Springfield City Council — September 9, 2024

0:06 I'm going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call. Mayor Van Gordon. Here. Councilor Webber. Here. Councilor Moe. Here. Councilor Rodley. Here. Councilor Blackwell. Here. Councilor Doyle. Here. And Councilor Fishery. Here. We have two items for the work session tonight. The first one is the Library Advisory Board update with Emily David and some of the library advisory staff. The board members. Come on down. Good evening, Mayor and Council. We have four members from the Library Advisory Board here tonight to talk to you about what's been happening at the library. They will introduce themselves. And this is me my after you. Okay.

0:52 I can pick that up. Hi. Hi. My name's Rebecca Weed and I am the current chair of the Library Advisory Board Springfield Public Library. I've been a very active library user since we moved to town almost moved to town about 10 years ago. I know if I ever need quiet at my house, I come and get books with my kids and the moment we leave the parking lot, it's just silent and the books bags are always overflowing. Sometimes more than my 10-year-old can handle. Um I have been grateful to be part of the Library Advisory Board for the past 2 years and um as a board we're excited about the opportunities to share with you about the operations of library and the public use of library. Early in 2023, the library staff and museum staff created the first joint strategic plan for both organizations outlining a new

1:38 mission and vision. And tonight we'd like to use this framework of discover, connect, and grow to talk about library operations and its connection to the Springfield community. The other board members will introduce themselves before they speak and we're happy to have the library director Emily David join us at the end for any help us answer any questions. Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Myra Breen, a member of the Library Advisory Board, and I'm here to talk about all of the things to discover at the Springfield Library. Um first, Faisal, for every student to library, thanks to support from the Northwest Community Credit Union and Springfield Public School District number 19, the library is able to offer the for every student a library program. This program provides free library cards

2:24 to students who are part of the Springfield School District but live outside the city of Springfield boundaries. Uh Faisal began in 2016 with a Library Services Technology Act grant from the Oregon State Library and additional funding from Team Springfield. Through the pandemic, the library kept up the program with little to no funding, but now Springfield Public Schools and Northwest Community Credit Union have pledged support from 2022 to 2025. Without this program, these families would have to pay $100 per year to have a library card, which would be cost-prohibitive to a number of families. Now these students and their families are able to access the library and all it has to offer. Uh we've also gone fine-free. While there were concerns going in, going fine-free has had an entirely

3:09 positive impact. Thanks to your support, people have been able to rediscover the joy of using the library, even if past circumstances had kept them away. Library users have returned books that they had not brought back before because of the fines associated with their return, and there's been no increase in missing books. Plus, best of all, it shifted negative associations that some folks had regarding the library and given everyone a fresh start. In addition, the virtual library is an excellent resource for people who have had a hard time accessing the library during business hours or have a hard time coming into the physical location. It also helps folks plan what they want to do when they do come in person, since they can access the calendar of events online.

3:54 This is a great way to check out digital content, access downloadable resources, and even put books on hold so they can pick up physical materials quickly from the hold shelf in case they need to speed up their visits. The library website is powered by LibApps from Springshare. Along with the website, the library uses LibApps for their internet, scheduling software, and customer relations management, and more. Springshare shares our library's use of the products with other organizations as an example of exemplary use of their product. Good evening, City Council. My name is Heather Melaer Huerta. I've served on the Library Advisory Board since 2019 and am the past chair. I will be speaking to the ways in which the library connects.

4:41 We began the year with a very urgent call for a particular kind of connection. During the January ice storm, as soon as the library could open, they didn't just open, they added extra hours, ensuring not just connection, but safe haven. Every seat, outlet, and computer was occupied for those many days when so many in our community had no power or heat. Families brought children in both for the warmth and to get a joyful respite in the children's area. At our house, we were out of power for 11 days, and while we were fortunate enough to be able to stay with family out of town, if we'd been stuck at home, we would definitely have been one of those many families making use of the library. In fact, the stories I've heard remind me of curbside pickup during the pandemic shutdown, which we made

5:26 tremendous use of. Building on that focus of connecting with community in all kinds of ways, the Library Advisory Board has been collecting happy memory postcards from library patrons young and old all year long, asking what their happy library memory is, with my favorite response being that libraries feel like a home away from home with our library certainly leaning into that vision during the ice storm in January. But even outside of offering sanctuary during a time of disaster, I contend the library has been hard at work leaning into this vision for some time now. Coming out of the pandemic shutdown, staff realized Zoom offered a pathway to connection for homebound patrons. And now we have an option to verify ID over

6:12 Zoom for library cards. With homebound patrons sharing they're so apprecia- appreciative of this option as well as being appreciative of our electronic lending platform Libby and the other online resources the library offers. When staff realized the cost of printing was a barrier, they began offering the first 10 black and white pages free. As one patron put it, "Whoever decided to offer the free printing really is saving lives, especially for seniors." Like many libraries, our library offers more than just books. But something that you might not realize is that includes a selection of puzzles and games to be used by patrons in the library itself. And not just in the children's section. This is especially appreciated by our disabled adult patrons who come in

6:57 regularly with their caregivers to do puzzles together in the adult reading area. Staff often hear this, but recently one of the security guards relayed that as a family was headed out down the stairs, they thanked them for being a part of providing a safe place for them to bring their children and for providing so many events at the library and museum that are family and children focused. They kept saying how amazing Springfield was as they walked down the stairs. Within this framework, the library is proud to offer programming for all. Something for everyone to connect to. Some way for everyone to feel at home in our library. As one toddler patron's grandmother put it after stopping by the desk to explain that she's visiting from San Diego and

