability could end up impacting Springfield's Pur rate beyond the fire department that is an unknown but it

16:12 would be something the actuar is could look at or if it was Eugene there would be a $1.2 million estimate of increase in purs and Health Care uh both cities expressed concern that if they don't have the fire department on their Health Plan there could be some sustain stability issues with the health plan there would need to be some research in that space the um City of Springfield is indicated that that with some minor change they could accommodate nons Springfield employees on the plan but the City of Eugene has not indicated the same thing as possible this option does streamline administrative Services since it's all in a single City and it is sustainable if the city's Support

16:57 Services find they can manage the ex the larger workload it does improve some long-term planning but it still has a limit because it's in an intergovernmental agreement and it's an and it's an agreement that would clearly have the potential of a termination clause and the time to get to this would be the need to assess the capacity the cost of the transition and the ramp up of the service by the city grabbing it the the key issues that we found on this uh it's a feasible option but with one city having more influence both cities elected officials not all but but many reflected a real concern for the loss of that they they didn't feel like this was a good option for them to have one city have more influence than the

17:44 other the ability to manage that that uh workload The increased cost if it was a if it was Eugene providing the service and the potential impact on purs related to the Springfield response to that any questions on this particular option Victoria so um I hear the feedback on what the different cities are thinking but has there been any talk to the actual employees and the people that are out there working as to what they think of this idea well I think for them the fundamentally uh the majority of the employees want to stay together in whatever way they can today what I mean we can talk a little bit about that as well the The Cult in the stations

18:30 operationally pretty much has been merged it's in their mind they they one fire department working together so I think you could argue that any option that can keep them together is going to be their favorite option well I appreciate that but I'm talking about like the I know the healthc care is significantly different in the two cities um and things like that so I'm wondering if the benefit or the negative to the employees has been something that you've heard or discussed with the Union or the the workers I I I don't I don't know that I could AC accurately answer what the feeling is globally but the you could take like if all of the employees came to Springfield and it was a different plan you could off some of the the shift

19:16 in the plan from Eugene I I wouldn't argue that either plan is necessarily better than the other I would argue it almost depends on your stage of life on on which plan potentially is better I I might be able to ask the chief to comment on his thoughts on how the employees feel about for instance Health Healthcare so I can touch not to to speak on behalf of the labor union or where they are um this has been a point of discussion for the last 14 years um that any outcome for the fire department would most likely render some type of change in particular for the Eugene staff which enjoy a a kind of as Dan said not a better plan per se it's just a richer set of benefits um and so most

20:04 staff understand that and understand that that's a point of either of the outcomes that see us in a different space that would require negotiation with the labor union over uh the impact of of that transition uh but generally speaking as Dan put it people are are supportive and understanding that um the future brings change in that space yeah I appreciate that it just I know that for a lot of us it just feels like as a legislative branch we're looking at money we're looking at that type of thing and I think sometimes the feelings of the people that are out there actually doing the work don't get looked at so I just want to make sure that they you know that we're not picking something that they are all like you you know we haven't at least looked at their input and considered

20:53 it a lot of the people that we've talked to um the like the labor group Etc are they've given us number and it's unscientific but they've indicated that you know less than 3% want to see anything split up because they are again they've merged their culture in the department and at the last discussion they even indicated probably significantly less than 3% want that um our our next area that we looked at was the intergovernmental entity a public body Municipal Corporation created through an interg mental agreement granted Powers through an IGA primarily funded through City funds can't Levy taxes uh typically formation of an IG Board of director appointed by

21:40 the cities elected officials and city managers can be on that board and the fire chief would typically work for that board of directors to provide for that the uh findings hang on go one second yes sir and I think this is a an important point right is elected if we chose this model and we'd have to flesh out a lot of a lot of PE information about this model elected officials are on the board of directors right the you know city managers should be Staffing it and I don't think in any like the city managers need to retain responsibility to hire and supervise the fire chief they they would and and the the discussion is up to you as far as how you lay that out you can put city managers on the board you cannot put

22:25 city managers on the board it it can be it's going to be a important discussion for you to have as a group to the goal that that we're recommending is that you find a a single reporting source for the fire chief and his admin so I think I think there's two pieces to it and I understand we're going to work this out but I want to make sure I'm clear as far as my you know where my feedback is right that from a policy perspective that we need to sort of if the boards governing the the the fire department that elected officials that are driving that right and I want to make sure that my my feedback is hurt on that and when I say single form of point of contact supervising the fire chief to me it would be acceptable to have both city managers working together to do that um

23:12 even if they have some sort of madeup entity in regards to that but I think that's the fire Chief's position is too important and too technical in this in this community to you know sort of treat for U essentially the elected officials to hire them okay the um the uh findings then that we had on this relate a little bit to what you represented the the single government with the IG board is the representatives from the councils right the the board is there the city managers need to be in that mix somewhere right they this system does retain operational advantage in in doing this model the city councils maintain an oversight through their

23:57 representation on the board but what we've also proposed is that you you think of the this IG board more or less as putting together a recommended budget that is done earlier in the year and then presented to the councils for their portion for approval we're we're not recommending that this board make a final decision or become the final decision-making Authority on the budget the budget gets recommended back to the councils so in the packet we're looking at the possib of having that work done by at least March so that it can fit into the city's system for the budget process and and like the mayor said there's a lot of work to be to find consensus on we're we're simply helping

24:43 giving you a couple of things to poke at and an order to process through as you go through if this is one you want the same five new administrative positions are recommended here uh the pers issue is a key one on entity FS recognizes an intergovernmental entity as its own entity and and one of the powers of the IG that this brings is that both of the all of the employees become IG employees and work under this IG either one of the Cities could be providing the support service or the IG could take on some themselves that's another discussion Point as you as you move forward if this is a path but with the IG

25:28 you have the option of becoming an independent or a pool rate employer and what what pers does with a new employer is they take the average independent and that becomes the rate until the actuaries can assess the new entity and you take the average pool rate and you assess that pool rate is simply and you in the pool and then it insulates you as a city from spikes and valleys that occur basically from things that impact purs uh workers comp injuries retirements some of those components that that can create those problems insulate you from an independent means you're simply managing those yourself

26:13 the independent average rate today would save uh about $4 million per year on the pur rate combined it's significantly low but you need to think of that as really one-time money it it would probably be a year or two the actuaries then would would assess this new entity look at all of the employees look at the liability and give it a rating and and we are estimating that it would be the same as it is today after a couple of years as far as but we don't know that and we won't know that until the actuaries do that work if you moved to the pool rate that average rate would be a $630,000 increase

26:59 the positive thing with purs is you can start in at the independent rate and be in the independent rate and at any time you need to you can move to the pool rate if you're worried about that liability once you go to the pool rate you can't go back right so you can count on a lower cost initially but in September purs releases their new rates and that will Define what this shift would be so in a few months they'll come out with new rates but generally this wouldn't the the new rates for ESF wouldn't apply until probably to the 2027 period 2027 to 2029 the uh health insurance if if if it

27:46 was possible for an IG to move and be completely covered by the uh health benefits in Springfield then there's about a $1.3 million overall savings if you move to Eugene it's about a $580,000 increase and again we we believe Springfields is possible with some small changes according to your health your HR uh Eugene we're not so sure yet again either City not providing health insurance is concerned about the St sustainability of their plan they don't know one way or the other they're just it's just a concern uh and IG can also get its own insurance if it wants to for

28:31 health insurance so it's an option at least to look at this option does streamline the experience for ESF it it simplifies Support Services the the best option would be to have uh most of the support services delivered Maybe by one city or the other and then ESF picking up the remainder of those Services over time ESF could pick up all of those City support services but it could also be contracted back to the cities for those issues in this model we're recommending facilities and apparatus be staying with the cities the the facilities are hard assets owned by the cities they should probably stay the

29:18 apparatus for now is not a problem uh the specification is the same the maintenance program for Springfield is used by used Fire Equipment Eugene has their own it's not a top priority to address immediately it would be better to let the F the apparatus stay with the city that's got it this off offers reasonable long-term planning for ESF but like the other options it's an agreement that's going to have a termination option would make it difficult to plan longterm or ESF but the cities could still plan longterm we estimate about 12 to 18 months for for for both cities to work through the language and the needed consensus

30:03 building and then maybe uh that in that time also to cost out whatever option you pick so that you can make the best final decisions we've estimated some cost but that doesn't necessarily call true once you finish figuring out what your consensus is on your game plan and then maybe another 3 to six months after that to implement key issues for this one it provides a single governance it streamlines the work for the cities both cities retain a voice ESF has more singular oversight um it clearly disc requires a discussion on governments and representation from each City that's going to be an important topic probably the first topic is to decide what is the

30:49 makeup of this board of directors what would it look like you see the 4 million estimated Savings in the first two years roughly uh you see a simplification of support and the ability for ESF to provide Aller part of that admin Support over time and then there Still Remains concern about the city's Health Plan sustainability without the fire department questions on this one okay the uh fire district a form of local government an independent entity the board of directors elected from the community primarily funded through property tax right it's it's an issue