7:42 her library doesn't have a children's section like ours. This is impressive. Now I know why he runs all the way up to the door to the library. The library's year-long programming includes story times in English and in Spanish, including the only free preschool literacy program in Springfield, Talk, Sing, Read, Write, Play. Book groups for a range of ages in both languages as well. An awesome Teen Tuesdays events calendar of weekly programming that welcomes 15 to 30 teens each week. My teen had a blast at this year's laser tag in the library event. Super jealous that that's not available to adult patrons. Spring Stitch, Spring Film. Our favorite this past year was the Iron Giant. It was an extended cut we hadn't

8:29 seen before. It was only maybe a minute and a half of additional of additional footage, but my oldest nearly jumped out of his seat. He was so excited. And last but certainly not least for folks like me, tech help, where a library staff person is available to help with tech issues such as setting up a phone, downloading photos, accessing forms online, and such. The library's summer programming includes summer reading, the outdoor plaza program in partnership with Springfield School District summer program. I know you have the slides in front of you, so I won't run through all those numbers, but I would just like to say, "Wow." And to shout out Mindy Lender as a connectarian extraordinaire. Another way that the library connects is

9:15 through outreach programming, which includes attending community events, attending school events, holding pop-up library events, hosting events like Acorn Circle with community partners, and the new book share program established this year with the support of the library advisory board and with books donated by the friends to rotate a collection of books amongst local assisted living facilities. The pop-up library is new this year as well. It was conceived in response to focus groups that talked about wanting to connect to library services in their areas. The pop-up library provides that connection no matter where you live in Springfield. It's been made possible by a grant to purchase the van and a grant to fund a limited duration outreach specialist position.

10:00 At each event, the library is able to sign people up for library cards. They hand out library museum information. They provide activities and host performances in collaboration with community partners and they give away books or have bring them back books available. The library's Spanish language programming includes Cuentos Bilingües, bilingual story time, held weekly, and Grupo de Lectores, book groups, also held weekly. The library also attends events such as Spanish language parenting classes at the Relief Nursery. Kristen issued library cards to six families and checked out every book she had brought with her at her last visit. Laney Elementary School's El Mercado in partnership with their migrant ed program and Noche Cultural, a local Springfield gathering of the Latinx community, where the library and museum

10:47 engaged with 948 people, giving away 295 books, which were purchased with a Spanish language literacy grant. The library also works in partnership with the Latinx community to put on a Día de los Muertos event in the fall, also in partnership with the museum, and a Día de los Niños event in the spring in partnership with Comunidad Herencia Cultural and Springfield School District's dual immersion elementary school, Guy Lee. Muchas gracias to Kristen Cure for growing those connections and for growing such a strong Spanish language book collection that Spanish-speaking Eugene residents have been known to pay for a card to get access to it. Muchas gracias to Kate Wallace and Dennis Shine as well for seeing the value in bilingualism and including the

11:32 Spanish language collection in their legacy donation. And on that note of growth, I will turn to Robin. Um Robin Lowden, I am the current vice chair of the library board and I've been a member since 2022. Thank you so much for your time tonight. Um as you've heard, there's quite a bit going on in the library. Um but we continue to grow even behind the scenes. Um so as part of our strategic plan, our partnership with the Springfield Museum also continues to grow. Um not just in our logo that we are developing this year, but also in our programming such as Fright Night coming up in October. Um and other collaborative efforts through the multitude of organizations that support both of us. Um we're very excited to see this

12:18 partnership with the museum continue to grow in the coming years. Um we also are growing in our funding. Um and so we, through the efforts of both the Friends of the Library and the Foundation, we have secured $153,000 in grants for the fiscal year 2025, which is very exciting. Um those funds go to support um all of the wonderful programming that you've heard, specifically the summer programming in particular, um as well as our staffing. So, um our um on-call staff is all funded through those fundraising and grant efforts by the Foundation and the Friends, um which is really key as we are staffed at a lower ratio than the state at 0.23 FTE

13:03 per 1,000 residents compared to the state average of 0.5 FTE per 1,000 residents. So, um we thank them immensely for those fundraising efforts. Um as you can also see though, um we bring a significant amount of people to downtown Springfield. So, 105,000 people visited the library in the past fiscal year with over 282,000 physical items checked out. Um I can only imagine what the digital amount of material also checked out was as well. So, we're a big driver for not just this region, but for our city as a whole. Um but probably the most visible part of our growth, thanks to your approved funding, is our remodel. Um our

13:49 librarians are busy at work right now setting things up because we are opening up tomorrow. Um which is very exciting. So, through these remodel efforts, we've not only been able to um redo our circulation counter, making it more efficient. We have been able to redo our teen area, our kids and tweens area. We've been able to expand the friends store, which is a key part of their fundraising efforts. Um and we've also been able to redo our behind-the-scenes offices, our circulation work, and our um usable spaces for patrons, such as the study spaces and the meeting spaces, which is very exciting. Um so, we invite you as a group to

14:34 please join us to celebrate the remodel on September 19th. Um we've been hard at work with library staff to plan a celebration, and we hope to see you there to celebrate all of our connecting and growing that we do in this community. We'd love to have any questions or answer any questions you may have. Well, thanks for com- coming. Is there Are there any questions? Oh, well. Go ahead. You can make comments, too. Go ahead, Joe. Great job. Um do you know I mean, I just thought of a question, but is there a book that is checked out the most?

15:20 And we can find that That's a great question. I would love to know. I would take a good based on our technology. That would be kind of cool to put on the website or whatever is it the most popular book this year or last year. Yeah. I'm surprised you don't know that. You know so many books. Yeah. That is a great question. Go ahead, Corey. Thank you. Um as probably everyone knows, like we are a library family. I love the library. We currently have a stack of books about this high that was to get my spouse through the the closure. Um so there was there was a lot of concern about that about making sure that we had enough books. Um I think I really appreciate the report. I appreciate that that you all are

16:06 volunteering to do this to make our community better. And I just wanted to add that what you all didn't mention and that I believe is that libraries save lives. And they save lives for for whether it's folks coming in out of the cold or it's it kiddos that need a safe place to be or teenagers that need a safe place to be because of whatever situation. So I think that's another thing to just Our library saves lives and I appreciate all that you all do. Thank you. I appreciate that, Corey. During the strategic planning one of my one of my um roles was to talk with with students from A3 and who come from all over. They're not all you know they come from all over and then the

16:51 number of teens who uh spoke so highly of our library and how welcome they feel here because sometimes you know they need somewhere to wait. Um they're not getting picked up right after school and so that was really neat. And of course all of them knew Cara and and had felt particularly welcome to my her. So yeah, I really appreciate that comment. Sure. Now that we can make comments and not just ask questions. Um just Friday night, but I hear it often um when I'm out and about and people realize that I'm a counselor in Springfield. Um rave reviews all the time about the kids section at the library, so um people just love to come here for

17:36 that and this gentleman I saw Friday was actually a Eugene resident and he just was had really just nice things to say about the library, so keep it up. It's often spoken about in parent groups, actually. It's highlighted to go to story time and to use the facility, so um not just Springfield residents, but all over Lane County. Anybody else for questions or comments? Quiet Beth. Now that I've opened it listening through everything um and thank you for that report, but I had flashbacks of being a child and coming to the library, this library, and it was one of my favorite things to do and I was always so excited to get to um come down and explore and use my imagination and and I just appreciate it so much and

18:21 I love seeing the growth and all the programs that you have going are all wonderful, so thank you. Well, um first of all, thank you for coming. It's not one of the things after the pandemic that we have been looking to find more time for is to get our uh our committees back in front of us. We used to have people visit every 2 years and that was one of the things that that sort of said slip by is just to talk about all the great work that was happening in in the community. The thing that I'm excited for the library to reopen, right? Like I keep looking in the window seeing what else that I can move move around. Um but I think our one of our uh retired state senators really described it best, right? Having the library in City Hall means that people come into City Hall for something that is good.

19:07 And and that just changes the whole experience around the community space, so I'm glad our community puts literacy first and really grateful for the work the library does. Thank you. All right. I think we're ready for the next, folks. We expect as many pictures about comprehensive planning as the library board brought. So, I'm wondering if if you think it's not fun to come into city hall to pay fees, which is what I'm here to talk with you about.

19:52 Um on advice of counsel, I'm going to defer. Thank you. It was a rhetorical question. Um so, I am here to talk to you tonight about one fee in particular, and it's a fee that has historically been assessed um to annexation applications. So, there is a the application fee itself for an annexation, and then what we have had in the past is a a comprehensive planning fee associated with just specifically annexation applications as well. Um so, I'm going to go through a little bit of um explaining comp planning program and some of the things outlined in the packet tonight, and then um leave

20:37 plenty of time for questions and discussion. So, um I wanted to talk just a little bit about what comp planning involves, and the um the end I'm hoping to have responses from you or feedback and input from the council about um whether or not this annexation comp planning fee should um be reinstated or or Um so, the the comp planning program in general works on many projects. There's not just the comp plan necessarily that the comp planning program works on. Um, there's lots of associated plans that go along with the comprehensive

21:23 plan. And one recent example that I'll just highlight is the Willamette Lane Parks and Recreation Plan was just co-adopted by us and also had to be co-adopted by Elaine County. And our comp planning staff worked together with Willamette Lane's planning staff to shepherd that plan through our process as well as the county process. And then ultimately, even though that's Willamette Lane's comprehensive plan, it becomes an element or a part of our comprehensive plan. Um, it other plans that are separate but also part of our comprehensive plan examples are the transportation system plan, even though it's its own separate plan, that is an

22:09 element or part of our comprehensive plan. And then we have a bunch of um, neighborhood refinement plans as well. Those are all Actually, most of them are very outdated but still exist and have to be referenced and used through land use processes. And um, are currently actually being looked at to be analyzed and whether or not they should be updated or be kept at all and then how they would move forward. So, that's some ongoing or or soon-to-be happening comp planning work. I wanted to give a brief picture of what all is encompassed in the breadth of comprehensive planning work that does take place.

22:55 And I created a quick list today. So, the comp planning manager who's here tonight, Sandy Belson, comes to the council about roughly every 2 years and presents a comprehensive planning work program. And I just pulled the last three packets from those meeting dates, one from 2023, the one from 2021, and the one from 2019. And there's a whole list of different things, and I won't go through all of them, but there as I think most of you are aware or know for sure cuz we've talked a lot about it is there's a lot of state mandates that have been happening that we have to react to. A lot of those result in code changes or

23:41 even comprehensive plan changes that must take place to be in compliance with state laws as they change. One of the projects I do want to mention that's been on this these lists and that have been brought to you for the last handful of years has been the comprehensive plan map. So, there's a map in addition to the current zoning map, there's a comp plan map that designates what land should become in kind of the 20-year planning horizon that we often plan for. In a lot of cases, those plan designations are different than the zoning, and especially for the areas that are outside the current city limits but within the urban growth boundary. And an example is I'll use is the North

24:26 Gateway area. It's currently in the urban holding zone, and the underlying zoning is still, I think, primarily agriculture cuz that's what it was before we even brought it into our urban growth boundary. But the comp plan map designates that land for employment uses, so industrial kind of employment lands. Um so, when and if that property gets annexed, we know what the plan is for that zoning to become because it's designated that in the plan. And I do have a whole list of all the other things. There's quite the list. Um but I'm not going to go through that all. But if you there's interest in other details around that, I'm happy to go through that. There's a couple pieces of the dynamic