31:36 all of you are aware of the findings that we have on this one is it does provide single governance it does retain the operational advantages there is no oversight from the cities in a fire district um the initial estimate we estimate we have on tax rate is $252 and it's a it's a rough estim estimate uh that ends up coming from the expenditures less revenues from that ESF generates for fiscal year 23 the taxable assessed value from fiscal year 23 it's the firste collection of tax rates and it doesn't incorporate future collection or Delinquent Tax which would add a little bit more to the to the revenue it

32:22 does not include uh an estimated Capital fund or fund balance to replace Paratus equipment it it also does not address if there are needs for operational capacity increases today that's not in here because we didn't address what they might need if they need another engine company if they need another ambulance that's not in here we don't know that that's a sure thing uh we simply took fiscal year 23's actual numbers to figure out these numbers uh both cities would need to reduce an equal amount in their collection to make this work effectively for the community uh Springfield in particular you're in compression with both of your levies and you're losing

33:09 about 155,000 today on your fire Levy uh if you didn't reduce everything you would make that larger uh in in theory you could fold your police and fire levies into your permanent rate eliminate your levies and maybe even collect less than what the total cost of a fire district could be if you wanted to reduce compression issues in the city um the uh the fire district effort streamlines a lot of components the district could ask for support service assistance from the cities question yeah just going back to that question about compression and I

33:54 may want to just flag this one for the staff that is a very complicated description that could have a lot of impacts and I'm looking over at the city manager and the finance manager and they I don't know that that that everybody is agreeing that you know that there's some there's some ability that we can switch drop two levies create a fire district and fold it into our permanent rate and I don't know Nancy if that's a fair I think that question is valid I I would want to talk more more with the city attorney about the implications of that and also you know putting this aside on this subject you know I've been involved with um setting up districts

34:40 before and you want to make sure that you set that rate correctly um and so I'm a little bit concerned about uh setting a rate for less than the cost of delivering services but I think you know this report is kind of a a a starting point and I think I don't want to speak for the Consultants but I I don't think they invested as much effort into this particular recommendation um kind of hearing some feedback that it may not be um as popular of a recommendation so but that doesn't negate the need to pencil out that math yeah and I'm I'm pretty sure that's not going to be a popular recommendation but as we go through this I want to make sure we're not you know

35:27 some of the still would have to be fleshed out so that statement's not necessarily fully vetted maybe I I would agree with you it it was simply a possibility but even in that mode um if you if you don't collect your full tax rate a future council could raise it oh and I understand compression and this is really complicated extraordinarily yes so this District you spoke of is this also have the ability to automatically increase their rates by 3% per year as a Allowed by districts they would do that yes so I didn't hear that in your conversation oh okay no no the normal the normal every year they would be they would be able to collect 3% increase on the AV we're talking a starting tax rate they would

36:12 they would be at a fixed tax rate and then that could grow 3% plus any new growth in the district so that could be three to three or more unless the values came down into perpetuity yes as the same as your permanent tax rate the um the uh the district like I was mentioning could ask for support and assistance from the cities so it wouldn't have to be like a light switch to flip everything over that that is an option both cities though would eventually need to rightsize their support services for the fire department um as and as as Nancy indicated it's sustainable if the right tax number is indicated we did not assess the

36:59 operational capacity and we haven't built out a capital replacement plan we we have simply given you a starting Target to begin discussions if this is even an option that moves ahead the formation obviously takes a c approval of the county a vote of the people and an election of a board the key issue for us that we found in this is that it does a number of positive things for the community it provides for some long-term um but I think there would be a challenge for the cities to even reduce the full amount of the fire department because of the difficulty in right sizing the the existing interde departmental fees provided to the fire department those would be difficult to reduce and and really no oversight by

37:45 the cities and the formation of a new taxing Authority in the city was a critical issue not just for your Council but for both sides so it's a and as Nancy indicated a of that conversation we focused on this giving enough information to see what it could look like but there was a lot of resistance to this idea from a number of people some believed that whatever works is great but there was probably a majority that felt like it was the responsibility of the council to oversee the fire department okay the the next option and this is um really uh the dissolving is probably the best path if none of these

38:32 options are palatable to both cities like I mentioned in the beginning our job we felt was to give the cities the best information they can make for their city so that they can decide what they want for their fire department uh we obviously collected a lot of information from ESF but we also met as much probably with the cities themselves the so this is this is the key where you would go it would return to individual City fire departments Eugene would employees would go back to working in Eugene Springfield employees would go back to working in Springfield the city managers would then provide oversight for their fire department and you could reestablish as robust a mutual aid process system as you could possibly

39:17 do our our findings in this area is that it it ends up providing single governance and administration for the fire department you do not retain the operational benefits that you enjoy today you could reestablish Mutual Aid and you could maintain some shared operational protocols and that would help a lot on major emergencies but it's not the same as having the same exact employees that are hired trained promoted policies Etc you would slowly Veer off and be helpful with each other in larger events but it would not be the same as it is today in full integration um the full oversight for each city is there the 11.25 positions that were

40:05 dropped um we went through and and worked really hard with the staff we felt that we recommend that a minimum of eight positions be reestablished total Eugene we felt needs a a minimum of five at 1.1 million and Springfield would need a minimum of three at at about 800,000 Springfield would need a fire chief a deputy chief and an executive assistant and this is minimal right we we wanted to identify what we think would be just enough to get by it it you it wouldn't be hard to argue for more we're telling you what we think is the minimum amount to move forward in this direction and this is where we talked about the culture in the stations the staff at ESF

40:51 um really very few of them are are interested in this their culture is together it will be a hit to the fire department if they were separated uh Springfield Support Services has also allowed Eugene to manage a number of admin components HR functions etc those would need to be built up a little bit again so that if Springfield was to manage those they would have to build those up I don't anticipate that to be difficult just be aware that that would have to be done um it's a sustainable option but you would not have the depth of service you have today but it would be sustainable for the level of service operating as an indiv individual City both cities can plan longterm we would estimate you

41:38 could probably make this happen in about 12 months but the agreement you have today provides two fiscal years to terminate the agreement so if both parties agreed you could do it faster if you if you RI just on the intergovernmental agreement you could have two fiscal years our findings on the on the on the major issues here the key issues is this is a a little bit more expensive option you lose that operational benefit from functional consolidation the firefighters merging their culture is going to be a challenge for them they're going to go through a difficult time to separate uh each City though gets to manage and oversee their own fire department and each City's streamlines their city services because now the fire

42:24 department becomes just like any Department as as far as managing the support of those questions on this one okay our our recommendation the option that we feel meets the majority of the desired outcomes is that IG option it offers some shared governance it it offers uh the the operational capacity that's retained it it offers oversight by the cities you benefit from the ongoing uh cost reductions you you get some per savings one-time savings for one or two years probably two and the proposed member fee that we've

43:09 modeled uh ensures that the costs are fair and equally distributed in that space any questions on this one so just I just want to clarify in this IG situation you would have one budget and then would both councils have to approve that budget or how does that work they would approve their portion their percentage of that budget that's in shared costs okay so they're they still only having to produce one bud budget yes thank you Joe and so would one entity or not entity guess I wouldn't be able to use that word anymore would one counsel one city have voting advantage over another

43:55 city under this model that's the discussion that you have to come up with in governance I think that's going to be a I we put that down if you notice in the report as the number one thing for you to talk about yeah that's as far as I'm going to get until we get that resolved yeah okay the um if this is the option that you move forward with Steve yes I'm sorry I have comment I can wait you first okay well we're we're moving into another slide so if you want to okay okay very good the uh the implementation should should you take our recommendation the U we have we have action plans that are in phases um the

44:42 development of the IGA is the first one and and one of the very first things to talk about is governance right and you walk down through those issues um once you move through the development of an IGA and we have 20 action items on that that you have to find consensus on then you move into the cost based on what you agreed on in the IGA validate the cost we've estimated with our recommendations what some of those costs are going to be but they will change potentially when you adopt a specific language inside of an IGA and then the third set of action items is the implementation of the agreement right the critical issues that you have to find consensus on to make this work governance the role of the IG

45:27 board of directors what is the Baseline Service delivery and and what is the member fee system that brings you back that line item cost for you questions on this one oh why don't you jump in Steve okay big picture no it's okay you guys are the best in the world um what I see is us coming up the plan out there we are responsible for the taxpayers of this city we're elected by them to spend the money as reasonable as we can and providing fire protection we start getting off into into this system and I think we lose

46:12 going to lose control and I don't know how to do that yet but this this is one step towards that so I uh I have my comments about that sure sure sure well like like we talked in the beginning we're we're we're giving you these these options right and and I can even move into this closing part which I think will hit a bit of what you're identifying you know the the Your Capacity and reliability of ESF is clearly better I think everybody agrees there the value of the service is probably more than the savings that you've achieved um we we are recommending the IG as the best option because it hits the majority of the desired out comes however if either city