25:11 of the comprehensive work planning program team that I want to talk about. So, overall, as I mentioned, Sandy Belson's the manager for that team. There's about eight FTE or eight different staff members that are part of that comprehensive planning program team. However, in the packet tonight, the budget numbers we're referring to are only associated with a portion of that eight FTE team. And so, really quick, on in your packet on page three, there's a table. And so, it provides numbers in terms of the cost of the program for the last 6 years. That number is only really talking about uh well, for this last fiscal year,

25:58 they're talking about three FTE of that larger eight FTE out of the um planning program fund. The other FTE are paid through um either other utility fees like street uh fund or stormwater fund. We have one member of our comprehensive planning um team that is primarily just um infrastructure planner. So, Molly Markarian does like the stormwater uh master plan update and the sanitary sewer um master plan update. Those projects are ongoing and consist of a lot of work, but aren't really being paid for out of this budget line item number that we're talking about. She's one of the five FTE that are not part of the core three comp planning

26:45 group that I'll mostly be referring to tonight, if that makes sense. So, in addition to the eight FTE that are part of the comp planning work program, we do occasionally use consultant work as well. Often times that is primarily from grant funds that we'll receive. Those are often through the state Department of Land Conservation and Development. We'll get either technical assistance grants or other types of grants to help fund some of the work. Unfortunately, comparing the amount of grant funds that are available compared to the amount of state mandated work that's required, it doesn't balance out. There's always more work than there's money to help fund, but the state does

27:30 offer the opportunity to apply for some grant funds to help fund to do some of the work that they mandate we do. Um, we are using some of those funds right now to um do some of the work required by the state for our mixed-use zones and looking at um how housing is supposed to be or required to be allowed within those mixed-use zones. That work is also coming up. I mentioned that the comp planning group is also primarily funded or partially funded through utility funds. And the numbers within the memo are looking mostly then at just the general fund

28:15 portion of the comp planning group. So, I'm trying to whittle this down from the bigger picture to a more narrowed focus. I'm going to refer back to that table again on page three. So, there's the second column. There's the first column that's the years. The second column is the total cost of the program, which when I'm referring to the program, it's that three FTE program, not the entire eight FTE program. And then the third column is of that amount, how much is actually coming out of the general fund. And it's about roughly half or so. It varies over a year. And I'm just going to highlight a couple things in that table. A couple of those numbers aren't accurate. And one example is compared to the

29:01 paragraph above the table when it references the um fiscal year 2023 number. In the table, it's 616,000 and some change. In the um paragraph above it's a different number and I'm looking for that now. You can Which one? Yeah, thank you. So, 576, correct. And then the corresponding amount general funded instead of the 319, it was a 278. Those number changes happened as a result of me trying to get data from finance and comparing it with the data we pulled out of our permit database and some of those types of things. So, um I think there was also a discrepancy

29:47 what was actually budgeted versus actual at the end of those fiscal years. So, I can correct that. It's definitely not an order magnitude difference. It's um but anyway, I wanted to point that out. I was uh acknowledge that those errors are in here. So, back to the third column, the general funded amount of this program is primarily what the annexation the comprehensive planning annexation fee would go to help offset. Um and as you can see, I just calculated as a percentage of that general funded amount compared to the amount of the annexation comp planning fee we've collected over the

30:33 last five year or six years, it's about 4% of that general funded amount that's been collected as part of the annexation comp planning fee. And so I'm saying that just to highlight the idea that this annexation comp planning fee isn't providing a substantial amount by any means of the even just the general funded portion of the comp planning program. But just a small piece. I think with that I'm happy to dive into any more detail um and look at anything else you guys want to get into, but I'll I'll stop there. Are there questions or comments?

31:22 Thank you, Mark. So, if my memory serves me correctly, there was a big push um with Counselor Balou and um with Mike Kelly as a as the city manager at the time. Um and there was a a big push with we need to cover we we need to recover all of our costs. And um I remember she was very much in support of that. And the council went along with it. I'm sorry. Um Sorry. I'll go ahead and tell you what's going on. When this stupid thing rings, I got hearing aids that's yelling in my ears. I apologize. Turned

32:07 it off. Back to Back to where we were saying. So, there was a push and uh it was supported that by council at the time including myself and I think that was in 09. And the uh cost recovery went into place. And then there was a huge uh outcry at the time by people wanting to develop. And the response to that was they're telling us we're not going to develop. We can't afford you. And they went to other cities. And we said, "No, don't do that. We'll drop that for now. We'll decrease that, which you see." And so I think but I think that these

32:53 numbers to me tell me that we maybe went a little bit too far on abandoning that. But I don't think we're too far off even where we're at because I start thinking about some of the other things that we heard during uh testimony. There was people that their septics would fail. And they had to do what? Annex. And what were their fees? So, you know, we're looking at these, but how much would how much would it cost a person a a household size lot to now annex and with this fee would this fee would affect those folks and by how much? And then they're faced with besides not only having to come up with their sep you

33:39 know disconnect septic, connect up the new the sewage, all those fees, and all of a sudden get hit with that, and some of those people were being forced with defaulting. So, there's there's a balance and I think we'll still find if we have increase in fees, we're still going to find that uh we're going to have developers who say we can't afford Springfield. And and that's what I don't want to happen. I don't want to I understand what you're saying and I understand what the the the you know, the general fund, but people expect to we're already paying city taxes, they expect services for those taxes and they look at it as getting double banged.