47:00 as a group cannot find the value we we recommend the dissolution of the functional consolidation and we have very detailed plans to walk through a dissolution so that you can maintain relationships and and and respect the process in a way that allows you to do that um we we are encouraged by what the IG can offer you in delivering those shared service models we think that's a really positive thing for each City but we also believe that you have the responsibility to decide what's best for Springfield and Eugene for Eugene and that's what we've done our best to present to you in this report go ahead Steve this is not the

47:46 answer but read two independent fire departments and we had an independent ambulance agency and they went broke Dennis Murphy stepped in there it suggested we merge these fire departments on a trial basis to see where things would go uh 17 years ago it has evolved and evolved and evolved and nobody's had any control over it you guys have but we haven't so we're at this situation right now where uh I don't know if we can get out of it or not but I know that's how we got into it and to be responsible to our voters we need to address that

48:31 okay before I open it up and you're going to have a lot of different takes and opinions and questions um is there something specific that you're looking for from from our uh conversation like NY first just one observation this elected body has the opportunity to um voice any concerns and upon the issue of control like nobody's had any control um I would suggest that you do have control as part of the annual budget process you control what the budget allocation is you can you can approve or deny positions you control uh appointing me um that and IO I partially uh supervise the buyer she so other

49:18 questions about control and I understand changes you know that's a key question but I think if you write if you were to go with this and I'm not trying to Advocate anyway um you would address those by very tightly written agreement but I just wanted to put a clarification on the record about times where this Council does exercise and can exercise control over this department and I think to me the IGA is on the table but the the challenge I have with the presentation in the report and I know there's a ton of material coming our way over there for a little bit of uh summertime reading is there's not really a lot of detail in like to to a certain extent the a as an option is you know the most complicated

50:04 because there's no structure to it and so as we start the conversation I want to kind of acknowledge that depending on what some of those details are could sway the conversation between the elected officials quite a bit um and so that's an open question in my mind go ahead Corey thank you um and I think it just kind of just thinking about this this word control um going through this process I think gives us the opportunity to actually have more control and more defined control because the way it's been actually functioning is um you know we have our little chunk of the budget that we do and we get a report from the police

50:49 chief or when we need to buy a new apparatus we have to sort of piece that together but I think the idea of having like regular um oversight and getting really clear about the role of the city managers um is actually going to in my mind and in my opinion gives us more control because we're going to be paying closer attention because we've we've built the infrastructure to do that so for me I think it it ties up a lot of the the the looseness that has started to happen over the last few years thank you anybody else c Victoria well first off I want to thank you and the other members that have been on and on this and working on it for all this time I mean this is was one of the things that

51:34 really concerned me when I ran for city council um and I think that I understand how this began as councelor Mo said but here we are 17 years later and to me the idea of blowing that up for those folks that have created that culture you know the police departments and the fire departments have a completely different culture that you know a lot of people don't understand I think in the in the general public it's not like a regular work environment and um and so I think that that's that's why I have these concerns and I'm mentioning them because I think it's so important that we keep um keep that in mind and so for me the idea of just splitting it up again when I know that less than 3% of folks um are are in favor of that really concerns me

52:19 a lot um I like the IGA and IG both I think those are both valid um ideas I think that whatever we can do to make this more streamlined and more concise and less work is a good thing so I'm willing to to keep hearing more about it thank you Beth I completely agree with that and I feel like I want to hear more about it's really complicated and there's a lot of layers to it so trying to read through here and figure out you know costs and there there's so many unknowns that it's hard to completely grasp but um keeping you know the department together especially if that is um the need and the want of the employees I can understand that and see that and so I'd like to see what this looks like a little more but again there's just a lot of unanswered and

53:05 what ifs and how that can work out so but I'm interested and I can speak to the you know this is a executive summary report the the report itself has well over 200 pages of detail that you did not want me to go through tonight right that report still young that report is it will be in technical review with we we've done some final things after the uh governance review panel that'll be in technical review with the cities and then how that moves forward uh a lot of your questions will be answered in there but some of those questions could not be answered until an IGA would until there would be consensus found in some parts but a lot of what you're looking for is in there if you choose to

53:50 dig okay uh anybody else well Michelle how we do this is going to be very very important um keeping an open mind you know respecting both sides of the conversation is is really critical um I'm committed to doing that if that's what it takes to support our fire department in the way that helps them move forward in a in a positive way and keep their culture and all of those really important things um I'm just I guess asking for anyone who's going to be involved in that conversation to really be open-minded Corey thank you and I think um again I appreciate councelor Doyle's appreciation because this has been like

54:35 three and a half years of work that we've been we've been working through this and you know we've come to some some blocks and some stumbling places and we've had to regroup and I think um one of the things that I said in the last review panel meeting is now we're at a point where um for me it's important for us to hear from our Springfield Finance staff and our city manager because th those purs and those Insurance pieces are are going to be a big part of the conversation and so I'm I'm really interested to know and I think one of the things that I shared with Brenda at elog is is we're here to represent Springfield and we need to allow some space for our partners in Eugene to figure out because like as you

55:20 mentioned they're still trying to figure out how it affects them in some places and so we're not going to be able B to really get into that conversation about the IG until they know what the gains and losses are for them and we know what the gains and losses are for us and so now it's like where we get to lean on and Trust our staff and the collaboration to work those pieces out so we get to that conversation thank you all right I've got a couple more pieces of of feedback and then we can talk about like where do we go from oh just short go ahead U the finance part that's the part that's been concerning me all along Nathan is our finance person I trust him completely and I hope that he looks at these

56:07 numbers and comes up with what is what is going on how it's going to affect us and what our future will be and I know he can do that so I hope that we start on our end look at that all right let me ask one kind of clarifying question about sort of next steps I know you're meeting with our colleag in Eugene next week so after that's done we all sort of break for the summer roughly um then what happens like this one is one that I should feeli so I think that you know obviously this is a lot of information to digest I would you know depending on your appetite for summer reading I feel like a teacher is signing summer reading but you know we could certainly provide

56:53 you with the full report so if you really want to dig into some of the foundational data that uh this executive summary represents you can do that and get a little prepped up for a future discussion in the fall we also need to check in with our partner and Eugene and and talk about what their schedule is like as well and then I suggest that we break this into manageable chunks of information one just kind of a decision point on uh recommendation that have been presenting for to you this evening I mean I know you're this is this is not something we can really decide in one evening and I I understand that so this the intent here is you can have the summer do more reading think about it some more um even you know talk to myself talk to other and we would

57:39 certainly be looking into as much as possible some of these questions regarding uh Pur rate and also any kind of the health insurance however I I do want to put a caveat on that that sometimes Pur rates can be a little squirly to estimate so I'll just leave that there I don't work for pearls purs I'm not going to be disparaging um and then so we started the starting point would be okay what is the model and then working that into a series of decisions probably starting right off with governance because to me that would be uh the one that would be the most likely to derail that an option of an IG if both councils couldn't come to consensus on how that would be constructed so I I

58:25 suggest that you know you know don't let the enormity of the of the issue overwhelm you we can do hard things we have done hard things um and that would be our our first steps so um I think there's a couple things that are important so it sounds like it's not really until the fall do we start kind of removing options from from from consideration that way we we have time so that we both jurisdictions can see the information the other thing that I'm concerned about when we read it is just thinking about the price at the end of it sometimes we start these you know uh these uh decisions Without Really knowing what the final price is going to be and you know I know it may have to come in a sort of linear order of sort of like governance price Etc um and then I think the two

59:12 components of costs that um that I want to hear about are really the the conversion costs and then sort of like either five or 10 years out right like let's just test whether or not whatever decision we make is creating a structural problem for us you down the road I think that's an important part of this as well um no matter what right like do nothing or well the the separate separate departments is you know always got to stay on the table right because I think that's everybody's fallback position if we can't if we can't sort of figure this out um the IG portion when I think about it flushing out that governance model so is is critical to saying figuring out if whether or not we support it and the things that are important to me and I cannot State this

59:58 enough is that if if the elected officials right the staff for that board has got to be some group or delegate of the city managers because the entire system between these um between the two cities Works through the city manager and that is a critical part for it to be successful and those two city managers together have to be the one that are is supervising the fire chief the other thing I'm conscientious of about like the vot in political portion that's going to be something that is going to be a little bit of tricky that we were going to have to sort out but we have good models to look at like with the MPC that have sort of veto options and ways to protect your priorities and work together and then the last thing that I think is important

1:00:43 is budgets need to work bottom up here right so effectively we still need to leave the council's in control for how choosing service level for their con for their constituents and for their communities and using the cities as a way to sort of push up that final that final budget you use the term like membership fees um and I I get it right we're starting to construct this for the first time but to me you know the final vision of this is like really the councils have to really set the service level and kind of push it up towards the board to finally adopt it and that way you're again protecting the council's ability to look holistically in their Community for what they need and then the city manager's ability to administer the whole picture you know as we as we support this and lastly I just want to

1:01:30 point out I know we've been talking about Pur rates you know how Finance is engaged right like how do we support the employees the amount of stakeholders here is insurmountable right but let's not forget that we're ultimately serving the public right so ultimately the thing that's got in my decision is like at the end of the day what is best for the Springfield Public and Eugene's going to you know we weigh what their public needs are this is really complicated and so I really appreciate the effort I know we're kind of talking through these different conversations and we're I feel like we're beginning to repeat ourselves and now I'm kind of interested in how does that feedback start to show its way up in the documents that the Project's producing and my last question and then I'll end with this is no matter what what I'm is whatever decision we make

1:02:15 here it still seems like it's like two years of implementation right this is like it's not going to just happen overnight right okay I'm hearing that okay all agree on that and and the sooner I think everybody's going to be more comfortable the sooner we officially can take the fire you know the district off the table right like and the other one that can probably probably go that again you know my ultimately my opinion is that one service you know one city contracts with another those are like I can see how the construction physically works but the politics of those are going to be really difficult for people and you know the sooner were're able to start whittling down this list I think it's going to help everybody anybody else goe Joe yeah I'm

1:03:03 just go ahead and put it out there I think the most interest I have is is to learn more on the IGA that's not off the table for me and neither is the desolution of our relationship neither one of those are off the table for me but I'm definitely open to hear about more more of the other with the IG the other ones I don't see for me I couldn't support the other options they just don't make sense to me so I would love to hear you know the more information in that area the better for be able to help me make a decision okay I'm looking around for any last minute Neil uh just mayor quickly I just wanted to um again thank councelors rodley and mo for their work and thanks to uh city manager Newton for her

1:03:48 feedback at every step and then thanks to Dan and his crew um you know there's not a line in this um executive summary that we didn't have a conversation or an argument or push back and we worked um a way to get it into the document and then there's a 200 Page data Rich document that all of the staff here at the city on every page had questions including Nathan including our partners in Eugene so appreciate Dan coming in at um you know as we were halfway through and really working with two cities that really are doing everything they can to make sure we get the best that we can get and so appreciate that Dan and your staff well thank you guys so much um do

1:04:33 we want the full report for over the summer reading I'm seeing some yeah I'm seeing some head NDS no well I wasn't going to see that mayor we have that and we also have a website where you can view the previous meetings and have all of the information perfect always good to see you Chief come by anytime I appreciate the opportunity and your support all right thanks everybody we're safe I'm going to call the Springfield City Council regular session to order with roll call Mayor Van Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo here councelor rodley here councelor

1:05:18 Blackwell here councelor Doyle here and councel pisher here thank you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance there is two times designated for public testimony this evening under business under public hearings and business from the audience if you are attending in person please complete the request of

1:06:03 speak card located at the front of the council chambers and turn them into the city recorder if you're joining us online with tablets smartphone or computer and wish to speak either of those times please use the raiseed hand feature in Zoom the order of public testimony is as follows anyone who is in person in the city council chambers and then anyone who has raised their hand and for the record we are pulling item one under business from the city manager the city manager and sub street light IGA it's going to be brought back to us in the fall of 2024 there's additional work to be done on the item first item please first item is the consent calendar I move to make a motion to approve this consent calendar

1:06:50 second you could you call the vote please yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes counc rodley yes councelor Blackwell yes councelor Doyle I and councelor pisher yes thank you motion passes six yeses zero NOS I want to acknowledge our partners from ramland here you you guys got it done it's a little anti-climatic next item please next item is public hearings you have two public hearings this evening public hearing number one is the Wastewater master plan and Jeff Pascal is here for this item and Molly maren good evening uh mayor counselors I'm Molly Mar caran senior planner and

1:07:35 uh the city's project manager for the Wastewater Master Plan update project as Neil mentioned Jeff Pascal formerly city engineer and now the community development manager is also here tonight for this item during your June 24th work session we provided an overview of this project to update the city's uh Wastewater m plan highlighted plan content and summarized community outreach and feedback themes we also answered uh Council questions and acknowledge city council comments tonight the final draft 2024 2045 Wastewater master plan is moving into the formal adoption process with the city council public hearing following tonight's public hearing staff will

1:08:20 finalize the plan and present an adoption resolution to Council in the fall finalization of the plan will address any public testimony received tonight and city council Direction in addition to addressing items that were noted by City staff and agency partners following the release of the final draft plan this spring specifically a project numbering error in the Capital Improvements program recommendations and other minor errors and also more substantially incorporating the thirston road system Expansion Project into the 20-year Capital Improvements program list for context this project was identified in

1:09:05 the 2008 Wastewater master plan and was considered by the project team as having low potential to occur during the planning period in early 2023 when we analyzed the previously identified projects that had not been completed since then the city has received and processed annexation applications for property the ultimate ultimate development of which will require said extension given that the capacity need is captured in the hydraulic model since the project team conservatively modeled based on full annexation and buildout of the of Springfield's Urban growth boundary or ugb it now makes sense to update the project list as it is now highly likely that this extension will be needed in

1:09:51 the 20-year planning period and the extension would be potentially eligible for systems development charges credits in the future at this time staff recommends that the city council conduct a public hearing on the final draft 2024 to 2045 Wastewater master plan thank you there any questions for Molly before I open the Public Public hearing I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing I have no cards for this item Neil do we have anybody online wishing to speak to this item appears we have no hands for this item I close the public hearing there's no action uh requesting adoptions scheduled for fall

1:10:36 2024 please read the next item uh public hearing number two is annexation of territory to the City of Springfield Annex approximately 2.44 Acres of industrial property in Glenwood located at 3331 Franklin Boulevard map 17-0 3- 34-33 tax slot 100 Andy limbert is here for this item yes good evening mayor and Council uh previously staff had requested that this item be continued the public hearing and the record be uh continued to this evening's meeting um in the anticipation of receiving some additional information from the applicant uh regarding some concerns about the annexation um annexation

1:11:22 agreement uh we did receive response from the applicants council at the end of last week and that was after the council packet had been prepared and it did not give staff adequate time to review and respond uh therefore we are recommending that this item be continued to the next regular meeting of council which is on September 3rd I'd be happy to answer any questions are there any questions and we're expecting that on by September 3rd this is going to be ready to move yes okay yes it will be ready it will be ready to be concluded on September 3rd all right all right um thanks Andy um I the public hearing is still open I do not have any cards for this item or no hands for this item all right so we are going to continue the public

1:12:07 hearing to September 3rd 2024 next item please your next item is business from the audience I have one I have multiple cards um first card is Jason profit and I do have some pictures that I will hand out that Jason gave us so we've got them I just have to distribute them state your name and uh location for the record uh Jason profet 657 Quarry up underneath the water tower and I I want to start with saying thanks to the city for re rocking the road after the ice storm wasn't quite enough Rock but it was better than what

1:12:53 it was they missed a pretty deep mud hole there uh where the bear walked in during ice storm I think it'd be sth Street I think somebody's growing cannabis in there there's an awful strong skunky smell you guys go in that area be careful uh the mayor knows where the trail is up there the pictures that I handed out is the east of my property which belongs to the city I used to maintain that before my back surgery my realtor is asking for this area to be cleaned up on the east west and south is sub de star is the contact there uh that

1:13:38 blackberries are five feet high in there they're they're at least chip chest highe on me I'd like to I'd like to see I like to see the city spend some money do some maintenance up there in 12 years I've been on that property I've never seen uh the city come in and cut that east side or the West Side I'd like to see for fire danger I'd like to see it brought up to Oregon Department of Forestry standard where they say Lift lift everything up off the ground right now there could be a homeless camping and you couldn't see it on either side of the east or the West Side the east side is actually I believe the original rock quarry Steve

1:14:25 might might be able to confirm that uh it's underneath the water tower I heard there was an old house in there at one point so I talked to code enforcement they're not going to do anything but pass it the operations and I think it goes to the bottom of the pile this nothing gets done up around my place I had the brush cutter uper once last year Park Street Park Street uh fifth and sixth needs to be cut back and there's stuff that I put in ribbon down on at Booth Kelly by the Rader track from the snow break and that's going to be my last question is how come Booth Kelly entrance doesn't look like mountain gate I was just out there this

1:15:11 morning I mean we're overgrown it looks pretty bad thank you thank you uh next card is Marissa it's still not active you got to hit the button and it'll go green there you go okay thank you so much uh hello my name is Marissa Zar I'm the co-executive director of Plaza the and I'm here to speak as to the adjustment of the cdbg funds and I'm