34:25 So, you have to I mean, you have to give me more to support increase in that, but but for right now I don't I'm not there yet. And if I could just respond and clarify a few things, I think you bring up a great point on the service part. It's like what what are applicants or property owners getting for this fee? And with a typical land use application, say somebody wants to develop a new commercial building. They They come in and apply for a site plan review, and we spend the staff time, send the notices, issue a decision, approve that site plan. There's a lot that goes into that, but there's a direct connection. You come in, submit an application, we do a process, you get a decision. You paid for that service. With annexations, that connection is a lot further

35:10 removed. It's It's I'm going to say delayed often times 10, 15, 20 years. The service you're getting you got 10, 15, 20 years ago, and when you annex is when you pay back kind of is how I think about it. You're paying the city back for that service that you are now realizing. The service was provided 10, 15, 20 years ago. Um and it's hard to pinpoint exactly, well, what was that service? What what did the city do that now I'm paying for? It's It's more obscure often times, and I I use the comprehensive planning map as an example. The comprehensive planning map was a

35:55 long overdue project that establishes a foundation for a lot of other work that we're going to be required to do in years coming up having to do with the buildable lands inventory, the economic opportunities analysis that we're going to have to update. So, even for economic development or for housing production strategies that we're being required by the state to update, that map project is the foundation for all those other processes to build off of. And so, it won't be maybe when Jasper Natron is ready to develop. We will have done all this work now, and in 10 years if they annex in 10 years, they'll be kind of paying us back for the work we did now, but they'll be paying us back a portion,

36:41 a small fraction, in 10 years. And it's again, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is they're paying us back for, right? Cuz it just depends. Every property is different. The another thing you um touched on is I just want to be clear, we're talking about the one fee. We are going to come back to you in 2 months, a little less than 2 months, in November, and talk to you about all of the planning fees that we've been working on for years now. But, this one fee was suspended by council. So, we're not talking about increasing the fee. Um we're asking direction from the council on whether or not, based on the suspension that happened a year and a half ago, should we put the

37:26 fee back in place, or should we just suspend it for good and have it be gone and never think about it again, and just operate? So, comp planning program is just purely funded out of the general fund, or at least that portion. And there is no 3 or 4% subsidy from these annexation um comprehensive planning fees coming in to help offset a little bit of it. I did want to just point to one other thing. You kind of asked a question within your comments, and that was about a a single property with a failing septic. So, on the list on page two of your packet, there's another table. It's all the applications that have come in

38:11 for annexations since the fee has been suspended. And it talks about what the what the amount we would have collected had the fee not been suspended. And you can pick out pretty easily from that list, there's three on there, this the three smallest fees, the one at the top, $537, one little further down, the $400, and then down toward the bottom, the $822. Those three represent single lots that are just being annexed. They might not all be due to septic failures. I think only one of them was. And the other two are people just wanting to annex their property to connect to sewer proactively. But it represents the scale of what a

38:58 single lot septic failure type annexation would be. And so to just give you some scope to the this is just the annexation comprehensive planning fee on top of the application fee. The application fee for those three would have been around a little less than $1,500. So it's 1,500, say, plus this four or five or $800. So that would have been their total application cost, at least, not to mention though, as you did, the the cost they have to pay to physically connect to sewer. But just to give you some idea of what those single lots are actually paying.

39:45 So on those lots, so in my head, I'm kind of figuring out like, for example, you have Camp would pay would have paid 822, and let's say their annexation fee would have been 1,500, somewhere around there. So they're looking at 23 something to annex, and it was not necessarily required due to a septic thing, but just wanted to get into the city. So how long or what point or would there be a point when that property is now sending money to Springfield via taxes and where do we we where do we get to the buyback? How many years would that take? Do you know about that? Well, Kemp is a good example. It they partitioned because they were large

40:30 enough to divide their property. They had an existing house, wanted to divide off a back vacant piece, and so they could facilitate either selling that lot. Um so they have moved forward with a partition to partition that property. Um and then homes would be built on those vacant lots that they'll sell off. But it's going to be a number handful of years, probably. I mean, the quickest you could do that would be a couple of years, probably, to get through a partition process, build a house, and then have it hit the tax rolls, I think is what you're asking about. But more typically, at least a handful of years, probably. Thank you, Mark. Victoria. Hi. Thank you guys for being here. Um

41:15 Before I start, I just want to say the thing about the map, the comprehensive plan map. I love it. I have to deal with the Eugene uh map that's an 11 by 17, and you have to try to like make it really large you can see what color is on which one to know what the zoning is. So when you guys redid that, I was like, oh, I hope sometime they'll do that across the river. Um Ooh. Okay, so the fee that we're talking about is a $2,440 per acre, and that's where it doesn't affect the single lots as off as much as the larger lots when they're, you know, 5 10 15 acre um property. So that's something that um I just kind of wanted to say out loud. Um I noticed a a lot of the stuff we're talking about was is the last 6 years. And so I was wondering if you can kind

42:01 of just very quickly explain how the last 6 years and these state mandates and these things that were um voted on in Salem that are affecting us now why those fees and that stuff is increased so significantly just shortly if you could as opposed to 2012. Mhm. So sorry let me just clarify. So when you say have the fees have increased significantly the time the the time involved. It sounds like that you're saying that there's a lot more it looks like there's a lot more time involved since 2019. Because you the way it was you were saying that from 2003 or four till 2018 the amount total amount collected was pretty