1:15:58 here to share a little bit about Plaza some of you may know us as cro Latino downtown languages or word Familia we have long-standing relationships with the City of Springfield with Wain the school district and a few years ago we decided to bring our organizations together to create a new immigrant and Latino serving nonprofit to be able to combine our efforts and have a bigger impact as Plaza uh we provide a whole range of services including Community Gardens Mental Health Services in Spanish we help start small businesses we have family literacy programs or parents and their kids attend together to get educational activities and more one of the projects we've taken on as part of the merger is looking for a space for our Wellness Center and that

1:16:43 is a place to have our Spanish language therapists and our Spanish language um addiction treatment program to be able to have a place that's meant for Clinical Services and dedicated to that purpose um while pursuing that we found a property at Centennial that previously belonged to uh willit family or they were renting it and we've purchased that property so we're very excited to create this new resource for the community here in Springfield and increase our Partnerships here locally and as part of that we've undergone a huge project with the purchase and now um preparing the space to be a good trauma informed space for community members to access the care that they need and to have Equitable access to services that are available in Spanish that would not be available

1:17:28 otherwise without us so we're here today asking for support um in the form of an amendment to the cdbg funds and I wanted to share a little bit of context about our organization going into that conversation so that you know more about us and especially with Plaza being a new name um making sure that you knew that we are long established organizations here in our community with I think 80 years between the three organizations many years hundreds and thousands of people or not hundreds of thousands pardon thousands of people hundreds of families uh served every year many of them for decades and were there to meet immediate needs and also help people think about the future with some of our programs like the gardens or helping launch

1:18:13 businesses so we appreciate your consideration during the cdbg fund conversation and some of my colleagues will be here to talk a little bit more about what that looks like for us um but we wanted to make sure that you understood the purpose of this was really to create a culturally specific accessible location for folks to access crucial Mental Health Services and addiction treatment services that are not available otherwise in our community so thank you for your time today thank you uh the next card I have is Justin

1:18:59 you gotta hit it one more time there you go uh good evening mayor and members of the council my name is Justin schmi I'm a local real estate professional uh I had a chance to sit in on the May 29th Community advisory committee meeting for the CBG funds that are being discussed this evening I'm here to share what I observed at that meeting first there's a lot of need in our community two organizations came and spoke about what they would do with the funds and you could tell there's some need out there second um the committee members and staff talked about it it's a use it or lose it system for whatever reason the circumstances are if the funds don't get used the HUD can take them away and

1:19:44 send them to another state uh third if you don't use the funds what the committee members and staff talked about was because it could penalize you in the future for getting H HUD funds so I'm encouraging everyone to see what we can do with that tonight thank you thank you um the next person is Timothy Herrera good evening city council I wanted to talk today to talk about the context of this project um this project aims to create a bilingual substance use disorder treatment at mental health

1:20:30 clinic at 1621 Centennial bolard the addiction treatment and mental health services offered at this location will be open to the public during our business hours and the majority of our clients are loow of medium income according to the 2020 National survey on drug use and health by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration the state of Oregon has the second to worst overall addiction rates Nationwide with nearly one in5 than adults reporting a problem with drugs and alcohol and in 2022 Oregon ranked to last in treatment options substance disorders affect individuals from all backgrounds including Spanish speaking communities in Oregon however linguistic and cultural barriers can create significant challenges in accessing substance use disorder Services exasperating Health

1:21:16 disparities and many Spanish speaking individuals in organ face language barriers when seeking um this type of treatment so this Wellness Center is highly needed in our community to address this epidemic locally and to ensure that Spanish-speaking community members who are disproportionately impacted by Health outcomes are able to access Mental Health Services and treatment programs providers who speak Spanish or offer interpretation Services can improve access to care and facilitate more effective communication substance use disorder Services should be tailored to the unique cultural social and economic context of Spanish speaking and bilingual communities and Plaza is aware of cultural nuances values and beliefs that may influence treatment outcomes bilingual staff can improve the quality of care and increase the likelihood of

1:22:01 successful treatment outcomes so the plaza Wess Center in Springfield is essential for providing trauma-informed culturally relevant Services building social cohesion and enhancing Public Health especially since there are no other sud Services currently being offered in Spanish in Springfield um and the space has been specifically designed for the provision of trauma-informed care and the location was carefully selected in order to ensure accessibility to all community members so thank you for considering this amendment to the cdbg funds thank you thank you I have no other cards Neil do we have anybody online no hands for this item all right is there any Council response chill if I can I have a couple questions

1:22:47 just for clarification and I think it's wonderful what you folks are doing but you mentioned it's open to the public I'm curious anybody coming in regardless of their ethnicity would be welcome number one go why don't you ask all your questions number one and then number two I'd like to know as far as the money it's being spent what is it earmarked for as far as expenditures that's going to go to its Professional Services or to the physical structure of that building so why don't we do this because I'm I think a lot of people have questions about uh the different programs recommended for cdbg when we call the item um after the staff presentation we can have both both groups up and let us ask ask some questions okay thank you any any other

1:23:33 Council response all right next item next item under resolutions is General obligation Bond authorization Nathan Bell is here for this item uh good evening mayor and councel uh the item in front of you this evening is a request to adopt not adopt a resolution authorizing the issuance of General obligation bonds in February of 2024 uh Council authorized a referral to voters a ballot measure issue um authorizing the issuance of up to $20 million in general obligation bonds for the purpose of fixing certain streets on May 21st uh voters approve that ballot measure uh this item Tonight is the last step for you that's going to allow staff to move forward with issuing those bonds we anticipate uh completing that issuance sometime in mid uh to late

1:24:19 August so any questions are there any questions Joe I'd like to happily make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City of Springfield Oregon authorizing the sale of General obligation bonds second could you call the vote please yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes councelor rodley yes councel Blackwell yes councel Doyle absolutely and councel pisher yes motion passes six yeses zero Nos and again thank you to the public for trusting us with this uh our streets definitely do need to work next item please next item is resolution number two vertical housing tax credit for 448 Main Street and Jeff Pascal is here for this item good evening mayor and Council um

1:25:06 before you you have a a request to move to adopt or not adopt resolution for approval of the application of vertical housing tax credit um we'll walk through a little bit of the application in the packet um the um because this is the first one that we've received that we've process that we've had a process um so we don't really have an application process so basically what you'll see is in the council briefing memo which outlines all the criteria it goes through and gives the staff review of the applicants materials um per that credit outlined in the 's um the Oregon revised statutes um so in 2004 council did create a vertical housing Zone it's

1:25:51 the downtown area um you can also see the four criteria um that are required to be met for approval or um certification by the council and that's one the project must be wholly within the Zone which it is um the project must maintain a um exemption multiplier at of at least 1.0 and you'll see in there they're above 2.0 in that material um one thing you'll not is there's a discrepancy between the numbers they submitted and what we calculated off of their building plans um that is because they were C calculating the um live work unit and per the organ statutes that does not qualify as fully residential and so that was subtracted out of their

1:26:36 calculation um if you look at the when you look at that it didn't make a you know when you look at the numbers it wasn't I think it when it came down to it was 1% I think before the subtraction it was 42% um with the subtraction it's 41% so it's not as far as a a big number um the construction and Rehabilitation must be started on all of the buildings um we can all see 448 main they're almost done with that project and I think they're getting ready to start leasing um and at least 50% of the Project's ground floor um front's primary public street so um through all of that evaluation and looking at the application there's the staff recommendation to approve certification by the council

1:27:22 Cory thank you and thank you for the this um I'm curious because you mentioned that this um and this is coming to us from masaka properties um and I'm curious because this has come up before when we've talked about these things do you have an idea of like how much staff time went into this because I know we've asked before about how much time does it actually take and you know what are we actually yet so I'm just curious as to how much staff time went into the processing of this to get it to us if you have an estimation thank you would estimate um between meetings and everything we've had it was probably about a week's worth of work for one FTE to come up with the full report now part of that I will put out there is the fact that over the life of this program being

1:28:09 in place we haven't received any application so part of that staff time was just like looking at it and going how do we what are we going to do to process this and make sure that we provide the council with the best material possible um and a full evaluation so it's probably not a very fair way of saying that versus some of our other land use applications where we really have a rigid application process and we really we process a lot of them and so we have a full understanding of what we're doing Victoria so with that said does that mean that you now have a template or an sop for handling these because we're kind of hoping that maybe more come along are you thinking this is a oneoff that we're probably not going to see again so if you'll recall as part of the um housing diversity tax exemption

1:28:55 one of the recommendations was to repeal this and in essence replace it with that so weed this application before Council had taken full action on that so we'll we'll come back and we will probably come back sometime later this fall to finalize that app that um repeal of this so I don't anticipate getting any new ones in the meantime um but yeah we do have a little bit more of a process or at least an understanding of the rules and everything that goes into it so um but yeah that was always in the tent we just received this application before all of that so the decision and the recommendation was to go ahead and process this application and not repeal the um vertical housing tax exemption I don't think we have any more questions

1:29:40 Joe I'd like to make a motion to adopt the resolution to approve the application for the vertical housing tax credit for 448 Main Street second NE could you call a vote Yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes councelor rodley yes councelor Blackwell yes councelor Doyle I and councilor pisher yes thank you motion passes six yeses zero NOS next item next item is the TGM Grant resolution of support Drew Larson is here for this item uh good evening counselor uh Mr Mayor um my name is Drew Larson senior Transportation planner with the City of Springfield and tonight I'm excited to

1:30:26 share with you uh a proposal to pursue a grant to the state's Transportation growth Management program uh specifically aimed at funding a bicycle and pedestrian master plan for our city um so staff is committed to enhancing our transportation infrastructure in accordance with our existing transportation system plan which emphasizes economic Vitality sustainable land use and maintaining an efficient Transportation network uh further the the proposed plan if awarded funding would achieve several policies of the tsp including enhancing infrastructure to accommodate diverse populations including those with disabilities maintaining safe and efficient bike and pedestrian systems ensuring continuous Transportation network with direct travel routes for all modes addressing the mobility and

1:31:13 safety needs of all users and creating a pedestrian friendly environment that enhances safety comfort and convenience by removing barri barriers and providing direct routes so H excuse me securing this grant would be a significant opportunity for us to integrate a more robust bicycle and pedestrian planning into our broader Transportation strategy it will enable us to develop a comprehensive bicycle and pedestrian master plan that aligns closely with our tsp goals and policies uh to proceed we kindly request that city council support the passage of a resolution of support this resolution demonstrates Springfield's commitment to providing the required local match of 10.27% primarily uh provided through in-kind staff time and ensuring that the project

1:32:00 is well prepared and poised for adoption um if Springfield is awarded funding through the program staff plans to regularly check in with City Council on our progress and seek your input to guide our efforts effectively thank you and um I'm available for any questions Joe thank you drew I gotta ask this master plan you want to draft is there any part of that is in recognition or to comply with mandates by state or is it something that we are dreaming of and is it something that's going to significantly increase the number of bike paths on our streets and roadways Etc and impact our

1:32:45 traffic so I heard two questions in there first uh one our transportation system plan does call for more robust planning but with the climate friendly and Equitable Community rules uh there are new mandates within them that do include um full planning of a bicycle and pedestrian network with a final buildout plan and so while the tpr the transportation planning rule included bicycle and pedestrian planning it didn't include this level of commitment it was more of a provide for you know have some policies in there that support bikes and Peds now the new tpr regul ations from C climate friendly and Equitable communities do require additional

1:33:30 planning efforts um identifying gaps uh doing it um equitably and providing a full buildout plan so the answer is yes and no uh I mean we we do not have a plan that identifies all the gaps and provides a road a a full Network plan as required by the tpr and the tpr did change with climate friendly and Equitable communities to include these elements so after this plan is made or if we get awarded that and you create this plan is then now Springfield compelled to complete whatever is drafted in that plan my understanding is

1:34:15 that it does require a plan for full buildout of the plan hey hang on Joe I think Nancy's trying to jump so please Nancy you know where I'm at I'm not going to sit there and I want and I want green Lanes throughout the City compared other CI understand that coun I I was um trying to flag the mayor and uh thank you I think Christina and I were on the same way leg um thank you J for your presentation and and your work on this irrespective we have CAC in front of us and we're we're working on are that the other issue on a parallel track and at the at the same time we have to comply with its rules um I I don't consider this to be an overreach I guess would be my you know to get to your point about is this kind of a self-driven plan or is

1:35:00 this something that we're going to be mandated we mandated to do I would say it's fair to say at this point in time it's a mandate attached to CC we're challenging that but that's a different discussion um the other part is does the uh creation of a plan obligate the city to build the plan and I would say you know prob I no I I you can you can create the planning um document but as far as the full buildout that's it's a multi-year horizon so you can't financially obligate a future Council if that makes sense and I Christina will explain this legally better than me all right Christina I think that's the

1:35:45 general the general premise is correct that that adopting comprehensive plans does not obligate the city to carry out those um improvements however um the bicycle and pedestrian plan could be a useful tool for the council to have options um in under the CC rules the council as part of the Eugene Springfield metropolitan area is required to do performance um sorry um Regional scenario planning which includes performance measures that the council will have a say in adopting if you have a completed bicycle and pedestrian master plan that can be a tool to selecting potentially um some of those improvements um as your performance measures in which case they

1:36:31 could be binding under the CC rules and that the rules require the council to act on the performance measures that you take so um that's a very complicated way to say generally it doesn't carry an obligation but there are ways that the council could decide to obligate itself to this plan in the future but that would be a decision of council um I if that were the case so it would not be without specific Council decision making okay so the sound sound like from Drew that we would be obligated but and it sounds like from city manager Newton that we're not and it sounds like for you that it's we have some off ramps and I'm just was wanting to make sure because I know that CC and hopefully we

1:37:18 win and that we not but I find it very hard to believe that someone's going to hand you bucket of cash and say please do this but we're not going to make you do it when you're done you it seems like they want that's an investment that some entity's making and for that Grant says we want you to do what you plan to do well to the extent that the city constructs improvements they would need to adhere to the plan so I think Drew and Nancy are correct in that um you know this the city couldn't decide to undertake a massive infrastructure project and then not provide the bike pet improvements that are geographically identified for that location unless the council were to make very specific findings under transportation system planning role that

1:38:03 those improvements aren't needed which is unlikely to happen if we've just done a plan showing that they're needed um but also n's correct that that the fact that we have a plan does not obligate us to make the infrastructure improvements to begin with so it's more it's it's both it's if we have a plan in place then as we construct infrastructure which we can't be forced to do then we have to make that infrastructure consistent with the plan okay so I hope that makes sense I I'll gurgitate it for a while but sorry if that's too much legal Le or attorney I enjoy that no it's fine all right any other questions all right it's my turn to make a motion here so I'd like to make a motion to adopt a

1:38:49 resolution of the City of Springfield to support a transportation growth management agement TGM Grant application for creation of a Springfield bicycle and pedestrian master plan second Neil could you call the vote please yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes councelor rodley yes councelor Blackwell yes councelor Doyle yes and councelor pisher yes thank you motion passes six yeses zero NOS next item please any business from the city council any business from the city council anybody else Joe no I just want to make sure we didn't go without today without mentioning the the Olympics competition

1:39:35 right downtown here just day before yesterday was so awesome if you didn't get to see it it was a mistake if you could have gone but it was really wonderful to see the support really wonderful to see all the different people from the different communities and different countries and all the competitors it was just a very very nice feeling downtown like it was a few years ago but I I really enjoyed that I've already committed that any tours of downtown in the future will be in a race walk style anybody else with him leading all right next item please next item is business from the city manager mayor as you mentioned item number one the city and sub street light intergovernmental agreement has been pulled and we pushed back um out to the

1:40:20 fall um item two is Community Development BL Grant substantial amendments Aaron ffield is here for this item and I think Nancy you wanted to make a couple of comments on this item before we got started I did thank you mayor so tonight we're just going we're coming back to you from our prior work session I believe that was on June 17th and I recognize that the materials are not as tight as I would like them to be because we were turning these around quickly um and apologies for packing everything in right before you go on on break but that's kind of the nature of this work so um I do appreciate Erin though going back and looking at the committee notes and adding some more um

1:41:05 context around the discussion because I think some of your comments centered around what was the committee uh contemplating with some of their different decision making uh I also want to recognize councelor Mo's uh participation as your liaison so he can be a reference as well I do want to say um per your input uh we are suggesting uh the addition of the Ada restroom and City Hall councelor pisher I know that's something that you pointed out last time we don't have um final numbers on that so it's one of these situation where this I'm asking you to let don't let perfect be the anemy of good if you are on board with the concepts of some of the things that we're doing I'd like

1:41:50 your permission uh for staff to start moving on this so that we can expend um the federal funding and I think was previously mentioned um in uh business from the audience it is a lose it or use it or lose it type of situation and I would prefer uh improvements to be happening in Springfield um and I think that is it uh other than I think we do have some it appears we may have some people in the audience that could answer questions should want to go a little bit deeper with some of your individual thoughts so Ain if you want to add some comments and then maybe we can have Folks up to you know answer any questions folks

1:42:35 have sure thanks Nancy um good evening mayor counselors um yeah I guess a few things I'll highlight um as Nancy mentioned this is a continuation of the item we brought um on June 17th um from that we brought forward a recommendation from the council's Community Development advisory committee they had three recommendations for funding um at that meeting you supported one of those recommendations which was the repayment of the city's section 108 loan to to HUD we are in talks with HUD right now about paying that back um the other two recommendations um you wanted more information on and so that's why we're here tonight um the two recommendations I'll just highlight again they're in your packet um and I'll just maybe step