42:46 pretty small compared to what we've had to collect over the what we've collected or what we've assumed the cost of the program to be since 2019, right? It hasn't been like $500,000 a year since 2003. That that significant increase in running the program seems to have occurred around 2019. And unfortunately we weren't able to go back further than six years to get what the budgeted amount was for the program each year. But I think I think what I hear you saying is we've ramped up the complaining program to react to the ramp up of work being expected to be done by the state. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And so you're wanting to know what's involved with No, I just wanted to clarify that out loud that that that's probably what's causing that is a lot of the the C-4

43:31 rules that and the the house bills and state um um Senate bills and what have you that that changed um with DLC D and all of these unfunded mandates that we're having to do and having timelines that we have to hit correct. Right. A lot of that. I mean I think some of that is kind of the expectation of the community in general too. We've we've seen the slow progression of increased development activity and you know some of the larger like Marcola Meadows is an example. That was a large master plan like we had never seen something on that scale in Springfield before even um Hayden Homes comes in and does some fairly large subdivisions. That hasn't always been the case in Springfield that we've had these larger types of developments. Not in maybe back

44:16 in the '70s or something. I'm not sure when, but um So, there and then increasingly the lands that are left to still yet develop are more and are the more and more difficult lands to develop. They're either constrained by wetlands or flood plain or they're the hillside lots. They're not the nice flat rectangular square property that they can just mow the grass and like Marco La Meadows was and start building even though Marco La Meadows had some canals and things running through it, but my point is the more difficult lands to develop are the ones that typically require more intense comprehensive planning or even current planning review of those developments as they happen.

45:05 I I know a lot of these plans you mentioned were outdated. Um and I guess my question to that would be why were we not working on this over the 16 years prior to 2019 when we were still collecting these fees. That's That's my curiosity. And it's I'm interested because we had a conversation Jeff and I know I didn't hear anything about what we talked about in your presentation which kind of surprised me. So, I'm thinking I have to re I thought maybe that was going to come up where we were talking about the the stuff that we talked about. No? Uh refresh my So, I'd have to refresh my memory on what specific you're looking to hear. I'd be happy to expand. Um I tried to react to some You sent me a follow-up email this afternoon and I tried to build in some what I talked about to some of your questions within that email.

45:50 So, I think what I my biggest issue was that it seems like a lot of the the newer and more recent um annexations are are footing the bill for for funds and plans that aren't part of their project. So, someone on Highbanks is actually paying for the work that's going to be done on North Gateway or Jasper Natron. And so, it seems like that there's this huge cost to that that developer that's that's there to help update stuff that has been paid for along the way by other folks. Um and so I hope I was wondering if there's a way to change that fee. Maybe not know I mean I know that things have to be paid for with fees. It just feels like that it's a pretty heavy load. So, a person

46:36 comes in, they want to develop. They have to pay $2,444 per acre for this comprehensive planning fee, which is kind of hard to understand, especially if they're in an area that already has sewer and wastewater and what have you. Then on top of that, because they're they're doing that, which they're paying a comp fee. Now, they're also having to do an application for a comprehensive plan amendment. Then, as you mentioned about zoning, maybe their zone isn't correct. Now, they've got to pay for a zoning change. Then on top of that, once they get done with all of that, now maybe they have to do a privately engineered project where they now have to put in the wastewater or they have to put in the stormwater and have you. So, by the time they get done, before they ever put a shovel in the ground they're spending $150,000 on fees. So, how could

47:21 that not be a I mean, if it's a great big place like Marcella Meadows that could afford that, but what about, you know, some of those smaller ones? And so it just seems like it's it's hitting one group and one person for for a larger for stuff that doesn't even affect them, then. So, that's kind of my one comment. Um and the other thing is the the amount to run the program. This $539,000 a year. I'm trying to do the math on that in my head. And you had said that only three staff are part of that actual amount. And so, when I add this up, that's $3 million over 6 years, and that's three people. And so, I'm trying to figure out if they

48:06 were working 24/7, uh you know, how does that in I mean, how does that cost calculate with an FTE unless they're making a heck of a lot more than that than I know you guys pay than we pay our staff. Mhm. Um it's just not it's not the numbers aren't making sense to me. Um just to clarify that for instance, fiscal year '23, the FTE was four. Okay. Um it's varied over time. Back to fiscal year '22, it was only 2.13 FTE. So, the amount of FTE have varied over time as as well as the the budget number. But and I didn't calculate the like per FTE average amount. Um

48:51 and I don't speak the finance language that our finance department does necessarily, but the cost of an FTE is the cost of the salary and benefits and perqs and all that stuff. And it comes to $500,000 for three people? That's my understanding. The I got these numbers from finance. So, I mean, these are directly out of the adopted budget and the the um actual at the end of the each fiscal year, these are the actuals, not even in terms of fiscal year '24, it's the amended as adopted. So, Nancy, do you want to hop in here? I see you over there. Sure. I mean, without getting too into the

49:36 weeds, cuz I don't have the numbers in front of me. I, you know, for one, um generally speaking, um in planners are it's a very competitive environment to try to hire anybody in the planning field because there's just so much work that needs to be done in that field. There's a lot of demand for these types of positions. I would say our city pays uh we have more of a policy by the council that we typically try to pay around the middle of the market when we look at overall compensation as compared to our uh um comparator cities. When I am doing a rough back of the napkin calculation, I would do about like you know, full salary and then like calculate about half a salary for benefit cost. So, it's

50:21 like a 1.5. Sure. So, I don't think that's necessarily I although that is a large number, I I I think that is probably pretty reasonable for uh or comparable. I I don't know if I everybody would say reasonable, but certainly comparable to costs in other agencies and certainly uh much less expensive than what you would see in the um private sector. Three people, $600,000. Wow. Really? Um I'm just I'm trying to Well, and Mark, can you could you clarify one thing? It sounds like you just pulled the number. You didn't that may not actually be all of the wages, right? It's the whole That's what I'm trying to figure out. It's like what is it besides wages? I I'm I'm not questioning the number.