1:43:21 aside for a sec to say that cdbg funds are allocated toward strategies they're not always um allocated toward exact projects and so then cities as Nancy mentioned sort of have that um freedom to then sort of narrow down um which projects specifically um they want to and sort of figure out the amounts through further due diligence so the recommendation that's coming to you tonight is a recommendation of strategies um so um it is to reallocate 305,000 away from a prior fund project um toward um just one strategy which is to support a human services delivery system um as Nancy mentioned um two of those sorry away from the

1:44:07 Human Services delivery system um towards two different strategies one is again supporting a human services delivery system that could fund um Plaza Renovations it could also fund the Ada bathrooms as Nancy mentioned and then the other strategy that's put forward from the c cdac um is to promote economic development through microenterprise support and that is through the partnership with LCC and supporting uh new inhome child care businesses um so members of both LCC and Plaza are in the audience tonight for specific questions um let me just freeze over if there's anything else um and Aon it's we have 305,000 left after the loan that we're talking about correct yes so um after

1:44:54 that subtraction from two weeks ago um the recommendation from uh this Community Development advisory committee is about 259,000 towards supporting a human services delivery system and then $ 46,6 to promoting economic development through microenterprise businesses and roughly do we know what the Ada restroom ask is we do not have a heart we have we do not have details on so that is one of those projects we need additional due diligence on as well and the last question is I know these funds are in a time frame what is the what is the date they have to be out out the door mayor I wish I wish I had that for you um my conversations with HUD over the last

1:45:39 year um there there isn't a timeline um tied to any $1 doll but there's a broader calculation tied to our overall allocation and what we have on hand and so we have the bar that we need to be under for the last three years and it's a continuing conversation with HUD around what that means and what we're doing at the same time that HUD is putting forward rul making that says we know we're not set up to help you meet timeliness for complicated projects and so we are continuing to work with our HUD rep to have that conversation to say we are putting forward a substantial Amendment we are reallocating funds we are repaying our section 108 loan and so it's more of are we doing everything we

1:46:26 can to show them we're on the right path um it's a bit of a blackbox so if we um are perceived as a acting with a sense of urgency here H will be fine that has been my argument okay any other questions for Aon before we have these folks up yeah just quick one on the um the rehabilitation of stressed rental properties re thing is was there any thought given to that or is that just so what was put forward um through the Community Development advisory committee was that that is a more complicated project and so given the need to spend funds quickly they were suggesting that we focus on eligible projects that could be spent more quickly and come back in

1:47:12 the fall with more likely um additional funding that will need to be reallocated and put that forward through an RFP in the fall and so taking that time later but but still prioritizing so I just want to make sure I mean I I can see it and it makes sense that I just didn't want it to go away and disappear into the Twilight Zone so okay great then and then I I support that ADA work on the bathrooms and I also um and we're going to talk about that next topic when the economic development if we can get more information on that all right I think we're good Erin so if we could have Marissa do you want to come back up and then you can answer some any questions we have about for the plaza

1:48:02 project know when we can Aon on that um Child Care Economic Development I got a few questions and I'll say they're members of LCC L Community College who are here as well that' be great if we could thank you thanks for being flexible here and being let us put you on the spot yes of course we're happy to answer any questions you have okay sure you're try to make me find them now do you want me to answer the ones you asked earlier first yeah no I have them right here I just want I just wanted to see if you're this this um project you have in this Rick and mortar place is open to all people not specifically a specific ethnicity but and I understand definitely the draw and and who you want to attract but I would be I would have heartache if someone

1:48:47 came in that that because they don't speak Spanish would be turned away yeah and that's a great question that's a really common question about our programs for our organization overall um since all of our programs are provided in Spanish but every program we are also open to anyone um in some programs that might be more limited so in our business class we're open to anybody who speaks Spanish because the class is taught in Spanish and we have had nonlethals take the class um but in our Recovery Services and our Mental Health Services all of our staff are bilingual and so we can serve English speakers Spanish speakers of people who need both languages and we're happy to do do so you totally answered my question and perfectly thank you so much and then on the money that you're asking for I actually haven't even looked at not bad

1:49:32 I forgot my iPad at home um the money that is being allocated for your program is that being um how is it budgeted is it just generally speaking is it budgeted for the physical facility or is it budgeted for ongoing operational cost or do you have a plan to make sure you can operate into the perpetuity besides this money yeah um the funds that were asked for there to complete the project meaning to complete construction and preparation of the space however we are asking for non-construction related costs so meaning related to the construction project but not the actual building of the new structure or painting or electricity or anything like that because of their very strict parameters that will kick in with head funds for construction related expenses so we've been very careful to select

1:50:18 expenses that would not require that additional layer of diligence I think I know which L you're talking I agree and Plaza is fully funded operationally so okay they'll be operating once it's done and then after you get it going you have plans for future financing and stuff yes great I love it go ahead Michelle I just have a follow-up question to that um so in our packet it's it states that the city attorney's office is still reviewing cdbg requirements um on which of the proposed costs are eligible and I just that kind of is a little bit conflicting with with what you're telling me or telling us so if we could just get some

1:51:05 clarification yeah I could just add um uh specifically on architectural costs that was the initial question um pla is actually pretty far ahead in this project and is already contracted for an architect which is lovely it means this project is ready to go and also there are cwg requirements around procurement that we're sort of going back and forth with the city attorney to say is architectural services eligible um we've been working with Justin to go over specific budgets to say they have enough need that are eligible for cdbg funds that even if architectural services didn't end up qualifying there's enough of $250,000 of need there so um correct and it doesn't speak to the whole yeah Christina do you have anything you wanted to add no I think that's correct

1:51:53 outstanding are there U Victoria so first off I just want to say thank you for bringing the information forward I did a little research on this and the other project and I think that one of the things sitting up here is a lot of people come to the council and they want the city to pay for stuff and they want them to run it and they want them to handle it and I think that it's amazing that we have an organization in this community that is asking for some funds that are there that are set aside but are willing to do the work and it's work that's so needed in our community and we are so lacking and so I am 100% in support of both of these

1:52:41 questions all right thank you so much for coming up and answering some additional questions we're going to have the small business Folks up next and see if we have any questions about that project good evening mayor and counselors I'm Dan Collins I'm the director of the Small Business Development Center with Lane Community College and good evening I'm Holly marante I'm a childcare sector strategist with onward Eugene and so we're with a partnership of organizations that are carrying this together I want to be sure we share that because like you said we're actually a work in progress we're not asking for program funds we're asking for something that's already a motion but we are Partnership of organizations working to uh to solve some of the childcare desert

1:53:29 crisis right Joe yes just a couple basic questions to get me over the H um correct me if I'm wrong in my mind what I have is there's money going to you folks that will go to individuals that want to start a business for child care yes yes basically yes second set is the recipients of those funds are they all Springfield residents yes okay you passed two tests so far and secondly can you describe to me what kind of overview or I don't like to use word supervision what kind of U auditing of those funds and how

1:54:14 they're spent and if they're spent appropriately and if there is what is a what is a perceived outcome of that investment and I assuming as to that you'll have a bunch of child care businesses but if you can just briefly run run through that with me I can yeah address that on a couple different levels so this is essentially replicating a program that the City of Eugene excuse me operates through their microenterprise development program so we have systems in place to make sure the dollars go directly to Springfield residents who complete the program we have a system to ensure that they complete all of the courses all of the coursework go on to become licensed with the state of Oregon to run an inhome Child Care Center which can serve between 10 and 16

1:54:59 children per provider um and so there's a sort of a multiple levels of accountability both at our organizational levels with our recordkeeping of who completes the programs who gets the funding as well as um robust accountability with the um Early Learning department at the state level that monitors the child care programs as well yeah so doesn't you're not I mean you're not really seeing what the money is used to purchase sure absolutely so each participant who goes through the program opens a child care business is eligible for the $5,000 startup grants those are relatively flexible in the grants that we have awarded to date they can provide startup operating cash so if the

1:55:45 provider is not fully enrolled they may need some cash flow to get their business up and going before they have all 10 or 16 children in their care it can go to small improvements if they need to add a fence um buy furniture for their program curriculum materials Etc most of those who complete the program it costs 10 to 20,000 of startup funds just to get going and so we want to ensure is that those who complete the program have an incentive to help them make it over the hump to actually open their Center which is what they went through the class to do most of them have a small child care um experience but what we're trying to do is merge caring for children in a a small non-official way into a business which is what the Small Business Development Center is with with honor Gene which is

1:56:31 economic development to create micro businesses and homes and it's been going on for three years in Central Oregon those are the data points we're using we're replicating the program here so we don't have to rebuild it using the same data points and it's successful and speaking of sucess success what percentage of success are you expecting with that investment sure so so what we were told from Central Oregon is anything over 50% would be successful our first program that we ran had 82% success success rate for graduation um now the first we had 60 different people apply for eight different spots we were able to expand it to 20 because of the funds from City of Eugene so we did have a large pool to choose from that we could select a little bit more selectively even though I use that word twice in one sentence um

1:57:18 but anything over 50% it's a very rigorous program and people end up dropping out or they don't have the qualifications and so anything over 50% they said is successful and they've been mapping it for three years and just to give a little bit more context uh we do live in a child care desert so that means that for every three children in our community ages 0 to five there's one child care slot we're not unlike most other counties most other states we know in our community we need to add about 1,500 Child Care slots to move out of childcare desert status and this is one of our most viable strategies to do that if every provider can serve up to 16 children and we continue to run cohorts we are chipping away at that overall deficit yeah I appreciate you indulging me and I can I can say that I'm very

1:58:03 comfortable supporting it and I and I really wish great success but I got to ask those questions for me to get to that home okay absolutely absolutely thank you very much you're welcome Michelle thanks councelor pisher and I are very much on the same track tonight with our just wanting to make make sure we understand what we're supporting um I think my next couple of questions are probably for Aaron actually just kind of Staff related clarification points here so when we say funding will be monitored by City staff to the same level as the city's invoice reimbursement request process what does that mean um sure asking a question that wasn't asked I suppose

1:58:48 um I guess to be a little clear on um uh how the funds would be sort of delivered to each new business it would be directly from the city to that new business so it's not going through LCC Al although they're a partner and so to that question of how are we ensuring where the funds are ultimately how are they being spent um just like any invoice process the city has in terms of seeing the documentation there is sort of the same process we would be following in terms of um who is monitoring how the funds are okay great thanks for just indulging me with that clarification um and then on the dollar amount the 46,000 so we're supporting eight at 5,000 right so for 40 is the 6,000

1:59:34 administrative I yeah and I actually think it went to nine I think we'll talk about ultimately it'll depend on um I think there's three in the program we're still at eight okay great um then yeah we'll figure that out um I think a staff admin will probably be less than that just based on the Simplicity of it I think there is room in that to move funds that minor all right so have a little additional to support another adventure or Venture if we need to or want to okay great thank you Cory thank you um I want to say to Aon first of all thank you for doing this work and doing it repeatedly so I

2:00:19 really appreciate that um as everyone up here knows that I have been supportive of this and I've been a fan from the get-go and I just wanted to take a few moments to say that that I appreciate us looking at new and creative ways to support this work in Springfield and I know that you know I sense from my colleagues questions that it feels a little bit Wiggly and yet it also is really exciting to have services that are culturally specific services that are um you know supporting microenterprises and the effect the lives of women in our communities that these things I think are really important and it's exciting to see us lean into that in Springfield even if it feels a little bit uncomfortable so I appreciate folks taking the time to to

2:01:05 move along so thank you any other [Music] questions okay um I the one question I did have was on that invoicing process so if it's going from us to the I don't know student for lack of a better word individual entrepreneur are we having to do like we're managing that whole process so what happens if for for some reason they graduate and then that the we send the money and then the business sort of fails to fails to launch I think this is it's sort of slightly different but um when I first started at the city um the city was using cdbg funds to fund microenterprise similar to this but the way they were doing that is that they were giving funding to Dev Northwest or

2:01:51 then to help go help individuals go through a program to decide if they wanted to start a business um so in some ways it the way HUD views it is a sort of an investment in the possibility of a new business and so in that same way there is no requirement that their business be in placed for five years or that that business be it's just sort of they went through the program they qualify there's we're partnering with a group that believes they will be successful and provide support for six months after the program and in that sense that's so we're not going to end up in a position where we have sort of city staff having like cdb having to go out and sort of try to recover funds because because cdbg is the regulations are tough sometimes right so in that in

2:02:38 that lens of saying what is what is a program that we can support without sort of onerous regulations this I would say false under that name okay that perfect that was the question I had I think we thank you uh for coming up thank you thank you does anybody have any other questions or I think we're ready for for a motion I'd like to make a motion to approve the proposed substantial amendments to the Community Development block grant fiscal year 2022 annual action plan and authorize the city manager to execute all documents needed to give effect to the city's agreement with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for these funds I'll second that NE call the vote please yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes

2:03:25 councel rodley yes councel Blackwell yes councelor Doyle I and councel pisher yes thank you motion passes six yeses zero NOS next item please next item is Springfield land acquisition funding Katie Caroll and Aaron ffield are here for this item good evening Mar and Council uh my name is Katie Carol housing analyst for this City with Aaron ffield um this item that's coming back to you tonight is a process that would allow the city to allocate onetime arpa funds to developers as forgivable loans to buy land that will be developed with income qualified housing to serve households with low incomes and that's up to the 80% Ami level or area median

2:04:13 income um that ARP funding came to the city via an intergovernmental agreement with the county and is specifically for land acquisition to serve households with low incomes the city has used some of those funds to buy property at 16th and Maine and has approximately $900,000 left that needs to be spent by December 2025 staff proposed this process in order to allow us to focus on making other city-owned properties available for Housing Development um and this would not preclude us from using funds as long as there's some remaining and we should find a property that we want um so that's still possible under this process in April when we brought this to you in a work session um we brought you some draft guidelines for the

2:04:58 application process and then some questions for Council Direction at that meeting Council directed staff to make funds available for mixed income projects that require at least 51% of units to be available to households with low incomes again up to the 80% area Medan income level Council also directed staff to limit home ownership projects to those that will have a singular ownership for the land such as a manufactured home park or a land trust and that was based on staff's recommendation as this will make monitoring those projects over time much easier because that funding from the county requires a 20-year affordability period um following that meeting we also met with the finance department to talk about suitable loan default terms for this

2:05:43 funding and then um let's see so attachment two in your packet is a copy of the updated guide guidelines that has highlights showing um significant changes that were made since you saw this in April based on that input from the council and from the finance department and those have also been reviewed by the city attorney's office and then just last thing quick process reminder on this so this would be a rolling application process um applications would be reviewed by multiple staff members against a set of criteria um and then projects that are found eligible um would we require some additional due diligence before actually funding those and then progress reports

2:06:28 um between the funding and when those get leased up to make sure that someone's actually making progress towards building housing there and with that I'll turn it back over any questions um I guess the one thing that I wanted to just call out right because we've is when this funding's gone the program sort of set to close is that accurate I mean theoretically if there was other one-time funding or the council wanted to allocate cdbg funds towards land acquisition in the future that but otherwise at this point no we don't have other funding okay perfect thank you thank you I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution authorizing a city manator to provide forgivable loans to developers to acquire land to

2:07:14 develop income qualified housing serving lowincome households second Neil could you call the vote please yes Council rber yes Council Mo yes Council rodley yes Council Blackwell yes councel Doyle I and Council picary yes thank you motion passes six yeses zero NOS next item please thank you any other business from the city manager I do have a few things thank you um mayor and Council I really appreciate your hard work we threw a lot of work at you tonight and you went through it and you you handled it so thank you and you are get to take welld deserved break I also want to um thank our staff for how hard they work in uh getting materials

2:07:59 ready um Neil for all of the the things that he did with um the ESF merger um Nathan as well certainly both uh Katie and Aaron for um this these are complicated issues that that we all are working through and I I feel really great about the work that you guys all got done I want to leave you on your break with us a piece of great news news that I can announce that tomorrow we will be going live with a new web page and new look um super thrilled about it I think everybody I can hear the clap around the community um and I am very thrilled to be able to check this particular task off my uh list that came up four years ago in the interview process so um I just want to thank uh

2:08:47 all of the staff that was involved that way too long of a list to to do tonight but uh so we didn't launch it because we wanted to make sure people could still get this link tonight and access the meeting so starting tomorrow you will see that so you can have that piece of good news to take into recess Joe that's awesome that's great news so Neil City assisted city coun city manager Neil adad when did we start talking about the website can you recall I I know it's pre I think it was the early 80s counselor I have not been on this Council for a 100 years there's been a couple of updates but uh the major one was when we were

2:09:33 hiring the new city manager and that was the push so yes that's great it's was good to see this yeah good job thank you any other oh no further business okay any business from the city attorney I do have a couple items tonight um one sorry sorry be H quick uh there's one new Opa um uh settlement class action settlement with Kroger and uh the city has to opt in um in August in order to have um that um be participate in that we have not filed a lawsuit similar to other class action um settlements that we've done before the city manager has the authority to opt in there's no

2:10:18 decision for the council to make or any litigation to dismiss so I just want to let you know and then once we have more information about it there's just lot not lot a not a lot of information right now and then the second item just quickly is uh I'm sure you all know that the Supreme Court made a decision involving the rant's pass case and uh we'll be getting something and writing to you about implications for that all right well I just want to Second the you know the thanks for all the hard work the staff has done over about the last month this 1100 page packet was about the third one we had in a row that were inan between 800 and 1100 Pages May and June have been absolutely packed and I think we're all grateful for the support you guys have

2:11:03 given us through this and again thanks for the council you guys held it together and stayed in there for it was been a long June um so enjoy your summer vacation and it's well deserved we are adjourned we will see you in September