51:06 Nate, I didn't even see we had the finance guy right in there. Cuz you're telling me that all of the FTE and I'm trying to figure out what it is. In addition to the wages, um we also have our central services that we charge out by per FTE. So, you direct charge? It's around Find you a chair. Oh, I'm fine standing. No, come on. I just Okay. Take a load off. I'll be a minute. $20,000 per person. So, for three, our indirect is $20,000 per person. That's for central services. So, that's for legal, finance, HR, and IT. Um so, that's 60,000 on those three FTE. And then we have other indirect charges that we also charge out per FTE. Uh building preservation is one. Um facilities, um you know, I mean, I don't have the list in front of me, but it starts to add up, and I know it's

51:51 You look You tend to think just salaries, but it takes a lot to run a city, and there's a lot of different costs that are associated with having staff at the city. We can get you a better accounting at a later point if you'd like. No, I'm just trying to figure out why we're charging that for somebody that just wants to bring their property in and start paying us tax. We're helping you understand why FTE can be expensive. So, 550,000, you know, you're looking at probably a C42 or 43, which would be the pay banding. So, that's going to be a intermediate or senior planner that's doing this type of work. We're probably looking at fully loaded salaries around 120 to 130,000. So, that puts us at roughly 390. Add the 60, we're at 450, and then we

52:36 look at the other internal services I get I agree. Yeah, if they were working on this on comprehensive planning 40 hours a week as a full-time job. And I From my understanding, you don't have people that that's what they're Aside from maybe Sandy that's doing that full-time, that's all they're doing for 2,000 hours a year. We have three people doing that. Then that's all they do. Okay. Actually, I am. Then why aren't we getting these projects done? And why are they Why are they past due? Why are they Actually, I would say with the mandates, we've accomplished a lot. I mean, there's We've If you look at what Sandy's group has been able to bring before you with the natural resources work that uh planning work, and a lot of that started several years ago, but with those staff added, I would say when I went through and prepared the budget and

53:22 thinking through the budget message, and I looked back historically, I would say this has been a highly productive comp planning group over the last several years when you look at the amount of work and the coordination because a lot of these plans have to be co-adopted with Lane County, which is some of what adds a lot of time to them. And so, Sure. So, when I look at it, I think there's been a lot of great work that's been coming. Just thinking of some of with getting some of the work that we were able to get done that was on the list ahead of some of the mandates and being able to address some of the code updates that that has been on the council's mind and and agenda. Like what will be coming next week with the annexation code updates and looking at that. I think So, anyway, I think there has been a lot of work that that's been brought before the

54:08 council. I mean Meaning that there will be an end in sight? Meaning that you'll eventually get done with these? Or that it'll only just be updates? Or are we just Is this just Are we saying this is just going to continue forever? That's what I'm trying to I'm just trying to figure out if we have plans that we fix and then we do them and then we you know, do updates every now and then. But are we going to always have three people working full-time on these these plans? jump in here. I think when I look at the state environment, I don't see the pace of what we're being asked to do slowing down. So, it may not be these, you know, the specific plan that they did this year, but it will still be comprehensive planning is a is a group of work because, you know, there's a lot of asks coming out of Salem. So, I guess my question would be maybe we could come up with

54:54 some ideas of how it wouldn't just fall on the back of the people that are doing annexations. Maybe there's a way that we could figure out how this fee could be somehow um more equitably spread amongst other um applications that also benefit from these plans. Okay. So, I'm hearing like an openness to recouping the costs, but like a question of the how we do that. Yeah, that's what Jeff and I had talked about. That's what I had thought was going to So, and I think that's what when Mark and I talked that's what we're looking for is direction on policy from council. Should we be looking at recouping some of our comprehensive planning costs that are benefited by properties not

55:39 currently annexed to the city. And then what would that policy be like? I mean I think what we talked about is I think at one time we looked at like when we talked about SDC updates, looking at do we have a specific SDC for Glenwood or Jasper or Natron or do we spread that out? But is there a way to to get there? I think one caution that Mark had for me is thinking about how complex do we want to get and how much staff time are we going to use to try and come up with a fee and so I think that's the direction we're really looking for. Okay, so let's Okay, so let's let some other folks weigh in if they've got an opinion here. Corey. I have an opinion. Um I think Here's my opinion. Yes, we should recoup some of the fees and I'm I don't have I'm not down in the weeds

56:24 about it and around the math, but I think that um particularly thinking about just in the last year what we're seeing in terms of and what you said is true. We're seeing more complicated annexations. We don't have and I say it all the time, we're sandwiched between two rivers. We don't have unending land and we need to continue to develop and we need to continue to grow and we need to facilitate those developments. So I am open to figuring out how do we recoup some of those fees and how that sits in the bigger picture of how we're funding the work and take a little strain off of the general fund. Okay. Yes, um I just want to know if you know are these fees in line or comparable with like Eugene's fees or um for the same thing? Is Is that Is

57:10 there any kind of close comparison to that or I'm just curious what cities around us are charging for that? I've looked at I've looked I've looked at Eugene and and their structure of fees in general is quite a bit different than ours and as with most cities everybody's funded a little bit differently. I cannot find a comparable in Eugene for sure and I've looked. I'm very familiar with Bend, I worked there for 10 years and I'm not aware that they have a fee, so the short answer is no, I don't. But again, everybody funds their programs differently. Shel. So I agree that we need to start finding ways to to recoup the costs of of the

57:55 work that we're doing. Um and I I understand what Counselor Doyle's trying to understand, you know, what's baked into this fee, is there some place that we can adjust to make it so we're we're recouping but not discouraging development at the same time. I think that's really the critical piece, right? We raise our fees and then we lose development. So I think it's I don't have the answer today, but maybe something that, you know, understanding um what is involved. Like for me, I you know, I don't know exactly what all of this means as far as sitting at my desk and doing the work. Like if I were preparing loan documents for a commercial loan, I know what that means,

58:40 right? As far as time um involved and and ways to make that process maybe more efficient. I I mean I I don't know what all of those things are, not sitting in your day-to-day worlds. But I would just offer that maybe we could um just kind of give some thought to that as we're as we're looking at what that fee looks like and what we want to charge. All right, we're going to go to Nancy and then we'll go to Victoria real quick and then we can wrap up this I think we're landing in a spot. That's good. I'm I'm I'm encouraged to hear that. Um a couple I wanted to address a couple of Counselor Doyle's questions. Um the first question being do we anticipate the same amount of staffing in the future that we do presently? I would say yes, given Oregon's um complex land environment and

59:27 um you know, Oregon has a lot of land use, uh, restrictions and processes. And, you know, for good or for bad, it is the environment under which we operate. I would actually say we could stand to have more staff working on this. Um, the other reason why I answer in this way is because there are other parts of the city, especially looking at the North Gateway area, that we haven't been able to get to from the comprehensive planning, um, uh, aspect and that we would like to and I'm certain that there would be more development interest there if those plans were accomplished and if we could put infrastructure there. So, I think that the need is definitely there and and definitely, um, far outstrips our

1:00:13 capacity to address. Um, and I and I think I've been pretty clear on that in the past. Um, finally, as far as, uh, fees, it's, uh, by jurisdiction, it is kind of an apples and oranges comparison because, um, it is a common practice within government to charge back to departments, uh, what are called, um, loosely called allocated costs. And some and every, uh, jurisdiction can calculate it differently. Um, some have a formula that they use, some base it off of number employees in the department. So, it really varies by jurisdiction, um, but the overall concept is that there are functions that departments use and that they pay for, um,

1:00:58 based on usage. So, for instance, our office, the city attorney's office, um, all the, uh, maintenance that happens in this building, um, the security, some of those things that you don't often see, but are kind of the, uh, undergirding of of making our city hall operate and safe. So, um, those are some of the functions that come up. Of course, finance, all the HR functions. So, these are the things that um our departments pay for as part of their costs of doing business. It's um how we operate as a business. Go ahead, Victoria. Uh thank you very much for that. And And with that, that actually is a good segue. So, my other thought would be why are we not putting some of this onus on the developer? Because unfortunately, the truth is is that the

1:01:44 private developer can probably do this some of this stuff at a lower cost. They don't have the overhead. They don't have all of these things that we're talking about that we're having to pay for. So, is there somewhere along the line where you're able to say you're required to do this and let them do the work and then turn it in and then the then our part is is reviewing that versus actually trying to create this whole thing. So, that's the other thing I would suggest. So, private property owners can do that. And we've actually had some of those discussions around the Northgate area. Um they haven't wanted to you know, take on that project. Um but it it's an option. And in fact, in the campus industrial area kind of north of

1:02:29 the hospital, there there are people doing some of this work now to re-envision how their properties can be used. So, So, does that mean then they get their $2,444 an acre waived because they've done the work? Well, they're already annexed, so they don't have to pay. That's what I'm talking about though. If somebody wants to do that, then Well, I I I think there's a there's a there's a big challenge with um sunk costs up front, right? With how before the payoff is. So, I've got a couple of thoughts here. One of them is intra you know, interdepartmental charges aren't just a reality in the public sector, sector. They were reality in the private sector in every private firm firm that I've ever worked for and I've worked for a ton of them. So, I'm not concerned with that. I think when I read the packet, what I saw is we sort of

1:03:14 inherited whatever this fee was through a series of decisions that go back way beyond even way beyond to anybody up here. And I think what I'm hearing is the the willingness to have a conversation about, well, how do we recoup the costs of the comprehensive planning program? This is only really a five per you know, 5% cost recoup. Um and then I'm hearing a question about, well, when you think about single pieces of property that are just people that are accessing, you know, annexation specifically to for for sort of sewers and really not I don't know for lack of a better word benefiting from the comprehensive planning program. I think there's a there's kind of a cutoff line about not trying to hurt sort of small properties. So

1:04:02 I think what we probably need to do is just sort of back up about three steps and just ask our ourselves, okay, how much are we trying to recoup to fund the comprehensive planning program out of fees? And then the second question would be with you know, this is specifically to an annexation fee that we frankly we inherited. So I don't know if this is the right way to do that. So I think I'm open to hey, what is our what is our cost recovery goal? It's not going to be 100%, right? But there's a there's a conversation about do we have the right number? What does that actually look like as far as the how we do that? And then how do we implement it in a way that sort of protects some of the smaller folks that that, you know, we consistently have heard heard a lot heard a lot from. And then frankly I think Councillor Doyle

1:04:48 had a really interesting question, which is if this is regional in the city, is there a way to structure that in a way that we can administer it in an efficient way that says, okay, if this is a regionally born cost, like what's the comparison before um impacting that specific region versus trying to spread this across the entire city. So I I think if that if that gives you a little bit of you know, of area to go forward and kind of work on and maybe give us some additional options about the how. I don't think we've got to do it this specific way. I think we can find a probably a better way this clear to everybody what we're doing, why we're doing it, and then what our what our policy is and then and take a look at it from there.

1:05:34 Does that sound And I know you're coming back from fees in October. So, if that may be too short, but Yeah, this won't be part of that. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, thank you.